Please join us on Saturday (2 October 2021) at 10:30 AM for our weekly meditation group with Larry Androes.

This is a sitting Buddhist meditation including a brief introduction to mindfulness meditation, 20 minutes of sitting, and followed by a weekly teaching.

The group is free and open to all.

For more information, contact Larry via email or phone using (318) 272-0014.

I love the phrase “praying with our feet.” It often comes to mind for me in protests at the Texas Capitol, when I wait in line to vote, and perhaps most especially every Friday, when I lead my Zumba class, where we pray with our arms, our hips, our everything.

“What is your intention for this hour?” I ask folks Zooming in from around the world. “What are you dancing for today?”

On a recent morning, the answers included, “my 18-year wedding anniversary!” “another job interview,” and “seeing my grandkids again for the first time in COVID.” A woman in College Station, Texas, showed us her wrapped wrist and asked for healing prayers after surgery. A dancer in Canada requested the song “Best Friend” by Saweetie and shared sadness about a friend in hospice care.

We took deep breaths and held each other across the miles. Then we danced — for joy, hope, and grief. For the chance to move together as one, even in a time of isolation.

Happiness ain’t something you sit back and you wait for
Feels so good to dance again”
—Selena Gomez, “Dance Again

Since finding dance nine years ago, it has become my joy practice and a form of embodied prayer. I choose music and choreography to reflect Unitarian Universalist principles like interconnectedness, equity, and acceptance. Moving to the music of Lizzo, Kesha, and Gente de Zona, I am praying to the Spirit of Life — to summon the energy for another day of pandemic parenting, to feel in my hips and heart that I am enough. We are all enough.

Uruguayan journalist and novelist Eduardo Galeano wrote, “The church says: The body is a sin. Science says: The body is a machine. Advertising says: The body is a business. The body says: I am a fiesta.”

As UUs, I hope we can bring church and science into the body’s celebration (and do our best to ignore advertising altogether).

Lately, my own body and spirit have been telling me to slow down. I am feeling the impact of pandemic trauma, plus the natural effects of aging (and a decade of jumping up and down to Pitbull songs).

Thankfully, Zumba can be medium-impact or low, on your feet or in a chair or swimming pool. Sometimes just listening to the playlist is enough. When I forego a high-impact jump in favor of a grounded shimmy to protect my back, I am not failing my class — whose members range in age from elementary school to their 80s — but honoring the sacredness of all bodies.

PHOTO BY DYLAN NOLTE ON UNSPLASH

Similarly, when my brain is tired and I forget a move, I try not to apologize (as I have been conditioned to do for the most human of mistakes). Even though I feel embarrassed on the inside, I throw my head back and laugh, improvising through the moments Richard Simmons used to call “accidental solos.” I remember that we are called to let go of perfectionism — a piece of dismantling white supremacy culture in ourselves and our institutions. I remind myself that we need these moments, to dance through discomfort and even embrace mistakes, having faith we will learn from them.

I remember the wise words of Cynthia Winton-Henry in her book, Dance – The Sacred Art: “As much as you might want a ‘perfect’ spot in which to dance, it is really the other way around: You make the space around you holy when you dance.”

What does prayer look/feel/sound like to you?

ROBERT
CLF Member, incarcerated in MA

Little things, big things, anything; people pray for them. From the mundane, like to perhaps hit the lottery, to the serious, like for someone’s life. (Though perhaps, for some, winning the lottery isn’t mundane at all, but a serious need.)

It all cycles around to prayer. A want, a need, a desire, leading to hoping, wishing, possibly even begging, some greater power to hear you, to help you.

Do I pray? Probably not enough. I attend services, I meditate, I take part in my faith, and take it seriously. But praying? In here, it can be hard to do.

PHOTO BY PEDRO LIMA ON UNSPLASH

There’s a mentality that pervades all here: avoid weakness, lest you be preyed upon. To pray, is, in a way, a surrendering yourself to another, to ask for help to do something.

Is that weakness? No, but in here, it can be viewed as such. So that energy hangs in the air, sapping you, putting you on edge.

But when I pray, it, in its way, helps and hurts. That surrendering lifts a weight off of you, it can be an emotional release, a reset of one’s self, an acknowledgment that you can’t do it all on your own, and that everything will, in its time, be okay.

So pray. Not for me (though admittedly I wouldn’t mind), but for you. For your world, big, little, whatever size it is. May it help you.

That is my prayer.

KEVIN
CLF member, incarcerated in VA

We all should know that though the look of prayer could be one on their knees with hands held upright, fingers straight up, palms together, prayer can look many different ways. For me it is often sitting down anywhere — on the ground, in a chair, at a desk or table, with my hands held together. Of course it might be alone, or it could be with someone who needs a prayer more than me, as I say a prayer for them. I pray anywhere, anytime, needed or not, as a way to think about what the situation needs.

If I see a death happened in the news,  I say a prayer for the family for strength, a prayer for the deceased. A flood — I say a prayer for support, goods, rescue. A fire — the same and more, to have shelter along with healing. A nice day with no huge troubles — a prayer of thanks and gratitude, with a prayer for more of these days.

The sound of prayer: it could be noisy, mildly busy with the hum of every day life all around, or it could be complete silence, a prayer said or thought.

The feel: if nervous, anxious, or feeling the weight of the world on one’s shoulders, then a prayer feels like relief. A great feeling of no burdens.

I’ll end with a prayer of thanks and acknowledgment, for the gift of all that prayer is for me.

VYLET
CLF member, incarcerated in FL

Quiet as kept, be slow to speak
The tongue of death is death indeed
Let temperance and virtue be thy speech
Consider silence and still thy feet

Be thou fearless, feel not dismay
For thou art spirit to what is pain
Deep meditation shall make things clear
The weapons of war that thou should fear

Speak no lies, be not the fool
Boomerangs of deception bareth dark rile
If a word be uttered, let freedom reign
Sever the yoke and break every chain

If I be bound, may they be free
If I face danger, let them have peace
If I must die, let them live
Return I shall and with them sing

Divine decrees establish the link
Of things unseen, oh what of faith
This body clad of clay and dust
But I am greater, the creator’s touch

Infused in soil, the morning star
A living soul, the lawful heart
Ponder the path thy foot is upon
Consider the workings thy hands have wrought

Be thou calm in every endeavor
And radiant as the sun
Forever-ever, forever and ever
I and my father are one

DALE
CLF members, incarcerated in TX

PHOTO BY DENIS DEGIOANNI ON UNSPLASH

Looking at the night sky,
Staring at the galaxy,
Watching the Milky Way swirl.

Pondering things like,
“What is my purpose in life?”
While I’m watching the stars
Coalesces into a ball of fire
Brighter than the sun.

As I watch it forms
the face of God.

Burning white hot,
Igniting my world,
causing my fears and doubts
to flee, clearing my mind
and chasing away the shadows.

Enlightening.
Searing through me from the ashes
A phoenix arises,
stronger than before.

And as I look at the face of God,
I see me.

GARY
CLF member, incarcerated in NC 

Farlow, Gary 2020-10-16 Artwork – October Walk.

Justin Trudeau Says New Canada Government Will Move “Faster, Stronger” On Priorities
Ottawa: Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday he would unveil his new cabinet next month and bring back parliament by fall’s end to tackle climate change, Covid and economic recovery.In his first news conference since winning a September 20 snap election, Trudeau said his minority Liberal government has been given a mandate “to move even stronger, even faster on the big things that Canadians really want.”He listed, as examples, measures to fight climate change, further boost Canada’s Covid vaccination rates — already among the highest in the world — and bolster Canada’s economic recovery.He also said to expect a decision “in the coming weeks” on whether to ban Huawei equipment from Canada’s 5G wireless networks, after the United States and other key allies did so.”We continue to weigh and look at the different options,” he said of Huawei, noting that Canada’s telecoms companies have already “started to remove Huawei from their networks and are moving forward in ways that doesn’t involve them as a company.”Canada had felt squeezed between China and the United States over its arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou on a US extradition warrant, with two of its own nationals detained in apparent retaliation on what Trudeau has said were trumped up espionage charges.All three were freed and repatriated on Friday after Meng reached a deal with US prosecutors.The makeup of Trudeau’s new cabinet is still being sorted out, but he revealed that Chrystia Freeland would remain his number two as well as finance minister.Meanwhile, Elections Canada announced the final election results, awarding 159 House of Commons seats to Trudeau’s Liberals — 11 shy of a majority — and 119 to the main opposition Conservatives, led by Erin O’Toole.PromotedListen to the latest songs, only on JioSaavn.comThree smaller parties grabbed the remainder of the 338 seats.(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

经合组织呼吁全球建立及明确ICO监管框架 加密货币小幅下跌
英为财情Investing.com – 周一，比特币和其他主流加密货币小幅下跌。此前，经济合作与发展组织(经合组织)表示，需要加强首次代币发行(ICO)监管。经合组织呼吁全球监管机构展开合作，建立及明确ICO监管框架。经合组织表示，此举意在提升ICO作为一种融资方式的安全性。合作可使ICO在充分保护投资者的同时，发挥区块链技术为中小企业融资的潜力。此前，经合组织已表现出对区块链技术的兴趣，然而对比特币等基于区块链的加密货币持怀疑态度。去年，经合组织称加密货币可能对税收透明度构成风险。周一，另一篇报道称，法国银行业的高层人物也开始进入区块链领域。法国央行前行长、法国顶级经济学家克里斯蒂安·诺耶(Christian Noyer)现在是区块链初创公司SETL的董事会成员。SETL的目标是利用区块链网络提供即时支付和结算服务。截至北京时间20:11（美国东部时间上午07:11），英为财情比特币指数跌1.21%，报3,549.3美元。英为财情瑞波币指数跌0.3%，报0.31965美元；英为财情以太坊指数跌1.77%，报117.15美元；英为财情EOS指数涨1.79%，报2.3700美元。

比特币价格跌超3% 币安将在美国上线加密货币交易平台
英为财情Investing.com – 周一，截至撰稿时，主流加密货币小幅小跌，其中比特币领跌。行业动态方面，币安(Binance)美国交易平台将在未来几周推出，引发了业内关注。上周五，世界知名加密货币交易所币安宣布，其美国交易平台预计将在未来几周推出。币安在一份公告中说，我们将在数天内开通KYC认证，以便您有时间验证您的账户和存款资金。 KYC指了解客户(know-your-customer)，是提高金融诚信度，打击洗钱和恐怖主义融资的重要手段。目前，币安美国分公司仍在考虑可以向哪些州的用户提供服务，具体名单将在KYC认证开通前公布。其他消息方面，日本通讯巨头正式进军加密货币行业。上周五，日本金融监管机构向LINE旗下专注于数字资产和区块链的子公司LVC Corporation颁发了加密货币交易所运营许可证。LINE的8000万用户将可在比特币交易平台BITMAX上买卖比特币、以太坊、比特币现金、莱特币和瑞波币等主流加密货币。英为财情Investing.com加密货币指数显示，截至北京时间17:05（美国东部时间凌晨05:05），24小时内，比特币价格跌3.43%，报10,160.1美元，早前一度跌至10,095.7美元的一周低点。同时，瑞波币跌0.79%，报0.25878美元；以太坊跌2.1%，报178.80美元；莱特币跌1.8%，报68.992美元；拍下巴菲特午餐的孙宇晨创办的波场币跌0.64%，报0.01544美元。推荐阅读苹果公司：加密货币具有长期潜力，很感兴趣推特CEO：现在把比特币当作货币还为时尚早 VanEck携手SolidX推出类ETF比特币信托基金，面向合资格机构币安将推出加密货币租借服务，部分用户可出借资产并赚取利息比特币：10年400万倍

