REFLECTIONS ON LIFE –June 2018

REFLECTIONS ON HOME IN COLUMBIA

We have had many clear nights recently. The full moon and bright stars shine through the windows above our bed’s headboard and along side my side of the bed.  Lightning bugs have contributed their flashing – on and off, on and off, on and off – many of them, but not synchronized.

Our potted geraniums and impatiens have filled out with bursts of color, The wisteria that grows up from the ground in the back of our home and entwines itself among the rungs of our main back deck had an immense spurt of growth necessitating our trimming it substantially in order to see the pond.  Surprise!  A new addition to our decks’ animal kingdom.  Deep in the burst of wisteria leaves, and entwined around and around the inch thick vine, a black snake.  I had been pruning right around it when I suddenly saw this little white “face” about 3/4inch in diameter. I must admit, I am afraid of snakes.  I stopped pruning and checked on it every five minutes or so.  It was staring straight out at me. About the fifth time I checked, it was gone.  Now I wonder “where”?

Our squirrel family is larger than ever this year.  Looking over the rail to the ground deck, I once spotted eight squirrels gobbling up the spilt seed from the bird feeder.  That’s a full house at nighttime when they all sleep in the maple outside the window above our headboard.

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Be sure to check out this Howard Community College Dragon Radio episode of my interviewing Columbia naturalist and environmental advocate, Ned Tillman. Episodes of the Dragon radio show I do at HCC can be found at http://dragondigitalradio.podbean.com/category/reflections-on-life/.

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This month I spent a good bit of time attending the annual Columbia Festival of the Arts - music, films, theater, and the magnificent backdrop of Lake Kittamaqundi.  Sometimes I went with Lloyd, sometimes with a friend or friends, and sometimes alone. How fortunate we are here in Jim Rouse’s new town where he provided for “the CEO and the janitor to live in the same community”.  May we demonstrate the will to keep it so.

The Baltimore Sun                                                     June 17, 2018

“Author’s driving passion” 

Michael Chabon’s ‘Pops’ reflects on parent’s role

By Mary Carole McCauley

I have previously written in “Reflections” about novelist, Pulitzer Prize winner and Columbia native, Michael Chabon.  His latest publication, “Pops:  Fatherhood in Pieces” is a collection of essays published three weeks ago just in time for Father’s Day.  Lloyd and I have it on order.  We anticipate that it will be delightful as well as deeply insightful as are his thirteen books published since Michael left Columbia for college. Chabon has written of the positive impact growing up in Columbia had on him and his writing.  Though I never met him here in Columbia, I attended the launching of one of his books in a bookstore near San Francisco.  His work gives rise to a deep sense of pride in me.

The Washington Post                                                                           June 29, 2018

“5 killed at Capital Gazette in Annapolis

Gunman’s motive said to be grudge”

Tragedy so close to home.   The Annapolis Gazette occasionally interviewed me when I was a member of the legislature.

“A shooting at a newspaper, even a local paper that mostly steers clear of national politics, opens a window into the economic dislocation that has altered the way Americans work and how they learn about their communities”.  The same could be said about The Columbia Flier/Howard County Times

REFLECTIONS ON ZACH

In my deepening concern about the deterioration of world order, including in our own nation, I intentionally call on Zach’s wisdom in his quotes.  Here are some of those I now find most helpful in maintaining equanimity.  Thank you, Zach.

Time is so precious. Take nothing for granted

Look into my eyes. It’s ok if you’re be scared.  So am I.

Be who you were born to be

No time for doubt.  Believe

I want the world to be a better place because I was here.

REFLECTIONS ON BALTIMORE, MY HOMETOWN

The Baltimore Sun                                                    June 23, 2018

“Exhibit looks at city’s role in slave trade

Homewood Museum hosts ‘Purchased Lives’ Display”

Jacques Kelly                In the neighborhood

 I have written in months past about my high school years in Baltimore across Wyman Park from that city’s Museum of Art.  In recent months there was significant press coverage about the removal of a confederate leader’s statue from this park, more than fifty years since I had regularly passed it without the slightest insight into its connection to slavery.  Now this article sheds more light on the extent of slavery in this area of the city where I attended high school.  The Homewood (name of the Johns Hopkins University neighborhood) Museum is now hosting an exhibit on the American slave trade in the 19^th century, “Purchased Lives.”

Now for the connection to Howard County.  In the 18^th century, the main gardener at Homewood mansion, Izadod Connor, had been born a slave at Doughoregan Manor.  He and his wife, Cis, a spinner of linen, were moved to Homewood to work for the Carroll family.  After the death of Charles Carroll, the Connor family was shipped to Louisiana.  Izadod never returned.  Cis and her numerous children “lived out their years back in Howard County at Doughoregan, and gained freedom only when other slaves were freed in l864.”  My awareness of these connections is not without pain.  The land upon which our current home sits off of Cedar Lane was once part of the Manor

We plan to visit this exhibit that runs through July 27 at Homewood Museum, 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore, also in proximity to my high school

REFLECTIONS ON PUBLIC POLICY—LOCAL, STATE, NATIONAL

County of Howard

Lloyd and I recently invited one of our region’s most respected landscape architects to our home.  We sat out on our back deck and view the magnificently lush green grass and foliage encompassing us and surrounding the pond.  We asked him some questions about what will be needed to prevent more flooding in Ellicott City.  His response:  Replacing the underground pipes under Main Street with much larger ones that could handle massive runoff such as we experienced two times recently.  His answer:  Whatever other elements to reduce runoff are employed, it will be absolutely necessary to replace the underground pipes with much larger ones than those already in place.  He added that it would be very costly.

