tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88408671796019186522024-02-29T22:41:08.464-07:00REVOLUTIONARY SPIRITS: Faith, Politics, OpinionJoin the discussion with Reverend Gary Kowalski, author of bestselling books on history, nature, animals and science.Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.comBlogger185125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-60225096431580704902023-11-09T14:35:00.001-07:002023-11-09T14:35:30.619-07:00Time For A Just Peace<p><b style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 16.6667px; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;">Just over a month ago Hamas launched a surprise attack on Israeli settlers shocking in its brutality. Hundreds including women, children and the elderly were taken hostage as missiles rained down on Israeli cities. Casualties were in the thousands. The following day, Israeli Defense Forces began a bombardment of Gaza that has killed many more thousands, burying civilians with no place to flee beneath the rubble of a ruined city starved for potable water, electricity, food and medical supplies. The cost in suffering has been enormous.</span></b></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-48d773c6-7fff-ba7f-6bcb-4febb3e57328"><div><span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-size: 16.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>
The roots of this conflict are ancient, as people of different faiths and ethnicities (Jewish, Palestinian, Muslim, Christian, Druze, Bahai, and more) struggle to live side by side on a small piece of real estate that three major world religions claim as holy ground.</b></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-size: 16.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>
Warfare is not the answer, for while religious extremists espouse violence, the core teaching of all great faiths counsels a peaceful co-existence for the world's peoples founded on justice and mutual respect. </b></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-size: 16.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>
For hostilities to cease, the Palestinian people need a path toward an unoccupied homeland, with viable borders and self-determination. Israelis need security and an assurance that their neighbors are willing to accept the permanent presence of a Jewish state.</b></span></span></div><div><span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-size: 16.6667px; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-position: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"><span style="color: white; font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><b>
The Hebrew Bible envisions a time when swords will be beaten into plowshares, when each shall live beneath their own vine or fig tree, and none shall make them afraid. It is time for world leaders to step back from the precipice of wider war and begin a process of reconciliation that will end the bloodshed and bring about just and lasting peace.
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</span></div></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-51308100475512363062023-07-04T04:22:00.000-07:002023-07-04T04:22:31.136-07:00Why Celebrate the Fourth?<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; white-space-collapse: preserve;">This weekend, millions of Americans will enjoy the fireworks, but others will take a knee on Independence Day. Why celebrate? </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-0e1149fc-7fff-fad7-42ca-2357e12f7e23"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">In her Pulitzer Prize-winning </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">1619 Project, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> Nikole Hannah-Jones argued that the primary purpose of the American Revolution was to promote and preserve slavery. But it’s important to get the history right. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;"> In 1775, Virginia’s English Governor, Lord Dunmore, proclaimed that slaves who deserted their American masters would be welcomed into the British army as free citizens. Multitudes did so, and soon Dunmore had a black regiment at his command to quell unrest in the colonies. It was only then, Hannah-Jones’ argument goes, with the prospect of losing their enslaved property, that delegates in Philadelphia put their signatures to the parchment declaring independence from King George.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Yet the skirmishing began long before Dunmore’s provocation. Prior to that, there was the Tea Party. There were Lexington and Concord and Bunker Hill. Because muskets were so inaccurate in those days, the Continentals were instructed “don’t fire until you see the whites of their eyes.” In the melee at Bunker Hill, the redcoats were savaged. Over a hundred of the American soldiers that day were of men of color </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">You may have learned in high school that Harry Truman was the first President to integrate the armed forces. Actually, George Washington was. Over 5000 African Americans served in uniform during the Revolution. Blacks were there at every major engagement.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">They absorbed the ethos of their compatriots. “Self-evident truths” became part of their moral vocabulary. They came away with ideas that were even more explosive than their flintlocks. Men of color who fought and prevailed against the mightiest empire on earth walked with a new confidence. They weren’t full citizens yet, but they were warriors. And having fought to create the new nation, they had a deeper investment in its founding ideals. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">America would never be the same. In her book </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Standing in Their Own Light: African American Patriots in the American Revolution, </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">scholar Judith Van Buskirk observes that before 1760, very few Americans questioned the institution of slavery. It was a fact of life, like the weather. But in the space of a generation, something happened. “By 1790,” she observes, “the northern states had put slavery on the road to extinction … Abolition societies and aid societies sprang up in the north and south. What happened between 1765 and 1790? The American Revolution.” Slavery would never again go unchallenged. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">It would take generations to see the effects. It would take the Civil War. It would take mass movements, Montgomery and Selma and Black Lives to pass the torch forward. The flame faltered at times. It flickers now, as our nation faces white nationalists and resurgent hate. But none of this should keep us from celebrating July Fourth. For despite his recent coronation, Charles is not our king. Our nation is founded on principles quite different from those of the hereditary right of some to rule over others. A nation that still clings to the ideals of freedom and equality. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Those ideals are fragile, always in danger. So protest if you like. Practice your right of free speech and assembly. Our nation began in protest and needs healthy dissent.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space-collapse: preserve;">Because America’s is an unfinished revolution, a revolution in progress. Learn your history and then earn your history. Fly your flag right side up or upside down or not at all, but know why you do it. Educate yourself. We have no need to renounce or censor our past, nor any need to romanticize or gloss over it either. For all its imperfections, it’s a heritage worth remembering. </span></p><br /></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-74503380976805746672023-07-03T19:30:00.000-07:002023-07-03T19:30:05.048-07:00What Stuff Weighs<p> <span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A single blue whale can weigh 400,000 pounds. But suppose you could put every kind of mammal on your bathroom scale, not as individual organisms but as a species. Cattle would physically weigh the most, according to a new study by the Wiezman Institute of Science. In a paper titled “The Global Biomass of Wild Mammals,,” published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science last March, researchers determined that dogs–our family pets–collectively weigh about as much as all 4,805 wild species of mammals combined. Cats tip the scales at double the tonnage of savannah elephants. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Watching Nature on PBS, with its migrating wildebeests, foraging bears and wallowing hippos gives a seriously distorted impression that the earth teems with wildlife. In fact, human beings (weighing in at 390 million tons) and cows (totalling altogether 420 million tons) represent almost all of the globe’s mammalian biomass. Adding in sheep, pigs and other animals cultivated for meat or dairy means that livestock outweigh all wild mammals by a factor of thirty-fold. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>In a related study, the scientists recently determined that what they call “anthropogenic mass” (the total of human made artifacts like cars, coke bottles, skyscrapers and disposable diapers) has passed a tipping point. People are producing or consuming the equivalent of their own body weight every week, on average, and this total is doubling roughly every twenty years. In 2020, our species’ “anthropogenic mass” outran the sum of all the world's living biomass - not just overtaking the tonnage of mammals but of fish, forests, fungi, and all other lifeforms.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Calculating the human footprint on nature by weight is just one measure of our impact, alongside extinction rates and loss of biodiversity. But “The Global Biomass of Wild Mammals,” coming on the heels of demographic reports that the world’s population surpassed eight billion late last year, is a shocking indicator that nature’s scales have gone seriously out of balance.