history

This Land: Connecticut

LISTEN: If you want to understand the United States of America, and you’re in a hurry, you could do worse than look at Connecticut. It’s a real grab bag of a place. It’s got all the shiny things and all the sharp, rusty things America keeps in its pockets. It’s a place of beautiful, brilliant minds, some of which are put to work making new and interesting ways to blow people to pieces.

C’EST LA: They had a war there, once. The Pequot War. This was long before the powdered wigs and the Declaration of Independence. It was just plain, old-fashioned barn-burner. And then, not so long ago, a young man walked into a school called Sandy Hook and did something so awful it’s hard to write words about it. Between those two points, you will find a long and profitable history of making tools for the unfortunate vocation of killing people and breaking things.

A man named David Bushnell built a submarine there called the Turtle. This was way back. It was supposed to sneak up on British ships and make them go away forever. It didn’t work so well, but we’ve been perfecting the idea ever since. Now Connecticut is home to companies with names that sound like comic book villains. Raytheon. Pratt & Whitney. Lockheed Martin. They make clever things that fly very fast and then explode. Busy, busy, busy. And the money rolls in.

But here’s the thing about people: they are messy, unpredictable creatures. For every looper building a bomb, there’s another sitting in a quiet room, trying to write a letter that might save the world.

Connecticut had one of the best letter-writers of all time. His name was Sam Clemens, but he called himself Mark Twain. He lived in a big, beautiful, goofy house in Hartford. He had a mustache. He saw all the greed and the violence and the hucksterism, and he thought it was the saddest and funniest thing in the world. He used free speech like a fire hose. He pointed it at hypocrisy and cruelty and tried to wash some of the filth away.

And not far from him lived a woman named Harriet Beecher Stowe. She wrote a letter about owning other human beings. It made a lot of powerful people very, very angry. That’s how you know a letter is doing its job. She was using her brain and a bottle of ink to fight against loopers using whips and chains.

It’s enough to give you an existential whiplash…?

And get this: back in the day, the political party of Democrats in Connecticut thought the Civil War was a bad idea. They weren’t too bothered about the whole slavery business. Now, of course, that same party in that same state plants signs in every lawn about diversity and inclusion. The names on the jerseys have stayed the same, but the players, and the rules of the game, have gone topsy-turvy. It’s all very confusing. It’s a good reason to spark up some of Snoop Dogg’s doobois.

So what’s next for the little state with the big contradictions? Now we’ve taught the machines to think, or at least to write book reports and make up pictures. We’re feeding all of our nonsense into these things, all of our history, and our hatreds, and our love poems. What will the thinking machines make of Connecticut? Maybe they’ll tell us to keep building the bombs, only to do it more efficiently. Or maybe they’ll read Mark Twain and decide the whole human experiment is a joke. A bad one.

I imagine old Sam Clemens would have a thing or two to say about it. He’d look at the internet, where everyone has a megaphone and no one has an editor, and he’d probably light a cigar, pour himself a whiskey, and rack the billiards. He might have watched that movie, Idiocracy, and said, “They got it mostly right, but it should have been sadder.” He knew the score. He knew that human genius was a beautiful and dangerous thing, like a bottle of nitroglycerin. You could use it to help prevent a heart attack, or you could use it to blow up the world.

C’EST LA: We have the angels of our better nature, and we have the howling monkeys who want to burn it all down. They both live in Connecticut. They both live in us. Words are nice. Books are nice. But they might not be enough to keep the monkeys from the matches.

We’ll have to do better. We’ll just have to be kinder. And that’s all we have to say about that.

Next Stop: Jersey, Baybay!

Onward through the fog… RH

You got your swords…
You got your ploughshares…
Visit Hartford…
They’ve got it all there…
Commune with ghosts…
Converse with brilliant minds…
All await you in Connecticut!

This Land – Mississippi

They say Mississippi is a great place to commune with ghosts, that Mississippians love a good story. And so, in honor of the great state of Mississippi, here’s a real doozy of a ghost story. Mostly inspired by a dream from our first restless night in here. For some reason, Ronnie awoke around 4:00am, probably from a limb scraping against the side of the van nudged by a gentle breeze (or something like that). Anyway, fragments of the dream are drastically embellished below… Enjoy!

