Thursday, February 12, 2009

Memories of President Lincoln


Don’t miss the rebroadcast of the film by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Looking for Lincoln. Today is the 200th anniversary of the births of both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin. This coincidence is covered in the Gates program as well as in an article in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Finally, please revisit Walt Whitman’s sad elegy to the fallen President, When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d. The photo above, taken in Springfield in 1860, is thought to be the last of Lincoln without his beard.

Monday, February 09, 2009

A Lesson in Courage

The murder of Russian journalist Anastasia Baburova is a tremendous loss as this piece from The Economist makes clear.

Just Say No To Hugo

Don't be fooled by Chávez. The Economist's editorial on Venezuela's authoritarian regime gets it mostly right.

Buy American

Buying American is great. I do it whenever I can, all things being equal. BUT forcing people to buy American is another thing. An editorial in this weeks Economist explains why it's a really bad idea.

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Together We Flow Like A River





And together we melt like the snow… Some day, on way or another, I’ll leave these scrabbly hills. I’ve lived around here for 30 years, yet it’s not really home, not a like a place experienced in childhood. I did come up here once as a child. Probably in 1957 or 1958 when my parents drove my grandparents up to Valeria for their getaway from the Bronx. I remember that ancient Furnace Dock Road on a cool autumn day. This seemed the deep country back then. Would that the Bronx had been rebuilt and that the exodus north had not happened, that this deep country had stayed that way.

When the New Croton Dam was completed in 1906, the reservoir backed up the lower Hunter Brook from its mouth at the Croton River to a point about a mile and a half north along the Yorktown-Cortlandt border. Here we are looking at this arm of the reservoir on a mild February 1. This may be the calm before the storm as a major nor’easter is being born in the upper Gulf of Mexico. It is gathering itself for a run up the east coast. That's the Community Church of Yorktown on Baptist Church Road, also today. And last is the beautiful graveyard next to the church. Remember, click on images to enlarge. Today's post is dedicated to Dale Saltzman, who in his timeless wisdom explained to me that Goundhog Day (tomorrow) represents our turn toward Spring - the day when we really first notice that the sun has in fact climbed higher in the sky, that it can warm the chilly air.

A Weight Has Been Lifted

I’m trying to avoid political topics, so just a word about the Presidential election. It feels as if a weight has been lifted from our shoulders with the departure of George Bush. Here in the Huntersville section of Yorktown we celebrated with a great neighborhood party at Ron and Olivia Buehl's. Their beautiful home was decked out in American flags. Obama managed to eek out a majority in Yorktown; he did better in Huntersville. We all held our breath until election night. Everyone was in a celebratory mood at the Buehls. For one evening, at least, the world seemed a little softer… and better.