Hattie's Web

Mencken on quackery

Someone dredged this up from somewhere on the Internet, and I am linking to it for your weekend amusement. We've gotten too nice in this country. Mencken's full-throated attack on the Boobacracy is something we could use these days.  I love it that the person who posted this screed describes Mencken as "controversial."

One thing he fails to mention is that many chiropractors were abortionists. There was one who set up an office a few doors down from our house who was eventually chased out of town.

The Fred Report

Fred is just fine. The problem was that he had an upset stomach from some bug he must have picked up when he was boarding. I haven't seen any signs of worms. He was eating grass and throwing up. He was not interested in his food, but it was probably because his kibble had been sitting on the counter for a couple of weeks and had gone stale. When I gave him some fresh from a newly opened package he ate it right up. So I have to remember to refrigerate it once I open it. I did try giving him tuna soaked in olive oil, but he just licked it a little and wandered off.

Also, he wants his water changed twice a day or he won't drink it. 

Now he can get back to his regularly scheduled activity of following me around yowling. He always wants me to go sit down somewhere so he can hop up on my lap and claw me. And his claws are very sharp.

Sometimes it hits me how dumb animals are! They don't have much of a chance in this world unless we look after them, and we are just as likely to eat them as to nurture them. Or nurture them and then eat them. There are  some places where even our beloved dogs and cats are mostly regarded as a  tasty meal.

Anyway, here is Fred in a casual moment:

 

Our Fred from Marianna Scheffer on Vimeo.

Three years ago, but he hasn't changed a bit!

 

 

Wabi sabi and me

The Japanese have a name for it: it's the beauty of imperfection and transience. Well, I certainly have got the imperfect and transient part down! That's a humble brag, of course, because to me wabi-sabi is the highest aesthetic.   It's better than saying "sloppy and casual."  Wabi-sabi  tends toward a joyful and relaxed attitude rather than an excited and ambitious one. Machine-like perfection bores me. Why try to make things or do things that a machine could make or do better? And why rule out  the possibilities of chance?

Wabi-sabi in action: I had a failed plate, a broken lantern and some cactus plants in plastic pots. So I put them together and got this, which I rather like, and took this washed out photo into the sun of them.  There is beauty in imperfect things. It's a matter of finding the right place for them and putting them into a harmonious relationship to each other.  Or not, just as you please. Wabi-sabi!

One thing I keep forgetting to do is to take photos of some rock sculptures a person did downtown. They are simply rocks that are piled up in pleasing ways, and they radiate peaceful vibes.

Am I turning Japanese? Perhaps.

I'm still working away on low-glaze ceramics. It's a different world from high fire.  High fire produces durable ware. Low fire is less durable but takes colorful glazes. My next clay purchase will be terra-cotta, a low fire clay, which has that brick red I like. I would love to find black low fire clay and am going to search online for it. The clay I'm using now fires a beigy orange which doesn't please me all that much. Got to order more slips and glazes now.

And my cat is off his feed. He's older and no longer seems to want his kibble. He does not want table scraps either. Any suggestions on what could perk up the appetite of an older cat?

 

Cuba

Gore Vidal, bastard though he was, certainly understood the nature of capitalism when he said the "owner-proprietors" of the U.S. were focused on keeping most of the country's assets in their hands and expanding their imperial reach. Unluckily, the Communist model was even worse, in that it allowed criminals to appropriate all the wealth and then turned into a kleptocracy, as in the former Soviet Union and in China, also intent on appropriation and expansion.

The writing below is  to a large extent for my own illumination, but I like to put things on my blog, because Type Pad does a good job of backing it up and the search engine is pretty good. They recently (finally) added a good spell checker, too. And of course any input from commenters is welcome!

Now I'm reading about Cuba in two books that are very different in their approach: One is Leonardo Padura's novel, The Man Who Loved Dogs. The plot centers on the assassination of Trotsky by a young idealist and Spanish Civil War veteran. This is historically fascinating to me, since I know so little about all this, but his underlying message is about the disillusionment of the people who sincerely believed in a new day for the masses. I just finished the second part of the book, which takes us through the assassination and the difficult years the conspirators experience.  He could have ended the book there, but a lot of the third part looks incident and information packed too.

Just some screen shots of pages near the end of Part II. This is what Padura, an honored Cuban who lives in Cuba, has to say, so I don't think these are brainwashed people! They got burned, and they know it, no matter what end of the political spectrum they were on. They were punished for everyone's sins, it seems.

So this is an indictment of Cuba and Padura's "gullible generation," Cubans born in the 50's. But surely, Cuba's enemies were real and ruthless. What an awful spot to be in!