The setting is a ghostly confab at a fabled haunted house, the McRaven House, in Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Attendees:
Sam Clemens
William Faulkner
Edger Poe
Margaret Mitchell
Ambrose Bierce
Kate Stone

The McRaven House, a skeletal silhouette against the bruised, twilight sky, pulsed with an unearthly chill. Inside, or rather, through the decaying grandeur of the parlor, a spectral congress convened. Skulking around the fringes of this gathering is the ghost of little Maggie, playing trickster pranks on the adults, generally bringing a sense of dark levity to the air.

We open with a tight shot on Mr. Clemons, a wisp of white mustache and sardonic grin, his cigarillo fuming. He’s leaning against the hearth, its phantom flames licking at the soot-stained bricks. “Well, gentlemen, gentleladies, and… whatever that is,” he gestured vaguely at a giggling, translucent figure flitting near the chandelier, “let’s get down to cases. How are our successors faring? Are any of them capable of spinning a yarn worth a damn?”

Mr. Faulkner, a cloud of tobacco-scented gloom, swirled into view. “Faring? They wallow, Sam. They wallow in the shallow pools of… of instant gratification. They cannot understand the… the weight of history, the… the tangled roots of the South. They write… tweets, truths, threads, blue butterflies. Shit postings! Hardly enough for Walt to call a ‘barbaric yawp,’ and this is supposed to encapsulate the human condition? Absurd.”

Edgar Poe, his eyes dark, hollow pits, floated near a dusty window. “They seek brevity, a fleeting spark of… of sensation. They have lost the exquisite agony of prolonged despair. They write of… of vampires with sparkling skin. My own horrors, once so profound, are now… romantic comedies.” He shuddered, a sound like a rustling death shroud.

Ms. Mitchell, her spectral Scarlett O’Hara flouncing slightly, adjusted a phantom shawl. “Darling, it’s simply dreadful. They’ve taken my beloved South, my tragic heroes, and… and they’ve made them into… into soap operas! They’ve diluted the very essence of suffering into… into sickly sweet drivel.”

Ambrose Bierce, his face a mask of cynical amusement, materialized near a broken mirror. “Irony, my dear Ms. Mitchell, is the universe’s most exquisite mistress. And it seems they have long since hung her in a cheap motel room. With the veritable parade of ironies cavalierly overlooked by average folks these days, one must imagine the poor girl spinning in her grave like a top. These mere mortals believe they have conquered death, disease, and ignorance. Hell, some of them actually believe their clever technologists have them on the verge of immortality! Absurd doesn’t even come close to describing their delusion.”

Ms. Stone, her translucent form radiating a quiet, melancholic strength, drifted near the window. “They have forgotten the true cost of war, the devastation it leaves in its wake. They romanticize conflict, turn it into… entertainment. They have no concept of the hunger, the loss, the sheer… futility. And now, they’re bringing those silly biblical prophecies into the picture… again. They can’t wait to launch a third global conflagration.”

A sudden, chilling giggle echoed through the room. Little Maggie, the spectral trickster, had replaced Faulkner’s pipe tobacco with a wisp of Spanish moss. He sputtered, the moss dissolving into thin air. “They also believe,” Maggie piped up, her voice a ghostly whisper, “that they can photograph ghosts with their… their ‘smartphones’. They take pictures of… of dust and claim it’s us.” She cackled, a sound like wind chimes in a graveyard.

Clemmons chuckled, a low, rumbling sound. “Indeed, child. They attempt to capture the intangible, the unseen, with their… their digital trinkets. They have become slaves to the very technology they believe liberates them. They spend their days staring at glowing rectangles, believing they are experiencing… life.”

Poe raised an eyebrow. “They believe the darkness can be banished with… with light. They illuminate every corner, every crevice, yet they remain blind to the true shadows that lurk within their own souls.”

Mitchell sighed dramatically. “And the fashion! Oh, the atrocities they call fashion! They wear… leggings as trousers leaving nearly nothing to the imagination! It’s simply… barbaric.”

Bierce, ever the cynic, added, “They have created a world of… of curated perfection. Every image, every interaction, filtered and polished to remove any trace of… of authenticity. They live in a world of lies, and they call it… social media.”

Maggie, now floating upside down near the ceiling, began to hum a discordant tune. “They think they can solve the world’s problems with… with the pound sign, they call it a ‘hashtag.’ They use it to pass around short photoplays like chain letters spreading like the plague, and say these picture shows can change the course of history.”

Faulkner, still slightly flustered by the moss incident, muttered, “They cannot grasp the… the cyclical nature of time. They repeat the same mistakes, generation after generation, oblivious to the… the echoes of the past.”

