Jonathan P. Baird

Fairbanks is a genuine end-of-the-road, wild west town. With Denali in the background, Fairbanks is a launch pad for the truly intrepid who want to head further into interior Alaska. We are not talking suburbs. When you get outside Fairbanks, it is the bush.

I spent the last week in Fairbanks and I did want to tout it as a cool place to visit, especially during the World Ice Art Championships , held annually in March.

The ice art competition is something to put on your bucket list. Ice sculptors from over 38 countries have created large and intricate works of art made out of huge blocks of ice. Using chain saws and other hand and power tools, teams are given up to 10 blocks of ice. Each ice block measures approximately 4 ft. x 6 ft. x 3.3 ft.

Teams in the Multi-Block Classic sculpt a minimum of 46,000 pounds of ice. They do have heavy equipment, including specialized forklifts, to harvest, cut and lift the blocks.

The sculptures can be huge, over 25 feet tall. I liked Dream Big Dragon Slayer which featured a detailed ice dragon that must have been 20 feet tall. The Multi-Block Classic starts at 9am on a Sunday and the work must be done on the sculpture by 9pm on Friday. Teams can have two to four members.

In addition to the Multi-Block competition, there is also a Single Block Classic. In this competition, one or two member teams craft single blocks of ice measuring 5 ft. x 8 ft. x 3 ft. Each block weighs 7,800 pounds. This competition begins at 9am on a Tuesday and work must be finished by 9pm on a Thursday.

It all takes place in a large roomy outdoor Ice Park. As part of this event, there is a Kids Park which has to be one of the greatest playgrounds, ever. The Kids Park is entirely composed of ice structures including very long sides built on a hillside, a lifesize maze to walk through, long tunnels to crawl through, an igloo, and other kid-friendly sculptures. I went on a late Wednesday afternoon and there were many lit-up kids running around.

The event, in its 22nd year, is a celebration of spring in interior Alaska. Lights are creatively placed in and around the exhibits to add an extra nocturnal dimension. The event is organized by Ice Alaska, a volunteer organization. The goals of Ice Alaska are worthy:

1) To promote artistic and educational endeavors using ice.
2) To enhance and promote international friendships through cultural and artistic exchange.
3) To preserve and display all cultures through elegant ice exhibitions.
4) To promote Alaska and to encourage winter.

The website of Ice Alaska, http://www.icealaska.org , has photos and video of the exhibits and more information about the artists and related events. The event is something to see.

Before I went to Alaska, an Administrative Law Judge in New Hampshire had told me about her experience flying out of Fairbanks in the winter. She recalled it was 50 below as she sat in a plane. Before take-off, she watched the plane’s wings being de-iced. Earlier, the engine had refused to start due to the cold. She asked herself: do I want to stay on this plane? She did stay and lived to tell about it.

Since I have been in Alaska, I have watched weather forecasts on TV. (They go on longer than in other places because the state is so big and there are multiple weather patterns going simultaneously) For a good part of the winter, the low temperatures in Fairbanks routinely hit 40 below. When I was at the Federal Court there, I joked with a security guard about the weather being nice. He said this winter Fairbanks had a run of solid 45 below for two weeks straight.

It was a balmy 17 below when I arrived but it warmed up and got sunny up into the 20s everyday.

One thing I learned: do not forget to plug in your car at night. I had a rental car and there were hitching posts around town. I found driving in Fairbanks a bit of an unnerving experience. There is probably an inch of ice covering many sections of road. Stopping and turning on ice is an acquired skill. Having lived in New Hampshire, I am accustomed to bad road conditions. It is different in Fairbanks though. Watching the glare ice on the road can throw you and cause second thoughts about speeding. I imagine experience with sliding helps.

I happened to be in town during the Tanana Chiefs Conference. The Conference is a non-profit organization with a membership of Native Governments from 42 interior Alaska communities and participants were staying at the same hotel as me.  I don’t know what happened at the Conference but I will say that the Native Alaskans knew how to party, hard and loud. It sounded like a good time.

When I told one New Hampshire friend I was going to Fairbanks, he jokingly said, ” Scarebanks”.  Fairbanks does seem to have more than its share of crackpots. Last week the FBI arrested a group of Alaska militia members from the Fairbanks area who, according to court documents, were planning on killing state troopers, a federal judge, one of the judge’s family members and an IRS employee.

I admit to being at a total loss to explain the warped ideology behind that world view. Whip together paranoia, conspiracy theories, hatred of the federal government, blood thirstiness, love of weapons, racism, anti-semitism and voila. Voltaire once said, ” Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”

The group’s leader, 27 year old Schaeffer Cox, had claimed that he had 3500 members under his command. Cox claimed to be a Sovereign Citizen, not subject to the laws of Alaska or the United States.(Good luck, Mr. Cox)  Cox was so far out in La-La Land that before his arrest he had bragged Alaska authorities were “outmanned and outgunned”.

Of course, no place has a monopoly on crackpots. I would not let it keep you away from Fairbanks. On the flight back to Anchorage, I lucked out and got a completely clear view of Denali. Flying at 23,000 feet, off to the right, it was not too far below. It was majestic, almost unworldly. Not a bad way to finish the work week.

In its March 7/14 issue, the Nation Magazine featured a piece by Stephane Hessel, a former French Resistance fighter against the Nazis. Hessel, who is 93, is a publishing sensation in France. His book, Indignez-vous!, has topped bestseller lists in France. When initially published in France in October 2010, it had a first run of 6000 copies. By the end of 2010, 600.000 copies had been sold.

During World War II, Hessel, who had been living in London, parachuted into occupied France in advance of the Allied invasion in 1944 to organize Resistance networks. He was captured by the Nazis, tortured and sent to Buchenwald and Dora concentration camps. He narrowly escaped death by switching identities with another prisoner who was dying of typhus. After a failed escape attempt at Dora and barely escaping hanging, he did escape the Nazis when he was being transported to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.

