Month: September 2024

A Civil Talk with a Trumper

In which I learn that propaganda works

After I made it clear in a blog post that I support Kamala Harris for president, my neighbor texted me saying we are on opposite sides of the political spectrum and did I want to talk about it? She is part of an organization called Braver Angels whose mission is to bring Americans together to “bridge the partisan divide and strengthen our democratic republic.”

Well, yeah. I’d love to understand why anyone is planning to vote for a criminal misogynist racist incompetent ignorant vindictive idiot. I truly do want to understand. 

We met at a local café where I asked her to lay out her thoughts.

We have much in common. We are about the same age (75). She has campaigned for social justice, and protested the Vietnam war. She was a student at SF State during the 1968 student and faculty strike. She voted against Hillary in 2016 because she was pro-war and Trump said he would end wars. Then she voted again for Trump in 2020.

She tells me she is a Quaker

Me: Do you go to quaker meetings? Are there Quakers who consider themselves Christian nationalists?

Yes, she has gone to meetings in many places. There are Quakers who want to walk a more middle line.

Where do you get your news?

Mostly from citizen journalists. People who report from the street. She mentions Tucker Carlson and other right-wing commentators.

She likes Vivek Ramaswamy. She says he went to Springfield Ohio to bring people together.

Why do you think he went there? What is he running for–a cabinet position?

He wanted to find out what is really going on.

He’s supporting Trump. How can he pretend to be nonpartisan?

He says they brought in too many immigrants.

The Haitians are legal immigrants.

No. they have “temporary protected status.” That’s different. They don’t all have jobs. Some of them hang out on the street.

Do you agree with trump’s plan to deport all immigrants?

There needs to be more oversight. We need to stop the rapists and felons. Send them back.

Trump is a convicted rapist. Should we send him back?

Social security. Trump wants to stop taxing it.

Yeah that’s what he says but the republicans have been saying for years they want to abolish it. 

What about Kamala’s economic plans? (A republican talking point.)

You are treating trump like a regular candidate instead of a crazy guy who can’t string a sentence together and who promotes violence.

What do I think about RFK? 

I liked him when he was an environmental lawyer. Now I think he’s lost his mind.

He only wanted people to have a choice about vaccination.

What about the republicans who would take away women’s vote? Who want to return to slavery?

She hasn’t heard much about them but knows about Mark Robinson in NC.

What about project 2025?

Trump is not involved with that.

You know that JD Vance, his VP candidate, wrote the introduction and the others involved were almost all on Trump’s staff?

She didn’t know that. It’s the Heritage Foundation she says.

We talked respectfully about many other issues. After an hour I have to go. I’m getting a little sick. We agree that we hate war. I shake her hand. She hugs me. She says see we do have something in common.

She tells me I should listen to Vivek. I tell her she should read and listen to different media. I send her a youtube clip from Trae Crowder the Liberal Redneck. Love that guy.

I still feel profoundly disturbed. We did not bridge the partisan divide nor strengthen the republic. For years the rest of us have been asking why any sane person could still support a con man like trump. My theory is that it’s the fault of the right wing media’s lies. And one thing this meeting has done is confirm my theory. Now I understand.

Propaganda works!

Californians Work to Turn Red Districts Blue

Gay Man Will Rollins Running Against Anti-Gay Incumbent

Californians will be sidelined again in the upcoming presidential election. With nearly 40 million residents, the state won’t play a decisive role in choosing the next president until the electoral college system is changed. Instead, the focus remains on swing states, leaving many Californians feeling left out, and me outraged again.

But we are not twiddling our collective thumbs. We’re shifting our attention to key down ballot races. A strong coalition, Mobilize—comprising Indivisible, California Grassroots Alliance, and others—is targeting six red districts in an effort to flip the House blue. 

One candidate I’m particularly excited about is Will Rollins, who is openly gay and has a great shot at winning. When the districts were reorganized, he gained the queer-friendly city of Palm Springs in California’s 41st District. Rollins, a former federal prosecutor, is running again after nearly defeating Republican Ken Calvert, an incumbent with a long anti-LGBTQ voting record, in the last election. Polls show Rollins with a six point lead. https://willrollinsforcongress.com

I can’t vote for Will. I’m in a safe blue Congressional district. But, like hundreds of other Californians, I’m writing postcards to voters, getting out the vote, posting yard signs, and wearing my Kamala swag. Let’s paint Congress blue!