Clemons, leaning against a bookshelf, concluded, “In short, they are a collection of self-absorbed, technologically addicted, historically ignorant… fools. And they think we are the phantoms.”

A chorus of ghostly laughter filled the McRaven House, echoing through the empty rooms, a testament to the enduring irony of the mortal plane. Little Maggie, her eyes gleaming with mischievous delight, began to pull the spectral drapes from the windows, plunging the room into an even deeper, more unsettling darkness.

Onward through the fog… RH

In the town of Vicksburg…
In the house McRaven…
You may encounter…
Some ghostly maven…
And like the flow of…
The Mighty Mississip…
Everything that changes…
Stays the same.

This Land: Kansas

Howdy, loopers, gather ’round the camp fire for a full-tilt rodeo of a tale! This ain’t your typical travel brochure drivel, mind you. No sir, this is a slapstick eulogy wrapped in a fever dream, seasoned with a dash of sand and color. Strap in, because we’re headed straight for the heartland, a place some folks derisively call “flyover country.”

First things first: full disclosure. I was hatched in Goodland, Kansas, a town so small it probably has its own tumbleweed support group. My parents, bless their tragically mismatched hearts, shuffled me between this so-called “good” land and Denver as regular as school seasons. But hey, summers were spent traipsing around the glorious front range with my outdoorsy step-mom and the old man – a nature enthusiast packing enough ordinance to battle a Russian platoon. Point being, Kansas (and Colorado) are in my blood, even if it’s a tad thin on account of all shuffling.

SIDE NOTE: hereafter, we’ll refer to my stomping grounds as “Kanorado” as, in addition to all that Front Range camping, i’ve spent time schooling or gigging in almost every Western Kansas town with a school or Opera House.

Now, some city slickers will tell you Kansas is nothing but a barren wasteland devoid of entertainment. Those sorry souls clearly haven’t bathed in the crystal-clear waters of Wilson Lake. Nestled snug against I-70 in good ol’ Bob Dole country, Wilson boasts the most transparent reservoir this side of the Missouri River, likely due to all that golden limestone chilling at the bottom. Speaking of limestone, the Rocktown trail is a naturalist’s technicolor dream – a geological wonderland teeming with flora, fauna, and rock formations that’d make Moab, Utah smile.

But hold on to your cover, loopers, because there’s more to Kansas than meets the eye. The Flint Hills, once a stomping ground for John Brown and his gorilla raiders, roll on like a never ending emerald wave. Tall tails of outlaw chicanery featuring such familiar names as Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, and Calamity Jane to name a few did at least some of their stompin’ right here in the flyover. General Dwight D., “Beware of the Military Industrial Complex,” Eisenhower from Abilene went on to kick some Nazi arse, and hey, music lovers, get this: Joe Walsh, that guitar-slingin’ jester himself, hails from Wichita!

Now, speaking of Kansas loopers, let’s get one thing straight: they’ve heard every “Wizard of Oz” joke you may have in your quiver. They won’t laugh, but they’ll wear those ruby-red kicks like a badge of honor. Now, about sports – Rock Chalk Jayhawks? Sure, they bleed crimson and blue, but they also have a healthy respect for the KCMO pro teams (GO Chiefs!). West of Wichita, however, Jayhawk fandom gets met with raised eyebrows. Many Western Kansas peeps are more partial to the Denver Donkeys. Can you believe the audacity?

Kansas City itself is a tale of two quarreling siblings. The Kansas-Missouri border rivalry stretches all the way back to the Civil War, when things got downright bloody (look up “Bloody Kansas” if you have a strong stomach). Politically, Kansas loopers tend to lean conservative, but mess with their personal liberties and you’ll see a realpolitik “don’t tread on me” spirit rise faster than a prairie dust storm. Remember that ballot initiative to control women’s bodies? Kansas loopers saw through that religious mumbo jumbo faster than a jackrabbit on a hot tin roof.

