tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60590957760663945572024-03-13T04:23:24.594-06:00Ragamuffin StudiesMusings From Freedom Ridge RanchElisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.comBlogger856125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-92213671221940753852016-09-19T17:44:00.000-06:002016-09-19T17:44:24.969-06:00Is Les Deplorables the Mark of the Regeneracy?<!--[if !mso]>
<style>
v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
.shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);}
</style>
<![endif]--><br />
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:TrackMoves>false</w:TrackMoves>
<w:TrackFormatting/>
<w:DoNotShowRevisions/>
<w:DoNotPrintRevisions/>
<w:DoNotShowComments/>
<w:DoNotShowInsertionsAndDeletions/>
<w:DoNotShowPropertyChanges/>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:DoNotPromoteQF/>
<w:LidThemeOther>EN-US</w:LidThemeOther>
<w:LidThemeAsian>X-NONE</w:LidThemeAsian>
<w:LidThemeComplexScript>X-NONE</w:LidThemeComplexScript>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:SplitPgBreakAndParaMark/>
<w:EnableOpenTypeKerning/>
<w:DontFlipMirrorIndents/>
<w:OverrideTableStyleHps/>
</w:Compatibility>
<m:mathPr>
<m:mathFont m:val="Cambria Math"/>
<m:brkBin m:val="before"/>
<m:brkBinSub m:val="--"/>
<m:smallFrac m:val="off"/>
<m:dispDef/>
<m:lMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:rMargin m:val="0"/>
<m:defJc m:val="centerGroup"/>
<m:wrapIndent m:val="1440"/>
<m:intLim m:val="subSup"/>
<m:naryLim m:val="undOvr"/>
</m:mathPr></w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" DefUnhideWhenUsed="false"
DefSemiHidden="false" DefQFormat="false" DefPriority="99"
LatentStyleCount="371">
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="0" QFormat="true" Name="Normal"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" QFormat="true" Name="heading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="9" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="heading 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="toc 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footer"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="index heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="35" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="caption"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of figures"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="envelope return"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="footnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="line number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="page number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="endnote text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="table of authorities"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="macro"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="toa heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Bullet 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Number 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-priority:99;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin-top:0in;
mso-para-margin-right:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:0in;
mso-para-margin-left:.5in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
line-height:200%;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;
mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri;
mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin;
mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri;
mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin;}
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapedefaults v:ext="edit" spidmax="1028"/>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:shapelayout v:ext="edit">
<o:idmap v:ext="edit" data="1"/>
</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">As
those who read my blog and Facebook know, I am a student of the Strauss and
Howe generational theory. I find it useful in thinking about what is happening
with our beloved America and with us in this last turning of the Millennial
Saeculum. </span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NeNWAO9nh0o/V-B0YajWjOI/AAAAAAAAF64/dubChjUZtNM1BNO_I3rIJ72qFQ-SQF9RQCK4B/s1600/Les_Deplorables_Cute_450.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-NeNWAO9nh0o/V-B0YajWjOI/AAAAAAAAF64/dubChjUZtNM1BNO_I3rIJ72qFQ-SQF9RQCK4B/s200/Les_Deplorables_Cute_450.png" width="169" /></a><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Today
I opened up my Facebook and saw an image of the street urchin with the </span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">flag from the French Revolution.
Except that the flag was the American flag. And under the image the caption
read: Les Deplorables. And I realized two things immediately. The first is that
election 2016 is the regeneration of the Fourth Turning Crisis. And, secondly, Trump has
won the election. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Continuing Obama’s penchant for
lecturing the American people about how terrible we are, Hillary made a serious
mistake. In her screechy, scolding tone, she called Trump supporters “deplorable.”
In other times, Trump supporters might have gotten angry, called names back or
complained about Hillary. Not this time. This time, the Trump supporters picked
up the gauntlet, and waved it in Hillary’s face. They started to call
themselves “The Deplorables.” </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><br />
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The Trump Campaign picked up
on this, and over the weekend just past, an artist created a backdrop that looked like this: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WpNPy3HCYqM/V-B1DtXtl-I/AAAAAAAAF7A/F0UY5Eyobm8dQSd_4oStXFFhsH2JWeuZwCK4B/s1600/Trump%2527s%2BLes%2BDeplorables.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="184" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-WpNPy3HCYqM/V-B1DtXtl-I/AAAAAAAAF7A/F0UY5Eyobm8dQSd_4oStXFFhsH2JWeuZwCK4B/s320/Trump%2527s%2BLes%2BDeplorables.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: .5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">At a rally in
Miami, Trump came on stage in front of this image, as music from Les Mis' was
played. The audience heard these lyrics: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Do you hear the people sing?<br />
Singing a song of angry men?<br />
It is the music of a people<br />
Who will not be slaves again!<br />
When the beating of your heart<br />
Echoes the beating of the drums<br />
There is a life about to start<br />
When tomorrow comes. </span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>With
this performance, Trump has effectively won the election, barring any tragedy
or serious misstep. First instead of calling names as Hillary did, his
followers labeled themselves as Les Deplorables. By using this set from the
French Revolution, Trump and his followers cast Hillary Clinton as Queen Marie Antoinette,
the elitist who placed herself above her people, scolding them, and calling
them names. Like the French queen, Hillary is unable to relate to the people
she would like to rule, to the point of calling them “deplorable.”</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"></span>Following Strauss and Howe’s Generational
Theory, what we are seeing here is the regeneration of the present Crisis
period, and it looks like it will be revolutionary in nature. At the end of the
last Crisis (the Great Depression and WWII), the GI Generation brought in a
restorative order, implanting the values regime of the Third Great Awakening
period that “began with the Haymarket Riot and the student missionary movement,
rose with agrarian protest and labor violence, and climaxed in Bryan’s
revivalist candidacy” in 1896. If all goes well, the Millennial generation will
implant a revolutionary values regime based on the values of the Consciousness
Revolution, 1964-1984, which Strauss and Howe say: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"> </span>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Began
with urban riots and campus fury, swpointelled alongside Vietnam War protests
and a rebellious “counterculture.” It gave rise to feminist, </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in;">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">environmental,
and black power movements—and to a steep rise in violent crime and family
breakup. After the fury peaked with Watergate (in 1974), passions turned inward
toward New Age lifestyles and spiritual rebirth (LifeCourse Associates, Website
Resource Library, retrieved from: </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><a href="http://www.lifecourse.com/assets/files/turnings_in_history(1).pdf)">http://www.lifecourse.com/assets/files/turnings_in_history(1).pdf)</a>.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In their generational theory, Strauss and Howe
describe the course of a Crisis Period. A crisis period begins with a catalyst—some
spark, an accident or event in history that changes the general mood of a
society and increases its desire for social order. In our case, Strauss and
Howe believe the catylist was the global financial crisis of 2008. Once provoked,
the change in mood pushes the society toward regeneracy in which events cause
members to draw together around some symbol or event and develop purposeful
plans to overcome the emergency. This regeneracy creates a mood of resolve
which results in actions leading toward the climax of the crisis, which is the
moment of maximum danger to the society’s people and their shared values. How
the climax is negotiated determines the resolution of the crisis, and the value
of the experience—good or bad—determines how the generations who lived out the
crisis together will be marked in the future. In our case, Trump’s French revolutionary
imagery does not necessarily promise a good resolution. In fact, it may contain
a warning.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>How a crisis resolves—for good or
for ill—predicts the future course of a society and the happiness of its people
going forward. For example, the resolution of the American Revolutionary Crisis
with victory at war and the Constitutional Convention, created a strong social
order and the values of the Great Awakening—individual responsibility and
liberty—were successfully implanted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>This created the Era of Good Feelings, a high period that resulted in an
energetic westward expansion, inventive industry, and prosperity for the children who had been "rocked in the cradle of the revolution." </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Conversely, the Civil War Crisis did
not have such a good ending. And so the post-crisis high was not as deep nor as
enduring as the Transcendental values regime did not implant well. Strauss and
Howe warn that a bad resolution can hurt the generation who came of age in a
crisis, depriving them of the characteristics of a hero generation, which leads
to an uneasy high. And if a crisis is catastrophic, Strauss and Howe suggest
that it could lead to a medieval-like period in which there is no generational
change at all, but rather a fixed order and little innovation or industry. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">In
the case of the French Revolution itself, the climax of the crisis led to
Robespierre and the Reign of Terror, complete with a government that murdered
its own people at the behest of the mob, an exercise in democide. Choosing the
imagery of the French Revolution during the regeneracy of our current,
Millennial Saecular Crisis, could be a warning that all is not well with
America. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">The generation gap between the Boomers and Generation X, and their
Millennial children is very wide. The Millennials did not grow up in the free
America that there elders experienced. From public school uniforms in their
childhood to the social control exerted over them via the drug war, this
generation has experienced an increasingly fascistic society (See Goldberg’s
Liberal Fascism, 2009). They are now raising the new Homeland Generation in a surveillance
state where a missed doctor’s appointment, too many school absences, a freak
accident, an unfortunate social media entry, or even a disputed medical
diagnosis may result in the government stealing their children into state
custody and jailing them as abusive parents. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">As we have seen through the messy
beginning stages of this crisis, our government has instituted a police state.
We have many people in prison for victimless situations such as recreational
and even medical use of cannabis, and we have witnessed police shootings of
unarmed adults and even children, who do not obey fast enough. Furthermore, we
are witnessing the rapid institution of a Surveillance State, and we have seen
what has happened to whistle-blowers within government agencies who have tried
to warn us about it. These events and institutions have created the beginnings
of a revolutionary impulse within the hearts and minds of some Boomers,
Generation X-ers, and Millennials. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;">Should
there arise a leader who uses the Millennial impulse to camaraderie and order
by instituting populist or even fascist politics that results in revolution,
this crisis could climax with our own reign of terror, as the surveillance
state is used to create total control over the population. The maximum danger that
America may face at the climax of this crisis could be a rebellion gone wrong,
resulting in chaos and suppression. However, if that leader is restrained
through a revolution in the hearts and minds of the people-- one that
successfully implants the values of the Consciousness Revolution Awakening--America
would transit the crisis successfully, bringing about still a newer birth of
liberty and happiness in a high period that few of us can even imagine. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"></span><span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span>What will this crisis
regeneracy look like? I think it depends on how well we have taught the
Millennials about their American heritage and its enduring values. It depends
on how much our Boomer elders and we X-ers can discipline ourselves to do what
is right and not count the cost to ourselves. Then the values regime internalized
during the last awakening period, the Consciouness Revolution (1967-1984), will
be successfully implanted in the culture and create the new high period of
prosperity and peace following our present crisis. I hope we make it so! </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Book Antiqua",serif;"> </span>
Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-1845307267522224892016-08-14T12:36:00.001-06:002016-08-14T12:36:23.037-06:00LNC, We Have a Problem<div class="_4kny">
<div class="uiToggle _4962 _4xi2 west hasNew" id="fbNotificationsJewel">
<a class="jewelButton" data-gt="{"ua_id":"jewel:notifications"}" data-hover="tooltip" data-target="fbNotificationsFlyout" data-testid="non_react_blue_bar_jewel" data-tooltip-content="Notifications" data-tooltip-delay="500" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin/posts/10154057899304900#" id="js_7" name="notifications" rel="toggle" role="button" tabindex="0"><div class="_2n_9">
<span class="jewelCount" id="u_0_g"><span class="_51lp _3z_5 _5ugh" id="notificationsCountValue">18</span> <i class="accessible_elem">Notifications</i></span></div>
</a></div>
</div>
<div class="_1uh- _2s24">
<div class="_4kny">
<div class="_5lxr">
<div class="_6a uiPopover _5v-0" data-nocookies="1" id="logoutMenu">
<a class="_5lxs _p" data-gt="{"ref":"async_menu","logout_menu_click":"async_menu"}" href="https://www.facebook.com/settings?ref=mb&drop" id="pageLoginAnchor" rel="toggle" role="button"><div class="_5lxt" id="userNavigationLabel">
Account Settings</div>
</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="uiContextualLayerParent" id="globalContainer">
<div class="fb_content clearfix " id="content" role="">
<div>
<div id="mainContainer">
<div class="clearfix hasRightCol _5r-_ homeWiderContent _5ss6" id="contentCol">
<div id="rightCol" role="complementary">
<div class="_5rzs _5v6d">
<div class="_64a">
<div class="_64b fixed_elem" id="u_0_q" style="top: 43px; width: 310px;">
<div class="_4-u2 _5v6e cardRightCol _4-u8" id="u_0_0">
<div class="pagelet" data-referrer="pagelet_ego_pane" id="pagelet_ego_pane">
<div class="ego_column pagelet _5qrt _1snm _xi9 egoOrganicColumn">
<div class="ego_section">
<div class="uiHeader uiHeaderTopBorder mbs uiSideHeader">
<div class="clearfix uiHeaderTop">
<div class="rfloat _ohf">
<h6 class="accessible_elem">
Friend Requests</h6>
<a class="uiHeaderActions" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=%2Ffriends%2Frequests%2F%3Ffcref%3Dnr&h=1AQG25249&enc=AZPuLwQtMj7TW-GMnva-zeJ0_egM1jr075WpGq69-e2LIo2eWgk1l1TiJFI7dCoQVh0ehqU8EWaPkQc3hYrVBNHJeNrHTxTbWHxp4yX2ivHRAzyKC3Cuz4R-LKxvB4qgOJlfcCcbAbw6gHoMKkFaooYhWWdikYY-yr-K6daMKI1Xs_-7Xbnt-rMASY3XrYjcv2L1_l3xDRHqNLkezejHSBNvX60K5JOjP44whOdNbDDKuiIALtPgid-xiXpytxTz6F85S1n0BErIUsUznS9azZDZsDCLCkvg91Nf6tj20LqU9FmUBR-PvTfb5eQV7WQVK2xShcIeTg_tEQMCrj0989xd">See All</a></div>
<div>
<h6 class="uiHeaderTitle">
Friend Requests</h6>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="ego_unit_container">
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100011440034239">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011440034239","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"1"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flauren.stealman&h=NAQEzri19&enc=AZNw2rhixD4XnRkMZ9mk07rNeXULRUtXnl5MY-4hVgoS_tyBJuU2DMXMaZ8E7H01HPoHBQQDiVSb3O06ahOVvA2SoyYhJ8JH-WOYo8GDsi4WQP0lMFT7I8eWbvpZTvawD4qsqOODXR6p45Uex8sS-HdPYtr9eE-TyGz1stH51rjTitk-R-5McJFH_ZrIVNCXxmC8Gv3e_P3VEpT7pfNfh6WD5BhojXo41CdRf2VT77_OG1_ffp8TgwLxNUZ7d3lr8uWrJ2-2a8LGqQl1qpJBX2s_KJpLvQ9UrZ2Jlsm1FqqHAQjFvdX3rZ_lB0QpzuL5jX4xEY-kQE2mgTZ-vcTsANn-" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/12799195_131471850577482_3013653255634568780_n.jpg?oh=27b53c96d2091ca12a4211ac2d89f7ef&oe=5848A2E2" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011440034239","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"1"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Flauren.stealman&h=VAQEjjBkA&enc=AZPOLhQbqgzJ_11hsg-iQd--O8v8N_2tOOVXxLMS8j4WMkNHLQwWGv7__0aiOOo7YXX5_i0W5YmxkIpF6VQzUPHo4hTfPZlPuXr0f8Td7c1Jr79TWmi1tvilvm6WOSaU5cn4v5o8T_MsqV0h_mxkBDEuGtM4bMLULnSAPzjBdGx6PMRYfwyQfhb6UG7cmn-MTmomTdm8T_C7Gc6Lb-Y6n8zdN1SE5Xe7TZuYZA4Q-zbJ5wnZI6S_RRpzGQi9LMYfTMIpT66g_rp_Irvu2N9st0cdfqH43ooLv-xvL45sjrbolUE39_ZnG7kEM24dLafpVRTPihq1TA_1CF0HkMYJtZ50">Lauren Stealman</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100011601395739">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011601395739","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"2"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fprofile.php%3Fid%3D100011601395739&h=KAQFNNRzQ&enc=AZOuDcGHnhmMaKHknLCx03Hw7ycS_W3IWkrnBVy7Y_g8LTXZMKgqXpZcy0Wp6bjHNUYRnDoAx3JV4K0s2cnJSUKxN2hJX97LoS2rN1wbQ8Sm-s7rP9hTRyVAYDfmKFdwYWwhAAWEfZHoqXqUlgy-mNxqaI8R-8DkPJvBtDFU16L_l5XRYb5nnQv8XAc3c8614r3LTTWLOBUkck67SQ_7Y2GUMEPn7i4tpEoMU5bwTtxJDtJ-QMq3wmGcDoQEbsE2oZQcVigYPyk_HKV7vABvSBDQcWjF1sa_jQvSajFQzQGahPCvRiJHhxokVdyAgAptRlI0LE9RWymgsaNkUuMq52Pn" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/960103_108934822836564_8185330371043664273_n.jpg?oh=9a96a61b40a937612b103b2ba3f66f45&oe=585228A2" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011601395739","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"2"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fprofile.php%3Fid%3D100011601395739&h=pAQHmezcn&enc=AZOODU61JTFH6OMpZ1rsu92qnP_dmFQBRAmRrnl-RZg19V_5QesHVzcTfVU0-8sWUFFUFpJgMsNGkY2u8rnumgkqiQLO9mbnQlMU3zB1RcJX94evhgyHnTsMBtny3VcwfRPsknrgU6AW3_q-HoQDBeT_dVtkrjhX_c1M7Xzp_xWtdMV2YGeUlNdjN3-F9zlLko2NcLUgVwDMWDw94IulZEE3TNFX_D88oITWs6tASSzSguCI7PsNgRVLHSrLxJyVNvUlCJDlzviZ_QKL_UDRCRLseOjSHwhpEtA4LcgQt9pXkfYX6Jbj1rMpUW02J9LEl-qHl22VmrWSCWSC1sG035XU">George Paul</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100012279244504">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100012279244504","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"3"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsteven.hardin.140&h=pAQHmezcn&enc=AZO-Rnsn1T76bMyqJyjIliNCKLTssoQAkQjd8zhY8OV-CkU59xTXH3jGAw2xApZ-QRq-4B3oFwljqg7ZPfmqFVpu18Mip_CVRgermlS7HT8f-xeEwLAYBoCLomqvCyH5RT0N70AoJdCZk-pD8YtMZ6T_5bKNmPy5qY2Tyy1V0efadc7AZy73GXO2-NTjd7q5M4SG9EUSmTDRokUKFLF4jRpB7p3zLhTEeLj59V-cvice1FtVEeIPNQc8XX72-fwmCy_AehsoirRRxPyHBZDz4aMRvkMoqin7R0lUShPYlPtL813ufdJNJss93sYrpF0KfH9JdlbCY-HdPXXtc1R0C-R-" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c15.0.50.50/p50x50/10354686_10150004552801856_220367501106153455_n.jpg?oh=c2c117f18d69e14089ae44fd3637154d&oe=584B932F" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100012279244504","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"3"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fsteven.hardin.140&h=SAQGeGixj&enc=AZPrSbEKgs4oeIiAOW5613W-KLelkgAF0e3l3E26NY2BahjLnBuvBTh9gPVqC679-FRdAQNCKUfMvtbjj_4WxNcm3N7QAcfkJe3QQxXHbZtzoSENDK0YZyLTZNiyI_EyCgrbrogvLysos36fhPkfODkJOMYMQf1kj79iUJlnWIWIPc_rB-LmK7CpgQiLQXi1UUYnjHky_vCzJJBFgfXWt9uoMbjp8ADBAA7sWZs-MAPJYksp4PvEi2dxFJ8aHI2J7EO7vBmPyufw-igSW03kot9b9ssm5aYB16cAbJ-PNHLzJ-aqwtr8BtilBNLFKsHeWUm0pUL6IkENwrGgqlMZ_Dlj">Steven Hardin</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100006521165629">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100006521165629","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"4"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmomohjimoh.abdulgafar.3&h=NAQEzri19&enc=AZNa-vtF1X6YdoKK28LDAvARQ8GZGI3AVXQEfoROcKwgyUuYN_AaH8Xc3eMVJ7Cf8E_cz8IHtGJAeyveO61BnrHbpkldp1relM9GXWCAhuGMcT9HV3d1gS1cUr9-E-dqMbMOh6y5rwH2R7NcQvrJy9jNPOjQSNRxskk-_Luu2kCYModWNPmCPK3K1FC4xnbdvIfxVRBfZG7H8Snk0Y0lQkQIfGMoSTFNSeUdLrVeXJV-SPDopUZFt73jYGsAOMMfSntXFunNuPBnRq-57YS_xTbMsqI5rtYYF-DDkSVRK5agB9mSYBIOvZyd8e3TRI5AmwJazrv6RkNWTsVpchZkLW_c" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/c0.0.50.50/p50x50/13166073_1844703899090298_3208470270382339305_n.jpg?oh=893933b76a799cbe63686fbf9f50b386&oe=58594EC3" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100006521165629","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"4"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fmomohjimoh.abdulgafar.3&h=RAQECHpsp&enc=AZNG5qneBVSQA5C1SjzDBsFoMlAUhOXOX6uMDGhEfxTJZfjdzGw-l2lFofTdFt-rDvYEhWkqADRSGOd1pPy62h12AbIkNr3OGbNHwwvRziVaZPOXYldHqDZB3O2-f10yvCoYtCH1UyIftS5Vv4PAU_IAgSDodreXv0ssFKRoA8mIwnB5LHsrZRU4e1W5j6-K6Mxeuikp_Vgn7f_9iuqWEzKse9goTG3uoTpiAu7cvsgAe-EcZcU61xpnch0nbrzBhcbJykwwM4g9HAdZS4v9KtB558O9ugtBUMwSxSooIjIEugu8UYKSzxLhGiLLrl0TuxbY-cYihEq-lybgDY0vuRiH">Momohjimoh AbdulGafar</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100012508988522">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100012508988522","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"5"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Falbert.willie.3&h=mAQHmhDsP&enc=AZPjB0IBtc6rGNGtX5qsGAyewX06RCQtYr4bHkodh83l0y7N68NAAhsWJg1L4R8t7CNI1WP7a1zqLfuMkomzXRv6sTyTp9IMmaBpZnWcXEe3gqQt0meW0iUNG3S840OaRHkka672uI85gBBU-5lapcvSHUs5wiNJf8l4SegtxGmFFEhiyOnGU1cNmhHb5fhCukzwKVvxHTNMrPQ4-ypaHXqTGzjAUUkOEu5gWruUeemnI6RQLbTqd0YoV9nh1ZB3s6-fqldWpToB11up43NgUDLqxxJt_pQahKU6wwDkiE7m0iRr2gxtyPWGWmybXSoiJixfH52oZlzKxyRij7fbYC0t" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/13419044_108533986240234_5044619159413860908_n.jpg?oh=696e9da6668fe2387d61555a9bad913a&oe=581BC205" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100012508988522","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"5"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Falbert.willie.3&h=-AQE9dy7F&enc=AZPFleQ032WGfrUAWaNwNzVh2D8dbsjapUjWYN_3zoour3SLYHTjoYamHuuMoGKKrRurzUjHulbazp3D3dyOBybujJdrEbZlCWhkj_9iafNIka0P8h8WXbHD8obEt_uN2fgP8wNKnQ7iPyvtgZX91468dQwL-4Tx_slJFsmkZpd8I5MCtG8mQD78Yg7o2OooQCUVkFIjaOKQ7XCVjFmcbF8667R6sxTPfCppDvA3FUnpGvD4waZJX-6lcyN8cyWTTvwml3RPn6AwDOph7Rn0t6Vbq-Aq2uhOUxkfksb9Uez6Ohdo65UH7s6zGAKErW2uX9NqhAC274Yb7E5gqXaW0x5E">Albert Willie</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="clearfix ego_unit" data-ego-fbid="100011708873754">
<a class="_8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011708873754","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"6"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fprofile.php%3Fid%3D100011708873754&h=zAQEVcqVe&enc=AZNpqFfzzioI_2emjslR9yJJj2Z2WPQVAd3Cvr0UmwUf719LS1GKA8exZMRiGBCHckNp_szAk5ks4hnPW57Fh9EGohbMGSvb6_J_gu9yLntAC7sid7VizfqBFp1W_Oqh4LuvwJdHgqXEm30Bqyrp2dKX_Ykh4htkHnGM3VN1jOrjlU45wcLkzcyff9_oMqYbe6uUWFF8nVSTRe1tF8FV87CFTxIrJP9h53YSFcJwNkP1yzPPd_2POBENqxuMMuEZJK0J9-pJPJB76EhbyqyjetVLAR-USc9VvhcHTKksSti-p14Vjv7Ao6mP63JMKrPxdTTK7XIJ-Sdg8UTUwJC_a0kC" tabindex="-1"><img alt="" class="_s0 _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/944837_144017869331841_3444141757116193574_n.jpg?oh=719d43f14c18b4b28850e751c6bdca10&oe=584960F4" /></a><div class="_42ef">
<div class="egoProfileTemplate">
<a class="ego_title" data-gt="{"engagement":{"eng_type":"1","eng_src":"13","eng_tid":"100011708873754","eng_data":{"ego_service":"friend_request","ego_pos":"6"}}}" href="https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fprofile.php%3Fid%3D100011708873754&h=gAQFwWWhD&enc=AZM8f-GlSA6_arq7saenYBr5r3kbBqv4lOLEz2bGSnr8IdFDWoK2SRO_00lLqf4jTeui2xMeVnt64B_7vrrCA3RTrLQc2Xj4fLXSSZyCLpcTCpkqVLIBmKwNodLJm5lRD3h1Fck2Jafl6dbRUuyk4lBNhmQPfIea-V89ivGkDTGlb3YaRu3x8Z6oqisHfCNwuC8G4w-WXRNWAHvXS2ym3wfG0nU1eRbyhu6P7KV1YAosHNlEYX4anHfd0OsmIjfjI4ZGvE0hbmWvR9wGw-tPmlgwg4Uqvco2d1ouK4py-iQ6-nwR6pdEudoqeIfcWKx-nQJ4JmLxf9Wokb-6HFpu5PaV">David Albert</a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div id="rightCol" role="complementary">
<div class="_5rzs _5v6d">
<div class="_64a">
<div class="_64b fixed_elem" id="u_0_q" style="top: 43px; width: 310px;">
<div data-referrer="pagelet_rhc_footer" id="pagelet_rhc_footer">
<div>
<div class="_4-u2 _19ah _2ph_ _4-u8">
<div class="clearfix">
<div class="_4bl9">
<div class="fsm fwn fcg">
English (US)<span role="presentation"> · </span><a class="_5f4c" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/intl/save_locale/dialog/?loc=ru_RU&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Felielevin%2Fposts%2F10154057899304900&ref=www_card_selector" rel="dialog" role="button" title="Russian">Русский</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a class="_5f4c" dir="rtl" href="https://www.facebook.com/intl/save_locale/dialog/?loc=he_IL&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Felielevin%2Fposts%2F10154057899304900&ref=www_card_selector" rel="dialog" role="button" title="Hebrew">עברית</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a class="_5f4c" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/intl/save_locale/dialog/?loc=es_LA&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Felielevin%2Fposts%2F10154057899304900&ref=www_card_selector" rel="dialog" role="button" title="Spanish">Español</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a class="_5f4c" dir="ltr" href="https://www.facebook.com/intl/save_locale/dialog/?loc=pt_BR&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Felielevin%2Fposts%2F10154057899304900&ref=www_card_selector" rel="dialog" role="button" title="Portuguese (Brazil)">Português (Brasil)</a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="rhcFooterWrap" role="contentinfo">
<div class="fsm fwn fcg">
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/privacy/explanation" title="Learn about your privacy and Facebook.">Privacy</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a accesskey="9" href="https://www.facebook.com/policies?ref=pf" title="Review our terms and policies.">Terms</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/campaign/landing.php?placement=pf_rhc_more&campaign_id=136808916455473&extra_1=auto" title="Advertise on Facebook.">Advertising</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a class="_41uf" href="https://www.facebook.com/help/568137493302217" title="Learn about Ad Choices.">Ad Choices</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><a data-nocookies="1" href="https://www.facebook.com/help/cookies?ref_type=sitefooter" title="Cookies">Cookies</a><span role="presentation"> · </span><div class="_6a uiPopover" id="rhc_footer_selector">
<a class="rhcFooterSelectorButton _p" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin/posts/10154057899304900#" id="u_0_19" rel="toggle" role="button">More</a></div>
</div>
<div class="rhcFooterCopyright">
<span> Facebook © 2016</span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h2 class="accessible_elem" id="newsFeedHeading">
News Feed</h2>
<div class="_5x46">
<div class="clearfix _5va3">
<a class="_5pb8 _8o _8s lfloat _ohe" data-ft="{"tn":"m"}" data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=697779899" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin?fref=nf" tabindex="-1" target=""><div class="_38vo">
<img alt="" class="_s0 _5xib _5sq7 _44ma _rw img" src="https://scontent.fden3-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-1/p50x50/13882601_10154047400949900_1065367525466527238_n.jpg?oh=b4ee2eb9f22d01e4f0a0d9a53af8b4b9&oe=5854479E" /></div>
</a><div class="clearfix _42ef">
<div class="_5va4">
<div>
<div class="_6a _5u5j">
<div class="_6a _5u5j _6b">
<h5 class="_5pbw _5vra" data-ft="{"tn":"C"}" id="js_2">
<span class="fwn fcg"><span class="fwb fcg" data-ft="{"tn":";"}"><a data-hovercard="/ajax/hovercard/user.php?id=697779899&extragetparams=%7B%22fref%22%3A%22nf%22%7D" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin?fref=nf">Elisheva Hannah Levin</a></span></span></h5>
<div class="_5pcp">
<span><span class="fsm fwn fcg"><a class="_5pcq" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin/posts/10154057899304900" target=""><abbr class="_5ptz timestamp livetimestamp" data-shorten="1" data-utime="1471198626" title="Sunday, August 14, 2016 at 12:17pm"><span class="timestampContent" id="js_3">1 min</span></abbr></a></span></span><span role="presentation"> · </span><div class="_6a _43_1 _4f-9 _nws _21o-" id="u_0_y">
<div class="_6a uiPopover" id="u_0_z">
<a class="_42ft _4jy0 _55pi _5vto _55_p _2agf _p _1zg8 _3m8n _4jy3 _517h _51sy _59pe" data-hover="tooltip" data-testid="privacy_selector_10154057899304900" data-tooltip-alignh="right" data-tooltip-content="Public" href="https://www.facebook.com/elielevin/posts/10154057899304900#" id="u_0_10" rel="toggle" role="button" style="max-width: 26px;"><span class="_55pe" style="max-width: 12px;"><img alt="" class="mrs _21or img" height="12" src="https://www.facebook.com/rsrc.php/v2/ym/r/LXVsRcy6-H6.png" width="12" /></span></a></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
It just keeps on coming. During a conversation on a Facebook Page, I stated that I cannot
give my sanction to the Johnson-Weld ticket. In response, someone wrote: "You can't
say I am not a Libertarian." I responded with a discussion of reality
and values. Really, what I ought to have said is this: <br /><br />
When did
everything become about you? I never even knew you existed. Whether you
are a Libertarian or not has absolutely zero influence on my voting
decisions. What I am concerned about is whether or not the ticket
nominated by the Convention is living up to the standards of the
Libertarian Party. <br /><br />
It is not as if those standards are not well publicized. They are easy to find. Our vision (the goal) is: <br />
Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free in our
lifetime, and it is to this end that we take these stands.(Preamble of
the Libertarian Party Platform)<br /><br />
Our purposes are: <br /> ARTICLE 2: PURPOSES <br />
The Party is organized to implement and give voice to the principles
embodied in the Statement of Principles by: functioning as a libertarian
political entity separate and distinct from all other political parties
or movements; moving public policy in a libertarian direction by
building a political party that elects Libertarians to public office;
chartering affiliate parties throughout the United States and promoting
their growth and activities; nominating candidates for President and
Vice-President of the United States, and supporting Party and affiliate party candidates for political office; and, entering into public information activities.(From The LP By-Laws).<br />
<br />
Even our governing body, the LNC is not required to carte blanche
support candidates who do not promote the vision and mission of our
party. Furthermore, if the party continues to support those who not only
do not support them, but in fact, in their speech and actions promote
and support the opposite of them, we have a problem.<br />
<br />
The
question the self-involved critic did not ask, but may have been
attempting to imply is, how do we know know when a candidate or a ticket
has crossed the line? After all, it is one thing to support a ticket
that is aiming in the right direction--toward liberty--but that
expresses differences of opinions about strategy and tactics. One may in
fact support such a ticket because it has integrity and it does not
compromise one's own integrity to do so.<br />
<br />
Thus, I supported Gary Johnson
even though I completely disagree with his stance on the Nazi Cake
issue, and I will not obey nor ask anyone else to obey such an
unconstitutional edict. I did so because it was my understanding at the
time that Gary allowed that he might be wrong and he stated that he did
not want to make this a prominent part of his legislative agenda. That
is, he was not running on this issue. I believed that he was speaking in
good faith, and that allowed me to support the campaign. <br />
However, it is one thing to support a ticket that may be shaky on
the goals, but still aiming in their direction, it is quite another to
blindly support a ticket that is deliberately aiming in exact opposite
direction of the goals. Such a ticket has no integrity, because a person
running for office who can integrate principles would recognize that he
or she should not be running on a platform that aims in the opposite
direction of his or her goals. To continue to support such a ticket,
means being out of integrity with one's own goals and principles. The
means you are employing will not get you to the goals you say you want. At
this point, to remain integrated, it is necessary for you to either
recognize that you want different goals, or stop supporting the ticket.<br />
<br />
Sometimes, if one has previously respected the candidate, one might
give the situation some time and see if the candidate is really aiming
in the wrong direction or if his aim is just shaky. If it is shaky then
as he continues to practice on the campaign trail, it should firm up.