After the war, Hessel became a diplomat. He played an important role, along with Eleanor Roosevelt, in drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In 2004, he won the Council of Europe’s North-South Prize. More recently, in 2006, he achieved the rank of Grand Officer of the Legion of Honor and in 2008 he won the UNESCO/Bilbao Prize for the Promotion of a Culture of Human Rights. On February 21,2008, Hessel publicly denounced the French government for failure to comply with Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and called on the government of the French Republic to make funds available to provide housing for the homeless. Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states:

“Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care, and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.”

I also wanted to mention Article 22 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which appears to be a favorite of Hessel’s:

“Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international cooperation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social, and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.”

Hessel’s book is now available in the United States and I highly recommend it. The book is a call to action both to protect human rights and to address the widening gap between rich and poor. In this blog entry, I will quote generously from it. I would note that Indignez-vous! is particularly addressed to young people.

Hessel believes that the values and principles which animated the French Resistance over 60 years ago are needed more than ever now. I must admit I did not appreciate the values of that movement. I mostly assumed it was a military effort. Hessel makes clear that the program and values of the French Resistance were the basis for Free France after the war.

Among other things, the Resistance proposed “a rational organization of the economy to guarantee that individual interests be subordinated to the public interest, one free of a dictatorship of established professionals in the image of the fascist state.” The French Resistance supported a strong social safety net. They favored “a comprehensive social security plan, to guarantee all citizens a means of livelihood in every case where they are unable to get it by working” and “retirement that allows older workers to end their lives with dignity”.

The Resistance favored “establishing a true economic and social democracy, which entails removing large scale economic and financial feudalism from the management of the economy”. It also favored a fair division of wealth created by the world of labor over the power of money. The Resistance strongly advocated a free press.

Hessel is quite upset with current deficit-cutting efforts and I suspect he would be equally critical of these efforts in France and the United States. He points out that at the time of Liberation at the end of World War II, Europe lay in ruins. How, he asks, can the money needed to continue and extend social programs be lacking now, when wealth has grown so enormously? As he says,

“It can only be because the power of money, which the Resistance fought against so hard, has never been as great and selfish and shameless as it is now, with its servants in the very highest circles of government.”

Hessel says that the motivation which underlay the French Resistance was outrage at fascism and the Nazis. He speaks up for intelligent outrage.

“The worst possible outlook is indifference that says, “I can’t do anything about it; I’ll just get by.” Behaving like that deprives you of one of the essentials of being human: the capacity and the freedom to feel outraged. That freedom is indispensable, as is the political involvement which goes with it.”

In the book, Hessel says that his life has provided a steady succession of reasons for outrage. He criticizes the European treatment of immigrants and illegal aliens. He particularly criticizes Israel’s actions in Gaza. He says it is imperative to read Justice Richard Goldstone’s report of September 2009 on Gaza. Justice Goldstone, a Jewish South African judge, led a fact-finding mission for the United Nations.

Hessel argues that the future belongs to non-violence. “The message of a Nelson Mandela, a Martin Luther King Jr. is just as relevant in a world that has moved beyond victorious totalitarianism and the cold war confrontation of ideologies.”

As we seek honorable traditions to emulate, what more noble tradition than the example of the French Resistance. On March 8, 2004, on the 60th anniversary of the Program of the National Council of the Resistance, a number of veterans of the French Resistance from 1940 to 1945 addressed an Appeal to the young generation.

“Nazism was defeated, thanks to the sacrifices of our brothers and sisters of the Resistance and of the United Nations against fascist barbarity. But the menace has not completely disappeared, and our outrage at injustice remains intact to this day.”

I will give the last words to Hessel:

“…we continue to call for a true peaceful uprising  against the means of mass communication that offers nothing but mass consumption as a prospect for our youth, contempt for the least powerful in society and for culture, general amnesia and the outrageous competition of all against all.
       To you who will create the twenty-first century, we say from the bottom of our hearts,
       TO CREATE IS TO RESIST
       TO RESIST IS TO CREATE”

From the outset, I will be clear about this: I love Walter Mosley!  I have read most of his books and I always look forward to anything new he puts out. Mosley is unique: for feeling, character and dialogue, there is no more fun read out there. But it is not just fun. Mosley is serious.

Heading back to Anchorage from Portland, I finished Mosley’s newest book, The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey. I have never read anything quite like it. Mosley gets into the jumbled mind of his protagonist, a 91 year old Black man named Ptolemy Usher Grey. While Grey is suffering from dementia, he has not lost it altogether. He brings to bear a long experience of life and love lessons and a passion for doing what is right.

It is hard to say what is most impressive about Ptolemy Grey. The unabashed feeling Mosley unleashes which can make you cry or the fierce determination for justice which still burns hot in the heart of a 91 year old man. I loved that Mosley made a 91 year old demented Black man his hero.

Central to the plot is the relationship of Grey to a young woman, Robyn, who helps him when he is seriously down and out. Living alone in a filthy L.A. ghetto apartment, preyed on by predator neighbors anxious to steal his money, Grey, with help from Robyn, reemerges into the light. Her help sets into motion surprising developments and it gives Grey a chance to demonstrate his finer qualities.

There are a number of compelling subplots. Grey has a mentor, Coydog McCann, who taught him valuable life lessons. Coy, long dead, lives in Grey’s imagination. His guidance and example were an inspiration to Grey.

“Life ain’t fair. Life ain’t right. Life ain’t no good or bad. What it is is you, boy. You makin’ up your mind and takin’ your own path. Don’t worry ’bout that cop with the truncheon. Don’t worry ’bout a cracker with his teefs missin’ and a torch in his hand. Ain’t none’a that any of your nevermind. All you got to do is make sure he ain’t got a chance.”

