11-16-16

Barry Marshall

Its gotten very quiet here in Evanstonia. 

The cubs won and it rained nostalgia.

Trump won and silence reigns among us

11-18-16

Robert Lindner

As a child of holocaust survivors, I have some worries about history and the future. I express them in a poem below:

History Marches

History marches into the present,

The twenty-first century replaces

A twentieth century, sadly spent

In world wars, now just memories of faces

In photographs of those that perished in

World War One, or those lost in World War Two.

And then, just when we thought peace would begin,

A Cold War came. Then we hoped we were through

With war in the new century, but more

Wars came, without numbers and without names,

For history kept marching, just as before,

To tunes of new tyrants of the power games.

With new devices, but there are the same

Old sounds of hate, fear, anger and despair,

Led by megalomaniacs, their aim

Is aggrandizement, and it’s always there.

Now smaller wars seem to be everywhere,

As terrorists bring war to every land,

With madness stirred up into the blank stare

Of cold blooded murder that is planned

By the insane for the insane, who will

Act on their insanity, for the sake

Of hatred and revenge, they’ll go and kill

Whoever they can, and many will take

Their God’s name in vain. That’s now history,

As the beginning of this century

Still marches to drums of the tragedy

Like the last. With a new insanity,

History marches on different feet,

But they are still ruled by those who want more,

More land, more power, they control the beat

Of drums, as history marches to war.

It marches to war, as it did before,

As it did before. Will it ever cease?

Is humanity rotten at its core?

Or can we rise above it and make peace?

These are the questions for the human race,

And have been asked before in history,

The answers were the same, but we must face

The future with the hope that it will be,

Somehow, different from our past errors,

That we’ve learned from history, and can try

Not to make the same mistakes, but terror’s

What terrorists desire, and fears still fly

Around us like angry wasps, that may sting.

So we call on an exterminator

To spray their nest and kill them on the wing,

There’s so many, making our fears greater.

Our present, it seems, has a familiar ring,

That sounds like war, as we keep on marching

Into history, and we keep asking

The question, “Haven’t we learned anything?”

As history marches, humanity

Can learn, and now we can fly into space,

But there is still human insanity

To cure, if we’re to save the human race.

But there’s still more, there’s our stupidity,

That Einstein said defines infinity.

And as we watch the march of history

Into this, the twenty-first century,

We have stumbled toward another fall.

Our time moves on, we wonder where it went.

But as we try to understand it all,

History marches into the present.

Robert Lindner

11-20-16

Karen Sitron (Haight)

A very strong and true poem. I am so sorry we are and have become what we have become. Foolish Consistency is the Hob Gob of Little Minds.  

Sincerely,  Karen Sitron Haight

11-20-16

Sylvia Ramming (Wulffen)

As the grandchild of German citizens of the 3rd Reich, I have been very sad to whitness in my adopted country the type of scapegoating and fear mongering that propelled Hitler into power. But I'm encouraged to know that here we have safeguards in our government that keep extremism in check .

11-21-16

Vernon Neece

The best safeguards our nation has are alert, attentive citizens who are not afraid to speakup and/or act when they see wrongs or injustices being done or observe bigotry/racism.

11-22-16

Alice Rosengard

Hear, hear, Vernon!

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle."
--Edmund Burke, in his Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770)

11-23-16

Rosanne Bass (Keynan)

Yes, Vernon and Alice! And, as a former journalist, I'll just add: an active, ethical press, without which we can't have the educated citizenry necessary for a democracy.  So this Thanksgiving I'm grateful for, among other things, the First Amendment.

11-24-16

Patrick Furlong

That's all very well and good. Unfortunately, and at the risk of opening Pandora's Box, too many electors apparently don't pay much attention to, and actually disbelieve, the "active, ethical press", and they turn instead to sources that too often deal in misinformation, inuendo, unsupported conspiracy theories, and falsehoods. This trend is more ominous for the future of our country than the results of any single election.

11-26-16

Frank Zeman

You are right-on, Patrick. What is interesting to me are the positions taken on both sides by intelligent well informed people but the masses, who are less so, are heavily influenced by the forces you describe and they turn the tide.