Come now, all who are thirsty and burned
Come to the place where cool waters and aloe
Soothe your bedraggled soul
Drink your fill and salve your skin
Then fill your canteen and return once more to the struggle
Knowing the well will remain unobstructed
-Lindasusan Ulrich, from “Begin Your Journey Home”

How can you soothe your bedraggled soul today? What is the balm that your spirit needs to recover?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

Today, September 29, is my great grandmother Claudia’s birthday–she was born in 1865. I never got to meet her, but I was named for her (my middle name) and so I have felt a connection to her for quite a while. This week I was once again caught in the throes of this strange yearning obsession to try to understand the lives of my matrilineal forbears. I happened to be looking at a document about Claudia that I compiled a few years ago, and it mentioned a resource–the “General Catalogue of the Entire Montagnais Nation.” [Except the title was in Latin and the book was in French. Denis Brassard, Catalogus generalis totius Montanensium Gentis of Father Jean-Joseph Roy, 1785-1795 ]

It was a record of baptisms and other religious rites at the King’s Posts (Postes du Roi) in the Saguenay River area and North Shore of the St. Lawrence River of Quebec, in the 18th century. The Postes du Roi were the site of trading between the Innu/Montagnais and the French/British. They were also the site of missionary priests coming round to offer religious instruction and ceremonies to the Innu people. (The French called the Indigenous people of this region Montagnais, but since then, the people have reclaimed their own word, Innu.)

Claudia’s mother was Angele McLeod, and her mother was Marie-Madeleine, who was identified as “Montagnaise” in any records I had been able to find. But I had been unable to go any further back in her family, and only had estimates of her birth to be about 1789, perhaps linked to a Post du Roi. So I went looking for that book, which was available in a digital format for not so much expense. And it had a built-in translation function, which helped a lot since my French is shaky. The first half of the book was a description of how things were at the Postes du Roi. The Innu generally spent fall/winter/spring in the inland forests, hunting and gathering, and then came to the shores of the Saguenay or St. Lawrence in the summer, to fish and gather with each other. The Posts were built at these established summer gathering places to foster the fur trade, and the conversion of Innu people to Catholicism by the priests.

By searching record by record through the hundreds in the chart, I was able to find two Marie-Madeleines (Maria Magdalena) whose births were within 10 years of 1789: 1795, 1797. The Innu people did not use surnames, but rather single descriptive names, so each record included a Christian name (in Latin) and a personal name for the child in the Innu language. I found Marie Madeleine Katshisheiskueit (record #1065), and Marie Madeleine Manitukueu (record #1079). I don’t know that I will ever be able to establish a definite link between one of them and my Marie Madeleine, but one of them could be related to me. My Marie Madeleine eventually was married to Peter McLeod who worked for the King’s Posts in many places. And she was identified as Catholic, so it would be likely for her to be in these records.

Finding these names is touching a deep place in my spirit. I can’t even describe it. And deeper still, was searching out the meanings of the Innu names in the language. I was able to determine that Katshisheiskueit likely means “Hard-working/female” and her parents’ names were Antonius/ Tshinusheu which means “Northern Pike”, and Anna/ Kukuminau, which means “old woman” or “wife.” (Now the parents were only about 16 then, so likely it was an endearment, or Tshinusheu just said–“that’s my wife.”)

Manitukueu has something to do with Spirit–Manitu is the Innu word for Spirit. But I couldn’t find an exact reference. Manitushiu means someone who uses spiritual or mental power. “kueu” seems to be a common verb ending signifying something being or having. It is like detective work–and I wouldn’t be able to do any of it if I hadn’t been studying Passamaquoddy, which is related to the Innu language. Words are formed polysynthetically, with smaller parts joined together to create long descriptive concepts in one word. So I search the online Innu dictionary, with my framework of Passamaquoddy, and try to recreate what they might mean.

Manitukueu’s parent’s names were also challenging. Her father was Simeon Tshinapesuan, and the closest word I could find was something meaning “slips on a rock”, or “slippery.” Her mother was Marie Madeleine Tshuamiskuskueu, part of which meant “finding it by detecting it with body or feet.” But then I lucked out because her own birth record called it Iskamiskuskueu–which means “from Jeremy Islets,” and she was from Jeremy Islets. According to another source, this Innu name of that place meant “where you can see polar bears.” (Where you can find polar bears?) I guess I was rather far off.

So, it’s hard to trace “family trees” without surnames, but each child was listed with their parents, and by going through again searching for the parents’ names, I could find their parents too. And in fact, there were a few generations in each of their families to be found in the charts, with a lot of holding a magnifying glass over my computer screen so I could read the small letters in the charts. Much more still to do.

It is a whole world uncovered to me. And whether or not one of these women is my actual relation, this is the world she lived in, the world she came out from to enter a path that eventually would lead her daughters and granddaughters into other worlds. I never imagined that I might learn the Innu name of my great, great, great grandmother… and now there are all these names dancing in my mind, trying to form in my mouth, bringing much depth to my heart. I feel such gratitude and curiosity.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041809/https://findingourwayhomeblog.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/claudia-tremblay.jpg

Sunday, October 3, 10:30 a.m.

~ Lessons in Relationship from Dr. Seuss ~

Online Multigenerational Service

As we introduce our monthly theme of Cultivating Relationship, what can we learn from Horton, the Lorax and other favorite Dr. Seuss characters? Are there additional lessons we can learn from the Dr. Seuss Institution’s decision to remove 6   [ … ]

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If you google up a survey of conservative Christian condemnations of transgenderism or gender fluidity, you'll notice that they pretty much all go back to the creation story in Genesis 1: 

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

That's the approach, for example, of the Focus on the Family article "A Biblical Perspective on Transgender Identity". 

Those of us committed to the Christian worldview base our view of gender and sex on the biblical book of Genesis

The Christian Q&A site "Got Questions" gets a little more precise: It admits the Bible doesn't cover nonbinary gender issues specifically, but invokes Genesis as the best it can do: 

The Bible nowhere explicitly mentions transgenderism or describes anyone as having transgender feelings. However, the Bible has plenty to say about human sexuality. Most basic to our understanding of gender is that God created two (and only two) genders: "male and female He created them"  (Genesis 1:27). All the modern-day speculation about numerous genders or gender fluidity—or even a gender “continuum” with unlimited genders—is foreign to the Bible.

Both articles (and all the others I've found claiming that the Bible mandates exactly two genders) share an interpretative choice: "male and female" is read as prescriptive, not expansive. Male and female, in other words, aren't examples of the breadth of God's creation, they define the limits of it. That's the choice Got Questions is making when it says "and only two". Once you make that choice, you can claim that anyone talking about some possibility outside the male/female duality is going against God.

Here's my brief observation: That's a weird interpretation.

In particular, that's not how anybody reads similar poetic forms in the rest of the creation story, or in the Bible in general. In Genesis 1:11, for example, we read: 

Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.”

While 1:24 says:

And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.”

Think about those. After God says "vegetation", does God then intend to legislate that plants must produce seeds? Mosses don't. Neither do ferns; they rely instead on a complicated two-generation reproductive cycle that involves spores. Are they in violation of the divine command? For that matter, were human agronomists subverting God when they produced seedless watermelons?

What if an animal species fell somewhere between the categories of "livestock" and "wild"? (Cats, for example.) Would they be abominations? What about animals that move primarily through the trees rather than "along the ground"?

Now back up and take a wider view: Isn't the whole creation story an elaboration of the idea that God created everything? But the list in Genesis 1 doesn't include mushrooms or insects. Should we then assume they are unholy creatures that come from somewhere else? 

Of course not.

In every phrase but "male and female", we read Genesis 1 as expansive and celebratory. The point is to stretch our imaginations by suggesting the breadth of creation, not to restrict creation down to the entries on a list. 

"Male and female he created them" should be read the same way.

Shannon Lang

Continue reading "Putting on Armor"

If asked about the origin of the United States Army, most folks, if they have a clue, would point to the American Revolution.  On June 14, 1775, the Second Continental Congress created the Continental Army and the next day unanimously elected George Washington commanding general.  Volunteer units from several colonies already besieging Boston alongside militia units were mustered as the First Regiment of the Line.  Washington soon joined the troops, and the war was on as a seriously united effort.

All of that, of course, is true.  But almost as soon as the war ended the Continental Army was demobilized and essentially disbanded by order of General Washington on May 12, 1783 after Congress, now under the Articles of Confederation, rejected his appeal for a small standing army to be placed under the command of General Henry Knox.  Congress was deeply fearful that a standing army would lead inevitably to monarchy or dictatorship—and more than a few feared that the popular Washington might use it to have himself made king.

One hundred artillerymen and 500 infantry were kept on the payroll.  The artillery company was stationed at West Point, essentially security guards for the large arsenal there.  The infantrymen were scattered in small numbers at forts and outposts across the long western frontier and the border with British Canada.

Those infantrymen were totally unable to face the challenge of continuing warfare on the frontier by native tribes still allied with the British.  The plight of settlers west of the Alleghenies and south of the Ohio was soon desperate.

And this tiny Federal force was not even regularized, it operated out of necessitybut with no legal foundation.

In June of 1784 Congress formally rejected Washington’s scaled back plans for a 700 man army.  On May 12 they dischargedall the troops except for 25 caretakers at Fort Pitt and 55 at West Point.  On June 14 of that year Congress reluctantly agreed to raise a force of 700 men for one year’s duty on the frontier under the command of a Lt. Colonel.

On September 29, 1784 the War Departmentformally issued the order creating what many considered just a temporary resurrection of the Continental Army.  Four companiesof infantry and two of artillery dubbed the First American Regiment came under the command of Colonel Josiah Harmar of Pennsylvania. 

The creation of the First Regiment is considered the true birthday of the Regular U.S. Army.

The idea that a tiny regular army supplemented with local militia and, if need be short term musters of volunteer regiments would be enough to keep a lid on the powder keg on the frontier was ludicrous.

Some of the bloodiest, most intense, and widest ranging Indian warfare inAmerican history continued for years on the frontier.  On November 4, 1791 a large force of volunteers, militia, and some regular companies under General Arthur St. Clare was routed and nearly massacred by native forces of the Western Confederation near Fort Recovery in Ohio.