I think the Coy-Grey relationship reflects the importance Mosley places on mentoring. Young people need mentors and at key points throughout the novel Coy comes back into Grey’s mind with critical helpful advice from way back. We are not alone in this thing Mosley seems to say. The young people who are clueless in the novel neither have a mentor nor realize what is lacking in their life. Maybe it is being a guy but Mosley is very focused on fathers loving and guiding their sons. That is also true in the Leonid McGill series.

I also read the story as a meditation on love. The mutually giving relationship of Robyn and Grey was a love paradigm. Robyn cared for Grey when he was a mess. He lived in disgusting filth and he was demented almost to the point of incoherence. Robyn befriended him, cleaned his apartment from top to bottom, protected him from vicious assault by muggers, cooked for him, and sought out needed medical care for him. She was not in it for the money. She saved him and he recognized it and reciprocated. To quote them:

“Are you tired ‘a me bein’ here, Uncle?”
“No baby. You put a fire in my mind and love at my doorstep.”

There is typically a fair amount of sex in Mosley’s books. Not so much in this one but still there is an upfront love of sensuality and sexuality. Mosley’s characters are not angels. There is also considerable humor.

“Women deadly serious when it comes to kissin’, Coy used to say. They laugh all the way there, but when it come down to kissin’ they like a cat when she see sumpin’ shakin in the tall grass.”

The racial dimension of Mosley is on full display in Ptolemy Grey. He creates a microcosm ghetto world with a range of believable characters from young to old. Mosley sees the oppression but he generally avoids two dimensional portrayals. Hard not to think he is down with the people although he sugarcoats no one.

I did want to mention his discussion of aging. Mosley empathetically sees the old person shunted aside by society and essentially discarded and ignored. He recognizes the melancholy and bittersweetness of old age. Here is Coy
talking to a young Grey, then L’il Pea:

” The older you get the more you live in the past,” Coy intoned like a minister introducing his sermon. “Old man like me don’t have no first blue sky or thunderstorm or kiss. Old man like me don’t laugh at the taste of a strawberry or smell his own stink and smile. You right there in the beginnin’ when everything was new and true. My world is made outta ash and memories, broken bones and pain.”

Still, the story takes a positive spin and it is not all doom and gloom. Mosley does not see Grey as a victim. In the end, Grey acts to protect his chosen family and he deals out rough justice.

Hard to choose among Mosley books but I liked A Little Yellow Dog in the Easy Rawlins series. Both the recent Leonid McGill books, Known to Evil and The Long Fall are good too. I will also put in a mention for Fortunate Son which I enjoyed a lot. There is a directness and deceptive simplicity in Mosley that evokes Langston Hughes. Mosley opens up and humanizes a whole hidden world – not a bad accomplishment for any writer.

These days many new political books are poorly written, one-sided, and devoid of human interest. The major thrust is scoring points on the opposition. Fairmindedness, balance, and nuance are typically out.

An exception to the above generalization is Tony Judt’s book “Ill Fares the Land”. Published in 2010, it is a short and elegant defense of social democracy. The book is somewhat heretical as it takes on all comers, criticizing the New Left as well as conservatives and libertarians. It is unlikely to make any side too happy.

The title comes from Oliver Goldsmith’s book “The Deserted Village” written in 1770.

“Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay.”

Central to the book is Judt’s critique of inequality, particularly the rampant inequality which has worsened in the U.S. and U.K. over the last 30 years. Judt attacks the dominant philosophical underpinning of our era that the point of life is to get rich. He is not impressed with the pursuit of wealth as a goal or ambition. He notes that up until the late 1980’s it was uncommon to meet any independent-minded students who even wanted to attend business school. As an academic, he was in a good position to make that assessment.

Judt encourages questions about public policy like: is it good? is it fair? is it just? will it help to bring about a better world? He believes, and I agree, that our moral sentiments have been corrupted.

Judt points out that in 2005, 21.2% of the U.S. national income accrued to the top 1% of earners. The CEO of Wal-Mart earns 900 times the wages of his average employee. The wealth of the Wal-Mart founder’s family was estimated at about the same ($90 billion) as that of the bottom 40% of the U.S. population: 120 million people.

Judt argues that “…economic disadvantage for the overwhelming majority translates into ill health, missed educational opportunities and – increasingly – the familiar symptoms of depression: alcoholism, obesity, gambling and minor criminality. The unemployed and the underemployed lose such skills as they have acquired and become chronically superfluous to the economy. Anxiety and stress, not to mention illness and early death, frequently follow.”

It is refreshing to read a book that recognizes that unregulated capitalism is its own worst enemy. Yet, it is amazing how many people fail to see what is so obviously true, even after the last three years with all the subprime lending and widespread foreclosures. Apparently nothing, absolutely nothing, can shake the true believer’s faith in unfettered markets.

Judt has the traditional social democratic belief in collective action for the collective good. He believes in both the relevance of the public sector and in progressive taxation for public services. He makes no apologies. While the Right looks at taxes as a curse and as uncompensated income loss, he looks at taxes’ contribution to the quality of life and to the provision of collective societal goods.

Judt brings historical perspective to the question of the role of the state. He believes liberals, social democrats, and the Left have been too modest about positive accomplishments during the 20th century. Not even considering the great accomplishments of the New Deal like Social Security and unemployment compensation, he mentions the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Headstart, Legal Services, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

These have all enriched our world. Given the historical record, there is an irrationality about the demonization of Big Government. He does recognize, however, that government can get things wrong and he is sensitive to issues of coercion. His critique of government is subtle though and he is balanced in weighing pros and cons.

I had a hard time relating to his critique of the New Left although I certainly think there is plenty to criticize there. Judt critiques the individualism of the New Left. Rather than social justice, Judt saw the Left as about “doing your thing” and “letting it all hang out”. Focus was more on faraway places than shared purpose at home.  Plus he said to be a radical in those years was to be self-regarding, self-promoting, and parochial. I found his critique one-sided and really the perspective of an outsider. I would agree the New Left lost perspective and marginalized itself. Still, he understates some of the positives, particularly the movement against the war in Vietnam which hugely shaped a generation.