However, when this candidate allies himself with another who
consistently aims in the opposite direction of the goal, and also
continues to insist on goals and objectives that will not lead to the
goal, then that candidate cannot be a person of integrity. That is, his
goals and objectives are different than the ones he has agreed to pursue
on behalf of the party. A man of integrity in this position would
separate himself from the party and admit that his goals are not ours.<br />
<br />
Gary Johnson is out of integrity. It is clear that his goal is to be
elected President of the United States. But for what purpose? He
continues to support causes, legislation and positions that lead to more
statism and less liberty, and some of them also violate the Bill of
Rights, a Constitutional statement that requires our government to
protect our liberty. Specifically, his goal to use government force and
deny the freedom of association of certain citizens not only violates
their right to freely practice the tenents of their faith, but will
inevitably lead to silencing their freedom of speech, freedom of their
press, and their right to petition the government for redress of
grievances. We have already seen this happen with the abuses of power of
the State of Oregon against an individual business.<br />
<br />
Furthermore, he is a weak leader in that he refuses to control the
ticket, and he continues to support a vice-presidential candidate who
clearly has a vision and goal that is the opposite of liberty. Weld is a
man who believes there is nothing that government cannot or should not
do, and no value of the civil society that cannot be denied in order to
fulfill the mission of the state. He has surprised television hosts in
his absolute ignorance of libertarian values and positions. He is
currently promoting the violation of the right to self-defense by
supporting regulations that would deny citizens the ability to purchase
arms without due process. That not only violates the Second Amendment,
which is unconditional. But it also violates the Fourth, Fifth, and
Fourteenth.<br />
<br />
Weld is clearly not a Libertarian. He promotes
statism, not liberty. In fact, he is not even a Republican
Constitutionalist or a Conservative Constitutionalist. He is a
Progressive Statist. Little by little, his policies would make progress
toward absolute tyranny over the several states by the federal
government, and allow it to abuse the people and violate their rights.<br />
<br />
Worse, he outright lied to me in direct conversations, and to other
members of the Covention as well, about his purposes and his beliefs. It
is perfectly honest to have and state such beliefs as Bernie Sanders
did, but it is completely out of integrity to hold them while
simultaneously claiming to hold the opposite values and beliefs.<br />
<br />
LNC, We have a problem.<br />
<br />
Whatever reasons Gary Johnson and William Weld
have to run for President and Vice President, promoting the goals of the
Libertarian Party are not among them. If they wish to be in integrity
with themselves, they ought to run as Independents and forthrightly
promote their agendas. They ought to resign from the LP ticket, so that
the LP can run candidates who aim for the goals and purposes of the LP.
Otherwise, they are using the party dishonestly for purposes the party
does not have in common with them.<br />
<br />
I suspect that Johnson alone
has a shaky aim, but could have represented the LP well enough, as he
did in 2012. Not a great libertarian candidate, but one that might
fulfill certain steps toward one of the LP's goals. But with Weld, the
ticket is completely out of integrity with the LP's goals. More
egregiously, Weld has lied about his goals to get the
nomination and use the party for purposes with which it does not
agree.And instead of asserting leadership if the ticket, Johnson has stood by and allowed that
to happen.<br />
<br />
It is therefore the obligation of the LNC to either
insist that Johnson and Weld run on the goals and platform of the LNC,
or to disqualify them so that the LNC can choose candidates who's aim is
in the direction of Liberty. I recognize that this would mean that this
election will not get us the fame and fortune we all want for the
party. We would lose this battle. However, if we continue in this state
of disintegration, then the purposes we have will be lost. There is at
present no voice for liberty in the presidential election. And we are
lying to ourselves if we claim otherwise. We might end up with easy
ballot access, but how long will we keep it? And who else will come
along to use us to even more nefarious purposes?<br />
<br />
Better to lose the battle and win the war. Better to remain in integrity in order to fight another day.Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-75079481423544194692016-03-28T14:37:00.001-06:002016-03-28T14:37:26.000-06:00Thoughts on the 2016 Election and the Regeneracy of the Fourth Turning<br />
<br />
On June 5, 2009, I posted a blog entry here entitled: <a href="http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com/2009/06/of-ominous-financial-crash-ordinary.html" target="_blank">Of an Ominous Financial Crash, An Ordinary National Election, A Trivial Tea Party</a>. That entry celebrated how I found a book I had been looking for, Strauss and Howe's <i>The Fourth Turning: An American Prophecy: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny. </i>I wrote:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">As the strange and apparently ominous events of the past half-year have been accruing, I have wanted to re-read <i>The Fourth Turning</i>,
but all my rooting in the accessible boxes in the garage came up
wanting. So I was anxiously on the lookout for the book as I began the
task of making my library as planned in the Chem Geek Princess's old
room (now the Guest Room/Library). Thus I was amazed when finally, I
found the book and read the page that fell open, and that last, pregnant
sentence:</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "trebuchet ms";">" . . . the spark might seem as ominous as a financial crash, as ordinary as a national election, as trivial as a Tea Party."</span></blockquote>
The context Strauss and Howe were referring to is the spark that sets off the transition into the Fourth Turning, the Crisis period of our time. <br />
<br />
In the summer of 2014, while writing my Ph.D. Comprehensive Exam Paper, I checked in on the Fourth Turning Discussion Groups that I have been a part of since 2002. There, I saw a link to a Neil Howe blog post (<a href="http://blog.saeculumresearch.com/">blog.saeculumresearch.com</a>) in which he stated that he and Strauss had decided that the Fourth Turning of our era, the Millennial Saeculum, had likely begun with the Global Financial Crash in the fall of 2008. I believe that this timing may well prove to be right. The ages of the generations was right, with the Millennials fully occupying young adulthood, Generation X fully in mid-life, the Boomers fully occupying elderhood, and the very elder GIs leaving the planet. The generational archetypes were also aligned: the Prophets in elderhood, the Nomads in middle-age, the Heroes in young adulthood, and the young Artists arriving as children. <br />
<br />
Recently, I have noticed that people are beginning to talk about the dire nature of the current election. I have also heard forebodings about another economic shock to the system from people I am talking to for my dissertation research and from those involved in other projects with me. These premonitions of dire events to come are not directly a part of my research, but the Strauss and Howe theory may explain some of what I am finding. This was unexpected.<br />
<br />
I have also been anxious and upset about this election, and I have had to take a short break from Facebook in order to keep my focus on my dissertation work. I have been thinking about the election as part of a linear trend toward some totalitarian future, a fascist or socialist dystopia. So I pulled out The Fourth Turning and read it again, paying attention to the cyclical nature of Awakenings and Crises it describes. This gave me hope for the future despite the stresses to the current system that seem to be reaching a saecular maximum.<br />
<br />
In the Strauss and Howe Generational Theory, a saeculum is a cycle in time that "spans the length of a long human life, roughly eighty to one hundred years. Each cycle is comprised of four Turnings which are eras that come in the same order, saeculum after saeculum since the end of the Middle Ages. Strauss and Howe define the turnings as:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>The<i> First Turning</i> is a <i>High</i>, an upbeat era of strengthening institutions and weakening individualism, when a new civic order implants and the old values regime decays.</li>
<li>The <i>Second Turning</i> is an <i>Awakening</i>, a passionate era of spiritual upheaval, when the civic order comes under attack from a new values regime.</li>
<li> The <i>Third Turning</i> is an <i>Unraveling</i>, a downcast era of strengthening individualism and weakening institutions, when an old civic order decays and the new values regime implants.</li>
<li>The<i> Fourth Turning</i> is a <i>Crisis</i>, a decisive era of secular upheaval, when the values regime propels the replacement of the old civic order with a new one. (Strauss & Howe, 1997, p. 3)</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<br />
In my re-reading, I noticed that some of what I remembered from the book was not quite right. I had expected the Fourth Turning Crisis to erupt as the-end-of-the world-as-we-know-it (TEOTWAWKI). But the Strauss and Howe Generational Theory posits a Crisis as a "great gate in history" when civic order reaches its nadir and is rebuilt based on values developed during the Second Turning Awakening. The conclusion of the Crisis and the change in the social mood that follows, marks the beginning of the First Turning High of a new saeculum. Strauss and Howe state that a Crisis begins with some random event that causes a sudden change of the social mood. This happens when the generational archetypes are aligned in a certain order, as I noted above. At that point, members of a society stop drifting along and begin to take responsibility for problems they had ignored during the 3rd Turning Unraveling. The order of the generational archetypes is important, because each one has a particular character marked by their age and place in history.<br />
<br />
In the Fourth Turning, Strauss and Howe looked at other Crises in the Anglo-American Saecular history. They identified patterns common to each Fourth Turning, even though the particulars of each were different in their timing and events. They wrote that a Crisis has an identifiable morphology. From the Fourth Turning:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Fourth Turnings have provided the great pivot points of the Anglo-American legacy. dating back to the fifteenth century, there have been six. Each produced its own Crisis and its own facsimile of the halcyon spirit today's World War II veterans remember so vividly. From the similarities of these eras, a morphology can be constructed: </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>A Crisis era begins with a <i>catalyst</i>--a startling event (or sequence of events) that produces a sudden shift in mood. </li>
<li>Once catalyzed, a society achieves a <i>regeneracy</i>--a new counterentropy that reunifies and reenergizes civic life.</li>
<li>The regenerated society propels toward a <i>climax</i>--a crucial moment that confirms the death of the old order and the birth of the new.</li>
<li>The climax culminates in a<i> resolution</i>--a triumphant or tragic conclusion that separates winners from losers, resolves the big, public questions, and establishes the new order. (Strauss & Howe, 1997, p. 256). </li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
According to Strauss and Howe, the regeneracy is a process. It's beginning is marked by the nadir of social order that has been decaying through the Unraveling and into the crisis. The regeneration is complete when "out of the debris of the Unraveling, a new civic ethos arises. One set of post-Awakening ideals prevails over the others" (p. 257). At this point, people use the new synergy to strengthen their communities and instruct their government officials on how to reinforce it.<br />
<br />
<br />
Before a Crisis begins, say Strauss and Howe, people can foresee the fault lines along which a spark may ignite, but they cannot predict its regeneracy, climax or resolution. However, they say that a regeneracy can be expected 1-5 years into a Crisis. But not all Fourth Turnings are the same. If Strauss and Howe are right about the beginning of this Crisis, we are more than seven years into it, and still the fragmentation from the Unraveling continues. We can see the splintering of our politics continuing among and within the major political parties, and most of the people have not yet united around a particular vision of civic order. In his blog posts on the topic, Howe also stated that the regeneracy is bumped into being by a spark or series of sparks that are more serious than the initial catalyst for the Fourth Turning. However, from the Crash of 2008 until now, the Great Recession has continued, with no marked repair and no sudden change. Although the Obama administration calls it a "recovery," many Americans point out bitterly that it is a "jobless recovery," if a recovery it is.<br />
<br />
<br />
But this year, people are facing a presidential election that is unique in American history. There is no incumbent candidate. Obama is term-limited out. His party controls the executive branch, but does not control the Congress. The Court is divided, and could lean toward constitutional anarchy with the appointment of the president's nominee. Garland is opposed to the Second Amendment, causing Second Amendment groups and gun-owners to consider their response should the Court try to violate their right to keep and bear arms. <br />
<br />
One major party, the Democrats, is running a corrupt criminal who may yet be indicted for mishandling government property. She is also responsible for the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, and yet cannot remember that any people were "lost" there under her watch. Their only other declared candidate is an aging "democratic" socialist who promises to continue the trend of taxation and deficit spending that has thus far enslaved our grandchildren to unprecedented debt. <br />
<br />
The other major party has gone against the wishes of its conservative base over the course of the last three elections. The Republican front-runner is a Boomer, an inside trader who calls himself an outsider, and he cannot articulate a single policy. But he is popular among true-believers because they think he can, with his pen and phone, make the budding executive branch tyranny stop. But he has unfavorable polls approaching 70% and he is unlikely to be able to win the election. His only serious challenger is a Gen-X outsider, a constitutionalist, who is hated by the party establishment. In fact, the Republican establishment wonks have proposed inserting their own preferred insiders into the process through a brokered convention, which is not the same as a contested convention in which the existing candidates duke it out for the nomination. This would be unique in history. Many observers think this would destroy the credibility of the Republican Party, causing its voters to stay home or vote third party in unprecedented numbers. <br />
<br />
The largest "third party," the Libertarian Party, will likely run a popular former governor of New Mexico, who has considerable executive experience and was known for his promotion of individuals rights and liberty, and his use of veto power to keep the budget balanced and stop the state government from violating the liberty of the people. Some Republican wonks are threatening to try to take over the Libertarian Party, should an unwanted candidate be nominated in their own party. Although the threat is unlikely to be successful, because the Libertarian Party National Convention will take place in May, which is before the Republicans have finished their primaries, it is an indicator of the instability within the GOP. <br />
<br />
When faced with such an election, many people I know personally or on social media resort to bitter humor, anger, and a sense of impending doom. That sense of doom is only increased by the predictions of further shocks to the economy that may occur as early as this summer. Some economists say that it could result in The Great Devaluation of the American dollar. This would render our money worthless and stop commerce. <br />
<br />
These are things that I have had nightmares about. <br />
However, if these are the things of which a regeneracy may be made, so that the old, decaying civic habits are replaced with something new--a new economy, a new political outlook, a new liberty--then the nightmares might be worth it. After the Great Depression and World War II, some people thought that the piper of the old order would still have to be paid, and that the Depression would re-establish itself. Instead, as Americans worked through the war, they developed a new economy, new industry, and a new social ethos. When the war was over, people moved on. They did not go back. They had reset their systems, remitted their debts and established the beginning of new social habits through the regeneracy of that Great Power Crisis. <br />
<br />
I posit that this year and this election will mark the regeneracy of the Millennial Crisis. The faults in the old order that the election and the economy are revealing are similar to other saecula. They are also directly related to the values changes precipitated in the 2nd Turning Awkaening and the problems revealed in the 3rd Turning Unraveling. We still cannot foresee what great and perilous events will mark the climax of our passage through this "great gate" in history, and what future will be built out of its resolution. However, we can know that the Fourth Turning is proceeding in a familiar pattern, and that we are not stuck in some nightmare Crisis without end.<br />
<br />
My re-reading has given me hope. A good outcome is not a sure thing. Of the ten crises that the Anglo-American generations have passed through, some have had the best possible resolution, some have had good resolutions, and some have had mixed results. However, none so far have ended the civilization that sustains these cycles, and TEOTWAWKI has not happened. It could happen. But I think it is more likely that if we stay the course, fight for our values, restore the power of the civil society and take control of our government, we will see a good resolution to this Fourth Turning. If we work for it, the generations now living can become "repairers of the breech."<br />
<br />
OK. Now I can go back to my dissertation with some equanimity.<br />
And yes, I am back to blogging. In late 2013, I had my own crisis, which caused me to reorder my priorities, write and defend my Comps (November 2014), form a dissertation committee, write and successfully defend my dissertation proposal (November 2015). I am now in the "valley of confusion" that is part and parcel of qualitative research. Yes, it is fun! Yes, I will tell you all about it in another post. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-17004162048345533392013-09-18T22:14:00.001-06:002013-09-18T22:14:02.677-06:00Sukkot: Fragile Dwelling Place<p> </p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">“The land of Israel is not rich in water <br />resources. . . For this reason, a special <br />prayer for rain was inserted into the <br />[Sukkot] service. Since the rainy season <br />starts approximately at Sukkot, it was <br />the appropriate time to pray for rain. <br />Jews are realists. One prays for rain <br />during the rainy season, not during <br />the dry summers. One walks across <br />water by stepping on rocks . . .”</font></p> </blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">-- Rabbi Irving Greenberg, <em>The Jewish Way</em></font></p> <p><font color="#808000"><em> </em></font></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-VOx_SyodSxc/Ujp53lrrotI/AAAAAAAAFzE/i_E2lAMV5Fg/s1600-h/Hail%252520and%252520Rain%252520just%252520before%252520Sukkot%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Hail and Rain just before Sukkot" border="0" alt="Hail and Rain just before Sukkot" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-jbWTFDDYaLM/Ujp56sAtRRI/AAAAAAAAFzM/1YpWy4WQ_6U/Hail%252520and%252520Rain%252520just%252520before%252520Sukkot_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="183" /></a> I saw the full moon of <em>Sukkot</em>, Season of Our Joy, rising over the mesa in the east, into the white and misty clouds of hail that had just fallen over Freedom Ridge Ranch and was now falling out toward the Red Hill and Cimarron Mesa.  On the ground by the roses, on the porch, and over on the cabin and barn roofs, drifts of pellet-sized hail lay, melting slowly into the waters running off of the hills and mesas, downcutting into rills, rapids and even falls, as they sang their way down to Red Hill Draw.</p> <p>  </p> <p>There will be no <em>Sukkah</em> at Freedom Ridge Ranch tonight.<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-5T9K5QUCp3Q/Ujp5-qhbjQI/AAAAAAAAFzU/y3AG5PYJMEU/s1600-h/Double%252520Rainbow%252520Between%252520Storms%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Double Rainbow Between Storms" border="0" alt="Double Rainbow Between Storms" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-s0GkyHERQ98/Ujp6BNtiJXI/AAAAAAAAFzc/zE4IbIU_SfQ/Double%252520Rainbow%252520Between%252520Storms_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="183" height="244" /></a> Rain was still falling intermittently as Tippy and I picked our way across to check the chickens, jumping across a stream and its smaller tributary, both coming down from the dirt tank west of the barn. The other dogs were not the least bit interested in leaving the shelter of the living room. They were shell shocked from lightning, thunder, downpour and then hail. A sudden appearance of the setting sun lit up a rainbow over Freedom Ridge, and then curtains of rains covered it again, until the clouds passed to the east and the moon rose into them. </p> <p> </p> <p>In the pattern of the Holy Days this year, building a <em>Sukkah</em> was called due to rain. The damage to the landscape, the flooding, the car bottoming out in standing water in Red Hill Draw by the shipping pens, all these things together made the typical <em>Sukkot</em> not only difficult, but unimaginable. <em>Sukkot</em> celebrates not only the Ingathering Harvest, the last of the Israeli year, but it also commemorates the years of wandering in the desert. It is a reminder of the fragility and impermanence of life.   <br /></p> <p>For so many people in New Mexico, Arizona and Colorado, this impermanence is very real, as they realize what the floodwaters took, and clean up what is left, much of the stuff of their lives washed away like the stuff of our hillsides, roads and driveways. Normal life will not come for weeks or even months for friends of ours who live in Coal Creek Canyon. There house is high and soggy, but they will not see a return of drinking water and natural gas for a long while. They know the fragility of their dwelling place on real terms this <em>Sukkot</em>. <br /> <br />For us, the damage is in a bottomed out car, washed out roads and rilling and gullying in our harsh but fragile landscape. We’ve come through lightly, really. But on another level, we are also confronting impermanence without the need to build a <em>Sukkah</em> this year. Although this is now our permanent dwelling here at Freedom Ridge Ranch, we are in the midst of completing repairs requested by the buyers of the house up in Sedillo, the beautiful house we both thought would be our last. And we are buying a casita, a small and comparatively inexpensive house on a hill north of the Sedillo house a good ten miles by road. <br /> <br />The casita will be a place for the Cowboy to live while he finishes his degree and certifications in welding and metal technology. It will be a place for me to stay this fall and next spring, as I focus intensively on finishing my coursework so I can take my comprehensive exams. It will be a place for the Engineering Geek to land when he comes up to Albuquerque and Sandia Labs on business, for he has contracts that require his intermittent presence. It will not be home. But we will be back and forth between home and not-home a lot, all of us. And while this is the case, we hope to be completing the additions and renovations that will make the ranch house uniquely ours. <br /> <br />Our dwelling place will be most fragile and impermanent this year. Like our ancestors, who had to wander in the wilderness until they understood what freedom really requires.  <br /></p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">“As Jews moved into exile, they understood <br />what the Sukkah had always taught them: G-d <br />is not fixed; G-d is everywhere. After the <br />Exodus, Israel went into the desert to meet <br />its lord. Later, the favor was returned by <br />G-d, who went with them into exile, into <br />the travail of history. Jews learned that the <br />Shekhinah (Indwelling Presence) was with them <br />in times of exile and wandering.” </font></p> </blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">    --Rabbi Irving Greenberg, <em>The Jewish Way</em></font></p> <p><font color="#808000"><font color="#000000">I miss the <em>Sukkah </em>already. The fragrant fall odors of Etrog and <em>s’chach</em>; the moonlit nights in the <em>Sukkah</em>, and the warm Shabbat afternoons. All the delights for the senses, the celebration of the harvest. But this year, with all of our life so impermanent, with our family scattered hither and yon, the reminder of the fragility of life, the shaky nature of shelter in the autumn wind is being delivered another way. Like so many of our friends and neighbors, undone by the Great Southwest Flood of 2013, we don’t need the <em>Sukkah</em> to remind us of these things. Our life is fragile enough. As Rabbi Greenberg reminds us: </font></font></p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">“Until the world is redeemed from slavery, <br />Jews are on an Exodus journey; perforce <br />they are in, but not really of,the society <br />and culture they inhabit. Jews can con- <br />tribute without really accepting the <br />system. The tremendous effort to parti- <br />cipate led to Jewish integration into the  <br />host culture. Then the Sukkah reminded <br />them to push on. There were miles to go, <br />on the Exodus way . . .”</font></p> </blockquote> <p><font color="#808000">-- <em>The Jewish Way </em></font></p> <p>Mother Nature has completed the traditional Water-Pouring, <em>Tevillah</em>, that used to take place on the first night of Sukkot during the days of the Second Temple. She even through in some ice to go with the fiery lighting. And now life itself, and the way it works, is bringing us to a new understanding of impermanence. <br /> <br />Life is a fragile thing, and we shake like a <em>Sukkah</em> in the autumn winds. Yet like the <em>Sukkah</em>, we generally manage to remain standing. Through fire. And water. And ice. <br />There is a toughness to us as well. It gets us through hard times and makes us too stiff-necked to bow down to what our hands have made. <br /> <br />That is the point of the Exodus journey. Freedom isn’t free. It takes time and an understanding that idolatry is not compatible with our liberty. The adventure has been worth the cost, as we are reminded again each <em>Sukkot</em> what is important and what is not. <br /> <br />Our spirits have a fragile dwelling place, a body that bends and sometimes breaks. But we also have <em>Shekhinah</em>, reminding us that beyond all the fragility, something of us is strong and mighty. <br /> <br />Chag Sameach. Happy harvest! </p> <p> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:cbaca5f9-b3c1-4667-b8d3-ca89e77c8d71" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Flood" rel="tag">Flood</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Rain" rel="tag">Rain</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Sukkot" rel="tag">Sukkot</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a></div> <p><font color="#808000"><font color="#000000"> <br /></font> <br /> <br /></font></p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-87617066237851353342013-09-16T22:29:00.002-06:002013-09-16T22:40:13.351-06:00High Holy Days 5774:Who Causes the Wind to Blow and the Rain to Fall<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qD9JJGK8Q3Y/UjenUoAQ36I/AAAAAAAAFxo/uty925LFBBQ/s1600/Tefilat+Geshem.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qD9JJGK8Q3Y/UjenUoAQ36I/AAAAAAAAFxo/uty925LFBBQ/s1600/Tefilat+Geshem.jpg" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Ordinarily, on<i> Shemini Atzeret</i>--the eighth day of lingering--at the end of <i>Sukkot</i>, we add <i>t'filat ha-geshem</i>--the prayer for rain--to the<i> Amidah</i>, which is the standing prayer in the daily services. It is considered bad luck when the rains come early, and make it difficult to dwell in the Sukkah--the harvest booth--as is commanded during the Feast of Ingathering Harvest. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Geshem</i> continues to be said across the winter until the spring Festival of <i>Pesach</i> is celebrated, when the summer blessing for <i>Tal</i>--Dew--is added and <i>Geshem</i> is retired until the next <i>Sukkot</i> Holiday. </span>This corresponds to the seasons of Israel, wet in the winter and dry in the summer. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This year. even as the Holy Days came early in the solar year, <i>Rosh Hashanah</i> starting on the evening of the 4th of September, so too did the rains come early. Or in our case, the monsoon stayed late, making holiday travel as difficult for Jews in Catron County, New Mexico, as it was for the Jews of Judea in the days of old when farmers were expected to build their <i>Sukkot</i> on the hills surrounding Jerusalem.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We had planned to attend High Holy Day Services in Flagstaff, at the little<i> Heichal ba-Oranim</i> synagogue, where we had gone last year. I was looking forward to finally being able to join that congregation, now that the house in Sedillo is under contract, and we are able to make the necessary contributions. We have been without a home synagogue for more than a year, and we were looking forward to making a commitment and enjoying a pleasant holiday in a very <i>haimish</i> <i>shul</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ljwgEql4YU/Uje0YM9sUuI/AAAAAAAAFx4/ONZ1KAAoQVo/s1600/Shana+Tova.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-9ljwgEql4YU/Uje0YM9sUuI/AAAAAAAAFx4/ONZ1KAAoQVo/s200/Shana+Tova.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alas, it was not to be. As September came, a new and very wet monsoon plume settled over the Southwest. Predictions of thunderstorms and flash floods became a daily reminder that our roads could become impassible in no time at all. </span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qln5zeAiL_g/Uje3MSdwJCI/AAAAAAAAFyE/Nt6y04kJUCc/s1600/holiday_rosh_hashanah.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qln5zeAiL_g/Uje3MSdwJCI/AAAAAAAAFyE/Nt6y04kJUCc/s320/holiday_rosh_hashanah.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i> Rosh Hashanah</i> itself was partly cloudy, but the threat of rain made us decide to stay home lest we not be able to get back should the rains come. We had a festive meal with all of the traditional foods on <i>Erev Rosh Hashanah</i>, and we prayed the evening service on the porch.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> The next morning, we again prayed on the porch, the sun dancing with the clouds as I proclaimed: <i>Ha-yom harat olam!</i> This is the day of the world's birth! And the Engineering Geek blew the intricate set of<i> Shofar</i> calls three times: once for Creation, once for Memory, and once for Revelation. The sound of the<i> Shofar</i> rang out across Freedom Ridge, and the horses raised their heads, the dogs barked, and the cows began lowing. The hawk soared and circled on the wind, unconcerned. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />In the afternoon, we did leave for a drive around Big Lake, where the EG and my nephew skipped stones on the water after we cast our bread upon them in the ancient and fanciful ceremony of<i> Tashlich</i>, a casting away of the old and inviting in of the New Year. I have always thought that <i>Tashlich</i> is simply an excuse to take a walk on <i>Rosh Hashanah</i> afternoon, after a long morning service. It began to rain as we drove back along the county road to the ranch. Second day, and thunderstorms near candle-lighting for <i>Shabbat</i>. We missed the Sacred Assembly on the first and second days of the Seventh Month entirely. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">On Sunday after a day of rain, I drove out with the EG behind me in the Dodge Ram in case he had to pull me out. After slipping and sliding down the county road, I went to Albuquerque for class, and to take care of some business. And on Tuesday, the rain set in there. It rained all day. ALL DAY. A record rainfall. I came home Wednesday, between storms. The road was soft, and there was water in the arroyo, and I drove on the high spots between ruts. Thursday, the rain began in our part of the state, and we knew that there would be no travel to Flagstaff for us. Friday, as I prepared the pre-fast meal, I read about the flooding in Colorado on the internet.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4aGVO7x2BpE/Uje8g6bxvoI/AAAAAAAAFyU/3yvEivLN6Dk/s1600/Gmar+Chatima+Tova.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-4aGVO7x2BpE/Uje8g6bxvoI/AAAAAAAAFyU/3yvEivLN6Dk/s1600/Gmar+Chatima+Tova.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Just before sunset, we invited Yitzak Pearlman to perform <i>Kol Nidre</i> via YouTube. <br /><i>All vows that we make between this Yom Kippur and the next . . .</i><br />Then candle lighting, and the evening service. I sang the parts of the service we could do without a<i> minyan</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> Lightning played across Freedom Ridge as we let the dogs in and began the Al Chet.<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i> V'al kulam eloah s'lichot</i> . . .<i> for all these, O G-d of Forgiveness</i>. . . </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">and the electric lights flickered along with the candles. A bolt of lighting. Almost simultaneous thunder. And the lights went out, leaving only the flickering candles. <i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Lev tahor b'ra-li, elohim . . .create in me a clean heart, O G-d . . . </i>our shadows large upon the eastern wall in the candle light. Sometime in the night, the candles went out and the electricity was restored, but we were sleeping and the next light we saw was a pearly, gray dawn and ragged clouds scudding across the sky, driven by a wet wind. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U-2Mue89aOQ/UjfDboMbS1I/AAAAAAAAFyk/l5TOMjmME94/s1600/Tallit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-U-2Mue89aOQ/UjfDboMbS1I/AAAAAAAAFyk/l5TOMjmME94/s1600/Tallit.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We dressed again in white. No leather, no grooming. For the first <i>Yom Kippur</i> day of my marriage, I did not see my husband--Reform Princeling that he is--in a dark suit, starched white shirt and somber tie. As we sat on the couch and read aloud from <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Climbing-Jacobs-Ladder-Rediscover-Spiritual/dp/1590303660/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379385955&sr=8-1&keywords=Climbing+Jacob%27s+Ladder" target="_blank">Climbing Jacob's Ladder: One Man's Journey to Rediscover a Jewish Spiritual Tradition</a> the clouds gathered in the south. "Wind from the South has water in its mouth'\," chanted the EG, as the sky darkened and the rains began. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">All that day, as we prayed in the cool, shadowy living room in stocking feet, our tallitot wrapped for warmth and the feeling of being enfolded by<i> Shechinah</i>--the Indwelling Presence--the rains came in sprinkles and soft curtains, now and again hiding the Red Hill.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Morning Service. <br /><i>"Let us proclaim the sacred power of this day:</i></span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">It is awesome and full of dread . . .</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">On Rosh Hashanah it is written, on Yom Kippur it is sealed. . . </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Who by fire, and who by water, who by sword and who by beast . . ."</i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Additional Service. And a short walk in the sprinkling rain. <br />Resting on the porch, still well wrapped.<br />Memorial Service. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Afternoon Service. The Ten Martyrs. </span><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Eili tzion v'areha . . . For Zion and her cities I mourn </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">like a mother in her anguish,</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> like a woman who mourns the husband of her youth. </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I mourn the exile of the servants of G-d,</span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">makers of sweet melodies,</span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>v'al dama asher shufach . . . their blood poured out like Zion's streams</i>. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And all that day the rains fell, weeping like Rachel for her children . . .</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For we did not know, cut off in the sacred silence of that day, that in Colorado, in New Mexico, in Catron County, the flood waters were rising, and in the Blue River Canyon on Catron's border with Arizona, people were lifted out by helicopter and brought out on bulldozers. And it rained. And rained. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Neilah</i>. The Closing of the Gates. </span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YwxUPSqzJ9k/UjfXPNKlchI/AAAAAAAAFy0/QMGpgNYDUX8/s1600/neilah+art+wohl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-YwxUPSqzJ9k/UjfXPNKlchI/AAAAAAAAFy0/QMGpgNYDUX8/s320/neilah+art+wohl.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">"This is the house of G-d.<br />This is the gate of heaven . . . </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">El norah alila . . . G-d of awesome deeds, </span></i><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>grant us pardon . . . b'sh-at neilah . . . as the gates begin to close.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Avinu malkenu . . . let the gates of heaven be open to our prayer . . .</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>let the new year be a good year for us . . . make an end to all oppression</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>upon us . . .be our help</i>.<i> </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And the rain stopped. And we stopped to say the blessing for the Rainbow</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> a<i>s</i> the last rays of the setting sun shone across our valley. <br /><i>". . . zocher ha-brit . . . who remembers the covenant . . .</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Seu Sha-arim roshechem . . . Lift up your heads, O Gates!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Ha-shem, hu ha-elohim. . . </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Seven times and the last long blast of the Shofar.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We thought of it happening hour after hour as the world turned from day to night.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">All those at the Wall. <br /><br /><i>Havdalah.</i> </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>"Blessed is the One who separates the holy from the ordinary,</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>light from darkness, the House of Israel from among the peoples. . ."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And the candle is extinguished in the sweet wine, the taste of which is on our lips.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And the lamps are lighted.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Motzi.<br />". . . who brings forth bread from the earth . . ."</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Sweet round <i>challah </i>with raisins. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cream cheese. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Salmon. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We broke the fast, and eating and drinking, we once again consider the goodness of the ordinary riches of our lives. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>"For I saw how good it is for [man], and beautiful, to eat and drink and know goodness for all his work that he does under the sun . . ." </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We had good holidays. It was still beautiful and filled with meaning that we made, though we missed the beauty of being in the midst of the holy congregation. <br />But the rains kept us off the roads and in our home. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We made the best of it and we did well. </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We are soggy, and today I bottomed out the car in the arroyo, and had to have it towed because the box that monitors emissions and engine codes came loose.<i> </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We have rutted roads, a few wash-outs, and full streams<i>.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But no helicoptors or bulldozers.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We have electricity. <br />We are well. <br /><br />It's raining again.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The water-pouring of <i>Shemini Atzeret</i> comes a little early. <br /><i>Blessed is the One who causes the wind to blow and the rain to fall.</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>Geshem. </i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We wanted rain and we needed rain. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Everything is green, even as the Aspens are beginning to turn gold.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">But maybe, just maybe, it's time to build an ark? They need one in Colorado, Northern New Mexico, and on the Blue River. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><i>What's a cubit . . . </i> <br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br /></span>
Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-58918266335816581072013-09-11T19:41:00.001-06:002013-09-11T19:41:53.465-06:009-11: She Stands<blockquote style="margin-right: 0px" dir="ltr"> </blockquote> <p align="center"><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-ZQU_nq-Pq-E/UjEbNDRsGZI/AAAAAAAAFvw/OMQhXkHcaoY/s1600-h/9-11%252520Never%252520Forget%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="9-11 Never Forget" border="0" alt="9-11 Never Forget" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Gja9rM3rjDY/UjEbQnOe8bI/AAAAAAAAFv4/xAfMvfyzPSc/9-11%252520Never%252520Forget_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="231" height="226" /></a> </p> <p> </p> <p>I will never forget that day. It marked me just as surely as Pearl Harbor, Gettysburg and Valley Forge have marked previous generations of Americans. </p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3Ye00SQC0po/UjEbTcuvS9I/AAAAAAAAFwA/Hg7QhJkuEm0/s1600-h/9-11%252520Second%252520Plane%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="9-11 Second Plane" border="0" alt="9-11 Second Plane" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ad-Tn0Hf80w/UjEbVx1ipoI/AAAAAAAAFwI/K_G9JBc8VRI/9-11%252520Second%252520Plane_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="165" /></a>I close my eyes and I see the images:  <br />A tower burning in a clear, blue September sky. <br />An airplane flying into a building. <br />People falling along the side of a building. <br />Towers falling, one floor into another. <br />People running through what were once streets.   <br />Papers falling from the clear blue September sky. <br />All in silence. Like a dream. </p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-2HiI-XCe5gU/UjEbZucZ0YI/AAAAAAAAFwQ/Q68vMIta24A/s1600-h/firefightersraiseamericanflagamidsrescue%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="firefightersraiseamericanflagamidsrescue" border="0" alt="firefightersraiseamericanflagamidsrescue" align="right" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-FsMkI7ot0Nw/UjEbchqigiI/AAAAAAAAFwY/WPPtF1I6ZSk/firefightersraiseamericanflagamidsrescue_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a>And out of the dust and ashes, I see the image:  <br />She stands. <br /><em>“Just when you think it might be over <br />Just when you think the fight is gone <br />Someone will risk his life to raise her <br />There she stands  . . .”</em> (10 <br />I remember this as if I had been there. </p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-25vAC9NQIpA/UjEbgLD-oEI/AAAAAAAAFwg/J8zJmtJQ9B8/s1600-h/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Spire%252520Raised%252520II%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Freedom Tower Spire Raised II" border="0" alt="Freedom Tower Spire Raised II" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-OQD72g8lGdY/UjEbjI9SBZI/AAAAAAAAFwo/1quBnfLuTNo/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Spire%252520Raised%252520II_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a> Twelve years. And the tears still come.  <br />We are wounded in spirit.  <br />For a clear September sky still evokes <br />the frozen images as if no time had passed.  <br /><em>But through the tears we see another rising <br />to a new and taller stand. <br />For Americans still rise to greatness, and there she stands. . .</em> (2)</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-ggA1F1qEgmQ/UjEbmlCznOI/AAAAAAAAFww/jSELlEkCbCI/s1600-h/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Under%252520Construction%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Freedom Tower Under Construction" border="0" alt="Freedom Tower Under Construction" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-JCiScSBUO5k/UjEbp594q5I/AAAAAAAAFw4/oa2b0KrE9Cw/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Under%252520Construction_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="164" /></a> There she stands. <br /><em>It took longer than expected. <br />And we look back and count the cost. <br />1776 feet she rises, <br />There she stands. (2) <br /></em>The greatest monument to American dead <br />is to rebuild the alabaster cities of their dreams. <br />Out of the rubble, we raise them up: <br />higher, prouder, stronger than before. <br />She stands. <br /></p> <p><em><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KN2QEzLJ2Pk/UjEbtNRW2OI/AAAAAAAAFxA/sVdEZaZJHTI/s1600-h/9-11%252520Flag%252520in%252520Rubble%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="9-11 Flag in Rubble" border="0" alt="9-11 Flag in Rubble" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-YYDqO72jmro/UjEbv7zirDI/AAAAAAAAFxI/PBenvLWmgFU/9-11%252520Flag%252520in%252520Rubble_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="166" /></a> When evil calls itself a martyr <br />When all your hopes come crashing down <br />Someone will pull her from the rubble <br />There she stands.</em> (1) <br />Both of them-- <br />the flag and the Freedom Tower (3) <br />we raise to remind ourselves of <br />who we are <br />and to what we commit ourselves. </p> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-sX9PsysekNA/UjEbzdQGEOI/AAAAAAAAFxQ/JiKj0Pa13pM/s1600-h/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Alabaster%252520City%25255B2%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Freedom Tower Alabaster City" border="0" alt="Freedom Tower Alabaster City" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-fhw3BwCouvs/UjEb2s2Zr7I/AAAAAAAAFxY/24LkcgDkLc4/Freedom%252520Tower%252520Alabaster%252520City_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="212" height="244" /></a> </p> <p><em>“Oh, beautiful for patriot dream <br />That sees beyond the years. <br />Thine alabaster cities gleam, <br />undimmed by human tears. . .” (4) <br /></em></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p></p> <p>Click through to see a time-lapse video of the rise of the <a href="http://youtu.be/Nn11DWH_LEA" target="_blank">Freedom Tower</a>. (3)</p> <p><font size="1">NOTES: <br />1. There She Stands by Michael W. Smith <br />2. My words in the spirit of There She Stands, with apologies to Michael W. Smith. <br />3. I know they changed the name, but for me, it is and will always be Freedom Tower. <br />4. America the Beautiful by Katherine Lee Bates. </font></p> <p><font size="1"></font></p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:266b361c-4863-499c-a59e-e1992161d605" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/9-11" rel="tag">9-11</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Memory" rel="tag">Memory</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/American+Exceptionalism" rel="tag">American Exceptionalism</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-85566454021708380562013-08-10T21:53:00.001-06:002013-08-10T21:53:05.546-06:00Walking the Thin Line: Elul 5773<blockquote> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-4cn3lQMd5So/UgcKj-TUtMI/AAAAAAAAFuo/D7NOigXgE14/s1600-h/elul-selichot%25255B3%25255D.gif"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="elul-selichot" border="0" alt="elul-selichot" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-vYodu7b25JE/UgcKmGlzV8I/AAAAAAAAFuw/W3eHdWneRPM/elul-selichot_thumb%25255B1%25255D.gif?imgmax=800" width="244" height="120" /></a> </p> <p>“I, I Am the One that comforts you; who are you, to be afraid of man that shall die, and of the son of man that shall be made as grass. . .?”</p> </blockquote> <blockquote> <p>--Haftorah Shoftim, Isaiah 51:12</p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>“Righteousness, righteousness shall you pursue . . .”</p> <p>--Parashat Shoftim, Devarim 16:20</p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>“Walking the thin line, between fear and the call; one learns to bend and finally depend on the Love of it all.” </p> <p>--Noel Paul Stookey, For the Love of It All</p> </blockquote> <p><em></em></p> <p>The month of <em>Elul</em> started last Monday at sundown, on <em>Rosh Chodesh</em>, the sixth New Moon from the New Year for months. <br /> <br />My <em>Elul</em> dream this year came late, on Wednesday night, and without clarity or drama. In fact, I really don’t remember it at all, except that I dreamed of the current rabbi at our former synagogue, and of a neighbor in need of help finding a lost cat. I awoke to Tippy, my guardian Border Collie cross, pawing at my shoulder in the middle of the night. She feels it is important to awaken me when something unusual is going on. I went out to see an elk buck with eight points standing in the meadow in the deep darkness under a setting Big Dipper handle. Tippy did not bark at the elk this time; she seemed to think the elk belonged exactly in that place. She just wanted me to know he was there and awakened me to see him standing.</p> <p> </p> <p>I don’t have a ready interpretation for the fragment of a dream or the meaning of seeing the elk standing in his place. Their significance escapes me, except that as I stood gazing at the elk in the starlight, I remembered that it was now <em>Elul</em>.  <br /> </p> <p>This <em>Shabbat</em>, as the Engineering Geek and I sat down to study <em>Torah</em>, I was struck by two statements that jumped off the pages and into my mind, one from the beginning of the <em>Parashat </em>of the week, and one from its <em>Haftorah</em>. As I turned them over in my mind, I realized that the two of them together represent that place I have been for the last half-decade: I have been “walking the thin line between fear and the call” as Emmy Lou Harris sings in the Paul Stookey song, <em>The Love of it All</em>. </p> <p> </p> <p>The Torah portion for the first Shabbat in Elul is <em>Shoftim</em>, which means “judges” or “chieftans” in Hebrew. In the first paragraph, which deals with how judgment must conform to justice, we read: </p> <blockquote> <p>“You shall make for yourselves judges and officers in all your gates, which Adonai your G-d gives you, tribe by tribe; and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment: you shall not pervert justice; you shall not respect persons; neither shall you take a bribe, for a bribe blinds the  eyes of the wise and perverts the words of the righteous. Justice, justice shall you pursue, that you may live and possess the land that Adonai your G-d is giving to you.”</p> <p> </p> </blockquote> <p>צֶדֶק צֶדֶק תִּרְדּף<em> Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof</em></p> <p>The call at the beginning of the Month of Elul—the beginning of the season of our turning, is to pursue justice or righteousness. In Hebrew, the words are the same. Justice means to make a judgment according to honor, standards or the law, meting out to every individual what is right according to his or her rights and actions. Our rabbis taught that there is the justice of the streets—the righteousness with which we must treat every person—and the justice of the courts. If we fail to act with justice in all of our dealings on the streets, then justice must be adjudicated in the courts. In his commentary on the Torah, Joseph Hertz, Ph.D., who was the Chief Rabbi of Britain in the early 20th century, points out that in this sense, the Hebrew understanding of justice differs from the Greek. He wrote that in the Greek, justice implies:</p> <blockquote> <p> <br />“[A] harmonious arrangement of society, by which every human peg is put into its appropriate hole, so that those who perform humble functions shall be content to perform them in due subservience to their betters. It stresses the inequalities of human nature, whereas in the Hebrew conception of justice, the equality is stressed.” </p> <p><font size="2">--Soncino Press Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text, English Translation and Commentary, J.H. Hersch, Ed., p. 821</font></p> </blockquote> <p>This is the case because in Hebrew thought, every human being is made in the image of the Eternal, and his life is unique and precious, possessing, as he does, a spark of Infinity. Therefore, as Hersch continues, every person has “the right to life, honor and all the fruits of his labor,” (p. 821). For this reason, Jewish Law demands that every human being be treated with honor in the streets, and with righteousness in the courts. <br /> <br />But if the call of <em>Elul</em> is to justice, then the burden of answering it is fearful, as the prophets show us. For to behave with righteousness towards everyone in the streets and to mete out equal justice in the courts, flies in the face of social conventions and political correctness. One must honor truth, consider the facts, and render judgment accordingly in all dealings. One may not condemn the rich man because he is rich nor excuse the poor man because he is poor (“you shall not respect persons”), and one may not base how one treats another on gifts or flattery (“you shall not take a bribe”). For this reason, acting with righteousness and justice is likely to get a person in trouble socially and legally in an unjust society. And as we currently live in a society that no longer makes judgments based on righteousness and law, but does so on the exigencies of political correctness and the whims of men, acting with justice is a difficult and dangerous thing. </p> <p> </p> <p>And herein lies how I, among others, have been “walking the thin line between fear and the call” as we recognize the truth of what is being done to our civil society and to its values and law. For in my determination—made every Rosh Hashanah for the past four years—to honor the truth and act righteously, I have said and done things that have earned me the anger and contempt of friends and acquaintances. Sadly, this has ended many friendships that were based on my former habit of ignoring the reality of growing differences between our worldviews. Some of the ways in which those friendships were ended, and the accusations leveled against me, have cut me to the core of my being.</p> <p>  <br />And in my weaker moments, I am afraid that in stepping out beyond the lines of political correctness and social  and legal convention, I will be harmed not only socially, but financially and/or physically. Because making a stand for plain old justice in a world of collectivist notions of “social justice” is no longer simply bad form, but with the oppression of the surveillance state and the police state being created and solidifying with terrifying rapidity, it is downright dangerous. Speech and action that now can cost one her dignity, property and perhaps, her liberty, may soon cost one her life. <br /> <br /> <br />And that fear causes me temporary confusion and wrong action. It creates doubt in my mind and silence in my mouth. And so the <em>Haftorah Shoftim</em>, the fourth in the seven <em>Haftorot of Comfort</em>, also comforts me: <br /> <br /><em>“I, I Am the One that comforts you; who are you to be afraid . . ? </em></p> <p><em>“. . . And where is the fury of the oppressor? He that is bent down shall speedily be loosed; and he shall not go down dying into the pit. Neither shall his bread fail.” <br /></em></p> <em> <p> <br /></p> I know that I am one small person. I know that I can err in knowledge, and that I have indeed done so, espousing bad causes and supporting bad means in the name of what seemed to me at the time to be good ends. Moreover, I have obstinately continued in bad courses because I did not have the courage to admit that I was confused, or lacking in knowledge, or that I was downright wrong. And in so doing, I have excused the guilty and harmed the innocent. Of this, I am not proud.  <br /> <br />But to paraphrase Julian of Norwich: </em> <p>He did not say “You shall not screw up.” He did not say “You shall not be discouraged.” He did not say:\ “You shall not be harmed.” But he said: “You shall not be overcome.” <br /> <br />I suppose what that means is open to interpretation. To me, it means that trials and troubles, and even harm are not the worst thing. The worst thing is to lose one’s honor and integrity; to lose one’s identity and one’s very soul. And if I persist in finding righteousness and doing justice, turning and returning again to walk the thin line, then despite any shame or harm done to me, I will remain who I am, and that is the greatest value to me. <br /> <br />The name of the month of <em>Elul</em> is an acronym in Hebrew that stands for <em>Ani l’dodi, v’dodi li—I am my beloved’s, and my beloved is mine. Elul </em>is the point of turning and returning again in the dance of <em>Shekinah, She who dwells with Israel in our exile, </em>in our eternal betrothal with the Master of the Universe. And here, in my own dwelling place, <em>Elul</em> is the point of turning and returning again in my dance as a Jew, longing all my life for that moment of loving kindness, that betrothal of righteousness and justice, that Place, that shelter in the rock, where I get a glimpse of all of G-d’s goodness passing before me. </p> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>“For the Love of it all, I would go anywhere; to the ends of the earth, Oh, what is it worth, if Love would be there? </p> <p>Walking the thin line, between fear and the call; one learns to bend and finally depend on the Love of it all.” </p> <p> </p> </blockquote> <p>It is the love of it all—of life and being—that unites the call to justice and righteousness with the will to overcome fear and fills my heart with strength for the journey. And year after year, I turn and return again to the call in the dance of <em>Elul</em>. I come again to Makom, the Dwelling Place of Israel, only to know that I have been here, walking the thin line, day after day, year after year. </p> <p> </p> <p>So. Maybe I can construct the meaning of Tippy’s silence as she brought me to see the elk. He was standing within his place, his <em>Makom</em>. And so am I, walking the thin line. Here, in this place between fear and the call, is <em>Makom,</em> the Presence of the Eternal. As Israel learned in her exile, as Isaiah reminds Jews to this day in the first Haftorah of Comfort: <br /></p> <p align="center"> <br /><font size="3">הִנֵּה אֱלֹהֵיכֶם</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="3">Hinei eloheichem</font></p> <p align="center"><font size="3">Here is your G-d. </font> <br /><strong> </strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <p><strong></strong></p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:3a6a6bab-1e79-4943-a7c0-91dc38bc8187" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Elul" rel="tag">Elul</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Jewish+Identity" rel="tag">Jewish Identity</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Torah+Study" rel="tag">Torah Study</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/T'shuvah" rel="tag">T'shuvah</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-52154125730367040712013-08-09T19:18:00.001-06:002013-08-09T19:18:05.286-06:00Lie in August’s Welcome Corn!<blockquote> <p><em>     “Join in black December’s sadness, lie in August’s welcome corn, stir the cup that’s ever blending with the blood of all that’s born . . .”</em></p> </blockquote> <p><em>-- </em>Jethro Tull<em>,</em>  <em>Cup of Wonder, </em>from <em>Songs from the Wood</em></p> <p><em>                          </em></p> <p><em>Pesach</em> took me by surprise and then there was a long silence on this blog. So many things happened in April and May and then summer was upon us, and now the Monsoon and the first hints of autumn are already showing themselves here in the high country. Elul is also upon us, early this year just as Pesach was. But in order to begin looking to the year ahead, I need to look back at least a bit to see what brought me from there to here. </p> <p> </p> <p><u><strong>April, Come She Will:</strong></u></p> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-owL3rfgZxoE/UgWUOOL4cjI/AAAAAAAAFtQ/ii1EIphcFM8/s1600-h/Northern%252520Flicker%252520Female%252520III%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Northern Flicker Female III" border="0" alt="Northern Flicker Female III" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-E3bDvmQRS9A/UgWURUr7j7I/AAAAAAAAFtY/89auRvhMjyc/Northern%252520Flicker%252520Female%252520III_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="218" /></a> The post-Pesach Spring Term was divided between Freedom Ridge Ranch and the house in Sedillo. Both the Cowboy and I were taking classes, he at CNM and me at UNM. In April, we drove up to Albuquerque every Monday morning and returned late Thursday night. It was a hectic busy time, make more do-able by the increasing light and warmth, although it was a cool spring in New Mexico. </p> <p>In April, I:</p> <ul> <li>  Edited a dissertation for my Ruby Slipper friend, doing both APA Style formatting, grammar and spelling, and helping with writing style<em>. </em></li> <li> Worked on a literature review for a class I was taking, as well as a research proposal and presentation.</li> <li>  Enjoyed down time hanging out at Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque, and began planning the summer work at the ranch.</li> </ul> <p><strong><u></u></strong></p> <p><strong><u>May Days:<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-FiR44CiC3zY/UgWUWRH1rPI/AAAAAAAAFtg/4kSK-YgdMjY/s1600-h/DSC01283%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01283" border="0" alt="DSC01283" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/--NuLvMUI_Gw/UgWUZ75qenI/AAAAAAAAFto/N6tTIp9izo4/DSC01283_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></u></strong></p> <p>The term ended for the Cowboy and I at the end of April,  and he returned to the ranch and stayed. However, I was still back and forth there, and on up to Aurora, Colorado, mostly on Libertarian Business. </p> <p>In May, I: </p> <ul> <li>  Helped plan and attended the LPNM annual convention, where I was termed out as Vice Chair and began a term as Secretary. There was a lot of politicking involved this time as we had a take-over threat and I really wanted our current Chair to remain Chair, although he wasn’t so sure. </li> <li>  Continued final editing on the Ruby Slipper’s dissertation, which reported a kick-ass study he did.