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lead author Ron Milo, who holds a PhD in Biological Physics and was the first fellow in Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School before joining the Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences at the Weizmann Institute, says “It is definitely striking, our disproportionate place on Earth. When I do a puzzle with my daughters, there is usually an elephant next to a giraffe next to a rhino. But if I was trying to give them a more realistic sense of the world, it would be a cow next to a cow next to a cow and then a chicken.”</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Solving this puzzle starts with what’s on our plate.</b></span></p><div><br /></div>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-63765836170785632722022-12-15T13:11:00.000-07:002022-12-15T13:11:06.564-07:00Love in America Changes for the Better<p> <span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A positive change in attitudes concerning sexuality occurred in the opening years of the twenty-first century. In the year 2000, the little state of Vermont became the first in the country to sanction civil unions - the legal equivalent of marriage – for same sex couples. Fifteen years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that under the Fourteenth Amendment Americans everywhere have a right to marry the person they love. And now, this month, Congress passed a Respect for Marriage Act guaranteeing (just in case the Supremes change their mind) that the law of the land remains in place. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>A generation ago, moralists warned that homosexual unions would mean social breakdown and the end of the traditional family. Instead, the Institute for Family Studies reported that in 2020 the divorce rate hit a fifty year low, not seen since Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were a TV couple. True, fewer folks are getting married. But those that tie the knot are staying together, which can only be good for kids.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>In fact, the Crimes Against Children Research Center, which gathers data reported to family protective services around the country, documents a fifty-three percent decline in physical abuse and a whopping sixty-two percent drop in sexual abuse over the last three decades, between 1992 and 2018. Cases of child neglect have seen a more modest eleven percent decline. Still, we are talking about millions of kids saved from mistreatment. While the reasons for this wholesome trend are not entirely clear, what is beyond dispute is that all this happened just as Americans were beginning to embrace and normalize lesbian and gay relationships.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Correlation is not causality, but with diminishing rates of child abuse, one might also expect a drop in crime. In the cycle of violence, youth from abusive environments are more prone to delinquency. Safer homes mean safer streets, and this is exactly what we see. According to FBI statistics, gathered from law enforcement agencies across the nation, violent crime plunged from a rate of 758 incidents per 100,000 population in 1992 down to 395 incidents in 2021, a forty-eight percent drop. The rate of property crimes saw an even more precipitous fall.. So the perception that America is experiencing a crime wave is just wrong. The country has seldom been so law abiding. </b></span></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">Why aren’t media outlets reporting these stories? Divorce is down. Children are flourishing. Crime is on the run. </b></p><p><b style="font-family: arial;">Given so much good news, the current raft of “Don’t Say Gay” laws, book bans and rhetorical vitriol directed at the LGBTQ community seems especially ill-timed and misguided. Gay people coming out of the closet pose no threat. Trans and queer folk exploring their own forms of gender expression and identity may be a very healthy development. As Americans began to acknowledge and accept the full spectrum of human sexuality, the social unraveling that was predicted never happened. The numbers show just the opposite, and it should come as no surprise. People flourish in relationships that are honest and open. They thrive when their primary emotional bonds are mutual, consensual, caring and voluntary–freely chosen rather than dictated by dogma or enforced by morality police. Enabling people to be who they are and to love whom they love seems to be leading to happier marriages, fewer children at risk, more stable families and, ultimately, a more civil society. </b></p><p><br /></p>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-90887520957084847422022-11-23T20:16:00.000-07:002022-11-23T20:16:09.033-07:00Holiday Small Talk<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Small talk matters. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-9b639013-7fff-8591-042d-98123ccd89c9"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Wednesdays seniors ride free on the train linking Santa Fe with Albuquerque and points south. On the way home, the gentleman riding in the seat in front turned to my wife and I to smile and say hello. “How are you doing?” he asked.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I answered that we were terrific, taking advantage of the senior citizen freebie. I suggested that he looked to be in the golden years himself.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">We fell into conversation. He was a tribal member of the Kewa Pueblo, on his way home to Cochiti. His uncle had served thirty-five years in uniform at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, not far from where I grew up. We talked about the pandemic and when the reservations might be opening again (there’s a National Monument on Tewa land that’s been closed since 2020). He asked where we lived and, referring to my firefighter vest, I explained I lived in the Hondo District of Santa Fe County where I’d worked with a battalion of volunteer hose jockeys. He’d been a hotshot in his younger years, at the top tier of that firefighter world. We were two old men, making old man talk.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Before we parted, I wished him a happy Thanksgiving, quickly adding that I knew it could be a fraught holiday for some native people. He thanked me and returned the Thanksgiving greeting, telling me that he would probably head out tomorrow and shoot a duck to celebrate. His parents were gone and he had no other family. He’d be feasting by himself.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Part of me wanted to ask deeper, more probing questions, the kinds that have become part of our national discourse in a reckoning of how Americans deal with their complicated past. How could Euro-Americans atone for a history of exploitation and begin to mend relations with the original inhabitants of this land? But I sensed this was not the moment for those harder topics. We were just two guys, strangers on a train, making conversation to ease the loneliness and pass the time. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe that’s not enough, but it’s a beginning. Before we can tackle the big questions, we have to be able to make the small talk.</span></p><br /><br /></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-86958017963038859392022-06-17T16:22:00.000-07:002022-06-17T16:22:00.077-07:00Playing Real Good For Free<p> <span style="font-family: arial;">Who do you admire? I have a friend named Kevan who plays guitar. In the summertime, we get together and strum, occasionally writing new tunes for the instrument. What I admire about Kevan is his focus and concentration. His lifelong career was in law enforcement, special weapons and tactics. Because he is fluent in Spanish, he still sometimes teaches "Spanish for Cops" to make a little money even in retirement. But his real ambition, at this stage of life, is to be a street musician, a busker. He wants to sit on the corner and play the blues for tips. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Kevan is totally devoted to this dream. He has a strict practice routine. He attends music camps for songwriting. He studies music theory. Whereas I have all kinds of pastimes and am not very proficient at any of them, Kevan makes progress at his chosen endeavor in a way that I can only envy and try to emulate.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Here's a song I wrote this past week, in homage. </span></p><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Un viejo sentado a lado del camino con su sombrero<br />Espera dinero sin cuidado en verano como niño<br />Toca la guitarra por divertimento</i></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>Un cansado viejo que conoce la guitarra<br />Es un estrella que brilla y canta as poemas de mujeres olvidadas<br />Y enamoradas anticipadas</i></span><br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Por favor, escuche, Señor. Por favor, un propina mejor!<br />Por favor, escuche Señorita. Por favor, llamame tu favorita!</span></i><br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">No hay una vida tan benedito como un viejo con su sombrero</span></i><div><i><span style="font-family: arial;">A lado del camino en el verano esperando por tu dinero</span></i><br /><br /><i><span style="font-family: arial;">Por favor, escuche, amigo. Tocaré la guitarra con brio!</span></i><br /><br /><span style="color: #ffe599; font-family: arial;">An old man sits by the side of the road, with his hat, waiting for money,<br />Without worries in the summer, like a child, playing the guitar for amusement.<br /><br />A tired old man familiar with the guitar Is a star, shining and singing</span></div><div><span style="color: #ffe599; font-family: arial;">The poems of forgotten women and anticipated lovers.<br /><br />Please listen sir. A bigger tip! Please listen, lady. Call me your favorite!<br /><br />There is no life so blessed as an old man with his hat<br />By the side of the road in the summer, waiting for your money.</span><p><span style="color: #ffe599;"><span style="font-family: arial;">Please listen, friend. </span><span style="font-family: arial;">I’ll play the guitar with brio!