There is a difference!

Interstate 5 splits the spine of the great inland valleys of California from Oregon to Mexico, mostly with views of bare ground - desert really, except for large industrial farms growing produce and tree products where water flows,  supplied by massive and expensive aqueducts that drain the Sacramento and American rivers up north. The exception to this boring north-to-south highway is the Pacific Coast Highway -PCH, and the east-to-west roads through the Sierra and coastal mountains, those with even numbers. One has to be in awe of the majestic giants that cover the hillsides and the Sierra. But …

Transplanted to the western edge of the continent over fifty years ago, I unknowingly acclimated to the vast stretches of little or nothing interesting going north or south, of roads that go for miles upon miles with only the slightest of curves, bumper to bumper at seventy miles per hour, or those cheek to jowl to subdivision homes themselves cheek to jowl.

A recent return to the colonial side and a nostalgiac day trip back to upper Vermont rebounded memories long sidelined and feelings long forgotten It is a different world settled in a different time; towns far apart, houses far apart. Farms hewn from forest land raise a collection of stones each spring, material for walls that make good neighbors. The farms, the homesteads, and the towns big or small are all forest clearings. 

Vermont is eighty percent forest.  The four lanes, the two lanes, and the one lane cut through the trees, leaving towns and cities unseen, for the most part, creating surprising vistas at every turn, meeting other cars every mile or so. No doubt left that you are in the midst of a full-on forest.

The Boreal forest differs from much of the country, even other areas with many trees. This biome that circles the global north, generally above the 50^th parallel, dips ever so slightly into the upper reaches of the Northeast Kingdom and then extends across New Hampshire’s North Country into Maine.

The West Coast has two seasons each year, summer and winter. The northern sector of the East Coast has the usual four seasons, more if you include the black-fly season, January thaw, mud season, and the fourth of July. It was spring. The trees were beginning to leaf out, the distant mountains still more black than green, but forest upon forest of hardwoods and softwoods building strength day by day, anticipating the reds and yellows of fall. Red maples, white and yellow birch, beech, hemlock, and balsam create woodlands hard to see through, with saplings growing where old growth fell during the harsh winter. So different from the western states.

The Northeast Kingdom’s two-thousand square miles, also over eighty percent forest, encourage life in small towns - fifty-five of them, for its sixty-five-thousand inhabitants who get to and from mostly on unpaved roads.

It is a different feeling, being in a forest completely surrounded except for the occasionally cleared farmland, the small towns with white-spire churches, and few houses. You are enveloped in your environment, you sense the closeness, and you wonder where the people are and where they work. You know where they hunt and fish.

They say you are what you were when. You once tramped these woods, hunted these forests, fished those ponds, drove the dirt roads, and lived the life that people live who live in the boreal forest. It made you independent, uncomfortable in crowds, with a preference for the rural drive rather than the interstate.

Back now, within miles of the Pacific, life demands a return to the crowded roads, the life in the fast lane, missing the new memories of the boreal forest. Readjustment came much too quickly.

 

Institutional Fraying!

It bears repeating. Our institutions are the keystones of our democracy. Destroy them and the system fails. We all know this, yet we do not get upset enough when people chip away at the mortar that binds them and us.

Institutions require communal acceptance by a supermajority of the population. Few require more acceptances than the Supreme Court. It does not have an army or a police force. It cannot write regulations that protect us. It cannot declare war or appropriate money. Yet it is the third equal branch of our republic. It is strength is the people’s acceptance of its rulings.

To gain that acceptance it must be above reproach. Its justices are appointed by the executive branch with the advice and consent of the legislative branch. Their term is for life. Any scandal or perception of a scandal chips away at their reputation. A conflict of interest or the perception of a conflict further chips deeper, wider, and farther into the mortar.

Federal judges are bound by a strict code of ethics. The slightest hint of conflict or bad behavior results in recusal or resignation. Not so for the Justices of the highest court in the land. It only recently adopted a code that equates to using cement without water. It matters.

Our tradition is that the court's judgments become the law of the land. Several cases changed who we are, how we relate to each other, and how we move forward.

·         Marbury v. Madison, 1803 – the court has the power to interpret the Constitution and the laws of Congress.

·         Plessy v. Ferguson, 1896 – the court ruled that school segregation was permitted as long as the facilities were equal.

·         Dred Scott v. Sanford, 1857 – the court ruled that enslaved people were not citizens and had no standing in courts.