Judt is extremely wary of totalistic solutions. He says incremental improvements upon unsatisfactory circumstances are the best we can hope for and probably all we should seek. I would say his viewpoint is informed by both the experience of fascism and Stalinism. To quote him further:

“If we have learned nothing else from the 20th century, we should have at least grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences.”

However, it is the Right that draws his strongest fire. He says they have abandoned the association of political conservatism with social moderation. From the war in Iraq through the desire to dismantle public education and health services to financial deregulation, it is the Right which has inherited the ambitious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal project. His critique is that the Right is not conservative, but extremist.

Sadly, Judt died in 2010. He explicitly wrote this book to encourage idealistic young people to engage politics. The book deserves a wide audience. I will close with a quote from Adam Smith that appears in the book and is particularly apropos:

” The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition…(is)…the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

My sister Lisa would have turned 58 today. I do find myself dwelling on the unfairness of her exit from this life.  I think about my own good fortune and wonder why. There is no good or fair reason. I find the arbitrariness ridiculous.

I do not think that Lise would have spent much time complaining about the arbitrariness or randomness of fate. She was enormously purposeful even in the face of ultimate absurdity. She derived great satisfaction from caring for family and tending to her clients. I have never met a more dedicated and devoted lawyer to her clients. She really took them in. She was that way with her kids too. She was driven.

She used to keep crazy hours. She hid this reality as she did many other realities. Lisa led a life of dark secrets.

She would often get up at 3am to write briefs or to work on her cases. i think this was partly connected to her inability to stay up late, even moderately late, at night. She had a long history of crashing early. This pattern pre-dates her last years and actually goes back to at least her teen years. She always used to fall asleep on the twin bed in my bedroom at 284 Melrose Road in Merion where we grew up. She would come in ostensibly to do her homework and I would look over and she would be asleep. It might have been 7:30pm.

I used to tease her about it because, for whatever reason, she could not stay awake. She was a morning person and I think she was highly productive early.

The extreme hours pattern was also connected to a choice. There wasn’t enough time and she was aggressively cramming in work in the only time left. Her getting up at 3am happened often especially in her last years. I told her she was nuts but she kept this pattern up long after her recurrence of breast cancer. I don’t think she ever stopped it actually. She always had reasons for burning the candle at both ends. While she did not have her former energy, she struggled to maintain a frenetic pace. The chemo and multiple doctor appointments, her kids, her family, her friends – all these squeezed the time available for her clients. And she had so many.

There was always a client to save and she was going to save them.

Lisa and time – time was the enemy. I think as her illness evolved she stayed up later at night. She took more cat naps. That was her compromise with chemo. I used to worry she was exhausting herself and further compromising her health. When I whined to her about it she would say something like “Shut up Boo-boo.” She was obstinate til the end.

Lisa’s tendency to take on too much, especially after she had no support staff, left her in a chaotic place that most lawyers never would have tolerated. I think it was unfortunate that she was a solo practitioner late in her career. There was no organization around her to say “no” or to set limits.

The disorganization of her legal files did reflect a failure on her part to recognize limits. I suppose it also reflected Lisa’s devaluation of routine, normalcy, and organization. I think she saw her life as being more about substance than form. She knew things had spun out of control but I don’t think she saw any way to fix the problem. She had rationalizations. There was only so much time. Maybe her files were all over the city but her health was deteriorating and she had no help. She did not tell others about how chaotic things had become as her illness advanced.

Her heart was set on saving the clients which she could do better than most anybody. Lives were on the line and she knew the stakes. The truth is that Lisa won many victories that other more conservative lawyers never would have even attempted. And that is not just because the clients would not fork over a large enough retainer. Lisa took longshot cases. A number of her wins were anything but routine. She had some great wins at the Third Circuit that made law. After Lisa died, my mom received a lovely note from the workers at the Immigration Court in Philadelphia, including personally inscribed notes from the judges, expressing their admiration for Lisa and sorrow about her passing.

Before I leave the subject of personal chaos, I did want to mention one other black humor aspect: Lisa and Philadelphia parking tickets. She had a history with parking tickets, mostly getting them. i think she had some good experience going to court and arguing her way out of tickets as well as arguing her fines down.

For whatever reason, the parking tickets never stopped. I don’t know but I suppose parking in the city is hard. Maybe Lise just accepted parking tickets as a fact of her life as a lawyer.  There was something of an oblivious quality. My mom and I used to laugh about it except the ticket costs mounted and it seemed like the parking authority was like a mafia.

Lisa did have a wonderful sense of humor that helped her navigate through crises and her life. She also had a great laugh.

I will tell one story that happened late in her life. Lisa was always driving to far away places to see clients in jail or to represent them in court. She had to go to York. Pa one day for a hearing on one of her cases. Because the hearing was early, she drove west of Philadelphia the night before and stayed in a motel near the court. Lise was very sick at the time. She had had a number of rounds of chemo after her recurrence and she had lost most of her hair. She had a wig. The next morning when she got up, it turned very windy outside. As she left the motel and was heading for her car to go to court, a gust of wind blew her wig off and across the parking lot. The wig landed in a mud puddle. Lise grabbed up the wig, washed it as best she could and on it went. At court, when she was asked about why her hair was so wet, she nonchalantly explained that she had just showered.  She always got a kick about telling the story even though it was a painful subject because she hated that she had lost her hair.

I do still miss talking to Lise very much. She was a big advice giver and she always had a lot to say on my life. It is good to have someone like that in your life.