</span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;">Next time you pass that old man or young man, or woman on the street, playing guitar, or violin, or harmonica, won't you stop to listen? It's their passion, their gift. When you stop to listen, <i>l</i></span><span style="font-family: arial;"><i>os ángeles sonreirán. </i>The angels will smile. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><div><br /></div><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></p></div>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-27352359136371332572022-05-05T11:55:00.000-07:002022-05-05T11:55:48.934-07:00What I Learned From The Pandemic<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Truthfully, I didn’t learn much from being locked down for two years. I suspect that I had the virus early on, before it was even on people’s radar back in January of 2020. After flying through Las Vegas and the Guadalajara airports, we were in Chapala, Mexico, enjoying the warmth and a bit of street food. The symptoms appeared one night in the form of spiking fevers, violent chills and joints aching so terribly that I simply wept with no relief. I was sick for two days and then it was over. What did I learn from that? </b></span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-7c8b4bed-7fff-5e08-06ff-5b8d023a0f59"><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Not everything bad that happens occurs for a reason or to teach us a lesson. I know some people think otherwise. But I am of the opinion that random stuff messes with us mercilessly, and the evolving mutations of a coronavirus are a prime example of that. Or were we supposed to learn one lesson from the Delta variant and another from the Omicron? </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>For two years, we did witness people behaving well and behaving badly. In the beginning, folks were hoarding toilet paper. Conspiracy theories ran rampant. A public health emergency turned into a political fistfight. At the same time, nurses and teachers and grocery workers and first responders coped with the stress of high risk jobs, often gracefully and courageously. Researchers rose to the challenge of producing vaccines in record time, only to find anti-vaxxers refusing to get the jab.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Some took the disruption in routine to re-evaluate life priorities and consider new callings. Others had to say goodbye to loved ones dying in nursing homes or ICU’s while wearing haz-mat suits. It was the best of times, it was the worst.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>My wife and I have only recently started going to movies and concerts again. We’re still not ready for any international travel. It’s not how I planned to spend my retirement. I don’t feel resentful at all. But neither do I feel like I’ve grown or been edified or enriched in any way from hitting the pause button on my life. Mostly I feel tired and two years older, not any smarter or wiser.</b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Covid, you were a lousy teacher. </b></span></div><div><span style="font-family: arial;"><b><br /></b></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-10093648330875073372022-03-14T18:38:00.001-07:002022-03-14T18:38:59.457-07:00A Riff on Hebrews 11-12<p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b> Faith is the reality of things hoped for, the proof of things not seen. It was their faith that made our ancestors reach for the heavens.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith, Noah built the ark and received the rainbow sign.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith, Abraham left his homeland and set out for a country he had never seen.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith, Moses left Egypt and Miriam hurled Pharoah’s horse and rider into the sea. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith, Joshua circled the city of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith Rosa sat, Martin marched, and John Lewis knelt to pray.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Because of faith, Mandela persevered, Zelensky held fast.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>What else can I say? There isn’t enough time to tell about all the prophets: Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Ida B. Wells and Fanny Lou Hamer; Mohandas Gandhi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Oscar Romero, and Harvey Milk. Many were tortured, others beaten, and some chained in jail. Their faith helped them conquer kingdoms, and because they did right, they were pleasing unto God.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Lift up your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight the paths for your feet. Pursue peace. </b></span></p><div><br /></div>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-51318827157111937292021-11-18T01:39:00.000-07:002021-11-18T01:39:58.783-07:00What I Learned in the Hospital<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; white-space: pre-wrap;">Nobody likes to be in the hospital, but my recent five day stay gave me important insights. Surprisingly hopeful lessons came from lying flat on my back. </span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-4f315257-7fff-4388-33a3-3b01d78e40bb"><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">On Friday, I went into the ER at Presbyterian in Santa Fe for shortness of breath and was taken by ambulance to the bigger facility down in Albuquerque early the next morning to treat a pulmonary embolism and get emergency surgery.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">One thing I noticed immediately is that hospitals look like America in all its multi-ethnic complexity. Of the half dozen physicians who attended me, three were women. Two had last names suggesting their families came from India. Doctor Chen was presumably East Asian.. My night nurse Sarita was African American, like the tech who did my echocardiogram. The two “candy-stripers” who finally wheeled me out the door were young white guys from Idaho and Georgia, doing six months of volunteer work as part of their church’s young adult ministry. It wasn’t a perfectly egalitarian society. The EMT’s who took my vitals and drew blood were earning fifteen bucks an hour, like burger flippers at McDonalds. But neither did the hospital resemble a plantation model where white, male doctors ruled the roost with women and people of color assigned to menial chores. It made me think that our country really has made progress in the last century</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The second thing I learned was that I could get along with my roommate, even though he was a Republican and conservative Catholic while I’m a Democrat and theological liberal. Gary was born in 1947, six years before me, but Gary was a popular name back then and one we shared. We had other things in common, too. We agreed that the pizza was pretty good, that our wives were gems, and that getting old was not for sissies. We could encourage each other to get out of bed and laugh about racing each other around the nurses’ station in our walkers. On the first day, I told Gary that I thought our country would be better off if the average citizen were thrown into a room with a complete stranger and forced to be civil and polite for a while. He agreed with that. We agreed that New Mexico had problems with political corruption and that neither party had a monopoly on cronyism. I asked Gary what he thought about our current Pope and he replied that Pope Francis was a Communist. I asked him if Jesus was a Communist also, and that seemed to give him pause. Gary did have some funny ideas about Roswell and aliens, but we tried to disagree without being disagreeable and managed to keep things friendly. I wondered if our nation couldn’t do the same.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">The third thing I learned was that I could leave my wallet and wedding ring in a duffel by the side of my bed for 120 hours unmolested. I was asleep, drugged and helpless most of that time, but my valuables and personal items were as safe as if in my own home. Most people really can be trusted to do the right thing, most of the time.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">It was initially hard to find a room at the big hospital in Albuquerque. They have been slammed with covid and are operating with crisis standards of care. But I must have been an urgent case because they admitted me and the staff gave me as much attention as if I were the only patient in the vascular ward. It was heartening to see critical workers doing their jobs with grace under pressure.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Here’s my take away. There seems to be a sickness in our body politick lately. Americans are angry and out-of-sorts. We are dis-eased and anxious about the prognosis for our democracy. Maybe we need a collective visit to the hospital to restore our better, healthier selves. </span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-23330829458926484842021-10-17T17:24:00.000-07:002021-10-17T17:24:39.590-07:00You Are What You Love<p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Have you ever noticed that people look like their dogs? Some folks are yappy and high strung. Others are mellow and always ready for a belly rub. Somehow temperament gets imprinted on physiognomy. Perpetual worriers look like a Shar Pei with furrowed brow and woeful countenance. Glad-handers resemble Collies with an ever joyful glad-to-see-you expression on their faces. Maybe people adopt animals that have personalities aligned with their own. But my theory is that we come to resemble the significant others in our relationships. Whatever (or whomever) claims our day-in-day-out time and attention puts an impression on our lives. So wives look like their husbands and vice versa. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Today’s news gave some confirmation for this theory. A study tracking 33,000 married couples in Japan and the Netherlands found that decades of living together tended to sync the bio-markers for both partners. Men and women in long term relationships tended to have similar BMI’s. They shared physical traits like high or low blood pressure and triglyceride levels, as well as psychological characteristics such as tendency toward depression or the opposite. It’s not surprising. “For better or worse, for richer or poor, in sickness and in health” are transformative vows, not empty verbiage. Through an alchemy of time and constantly rubbing shoulders, coping with both the joys and inevitable irritations of living in tandem, the two truly do become one flesh. </span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Ponder this: you are what you love. The object that commands your daily sacrifice and devotion may be the stock market, the next election, your work, your family or community. Regardless, that reality will be your Creator and put its stamp upon your body, mind and heart. Love wisely therefore, and be careful what you wish for. You may eventually come to look like your dog, or mirror the thing that you most desire. </span></span></p><div><br /></div>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-6230305026871381592021-09-18T13:17:00.000-07:002021-09-18T13:17:29.857-07:00In Praise of Praise<span id="docs-internal-guid-25a401b8-7fff-031e-ec6d-d37ea6002fb6"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">People like to hear that they are great. We love praise. Probably it’s because so many of us are secretly insecure. We need affirmation because inwardly we focus on our frailties and failures. For instance, I can give a twenty minute talk and fret over the one word I mispronounced, or play a song on the guitar and agonize over one wrong note. I remember goofs from years ago. This is not just a personal idiosyncrasy, but a general rule. In sports, for example, Novak Djokovic recently came close to winning four major tennis tournaments in a row--the Australian, French, and U.S. Open along with Wimbledon--which would have established his reputation as one of the greatest athletes of all time. But he suffered a loss in his final, championship match. The agony of that single defeat was enough to make him sob out loud, overshadowing the satisfaction of all his previous victories. Psychologists and economists have the same finding. The pleasure of winning one hundred dollars is substantially less than the pain incurred by losing the same amount. By the same token, almost any slight or criticism cuts deep. We take scolding or reproval--or even friendly suggestions for how we might improve--to heart. It takes an extra measure of encouragement for us to feel that we’re actually good enough. </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">I suppose the greatest gifts we can give to other people are acceptance and appreciation. This is one of the traditional functions of faith: a sense of being all right with God or okay with the universe. It’s close to what the New Testament means by </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">agape </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">or unconditional regard, making people feel they are worthy and special just by being human. But you don’t have to be religious to confer this gift. It’s in everyone’s power.</span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Maybe I should try just for one day to give a big, juicy compliment to everyone I encounter. For example, say something nice on the phone to the appointment lady at the dermatologist’s office. Withhold my snarky comment from that Facebook post and say something positive instead. Tell my wife she’s looking fabulous and is way smarter than me (which is really only the truth). If I followed through with that plan, handing out approval like it was free and didn’t cost me anything, how do you think my day would go? </span></p><br /><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Thanks for listening. You bring out my best!</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-51145520818065670482021-09-13T18:52:00.000-07:002021-09-13T18:52:56.516-07:00Fire & Ice (with apologies to Robert Frost)<p> <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; white-space: pre-wrap;">Some say the world will end in fire, others say in ice.</span></p><span id="docs-internal-guid-17b531f6-7fff-e6bc-d1cb-a7cc5d8f1b90"><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But the end of the world isn’t coming, not tomorrow, or next year, or on any fixed date.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rather, the world is continually ending as we separate ourselves from the source of life and love, as we de-humanize the stranger, as we close our hearts against caring for the neighbor, as we distance ourselves from the earth and her creatures. The sounds of silence, the words of kindness unspoken, these are the sounds of the world shutting down.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet the future is continually beginning as we expand the circle of compassion, widen the definitions of family, expand the household of mutuality, honor the soil and plant the seeds of hope. The hum of conversation and the noise of dialogue and, yes, the clash of voices in honest debate, these are the sounds of the future asking how to unfold.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Whether the world ends, or how, or when, then, is really up to us.</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate</span></p><p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">To say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice</span></p><div><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></div></span>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-44936866530245326472021-03-22T09:01:00.000-07:002021-03-22T09:01:12.303-07:00Be A Leaf<p><span style="font-family: arial;"> <b><i>What’s it all about?</i> Is there a reason for being here? A purpose or destiny we are meant to fulfill? The answer depends on who you are.</b></span></p><p><b><span style="font-family: arial;">If you are a cloud, for instance, it’s all about gathering moisture from the air and raining it down to nourish the plants which breathe during photosynthesis, releasing water vapor back into the sky. One minute it looks like a camel and the next like a turtle but the cloud’s not sorry, it’s serene. The cloud is transitory, almost formless. It </span><i style="font-family: arial;">lets go</i><span style="font-family: arial;"> in order to <i>let be.</i> </span></b></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>If you’re a leaf, it’s all about absorbing sunlight and turning it into sugars for energy to produce seeds to make more trees to sustain a forest. An apple tree can have a hundred thousand leaves. An elm may produce a million. Each one is a verdant solar panel. Every leaf is a marvel of engineering. But it’s just a small part of the whole.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>So who are you, and what’s your purpose?</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>The answer is that you are awesome: older and grander than you realized. Your particular life began 13.7 billion years ago when, inexplicably, things started. Some call this event the Great Radiance when the universe popped into existence.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>So happy birthday! From the beginning, your life (and that of countless of others, from stars to starfish) was written into the world-lines of a universe predisposed toward the unlikely possibility that <i>something</i> should exist (and not <i>nothing</i>), that life should evolve (out of seemingly inanimate atoms and molecules), that consciousness and self-awareness would originate (out of apparently dumb minerals and vegetables), and that moral freedom and choice would arise, transcending the leap from <i>what is</i> to <i>what should be.</i></b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>Our task here is to fully realize who we are: more than carbon-based egos struggling for survival and top-billing on this astronomically insignificant bit of real estate. We are here for a purpose. We are meant for each other. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>This is not a statement of faith. It’s the plainest fact. Years ago, I visited a confirmation class where students were learning about the world religions: Christianity, Buddhism, and the rest. It was spring and as I looked through the windows of the classroom at the budding profusion outside, it dawned on me. I am not a Jew or a Hindu, not a theist or an atheist. I am a leaf. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>I’m a leaf, just here for a very short time upon this Earth, arrived yesterday, gone tomorrow, enjoying my moment in the sun, but here with a job to do. The health of the whole tree, root to crown, depends on me. The flourishing of the entire forest, and all the living creatures who inhabit it, depends on me and on every other little leaf contributing its part. I have an important role to play. But you know what? It would be silly and self-centered for me to suppose that the miracle of spring which sweeps across the northern hemisphere every year when the planet’s axis tilts occurs because of me, or that the twig and limb and branch and trunk are here for my benefit, or that all that sunshine pours down just so that I can absorb its rays. As a leaf, I’m just a small part of a much bigger performance and finding my own niche in this world depends on aligning myself with that larger, more lasting life of which I’m just a fragmentary and momentary expression. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>That’s the way I see it, anyway. A leaf doesn’t complain that one of its neighbors may be a little higher in the canopy. It doesn’t spend its time worrying <i>“after the autumn comes, then what?”</i> It’s not boastful or resentful or cynical. Rather, it cooperates, it gathers and it gives away, it unfolds and passes its energy on to another generation of leaves that will come after, and it’s beautiful, always reaching toward the light. </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>At some point in your spiritual development, you come to a realization that in response to the question <i>“What’s it all about?”