#365 / Grand Finale!

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Click this link if you would like to see some additional pictures of extravagant New Year's Eve celebrations from around the world. That's Sydney Harbor, shown above. 

December 31st is always our "Grand Finale." That's the way our calendar works. Tomorrow, we will have a whole New Year to contend with, and I'll restart the numbering of these blog postings, with a post labeled #1.

Since my daughter was born on New Year's Eve, I have a built-in reason to remember that December 31st is not just an "ending." It's a beginning, too! 

Next year (just one day away) offers us an opportunity to do something new, and different - something unexpected - something never really ever tried before. When we do things like that - new things, unexpected things (and we can do them any day, of course)  - we change the world. 

So, on this New Year's Eve, when I want to send everyone who might be reading this blog posting a "Happy New Year" message, I have an in-family reminder that "new" means "different." New means a new beginning, a whole new opportunity to do something that will change how things are. 

[We do need to make some significant changes, just in case you haven't noticed]. 

Whatever has been expected, whatever has been past practice, whatever everybody expects us to do.... We don't have to do it. We don't have to conform to expectations, as though our actions were "determined." If you have been reading this blog, this past year, you know that I have roundly rejected this "we are determined" misunderstanding of the reality we inhabit. I have roundly rejected the claims of those who try to convince us that "free will" does not exist. 

We are not "determined." We are free to choose and free to act. And if we will do some things that we haven't done in the past... Well, that's the way we will "make a difference." That is the way we will "change the world." 

[We do need to do that, just in case you haven't noticed]. 

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SONYA

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO US ALL

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.travelchannel.com/interests/holidays/articles/worlds-best-new-years-eve-parties

(2) - Gary Patton, personal photo

#364 / Obits (And A Tribute To Justice O'Connor)

 

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Sandra Day O'Connor, who is strikingly pictured above, served on the United States Supreme Court from 1981 to 2006. She was the first woman ever to serve on the Court. O'Connor died on Friday, December 1, 2023, and if you click this link (The Times paywall permitting, of course), you will be able to read what Linda Greenhouse and The New York Times have to say about O'Connor's life and contributions. Another article, by Kate Zernike, and an article by Adam Liptak (both from The Times) provide more thoughts about O'Connor's legacy. I am also providing a thought of my own, a little later in this blog posting. 

Before saying something about O'Connor, though, it strikes me that a lot of "important" people have recently died, and have had their lives memorialized in a New York Times' obituary. Lots of obits! I do want to say that I am not providing a complete list of those whom I would put in that "important" category, since both Ugo Betti and I are definitely committed to the idea that we are all "important." That having been said, it does seem that The Times has recently published long and detailed obituaries of a notable list of well-recognized national figures, who have now left us, in the final weeks of this current year. I feel like it makes sense to list them, here.

An extensive obituary of Henry Kissinger, for instance, has appeared in The Times. Kissinger died on November 29, 2023, and as most readers of this blog posting will remember, Kissinger was the United States Secretary of State in the administration of president Richard Nixon. I had a personal run-in with him myself, and I have confessed that I am "not a fan." 

Charlie Munger, who died on November 28, 2023, just a day before Kissinger, was a rather beloved figure among those who follow business and financial affairs. Munger was a partner of Warren Buffet, esteemed investor, business leader, and philanthropist. The Times obituary, by Andrew Ross Sorkin and Robert D. Hersey, Jr., outlined Munger's contributions as follows: 

Although overshadowed by Mr. Buffett, who relished the spotlight, Mr. Munger, a billionaire in his own right — Forbes listed his fortune as $2.6 billion this year — had far more influence at Berkshire than his title of vice chairman suggested.

Mr. Buffett has described him as the originator of Berkshire Hathaway’s investing approach. “The blueprint he gave me was simple: Forget what you know about buying fair businesses at wonderful prices; instead, buy wonderful businesses at fair prices,” Mr. Buffett once wrote in an annual report.

Rosalyn Carter also died recently, on November 19, 2023, at the age of ninety-six. The wife of former president Jimmy Carter, she, too, has been remembered in an extensive obituary in The New York Times. The obituary makes clear that she was deeply enmeshed with her husband is virtually every aspect of his public life, not only during the time he served in his nation's highest office, but afterwards, as well:

After Mr. Carter lost his re-election bid in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, he and Mrs. Carter embarked on what became the longest, most active post-presidency in American history. They traveled the world in support of human rights, democracy and health programs; domestically, they labored in service to others, most prominently pounding nails to help build houses for Habitat for Humanity.

In October 2019, after more than 73 years of marriage, they became the nation’s longest-married presidential couple, surpassing the record set by George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush. The Carters marked their 77th wedding anniversary in July. 

In the continuum of first ladies after Mrs. Roosevelt, Mrs. Carter broke the mold. Like most of the others, she championed a cause — hers was the treatment of mental illness. But she also immersed herself in the business of the nation and kept a sharp eye on politics, a realm her husband famously claimed to ignore.