The other book is Back Channel to Cuba. The co-author, Peter Kornbluh, will be one of our guides on the Nation Magazine trip to Cuba we will be taking this February. I'm just getting into it now. I'm having trouble squaring my memories of what has gone on in Cuba over all these years since the Castro revolution with its dispassionately told and yet in places quite shocking revelations about Cuban-U.S. relations. More on this later.

 

 

As Greece goes, so goes Spain/ Robert Ringer

Now Spain is pushing back against the EU. It all looked so good. Spain was a democracy. Construction on infrastructure and housing was creating so many jobs that immigrants were flooding in. Tourism and real estate were booming. The last time we were there, in the late 80's, we marveled at how prosperous people looked while at the same time being horrified at the ugly roads and buildings going in everywhere. 

Well, it was not out of the goodness of their hearts that the rich countries of the EU gave them all those loans. Now Spain  can't pay its debt.  As in Greece, youth unemployment has become a catastrophe. And they may very well elect a leftist government soon.  This is getting very interesting.

In order to get by, people are working in the "black" economy.  This means a lot of lost tax money. But if the taxes probably just go to pay interest on the national debt, what sense does it make to pay your taxes? They aren't getting any services for their tax money.  It's all kind of squalid, in my opinion. I think that if I were Spanish I would want to be able to have some pride in my country and not feel that my fellow countrymen and women were mostly petty crooks and that the government had sold us out.

Here is a really good Wikipedia explanation of what happened to the Spanish economy.

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Many moons ago, I read a book called Winning Through Intimidation, by Robert Ringer. It is now available  for free on Amazon Prime in a revised edition. You can also buy the original edition second hand.  Ringer fell in with the Ayn Rand people, which means he now believes a lot of their nonsense. I preferred his stance as "humble nerd with a few ideas." This rapidly became, "I get to play with the rich folks."

Also, he had to take out a lot of the sexist stuff that was in the first edition. For instance, he said if you make a pass at ten women, nine of them will slap you in the face, but the tenth will take you up on your offer. If you don't try, you are not going to "score" at all.

This warning that most people will turn you down, however disagreeable it is to put it that way, is a very good piece of advice. His wisdom comes from working in real estate, where most deals fall through but where you can get lucky. The world is not your mama and will not applaud everything you do, let alone giving you everything you want. Chances are, people will not like you, will regard you as a rival, will try to block you, will waste your time, even rip you off. So what? That's life. Suck it up and soldier on.  (And let your allies know how much you appreciate them and be ready to reciprocate when they need you! That's the part he leaves out, which is very important.)

He explains that people think the way to overcome the competitive struggle he believes existence to be is to work hard and for long hours.  But he does not buy that. He says, look at the people who work long, hard hours and can be seen years later working the same long hard hours and all that has changed is that they have gotten old. They work hard but don't really have a plan.

I'm not an especially hard worker,  but I am persistent. And for Ringer that's where it's at.  Terry is both persistent and hard working, and he has gone very far. And here is the trick, and the most important single thing Ringer has to say, "Get paid!"  Terry works with people who don't always want to pay him for his expertise, but he absolutely insists. And his family is grateful!

 

I read through the New York Times Book Review. All the reviews were the same. They said this novel, or poem, or film had some good stuff in it and some bad stuff in it. It was mostly O.K.  You might want to look at this. What's the point of reading reviews like that? In elementary school we used to do book reports. We'd say, " I read this book. I liked it. You should read it too." That's about as helpful as what these reviewers say.

Edroso is in good form today on the subject of Jonah Goldberg.  Goldberg's whole thing is, "How can I avoid meeting my obligations to others and make it look like it's their fault?"

It's good news week

Just watched the latest from Democracy Now. Let's see. Greece rejects austerity. That's good. And Obama has set aside some wilderness areas in Alaska. That's good, I think, although what kinds of deals with the oil and gas companies are being cut we probably won't find out about until it's too late. Not so good: everything else. We are obviously a species that has outsmarted itself. And now instead of changing course we go right on doing all the things that guarantee that the future will be no better than the past and maybe even worse. Go take a look if you are in the mood for a bummer experience.

Katha Pollitt reports from France. She had a few tears to shed for the Charlie Hebdo victims and had a  lot of reasonable and sensible things to say.   She discusses the French concept of laïcité, the right to do without religion except in its specified sphere, which in principle seems like a good thing. The French are anti-clerical for historical reasons, having to do with their uneasy relationship with the Catholic Church, an institution that allied itself with the monarchy overthrown in the French Revolution. They are more suspicious than we Americans in general are of the intrusion of religion  into everyday life and civic institutions.

I confess that I share some of the French intolerance here, as an athiest. For instance, the modes of dress of people like ultra-Orthodox Jews and Muslim fundamentalists do make me angry in a completely unreasonable way, even as I know this is not important. What is important, and here I might agree with general French opinion, is that I don't want to live in a society that is focused on and primarily ruled by religion. I am not anti-religious at all, because life is hard and people need whatever consolation they can find. I don't know how African-Americans could have survived without faith, for instance. Religion does not work for me, that's all.

