Allan G. Hunter's Blog, page 25
June 28, 2020
Diary 102
Sunday, June 28th
Today brought some bee activity and a lesson. What I didn’t know was just how sticky beeswax is. Trying to clean up was an unexpected struggle.
Hot water, scrub, scour, more hot water; repeat.
How, I wondered, did people living on farms with a million other tasks manage this?
As a white male of a certain class I had always just paid my $4 and bought a jar of honey. Now, seeing up close just how sticky and awkward bee products could be, I began to recognize that things that for me were easy, were for many others a real struggle.
I needed to be reminded that food production depends upon a lot of repetitive and messy tasks that I as a rule do not have to face. The pollinators of this world need attention and support, and it’s not just distant appreciation. It’s hands on, dirty, sticky and a nuisance. And without it there wouldn’t be much food.
I link this to our political situation. For too long I, and many like me, assumed all the necessary work would be done by the politicians we voted for. That didn’t happen quite as planned, did it?
Time to roll our sleeves up.
June 27, 2020
Diary 101
Saturday, June 27th
A word about the media –some media, I should say. I hope we all understand that some branches of our media love to relay bad, dramatic and scary news. This type of content improves their ratings, so they can sell more advertising. My best friend was a news man (he was killed in Iraq, reporting) and he freely admitted that he and his colleagues got paid extra for a really bad news-type story. Things haven’t changed since then.
The astonishing thing is that we pay for this. We buy tv sets and pay for cable channels and on-line news. We pay to be scared. No wonder the blockbuster Netflix series all seem to involve scary situations. I doubt that this is entirely good for our health.
And we pay for this. Aren’t we silly?
We need a responsible and independent news media — of course we do. We don’t need a lot of what we seem to be getting these days.
June 26, 2020
Diary 100
Diary 100 — yes, really.
Friday, June 26th
I feel that with the 100th entry there ought to be a fanfare or something, but alas, I don’t think so. At 100 days in, the covid figures are surging in all kinds of places. Many of those places are the same locations that refused to take masks and safe spaces seriously. In other words, this isn’t the second wave. This is still the first wave.
Our ‘president’ seems to have abandoned the issue. Bored, no doubt, with not having something to talk about that involves winning or being the best, he’s slunk off stage. Thanks for the leadership.
Angela Merkel has announced that we should not assume that the USA wants to be a major power or role model in the years ahead. Because, my dears, it certainly isn’t one now.
We may as well get used to that.
Leaderless, we can begin to make a few decisions of our own. We can decide to wear masks and exercise social distancing. We can decide that Black Lives truly do matter. We can face the fact that this pandemic is going to be here for a lot longer than anyone in ‘authority’ is telling us. We can take care of making our immune systems stronger by not eating toxic junk. We can pay attention to the underlying truth that the rules of almost everything have changed in various subtle and less subtle ways.
Happy 100th.
June 25, 2020
Diary 99
Thursday, June 25th
Bicycles. I’ve spent the last few days re-furbishing various bicycles for my small granddaughters as well as for myself and my wife so we can keep up with them when we go along the river path. This has meant claiming dumped/trashed bicycles, going onto craigslist for free parts and so on, and then assembling said parts. It’s been fun. It’s re-cycling.
What I’ve noticed is that more people than ever are using bicycles around my town. With the covid-19 decrease in passenger vehicle use, riding has become less of an exercise in avoiding self-annihilation and more of a statement of keeping fit while not being on public transport with public germ-exchange.
I sense this whole drive-to-work thing is fading, and fast, in cities.
I wonder how long it will last?
June 22, 2020
Diary 96
Diary 96
Monday, June 22nd
One of the tid-bits that came my way today was that archaeologists have discovered what appears to be a huge circle of holes, 15 feet deep by 30 feet across, on a radius of about 1000 feet, constructed by the people who built Stonehenge, around the monument called Woodhenge. Some twenty of these holes have survived and more are being explored. The things we don’t know are, well, astonishing.
It occurs to me that while Bolsonaro is busy killing off Amazonian tribes, and the US is energetically trying to eradicate Native Americans, that there’s plenty we just don’t know about what appear to have been peaceful, organized and very spiritually aware societies. These might well have been societies superior to our own, out-of-step-with-Nature society, our grab-the-money-at-all-costs “civilization”, our strange world that has produced our ‘president’.