The Rosalyn Carter obituary tells what I think is a very "cute" story about the first meeting of Jimmy and Rosalyn. Rosalyn had just been born. Carter's mother, a nurse, had assisted in the delivery, and she brought her three year old son, Jimmy, to see Rosalyn, the new baby, just a few days after Rosalyn's birth. Hard to imagine a more "lifelong" connection!

I guess the reason I felt impelled to list these recent obituaries, as published in The Times, is very much related to that blog posting of mine, "We Just Lost Someone Great." That blog posting does speak, so clearly, to what I think we all need to know about ourselves, and about the significance of our lives. Reading about the accomplishments of the "great statesmen," the "life partners" of our presidents, the "financial leaders" who have become billionaires through their business and investing efforts, and those who have served on our highest court, could convince us that those are the "great," the "important" ones, and that we are not. But I actually have the opposite reaction, personally, and I hope readers of this blog posting will have such a reaction, too. When we lose anyone, it is then that we let ourselves understand that they were truly "great," and that is what we need to recognize about ourselves, too. I am suggesting that we do that while we are still alive!

oooOOOooo

The O'Connor obituary contained a line that I think worthy of a comment. My blog postings are very often stimulated by just a line, or two, as I react to something I have read. Here is what I read in the O'Connor obituary in The Times, discussing her role as a judicial "centrist": 

Very little could happen without Justice O’Connor’s support when it came to the polarizing issues on the court’s docket, and the law regarding affirmative action, abortion, voting rights, religion, federalism, sex discrimination and other hot-button subjects was basically what Sandra Day O’Connor thought it should be.

That the middle ground she looked for tended to be the public’s preferred place as well was no coincidence, given the close attention Justice O’Connor paid to current events and the public mood. “Rare indeed is the legal victory — in court or legislature — that is not a careful byproduct of an emerging social consensus,” she wrote in “The Majesty of the Law: Reflections of a Supreme Court Justice,” a collection of her essays published in 2003 (emphasis added). 

I have, recently, been writing - and rather longwindedly, I'll have to admit - about my "Two Worlds Hypothesis," with one of the key principles being that WE make the laws that govern the world that we most immediately inhabit. I think O'Connor's statement, above, is a kind of illustration of what I am talking about. 

Generally speaking, people tend to think that the Surpeme Court discovers what the law "is," by looking through past cases, studying the Constitution, interpreting the statutes that are relevant, and then "finding" what IS the law, and then applying it to the case before them. "Traditionalism" is one word that is used to describe what many believe is this process - and what they believe is the correct process: the Court rules (and should rule) by discovering or "finding" a "law" that exists independently of the decision in which the Court states what the law is. Sometimes, this "traditionalism" approach is opposed to the idea of a "living Constitution." 

Please note that the "traditional" approach analogizes our human laws to the laws that govern the World of Nature. Such laws are simply inherent in how the world works; they are descriptions of what must and will happen. They can be "discovered" with proper research.

In fact, it is my contention that human laws are completely different. They are not some preexisting rule that is "discovered." Instead, our human laws state not what must and will happen, but are "prescriptions," not "descriptions." Our laws articulate what we want to happen, what we want the law to be, since in "our" world, the "Human World," in our "Political World," the laws are not "found," independently existing. Instead, we create the laws, as we decide what the law should be. The laws, thus, are an expression of human freedom - stated as a "decision," not "discovered" as though they could exist independently of what we choose to do. 

O'Connor, who was known as a "conservative," signed on to the decision in Roe v. Wade (the traditionalists have recently overturned that decision on an analysis that there was no "right" to abortion at the time our nation was formed). The traditionalists were looking for the law as though it were a "thing," something that exists independently of what we want the law to be. O'Connor had another view.

Is it surprising that this "conservative" justice should have taken the position she took on Roe v. Wade? Not really! Study, again, what she says in the quote excerpted above: 

Rare indeed is the legal victory — in court or legislature — that is not a careful byproduct of an emerging social consensus.

Our laws are what we decide they ought to be. They are, in fact, a statement of a "social consensus." And that word, "we" is "plural" because "we" includes everyone, and we are in this together. Our "political" institutions, including the Supreme Court, are not supposed to try to "find" the law, as though it existed independently of our choices. It is supposed to "state" the law, reflecting our "social consensus," and paying devoted attention to the limits imposed by our Constitution. That is the Court's assignment, so that we can, together, exercise the freedom that is inherent in our human world. 

Thank you, Justice O'Connor!

Justice O'Connor, by the way, was a Stanford graduate, an alumna of what later became my own alma mater. I don't think, though, that Stanford University is necessarily where she got her appreciation of the proper role of a Supreme Court Justice! Wherever she got it, we all owe her our appreciation!

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/us/sandra-day-oconnor-dead.html

#363 / COP Out?

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COP28 was a worldwide gathering of national leaders, who came together from November 1st to December 12th, this year, under the auspices of the United Nations. The purpose of COP28 was to allow the nations of the world to discuss how we might, acting together, literally, "save the world," given the indubitable threat posed to human civilization, and to the biological integrity of Planet Earth, by the continued combustion of hydrocarbon fuels. 