For better or worse, richer or poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.

So let's make the best we can of it.

Happy Holidays to all u septuagenarians, and yours

11-28-16

Lincoln Krochmal

Patrick, wow, you did open Pandora's box!  We must remain vigilany and learn the lessons from history or expect them to be repeated. We must be watchful and vigilant for injustices, seek fact-based truths  to guide our future. challenging times ahead but our  inherent optimism as a nation will need to rise to the occasion.happy holidays to all,

11-29-16

Wendy (Wynn) Garber

Pat, I really appreciated your response (and Robert, yours too, although it was addressing a different topic.) I'm so glad we're finally breaking the post-election silence (which Barry bravely alluded to.)

12-31-16

Ruth Gross

Apocalypse?  Let's not be melodramatic.  When I think of my parents' generation and what they had to give up and live through and create again in a new land, it gives me perspective on the present situation.  Yes, we will have some difficult moments and see decisions made that we may not agree with, but, please, coping is part of life.  Strong voices are important, and the class of '64 will continue to speak out, but, as I said, perspective is also important.  I love the discussions here.  Keep them coming. 

12-31-16

Robert Lindner

2017

December 31, 2017

As I completed this poem this morning,

I decided, I’d give you fair warning.

Introduction

For Twenty-seventeen, I’m confessing,

This poem, I wrote, is a bit depressing.

My expectations, unlike Dicken’s Pip,

Are low, after our Twenty-sixteen trip.

It was a roller coaster of a year,

Now there’s a driver, we’re not sure can steer.

Happy New Year, though it’s hard to believe,

At mad hatter’s party on New Year’s Eve.

At Mad Hatter’s New Year’s Eve Party

In Twenty Seventeen, madness will reign,

Because the mad hatters have come to be

The government, and make things more insane

Than usual. The government’s usually

Quite mad, in any case, but this is worse,

The asylums have been opened and really

Insane men have been let out. It’s the curse

Of interesting times, but that’s where we

Are, as 2017 approaches,

In Lewis Carroll’s Wonderland, a land

Of mad hatters, and talking cockroaches,

A mercurial leader and his band,

That’s out of tune, and marches to the beat

Of mercurial drums, through looking glass,

Where a demented hatter takes his seat,

In the front of an angry hatter class.

In Carroll’s time, it was the Mercury

That hatters used in making hats that made

Them mad, and gave them short-term Memory

Syndrome. They appeared drunk, as they’d parade

Around, confabulating, as they went.

Since their memories failed, they made things up.

Sounds familiar, as we hear the truth bent

By today’s mad hatter, with his tea cup,

And tea party in 2017,

The New Year, where we will expect the worst,

But hope for the best, since 2016

Is gone and on New Year’s Eve, we all thirst,

For, and drink to health and to good fortune.

So let’s hope the mad hatters can be cured.

Though our sun may be eclipsed by the moon,

This too shall pass, but first must be endured.

CODA

In 2017, we too must pass

Through Wonderland, and Through The Looking Glass.

The expectations will be low. It’s sad,

When the best we can hope for is, not as bad

As we thought. Still, it’s the New Year, so may,

Health and Good Fortune be, what comes your way.

So Happy Twenty-Seventeen! Why Not!

What you wish for, I wish you’ll get a lot.

Happy New Year!

Robert Lindner

12-31-16

Patrick Furlong

Thanks, Ruth. I agree wholeheartedly--coping will be essential. However, I also believe that the challenges presented by what seems to be a world-wide shift to the authoritarian right, politically, and the disregard for "traditional" authority, the distrust or formerly relied-upon, "mainstream" news sources and the notion that there is no "truth", which increasingly appears to be conventional "wisdom" and SOP, all reflected in the recent presidential election, will demand more than that. While really trying not to be too melodramatic, and without disrespecting the trials successfully faced by our parents' generation, I believe that the next few years may be the greatest existential threat to the United States' nearly two-and-a-half century experiment in democracy since WWII. So apocalypse, maybe not, but certainly a very, very serious test of our resolve.