Monthly Archives: November 2016

Rowing Lessons

Some of the comments surrounding my post on Take to the Oars raised good questions (posted online and through email). One friend “had no idea you were such an activist.” I haven’t been, but it’s time. If you look at the long list I gave of important issues that are now in play with this recent election, I think we need to watch and work to influence things when they start to go in a negative direction. So activism becomes important. I’m not normally an activist, so I needed to do some homework. Activism. Thanks, Wikipedia.
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Our Subarctic Denizens around Thanksgiving

During the past week or so we haven’t gotten any new snow, so the tracks have been building up. Sunrise-to-sunset time is about 5 hours, so there is little daylight during which to see (in real time) who’s been passing. Our resident snowshoe hare has been dashing everywhere. We first saw it in the latter half of October—it stuck out so boldly, white against the snow-less landscape, that we could even see it after dark. This species has only recently colonized our neighborhood, probably drawn by the increasingly open woods as aging aspens have fallen. Until now, we have not had one actually spending time in our yard. It seems to love to run on the deck. Of course we call it Thumper.

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If the Wind Will Not Serve, Take to the Oars

Destitutus ventis, remos adhibe (Latin proverb)

As a nation, we are embarking on—to put it mildly—an unfortunate political experiment. Through the electoral college, and against the popular vote, we have elected a president who is probably the least qualified ever to hold that office. And if that is not enough, the people with whom he surrounds himself are also questionably tethered to the realities of the world the rest of us live in. Some people are saying that the inmates are in charge of the asylum. The problem is that the majority of the rest of us, who clearly did not want to see Trump as president, are locked in here with them. Right now, the most important question to me is how badly will he and his cronies damage our country? And, next in importance, how much will we let them?
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