[Above photo: The Neiuw Statendam is 983 feet in length. Portland is certainly on the cruise ship itinerary, with two behemoths often docked simultaneously. I’d rather kick around the S. Pacific in the gaff rigger in the foreground, despite its lack of creature comforts.]
25 September 2022
The news these days contains so much horror and disaster. I don’t want to turn away from it but I also feel tired and empty after I read it. Plus, it wastes time. Military helicopter gunships shot up a school in Myanmar, killing 11 children. The army said that “terrorists” sheltered there. Yes, and what about the children? Multiple mass graves of civilians have been discovered in the wake of Russia’s hasty retreat in the Donbas. Puerto Rico is ravaged, as are the Canadian Maritime Provinces, by Fiona. It seems unfair to name hurricanes after women, rampaging like crazed Medusae.
It seems that no one is talking much about overpopulation, or population control, as our nation turns to address man-made global climate disruption. Telling people to change their ways, to have fewer or no children, isn’t going to get you elected. But it is misguided to limit ourselves to removing fossil fuels from our diet if we keep reproducing like rabbits. Yes, we may be able to feed more than we do now, although there are plenty of starving people on our globe. And as the seas warm and droughts/tropical storms become more intense, our food chains, let alone our fishermen and farmers, will be unable to keep up with a growing population. The strongest voices opposing the limitation of family size seem to come from religious leaders (and fawning politicians), who are demonstrably given to magical thinking. It doesn’t look like a happy ending to me.
There was a Moody Street block party for two hours a week ago. It was all hot dogs, face painting, a silk screen artist doing anyone’s tee-shirt, children rushing about, music, and meeting neighbors. I had some great chats, and hope to do more of the same, with numerous lively neighbors who have lived interesting lives. At 5 on the button, the skies opened and we all hustled into our shelters.
An Irish couple, who emigrated to Boston many years ago, have a pied-a-terre directly across from me. They come often to visit their daughter. He’s worked as a developmental psychologist with Barry Brazelton for decades; she enlightened me about the flexibility of the method of Maria Montessori, whose son, Mario, was her qualifying examiner. Another woman is the local TED director. And on and on. Whether any of it transforms into regular social relationships is not yet clear, but the possibility is there.
I was on the water twice last week. I took the cute little ferry on a blustery, sparkling day to Peaks Island, where I rambled on dirt roads through the lush woods, stumbled onto a miniature pony farm, had coffee and a cookie on the deck of a bakery, and met a kayaker of local reknown who was done teaching for the year but suggested where I might yet learn to roll before the chill sets in.
The next day I sailed with 3 child psychiatrists around Casco Bay for several hours. The wind was perfect and the two younger folks, neither of whom had sailed much, were engaging and eager to learn about “coming about”. The bay is filled with ledges, many unmarked, and there was an Etchells regatta which we had to keep dodging. Despite the hazards, we all laughed and enjoyed the beauty of the day, dining at Dockside in Falmouth where we started with oysters, always a great prelude to a meal.
I tackled my back yard, first weeding it all and then used 5 bags of compost to plant 9 perennials—-lilacs, hydrangeas, forsythia, bayberry, some low cypress, and a weeping Japanese maple. We had a beauty of the latter in Berkeley that grew from a twig to a remarkably full and handsome tree. Then I laid out the margins of the beds in curving lines with 650# of cobblestones. I slept well last night. I’ll cover the open space with pea gravel. It’ll take years to fill in but is much nicer now than as a patio covered in slate. Before it gets too cold, I want to plant some bulbs which will look cheery in the Spring.
Speaking of Spring, now it seems I’ll head for Thailand in March and April, which accords with my students’ needs. Not the ideal time to be in SE Asia—it’ll be getting hotter—but it’s not a bad time to slip out of Maine, I think.
I have, for me, quite a travel schedule, with Boston, Toronto, the Bay Area, and Thailand all within the next 6 or 7 months. I’m hopeful I won’t get Covid again.
As I delve deeper into Elkins’ Legacy of Violence our capacity to be deceived by our leaders, and to deceive ourselves about that deception, seems a constant. The tenets of “liberal imperialism” allowed the British to envision themselves as do-gooders, even as they rationalized violent despotism as necessary for “civilizing the savages” of India, Burma, Australia, much of Africa, and, even, Canada. Their racism at least wasn’t hidden. It was all for power and money, to make the rulers of that little island feel like they were virtuous and important in the grand scheme of things. Elkins tells the story, at least in the first quarter of the book, in a very thoughtful, entertaining, and comprehensive way. I’d feared it would simply be a recitation of British savagery.
The Wednesday January 6th Committee public hearing sounds intriguing. Malcolm X saying of President Kennedy’s assassination, “Merely chickens coming home to roost.” expresses my feelings. There is a gratification in seeing a slippery weasel caught, and DT has been dodging through the swamp, unaccountable, for years.
A Psychiatrist in Myanmar 