Category Archives: people

The Thin Line

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Sometimes when we get all puffed up about how important we are, we need to be reminded not much separates us from our knuckle-dragging ancestors or our three-living cousins.

I have a t-shirt given to me by a good friend who just retired as the Executive Vice President of the Indianapolis Zoological Society.  More important for our discussion today, Karen Burns is the Executive Director of the Indianapolis Prize, considered the Nobel Prize for animal conservation.  Every two years, the organization recognizes an animal conservationist “who has achieved major victories in advancing the sustainability of an animal sp;ecies or group of species” with a $250,000 award.

This year’s award has gone to Dr. Rene deRoland, a Malagasy scientist who has discovered several new species or re-discovered some species thought to be extinct. He has helped establish four national protected areas and heads a team of 48 conservationists wildlife and landscapes in his home country.

The t-shirt is a reminder that there is a thin line between us and members of other branches of our genetic tree, a reminder, perhaps, that Genesis gives humans dominion over other creatures in the sea, in the air, and on the ground. Dominion, not domination.

Dominion, as in caring for. Domination, as in destroying.

The Indianapolis Zoo has special facilities for Orangutans and for Chimpanzees.

There are times when I have to fill in as a Sunday school teacher and when I do, I like to turn to a source called The Wired Word that tries to place contemporary events within the scriptures.  One of the recent lessons focused on Jane Goodall’s life and our place in creation. I’m passing part of it along because her life story and its worldwide impact go beyond standard death news stories and gets to one of the ongoing great challenges humans must consider.

Regardless of whether you follow the lesson’s efforts to tie her work to scripture or whether the direction of the lesson raises questions about your personal view of the world and our place in it, I think you might find a thing or two to think about.

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Famed Primatologist Jane Goodall Dead at 91
The Wired Word for the Week of October 12, 2025

In the News

The Jane Goodall Institute announced its founder, Jane Goodall, the world’s foremost expert on chimpanzees, died of natural causes on October 1 while in California for one of the 300 speeches she gave most years even into her ninth decade. The 91-year-old animal welfare advocate is survived by her son, Hugo, and three grandchildren.

In 1957, paleoanthropologist Louis Leakey recruited Goodall to conduct the first intensive study of wild chimpanzees in their natural habitat in Gombe, Tanzania.

Goodall noted the complex structure of the primate world, noting their distinct personalities, intelligence, sense of humor and wide range of emotions, from happiness, love, empathy, kindness and tenderness, to anger, sorrow, fear, depression and hostility. The primatologist witnessed the chimps hunting, grooming, playing, fighting, showing affection, adopting other chimpanzees, and comforting each other.

Her reports of a chimpanzee she named David Greybeard making a tool from twigs to fish termites from a nest mesmerized the scientific community, which had previously held the view that tool-making was a skill only humans possessed.

When Leakey learned of her discovery, he responded with this telegram:

NOW WE MUST REDEFINE TOOL STOP

REDEFINE MAN STOP

OR ACCEPT CHIMPANZEES AS HUMAN

“What the chimps have taught me over the years is they’re so like us. They’ve blurred the line between humans and animals,” Goodall said. Her discoveries nudged the public, including the scientific community, to reexamine how we understand who we are as a species.

In 1986, Goodall attended a conference of chimpanzee researchers where she was devastated by reports of how wild habitat destruction was negatively impacting chimpanzee populations.

“I arrived at the conference as a scientist. I left as an activist,” she remarked. Determined to do everything in her power to protect and preserve the environment, she became a kind of “global educator-at-large.”

“The least I can do is speak out for those who cannot speak for themselves,” the zoologist said.

“In the rainforest [is] … where I felt that deep, spiritual connection to the natural world, and also came to understand the interconnectedness of all living things in this tapestry of life where each species, no matter how insignificant, plays a probably vital role in the whole pattern.”

Goodall remarked that indigenous people and those who practice various religions often see animals as our brothers and sisters, as those who should be cared for by humans, and who provide humans with various benefits as well. She realized that working for animal welfare went hand in hand with addressing human needs as well.

In a 2020 interview with Krista Tippett, Goodall remarked about our ability “to ask questions like, Who am I? Why am I here? What is the purpose of it all? Is there a purpose? Is there a spiritual guiding force out there? … there is no way that what’s happened is just chance. What that intelligence behind the universe is — what it is, who it is; probably what it is — I haven’t the faintest idea, but I’m absolutely sure that there is something. And seeking for that something is part of being human.”

In a video interview recorded shortly before Goodall’s death, released only after her passing, she shared the final message she felt compelled to give the world, which included these words: “each and every one of you has a role to play. … your life matters, and you are here for a reason, … every single day you live, you make a difference in the world, and you get to choose the difference that you make. … Don’t lose hope. … And if you want to save what is still beautiful in this world, if you want to save the planet for the future generations, your grandchildren, their grandchildren, then think about the actions you take each day, because multiplied a million, a billion times, even small actions will make for great change.”

Applying the News Story

As Goodall’s celebrity increased, she sometimes had to gently correct fans who idolized her. One woman once greeted her, shrieking, “Oh my God!” to which she wryly replied, “I’m not your God. I’m just Jane.”

The incident is reminiscent of the time when crowds of people wanted to offer sacrifices to Paul and Barnabas as though they were gods, after Paul healed a lame man, when Paul insisted, “We are mortals just like you, and we bring you good news, that you should turn from these worthless things to the living God, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them” (Acts 14:8-18).

Use the news to consider what nature and our faith have to teach us about what it means to be human and how we fit into God’s design for creation.

The Big Questions

  1. What is your earliest memory of some aspect of the natural world?
  2. How are humans and other creatures alike? How are humans different from other creatures?
  3. How would you describe the relationship between faith and science?
  4. Goodall seemed to delight in the knowledge that humans are part of the natural world. But some theorize that humans are superior to or separate from the rest of creation. How do you see your own relationship to nature, and what role does your faith play in how you understand that relationship?
  5. Where in the Bible do you find indications of high regard and care for animals, and what does that suggest to you about how we should interact with other creatures on Earth?

Confronting the News With Scripture and Hope
Here are some Bible verses to guide your discussion:

Genesis 2:18-20
Then the LORD God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” So out of the ground the LORD God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air and brought them to the man to see what he would call them, and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all cattle and to the birds of the air and to every animal of the field, but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner. (For context, read Genesis 2:18-24.)

Goodall was criticized by some scientists for giving the chimps with whom she lived names like David Greybeard, Flo, Flint and Fifi, because the prevailing practice was to give animals numbers rather than names. Eventually, Goodall’s unconventional method became more accepted, because it helped people view chimps as unique individuals.

Questions: Why do you think God gave the man the task of naming the animals? In what contexts might humans be given a number rather than a name? What difference does it make whether an animal or a human is given a number rather than a name?

Genesis 6:19-21
And of every living thing, of all flesh, you shall bring two of every kind into the ark, to keep them alive with you; they shall be male and female. Of the birds according to their kinds and of the animals according to their kinds, of every creeping thing of the ground according to its kind, two of every kind shall come in to you, to keep them alive. Also take with you every kind of food that is eaten, and store it up, and it shall serve as food for you and for them.” (For context, read Genesis 6:11-22.)

This flood narrative begins with an explanation for the coming destruction: that the earth was filled with violence and corruption (vv. 11-13). God gave Noah instructions for the building of an ark, to save him and his family, as well as representatives of all the animals on the earth, “to keep them alive with you” (vv. 14-21). He was also to take provisions to sustain them and the animals, so that they would not suffer extinction.

Questions: Whether you interpret the flood narrative literally or figuratively, what impresses you about God’s instructions to Noah, with regard to the animals? Why not exclude certain creatures that might be troublesome or dangerous at times?

Job 12:7-10
[Job said,] “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, the birds of the air, and they will tell you; ask the plants of the earth, and they will teach you, and the fish of the sea will declare to you. Who among all these does not know that the hand of the LORD has done this? In his hand is the life of every living thing and the breath of every human being.” (For context, read Job 12:7-16.)

