new reader here and really appreciate this. While I "know" the increased heat and lack of rains, as well as deforestation where I live in NW WA are directly hurting ones who absolutely need the amount of rains that have traditionally fallen here- ie. Western Red Cedar, it's still really hard on little me to make home in a region where it's gray and rainy all of the time. But ultimately I do care more for the fate of Western Red Cedar than my own sometimes since my health is actually quite woven into theirs. Pushing back on my own indoctrinated thinking of human supremacy and that nature is here for me is a regular practice. I am not an outdoors person in the sport sense and I lived in a very very outdoorsy area which disgusts me a lot given the ego entitlement of the lifestyle. Every ski season I dream of going up to the mountain with a petition to close the mountain-just like every other year, can the mountain just be and have a break from us humans clamoring all over them, skiing everywhere, littering, taking pictures of our dogs in holiday sweaters for our IG feeds? I have yet to meet anyone else who shares this dream hahaha :)
It's really hard to change one's thinking! I find it so, anyway. I like the way you put it: "Can the mountains just be and have a break from us humans clamoring all over them?" Even with skiing, there are ways to do it that don't have the enormous impact of cutting down so many trees, building chair lifts, all the luxury vacation condo developments ... so much we need to change, and it's made harder when we think of certain activities as "good" simply because they involve using our bodies outdoors.
There's never a "behind" here, in my mind. ;) More like dipping in and out, depending on one's bandwidth. And I thought it was an interesting intersection -- maybe there was something in the air!
Happy to have found you down a Substack rabbit hole tonight. And I’m from toledo & have met Dr perry man! Loved the addition of the bird song to your writing.
That is so cool! I loved listening to him. He explained it all so well, as well as being passionate about the community and what it means. (One of the things he talked about was that the first business to close down as a school supply store and I was excited and then heartbroken because when was the last time I saw one of those?! Ever?)
I’m glad you liked the birdsong. Recording those when I can makes me pay attention more, too.
Mar 23, 2023·edited Mar 23, 2023Liked by Antonia Malchik
The line, “Nature doesn’t exist for your stoke,” really caught my eye. I have felt that way for years.
One of my favorite professors at BSU was (he passed suddenly three years ago) an expert in public lands—both their history and their management. Whenever Sally Jewel was visiting the Northwest the two of them would meet up to talk shop. He hated Outdoor magazine for the way they endlessly pimped the outdoors, including even wilderness areas. I hate car commercials for the same reason. They invariably show happy and prosperous young people living the good life by splashing their shiny new SUVs through streambeds and tearing up what looks like mountain fire roads. Both examples only serve to reinforce the tragic and deeply rooted mindset that humans are in charge of all that we encounter, that non-human nature exist solely for our exploitation and our amusement, and that it has no value except as what philosopher Martin Heidegger calls “standing-reserve”—a captive resource to provide recreational experiences, oftentimes motorized, no matter how invasive or destructive, and as the thankless source of boundless material wealth for insatiably parasitical human beings.
Speaking of the motorized amusements of entitled human beings: in Judith Layzer’s book The Environmental Case: Translating Values Into Policy, a chapter on snowmobiles in Yellowstone begins with the line. “By the mid-1990s the National Park Service was reporting that wintertime air quality in some parts of the park was the worst in the nation and that the drone of snowmobiles was perpetually audible at Old Faithful.” As you might guess, the situation has not improved since then. Much like leaf blowers, I hate the damned things.
I have a close family member who loves to deride people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change and who wouldn’t dream of not voting Democrat. But he bought himself a brand-new Jeep Gladiator a couple of years ago (battleship grey), and a 35 ft camper. During the warm weather months, along with swarms of fresh colonizers in their expensive new motorhomes loaded down with every imaginable motorized contraption and with huge boats in tow, he is on the newly crowded highways every weekend on his way to lakes, rivers, and campgrounds. For many years those same lakes, rivers, and campground were relatively pristine, cherished and cared for, uncrowded, and uncluttered; but all that has recently changed. People are rude, they are noisy, they often leave piles of trash and garbage, sometimes even inside the fire pits and the campground toilets, and there is graffiti the likes of which I have never seen before in Idaho. It is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.