I  recently reconnected with early childhood friends Jude, Sheila, and Lynne Coren. I know how much Lise would have loved this. She was very big on constantly maintaining and preserving important relationships. Recontacting Jude, Sheila or Lynne would have majorly pushed her buttons and turned her on. I almost feel like an ambassador for Lise in her absence. I know she would have been way ahead of me in initiating and promoting contact. That was Lise.

To remember and honor Lise, I wanted to offer two poems by different poets that , in my opinion, evoke her.  The poems by Sharon Olds and Kenneth Patchen are poems I think she would have liked.

From Seven Floors Up

He is pushing a shopping cart up the ramp
out of the park.  He owns, in the world,
only what he has there – no sink, no water,
no heat. When we had come out of the wilderness,
after the week in the desert, in tents,
and on the river, by canoe, and when I had my own
motel-room, i cried for humble dreading
joy in the shower, I kneeled and put
my arms around the cold, clean
toilet. From up here, his profile looks
like Che Guevara’s, in the last picture,
the stitches like marks on a butcher’s chart.
Suddenly I see that I have thought that it could not
happen to me, homelessness
—-like death, by definition it would not happen.
And he shoulders his earth, his wheeled hovel,
north, the wind at his back—-November,
the trees coming bare in earnest. November,
month of my easy birth.

                                               Sharon Olds

I Care What Happens

Prodigious goals–Flakes boat starmarsh–Great Highone i care
what happens to every human being, O I live locked in that–
the smell of a stone in the sun–Locked in my heart are all the
slender still silences of the grove and there too the black cries and
the pierced beggars in fluttering doorways–Call through the
howling O
someone thinks of greater deeds than lying and murder.
Every mouth sucks at life and is filled in one way or another.

Hounds playing tennis on a pale bridge. The grim asses of trains
bluther down the valley. Nowhere to go, brother.
Even hard things hide.
But life does not break.

Let us shout in our cages! Rattle the damn bars!
Under the invisible is a man’s heart.
I am like you. We are things of the same kind.
We are all standing here among the hideous statues.
I urge you to protest this murderous swindle. Do it.

I walk out into the streets of this city.
They have made liars of all these people. They have made them
cheat and do murder. Their faces are afraid, and ugly. They live
with hatred in their hearts. They love nothing at all.
Everything in this city is ugly. It is a sort of death to walk here.
A filth of lies and hopelessness covers everything. I go into a
lunchroom and order coffee. Every table is taken. i stand in a
corner and drink the coffee. I have a feeling that at any moment
spmebody will blow up and start clawing everyone within reach.
But they just sit around in there and make the usual stale noise.
I get out as fast as I can.

Prodigious dreams–I walk down and sit on a bench by the river.
An old man sits down beside me. A sour vomit smell comes off
his clothes. he picks his nose and hums a popular song. I move
on to another bench. Two girls are sitting there smoking. They
don’t look at me. A shout from over by the drinking fountain and
a man lurches down the path with blood streaming down his chin.
I wait a minute, then set off for home

                                                                                                        You–
The meaning is in the wonder.
Towns and seas and all poor devils everywhere. In no way is
life ever changed.
Through acceptance of the mystery, peace.
And only through peace can come acceptance of the mystery.
We are not open. The glory cannot come in. How soon after our
best things is the taste bitter again.
As of this earth and what I am on this earth—I fiercely wish to
protect the things I love.
They fill my eyes with tears—the things I love.
Suppose they are nothing—they are all I have.

                                                               Kenneth Patchen

When I was recently in Olympia Washington visiting family, I spent a rainy Saturday cruising the used bookstores there. I did want to mention Last Word Books and Browsers’ Book Shop. They are both good.

When I was at Last Word, I came across and purchased a wonderful book of collected poems by Thomas McGrath titled The Movie at the End of the World. While McGrath is well known to poetry lovers, he is not well known to the general public.

McGrath (1916-1990) was from North Dakota, a farmer’s son. He had various nicknames including Dream Champ, Tommie the Commie, Crazy Horse, Peasant Poet, Longshot O’Leary, and Tom Fool. He is best known for an epic poem Letter to an Imaginary Friend. I have not seen it but there is a documentary available from Amazon about McGrath also with the title The Movie at the End of the World.

I have barely scratched the surface of his work but I wanted to share some of his poems i liked best. I would encourage all who read this to check him out. He was an absolutely fearless American original.

Left Town

On Monday he died.
A few heard of it and were shocked but not surprised.

On Tuesday
A newspaper noted his passing.

On Wednesday
There was a small service and some people came.

On Friday
They buried or burned him at the beginning of a long weekend.

On Saturday
They went to the beach, doped, drank, fornicated, had a “good
time.”

On Sunday
With headaches, a few went to a bar and one remembered a line
of a poem.

He would have understood perfectly the “human condition.”

______________________________

How could I have come so far?
(And always on such dark trails!)
I must have travelled by the light
Shining from the faces of all those I have loved.

______________________________

My dead father comes back
In the shape of my little son.
And I sing him to sleep with his songs
Still in my own child’s ear.

_____________________________

O’Leary’s Last Wish:
In Case the Revolution Should Fail

I want to be buried in Arlington Cemetery,
Somewhere at the patriotic center of the American Death,
With my bones full of the sleepy dynamite of the class struggle
And the time-bomb of the century under my private’s shirt.

I want to lie there and tick like a pulse among the defunct
Heroes, the quiet deserters of their own body and blood-
The ones who stood on expensive roads in the total shell fire of money
Being cut off at the balls for their own and the public good.

I’ll be there, the anti-bourgeois neutrino of the irreconcilable
                                                         proletariat,
Among the tame terrene charges of those patriotic stiffs.
Contra-Destiny Factors ring midnight, but there’s no gold in their
                                                       veins;
Cock crow chimes thrice. Reveille. No one is stirring yet

But under the ghost-overgrown honortabs to the wars,
The real estate and spirit-money my fellow-death-workers have won,
Is the Word of the Four Last Things of the Working Class, the rumored
Revolution of the Dead which Heaven, and the Boss, want put down.