</li> <li>  Drove up to Aurora one weekend for the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance meeting, held in conjunction with the Colorado State Convention. This was great—more relaxed than the bi-annual National Convention—there was plenty of time to talk to Libertarians. It always feels like coming home! </li> <li>   With the pressures of committee and comps preparation over for the semester, I had a chance to spend time with Excel Manufacturing friends after a long hiatus. </li> <li>  At the ranch, we welcomed our only baby calf of the spring (we had shipped some of the older cows and the bull earlier in the year). We also had water-pipe problems and had to work on the system, and install a new French drain in the irrigation system as well. We got the fencing complete for the greenhouse/garden area. </li> </ul> <p><strong><u></u></strong></p> <p><strong><u>June is the Hottest Month: </u></strong></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-VuYY9h5gYQs/UgWUeoI8Z0I/AAAAAAAAFtw/rhMiVst1bq4/s1600-h/DSC01337%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01337" border="0" alt="DSC01337" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-KVg-LI19ZEs/UgWUhQhBlLI/AAAAAAAAFt4/yrqPWMInu9c/DSC01337_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> June is hot and dry in New Mexico. Every living thing begins to long for water, and people slow down. We had several weeks of very hot weather, and late in June, temperatures climbed to a record 106 degrees. During late May and June, we had a number of serious wildfires in New Mexico and Arizona, and we saw some smoke at the ranch and in Albuquerque.</p> <p>In June: </p> <ul> <li>I picked up my nephew, the Illinois Boy, at the airport as his parents moved to Texas and he came to try out life at the ranch. Once he adjusted to the altitude, he took to it very well. </li> <li>The day I picked up the IB, I had a long talk with my realtor, and we brought the price down for the Sedillo house, my beautiful Hobbit Hole. It was a painful decision, but important. We knew we needed to sell the house. </li> <li>On the second Friday in June, I thought I saw lightning as I was setting the Shabbat table. Dry lightning is common in June, so I thought nothing of it. The next morning, I woke up with a floater in my eye. I called Eye-Doc Randi that afternoon, and the short of it is that I had a vitreous detachment, requiring numerous trips to Albuquerque and UNM Eye Clinic for monitoring.</li> <li>We started fencing for a new horse pasture, and the Cowboy was really happy to have the IB’s help. The IB also learned to ride a horse, drive cattle and drive the tractor. We will make a cowboy of him yet!</li> <li>I went riding every week with a friend, JL, another Jew in the Republic of Catron. She was a wrangler for years in Arizona, and passed on some of her riding expertise to me.</li> <li>The Cowboy broke his hand while driving cows, and spent five weeks in a cast. Or he was supposed to, anyway! </li> </ul> <p> </p> <p> </p> <p><strong><u>Glorious July:</u></strong>  <a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-6GYEKIuV5KM/UgWUm3YRUzI/AAAAAAAAFuA/wkJ4lyxhaEU/s1600-h/DSC01358%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01358" border="0" alt="DSC01358" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-hwnJQQcryFY/UgWUpwLuCsI/AAAAAAAAFuI/FZWZwVIOmcg/DSC01358_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></p> <p>July was truly a wonderful month, because the Monsoon  came right on the Glorious Fourth and stayed through the month. We got 3.53 inches of precipitation for the month, several of them in cloudbursts that re-arranged the landscape. </p> <p>In July: </p> <ul> <li>We celebrated the Glorious 4th small-town style, with a parade and BBQ. Yours truly was honored to read the Declaration of Independence right after the choral presentation of patriotic music. </li> <li>The IB settled in, helping me dig retention basins around the trees, and we started a garden. </li> <li>The Cowboy spend several weeks working cattle at the York Ranch, but that ended in mid-July because the Monsoon had not yet hit the Continental Divide Country, and they shipped their cattle to a ranch in Texas for better grass. </li> <li>I qualified for my Concealed Carry Weapon license, shooting the EG’s Glock .40!</li> <li>The Cowboy removed his cast prematurely at the York Ranch, cutting it off himself, because it was getting gnarly. He’s definitely a Cowboy. </li> <li>The IB had to return to Illinois to take care of some business late in July and we weren’t sure if he was coming back. </li> <li>In the same week, Eye-Doc Randi found a small tear in the retina of my right eye—the one with the vitreous detachment—and I had a week in Albuquerque, playing appointment tag with an over-worked retina specialist. </li> <li>In the same week, the IB decided to come back—with resome gentle pushing and bribery from his mother and grandparents, and I arranged the flight. </li> <li>In the same week, we had a real gully-washer and frog-strangler, that washed away half the county. We have a new micro-topography here at the Ranch. </li> </ul> <p> </p> <p><strong><u>Lie in August’s Welcome Corn:  <br /> <br /></u></strong><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-Li-RX3K89Rw/UgWUt1bF2AI/AAAAAAAAFuQ/Lc1R5K-dwyU/s1600-h/Morning%252520After%252520Rain%252520III%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Morning After Rain III" border="0" alt="Morning After Rain III" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DDcGwm7EO2I/UgWUxXYeZiI/AAAAAAAAFuY/E9zpFl9Yq0U/Morning%252520After%252520Rain%252520III_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="162" /></a>And here we are at the end of the first full week of August. Time speeds when there is so much to accomplish and so many things happening. </p> <p>The country looks like spring does elsewhere, all green and gold with water falling from the sky, running, trickling and making mud for the dogs to play in and trucks to get stuck in. The IB, gone barely two weeks, did not recognize the place. <br /> <br />And the day I picked him up at the airport, we got an offer on the house. Monday, that was. We dickered Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon. We came to agreement just after I had a good interview for a part-time staff position at CNM, a position I applied for in the Disability Center. <br /> <br />Whoo-hoo! The house is under contract. And, sniffle, we must now say good-bye to that era in our lives. <br /> <br />And just in time for Elul—the season of our turning . . . <br /> <br />But that’s another blog. </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:2d986d49-011b-4418-a840-9bbd03431704" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meanwhile+Back+at+the+Ranch" rel="tag">Meanwhile Back at the Ranch</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Summertime" rel="tag">Summertime</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Family+Life" rel="tag">Family Life</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-18746781270911857842013-03-22T17:03:00.001-06:002013-03-22T17:03:31.042-06:00Pesach: This Kept Us Standing<p> </p> <blockquote> <p><font color="#0080c0">“And this Covenant is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves as well: That in every generation more than one enemy has arisen against us, to annihilate us, but the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.”</font></p> <p><font color="#0080c0">--Vehi Sheamda, Hagaddah shel Pesach </font></p> <font color="#0080c0"></font></blockquote> <blockquote> <p><font color="#0080c0"></font></p> <p><font color="#0080c0">“Rashi comments that this declaration of Vehi Sheamda is the reiteration of the promise that Ha-Shem made to Avraham of "V'gam as hagoi asher ya'avdu, dan anochi..." The nation that enslaves you will also be judged by Me..." This promise, which has stood for our forefathers, stands for us as well. Anyone who comes upon us, Ha-Shem judges them and saves us from their hands.”  </font></p> <p><font color="#0080c0">--R. Yehuda Prero, <u>The Passover Hagaddah Commentary Part I: Maggid</u> (torah.org) </font></p> </blockquote> <p><em><font color="#0080c0"></font></em></p> <p>Passover time seems to take me by surprise when it comes early in the solar year. This year, it begins this Monday evening, March 25, and getting myself motivated to do the cleaning, get the <em>chametz</em> out, and turn the kitchen over has been difficult. With everything that is going on in our lives right now, I kept hearing that voice in my head saying: “I don’t want to do it this year. This year, I think I’ll skip it. After all, how important is that I, a little person, observe all the rituals and complete the <strike>slaving</strike> cleaning for Pesach. Surely, the Universe will not be disturbed by my decision not to participate.” </p> <p> </p> <p>And then a friend sent me this beautiful rendition of <em>Vehi Sheamda</em> with commentary by the chief rabbi of South Africa: <br /></p> <p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:5737277B-5D6D-4f48-ABFC-DD9C333F4C5D:d7df6e34-bd68-4311-a641-c9df2ea407e5" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent"><div id="8c5a2251-26bd-47cf-bac1-39ce5437f973" style="margin: 0px; padding: 0px; display: inline;"><div><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eVMfNQskWc" target="_new"><img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-8ZH_jt-VvRY/UUzjO_1jZeI/AAAAAAAAFrc/GmLqvDLmwgU/video021acbc16ce4%25255B7%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-style: none" galleryimg="no" onload="var downlevelDiv = document.getElementById('8c5a2251-26bd-47cf-bac1-39ce5437f973'); downlevelDiv.innerHTML = "<div><object width=\"338\" height=\"282\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/0eVMfNQskWc&hl=en\"><\/param><embed src=\"http://www.youtube.com/v/0eVMfNQskWc&hl=en\" type=\"application/x-shockwave-flash\" width=\"338\" height=\"282\"><\/embed><\/object><\/div>";" alt=""></a></div></div></div> </p> <p> </p> <p>And when I saw the translation given for the first line of the Vehi Sheamda: “And this <em>COVENANT</em> is what kept our ancestors standing, and ourselves . . .” I got it. Of course it matters that I clean and remove the <em>chametz</em> from our little house, here on the edge of the Mogollon Rim, far from the centers of power in the world. <br /> <br />From the point of view of those who hate us, who denigrate the beautiful heritage of Torah, it does not matter what I do. In fact, they would rather that I did nothing. They would rather that I, that we, forget the Covenant and disappear like all the other nations, becoming a footnote to a footnote in the reaches of history. </p> <p><em>“For in every generation, more than one enemy has arisen to destroy us.”</em> This statement is undeniably true. Never in our long and tumultuous history, have the Jewish people been ignored and been allowed to freely exercise the observance of our Covenant unopposed. Although America has become home and our greatest sanctuary, it is uncertain at best, given the hatred directed at the Land of Free and the Home of Brave, and at those of us among her people who are Jews. <br /></p> <p>And yet we persist. Out of sheer cussed stubbornness, we insist on going on existing despite the depredations of our enemies. And why do we persist? That is a miracle of the most Hebrew kind. For no natural laws have been suspended for us, and many of Jews have gone up in smoke, or have had rockets rain down upon their heads in their own lands, or have been forced from their homes in Egypt, in Yemen, in Iran—from those days at this season, to this day when we live under the threat of being bombed back to the stone age by mullahs from the stone age. <br /> <br />But the signs and wonders are there, and the evidence of the mighty hand of the Eternal, for those with eyes to see them. Unlike Moses, most of the world has no patience to sit and watch a bush aflame until they can see that it is not consumed. And so most human beings miss the signs and wonders that they walk past every day. <br /> <br />Among them, is this sign. Once again, all over the world, Jewish women retrieve the mops and brooms, fill their pails with water, and begin the ancient ritual of clearing out the <em>chametz</em>—the leaven—from their homes. We kneel down to sweep it away with a feather, and our men take it to burn it on the eve of Pesach. All of us, every year, are enacting the journey from slavery to freedom, from the worship of idols to the service of the Covenant, from Jerusalem destroyed to Jerusalem rebuilt. <br /> <br />In these humble actions, unnoticeable and unnoted, we renew for ourselves the Covenant that began when we came forth from slavery, into freedom. Passover, like all other Jewish holidays, is a reminded of the Covenant. But Passover is also the story of how we came to be who we are, <em>Am ha-Brit</em>, the People of the Covenant. <br /></p> <p>“<em>But the Covenant of the Holy One has stood and delivered us from their hands.” </em>The sign and the wonder is not something that is shown to us as we continue to survive and thrive despite the wish of the most recent of our enemies to “wipe us off the map” of the world. Rather, the sign and the wonder is us, ourselves, keeping the Covenant. We have been taught that if even a remnant of Israel keeps the Covenant, that will be the salvation of us all. And for us, salvation is not some promise of life after death, rather it is the continuation of our people. Salvation is effected in our stubborn insistence that: <em>Od Avinu Chai! Am Yisrael Chai!</em> Our father yet lives! The People Israel lives! <br /> <br />“<em>For as much as we keep the Covenant, the Covenant keeps us</em>.” (<em>Machzor</em>). As Jews, as that obstinate Remnant of Israel, that goes on surviving when most of the world would rather we were dead, the meticulous observation of the laws of Pesach, and the arcane rituals from another time are a touchstone that reminds us who we are. On the surface, I am an ordinary ranch wife, an American woman living in the rump end of flyover country, a human being among millions, whose life and death will be little known and little noticed. But when I kneel down to sweep the <em>chametz</em> off the hearth, I am also a daughter of the Covenant, a child of Abraham and Sarah, a companion of Moses and Miriam. I am free woman, brought forth from slavery, with signs and wonders, awesome power, a mighty arm and outstretched hand. My liberty matters. <br /> <br /> And what I do about that matters. It matters because it preserves an identity that has existed from Sinai until now, an eternal braid of ritual and remembrance, giving my actions a meaning and reality that transcends my place and time. And so, despite the whispers of the destroyers who have dogged our steps from Egypt until now, and despite the momentary whisper of not wanting to begin, I retrieved my mop and broom, filled my pail with water, and began to clean my house, remove the chametz, and tomorrow after Shabbat, I will turn over the kitchen for Pesach. <br /> <br />“<em>For in every generation, each one is obligated to regard herself as having personally come forth from Egypt . . </em>.”</p> <p>It was not easy to come forth from the house of slavery, the fleshpots of Egypt. But some things are worth fighting for. Our existence and our identity as a people nurtured on freedom comes from this Covenant. <br />“<em>And THIS COVENANT is what keeps us standing . . </em>.”</p> <p> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:d259c5a0-2b49-4089-9b4d-d12be2b1b8c6" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Passover" rel="tag">Passover</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Jewish+Identity" rel="tag">Jewish Identity</a></div> <p> <br /> <br /> <br /> <br /></p> <p> </p> <blockquote><font color="#0080c0"> <p> <br /></p> </font></blockquote> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-87011184546732470582013-01-27T22:23:00.001-07:002013-01-27T22:23:33.023-07:00Lady Macbeth is a Racist: Newspeak, Self-Censorship and Withdrawing Sanction<blockquote></blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>A good deal of the literature of the past was, indeed, already being transformed [ideologically]. Considerations of prestige made it desirable to preserve the memory of certain historical figures, while at the same time bringing their achievements into line with the philosophy of Ingsoc. Various writers, such as Shakespeare, Milton, Swift, Byron, Dickens, and some others were therefore in process of translation: when the task had been completed, their original writings, with all else that survived of the literature of the past, would be destroyed.</p> <p>--George Orwell: <a href="http://www.newspeakdictionary.com/ns-prin.html" target="_blank">Principles of Newspeak</a></p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>Simply put, if you are . . . for Constitutionally limited government, free market capitalism, equality under the law, and freedom for all Americans, then you are a racist. If you are for unlimited government and increasing dependency on the Democrat Party, then you are not a racist. Any questions?</p> <p>-- Kyle Becker: <a href="http://www.conservativedailynews.com/2012/11/the-politically-correct-guide-to-racism-for-idiots/" target="_blank">The Politically Correct Guide to Racism for Idiots</a> </p> </blockquote> <p> </p> <blockquote> <p>I saw that there comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent. I saw that I could put an end to your outrages by pronouncing a single word in my mind. I pronounced it. The word was “No.”</p> <p>--Ayn Rand: John Galt’s Speech, Atlas Shrugged</p> <p> </p> </blockquote> <p> There has been much discussion on the internet of the Progressive Democrat’s tendency to avoid constructing an argument or to shout down a painful truth by accusing others of racism. On the punditry level, such accusations has gone from the ridiculous to the outright idiotic as black Democratic Party hacks have gone from accusing libertarians and conservatives of racism for criticism of the president for his ideology and policies to accusing us of racism for the use of certain otherwise neutral words in our political speech. It has come to the point where one can neither criticize Obama for his general ineptitude, foreign policy or domestic policies, nor use certain words (“golf,” “apartment,” “anger,” “socialist” and “crime” all come to mind) in reference to any administration official whatsoever, without being accused of being a racist. <br /> <br />In the political arena, we know the purpose of this tactic: it is to silence and isolate the opposition without the bother of actually constructing an argument. Such demonization is a shortcut to winning through intimidation, in order that certain ideas become impossible to talk about at all, ensuring the Democratic party an unearned hegemony over public discourse. In short, it is Newspeak in the Orwellian sense: </p> <blockquote> <p>The purpose of Newspeak was not only to provide a medium of expression for the world-view and mental habits proper to the devotees of IngSoc, but to make all other modes of thought impossible. It was intended that when Newspeak had been adopted once and for all and Oldspeak forgotten, a heretical thought -- that is, a thought diverging from the principles of IngSoc -- should be literally unthinkable, at least so far as thought is dependent on words.</p> <p>--George Orwell: Principles of Newspeak</p> </blockquote> <p>Thus the accusation of racism in response to political speech in this fashion is the tool of the demagogue, pure and simple. </p> <p>Even more troubling is the use of the tactic by progressives against their “friends” during personal and public conversations on any topic in which someone lets a political (but not necessarily partisan) statement slip out. Here again, the purpose of the accusation is to demonize someone who does not agree on some issue, and to  <br />silence opposition in order to evade an unwanted truth. </p> <p>Since we live in a society that conflates accusation with guilt, such an attack is difficult to recover from, because it is impossible to prove a negative. It is a powerful technique of the political left, placing their enemies on the defensive, and allowing the demagogues to claim the moral high ground while conducting themselves in the most vile manner, in an impressive display of irrationality and bullying.  <br /> <br />Such attacks serve to impoverish the language of discourse, and leave rational people scratching their heads over whether they can talk about the ‘pot calling the kettle black’ or calling a ‘spade an f***ing shovel’. The self-righteous censors thus achieve their object of making discourse on certain topics impossible, and setting boundaries on what people who disagree with them are able to say, right down to the nouns themselves: black, dark, spot . . . <br /> <br />Did I say spot? Yes, I did. Because according to one self-righteously progressive former friend, Shakespeare’s Lady Macbeth is a racist. In a personal conversation relating to a rather bitter and nasty remark she made toward another of her “friends” in the context of Obama’s second inaugural, “spot” is a racist term. After I allowed as to how the statement was unlike my  former friend’s usual happy and sunny disposition, she commented to me: “‘Methinks the lady doth protest too much.’” To which I responded: <br />“I don’t think I am ready to “out, out that damned spot.’”  She then enquired about the health of my sense of humor. Seeing that she didn’t really “get” my reference to her quote from Macbeth, I told her I didn’t have a sense of humor, apparently—since my poor attempt was not understood—excused myself and went about my day. <br />  <br />Later, I was totally blindsided when, in connection with a different discussion that she initiated, she wrote about the “racist comment” that I had left on her Facebook Timeline. Having already been accused of “protesting too much,” I pointed out that the reference was to Lady Macbeth’s mad scene, and when my former friend insisted it was a racist reference (I suppose about Obama, even though he had not been a topic of the conversation), I did not bother to continue the conversation. <br /> <br />For those who do not know the reference, as I suspect the progressive bully did not, here is the reference from Macbeth, Act 5 Scene I, in which the lady goes mad for having murdered the king: <br /></p> <blockquote> <p><b><a name="35">LADY</a> MACBETH</b> <br /><code><a name="35">35</a> </code>Out, damned spot! out, I say!—One: two: why, <br /><code><a name="36">36</a> </code>then, 'tis time to do't.—Hell is murky!—Fie, my <br /><code><a name="37">37</a> </code>lord, fie! a soldier, and afeard? What need we <br /><code><a name="38">38</a> </code>fear who knows it, when none can call our power <br /><code><a name="39">39</a> </code>to account?—Yet who would have thought the old <br /><code><a name="40">40</a> </code>man to have had so much blood in him? </p> <p><code></code><b>Doctor</b> <br /><code><a name="41">41</a> </code>Do you mark that?</p> <p><code></code><b>LADY MACBETH</b> <br /><code><a name="42">42</a> </code>The thane of Fife had a wife; where is she now?— <br /><code><a name="43">43</a> </code>What, will these hands ne'er be clean?—No more o' <br /><code><a name="44">44</a> </code>that, my lord, no more o' that: you mar all with <br /><code><a href="http://shakespeare-navigators.com/" name="45">45</a> </code>this starting.</p> </blockquote> <p>The spot she is seeing in her madness is the blood of murder on her hands. My reference was simply an attempt to defuse the rapidly deteriorating conversation by responding to the reference to Lady Macbeth with a reference of my own.  As one of my friends said, upon seeing the exchange between me and my once friendly bully: “Good thing you didn’t refer to Othello. That would have forever blackened your name.”  <br /> <br />The response to this kind of bullying is often self-censorship. The individual so attacked and publicly vilified so unfairly will often begin to think before speaking, to spend time trying to avoid all of the trip-wire words and phrases that might result in another accusation of racism. This is a useless exercise. <br /> <br />Make no mistake about it, the purpose of such tactics is to demonize and isolate anyone with a voice who would oppose the progressive ideology, in order to try to render her ineffective through the art of the smear. It doesn’t matter what words liberty-loving libertarians and conservatives say, the progressive ideologue will twist them or outright lie about their import, diverting attention from the actual topic of conversation into the denouncement of a personal attack. The purpose—overt or covert—is to silence dissent from the statist/collectivist/progressive world view. (For more on this see David Horowitz’s pamphlet, <a href="http://frontpagemag.com/2009/david-horowitz/barack-obama%E2%80%99s-rules-for-revolution-the-alinsky-model-by-david-horowitz/" target="_blank">Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolutionaries: The Alinksy Model</a>). <br /> <br />Now here I hasten to add that not everyone who makes the politically correct racist accusation is, in fact, a leftist ideologue. Many are the useful idiots, who buy the moral high-ground without understanding the basis of the tactics involved. Nor do they necessarily aspire to the ultimate goal, although they usually have some inchoate sense of helping to bring about utopia. A sense of being wronged, of being entitled to something someone else has, that they want and have not gotten often fuels such an attitude, as it has in my former friend’s case. She angrily accused me of having “got yours” and of all manner of violent intention and lack of charity now that I had it. None of this has any basis in reality, but it does bespeak anger and resentment improperly directed at me. To put it bluntly, my former friend is playing the politics of envy for her own purposes, and is likely a useful idiot rather than a leftist ideologue. <br /></p> <p>But whatever the reason for such accusations as this, the purpose is the same: to silence those who disagree and threaten the leftist Vision of the Anointed. And it often works. Ask yourself how often you have bit your tongue rather than respond to some diatribe in a university classroom, how often you have erased a comment after trying to craft it in order not to be misunderstood, and you will begin to recognize how often you may have censored yourself. <br /> <br />Although the progressive left is not above an overt attack on the First Amendment ( and we have already heard the warning shots across the bow), it is far easier to get people to censor themselves rather than to suppress them by external force. The power of social condemnation is great, and many otherwise vocal Americans would rather be silent than to risk it for little purpose. After all, we reason, it is unlikely that my speaking up will change any minds in this place at this time. <br /> <br />I vehemently disagree. Of course, it doesn’t do much good to continue an argument on someone else’s Facebook Timeline, blog or in their home and on their turf. However, in public, whether it be in a college class or PTA meetings, it is important to speak up, peacefully but firmly. Silence can be taken for assent, and we must not give  up our sanction to such unreasonable and downright evil tactics as demonization by accusations of racism. <br /> <br />In her novel Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand’s protagonists call this “the sanction of the victim.” This is the ideas that evil in and of itself is powerless and unreasonable, and must not only take from the good to survive, but needs the moral approbation of the victim in order to triumph. By silently accepting an accusation of racism and allowing it to shut us up, we are giving that much more power to false accusation. By apologizing for our principles arrived at rationally, we are allowing unreason and emptiness to take the moral high ground. How then can we complain when that emptiness and meanness brings down all that is creative and productive in our world? <br /> <br />It is also true that if you speak out, it is likely you will soon hear from a number of other people in the room who were thinking the same thing, but frightened to say it, each one feeling alone and isolated, which is just what the irrational accusation was intended to accomplish. Nothing defeats a bully tactic better that straight up, reasoned confrontation that brings principled people together. Hearing others refuse their sanction to patent nonsense encourages good people to speak up. It benefits all people of principle to encourage one another, for the culture wars are nothing less than a battle for our liberty and our civilization. We must fight it with more passion and conviction than our enemies, who take it very seriously indeed. <br /> <br />In my situation with my former friend, I knew it would be fruitless to continue in an “was not, was too” fashion there on her Timeline. I also recognized that we are not and cannot be friends. Friendship requires shared values and mutual respect—a sanction of one another’s goals at some level, and a genuine desire to bring out the best in the other. It is not a mark of friendship to tolerate another’s wrongs or weaknesses, and to accept less than the best in that person. I have known for some time that the shared values I used to enjoy with this friend have disappeared, and that her political ideology precludes any agreement.  <br /> <br />For the longest time, I did not understand why many of my friends and compatriots in the battle for liberty and reason would make announcements such as: “If you voted for Obama, then please unfriend me.” I thought that it was still possible to keep the lines of communication open. It has now dawned on me—too slowly to spare me pain—that there is no communication with those who substitute platitudes for principles and demagoguery for reason, that this is not about the ordinary disagreements of normal American politics, it is a battle between two incompatible world views, one of which will destroy the other. <br /> <br />Now I understand my friends’ actions. I will not tolerate a so-called friend who turns on me and demonize me so readily, because that is not the behavior of a friend. I cannot continue to give my sanction to irrational ravings and untruthful accusations, because I myself will lose my mooring to reality. There can be no compromise on principle, and there can be no surrender of my values without the loss of all that I have learned and all that I hope to accomplish in the future.  <br /> <br />I will not sit idly by while accusations of racism pervert and destroy discourse, silencing the good for the sake of the weak.  </p> <p> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:96823bbd-6458-42dc-aedb-4054809cbd39" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Courage" rel="tag">Courage</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Politically+Incorrect" rel="tag">Politically Incorrect</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Moral+Sanction" rel="tag">Moral Sanction</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Newspeak" rel="tag">Newspeak</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-88466940123643705602013-01-10T14:49:00.001-07:002013-01-10T14:49:11.115-07:00Of Bullies, Trolls, Curmudgeons and Aspergers<blockquote> <p><font color="#008080">“ ‘The Kid’ never races anybody. He just sits there and scares the hell out of ‘em.” <br />--- Paul Stookey, Paultalk <br /></font> <br /><font color="#008080">"Who is more foolish? The fool, or the fool who follows him?” <br />--Obi Wan Kenobi, Star Wars: A New Hope</font></p> <p> <br /><font color="#008080">Yetzer ha-Ra: That Troll hole sure looks interesting . . . <br />Yetzer ha-Tov: Stay on target. Stay on target!Yetzer ha-Ra: Maybe we can have a productive conversation, he can’t be ALL bad!            Yetzer ha-Tov: Negative, Captain. That Troll’s female hatred index is 78%,  and the diction analysis indicates a high level of cruel cynicism. Recomend aborting the diversion and heading straight for an Objectivist bulletin board.  Yetzer ha-Ra: Poor troll, there’s probably just a scared little boy inside. You can bring out the . . <br />Yetzer ha Tov: Do NOT feed the troll! Do NOT feed the . . . . Damn. She’s gonna . . . there it goes! Libertarian Trolls are NOT rational. It’s gonna be ugly . . .                                     Ship: Ping! Brrrrwahahahahahaharhrhrhrh! Pow! <br />Yetzer ha-Ra: Beetle-bomb!                      Yetzer ha-Tov: Captain, impulse engines still operating. What are your coordinates, Ma’am? <br />Ship: (Coughing slightly and waving smoke away). Where is that Objectivist site, again?  I think maybe a fuel change is in order.  Earl Gray. Hot! </font></p> <p><font color="#008080">---- Fragment of Internal Dialogue </font></p> <p> </p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-3Ot1PS9kW10/UO828ucQNkI/AAAAAAAAFpA/L2xrY_kUSUY/s1600-h/Troll%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Troll" border="0" alt="Troll" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-50jMkmjcjIk/UO82_gE1YzI/AAAAAAAAFpI/PLQv3hATVko/Troll_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="165" /></a>On the internet, bullies are people who derive a certain sense of power by sneering and whining, deliberately targeting those who take a discussion seriously or literally, and taking conversations off-track. In short, petty cyber-bullies—often called <a href="http://pluperfecter.blogspot.com/2011/08/6-special-breeds-of-trolls-on.html" target="_blank">trolls</a>—will do anything to keep a conversation from evolving in order to keep themselves at the center of attention, even as the circle of that attention becomes smaller and smaller.  <br /> <br />Outside of the cyber-world, the way to stop a bully is to call him out. A bully is generally  a coward with an aversion to picking on someone who will fight back. Running in and slashing at others, then retreating like a hyena is the typical bully style. This is why I taught my son that the manly thing to do is never to start a fight, but always finish it. Decisively.   <br /> <br />But in the cyber-world, where people have been intimidated by a false definition of censorship, and where the only person with any freedom of speech is the bully himself, what most often happens is that bullies are not confronted or removed. Instead, conversation at a site or page dwindles to just the few bullies, who jockey and sneer at imaginary foes, and the utility of the place is lost. This is a problem for site owners and administrators, who have often spent a good deal of time building a place for a certain kind of conversation, only to have it devolve into endless and meaningless bickering over tangential details, while the point—and the pleasure—is lost. <br /> <br />Although we all know that “feeding the troll” is pointless, most of us from time-to-time foolishly do it anyway, whether out of a misplaced sense of respect for the humanity of the little shit, or the transparently naive hope of breaking through to have a real conversation. And sometimes, we hope that by so doing, somebody else on the page will be drawn out of their silence and the page will become what it was. This seldom works, and the page generally continues its bully-induced slide into silence and obscurity, until even the troll moves on to greener cyber-pastures.  <br /> <br /> At a Libertarian-sponsored site, the conversation was about the threat to the Second Amendment. The post was a quote from a Colorado State Senator who announced that with some bravado that he would rather die than give up his weapons. The Curmudgeon joined in, hinting darkly that there is no remedy to the present tyranny, and that bravado and courage itself will wither in the face of omnipotent police brutality. The Troll made his move: “I sneer at all those who . . .” <br />Dominance established. The original poster never piped up again. </p> <p> </p> <p>As an administrator of the site, I though that perhaps a suggestion to the Troll that he should take his sneering to the source of his anger would bring the conversation back on track. Curmudgeons can be good discussion partners, but trolls never are. I then tried to bring the conversation back to the Curmudgeon’s salient point. The Troll was not having it. He responded with a hurt little boy tone, and I fell for it, against the better angels of my nature. They were saying: “He’s a troll. A TROLL! An unmannerly, babyish,  woman-hating, mom’s-basement, never-had-a-grown-up-relationship, T-R-O-L-L! TROLL!” Being low on estrogen and testosterone both, I ignored the warning. <br /> <br /> Beetle-bomb! Shards of hope and sparks of action falling <a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-J0t7KQhcOEU/UO83B8-BTFI/AAAAAAAAFpQ/FK7DvNg9rQI/s1600-h/Explosion%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Explosion" border="0" alt="Explosion" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Hh75w5bGl04/UO83EnWjX6I/AAAAAAAAFpY/pAFeobApteU/Explosion_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="224" height="168" /></a> into the netherworld of Cyberspace. Neither the Curmudgeon nor the Troll will ever take any kind of purposeful action. The first wants to impress people with his cynicism, and the second, to prove what a tough guy he is by how badly he treats anyone who crosses his path.</p> <p> </p> <p>There has been precious little dialogue in this group, and what is there dominated by the Curmudgeon and the Troll almost exclusively. Other members drop in, make announcements, and drop out. Why be bullied? It is difficult for members to confront the bullying, because they have no power to stop it. <br /></p> <p>Smart other members. <br /> <br />The current characteristics of the group alone tell the story. The group has become the Troll, with “ain’t it hopeless” choruses from the Curmudgeon, and a few— mostly ignored—attempts by new members to start a conversation. I have been dropping in to make announcements and to see if there are any libertarians who have mistakenly thought it was a place to discuss libertarian ideas with an eye to actually doing something. But as every idea that does not belong to the Troll or the Curmudgeon lands on the ground in a burning heap, and every suggestion for some kind of action is sneered off stage, the place has become  cobwebbed and dull, leaving the taste of dust and ashes in the mouth.  </p> <p> </p> <p>“Don’t bother with Liberty, folks,” these types announce by the subtext of their behavior. “It can’t be defended, all is lost, and there is no point fighting for it. You’ll just fail and thinking otherwise shows how stupid you are. What we need to do is close the curtains, sit here in the dark, and keep ourselves from getting hurt. Because the animating contest of freedom is a hopeless illusion, and the power of the state is omnipotent. Anyone who thinks otherwise is either naive, deluded or posturing, and will be driven from this group by mean and petty sniping and malignant hatred.” <br /> <br />I bring this up, because I have seen other libertarian site administrators frustrated by the same or a similar senses of life imposed on their discussion groups, and more malignant, those who hate libertarians for whatever reason, and set out to deliberately hurt and destroy them. I have seen anti-Semites ruin the image of the Ron Paul Campaign for Liberty, and Nazi hunters crying anti-Semitism on Libertarian sites where it doesn’t exist. I have seen conspiracy theorists bully anyone who wishes to have a rational conversation virtually shut down all discussion over a minor reference, obscuring the actual point of the conversation because they lack the faculty to look critically at their own dogmas. <br /> <br />Site, page and group administrators are frustrated because if we are paying attention, we know the destructive end of such behavior is the same every time. A perfectly good site becomes useless, and someone’s (often many someone's’) work was all for naught. And yet, we often tolerate it. We sigh in exasperation, complain about the solipsistic immaturity of a certain group of Generation-Xer American males, and try to laugh it off over a beer with friends or take comfort in participating in more rational forums. But we TOLERATE what is not tolerable. <br /> <br />Why do we tolerate it? It is the use of subtle force by others to dominate, bully and harm the work of others. But when a site administrator does edit, block or ban someone wreaking such havoc, they immediately respond with the indignant cry of the cyber-bully: Censorship! <br />And many libertarians, having been brought up with an education that failed to teach them the (not so) subtle difference between <em>liberty</em> and <em>libertine</em>, immediately take it up. <br /> <br />In tones dripping with entitlement they cry that the administrator is a fascist pig, an authoritarian, and that they have the right (god-damn-it) to bully, disrupt and destroy whomever and whatever they want, because THEY are RIGHT, and more than that, they are MORALLY SUPERIOR to every being that has ever walked the earth before them. (Because of us the seas stopped rising, poverty ended, and heaven was brought to earth. “WE are the ones we have been waiting for . . .” and all of that bullshit). In other words, they have a serious case of the Vision of the Anointed. Good will toward others and simple manners were never part of their curriculum. <br /> <br />Many administrators, especially old-school libertarians, are caught off guard by this, and if one is not fully grounded in libertarian thought (and even if one is!), it is easy to be cut to the quick by the sheer virulence of the attack. It is usually delivered complete with a tone of dripping sarcasm and righteous indignation. </p> <p> </p> <p>Being an Aspergian, I am almost always caught off guard by this, because no matter how often people are cruel and nasty to me, I never expect it. This, along with my tendency to be overly literal, and to fail to see the language pragmatics that warm Neurotypicals off, makes me an excellent target for bullies. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-GSKMnNqoc88/UO83GapvaFI/AAAAAAAAFpg/8k00kfd4lbg/s1600-h/Troll%252520Spray%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Troll Spray" border="0" alt="Troll Spray" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-1dDEph03Rnc/UO83IS_W5LI/AAAAAAAAFpo/daXllB3wddg/Troll%252520Spray_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="115" height="286" /></a> In any case, as a helpful guide to Aspergian and other Libertarians of Good Will, these people are wrong and most of them—particularly the bullies—know it. Censorship is a function that only a government can perform. Private individuals may indeed keep order and regulate the environment of their own private property, or do so on the behalf of other owners and stakeholders, in order to preserve the purpose of the site, forum or group for all. <br />But private property owners cannot and do not wish to stop the dissemination of speech or behavior that they dislike altogether. Only a government, with its monopoly on physical force, can do that. The disgruntled bully can always start his own forum, build his own platform, or hold forth on a public street corner, although in the last, he cannot abuse or detain the public. </p> <p> </p> <p>People of good will follow the rules and regulations of a private property owner gracefully, as a matter of respect and good manners, and if they do not agree with them, they feel free to excuse themselves and go elsewhere. Being themselves self-respecting and effective individuals, they are capable of creating their own platforms for free-speech, and if they err on the side of passion, create a misunderstanding, or take a disliking to someone, they are amenable to the direction of the owner or administrator of the forum, and either correct themselves or move on. <br /> <br />But bullies are seldom self-respecting, effective individuals, and thus need to get and hold the attention of others in any way they can. Thus, they scream about their over-arching rights while ignoring the rights of others. And the libertarian movement seems to attract a large number of them. I believe that there are some philosophical reasons for this, but that is another blog. <br /> <br />The point here is this: although libertarians of good will are naturally hesitant to block or ban someone who is pissy, sarcastic, disrespectful of others, and subjects others to personal attack, it is right and responsible to do it. And it is appropriate to warn others who come crying “censorship” that such behavior will not be tolerated. In such cases, it might be a good idea to explain why it is not censorship, but if we find ourselves being called “fascist” and other names, it is a good bet that the name-caller is also a bully trolling for a response. </p> <p> </p> <p>Finally, when a forum has been allowed through neglect or<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-z2Q_DBmhGbs/UO83Lc8zCXI/AAAAAAAAFpw/wESFyPi_2B8/s1600-h/Dementor%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Dementor" border="0" alt="Dementor" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-X2aU49AgvMU/UO83OG7D99I/AAAAAAAAFp4/f5qhK75DGIo/Dementor_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="192" /></a> appeasement to become a place in which fruitful discussion can no longer take place, or when administrating it has become a tiresome and painful chore, it is time to move on. In my case, I should have done so long ago, before I got sucked in by my own naivety and desire to discuss something important to me. Bullies do not discuss or share. They attack and troll for a response, feeding on the pain of others, and like <a href="http://www.hp-lexicon.org/bestiary/dementors.html" target="_blank">Dementors</a>, they suck the joy out of everything. Curmudgeons are generally not malevolent themselves, but they believe that the world is. They are incapable of kicking around an idea because they have already decided that action is futile and nothing that anyone else thinks about can possibly be worth discussing. <br /> <br />As an Aspergian, I often get played for the fool because I don’t read the subtleties of the words or language pragmatics that NTs see right through. I tend to take longer to learn from painful experience. However, as an Aspergian, I do have empathy. I do feel pain and I see it in others. I just do not always know what to do about it. Although it is painful to be treated like crap by bullies and trolls, and although I often have the sinking feeling that I did it to myself again, I know this is not entirely true. Bullies and trolls are responsible for their behavior and I firmly believe that what goes around comes around. Although as an Aspergian, I am not really capable of delivering a proper and cutting retort--I always think of one in the middle of the night--there are others who are and will do it. In any case, their unhappy, unwholesome view on life, the universe and everything is punishment enough, and brought on by their own selves, leaving me free to enjoy the benevolence of more healthy people, elsewhere. </p> <p> </p> <p>In the meantime, I refuse to give up on Liberty. It may be a struggle because of those who hate and fear it, and sometimes we may be called upon to fight and lose, and fight again for our freedom, acting from Liberty makes me feel happiness and wholeness. And for me, that makes it worth the work. </p> <p> <br /><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-oti8TPztEpw/UO83RWcBNnI/AAAAAAAAFqA/ruQYS0tyPVY/s1600-h/aspies%252520for%252520freedom%25255B4%25255D.gif"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; border-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; border-right: 0px" title="aspies for freedom" border="0" alt="aspies for freedom" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-q8yw8DwGhVc/UO83T7rkTTI/AAAAAAAAFqI/XJK1SZsHFaA/aspies%252520for%252520freedom_thumb%25255B2%25255D.gif?imgmax=800" width="275" height="93" /></a> <br /> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:748d7a59-5753-4779-8481-b0495757ca6d" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Aspergian+World" rel="tag">Aspergian World</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Libertarians" rel="tag">Libertarians</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Internet" rel="tag">Internet</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Property" rel="tag">Property</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Trolls" rel="tag">Trolls</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-14396696905852865602012-12-31T16:43:00.001-07:002013-01-01T12:24:00.989-07:00A Line in the Sand<blockquote>
<br />
When liberals talk about "gun culture" . . . It isn't about the guns really, though gun control culture is worried about having that much personal autonomy in the hands of people who don't share their values and like their independence, it's about rural America. And rural America, like guns, is another symbol that stands in for traditional America. <br />--Daniel Greenfield, Sultan Knish Blog: <a href="http://sultanknish.blogspot.com/2012/12/gun-culture-and-gun-control-culture.html" target="_blank">Gun Culture and Gun Control Culture</a></blockquote>
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>Molṑn labéis</b> ( <b>Molon Labe</b>) is a classical expression of defiance reportedly spoken by King Leonidas I in response to the Persian army's demand that the Spartans surrender their weapons at the Battle of Thermopylae. . . So what does <b>molon labe</b> mean? Well, it is an invitation -- and a challenge -- all rolled into one. From the original Greek <b>molon labe</b> means: "Come and take 'em." <br />
-- JD Longstreet, Right Side News Blog: <a href="http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012121731564/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/americans-wont-give-up-their-guns-law-or-not.html#" target="_blank">Americans Won’t Give Up Guns, Law or Not</a></blockquote>
<br />
<br />
<div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:6b851085-173e-4a9c-97f2-399b816cda2a" style="display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Liberty+and+Tyranny" rel="tag">Liberty and Tyranny</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Constitution" rel="tag">Constitution</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Individual+Rights" rel="tag">Individual Rights</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Second+Amendment" rel="tag">Second Amendment</a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-eba2o34aeEk/UOIizbiK7lI/AAAAAAAAFoc/V2om9A9Lu6g/s1600-h/molon_labe_5%25255B6%25255D.jpg"><img alt="molon_labe_5" border="0" height="129" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-L5_faOIPKtY/UOIi2fuDLLI/AAAAAAAAFog/mFjeFE5Rs9E/molon_labe_5_thumb%25255B4%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto;" title="molon_labe_5" width="196" /></a> <br />
As we end the year here in the rump end of flyover country, we have been talking about the new and even more insidious threats to our liberty and our way of life. <br /> <br />Americans of a certain bent are fond of talking about “wars” that are not shooting wars. From the Obama administration we have heard that if we do not like our tax money going toward someone else’s contraception, we are perpetrating a “War on Women.” Ronald Reagan brought us the “War on Drugs” (which <i>has</i> become a shooting war down on the border), and LBJ brought us the “War on Poverty” all those years ago. We do not appear to be winning either of these ersatz wars. I am sure there are other “wars” that are not wars out there, and as a Libertarian, I am deeply suspicious of “wars” on inanimate objects or conditions, because they are generally used as an excuse to limit our liberties. <br /> <br />In rural America, however, we have known for some time that the executive branch of the federal government has plans to wage a war on our way of life. It started in 2008 when presidential candidate Barack Obama told his supporters at a San Francisco fundraiser about rural Americans bitterly clinging to “guns and religion.” (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA">www.<b>youtube.com</b>/watch?v=DTxXUufI3jA</a>). This war isn’t only about guns and religion, both of which the progressive leftists of the Obama administration despise, it is also a war on rural small holders and is being waged by the government against us with bureaucratic weapons such as land use policies, sweeping EPA regulations, and farm bills such as SB 1050, which set the stage for regulations on what we can sell and even what we can consume from our own farms and ranches. <br /> <br /> But the war on “flyover country”—that vast interior of the North American continent that is <i>terra incognita</i> to the progressive city dwellers on the coasts—is heating up because of the fear this administration has of law-abiding, armed citizens. Their maps are not labeled <i>“Here there be Dragons”</i> in fancy, medieval print; rather they say: <i>“Here there be GUNS.”</i> And as Daniel Greenfield pointed out at the Sultan Knish Blog (quoted above), those guns are a symbol to the progressives. They represent people who do not need or want federal government help, and who often refuse it, knowing from bitter experience that when the Feds come marching in, local interests are no match for the interests of outsiders such as environmentalists and bureaucrats. In the rump end of flyover country we understand that government “help” really means government interference, the destruction of our local economies, and ultimately, tyranny by a metro-majority that doesn’t know a thing about our way of life, fears it, and wishes to force us to conform to an alien and un-American standard. <br /> <br />The shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in suburban New Jersey is the incident that Obama, his progressive administration, his media sycophants, and the metro-dependent control freaks have been waiting for. Never mind that the shooter was not a legal gun owner, and as Daniel Greenfield wrote, was not part of what the <i>ubiquitous they</i> call the “gun culture.” They were all indecently salivating to confiscate guns before the little bodies of the innocent were even removed from the classroom. Never let a good crisis go to waste, as their mentor Saul Alinsky liked to say. <br /> <br />Since the 2008 election, Americans have been anticipating that Obama and his minions would be coming for our liberties. Some of us paid attention to what he said before he was elected, and we knew who his mentors were and what political philosophy they bequeathed to him. During November and December 2008, gun sales rose dramatically, and ammunition fairly flew off the shelves of gun shops and sporting goods departments. In Spring 2009, many of us formed and joined Tea Party organizations and 9-12 groups, banding together to protest the economic consequences of Obama’s socialist political creed. Some of us woke up to the threat to our liberties for the first time. As election day 2012 neared, gun and ammunition sales picked up again, following the same pattern as in 2008. We were aware that with the need of re-election behind him, Obama’s campaign against liberty would likely pick up speed. <br /> <br />On the Tuesday before Sandy Hook, the Catron Kid and I were in Cope Reynold’s Southwest Shooting Authority in Arizona to purchase some ammo and look over a new rifle for shooting coyotes and other small varmints on the ranch. (In rural America our guns are tools, and are most often used to protect livestock from predators. They are rarely drawn against another human being. It is not necessary because we value one another’s life, liberty and property <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0sYnro_3Rc" target="_blank">way out here</a>). You may recognize Cope’s name and establishment, because his gun shop has become famous or infamous (depending on your politics) for the sign he posted on his shop’s door: <br />
<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-PTSSBzQ7lcs/UOIi6BIG0nI/AAAAAAAAFnw/VKF4MB6aesk/s1600-h/Cope%252520No%252520Obama%252520Sign%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Cope No Obama Sign" border="0" height="244" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-9k9Vgomm-rU/UOIi9I7yaBI/AAAAAAAAFn4/Tu8a9pgY3aQ/Cope%252520No%252520Obama%252520Sign_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Cope No Obama Sign" width="183" /></a><br />
(See story at <a href="http://www.theblaze.com/stories/arizona-gun-store-tells-obama-voters-to-turn-around-and-leave/" target="_blank">The Blaze</a>). <br /> <br />As we looked at the coyote rifle, and as I mock-aimed an AR-15 and an AK-47, feeling them out on my shoulder, we talked about the possibility of an “assault” weapons ban. At that point, Nancy Pelosi was talking about reviving the ban that had been rescinded in 1994, with some new and worrisome restrictions, but not including outright confiscation. The Catron Kid wondered aloud if, should we be threatened with confiscation, we ought to hide our guns. SWSA employees responded that at that point, we would be facing civil war. We talked briefly about how Arizona would respond, and I allowed as to how we should have bought property at least 11 miles west, over the border in Arizona. The conversation turned to why Jews, Blacks, American Indians and Mormons should not be against gun control, and then we make our purchases and went on with our day. As we continued our errands, I realized that I reacted to the thought of civil war differently than before. I did not deny the possibility, nor did I feel regret that I might oppose my own government, because I now believe that my government has made me its enemy. It was another line in the sand that I had crossed in my own mind, like joining the Tea Party, registering Libertarian, and signing the Articles of Freedom. For the record, I will defend the Constitution against all enemies, but I prefer to do my fighting with the pen and at the ballot box. A shooting war is the last thing I want. <br /> <br />Four days later, when the news of Sandy Hook broke, and almost immediately the press began attacking the Second Amendment, we went on the offensive in the social media, correcting the obvious ignorance of the press and the administration, and making it clear why a so-called “assault” weapons ban would not have prevented Sandy Hook or anything like it. It was in a post on a social media site in which someone opined that patriots cannot be serious about the “need” for the Second Amendment, that we certainly can’t be thinking in “these modern times” of protecting our rights against our own government. And she referenced civil war. A commenter replied: “We are already in a civil war,” elaborating that the culture wars against the founding American values, against our liberties and against rural America amount to exactly that.<br />
<br />
“We are already in a civil war.” <br />That statement rings true to me. It is not at all the same as during the late 1850's because this is not a regional battle, like the one that the Mason-Dixon Line defined. Neither is it about the false ideology of “state’s rights”--we know that only individuals have rights, and that governments have delegated powers--although I think it is time long past due for the States to enforce the Tenth Amendment against the Feds. Nor is the object to deny freedom to others or to institutionalize racism. The culture wars—the war on our way of life here in flyover country—is about our individual rights, the ones that are threatened by an out-of-control federal government. <br /> <br />We are already in a civil war. <br />But it is not a shooting war. And I would rather that it never become one. However, this government has been whittling away at our rights and attacking our values for a very long time. Obama is only the latest and greatest threat in a century-long series of executives determined to stamp out individual liberty, make our Constitution meaningless, and aggregate power to himself. <br /> <br />Each of us, those who value life, liberty and property, must ask ourselves where is the line past which we must resist, physically if necessary? Each of us needs to know for ourselves where is the line in the sand. Where does tyranny stop? And at what point are we willing to give up our lives in order to preserve liberty for ourselves and our children? <br /> <br />As JD Longstreet (quoted above) wrote in Right Side News Blog: <br />
<blockquote>
<br />To those on the political left and those pushing gun control -- in the childish naivete -- You need to understand two things: One -- Americans are NOT going to give up their guns! That's one. Number two is this: If you really want to begin a civil war in this country, <a href="http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012121731564/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/americans-wont-give-up-their-guns-law-or-not.html#">continue</a> your efforts to take those guns and you will most certainly have one, and I do not think you have any idea, any inkling, of just how ferocious and brutal such a war can be. </blockquote>
We know that Pelosi’s new, draconian measures are not about gun safety. We know that these power-mongers inside the beltway are using the deaths of 20 children for purposes of their own, and those purposes are aimed at our liberties and our ability to defend them. We know that Diane Feinstein and Harry Reed are both hypocrites—both are or were gun owners who had concealed-carry permits—and they wish to deny the same to us. And we also know that in the advancement of tyranny and totalitarian rule, the confiscation of guns comes before the violation of free speech. An unarmed citizenry has no opportunity to resist the loss of freedom of speech and press and assembly. We know that these rights are already under threat by the Feds, who use pretexts such as security and political correctness to work their nefarious designs. We know that for many of us, the line in the sand may well be confiscation of our rifles. As Longstreet continues: <br />
<blockquote>
The government will, as Charlton Heston famously stated, have to "pry the weapons from their cold dead hands." Heck, the government might actually get away with a couple of such encounters before the backlash begins. <br />
But it will begin -- and when it does, there will be hell to pay. In the end, it will be the end of the United States as we know it. <br />
Understand. There are some states that will move to secede rather than obey federal laws that force their citizens to disarm. Other states will <a href="http://www.rightsidenews.com/2012121731564/editorial/us-opinion-and-editorial/americans-wont-give-up-their-guns-law-or-not.html#">arrest</a> and incarcerate federal officers attempting to disarm that states citizens within the physical boundaries of that state. </blockquote>
<br />
Understand. These things are already being discussed in states and counties where governments and sheriffs understand their primary duty is to protect the rights of the citizens who elected them. There are many places in flyover country where state and local governments understand that Tenth Amendment pushback against the overweening power-mongering of the federal government is long overdue. <a href="http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com/2010/04/on-border-bleeding-arizona.html" target="_blank">Arizona is one</a>. There are many states and counties in which constitutional sheriffs (CLEOs) take the SCOTUS <a href="http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/95-1478.ZO.html" target="_blank">Printz v. United States (1997)</a> decision seriously, in which SCOTUS held that:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
. . . Congress cannot circumvent that prohibition by conscripting the State's officers directly. The Federal Government may neither issue directives requiring the States to address particular problems, nor command the States' officers, or those of their political subdivisions, to administer or enforce a federal regulatory program. It matters not whether policymaking is involved, and no case by case weighing of the burdens or benefits is necessary; such commands are fundamentally incompatible with our constitutional system of dual sovereignty.</blockquote>
<br />
I agree with Longstreet that the Feds are dangerously out of control, and that their cheerleaders in the media and among people in the street are not thinking with their brains, nor are they aware of the cold reception of their totalitarian agenda (for our own good, of course) by the people who live outside of their vivid blue enclaves. The use of emotion by politicians and the media to whip the populace into mob action against citizens, unjustly and unrighteously threatening to violate a fundamental right by confiscation of firearms from law-abiding citizens, will create a response, but not the one the perpetrators envision. Mob rule is contrary to our values, our Constitution and our way of life. There will come a point of firm, determined resistance.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-Car9uDS0RIE/UOIjAcc1dcI/AAAAAAAAFok/bow57ybCits/s1600-h/Minuteman%252520Concord%25255B5%25255D.jpg"><img alt="Minuteman Concord" border="0" height="231" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-0TBPxOqHWjA/UOIjDiMb1DI/AAAAAAAAFoo/ySJxCSPit6A/Minuteman%252520Concord_thumb%25255B3%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: block; float: none; margin: 0px auto;" title="Minuteman Concord" width="174" /></a> <br /> <br />We do not want civil war. We did not seek this war upon our values and our way of life. We want only to be left alone to live our lives. Many of us fervently wish that those who disagree with the Constitution as written, and who dislike our liberty, would remove themselves to a country that has laws and customs in keeping with their progressive values. As Sam Adams wrote: <br />
<blockquote>
<br />If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. </blockquote>
<br />