·         Brown v. Board of Education, 1954 – the court overturned Plessy v. Ferguson.

·         Miranda v. Arizona, 1966 – the court ruled that Miranda’s conviction was inappropriate because he had not been told of his constitutional rights.

·         Roe v Wade, 1973 – the court ruled that a woman’s right to choose an abortion was protected by the privacy content of the 14^th Amendment.

·         U. S. v. Nixon, 1974 – the court ruled unanimously that the need to provide evidence in a court case outweighed a president’s limited immunity.

·         Dobbs v. Jackson, 2022 – the court ruled that abortion was not protected at the federal level and was the decision of the states.

We may not agree with the court’s rulings, but we live with them because we believe they rule on the law, not the political winds. Today the court, the institution itself, is at its lowest level of national trust among the people.

Justices are the product of a political system. Once installed, however, we expect them to behave in a non-political way. Two sitting justices seem hellbent on destroying the court’s institutional integrity. There is division in the country that we have not seen since the Civil War. The court is expected to rule on the issue of presidential immunity, on the issue of the January 6^th invasion of the capitol building, and on the question of interference in the counting of the ballots in the last election. To preserve its integrity, those sitting on the bench must be seen as impartial. But …

Justice Thomas cannot be seen as impartial.

·         He has identified rights that he thinks should be changed.

·         His wife is complicit in the January 6^th insurrection and called for using fake electors in more than one state.

Justice Alito cannot be seen as impartial.

·         An inverted U.S. flag flew at his home. While nominally a sign of distress it became a symbol for those who believed in an unsubstantiated stolen election.

·         “An Appeal to Heaven” flag, symbolic of white Christian nationalism and some conspiracy theories, flew from his vacation home in New Jersey.

 Both justices exhibit more than a hint of impartiality in their beliefs on important issues potentially facing the court. Neither can pretend to be impartial in their decision-making. Neither has recused themselves from cases related to their behavior or obvious conflicts of interest.

These two justices were appointed for life and can only be removed by impeachment. They have shown disdain for "equal justice under law." Common decency would suggest that they resign.

 

Didja Ever?

 Didja Ever?

Did you ever think that you would …? Truthfully, when I was 12 years old I was more worried about getting to thirteen. Today my twelve-year plan seems ambitious.

I don’t think you think about getting to eighty-five until you’re eighty-four. Even at thirty, forty seemed a long way away.

Recently I was thinking about hosting a party when I turned eighty-five. Truth is, there aren’t many people in the same age bracket to invite. Too many long-time friends have moved to warmer climates, moved to senior assisted living, or moved on to …

So what accounts for some of us making it to a ripe old age while others don’t? There were twelve of us in my eighth-grade class. Seven of us still communicate occasionally during the year. A good number of high school classmates still send out the occasional email. Some, through no fault of their own, receive the occasional rant from an audacious blogger. I’ve noticed a lot of occasional occupies in the later years.

Some say genes have a lot to do with the aging process. That may be part of the equation. I’ll accept it since my biological father reached ninety-four without much trouble. He had a good ten-year plan too.

With absolutely no attempt at in-depth research, ("l'audace, toujours l'audace,”) I’m thinking that making it to thirty is pure dumb luck. If you can stay out of a shooting war, live in a safe area, work in a safe environment, and don’t act too stupid, your chances are reasonably good. You can stay out of a shooting war unless your number comes up, you can move to a safer neighborhood if you have to, and you can change jobs if you don’t feel safe. Stupid is another story. You can’t fix stupid! (I’ve waited years to use that cliché.)

The early years were easier. We lived in a nice quiet town in the mountains of Vermont. Quiet was an understatement. Family, church, school, scouts, and college made up most of our lives, the better part of Eisenhower’s calm leadership. Life was predictable for middle-class French-Canadian families in a town with a large French-Canadian population; French church, French school, French hospital, French friends, until it wasn’t. After attending an all-boys school for eight years, taught by nuns mostly from Canada, entering the local high school with men and women lay teachers, and girls was a bit of a shock. I still remember the first period of my first day at that school. The teacher asked me to multiply numbers and letters. It had to be a trick question, right? He called it algebra.  I adjusted less quickly than my counterparts. I’m still working on it.