Make no mistake, we need, urgently, to stop burning fossil fuels. That will not be easy! However, that is what we should be trying to do. That is what is demanded of us (and by "us," I mean every human being alive today, and every government now in existence). 

Holding COP28 in Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, a nation whose existence is premised on a world economy based on the continued use of fossil fuels, and a nation which is defying the idea that our human civilization must conform itself to the "laws" that govern the "World of Nature," should indicate that the nations that say they care about global warming (practically all of them) are deeply enmeshed in what must be recognized as a mammoth case of "cognitive dissonance." 

You can click right here to read an article from The New York Times (paywall permitting) that indicates that some people, at least, are getting tired of the 28-year charade that suggests that we "really, really, care" about global warming, but just can't see our way clear to doing anything very effective about it. 

The fact that the President of the United States has not been willing to say that we must stop burning hydrocarbon fuels has not gone unnoticed. The United States is the world's second-largest producer of CO2, the "greenhouse gas" that is causing the most problems. Granted that China emits more CO2 than the United States does, that must be related to the fact that the population of China is 1.4 billion people, compared to the United States' population of 335 million. This means that China's population is almost four times our population, if I have done the math right. Per capita, the United States is way out in front of the parade of those nations that are burning their way towards the end of the world. 

If COP28 is not going to be a "Cop Out," which means, using the dictionary definition just linked, "to avoid doing something that you should do or that you have promised to do because you are frightened ..., or you think it is too difficult," something has to change.

Let's all admit that we are frightened, and that we are afraid that stopping our combustion of hydrocarbon fuels may be "too difficult." Ok. Admitted. 

But we still have to do it! Let's consider that our New Year, upcoming, can be (and I'd say, "must be") the year in which we stop "copping out."

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/01/climate/cop28-climate-summit.html

#362 / Ever? Or Only Until Next Year?

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The image above, showing a picture of the depleted Solimões River in Careiro da Várzea, Brazil, is related to a story that appeared on Page A6 of the December 1, 2023, edition of The New York Times. In providing that reference, I am, of course, referring to  the "hardcopy" version of the paper, which is how I read The Times, each morning. The screenshot I am featuring is from the "online" edition of The Times. Nonsubscribers can click right here to see if The Times' paywall will let you read that story. [A more recent story, published by The Times on December 29, 2023, the day after I published this blog posting, makes the same point.] That story can be found by clicking right here. Paywall permitting, of course!

I am providing the above image simply to be able to pose the question that I have asked in the "Title" for today's posting to this daily blog.

A New Year will soon be with us. Unless massive changes occur in how we deal with our continued burning of hydrocarbon fuels, the question I raise is all too pertinent. 2023 was the "hottest year." Is that record going to be "ever"? Or "only until next year"?

What has come to mind, for me, as I consider the question, is the name of that long-ago, war-related song, "It's A Long, Long Way To Tipperary."

In terms of Global Warming "Tipping Points," it is not that far, actually, until we really do get "tipped." Just to be clear, we are definitely not going to have a "Happy New Year," in 2024, if we don't take effective action to make sure that 2023 remains our "hottest" year ever - forever! Period! No more! Never again! We can't permit it to get even hotter!

I have, of course, made this point before, so when I say, "Happy New Year" to all who may be reading this, that wish now comes with a warning.  

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Image Credit:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/30/climate/2023-hottest-year-cop28.html

#361 / Se Hace Camino Al Andar

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A student in a couple of the past classes I have taught at UCSC - the University of California, Santa Cruz - made an appointment to come in to see me in my office hours. He is not in any current class I am teaching, but he is getting ready to graduate, and he remembered the classes he took with me as "consequential." That is the word he used in the email he sent me, seeking to set up an appointment. He thought it might be good to check in with me, to see if I had any helpful advice or counsel as he exited the somewhat insulated purlieus of the university and embarked into "real life." 

In terms of advice, I would want to remind my former student of a poem to which he had been exposed on at least two occasions. This student had taken two of my classes, and I always make sure that all my students hear this poem, set to music, on the last day of any class they take with me. This is a poem to which I was exposed when I was a student myself (taking courses in Spanish at Cabrillo, our local community college). One of the professors who taught me presented me with a gift, a book that I still have today, Poesías Completas de Antonio Machado.

Machado, for those not familiar with him, is generally acknowledged to have been one of the greatest poets who wrote in Spanish. Wikipedia says this about Machado:

A Spanish poet and one of the leading figures of the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of '98, his work, initially modernist, evolved towards an intimate form of symbolism with romantic traits. He gradually developed a style characterised by both an engagement with humanity on one side and an almost Taoist contemplation of existence on the other, a synthesis that according to Machado echoed the most ancient popular wisdom. In Gerardo Diego's words, Machado "spoke in verse and lived in poetry.