Actual good news on the local front: The rains have come. And how! It's pouring right now. When it stops I'll see what survived the drought. We had  five weeks without rain, enough to kill off most of my potted plants. Doesn't matter. I'll just plant some new things.  It was kind of nice that the grass and weeds stopped growing for a while, and some of the insect pests have died off. We have been enjoying quiet evenings as the water loving coqui frogs have gone silent. We can even hear the crickets that those loudmouths were drowning out.

This is what the eruption, around 25 miles away,  looked like from Honolii Pali on Saturday at dusk. For the time being it's stalled and building up.

The pall of  smoke and vog were visible all the way up the Hamakua Coast.

This weekend was a washout, so to speak, except that we did go to Puna and had breakfast in Pahoa with Jim and Mary.  Here we are, less than a mile away from the lava. What daredevils we are!

How could we get along without Jim and Mary? Friends like these are not all that easy to find in this world.

 

I've been experimenting with low fire ceramics. This came out OK.I thought the clay would fire black, which is a disappointment. But, as Terry says, we learn through experimentation.

Still very experimental, yes,  but it's good to use as a trivet. It seems best to make flat pieces and decorate them. The low fire pots I made were not worth keeping.

Here is a large low fire decorative plate I bought in Canada years ago.  It seems that the way to handle low fire is to make things that are simple, childish and cheerful.  Such pieces are nice in the kitchen and dining area.

 

Jimmy Durante just crossed my mind. He's way before just about anyone's time I guess, but look how he could sell a song!

 

Negative trends on the Big Island

A homeless man was stabbed  in Hilo. He bled to death in the downtown Long's Drug parking lot even as people tried to save him.

Theft is on the rise.

There is the usual grumbling about people on food stamps.

Yesterday I saw a woman who was so thin that she was wearing her wristwatch above her elbow. 

The people most upset by the increase in visible poverty and more and more street people around are the ones who are struggling to stay in the middle class, the small business people and hard workers who just manage to get by and resent those they feel are parasites. Oahu has declared war on street people, and I fear something like that happening here.  Hilo has had a pretty mellow attitude until recently, but the aloha is wearing thin. 

When I read Tiffany Hunt's Facebook page  (The voice of Puna!)  and her friends, I really worry. She and many others like her have been striving to make Puna the kind of place where middle class people can support their families, send them to good schools, have well-maintained parks and recreational facilities, and in general enjoy the amenities of prosperous,  well run Mainland communities. That has always been a far-fetched notion for Puna because of its isolation and susceptibility to natural disasters and the ever increasing numbers of poor people. As has now become all too clear.

It's voggy this a.m., and I have a dull headache, even after retreating to my office and turning on the window air conditioner. And there is still no rain.

Our neighborhood is changing, too.  My nice doctor who lived across the street has moved to Oahu and turned her house into a vacation rental. So now I have to find a new doctor. She left because she was overworked and underpaid and also so that her husband could go to grad school.  (Luckily, I'm with Kaiser, so my basic medical care will continue.)  A house down the street just sold and is also being converted to a vacation rental. And a house is being built on the corner which is going to be a vacation rental. We already have two other vacation rentals in our small neighborhood plus a bed and breakfast. Oahu is thinking about cracking down on vacation rentals. I don't know how I feel about this. The renters are no problem, but it changes the atmosphere of a neighborhood when there are so many transients. It certainly is better than having empty houses. There are two of those in the neighborhood, and I can't understand why the owners are holding on to them.

I'm just hoping our renters stay. They are delightful people and we really get along.  I would not be surprised if they left for better opportunities, although for them, as for us,  the Big Island is their heaven on earth, even with all its problems. But as the Sicilians say of their homeland, "It's beautiful, but you can't eat the scenery."

We're happy, of course, and have everything we could possibly want or need. But I can't feel very complacent about that. Not in my nature, which is always alert to danger. We're going to the Makuu Market on Sunday and should be able to get a feel for the developing situation. There are always plenty of people down there to talk to.

This and that

5 a.m. Back home. It's cool and pleasant in the velvety darkness.  I can see a faint glow from the direction of Puna. The lava is stalled for now, but it keeps building up. There has been virtually no rain for weeks, and the lava is setting brush fires.

Terry got this shot of Haleakala Crater as we flew over Maui.  The crater is as big as Manhattan, the flight attendant informs us. 

Note the snow at the observatory and the footpath into the crater.

 

We hiked this road and stayed a couple of days at a cabin. I decided then, and have not changed my mind, that this was the most beautiful place I had ever been. That was a long time ago. Coming into Hilo, this is the Hilo Breakwater.