These were strong words at the time, and they are strong words now. There is a point at which there can be no more discussion and no more debate about the encroachment upon our liberties. We have been coming close to that point over the past four years, as ordinary Americans have been waking up to smell the bitterness of a government that has long ago lost touch. We know that our elected servants believe that they are the masters, and want to discard the Constitution for a tyranny by the majority, thus forsaking forever the republican values of liberty and individual rights written in that charter by which they were elected. We recognize that this government is now led by an executive who is unfamiliar with our values and our way of life. He has shown nothing but contempt for us, lying to us by whim, and using every event to dismiss our Constitution and erode our liberties. That he was re-elected by a narrow margin of the popular vote does not give him any other mandate than that assumed by every President of the United States: “to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”<br />
<br />
There is war upon our way of life, against our liberties and our individual sovereignty. We did not seek this war, and thus far we have patiently used peaceful remedies to avert it. This attack is upon the heart of our values as Americans, and rural America is the place where it has begun, but it is not where it will end. This is a battle that we did not seek. But this is a war that we intend to win, in order to secure the lives and liberty of our children and their children. We intend to win it peacefully. <br />But we will win it at the cost of our lives, if necessary. <br /> <br />To those who intend to force me to surrender my arms, I say: μολὼν λαβέ! <br />And I am not alone. Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-65161385366362352402012-11-25T16:08:00.001-07:002012-11-25T16:08:35.988-07:00Slowing Down: Thanksgiving at Freedom Ridge<p><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-580fDl5uIFI/ULKkzJgwHiI/AAAAAAAAFmw/cxv3t7-mGyc/s1600-h/DSC00348%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00348" border="0" alt="DSC00348" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-lxzm8lLhJaw/ULKk1qkXTpI/AAAAAAAAFm4/Cn4NvGQXuXM/DSC00348_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="173" height="229" /></a> </p> <p> I blinked, and Thanksgiving has come and gone, special baking done, leftovers packed and sent back to school with the Catron Kid, and quiet has now descended on Freedom Ridge Ranch. <br /> <br />Last I looked, it was September, and the High Holy Days just finished. We were looking forward to <em>Sukkot</em>, and suddenly we are on Standard Time, the leaves have fallen, the <em>Sukkah</em> is long down and the days are alarmingly short. How did the fall days get away from me? <br /> <br />The election, that’s how. From the day after Yom Kippur until election day, I was caught up by the needs of the Gary Johnson Campaign. As the New Mexico State Director for Gary Johnson 2012, I felt as if I was swept away for the month of October, with the High Holidays serving as the deep breath before the final lap. The rest of the week of the election was spent in Albuquerque, too, doing the post-mortem on the campaign with senior campaign officials, and the Libertarian Party of New Mexico, along with spending time with my new primary dissertation advisor, getting myself primed for The Next Big Thing. <br /> <br />I intend to write about the last weeks of the campaign—I really do!—but I need to let it all settle. It was exciting, maddening and exhausting. I learned so much, and I need to let it all settle before I decide which lessons are lasting. <br /> <br />I arrive home on Veteran’s Day, and by the following Thursday—<em>Rosh Chodesh Kislev</em>, for I seem to have missed <em>Cheshvan</em> entirely!—we were in Show Low, the Engineering Geek and I, shopping for Thanksgiving. On Friday morning, I began my baking, and then after a weekend adjusting to not needing to be glued to the computer, it was Elisheva’s All Kitchen, All the Time Station right up through Thursday. After several months of neglecting my family in order to be mom to various and sundry Gary Johnson volunteers, I felt the need to s-l-o-w down and bake and cook, and bake  and cook some more. We also deserved some time to talk, to study, to do a slow dance in the kitchen to a Hank William’s Jr. tune, and read to one another in bed in the morning until the sun comes over the mesa. So I cooked for five days of leftovers, and made everything from scratch: from crescent rolls to pumpkin pie. (I made my own filling for those from the pie pumpkins we grew in the garden). <br /> <br />The weather has been wonderful. Short, late fall days of sunshine with those heartbreaker turquoise blue New Mexican skies, that fade into deep blue as the sun goes behind the mesas by four in the afternoon. Afternoons at 60 degrees are followed by cold, star-filled nights that cry out for a fire. <br /> <br />Since he had a late class on Wednesday in Albuquerque, the Catron Kid had driven down early on Thursday morning, and rode El Chapo in the early afternoon, when I chased everyone out of the kitchen—everyone, including dogs and cats.We ate our Thanksgiving dinner as the sun slipped behind Power Line Mesa, slowly and with great attention to the goodness of our fortunes. Elections, war, and scandal notwithstanding, our little family is truly blessed and we know it. <br /> <br />After dinner, we settled down to watch <em>Monumental</em>, Kirk Cameron’s film about the Pilgrims. We were reminded that  this election and the challenges it will bring to our freedom are grave difficulties, the door seemed to be slammed repeatedly on the Pilgrims, they did not give up, cry foul or fall into despair. They persisted in believing in their 500 year plan. And since we have a bit more than 100 years to go on that, we should be strong and resolute as were they. <br /> <br />Friday, the Engineering Geek and I took an afternoon’s lazy drive up into the mountains behind the Little Colorado over in Arizona. We worked our way up into the caldera that holds Crescent Lake, and then descended again along a Forest Service Road into Greer, enjoying the bikers and trail riders of that mountain resort town, while we talked of the future plans for Freedom Ridge and hopes and dreams and half-baked ideas that may shape the days to come. <br /> <br />Yesterday, we took a Shabbat walk with the dogs and our walking sticks in hand, we climbed to the top of Freedom Ridge, our mesa to the east and marveled at the view of the Red Hill and its attendant volcanics, and the San Francisco Mountains to the southeast. <br /> <br />And today, Sunday, I ironed shirts for the EG and the Catron Kid; I packed him up some quart-sized zipper bags of turkey and the trimmings and holiday eggnog to take back with him to his little apartment in Albuquerque. I watched as he drove away, straining to see the movement of the white car against the dark volcanic pressure ridge extending from the Red Hill as he turned onto the county road two miles away. Thanksgiving 2012 is a wrap, but in two weeks he will be home again for the long winter break, just in time for <em>Hanukkah</em>. <br /> <br />I have some work to do to get my Comprehensive Exams back on track because of all the changes in my committee since EN, my original advisor, retired. We have chores to complete while the weather holds, here at Freedom Ridge Ranch. And our renters at the Los Pecos House decided to relocate to warmer climes, and so we have our contract with them to conclude and the house is on the market once again—for sale or rent. There’s lots to do, as always. But nothing that requires the kind of immediate response and dedicated time that managing even a small campaign team requires. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-8ZQcrp7LvY4/ULKk564v2aI/AAAAAAAAFnA/6Kn8OmoLzJ8/s1600-h/DSC01090%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC01090" border="0" alt="DSC01090" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-ffke0xIwjqk/ULKk76EOgCI/AAAAAAAAFnI/76MZVfOYzEY/DSC01090_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="189" height="143" /></a> Although it does look like I am being tapped as an alternate for the Libertarian National Committee . . . but more on that after we watch the sun drop down behind Power Line Mesa, and after we feed the animals and gather any eggs laid since this morning by our fine-feathered hens and after we feed the dogs, enjoy a turkey dinner and a glass of wine together, here on Freedom Ridge Ranch. Where the mountains are high and the tumult is far away . . .</p> <p> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:f269f956-71c7-40cb-a996-9e8407670eb8" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meanwhile+Back+at+the+Ranch" rel="tag">Meanwhile Back at the Ranch</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Thanksgiving" rel="tag">Thanksgiving</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-60047261926752510122012-09-29T19:10:00.001-06:002012-09-29T19:10:24.242-06:00Yom Kippur: The Day of Decision<blockquote> <p align="center">“This is the Day of Decision . . .” </p> <p align="center">“ . . . in the camps and streets of Europe mother and father and child lay dying, and many looked away. To look away from evil: Is this not the sin of all “good” people?” </p> <p align="center">“Turn back, turn back from your evil ways; for why should you choose to die, O House of Israel?” <br /></p> <p align="center">--Sha’arei T’shuvah: The Reform Machzor</p> <p align="center"> </p> </blockquote> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-qweCMWSidug/UGeb8BUm5oI/AAAAAAAAFmQ/PMJq7XzAht4/s1600-h/DSC00963%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00963" border="0" alt="DSC00963" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-r3yKwrwmml0/UGeb9yTA19I/AAAAAAAAFmY/HECl3LlxEks/DSC00963_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a></p> <p>Our lives are fleeting, like a leaf that rides on the river of time, for a while, and then subsides, while the river flows on. This is one theme of <em>Yom Kippur</em> and the High Holy Days in general, timed as they are in the month of autumn, from the dark of the moon to its waxing. This year the Engineering Geek and I felt this acutely, as our daily household has shrunk to just the two of us, with both children up and out. <br /> <br />This gives us both pause about where we are in our lives, with more years behind us than ahead, but it also confers a certain freedom, and one way that we expressed it was to choose to spend <em>Rosh HaShanah</em> and <em>Yom Kippur</em> differently, <a href="http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com/2012/08/like-losing-my-religion.html" target="_blank">cutting ties</a> to the synagogue where the children were raised. We went to the small, eclectic and egalitarian <em>shul</em> in Flagstaff, taking a hotel room in order to experience <em>Yom Kippur</em> free of the distraction of long distance driving. Of course, in the odd way of the Jewish world, where smaller degrees of separation abound and bind across continents, we found connections with the president of the congregation, another member who remembers me as a very pregnant cantorial soloist, and the rabbi herself, with whom I share a mentor, a study partner, and a course of study.   <br /> <br />And for the first time in our ten years of marriage, the EG and I also were free to really spend some time on the Day of Atonement studying the <em>Machzor</em>—the High Holy Day Prayer Book—free of distractions. This was a boon we had not counted upon, and it worked out because the little <em>shul</em> has an organized morning service followed immediately by <em>Yizkor</em> (the Memorial Service), after which there is a long break until <em>Neilah</em>, the evening service just before breaking the fast. Not wanting to put ourselves in places of commerce nor to go back to the hotel, we went instead to Buffalo Park—a huge open space under the San Francisco Peaks—and there we found a lone marble bench facing the mountains, cloud-shadowed beyond a field of yellow daisies, where we prayed the afternoon service for ourselves, stopping to discuss and comment upon it along the way. And as is always true for me, themes that match what is going on in my inner and outer life fairly jumped out of the pages of the <em>Machzor</em>, demanding to be confronted. <br /> <br />Yom Kippur is, as the prayer book says, a day of decision. The image is the Book of Life being open at the Seat of Judgment, as every human being chooses between good and evil, life and death: </p> <blockquote> <p>You open the book of our days and what is written there proclaims itself, for it bears the signature of every human being. . . This is the Day of Judgment . . .” </p> </blockquote> <p>But the problem for many Jews is that we have taken a concept of judgment from the dominant culture, one that is foreign to our own world view. This idea is that human beings should eschew judgment altogether, that it is wrong to make a judgment—which I cannot help but point out, is a judgment itself. For because human being have the capacity to make decisions, we must necessarily make judgments between good and evil, between right and wrong, between life and death. Judgment is not an option, and it is also not something to be feared: </p> <blockquote> <p>Your love is steadfast on Judgment day, and you keep your covenant in judgment . . . </p> <p>You penetrate mysteries on Judgment Day, and you free your children in judgment . . .</p> <p>You uphold all who live with integrity on Judgment Day . . .</p> </blockquote> <p>On Yom Kippur, we take the time to ponder, to burn away the clouds of mystery, and to make judgments about ourselves, determining where we have failed in judgment and where we have gone beyond our own boundaries, in order to restore integrity to our lives. <br /> <br />Beyond our own lives, we must make judgments about our world. We cannot say: Who am I to judge this policy, this action, these people and their behaviors? We Jews know what the sin of silence and the sin of indifference mean.To refuse to judge evil as evil, and evil doers as evil doers is to allow it and to become a part of it. <strong>There are no innocent bystanders</strong>. And those who claim to desire peace but refuse to confront evil cannot create peace, rather they will bring death and destruction upon themselves and upon those who excuse them, for to excuse the guilty is an injustice waged upon the innocent. <br /> <br />In the praying of the services, in the thoughts that the words in the <em>Machzor</em> inspire, and in our discussion of them, I have made some decisions for myself, or I have set the standards and benchmarks for decisions that I expect to need to make this year. Over the years of my upbringing and education, and on into young adulthood, I had developed the habit of self-censorship in response to a great many things, and over the last 11 years I have made a concerted effort to rid myself of this habit, for it is a dangerous abdication of the mind and heart. I will continue to root this out of my life, and replace such fears and hesitations as I may have with reliance on making judgments that are just and true. This year, more than ever, as our world spirals out of control and our civilization seems bent on suicide, this emphasis on truth and justice as the basis of judgment becomes more important than ever, and that integrity is something I want to restore in small ways as well as large, and in my personal as well as any public life I might have. <br /> <br />There are other conclusions that I have come to in order to fulfill my desire to mend my errors and to  be proud of what I have written in my book of life, and perhaps I will share more of them at another time, but I know that confronting untruth will be my greatest challenge. The Hebrew word for truth is EMET and the Hebrew word for justice is TZEDEK. EMET and TZEDEK will be my words for 5773. These are big words, and knowing my own weaknesses regarding them, I take pause before them. They require great  courage and discernment both, and i tend to err on both. And yet I long to come closer to these marks. I may not have the power to change the world that seems to be hell-bent on destruction, but creating an island of order and sanity within the chaos is a worthy goal. <br /></p> <blockquote> <p> <br /> </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:24ae4f4a-e282-41df-a17c-0e3b3d789a26" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Judaism" rel="tag">Judaism</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Yom+Kippur" rel="tag">Yom Kippur</a></div></blockquote> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-17153881222808671802012-09-24T16:27:00.001-06:002012-09-24T16:27:01.600-06:00Shabbat Shuvah: The Foreign Gods of Today<blockquote> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:817c665e-f1e3-414a-b566-497e1687e8ba" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/High+Holy+Days" rel="tag">High Holy Days</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/American+Exceptionalism" rel="tag">American Exceptionalism</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Torah+Study" rel="tag">Torah Study</a></div> <p align="center"><font color="#008040"></font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">“The Eternal said to Moses:</font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">You are about to sleep with your fathers, </font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">and this people will rise up and go astray </font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">after foreign gods, where they will go to be</font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040"> among them, and break my Covenant . . . </font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">and many troubles </font><font color="#008040">and evils shall befall them.”</font></p> <p align="center"><font color="#008040">Devarim 31: 16, 17 </font> <br /></p> </blockquote> <p align="left">As Jews, we are now in the midst of the Ten Days of Turning, the days between <em>Rosh Hashanah</em>, when we celebrate the Birthday of the World, and <em>Yom Kippur</em>, the Day of Atonement, the most solemn holy day of the year. The Sabbath that falls between these two holy days is <em>Shabbat Shuvah</em>, the Sabbath on which rabbis and <em>maggids</em> (preachers) commonly give a sermon on the art of turning and returning to the path of righteousness. <br /> <br />When the Engineering Geek and I took a few moments for Torah Study on Shabbat, with all of what had happened in the past weeks in mind, we noticed a part of <em>Parashat Vayelich</em> that the Women of Reform Judaism’s Torah Commentary remained silent about. <em>Devarim</em>  (Deuteronomy) is set as Moses’ last speech, with some interpolations that move the story along. In <em>Vayelich</em> (He Went), Moses learns that he has reached the end of his long life, and that he will die before the people Israel enter the promised land. The Women’s Commentary therefore focuses on what this means for Moses, and the reasons given and implied for his death at the moment of his people’s freedom. <br /> <br />But given the stark choices that confront us all in the world today, and the contradictory and craven behavior of our Executive  Branch in the face of the renewed attacks on the United States through our embassies--attacks used to threaten our most basic freedoms--the Engineering Geek and I focused on the passage that the commentary passed over. In it, a prediction is made by the Eternal. The people will cross over, and they will build lives in the land, and become complacent (“. . . they shall have eaten their fill and waxed fat. . .”, 31:20), and that is when they will be vulnerable to turning away from their heritage and their purpose, and follow after foreign gods that they have not experienced. When this happens they will, the story predicts, forsake the Covenant, and bring upon themselves many “troubles and evils.” <br /> <br />In encountering this story, we ask ourselves, what are foreign gods in the context of our identity as Americans today? Most of us do not literally bow down to idols of wood and stone made by our own hands. And many of us bow down to no gods at all. Further, this passage is about what happens when many members of a society make a choice to change their basic beliefs about their civil identity, and forsake the heritage given them by previous generations. <br /> <br />In Hebrew, the United States is known as <em>Artzot ha-Brit shel Amerika</em>, ( ארצות הברית של אמריקה) the Land of the Covenant in America. This is a recognition that our unique identity is forged not by blood ties, but that who we are is based on our choice to abide by a set of ideas that are protected by an contract, the Constitution of the United States. <br /> <br />On September 11, 2001, many of us were rudely made aware for the first time in a generation that our ideas about who human beings are and what we define as the good life in our civilization were under attack; that another set of ideas opposes ours, and that proponents of those alien ideas are willing to make war upon us, and to fight and die to see that their ideas prevail in the world. On that day, as the towers fell, we instinctively drew together, and the day after, we put up our flags and remembered that we were Americans. <br /> <br />As the EG and I talked about all this, we realized that we Americans had grown complacent indeed, and that we have been in the process of forsaking our Covenant of respect for individual rights, thereby giving up cherishing the uniqueness of each individual, and had begun to turn away toward concepts foreign to our native values. This hankering after dependency and collectivism, the easing of responsibility and individual liberty, was possible because we forgot the origin of the wealth and innovation that made our comfort and ease possible. In so doing, we were turning to foreign gods, ideas that are in opposition to our Covenant, and cannot possible co-exist with it. <br /> <br />Islamic thought, with its focus on totalitarian submission to a theocratic state, has developed from premises alien to our enlightenment values, and is driven by a civilization that is not at all complacent or passive. Islamic teaching emphasizes the necessity of bringing the whole world into submission to ideas that are incompatible with our own. Our Western forbearers have resisted these idols before, at Tours with Charles Martel, and twice at the Gates of Vienna.  <br /> <br />But now, with our Covenant weakened by dreams of collectivist utopias, we see our leaders actively chasing after alien ideas, appeasing our enemies with apologies, and proclaiming a willingness to surrender our basic rights to foreign gods. We must rethink our liberties, they say, in the face of the Ba’al of the Riot and the Mob. It is our children whose birthright of freedom is to be sacrificed to satisfy the insatiable fires of the barbarian hordes. <br /> <br />And yet, there are those among us who have sounded the alarm that there can be no compromise with those who wish to supplant our values with their own, and no surrender without the total loss of our American identity. Like the prophet in the Haftarah for Shabbat Shuvah, they tell us: <br /> <br />“Asshur shall not save us . . .neither will we call anymore the work of our hands our gods . . .” </p> <p align="left">“Give not your heritage up to reproach, that the nations should make you a byword; Should they say among the peoples: Where is their G-d?”</p> <p align="left"> <br />We cannot make treaties with the alien thought of Egypt and Libya and at the same time retain our own unique identity. Foreign ideas and values cannot be assimilated without destroying our own. Oil and water do not mix, and nobody can compromise with poison and live. <br />It is one or the other, and we must not listen to those who would so lightly surrender our liberty, our values and principles to those who would destroy us.  <br /> <br />It is amazing how the struggles of old, couched in religious language, are relevant still, and tell the same stories that we experience, although we tell of them differently.  <br /> Just as Israel of old had to choose or be broken on the contradiction between her identity and that of the idols, the same is true for us today. We must choose rightly or be broken on the contradiction between our own values and those of Egypt and Libya and the whole of the Muslim Brotherhood with its Islamist nightmare. Liberty and submission cannot be combined. Individual rights will not co-exist with the Ummah, the collective nation of the Islamic State.  <br /> <br />It is my hope that in this season of turning we gather the courage to say what is real, and  to acknowledge the truth in our hearts. And that we do not close our eyes to the troubles and evils that are about to befall us, and that we recognize that they are a consequence of the fact that we are in the act of forsaking our Covenant, the one that has made us the envy of the world and an inspiration to among the nations. <br /> <br />We need to wake up and to recognize how greatly we have prospered by the values and principles bequeathed to us by our founders, so that we can preserve our liberties and bequeath our inheritance—the Covenant of Rights and Liberties—to our posterity. <br /> <br />This remains my hope in the face of growing darkness. </p> <p align="left"></p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-84247143463403194762012-09-15T19:10:00.003-06:002012-09-15T19:18:01.595-06:00Rosh HaShannah: The Turning of the Year<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dv0R4jZm8sw/UFUG8Ql0mRI/AAAAAAAAFlo/MlIEbSnEuyM/s1600/DSC00907.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dv0R4jZm8sw/UFUG8Ql0mRI/AAAAAAAAFlo/MlIEbSnEuyM/s320/DSC00907.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">New Mexico Sunflowers in Rock Garden</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"> <span style="color: #660000;"> "I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, they shall never hold their peace, day or night." Isaiah 62:3</span></span></blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">This morning we awoke to a sunny and cool, early fall day, mists rising from the ground, and the sky in the south and east milky white in contrast to the deep blue New Mexico sky to the northwest. After a week of wind, clouds and rain, we were happy to see the sun. As the Catron Kid went riding on Chapo, the Engineering Geek and I started out of the front gate with three of the dogs, anticipating a Shabbat walk along the western fences of Freedom Ridge Ranch. The cool morning turned into a warm and sunny day as we climbed up the mesa to the northwest, greeting the other two horses, grazing up there in the high pasture. <br /><br />We noted how the year is turning, talking about some of the things we want to do this coming year on the ranch: putting a windmill and solar combined tower up along the ridge behind the house, divide the high pasture, and divide the front pasture, get the solar completely installed, and take more walks like this one, enjoying the beauty of the place.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Early fall on the Continental Divide is different in appearance from what I grew up with and even from what we experienced in the East Mountains. Here, instead of bold oranges and browns, with the grass of soft wheat color, we see water in the stock tanks, and pooling in the draws and washes, a gift of the late days of a good Monsoon. The grass is green from the water, and the sky soft blue, like spring in more conventional parts of America. The boldest colors come from the yellow Black-Eyed Susans and New Mexico Sunflowers, the orange and pink of Globe-Mallow, and the blues and purples of various clovers, gilias and penstemons, and the rare orange-red of Indian Paintbrush on the high mesa tops and along the washes in the canyons. Fall steals into this high country on the heels of the late summer wildflowers, color dotting the gray-green of the range subtly, as the days grow shorter and sunshine replaces the late-afternoon Monsoon rainfall. The days grow shorter, the shadows deepen and the nights grow even cooler. <br /><br />And with the turning of the year, we mark the New Year for Years, <i>Rosh Hashannah</i>, which falls on the first day of the seventh month in the Jewish Calendar. As the heat of summer fades, we welcome a new beginning just before the harvest: 5773. As we took our walk, we savored the peace around the Sabbath noontide, and we did not speak of our fears and concerns, heightened this week by the world's slide into chaos, and threatened Israel's complete isolation as it deals with the threat of annihilation. It is easy, way out here, to move with the turn of the earth, the comings and goings of the herds and flocks, and the blowing of the wind. It is quiet, and the nature of the place and its solitude knows not of human strife, chaos and wars. New Mexicans outside the three cities we have in the state are accused of being provincial, and we are, being far removed from the goings on beyond our mesas and mountains. "The mountains are high," we say, "And the king is far away." <br /><br />But even without television (we have one, but we don't get broadcast TV --or radio--in our canyon), we do hear of what is happening "out there," although it seems far away. So inevitably, when we returned from our two hour hike up the mesa and around and down, and turned to the <i>Haftarah</i>, the perils our country and our people face stared up at us from the printed page, the words of a prophet writing more than two-and-a-half millennia ago. There is nothing new under the sun in the affairs of men, I thought, though that idea comes from a <i>Megillah</i> we will read later in the fall, at <i>Sukkot</i>.<br /><br />Perils for Israel, deserted by the President of the United States, her Prime Minister snubbed and denied a meeting even as the her people prepare for war, and the Jewish People across the world face new threats from a very old prejudice. We fear for the safety of that tiny country where our prophets and kings once walked. And we fear for the integrity and safety of our own country and its people, and for our people everywhere. <br /><br />But this <i>Haftarah</i> that complements <i>Parashat Nitzavim </i>in <i>Torah</i>, is the last of the seven haftarot of consolation. And in it, Isaiah--writing to a people in exile--speaks of victory and restoration. And so it speaks to us now, and to our great concern in the midst of a world sliding once again into chaos. It says to us, war and destruction are not outside out experience, and yet we are still here. We have stood on the edge of danger and peril before, and yet we are still here, able to reason in the face of our fears, to annul the plans of our enemies as necessary: </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Who is it coming from Edom, with crimsoned clothing from Bazrah?</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">Glorious in apparel, stately in greatness of his strength?</span> <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;">I who speaks in victory, mighty to save. . . .</span></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: #660000;">. . . <span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I have trodden the winepress alone, and there was no man with me; Yes, I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my fury, and their lifeblood is dashed against my clothing, and I have stained all my raiment. For the day of vengeance that was in my heart, and my year of redemption have come. And I looked and there was none to help, and I beheld in astonishment and there was none to uphold. Therefore, my own arm brought salvation to me, and my fury, it upheld me. (Isaiah 63: 1; 3 - 5)</span></span></blockquote>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This year, as Rosh HaShannah approaches, and greetings come to us from Israel, we hear a message very different from earlier years. Then we heard greetings that were upbeat, anticipating the happiness and contentment to come. "It's gonna be a good year!" Now we hear echoes of Isaiah from <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8S2vLcArd8g" target="_blank">Latma</a>, from the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0FFaQw3RElc" target="_blank">IDF</a>: "We are not afraid. We are ready, we are standing guard. The Eternal is riding with us. Others tried to destroy us, and where are they?" </span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As we come again to the turning of the year, we find ourselves deeper into the <a href="http://ragamuffinstudies.blogspot.com/2009/06/of-ominous-financial-crash-ordinary.html" target="_blank">Fourth Turning</a> and closer to the crisis. The outcome of the crisis and the shape of what follows very much depends upon the decisions that we make about how we will face what is coming and what we choose to do. It is a fearful <i>Rosh Hashannah</i> this year, knowing that Israel stands alone, threatened with nuclear holocaust; remembering the High Holy Days of 1973 (5733) when Israel was also fighting for her life, alone, while Jews the world over spent <i>Yom Kippur</i> listening to clandestine radios in services, hands clenched, hoping and praying for her survival. This year, once again, we will find ourselves praying for the peace of Jerusalem, hoping against hope that Israel will be able to remove the growing threat without starting World War III. <br /><br /><i>Halvai! </i></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">And in the coming year, may all of us find those points of light, those moments of happiness and those days of contentment in our lives, and those transcendent moments of joy and beauty<i> </i>in the world, that remind us of why we hope and why we work to make each moment, day and year of our lives fruitful and full of goodness and plenty. <br /><br /><i>Kayn y'hi ratzon!</i></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />And may 5773 be a good year for us. </span><br />
