I love my classical radio station but I’m easily irked by some of the hosts. They’re always going on about how “relaxing” or “soothing” the music is, in this turbulent world. Well. There is a sort of wallpaper orchestral genre that many people equate to classical music, but I’m in it for the combustion of the spirit, the jump-up-on-the-table storm of joy, the surrender to being battered by beauty. It’s not relaxing. Mozart has to tear the tissues of your heart first, to heal it in the next note.
So I quibble. What difference is it to me if the nice lady thinks soothing is the point, as long as she plays the music?
It’s possible I’m too sensitive. But the other day, hours after the town had shivered, powerless in every sense, through record cold, it was 65 degrees and sunny here. Bees bothered the crocuses. Daffodils charged through the sweet-smelling soil. It was the first day of February.
And our chirpy radio host referred to all of the above and said she was afraid to “jinx it” by playing Beethoven’s Pastorale Symphony.
Jinx it? Honey. We couldn’t be jinxeder.
I understand that humans like to be comfortable, and there’s nothing to compare to a summer’s day. But I can wait for it. I want to wait for it. That’s what sweaters are for.
I did go outside for a walk in the sun. It was pleasant. But I heard a bass line of tragedy. The breath of a dragon may be warm, but if you can feel it, the dragon is too damn close.
Our balmy interlude is a random, roaming pocket in a roiling system which is already dismantling the conditions we evolved in—that Goldilocks perfection that some believe God designed for us, as though we’d be here at all if it were any different.
Today we’re being told that all those souls trudging across the desert with their babies strapped to their backs are demon invaders. There are many reasons people have to leave the homes they love, but not least because American policies, covert and otherwise, have deliberately destabilized their countries for years. Wretched poverty and violence fill the vacuum left behind. Democratically elected governments are sacrificed to maintain profits and control markets. A sensible policy would address conditions so people wouldn’t be forced to leave their homes. The policy we are pursuing is meant to terrify people into voting for the same people and policies that got us into this.
But the political destabilization that sends us so many of those scary, desperate women and babies is nothing compared to the destabilization we continue to visit on the planetary envelope that has sustained us. So powerful is the disruption we have engineered that it wreaks destruction in every part of the globe, even stopping the ocean currents our living systems depend on. And the burgeoning rate of migration worldwide is nothing compared to what it will be as people escape drought and fire and desertification and collapsed fisheries and disease and famine and all the warfare that will attend it. You don’t like furriners in your country, you don’t vote for the team that wants to drill, drill, drill, baby.
We know what to do. But we can’t do it. We would need political will for that, and our politics is designed to keep the wool over our eyes, to trick us into our own graves. Only the grave-diggers will profit, for a while, but they’re the ones running the show.
Maybe we really could use a dictator. But not the one we’re liable to get.
It’s all enough to wreck a pleasant winter day. But we can hope maybe somewhere Mozart is finishing that Requiem, just in time.
I grew up in northern NJ where our winters were snow-filled. The power went out and my mother put the food outside on the basement steps. The milk froze and the ice cream melted. She wouldn’t let us go out because the snow was over 3 feet and some of us might go under, never to be seen again.
We lived near Los Angeles in the late 1960s where there are no seasons, except for fire, landslides and the howling Santa Ana winds that drove my mother to the bottle. Well, more than usual.
When I came back east for college, I remember staring in amazement at the blazing fall colors of the sugar maples. How had I not known that I was missing them?
I want the seasons, too.
I want the old seasons though. Not the new enhanced ones.
Well spoken. I thought things were bad in the 60s and 70s back then, but it was only the beginning.
It was predicted well over a hundred years ago, but yep–we really spiked up the game in the last forty years.
Isn’t the correct usage, ‘more jinxeder?
Yes.
Sadly this is the truth. We had warm weather in December here in NJ and my neighbor’s cherry tree started blooming again, only to be quelled by the next cold spell. This happens every year now. We have a cabin in the Adirondacks and the last few years the fall colors have been subdued – the trees that used to turn bright yellow now just turn brown and die. We had a 3-year spate of Spongy Moths (the new politically correct word for Gypsy Moths) that didn’t help either. Thankfully they died down again last year. The leaves in NJ don’t even start turning till late October. My husband and I got married on October 5, 1985. There is a picture of us under a maple tree whose bright yellow leaves were already on the ground at that point in the autumn. Robins are coming back now in February instead of March. These signs are everywhere. As for immigrants, you are so right on all counts.