I have written about Machado before - way back in 2010, in one of my very earliest blog postings. I make sure the students I teach get exposed to Machado, as I was when I was a student, and I give them an opportunity to hear Machado's poetry put to music. If you want to hear the music, click right here; or, you can click on the title link, below. That's what I recommend. Below the title link, I am providing both the original Spanish and my own translation, into English, of my favorite poem by Antonio Machado. 

Having had quite a bit of life experience, and having done some serious thinking about the subject, I concur with what Machado says in the poem I am quoting below. Trying to "plan" one's life, as though our lives were "student projects" (to keep up with the educational metaphor), is not really the right way to approach the lives with which we have been entrusted. We take one step at a time, and if we pay attention to each step we take, and do what seems right - if we respond as best we can to each situation in which we find ourselves - we will end up realizing that we have had a "wonderful life," a "consequential" life. This is advice that I repeat to myself, quite frequently. It is a lesson ever more poignant and important, the older we become.

We make our lives by walking. One step at a time. I do think the poem is at its best when set to music, so consider clicking the link below, and read along as you hear Joan Manuel Serrat* sing out the poetry of Antonio Machado: 

Cantares de Antonio Machado

Songs by Antonio Machado

Todo pasa y todo queda,
pero lo nuestro es pasar,
pasar haciendo caminos,
caminos sobre la mar.

Everything passes and everything remains, 

But our own fate is to pass on.
We pass on as we make pathways, 

Pathways over the sea.

Nunca persequí la gloria,
ni dejar en la memoria
de los hombres mi canción;
yo amo los mundos sutiles,
ingrávidos y gentiles,
como pompas de jabón.

I have never pursued glory,

Or tried to make sure that

Others remember my song; 

I love those fragile worlds,

Weightless and delicate,

Like soap bubbles in the air. 

Me gusta verlos pintarse

de sol y grana, volar
bajo el cielo azul, temblar
súbitamente y quebrarse...

I like to watch them paint themselves in the sky,

Deep red, in the sunshine, as they fly,

To see them tremble, under the blue sky
Suddenly to break apart, and disappear...

Nunca perseguí la gloria.

I never have pursued glory.

Caminante, son tus huellas
el camino y nada más;
caminante, no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar.

Traveler, your footsteps

Are the path – and nothing else;
Traveler, there isn’t any path;
You make the path as you walk.

Al andar se hace camino
y al volver la vista atrás
se ve la senda que nunca
se ha de volver a pisar.

You make the path as you walk, 

And when you look back 
You will see the pathway that 
You will never be able to travel again.

Caminante no hay camino
sino estelas en la mar...

Traveler, there isn’t any path, 

Just the traces of your footsteps on the sea.

Hace algún tiempo en ese lugar
donde hoy los bosques se visten de espinos
se oyó la voz de un poeta gritar
"Caminante no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar..."

A long time ago in a place,

Where today the woods are filled with hawthorn trees,

A poet was heard to cry,

“Traveler, there isn’t any path;
You make the path as you walk.”

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso...

Blow after blow, verse after verse…

Murió el poeta lejos del hogar.

Le cubre el polvo de un país vecino.
Al alejarse le vieron llorar.
"Caminante no hay camino,
se hace camino al andar..."

The poet died, so far from home, 

And was covered in the dust of a neighboring land.

As he moved on, people could hear him as he cried. 

“Traveler, there isn’t any path;

You make the path as you walk.”

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso...

 

Blow after blow, verse after verse...

Cuando el jilguero no puede cantar

Cuando el poeta es un peregrino,

Cuando de nada nos sirve rezar.

"Caminante no hay camino,

se hace camino al andar..."

When the goldfinch no longer can sing. 

When the poet has to travel as a pilgrim.

When there isn’t any use in praying anymore.
“Traveler, there isn’t any path;
You make the path as you walk.”

Golpe a golpe, verso a verso.
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso.
Golpe a golpe, verso a verso. 

  

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*Today, as it happens, is Serrat's birthday. I am exactly one day older!

#360 / Candles

 

Today is one of those "BIG" birthdays for me. You, know, the ones that end with zeros! 

I know, as I think about it, that age will either sweeten us up, or make us resentful that our lives are "finite," to use a neutral term - and to avoid using words like "death," "dying," and "die." In the past, I have been more explicit, reminding us all that we do need to remember that we will die: Memento Mori! I am not trying to run away from the implications that accompany those ever-bigger "zero" birthdays. 

In fact, today, on one of those birthdays with lots of candles, I am remembering a meditation I wrote about back in November, the "Angel's Bargain." That was a "Thanksgiving" meditation (from a friend, Jim Burklo, which I passed on to those who read this blog). That Thanksgiving blog post is, perhaps, the blog posting, this year, of which I am happiest, which I think might be the most "helpful" to those who do read what I write, either every day or occasionally.

So, if you are so inclined, check back on that "Angel's Bargain" blog posting from Thanksgiving.  