Nevertheless, I’m still here, hell’s partisan, with my anti-god bomb,
Agitating toward the day when these stony dead
Shall storm up out of the ground in their chalky battalions
To judge wars, Presidents, Fates, God and His Own Elect.

___________________________

Gone Away Blues

Sirs, when you are in your last extremity,
When your admirals are drowning in the grass-green sea,
When your generals are preparing the total catastrophe-
I just want you to know how you can not count on me.

      I have ridden to hounds through my ancestral halls,
      I have picked the eternal crocus on the ultimate hill,
      I have fallen through the window of the highest room,
      But don’t ask me to help you ’cause I never will.

Sirs, when you move that map-pin how many souls must dance?
I don’t think all those soldiers have died by happenstance.
The inscrutable look on your scrutable face I can read at a glance-
And I’m cutting out of here at the first chance.

      I have been wounded climbing the second stair,
      I have crossed the ocean in the hull of a live wire,
      I have eaten the asphodel of the dark side of the moon,
      But you can call me all day and I just won’t hear.

O patriotic mister with your big ear to the ground,
Sweet old curly scientist wiring the birds for sound,
O lady with the Steuben glass heart and your heels so rich and round-
I’ll send you a picture postcard from somewhere I can’t be found.

      I have discovered the grammar of the Public Good,
      I have invented a language that can be understood,
      I have found the map of where the body is hid,
      And I won’t be caught dead in your neighborhood.

O hygienic inventer of the bomb that’s so clean,
O lily white Senator from East Turnip Green,
O celestial mechanic of the money machine-
I’m going someplace where nobody makes your scene.

Good-by, good-by, good-by
Adios, au ‘voir, so long,
Sayonara,  dosvedanya,  ciao,
By-by, by-by, by-by.

____________________________

Invitation
Fargo-Moorhead, about 1980

Friends, I am old and poor.
The ones who lived in my house have gone out into the world.
My dogs are all dead and the bones of my horses
Whiten the hillsides.

All my books are forgotten.
My poems
Are asleep, though they dream in many languages.
The ones I love are carrying the Revolution
In far away places.

This little house has few comforts- but it is yours.
Come and see me here-
I’ve got plenty of time and love!

I have found most discussion of Michael Vick and his crimes to be superficial and boringly predictable. There are those who feel that Vick’s crimes were so evil that he is beyond forgiveness. Witness Tucker Carlson from Fox News. Carlson did not want longer imprisonment. He publicly favored executing Vick. Even by the debased standards of cable news, this was ridiculous and off the charts.

Then there are those who feel Vick paid his price and deserves a second chance. I would say the majority of sports commentators feel this way. I saw Jimmy Johnson say this on a Fox Sunday pregame show. Tony Dungy also has voiced the same sentiments.

Vick served 18 months at Leavenworth in federal prison. He filed bankruptcy and he is in the process of paying back creditors over $20 million. Vick lost all his previous endorsements. His reputation was absolutely in tatters. He was widely reviled as a monster for running a dog fighting ring for profit. He oversaw the torture and execution of dogs.

When Vick pled guilty, he appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson. Hudson asked, “Are you entering the plea of guilty to a conspiracy charge because you are in fact guilty?”

Vick replied “Yes sir. I totally ask for forgiveness and understanding. I take full responsibility for my actions. I made a mistake in using bad judgment and making bad decisions. Dogfighting is a terrible thing.”

Since he got out of prison, Vick has been a virtual model citizen. When he has not been playing football, he has been a spokesman for the Humane Society’s End Dogfighting campaign. He has spoken to numerous audiences of inner city young people across the country with this message. “Don’t be like me. Don’t follow the rest of the crowd. Exercise good judgment. Be a compassionate person.” After his talks, he has typically stayed around for discussion sessions with the young people.

Since August 2009, Vick has spoken to audiences in Atlanta (Aug 8,2009), Chicago (Aug 12,2009), Philadelphia (Sept 8,2009), Washington DC (Sept 29,2009), Philadelphia (Oct 13,2009), Newport News (Dec 1,2009), Newark (Dec 1,2009), Philadelphia (Jan 26,2010), Miami (Feb 8,2010), Durham (Feb 26,2010), Chicago (Mar 26,2010), Baltimore (May 6,2010), Philadelphia (Sept 28,2010) and New Haven (Nov 23,2010).

For the last year or two, Vick has probably done more than anyone to raise public awareness about the evils of dogfighting. I think this is because he was a dog torturer. This reminds me of one analagous former perpetrator. A couple months ago, i read a book Autobiography of a Recovering Skinhead by Frank Meeink. The writer, who grew up in Philadelphia, became a prominent neo-Nazi in his teen years.He changed too and he became a spokesman for the Anti-Defamation League. Sometimes, the people closest to an evil can speak most authoritatively to that evil.

I would ask the Vick haters: what more could he do? How many times should an individual be punished after he has served his time, lost everything etc.?

I think the truth is that for some people there is nothing he could to redeem himself. I find this unforgiving perspective disturbing. When an individual rehabilitates himself that is a cause for celebration. Vick is a rehabilitation model for all offenders.

I do see the Vick case connecting to a deeper context. In the last 30 years, the prison population in the United States has increased in staggering fashion from 300,000 to over 2 million inmates. The deeper context of the Vick case has to do with attitude toward offenders and ex-offenders.

The vindictive unforgiving attitude is based on dehumanization of prisoners. In all the public discussion about Vick, i only saw one commentator who nailed this and that was Dave Zirin, the sportswriter. With thousands of ex-offenders returning to society, the deeper question is : will they get a genuine second chance or will they be written off?

