Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

Time 2021-09-24 09:19:36

Web Name: Bedlam Farm Blog Journal by Jon Katz

WebSite: http://www.bedlamfarm.com

ID:197793

Keywords:

Blog,Farm,Bedlam,

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l. Donald Trump will not run for President in 2024. Should he run for some reason, he will not win re-election. If he s still alive in a few years, he will be in court for much of the time.2. Joe Biden will not run for President in 2024; he will be exhausted and battered and 85. But he will pass his trillion-dollar funding bill, and he will get his infrastructure package signed into law. It s fated. Then he might collapse.He will one day be praised, even revered, for ending the war in Afghanistan.3. Governors Abbott and DeSantis will seek the Republican nomination, and one of them will win. They are the secret agents of the Democratic National Committee, sent to make sure every rational America, women, suburbanite, African-American, and disenfranchised voter votes.2020 was only a year ago. Are all of our memories that short? In short order, millions of new voices will be steaming at all of the restrictions, obstacles, and mindless roadblocks to voting. You have to win new voters, folks, not piss them all off at once.Both governors are twin mini-me s; they are too extreme to attract the young, independent, African-American, and suburban voters necessary to win national elections in America.Endangering children and the elderly, passing racist voting laws, and outraging millions of women are not good platforms for the future. The Texas Abortion Law will not stand up in court. It will light millions of women on fire. The only thing better for the Democrats than this new law would be if Ted Cruz, America s most unpleasant and unlikeable politician, were to win the nomination.That won t happen either.5. It is far too soon to predict who will control the House and the Senate next year. It s just a kind of voodoo dice-throwing to try.  If the election were held today, the Republicans would take the House of Representatives, and Kevin McCarthy would be third in line. I don t know about tomorrow.6. There are so many reasons to vote. As Trump works so hard to persuade Republicans that there s no point in voting because every election is rigged, anything goes. It s way too early to know. Donald  Trump s greatest genius is making horrendously stupid political decisions. Our media and many of our politicians live in 2016.  Two years now equals a century a generation ago.7. This is not the most divided America has been, not even close. Stay strong, stay sane. Start by reading Nathaniel Philbrick s new book Travels with George: In Search Of Washington And His Legacy. Washington didn t read Facebook to get to know America. He rode across the country talking to people in almost every state in the Union.Philbrick followed in his steps and wrote about what he found. America, he said, was much more divided than we can even imagine now. It s in our national DNA. Washington ended the tour in despair. He couldn t imagine how to bring such a bitterly divided country together. He decided to wear fancy clothes and ride beautiful horses.Our journalists are no longer permitted to think, only react. History bores them and is much harder work than going on Twitter.7. The media can t help but ignore and underestimate the red-hot political power of women as it rises over the country like a great storm. Forgive them; dismissing women is just an old habit they can t break. An intelligent politician would be fawning all over them (from a distance.)It takes a rare bird to imagine the future; there is so much coming that we can t see or know. I have this curious habit of wanting to see what happens before I get hysterical about it.And sometimes it s just fun to take a leap of faith and guess: Over the next two years, the Republican Party will feel like a bowling pin with seconds to live. Hint: the bowling balls signify women. It s called rational thought, and it is not allowed on Facebook or Twitter; it might distract people from writing sappy posts, inventing conspiracies,  and buying stuff.Stay strong.If any sinkhole is waiting out there, Trump will step in it. Sociopaths cannot imagine failure, so they can t be rational or wise. It does them in every time. I will pray for all those hard-working people who will be betrayed and abandoned once more.Note: I won t post comments on this short piece. My blog is a monologue, not a dialogue. I don t want to see a political debate here, and I don t want to participate in a political discussion. That isn t what the blog is about. In part, my story is about writing a living memoir, expressing myself freely and openly.  