</i>, the correct answer is, <i>“It is not all about me!”</i> So what I am, or want to be, is a leaf. The universe was certainly not designed to perpetuate me, but I may be here to protect and celebrate Nature in all its glory.</b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>So love your neighbor, because your neighbor is your larger self. Love the beauty and intelligence Creation manifests. The great religions and modern science agree. We are sisters and brothers. Whatever your sect or tribe, whether four-legged or two, we Earthlings share a common origin and are sprung from a single womb. We’re all in it together. Separateness is an illusion. Interdependence is the reality </b></span></p><p><span style="font-family: arial;"><b>So go green. Care for the environment because you are the environment. There is no point where you end and the universe begins. Don’t forget to breathe, to shine, and follow your own growing edge. Be a leaf.</b></span></p><div><b><br /></b></div><p><br /></p>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-42298230677794382492021-02-05T17:52:00.000-07:002021-02-05T17:52:22.870-07:00For the Birds<h4 style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial;"> <span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Lounging on the flight deck at the Bosque de Apache bird refuge, it is easy to believe that the world is alive. Hundreds of snow geese bark in the distance. Wood ducks scurry for safety as a northern Harrier glides over the shallows. Sandhill cranes resembling ancient pterodactyls soar in from the pre-Pleistocene to alight on the marshy mud flats just beneath the mirrored water that reflects an infinity of sky. Two cranes neck ostentatiously: there is no other word for the affection of these pair-bonded, lifetime mated birds. They are making out. Here in the late afternoon sun of southern New Mexico, how can you doubt that love is the secret sauce that lubricates the world? </span></span></h4><div><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>“When despair for the world grows in me,” wrote the poet Wendell Berry, “I go and lie down where the great heron feeds, and where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water.” The peace of wild things assures us that despite the appalling stupidity, hubris and short-sightedness of our species, something older and wiser than we are has a hand in events. Narcissism is not nature’s way. A more generous, joyful and amorous spirit presides. Darwin called it evolution: an amazingly simple, almost self-evident idea in retrospect, but one that somehow eluded the most intelligent minds for centuries. One wonders. Are there other equally obvious truths that we overlook today--rules of conduct that are integral to the world’s maintenance and survival, but that are still to be discovered? </b></span></div><h4><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="font-size: 14.6667px; white-space: pre-wrap;">We are awaiting word. But as revelation came to Darwin from observing finches, there would be worse places to look than to the gossiping, quarrelling, socially successful cranes who--without political parties, congressional inquiries, solemn resolutions or treatises on government--have nonetheless managed to thrive these past ten million years. We should live so long. </span></span></h4><h4><br /></h4>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-12531091310133187662020-11-25T14:41:00.000-07:002020-11-25T14:41:00.065-07:00Blessing for a Non-Thanksgiving<p><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><b> <span style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">Shall we be grateful this year?</span></b></span></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin: 6px 0px;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><b>Thursday seems like every other day,<br />There's a sameness about the flow<span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline; font-family: inherit;"><br />But happy Thursday.<br />So let’s be grateful for our families and friends<br />Who care enough not to travel.<br />Let’s be grateful for the flickers and jays<br />Who are non-observant<br />And don't mind sameness<br />But flock to the feeder<br />Like every day was made for feasting.<br />There’s a waxing gibbous moon.<br />The sun rises and sets.<br />The malls are closed<br />And there are no Black Friday crowds.<br />Let’s be grateful for the interruptions<br />And absences that make “normality”<br />Seem like a treat, because it is.<br />Nothing special ... a blessing.</span></b></span></p>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-15771624307730764782020-08-17T08:32:00.000-07:002020-08-17T08:32:18.596-07:00Voting Rights and Wrongs<p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">One hundred years ago, on August 18, 1920, women won the right to vote with ratification of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. A nation founded on the precept that “all men are created equal” (meaning property-holding white males) moved one step closer to enfranchising all its citizens, regardless of race or sex.</span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women for three generations marched, agitated and went to prison to win the ballot. They were heckled, manhandled and force-fed when they went on hunger strike to call attention to their cause. Dorothy Day, who later founded the Catholic Worker movement, was slammed with arms twisted over the back of an iron bench at the Occoquan Workhouse, a prison in northern Virginia where she and other suffragists were jailed for protesting outside the White House. One of her cell mates was manacled with hands above her head and forced to stand all night. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Women were not given the right to vote. They paid for it and took it. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Yet democracy remained elusive. Native Americans here in New Mexico could not vote until 1948, when Miguel Trujillo of the Isleta Pueblo returned from serving as a marine in World War II and was denied the ballot; the resulting lawsuit finally enfranchised this land's oldest inhabitants. African Americans were barred from polling places, especially in the South, until the Voting Rights Act was enacted in 1965, after non-violent demonstrators marching from Selma to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery were beaten bloody by state police while crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">Now all those hard won rights are under assault. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Voter suppression takes many forms. To take our neighbor Texas as an example, gerrymandered districts there mean that while non-Hispanic whites make up just 41% of the population, they comprise two-thirds of the state legislature and Congressional delegation. Reducing the number of polling places is another way to lower turnout, making it harder for wage-earners and low income individuals (primarily people of color) to cast their ballot, again citing Texas, which has closed 750 polling stations in recent years. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">“The fact of the matter is that Texas is not a red state,”</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> according to Antonio Arellano of Jolt, a progressive Latino political organization.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-style: italic; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"> “Texas is a nonvoting state.” </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;">Rules there allow a concealed weapon permit to be used for access to the voting booth, but prohibit using a student or university ID for voting purposes, discriminating against young people. Voter ID rules also disproportionately disenfranchise women, who because of marital name changes often have driver’s licenses or other documents that don’t match their birth certificates. Judge Sandra Watts of Texas’ 117th District was nearly denied the right to vote because her maiden name was listed as her middle name on her driver’s license, while her voter registration card listed her actual middle name. If a Judge can be tagged as a fraudulent voter, imagine how others without so much legal savvy fare. </span></p><p><span style="font-family: Arial; white-space: pre-wrap;">The problems with our democracy can only be solved by more democracy: by empowering citizens at the grassroots to make the decisions that affect their own lives and livelihoods. Though it cannot end there, civic engagement must begin by making sure that every American can vote. With so many inequities of power, wealth and privilege besetting our nation, the principle that each person gets one vote is the great equalizer between rich and poor. Too many have sacrificed to let this fundamental cornerstone of popular government be chipped away. </span></p><p><br /></p>Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-88796077021341231632020-07-08T09:57:00.001-07:002020-07-08T09:57:46.383-07:00De-Fund the Police?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Years ago, I got an early morning call to come to church. Quick. A suicidal young man was threatening to walk out into traffic.</span></span></div>