This disaster finally encouraged Congress to expand and reorganize the Army.  With the approval of new President Washington and his Secretary of War Knox, the Legion of the United States was created with General “Mad” Anthony Wayne in command.  It was organized into four sub legions, two of which were converted from the First and Second Regiments, and two more to be recruited and trained. 

After extensive training in 1792 and ’93 the Legion took to the field for operations against the Western Confederacy south of the Ohio.  The large, disciplined force, with the assistance of by now veteran militia, was successful in a campaign in Kentucky that drove most of the hostiles north of the river. 

Wayne and the Legion pursued the tribes into their home territory north of the river, burning several principal towns and finally decisively defeating them at the Battle of Fallen Timbers on August 4, 1794.

With the frontier seemingly secured, the Legion was disbanded in 1796 and the reduced Army was reorganized into regiments the following year.  Some historians take this as the real origin of the Regular Army, but since the First and Second regiments were reconstituted, most take the 1784 date.

Major General James Wilkinson, first Commanding General of the U.S. Army,  was a brave soldier in combat, but an inveterate schemer, Spanish secret agent, and plotter of various treasons.

The new Army was placed under the command of General James Wilkerson, an officer with a checkered reputation for rascality, but a splendid battle record in the Revolution and under Wayne at Fallen Timbers—despite the fact that as a double agent for the Spanish in New Orleans he may have leaked some of the Legions operational plans to British agents active with the Indians.

Later that year the Whiskey Rebellion broke out in Western Pennsylvania.  To suppress it Washington, at the urging of his closest advisor, Alexander Hamilton raised the largest army the new nation had ever put into the field, over 12,000 troops, mostly federalized militia including for the first time, draftees, and a handful of Legion troops.  He personally took to the field to command the force, which made quick, and largely bloodless, work of suppressing the rebellion.  But that confirmed the worst fears of old anti-federalists and Thomas Jefferson’s nascent Republican faction that a large army would be used to suppress the people in defense of a powerful elite.

After retirement Washington was recalled to command the Army in 1798 by President John Adams as a possible war with France loomed.  A large force was raised, mostly Volunteers with regular Army regiments.  Washington helped plan the formation and logistics but left operational command to his favorite Hamilton who expected to take the field in operational command.  Hamilton had grandiose dreams of martial glory, including the conquestof Louisiana. 

Washington died at home in Mt. Vernon still nominally in command on March 1, 1799.  The crisiswith France passed, much to Adams’s relief and to the disappointment of Hamilton.  The Volunteer Army was disbanded, and the Regular Army shrunken. 

Wilkerson was restored to command and embarked on more plots with the Spanish and later with disgraced Vice President Aaron Burr who planned a filibustering campaign to either capture Texas from the Spanish or perhaps create abreak away nation west of the Appalachians. At the last moment the Commanding general betrayed Burr, but that is another story.

The Regular Army remained undermannedand scattered in coastal defense fortifications and along the frontier.  It was totally unprepared for the War of 1812...yet another story.

The First Regiment was consolidated with four other regiments in the post War Of 1812 reorganization in 1815 as the 3rd Infantry Regiment, which is the oldest active Regiment in the Army.  Now known as the Old Guard it has mostly ceremonial duties around Washingtonincluding soldier funerals at Arlington National Cemetery, standing guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Presidential escort, and providing troops for review for visiting foreign dignitaries.  It is the only unit in the army to always march in parades with fixed bayonets in honor of its chargeat the Battle of Cerro Gordo in the Mexican War. Units from it fought in Vietnam and companies have been dispatched to support deployments in the Horn of Africa, Djibouti, and at Camp Taji, Iraq in recent years.

“The pecan trees and their kin show a capacity for concerted action, for unity of purpose that transcends the individual trees. They ensure somehow that all stand together and thus survive. How they do so is still elusive.”
-Robin Wall Kimmerer

How can you show solidarity with other beings today? How can you understand a unity of purpose with others?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

莱特币 下跌10%
英为财情Investing.com – 根据英为财情 Investing.com Index的行情系统显示，星期二16:10 (08:10 GMT) 莱特币 交投于125.585附近，下跌幅度达到10.11% ，这是?从2021年6月21日??以来 ，该币种遭遇的最大日跌幅。此次下跌导致 莱特币 的总市值下降至 $8.544B ，在加密货币总市值中的占比为 0.65% . 而 莱特币 市值此前在达到高位时为$25.609B .在最近的24小时内， 莱特币 的价格维持在$119.882 到 $132.875 之间交投。在过去的7个交易日里， 莱特币 下跌了 28.64% ，其总市值出现了明显的?下跌 。截至发稿， 莱特币 24小时内的总市值为 3.002B ，在全部加密货币总市值中占比 2.37% .在过去的7个交易日里，莱特币 保持在 $119.8819 至$177.1929 间交投，该币种目前相较于其 2017年12月12日?? 的历史高值 $420.00，相差 70.10%.其他加密货币行情根据英为财情Investing.com的行情数据显示，比特币目前报$32,299.0，当前交易日 下跌2.26% .另外，行情数据同时显示，以太坊 目前报$1,916.86 ，下跌 4.83%.比特币 目前的总市值为 $610.902B ，该币种目前市值在全部加密货币的总市值中占比为 46.50% , 于此同时， 以太坊目前的总市值为 $225.840B ， 在加密货币市场中占比为 17.19% .

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Central East Region of the UUA

Continue reading "Opportunities for Connection ~ October 2021"

On Saturday, Oct. 23rd, from 10:00-11:30 a.m., join us in the back garden of the church for a casual family chapel service, followed by a pumpkin carving party. All ages welcome, masks required for those over 2.

Bring a pumpkin, and the tools that your family would like to use for carving or decorating. Costumes welcome! This event will be cancelled if there is pouring rain. – Rev. Wendy & Rev. Lynn

Vaccines for all who are eligible are strongly encouraged. Masks are required. There will not be an online component to this potentially messy adventure.

The post Family Chapel & Pumpkin Carving/Decorating Event appeared first on Unitarian Universalist Society of Schenectady.

It is possible you may never have heard of Ian Tyson who turned 87 earlier this week.  But then you wouldn’t be a fan of classic ‘60’s folk music, gritty contemporary Cowboy tunes—note I didn’t say Country music—or most of all Canadian.  After all Tyson’s wistful ballad Four Strong Windswas voted the Greatest Canadian song and he comes from roughly the same cohort as such astonishingly gifted songwriters Oscar Brand, Leonard Cohn, Gordon Lightfoot, Joni Mitchell, Buffy Sainte-Marie and Neil Young. That’s some tough competition!

Tyson was born to British immigrant parents on September 25, 1933 in Victoria,British Columbia and raised in the idyllic small city of Duncan, BC on the southern end of Vancouver Island.  As a boy he was fascinated by the cowboyshe saw in the movies and idled his time drawing.  He was a fan of Wilf Carter a/k/a Montana Slim, the cowboy singer and yodeler who became Canada’s first country music star.  Never a ranch kid, he none-the-less became a rodeo rider and contestant in his teens and steadily climbed to bigger events.  He also pursued art in school.

Injuries—including serious ones—are part and parcel with the rough and tumble life of a rodeo rider.  While he was laid up with broken bones and studyingat the Vancouver School of Art, Tyson first picked up a guitar.  By his own admission he wasn’t very good.  He claimed to know just two chords—surely an exaggeration since most songs have at least 3—when he started playing occasionally at the Heidelberg Café, a rathskellercatering to students. 

Taken by the American rock-a-billy soundand particularly Buddy Holly and the Crickets he joined a band called the Sensational Stripes.  Within a few months thanks to Musician’s Union rule that concerts include Canadian acts, the band shared stagewith the Crickets, Gene Vincent, and Paul Anka in one of those packaged tours when it came to Vancouver.

When Tyson graduated from Art School in 1958 his heart told him to stay on the rodeo circuit, but his battered body was saying something else.  Never seriously considering a musical career, he ended up in Toronto after bumming down to California and across Canada hitch-hiking.  He took a straight gig as a commercial artist but within a few months was drawn to the dawning folk music scenein local clubs. That’s where he met Sylvia Fricker, a 19 year old escapee from a middle class home in Chatham, Ontario who dreamed of a singing career.

Sylvia was lovely, talented, and more serious about a career than the restless Tyson.  But her voice blended perfectly with his rich baritone.  By 1959 they were playing together at the Village Corner and other clubs as Ian & Sylvia.  The duo quickly matured as musicians, Tyson’s guitar playing got much better, they explored harmonies, and developed a wide repertoire.  First Tyson and then Fricker began writing original material.

In the early ‘60’s not only were they good—and popular—enough to give up their day jobs and become full time musicians.  They migratedto the epicenter of the exploding folk scene—New York’s Greenwich Village.

The duo adapted quickly and well.  They were soon in the orbit of Dave Van Ronk, the Mayor of McDougal Street and a friend and mentor to many young musicians.  It was not long before they caught they ear and eye of Albert Grossman, the young agent who already managed Peter Paul & Mary.  Grossman quickly got them a record deal with Vanguard, the leading folk music label.  Their first album Ian & Sylvia contained mostly traditional British and Canadian folk songs, spirituals, and a taste of blues.  It was critically well received and a modest commercial success.  It was good enough to get them invited to participate in the legendary and seminal 1963 Newport Folk Festival.

It was their next album that was a creative breakthrough and a career maker.  In addition to their staple traditional ballads, the album included a version of Bob Dylan’s early song Tomorrow is Such a Long Time.  Grossman was then also managing Dylan and their paths frequently crossed in the Village.  Tyson, like everyone else was struck by Dylan’s genius.  But he was also put off by his arrogance and tendency to use and discard people in his meteoric rise.  Also on the album was a Tyson original.  The lonesome and yearning Four Strong Winds as written in a cramped apartment just off McDougal and captured Tyson’s own restlessness and affection for Canada and its vast spaces.  The song became a major Canadian hit and popular in the U.S. as well where it was covered by numerous artists. 

Ian & Sylvia became a major touring act in both countries as well as in the British Isles and Europe.  They also sealed their professional partnership by getting married in 1964.  For Tyson’s sake they established a home in rural southern Albertawhich became the base from which they launched frequent tours and worked on a succession of Albums on Vanguard and later on American commercial labels including MGM and Columbia.

Their marriage coincided with their third album, Northern Journey which featured Sylvia’s original tune You Were on My Mind which became a #3 Billboardhit in the U.S. when it was covered by the California power folk combo We Five.  Tyson also had a memorable original, a second signature song in fact.  Some Day Soon harkened back to his rodeo days but was unusualin being from the viewpoint of the girl who falls for the itinerant wild man.  It also had a swinging country music feel different than the duo’s ballads.