After college, I taught school for a few years and then moved into the business world. My first gig was as a trainer for a commodity brokerage firm. They wanted a school teacher who didn’t know how to trade pork bellies and soybeans or copper. I was the perfect choice. That led to training positions at a couple of chemical companies. When the call came from my former boss to move to San Francisco as Director of Training for a major drug distributor, we made the hard decision. We would go for two years, soak up some California sun and lifestyle, and then go back to St. Louis. That was fifty years ago this month, Didja Ever?

That period between twenty-four and forty years is always a whirlwind. Commuting to The City every day, constant flights cross country, and up and down the country, weekends at the kids' activities, and just trying to keep up. Didja ever think you would make it to forty?

I never really thought about it. I should have paid better attention. In April of that year I collapsed at a meeting I was facilitating; gangrenous gall bladder it was. Later in October, I had open heart surgery, a big deal back then, triple bypass. The doctor told me it was good for about twelve or thirteen years. I’d say he exceeded customer expectations. Didja ever think about making it to fifty? Yes!

I was thinking about retiring at sixty or sixty-five when my employer decided that a bunch of us fifty-five-year-olds had outspent our usefulness. They thought I would do better as an independent consultant. I had been with them for twenty years, but I’ve been collecting retirement checks for thirty years, so far. Getting older is the best revenge.

Ya, but didja ever think about getting to eighty-five. Not until I was eighty-four. It seems that special events get closer as one ages. “He’s forty, that’s a big one. We should have a party. He’s fifty. Wow, let’s have a fifty’s party. He’s sixty. That’s a big one too. He’s sixty-five… He’s seventy… He’s seventy-five … “ and it goes on. The gathering at eighty-seven should be a barn burner. Didja ever think about being ninety. Starting to.

I went to the doctor the other day. He thought my odds were good. He said I was in good shape for the shape I’m in (cliches abound) and the age I’m carrying, despite parts giving up or slowing down, or getting heavier. I had to fill out a questionnaire about how much alcohol I drank. I asked him if two glasses of wine with dinner were too much. “What the hell, at your age, enjoy.” I’m trying to make that into a positive. I’m not happy when he laughs at my ten-year plan.

I’m not sure why I’m worked up over this whole thing. Most of my grade school and high school classmates and friends from back then are a year older than me and seem OK with it all. But the statistics are a bit scary. Only 21% of men in the U.S. make it to eighty-five. It’s a bit weird, but nearly 20% also make it to ninety years old. But only six percent make it to one hundred years old. So a ten-year plan seems reasonable but a fifteen-year plan is a stretch and will need some effort. Didja ever think about making it to one hundred? I’ll worry about that when I hit ninety-five.

In the meantime, if two glasses of wine with dinner are OK, three might be better.

 

Chuck Woods

April 1, 1939 –

 

 

 

 

 

IDs and Voting!

I went to the doctor the other day. They wanted to see my ID even after I had shown them my insurance card. The doctor sent me to the X-ray department for, you know, an X-ray. They asked for my ID after I showed them my insurance card. I went to the bank the other day. You know, I actually walked into the building. It was the same as I remembered it from a few years ago. They asked to see my ID. I had an issue with my cable company. After I gave them my phone number they wanted to see my ID.

 

I am not supposed to say this, but I am in favor of requiring a valid ID to vote. Now, a valid ID can take many forms. Let us start with the basic ones, a driver’s license or a state photo ID. The liberals of the world will tell you that puts too much of a burden on poor people and people in rural areas and just about anywhere else. I know I am on the left end of the right wing or the right end of the left-wing, whatever, but I can tell you that is hogwash. I am not sure what hogwash is, but that is what no-ID-to-vote is.

 

In my state, people are registered to vote automatically when they apply for a driver’s license or for a state photo ID. When they change their name or address, they must notify the DMV to update their license which automatically updates their voter information. The real point is that a person must opt out of registering to vote, rather than opting in. Some states make the registration process difficult, discouraging some folks from voting.

 

While at the medical center, ( I don’t want to be judgmental) most folks did not appear to be living in the world of high-priced purses and yet they all showed their photo IDs after showing their insurance card.

 

Liberals around the country tell us that it is too difficult for poor people to get government-issued IDs. I don’t know about the rest of the country, but what I see most days are people of all economic levels who already have government-issued IDs. The liberals need to stop with the shibboleth. The conservatives worry that non-citizens will pack the voting booths or that dead people will vote in masses. No data proves that happens, except maybe in Chicago where folklore tells us that voting early and often is a local mantra. But that’s Chicago.