Here’s the thing about Kansas: everyone wants to claim their little town as Superman’s birthplace (Smallville), but Clark has yet to release the birth certificate so the mystery… persists. There may not be any Clark Kents out there, but there is a cause to pause, vis a vis the particular vein of grit these people exhibit. Kansas loopers are a tough lot. Most of them can drive a stick shift and have probably piloted a tractor at some point in their lives. “Home on the Range” ain’t just a song, it’s a way of life. Before corporate greed gobbled up family farms, everyone either pitched in as hired help or knew a farmer by name. Minnesota nice? Pah! Those loopers are downright chatty compared to the almost painfully polite Kansas loopers. Being the literal “heartland” of the country has its perks – neighbors here look out for each other. Need to borrow a chainsaw? No sweat. Dog gone rogue? The whole town will be on the hunt. Need a cup of sugar, or a smoky coffin nail? If they got it, you got it. Kansas loopers have a fierce sense of loyalty, that is, until karma comes knocking. They believe in what goes around comes around, faster than a tumbleweed in a tornado.

Ah, Kansas… flatter than a Baptist hymn board and about as exciting as watching paint dry? Newsflash, chuckleheads: Kansas loopers know their state’s a canvas painted in shades of endless prairie. West of Wichita, some would vote to make the telephone pole the state tree. But here’s the thing – pick a quiet spot out in the country at the “golden hour,” and you’ll be met with a spectacle that would make even God herself tip the sun bonnet. Sunsets in Kansas, loopers, are like a knife fight between angels – a Technicolor brawl that leaves the sky bruised with purples, oranges, and a fiery red that would make a MAGA hat look downright pale.

So, on to the point of this screed. To write a verse for Kansas to add to Woody Guthrie’s classic, “This Land.” I decided to dig a little deeper than a prairie pothole and get the lowdown on our state motto, “Ad Astra per Aspera” – that’s Latin for “To the stars through difficulties,” you heathens. I cornered a “student success coach” at the Kansas Wesleyan University library, and a Kansas history whiz at the Hays Public Library. Both of them, bless their unoffensive coffee mugs, talked about the state’s rough-and-tumble beginnings – the dust storms that could choke a billy goat, the grasshopper plagues that made the Bible look like a picnic. But here’s the thing: these scrappers, these pioneers with callouses on their souls, they persevered. They looked up at that endless Kansas sky, saw the Milky Way sprawled out like a cosmic wheat field, and said, “You know what? We’re going to reach for those stars, even if it means clawing our way through a mountain of misery first.”

And that, my friends, is the Kansas spirit. It’s in the way the wheat sways in the wind, a silent symphony of resilience. It’s in the way a small town pulls together after a tornado, stronger than ever. It’s in the way a Kansan, with a twinkle in their eye and a calloused hand extended, welcomes you to their state, even if you are, ahem, flyover challenged.

So, the next time you think about taking a potshot at Kansas, take a long look at a map, friend. Because out here, under skies that put on a nightly light show that would shame the Vegas Sphere, we’re reaching for the stars, one sunset at a time. And that, folks, is a beautiful thing.

And so… without further adieu, combining my personal experience, some light research queries, and my conversations with the above librarians, here’s a Kansas verse for This Land, by Woody Guthrie.

Onward through the fog… R.H.

As i was rolling…
Through the Kansas wheat fields…
I saw the Milky Way…
As a quantum field…
And though the way is…
Fraught with trouble… peril…
These folks…
Have made it to the stars!

Confessions of a middle-aged “Bernista”

Yes, I confess… I am a middle-aged, white, male Bernista.

Alas, Bernie did not get the nomination, so I have to make a choice, and I’ve also chosen to declare it out loud and in public. I am, without reservation, endorsing Hillary Clinton for President of the United States. Why?

FIRST…

I want to make it clear that my endorsement is not merely due to Donald’s Trump wreck of a campaign. It does resemble a grisly accident, the kind desperate news directors salivate over; sensational, provocative, lurid, even bloody at times. The Donald has, so far, received far more free publicity than anyone should ever be allowed, but so much for that. The truth is, I’d support Clinton’s bid even if it were the lesser of two evils. For one, I believe The Donald is spectacularly unfit to serve as president of the United States, if for no other reason than his paper-thin ability to handle criticism.

Seriously… I want him nowhere near the red button.

LESSER OF TWO EVILS???
The Donald’s campaign may be a train wreck, and I may have preferred a Bernie Sanders ticket, but truth told, Ms. Clinton, is no slouch. In my opinion, she’s as or more qualified than any president serving in my lifetime (born in 1959).

YES… I WILL ELABORATE…..

