Green swells roll slowly,
Lap up seawall, slide away,
Dotted with raindrops.
Gulls circle, swoop, land.
Cormorant pops up with fish.
Starlings fly above.
Blue lights on railing.
Snow on branches, walkway, grass.
Red life preserver.
Archive for SJ Rozan
Accordion Calendar!
Finally, the 2017 Accordion Calendar is here!
Sorry, I had technical issues, which I’m still having, hence the url to copy and not a link to click:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/sj-rozan/sj-rozan-2017-accordion-calendar/calendar/product-22988206.html
And don’t forget the New York and Assisi calendars, too.
NYC: http://www.lulu.com/shop/sj-rozan/new-york-city-2017/calendar/product-22963350.html
ASSISI: http://www.lulu.com/shop/sj-rozan/art-workshop-international-assisi-italy-2017/calendar/product-22963386.html
Proceeds to Planned Parenthood.
Windy day haiku
Strong sharp wind from north.
Seagull fighting against it
Makes little headway.
Peaked waves on river,
Reflecting blue sky, pink clouds,
Rolling toward seawall.
Wavelets roil, throw spray.
White bursts jumping into air.
Tiny volcanoes.
And don’t forget your 2017 SJ Rozan Calendar!
Assisi:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/sj-rozan/art-workshop-international-assisi-italy-2017/calendar/product-22963386.html
and New York:
http://www.lulu.com/shop/sj-rozan/new-york-city-2017/calendar/product-22963350.html
This year’s proceeds to the ACLU. Support free speech!
The 2017 SJ Rozan Calendars are here!
For your gift-buying pleasure, including, of course, gifts for yourself. They’re not quite all here (kind of like me) — Accordions to come, give me a few days. But
and
And please note: Proceeds this year go to Planned Parenthood. So, buy away!
Excellent, thoughtful, fierce advice
From historian, Holocaust expert and Yale Professor Timothy Snyder. If you believe, as I do, we’re in deep trouble, this will help. If you don’t, then how can it hurt?
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.
6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps “The Power of the Powerless” by Václav Havel, 1984 by George Orwell, The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz, The Rebel by Albert Camus, The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.
Thanksgiving
Well, it’s Thanksgiving. I hope we’re all surrounded by family and friends, allowing ourselves to feel gratitude for what we have and to gather strength from each other for the coming times. I’m grateful, among other things, for all of you. I’m grateful, also, to have a voice, and I intend to use it.
“Lock Up All the Poets, First” — J.S. Lamb
Lock up all the Poets, first
Before the revolution
Let’s make a resolution
To lock up all the poets
In a hall.
Give them roses, give them wine,
But never give them time
To stir up other people —
Not at all.
Shunting poor (or even rich)
Is done without a hitch:
Merely play to their fears
With finesse.
But poets can’t be bought
With a shimmy or a shot;
If they ever learn the Truth —
It’s a mess.
So give them cotton candy,
Or anything that’s handy,
To shield their stellar eyes
From the War.
By the time they discover
That Freedom has been smothered,
Their pens will have been shortened
By a sword.
The return of the haiku
The haiku have been on hiatus (no, I couldn’t resist that line, would you have?) but now that we’re in for a long, dark time, I feel the need to write them again. So they’re back, now with photos.
Bright windless morning
Gulls cry, loud in the quiet
Sun glints on ripples
Hawk slides across moon
Circles up on rising drafts
A black speck, then gone
Patrol boat churns past
White wake rises, fades again
Glassy water shines
Leonard Cohen, R.I.P.
In all the turmoil about the election I neglected to mention the death of Leonard Cohen — but I didn’t neglect to mark it. Leonard Cohen was of vital importance to me, a musician and poet whose worked I love deeply.
Here’s a link to him singing my favorite of his songs, “Field Commander Cohen”
I’m making no claim it’s his best, and you’re welcome to pipe up with your own favorites in the comments. But this is the one that resonates most with me.
Over the next weeks, months, years, I’ll continue to talk politics here, and also books, art, culture. Because, as Bertolt Brecht said,
“In the dark times
Will there also be singing?
Yes, there will also be singing.
About the dark times.”
ACLU briefing
Sara Paretsky, a writer well-known for her progressive views and actions, attended an ACLU briefing and sent this report:
The good news: in the wake of 9/11, people were afraid to speak out against infringement of civil liberties, but today, many people are speaking up.
The difficult news: challenges to civil liberties, LGBT rights, immigrants, refugees, and reproductive health, inter alia, will be coming quickly and from both national and state governments. The ACLU sees keeping Planned Parenthood going as the top priority alongside immigrant and refugee rights: they are the health care providers of last resort for millions of low-income women, and if Congress removes their funding, millions of women will be in dire straits. PP provide not just reproductive health and abortion services but cancer screening and other well woman services. The ACLU urges all of us to support Planned Parenthood: Romero said, if you write a check to ACLU, send one to Planned Parenthood at the same time. Currently, the Federal Government gives them about $1 billion annually in support, and we will be hard-pressed to raise that money in the private sector if Congress cuts it out.
Their best guess is that the new admin will want to make good on their anti-immigrant threats first, followed by dismantling Obamacare and Planned Parenthood. They’re thinking that Giuliani will likely be the Attorney-General, which has implications for anti-immigrant dragnets as well as Giuliani-style policing on the national level.
The ACLU has been able to do some preparation. In July, after the republican convention, they did a thorough study of the candidate’s positions on issues that affect that Constitution. This has given them some pre-inaugural sense of where the biggest threats are. The report is available on their website.
They are also preparing strategies for challenging some of the key sub-cabinet posts, which don’t usually attract media attention. They believe they can “peel,” their language, some republicans away from some votes. For instance, one south FL congresswoman who’s kind of alt-right also has a Transgender child.
Strategies for individuals: don’t just give money but give service — we can write letters to the editor, participate in radio call-in shows, write our congress members, and visit state and national offices of elected officials. The speakers stressed that physical letters to Congress carry more weight than emails.
More anon.
And more from me, SJ, anon, too.