Job was frustrated by the sanctimonious attitude of his friends, who suggested that his adversities were probably due to some moral failure on his part. But Job claimed that they needed to learn a lesson from the animals, birds, plants and fish, who were all aware that the life of every living thing is in the hand of the Lord. What is true for every aspect of creation, from whether it thrives, survives, or perishes, to what kind of weather happens on any given day, is also true of humans: All of this depends on God’s sovereign will.

Questions: How does one go about “asking animals, birds, plants and fish” questions? Goodall said Leakey chose her to research wild chimps because she had an “open mind.” How can we open our minds to learn what God’s creatures might have to teach us — about God? About creation? About ourselves? About our relationships with other humans and with God?

Colossians 1:15-16
[Christ] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation, for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers — all things have been created through him and for him. (For context, read Colossians 1:15-20.)

John of Patmos echoes the sentiment in this text when he writes that in his vision of heaven, the four living creatures worship God and the 24 elders cast their crowns before the throne of God, declaring, “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” (Revelation 4:11). Elsewhere Paul writes that “there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and for whom we exist, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things and through whom we exist.” (1 Corinthians 8:5-6).

Goodall often spoke of a “Great Spirit in Whom ‘we live and move and have our being.'”

Questions: In what sense are all things created for God and for Christ? If it is true that we exist for God and for Christ, how will we fulfill the purpose for which we were created?

For Further Discussion

  1. “According to my calculations, reality is this very second,” wrote Barbara Johnson, in “A Hearty Ha, Ha, Ha!” in the anthology, She Who Laughs, Lasts!“You see, yesterday is only a memory, and tomorrow is merely a dream. Today is an illusion. That leaves this one second. Every day you have 86,400 seconds. But they come only one at a time. In your bank account of time, no balance is carried over until the next day. You use those seconds or lose them. There is no chance to reinvest. Make your investment wisely …”How can we ensure that we are using our 86,400 seconds wisely, so that at the end of our lives, we can be confident that we have fulfilled the role for which God put us on the Earth?
  2. Comment on this, from Pope Francis, in his encyclical On Care for Our Common Home [Laudato Si’]: “A true ecological approach always becomes a social approach; it must integrate questions of justice in debates on the environment, so as to hear both the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor. … Everything is connected. Concern for the environment thus needs to be joined to a sincere love for our fellow human beings and an unwavering commitment to resolving the problems of society.”
  3. In a 2020 interview, Goodall said: “I think probably, my very favorite individual tree has to be Beech, in my garden. And when Beech began to grow, over 100 years ago, actually, it was from a pretty tiny seed. And if I had picked it up at that time, it would’ve seemed so small and weak, a little growing shoot and a few little roots.”And yet, there is what I call magic. It’s a life force in that little seed, so powerful that to reach the water that the tree will need, those little roots can work through rocks and eventually, push them aside. And that little shoot, to reach the sunlight which the tree will need for photosynthesis, can work its way through cracks in a brick wall, and eventually, knock it down.

    “And so we see the bricks and the walls as all the problems, social and environmental, that we have inflicted on the planet. So it’s a message of hope: hundreds and thousands of young people around the world can break through and can make this a better world.”

    What message does the Parable of the Beech Seed convey to you today?

  4. Discuss this: Educator Rachel Klinger Cain distinguishes between what she calls vertical morality (“the idea that morality comes from authority above”) and horizontal morality (which “prioritizes the well-being of our neighbors, communities and personal relationships,” according to author April Ajoy).”We act in ways that cause the least amount of harm to those around us, regardless of beliefs,” explains Ajoy. “Someone with vertical morality may help someone in need because they believe that’s what God wants them to do, … [while] someone with horizontal morality may help that same person for the benefit of the person that needs help.”

    People who practice horizontal morality, Ajoy says, actually come closest to a Christ-like approach, because doing so also acknowledges vertical morality. She points to Matthew 25, where Jesus says those who met the needs of the hungry, the naked, the stranger, the sick and the prisoner (horizontal morality) were showing love to him (vertical morality).

    “There’s a quote I heard often growing up … that says, ‘Some Christians are so heavenly-minded that they’re no earthly good.’ And I think that perfectly sums up the risks of holding solely to a vertical morality,” Ajoy says. “Our history is full of instances of Christians causing human suffering because they believed they were obeying God. And God’s will can be manipulated and weaponized for all sorts of harm.”

Responding to the News

Brainstorm how you and your church can encourage greater connection with the natural world, as a way to worship the Creator and learn how to more effectively care for the world God made.

Prayer suggested by Psalm 104:10-31; Genesis 1:24-31; Genesis 2:15; 1 Chronicles 29:11-13; Psalm 24:1-2; Matthew 6:25-34

O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. You provided plants for humans and animals to eat, and gave humans the responsibility to care for the natural world, and that design was very good. All that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; we all belong to you. Teach us to care for your creation just as you care for the birds of the air, the lilies of the field, the lowliest earthworm and the grass which is here today and gone tomorrow, so that you may rejoice in your human children just as you rejoice in all the rest of your creation. For your glory, we pray. Amen.

Copyright 2025 Communication Resources

And let us add—-don’t forget: 96.4%.

The Only Thing We Have to Fear is Fear (of Ourselves)  

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It was a cool-ish morning, a few degrees above chilly and several degrees above cold, the early sun making the warmth inside my car welcoming a few hours after results of this week’s elections had been announced.

As I had fast-walked my mile around the track at the Knowles YMCA in Jefferson City a few minutes earlier, two moments in history came to me as I thought about the first elections since Donald Trump began his second term.  Two phrases from those events  seemed appropriate:

“The people are coming, armed with pitchforks”  and “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”

And I thought the Tuesday results amounted to the people armed with political pitchforks, a story springing from the French Revolution of 1789. And my mind added a phrase: “and the grooves in the guillotine are being greased.”

It was October 5, 1789 when 7,000 angry women, armed not only with pitchforks but with pikes and muskets, marched six miles in the rain from Paris to the palace at Versailles to confront Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette about the people in Paris who were starving while the Royal First Family of France ate well in their palace. There had been significant events preceding the march including the famous Storming of the Bastille, the infamous Paris fortress and a prison for Parisians charged with various offenses against the crown, and the circulation of “The Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

Four days before the march, a banquet was thrown at the palace, welcoming the troops that had arrived to protect the royal family. There were toasts and expressions of loyalty to the throne, a lavish banquet that outraged the hungry people in Paris when the newspapers publicized it.

Now, on October 5, those 7,000 rain-dampened working women were at the palace chanting “Bread, Bread,” to the rhythm of a beating drum, a moment captured two centuries later in the Broadway musical Les Miserables:

When the beating of your heart
Echoes the beating of the drums
There is a life about to start
When tomorrow comes!

The twenty-thousand French National Guardsmen were unable to keep the women from breaching the gates and demanding Marie face them alone, which she did from a balcony. The mob by now recognized the strength of its position and demanded that she and the King accompany them back to Paris to witness the misery of the people from whom bread had been withheld.

They had no choice. The next day, they became prisoners of the revolution and two years later went to the guillotine.

The dropping of the blade on the neck of Louis XVI meant the future of France would involve no kings.

We will learn more a year from now how much the story of the No Kings movement in France almost 250 years ago will be played out in our streets against President Trump, who held a sumptuous Great Gatsby Party at Mar-a-Lago hours before the Food Stamp Program expired, leaving millions of his citizens wondering how they could afford bread and other necessities of life as he and his friends dined on fine food.

Tuesday’s election results from coast to coast showed an undeniable revolt against Donald Trump.  It is easy and perhaps simplistic to draw parallels with his party and the banquet at Versailles in 1789, when a ruler and his supporters ate very well at a time when many Americans wondered if they could afford bread—and other necessities.

Trump’s reaction to the results illustrates his tone-deaf self-centeredness, his attitude that he is above the mob: “Trump wasn’t on the ballot, and shutdown, were two reasons that Republicans lost elections tonight, according to pollsters,” he wrote in all capital letters on his social media page.  As usual, he did not cite any pollsters supporting his attitude.

The fact is, Trump WAS on the ballot Tuesday.  And his party loyalists who have tried to blame the shutdown entirely on minority Democrats clearly have not convinced a lot of voters they are speaking the truth.