So yes…nature doesn’t exist for our stoke. Except apparently it does.
By the way, the two best things to do with huckleberries is to either sprinkle them into a large pancake just when it is beginning to bubble on the griddle, or sprinkle them onto a huge bowl of French Vanilla ice cream. Freshly brewed coffee is always a great addition to the pancake.
Do you know, I never actually thought about the SUV and truck and Jeep ads? I haven't had TV with advertising for well over 15 years now, so don't see it as much, but I'm not sure I noticed it before except for an aversion to the narrative of "conquering."
I *think* that piece I read was in response to Outside magazine's approach specifically, but can't remember. It might have been in Resurgence & Ecologist; I vaguely remember that it was about how if we're going for a walk in nature and it's still about what it can give us--even if that's just solace--we're still approaching it from an extraction mindset.
That line about Yellowstone and noise is so, so sad. I remember when I finally moved out of cities and into upstate New York in a rural area and was excited to be able to have birds and trees and quiet morning again, only to find the days populated by lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and ATVs. I don't think I'll ever be at peace with any of it.
I would love more people out in the woods and wilderness if they didn't approach it this way! As something to be used rather than revered, to be treated with gratitude, respect, and reciprocity. It feels impossible to watch it going the other way without despair. And yet what can we do but love the world and fight for it? And love huckleberries, too.
My father-in-law loved Lord Byron. He never got an education past the age of 14, but he loved Byron's poetry and the fact that his estate was just outside of Nottingham, which was where my father-in-law spent his entire life. 🧡
I watch very little television myself. I've always been that way. But I do enjoy watching an occasional basketball game, usually on my computer, and that's when I see the ads. They are obnoxious, insulting, and deeply troubling.
Regarding my previous diatribe--I am suddenly an old man (Wait!), and I had six-bypass open heart surgery about three and one-half years ago (Oops!), yet I still sleep on the ground when I camp, and I don't drag a quarter-million dollars in mechanized conveniences and toys with me wherever I go. I regard the non-human natural world with a deeply held reverence, and every opportunity to commune with her is precious to me. We are soulmates, so to speak. Of course, having said this, I am dreadfully imperfect (One time many years ago I softly swore after losing my house in a game of solitaire), and still, at least to some significant degree, I remain a product of the misled and bewildered culture into which I was thrown on that glorious day of my birth, and from which I necessarily extracted my foundational and stubbornly intractable sense of being in the world.
Let it be noted that I have been trying to recover ever since.
On a side note, and I'm sure your other readers will agree: your willingness and ability to thoughtfully engage with your readers with openness and authenticity, and I presume this includes the world in general, is unique, refreshing, and sincerely appreciated. I am a paid subscriber to your page. And with the possible exception of my spiffy new reading glasses (the ones with the really cool frames), I consider my subscription to be one of the wisest and most enjoyable investments I've made all year. I have even recommended you to a couple of people, including to one of my granddaughters (I have seven).
Byron is not an easy read. Your father-in-law is proof that one does not necessarily need a formal education in order to be wise and have excellent taste.
Kenneth, your passage about your health and relationship to nature and your trying to recover ever since feels like the opening of a wonderful book I'd like to read. And I'm so glad your heart surgery was successful and you're able to relate to Nature in all the ways that matter. 🧡
And those are such kind words! I hope this continues to provide something of value. It's reciprocal in any case -- I wouldn't do this writing, in this way, if I didn't also find the relating with people and ideas also fulfilling.
I wish my father-in-law could have believed me every time I told him that. He was never able to shake feeling inferior for his lack of education (the British class system reinforced those feelings), but he was one of the most well-read and intelligent people I've ever known, as well as being extremely humble and enjoying the things that mattered most in life.