Judy Collins, who had already recorded other Tyson songs, added the song to her classic 1969 album Who Knows Where the Time Goes and released it as a hit single.  Collins, a girl from Denver, became so associated with the song that many thought it was autobiographical.  But the song had legs for other artists as well including Cheyenne’s singing rodeo cowboy Chris LeDoux in 1973 on an album that would recharge the cowboy genre, country music crooner Moe Brady in 1982, and country thrush Suzzy Boggus in 1991.

Ian & Sylvia’s follow up album recorded in ’64 and released early the next year was Early Morning Rain which boosted the career of fellow Canadian singer/song writer Gordon Lightfoot on its title track and with That’s What You Get for Loving Me.  The album also included songs from rising Canadian stars Steve Gillette and Tom Campbell.  It cemented their reputation as the anchors of Canadian folk music.

In 1965 they helped shake up the folk music scene at the Newport Festival when they showed up with an electric band in support of their newest album Play One More.  They joined The Byrds and the Lovin’ Spoonful as early creatorsof the folk/rock sound.  Bob Dylan’s former girlfriend Suze Rotolo in her memoirs credited Tyson with inspiring Dylan to go electric himself despite their prickly relationship.

By now Ian & Sylvia were popular worldwide, but certifiable super stars in Canada. By 1967 they had a weekly TV program on the Canadian Broadcasting Company (CBC) where they showcased the deep pool of Canadian talent, including Neil Young.  They also signed a second record deal with MGM Records.  For the next few years, they would alternate releases on their two labels with MGM steering them in a direction of a more mainstream country music sound.

In the late ‘60’s the couple relocated to Nashville where they recorded two albums, one for Vanguard and one for MGM.  The Vanguard effort Nashvillewas cut in February 1968, one month before The Byrds’ Sweetheart of the Rodeoand is widely considered the first collaboration of rock and Nashville session players and the first country/rock album.  Both albums included cuts taken from Dylan’s then unreleased Basement Tapes with The Band.

In 1969 the duo assembled a band of all-starCanadian and Nashville side men and session musicians including Buddy Cageon pedal steel guitar, Amos Garrett, on guitar and backup vocals, Ken Kalmusky on bass, N.D. Smart on drums, David Briggs on piano for a big cross-Canada rock-and-roll rail tour, Festival Express.  Dubbed The Great Speckled Bird after the song that became the first vocal ever performed on the Grand Ol’ Opry when Roy Acuff stepped to the microphone, the band was a tight, swinging, dynamic combo.

Tyson’s good friend Todd Rundgren was also on the rail tour and was so impressed by the band that he helped it get a record deal with newly established Ampex label, a division of the company that dominated reel-to-reel tape recording.  Rundgren himself produced the recording sessions in Nashville.  Norbert Putnam sat in for Kalmusky for most sessions.  Ian or Sylvia wrote all but one of the of the album’s tracks and sang lead but were not identified separately from the band on the original label to emphasize it as a separate project from their duo.

Despite being widely anticipated in the industryand the music press the label was unable to get a distribution deal and collapsed before much more than a handful of copies shipped.   Thousands of records were locked in a warehouse and unavailable as they were caught up in litigation over the assets of the failed venture.  The few copies that did surface were well ecstatically reviewed.  The LP became a sought-after cult collection piece and bootlegged tape versions circulated.  Years later some of the albums were released with stickers added to identify Ian & Sylvia as the front artists.

It was not the end of the band, however.  In 1970 they became the house band on Nashville North, a country music variety show on the CTV Network, the main corporately owned competitor to the CBC.  The next year the program was re-named The Ian Tyson Show and ran on the network until 1975. 

The omission of Sylvia’s name was significant.  By then the couple’s marriage was beginning to fray.  Although she appeared on the show as part of the band and had occasional solo numbers, her husband was out front as the star.  As the program ran she appeared less frequently.

Meanwhile, their recording careers had hit the commercial doldrums with changing popular tastes.  Although established as Canadian country music superstars, American audiences still thought of them, mostly as a folk act and U.S. country music radio thought of them as interloping folk-rockers.  With both their Vanguard and MGM contracts at an end they were picked up by industry giant Columbia Records whose Nashville operation was overseen by Chet Atkins.  Despite those advantages the label didn’t know what to do with them or how to market them.

Their first Columbia LP was called Ian & Sylvia, the same name as their original Vanguard album leading to confusion on whether it was a re-issue and at the same time failing to plant a flag as a country act.  Some of the songs were strong but bland mainstream country arrangements meant to be radio friendly.  In 1972 a follow up You Were On My Mind featured a later incarnation of the Great Speckled Bird and included electric updates of some of their early folk hits.  Neither record sold well and You Were on My Mind was their last original album together. 

The next year Tyson backed by members of the Great Speckled Bird released his first solo album, Ol’ Eon which was a mid-level Canadian hit.  Shortly after Ian & Sylvia broke up as an act and the couple amicably divorced in 1975, the same year as Tyson’s TV show ended.

Sylvia went on to a successful and varied career on her own.  Her 1975 debut solo album on Capital Records, Woman’s Worldout-performed Tyson’s debut in Canada.  She later established her own independent label Salt Records in the 80’s and became part of the all-female country folk group Quartette in the early ’90’s with other solo artists Cindy Church, Caitlin Hanford, and Colleen Peterson.  After Peterson’s death Gwen Swick replaced her in the group.  Sylvia also became an influential country music journalist, a founding board member of the Foundation Assisting Canadian Talent on Recordings (FACTOR) which helps finance recordings of emerging Canadian artists, and a board member for the Juno Awards, the Canadian equivalent of the Grammies.  Along the way Sylvia was herself a 7 time Juno Award nominee, inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame as part of Ian & Sylvia in 1992, and added to the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame on her own in 2003 She was made a member of the prestigious Order of Canada in 1994.

After the break-up Ian Tyson first seemed to have a harder time adjusting.  His follow-up album to Ol’ Eon failed to chart.  He slowed down his touring and mostly retreated to his horse ranch near the tiny village of Longview, in southern Alberta, about 40 miles south of Calgaryin the Canadian Rockies foothills.  He was a cowboy for real once again.

In 1980 Tyson hooked up with Calgary based music promoter and manager Neil MacGonigill.  It was a turning point to a phenomenal second act to his musical career.  He decided to dedicate himself to resurrecting all but moribund tradition of cowboy music including the old herding ballads and yodeling songs of the 1930’s and ‘40’s but updated with original music on cowboy, Western, and rodeo themes beginning with his 1983 release, Old Corals and Sagebrush.

Between 1987’s Cowboyography and 1996’s he had a string of 5 Canadian hit albums and dozens of charting singles.  Along with the Chris LeDoux and a handful of other musicians Western or Cowboy music was successfully resurrected as genre distinct from Country music.  Radio station formatting the style full or part time sprang up across Western Canada and the U.S.  Although it has strong regional appeal, there are now fans across both countries and in the British Isles.

Among the singles hits off these and subsequent albums are Cowboy Pride, Fifty Years Ago, Since the Rain, Springtime in Alberta, Nights in Laramie, and Alcohol in the Bloodstream.  Navajo Rugand Summer Wages were named two of the Top 100 Western Songs of All Time by the Western Writers of America.

In 2006 and ’07 it looked like Tyson’s career might be over due to extreme vocal cord damage.  result of a concert at the Havelock Country Jamboree followed a year later by a virus contracted during a flight to Denver.  A Calgary doctor who also saved Adele’s voice, operated on his vocal cords.  After months of rehabilitation, Tyson got his voice back—but not the rich, smooth baritone for which he was noted.

His new singing voice lost some of the lower register but added range ontop.  It also gave it a gravely quality.  Tyson says he prefers the new voice as a better rugged match for his Western themes.  In 2008 just a year after he thought it was gone, Tyson recorded his best reviewed album in years, Yellowhead to Yellowstone and Other Love Stories which garnered a 2009 Canadian Folk Music Awards nomination for Solo Artist of the Year.

Other honors he has picked up along the way are his membership in the Order of Canada in 1984, a 1989 induction to the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame, a 2003 Governor General’s Award for the Performing Arts, inclusion in the Alberta Order of Excellence in 2006, and the 2011 Charles M. Russell Heritage Award presented by the C.M. Russell Museum in Great Falls, Montana for his tribute song to the artist, The Gift.

In 2010, Tyson issued his memoir The Long Trail: My Life in the Westco-written with Calgary journalist Jeremy Klaszus.  According to one review the book “alternates between autobiography and a broader study of [Tyson’s] relationship to the ‘West’—both as a fading reality and a cultural ideal.”

At 87 Tyson is still active, recording, and touring.  He is proud to describe himself as a cantankerous old man who won’t give up.  And he still looks great in a Stetson.

Part One of a history I’m writing, which tells the story of Unitarians in Palo Alto from the founding of the town in 1891 up to the dissolution of the old Unitarian Church of Palo Alto in 1934. Rather than telling history as the story of a succession of (mostly male) ministers, my focus is on the lay people who made up the congregation. If you want the footnotes, you’ll have to wait until the print version of this history comes out in the spring of 2022.

The first Unitarian and Universalists in Palo Alto, 1891-1895

Unitarianism and Universalism arrived in Palo Alto before there was a congregation. Some of the first residents who arrived in Palo Alto in 1891, the year Stanford University opened, were already Unitarians and Universalists.

Emma Meyer Rendtorff began studying at Stanford University in 1894, eight months before Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, a Universalist and Unitarian minister, preached the first Unitarian Universalist sermon in Palo Alto, at Stanford’s Memorial Church. Emma’s parents had been Unitarians, and as a girl she had attended Sunday school the Church of the Unity, a Unitarian church in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a lifelong Unitarian, and would play a key role when the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto was organized in 1905.

David Starr Jordan, the first president of Stanford, grew up in a Universalist family. As a young adult he briefly joined a Congregational church. While president of Stanford he disavowed any denominational affiliation, although he often spoke in Unitarian churches and at Unitarian gatherings. Whether or not he would have called himself a Unitarian or Universalist when he arrived in Palo Alto, he was often perceived as a Unitarian and often provided financial and moral support to the Palo Alto Unitarians. And when he retired from Stanford, he finally did join the Unitarian Church of Palo Alto.

Luna, Minnie, and Leander Hoskins were probably Unitarians before arriving in Palo Alto. Minnie moved in Palo Alto in 1892 when her husband Leander became a Stanford professor, and Luna had joined them in Palo Alto soon after. Luna and Minnie Hoskins were recognized as delegates by the Committee on Credentials of the Pacific Unitarian Conference at San Jose on May 1-4, 1895, a few days before Eliza Tupper Wilkes arrived in Palo Alto. Since they knew about Unitarianism before Eliza Tupper Wilkes arrived, she couldn’t have been the one to introduce them to Unitarianism, so it seems likely they had been Unitarians when they came to Palo Alto.