Trump never campaigned for any of his party’s candidates in this election cycle. In the New York Mayor’s race, he didn’t even endorse his party’s candidate and his name-calling against the eventual winner failed bigly.

Our two political parties face important decisions in the aftermath..  Democrats need to keep the public pot boiling for 2026, perhaps not a huge problem as long as Donald Trump keeps doing and saying Donald Trump things.

Is it already too late for Republicans to keep control?  A year is a long time in politics. Candidates and parties historically have found ways to get off the mat.  The Democrats did it Tuesday. But Republicans surely must be questioning how much continued slavish loyalty to Donald Trump will be a major liability for them as individuals and as a party in 2026.

How relevant will Donald Trump be to what the party needs to do in the next year to avoid being irrelevant to voters?  The party surely must confront the reality of the danger Donald Trump embodies to its continued power.  How will the party move beyond him for its self-preservation?

Mayor-elect Zahron Mamdani of New York told well-wishers Tuesday night, “We can respond to oligarchy and authoritarianism with the strength it fears, not the appeasement it craves.  After all, if anyone can show a nation betrayed by Donald Trump how to defeat him, it is the city that gave rise to him.”

On March 4, 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt opened his first inaugural address this way:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today.

This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper.

So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory.

Republicans surely understand that they have been warned, that the No Kings rallies are now emboldened, the pitchforks are out, and the pikes are ready for Republican heads next year. The beating of the drum and the beating of the national heart will intensify.

After Tuesday’s elections, it appears the only thing the Republican Party has to fear is itself.

 

Brent

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Last weekend, Nancy and I drove to St. Joseph for the retirement party of my longtime Missourinet managing editor, Brent Martin.  Brent and I sat about four feet apart in the Missourinet newsroom for fifteen years before the company sent him to Lincoln, Nebraska to breathe new life into the Nebraska News Network.

He built the organization into a respected part of the Nebraska Capitol Press Corps before our parent company decided there just wasn’t enough money in Nebraska to continue support of the NRNs and abruptly shut it down.

We had hired Brent from our affiliate in St. Joseph, KFEQ, a historic station serving northwest Missouri, northeast Kansas, southwest Nebraska, and southeast Iowa.  But we had known Brent since he was a student at Central Missouri State (now the University of Central Missouri) in Warrensburg where he did the news on affiliate KOKO.

Brent wrapped up a 45-year career in broadcast journalism last week, having returned to his St. Joseph roots at KFEQ after the abrupt shutdown in Nebraska.

Brent was on top of a number of major stories in St. Jo and in Jefferson City and in Lincoln. CBS relied on him to cover the 1993 flood and its impact on northwest Missouri’s biggest city.  I trusted him implicitly to maintain the quality of the Missourinet operations when I was out of town.

That included the night 25 years ago when we lost Governor Carnahan.  Nancy and I were in Albuquerque, having just come down from our annual archaeological work in southwest Colorado, and watching the 10 .p.m. news on KOB-TV when the anchor reported that the airplane carrying Missour Governor and senatorial candidate Mel Carnahan was missing. We immediately switched to CNN and got the updated information that the plane had crashed.

I knew that Brent would be in the newsroom along with the other members of our staff and other staffers who would be drawn there by the events, and I knew he would have things well in hand.

And he did.  I told him to send someone to the Capitol and find Lieutenant Govenror Roger Wilson, who would become the new governor at almost any time.  One of the people who had rushed to the newsroom that night was my former assistant news director at KLIK, a Jefferson City Station that no longer exists—Clyde Lear, now the owner of Learfield Communications.

Brent gave Clyde a recorder and sent him to the Capitol to stick to Wilson. When Wilson was sworn in and, understandably under the circumstances, said he didn’t have anything to say, Clyde—ever the journalist—asked him one and got an answer.

Brent told me that as the a time grew closer to our first newscast of the day, at 5:55 a.m., he paused and collected himself after the intensive hours that had passed, and reminded himself that in a few minutes, thousands of Missourians would learn from him that Mel Carnahan was dead.

Throughout that long day, as Nancy and I drove almost 1,000 miles back to Jefferson City, the Missourinet, led by Brent, told Missourians about what things were developing in the wake of the tragedy.

Less than a year later, I was in Nashville for the opening of the national convention of radio and television news directors, due to start on September 12. Just as we were to start our pre-convention board meeting, the first airplane crashed into the first of the World Trade Center towers in Washington.   Again, it was Brent in charge of the Missourinet newsroom, running our coverage of state events that were affected by those two crashes.

Fortunately, I had driven to Nashville so I was not trapped as were several other news directors because all airline flights had been grounded indefinitely. When I got back to the newsroom, our operation hadn’t missed a beat.

I missed him when he went to Nebraska—-more because he was a dear friend more than anything else.  We talked about all kinds of stuff in our years together; politics, government, religion, families, cars—-Brent bled blue and white during the Kansas City Royals seasons and he bled red and yellow during the NFL season.  Our sports director, Bill Pollack, once confided to me, tongue in cheek, that he was always glad to see me back in the newsroom so he could get his sports business done because Brent always wanted to talk about the Royals or the Chiefs or the Tigers.

Being a journalist requires enduring energy for a long number of years. It’s exciting to be on the front row of history, whether it’s in city hall or a state capitol.  Sometimes it is frustrating. Sometimes it is boring. But it is always human and the role of a reporter is vitally necessary to our state and country. Brent spent his fifteen years as Missourinet Managing Editor covering the House while I camped out in the Senate trying to make the complicated process of making laws simple enough to explain to Missourians who need to know what their government does to, with, and for them.

Sometimes, it wasn’t fun at all—the Carnahan crash, the floods, the twin towers attacks.  And executions.  Brent and I covered 34 of them; he covered twelve before going to Nebraska where he became not only a reporter but also a source for other reporters when Nebraska had its first execution by lethal injection in 2018. We felt that the state should not exact its most serious penalty against someone without witnesses from the two statewide media organizations as witnesses.

Brent’s wife and daughter planned the retirement party at the church the family attends in St. Joseph.  One of the gifts he was given was a Chiefs jacket.  And there was a special guest:

Brent is looking forward to time to read and to write poetry and to spoil his two granddaughters. The big retirement gift from his family and friends is a trip to England next year. I gave him a small gift, something a baseball fan might appreciate—an official 1994 World Series baseball. The Royals weren’t in it but a baseball fan such as Brent Martin would appreciate it because nobody was in the World Series that year because of a players strike.

He’ll have plenty of time for Royals games after missing so many because he had to be up early the next morning to tell the people of St. Joseph, and for a few years the people Missouri and Nebraska what was going on around them.

I wrote a little poem in the card we gave him that began something like:

Guilt-free naps

With a cat on the lap

And the Chiefs on the TV….

And it went downhill from there.

I reminded him and Tammi of something Christopher Bond told me after he had retired from the U.S. Senate—that his wife said she married him for better or worse, but not for lunch.

We hope the Martins have better luck at figuring out the lunch thing that we have had. We’re okay with Monday through Wednesday and the weekends. But after eleven years, we still havne’t figured out Thursday and Friday.

I hope my friend Brent is more successful than I have been about lunch.

 

 

The Hating Terrorists

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President Trump has branded antifa a terrorist organization. It’s just more hot air because there is no organization named antifa. If there was, the word would be capitalized and would have a campaign bank account and would have officers he could arrest.

But if he wanted to see the face(s) of his enemy, all he had to do was watch some non-football news coverage last Saturday when organizers of more than 2,600 No Kings protests say more than seven million people had something to say to and about Donald Trump.

 

 

Organizers claimed a total of more than 7 million people turned out at more than 2,600 protests across the nation.

He missed a great chance by not dispatching his ICE goons to those rallies to round up antifa terrorists as well as brown people or people with names ending in “z,” and some plain American citizens while they were at it.

In an Air Force One news scrum, Trump called he rallies “a joke.”

“I look at the people and they’re not representatives of this country,” he continued. “I looked a all the brand new signs paid for, I guess it was made by Soros and other radical left lunatics…The demonstrations were very small, very ineffective, and the people who worked out, when you look at these people, those are not representatives of the people of the country. “

“And by the way,” he concluded. ”I’m not a King…I work my ass off to make our country great.”