 

State legislatures have been on a tear in the last few years looking for new ways and old ways to limit voting by folks who do not support their ruling party. They started with Gerrymandering, moved on to exhaustive voter registration processes, minimized voting hours in fewer and fewer locations, and where it is against the law to offer water to those standing in line to vote. They are really good at it.

 

But here is the rub. In our democracy, unbridled voting sets us apart from those countries that use voting as a coverup for autocrats who tell the people they are fighting for democracy, like Russia or Hungary. The people gather periodically to cast a vote. The winner is the one with the most votes, and we move on. To my mind, any attempt to jiggle that easy process is undemocratic and a violation of American values. We are the nation that is supposed to be the city on the hill, the bright light for others to follow. We were that a few years ago. Today, not so much.

 

Why not have a national policy for who votes in national elections? It is really easy to do. Everyone over the age of eighteen is automatically registered to vote by the state DMV. Every registered voter is sent a ballot that they return to vote-gathering locations close to home, bring to an election center, or mail in. Full stop!

 

Why is this important? People need to have faith in our election systems. If everyone is required to show their ID when they register to vote or at the local vote center, more people will have trust in the process. If our state legislatures would make voter registration easy but verifiable, we would eliminate four years of people baying in the wind about a stolen election that wasn’t.

 

I want to know that everyone who votes is a citizen with a valid ID. I want to know that getting a valid ID is easy. It seems an easy solution to a problem that shouldn’t exist in the first place.

 

 

  

Moderation? Not this time!

 “Today is only one day in all the days that will ever be. But what will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today.”[i] Hemmingway had a way with words. What can we do today to save our democracy for all the other days?  

In its 250 years, the nation has worked through several periods of soul searching and searching for the soul. Lincoln spoke of the search for the better angels of our nature.[ii] It is surely time to do it again. Things just aren’t right, and the different seems wrong. It’s not just nostalgia rearing its head, but it is hard to imagine that the grandkids and the greats will refer to these as the good old days.

I work hard to whittle a moderate self when it comes to body politic; "On the rightward edge of the leftward tendency,”[iii] admittedly. I take pains to leave readers wondering if I am liberal or conservative, agree or disagree, to think about the issue themselves. Some take pains to tell me to tell them while others are pained by what they consider the obvious. As a member of Congress, neither side of the aisle would pay me heed. Solons on the right would consider me part of the enemy camp; too liberal. Liberals would consider me too conservative. Alas, moderates are the Rodney Dangerfields of politics, not extreme enough.

The extremes rule the day. They get upset if you call them extreme, but they don’t like you if you’re not. Until a few years ago primary candidates lured their base with extreme ideas. Once elected they governed from the middle. Now it seems they want to lead from the edges. I’m not sure that moderation, for all its virtues, will cure what ails us.

Shall we take off the gloves and bare-knuckle what needs to be said? It can’t be done with genteelness. Somehow we have to come out fighting for what is right, to say what needs to be said, what so many seem afraid to say, lest they be primaried, or say a wrong thing that will go viral on X or Instagram in twenty seconds.

The Greeks taught us that character is destiny.[iv] Dr. King told us that he looked forward to a time when people would be judged by the content of their character.[v] Meacham suggests that “What counts is not just the character of the individual at the top, but the character of the country.”[vi] Too many state and national leaders need an injection of character and too many of our fellow citizens support a past and potential leader lacking content of character. We are beyond the point where we can simply argue about the best process for building infrastructure, improving educational attainment, the border, or other policies of a general nature. We need to discuss the character of those who want to lead us.

We are a democracy. It distinguishes us from so many other countries of the world. We are a republic with a constitution that creates a democratic way of life. We are a people committed to the rule of law and to the institutions that bind us.

How should we react when a candidate for the presidency doesn’t support the rule of law, who says that in his first term, he never took an oath to support the Constitution or refused to cede the peaceful transfer of power at the end of his first term and encouraged followers to march on the Congress to stop the vote counting.  Is that the content of character we should expect of our leaders? My moderately held response is “hell no.”

Our tradition says that political opponents can disagree with each other, strongly at times, but always with civility and an understanding that it is the policies with which they disagree. They don’t hate their opponents. Hating your opponents is how autocrats behave.