Winter’s Coming and We Like It

My Regular Pagan Holiday Post: Autumn Equinox

You can shake your fist at heaven, you can file your appeal

You can try to rise above it, you can crawl and you can kneel

No matter what life gives you, no matter what you steal

You cannot stop the turning of the wheel

Chorus from Jennifer Berezan’s song Turning of the Wheel

Naked ladies (Amaryllis belladonna), a ubiquitous and favorite fall flower

Sitting out in our yard on a lovely evening at the ides of August, Holly and I luxuriated in the garden’s summer radiance. The day was cooling as the sun retreated. Colorful zinneas and cone flowers bloomed and the fragrance of the rockrose bush enveloped us. Hummingbirds zipped back and forth. Finches and oak titmice populated the feeder. Towhees scratched the ground as mourning doves bobbed and cooed. It was a perfect summer evening.

But as we sat in our twin rockers, we both said, almost in unison, “I’m looking forward to the turning of the seasons.”

Summer, with its long, warm days and bountiful harvests, has been beautiful, but we’re ready for the change. Holly says that humans evolved with the rhythm of change, and that’s why we appreciate the wheel of the year turning.

Now, with the autumn equinox upon us, the new season begins. Pagans call this time Mabon, after the Welsh God who is the son of the Earth Mother Goddess.

Recently, I learned about the lunistice, the moment when the moon seems to pause, similar to the way the sun appears to stop at solstices before shifting direction. It’s a fascinating event, though hard to observe unless you track the moon regularly.

The major lunar standstill is marked by observing the extreme points where the moon rises and sets on the horizon, akin to watching the sun at solstices. Just as the sun’s position reaches its furthest northern and southern points at solstice, the moon does something similar every 18.6 years during a maximum lunistice—an event that occurs near equinoxes and eclipses, and it’s happening now!

This 18.6-year cycle is due to the moon’s orbital tilt and the gravitational pull of the sun, causing the moon’s orbit to swivel and vary its angle relative to Earth.

Excited, I reached out to the folks at Ferguson Observatory at Sugarloaf State Park to learn more. I was intrigued by the idea of “maximum lunistice,” thinking it sounded particularly special. But I learned something surprising: the minimum lunistices are actually more significant, especially in relation to tides. 

The Observatory explained that during maximum lunistices, the moon is furthest from the celestial equator, resulting in less dramatic tides. However, minimum lunistices bring larger tides because the moon is closer to the equator’s gravitational bulge. But since “maximum” sounds more impressive, it tends to get more attention. The next minimum lunistice won’t be until 2034.

At an Old Lesbians retreat in the Mayacamas mountains as a group of us stargazed, I attempted to explain this lunar phenomenon but stumbled over the details. Honestly, I don’t fully grasp it myself. Yet, here’s what’s clear: ancient peoples understood this cycle.

Bronze Age societies, like those who constructed the megalithic monuments in Britain and Ireland, placed great significance on lunar standstills. Modern Neopagan religions find meaning in them too. Ancient cultures beyond the British Isles also recognized these events—sites like Chaco Canyon in New Mexico, Chimney Rock in Colorado, and the Hopewell sites in Ohio all feature alignments to the moon during lunar standstills.

As I write this, the full supermoon is rising with a partial lunar eclipse. The turning of the celestial wheel continues to fascinate us, just as it did our ancestors.

I’d like to call back summertime and have her stay for just another month or so

But she’s got the urge for going so I guess she’ll have to go.

From Joni Mitchell’s song Urge for Going

One of my favorite Joni Mitchell songs, Urge for Going, laments “summertime falling down.” Joni was thinking about snow and cold and pulling the blankets up to her chin. She sang, “All that stays is dying and all that lives is getting out.” But she was singing about winter coming in Canada. In California when I think about winter coming I think rain, which makes plants start to grow in the outdoors. It brings mushrooms, grass, new leaves and flowers. The cold coastal summer fog falls away and dust is dampend. 

David Douglas, the Scottish botanist who traveled in North America in the 1830s (after whom the Douglas fir and other plants were named) remarked on how dead the Sonoma area was in summer. He collected plants in the winter and spring when they were growing and flowering.

These are some of the reasons we here in summer-dry California exclaim with anticipation “Winter’s coming!”

The autumn equinox takes place Sunday September 22. Wishing you all a fabulous fall season.

Lewisia, a native in our garden, named for Meriwether Lewis who encountered the species in 1806