Indigenous cultures: they’re fading fast. We’ll miss them when they’re gone.
Perhaps when they’re almost extinct, like Giant Pandas, we’ll take the time and trouble to learn from them. And, then, if we’re paying close attention they’ll show us the way back to the best version of ourselves.
Diary 95
Diary 95
Sunday, June 21st
Today was Father’s Day – admittedly a Hallmark holiday, but let’s not throw it aside for all that. For me it included messages of love and a visit from my granddaughters, 5 and 7, who were very excited to wish me a Happy Grampy Day.
I had built them a “Fairy House”. That’s what the picture is.
Family, however constituted, is the support structure that allows us to survive our earliest days, and, with luck, helps to guide us thereafter until they help us navigate our last days. It’s a reminder that we’re not all about ourselves, but that we need others. Psychologists tell us in no uncertain terms that separating families is one of the cruelest things one can do, guaranteeing a blight on all members.
So I choose to remember Father’s Day and all those family days because they let me recognize how much we all need each other, and that alone, isolated, smug in ourselves we’ll be bound for catastrophe.
June 20, 2020
Diary 94
Diary 94
Saturday, June 20th
The Tulsa rally seems to have been a flop, for which I am profoundly grateful. Very low attendance. At least at this time of writing.
The picture here is of a glimpse of sky that slipped between the dusty trees and the crumbling store front as I waited for my socially distanced take-out food. America may have a vicious and destructive White House but, as I see it, we bustle around and get to work and, one way and another, we the people make things work. We get on with it, even though the ‘leaders’ are morons.
My Canadian friends think the US is going to implode at any second. I tell them they don’t know the deep strength of this country.
We, the people, are that sky we can glimpse beyond the rackety trees.
June 19, 2020
Diary 93
Friday, June 19th
I realized today that I’d missed Bloomsday (June 16th) – which is a sacred day for all Joyce enthusiasts and almost all Dubliners. I put it down to the general sense of drift that the lockdown has produced in me, and perhaps in you too. Juneteenth discussions upstaged it, rather. Juneteenth is important .
The usual tour of Dublin landmarks and pubs that would have been part of the Bloomsday celebration didn’t take place, of course. At least not officially. But I’m always in favor of celebrations that are about literature, the delights of reading, the insights authors can give us – and about good old-fashioned fun. I wouldn’t mind a few more holidays like that: one for St Agnes’ Eve, perhaps, or a designated Ode to Autumn day, or a day for ee cummings’ In Just Spring…….
I’m sure you could add your own.
Policemen are still shooting unarmed black men, but now we read about it and it’s on the news. Every Day. Every Day.
Diary 92
Thursday, June 18th
Today I read about a peaceful BLM gathering of about a hundred people in Ohio that was disrupted by some 700 folks with rifles, baseball bats and other weaponry. That’s just like those folks: choose a small target and overwhelm it – a bit like kicking grandma when she’s in her rocker.
Bolton and the ‘president’ are at each others’ throats.
A Zoom call to my British friends revealed that in Europe there is considerable doubt about this “president’s” physical well being. Trembling hands, stumbles, apparent fear of heights – to say nothing of his general incoherence. We don’t hear about that on this side of the puddle.
I wonder what else we don’t hear?
June 17, 2020
Diary 90
Tuesday, June 16th
I never thought I’d write the words ‘Dairy 90’ here.
So let’s get on with it. In the news Seattle has a ‘police free zone’, and Los Angeles and Tacoma are vowing to overhaul their police departments. Review and change are often good. Europe is cautiously opening up. So are we.
My grandchildren arrived today. They’ve been in quarantine and so have we, so we felt fine about having them run around the garden, dash through the lawn sprinkler, and generally have an hilarious time. They reminded me of the pure joy of innocence, of the ability to laugh delightedly at small absurdities, and the utter silliness of splashing in a wading pool. It was, one might say, magical.
I needed the reminder. It’s too easy to get all serious and solemn. Sure, these are solemn times, but joy will help us through them. And without joy, what’s the point of anything?