Eleanor Brooks Pearson, who came to Palo Alto in 1891 from South Sudbury, Massachusetts, may have been a Unitarian before she arrived in Palo Alto; her childhood home in South Sudbury would have been close to the Unitarian church in Sudbury Center, she was one of the organizers of the Unity Society in 1895, and she later married a Unitarian, Frederic Bartlett Huntington. Some sources hint that there were others who were Unitarians or Universalists before arriving in Palo Alto, but so far it has proved impossible to name them.

The Unity Society, 1895-1897

In November, 1892, the very first issue of the Pacific Unitarian, a periodical devoted to promoting liberal religion up and down the West Coast, declared that a Unitarian church should be organized in Palo Alto:

“The University town of Palo Alto is growing fast. Never was there a field that offered more in the way of influence and education than this. A [building] lot for a church ought to be secured at once, and the preliminary steps taken towards the organization of a Unitarian Society.”

Organizing churches in college towns had been a standard missionary strategy for the American Unitarian Association (AUA) since the denomination had funded a Unitarian church in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1865. These “college missions” were seen as “one of the most effective ways of extending Unitarianism,” and many of them resulted in strong Unitarian congregations.

But where would the Palo Alto Unitarians find someone who had the time and the skills to organize a Unitarian church? The Unitarian church in San Jose was the one nearest to Palo Alto, and a minister of that church could have been such a person. In fact, in early 1893, the two ministers of the San Jose church, Revs. Nahum. A. Haskell and J. H. Garnett, organized two new Unitarian congregations in Los Gatos and Santa Clara. But they didn’t come to Palo Alto. Support for a new Palo Alto congregation would have to come from someone else.

Coincidentally, around 1890, Rev. Eliza Tupper Wilkes, an experienced Universalist minister who had founded a number of Universalist and Unitarian churches in Iowa and Dakota Territory, began spending winters in California on account of her health. Soon she was hired as the assistant minister in the Oakland Unitarian church. The Panic of 1893 resulted in an economic depression, and by 1894 Oakland had to reduce her position to part-time. The Pacific Unitarian Conference then hired Wilkes on a part-time basis to organize new congregations in California.

Wilkes attended the Pacific Unitarian Conference in San Jose, May 1-4, 1895, as did Palo Altans Minnie and Luna Hoskins. There weren’t many people at the San Jose gathering and surely the three women encountered one another. And Wilkes was already headed to Palo Alto; that Sunday, May 5, the day after the conference ended, she became the first woman to preach at the Memorial Church of Stanford University. It seems likely that David Starr Jordan, who had connections in the Pacific Unitarian Conference, encouraged Minnie and Luna Hoskins to attend the San Jose gathering, and that he arranged for Wilkes to preach at Stanford; if so, Jordan could be counted as one of the organizers of Palo Alto Unitarianism.

By the autumn of 1895, the Women’s Unitarian Conference was paying much of Wilkes’s salary, and they specifically authorized her to “preach in Palo Alto, assist in Berkeley and elsewhere.” In November, 1895, Wilkes began conducting Unitarian services at Parkinson’s Hall in Palo Alto, and continued to do so into the next year. Professors, students, and other residents of Palo Alto began attending these services, and on January 12, 1896, John S. Butler hosted a meeting at his house to formally organize a new congregation.

The thirty people present organized the Unity Society of Palo Alto for “the promotion of moral earnestness, and of freedom, fellowship, and character in religion, and which shall impose no restriction on individual belief.” A “Unity Society” was the Unitarian term in those days for a lay-led congregation, and no one expected Wilkes to continue as the minister in Palo Alto. Prof. Leander Hoskins was elected president of the new society; Dr. William Adams, a physician, was elected secretary; and John S. Butler, a wealthy man who had retired to Palo Alto, was elected treasurer. Two others were elected to the “committee on executive and finance”: William F. Pluns, a German immigrant and builder, and Fannie Rosebrook. It’s noteworthy that the first board of the first Unitarian society in Palo Alto included a woman.

A Sunday school was part of the new congregation from the start. The Sunday school committee included Minnie Hoskins; Eleanor Brooks Pearson, a teacher at Castilleja Hall; and Anna Zschokke. Anna Zschokke was a Bavarian immigrant with a deep concern for education, and she has been called “the mother of the Palo Alto schools.”

Unity Society services were held in the parlors of the Palo Alto Hotel at 2:30 on Sunday afternoons. Sunday school began at 2:45. Music for the services was provided by a quartet. Sunday speakers included Prof. Melville B. Anderson who gave a talk on poetry and religion and read “extracts from different poets in illustration.”

How was the new congregation perceived by the rest of Palo Alto? An article in the local newspaper shows that some of the same jokes told about Unitarian Universalists today were also current in 1896:

“Ecclesiastical babies like human babies have all the funny things told about them. Our infant Unitarian Church, or Unity Society as they call it, therefore must expect to come in for their share.

“A San Francisco daily recently noticed their beginning under the conspicuous headlines ‘An organization that does not believe in anything in particular founded at Palo Alto.’

“Another good one is told on them when they met for service in the hotel parlor two Sabbaths ago. After the little company sang some hymns, and read some prayers, the Professor who was to address them began his talk upon the Relation of Poetry and Religion. In the course of his remarks he had occasion to refer to the Bible. He looked for one in the pulpit and under the pulpit but there was none there. Then he appealed to some one in the congregation to lend him theirs, but the Law and the Gospel was not in the possession of them. Finally the good landlady went up stairs and succeeded in finding one in the room of some benighted godless student, and as she placed it in the hands of the Professor he dryly remarked, ‘I knew this was a very advanced society, but I thought you still clung to the Old Book.'”

At the time of the April, 1896, meeting of the Pacific Unitarian Conference, Wilkes was still providing some support to the Palo Alto congregation, but she was only interested in starting new congregations, not keeping them going once they were started. Rev. Carl Wendte, the director of the Pacific Coast Unitarians, expressed his opinion that “the two San Francisco churches should make this Palo Alto movement their peculiar care, aiding it by ministerial service, money contributions, and general supervision and help.”

If the San Francisco churches did provide support, it was not enough to keep the Palo Alto Unity Society going. The tiny congregation continued in existence for another eleven months. It was listed in the Pacific Unitarian in the March, 1897, issue, but after that it disappears from the written record.

Interregnum, 1897-1905

The Unity Society was gone, but there were still Unitarians and Universalists in Palo Alto. When the California Sunday School Association took a census of the town in November, 1898, parents reported 21 school-aged children who were Unitarians, and five who were Universalists. Some of these Unitarian and Universalist children may have attended Sunday schools in other churches, but their parents would have longed for a liberal church in Palo Alto.

On Sunday, March 25, 1900, Rev. B. Fay Mills, minister of the Oakland Unitarian church, led a Unitarian service in Palo Alto, preaching on the topic of “the claims of liberal religion upon the modern world.” Organizers informed a local newspaper:

“A series of religious services will be held in Palo Alto every Sunday afternoon at Fraternity Hall, under the auspices of the Unitarian church. Cards pledging support are circulating that the members recognize the need of a religious organization in Palo Alto that shall represent the thought of our age, and leaving unquestioned the theological belief of its members, shall make its bond of Unity the Fellowships of the Spirit, and the Service of Man.”

The next Sunday, April 1, Rev. Nahum A. Haskell, minister of the San Jose Unitarian church, preached to the Palo Alto Unitarians. After forming Unitarian congregations in Los Gatos and Santa Clara in the 1890s, Haskell had turned his attention to Palo Alto. Unfortunately, on April 10, 1900, the annual meeting of the San Jose church asked for Haskell’s resignation, feeling he was responsible for their declining membership. Haskell managed to remain as minister of the San Jose for two more years, but after that vote he was no longer able to help form a new church in Palo Alto.

On May 31, Haskell officiated at a double wedding in Palo Alto for Alice and Florence Emerson, Stanford students and daughters of a wealthy lumber tycoon. Their wedding was the last formal Unitarian activity in Palo Alto until 1905.

...to be continued…

As surely as we belong to the universe
we belong together.
We join here to transcend the isolated self,
to reconnect,
to know ourselves to be at home,
here on earth, under the stars,
linked with each other.
-Margaret Keip

Where is it that you find a sense of belonging and connection to others?

The Daily Compass offers words and images to inspire spiritual reflection and encourage the creation of a more loving, inclusive and just world. Produced by The Church of the Larger Fellowship, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation with no geographical boundary. Please support the publishing of The Daily Compass by making a $10 or $25 contribution (more if you can, less if you can't)! Thank you for your support!

联发科推出5G平台T750，用于更多产品领域
9月3号，联发科宣布推出全新的5G平台T750，将面向新一代5G CPE无线产品、5G固定无线接入和移动热点等设备，为家庭、企业及移动用户带来高速5G连接体验。目前联发科5G芯片已覆盖手机、智能家居及个人电脑的领域，新推出的T750将提升用户的5G宽带体验。　　据介绍，T750平台基于先进的7nm工艺制程打造，集成了四核心ARM CPU以及5G调制解调器，拥有完备的功能和配置，可以让设备制造商打造精巧、完善、高性能的消费类产品。目前联发科T750已经为厂商送样，预计不久后就会有相应产品推出。　　在5G技术方面，T750支持Sub-6GHz频段，在该频段下支持双载波聚合（2CC CA），具有更广大5G信号覆盖。同时集成了5G NR FR1 调制解调器、四核Arm Cortex-A55处理器以及完整的功能配置，能加快OEM厂商的开发进程，是家用路由器、移动设备等室内外固定无线接入产品的理想选择。　　使用搭载T750平台的5G路由器，能够为数字用户线路（DSL）、电缆或光纤服务首先的地区带来更便利的宽带选择。同时也方便消费者自行安装小型5G设备，没有固定线路宽带安装的耗时麻烦，减少运营商铺设电缆或光纤的成本。联发科T750平台的推出将加入5G终端产品的普及，加速5G无线宽带的发展，为用户带来更高速、便捷的上网体验。

是谁家的？160W有线快充曝光：10分钟内充满
在电池技术难以取得突破的当下，许多手机品牌都将将目标对准了快充领域，目前已经有多款高端手机支持120W超级快充，仅需20分钟就能完全充满。然而近日，知名数码博主@数码闲聊站爆料称已有厂商开始研发测试160W快充。　　根据@数码闲聊站的描述，160W快充正在测试中，而且样机在完整充满仅花费不到10分钟，这无疑令人兴奋，究竟会是哪家厂商的160W快充呢？网友们众说纷纭，有猜测是小米家的，也有猜测是OPPO家的。　　话说回来，如果160W最终能够量产，那么手机端的发热情况就成了厂商必须要解决的问题。随着充电功率的提升，厂商们为旗下手机用上了VC均热板、液冷、石墨等材料，但在支持120W快充的手机上，散热问题依然是存在的。　　因此要实现160W势必要在手机散热技术上再做突破，这对于他们来说或许是个不小的挑战。从当前的情况来看，国内厂商中小米、OPPO、vivo、黑鲨等厂商在快充技术上都颇有造诣，因此他们是最有可能量产160W快充的厂商。