George Soros is one of Trumpisms favorite boogeymen. And the phrase “radical left lunatics” was tiresome the second time he said it. But it’s his phrase of the moment so he’ll beat all the blood out of it.

The Speaker of the House and some other Republicans are calling these events “Hate America Rallies.”  But polls and rally turnouts indicate an awful lot of people aren’t buying the name game that Trump addicts try to apply to these gatherings.

And we don’t know what television coverage he was looking at, but those demonstrations were NOT “very small.”  And he is likely to learn in next year’s mid-term elections if they were, in fact, ineffective.

Organizers of anti-fascist or anti-kings rallies have to be careful, though It’s ten months before the 2026 primaries, more than a year before the general elections, especially in the Trumpmandered congressional districts.  The people behind the “No Kings” rallies—-that’s what they prefer to call themselves regardless of those who try to convince the public that these folks hate America—don’t want to peak too soon.

As far as these people being haters?  Au Contraire, mon frere.  These are people who love America and they love it enough to hold mass rallies that so far have burned no stores, looted no television shops, and broken no large numbers of windows.  In the sixties, anti-war demonstrators sometimes stuck flowers down the barrels of guns that soldiers were carrying.  Today, maybe some will give flowers to the ICE goons.

What organizers have to be careful about is peaking too soon.  This is a time for Democrats to be finding their strongest candidates and rounding up big money from Democrat or Independent million-and-billion-aires.

Antifa might need to go into what the Continental Army called “winter quarters,” to conserve energy and to let Mr. Trump give himself more and more rope.

Republicans who might notice the declining favorability of the Trump administration might wish to quit dismissing these events as “Hate America Rallies” and recognize them for what they are—people who love America and are concerned with the direction that President Trump is taking America. Name-calling will not eliminate the threat these rallies could be to their side of the aisle in a few months and might, in fact, only fuel the efforts of the No Kings folks. Finding a platform that is BETTER than what the “No Kings” voices are expressing and offering candidates more loyal to their oaths than to their president might be a better use of their time and resources.

What is happening now is likely to only intensify as elections draw closer and if the present direction of national leadership follows its present arc.

Those of us who remember the demonstrations of the sixties know that dismissal is the wrong direction to go.

It is dangerous to shake a beehive and believe you can ignore the swarm.

Vanity of Vanities. All is Vanity

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This phrase, drawn loosely from the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, came readily to mind the other day when word got out that the U. S. Mint has been ordered to plan production of one-dollar coins –apparently illegally—promoting our President.

If only he deserved such an honor, or ever will.

His self-absorption and self-promotion know no bounds. Previously, he had mused on how great it would be to make him the equal in stone of Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt. He believes he can jawbone his way to a peace prize he is massively unqualified to receive.  Now there is this proposal:

We aren’t sure what he means when he has “In God We Trust” as part of his image. He does have a pretty elevated image of himself but this much?

The Treasury Department apparently is on the verge of producing these things. Samples have been circulated within the Mint’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing and “set-up” coins have been ordered stamped.  Those are practice coins that make sure the new coins are properly designed  when they go into production.

Not that it matters to Trump, but some people believe the coin violates part of an 1866 law.  “No portrait or likeness of any living person shall be engraved or placed upon any of the bonds, securities, notes or postal currency of the United States,” it says. The provision was recently removed from the Treasury Department’s web page.

Reports in the public press note that the first Trump administration reversed a Treasury Department  plan to take Andrew Jackson off the $20 bill and replace him with the image of 19th century Black civil rights leader Harriet Tubman. Trump called the plan “pure political corruptness.”

The creation of the Trump Dollar had not been known until The Treasurer of the United States, Brandon Beach, posted on social media draft images of the coin—which will be legal tender going into circulation next year.  The blog site Defector.com quotes a Treasury Department source saying the usual process for creating such commemorative coins takes months and includes a review by the Citizens Coin Advisory Committee that last met on September 16 without any indication such a coin was in the works.

This coin proposal was whipped from nothing into pre-production, says the source, in four days—September 29-October 2.

Commemorative Coins also are supposed to be approved by Congress.  Congress hasn’t heard anything about this plan.

The Treasury Department put out a statement to USA TODAY puffing about the “historic leadership” of President Trump and saying, “While a final $1 dollar (our faithful editor hopes you will pardon the department’s redundancy) design has not yet been selected to commemorate the United States semiquincentennial, this first draft reflects well the enduring spirit of our country and democracy, even in the face of immense obstacles.

Nine years ago, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco underlined the ban on living persons appearing on our currency: “To avoid the appearance of a monarchy, it was long-standing tradition to only feature portraits of deceased individuals on currency and coin. That tradition became law with an 1866 Act of Congress.”

The Legal Institute at the Cornell Law School cites federal law: 31 U.S. Code 5112—“No coin issued may bear the image of a living former or current President.”

Congress passed a collectible coin law in 2020, during Trump’s first term authorizing the issuance of five different designs of commemorative coins for the nation’s 250th birthday. The Congress said one of the coins should honor a woman and others may honor innovators and Native Americans. There’s nothing about a President hijacking the idea.

Well, we all know of Trump’s disdain for the Constitution, the Congress, and the Federal Reserve. And we all know that he idolizes himself above all others who as individuals or as groups put him deep in their shadows in all kinds of criteria.

USA Today columnist Rex Huppke encapsulated the situation well, writing—

“The planned coin will be a commemorative,  presumably commemorating how everything is perfect now that Trump is president again! Perfect, as long as you disregard the fact that the government is shut down, National Guard troops are being dispatched to cities Trump diesn’t like, U. S. citizens ae routinely eing rounded up by masked and warrantless immigration agents inflation and food prices are rising, electricity prices are rising, the job market is weak, the president’s poll numbers are tanking , [and] Republicans are doing everything to avoid releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, and the 79-year-old Trump himself doesn’t seeme entirely tethered to reality.”  

Perhaps while his Treasury Department prepares to stamp thousands of these coins honoring him, it also can stamp out his own Nobel Peace Prize Medal—with his profile from the coin replacing that of Alfred Nobel.  Better yet, create the Trump Peace Prize that he can award to himself, much the same way he consistently wins the club championship at Mar-a-Liego. That’ll show those stuffy people in Stockholm a thing or two.

Or maybe he can arrange to ship a few thousand of these coins to his subjects to be used to pay his tariffs on many of the things he has arranged for his peasants to pay more for.

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The Bunny, the Bully, And A Sing-Along 

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It has been more than 46 years since a bunny has made headlines such as this—when President Jimmy Carter saw a swamp rabbit swimming his way and either splashed water on it or hit it with his canoe paddle to keep it away.

It was a minor thing, really, but you know how the press is. The Associated Press broke the story and the commentators and comedians started having a field day with Carter fending off a “killer rabbit.”

Now we have Bad Bunny lined up to do the halftime show at the Super Bowl, the first male Latin performer to do that show, and the MAGA crowd is having a cow.  Especially Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

When President Trump was asked for his reaction he offered his usual, “I never heard of him. I don’t know who he is” response, which he has used too often for us to count to deny knowing people he knows. “I don’t know why they’re doing it, it’s like crazy. … Then they blame it on some promoter that they hired to pick up entertainment. I think it’s absolutely ridiculous,” he continued.

Interesting, isn’t it, that it’s ridiculous to hire somebody he never heard of?

So, for him as well as for those of us of his well-advanced generation, here’s some information about BB and why the MAGA crowd has its undies in such a knot:

He’s 31 years old, a performer from Puerto Rico (real name: Benito Antonio Martínez Ocasio) who has made Spanish rap music popular worldwide. He’s been a star for almost a decade. From 2020-2023 he was the world’s most-streamed artist on Spotify. His sixth studio album, described as “a love letter to Puerto Rico and his heritage, was number one on the Billboard Top 100 albums earlier this year.

He’s also a WWE pro wrestler and a former 24/7 champion, which—if he weren’t Puerto Rican—might entitle him to take part in the 80th Trump birthday celebration wrestling matches at the White House.

