Month: February 2025

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Kindness

So what do we do in the face of this onslaught of cruelty? How shall we resist the Damaged One and his damaged appointees as they rush to do as much harm as they can to those least able to defend themselves? How do we respond as they de-fund food and health programs for the elderly and the poor? What can we do as they de-fund protection of the environment and encourage waste and pollution? How do we respond to people who only know how to take and hoard and hurt other people?

We can be kind and generous. We can share what we have. We can walk lightly and lovingly on the earth. We can join with others to counter cruelty with kindness.

And as we resort to kindness, we must remember that these many acts of cruelty by our current government are sanctioned by a large percentage of our population, people who believe that being cruel to others is preferable to being kind. Many of those practitioners and supporters of cruelty claim to be followers of Jesus Christ, a champion of the poor and the disenfranchised. So why do these so-called Christians support such vehemently un-Christian leaders?

When I was in my twenties I worked at a pre-school as a teacher’s aide, and when I was in my fifties I volunteered in a day care center. Having spent thousands of hours caring for dozens of wee tykes, I assure you that though some children seem to be inherently kind and some inherently cruel, that is very rarely the case. Kindness and cruelty are learned behaviors; and children learn through observation and imitation, and persist in behaviors from which they gain something.

Recent neurological discoveries reveal that children begin to mimic their parents’ behaviors and attitudes mere moments after birth, and by the age of three, children profoundly embody the characters of their caretakers and surrounding ethos.

So let us endeavor to make our culture one of kindness in which young people thrive. Let us turn on our love lights and shine them wherever we go.

fin

One Last Time from Todd’s CD Dream of You

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Dream News February 2025

In my dream this morning, I am living in the little house I lived in forty-five years ago. The living room is dominated by a big table on which is a large empty terrarium, and on top of the terrarium is a big piece of plywood covered with junk.

I realize that my sorrow (in the dream) has to do with my house being cluttered to the point of dysfunction, so I decide to carry the plywood covered with junk out the front door and dump everything in the garbage.

As I make my way to the front door, trying not to spill the junk balanced precariously atop the plywood, someone knocks on the door.

I open the door and here is an old nemesis of mine, a big abusive man I haven’t seen in twenty years. He is now elderly and sad. I invite him to come in.

When I get back from discarding the plywood and the junk, I find my old nemesis has brought along a teenage girl and an elderly woman, the three of them sitting in my living room.

“I’ll make some tea,” I say, but before I can there comes another knock on the door.

I open the door and here is a big young man glaring at me. Behind him are three young women.

“Are you going to let them destroy Bear Valley?” asks the young man, poking me in the chest. “You better contribute to the defense fund.”

I close the door and say to my old nemesis, “That guy just poked me.”

I look out the window and see a woman and two children come into my yard and sit on a bench, and I wake up.

*

Nowadays I’m tempted to interpret my dreams in light of what the Damaged One and his damaged minions are doing to our government and society; and they certainly do remind me of the many bullies I’ve known in my life.

When I was in elementary school there were two big bullies in my grade, and I remember how shocked and outraged I was when I discovered that our system, our school, couldn’t or wouldn’t stop them from beating up smaller kids.

I was in Second Grade the first time I saw the two bullies hurting a smaller boy. I ran to the school office to get help, and the secretary made me wait to see the principal. While I was waiting, the bell rang for the start of school and I had to run to my class where I was chastised for being late. When I explained I was trying to get someone to stop the bullies from hurting the little boy, several of my classmates corroborated my story and my teacher apologized for chastising me.

But the bullies continued to routinely beat up smaller kids for five more years, and the faculty and administration were unable or unwilling to do what needed to be done to stop the violence.

And now the bullies are in charge of our government, and they’re joining forces with other bullies to beat up the poor and weak and defenseless here and abroad, and there is no one to appeal to for help because we, the people, chose these damaged ones and many more like them to rule our society.

I wonder why.

fin

El Camino Real Con Voces from Todd’s CD Ahora Entras Tu.

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Alternative News Feed

As Damaged Soul and Psychopathic Architect of Ruin continue to attack the foundations of American democracy with alarming success, and resistance seems frighteningly slow to develop among those who should be leading the resistance, we bring you this alternative news feed.

As the earth continues to rotate at a thousand miles per hour and fly around the sun at the astounding speed of sixty-seven thousand miles per hour, Leonard Peltier was pardoned, finally, for a crime he didn’t commit, and for which he spent fifty years in prison. Hurray for Leonard and his family and friends!

*

In more localized news, Mendocino received nearly seven inches of rain last week, and now we are in the midst of cold clear days as prelude to the next storm. A good wet winter so far in the watershed.

In local music news, weekends of late I’ve been driving our little red Prius from Mendocino to Albion to spend delightful hours in the recording studio with Peter Temple adding vocals to the piano tracks we recorded here at our house for an upcoming album entitled Hip Salon, a collection of tunes we hope to bring out a few months hence.

The title song, Hip Salon, came about in a fun way. Our friend Abigail was visiting and said of her friend, “She has a chair in a hip salon.”

I thought this was a great lyric and soon thereafter wrote a song that begins, “She has a chair in a hip salon. She sets you down and goes on and on, ‘bout this and that, that and this, and if she really likes you, if she really likes you, if she really likes you, she’ll give you a kiss.”

While working on the songs at Peter’s studio, one or both of Peter’s cats hang out with us and groove to my tunes, which prompts me to boast, “The kitics love my music.”

On another creative front, the novel I’ve been working on for a year, The Farm at the East Cove Hotel, is soon to be released as a handsome paperback. Then a few weeks later the e-book versions will appear, and not long after that the audio book will debut with yours truly narrating and playing all the characters. What fun!

In culinary news, I have stumbled upon a quesadilla-like concoction that is so good I must share the ingredients with you or feel guilty of a sin of omission. A corn tortilla fried in olive oil, cheese melted therein (or sliced turkey), avocado, sautéed mushrooms, and slices of dill pickles, the entirety doused in hot sauce. The combination of these flavors, with an excellent dill pickle leading the way, is indescribably delicious.

In domestic news, Marcia is about to join me in being seventy-five. Her birthday is easy to remember because it falls on Valentine’s Day and the media is full of reminders about this special day.

In closely related news, Valentine’s Day reminds me of one of the greatest things that ever happened to me as a kid. In Second Grade at Las Lomitas Elementary School, a couple weeks before Valentine’s Day, a little room appeared in the classroom with signage indicating the room was a post office. The purpose of this inner-classroom post office was to process the valentines we were to make and send to our classmates. We each had a post office box (cubbyhole), and when valentines were dropped into the mailbox adjacent to the post office, post office employees (we took turns being postal clerks) would collect the mail and distribute the properly addressed envelopes to the post office box grid mounted on the outside of the little room. No wonder I’ve always loved getting mail. Mail equals love!

And those are just some of the stories we’re following.

fin

Ahora Entras Tu song