Friday morning. Going to the Mansion for Meditation Class. A portrait of Maria in the morning light. A beautiful, enhancing sky. Every morning, Zip is waiting for me when I come outside. This is the morning meeting face. We usually meet on the raised garden bed in cold weather.
The hills and light took my breath away.
Maria looked like an angel when the morning light fell on her. She is an angel, I suppose.
I’m heading over to the Mansion for their Christmas party. See you later. There is a new episode of Shetland on Amazon Prime tonight. When I get home from the Christmas Party I’m going to watch it with Maria.
“These are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country, but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered, yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives everything its value.” – Thomas Paine.
A man who has read my blog for a while messaged me this morning to thank me for writing on a blog that helped him get through 2020; he hoped I had something to say about getting through 2024.
I am no seer or pundit, but I did get through that year and the ones that followed, and I will get through the next one.
People must make their own decisions about coping with the hate and chaos gripping some parts of the country, and I am happy to share my ideas. Please take what you like; leave the rest is my motto.
If you don’t like what I am saying, don’t hesitate to go elsewhere, but go in peace and silence. I don’t need to hear about it; my delete button is fresh and ready.
I don’t tell others what to do or how to live. Please don’t tell me.
Some simple ideas:
We all thought books were extinct, but that is untrue. Reading good books has been grounding for me; it takes me out of myself and into other worlds. I haunt the recommendations of the best reviewers to find out what they like, and this year, Governor DeSantis is a new source for finding great books.
A former student from NYU’s journalism program told me that when looking for a good book, she looks for Florida’s new and publicly funded book-banning list as part of the governor’s “war against the woke,” and it never fails. Almost all of the books are great.
In Florida, every ignoramus with a grudge or a pole up her ass can get a book banned with an e-mail or a phone call. The books are moved far away from children, or the librarians will be instantly fired. Committees of fellow ignoramuses get to decide if they are safe for children.
Once fun, loose, and warm, Florida is just another hate state now.
Even the manatees are dying. And DeSantis has nothing to show for it but humiliation. He got it all wrong. It’s too bad; I suspect an intelligent human is somewhere. The war against the woke was a disaster; he drifted too far away from normal humans, as often happens to “populist” graduates of Harvard and Yale.
It just takes one idiot to ban a book; it used to take a lot more. Every banned book I’ve bought and read is excellent and worth reading.
Otherwise, I have my own set of political survival rules:
I severely limit the news I read on my TV, pad, or phone. I look in the morning, catch my breath, and leave it alone.
The new media is very often wrong or carrying somebody’s water, and the general solution to their decline is to be more hysterical, fear-mongering, and addicted to every lie and hateful insult that comes out of Donald Trump’s mouth.
They promote discord and fear and have lost their way. If we seek the truth, we have to find it ourselves.
My Trump meter works this way: if I listen or pay attention to everything Trump says, I will keel over and die, or at the very least, want to move to Costa Rica. I don’t care how many lawsuits he files or how much money he gets. If money mattered that much, he would already be King.
So I ignore every foul thing he says.
I do not believe he will be our next President; he and his would-be doppelganger, Mr. DeSantis, will never be elected to national office. If Trump stays out of jail, it will be a miracle. Between the two of them, the value of democracy is reborn, only not in the way they wish; there is a great awakening in the country. This will become more evident and powerful over the next year.
Promising to destroy democracy isn’t the most innovative way to win an election in a democracy.
As Thomas Jefferson warned, there will always be a lot of Americans who don’t get it. There have never been enough of them to destroy us.
Every morning, when Maria and I wake up, we look for something good to share that we saw in the news, heard on the radio, or read on an iPhone. Starting the day is critical. It sets the tone. I read one of those books in the evening, watch a good movie, or follow a good mystery on Netflix or Amazon’s Prime Video.
I avoid angry and hateful people or people seeking grievance. I don’t want them around me or in my life.
Doing good is an antidote to hate and bigotry.
Every day, I try to do something good for a refugee child, a Mansion resident, or someone needing support and assistance. There is no shortage of needy people in America; more are coming all the time, here and worldwide. I define my value by my humanity. It is healing and uplifting to help someone.