<b id="docs-internal-guid-099e24a8-7fff-53b3-7580-43bfee694649" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">When I arrived the police had beaten me to the scene and I discovered the agitated young man was African American. Two white officers in uniform wearing gun belts loaded with handcuffs, tasers, billy clubs and other tools of the trade were doing nothing to calm the situation. I asked them politely to leave. Obviously this stranger had walked into a church because it signified safety and sanctuary. He needed pastoring, not policing. I took him out for pancakes and coffee. A good meal doesn’t cure an existential crisis, but it’s often a decent palliative. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Current calls to “de-fund” the police are simply an acknowledgment that law enforcement isn’t the answer to every problem. And the assertion that police departments suffer from “systemic racism” doesn’t mean that all cops are bigots. Police and sheriffs come in all colors and races and most are undoubtedly doing their best in a very hard job. </span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Systemic racism means that our judicial process produces tilted outcomes. Blacks, latinos and native people wind up behind bars far more often than whites, and it’s not just cops at fault. It’s our under-funded Public Defender system. It’s local prosecutors who get rewarded for producing convictions (some DAs actually offer cash bonuses for trials that end in a lock up). It’s for-profit prisons that incentivize longer sentences. There’s unconscious racism at every level.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">My wife is a criminal attorney. She used to defend juveniles. She’d watch surveillance videos from department stores introduced as evidence in court. Two teens would enter the mall, one white, one black. Both were shoplifting but the security cameras always focused on the black girl, who would be charged and convicted. Was she guilty? Yes. Was justice done? You decide.</span></span></div>
<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b>
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">This past month, Congress began bipartisan talks to shut down transfers of military-style gear to those patrolling our city streets. I think our whole approach to crime needs an overhaul. Why is it “looting” when a black youth steals a TV but “liquidation” when white collar crooks take a company into bankruptcy, giving themselves million dollar bonuses while leaving worker pensions high and dry? </span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">I’m glad the conversation has begun. It’s just tragic that it took eight minutes and forty-six seconds to get it started.</span></span></div>
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-68024505901212911382020-06-01T17:10:00.003-07:002020-06-01T17:10:50.466-07:00Protests Are Patriotic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Our nation is reeling from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, just one of many African Americans who have lost their lives in police violence in recent years. The streets are filled with demonstrators venting pent up rage and frustration at the “system” (the justice system, the economic system, the political system) that has so often fallen short of endowing non-white America with full equality.</span></span></div>
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<b id="docs-internal-guid-de9adbd3-7fff-6352-0a0f-59906957933a" style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">As protesters gather outside the White House, let us remember that slave labor built that White House. Let us remember that an estimated 9,000 freedmen served in the Continental Armies that led to American Independence. That roughly ten percent of Lincoln’s Union armies were black enlistees, tipping the balance against the Confederacy. That a third of a million were on the Western Front in World War One. That decorated but segregated units like the Tuskegee Airmen finally led to the desegregation of the armed forces after World War II. That twenty-one African Americans were Medal of Honor recipients during Vietnam. That today about forty-three percent of active duty forces in the U.S. military, serving across the world in Syria, Afghanistan and other far flung locales, are people of color. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">There can be no argument that black labor built our country and that African Americans have defended it against its enemies in its hours of greatest need. Records from George Washington’s era show 395 payments for “Negro hire” (the euphemism for rented slaves) to construct the Capitol Building on the D.C. mall. But no one in the President’s family, and very few in Congress, have ever had the guts or grit to put their own lives on the line when it matters.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">My own belief is that the protests now shaking our streets in Minneapolis, Washington, D.C. and other cities are emanating from people willing to put their lives on the line, just as Congressman John Lewis of Georgia put his life on the line in Selma to dismantle Jim Crow in the 1960’s. They are being doused with tear gas and shot with rubber bullets, like Congresswoman Joyce Beatty of Ohio who was pepper sprayed by security forces this past week. They are risking health and safety to call attention to a broken pattern of criminal justice where more black men are behind bars in 2020 than lived in slavery in 1864. </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">We pray for peace and tranquility. But let us remember too that it was Thomas Jefferson (a slave owner) who called for a little revolution now and then. Let us remember that democracy is a messy and often disorderly affair. That Afro-American Crispus Attucks, the very first patriot killed in the American Revolution, was part of a pre-Antifa street mob throwing snowballs and wooden sticks at British soldiers who shot him dead at the Boston Massacre. John Adams, who to his credit defended the King’s soldiers in court--believing that even fascists deserved a legal defense--denigrated the insurgents as "a motley rabble of saucy boys, negros and mulattoes.” </span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Protests are part of our nation’s history. From abolition to suffrage to Civil Rights, the people have taken to the streets when necessary to win their freedom. Who shall we stand with now? Which side are you on? My heart is with those who cry for equality under the law. My heart is with those who, in the words of the prophet Micah, “seek justice and correct oppression.” My heart is with the patriots, the protesters.</span></span></div>
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<b style="font-weight: normal;"><span style="background-color: #134f5c; color: white;"><br /></span></b></div>
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<span style="background-color: #134f5c; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="color: white;">Reverend Gary Kowalski</span></span></div>
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-78075448762386611462020-03-30T18:30:00.000-07:002020-03-30T18:30:52.848-07:00Be Prepared<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Friends,</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The pandemic of covid-19 is provoking hard conversations in our small family, perhaps in yours, too. Although we all hope to survive this malady unscathed with lots of hand-washing and sensible distancing, there is also a realistic possibility that some of us will contract the disease. Almost all of us who get sick will suffer mild symptoms and get well. (That’s the good news!) But some of us may face more dire prospects.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>This is a good time to think ahead and to prepare an advance directive. If you are unable to make your own health care decisions, designate a family member or trusted friend to be your legal proxy. Have a detailed conversation about your end-of-life wishes and values. File the necessary documents with your physician. Would you want to be intubated and on a ventilator if necessary to keep you breathing?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Probably the answer is yes. But personally, I remain unsure. It depends on my chances of recovery. Model living wills contain this language: “I direct my attending physician or primary care physician to withhold or withdraw life-sustaining medical care and treatment that is serving only to prolong the process of my dying if I should be in an incurable or irreversible mental or physical condition with no reasonable medical expectation of recovery. I direct that treatment be limited to measures which are designed to keep me comfortable and to relieve pain, including any pain which might occur from the withholding or withdrawing of life-sustaining medical care or treatment.” </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>I think that almost all of us prize autonomy, our ability to make the choices that most affect our own lives and deaths. Make a living will, or better yet, a durable power-of-attorney for health care that will offer you the most control over your own goodbyes. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Talk with your doc. And whomever you designate as your medical power-of-attorney, just tell them to follow the golden rule. Do the compassionate thing.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Gary</b></span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-64205233892689647502020-03-24T15:39:00.001-07:002020-03-24T15:39:40.493-07:00Don't Just Do Something ...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>When I was young, a top forty tune by the Statler Brothers glamorized the art of doing nothing:</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Countin' flowers on the wall</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>That don't bother me at all</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Playin' solitaire till dawn with a deck of fifty-one</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Smokin' cigarettes and watchin' Captain Kangaroo</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Now don't tell me I've nothin' to do</i></b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Captain Kangaroo is a memory, but otherwise cultivating quietude is a lesson we’re re-learning lately. With so much in lockdown and quarantine, what shall we do?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The answer is to adorn time. Listen to music. Read a book. Watch the birds. Take a walk and look for signs of spring. With church services cancelled, create a bit of sabbath in your daily routines: focus on being rather than doing.