Earlier this year he wrapped up a 23-performance tour of Latin America, Europe, Japan, and Australia—but not the United States because of concerns that ICE would pounce on fans going to his shows.

And that is what has smoke coming out the ears of some MAGA people, including Noem who has proclaimed that her ICE agents will be out in force at the Super Bowl.

In an interview, it was clear that she has become a graduate of the Trump School of Nonsense: “I have the responsibility for making sure everybody who goes to the Super Bowl has the opportunity to enjoy it and to leave, and that’s what America’s about. So yeah, we’ll be all over that place. We’re going to enforce the law. So, I think people should not be coming to the Super Bowl unless they’re law-abiding Americans who love this country.”

As for the NFL, she spouted this head-scratcher: “Well, they suck and we’ll win, and God will bless us and we’ll stand and be proud of ourselves at the end of the day, and they won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe. And they’re so weak, we’ll fix it.”

Huh?

Her intelligence deficit was mirrored by MAGA influencer Tomi Lahren on her podcast interview with The Hill’s Krystal Ball (yes, Krystal Marie Ball is her real name), when Lahren asked Ball what she thought about whether BB was a good choice for the halftime show.  Ball admitted she didn’t know much about him but that he “seems like a great American artist, so sure.”

That’s when Lahren put her foot in it. “He’s not an American artist, but—”

Ball: “He’s Puerto Rican. That’s part of America, dear.”

Huff Post reported Lahren plunged ahead and criticized BB’s criticism of ICE only to have Ball remind her, “America agrees with him on that…A majority of Americans think ICE has gone too far. They’ve watched videos of, like, 79 year old business owners being slammed to the ground and their ribs broken by ICE. So I think the American people are probably on board with that message at this point.”

The best retort Lahren could offer was, “Whoever you’re talking to, I’m sure is. I’m not so sure the rest of the country is.”

Well, the fake news just reports fake polls, you know, and you shouldn’t pay attention to them.  It’s better, after all, to believe the First Golfer, who says he’s so popular that nobody has ever seen anything like it, to quote one of his favorite phrases.

Also chiming in is longtime Trumper Corey Lewandowski, now an adviser in the Homeland Security Department (If you can’t give a favorite ego-feeding supporter a specific job at the public trough, you can always make them an “advisor.”), who called the BB announcement “shameful” and charged Bunny “just seems to hate America so much.”

Lewandowski is lying. BB doesn’t hate America. But he doesn’t want his fans put in the sights of ICE agents emboldened by Lewandowski’s boss.  Bunny told i-D magazine, “There were many reasons why I didn’t show up in the U. S. and none of them were out of hate.” He recalled he had performed “successful” and “magnificent” concerts many times and has “enjoyed connecting with Latinos who have been living in the U.S.”

The whole incident has become great fodder for internet denizens.

Trump’s antagonism toward Puerto Rico is widely known. When he tried to fire three members of a board that oversees the territory’s financial management, a federal district judge ruled he had likely violate constitutional due process rights and federal law.

Last year, a comedian at a Trump fund raiser referred to Puerto Rico as “a floating island of garbage.” Trump’s reaction to Tony Hinchcliffe’s comment was the usual: “I don’t know him, someone put him up there. I don’t know who he is.” But he didn’t repudiate it.

He told a Puerto Rican native at a campaign roundtable in Pennsylvania, “We helped you through a lot of bad storms. I’ll tell you we really had some bad ones. You remember you were there when I brought the hospital ship against everyone’s advice and we got it there and took care of a lot of people. But I think no president’s done more for Puerto Rico than I have.”

Few viewed his visit to Puerto Rico some nine days after Hurricane Maria in 2017 as anything more than “insulting,” as San Juan Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz,  a “PR, 17-minute meeting.” They remember that he threw paper towels to a room crowded with victims hoping for something much more important, a “terrible and abominable” image that “does not embody the spirit of the American nation.”

“They had these beautiful, soft towels. Very good towels,” he recalled on a Trinity Broadcasting Network interview. There was a crowd of a lot people. And they were screaming and they were loving everything. I was having fun.”

He visited only one small part of the island for a short time—-and then piled insult on insult by minimizing what was facing those people who needed a whole lot more than paper towels. “Every death is a horror,” he said, “but if you look at a real catastrophe like Katrina and you look at the tremendous—hundred and hundreds and hundres of people that died, and you look at what happened here, with really a storm that was just totally overpowering, nobody’s ever seen anything like this.”  He belittled the storm by noting there had been only sixteen confirmed deaths. Mayor Cruz said Trump showed no interest in reaching out to suffering Puerto Ricans.

About that hospital ship: Reuters reported the Pentagon did not dispatch it until three days after defeated presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said on Twitter that Trump and his Secretary of Defense James Mattis “should send the Navy…to Puerto Rico now. These are American citizens.” Further, the Inspector General in the Housing and Urban Development saw calculated  that the administration had withheld about $20 billion in hurricane relief after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria in 2017.

MSNBC talked to the Executive Director of Deadline Hollywood, Dominic Patten, who says Noem’s comments and the MAGA World’s reaction to the Super Bowl choice is rooted in three things—a hatred of capitalism (“Bad Bunny’s a big star; he’s going to make a lot of money for the NFL”), ignorance (“They might want to remember that Puerto Rico IS part of America”), and “a bit of the loser syndrome” (BB’s criticism of ICE).

As far as Noem’s claim that the NFL sucks, is weak, and “won’t be able to sleep at night because they don’t know what they believe,” Patten responds, “The NFL don’t care. The NFL is the NFL. They’re the biggest game in town.” Digit elevated.

The Super Bowl halftime show is organized by Roc Nation, founded by rapper Jay-Z, considered the “live music entertainment strategist for the NFL.”  The show is sponsored by Apple Music.

“Let’s also not be naïve,” said Patten. The NFL and Jay-Z knew exactly what they were doing. They decided to poke the paper bear and they’ve done a very good job of it.”

Well, the paper bear has decided to let loose with a jingoistic growl (We’ll save you the effort of looking up “jingoism,” by citing Britannica’s definition: “an attitude of  belligerent nationalism, adherence to the rightness or virtue of one’s own nation, society, or group, simply because it is one’s own.”). Turning Point USA. Charlie Kirk’s creation, has announced it is going to host “The All -American Halftime Show” as an Bunny alterative. It is taking an online survey of what music its adherents want. The first choice is “Anything in English,” a cheap shot at BB, who performs in Spanish.

It is clear that Mr. Bunny, although a native of a United States territory, just isn’t American enough for the TPUSA/MAGA crowd.

What do you want to bet that the song getting the biggest crowd reaction at that alternate even will be Lee Greenwood’s God Bless the USA.

Tell you what—let’s look at the lyrics.

If tomorrow all the things were gone
I’d worked for all my life

(Such as the freedom to express an opinion without someone in an Army uniform pepper-spraying me or some goon in a mask and without a warrant yanking me into a white van and hauls me to a crowded lockup while my terrified family wonders where I am)

And if I had to start again
With just my children and my wife
I’d thank my lucky stars
To be livin’ here today

(unless my wife and our children who were born here are being deported to some secret and awful place.)

‘Cause the flag still stands for freedom

(unless I want to read a banned book, visit a museum that tells the truth about our history, or go to a national park that doesn’t have oil wells sticking up from the ground.)

And they can’t take that away

(Oh, yes they can. And they’re trying for more.)

And I’m proud to be an American
Where at least I know I’m free

(as long as I buy into the right kind of religion, don’t have a funny sounding name, think the 2020 election was stolen, and believe all I need to prove my Americanism is to wear a red baseball cap with the right letters on it)

And I won’t forget the men who died
Who gave that right to me

(Sixty-five thousand Puerto Ricans served our country in World War II including the seven Medina brothers known as “The Fighting Medinas,” and Agustin Ramos Calero, known as the “One Man Army,” who won the Silver Star and 21 other medals and decorations. About fifty were killed. About 48,000 Puerto Ricans served in Vietnam. About 350 were KIA and five earned the Medal of Honor.)

And I’d gladly stand up
Next to you and defend her still today

(Even if you think I should not be allowed to perform a Super Bowl halftime show.)