I wanted to mention a very strong book that seriously affected my view of these issues. The book is The New Jim Crow by Ohio State law professor Michelle Alexander. In her book, Alexander focuses on the mass incarceration that has occurred over the last 30 years, especially its racial dimension. Alexander points out that the United States imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid. No other country imprisons so many of its racial or ethnic minorities.

I will write more about Alexander’s book but I did want to mention it in connection with the Vick case. Giving offenders a second chance is generally the humane thing to do and it is imperative so that ex-offenders have an opportunity to contribute to society in a positive way. I was glad to see President Obama weigh in regarding Vick and I totally supported his comments. He did see the deeper issue. As quoted by Peter King of Sports Illustrated:

“The president wanted to talk about two things, but the first was Michael, Lurie (Philadelphia Eagles owner) told me. He said, “So many people who serve time never get a fair second chance. He was passionate about it. He said it’s never a level playing field for prisoners when they get out of jail. And he was happy that we did something on such a national stage that showed our faith in giving someone a second chance after such a major downfall.”

Demonizing ex-offenders and adding punishments after they have served their time is stupid. The potential for good and bad resides in all of us. Thoughtful social policy should allow the opportunity for the good in people to emerge. Mike Vick is a perfect example.

Eulogy for Deena Baird  1925-2010
Delivered at her funeral at Roosevelt Memorial Park, Trevose, Pa
December 14, 2010

After the loss of my dad and Lise in 2009, it is hard to fathom losing my mom too. My mom was always there for me, especially after Dad and Lise died. From my earliest memories, she was an absolutely loving and caring presence devoted to her family. Over the last year or so, we talked at least twice daily, even if briefly. Unlike her daughter, Mom was not much of a phone talker.

She and Dad modeled the value of family and not in some phony way. My mom was a straightshooter with an acerbic wit and a dark sensibility. She and my dad were actually quite the contrast. My dad was ever the optimist, even when not necessarily justified. She, on the other hand, was more pessimistic and had an acute appreciation of the dark side of life. They complimented each other.

I do have a lifetime of memories and I did want to share a few that would highlight my mom and her sensibility. It is probably silly to bring up this example but I will.  Mom loved sports and she was a diehard Phillies and Eagles fan. For years, Mom, Dad and I argued over the merits of Donovan McNabb as a quarterback.  Mom hated Donovan. Dad and i were more forgiving and, I think, balanced. To Mom, Donovan was the guy who threw up in the Super Bowl. She cut him no slack.

Mom had x-ray vision and a low tolerance for, pardon the expression, bullshit. I would note that she taught me how to swear, a talent she passed on to others as well. She could hold her own in that department, especially when driving.

She and Dad suffered through prolonged humiliating and depressing reversals of fortune. They felt dropped and rejected by people who they previously considered their friends. Dad battled for years in the face of declining health and never got out from under.  Mom handled it with grace and dignity. She always stood by Dad even in his darkest hours and he had some very dark hours. I respected her loyalty and her steadfastness. I think the experience made her more compassionate and empathetic to people who were down and out.

Mom was fundamentally a caretaker. Her life was about caring for her husband and her children. She and Dad had almost 60 years together, a remarkable span. I think there is a powerful message there about the value of devotion. When I look at the old pictures of Mom and Dad, they do look like movie stars. I am certainly not the first to say that. Mom was a beautiful woman. She was glamorous.

Mom was also a foodie. She was artistic and she had a unique skill in not just preparing delicious meals but in doing it with aesthetic flair and a sense of presentation. Anyone who sat down to a meal prepared by my mom was lucky. I won’t even go into her struedel. When I returned to Philly, Mom always prepared my favorite dishes. That was so typical.

While Mom was a product of pre-feminism, her politics were not conventional. She was a badass and a lifelong Democrat. Harry Keiser, her mom Molly Keiser’s second husband, used to call her “the Russian”.  That was a joke but Mom was very liberal. She was strongly pro-choice. She loved Obama from after the Pennsylvania primary and defended him against my criticisms just last week.

Mom and Dad attended the huge Washington Moratorium march against the war in Vietnam in 1969. Lise and I always found it hysterical that the Baldwin School thought our parents were hippies. Whatever they were, Mom and Dad were not hippies and it seems beyond ridiculous that they could be pegged that way.

Mom and Dad loved the shore, especially their place at the Longport Seaview in Longport, NJ. As a family, we shared many wonderful times there. Mom loved the beach and bike riding on the boardwalk. Mom prided herself on frequently pedaling the entire length of the Atlantic City boardwalk, back and forth. That was 22 miles.

She and Dad used to fish both deep sea and in the bay near Margate NJ when Dad owned his boat Any Old Rags. I remember when Mom hooked a giant skate that she fought for what seemed like hours. Many surrounding boats in the bay watched as my mom surfaced the skate which turned out to be far bigger than our boat. My dad ultimately had to cut the line.

After Dad died, it was like the light in her life went out. Mom was stoic and self-effacing but watching Lise die may have been too much. Mom was and had been severely depressed. She drank more vodka and less water. I do not think she was happy about it when her doctors made her shelve drinking. Pep talks did not help too much.

I remain somewhat mystified at the avalanche of her health problems. Up until the last four months or so, Mom was completely functional. She was always mentally sharp.

Sometimes life can be unbearable. Mom derived great purpose from caretaking Dad and then Lise. Without Dad and Lise, I do think she felt purposeless although she never stopped caring for those around her especially my Aunt Arline and her grandchildren, whom she adored.

I was blessed to have a mom like Deena Baird. I have tremendous pride in both my parents. They knew how to live and I think they lived it up. They pointed the way in many good directions and I admire their example of living with zest and passion, even in the face of tough times.

Finally, i want to thank my brother Rob who stepped up and cared for Mom especially through this last period. I also want to thank Ben, Andy, and David Keiser for their support for Mom.

Mom, I will miss you enormously for as long as I live.

Sometimes music is the only thing that can make you feel better. The last election was a downer of major proportions. I am writing to recommend a listen to John Legend and the Roots new album “Wake Up”. It made me feel better.