Man, I do not know how you manage to live your life -- including skinning up mountains! -- writing newsletters, being involved with your community, and consuming all of the media you do.
I hate that these days I feel like I'm so often swimming upstream against all that I need/want to do. I know it's within my control and yet it doesn't always feel that way.
As for what we expect from nature, man, that's such a huge topic, and when you add to that what's happening in Ukraine, Xi visiting Putin, the latest climate report from the UN, America's looming budget problems, another US election in the offing, I swear some days it's all I can do to not run shrieking from the world.
If I ever manage to figure it out, I'll tell you! I feel like I half-ass just about everything, and am always so far behind.
I guess the choice not to run shrieking from the world means leaning full into what's wonderful about it, why we love it. Which you and Brent provide a wonderful example of!
P.s. Another fine companion to Timothy Snyder's series: Black Sea, by Neal Ascherson.. goes into geology, back to 6th or 8th century B.C., stops to step.on the emergence of a "distinction" between Our Selves (settled tribes, Greeks-) and the impinging "Barbarians," coming from vast distances, and capable of disappearing into them. (Lane's book -- I have to get my own!)
That book looked really good. I didn't want to tell Lane that I mark up research read books prodigiously. It's awful. But I sympathize with him not wanting to read one that's heavily underlined! I sent him the Figes book suggestion, too. I think he'd like it.
Thank you, Antonia. Another beautiful, thoughtful reflection on the way our current "civilization" scoops us up as soon as we turn verbal, and begins to assert our "obvious" seperation from the reality that brought us into life, and still holds us. But not in a way that will keep us from sliding backwards down an icy slope. Good work.on joining the Badger-Two Med trail crew. Respect!
Good metaphor there, Mama. ;) Best bet is to not ascend the icy slope in the first place, second best is figuring out how to get down without injury!
We'll see how it goes. My last trail crew was only 2 days and we camped at the trailhead. This one we're hiking 7 miles in before we camp, I think. I suspect I'm going to be flattened by the strength and energy of people half my age but hopefully there will be huckleberries to mitigate?
Appreciate these reflections and all the resources! "This bird doesn’t really care what I think about extended daylight hours and too much sunshine." Love those works and hearing the bird as well!
That bird is such a beautiful sound to hear. I too think a lot about how we assume outdoorsy sports and pursuits are inherently good... But what I love is this: "The sun just kept shining." O I feel that in my bones--when it's so bright here now on sunny days and it just won't stop in the summer--it feels like a spotlight and I want to hold on to some of the darkness. Because it just. keeps. shining. ;)
😂 Glad to know of someone else who doesn’t view cloudless days with unalloyed joy, and of course yours are even more relentless. I love the sun, I promise. All its power and beauty and life. But the darkness brings me to life. 🌞🌚
The Dimaline quote at the beginning echoes a comment made during a conversation I just had yesterday. So much of what we are trying to do in the world today requires a recognition that those of us DOING it won't see the results. From conservation to what is happening in my Little Shell tribe, that is the story. Most of us struggle to reconcile that.
As for Indigenous organizations, I direct people to All Nations Health Center, located in Missoula. They do necessary work for the urban Indian population of the city, which doesn't have an IHS clinic. I made this recommendation even before I joined the board.
It’s a conversation I have with people all the time, that most likely we won’t see the changes we want to in our lifetimes. For people to do the work anyway seems to require monumental effort. I don’t always understand why it’s such a barrier for so many, and it’s frustrating, but even that change, within people, is one I can’t force.
I remember listening to someone wise talk about how in reaching a robust middle age, the story of Moses began to take on such deeper meaning for them--of how we don't get to see the promised land, but we have to believe that we can still help others--succeeding generations, etc.--reach it. I think about it all the time--how similarly in Tolkien, LOTR is all about the idea that even when losing the battle you don't stop fighting.