安迪·沃霍尔全球首个NFT开拍，“NFT+实体”模式引发关注
6月24日，由币安、波场TRON、APENFT基金会联合举行的Binance NFT首场NFT拍卖会正式开启，作为最重要的拍品，安迪·沃霍尔的《三幅自画像》NFT作品在开拍不到5分钟，竞拍价已达252万美元，并迎来大量的围观。 本次拍卖会的主题是“Genesis”，意为创世纪，为期5天，将持续至6月29日。其中，安迪·沃霍尔的《三幅自画像》NFT作品的竞拍期为6月24日至6月27日，将于27日晚8时公布最终的成交价。同时， APENFT在社交媒体声明成功竞拍者还会收到由APENFT赠送的《三幅自画像》实物原作。安迪·沃霍尔的《三幅自画像》 据悉，《三幅自画像》是由区块链知名人物、波场TRON创始人孙宇晨推荐，该作品系他此前斥资200万美元从佳士得拍得，并在波场公链上对该作品进行了NFT化处理，这也是安迪·沃霍尔作品的首次NFT化。此后，孙宇晨将该作品捐赠给了他看好的专注于艺术品NFT化的APENFT基金会，波场也为APENFT提供底层技术支持。 值得注意的是，NFT的兴起受到广泛热议，除了关于NFT对“区块链+艺术”的创新外，作品NFT发行权与NFT价值、版权是否经过了授权可以转让或销售等问题也引起了多方关注。 与大多NFT平台交易纯虚拟作品的方式相比，Binance NFT此次首拍以“NFT+实体”作品为整体标的方式呈献，来源明确，辅以重量级艺术家、重要作品作为背书，这种“NFT+实体”的模式，一经亮相就引发各界关注。 相比于此前销毁实体作品进行NFT化的模式，“NFT+实体”这种模式在尊重艺术，尊重版权方面，显然要谨慎和得体许多；也比打着NFT化传统画作旗号，却把传统画作藏起来，卖NFT画作要有诚意的多。这也是此次拍卖会合作三方币安、波场、APENFT，在NFT和传统画作之间联接的一种尝试。安迪·沃霍尔《三幅自画像》的火爆拍卖情况，也表明了“NFT+实体”模式是更让藏家放心的选择。 除了安迪·沃霍尔作品的“NFT+实体”拍卖外，据Binance NFT拍卖平台公布，本次拍卖会的入门级拍品还包括100幅安迪·沃霍尔的《三幅自画像》的NFT再创作版本、300幅达利致敬但丁《神曲》的版画再创作版本等400多件艺术品，就目前币安平台上显示的数据来看，在主拍品叫价252万美金的光环下，这些辅拍品也竞拍活跃，截止发稿时间，第一批上线的34幅作品中，已经有超过20幅被至少一次出价（实时数据可参考币安官方平台信息https://www.binance.com/en/nft-premium/genesis）。 根据币安和APENFT的官方通告，Genesis第二批拍品将于6月25日当晚7点上线。原文链接：https://www.qqcjw.com/qkl/20210625/37257.html

Continue reading "Surviving a Plague ... Again"

Carrie Krause, Dir. of Lifespan Faith Development

Multiplatform – Outdoors and Livestreamed on Youtube, 9:30 am

Somewhere along life’s journey, most of us in the United States are taught that staying in the lines is valued, even when those lines are strangling us as individuals and a ... read more.

Attached media: https://web.archive.org/web/20211111041748/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33ngl_mVFEc&feature=youtu.be

A message for the 10:00 Foothills community, preached in the park on September 26th and October 3rd, 2021, the first and second Sundays in person after 18 months all online

Reading: Bluebird by Charles Bukowski

Sermon 

We were two days back after winter break when my family had our best day of pandemic school. 
 
My son was actually all online, and my daughter was technically half in person; but both of these things translated to them being at home that day. 
 
This is the funny thing about saying kids had school online for the last year – because from the perspective of our kids –their teachers were online, their classmates were online, but they were just home. 
 
My partner and I were home too, each in our own by-then well established offices and rhythms.  So that when someone texted me to turn on the real live news, on the TV, and I did, it caught the whole family’s attention.
 
Online school lessons stopped, and we all gathered round to watch history unfold in front of us. 
 
An angry mob of pro-Trump protestors had broken into the US capitol, and we were watching it all happen on live TV. Josef kept asking the question we were all asking, mom, is this really happening right now? This is real?
 
For a lot of that day, I chose my words carefully:
Yes, it’s real. They believe they’ve been lied to, that Trump was actually re-elected. 
I don’t know why the police aren’t stopping them. 
You’re right, if they weren’t mostly white, it wouldn’t be like this.
I don’t know how it will stop, I don’t understand either. 
I don’t know what will happen next.
 
To be honest, some of the time, I spoke less carefully. 
 
Still, like I said, it was the best day of pandemic school. Because watching it all, we were all learning so much – about history, and about now; about our nation, and about ourselves. 
 
Learning is actually terrible, and awful. It’s one of the earliest realizations I had in the pandemic – learning is terrible. I mean, having learned is amazing – when you’re on the other side of it all – you feel fabulous.  But when you are really learning, not just in your head - but in your whole self where you are totally discombobulated and everything about how you do anything must be re-constituted from scratch – it is so painful! 
Especially when the learning must be done quickly, because the new world is already here demanding our adaptation. 
 
Do you remember the movie Alien – and that scene where the one guy is at one minute just enjoying regular conversation and the next he’s convulsing and struggling until finally an alien comes out of his chest? 

Yeah, that’s about what I’ve realized deep learning feels like. 
 
A little bit like birthing an alien out of your chest.  
Like – who is this person I am becoming? 
What is this world I’m now in? 
And what’s all this goo I’m covered in?
 
When we think of it this way, it helps us remember that we have all been thrown into a world we don’t understand in the last 18 months, 
and we are all learning, and learning is terrible – 

Remembering this helps us stay in the place of compassion – for ourselves, and for the people around us, including the people who attacked the capitol that day in January, or for those who are having a very different understanding of the pandemic, or the vaccine, or other COVID precautions. 
 
It helps to remember that we’re all going through something big. And we all have our own story within this bigger story.  We’ve all been forced to birth an alien.  I mean, we’ve all forced to learn, and it’s been often really hard. It’s important to practice remembering, because too often instead, we’ve practiced forgetting.  
 
Too often we perform a careful amnesia that Unitarian Universalist minister Nancy McDonald Ladd describes it as performing - for ourselves, and for each other, our well-being.  
 
I mean look at us: we have all have faced multiple moments in the last 18 months where everything we knew to be true was upended, and so many of the things we turned to for comfort and courage - like working out in a gym, or dancing in a crowd, or losing yourself in live theatre, or hanging out with your grandchildren, or gathering on a Sunday in a church - all these things became non options because they were themselves the danger.  
 
But through it all, if someone asks, we’re most likely to say - I'm fine. Although my favorite answer that started last year is when someone would say I’m fine and then pause and say, I mean, pandemic fine. There’s a glimpse of the real there.  
 
But as we’ve moved into this stage of the pandemic, this stage that is still just as confusing, where we have to learn, and adapt every single day - but now I’ve stopped hearing that phrase- the performance has returned. Like, the poem: I don’t weep, do you? 
 
I read this article recently about how there’s this huge uptick in health crises from extreme dieting in the last few months – 
because we are all so desperate to ensure that it doesn’t appear the pandemic has affected us at all. The threat of climate change, the presence of wildfires, and flooding, shrug. Nah, we haven’t aged, we haven’t lost anyone, or anything, Our kids - maybe they’ve fallen behind a little but they will catch up. 
There’s no alien to see, no bluebirds.   
We’re good.  All good.    
 
I’m not judging. I do it too. 
It’s a coping technique we’ve all learned. Like somatic teacher Resmaa Menakem talks about, it’s not that we are defective by practicing this performance, we’re protective. We’re not defective, we’re protective. We’ve learned to protect ourselves by acting ok so that we could keep going.
 
I picked the poem from Charles Bukowski for today because I know that during this pandemic we’ve all had to do this. We’ve had to find ways to survive.  And some of those ways have required us to push aside what was really happening - because we just had to keep going.
 
Like the song that came out last October, from The Bengsons, the Keep Going On Song - if you haven’t listened yet and don’t know it, maybe turn it on on your way home, or when you get home.  The refrain of the song is simple - it just goes: Keep going keep going keep going on song. Keep going keep going keep going on.
 
We have all found our ways to keep going. It’s how you are all here, now.  We have found ways to protect ourselves enough so that we could keep going.  Especially in the isolation of the pandemic, the isolation we experienced, and that we watched our kids, and our youth experience. 
 
We’ve had to compartmentalize some or a lot of what is true in order to keep going. Like in the poem, he says to the bluebird: “Stay down, do you want to mess me up? Do you want to screw up my work?” 
 
We should be proud of our survival, and give thanks to our bodies and our minds for bringing us through. 

And, we also know that this perpetual performance we’ve practiced has a cost. Over time, when keep cutting ourselves off - we lose the language and the skills and the strength to deal with what’s really real - we forget how to be honest with ourselves, let alone with others. We cut connection off with the reality in ourselves, and we cut connection off with others.  

We numb pain, as Brene Brown reminds us - which means we are also numbing joy.  

And all this practice does not mean that the things we aren’t dealing with go away - more like, they go underground, become sub-conscious. 
 
More likely than not, these things end up guiding our lives and our actions in ways that we don’t even realize.  As Richard Rohr says, “pain that is not transformed is transmitted.” When we don’t heal pain, we pass it on to others. And you can’t heal pain you practice not seeing, you can’t heal pain you’re avoiding or numbing yourself from. You can’t learn the lessons, you can’t metabolize the experience - birth the alien, or set the bird free - because all your energy is going into that protection, that performance.  
 
Post pandemic, where we understand the idea of “transmission” at a whole new level - the idea that pain that is not transformed is transmitted - takes on a whole new power. 
Doesn’t it seem really clear that we are living world shaped by untransformed pain? That pain is the real superspreader? 
 
Which means that for as much as the vaccine is the way to heal the virus, the only way we’re really going to heal what’s going on in our world today - all the forces that led to those events at the capitol - and so many other things we’ve gotten through in our time - is birth the alien - learn the lessons, I mean tend to the pain.  
 
The pain in ourselves, in others. The pain from the last 18 months, the pain in our country, and the pain that has been passed on generationally – and bring it in as a regular part of our story about what it means to be human, what it means to live a human life – here in Fort Collins Colorado, in the 18th month of a global pandemic.  We need to practice remembering rather than forgetting.  We need to stop the keeping going on, the pushing through. We need to practice staying put with life as it really is - and holding, and metabolizing it.  And we need to do this together.  We can only do this together. 
 
