Tomorrow we celebrate the 92nd birthday of my "ex-father-in-law," Jack McGregor Lynn. Actually, we only use the "ex" label for my "ex" proper. So Jack is still my daddy-in-"law." Family still remains family and we don't stop loving folks just because one household is healthier as two households.
Aunt Mary and Uncle Billy will be here from Ballinger, Texas. I've only seen them once since the big reunion in Ballinger about 17 years ago (back when the nephews were 3 y.o.). It will also be the first time since then that I get to see most of the cousins. Don't think I'm ready to see how many years have passed in THEIR lives. (Me, well, the outside is aging but the inside resists mightily.)
Jack played golf as long as he could. At age 84 he went with all the family on a Grand Canyon rafting trip down the Colorado River. He remains engaged with the world, reading extensively on current affairs. I couldn't keep up with him on that if I tried.
Here's to Jack. May his mind stay alert (as it has done hitherto, quite impressively) and his body do what he wants it to.
Jack M. Lynn is the guy in the red shirt. The rest (L to R): sons Bill and Bob, daughter Debbie, wife Lois.
I did not pay sufficient attention in 10th grade social studies. I absorbed enough knowledge about the United States Constitution to grasp the essentials. And in the past five years I have re-read it several times. It is a stunning achievement and I cherish it. I am glad the oaths of office in the federal government (and the military) included upholding and defending the Constitution.
Speaking of which.... I'm just planting seeds here. Maybe you haven't given it much thought. Maybe the lurid, drooling debasement of the process over Clinton's blow job, with several of Clinton's chief accusers busy having their own little adulterous adventures, has soured you on the the constitutional remedy for abuse of governmental structures.
But, but, it was lying to the grand jury! you sputter. Yeah, well then why did Scooter get a pass?
The Founding Fathers gave us a remedy for the abuse of governmental power and grave harm to our democracy.
17 videos were submitted to our Dump Dick YouTube group making the case for the impeachment of Dick Cheney on this basis. Five finalists tied for the highest user ratings on YouTube and then the overall winner was determined by a runoff vote on the Democrats.com site. The winning video, Nancy Calls for Impeachment, depicts an imaginary telephone conversation between Nancy Pelosi and a friend (played by the video’s creator—student, activist-musician, and first-time filmmaker Jen Datka). The friend explains to Nancy that the reason she’s so unpopular is her "failure to hold accountable the most dangerous, criminal, and morally bankrupt administration this country has ever known." She then cites the historical example of Richard Nixon to allay Nancy’s fears about impeachment.
It is so refreshing to have a real journalist around, even if he is the "fake news" guy. (There is also the incomparable and gutsy Keith Olbermann, my absolute hero in American political discourse.)
Jon Stewart of The Daily Show has a few things to say about the Dark Lord (and I don't mean Tom Riddle; I speak of that vile thing that might have once been human who sits in the OVP).*
An interview with Stephen F. Hayes, columnist for The Weekly Standard and author of Cheney (the official biography).
(h/t to Hoffmania) * Anything vile and insulting that I actually put in print concerning Dick Cheney or George W. Bush may safely be assumed as a charitable and restrained version of my actual opinions. It is only by act of faith and obedience to my baptismal vows that I can affirm that the image of God has not, like the Shekinah, fled the temple (Ezekiel 11). Their actions in undermining the Constitution they swore to uphold, weakening the United States, behaving in a blatantly illegal and immoral manner in instance after instance, and destroying our reputation abroad have long since stripped them of any respect normally due their high office. I yearn for the day they leave office and, frankly, would prefer it if they did so in handcuffs on their way to the Hague. [This isn't truth in labeling; I'm just getting if off my chest.] --the BB
This does not come as a surprise to me. My family was solidly working class.
For now I like, and have always liked, John Edwards because of the causes he takes up. I am also fond of Barack Obama, and would support Al Gore in a heartbeat if he ran.
I have voted for Republican candidates in the past but things have gotten so bad in the GOP that I am now a yellow dog Democrat and would vote for any Dem over any Rethug until some sanity comes back to America and we can recognize our own Constitution once more.
God help America.
My Liberal Identity:
You are a Working Class Warrior, also known as a blue-collar Democrat. You believe that the little guy is getting screwed by conservative greed-mongers and corporate criminals, and you’re not going to take it anymore.