Spongy moths! Thank you. I could have made a grave faux pas.
On your robin comment, you’re only partially correct. Some robins migrate. Some robins stay for the winter. This has been true for all of my life, now marching into year 61, most of it spent here in NJ.
Robins are also temperature-gradient migrants. They don’t “go south” for the winter to some routine stomping ground, but hang back and take advantage of the niches left behind by migrating birds. They follow a temperature that worms like.
And our migrating Robin’s were back in tidewater VA the week between Christmas and New Years. My Star Magnolia is about to bloom several months before it should, like it has the past half dozen years.
Our winters here in Delaware have been milder, for the most part. So mild that I donated my really puffy coat, as I haven’t worn it for years. I have a lighter weight puffy vest and a jacket, that I can layer if it does ever get cold. My snow boots haven’t been worn for several years until one week this winter, when we had the ice storm followed by a snow storm. Even then, because of the ice, I hardly ventured outside. My merino wool long johns that I used to wear most of the winter as pajamas? Again, I’ve only worn them for a couple weeks this year. All this is just too hot! Some days, I feel comfortable in a t-shirt and sweater… then get too warm and take the sweater off. I have heavier wool sweaters that I hardly ever wear, because it’s too warm. I remember a time when I would actually layer two heavier wool sweaters and be comfortably warm instead of overheated. And we don’t have the thermostat set high either. We DO, however, have a wood-burning fireplace insert that heats our whole ranch house. I know it isn’t environmentally friendly… but what way of staying war IS?
Oh, and our crocuses are blooming already, and daffs and irises are poking their leaves out of the soil. Robins have been bathing in our fish pond and digging around our yard. The blackbirds have returned much earlier than they have in previous years. (I keep track!)
As to the immigrant “problem”, there are jobs that are hard work that THEY are willing to do, and privileged white people aren’t. I see signs everywhere wanting to hire for landscaping companies, extended care facilities, restaurants, etc. A friend is the owner of a farm market where they grow their own produce and fruit. She is OBLIGATED to hire American citizens first, even though they always quit almost immediately when they realize how hard farm work is. The Mexicans she has hired have been there forever. But she only has a few people for the market itself, and a few people for the farm itself. Fortunately, she has an extended family, and THEY are willing to do the hard work, too.
I remember from Anthony Bourdain’s book, Kitchen Confidential, where he said that if it weren’t for Mexicans, the restaurant industry would collapse. They have a work ethic that we don’t. We have all been comfortably coddled. I’m including myself in here, too. Would I want to work outside on a farm? No. A hot restaurant kitchen? No. The “front of the house” waiting tables or tending bar was the extent of my capacity for restaurant work. Mainly because it was also fun. Behind the scenes doesn’t seem like much fun.
You do realize that some of that being too hot business is personal climate. It changes too…
The mood of this blog matches the dismal PNW winter weather. Not even a squeak of humor from my favorite humorist. Yes, we need Beethoven’s Pastoral, no matter what the season, or the reason. Politics and MAGAT worship is depressing. Beauty and kindness is the antidote.
You’re so right: “A sensible policy would address conditions so people wouldn’t be forced to leave their homes.” If only those in power understood that.
They might, but it doesn’t fit their narrative and plans to take ALL THE MONEY.
“…politics is designed to keep the wool over our eyes.”
And that’s everywhere! Every country! And the root of all that is the greed for more and more money and power. “They” simply don’t want to see the disastrous end we are hurtling towards.
If only we could band together.
Scary, sad and accurate.
This groan from the Curmudgeon’s Corner: There is NO form of government that can maintain a civili society if enough of the people are no damn good.
I am left speechless by the truth of it all.
I would say God save us, but I am not a believer and I’m afraid we have already passed the point of being saved by anyone or anything.
I agree with you completely. Not only am I an “unbeliever”, I think that we have long passed the tipping point of saving this planet. Of course they wouldn’t tell us because of the panic that would ensue. You think people are bad NOW, wait until they KNOW they are doomed sooner than they thought. And so “they” tout electric vehicles, re-usable shopping bags, and recycling. But in the end game, it’s all just theater.