But first I want to assure you, dear reader, I’m trying really hard to stay on the high road here. I could use some help, so please wish me luck. To start, I’d like to call everyone’s attention to the broken and bitter elephant in the room (pun intended). To wit, many Americans deeply distrust and vehemently dislike Ms. Clinton…. why? I suspect this animosity is a reflection of the ugly partisanship growing steadily since the “Fairness Doctrine’s” demise. The removal of the doctrine’s rules on public service broadcasting unloosed a tsunami of unfair, unbalanced right-wing bile, embraced fully by folks all ‘et up with fear and loathing for the declining supremacy of white middle-class males. The divide was further exacerbated by an unfair/unbalanced media fixation on a trumped-up “War Against Christian Culture.” This combined with relentless dishonest attacks against Ms. Clinton beginning in earnest with her first attempt to facilitate health care reform in 1993. Top all of that off with Ms. Clinton’s real flaws, missteps, and weaknesses, and you have an ideal witches brew fit for a perfect witch hunt.

BUT IS SHE A PERFECT PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE? NO FREAKIN’ WAY…

Clinton cannot blame a “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” for all of her troubles. Ms. Clinton has earned a measure of suspicion and/or ambivalence. Cases in point, 1.) the closed meetings of first health care task force. 2.) The “Whitewater” debacle. 3.) The personal emails destroyed after leaving the State Department. 4.) Her reluctance to disclose a recent bout with pneumonia. 5.) The exorbitant cash earned on the speech circuit. And 6.) Her severe lack of personal charisma.

SO… WHAT DOES SHE HAVE?
TRUE GRIT… like Mattie Ross! I agree with the Washington Post’s assessment of Clinton’s career. I see it as a series of hard knock learning experiences preparing her for the environment. Example, when the walls came down on her health care reform task force, she did not give up. Instead, she reentered the fray helping to hammer together a more modest but essential reform expanding health-care access to economically disadvantaged children.

GRIT EXHIBIT B…
Ms. Clinton’s election to the Senate in 2000 also comes to mind. Those who remember the 1990s might think her justified in holding a grudge or two, especially toward Republicans who supported the relentless, lurid, and futile investigations against her husband in the impeachment and Senate trials. But it wasn’t to be. According to the Washington Post, colleagues in both parties found her to be, businesslike, knowledgeable, intent on results, working across the partisan divides, with little regard for personal credit.

WARTS AND ALL…
And though Ms. Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary was misguided, in my opinion, it does not rise to the level of high crimes. Hell, who doesn’t want to simplify their email situation?? I have EVERYTHING forwarded to my private account, mainly because I don’t want two or more over-cluttered inboxes. I can barely manage one. But alas, I’m not dealing with highly sensitive classified information, and Ms. Clinton’s slow, grudging explanations worsened the damage. I also recognize Ms. Clinton should not have allowed an aide to go on the Clinton Foundation payroll while still at Department of State. This was a failure to maintain a clear separation between the foundation and the government; an integrity lapse she will not likely repeat.

STILL TRYING TO STAY ON THE HIGH ROAD HERE…

However, with all of her flaws and mistakes, The Donald makes Clinton look squeaky clean. She has released years of tax returns. The Donald will not. She has voluntarily identified her campaign bundlers. And The Donald? The Clinton Foundation actually is a charitable foundation … The Donald … well… he did get a lovely portrait of himself.

…TRUTH…
Ms. Clinton, as opaque as she sometimes appears, is Saran Wrap transparent compared to The Donald.

So … it is what it is: This white, male Bernista is committed to supporting Hillary Clinton for President of the United States … there … I said it out loud. Now, what do I expect from a Clinton presidency?

Relentless commitment (even The Donald recognizes this),
Seriousness of purpose,
Flinty resolve, even in the face of powerful resistance, and,
Good old-fashioned “public service” ethic, focused on achievements in the public interest.

What else do I expect from Hillary Clinton?
As much as I expect from anyone else … the best she can do.

LOSING OUR MINDS AT THE END GAME…
Folks, this is a potentially historic moment, and I find it deeply troubling that any woman would support a move to repeal the 19th amendment in effect denying women the right to vote. WTF? There is no excuse for this straight-up crazy talk. Even IF highly motivated to head off the prospect of Clinton’s supreme court picks.

C’mon folks… we’re not turning clocks back…. hello!?!?
I see the recent #RepealThe19th as proof some of us have finally lost our minds. Please, close your eyes and try to imagine someone pushing a movement to repeal the 13th amendment… seriously… ?!?!?

Let’s keep moving forward…
Let’s elect Hillary Clinton…
Let’s make history!!

Cheers… Loopcircus