Sunday, March 17, 2024

The Nazis are coming

Use violence to overthrow the American elections

Kill the immigrants, round them up in mass "deportation" camps

Imprison women who have abortions

Leave NATO, abandon Ukraine, join Putin

No more LGBTQ


Let's face it, this is what he's saying. He's not coming to the center because he doesn't have to win the election, as long as he can overthrow it. Let's face it: he'll never win a fair election anyway. But it doesn't matter. He's promised his followers that if they use violence to overthrow it, he'll pardon them. He's advocating violence to overthrow the American election.

Thursday, February 29, 2024

illinois ballot

I have, through a life of rough trial-and-error, come to believe in the law. It is made by people and carried out by people, who are not all perfect, but who (like me when I was on a jury) have been told to follow it as it's written. That's why when separate juries convict you-know-who I know he's guilty. Of course I knew he was guilty anyway.

I applaud the state of Illinois for removing him from the ballot. He shouldn't be on it. It will probably help him politically, because he wouldn't win Illinois anyway, and because his followers believe the libs are rigging the system against him. But the law is the law. He's an insurrectionist. He has violated the system by conspiring to overthrow it and cheat. I believe in free elections where the winner wins, and he's been doing everything in his power to ensure that some of our votes don't count.

Now is the time to stand up for democracy.

Tuesday, January 16, 2024

No man is an Iowan

Of course I'm bitterly disappointed in the results of the Iowa Caucus. How could Iowa Republicans choose a pedophile, rapist, draft dodger, fraud, liar, sore loser, and country-wrecker? Well, about half of them just did, and I'm sure they had their reasons. I take a little heart in the results, which I will explain.

First, the reasons they voted for him. I have always maintained that it's racial, plain and simple. He speaks code for "Make America White Again," and he's made it clear that he would deport, if not kill, the increasing number of refugees at our border. And let's face it, though Biden might change the way he deals with them (could Biden's shutting the door on them completely take the wind out of Trump's sails?), this would be difficult too. On the war front it's possible that 1) these Americans care less about Ukraine than they even care about democracy; in fact, they wouldn't mind switching sides, i.e. joining Putin and Kim Jong Un to take up arms against the west. It seems hard to believe but another aspect of it is that conservatives seem to be hardening around the concept of no-acceptance-of-gays-or-trans, and the Russia-Ukraine war is one place where that comes into play. So there may be two issues, both unspoken really, but major enough to make people vote for him just because he's signalled so plainly what side he's on.

On the hopeful side, I would say that half the Republicans is not "control," especially given the fact that the other half may not vote for him no matter what happens. I think the fraud, cheating, and rape trials have hurt him and it's stunningly clear that he's all that they accuse him of and a few things you don't hear about, like knowing that the girl was thirteen. I think he should be denied being on the ballot in Colorado and Maine and everywhere else, because the law is the law even if gearing up to give him what he deserves may ultimately be good for him. He seems to thrive on ridiculing the law but hey, the law is what we have to protect us, ordinary Americans, from Nazi rampages. And I think we are not far from that stage.

So time will tell if the other half of Republicans just drift over to Trump (I think not) or if it coalesces around one of the others who then can pick up steam and be a real contender. I'm waiting for the day when he rails about all the people who have wronged him (and who he vows to use his Presidency to get revenge on), and people no longer listen. It would be a huge relief.

Friday, November 17, 2023

Harvardinates

John Leverett, first secular President of Harvard (1708-1724), used Harvardinates (sons of Harvard), instead of Sons of the Prophets, to refer to Harvard alumni. That was his way of saying, we educate all men, not just divinity students (yes it was boys only at that time). This is the story of opening up Harvard, and all higher education in North America, to a wider audience - which is still a trend in progress.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CND89PZS

Wednesday, November 01, 2023

three holidays

The first is Day of the Dead, which as I understand it, celebrates, as I write, the souls of young children. We invite them back from death to join us in this 24 hours, by making shrines to them with all their favorite things. We decorate skulls in lively pink and yellow colors to show that death is joyous, not dark and angry. But if it's joyous, why do they need to come back? They don't, they just visit and join us for a while.

The second is Souls' Day. I think it was the Catholics who believed that lots of souls were stuck in the in-between, unable to go to either Heaven or Hell. Now don't get me started, but I for one believe that 100% of us are stuck in the in-between, as I've never met anyone who was 100% good or 100% bad, so I never believed there could be an unkarmic distribution system where someone put an ok person in heaven just because, ok, he was ok. He made a few mistakes, but, what the heck. If sloppy lazy humans were in charge you might have a system like that, but we know that karma is perfect and sloppy lazy humans aren't in charge. Therefore there is some truth to Souls' Day, which is that there are a lot of us floating around in this in-between land. And we might as well celebrate ourselves.