I want to do good in times of turmoil, grievance, and cruelty. I want to leave the world better than I found it.
None of this hatred will come from me.
I step outside when frightened or discouraged and do something meaningful, big or small.
This way, I keep my identity; I never turn that over to a politician or political party.
I stay out of the fray. I will vote whenever I can, and always for someone who wants to help the people they serve. Who that is is my business and no one else. I reject labels of any kind; it is a surefire way to stop thinking of the death of the American mind.
The people who surrender their loyalty and judgment to dishonest or cruel people are damaging their souls and hearts. They are not stronger than people of good faith and heart.
Important rule: I do not argue politics with anyone anywhere, not online, not at the post office, not in someone’s house. My politics are my business; yours are yours. I don’t need to justify them or explain them. It would help if you didn’t justify your beliefs to me.
We live in a strange time. Billionaires are seeking to take over our world.
One political party rages about government power and is obsessed with firing thousands of newly hired IRS employees. At the same time, they want to tell us when to have children, what to read, what our teachers can teach, and what our corporations can say.
This seems like a lot of government involvement for a political movement that doesn’t want any. It is what dictators wish to do. Hypocrisy is the new morality.
Many Americans I know, left and right, are awakening to this, especially women, who are confronted with horrific choices by the angry old white men who control many of our state legislatures and our Congress.
I can almost feel the realization spreading around the country – these people must be defeated. I believe it will happen. It is already happening.
As we have been learning all year, women are rising everywhere to protect their health and freedom.
That is a classic American drama; it’s how we got started. The tyranny isn’t coming from a King but from a new generation of zealots fighting to keep the country white and Christian. It isn’t going to work. They are too late.
At this point in any election, people are just beginning to pay attention. Truth is funny; it can be battered around and distorted, but it always comes back. It can’t be killed on the Internet, on X, or in Congress. I believe in truth.
Women are now the most potent force in our democracy and will be heard soon enough. They don’t wish to submit themselves to the domination and authority of frightened white men fighting to hang on to power.
Which brings me to faith. I am not a conventionally religious person, but I am a person of faith. I believe in democracy; people should be able to pursue their happiness and lives in freedom, barring violence and injury to others.
I believe we are due a moral revolution, where the idea of killing and endangering women pointlessly and ignorantly is not possible, and where children in schools are not subject to slaughter because greedy corporations want to make more money.
As Paine suggested, we sometimes need to be challenged this way; we have become lazy, arrogant, and self-absorbed. We fight with our hands. We will win it.
I believe in a spiritual century, a long and profound response to the national bewilderment and malaise.
The prophets whispering in my ear say a new revolution is stirring and taking shape. These are not the people you see ranting on the news or in Congress, they are ordinary people, men and women, who want to live in peace, have a place to live protect their children from dishonest and cowardly politicians and keep our democracy secure and intact.
They are sick of hatred, corruption, and lies. They want something better.
Two thousand twenty-four promises to be one of Thomas Paine’s times that try men’s souls. The summer soldiers will tremble and hide, as we see every day. The patriots will rise and protect their freedom and our democracy. It’s nowhere near time for the American experiment to end. And Donald Trump is not the person to do it.
I will speak with my life, not with a gun; I would only shoot myself in the foot. I believe in truth, I believe in compassion, I believe in helping people experiencing poverty and people in need. Those values are eternal and always victorious in the end.
That’s how I plan to get through 2024, just like I did in 2020. If our time as the world’s most important democracy is to end, it will not be in the hands of Donald Trump or Ron DeSantis or the clowns in Congress.
They will eat and taste the shame of history, betrayal, failure, and cruelty.
I live outside the fray, living as I feel it should be. No politician can change that or break my spirit.
I believe anyone who keeps their spirit and hopes intact will be fine.
The danger is not the blowhards who seek to dominate the lives of others. The threat and the enemy is fear, just like Thomas Paine warned.