Wow, Murr. Beginning at paragraph 7, I thought well, that escalated quickly. And the final sentence kinda wrecked me.
I’m sorry to wreck anyone, but as someone might have said, we’re pre-wrecked.
But we can’t just roll over and be bull dozed into oblivion. Nature matters and people matter, so play the music and beat the drums and do what you can while you can and maybe, just maybe others will do the same. If we stop, who wins?
A fine post, accurate and assigns the blame where it belongs…with us. We let the tea party take hold of the republican party, we let the Bush family do their work on our politics, and we let trump gain a strong foothold in his effort to make a fascist state in the former ‘United’ States, which is far from united now.
What now do we do?
A choice is faced this year, what do we want for this country? The republicans offer a clear choice: A strongman for President, who will change our society from a weak democracy to a autocracy, aided by his minions in congress, or:
A elderly president, who doesn’t suit everyone in his party because of his moderate politics, shaped by his years of government service and his experience, who will yield his position either through death or 4 years to a younger woman who is also more moderate than some would like.
Seems like a clear choice to me, but we will make our own choice. To be clear, choosing to not vote, or vote for a 3rd party who has no chance, is a vote for autocracy.
Just my humble opinion. Again, nice post, Murr.
Mike
“Us”?
The people of the US, unless you’re saying people who actively let the tea party, etc take hold are not among that group. I’m also suggesting that that the people who let it happen, are also ‘us’.
I would prefer a contest between younger politicians, but I do get a little irked by casual references to Biden’s age. He and Trump are essentially the same age and Trump shows far more signs of forgetfulness and general daftness. Biden’s done amazing things with an obstructive congress. I wanted someone to his left but have been pleasantly surprised at what he has managed to accomplish in a very difficult environment. Meanwhile his opponent is elderly, ignorant, transparently needy, autocratic, inhumane, juvenile, and unqualified to be even a friend.
It really irked me that the Special Council investigating Biden for the documents in his possession found it necessary to say that his “advanced age” and “forgetfulness” mitigated this. Trump is just 3 years younger and also makes mistakes. (Nicki Haley and Nancy Pelosi? He thought he ran against Obama. He thought Obama was the president. FFS!) I mean, which is less awful to be president… someone who has actually DONE stuff to the betterment of the country… even if his cognition is flagging? Or someone with 90+ criminal indictments who fomented an insurrection?
Yes, I would PREFER someone younger as a candidate. But that is not going to happen. I would want Gavin Newsome or Pete Buttigieg — or BOTH! On one ticket! — but that is not going to happen. We have to play with the cards we were dealt.
Hi Murr and fellow common taters
Good blog–it all needs to be said. I’m late to the party, but I thought I’d inject a wee note of optimism here in case anyone is still tuning in. Agreed, progress on climate change and other world problems seems grim at times, but behind the dire headlines, a lot of things are getting better despite people’s perceptions. Here are a few examples:
– the world generated more renewable power in 2023 than TOTAL power generated in 2000; we’re now at about 1/3 renewable worldwide
– China is responsible for 1/4 of earth’s greenhouse gases, but…they also account for 1/2 of the world’s clean energy investment and are exceeding their timeline for transition
– the UN climate summit in Dec. was the first time 200 nations agreed in writing to transition away from fossil fuels (easier said…but this is still progress)
– 29% of earth’s population lived in extreme poverty in 2000; today it’s 8.6%
– inequality in the world (life exp., education, calories, etc.) has been reduced by half in the past 30 years
– average life expectancy in the world was 32 years in 1900; today it’s 73 years (and in the 80s in many countries, ~78 in the US)
– our municipality diverts 2/3 of household solid waste from the landfill through curb-side pickup of recycling and organics, plus drop-off centers for glass, styrofoam, electronics, etc. and the target is 90% in 5 years.
– nearly every week I read about some new battery technology, source of cheap hydrogen fuel, biotech, solar power from window glass, safer storage of nuclear waste, etc., etc. Technology isn’t the only solution – we have to change behaviors too – but it all helps.
The danger is people thinking that it’s all hopeless, and using this as an excuse to ignore the problem and not bother to change.
That’s my 2 cents anyway.
Thank you, Will. Well put. We need your comments, and information.