I m sick of nasty people peeing in my soup. Comments will be happily accepted in any other posted piece, and indeed, by noon tomorrow, everywhere. It s just musing, like my hero E.B. White used to do on his farm blog. There is no reason for comments, and I don t feel the least bit obliged to post them on every piece I write. There are plenty of places to go to fight if that s what you want. E.B. White got nasty letters, but there was no e-mail, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or Twitter, of course.Share ThisTweetShare on TumblrEmail Podcast: Listen NowSupport My BlogSupport the Army of GoodThe surgery clearance process is heating up. I ve had my blood work; today is cardiology; I ll need an EKG and an exam. Next week, primary care and Covid-testing, pre-op checking up, and exam and final x-rays. I admit it s kind of exciting.I m looking forward to this surgery; it s time to put this foot stuff behind me.I might have to be off my feet for a while, or maybe just a few weeks. I ll know soon enough. I see this as a continuance of the Jon Katz restoration project; many good doctors have taken part. The day after the surgery, the sleep apnea people will show up at the farm to mask me up. If I come out of this with a healed foot and more sleep, I ll be ahead of the game. I told the apnea people I did not wish to look like Darth Vader. They laughed.I spoke with my therapist yesterday, and she thinks I ve been down a bit about all of this medical stuff, which is new to me. Until my open  heart surgery, I had never been in hospital since my tonsils out when I was four. Maria agreed with her; she thinks I ve been down as well.I do feel myself re-bounding. I m looking forward to exploring sophisticated photo editing with Andrew, my computer teacher, and now I m signing up with Emily Gold to learn collage. I hope to do my appreciation cards for Army of Good donors. My first wife said, you could knock me down but never keep me down.Maria is driving me to the cardiologist, she wants to be a part of all this clearance stuff, and I m grateful for it. I always bring a book in case there s a wait. If I pass the tests today, there s probably no stopping me. Stay tuned.Share ThisTweetShare on TumblrEmail Podcast: Listen NowSupport My BlogSupport the Army of GoodI think we are taught from birth to be sorry, to apologize for ourselves.  I don t do that anymore. To be contrite is to destroy my sense of self. To be arrogant is to destroy my soul.My Amish friends are taught humility. They can t speak well of themselves. I can t speak for them, but I wonder how I could grow in that way and move forward in such a challenging world.Thinking differently was life or death for me. Being different was a lifesaver.How would I ever want what I have if I did not know that I was different not better than other people?I needed to attract attention, to blow my own horn. I needed to find a way to stand out. Books did that for me. I don t know many humble, successful writers. If I were Amish, I d never gotten to my second book. I wrote 26.Acknowledging and accepting my differences my brokenness  saved my life and brought me to happiness and fulfillment. I used every bit of failure and mistakes.I am not better than anyone else. But I am not sorry for my life. I will not speak poorly of it.Every once in a while after my Open Heart surgery, a friend will ask me if I regret smoking and drinking when I was young, especially when I was a young reporter. For some years, I said yes, but when I thought about it, I realized that I was lying to myself and others.How sad to be young and never take a risk, challenge conventional wisdom, or defy authority?Those years as a reporter were transformative. They were essential to creating who I am now, for better or word; they were full of joy, meaning, and pride. Being a reporter was the first time I was proud of myself; this inspired me to go ahead and take the leap and live my life.I am not sorry for any foolish or reckless, or unhealthy or reckless thing that I did. If I could move the fingers of time, I would not go back and change a moment of it.I am not sorry for anything I have done in my life. I regret countless things I have done in my life. To regret something is not to apologize for it but to be sad, most often about a missed or lost opportunity. I still think of those.Like all of us, I did the best I could with the tools I had. Hindsight, like nostalgia, is a trap. Looking back is a plunge into a sinkhole.I would do many things differently in my life knowing what I know now, but I m grateful I didn t know then what I know now. I would have made myself into a eunuch. I d probably be a real estate attorney (no offense). Wouldn t we all do things differently? People treat mistakes as if they were deliberate acts of criminality.But a mistake is not a crime. A mistake is an error, something every single human being on the planet has done, again and again. It is that simple, and it is that complex. In some parts of our culture politics, the media mistakes are not forgiven.Animals live in the moment; they are not capable of mistakes.Humans, blessed or cursed with a conscience and a sense of right and wrong, constantly make mistakes. That is the whole point of organized religion, which is built on sin and errors. What would we have to confess?There is no need to apologize. If you believe in God, then you must accept that is the way he made us. If you don t understand wrong, you cannot possibly do right or know what it is.People are held to an impossible standard of perfection.So they are always saying they are sorry, begging for mercy to be forgiven for things they could not help.It is hypocritical to blame other people for making mistakes.  