I grew up in another time of dentistry. I am stunned by the technological changes making dentistry a different and increasingly painless experience. I dreaded going to the dentist. I don’t any longer.
We all squawk at times about technology and what it does for us; it’s easy sometimes to overlook the good.
Dr. Eddy Brown, who I saw as a child, was probably charming, but I always saw him as a pain-inducing sadist. My mouth is riddled with cavities because my grandparents ran a Ma and Pa store with lots of penny candy, and they always had a jar waiting for me.
Going to the dentist hurt, even with the laughing gas used on children. I am no stranger to dentistry, even though most of my teeth are in good shape today.
I have had two teeth removed in the past few years. One resulted in a failed implant (it took three years to fix the mess), and another is getting an implant now. It hurt.
I have an excellent dentist named Jacob Merryman, and it is fun to see him and the techs who work for him. Dr. Merryman is a man of faith, and part of his faith is to make dentistry comfortable and painless. He’s pretty close.
I’m getting another implant from him, and it doesn’t hurt.
Today, he was preparing my mouth for the dental crown that had to be made by specialists to fit over the screw and the hole in my lower gums.
The picture you see is the work of a brand new digital scanning technique in which the dentist moves a portable hand scanner around and takes a photo which makes the crown makers able to perfectly gauge the size and width of the crown, which will go over the implant screw.
It’s e-mailed instantly to the manufacturers of the dental hardware. They had it and started working long before I got home.
The dark tooth you see on top is the sight of a missing tooth that will be replaced with a different implant in the next few months. There is no tooth there; the scanner fills the space with a dark and different color.
I remember the last time I had an attempted implant, I had to bite down on some cold and squish liquid paste, which dried and was shipped to the crown specialists. Usually, it took two or three different attempts to get any crown right. It was uncomfortable.
Dr. Merryman moved his magic wand back and forth in my open mouth for just a few seconds and sent the photo as an e-mail to the people who would make the crown that covered the implant itself. It was completely painless.
I also noticed that Dr. Merrymany uses specialized needles for the novocaine that are so thin I can’t feel them; there was the tiniest pinch when he put the needle in.
Dentistry has always been rough and painful for many people, including me.
Dr. Merryman has my complete trust; he is intensely conscious of my pain and comfort level. He has a beautiful sense of humor and is committed to making dentistry as painless as possible. He has done this for me; I can’t speak for others.
This made me accept the idea of implants, and next year, I’ll have all of my teeth in place, which will make everything about eating even more comfortable. His techs have the same sensitivity for tooth cleaning, which I do religiously and consciously. I have a water flosser and an electric brush.
When a tooth is missing, it can throw off the adjoining teeth, which can move and affect the gums and eating. The new technology I see in Dr. Merryman’s office – x-rays that scan the entire mouth in one sitting and are so detailed dentists can spot trouble before it is apparent.
And it is painless and comfortable. With the new technology comes higher costs for dentistry. I live in America.
My teeth are in the best shape in years; the techs have new ideas for keeping aging teeth clean and straight, including new prescription toothpaste that strengthens the gums and the teeth. And their ideas work.
The distorted photo makes my mouth look worse, but the image will give the crown builders the most precise possible image of my mouth, making the insert almost simple and painless. I was impressed and wanted to share the experience.
For the first time in my life, going to the dentist is fun. And I’m wide open to the procedures and new tech that make my mouth and teeth healthier.
Whenever I get a new lens, I discover a new kind of photography. It is bitter cold today, so I focused a bit on the flowers and succulents that Maria has filled our windowsill with. Even in the dark days, there is beauty inside.
I was worried a couple of months ago about being unable to take colorful flower pictures for months. I have an archive I am using, but I also got a new Macro lens, which has opened up a whole new dimension for my flower photography – the flowers and plants inside the house.
This is an exciting opportunity to continue learning and improving my photographs. When it’s 10 degrees, as it is today, this is also pretty cool. Maria thinks the photos are unique. I agree. This is not so much a matter of color but form. Nature is amazing, and I have a lens that can get me close.
One of Maria’s favorite succulents.
An Oxalis in one of our living room windows.