How should we feel about a candidate who praises Viktor Orban, the PM of Hungary, because of his tough approach to turning that democracy into an autocracy? How should we feel about a candidate who praises Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, who stomps on democracy and violates the established world order by invading a free and independent country, Ukraine, and annexing Crimea before moving inland? How should we feel about candidates who exchange “love” letters with the autocratic, nay dictator of North Korea, a person who had threatened to send missiles to the west coast of the U. S.? How should we feel about candidates who praise the Chinese government for their forceful takedown of democracy-seeking citizens in Tiananmen Square?

Former President Trump, at this juncture, is his party’s overwhelming favorite candidate for President. He has a full wind in his sails. He has said that when reelected he will find a way to fire huge numbers of civil servants and replace them with super loyal true believers in his way. This is against the law for one thing, and a first step to autocracy; ask the Germans. The civil service was implemented years ago as a defense against “To the victor go the spoils.” We should not go back. Yet, the Heritage Foundation’s Project 25 is screening thousands of candidates for federal jobs, using questionnaires that seek to determine the candidate’s loyalty to Trump and his policies more than skill-based questions.[vii] Their program includes over 20 videos used to train conservatives how to essentially take over agencies and reduce their effectiveness. 

The supposed Republican candidate has said that he will get even with all of the media who wrote articles against him, against his claim that he won the 2020 election, or who reported on his attempts to take over the Justice Department and to use the military to keep his power. He calls it retribution. One might presume that his aids haven’t read the First Amendment to the Constitution.[viii] Where is the content of character in these efforts?

The former President tried to use his constitutional right to claim voter fraud and bad management of the voting process in state after state and local governments. His lawyers filed over 60 appeals in the state courts alleging voter fraud and voting machines programmed by persons in other countries to favor his opponents, and they were rebuked in every case.

The former President’s staff set up slates of fake electors in several states to submit fake election results to Congress on January 6, 2020. Several of them are now working their cases through the court system. Some have admitted that they knew it was a fraudulent act. There are photos of national Republican campaign managers attending meetings where the fake electors signed the fake certificates. The former President is charged, and not yet tried, with over 90 felony counts related to threatening voting officials, lying about voting practices, encouraging the insurrection against the elected representatives in Congress, and other related issues. In addition, he has been found guilty of business fraud in the state of New York. Is this the content of character that the nation deserves for its leader? Think about the content of character.

The question before us has nothing to do with policy. Let’s discuss healthcare at another time. We can postpone discussions about border security, and we can feign concern about foreign nationals being terrorists in the homeland. We can muster patience about nearly everything but the overthrow of our democratic way of life.

Winston Churchill supposedly said, “You could always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they had exhausted all other possibilities.” We still have folks who believe the last election was stolen, and that the mob break-in at the capitol was a bunch of tourists trying to be patriotic, so maybe we haven’t exhausted all possibilities, but we are close.

David French, raised as a religious Fundamentalist suggests that many who favor Trump over anyone else have three characteristics in common: certainty, ferocity, and solidarity. It explains how so many religious people support the “Don.” They are certain he will save our country from the chokehold of liberalism. Some call him god-sent. Once certain of that, everyone else is the enemy that must be overthrown ferociously. They are convinced that they are in solidarity with other like-minded people.[ix]

So let’s face the reality of today’s America. Let us put the character of the nation to the test. Let us put country over party, Let us put democracy over loyalty to an individual. Let us call out candidates who lack content of character. We have searched for soul before, let us do it again.

I’ll start. Donald J. Trump has demonstrated time and time again, even to this day, that he does not possess the content of character that we expect of a president. He is not qualified to be president! Let us spread that word with clarity, ferocity, and solidarity. If we don’t, we stand a good chance of losing our democracy. It is time to call for our better angels!

What will happen in all the other days that ever come can depend on what you do today!

---

[i] Earnest Hemmingway – For Whom the Bell Tolls - 1940

[ii] Lincoln’s Inaugural Address

[iii] David Brooks “What Happened to American Conservatism?” The Atlantic December 8, 2021

[iv] Heraclitus lived in Ephesus between 535-475 BCE. He also told us that we could never step into the same river twice.

[v] Dr. Martin Luther King, January 20, 2013 – I Have a Dream speech, Washington DC

[vi] Jon Meacham, The Soul of America, the battle for our better angels, 2018

[vii] Heritage.org – Project 25

[viii] First Amendment – Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

 

[ix] David French -  Why Fundamentalists Love Trump - New York Times, December 7, 2023 @ 10:25 AM

Fragility!