It’s one of the reasons I think Stan Rushworth’s “We Are Are the Middle of Forever” is such an important book.
And yes--Sam and Frodo accepted at some point that they likely wouldn’t survive the journey, but they made it anyway. And Merry and Pippin fighting where they could, and the Battle of Helm’s Deep ... all because it mattered, not because they thought they could win.
Thanks for another lovely piece. Your mention of the book about capitalism brought to mind this excellent podcast season of Scene on Radio called “The Repair,” in which John Biewen teams with the great climate journalist Amy Westervelt to trace the history of fossil fuel’s dominance in our country. They cover a lot of fascinating ground. One of the episodes gets into radicalized capitalism and connects the “thingification” of Africans to justify the slave trade with the same treatment of land and original people in North America.
I used to listen to Amy Westervelt's Drilled religiously. She's pretty incredible. All the research she does to uncover those archives, and I particularly appreciate the way she figured out the relationship between things like advertising, and who moved between which realms, affecting messaging and policy. "The Repair" sounds like a good series for me to listen to, especially that aspect of capitalism.
Once I was out walking and heard one. Then I saw it! It does this head pump thing on that repetition toward the end of the song. The head pump is the best part. I could be wrong on this ID though, it’s been months!
I was standing right under it for a good long time but didn’t pay attention to the head motions. Will have to walk around there again and see what I can see!
new reader here and really appreciate this. While I "know" the increased heat and lack of rains, as well as deforestation where I live in NW WA are directly hurting ones who absolutely need the amount of rains that have traditionally fallen here- ie. Western Red Cedar, it's still really hard on little me to make home in a region where it's gray and rainy all of the time. But ultimately I do care more for the fate of Western Red Cedar than my own sometimes since my health is actually quite woven into theirs. Pushing back on my own indoctrinated thinking of human supremacy and that nature is here for me is a regular practice. I am not an outdoors person in the sport sense and I lived in a very very outdoorsy area which disgusts me a lot given the ego entitlement of the lifestyle. Every ski season I dream of going up to the mountain with a petition to close the mountain-just like every other year, can the mountain just be and have a break from us humans clamoring all over them, skiing everywhere, littering, taking pictures of our dogs in holiday sweaters for our IG feeds? I have yet to meet anyone else who shares this dream hahaha :)
It's really hard to change one's thinking! I find it so, anyway. I like the way you put it: "Can the mountains just be and have a break from us humans clamoring all over them?" Even with skiing, there are ways to do it that don't have the enormous impact of cutting down so many trees, building chair lifts, all the luxury vacation condo developments ... so much we need to change, and it's made harder when we think of certain activities as "good" simply because they involve using our bodies outdoors.
I’m so far behind, but I wish I’d read this before I wrote about mountain bike trails!
There's never a "behind" here, in my mind. ;) More like dipping in and out, depending on one's bandwidth. And I thought it was an interesting intersection -- maybe there was something in the air!
Happy to have found you down a Substack rabbit hole tonight. And I’m from toledo & have met Dr perry man! Loved the addition of the bird song to your writing.
That is so cool! I loved listening to him. He explained it all so well, as well as being passionate about the community and what it means. (One of the things he talked about was that the first business to close down as a school supply store and I was excited and then heartbroken because when was the last time I saw one of those?! Ever?)
I’m glad you liked the birdsong. Recording those when I can makes me pay attention more, too.
I guess Substack rabbit holes aren’t bad things!
So glad you enjoyed that Reframing Rural. Montana is starting to get some great podcasts, if only people knew how to find them!
They'll grow organically, I hope! Megan does such a good job, and that episode was particularly wonderful.
The line, “Nature doesn’t exist for your stoke,” really caught my eye. I have felt that way for years.