As witnesses not of our intentions but our conduct, wrote Hannah Arendt, we can be true or false as we choose.The hypocrite s crime is that they bear false witness against him or herself integrity can indeed exist under cover of all other vices except this one. Only crime and the criminal confront us with the perplexity of radical evil, said Arendt, but only the hypocrite is rotten to the core.. When human beings stumble, as they must, they are increasingly ruined, discharged, shamed, mobbed on new media, sent into oblivion, unforgiven in a world of people who make mistakes all the time.We are a thoughtless and increasingly cruel culture in many ways. I hate nothing more than a hypocrite, a shame because our world has more hypocrites than black ants.I know that sounds arrogant, but it is true.I have many regrets, but that is not the same as apologizing for myself or my life.  I regret the people I hurt, misunderstand, or treated poorly. I regret getting divorced or the pain my daughter endured when she was sick.But I am not sorry; that is not a reason to rend my garments and speak cruelly of my life.  Every time I apologize for being me, I cut a little piece off of my soul.I have learned that if I am not my advocate, then I will have no advocate.I have apologized to many people for many things. But I refuse to apologize for me; I am not sorry for my life. I am just all too human.I have learned that no other creature, human or animal, can love me if I do not know to love myself.I have learned that no one can be proud of me if I am not proud of myself.I spent much of my life apologizing for myself. I couldn t do the math. My Dyslexia left everyone around me treating me as if I were impaired, as if I were stupid,  and over time, they persuaded me. I still can t do the math.Because I didn t know what to think,  I couldn t think.My books were the first intimation that I had something to say,  something in my brain that worked. My father was stunned.Five New York Times Bestsellers convinced me that although I might be crazy, I was not dumb.And then I learned that five New York Times Best Sellers means nothing, any more than a lightning strike was aimed at me. When my editors were done with me, they chucked me into the trash and left me for dead,  just like any big corporation. It was a great gift to me; they moved me to start my blog.When people treat me as stupid, I get angry; sometimes, I lash out. But I am not sorry for that either. It is how I fought back and gained some pride, and learned to create my own identity. I never let other people define me now.Humility is not self-debasement. Humility is the opposite of pride and arrogance. I am anything but prideful; I have been guilty of arrogance. My search is for authenticity, not humility. I am different. I am unique, as are you.The word humble has its origins in the Latin word humilis, meaning low. I don t care to be low, just honest. Life is the Mother of humility; we learn to be humble just by living awhile.I am learning much now; I will be learning as I go to the grave. I like that about myself; I will never apologize or speak poorly of myself, despite the many mistakes I have made and as much as I have yet to learn about life.Share ThisTweetShare on TumblrEmail Podcast: Listen NowSupport My BlogSupport the Army of GoodI watched one of Emily Gold s collage lessonhttps://www.papercakescissors.com/shop videos tonight, and she inspired me to enroll in her class and learn to make my collage pieces.Emily is a gifted artist and a terrific teacher.I m very much interested in learning how to do this.I love Emily s Appreciation Cards, but I d also love to know how to make my own. That would be a tremendous and generous thank you to the great people who fund the Army of Good from all over the country.Be gentle, please.I don t expect to ever be in Emily s league, but I am crazy enough to think I can make some intriguing Appreciation Cards for the sponsors of the Army Of Good. It will be fun to try and even more fun to make some if I get that far.We will all need one another in the coming years, which means doing a lot of good—and being appreciated for it.Emily makes collage kits for her students, and she s sending one to me. We ll either do a Zoom class or meet in person, as she lives in  Vermont, just a few minutes from the farm.I see that I m in a learning mood. In two weeks, Andrew (from Mac Nurse) will join me in a great photographic adventure. I m going to sign up with the best photo editing program I can find, and he will join me, helping me navigate and finding the tests and turns  I m afraid to touch.We re going to learn together.I love learning new things and am grateful for the chance; I m excited about the collage and the photo editing program. When I stop learning and growing (or trying), I hope someone will pronounce me dead.Share ThisTweetShare on TumblrEmail Podcast: Listen NowSupport My BlogSupport the Army of GoodCancelPost was not sent - check your email addresses! Email check failed, please try again Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.

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Writer, dog lover, photographer, human kindness activist, Jon Katz’s website includes a daily blog about dogs, love, kindness and hope.

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