Image borrowed from The Hartmann Report
Post-Coronation Greetings, Fellow Americans looking for Light!
I’ve been posting now for more than two years my thoughts and feelings about the ever-changing world around me … offered hopefully as Light Waves of comfort, inspiration, and food for thought. Being not only a thinker & a feeler who tends to think & rethink, a reader & a writer, and a seeker & a finder, but also an aging rascal with her well-worn and muddied boots on the ground & her head still in the clouds, I think I’m finally coming to understand what it is that is mine to do, having witnessed Monday’s pomp & circustance at the Capitol Rotunda. At least for the ever-present Now.
As 2025 emerges from the shadows, it is my plan to not just continue to point my readers in the direction of those whose writing speaks to me and for me in language more eloquent and better organized than my own, but to follow up with further elaboration in ongoing posts and online conversations.
I can’t help but believe there are others like myself … inclined to read something more than once and then consider it again, so as not to react as much as to respond, perhaps with a softer edge of thoughtful kindness and care or at least with more clarity. Of course, I am well aware (having mostly learned the hard way) that my little plans don’t always work out, so I will sit back and watch to see if this idea comes to fruition. If what I’ve just said interests you and if you’d like to be part of a monthly zoom conversation, let me know in the Comments section.
In the meantime, how about considering this little bite of food for thought from George Saunders, titled Concerning The Underlying Disease, excerpted from the November 11, 2024 New Yorker, in which he conducts five Thought Experiments.
And how about following that with this companion piece to the borrowed image above from The HARTMANNREPORT.COM. January 16th. It’s called “American Caesar” and begins with these words:
The end of the democratic phase of the Roman republic was brought about by wealthy, elite Romans like Marcus Licinius Crassus (115–53 BCE) — the richest man in the nation at the time — who frankly hated the Roman “free bread for all” welfare system … He and others like Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (Pompey the Great, 106–48 BCE) wanted to end the voice of the public in political decisions (because they were demanding free bread, paid for with rich peoples’ taxes), so they used their massive wealth to promote rightwing authoritarian populism and buy off legislators who’d then be loyal to them … Three primary elements were used by the morbidly rich of that era to erode the power of Rome and replace it with sycophants loyal to them: polarization and elite gridlock, the erosion of democratic norms, and the concentration of power in the hands of a small elite who funded and thus controlled Rome’s senators. Hmmnnn … sound familiar?
Next, if you want something equally provocative, there’s my favorite Rural Missourian, Jess Piper, a former high school literature teacher who in her Substack column, also of January 16th, speaks of Witch Trials & Bathroom Bills, “The Crucible”, and Joe McCarthy. Remember him? If not, let Google help you. She starts this way … Here is something I think about – something I can’t shake: witch hunts are working through our society today. They just look different. As I commented on Jess’s Substack post, I would love to see community theaters and high school drama clubs produce The Crucible with modern day costuming.
And then … in celebration of MLK Day, my favorite historian woman of courage, Heather Cox Richardson, has done it again. In her January 19th Letters From An American, she talks about what it means to be a hero, introducing the piece this way: You hear sometimes, now that we know the sordid details of the lives of some of our leading figures, that America has no heroes left. But wait. She then goes on to remind us about flawed and very human human beings like Dwight Eisenhower, Anne Frank, John Hancock, Sitting Bull, Rosa Parks, and last but not least, Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., all of whom chose to “do the right thing … no matter what.”
How about this? Now that the Washington Post has openly declared themselves storytellers rather than journalists, I, along with thousands of others have cancelled my subscription and I will split my newly available subscription $$ between Jess Piper and WAPO’s former columnist Jennifer Rubin’s brand new news outlet, The Contrarian. You can read about it in Joyce Vance’s January 18th Civil Discourse, where she introduces The Contrarian this way … when (now former) Washington Post columnist Jen Rubin decided the time had come for her to make a move, she had a conversation with her longtime friend Norm Eisen. Like so many, she was disappointed by developments at The Post, including the failure to run both the Editorial Board’s endorsement of Kamala Harris and Ann Telnaes’ evocative cartoon, and Jeff Bezos’ million dollar contribution to Trump’s inaugural fund via Amazon.
If you haven’t seen WAPO’s new mission statement, it reads: “Riveting Storytelling for all of America”. No thanks, I appreciate storytelling from real storytellers. I’d rather get real news from real newspapers. I wonder what will become of their slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness.” As the late poet William Stafford reminded us … the darkness around us is deep. Where will you look for the light?
Speaking of poets, Joyce Sutphen, another of my favorites, asks the question with that soft edge I was talking about. Take a deep breath and read this one slowly.
Now That Anything Could Happen by Joyce Sutphen You now know that anything could happen; things that never happened before, things that only happened in movies and nightmares are happening now, as if nothing could stop them. You know now that you are not safe, you know you live in fragile skin and bones, that even steel and concrete can melt away, and that the earth itself can come unhinged, shaken from its orbit around the sun. You know, now that anything can happen, it’s hard to know what will, and what will you do now that you know? What words will you say, now that you could say anything? What hands will you hold? Whose heart will beat inside you?
As for me, I’d really like to stick with him.
I would like to close with this from another one of our own, who from the age of seven never saw light except from within his beautiful Self. If I had my way, this would be our National Anthem … no rockets’ red glare, no bombs bursting, just Grace from sea to shining sea.
Until Next Time, Blessings on Us All … Everyone, Everywhere … as we pull up our Big Kid underpants and get to work.
Love, Sulima