I wonder whether $90 million would help?  That is the amount of the TIF (tax increment financing) gift recently given by our county government to the Howard Hughes Corporation (HHC) which is doing the very lucrative continuing development of Downtown Columbia.  HHC is one of the largest such companies in the U.S.

State of Maryland

The Washington Post                                                                      June 16, 2019

“Chesapeake Bay is healthiest it’s been in 33 years, scientists say

A $19 billion federal plan is helping to restore the nation’s largest estuary”

by Darryl Fears

For the first time in many years, ALL regions of the bay are showing at least some improvement.  We have such a long way to go and without our close attention and determination, the Bay could slip back farther in the wrong direction again.  In Howard County, possibly the most important steps we can take is to reduce runoff into our many streams, the headwaters of the Patuxent and Patapsco Rivers.

The Washington Post                                                                       June 12, 2018

“Prisons lift limits on access to books"

Drug smuggling prompted policy

Md. inmates’ advocates had decried ‘ban’

By Ann E. Marimow

Thank you to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) for so effectively shining a bright light on the potential prisoner rehabilitation element of access to good literature.

The Washington Post                                                                          June 16, 2018

“For the biggest group of American Workers, wages aren’t just flat.  They’re falling”

by Jeff Stein and Andrew Van Dam

Economic Justice is slipping further and further away in our nation.

United States of America

The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States to uphold our president’s immigration ban leaves me with no words.  I can only hold this tragic occurrence in quiet meditation.  I say the same regarding Supreme Court Justice Kennedy’s decision to retire.   Until I attain a place of greater clarity, I will remain silent.

Within hours of writing the previous paragraph, the following words from my favorite Washington Post columnist, E.J. Dionne, were delivered right to our front door:

“Our constitutional system of ‘checks and balances’ works only if those in a position to operate the levers of checking and balancing do their job.  It is clear that (some members of Congress and some appointees to the Supreme Court) have no taste for such work.  For the moment, President Trump is mostly unchecked and unbalanced.”  These words provided the greater clarity I wanted, not positive, but clarity nonetheless.

In the Vancouver newspaper we read a very interesting story of how Canada is reacting to the President’s import tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum. They have identified a number of Republican districts in the U.S. that could swing to Democrats this fall. They then search for U. S. goods that are very popular in Canada and also important to the local economy in the Republican’s district. Canada has slapped a heavy import taxes on those imported items. For instance, a House seat now held by a Republican in a Philadelphia suburb is home to the only maker of steel beer kegs in North America and those jobs are vital to his district. Wham, slap a big tax! Another: Republican districts in Calif. and Colorado produce sleeping bags that are in demand in Canada—WHAM. Orange juice from Florida, ketchup from Penna., soy sauce from Wisconsin, and so on. They did their homework.

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“The Atlantic”                                                                           June 2018

“The Birth of a New American, “ARISTOCRACY”

“The class divide is already toxic, and is fast becoming unbridgeable.  You’re probably part of the problem.”

The timing of this article in the one monthly periodical magazine that I read from cover to cover every month is remarkable.  It’s as if the editors had someone sitting in on the minds of the majority of our Supreme Court.

REFLECTIONS ON OUR PLANET BEYOND THE UNITED STATES

You may recall my writing last year about attending retreats in New Your and California with Buddhist monk Jack Kornfield.  For about 25 years he has been one of my greatest spiritual, as distinguished from religious, teachers.  I very recently received his regular e-mail message listing the locations in the U.S. where he will be teaching. This message listed three Mindfulness Teachings for the month of July in London, Oxford, and Paris.  I’m sure they have their own Mindfulness teachers in those cities, and yet I felt so good to read that there is someone in the U.S. who they believe help them in these troubling times.

The Washington Post                                                         June 9, 2018

“Allies and experts see threat to the world order

Economic partners fear lasting harm from trade wars, discord”

In a recent conversation with Lloyd, I said I know I’m not alone in my state of disbelief.  No, rather than disbelief, it is my difficulty in believing, how we in the U.S. are now perceived  - and justifiably so – by our former allies.

“What worries me most … is the fact that the rules-based international order is being challenged. What is surprising … is that the challenge is driven not by the usual suspects, but by its main architect and guarantor, the U.S.”

European Council President Donald Tusk

The Washington Post                                                          June 23, 2018

“Facebook’s fight against fake news goes global"

Before Mexico’s election, a handful of vetters try to keep democracy honest”

By Elizabeth Dwoskin

Following serious problems caused by the broad distribution of fabricated news regarding the recent Mexican election, Facebook says it is determined to prevent such abuse in the U.S. midterm elections.  Not to be sarcastic – and I truly mean that – but “good luck!”

REFLECTIONS ON OUR UNIVERSE

June 21 marked the summer solstice, the time at which the sun is at its northernmost point in the sky.    For me, it also serves as a clear reminder that half of yet another year has passed since my last birthday, which is on December 21, winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. This also reminds me to take a good close look at how I have spent those six months – in Love or in Anger?  I very much needed that reminder this year.

Wisdom for this troubling time during summer solstice:

“Be like the flower, turn your face to the sun.”

                                              Kahlil Gibran

“Pools of sorrow, waves of joy

Are drifting through my open mind

Possessing and caressing me

Across the Universe

~Lennon and McCartney

Be well and love life.

~Liz

Past editions of this newsletter can be found at http://lizbobocolumbia.blogspot.com/.