It’s one of the main reasons we are so excited about this pod experiment, and our return to in person church.  Because it’s one of the main things we can and will do together. It’s what church is really about.  Here we help each other birth the alien.  And set the bluebird free. 
 
The bluebird is probably a better image than the alien, right? A better way to talk about what we’re doing when we are learning.  This work of deep change where we are adapting to a profoundly changing world.   
 
Because this work is so disruptive, and scary, and painful - just like a bird that comes close in always is! - but it is also beautiful. 
 
Learning like this offers us something so entirely new that it threatens our whole existence, but it is also a life unto itself.  
 
And these things are true about this world, this reality.  
All that we are holding at bay, all we have practiced holding at bay, it is so disruptive, and scary, so overwhelming - but it also contains the seeds of a new life that calls to us to pay attention, and to listen.  It calls us to release the protective performance and the forgetting, and instead remember ourselves, remember each other, stop transmitting all this untransformed pain.  

Set the bird free, and let’s heal.  

For any who remain insistent on an audit in order to satisfy the many people who believe that the election was stolen, I’d offer this perspective: No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters — particularly when the President will continue to say that the election was stolen. The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That’s the burden, that’s the duty of leadership. The truth is that President-elect Biden won the election. President Trump lost.

– Senator Mitt Romney (1-6-2021)

This week’s featured post is “The Big Lie Refuses to Die“.

This week everybody was talking about the $3.5 trillion question

I’ve been resisting writing about the Democrats’ intra-party negotiations over the $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that is supposed to supplement the $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill that passed the Senate in August.

While the issue is definitely important enough to deserve attention, the root of my resistance is that nobody really knows anything, and yet there is massive amounts of speculation about what might be happening. Maybe Joe Manchin is torpedoing the whole Biden agenda. Or maybe progressives are. Or maybe one side or the other is about to cave in. Maybe Biden is a legislative wizard who has it all under control, or maybe he’s an addled senior citizen in over his head.

It’s all speculation.

Here’s what little we know: The bipartisan bill passed the Senate in regular order, with enough Republican votes to overcome a filibuster. In terms of policy, the Democrats in the House agree that it ought to pass. But it leaves out a large number of progressive (and Biden) priorities. (The one that is most important to me is climate change.) So progressives in the House threaten not to pass the bipartisan bill if the Senate won’t pass the larger bill. No Senate Republicans support the larger bill, so it will have to pass through reconciliation (if at all), and all 50 Democrats are needed.

Democratic Senators Manchin and Sinema have objected to the size of that bill, but so far have not made a counteroffer. Democratic moderates in the House had previously gotten Speaker Pelosi to commit to a vote on the bipartisan bill today, but that vote has been postponed to Thursday.

Midnight Thursday is the end of the federal government’s fiscal year, the annual witching hour when any shit not yet dealt with reaches the fan. So the government could shut down Friday, and the country might hit its debt limit shortly thereafter. In other words: a completely self-inflicted disaster of global significance.

For what it’s worth, I don’t believe any of that will happen. I think Democrats will get something together, and two sizeable infrastructure bills will pass, with most of what all sides want included. The government will not shut down, and the debt limit will be pushed back to set up some future apocalypse. (We can’t just get rid of it, because …)

I believe this because I don’t think any Democrat in Congress benefits from sabotaging the whole Biden agenda and setting the party up for a massive 2022 defeat. I also don’t believe any of the Democrats — Manchin and Sinema included — are the kinds of loose cannons Republican leaders sometimes have to deal with. I’m also not afraid of Republicans getting some advantage out of the debt-limit battle. In the 2022 campaign, I don’t believe anybody will remember or care that this time around it was the Democrats who pushed back the limit without Republican help. (I also don’t believe voters will punish Republicans for their irresponsibility, although they should.)

As I said previously, though, I don’t know. Maybe I’m too optimistic. But I’m heartened by the account in Peril of the passage of Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in March. Manchin also had problems with that, and negotiations went down to the wire. But he ultimately voted for it. The picture Woodward and Costa paint is that Manchin has to maintain his moderate image in West Virginia and separate himself from liberals like Bernie Sanders and AOC, but that he also doesn’t want to be the guy who causes Biden’s presidency to fail.

I’m not counting on Biden to be an LBJ-style wheeler-dealer, but I think he will keep all the Democrats calm enough to recognize that failure benefits none of them.

Josh Marshall points out a piece of journalistic malpractice: Progressives and moderates are often presented as rival-but-equivalent factions fighting for their rival-but-equivalent proposals, when actually Democrats are pretty much united except for Manchin, Sinema, and a handful of folks in the House.

What Manchin et al are having trouble swallowing isn’t Bernie Sanders’ bill. (Sanders, if you remember, wanted a $6 trillion package.) It’s President Biden’s bill.

and the Arizona election audit

That’s the subject of the featured post. Short version of the report written by Trumpist Cyber Ninjas: The ballots were counted accurately. But Biden won, so there must be something wrong with the ballots themselves.

and Haitian immigrants

The images of men on horseback chasing down dark-skinned people, and of 14,000 immigrants camped under the Del Rio Bridge in Texas have sparked intense reactions from both the pro- and anti-immigration factions.

The current wave was started by a major earthquake in August, but Haitians have been trying to enter the US for one reason or another for a long time. And one US administration after another has been trying to keep them out. Vox has a worthwhile article about the unique aspects of our Haitian immigration policies.

and Peril

The book Peril (that last week’s post “Seven Days in January” was indirectly based on) came out Tuesday, and I rushed to read it. I didn’t find any major surprises: The incidents discussed in the pre-publication articles are pretty much the way they’ve been described.

Woodward and Costa leave readers to guess who the source is for each scene. In general, if the book tells us what somebody was thinking at the time, you have to assume that person is the source for the whole incident (though possibly various other people were also consulted). If the book follows one character through a series of scenes, I assume that person is the source. (In the case of somebody like Mike Pence, I suppose it’s possible that a right-hand-man is the source. But even then, I doubt that person would talk in such detail without the approval of his former boss.) If one person seems reasonable and everyone else in the room is crazy, probably we’re hearing the account of the reasonable person. (I know I describe a lot of my experiences that way.)

General Milley is pretty obviously the source for the incidents that involve him. Senators Mike Lee and Lindsey Graham are clearly sources. Pence’s national security advisor Keith Kellogg was a source, and probably Pence himself. (Kellogg apparently roamed the White House pretty freely.) A bunch of people in the Biden campaign. And so on.

The closer you get to Trump himself, the fuzzier the sourcing gets, as if sources asked for more protection. Ivanka and Jared? Mark Meadows? Hard to say. Unless you believe that Woodward and Costa made stuff up out of nothing (and I don’t), it’s clear somebody talked.

A phone conversation that Milley had with Speaker Pelosi after January 6 occurs early in the book and got a lot of press. When you read it in the full context of the book, the striking thing isn’t that Milley and Pelosi both think Trump is crazy. The striking thing is how they talk about his instability. You could imagine people around Trump coming to the shocking insight that the President is dangerously unmoored. But this conversation is nothing like that. It’s more like: We always knew he was crazy, but we had hoped he was manageable.

As the book goes on, it’s appalling how many people had such conversations. I’m left with the impression that no one with a chance to view Trump close up was actually surprised that he would start raving about imaginary election-stealing conspiracies, or that he would try to bring down American democracy rather than give up power. They had hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but they weren’t actually surprised.

Lots of Republicans appear to have known, earlier or later in the process, that the election-fraud claims were bogus. Their silence is stunning. Even the ones who spoke up at one time or another have mostly shut up about it.

The lack of concern for the country is horrifying. Mitch McConnell had two chances to get rid of Trump through impeachment, and protected him both times. To this day, Republicans who know what he really is are going along with him.

and the pandemic

Once again, new-case numbers seem to be topping out, but the turn-around is slow. The seven-day average is 120K per day, down from a recent peak of 175K on September 13. Hospitalizations have also turned around nationally, though they’re still surging in some areas. Deaths are holding steady at just over 2000 per day.

Hospitals in Idaho and Alaska have instituted “crisis standards of care“, which is a fancy way of saying that they’re so swamped they can’t get to everybody.

Alaska this past week joined Idaho in adopting statewide crisis standards of care that provide guidance to health care providers making difficult decisions on how to allocate limited resources. Several hospitals in Montana have either activated crisis standards of care or are considering it as the state is pummeled by COVID-19.

Under the guidelines, providers can prioritize treating patients based on their chances of recovery, impacting anyone seeking emergency care, not just those with COVID-19. …

Typically, crisis standards of care involve a scoring system to determine the patient’s survivability, sometimes including their estimated “life years” and how well their organs are working.

Back in 2009, Republicans fighting ObamaCare warned about “death panels” that might decide old people weren’t worth saving. That didn’t happen then, but vaccine resistance is causing it to happen now.

Vaccine mandates are being tested this week, as deadlines are looming in New York and some other states. Thousands of health-care and nursing-home workers are pushing to the limit: New York says they have until midnight tonight to get vaccinated, or they’ll lose their jobs. If they hold out and are let go, care might suffer in some places. But if they remain unvaccinated and keep their jobs, care suffers in a different way.

you also might be interested in …

Germany’s 16-year Angela Merkel era ended yesterday with a federal election in which she was not a candidate. The Social Democrats appear to have won the most seats in the Bundestag, surpassing Merkel’s Christian Democrats. No party has a majority, though, so a coalition will have to be negotiated.

Among the minor parties, the Greens gained seats and the right-wing nationalist Alliance for Germany lost some.

More dramatic stories about infrastructure and debt-ceiling negotiations have drawn attention away from the collapse of negotiations over police reform. The House has already passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act, but police reform is yet another casualty of the filibuster in the Senate.

Right-wing Congresswoman Lauren Boebert used campaign funds to pay rent and utilities, a violation of the law. Will something be done? It’s not clear yet.

A former Washington Post arts editor returned to her roots in rural Illinois, and moved into what she remembers as her grandmother’s house in Kinderhook. It’s been challenging to live in Trump country, where only 23% are vaccinated.

My family might go back four generations here, but we are outsiders. We are the “them.”

and let’s close with something musical

A recent trend on YouTube is for choirs around the world to set local complaints to music. Here is the Helsinki Complaints Choir.

Sharon Wylie

Continue reading "How to Keep Your Minister: A Guide for the Thoughtful Layperson"

The Arizona audit’s re-affirmation of Biden’s victory ought to finish off Trump’s stolen-election hoax. But it hasn’t.

The Cyber-Ninjas “forensic audit” of the 2020 election in Maricopa County, Arizona finally reported its findings, only four months later than planned. Guess what? Biden won.

“The ballots that were provided to us to count in the coliseum very accurately correlate with the official canvass numbers,” Cyber Ninjas CEO Doug Logan said during the presentation. He noted that the hand recount found President Joe Biden gaining 99 votes in Maricopa County and former President Donald Trump losing 261 votes — which he called “very small discrepancies.”