Our world is in turmoil right now. Our nation is in turmoil. Too many pundits ask the question we do not want to answer – Is the U.S. a failed state or just a fragile state?”

The Britannica describes a failed state as one that “is unable to perform two fundamental functions of a sovereign nation-state – “it cannot project authority over its territory and peoples, and it cannot protect its national boundaries. …Its citizens no longer believe that their government is legitimate, and the state becomes illegitimate in the eyes of the international community” So, are we a fragile state or a failed state? I do not think we are a failed state, but we must pay attention to how we move forward in the next few years. Democracy is fragile.

We know that we are a divided nation. A PEW study found that 47% of Americans believe the nation needs major changes and 67% believe their politicians are corrupt.[i] They disagree about how to reconcile the dilemma.

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger warned us that “We cannot afford a divided nation in a world in which nuclear power is matched by the growth of artificial intelligence, which removes all obstacles to accuracy and distance.”[ii] He reminded the audience that in 1974 he had said that “Societies do not grow by victories of one faction over another, but by reconciliations.”

The Guadian reports that 68% of Americans perceive a serious threat to our democracy, but 40% said a strong national leader was more important than having a democracy.[iii] Think about that! Nearly half of those surveyed believe that a civil war is at least somewhat possible in the next ten years. Think about that! The poll takers concluded that there is “continuing alienation from and mistrust of American democratic society and its institutions.” The events of January 6, 2021, make the survey’s conclusion a gross understatement.

We see dysfunction surrounding us every day. The top of our judiciary sees no problem with offers of expensive free vacations from litigants before the court. Too many of the judiciary and the Senators who advise and consent see no problem with the court system reflecting political beliefs rather than blind justice.

Our national legislature strains to muster the votes to elect a Speaker because a small faction of ultra-right-wing zealots demands total loyalty to their uncompromising agenda at the expense of compromise and reconciliation.

A former president continues to lie to his base about the verified results of the last election, ending a term in which he tore down as many of our institutions that provided safety, security, and the trust of the world community. 

In Foreign Affairs, Robert Gates, former Secretary of Defense, suggested what we should agree on; the world turmoil caused by our acknowledged enemies – China, Russia, Iran, and other despotic countries.[iv] He points out that both China and Russia want to restore their countries to the massive kingdoms they once were and to make them economic juggernauts. After World War II the U.S. and most of Europe agreed that one country would not invade another. Russia broke that agreement when it invaded Ukraine. Success there could encourage it to invade NATO nations to the west and give China the opening it needs to retake Taiwan. Putin has referred to the shutdown of the Soviet Union as “The greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century.”[v]

China is pouring trillions of dollars into its Belt and Road Initiative, a strategy that intends to link many countries in Asia and Africa to China. They are building roads, harbors, and other infrastructure for poorer countries. The purpose of this is to increase their hegemony over much of the world, culturally and economically.

At the state level legislatures continue to pass laws that decrease people’s ability to easily vote or have representation that represents them all in the name of decreasing voter fraud, of which there is hardly any, or ensuring that the majority party continues to rule the state by the use of excessive gerrymandering.

So, here we are, a divided and dysfunctional nation hell-bent on arguing about what we do not agree on and apparently unwilling to agree on what we agree on. Russia, China, and other countries are trying to take over the world and find it hard for a majority in Congress to elect a Speaker that will last more than a few weeks or months.

Have we forgotten how many autocrats came to office through election by the people? The Nazi Party won enough seats in the Reichstag that Hindenburg was forced to appoint its leader as Chancellor. We saw what Hitler did to the world. Mussolini was appointed Il Duce when his fascist right-wing party was dominant in Italy. We saw what he did to the world. Franco was able to overthrow the elected Second Republic of Spain with the help of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. He led power until 1975. All were autocrats who espoused an ultra-nationalism, superior races, loyalty to the leader, and a nation-first agenda. They all tried to destroy democratic governments and nations. Democracies have no place for autocrats.

Could the U.S. suffer the fate of so many countries back in the 1940s? It could if we do not stop those who are trying to destroy democracy right now. Too many dream of the old days which were not our best days unless you were white middle class. Too many fear losing the advantage they have had for so many years.

Our democracy is still an experiment. It is a simple attempt, the first of its kind, to let “We the People” govern a nation bolstered by a legal system that the people believe to be fair, a legislature that works for all the people. Lincoln, in his report to the Congress on December 1, 1862, called it “The world’s last best hope” St. Augustine pointed out that fear is caused by “the loss of what we love.” My fear is that we could lose our democracy if the current trend continues. If Alexander Pope was correct that “hope springs eternal,” we may yet save our fragile best hope. But how?

