The Elephant in the Garden

I really want to avoid the obvious topic, and Baby Blues made me smile because backyard chickens are becoming a suburban fad and, yeah, if you only have half a dozen and you weren't raised to look upon them as developing into food, well, they won't.

In an earlier time -- like, when "Charlotte's Web" was being written -- there was a standard story about the 4-H kid who has to face the fact that the project heifer lovingly tended is going to become steaks and burger. But, aside from White's classic tale, the ending involved mature acceptance.

Then-Wife and I entertained a back-to-the-earth fantasy for several months in 1972 when I was finishing college, she was pregnant and we were trying to figure out what was next.

The Whole Earth Catalog and Mother Earth News made it all seem so idyllic, but after consulting more practical sources, we decided that never, ever being able to leave for a vacation was a bit more 19th century back-to-basics than we wanted.

Plus the whole "eating your friends" thing, which I was okay with, having grown up country enough that my friends had backyard hogs that got slaughtered and deer hanging from their chimneys every autumn, even if we didn't.

However, when I suggested that rabbits might be easier to raise and more meat-productive than chickens, well, it's good we agreed on the no-vacations thing, because that was a gap that wasn't gonna close.

You will not be sorry if you click on this link.

 

And on the topic of our ancient roots and how little we know about them, Tank McNamara brings in both the concept of Chief Wahoo and the questionable accuracy of those DNA swab tests, which I have previously said don't work to track down the ancestry of dogs but are apparently just as dubious for humans.

My family has enough of an oral tradition that I can go back several generations before I'd need to visit the Mormons to fill in any blanks, but even if I did suddenly discover that I was one-eighth Greek, it wouldn't mean that I could suddenly bake good spanakopita and do a Zorba dance.

Here's the deal: I don't care if your grandmother was one-quarter something-or-other, or if you paid $100 and discovered you were one-eighth whatever. 

If you weren't raised in the culture, you've got nothin' to say on this topic. And polls of anybody but enrolled tribal members are invalid as "insider" commentary.

Though I like what the people who were raised in the culture have said about it.

 

Sigh. Okay, just a couple ...

I'm not interested right now in cartoons that go on about what a bad person Trump is or what bad people we are for having elected him. Pointing it out before the elections didn't fix anything and I'm not sure what picking at the scab will accomplish now.

But I like today's Candorville because I was interested in Bobby's campaign, and his assassination was a blow to the optimism of an 18-year-old college freshman, even one who didn't think he'd accomplish all the things his corps of True Believers expected of him.

Which was good practice for when Barack Obama came on the scene, because I was very happy he won, but, again, was pragmatic enough not to expect everything to change.

But, then, I hadn't expected Sirhan Sirhan and I hadn't expected Mitch McConnell, and even at my age, I believe part of patriotism is recognizing and accepting the will of the people.

Which shows that somewhere in my experienced and cynical heart, that 18-year-old is still alive.

If Bobby had not been shot, and if he had taken his growing support into the 1968 Democratic Convention and not been blocked by Daley and the DNC establishment, would he have beaten Nixon?

Let's say he did.

Not only no Watergate, but no paid goons beating up peacemarchers in front of the World Trade Center, and no Spiro Agnew rhetoric poisoning the national mood. I think Bobby would still have set up the EPA as Nixon did.

Might have become a very different place.

However, "Je sais aussi, dit Candide, qu'il faut cultiver notre jardin," which brings us to the more pragmatic take of Alex Masterley and his crew.

Not exactly what Voltaire had in mind, perhaps, but better than sitting around weeping over things you can't change, either this vote or the Brexit surprise. 

Cultivating your garden involves a lot of pulling of weeds, unless you can convince the world that those plants are actually nutritious and delicious and better than what had been purposely planted.

Watson seeks a different type of garden work, perhaps because there is no Pangloss in his universe trying to convince him that all is for the best in this best of all possible worlds.

Anne Frank famously wrote

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. I simply can’t build up my hopes on a foundation consisting of confusion, misery, and death. I see the world gradually being turned into a wilderness, I hear the ever approaching thunder, which will destroy us too, I can feel the sufferings of millions and yet, if I look up into the heavens, I think that it will all come right, that this cruelty too will end, and that peace and tranquility will return again.

Well, she famously wrote the first sentence. The rest is not so commonly quoted, and there were a lot of deaths, including hers, before things were repaired.

And despite the Nuremberg Trials, despite the forced tours of the camps by ordinary German citizens, the weeds of denial remained and, over the decades, flourished in our garden.

Ann Telnaes salutes one of the few remaining voices of sanity, and it's a voice that cannot go on forever.

My hope is that our progressive citizenry will reclaim Congress soon enough that she will not be replaced with a woman the way Thurgood Marshall was succeeded by Clarence Thomas.

  

Now here's your moment of zen

 

Comments

[Dave from Philadelphia]

"I believe part of patriotism is recognizing and accepting the will of the people."

I am really struggling ... but listening to Hilary, watching Barack and reading your sentence ... it is not quite as dark in my world. Still quite bad (Myron Ebell being Trump's transition point man to the EPA ... ugh), but things seem a little better.

Thank you.

[Sherwood]

Re: household protein sources. As you may recall, Diane and I raised chickens for a while, but made the mistake of naming them, so we ate only their eggs. Diane's daughter and granddaughters, on the other hand, annually raise two turkeys, one named "Thanksgiving" and the other named "Christmas." And there's this photo of me and our landlord in 1949: https://www.flickr.com/photos/sherwoodh/3165446957

[Mike Peterson]

I hope your family at least got a little stew meat.