Some detail of wood carving and gold leaf: And, Signor Rastrelli, he did love him some gold leaf. The room below was designed by the Scottish architect Charles Cameron for Katherine the Great when she extended the palace with the wing known as the Cameron Gallery. (Yes, I know I am not following standard English usage when I spell Catherine with a K, but Yevkaterina just doesn't lend itself to a "C.") Portraits of Nick and Alex: I hope this little tour has been fun.
Is a little tour a tourette? Ought I to spout uncontrollable vulgarities? --the BB
As my best friend likes to say, "It's small and cozy but we think of it as home." This is the view across the courtyard. Waiting in line and beginning to think it won't rain. Then turning the other direction and seeing the sun shine. This is the park on the other side from where we were waiting. --the BB
We resume the 2004 Russian nostalgia tour in and around St. Petersburg with TsarskoyeSelo, at the entrance to the Katherine Palace. The gray November weather is evident as we neared the entrance.
For more detail on any photo, just click (or right-click and open in a new window). All photos in this series (c) 2004 by moi-self.
Katherine began to develop this "country residence" and her daughter finished it up in style.Empress Elizabeth (ruled 1741 – 1762) had the palace built and named for her mother Katherine I, second wife of Peter the Great (the redoubtable founder of St. Petersburg). Our guide tells how Elizabeth took humorous revenge on the snooty French who had disdained her mother. (Katherine's origins were humble and a bit murky.) When this stunning palace, designed by the Italian architect Bartolomeo Rastrelli, was ready, she invited the French ambassador for a weekend in her "little summer place." Anticipating a rustic hunting lodge, the ambassador showed up in attire that was decidedly not that of the court. What he found was this stunning jewel of overwhelming beauty and luxury.
[One can imagine her thinking, "Take that, you arrogant twit!"] OMG. The Froggy ambassador approached these gates, gobsmacked. Later buildings to the left below. A close-up of the gates and the palace within. And here we have detail of the gate with Elizabeth's initial showing prominently. This last photo is currently my desktop photo.
I do hope some of you are enjoying these bits of photo travel. If not, it is so easy to click and go elsewhere, which was not an option back in the days of viewing the vacation slides of one's friends. --the BB
OH LA LA has pointed me to a pianist and singer I had not heard of before today--Jon McLaughlin. Here's what seems to be his big hit, "Beautiful Disaster."
You can hear it within an interview by clicking on this:
The venues are somewhat less exotic. Not Russia. How about post-rain sunset viewed from the deck of Los Alisos, my last home in California? And a mural from the Mission District in San Francisco: A spring look at Fernandes Creek in Pinole, California: Public art--a sculpture in a business park in Alameda, California: Trees in Corrales, New Mexico, on Thanksgiving afternoon: Nothing wrong with nostalgia. --the BB
We had anticipated snow that day but it didn't happen. So the sleigh ride became a carriage ride through the park. At the end of the ride we gathered in a pavilion where two musicians provided atmosphere and we had the requisite shots of vodka.
This is a glance out one of the windows toward the surrounding park. I love viewing, and taking, photos that lead me to wonder "what's out there?" Where does that path lead? What is around that corner? What is behind this door?
I could also have easily sat down and just stared out at this view for a good long time. Not permitted in tours, of course. Next time you visit Home Depot, you might keep this in mind for a floor treatment: Maria Feodorovna's canopy bed. Another decorating idea for the truly demanding adolescent daughter. She should feel like an empress sleeping under this. Though, if memory serves me right, the empress never did sleep in it. Which makes me wonder, where did she sleep then? Not that there was any shortage of rooms for her to choose from. Again, IIRC, a photo of this place setting showed up in the Time-Life cook book series in the volume on Russia. I can almost taste the koulebiaka now. Yum. (It helps if one's best friend has made them on more than one occasion. Dayumn, that's fine eating!) Russian birches. I had to include these because I am a "tree mystic." I have always felt a bond with trees, from early childhood, though it is only in the last decade that I came up with a label for this.
I suspect that, not being able to afford a vacation this year, I am taking one in my memories and inviting you, gentle readers, to do a bit of mind-travel with me. For links regarding Pavlovsk, please check the post below: Daroga na Pushkin.