[i] PEW Research, March 2021

[ii] Al Smith Dinner – reported by The Pilot, Boston, October 25, 2023.

[iii] Martin Pengelly, Guardian, August 30, 2022 @ 2:00 A.M.

[iv] Robert Gates, The Dysfunctional Superpower, can a divided America deter China and Russia? – FOREIGN Affairs, September 29, 2023

[v] Reuters, December 12, 2021 @ 9:59 A.M.

Peeping Time!

October 12 is not Columbus Day or Indigenous Peoples Day. It is Peak Day, most years – a bit early this year.

It may be in my blood because I grew up there, or still bright in a darkening brain, or maybe it is true, but Colorado’s yellow aspens or California’s whatever is in the Trinity Alps, or the pastels of the South, just do not compare to the fall foliage of Vermont.

It takes a blend of a few oaks mixed in with the predominant red maple and beech to turn an entire state into an artist’s canvas. New Hampshire tries to meet the challenge but never does. It is New Hampshire after all. New York, at least upstate, is too influenced by the Midwest or something, Quebec sells a lot of maple syrup worldwide, but their reds are not the real ones, even though they border the real.

One has to have something with which to cling. Red maples are as good as anything. But there has to be something to the belief, the known grandeur, the photos that keep the leaf-peepers descending on the state in late September to mid-October. The veteran peepers know which gravel road to take for the best view and best photo or the best selfie. But the hordes of people make the quiet life of small-town New England rather chaotic during the four- or five-week leaf season. The busloads of tourists add to the clamor.

The Sleepy Hollow farm in Pomfret may be the most photographed site in the state. The curved dirt road, the railed fence, and the traditional architecture make it a favored attraction. The problem for the farm owner is that they lose their privacy for weeks on end. Folks from other states and countries do not seem to understand that a private home is not open to the public. Tourists must be shooed from the living room just as they take a picture of the furniture or whatnot.

 

The 940 people in the town of Pomfret have had it up to their ears. They have closed the road to Sleepy Hollow farm, except to neighbors, from September 23-October 15, in an effort to save the road, secure the privacy of the farm owners, and well, keep hundreds of cars from parking all over the place.

Every Vermonter has his or her favorite places to see the colors. I had several that I favored. Peacham is a hamlet in the Northeast Kingdom of the state. The 713 citizens enjoy the benefits of small-town life. They are a mix of locally born and transplants from around the world; those who can afford all the expensive homes.

 

I am partial to Bald Hill Pond which sits at the base of Bald Mountain in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. The colors are intense each year because of so many sugar maples in the area. They support a good-sized sap business in the spring which makes a lot of Vermont’s famous maple syrup. Do not get sucked into that stuff from New Hampshire or New York. Maybe the partiality results from having spent my summers in the area when I was a kid. I have hiked the hills and mountains, canoed the pond, fished the streams, and picked the blackberries. It was almost home.

Willoughby Lake in Westmore is one of the world’s beauty spots. Mt. Hoar and Mt. Pisgah have sheer walls of granite that descend hundreds of feet into the lake. Looking north, you can imagine being in a Nordic fiord. The contrast of the reds and yellows against the bright white of the sheer granite cliffs is breathtaking.

At this time of year, the entire state is ablaze with color because about 75% of the countryside is forested, the most of any state. It does not matter where you go in the state, there is brilliant color. The locals will tell you about their favorite road for the best peeping, and their favorite hillside for a colorful last picnic before the snow falls. There are few downsides to fall colors; maybe one can think of one.

Those colorful leaves fall from the tree toward the end of the season. They fall onto the once-green lawns and need to be raked into piles, and back in the day, burned. Some folks raked the leaves up against their house foundation for insulation once the snow fell. If you were a young raker, the piles of leaves make good forts for protection from the kids across the street in their leaf forts. Safe as we were, we never seemed to have anything to throw at the other guys. Leaf forts stopped being a great thing at about the age of eight.

Some say that that part of colonial America only has two seasons: the Fourth of July and Foliage Time. It is not true of course. There is Mud Season, Black-fly season, Snow most years, time for deer hunting, and partridge season. None have the attraction or beauty of Foliage time.

Sometimes nostalgia is at play.