In a lot of ways, I have had a very tough year, with a "syncope" right at the beginning, and with some unfortunate and unfinished business still pending at UCSC, where I have been an instructor in the Legal Studies Program for over ten years.

Still, tough year or not, I continue to be ready to say, "Yes" to the "Angel's Bargain." I hope you are, too. A birthday is, probably, a pretty good day to revisit the topic (sort of like making sure you take the car in to the dealer, regularly, for a safety check).

You will remember, I trust, the crucial phrase, the one by which we "seal the deal." 

BARGAIN ACCEPTED!

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://smdp.com/2017/07/21/my-birthday-cake-candles-almost-started-a-forest-fire/

(2) - Gary Patton personal photo

#359 / Merry Christmas

In past years, my Christmas blog postings have often featured pictures of Christmas trees and large piles of Christmas gifts. Getting gifts (and giving them, too, of course) has become, more and more, the focus of our Christmas celebrations.

Gifts are good, of course - both giving them and getting them - but recently (last year, for instance), I have confessed to "feeling a little more religious" about Christmas. While there is a lot of theology that confirms that when we celebrate the birth of Jesus we are, in fact, celebrating the gifts that God has given to us, it is all too easy to forget the "religious" insight that the birth of Jesus was a "gift to the world." It is all too easy to get distracted by the material, as opposed to the "spiritual," nature of our celebrations. 

Since I am still feeling "religious" this year, I decided that the photograph above is appropriate and suitable to the day. Pictured is the Santa Cruz Bible Church. The church is going out of its way to let you know that you are "Welcome"  there - and that's true not only on Christmas, of course, but on every day. The Santa Cruz Bible Church is not the only church in which you're welcome, but not too many churches paint that invitation in such big letters on the outside of the building. 

We are, and I am confident to say so, "Welcome" in this world. Our lives, and our world, are gifts we can celebrate with joy. And so we should. Every day! 

Today, Christmas Day, is a good time to remember how truly blessed and privileged we are to be here, here on Planet Earth, to be alive. To be alive "Now." 

A very joyous and "Merry Christmas" to all those who may read this Christmas message. 

WELCOME!

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(1) - https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=4359875917377420&set=pb.100082920323195.-2207520000

(2) - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Earth_from_Space.jpg

#358 / Want Some Good Advice? Listen To Isaiah!

I recently heard from a Bible-reading friend of mine, who knows that I am credited with being the author of "Measure J." After its approval by the voters in June 1978, Measure J established a set of growth management policies that fundamentally changed the growth and direction of development in Santa Cruz County. 

Undoubtedly thinking about Measure J, my friend sent me the following advisory, from Isaiah 5:8. Maybe she thought Measure J had been Biblically inspired by Isaiah's admonition:

Woe to those who join house to house, who add field to field, until there is no more room, and you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land.

Actually, Measure J didn't cite to the Bible, specifically, but if you check it out, which you can do by clicking this link, you'll find that Measure J is pretty consistent with what Isaiah had to say!

Good advice in Isaiah's time. Good advice in 1978. Good advice right now!

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https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/people-in-the-bible/who-was-isaiah/

#357 / The Cultivation Of Political Despair

That's Jamelle Bouie, above, who writes for The New York Times. 

In his column on December 17th, Bouie said that "Defeating Trump Is Just a Start." Here - in a quote from his column - is the essence of what Bouie wants us to consider: 

The easy and obvious way to understand the various Republican power grabs underway in states across the country is to look at them as attempts to secure as much unaccountable political power as possible and to curtail the expression of identities and beliefs Republicans find objectionable. That’s how we get the “Don’t Say Gay” laws and attacks on gender-affirming care and aggressive efforts to gerrymander entire state legislatures.

But there is another angle you can take on the Republicans’ use of state power to limit political representation for their opponents or limit the bodily autonomy of women or impose traditional and hierarchical gender relations on those who would prefer to live free of them. You could say the point is the cultivation of political despair.

Now, it is too much to say that this is premeditated [I am not sure, actually, that I agree with Bouie on that particular statement] although you do not have to look hard to find Republican officeholders expressing the belief that political participation should be made more onerous.

At the same time, it is hard not to miss the degree to which attempts to nullify popular referendums or redistrict opponents into irrelevance can also work to inculcate a sense of hopelessness in those who might otherwise seek political change. Yes, it is true that many people will push back when faced with a sustained challenge to their right to participate in political life or exercise other fundamental rights. But many people will resign themselves to the new status quo, persuading themselves that nothing has fundamentally changed or concluding that it is not worth the time or effort involved to pick up the fight (emphasis added).

I think Bouie is not only "on target" in what he says, I think that the point he is making is profoundly important. We all need to understand that democratic self-government cannot continue to exist where "political despair" prevails. Another New York Times' columnist, Michelle Goldberg, has warned against giving in to political despair for just that reason. 

Someone checking back through my past blog postings will note that I am sometimes almost "pollyanish" in my exhortations to "keep on the sunny side," or to "accentuate the positive." 

I learned the lesson from my father, who not only introduced me to that Johnny Mercer song, but simply insisted (until I finally "got it") that anything is possible.