The last one is simply my personal holiday. It is to me the most beautiful time of the year. I'm not sure why I think that; it has to do with the colors, and the freshness of the air, and the refreshing nature of the cold. This is the absolute peak; a few days after the leaf peak, when the reds have turned to pink, and everything is browning a little, that's the best.

So I took the puppies for a walk. They liked it too. They are content now, resting in a warm living room.

Happy holidays!

Sunday, October 29, 2023

Mainers

I approach almost everything geographically, and so I've read about the recent shootings in Maine wondering if there was any possible connection with what I already know about the place. I'll explain but also give it away a little: chances are very unlikely that any of the victims or shooters are related to any of my people. But it's not absolutely certain, and in fact one reason they left there was that it was hard to turn around without bumping into someone you were related to. Here is the story.

It starts in Boston, in about 1806, when a man with six children died of alcohol-related something, leaving his wife alone, hungry, and cold. One possible solution to her was to send one son up to live with his aunt, his father's sister, who had married a farmer in Androscoggin County near Livermore Falls. The boy was about six at the time. He didn't have a ride all the way to the farm, but was dropped off at the intersection and walked the last four or five miles, as a six year-old, alone. He would always remember that.

His aunt, however, was true to her word, and raised him as her own, until he was a strong young kid able to enter the militia and come back to have a farm of his own. His aunt was Catherine Walker, and the step-father who raised him, James A. Walker. They were known in the local church but I was not very well able to track down what happened to either of them, where they ended up, or where or when they died.

Coming back from the militia, young Joseph, my great great grandfather, married a woman named Mary Turner and had three children almost before he figured out what else to do. His good friend Joseph Turner, Mary's older brother, had married and then remarried when his first wife had died. But Mary and Joseph Turner's father, Ebenezer, was hot on the idea of moving the whole operation out to Illinois.

Father-in-law Ebenezer was somewhat of a visionary. He had heard that Illinois had good soil, unlike Maine, and you could grow almost anything there. In Maine, people had noticed the rocky, difficult soil and of course the long, hard, winters. Livermore Falls was in a relatively fertile area but still overall no exception; some fruit grew there, but not enough. Families in their puritan traditions were large and the people didn't have enough room to expand into; to the north it was a wall of forest all the way to Quebec. And everyone was related to everyone; their children would eventually have no one to marry.

Joseph and Mary could see this, and it helped them form a plan, ultimately, to equip a wagon for the long ride out to Illinois. It would take several good horses and really solid wagon with a stove in it, and a big chair for Mother Turner, covered for the harsh weather even though it would be summer when they left. Joseph was good at the carpentry things; he'd run saws, and had spent time hauling huge timbers down to the coast, so he knew horses and wagons and building. His friend Joseph Turner encouraged him. All the Turners would be going, and some neighbors. It would be a wagon train.

In fact other people had the same idea. In 1830, a number of Mainers went to Illinois and other states as part of one of the larger internal migration movements in American history. Among the Mainers who moved to Illinois at that time was Elijah Lovejoy, who would set up a press in Alton, and Asa Turner, a cousin of Joseph and Mary who was somewhat of a firebrand preacher. Mainers and New Hampshirites were leaving New England regularly for the long trek across the National Road and into southern and western Illinois. It would take about 50 or 60 days of hard traveling. It would be slightly longer for them, since they'd stop in Boston to see Joseph's mother, and to see Turner relatives in Dedham.

When they left Livermore Falls, their wagons all decked out for the long trip, the town came out to wish them well. They lost a dog before they'd gone twenty miles, and they had to stop to reorganize in Lewiston. But soon they made it and were on their way. When they landed in Quincy, Illinois, it was November of one of the coldest winters ever, and six percent of Quincy had already been taken by cholera. But that's another story.

Back in Maine, relatives farmed the rocky soil as they always had. Some Turners and no doubt Walkers were left behind. Young James Walker Leverett, the youngest boy but the middle of the three children who made the journey, would always remember not only his few early years in Androscoggin County, but also his big journey, and walking much of the way.

Two of the victims of the shooting were Walkers; one owned the bar. But that's all I know, and I have absolutely no way to find or connect Walkers to James A. Walker of 1810, 213 years ago. Even then there were Walkers all over the place and no real way to figure out who was born of whom. Genealogy is a tricky and slippery art with names like Walker, and I, being a Leverett, am spoiled to a much easier line to figure out from.

We have the memory of the Walkers, though, and that comes from James Walker's name, and the fact that he was named after his adopted grandfather. May they rest in peace.

Saturday, October 14, 2023

Local Author Fair