There are times when music can capture a period.  This album is like that. The first song Hard Times could not be more timely. While the album is almost entirely a collection of covers, Wake Up is anything but outdated, boring or rehash. I have enjoyed repeat listening. It is addictive.

I should say that I have been a John Legend fan since his first album “Get Lifted”. I loved a number of the songs on that album. It Don’t have to Change evoked love of family and his roots. Stay With You is a very romantic, melodic song. I also liked Alright which shows Legend’s bad boy side.

The new album features some classics. The title track Wake Up Everybody is the great Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes song. Legend and the Roots do it justice. Legend also sings Ghetto Boy, the song made famous by the late great Donny Hathaway. I could not imagine that Legend and the Roots could get close to the Hathaway version but I have to say it is worthy.

I want to mention Shine, the only new song on the album. Hard not to love that song too. So positive and for the people.

Go out and get the CD. You will not be disappointed.

After living in New Hampshire for 28 years, I moved to Anchorage, Alaska, last May. I had one question that I wanted answered: Does Alaska have snow days? Based on my own informal poll, the consensus answer is “no.” Snow is business as usual.
As we head toward winter, it is the light, or lack of light, that is the big adjustment. It has been dark until almost 10 a.m., and every day we lose five or six minutes of sunlight. The season switch is fast flipping from fall to winter.
I am what Alaskans call a cheechako – a newcomer. That is anybody who has not lived through an Alaskan winter. Long-termers are known as sourdoughs. For a state full of transient people, the ethic of who is a real Alaskan is reminiscent of New Hampshire. I think you have to live here more than a lifetime to be an authentic local. Anything short of that, you are a flatlander equivalent.
When I first arrived, what hit me was the big sky, the vastness of the land and its physical beauty. On a clear day, flying up from Seattle, as you close in on Anchorage, all you can see are mountains beyond snow-capped mountains. While Anchorage is gritty, it is nestled between big water and majestic mountains.
More than any place I have lived, there is a frequent buzz of small plane traffic overhead. One reason people fly so much is that roads are not a given. It is not like the Lower 48, where roads go everywhere. Small planes are a way of life because distance and the lack of roads make flying the only way to go.
This summer I made two trips to Juneau. First time there, I caught a week of perfect sunny weather. Locals call days like that “sucker days.” There is a history of tourists arriving on sunny days and deciding they want to move to Juneau permanently because it is so beautiful. Little do they know that it rains 75 percent of the time.
Still, for those who might contemplate a trip to Juneau, taking the tram up Mount Roberts and hiking on the mountain has to be one of the most visually spectacular experiences in Alaska.
Wherever you are in Alaska, wilder parts are not too far away. There are great hiking trails around Anchorage. I hiked the Powerline trail on the hillside near Anchorage and came upon a large moose parked in the trail. I did not try to walk past. I waited until some other hikers with dogs came along. Then the moose scooted.
The big issue for hikers is not moose – it is bears. When I first got to Anchorage I was surprised by all the ads for bear spray. I have heard a number of conversations on the subject of what type of gun takes down a grizzly.
In Alaska, the bears are an obsession, largely because there are so many. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game estimates 50,000 black bears and 35,000-45,000 brown (grizzly) bears in the state.
Bear stories are a staple of local news. The most recent story I saw involved a hunter near Kodiak. The hunter got off a round from his .375 calibre H&H Magnum rifle before he was charged, bit on the leg and butt, and tossed like a rag doll. The guy’s hunting partner saved him. In the moment when the bear stopped mauling, the hunting partner shot again and killed the bear.
Male grizzlies can weigh up to 1,100 pounds, but it is a big mistake to assume bears will be slow and lumbering. Grizzlies have been clocked at 35 mph.
In September a guy who was fishing in the Kenai area had part of his scalp removed by a grizzly who dragged him about 30 feet. He was also fortunate to survive. The bear let him go.
I do not want to create the impression that maulings happen that often. They do not. I would say, though, that one difference from hiking in New Hampshire is that I never have worried about bear encounters in the White Mountains. The bears are now headed for hibernation as the long dark approaches.
Speaking of the dark, Alaska has no shortage of dark side issues. Homelessness, substance abuse, domestic violence and racism toward Native Alaskans top my list. Considering the dimension of each issue, I find the public discussion here weak. I would call it denial.
During the summer, many homeless people panhandle and beg at street corners all over midtown Anchorage. It had a third-world quality. I have also been surprised how many people are tent camping into the winter. Mix in alcohol, and homeless people freezing to death in the winter has become almost routine. The increase in homelessness appears to me to be outstripping any public response.
Substance abuse, especially alcoholism, is of epic proportions. Excuses abound about the long winter, cabin fever, etc., but the lack of treatment facilities considering the size of the problem is beyond shortsighted. It is irrational, almost a form of throwing in the towel.
Domestic violence is another whopper problem. From my observation, we are not dealing with the world of “he said, she said” threats. Much more often we are talking beatings, strangulation, broken bones and rape. There is a level of brutality that passes as normalcy. The Justice Center of the University of Alaska at Anchorage released an important victimization study this year that was the first statewide study of domestic violence. That was an important step and public acknowledgement.
As for the racism, my impression is that the history of Native Alaskans has much in common with the history of other Native Americans. Conquest, discrimination, loss of land, loss of cultural traditions – these are much the same. I think there is a taboo quality around this history. I do not see much candor or openness around this discussion.
The longer I have been here, the more I have felt the differences with New England. Behind the bluster about fierce independence, there is a neglect of infrastructure that goes beyond New Hampshire. Alaska has a good way of surprising conventional expectations, though, and I expect it will continue to do so.
It is youthful, vibrant and volatile – good qualities in my book. There is a lot to like here, but I have to admit, I am still homesick for New Hampshire.