Anything is possible, but not if we are too demoralized to try. 

Next year, there's an election coming up. That's important, but there is something more important, still. 

We must decide - one by one, and then "collectively" - that we will not only survive (again, both individually and collectively), but that we will prevail. If you're not "feeling it," let me refer you to a blog posting in which I gave a personal "pep talk" to a friend - to good effect. My friend is a lifelong campaigner, and she is not giving up. 

We can't let ourselves give up - even if the worst happens - and I am thinking, specifically, about our elections next year. 

The worst might happen, of course, and we are seeing a lot of despairing predictions that it's going to. 

Let's not give in to "political despair." 

Despair is such a subtle trap, ceding power to those whom we consider to be "powerful," when we, united, are the powerful ones. Fascism doesn't have to arrive clad in military boots. It can sneak in on "little cat feet." 

And that's how it's going to get us, too, if we succumb to political despair. 

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Image Credit:

https://pst.as.virginia.edu/news/story/pst-graduate-jamelle-bouie-joins-new-york-times-op-ed-page

#356 / The "To Do" List

I have always liked the notepad pictured. It is about ten inches long and about three inches wide. It used to hang on the refrigerator, until the magnet on the back tore off. Now, it sits near the telephone, and near a couple of bowls filled with fruit. It's still in the kitchen, and it still gets me thinking, each day, about what I ought to put down on my personal "To Do" list. 

Conquering the world? Well, that's not really my idea. 

Changing the world?

YEP!

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Image Credit:

Gary Patton, personal photo

#355 / The World We Make For Ourselves

I have very little idea about who reads these blog postings of mine. I have been posting to this blog, each day, for something like thirteen years. I haven't missed a day yet. I actually think of these postings as things I am basically writing for myself, though I do put each blog posting onto my Facebook page, for others to read, and I do offer a (pretty clunky, to be honest) way to "subscribe" at the bottom of each of my blog postings. 

Naturally, I am delighted when someone has taken what I have written seriously enough to let me know their reaction, and while I do hear from a few stalwart readers, from time to time, I really must tell myself that the "purpose" of this writing is just to help me get my own thoughts in order. Thoughtful people should think about the world, and about their life, and that's what I am trying to do, as I write this blog.

Incidentally, whether it's keeping a "journal," or writing a blog, this is definitely a practice I recommend to others!

Some of the thoughts that I have "gotten in order," by writing out my thoughts, day after day, are summarized in a blog posting I titled, "Worldview 101." Among other things, I used that blog posting to try to explain my "Two Worlds Hypothesis." 

I actually think that this idea is really quite important. Once I started teaching "law," in the Legal Studies Program at UCSC, it became ever more apparent to me that the word, "law" has two radically different meanings. If one word has two different meanings, there is, of course, a significant danger that we might confuse ourselves when we use the word, and some confusions are life-threatening. The "Two Worlds Hypothesis" is the way I am trying to explain (at least to myself) our actual situation in being alive, and having the ability to create the "World" we most immediately inhabit.

Those who have followed me for a while know that it is my contention that we live "ultimately" in the "World of Nature," or the "World God Made." We live, however, most "immediately" in a world that we make for ourselves, a "Human World," or, as I generally put it, a "Political World." This blog has had several different names, over the time I have been writing it, and "We Live In A Political World," its present title, was arrived at as I kept thinking about those two kinds of "law," and about the two, very different, worlds that are subject to those (different) "laws." 

In the "World of Nature," the "laws" state things that must and will happen. The "Law of Gravity" is my go-to example. Like all those scientific and physical laws that govern the operation of the "World of Nature," you can't "break" or "ignore" the "Law of Gravity." 

In our own, "Human World," the "laws" don't say what must and will happen. They say what we have determined we "want" to happen. They are not "descriptive," but "prescriptive." Whoever makes those human laws, be that a dictator or the workings of a democratic government, human laws can be broken (and are). 

If we go back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden, which story, I believe, represents an effort to try to understand and explain our existence, the basic theme is that humans were given life in the "World God Made" (the "World of Nature") but we were told we had to follow God's rules - the laws that govern the World of Nature! We didn't! Thus, we found ourselves in a "World" that we had to create for ourselves - and since we are in charge of what is now our "Human World," we get to say what the "laws" are. 

My conclusion/admonition from coming to this understanding of the "Two Worlds" we inhabit is that ignoring the "laws" that govern the "World of Nature" will bring us to destruction. Within our own "Human World," however, since we can always choose to change our mind about what we want to do - change our "prescription," change the "laws" - we have an opportunity, always, to correct our own errors. However, if we try to ignore the "Laws of Nature," which we can't change, our own "Human World" will fail. 

Enter my go-to example: "Global Warming." Global warming is a perfect example of the principle; it is a perfect example of the "Two Worlds Hypothesis." Our society, economy, and political system all depend on the "World That God Made," the "Natural World." If we don't pay attention to the reality and primacy of the laws that govern the "World of Nature," we are going to go "Down In The Flood," to reference one of my blog postings highlighting the theological insights of Bob Dylan. 