<br /></div>
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS",sans-serif;"><br /></span>Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-13249680737754966442012-09-11T23:18:00.001-06:002012-09-11T23:30:26.786-06:00Eleven Years Later: My September 10th Persona<blockquote>
“Oh beautiful for Patriot’s dream that sees beyond the years;<br />
Whose alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.<br />
America, America, God mend thy every flaw, Confirm thy soul in self-control, thy Liberty in Law.”</blockquote>
<br />
<a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-wifoovRC6FQ/UFAbF2kO5RI/AAAAAAAAFk4/4FvDUPgieY0/s1600-h/Towers%252520of%252520Light%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img align="left" alt="Towers of Light" border="0" height="201" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-dyOTg0aui3Q/UFAbJAhFI7I/AAAAAAAAFlA/dGDn58u3pSE/Towers%252520of%252520Light_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-top: 0px; display: inline; margin: 0px 5px;" title="Towers of Light" width="244" /></a> <br />
As I write tonight, two shafts of blue light rise into the Manhattan sky. Three quarters of a continent away, they commemorate the last time that September 11 fell on a Tuesday, when our country was attacked out of a clear, blue sky, and when a generation lost its innocence. <br /> <br />I was teaching that morning, and my car pool driver and I were very nearly late for work. I had a head-ache and a heart-ache after a weekend of conflict with my sixteen year old daughter, and we had agreed not to listen to the radio, so the drive in was peaceful that morning as we listened to Vivaldi’s Autumn. I remember thinking that our fellow Albuquerque drivers were unusually polite that morning, as my friend skillfully maneuvered in traffic, and parked so that we could each dash to our respective classrooms. Stopping by my own classroom to pick up my lesson plans and basket, I arrived at the demo bench for my Physics for Poet’s class just as the final bell sounded. I put my basket of teaching materials on the bench and remained standing as the intercom clicked on, and I expected to hear a Senior’s voice say: “Please stand for the prayer and the Pledge . . .” (I was teaching science in a Catholic High School at that time). Instead, I heard the chaplain across the air, his voice shaking as he said: “Because our country is under attack, I have been asked to give the prayer. . .” I remember looking questioningly at my students, who looked back at me, big-eyed and solemn. And I knew that we had all turned a corner at that moment, although I had no idea at all what had happened. <br /> <br />The ubiquitous “they” say that now that we have passed the tenth anniversary of that day, we need to get over it, to move on. But every year, when I tune into the morning radio show I listen to, I hear a montage of the sounds of that day, and I know that “getting over it” is not something that I want to do, or could if I tried. Moving on is something that we have all done, although that movement has been a journey down an unfamiliar road, to a different trajectory. There are some moments that bind us together, that change us irrevocably, that replace the easy familiarity of how we think things will always be in the instant that a plane struck a tower on a clear, blue Tuesday morning. <br /> <br />Today, some of us across the country have chosen to use this day as a day to reflect on who we were on September 10, 2001, and on how the events of that day, seared into our brains, have changed us, spun us around on our paths, and put us on a path to become September 12 people. So tonight, as the rain falls on the metal roof of a house in a place that I had never expected to live, I resolved to do this, to begin to sort out how I got from there to here. September 11 did not sweep me from one reality to another; that process had already begun, brought about by a more personal crisis a few years before. But it did irrevocably change so many things, although those changes were gradual and hard won. <br /> <br />On September 10, 2001, my life was already in flux. A cancer had already turned my head around and caused to me question the choices that I had made and was making. In the two years since I had a lump removed and prophylactic radiation done, I had chosen to buy a house for me and my two kids and to leave my marriage. It was not that life was easy before. I had taken sole responsibility for the support of my kids and their dad, and working two and three jobs at a time, and I had burned myself out getting a teaching certificate because I knew that life as a field biologist was not going to work for us, and that chasing research and post-docs and professional appointments was not going to put food on the table and clothes on my children’s backs. I had responsibilities, and it had been clear since before the birth of my son that I had no partner in those responsibilities. <br /> <br />On September 10, 2001, I had found my <i>bashert</i>—my beloved Engineering Geek--and our relationship was strengthening, solidifying, I had found my Baruch, my blessing; the one that I craved and was too afraid to ask for. I was ready to let myself be loved, to let myself be taken care of in a way that I had never had during all the years of my first marriage: my childbearing and rearing, worrying and working years, years in which my children were born and nursed in between classes and jobs, and in which I watched a darkness grow in my first husband, until it consumed him and me, but not the kids—thank goodness, not the kids (or so I thought)—and I was left with a broken man and a broken marriage. <br /> <br />So much was my joy at finding a man—a real man—who wanted to share my life, take care of my kids, make a home together, that I was utterly consumed. And so on September 10, 2001, I was coming off of the weekend of my daughter’s 16th birthday. Sweet 16, and I disappointed her greatly, because I wasn’t able to give her the fantasies that she and I had dreamed up during the hard times. I didn’t rent a hotel room for her and her friends (hotels were frowning more and more on those kinds of teen parties) and during the sleepover she had with her friends, I left them alone to entertain themselves (as I had done with great pleasure at her age), never realizing that she wanted me as June Cleaver —apron and all—to serve the snacks and make a general nuisance of myself. I have no excuse to offer really, except that my generation had rejected poor June Cleaver as the epitome of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feminine_Mystique" target="_blank">The Feminine Mystique</a>, and I was head-over-heels in love at the time in my daughter’s life when she was most embarrassed by adult love and, well, by parental adults and their weird behavior in general. <br /> <br />On September 10, 2001--the day after my daughter’s Sweet Sixteenth, the day that would have been my 19th wedding anniversary to her father—on that evening, my daughter and I had a knock-down drag out argument, complete with frustrated yelling (on my part), angry yelling and door slamming (on hers), and hormones and tears (on both our parts), asthe tension that had been building between us all weekend created a storm that shattered my sense of efficacy as a mother and sent her to bed with a blinding migraine. <br /> <br />And so on the morning of September 11, I was a chastened mother with a headache, contemplating for the first time my failures as a mother—for it Betty Friedan was right about nothing else, she knew this: it’s always the mother’s fault. And I was still a woman in love, a woman wanting badly to have her new love and her most precious loves all come together to make a family, and maybe this time it would all work out. <br /> <br />And on the morning of September 11, I was also a woman who had sworn off politics. Raised by a libertarian and an Objectivist, I had made a left turn in my first marriage, only to find that all the virtues I thought were there were not, and all the vices—the hatreds and anti-Semitism, the uncaring inhumanity—that I thought were with the conservatives and the libertarians, were present in the watermelon pink of the Greens. So I had recently vowed—I who had never voted for a major party for president in my voting life—that I would be normal and live my life without thinking about politics. Much. Growing up Libertarian was exciting and confusing and exhausting. And it wasn’t easy being Green, either, and rather awkward, really, for someone brought up on Ayn Rand. (Ayn Rand did NOT ruin my life, by the way. But that’s another story . . .) <br /> <br />On the morning of September 11 I was a woman with a life already in the process of change. I was a woman trying to figure out how to create the family I had forgotten I wanted with the very real children I had and a new man who had never changed a diaper or walked the floor with a colicky baby. I was a woman who was trying to figure it out, but I already had felt the cold wind blow, and I had already heard the question, old as <i>Gan Eden</i>: <i>Ayecha</i>! Where are you? <br /> <br />And all that day, I read Psalm 23 for each class I met, and I struggled to answer my students’ bewildered questions, and I altered lesson plans because I knew they would not remember anything we said and did that day, but only the image of the towers falling, over and over, burned by retina on the canvas of our minds. All that day I thought about the people who would never go home, and about the people who would wait in vain for their return. I thought about those who jumped to their deaths from the burning towers, and those who watched helpless, and heard the impacts, over and over. They were people who went to work, just like me, on that sunny Tuesday morning, the perfect day. And their families waited, just like mine, for work to be done and to be together again, to fight and make-up, to eat and laugh and play and sleep. They were Americans, just like me, who went to work and now would never come home. <br /> <br />Is it then surprising that the first thing I did was try to call my daughter, home sick with the aftermath of her migraine? I did. I called right from the classroom phone, my students a few feet away, trying to tune in a radio to hear the news. But the circuits were busy. And busy again. “Please try your call again later,” said the computer voice. And the second call I tried was to the Engineering Geek at his office at Sandia National Laboratories. But they were evacuating Sandia because they were closing Kirtland AFB, and the EG was nowhere to be found. <br />All I wanted to do was to call people I loved and cared about, to hear their voices, to make sure they were safe and whole. <br /> <br />And it was utterly impossible to connect to a website or send an e-mail. Everybody was in the computer. Everybody. <br /> <br />Later, I connected with both of them, the EG and my daughter, but it wasn’t until months later that I learned that the EG was out picking out my diamond engagement ring that day, and wasn’t even at Sandia when the towers fell and the base was evacuated. <br /> <br />And that is what everyone else was doing, too. At the same time. We all needed to reassure and be reassured, to touch something beyond the terrible images we were seeing on our TV screens. The kids at the Catholic school where I was teaching wanted to call their folks, to see the Chaplain, and that afternoon, they called for a school-wide Mass. They needed to see their friends, to come together, to right their rocking world. <br /> <br />That was the first lesson we all learned from the murder of over 3000 people at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Flight 93. How much we need to connect to each other, to reassure one another when such dire things happen. <br /> <br />That was the first, but there were others: how beautiful is Old Glory, lighted by candlelight, half-mast on the porch. How precious our peace and freedom are, and what it takes to defend that liberty from those who would disturb it. How aware even little kids like my son was, and how hard they work to make sense of their world. How angry a 16-year old can become, to see her country attacked and how wisely she can direct that anger, once the first grief has passed.How much passion we all have for the country of our birth and of our dreams. <br /> <br />There were many others in the path from being a September 10th person to becoming, very slowly, a September 12th person. Today is for remembering, and for reflecting on the beginning of that journey. Tomorrow, September 12, is for looking at how we have changed and making a commitment to stand up for the principles and values that we’ve always had but only too recently remembered. <br />
<div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:96aa6ad3-8220-44c4-95b4-9976ba384061" style="display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/America" rel="tag">America</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/September+11" rel="tag">September 11</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Patriotism" rel="tag">Patriotism</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/T%27shuvah" rel="tag">T'shuvah</a></div>
Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-52254593143289144352012-08-21T20:40:00.001-06:002012-08-22T10:45:13.408-06:00Like Losing My Religion<blockquote>
<div class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:39227c23-3ff6-4fad-8908-6a23567df2e0" style="display: inline; float: none; margin: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;">
Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Change" rel="tag">Change</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Judaism" rel="tag">Judaism</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Values" rel="tag">Values</a></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: teal;"></span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: teal;">That was just a dream . . . <br />That’s me in the corner, that’s me in the spot. light. I’m l</span><span style="color: teal;">osing my religion . . . </span></div>
<div align="left">
<span style="color: teal;">REM, Low(Bootleg) Album </span> </div>
</blockquote>
<div align="left">
<br /> <br />A few days ago, I awoke from a dream to find myself here at the ranch, sun pouring across the mesa outside my window and finch traffic at the birdbath. The dream was one of those weird ones that signal the changes of seasons and even deeper changes in me. And as I sat up in bed, feeling not quite awake yet, I thought: It must be <i>Elul</i>. I have these numinous dreams rarely, and when I do it is at this time and this season. <br /> <br /> In this dream, there were no transitions, just sudden change of scenes, as if I had been dropped into the middle of filming an ongoing movie. There are two parts I remember quite vividly, and the rest is a blur of impressions that faded immediately upon my awakening. <br /> <br />First, I am suddenly inside our synagogue, in the social hall, floating among people, and I realize that I don’t know a single soul among them, and then I see that their faces are all the same. <br />Later, I am in the parking lot, down on the level of the pavement, and I was looking at two outdated jeeps parked against the wall, one listing away from the other, and both sitting on their frames, no tires. The plates are tagged with dates in the 5750’s. I reach out to touch the jeep on the right, and instead find myself placing my open hand on a pile of clothes. I know that I need to pick them up, take them inside, because somebody there has need of them. As I lift each article, I notice that one item belonged to me once, a red skirt I wore at my <i>Bat Mitzvah</i>, and I fold it up because it doesn’t fit me anymore. . . <br /> <br />That morning as we had our morning coffee in bed, I turned to the Engineering Geek and told him that it was the first of Elul and that we had to think seriously about the upcoming Holy Days, and make some decisions. He nodded. He knew. We’ve been putting it off for a long time. I said that there are two issues, and I think need to be considered separately. The easiest is the issue of dues. The hardest is whether we should end our membership altogether and what we should do for the Holy Days. <br /> <br />The EG nodded. He said that we cannot afford the dues we are expected to pay. This is a problem we had thought we resolved in March of last year, three months after the EG retired from Sandia. We made a personal visit with administrator there to put our dues in abeyance until we could see how long it would take us to begin bringing in money with our businesses, and what it would be like to live on the pension and our investments out here at Freedom Ridge. But despite the arrangement, the synagogue kept sending bills for the amount we paid before, and at membership renewal, they continued our membership at the old rate. They have a policy, I have been told, that if members do not renew and do not formally resign, we are continued at the previous rate. I don’t know what happened to our arrangements in labyrinthine depths of the computers where such transactions are preserved, but I think it would be fairly easy to get this resolved. <br /> <br />Before we resolve it, though, we have to decide the hard question: should we continue membership? Even to consider this is almost like losing my religion, like relinquishing that which reconnects me again and again to my own past, our past and that of the people Israel who gather, learn and pray in that place. <br /> <br />All of my adult life I have been a member of this synagogue. My children had all of their life-cycle ceremonies there: her naming, his <i>brit milah</i>, their consecrations, <i>bat</i> and <i>bar mitzvah</i>, and confirmations. At that <i>bimah</i>, I was called to <i>Torah</i> for the first time as an adult <i>bat mitzvah</i>. Under the <i>chuppah</i> there, I was married to the Engineering Geek. From that sanctuary, I had expected to be taken to my final rest in the Congregation Albert Cemetery. There, I have celebrated the festivals, observed the fasts, heard the sound of the <i>Shofar, </i>welcomed the Sabbath Bride. <br /> <br />And yet, much of the connection has been slipping away of itself, as the Reform movement has become less about religion—the reconnection of people with the longings of their souls—and more about politics. When did Reform Judaism lose the prophetic voice of ethical monotheism for ritual without reason? When did it substitute “social justice” for G-d’s demand to choose life and reject death, made directly from the Mountain alive with smoke and fire, the <i>Bat Kol</i> resonating down through the centuries and into each of us, penetrating to our very bones? When did it replace the call of our Rabbis* to learn and understand and choose what is good with dictates from the Religious Action Center, replacing the majesty of Law with social-democratic political policy? </div>
<div align="left">
*<span style="font-size: x-small;">The capital “R” denotes the <i>Tanaim</i> and <i>Amoraim</i>, the founders of Rabbinic Judaism whose discussions and arguments became the <i>Talmud</i>, the teaching and conversation across time that kept the flame alive throughout all the years and centuries of exile and pogrom, crusades and holocaust.</span> <br /> <br />For a long while, beginning with our dissatisfaction with our last rabbi and his use of a Yom Kippur Sermon to stump for Obamacare, we have wondered if we were losing our religion. We also recognized that giving our hard-earned money to a Jewish institution that idolizes a president, and advocates spending our children’s inheritance to institute a collectivist utopia in place of our liberty is immoral, and is tantamount to funding our own destruction. <br /> <br />Part of the purpose of putting our dues in abeyance was also to wait and see. At the time, we had an interim rabbi whom we found to be a spiritual leader; one who respected the difference and the boundary between Jewish law and transient political policy, and who understood that his job was to provide guidance for walking the Jewish way to all of us. But we knew that we were getting a new rabbi and we had no idea how he would be. <br /> <br />We have now met the new rabbi and we find him distant and not terribly interested in talking to us. Perhaps this is unfair, because with our move to Freedom Ridge, we aren’t there often, although we have made an effort to be present when we are in Albuquerque. I do not expect hugs or effusive greetings, but warmth and small talk would be nice. Even a friendly wave and greeting would be welcome. But the man seems cold toward us, and I cannot help but take it personally. I was hoping that the man who takes responsibility for our Jewish needs and ceremonies would be, well, at least a bit <i>simpatico</i>. <br /> <br />I thought perhaps I ought to make the first reach, so I “friended” him on Facebook. And there I discovered that we had gotten another “social action” rabbi. I have seen very slanted posts there, ones that demonstrated the less than tolerant and charitable “Vision of the Anointed” of the left. The first one condemned the Susan G. Komen Foundation in lockstep with the leftist attack on that private charity because of an innocent decision about the best use of funds by its founder and board. The second accused the people of Colorado Springs of hypocrisy because many of them are conservative and support cutting the federal budget and taxes and yet their local and state governments requested federal disaster funds for them. <br /> <br /> There are political arguments for why the good rabbi is wrong in both cases, but I did not use them. I did make comments expressing my concern that these posts betrayed a one-sided view that was uncharitable in the extreme, and that placed ideology over individuals. I remain dismayed at this rabbi’s lack of discernment, jumping on two leftist propaganda bandwagons as he did, without apparent thought and with some malice. This makes me uncomfortable at the thought that this man is the one I am paying to be on call for me should we have a family tragedy or even a <i>simcha</i>, in order to provide us with the Jewish rites and comfort that accompany such events. It is not that we disagree with one another politically, so much as the way in which he has made blanket condemnations without much depth about people whom he does not even know, because of his attachment to his political ideology. I would be one of those people. <br /> <br />There are other issues and events, things that have happened very recently and over a longer period of time that make me feel that we may be formally members, but we really don’t belong at this synagogue. Ten years ago, I <i>leyned</i> Torah several times a year, something I love to do. I have not <i>leyned</i> once since Cantor Jacquie left, and we have not been honored with a call to Torah either, even this year, when we celebrated our 10th anniversary. Recently, my brother-in-law and my son’s uncle died suddenly and tragically, and although we informed the synagogue, and we drove almost two hundred miles to say <i>kaddish</i>, his name was omitted from the list. <br /> <br />I have written before about my discomfort with some of the ways in which our ways of thinking and being do not mesh with the prevailing climate of this synagogue, and I suppose that sooner or later it had to come to a decision point. And yet it is not an easy one, as obvious as the misfit of our square pegs and their round holes may be. <br /> <br />We have talked about it, the Engineering Geek and I, and although he feels it less deeply, he is much more vocal about the immorality of continuing to support a synagogue where he has to walk out of the political sermons year after year. He tends to joke about it, but as money becomes more scarce—like most ranchers our wealth is not liquid—he says he doesn’t want to throw away the good after the “socialist” bad money.</div>
<div align="left">
<br /> <br />We have made no final decisions. But we have given ourselves two options for the Holy Days, neither of which will be to attend services at Congregation Albert. We may pray at home for one or both of the High Holy Days. We may visit a small, egalitarian synagogue in Flagstaff. Although it is affiliated with the Reform Movement, its size and location mean that it draws Jews from many different Jewish backgrounds. Also, the rabbi did not study at Hebrew Union College (the seminary of the Reform movement), and therefore may be less indoctrinated in the current political “religion” ideology that seems to emanate from it. We would like to find out. Although neither of us are particularly touchy-feely types, we can tolerate that so long as the focus is Judaism in all its history and grandeur, and is not wasted in the weeds of ephemeral political dogmas and doctrines. <br /> <br />I know that if I never belong to or never darken the doors of another synagogue, I will remain a Jew in culture and commitment. I will never bow down to idols, be they made of stone or ideology. I will always see the world through the Jewish eyes I developed through all these years at Congregation Albert. But even the small steps that we have made away from a congregation in which I have experienced all of the joys, sorrows and frustrations of being a Jew cause me to feel like I am losing my religion. </div>
<br />
<div align="left">
<br /> <br /> </div>
<div align="left">
</div>
Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-26089029530075005862012-08-12T06:01:00.001-06:002012-08-12T06:01:11.661-06:00Summer Sabbath Days<p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-9nXLe3coqqc/UCea8v8SdMI/AAAAAAAAFkg/UmS1_Fvn_lQ/s1600-h/DSC00891%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00891" border="0" alt="DSC00891" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-u6_9OsLoBuU/UCebAGFF3DI/AAAAAAAAFko/92_1mUhRMs4/DSC00891_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a> </p> <p>Time here at Freedom Ridge has a different quality. One day slips into another as the season advances almost unnoticed, governed by the needs of people and animals, rather than by the calendar and clock. <br /> <br />Dogs wake us at sunrise, the horses call to one another on their way to the feeder, and cows come down the August green hillsides, loitering outside the corral, ready to be fed. <br />There is more than enough work to fill the days, and much of it is the work of the sweat of the brow. It is easy to lose track of the date on the calendar. but never the progression of the season, now marked by the explosion of wildflowers watered by the monsoon rains, telling us that fall is in the offing. <br /> <br />In the weekly round of work, there is never routine and one project leads to another,and news from over the mountains and far away comes to us on the invisible airwaves to our radio receivers and sweeps down from satellites to be made solid on our computers. Breaks come from necessary trips to town for supplies, for local news. and to see and speak to familiar human beings. <br /> <br />And for us, each week also progresses towards the Sabbath, which here takes on a timeless quality when the round of work and chores is interrupted and another week is ended with time out of time, marked by ritual and suffused with its own quality of living. <br /> <br />Here, nothing intrudes as it did in the city. The phone does not ring, the computer is not fired up, and the radio is not turned on, as we deliberately turn away from the inexorable march of information, much of which we don’t need any day, but certainly not on Shabbat. <br /> <br />Friday evening, the urgent voices from the outside give way to music, and the cool breeze off the mountains give life to the flames of the Sabbath candles, lit just before sunset, ushering in our own little sanctuary in time. In the morning we feed, we water, but no projects beckon. After a leisurely breakfast, prayer and study are the only agenda. As the heat grows towards afternoon, and windows are opened and closed to catch the breeze and shut out the heat, we appreciate the weekly ritual of the nap on the couches, the leather cool and soft and supportive. <br /> <br />Often I read and doze, choosing more contemplative books, and I gaze out the windows where the dogs snooze, catching a breeze on the porch. The Engineering Geek, guarded by the cats, begins an article in Sky and Telescope, but is soon asleep, and with the regular deep breathing from him and from the animals, I soon join him. <br /> <br />By mid-afternoon we wake slowly, deliciously, and taking out wine and Challah bread, make Kiddush and lunch on hummus and pita and cucumber and tomato. A summer repast, as the clouds build in the southwest, providing cover and a cool breeze that invite a walk and talk, and a sit on the porch swing at the cabin while showers make their music on the metal roofs. <br /> <br />Every week we find different variations on the theme of Shabbat, but the summer Sabbaths have a particular quality of ease and abundance brought about by the long, leisurely trip of the sun from east to west, the heat of the day, and the cool refuge of the porch and the house from the unrelenting light of the desert sun at zenith. It appears as if all of nature around us was only waiting for us to slow down and join with a summer afternoon’s leisurely being, there everyday, but only joined by us once in seven. <br /> <br />As the Sabbath afternoon slides into evening, often accompanied by early evening thunderstorms, we come out of the Shabbat somnolence, kindle light and welcome a new week. As the stars make their appearance and the lightning recedes to the northeast, that is when we catch up on a five year old HBO series, or catch a movie, the only use for our almost antique TV/DVD each week way out here, where the signals are attenuated by the canyons, cables do not reach, and our time filled with other things.  <br /> <br />At dinner, we re-enter the current or ordinary time, stepping in up to our knees, talking of plans for the coming week, laying out the progress on projects and contracts that give forward impetus to the ongoing round of ranch chores that will structure the days of productive work ahead. As eager as we were to leave the stream of ordinary time on Friday evening, so by Saturday night we look forward to returning to it, rested and ready. Another Sabbath replete with blessing now completed. <br /> <br /><em>Shavua tov</em>, we say. May it be a good week, a productive week. May our wealth and happiness increase, and that of the whole world.