Catherine II had the palace built for her son, Paul I, and his widow, Maria Feodorovna, lived there following his death. The Scottish architect Charles Cameron developed the Grand Palace and the English park surrounding it.
Here you can see us setting out on a buggy ride after the palace tour. I am putting this shot first because it provides a glimpse of the palace itself. I could not resist lots of shots of ceilings, since their detail and variety are so stunning. Also, given the press of bodies as we progressed through the palace, between other tour groups, photos at eye level would often just yield a sea of bobbing heads. This is the room to the left of the entrance. Well, the ceiling thereof. And this is a cool rotunda shot that merits--hey, a guy can brag now and again-- viewing in detail; please click on it. I love how the light stikes the gold leaf. Russians do know how to do malachite. Still looking up. More in the next post. I am leery of trying to upload too many photos at once.
On a November day in 2004 we took a bus from Sankt Peterburg (Š”Š°Š½ŠŗŃ-ŠŠµŃŠµŃŠ±ŃŃŠ³) to Pavlovsk, the imperial palace built for Tsar Pavel I. (For a tour by a former curator, click here.) This means taking the road toward the village now called Pushkin after the great Russian writer, though also known as Tsarskoye Selo (Tsar's Village).
The following are not great photos and they are all shot through the rain-spotted windows of the bus. Still, I enjoy them. (In all cases, clicking on the photo, or right-clicking to open in a new window, will give you a much larger photo with detail.)
The first is some of the architecture of St. Petersburg as we began our outing. Then, as we rode further from the center of the city, we were treated to what is called "Stalinist wedding-cake architecture." You can see how this squat decorated form might resemble a wedding cake. Stalinist architecture was could be stodgy, utterly failing in elegant lines and proportions, and served chiefly to glorify the state and communicate Soviet ideals. OK. This is a bit quirky but I shot the photo because to me the scene was beautiful, including the colorful machinery. Mostly, of course, the tracery of tree branches. And this is when we crossed railroad tracks. There is something about railroad tracks, leading off to destinations that trigger our imaginations. That's it. Just sharing a bit of a rainy day.
No, I am not referring to things Potter at all. I ran across this bit of Yo-Yo Ma on Firedoglake and wanted to share it with the lovely people who stop by here.
This is a view of ĆcomaPueblo that I really like. It was a a gray day when I took the photo. I have used this as my desktop photo on more than one computer over the past few years. Click on it to get a larger view with more detail
In summer of 1997 I was blessed to spend two weeks in Durham attending a seminar on Celtic Spirituality and Modern Mission. We stayed at the Durham Castle, now a dormitory of the University of Durham, and had several outings. One was to Lindisfarne, or Holy Island, where St Aidan chose to base his work. He was the first Bishop of Lindisfarne and St Cuthbert, patron of our parish in Oakland, was one of his successors. This is a photo of Hobthrush Island viewed from Lindisfarne. Just as Lindisfarne is cut off from the mainland at high tide, so Hobthrush is cut of from Lindisfarne. We were there at low tide. Hobthrush is where Cuthbert first tried his hand at being a hermit. It was, however, too close to the priory on Lindisfarne and folks could shout across to him, so he ventured further to InnerFarneIsland which can bee seen from Lindisfarne but is a good distance away. Here I am on Hobthrush, standing in front of a wooden cross among the foundations of a stone Saxon building that was later than Cuddy's time. I am holding the parish icon of St Cuthbert that I had written the previous year. Taking it on pilgrimage was my way of ensuring the presence of Cuthbert during this pilgrimage. Cuddy and me with the Rev. David Adam, at that time Vicar of St Mary's, Lindisfarne, a prolificauthor on Celtic spirituality.
My home in Albuquerque is named Desert Farne, my own retreat from the world. It is dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, the Archangel Raphael, and St Cuthbert.
Nothing profound to say about it all at this time, just sharing old photos. Well, the one very unprofound thought that occurred to me is that I looked so young ten years ago. --the BB
This time it's the university quiz. I took it three times. Is that cheating? Maybe, but when the results make no sense....
However, I was actually accepted at the following institution of learning and have, in my day, known a few "seedy Reedies" as we called them. Nonetheless, I have never been a suicide risk, though I have been depressed. After decades of avoiding politics I have become political again, I reject many societal (read "bourgeois Protestant") values, and I am a proud child of the 60s. Never did LSD, never dropped out of society, never lived in a commune--but I have inhaled, I have twice dropped out of graduate studies, I had a bumper sticker that read "America: change it or lose it," I protested the Vietnam War, and I did live in West Hollywood in the 70s.