One of my favorite professors at BSU was (he passed suddenly three years ago) an expert in public lands—both their history and their management. Whenever Sally Jewel was visiting the Northwest the two of them would meet up to talk shop. He hated Outdoor magazine for the way they endlessly pimped the outdoors, including even wilderness areas. I hate car commercials for the same reason. They invariably show happy and prosperous young people living the good life by splashing their shiny new SUVs through streambeds and tearing up what looks like mountain fire roads. Both examples only serve to reinforce the tragic and deeply rooted mindset that humans are in charge of all that we encounter, that non-human nature exist solely for our exploitation and our amusement, and that it has no value except as what philosopher Martin Heidegger calls “standing-reserve”—a captive resource to provide recreational experiences, oftentimes motorized, no matter how invasive or destructive, and as the thankless source of boundless material wealth for insatiably parasitical human beings.
Speaking of the motorized amusements of entitled human beings: in Judith Layzer’s book The Environmental Case: Translating Values Into Policy, a chapter on snowmobiles in Yellowstone begins with the line. “By the mid-1990s the National Park Service was reporting that wintertime air quality in some parts of the park was the worst in the nation and that the drone of snowmobiles was perpetually audible at Old Faithful.” As you might guess, the situation has not improved since then. Much like leaf blowers, I hate the damned things.
I have a close family member who loves to deride people who don’t believe in anthropogenic climate change and who wouldn’t dream of not voting Democrat. But he bought himself a brand-new Jeep Gladiator a couple of years ago (battleship grey), and a 35 ft camper. During the warm weather months, along with swarms of fresh colonizers in their expensive new motorhomes loaded down with every imaginable motorized contraption and with huge boats in tow, he is on the newly crowded highways every weekend on his way to lakes, rivers, and campgrounds. For many years those same lakes, rivers, and campground were relatively pristine, cherished and cared for, uncrowded, and uncluttered; but all that has recently changed. People are rude, they are noisy, they often leave piles of trash and garbage, sometimes even inside the fire pits and the campground toilets, and there is graffiti the likes of which I have never seen before in Idaho. It is heartbreaking. Absolutely heartbreaking.
So yes…nature doesn’t exist for our stoke. Except apparently it does.
By the way, the two best things to do with huckleberries is to either sprinkle them into a large pancake just when it is beginning to bubble on the griddle, or sprinkle them onto a huge bowl of French Vanilla ice cream. Freshly brewed coffee is always a great addition to the pancake.
I am going to buy the Fraser book.
__________
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more.
—from Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, by Lord Byron
Do you know, I never actually thought about the SUV and truck and Jeep ads? I haven't had TV with advertising for well over 15 years now, so don't see it as much, but I'm not sure I noticed it before except for an aversion to the narrative of "conquering."
I *think* that piece I read was in response to Outside magazine's approach specifically, but can't remember. It might have been in Resurgence & Ecologist; I vaguely remember that it was about how if we're going for a walk in nature and it's still about what it can give us--even if that's just solace--we're still approaching it from an extraction mindset.
That line about Yellowstone and noise is so, so sad. I remember when I finally moved out of cities and into upstate New York in a rural area and was excited to be able to have birds and trees and quiet morning again, only to find the days populated by lawnmowers, leaf blowers, and ATVs. I don't think I'll ever be at peace with any of it.
I would love more people out in the woods and wilderness if they didn't approach it this way! As something to be used rather than revered, to be treated with gratitude, respect, and reciprocity. It feels impossible to watch it going the other way without despair. And yet what can we do but love the world and fight for it? And love huckleberries, too.
My father-in-law loved Lord Byron. He never got an education past the age of 14, but he loved Byron's poetry and the fact that his estate was just outside of Nottingham, which was where my father-in-law spent his entire life. 🧡
I watch very little television myself. I've always been that way. But I do enjoy watching an occasional basketball game, usually on my computer, and that's when I see the ads. They are obnoxious, insulting, and deeply troubling.
