This is Boulder from up in the mountain park. This view is as close as I could find, but it isn’t as beautiful and it definitely needs a hawk. Still…
I have the fondest memories of my brief time spent in Boulder, Colorado in the summer of 1985. I was 20 years old and On The Road.
I remember seeing the first Ashrams I’d ever come across. Though unusual in my limited experience, their presence gave me a cosmopolitan sense of security and serenity. There were several here with mystically-odd-sounding Eastern names, like Way of the Lotus, or Green Mountain Enlightenment Center. They were perched on street corners like watching sentinels, the way the First Baptists and Third Presbyterians are in towns back on the East Coast where I’m from.
At almost any time of day, I would notice little knots of 10-12 orange-arrayed buddhist practitioners moving together through the streetscape like bright, humming basketballs rolling through the kaleidoscope of pedestrians. Especially so on the weekends when the normally serene downtown park, usually frequented only by frisbee throwing tie-dyed hippies, became a veritable street fair. From the right vantage point, you could monitor three or four orange balls of slightly different hues; the distinctive robes signifying disciples from different ashrams. They moved along in the crowds like competing characters in a PacMan game, gliding as single entities pausing only to sell flowers to passers-by.
Throngs of happy people crowded in, and the aromas of food trucks, and music on the air, reminded me of the Stumptown Festival of my boyhood in my hometown of Matthews. The park at something and Broadway with idyllic Boulder Creek running through it (every Western town I visited had a downtown park at something and Broadway) became Central Park West. Those scenes of living innocence, peace and safety, and harmony, and happiness, and good vibes, will forever live in my mind.
On my last Sunday in town, I was invited to attend the wedding of a giddy young couple who were friends of friends. Mind you, having been there less than a month, everyone was a ”new friend” to me, but as hippies and DeadHeads, we were instant family in a way I’ve never experienced as part of any other community.
Early in the morning, maybe twenty of us attended the ceremony high up on the scenic overlook above the town. The Native American who performed the ceremony deemed it a ”good match” and a ”good omen” when a hawk flew out, gliding lazily into view over the backdrop of the sleepy town on the prairie floor, just as he pronounced the lovestruck pair man and wife.
That was a good omen. That was a good day.
That’s the Boulder of my youth. Lovers kissing on a mountain with a hawk circling overhead in approval. That’s the Boulder that I’ll remember, even though the image of peaceful, hippy town was murdered yesterday along with the poor people and policeman who lost their lives to a deranged gunman.
My God. May the people of Boulder lift their eyes up unto the Mountains, from whence their help comes. There is no help but in You, Maker of Heaven and Earth.
I saw a revealing article this morning about a French actress stripping bare on a stage during an awards ceremony with the words ”No Culture, No Future” written on her front.
French actress Corinne Masiero stands naked on stage next to French actress and Master of Ceremony Marina Fois – BERTRAND GUAY /AFP
I beg to differ with her view. Without getting into the weeds about her own protest, which really seems to be relegated to whether French people should have the right to crowd into movie theaters together, regardless of whether they make each other sick and possibly dead, I’m quite positive there will be a future, with or without culture, unless there aren’t enough people left to attend.
I will spare you the photos of my own planned protest. I have in mind to use some of Beth’s lipstick and write across my ample front, ”No People, No Culture” as a repartee.
This brings up one of the most troubling basic premises of Darwinian evolutionary theory. He posits the maxim survival of the fittest to describe those members of a species able to remain in the gene pool and pass on their genetic material to insure the species survives.
Western culture seems determined to have a PASS/FAIL test as to the veracity of this theory. Like, this year.
It’s already troubling to me that what is supposed to be one of the smartest sub-groups of our species has developed technology that, if deployed, would assure the destruction of our species. So, there’s that.
Then, there’s the current fact that a significant portion of our fellow homo sapiens seem hell-bent on deploying brilliant and ”free” behaviors to the same end.
This begs the question, what is fitness, n’est pas?
Obviously, nuclear physicists need not apply.
And the shrinking freedom brigade is cancelling itself by its own proficiency at using freedom to kill off a large number of its practitioners.
This ”give me liberty, or give me death” crowd seems too ideologically pure to be bothered with the concern that they’re killing a lot of the rest of us, too. Maybe a better mantra for these folks would be, ”give me liberty, or give everybody death.”
It’s becoming apparent that anyone who would rather die, or kill someone else, than wear a piece of fabric over their mouth and nose when they’re near other people doesn’t meet another of Darwin’s fitness qualifications either, that of adaptability.
I like Me & Bobby McGee as much as the next fellow, but come on, now, that’s pushing the chorus a little far.
Freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose
Nothin’? Literally? Click the link above for some culture. Photo is screenshot of video. Thanks YouTube.
Forgive me, but I think there’s a pretty simple sequence here: People before Economy and, People before Culture, and People Before Freedom. Seems right. Check me if I’m wrong.
For my math nerd friends: People>Freedom>Economy>Culture
I’ve got plenty of room to scrawl No People, No Economy on my backside. Heck, there’s probably room to get No People, No Freedom drawn on too. That way, I too, can have my moment of performance-art protest fame.
Note: I’m gonna need help writing this on myself. If those persons who helped write on the bare ass cheeks of those other Darwinian genii, the Proud Boys, could give a guy a hand, I’d be much obliged.
Screenshot capture of widely available video. (Someone wrote with that marker, y’all)
Note on note: I got a good chuckle when looking for the image above when I saw that those pretty yellow plaid kilts were made by a gay-owned Virginia company, Verillas, known for its support for the LGBTQ community. Has anyone noticed any Proud Boys Indeed job postings for the position of ”Kilt Procurement”?
Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader from the floor after Saturday’s vote to acquit.
Yesterday was another sad day in the history of the Republic. It may go down in history as the saddest. At the end of the second impeachment trial of Donald J. Trump, in which he was again acquitted in a shamelessly partisan process, the now minority leader of the Senate, Mitch McConnell, gave a twenty minute speech. If you haven’t heard it, you may wish to find it somewhere online, either in video, or transcribed print form.
McConnell blasts Trump for his complicity and guilt, squarely laying the blame for the January 6th, 2020 attack of the Capital at Trump’s feet. To quote him directly,
”They did this because they had been fed wild falsehoods by the most powerful man on Earth — because he was angry he’d lost an election.”
“The people who stormed this building believed they were acting on the wishes and instructions of their President.
“And their having that belief was a foreseeable consequence of the growing crescendo of false statements, conspiracy theories, and reckless hyperbole which the defeated President kept shouting into the largest megaphone on planet Earth.”
In summary, he goes on to say the attack was the inevitable result of perpetrating those lies and wild conspiracy theories to his base. He says that this isn’t the fault of 74 million Americans who voted for him, but that it is the fault of one man.
At the end he all but invites criminal prosecution of Trump, now a private citizen for his role in the insurrection and attempted coup, saying that former elected officials are not immune from the criminal justice system and,
”Trump didn’t get away with anything…yet.”
Less than an hour before his speech, McConnell had voted along with 42 other GOP senators to find Trump not-guilty of the very same factual charges for which he now excoriated him from the Senate rostrum. He voted not-guilty, he explained, because his reading and interpretation of the Constitution did not align with Impeachment and Conviction of a non-sitting President or other elected public official. He argued that the Constitution simply gave no jurisdictional authority to the Senate to convict the former President, now that Trump is a ”private citizen”.
I admit, McConnell gives a compelling argument for this Constitutional interpretation. He believes the text of the relevant Articles simply did not provide for the remedy sought. He cites former Justice Story, and his views about the narrow usage of Impeachment as an ”inter-governmental” remedy to protect the state from law-breaking office holders, but that impeachment conviction is not an option if the remedy of ”removal” from office is no longer an option. This interpretation could be the correct one.
Of course, McConnell never mentions the fact that he himself had sent the Senate into recess after the House had voted to impeach then-President Trump, making it impossible for the Senate to hold an Impeachment Trial prior to the January 20th Inauguration Day.
The problem with all of this, and with McConnell’s speech, is that the Senate had voted on the Constitutional/Jurisdictional question on Tuesday, at the very beginning of the Impeachment trial. By a narrow vote of 56-44, the Senate voted (and thus declared of itself) that it did, in fact, have jurisdiction. By so voting, the Senate made its Jurisdiction explicitly part of the record of this particular trial, and part of the record of precedent for all future Senates facing similar circumstances.
This 56-44 vote is a part of the Congressional record, and carried the weight of law. It is the resultant basis of this vote that allowed the trial to proceed to the next step, the ”fact-finding” phase of the arguments for and against the specific allegations brought by the Article of Impeachment the House of Representatives had leveled against Donald J. Trump.
Had that Tuesday vote failed, the trial would have ended then and there. But it did not fail. The Senate voted of itself by a bi-partisan majority, including six GOP senators, that it did have Constitutional authority and jurisdiction to try the impeachment case. That issue was settled. It was established.
McConnell’s speech, after the fact, becomes one of the most elaborate, literallycontemptible displays of political rhetoric ever foisted upon the body politic in American history. He bases his entire rationale for not voting to convict Trump on the facts, (which was the purpose of yesterday’s vote following the closing arguments by both sides) facts his speech makes all too plain he agrees with, on the basis that the Senate did not have Constitutionally authorized jurisdiction (which had been decided, voted on, and ruled at the very beginning of the proceedings on Tuesday).
In simple terms. His speech is an admission of contempt against the Tuesday vote of the Senate, affirming legal jurisdiction, because McConnell did not agree with it.
This is the exact rationale that Trump and his minions used to concoct the BIG LIE about election fraud in the first place. They just did not agree with majority of Americans, nor with the electoral college, nor with the courts! How McConnell could stand there and blast Trump for his guilt related to January 6th while hiding behind his contempt for the very Senate in which he is the current Minority Leader is astonishing!
I would have respected the GOP senators for walking out of the proceedings on Tuesday after 44 of them voted that they did not have jurisdiction. That would have been consistent with their interpretational views. If they had done so, they would have acted consistently, and maintained their political cover to their constituents back home.
The trial would have proceeded. It would have been presented to the 56 remaining Senators who were faithful to their sworn oaths to be impartial jurors. The conviction would easily have carried a two-thirds majority ”of those present”. In fact, it would have been unanimous.
These 44 cowards, including McConnell, instead put themselves squarely in contempt of the very body to which they are elected members, the United States Senate, by continuing to act as if that body did not have jurisdiction, even though it had voted by a majority affirming that it in fact, did have jurisdiction!
If a citizen in any authorized court in this country acted as if a ruling of that court was invalid once the court itself had established its validity, on the basis that the citizen did not agree with court’s decision, the citizen would immediately be found in contempt of the court! The opinion of a citizen is irrelevant once a court or legal body has ruled.
This ploy and rationalization by the now minority party is nothing but it’s own contemptuous dereliction of duty and illegal contempt of the Senate of the United States.
If a politician or political party can set aside the clear majority vote ruling made by a legal governmental body, in this case the very Senate in which they are elected to ”serve”, simply because they disagree with the result, where do we go from here? In such a case, there is no recourse, the Constitutional Republic is dead.