We are definitely heading in that direction! We are creating a "Human World" that is inconsistent with the requirements of the "World of Nature," and that means that our "Human World" will fail, unless we figure out how to start giving ourselves different instructions, different "laws" to follow within the "Human World." The big change we need to make is to stop burning hydrocarbon fuels - just in case you are totally oblivious to what's happening as lots of "important people" have headed to Dubai to discuss the issues!

SO, WHY THAT PICTURE?

This brings me to the picture featured at the top of this blog posting. The picture provides an "example" of what I am talking about, taken from the November 30, 2023, edition of The New York Times. Take a look at that picture! This is a "Water World," built in Dubai, in what was formerly a desert. The title of the article I am recommending you try to read is, "Water World Costs the Gulf." Online, which is where you will go if you click this link, the article, by Arielle Paul, is titled, "Dubai's Costly Water World." 

The scene you see, at the top of this blog posting, shows a location that "appears like a water wonderland."  Let's read a little bit of Paul's article: 

For a desert city, Dubai appears like a water wonderland. Visitors can scuba dive in the world’s deepest pool or ski inside a megamall where penguins play in freshly made snow. A fountain — billed as the world’s largest — sprays more than 22,000 gallons of water into the air, synchronized to music from surrounding speakers.

But to maintain its opulence, the city relies on fresh water it doesn’t have. So it turns to the sea, using energy-intensive desalination technologies to help hydrate a rapidly growing metropolis.

All of this comes at a cost. Experts say Dubai’s reliance on desalination is damaging the Persian Gulf, producing a brackish waste known as brine, which, along with chemicals used during desalination processing, increases salinity in the gulf. It also raises coastal water temperatures and harms biodiversity, fisheries and coastal communities.

The gulf is also being stressed by climate change and efforts to construct Dubai’s multibillion-dollar islands using land reclamation. The beachfront real estate on offer includes a $34 million private island, shaped like a sea horse, in the artificial archipelago.

If no immediate action is taken to counter the harm, desalination, in combination with climate change, will increase the gulf’s coastal water temperature by at least five degrees Fahrenheit across more than 50 percent of the area by 2050, according to a 2021 study published in the Marine Pollution Bulletin on ScienceDirect, a site for peer-reviewed papers...

Beyond powering Dubai’s flashy recreational features, water is essential to sustaining life, and desalination provides drinking water to a thirsty city. The Dubai Electricity and Water Authority supplies water to more than 3.6 million residents and to visitors, who push the city’s active daytime population to more than 4.7 million, according to a 2022 sustainability report. By 2040, the utility expects these numbers to grow, increasing the demand for clean water.

The city desalinated approximately 163.6 billion gallons of water last year, according to the sustainability report. For each gallon of desalinated water produced in the gulf, an average of a gallon and a half of brine is released into the ocean (emphasis added).

I'll put another picture of Dubai below. The world depicted does seem like a "wonderland," but that world is being constructed as though we, human beings, can ignore what the "World of Nature" requires. 

Maybe this example might convince someone - you who are reading this, perhaps - that we need to start conforming our human activities to the truth that we live in a world that we did not create, and upon which we are ulitmately and totally dependent.

And if we don't conform what we do to the "laws" that govern the "Natural World"? Well, "our" World will die. The desert will reclaim Dubai, and diseases, wildfires, and floods will prevail elsewhere around the globe, East to West, and North to South.

Daunting? Yes, but the "future" is never "inevitable," at least not as long as we don't forget that we can always change what we do, and thus change the world we make for ourselves! Dubai's dubious utopia should make it clear that we don't have too much time left to understand the full implications of that "Two Worlds Hypothesis."

And to act accordingly! Let's not forget that!

As Mr. Dylan puts it, we need to make ourselves "a different set of rules." Click on that link for access to the entire lyrics of his song, "Gonna Change My Way Of Thinking." 

Those lyrics tell us that we have got to "stop being influenced by fools!"

Fools! 

Fools like the oil-rich idiots who think it's wonderful to build a water wonderland in the middle of a desert, and who think that we can get away with that, and who think - even worse - that burning all that oil they found beneath their desert isn't going to tip us right over the edge, till our human world is destroyed. 

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Image Credits:

(1) and (2) - https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/18/business/dubai-water-desalination.html

#354 / Tightrope

 

I tend to think in metaphors. For instance, I think about where we are today, socially, economically, and politically, in terms of "supersaturated solutions." 

If just mentioning this term doesn't "precipitate" out the idea to which I am alluding, I invite you to click the link provided, to get an explanation of that "supersaturated solution" metaphor, when considered in a political context. 

"Tightrope walking" is another metaphor that speaks to me, when I think about the basic topic to which my various blog postings are directed. If we do live, as I suggest, in a "political world," then we may well be living on a "tightrope." Our ability to survive, without a major fall, even if we should happen to have a safety cable attached, will depend on our ability to "balance" in the middle of a pretty narrow line in which we can continue to make progress. 