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Covid-19 is here and, as individuals, there is much we must simply accept. With luck and lots of hand washing, we’ll be okay. In the interim, make friends with yourself and remember …</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Don’t just do something. Sit there. </b></span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-56595561948137730822020-03-24T15:33:00.000-07:002020-03-24T15:33:42.441-07:00Thoughts in a Time of Pandemic<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Covid-19 has distanced us but also brought us closer. Though some populations are more at risk than others, we realize that we are all vulnerable, all mortal, all in need of the social fabric of nurses, shopkeepers, first responders, postal workers, teachers, check out clerks, and civil servants who in ordinary times we take for granted, but whose importance is manifest in moments like these. We understand that “thinking globally” is more than a slogan but a public health necessity when fighting a virus that has no respect for borders or national boundaries. We see the worst in people (not just panic hoarding of toilet paper but of guns and ammo) yet also the best, in millions of citizens quietly adapting and changing daily habits to guard the common good (reminding us of Camus’ words from The Plague that “what we learn in time of pestilence is that there is more in human nature to admire than to despise.”) We’ve traded elbow bumps for handshakes. We know that we are in this together, even when apart. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Unlike 9/11, when frightened people packed their churches and synagogues, houses of worship like mine are temporarily empty. But now, as then, our hearts are full: filled with a heightened awareness of our co-humanity, our interdependence, our resolve to be among the healers and the helpers who will ultimately see us through. </b></span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-42148341884918112812019-08-25T13:46:00.001-07:002019-08-25T13:46:59.222-07:00Happy Labor Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Labor Day weekend will be celebrated by many Americans as an occasion for picnics and end-of-summer cook-outs. But who invented the weekend, or the vacation, for that matter? Before the holiday honoring workers was created, back in 1882, most wage-earners toiled twelve hours a day, seven days a week in sweatshops, mills and mines that were dangerous, dirty and that paid a subsistence income. Many of the early labor organizers had names like Saco and Vanzetti: they were Italians, Slavs, Jews, or other recent immigrants, considered “un-American” and almost subhuman. But the fight for an eight-hour day, for a minimum wage, for an end to child labor, for sick leave and safe working conditions were all their achievements.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">But those wins are in jeopardy. Recently ICE raids at Koch Foods in MIssissippi rounded up hundreds of undocumented workers at chicken factories where workers had joined the United Food and Commercial Workers and won multi-million dollar lawsuits against the owners for racial and sexual harassment in the workplace. The company’s owners faced no criminal charges for illegal hiring. Instead, the bosses phoned the feds to retaliate against their own employees. At Peco Food, also targeted by ICE, workers had suffered amputations as the number of federal inspectors dropped and the speed of the slaughter-line increased. One Peco plant in Mississippi dis-assembles and packages approximately 17 tons of poultry weekly. These detentions, the largest single-state ICE enforcements in history, were timed for the first day of school, so that children (many citizens born in the U.S.) came home from class to find their parents missing, behind bars. Their crime? Seeking better working conditions in jobs that nobody else wanted.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">That same weekend, a shooter who posted a racist screed warning of a Latino “invasion” of our country murdered 22 shoppers at a Walmart in El Paso, the youngest victim just fifteen years old. Oh, Walmart still sell guns and ammo. Americans have a right to bear arms, in their view, just not a right to collective bargaining. The Walton family now owns $191 billion, more money than the bottom 43 percent of Americans combined. But they will not allow unions to organize in their stores, where starting workers recently received a raise to $11 per hour. Try supporting a family on that. And compare $11 to the $4 million per hour the Walton heirs “earn.” But when meat-cutters at another Walmart store in Texas formed a union, the Waltons announced within a week that they would fire all their butchers and sell only pre-packaged meat at 700 other Walmart super-store outlets. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">No doubt much of that pre-packaged meat is coming from places like Koch and Peco Foods. Walmart advertises “Koch Farms Chicken Cravers Parmesan”, along with “Koch Foods Oven Cravers Pepper Jack, Swiss Cheese & Bacon Stuffed Chicken” in their grocery department. Peco Foods lists Walmart among its top customers. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Please, as you enjoy your backyard barbecue on Labor Day, ask yourself where that meat came from. Ask yourself why, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics, so many meat-packers earn as little as $10 per hour. Ask yourself who would wade through a killing floor of blood, guts and grease, risking life and limb, for that kind of money. Remember the undocumented workers who are exploited, victimized by wage theft, often underage, bullied by bosses and unable to complain for fear of deportation. Then remember the people with funny-sounding “foreign” names who fought like heck so you could enjoy a weekend.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: large;">Happy Labor Day. </span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-30250171994428452422019-05-10T16:01:00.000-07:002019-05-10T16:01:08.007-07:00Cinco de Mayo?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Between now and now,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>Between I am and you are,</i></b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b><i>The word: Bridge</i> (Octavio Paz)</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Traveling between the U.S. and Mexico, you may cross the Lincoln-Juarez bridge. These two names are linked not just in steel and concrete but in also in history, culture, conflict and collaboration, worth remembering on Cinco de Mayo.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Congressman Lincoln from Illinois was one of the few in Washington to oppose the Mexican War of 1848, which was mainly a pretext for extending slavery into Texas and beyond. He voted against the Treaty of Hildago-Guadalupe, which grabbed New Mexico, Arizona, California and parts of Colorado and Wyoming from our southern neighbor at bargain basement prices. Fifteen million dollars for the great American southwest.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>About the time of our own Civil War, Mexico was experiencing its own ferocious War of Reform, and Lincoln’s counterpart was Benito Juarez. Both were born to poverty (Juarez was a full blooded Zapotec Indian). Lincoln was log cabin born. Juarez was born in a bamboo hut. But both became attorneys and were inaugurated to the Presidency of their respective nations in January of 1861. Both were known for their complete integrity.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Cinco de Mayo celebrates the victory of Juarez’s forces over a French battalion twice its size in the small town of la Puebla in 1862. The French were trying to impose a monarchy on the Mexican people, who had already elected President Juarez, representing a new popular Constitution that guaranteed freedom of speech, freedom of religion and association, along with an end to debtor’s prison which kept many peons in mortgaged bondage to rich landowners. This affected our own Civil War, here in the United States.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The Confederacy, under Jefferson Davis, wanted French help to end the naval blockade of southern ports, in exchange for raw cotton. The French under Napoleon III hoped to regain the territory they had bartered away under Napoleon I in the Louisiana Purchase, along with access to California’s gold. The Church wanted a Catholic monarch on a restored throne of Mexico to protect its ancient privileges. Maxillian von Habsburg, the proposed would-be monarch of Mexico, would reign in glory and enlightened benevolence over his grateful subjects.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>None of it happened. Mexico already had an enlightened and wise leader, legitimate and popular, Benito Juarez. The French withdrew their troops after Appomattox, realizing they were supporting a losing cause, throwing good money after bad. Some Dixie regiments, refusing to accept Lee's surrender, retreated south, offering their support to the Royal Line, who promised to accept their slaves as long as they were called indentured servants or some such. (Nod, nod, wink, wink.) It was futile. Prince Max was eventually hunted down, given a fair trial, and shot.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>The battle of la Puebla was a small victory, but important. Had Juarez lost on Cinco de Mayo, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Colorado might today be slave states. History would have been different, and not for the better.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Cinco de Mayo is more celebrated north of the Rio Grande than in Mexico, not only because of advertising from beer companies, but because it helped to win the Civil War. More than the Battle of Glorieta Pass (sometimes called “the Gettysburg of the West”), Juarez’s triumph stopped the spread of slavery and established democratic reforms both in Mexico and the United States. </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Like Lincoln, who in his Second Inaugural, extended charity to all and malice to none, seeking to reconcile and heal his nation after the terrible conflict between north and south, Juarez was generous to the vanquished. “Neither in the past nor much less in the hour of total triumph for the Republic, has the government desired--nor should it desire--to be moved by any feeling of passion against those with whom it waged war … Let the people and the government respect the rights of all, because among individuals, as among nations, peace is respect for the rights of others.” </b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>So pop a cerveza today: Corona, Dos Equis or Pacifico. It’s a free country, and you can choose. But know why you’re drinking and to whom. This is a Mexican holiday. It’s an American holiday. It’s a deeply democratic holiday. Happy Cinco de Mayo.