Regarding my previous diatribe--I am suddenly an old man (Wait!), and I had six-bypass open heart surgery about three and one-half years ago (Oops!), yet I still sleep on the ground when I camp, and I don't drag a quarter-million dollars in mechanized conveniences and toys with me wherever I go. I regard the non-human natural world with a deeply held reverence, and every opportunity to commune with her is precious to me. We are soulmates, so to speak. Of course, having said this, I am dreadfully imperfect (One time many years ago I softly swore after losing my house in a game of solitaire), and still, at least to some significant degree, I remain a product of the misled and bewildered culture into which I was thrown on that glorious day of my birth, and from which I necessarily extracted my foundational and stubbornly intractable sense of being in the world.
Let it be noted that I have been trying to recover ever since.
On a side note, and I'm sure your other readers will agree: your willingness and ability to thoughtfully engage with your readers with openness and authenticity, and I presume this includes the world in general, is unique, refreshing, and sincerely appreciated. I am a paid subscriber to your page. And with the possible exception of my spiffy new reading glasses (the ones with the really cool frames), I consider my subscription to be one of the wisest and most enjoyable investments I've made all year. I have even recommended you to a couple of people, including to one of my granddaughters (I have seven).
Byron is not an easy read. Your father-in-law is proof that one does not necessarily need a formal education in order to be wise and have excellent taste.
Kenneth, your passage about your health and relationship to nature and your trying to recover ever since feels like the opening of a wonderful book I'd like to read. And I'm so glad your heart surgery was successful and you're able to relate to Nature in all the ways that matter. 🧡
And those are such kind words! I hope this continues to provide something of value. It's reciprocal in any case -- I wouldn't do this writing, in this way, if I didn't also find the relating with people and ideas also fulfilling.
I wish my father-in-law could have believed me every time I told him that. He was never able to shake feeling inferior for his lack of education (the British class system reinforced those feelings), but he was one of the most well-read and intelligent people I've ever known, as well as being extremely humble and enjoying the things that mattered most in life.
Thank you as always, Nia!
Thank you for reading, Greg!
Man, I do not know how you manage to live your life -- including skinning up mountains! -- writing newsletters, being involved with your community, and consuming all of the media you do.
I hate that these days I feel like I'm so often swimming upstream against all that I need/want to do. I know it's within my control and yet it doesn't always feel that way.
As for what we expect from nature, man, that's such a huge topic, and when you add to that what's happening in Ukraine, Xi visiting Putin, the latest climate report from the UN, America's looming budget problems, another US election in the offing, I swear some days it's all I can do to not run shrieking from the world.
If I ever manage to figure it out, I'll tell you! I feel like I half-ass just about everything, and am always so far behind.
I guess the choice not to run shrieking from the world means leaning full into what's wonderful about it, why we love it. Which you and Brent provide a wonderful example of!
P.s. Another fine companion to Timothy Snyder's series: Black Sea, by Neal Ascherson.. goes into geology, back to 6th or 8th century B.C., stops to step.on the emergence of a "distinction" between Our Selves (settled tribes, Greeks-) and the impinging "Barbarians," coming from vast distances, and capable of disappearing into them. (Lane's book -- I have to get my own!)
That book looked really good. I didn't want to tell Lane that I mark up research read books prodigiously. It's awful. But I sympathize with him not wanting to read one that's heavily underlined! I sent him the Figes book suggestion, too. I think he'd like it.
Thank you, Antonia. Another beautiful, thoughtful reflection on the way our current "civilization" scoops us up as soon as we turn verbal, and begins to assert our "obvious" seperation from the reality that brought us into life, and still holds us. But not in a way that will keep us from sliding backwards down an icy slope. Good work.on joining the Badger-Two Med trail crew. Respect!
Good metaphor there, Mama. ;) Best bet is to not ascend the icy slope in the first place, second best is figuring out how to get down without injury!
We'll see how it goes. My last trail crew was only 2 days and we camped at the trailhead. This one we're hiking 7 miles in before we camp, I think. I suspect I'm going to be flattened by the strength and energy of people half my age but hopefully there will be huckleberries to mitigate?