It does seem to me that politics is a lot like that. 

And... here is another factor: We need to displace from our immediate attention and to disregard what is, surely, a justifiable fear of falling and failing. We need to have, as a basic article of faith, that we will be able to walk that tightrope right to the end, to the goal we see ahead, to that place where things are secure, to the place we know we need to get to. 

Of course, I am taking for granted, in offering up this "tightrope" metaphor as a way of thinking about our political life, especially at times like the ones in which we are now living, that we understand that this metaphor is powerful only to the extent that we see ourselves (individually and collectively) as the tightrope walker. 

Politics is not, really, a "spectator sport." So, that "tightrope walker" metaphor is not a call to pull out the binoculars and watch what happens to the tightrope walker. 

This blog posting is a call to get out on the wire ourselves!

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Image Credit:

https://youtu.be/LLlkEf_zDqE?si=cKdkKqAly612e3gk

# 353 / High Points And Low Points

 

My blog postings and I have been getting ready to go around the bend, and to head into the open field of a brand new year. As I have been getting ever closer to that December 31st "Grand Finale," it struck me that it might be a good idea to try to document the "High Points" and the "Low Points" of 2023, as personally experienced by and reported upon by Gary A. Patton. 

Taking that "High Points/Low Points" subject as the "prompt," to use an academic term which is generally taken to mean the instructions given to a student who must produce a written assignment in return for a grade, I immediately began to have qualms. 

Right now, for instance, if I really want to be honest, I am experiencing a kind of "low point." Do I really want to get into all of that? The year began with a kind of "low point," too. That "syncope" I suffered on January 3rd, which did introduce me to a new word - "syncope," and that's a plus - has actually continued to dog me down, or so I'd put it, throughout the whole damn calendar. Do I really want to try to explain just how bad that dog has been, how bad that year became?

I don't. 

The more I thought about that "High Points/Low Points" prompt, the more I came to the realization, helped along by Johnny Mercer, that outlining the "Low Points" of my year is not really an assignment I want to undertake. It's not an assignment I think I should undertake. Considering how to be helpful, I have come to the realization that we learn our lessons on the upside.

I am betting that most of the students I have been teaching up at UCSC don't know anything at all about Johnny Mercer, and that's also likely to be true of a lot of other people who might read this blog posting. Mercer, in fact, is more associated with my parents' era than with my own, which considering my own age puts him way back in the rearview mirror. Mercer was an American songwriter, and a singer, as well as being a co-founder of Capitol Records, and it may well be that the words to one of his most famous songs is really coming to me not so much from Mercer, but from my Dad. 

My Dad reliably provided me with lots of good advice as I was growing up, and one piece of advice was right out of Johnny Mercer's music. My Dad would actually sing me Mercer's song, or at least this part: 

Accentuate the Positive

Eliminate The Negative

Don't Mess With Mister In-Between

If you want to hear Johnny Mercer sing it himself (and if you want to read a full complement of the lyrics), direct your attention to the bottom of this blog posting. For now, let me just say that despite some "down" times in 2023, I have no problem "accentuating the positive." I made a new friend or two this year - a definite positive - and I also got to visit Hibbing High School, which turned out to be an unexpected thrill. 

If you don't know who graduated from Hibbing High School (and you can read when you squint), the following picture might give you a hint.  

As for other moments spent at the higher elevations (setting those "low points" aside), that entire trip to Minnesota last summer (including that visit to Hibbing) was right up there. 

So, read the lyrics to Mercer's song. Listen to Mercer sing his song. 

And please don't forget that lesson from my Dad:

Accentuate the Positive

Eliminate The Negative

Latch On To The Affirmative

Don't Mess With Mister In-Between

oooOOOooo

Accent -Tchu-Ate The Positive
Song by Johnny Mercer

You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In Between
You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
Have faith or pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene
To illustrate his last remark
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do
Just when everything looked so dark
Man, they said we better
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No, do not mess with Mister In-Between
Do you hear me, hmm?
Oh, listen to me children and-a you will hear
About the elininatin' of the negative
And the accent on the positive
And gather 'round me children if you're willin'
And sit tight while I start reviewin'
The attitude of doin' right
You've got to accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In Between
You've got to spread joy (up to the maximum)
Bring gloom (down) down to the minimum
Otherwise (otherwise) pandemonium
Liable to walk upon the scene
To illustrate (well illustrate) my last remark (you got the floor)
Jonah in the whale, Noah in the ark
What did they say (what did they say)
Say when everything looked so dark
Man, they said we better
Accentuate the positive
Eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
Don't mess with Mister In-Between
No! Don't mess with Mister In-Between

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Image Credits:

(1) - https://www.discovery.com/nature/the-tallest-mountains-in-the-world-pictures

(2) - Gary A. Patton personal photo

(3) - https://youtu.be/oVuAmcPvybs?si=8N23J65c2sNNkLRs