‘Cause there ain’t no doubt I love this land
God bless the USA

(I agree.  I love this land as you do. But I think Abrham Lincoln had his priorities straight when he purportedly said, “I do not boast that God is on my side; I humbly pray that I am on his.”

One of the immediate reactions to the Turning Point announcement was to have Bad Bunny throw paper towels into the crowd to make a political point that would remind the audience of the Trump visit.

But that would be lowering himself to their level.

Here’s what would be incredibly classy and what would at the same time send a powerful message:

(Here, let’s sing the song together:

Si mañana todas las cosas se hubieran ido–If tomorrow all the things were gone
He trabajado toda mi vida—I’d worked for all my life
Y tuve que empezar de nuevo—And I had to start again
Sólo con mis hijos y mi esposa—With just my children and my wife

Agradeceré a mis estrellas de la suerte—I’d thank my lucky stars
Vivir aquí hoy—To be livin’ here today
Porque la bandera sigue en pie por la Libertad—Cause the flag still stands for freedom
Y no pueden quitarlo—And they cant take that away

Y estoy orgulloso de ser americano—And I’m proud to be an American
Donde al menos sé que soy libre—Where at least I know I’m free
Y no olvidaré a los hombres que murieron—And I won’t forget the men who died
¿Quién me dio ese derecho?—Who gave that right to me

Y con mucho gusto me levanto—And I gladly stand up
Junto a ti y defiéndala todavía hoy—Next to you and defend her still today
Porque no hay duda, amo esta tierra—Cause there ain’t no doubt, I love this land
Dios bendiga a los Estados Unidos—God bless the USA

Just between thee and me, I’d love to hear Bad Bunny sing this song in Spanish at the end of the halftime show, maybe while the words were on the big scoreboard screens so the audience could sing along. That would be delicious.

MAGA is too young to remember Jimmy Carter and how embarrassing and foolish a person can appear to be if they think a bunny is dangerous.

Preserving the Truth of History

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A few days ago, I went to Springfield to speak at the annual meeting of the National Trail of Tears Association.

The Association represents the volunteers who preserve the heritage of the trail and of the forced removal, 1831-1838, of the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Seminole and the Muscogee (Creek) Nations from their ancestral homes in the southeast to what is now eastern Oklahoma.

Various sources indicate 55,400-64,275 people were removed. Before the caravans reached athe place that President Jackson said would let them “cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community,” ten to 12,800 had died.

This is how the speech concluded:

It has been an honor to speak to this group at this time in our history when a concerted effort is underway to treat a lot of things as if they never happened —and when a 21st Century Trail of Tears is tragically underway, another time when people who are considered “as unqualified residents near civilized communities” are being sent off to uncertain futures in strange lands.

I wonder, as we look back 200 years to commemorate the Trail of Tears and to honor those who were forced to travel it, as well as those who showed those travelers mercy, if our descendants 200 years from now will look at the mass deportation program the same way we look at the Trail of Tears. Or the Trail of Death*.

As Chief Hoskin** noted last night, on March 27th, President Trump signed an executive order he called “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History” by ordering the rewriting of it so that embarrassing moments would be wiped from the public telling of our heritage.

It appears no historic site will be immune to his efforts to, as he put it, “restore Federal sites dedicated to history, including parks and museums, to solemn and uplifting public monuments that remind Americans of our extraordinary heritage, consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect Union, and unmatched record of advancing liberty, prosperity, and human flourishing.”  

Have no doubt about what this is.  It is more than an executive order. It is a declaration of cultural war on the people of this nation, and the nations within this nation.

I am not sure that reminding Americans “of our extraordinary heritage” is consistent with effort to whitewash reality.

He also referred to “ideological indoctrination of divisive narratives that distort our shared history,” or, at least, his warped view of it. He appears not to understand that truth is not “ideological indoctrination.”

He complained that “the widespread effort to rewrite history deepens societal divides and fosters a sense of national shame, disregarding the progress America has made and the ideals that continue to inspire millions around the globe.” 

He is right…but he is right about himself.

The danger is that such rewriting of history can be little more than returning to a past where societal divides were deeper, where acts of national shame were more acceptable, and the progress we have made that inspires millions around the world is wiped out.

I want to hear how he and his enablers can sanitize the smallpox blanket.

I want to hear how the destruction of the friendly Wampanoags and King Phillip’s War is “ideological indoctrination.

I want to hear how they can describe Sand Creek, Washita, and Wounded Knee as “consistent progress toward becoming a more perfect union.”

I want to know how the subjugation of the Apaches, the story of Chief Joseph, and the betrayal of Red Cloud is an “unmatched record of advancing liberty.”

How did the Indian Boarding School lead to “human flourishing.”

How the markers of the Trail of Tears are “uplifting public moments.”

I want to know which is more sacred: The Chinese-published Trump Bible with the lyrics of “Proud to be an American,” or Black Elk’s prayer on Harney Peak to the Great Mysterious One.***

That is why we cannot allow stories such as the Trail of Tears to be rewritten, with truth being excised by a person with limited or no appreciation for the work this organization does and what it stands for.

A President who threatens actions against professional sports teams unless they start calling themselves Redskins and Indians again will never understand the nobility of the kind of cause this group advocates..

Some politicians only seek the truth to distort it for their own ends. Greatness does not flow from distorted truth that hides our flaws, but—instead—flows from protecting the truth so we may grow beyond those flaws.

That is what museums are for. That is what historic sites and parks are for and that is what historical organizations are for—to remind us that this country is not a finished work, that it does not become better, let alone greater, by ignoring our past mistakes, our nation’s wrongs, and those who lived them and worked to correct them.

One reason to study history is to understand that greatness is created by today’s honesty about yesterday facts—and understanding that truth, not the obscuring  of it, builds a stronger people.  And a stronger people are a free-er people than demagogues and despots want us to be. 

A nation that hides its truths will not become great. REVEALING the truth is what gives a nation the opportunity to be better than before.

That is our responsibility, our challenge, as historians.

Others might fear us because of that. But we must never fear them.

We must never allow ourselves to be silenced—-for history is the nation’s conscience and we must never abandon the search for the truth in it.

We cannot escape history.  Indeed, our challenge today is to save it, to fight those who would rewrite it for their own benefit.

Reveal the truth, preserve the truth, speak the truth, BE the truth—and our nation will remain free.

*The Trail of Death crosses north Missouri, the path the Potawatomi Nation followed to what became Kansas when they were removed from their ancestral lands in Indiana and Illinois. It was a much smaller group but an estimated 40 of the 859 participants died en route.

**Chuck Hoskin Jr., is the Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation, the largest Native American Nation, with 45,000 citizens.

***You can learn about each of these issues with internet searches.  I recommend a YouTube video of the speech of Black Elk, described by narrator John G. Neihardt, a personal friend and biographer who described Black Elk as the “last of the great Sioux Indian Holy Men.”)

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 We are Victims of Trump’s Absurd Tariffs

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—-and I am furious.

(My monthly guest column on the editorial page of the Jefferson City News-Tribune addressed this topic yesterday but of necessity it was much shorter and somewhat less candid, perhaps because I had lowered the steam pressure after starting on this version.)

There must be a reason why the highly-praised Wharton School that President Trump attended has never invited him back as a speaker. I wonder if anyone has investigated to find out who wrote his papers for him or even took tests for him.

His favorite course must have been Bankruptcy 101 and he must have slept through class every day the word “tariff” came up. The graduation program for his class does not list him for any honors and just has his name among all of the other graduates.

Stop me before I tell you what I really think.

Here is a story some nice people in a gentle English town. Stay with us. By the time we are finished the story will be about a person in a big American town who puts the “bully” into the ;political phrase “bully pulpit.”

(The phrase began with Theodore Roosevelt, one of the four faces on Mt. Rushmore, a monument he thinks he should—something even less possible than him winning the Nobel Price for Peace.)  TR used the word “bully” as an adjective for “wonderful” or “superb.”

Sorry about that. We have wandered off the path.

Grasmere, a village of about 4,500 people in England’s Lake District, has been known for decades as the home of numerous poets, writers, artists, philosophers and other notables.