I wonder what I might have become had I chosen to attend there.
You're Reed College!
With intense emotions and an unstable lifestyle, you are often seen as depressed by those around you. Many even consider you quite a suicide risk, and statistically this is probably true. You do manage to have fun, however, and are willing to try nearly anything once. Quite political and thoughtful, you've decided to discard most values that society would have you adopt, in favor of living the 1960's dream. You refuse to accept others' judgments of you.
Churchill waves to crowds in Whitehall on the day he broadcast to the nation that the war with Germany had been won, 8 May 1945 (Photo from Wikipedia Commons: public domain)
I remember reading John Hersey's Hiroshima when I was a young lad of about ten or eleven, perhaps twelve, years old. One more tile in the mosaic that is my abhorrence of war.
Back in those days every American calendar noted V-E and V-J (or V-P) days, when the wars in Europe and the Pacific ended. I was born on the first anniversary of V-E day, so there were always little crossed Unites States flags marking my birthday on the calendar in our kitchen.
It is amazing how slow one can be to do the math. Only as we approached the fiftieth anniversary of the end of WWII did I realize that I would have been conceived on or around the days when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed. In other words, I may have been a byproduct of the atomic bomb.
In a universe where everything is linked to everything else, I can hardly distance myself from that horror, now, can I?
I have never cared much for the service of Benediction for multiple reasons. The primary one is that it takes the Sacred Body of Christ out of the context of the Eucharistic celebration in which the faithful share in Communion, partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ, intimately sharing in the divine life and being renewed in their identity as the Body of Christ in the world. Secondly, Benediction has an atmosphere of sacerdotalism. The priest handles the monstrance. The monstrance encloses the Sacrament, keeping it sealed off from all but view. The priest does this only with hands covered by a humeral veil (if you don't do church jargon, thank God for that mercy--it's the shawl covering his shoulders and arms lest he touch the holy things).
The reverence in all this does not offend me at all. The distancing does. Having someone make the sign of the Cross over a congregation with the consecrated Bread is no substitute for faithfully consuming that Bread. When the People of God almost never received Communion, this was their consolation prize.
The imagery bothers me too. The priest looks like one of the angels in an icon of the Baptism of Christ. The reason the angels have their hands covered is not because they have the towels to dry Jesus with; it's because even the holy angels are not privileged to "touch God." But in the mystery of the Incarnation and the amazing event of the Theophany, John, a sinful human being, is commanded to touch the Creator. This is a very great mystery, a profound grace, and is pondered and proclaimed in many ways in the Orthodox services of the Theophany of our Lord and God Jesus Christ (known in the West as the Epiphany).
The image of a priest settling for the role of an angel instead of the whole People of God claiming their role as God's children, redeemed and invited to partake, leaves me cold. It speaks too much of keeping God at a distance, keeping ourselves safely sealed off from the one who no longer calls us servants but friends.
Having said all that, and dumped my daily load of anti-clericalism, the following video from a charismatic Catholic community takes Benediction in a new direction. This is liturgical dance that is not esoteric but simply exuberant and joyous. The joy seems to grow and explode and fill the entire congregation. Iberian Catholicism meets Ladino aesthetics and is infused with joy in the Spirit. In other words, I like it.
If I have any of the Spirit's charisms, it is probably joy. My heart responds easily to any expression of joy. I would love to see more liturgical processions, Good News parades, with happy people in motion. Color, music, movement, devotion -- no didacticism, just faith and joy expressed with our bodies and through the senses.
Dance, my sisters and brothers! Rejoice in all that is good and loving, joyous and life-giving.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the blogger and do not represent the positions of any group or organization with which he may be affiliated. As one who spent decades stuffing down his opinions and emotions, I am inclined to cut loose here, which I believe is healthy, honest, and part of the process of sanctification in the long run. Politics and spirituality mingle freely here, along with theatre reviews, photography, and passionate talk about food, literature, and the human journey. If anything written here offends you, please find other blogs to read. I am here to share, not to do battle.
¡Feliz CumpleaƱos!
Jack M. Lynn is the guy in the red shirt.