</b></span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-27781879518846433022019-01-16T20:14:00.000-07:002019-01-16T20:14:00.058-07:00Citizen Democracy<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Here in New Mexico, a new legislature is in session. With half a dozen other members of my congregation, I went to speak with our Senator from Taos, Carlos Cisneros. We talked mostly about renewable energy and how to shift our economy from nuclear and fossil fuels to more sustainable model. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> There’s a proposal afoot to create a permanent nuclear waste dump near Carlsbad, in the southern part of our state. Unfortunately, the Senator told us, this is a federal matter under the jurisdiction of the Department of Energy and people who actually live on this land have very little leverage. But he worried aloud that the private corporations profiting from these operations would eventually go bankrupt, reaping their short term profits and then leaving local taxpayers to pick up the long term costs of clean up when the inevitable “accidents” occur. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> Isn’t it interesting that no private insurance firms (all of whom specialize in managing risk) will insure a nuclear power plant or the repositories for radioactive waste? Maybe they know something we don’t! </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> We also talked about establishing a tax credit for installing solar. The problem, Senator Cisernos explained, is that tax credits reduce revenue that might be available for other worthy causes like education and children’s health. But how do you really measure the cost of a policy initiative like this? I noticed a framed certificate on the Senator’s wall honoring his long service as a volunteer firefighter in the town of Angel Fire. I’m also a firefighter. So I commented to the Senator that fire seasons are becoming longer and more intense here in the Southwest, largely due to global warming. How do we offset the short term costs of offering tax credits for solar against the long term price of devastating fires and loss of life to residents and first responders in woodland communities? The price tag for California’s recent Camp Fire is likely to top $19 billion with thirty-one dead. But costs like these get externalized, never recorded on the balance books. </b></span></div>
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<span style="color: #eeeeee; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b> What’s the answer? I don’t have it. But go talk to your own local legislators about the issues that concern you. The conversations are the only way to restore our democracy and find a common way forward.</b></span></div>
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8840867179601918652.post-44038028708625394272018-12-17T17:43:00.000-07:002018-12-17T17:43:09.170-07:00What's Wrong with the Heifer Project?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>As Christmas nears, many of you will be receiving a gift catalog from Heifer International, inviting you to help the poor by donating an animal to a family farmer in Africa, Latin America or Asia. The photos in the catalog are warm and fuzzy and the message is appealing. But there's another side to the story.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>So What's Wrong With The Heifer Project? I think Heifer does some good work--they are committed to small scale, local agriculture as opposed to factory farming. But the emphasis on raising animals for food contributes to a general misunderstanding among North Americans about the causes of hunger, which are very much related to our consumption of a meat based diet.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Heifer Project International provides cows, sheep, and other livestock to rural families around the world with the aim of fighting hunger. They claim to have more than 300 projects in forty countries. With endorsements that cross the ideological spectrum, from Ronald Reagan to Jimmy Carter, Heifer is virtually a sacred cow—an organization that everyone seems to love. But there are problems with exporting animal agriculture to the Third World.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Globalizing American farming methods is as big a mistake as cultivating a taste for lamb chops and barbecue among the world's poor. Neither is the answer to starvation. Did you realize that an acre of prime agricultural land can produce 40,000 pounds of potatoes, or 30,000 pounds of carrots, or 50,000 pounds of tomatoes, but only 250 pounds of beef? The grain that could feed twenty people suffices for just one cow. Peasants cannot afford this kind of waste and inefficiency.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Thus in country after country, food security has suffered as people switch from rice, beans, and corn to eggs, dairy and meat to satisfy their nutritional needs. Worldwatch Institute documents the trend in <i>Taking Stock: Animal Farming and the Environment. </i>The authors point out that Taiwan increased its consumption of meat and eggs by 600% between 1950 and 1990. While the island nation was a grain exporter at the beginning of this forty year span, it depended on massive imports of grain by the end of the period in order to feed its growing population of livestock. Food self-sufficiency is undermined when people increase their reliance on animal protein. The pattern has been repeated in the Middle East and Central America.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Mexico is one of the countries where Heifer works. Fifty years ago, livestock consumed only 6% of that nation's grain. By 1990, the figure had climbed to 50%, as increased numbers of cattle required more imported feed. Most of the meat produced in Mexico and other Latin America nations is exported for dinner tables north of the border while the little that remains at home is usually priced out of reach of the poor. A Methodist minister who is a friend of mine, and a big supporter of Heifer, told me that the organization constantly faces problems convincing poor families in Mexico to feed the grain they produce to their own children, rather than to the livestock provided by Heifer, because the cattle are considered cash commodities.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Two-thirds of non-Caucasians on the planet are lactose intolerant and cannot digest dairy. Among blacks, the numbers are even higher. Writing in "Science in Africa," Dr. Harris Steinman points out that approximately 90-95% of Africans lack the enzyme lactase and are unable to metabolize milk sugar. The common symptoms of this genetic predisposition are nausea, vomiting and abdominal cramping. Despite this, Heifer is spending millions on initiatives like the Small Scale Dairy Project in Zimbabwe, when the last thing that a hungry child in Africa needs is a milk cow.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Heifer seems wed to the belief that animal agriculture is the answer to the world problems, even when evidence indicates the contrary. American's over consumption of beef is damaging our health and ravaging the environment, a fact that Heifer's public information officer readily admits. But then why is Heifer spending $123,558 to fund the "St. Helena Beef Cattle Project" in Louisiana, whose stated purpose is to boost beef production among American farmers? And isn't it a mistake to encourage people in developing countries to emulate a diet that we know is unsustainable?</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>A United Nations Environment Program survey counted 6,500 distinct breeds of domesticated mammal and birds in 170 countries across the planet, including cows, goats, sheep, buffalo, yaks, pigs, horses, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese and even ostriches. Unfortunately, much of this variety being lost because of programs like those funded by Heifer, which is introducing Irish goats into Kenya. In China, their "Pixian Dairy Cattle Importation and Improvement Project" is using imported cattle to provide "high quality semen and embryo transfer ...for dairy development," supposedly to increase the quality of the breeding stock. But the effort to "improve" the gene pool with foreign imports can have unforeseen consequences. "The greatest threat to domestic animal diversity is the export of animals from developed to developing countries," says the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization, "which often leads to crossbreeding or even replacement of local breeds." Loss of diversity puts animals (and the people who depend on those animals) at heightened risk.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>So that's my beef with Heifer. The roots of world hunger are systemic and usually lie in an unfair distribution of land, which is itself related to an imbalance of economic and political power. Addressing these underlying causes of malnutrition is essential. Hunger is not caused primarily by lack of food. In fact, the world currently produces enough calories to feed every person on earth an adequate diet. Unfortunately, too many of those calories are fed to cows and pigs rather than getting to the people most desperately in need.</b></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Heifer is now branching into praiseworthy efforts at reforestation and water purification. But the charity's insistence on putting animal agriculture at the center of their mission hampers their otherwise laudable goal of "ending hunger, caring for the earth."</b></span><br />
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Gary Kowalskihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00832434470111324769noreply@blogger.com1