Poets William and sister Dorothy Wordsworth described it as “the loveliest spot that man hath ever found.”

William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner) are considered the founders of English Literature’s “Romantic Age.” Coleridge is said to have “muttered stanzas” of the Rime” while walking about the countryside nearby. The Wordsworths lived for a few years in Dove Cottage, where Coleridge also lodged for a time.

The Dove Cottage is still there as is The Swan, an inn where William sometimes dined with the famous poet Walter Scott.

More recently, Gordon Matthews Thomas Sumner had a home there. The world knows him better as the musical artist, Sting.

Perhaps better known than the poets, philosophers, and other notables who have lived there is Beatrix Potter, who gave the world Peter Rabbit and his friends. She also lived in the Lake District.

It was a coolish, dampish English day when we were there and we didn’t get to spend as much time as we wished, but that’s a penalty we paid for trying to hit some of the highlights of three countries—England, Wales, and Scotland in two weeks.

We had our lunch at the Grasmere Tea Room, ate outside on that pleasantly cool afternoon. I think we had Paninis, having a desire to break from fish and chips (we call them French Fries here). But we had been warned of interlopers that we were told were particularly aggressive that day—Jackdaws, a relative of crows and ravens. They liked to snatch food from tables.

Grasmere is, as is the case with many European communities, an old place, one where a 200-year old building is still relatively new.  We have avoided describing it as “picturesque” because we imagine the locals have heard their town referred to that way and it has become cloying to them.

And “quaint” is a condescending word, too, so we didn’t use it.  We liked Grasmere. It’s one of several small places we visited that we’d like to return to, despite the Jackdaws.

To the ancient Celts, Jackdaws were sacred birds that nested in church steeples, symbolic church guards. Like their Crow and Raven relatives, they are considered quite intelligent. We kind of thought the one perched on the back of a chair about twenty feet from our table was scheming to poach some of our lunch. But we kept a sharp eye on it and never let it have a chance.

What has all of this to do with Trump’s politically silly and nationally-damaging tariffs? We have vented about this in earlier posts but this time it’s personal.

Our excellent tour guide, Charlie Reader, gave us something else for which Grasmere is widely known.

We each got a couple of hand-wrapped gingerbreads. And we loved them.

More than 170 years ago, Victorian Cook Sarah Nelson began making gingerbreads in her 17th century home, using her “secret recipe” (that is still secret).  Grasmere Gingerbreads are a cross between a cake and what the English call a biscuit—a cracker to us.

Sarah’s secret recipe now is guarded by Joanne and Andrew Hunter, third generation owners of the business which still operates from Sarah’s house. I wish we had known of the gingerbread house before we left the town—and had the time to visit it.  But bus tours being bus tours, we had to be on our way after lunch.

The BBC has provided some looks at Sarah’s story and the wonderful products she created.

Bing Videos

Bing Videos

When we got home, I decided to secretly order a dozen of these gingerbreads to be delivered to our home each month. It was going to be a surprise Christmas present for Nancy but the surprise fell though when Diane Gallagher (probably) called from Grasmere and Nancy answered the phone. “There’s a lady from Grasmere on the phone asking for you,” she announced before listening to the conversation. Diane was calling to confirm the order.  The first order came in the tin you see here. Subsequent orders have come in hand-wrapped paper packaging and are refills for the tin.

Each month we have looked forward to finding our little package by our front door about the 10th of each month.  But on September 5, we received a note from Diane announcing the package had been shipped three days earlier but she understood “there have been delays at Customs and your parcel is due for delivery today.”

Then she wrote:

We believe the delays are because the US Government has now abolished the exemption for any parcel under a value of $800 from import duties.  This may mean that you will be liable for import duties on delivery of the parcel.  We are still trying to find out exactly what this will mean in monetary terms, but have reason to believe that for the next six months there will be a flat fee of $80 per parcel being sent from the UK. 

Eighty dollars on a $30 package!!!

This is the results of Donald Trump’s ill-advised removal of the “de minimis” exemption for small packages from foreign countries. Packages worth less than $800 were exempt from tariffs until August 29 when he decided even the smallest item would cost a lot more.

The Universal Postal Union says postal deliveries from around the world to the United States dropped by EIGHTY PERCENT within two weeks after our economic genius President scribbled his name on the bottom of his executive order.

We were supposed to take delivery on Wednesday, September 10. Instead we got a “reschedule” notice from UPS telling us, “UPS is preparing your package for clearance. We will notify you if additional information is needed.”

Diane told us it would be okay to refuse to pay the duties. Afterward the company could tell the UPS to destroy the parcel and the amount remaining on our order would be refunded.

The order from Grasmere was held up for the better part of a week before it cleared customs in Louisville, Kentucky (why Louisville, we don’t know), and was to arrive at our house on Wednesday, September 10.

We decided to pay the duty because the folks in Grasmere had produced the gingerbreads and had shipped them to us in good faith but we decided to have them hold onto the rest of our funds until our country regained this small part of its sanity and allows something so benign as Grasmere Gingerbread to be shipped to Missouri without a duty or a tariff that our President is unable to admit punishes his own citizens.

Trump says his tariffs will force foreign manufacturers to build factories in this country. I am quite sure that Joann and Andrew Hunter are not going to establish a gingerbread manufacturing plant in this country because of this petty policy.

But if you are accumulating evidence of how idiotic Trump’s tariff policy is working, we offer this observation as a good example.

We are puzzled by the whole tariff/duty business even more because while we were waiting for our gingerbreads to trickle through the customs bureaucracy, we found a book on our doorstep that we had ordered from a company in Delhi, India.  It took only ten days from the day I ordered it for it to arrive. I ordered the book on September 5. The company in Delhi gave it to FedEx on the tenth and five days later it was on my doorstep. Clearly, somebody in the customs office was asleep at the switch.

The gingerbreads?  They were mailed on September 2, three days before the book was ordered and eight days before the book was shipped.

On Friday, September 25, we got a notice from UPS:

The status of your package has changed.

Exception Reason: The customs clearance has failed and the shipment is abandoned

UPS told us on September 10 that the package was being prepared for clearance. We were to be notified if more information was needed.  We were not notified of anything until the message that Grasmere Gingerbread package apparently is such a threat to our national security that it would be dangerous for it to be shipped from Louisville, Kentucky where it has been losing its freshness for three weeks.

We got a new note from from Diane;

On 18th September we asked UPS to destroy the parcels that had not cleared Customs, but it appears that this has not yet happened for all parcels.  As well as the severe delays through Customs, it appears that parcels valued at less than £20 are incurring import duties of just under $70, which is just not viable.  For these reasons, our directors have taken the decision to suspend shipping to the US and Canada temporarily. 

I am very sorry about this. 

UPS told us:

Exception Reason: Package cannot clear due to customs delay or missing info. Attempt to contact sender made. Package has been disposed of.

Amazing. After all these months, UPS told us the reason UPS apparently could not get a straight answer from the customs people about the reason—it’s either “customs delay” or it’s “missing info.”  What missing info?   We are unlikely to ever learn why there was a delay and what information was missing in this shipment that wasn’t a problem earlier.

It’s a little package of a dozen Gingerbreads, for God’s sake!!!

It’s disgusting. But our president has taken “disgusting” to unprecedented levels in so many things.

I have notified Diane of our sincere apologies for the embarrassment this administration is. I wish we could go back to that beautiful part of our world to do it in person—-

—because he is creating so many things to apologize to the world for.

Is it too late for Wharton to ask for its diploma back?

(photos by BP. Gingerbread by the Grasmere Gingerbread Co., videos from the BBC)

A New County 

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We’ve commented in the past about whether some of our county names should be changed to honor more contemporary heroes—and maybe reject some scalawags who we learn from history weren’t really worth honoring in the first place.

More than 110 years ago a distinguished Missouri politician introduced a bill to change the name of one of our counties.

We discovered his suggestion among our clippings.  It’s part of a column from the Taney County Republican, January 30, 1913

The column began, “Until a few years after the war, the city of St. Louis was the seat of St. Louis County. When, by authority of an act of the legislature, the voters of the city and the county adopted the ‘scheme and charter.’