Appreciate these reflections and all the resources! "This bird doesn’t really care what I think about extended daylight hours and too much sunshine." Love those works and hearing the bird as well!
Anna East and Chris La Tray have informed me it's a song sparrow! Good to know knowledgable bird people. ;)
That bird is such a beautiful sound to hear. I too think a lot about how we assume outdoorsy sports and pursuits are inherently good... But what I love is this: "The sun just kept shining." O I feel that in my bones--when it's so bright here now on sunny days and it just won't stop in the summer--it feels like a spotlight and I want to hold on to some of the darkness. Because it just. keeps. shining. ;)
😂 Glad to know of someone else who doesn’t view cloudless days with unalloyed joy, and of course yours are even more relentless. I love the sun, I promise. All its power and beauty and life. But the darkness brings me to life. 🌞🌚
The Dimaline quote at the beginning echoes a comment made during a conversation I just had yesterday. So much of what we are trying to do in the world today requires a recognition that those of us DOING it won't see the results. From conservation to what is happening in my Little Shell tribe, that is the story. Most of us struggle to reconcile that.
As for Indigenous organizations, I direct people to All Nations Health Center, located in Missoula. They do necessary work for the urban Indian population of the city, which doesn't have an IHS clinic. I made this recommendation even before I joined the board.
https://www.allnations.health/donate-now/
Thank you. I’ll make that the next one. 🧡
It’s a conversation I have with people all the time, that most likely we won’t see the changes we want to in our lifetimes. For people to do the work anyway seems to require monumental effort. I don’t always understand why it’s such a barrier for so many, and it’s frustrating, but even that change, within people, is one I can’t force.
I remember listening to someone wise talk about how in reaching a robust middle age, the story of Moses began to take on such deeper meaning for them--of how we don't get to see the promised land, but we have to believe that we can still help others--succeeding generations, etc.--reach it. I think about it all the time--how similarly in Tolkien, LOTR is all about the idea that even when losing the battle you don't stop fighting.
It’s one of the reasons I think Stan Rushworth’s “We Are Are the Middle of Forever” is such an important book.
And yes--Sam and Frodo accepted at some point that they likely wouldn’t survive the journey, but they made it anyway. And Merry and Pippin fighting where they could, and the Battle of Helm’s Deep ... all because it mattered, not because they thought they could win.
I haven't read Rushworth but now I am adding it to my list. ;)
It’s a necessary read, I think. His co-editor Dahr Jamail calls it “strong medicine.”
Missoula meander today, not forest. Higgins to Bear Tracks bridge over the river.
Good day for it!
Thanks for another lovely piece. Your mention of the book about capitalism brought to mind this excellent podcast season of Scene on Radio called “The Repair,” in which John Biewen teams with the great climate journalist Amy Westervelt to trace the history of fossil fuel’s dominance in our country. They cover a lot of fascinating ground. One of the episodes gets into radicalized capitalism and connects the “thingification” of Africans to justify the slave trade with the same treatment of land and original people in North America.
Scene On is such a good one. The throughlines they reported are really fascinating.
I used to listen to Amy Westervelt's Drilled religiously. She's pretty incredible. All the research she does to uncover those archives, and I particularly appreciate the way she figured out the relationship between things like advertising, and who moved between which realms, affecting messaging and policy. "The Repair" sounds like a good series for me to listen to, especially that aspect of capitalism.
Song sparrow, I think! Lovely piece.
Absolutely a song sparrow.
Good to know!
Thank you! My bird learning is incremental at best.
Once I was out walking and heard one. Then I saw it! It does this head pump thing on that repetition toward the end of the song. The head pump is the best part. I could be wrong on this ID though, it’s been months!
I was standing right under it for a good long time but didn’t pay attention to the head motions. Will have to walk around there again and see what I can see!