</p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-61668366097193489742012-08-06T07:40:00.001-06:002012-08-06T07:40:32.856-06:00August Cross Quarter Day<p><a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-e6gVTcCKMvE/UB_JIGQJ7tI/AAAAAAAAFj4/iojtALu40mM/s1600-h/DSC00885%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00885" border="0" alt="DSC00885" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-V6OZKCHyNLQ/UB_JLRrqTRI/AAAAAAAAFkA/i4_7h91-uF4/DSC00885_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> </p> <p>Already, it is the August Cross Quarter Day. This is the day halfway between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. In the old calendar of Europe, it is Lughnasad and Lammastide—the beginning of the Chase of Lugh, the Celtic sun god—when the first harvests begin far north of the Equator. It is the beginning of the Fall season of old. <br /> <br />For us here at Freedom Ridge Ranch, we see the season beginning to shift. Even as far south as we are—in the horse latitudes—our elevation is high, and summer is fleeting. Here, on the west slopes of the Continental Divide, the hot season is already gone. With the start of the Monsoon in July, we saw the greening begin, with its cool nights, hot mornings and cloudy and rainy afternoons. <br /></p> <p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-_qHf4XcsqZA/UB_JOoPCxJI/AAAAAAAAFkI/Oe8kPjrF1ms/s1600-h/DSC00886%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00886" border="0" alt="DSC00886" align="right" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-kin344wa11Y/UB_JS8zl7iI/AAAAAAAAFkQ/CWOMADOr5Ok/DSC00886_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> Now, as the daylight is noticeably shorter, we see chilly, misty mornings, with dew on the blooming sunflowers, and dripping down from the metal roofs of house and barn and cabin. Already, the Aspens begin to show yellow in the leaves, and the sun appears south of where it rose at the Solstice. The shadows are deeper. The season is changing. <br />Already, we have put the feather comforter back on the bed. <br /> <br />Here at Ragamuffin Studies, we have just passed the Fast of <em>Tisha b’Av</em>, a day of mourning for the loss of Temple and a going into exile. Last Shabbat, we began the seven weeks of Comfort, when we read <em>Haftarah Nachamu –“</em>Comfort, O, comfort my people, says your G-d.” Autumn is coming, and with it the New Year of Years, <em>Rosh Hashanah</em>, and the Season of Repentance, Renewal, and the Ingathering Harvest. The Wheel of the Year turns once again to its end and beginning, and in the seasons of our lives, we have seen the last child grown and graduated, moving out for a while to study and practice for the time when he will come back to run Freedom Ridge Ranch. <br /> <br /><em>Blessed is the One who makes the years pass and the seasons alternate . . .</em></p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:3ee73268-1e39-4b51-b6e4-fd99ede59bd9" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meanwhile+Back+at+the+Ranch" rel="tag">Meanwhile Back at the Ranch</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Times+and+Seasons" rel="tag">Times and Seasons</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Weather" rel="tag">Weather</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-64619418514619207222012-08-05T18:34:00.001-06:002012-08-05T18:34:50.905-06:00Branding Day<p><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-5Kdr7pbfpRI/UB8QrF608FI/AAAAAAAAFiw/dyzDVCIwvJs/s1600-h/DSC00836%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00836" border="0" alt="DSC00836" align="left" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-aiGSRyOlEcY/UB8Qu9bs6QI/AAAAAAAAFi4/sLf7apb6VG0/DSC00836_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> </p> <p>This year we have two calves, one born in June and one in early July who needed branding. The little black one was a little bull, and the white one under her white mother is a little heifer. So last Sunday, with the help of three cowboys—who are calling themselves Adam, Hoss, and Little Joe—we had a branding. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-CzVe_7XFWVo/UB8QzTRLBKI/AAAAAAAAFjA/VqxAtsoiISg/s1600-h/DSC00850%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00850" border="0" alt="DSC00850" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-7hZrPbAjYwc/UB8Q3V3KDsI/AAAAAAAAFjI/X9XpByyU3lQ/DSC00850_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> </p> <p>The CIT—who is now ‘Adam’—got the cows together on Sunday morning when we fed them in corral. Except that three were missing. Lucy Longhorn, her steer from last year, and Freckles’ steer from last year. The guys were able to get Lucy Longhorn in, and we figured the young‘uns would come in sooner or later. In any case, we didn’t need them until it was time to dose them up with Ivermectin against parasites. This year’s calves were the stars of the first half. Since he is the most experienced, ‘Hoss’ was assigned to roping. The cowboys had moved the cows into the arena, and there, the roping came pretty easily. Just a few rounds, and the little bull was roped by the hind leg. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-kcrbfgThL5E/UB8Q8c7KeJI/AAAAAAAAFjQ/Oz6jSJfOjJ8/s1600-h/DSC00855%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 5px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00855" border="0" alt="DSC00855" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-vfTgcNKsNZM/UB8RApgw3cI/AAAAAAAAFjY/nDOOkSxA9VY/DSC00855_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> Immediately after he was roped, ‘Adam’ (left) and ‘Little Joe’ (right) ran in to flank him. One took the leg while the other lifted the rope, bringing him down on the correct side. ‘Hoss’ dismounted his, and ran in with the branding irons. Then ‘Little Joe’ cut the earmarks, ‘Hoss’ made the bull into a steer, and ‘Adam’ administered the Black Leg vaccination. After that, the little guy was given a fly tag in the ear and sent back to his mama. The calf was down less than three minutes. It pays to have several experienced cow boys. The little white heifer was down even less time as she didn’t have to be cut. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-TqA9yeRBoDU/UB8RFcu1EvI/AAAAAAAAFjg/WXenL5aMYMc/s1600-h/DSC00869%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00869" border="0" alt="DSC00869" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-j829aYpzC88/UB8RJKWHjzI/AAAAAAAAFjo/VF1s1MGL4ls/DSC00869_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> The most exciting part of the day happened after the branding itself. As they were branding, the charlaite (the color of <em>cafe au lait</em>) and the Black steers showed up, wondering what was going on. There was a great deal of mooing across the arena stockade as they greeted the herd and were greeted in return. But the cowboys with the help of ‘Hoss’s’ dogs had to bring them into the chute for the Ivermectin treatment. There was some fancy riding, as ‘Little Joe’ on the Paint and ‘Hoss’ on the Sorrel brought the Black around the corral several times. We got the Charlaite in, but the black ran around the hill. ‘Hoss’ roped him there, and then we treated him in situ. After the job was done, there was only one Rocky Mountain Oyster given to the dog, Tipy, who belongs to ‘Adam.’ Then it was back to the house for hamburgers—from a steer killed in 2011—and a nice cold one for the working boys. <br /> <br />This fall, we will be slaughtering the black steer and the charlaite born in February and March of 2011. In the spring, the little black bull born just before branding last July, will go, unless we decide to sell him as stud. That is the way of life on a ranch. The males are for food, and the females to get new calves. <br /> <br />This month, we will deciding about the direction of our herd. Our bull, Studley Do-right is getting old, and although we have none of his older female offspring here on the ranch, we think he might be getting past his prime. We may need to “ship” him (sell him) and get a new bull. We are also considering reducing this herd, and bringing in a new breed—possibly Dexters—which are smaller and easier for us to handle. This is a weighty decision, and however we do it, we will be saying good-bye to some of our cows. This is also part of ranching. It is not the easiest part, since we have very genteel cows. The matriarchs, Freckles and LB were hand-raised by their previous owner, and they have influenced their offspring. <br /> <br />We are living closer to the realities of life. Meat does not come from the grocery store. It must be born and raised and slaughtered. Animals are raised by humans, and their genomes preserved by humans, so that humans can eat them and sustain their own lives. We are part of it all, and it all happens here, where they are grass fed and grass finished. We thank them for their lives and their contribution to ours. We slaughter them with one stroke of a sharp knife, so that they don’t have time to fear. We treat them with respect. </p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-22396157217638123422012-07-30T11:06:00.001-06:002012-07-30T11:06:02.158-06:00Americanas and Chicken Little<a href="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-n7x54i2kc0s/UBa-36SHieI/AAAAAAAAFiY/JUwHx9cI60w/s1600-h/AmericanasIII3.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 5px 0px 5px 5px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="Americanas III" border="0" alt="Americanas III" align="right" src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/-KRche52r09I/UBa-8nLSdyI/AAAAAAAAFig/wQTzG1as0D8/AmericanasIII_thumb1.jpg?imgmax=800" width="238" height="244" /></a> <p>During the month of June, we added six Auricana/Americana pullets to the stock at Freedom Ridge Ranch. Auricana/Americana chickens are a South American breed, very hardy and calm, but with good preservation of predator avoidance and they are also very good layers. They are the famous “easter-egg” layers, and their eggs vary from sky blue to turquoise to green, and more rarely, pink to brown.  <br /> <br />Our hens are now about 8 weeks old, and we moved them outside weeks ago, after raising the little chicks in the bathtub over at the cabin for a few weeks. I had not had chickens since we raised three chicks given to us when I was a child, and I have become fascinated watching our hens. When we arrive at the chicken coop in the morning, they are chirping and clucking behind the closed door, already awake and ready to come forth into the daylight, to scratch and eat, chase insects and take dirt baths. We move their portable pen called the chicken tractor around the yard every day, so that they have access to weeds and flowers, as well as vegetable scraps from the kitchen. <br /> <br />The “ladies”—as the Engineering Geek calls them--are used to us, and to their hanging waterer, but whenever a shadow passes overhead, they immediately huddle under the raised chicken door to their coop and become very quiet. Once the threat passes, they go back to their clucking and eating, but with a watchful eye toward the sky, where a hawk or eagle might swoop down and take them for dinner. Drops of rain, or even vegetable scraps pitched into the chicken tractor sends them scurrying under shelter, even though the chicken wire top on the chicken tractor prevents any predator from entering. “The sky is falling!” the EG jokes, as they run for cover and grow silent. <br /> <br />Those of us of a certain age remember those classic animal fables from our childhood, The Little Red Hen, Chicken Little, the Ant and the Grasshopper. All of them were intended to teach a moral lesson: how those who work have earned the fruit of their labor, why one drop of rain does not a deluge make, and why it is important to plan for the future in the present. These tales inculcate and strengthen classic American virtues: hard work, common sense, and being prepared for the inevitable tough seasons. <br /> <br />But in watching my Americanas, I have come to reconsider how the tale of Chicken Little is understood by the newer generations of American children, if they have heard it at all. For some American children today are being raised almost as hot-house children, protected from every bump, bruise or danger while simultaneously being given the sense of enormous entitlement, so that they grow up with little experience of how to handle deprivation, danger and fear. For these privileged children, does the story of Chicken Little resonate differently than for those raised on the farm, or in the “duck and cover” era of the Cold War? <br /> <br />I think so, because twice last week I saw Jewish Libertarians insulted and ridiculed for pointing out the dangers of ignoring and appeasing the new, virulent anti-Semitism coming simultaneously from the left and from the Islamists of the world. In one case, several of them were called “Chicken Littles” and their concerns were ridiculed as if they were constantly running around proclaiming that “the sky is falling!” <br /> <br />A farm kid growing up in the ‘50’s and ‘60’s was aware of the context of the story of Chicken Little in ways that citified American children of privilege are not. When hearing the story of Chicken Little, the farm kid understood that there is really danger out there in the sky for little chickens, and that there can be real reasons for a chicken to run for cover and grow silent when the shadow of the hawk passes over the feather pen. In this context, the story is a warning not to invent danger where there is none,  and not to develop fears that are out of proportion to the evidence. The story was not meant to teach children to close their eyes to real danger, it was meant to teach them not to create conspiracy theories just because there is evidence of danger. <br /> <br />But in the present context, in which privileged city children are protected from even the intimation of danger, the story has morphed into one that teaches that there is no reason to take cover, or to be prepared for danger, and that the watchmen on the walls are crazy and ought to shut up. It is as if the story is meant to say, “Do not disturb my illusions. Let me continue to evade the reality of the hawk.” And yet the hawk is out there, as is the owl, and so it is important for little chickens to pay attention to the  shadows passing over them. However, it is equally important not to invent evidence of danger that does  not exist. <br /> <br />One reason that there is revived interest in the heirloom varieties of chickens is that the hybrids used in commercial egg and/or meat production are so incompetent that if left out on the free range, they will be easily taken by the hawk and the fox. All of the survival instincts are bred out of them in favor of fast and easy production characteristics. Such chickens must be protected by being kept in small cages, never seeing the light of the sun or feeling the pleasure of a dirt bath. They cannot survive on their own, for they do not recognize real danger, and will not duck out of sight when hawk comes soaring by.  <br /> <br /> I can’t help but think that chickens raised in cages are easier to control than are my Americana hens, and they exist not to live their lives but only to produce the most eggs and meat in the shortest amount of time, with no thought to either the quality of their live of the quality of the meat and eggs they are used to produce. <br /> <br />Are we raising generations of our future doers and shakers who will be equally easy to control, who will not step out of line for fear of being ridiculed as Chicken Littles? This is certainly not a strategy for raising free-range kids, who will grow up to be free and independent individuals.  <br /> <br />This quashing of warnings is an interesting study in the evasion of reality. We are teaching to fear big systemic changes that they can have little impact upon, but at the same time, we tell them that there are no predators in the world, and that to be wary of threats to their individual lives and being is ridiculous. It is as though we are making ourselves and our children vulnerable to the most insane demagoguery. <br /> <br />And we think chickens are crazy because they duck under shelter and grow silent when the shadow of the hawk passes overhead. </p> <div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:18158953-96a0-4869-bff0-fa4703ab9a8c" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meanwhile+Back+at+the+Ranch" rel="tag">Meanwhile Back at the Ranch</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Educational+Anarchy" rel="tag">Educational Anarchy</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meshuggeneh+World" rel="tag">Meshuggeneh World</a></div> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-76951913124258949562012-07-28T10:53:00.001-06:002012-07-28T10:53:04.950-06:00Greening<div style="padding-bottom: 0px; margin: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: inline; float: none; padding-top: 0px" id="scid:0767317B-992E-4b12-91E0-4F059A8CECA8:4099ede3-e686-42c9-8181-45bb69a8c51a" class="wlWriterEditableSmartContent">Technorati Tags: <a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Meanwhile+Back+at+the+Ranch" rel="tag">Meanwhile Back at the Ranch</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Weather" rel="tag">Weather</a>,<a href="http://technorati.com/tags/Geography" rel="tag">Geography</a></div> <p><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-GCucDATl1qI/UBQY0_H2YxI/AAAAAAAAFiA/Auqs7-VhGmE/s1600-h/LB%252520Grazing%252520II%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-right-width: 0px; margin: 5px 5px 5px 0px; display: inline; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; border-left-width: 0px" title="LB Grazing II" border="0" alt="LB Grazing II" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-DVgHm6MzCBE/UBQY5WlvylI/AAAAAAAAFiI/qdwcxwQh5bM/LB%252520Grazing%252520II_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> </p> <p>On a quiet Shabbat morning as I took a rare cup of coffee on the porch I noticed it. I was looking across at LB, who had left the corral and was grazing on the bank of Freedom Ridge Draw. <br /> <br />Because of last year’s drought we are still feeding the cattle at the corral, and usually they stay there all morning, moving across to water in the early afternoon. But here was LB, grazing in the morning. The valley and the hillsides are greening finally, after three weeks of monsoon winds bringing moisture over from the Gulf of California, lifting it up across the Arizona desert,  building the clouds heavy over the Mogollon Rim, and dropping the monsoon rains down upon the Mogollon Slope and Continental Divide. This year a good monsoon season has begun, the clear, cool mornings with a hint of moisture and the clouds beginning to build to the west-southwest by 10 o’clock. In the afternoon, wave after wave of heavy clouds begin to move across our ridges and valley, some of them dropping showers and on some days, a cloudburst. It is a good start for the monsoon, clouds every afternoon, and showers and storms three or four days out of seven. <br /> <br />The greening season here in Southwestern New Mexico is different from where I grew up in Central Illinois. In Illinois, spring is the season of tender green shoots and new grass, with the deep yellow of dandelion flowers hailing the end of winter in March. The corn grows high, there, each plant cycling a quart of water or more a day, bringing the muggy dog days of August, the hottest part of the summer. As the corn matures, the days dry out, gold and brown in the fall. <br /> <br />In New Mexico, the spring is windy and dry, brown with dust and sand—Arizona blowing over to Texas—one of the two dry seasons, following the winter snow that falls mostly over the mountains. The warming days and wind, the return of the birds are harbingers of summer. But here on the Mogollon slope, there is no green, no soft colors. The land is hard and bright, straw and brown.  <br /> <br />When the winds die down in June, we have our hottest summer days. The heat comes up from the desert, south winds from Mexico, and descends into the valleys. Ours is a dry heat, and you can get relief in the shade, if you can find any. In good years, by the end of June, the winds shift, coming from the southwest, and we see towering white clouds forming in the southwest, moving slowly across the Continental Divide to the north. Nights become humid, and our evaporative coolers don’t work for a week of two. But if all goes well with the trade winds coming up from the tropics and across these horse latitudes, in a few weeks the afternoon humidity will become afternoon thunderstorms, making coolers unnecessary as they wash the humidity into the dusty earth, clearing the air, and greening the land. <br /> <br />Some years are La Nina years, and the Monsoon winds fail, and we have drought. Last summer, the clouds built and we got a few feeble showers in July, and then it stayed dry until September. The feeble trades dropped their sparse moisture quickly over the Mogollon Rim but did not reach New Mexico. Last year, we had late rains and early snows in September and October, as the days grew shorter, and so the land never greened up, and the grasses did  not grow tall. We had drought and fires, drought and fires. <br /> <br />This year, the monsoon seems full of promise. The land is greening, the first I have seen these two years. May the monsoon continue and grow in strength this year, breaking the drought and bringing life-giving water to a dry and weary land. <br /> <br />The greening of the land is rest for the eye. </p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-7305956989173163592012-06-13T18:40:00.001-06:002012-06-13T18:40:50.660-06:00A Season of Losses and Gains: Part II-Gains<p>Yesterday, I began the process of catching up with myself after a three-month blogging hiatus. That entry was all about the losses we experienced over that time and how one of them affected my desire to blog at all.  Today, is for the gains. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-F48qh3H7d7o/T9kyxkEml2I/AAAAAAAAFg4/WvzkmxuFtGM/s1600-h/DSC00687%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00687" border="0" alt="DSC00687" align="left" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-vstkJBk5uvA/T9ky1o7NN2I/AAAAAAAAFhA/pIMq9lsEwfk/DSC00687_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244" /></a>Firstly, we have gained a baby burro. Petunia and Ruger presented us with a little jill, whose picture graces the title of Ragamuffin Studies, so iconic of spring is she. Little Priscilla is watched over by both of her parents, and spends her time gamboling and playing while her parents focus on the mundane activities of getting food and water. Young mammals are a delight, and this one is no exception. She is getting used to our hands, although she does not  take sweet feed from us yet, as her parents do. It is funny to watch her traveling four and five times the distance from the corral to the stock tank than her parents do!  </p> <p>This season has also been one of frustration and growth for me. When I determined that I would never finish my current doctorate studies at all if I continued with a quantitative study, my advisor and I thought about a combined qualitative-quantitative study. This meant I had to learn how to do “qual'”, which requires a very different approach. This spring I took a heavy-duty Qualitative Case Study course with an expert in the field who is also a very demanding teacher. And it very nearly <strike>killed</strike> drove me to drink. The problems began with coming up with a question, and continued as I tried to shoe-horn a literature I knew well into a question that was very different. Stubborn as I am, I finally saw that my whole approach had to change. I <strike>allowed</strike> forced myself to write the introduction as a first person (horrors!) narrative that demonstrated how I had come to my question. In the process, I learned how bringing myself into the research itself is one of the characteristics of qualitative research, and I saw how my narrative approach helped not only define the question, but also find the gaps in the literature that my study would address. <br /> <br />I am quite pleased with my research report, although I did revert to the ablative (this was done, that  was shown, etc.) in reporting my results. Still, I gained a new perspective and new tools, two very important things to keep this “grandmother” brain from hardening up to a stultifying degree. And the coolest gain, I saw a theme in the data that I had seen in data during a more congenial (to me) course that I took last spring. And in talking it over with my expert, demanding professor, I realized that this is the theme that will likely occupy me through the dissertation: resistance. <br /> <br />“ Resistance? You’re interested in resistance? Who’d have ever thunk it?” was the Engineering Geek’s somewhat acerbic observation. <br /></p> <p>The Engineering Geek himself has been working on some important projects for the ranch, and these projects require all of his engineering skills. The whole irrigation system needed an overhaul, having been put in by “rank amateurs” (his words) and used for 18 years. He has been busy designing a manifold for delivery of water, French drains for getting rid of unwanted water, and general improvements to efficiency and design. He is also designing a solar well pump system, and a solar system for the house in order to make us more self-sufficient as “energy prices necessarily skyrocket” as our <strike>dictator</strike> president promised they would in 2008. <br /> <br />The Engineering Geek has also gotten the first contract for his own engineering firm, NRG Options Engineering, LLC, since retiring from the labs. Since he was apparently more popular with customers than the lab management, it is no surprise that he was requested by one of his former colleagues, and received the contract with no argument from administration. This has been a balm to his battered professional ego, for he never felt truly valued for his work as an employee. It took a long time for the words of our business consultant to sink in: No one will value you like you will. That’s why valuable people go into business for themselves. <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-UyGn80beRxk/T9ky5d_BGlI/AAAAAAAAFhI/cJyvFS4h2Tg/s1600-h/Eclipse%252520Sunset%252520%252520III%252520Ya-Ta-Hey%25255B4%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Eclipse Sunset III Ya-Ta-Hey" border="0" alt="Eclipse Sunset III Ya-Ta-Hey" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-1n70420OhSk/T9ky8rPpGnI/AAAAAAAAFhQ/yoz3q1ODwXI/Eclipse%252520Sunset%252520%252520III%252520Ya-Ta-Hey_thumb%25255B2%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="201" /></a>This spring has also been great for observing. The Engineering Geek is also an amateur astronomer, and we have had several wonderful events to observe in our environs. We drove north about 100 miles to observe the Annular Solar Eclipse from the centerline, which passed through New Mexico. We thought we might be a little south of the predicted centerline, but it turned out we were right on it! Two weeks and two days later, we set up on our mesa for the final Transit of Venus in our lifetime. This takes place about once a century in two 8-year apart events. It was exciting to see the shadow of Venus cross onto the solar disc in real time through a filtered telescope, although I will admit that watching the rest of transit we could see from our area was like watching corn grow. Still, it was a once in a lifetime opportunity! (We could not see the Transit of Venus in 2004 from North America).  <br /> <br /><a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-d9x_5WpJv8k/T9ky_2WXlEI/AAAAAAAAFhY/vMmZyNK8a-E/s1600-h/Binky%252520and%252520Moon%252520Shadow%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Binky and Moon Shadow" border="0" alt="Binky and Moon Shadow" align="left" src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/-mQPmt55MDAY/T9kzDY1PTMI/AAAAAAAAFhg/hcUpx-bRCHU/Binky%252520and%252520Moon%252520Shadow_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="121" /></a>Finally, our new house-cat came to us on the evening of the eclipse. We were set up at an elementary school north of Gallup, near Yah-ta-Hey, New Mexico. There was a beautiful little kitty there that came around as we were watching the annula. She kept rubbing at my legs, and claiming me as I walked around showing people how to use the filters and the eclipse glasses. (We had attracted a sizeable crowd when we set up our telescope). A neighbor of the school said that she was a stray, so when she jumped into the car as we packed up, what were we cat lovers supposed to do? Of course we stopped at Wal-Mart in Gallup and bought a little cat carrier. Of course we took her to the vet, got her de-wormed, de-ear-mited and spayed. Her name is Moon Shadow (of course!) and she has moved in and brought poor lonely Binky out of his shell. Another gain, brought to us by serendipity!  <br /> <br />There is so much more to write about but each of them deserves a separate blog entry! Stay tuned! </p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6059095776066394557.post-294110697019513122012-06-12T19:06:00.001-06:002012-06-12T19:06:32.217-06:00A Season of Loss and Gain: Part I-Losses<p>I have not written anything at all here since Purim. Part of the reason is that we have been busy with our work on the ranch, and my work with the Gary Johnson campaign, with classes and courses, training and all the business of life. If I had thought that as the children grew up and began leaving home my leisure would increase, I have been shown to be wrong. The days are still just as packed as they ever were, if not more so.   <br /> <br />But another, deeper reason is that I have been challenged and tested this spring of 2012 with losses and gains that I was reluctant to write about because I had not yet resolved some of them in my own head and heart, and in some ways still haven’t. <br /> <br />We lost a total of four animals this past spring. The one calf born so far this year, was taken by coyotes, and a heifer died one night for reasons that we will never know, about two months after we transferred her to our partner’s farm on the Rio Grande. These losses caused momentary anguish and questioning, but not the anguish that two others created. <br /> <br />In late January, while we were away, the eldest of<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-U-k0nejT4l0/T9fnYsLWwLI/AAAAAAAAFgU/f0Wd6pliPKI/s1600-h/Cloudy%252520II%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 10px 0px 0px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="Cloudy II" border="0" alt="Cloudy II" align="left" src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-tFWpN29xGeo/T9fncHH8_II/AAAAAAAAFgc/K_5ofCNnizU/Cloudy%252520II_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="166" height="244" /></a> our two house cats died unexpectedly. Cloudy, our most beautiful cat—the one with the unique aquamarine eyes--laid down in his favorite winter sleeping spot and never woke up again. He was found by the CIT, who saw him born 11 years before. It seemed the  circle was closed that night and the next day when we buried him on the sunny south-facing hillside behind the house, under a twisted pinyon tree in view of his favorite window perch.</p> <p> </p> <p>But the hardest loss by far happened on February 8, 2012.<a href="http://lh4.ggpht.com/-LaSXleIqCmg/T9fng_T9t6I/AAAAAAAAFgk/cUVpyqBsDWQ/s1600-h/DSC00439%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img style="border-bottom: 0px; border-left: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 0px 5px; display: inline; border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px" title="DSC00439" border="0" alt="DSC00439" align="right" src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/-eiFbklK-tec/T9fnkT6sBUI/AAAAAAAAFgs/cbOw3CYp37k/DSC00439_thumb%25255B1%25255D.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184" /></a> It was a sunny, early spring morning, when I fed the dogs, and as was my habit, hugged Umbrae—our big, black Newfie cross hard so that he would “talk” to me. Later that morning, busy with computer work for a class that I was leaving to attend in Albuquerque, I did not notice that he and Lily had gone on walk-about. When he did not return, I drove the county road looking for him, returning empty to the ranch. After Lily returned, I reluctantly left for two days, hoping that he would return that evening. He never did. And I am left with a huge hole in my heart, wondering what happened to him, and thinking about what I could have done differently that morning. He may have been stolen, he may have been attacked by a wild animal. He may be alive still, and he may not. We just don’t know. And that is the hardest loss of all. As I drive around the Red Hill area, I still have one eye on the pastures and roads, the hills and the houses, hoping to catch a glimpse of my big, black dog. In my mind’s eye I see him, in the periphery of my vision, dancing on the big rock on the hill above the house.   <br /> <br />More than any other reason, I  think I have not posted here for so long because on some level, I wanted to wait for good news about Umbrae. Writing about his loss, I knew, would open up the wound of not knowing, to bring that awful sinking feeling in my gut, the pain of loss that seems unendurable even as it must be endured. And it would make his loss seem final and permanent in my mind. <br /> <br />There have been other losses, but they are smaller, less permanent, more reconcilable. There have also been many gains, some wonderful and amazing, and some small and satisfying. The gains, I think, deserve their own entry and their own honors. Tomorrow. <br /> <br />I have undertaken the discipline of blogging again, as we move into the summer and as I embrace more and more fully this life we have chosen, way out here. </p> Elisheva Hannah Levinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16061377724926154037noreply@blogger.com0