“St. Louis became a separate jurisdiction, a county within itself, under the name ‘The City of St. Louis’ and the county became known as ‘the County of St. Louis.’ The county seat was established at the city of Clayton and a courthouse was erected on land donated by a citizen of that name. It has never since had any legal connection with the city of St. Louis, although comparatively few of the people of the State know yet that St. Louis is not in St. Louis County.

“Deeds and legal documents intended for county officials and courts and lawyers are often mailed to St. Louis and important legal documents affecting property and persons in the city of St. Louis are often mailed to Clayton. The confusion created by the use of name St. Louis for the county has been a source of annoyance for many years to both city and county.”

He proposed renaming St. Louis County “Grant” County, honoring the Union General and later President who once lived there and married into a prominent family, the Dents. “There was a time when name of Grant was not popular in that county,” said the newspaper. “But that day has passed.”

“The name of the famous general to whom Lee surrendered is more honored than any other name connected to St. Louis County. No name could be more appropriate for St. Louis County than the name of Grant. If the name of that county is ever changed, it should be called Grant. That it eventually will be changed is hardly to be doubted.”

We know, of course, that his bill didn’t make it.  One reason is that Michael McGrath didn’t make it, either.  It’s an interesting proposal, too, because it came from a former Confederate soldier.

His name means nothing to most of those who labor in the halls of the Capitol now.  But in his time, Michael McGrath was a political power.  And his influence is still felt in Missouri government today.

He was the Secretary of State who created the Official State Manual, known colloquially as “the Blue Book” but called when first published in 1878 “Almanac and  Official Directory of  Missouri.” It contained all of the information about state government in 72 pages.

McGrath was born in 1844 in Ballymaloe Civil Parish, County Cork, Ireland and was raised on a farm and educated in a parish school.  He went to the National School in Kinsale, a small village in the southeast corner of Ireland where he studied to be a teacher.  He became one at age 16.

(Kinsale is the home to a lot of famous people we Americans have never heard of except for William Penn, the founder of the colony of Pennsylvania.  Nearby is Old Kinsale Head, a piece of land jutting into the Atlantic that has a lighthouse and the remains of an old castle.  About eleven miles out to sea from Kinsale Head, the liner Lusitania was torpedoed and sunk in 1915.)

He was among the thousands of Irish citizens driven to this country by the Great Potato Famine and general civic unrest in Ireland, arriving after a nine-week voyage in New Brunswick in 1850 and immediately gong to Maine before going to New York a few months later in 1851. He was convinced to come to Missouri by reading The St. Louis Republic in the Astor Room New York City Libray. He arrived here in July, 1856.

Just two days after his arrival, his good handwriting landed him a job with the St. Louis County Recorder.  After declaring himself a Democrat, he was hired as a a deputy clerk in the criminal court in 1861. He served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War but signed a loyalty oath at the end that let him take a bar examination and become a lawyer.  He was a clerk in various city and court offices until he was elected Secretary of State in 1874.

He served fourteen years, a term in the office not exceeded for a century when Jimmy Kirkpatrick served five four-year terms.

He got into the newspapering business, owning and operating an Irish-oriented paper, The Celt, and the Sedalia Democrat. He also was a major stockholder of the Jefferson City Tribune.

He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1912 but he died shortly after taking office on January 28, 1913 “after a brief illness.”  He was 79 and had had heart trouble and problems with bronchitis.

Michael Knowles McGrath is an unfortunately forgotten figure in Missouri history.

St. Louis County is still St. Louis County. But Grant County is a pretty good idea for someplace. Surely a legislature that is always willing to make a fourth-grader’s dream come true by choosing a new state symbol could devote as much time to assessing whether some famous person has worn out his welcome with one of our counties.

(Photo Credit: State Official Manual, 1913)

 

I Am An American Citizen 

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I am a citizen of the United States of America, not because of anything I have done to deserve it but because it is my birthright. I was born here and that is all I need.  I am not the child of former slaves but, instead, am a descendant of a long line of white Northern Europeans who came here for the same reason brown people from the central and southern American continent come here today—with hope and for opportunity.

I am an American Citizen, a hyphenated German-French-Scots-Irish-English-American, whose ancestors by their everyday lives helped this country achieve a greatness too easily given away. I am married to a Swedish-American Citizen whose ancestors came here for the same reasons mine did—with hope, seeking a better and safer life than they had and could have in their old countries.  We are proud of our hyphens.

I am an American Citizen because the first person with my name settled in Virginia on land granted him by Queen Elizabeth I because of his work as the captain of a privateer who fought pirates on the Spanish Main. The first name is a common one in the family and carries with it genetic linkages to a courageous forefather.

I am American Citizen proud of the good that our country has achieved regardless of how increasingly embarrassed I might be with what its contemporary leadership wants it to be.

I am an American Citizen who loves his country even when given manifold opportunities to dislike it.

I am an American Citizen free to practice my religion but not free to force others to adopt it, and free to object to those who by social or legal means try to force their religion on me.

I am an American Citizen who respects the National Guard but will oppose a National Police. I will not show an identity card to one of them who greets me at my polling place or anywhere else. Nor will I acknowledge them as I walk freely down any street where they have been directed to patrol.

I am an American Citizen who believes my voting records are between me and my county election authority and no one, not even a federal agency, has any right to them.

I am an American Citizen who believes I can call myself by any party name I wish at any time in my life, and—in fact—have spent my life loyal to no party, which also is my right as an American Citizen.

I am an American Citizen unafraid of my past, knowing that slavery WAS “that bad,” and acknowledging that some members of the southern branch of my family undoubtedly owned black people. I will not apologize for them; the historical records are unavoidable despite any efforts to obscure them. The “original sin” of America remains a sin only if we continue to avoid responsibilities all of us share with and for each other regardless of color, heritage, belief, or self-identity today.

I am an American Citizen who believes acknowledging the past and moving to correct its faults is a mark of national greatness, who believes it takes more courage to correct than to hide, that hiding is a sign of American Cowardice. Progress, not regression, makes greatness.

I am an American Citizen who cherishes my right to see, to hear, to read, to learn, and to therefore think and act, a library board president who will vigorously oppose all who profess to be the ones who can dictate truth or limit opportunities to find it, an information consumer who abhors the consolidation of media on the basis of financial self-interest above the public interest, particularly that segment overseen by a federal government agency with licensing power that wants to control the variety of voices we once had and must regain.                                                                                                                            I am an American Citizen who refuses to believe that all other rights in all other amendments are possible because of the Second Amendment.

I am an American Citizen who believes none of the other amendments would be possible without the FIRST Amendment. In particular, I believe all have a right to responsible speech, agreeable to me or not and the right to petition our government for redress of infringements on the rights granted to me by national documents and physical heritage.

I am an American Citizen who will not tolerate those who seek power or seek to maintain it through division, derision, and disrespect.

I am an American Citizen because I believe we can be better tomorrow than today, by building on the best of what we have been, not tearing down the good that we are.

I am an American citizen who does not believe in the melting-pot but instead believes we are a stew made tastier by the separate ingredients that meld, not melt, within the national bowl.

I am an American Citizen who hates hate except toward those who fuel hate, take advantage of hate, and themselves hate others.

I am an American Citizen who fears not the present because he remembers the past and therefore can hope for a better future. .

I am an American Citizen who needs not wrap himself in the flag to proclaim his patriotism but will display his love of country in his daily living and his daily defense of all who seek, as our founders put it, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I am an American Citizen because I will not give up on my country, be accused of giving up on my country, or being told I must leave behind the country where I have lived for all of my life.

I am American Citizen who will not live by bumper sticker mottos but lives by thought and deed, and the words of Thomas Wolfe:

…To every man his chance—to every man, regardless of his birth, his shining, golden opportunity—to every man the right to live, to work, to be himself, and to become whatever thing his manhood and his vision can combine to make him — this, seeker, is the promise of America.

I am an American Citizen who will never forsake that promise—

—because I have lived it.

I

Am

An

AMERICAN

CITIZEN!

(Advertisement is from the Columbia Daily Tribune, probably in the 70s; Cartoon by Wiley Miller, distributed by Andrews McMeel Publishing)