Coconut Island

 

And this is a nice shot of the boat harbor and the Suisan fish market.

 

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A rich person, Jane Dough,* on the subject of charity:

... if I’m totally honest, I don’t want to feel like charitable activities are my obligation as a rich person. I want to be able to do with my time what I wish.... I’ve found the causes I care about, and I give to them. But I also want to trust that my tax dollars are going to the places we’ve collectively decided upon through the democratic process of one vote, one person. I want pay more taxes than most people because I’m rich. Apparently I’m not the only one who feels that way.

This is how I feel, in my less affluent way. My work life was almost all in adult basic education, ESL and high school equivalency prep. I worked with immigrants when I lived in Portland and taught at a prison here in Hawaii. Now I want to write and make pots and send money to worthwhile organizations. But what I really wish for is decent, well funded public institutions paid for with tax money collected in a fair system of taxation. I think people should be paid for the work they do. With money.

*A pseudonym, no doubt.

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I highly recommend Jonathan Sa'adah's book, How Many Roads,  of his photos, with essays by Teju Cole, Elizabeth Adams, Hoyt Alverson and Steven Tozer. Elizabeth is Sa'adah's wife  and the subject of several of the photos. *

Nothing I have read about the 60's resonates with me the way this book does. This is how people like us looked then, those of us in cold places. We lived in Madison, Wisconsin at the time in student poverty. We were overwhelmingly concerned about the war and the social injustices that were tearing the country apart, and we, as members of the student community and young people with liberal leanings, were scapegoated for the wrongs of those times. It was impossible to have civil conversations with Terry's older relatives, his aunt and uncle, and they virtually disowned their son for becoming a conscientious objector.

 

I thought the title could be read as somewhat ironic, since all of our student friends from that time took the same road as we did, which led us to the upper middle class.  But the old confusions remain. I still think for many of us this was a time of overwhelming events that we experienced in a very inward way. That is why this book appeals to me so much. It's intense, it's personal. And a lot of it was traumatic.

 

We were trying to remember which of the many marches on Washington we went to: four, I think.  Terry says we went to the '69 March on Washington, but that can't be right, because my elder daughter was born that year. I think he might have gone with his friend.  Our memories of that era are flawed. I don't even recall whether I heard MLK speak in person or whether I only saw him on television. This was before social media, and our records and recollections of that time are haphazard and unorganized. If Terry ever retires, he is going to scan our photos from then. Perhaps we can gain some new insights from that.

 

*Beth informs me that she was not in any of the photos but leading a "parallel life" at the time. That is what I find so interesting: that so many of us were on parallel tracks but unknown to each other. 

 

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I'm reading a collection of stories by the Austrian writer,  Ingeborg Bachmann, published in 1972. In Drei Wege zum See (Three Paths to the Lake) a woman, Elizabeth,  comes home to visit her father in Vienna. She has worked and lived in many places and is grateful for the freedom she has enjoyed as a photojournalist but also  feels cut off  from her Austrian origins. She is extremely upset over the death of a colleague who was "killed in a street fight in Budapest while he was photographing and bled to death with his camera in his hand."*

 

Others have died too:"three photographers and a reporter in Algeria and two journalists in Suez..." A friend tells her, scornfully, that she and her fellows are  " 'serving up war for breakfast,' " and can't expect immunity, that they must accept the danger they face as an " 'occupational hazard...I don't know why I have no tears for your friends. Do you think that you have to photograph these destroyed villages and corpses so that I can have war presented to me, or these Indian children, so that I know what hunger is?' "

 

This passage resonated with me, because I have gone right off the news, and I was always an avid news follower. The more I hear about all the disasters in the world, the injustice, the murders of the innocent, the more helpless I feel. And bored, too. After a lifetime of hearing about the catastrophes suffered by others I feel something like battle fatigue. And now, confronted by a looming disaster in Puna, my backyard, so to speak, I can hardly react. It's so minor in the greater scheme of things.  Obama never even came over to take a look.

 

One of the best media critics is Karl Kraus, whose Last Days of Mankind satirized the Viennese of his day in their love of gossip and gossip dressed up as news. Coffeeshops were abuzz with the latest rumors and  disasters, culminating in the disaster of WW I. What I always remember from this play, a long read, is the scene where a reporter comes up with a notebook in hand to a man lying on the battlefield and asks him to tell the public what it feels like to die.

 

 

*all quotes my translations

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Now it's 7 a.m. I can see a pink glow which looks like a fire in Puna and just got a whiff of sulfur. And the whales are jumping!

 

So It's off to Puna to pick up the cat from the kennel and do some grocery shopping. Also to see if my low-fire ceramics are ready. The everyday goes on, even under the volcano and with frolicking whales right offshore.