So there you have it: Not even vote-counters completely biased in Trump’s favor could come up with a way to claim he won in Arizona. The Cyber Ninjas hired by the Republican majority in the state senate tested the Maricopa County voting machines that were supposed to be haunted by the ghost of Hugo Chavez, looked for evidence of fake ballots shipped in from South Korea (or maybe China), and pursued every other lunatic theory of how Democrats could have stolen the state for Biden. They came up with nothing.

Biden won.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors Chair Jack Sellers, a Republican, summed up:

This means the tabulation equipment counted the ballots as they were designed to do, and the results reflect the will of the voters. That should be the end of the story. Everything else is just noise.

But it’s not the end of the story, and Trump’s noise continues. The Great Steal has become dogma inside his personality cult, so inconvenient facts must be trimmed to fit.

Just asking questions. The quote from Chief Ninja Logan hints (if you listen closely) at the direction the conspiracy theory goes next: “the ballots that were provided to us” were counted properly, and show a Biden win. But what if some number of those ballots were cast illegally by people not entitled to vote? Or by legal voters who messed up in some way that should have allowed Republicans to disqualify them?

After all these months, Logan can’t point to any specific ballots that fit those descriptions. But what if? And what if those speculatively dubious ballots are all Biden votes? Then maybe Trump really should have won Arizona — and maybe Georgia and Pennsylvania as well. Maybe he should still be president, even without an insurrection.

That’s why a large chunk of the Ninjas’ report is devoted to casting doubt on “the ballots that were provided to us”, using the technique Tucker Carlson has made famous: Raise questions without doing even the simplest legwork to answer them, and then imply that there are no answers or even that powerful people don’t want you to ask.

Robert Graham of the Errata Security blog comments:

[The Cyber Ninjas] are overstretching themselves to find dirt, claiming the things they don’t understand are evidence of something bad.

Elizabeth Howard of the Brennan Center for Justice expressed the same idea in different words.

They’re desperately trying to suggest that what are routine procedures are suspicious, because they don’t have election administration experience or knowledge.

And precisely because the Ninjas lacked so much experience and knowledge, the “things they don’t understand” were many, and even humorous at times.

The most inflammatory allegations came from [Ben] Cotton, who claimed he discovered that thousands of files had been deleted from election department servers, and that several pieces of election equipment had been connected to the internet. 

One internet-connected device Cotton specifically named was REWEB1601, which Maricopa County’s twitter account explained very simply.

REWEB1601 (as you might gather from the naming convention) connects to the internet because it is the server for http://recorder.maricopa.gov. This is not the election system. We shouldn’t have to explain this.

And the deleted files? That wasn’t very sinister either.

CLAIM: Election management database purged

BOTTOM LINE: This is misleading. Nothing was purged. Cyber Ninjas don’t understand the business of elections. We can’t keep everything on the EMS server because it has storage limits. We have data archival procedures for our elections and @MaricopaVote archived everything related to the November election on backup drives. So everything still exists.

Oh, but what about the people voting multiple times in different counties?

Cyber Ninjas said it found thousands of voters who potentially voted twice in Arizona. The company came to this conclusion because it found 5,047 voters with the same first, middle and last name and birth year as people who voted in other counties.

“Bottom line,” the county wrote in a tweet in response, “There are more than 7 million people in Arizona and, yes, some of them share names and birth years. To identify this as a critical issue is laughable.”

Dead voters? Sometimes living people fill out a ballot, mail it, and then die before Election Day. Sometimes computer searches confuse the dead John Smith Sr. with the living John Smith Jr. of the same address, who voted. It’s not fraud. Voters who have moved? If they went to college, joined the military, or decamped to a vacation home from which they plan to return, their vote is still legal. And so on.

In short, the Cyber Ninjas found the kind of “suspicious” ballots that appear in every election everywhere. What they didn’t find was the slightest evidence of fraud.

The Romney prophesy fulfilled. When questioned, the Republican promoters of these partisan “audits” say they’re simply responding to widespread doubt about the integrity of the 2020 election, and that the point is to restore public faith in our democracy — ignoring their party’s (and often their own) role in raising those doubts in the first place by spreading lies.

The model here is the disingenuous justification Ted Cruz and ten other senators gave last January for objecting to the certification of the Electoral College vote.

A fair and credible audit — conducted expeditiously and completed well before January 20 — would dramatically improve Americans’ faith in our electoral process and would significantly enhance the legitimacy of whoever becomes our next President. We owe that to the People.

These are matters worthy of the Congress, and entrusted to us to defend. We do not take this action lightly. We are acting not to thwart the democratic process, but rather to protect it. And every one of us should act together to ensure that the election was lawfully conducted under the Constitution and to do everything we can to restore faith in our Democracy.

Mitt Romney had the right response back on January 6:

For any who remain insistent on an audit in order to satisfy the many people who believe that the election was stolen, I’d offer this perspective: No congressional audit is ever going to convince these voters — particularly when the President will continue to say that the election was stolen. The best way we can show respect for the voters who are upset is by telling them the truth. That’s the burden, that’s the duty of leadership.

The truth is that President-elect Biden won the election. President Trump lost.

This week’s events proved Romney right. After the Arizona audit report leaked, 2020 Loser Donald Trump did continue to say the election was stolen.

The leaked report conclusively shows there were enough fraudulent votes, mystery votes, and fake votes to change the outcome of the election 4 or 5 times over. There is fraud and cheating in Arizona and it must be criminally investigated!

And his allies were still not convinced of his loss. At a rally in Georgia Saturday, Trump rehearsed a litany of false claims about fraud in Arizona. And then his endorsed candidate for secretary of state said “Nobody understands the disaster of the lack of election integrity like the people of Georgia. Now is our hour to take it back.” His lieutenant governor candidate said “I can assure you if I’d been our Lieutenant Governor, we would have gotten to the bottom of this thing.”

And the crowd cheered.

Undeterred by the objective failure of the Cyber Ninjas to either find fraud or restore confidence, Trumpists continue to push the Arizona-like audits that are either proposed or already underway in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and even Texas (which Trump won, but by a margin that presages future trouble for Republicans unless they do a better job suppressing the non-white vote).

In each case, Republicans claim to be “restoring confidence” in elections by responding to “doubts” about the accuracy of the 2020 outcome — doubts that they caused themselves by spreading lies. Already, we can anticipate the ninja-like outcome: reports that find no hard evidence of any miscount or fraud, but continue to “raise questions” based on nothing.

It’s almost like sowing doubt is the intention.

The goal: destabilizing democracy. WaPo’s Greg Sargent raises that issue explicitly:

Oozing with unctuously phony piety, Republicans told us again and again and again that this audit was merely about allaying the doubts of voters who have lost confidence in our elections, a specter that Republicans have widely used to justify voting restrictions everywhere.

But, now that this audit “confirmed” Biden’s win, it is still telling us that we should doubt our outcomes, and that more voting restrictions are necessary to allay those doubts. Why, it’s almost as if that was the real point all along!

The Atlantic’s David Graham points to the damage done: Whatever the outcome of the Arizona “fraudit”, its mere existence kept the stolen-election story going for five more months. The implication that there really was something to investigate (and that maybe there still is) lives on. Millions of low-information voters are left with the vague impression that there is something inherently hinky about election returns from big cities with lots of non-white voters.

The goal was to substantiate a new consensus Republican belief that Democrats cannot win elections legitimately, and that any victory they notch must be somehow tainted. It is not a coincidence that the places where audits have focused are those, like Maricopa County, or Harris County, Texas, or Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, with high levels of minority voters, who can be disparaged—mostly implicitly, but occasionally more directly—as illegitimate participants in the polity. Trump has been the foremost proponent of the theory, but he’s been joined by eager sycophants, demagogues, and conspiracists.

As for where this is going, neo-conservative thought-leader Robert Kagan presented an ominous vision in “Our Constitutional Crisis is Already Here“, where he predicted

a reasonable chance over the next three to four years of incidents of mass violence, a breakdown of federal authority, and the division of the country into warring red and blue enclaves.

Kagan foresees Trump running again in 2024, being nominated, and staging a better coup next time.

Trump and his Republican allies are actively preparing to ensure his victory by whatever means necessary. Trump’s charges of fraud in the 2020 election are now primarily aimed at establishing the predicate to challenge future election results that do not go his way. Some Republican candidates have already begun preparing to declare fraud in 2022, just as Larry Elder tried meekly to do in the California recall contest.

Trump’s attempt to overrule the voters in 2020 may have failed, but not by much, and it was not thwarted by institutional safeguards.

Trump came close to bringing off a coup earlier this year. All that prevented it was a handful of state officials with notable courage and integrity, and the reluctance of two attorneys general and a vice president to obey orders they deemed inappropriate. These were not the checks and balances the Framers had in mind when they designed the Constitution, of course, but Trump has exposed the inadequacy of those protections.

Contrary to John Adams, the Republic was saved in 2020 not by laws, but by individuals. And those brave individuals are being replaced.

[T]he amateurish “stop the steal” efforts of 2020 have given way to an organized nationwide campaign to ensure that Trump and his supporters will have the control over state and local election officials that they lacked in 2020. Those recalcitrant Republican state officials who effectively saved the country from calamity by refusing to falsely declare fraud or to “find” more votes for Trump are being systematically removed or hounded from office. Republican legislatures are giving themselves greater control over the election certification process. As of this spring, Republicans have proposed or passed measures in at least 16 states that would shift certain election authorities from the purview of the governor, secretary of state or other executive-branch officers to the legislature. [1]

In the end, the “forensic audit” movement isn’t about overturning 2020 any more: The deeper purpose is to “raise questions” about elections and about democracy in general, so that fewer people will be able or willing to take a principled stand against the Coup of 2024.

[1] The point of that shift is that gerrymandering insulates Republican majorities in key state legislatures from the voters. In Pennsylvania, for example, the Democratic voting majority that carried the state for Biden has also elected a Democratic governor and secretary of state. But the legislature is well fortified against the will of the People.

So yet another counting of the votes in Arizona — this one by the openly pro-Trump Cyber Ninjas — showed that Biden won. But Trump continues to claim fraud, and his GOP allies still demand similar “audits” in other other states he lost — and even in Texas, where he won by less than previous Republican candidates.

Ostensibly, the audit was going to resolve the doubts — one way or the other — about Arizona’s 2020 election. But instead, the report doubled down on the “raising questions” tactic that undermined faith in the election in the first place. It’s almost like tearing down democracy was the point all along.

So I’ll examine that in the featured post “The Big Lie Refuses to Die”, which should be out between 9 and 10 EDT.

The weekly summary will discuss the increasingly clear picture of Trump’s coup attempt, the Haitian refugees at the border, the agonizingly slow turn-around of the pandemic’s Delta surge, Germany’s election, and a few other things. Look for it around noon.