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Monday, October 24, 2022

In bed around 9:30, up at 5:30, 5 pss, no nightcap.  59 degree outside, high of 70 expected, last really warm day of the year.

Dear Dear Ellis

Geri accompanied David and Ellis up to Costco to pick up some stuff yesterday afternoon.  They got some fresh cod in typical Costco mega-size which they split between them when they got home.  While they were attending to that task, Ellis came back to the bedroom and found me replacing the sheets and pillowcases I had just washed and dried,.  I said, "Is that my favorite ballerina?"  She gave me a big hug, let me give her a big smooch on top of her head, and said 'Grandpa Chuck, I haven't seen you for SO long!"  She showed me the book Nona bought her at Costco: Dracula!  I was surprised that she had an interest in the nasty count but now that I think of it I wonder if the interest springs from Sesame Street's "The Count (One, two, three . . .).  She said Costco also had a Frankenstein book available. Geri later told me that the store didn't have much of a selection for 8 years olds.  I guess.  Ellis' book reminded me of my monster period of reading, when I read Dracula, Frankenstein, Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hydes, back to back.  Great reads all of them.  I think I enjoyed Bram Stoker''s masterpiece the most but Stevenson's is terrific two, reminding now of Solzhenitsyn's great insight: “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts.  Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained”

Reveal Radio: Marquette, the Jesuits, and Indian Boarding Schools

That I didn't think to include Ellis' heartwarming visit and the Reveal Radio episode on WUWM yesterday reminds me of how scattered my brain is in old age.  I listened to part 2 of Reveal Radio's broadcast of 'Buried Secrets: America’s Indian Boarding Schools', dealing with the Jesuit boarding school on the Pine Ridge Reservation, near the slaughter field of Wounded Knee.  The school is now named Red Cloud Indian School, and is still a Catholic and still Jesuit school, but was originally called Holy Rosary Mission, run by the Jesuits and an order of German Franciscan sisters.  All very interesting, all a reminder of America's history of racist oppression not only of Blacks but of Native Americans and other minorities, but what especially caught my attention was the portion of the documentary report relating the narrator's attempt to access records that the Jesuits and an order of German sisters kept.  The focus of the episode is on unmarked graves, burial places of infants and children who attended the Catholic school, like the burial places of children in Ireland connected with the infamous 'mothers and children's homes.'  The episode also addresses briefly the issues of native land given to the Church and monies collected by the Church from tribal resources.   A group of Lakota Sioux try to collect information about the school and especially about the children buried at the school from the Bureau of Catholic Indian Missions, which administered boarding schools like Red Cloud.  The records are all kept in the Archives of Marquette University, but efforts to retrieve information are restricted by the archivists, some information is redacted, and many records are simply 'off limits' to researchers on claimed grounds of 'privacy'.  Marquette head archivist, Amy Cooper Cary, says it is up to the Bureau of Indian Catholic Missions to decide what the public is allowed to see.  Quaere: how many records deal with predation?  abuse?  The researchers do happen upon a diary maintained by one of the German religious sisters at the school.  The diary describes the widespread deaths from diseases on the reservation, the absence of medical and medicinal help, the massacre at Wounded Knee in 1890, 'on the doorstep' of the Mission and Church, and the cemetery next to the church building holding the remains of many of the Wounded Knee slain.  My tenuous connection to Red Cloud Indian School/Holy Rosary was George Winzenberg, S.J., who was pastor of Gesu Parish on the Marquette campus from 1996 till 2002 when he left for the Pine Ridge mission.  He succeeded Andy Alexander as pastor (1988-1996), one of our retreat ants in the Dominican Republic in 1999. or 2000.  Winzenberg served as president of Red Cloud Indian School for 9 years and served another 5 as member of the board.

STWTMW

Old man, hunched forward with arthritis(?), walking a little black and white dog with one brown spot, man's pace slow, dog's fast; young father pushing a stroller with baby; sparrows and finches above, snowbirds below.

Threats to Democracy, the basics, or the best government money can buy

According to a very recent NYT/Siena poll, "while 71 percent of registered voters agreed that democracy is “under threat,” only about 17 percent of voters described the threat in a way that squares with discussion in mainstream media and among experts — with a focus on Republicans, Donald J. Trump, political violence, election denial, authoritarianism, and so on. . . .  Instead, they point most frequently to a longstanding concern about the basic functioning of a democratic system: whether government works on behalf of the people.  Many respondents volunteered exactly that kind of language. One said, “I don’t think they are honestly thinking about the people.” Another said politicians “forget about normal people.” Corruption, greed, power and money were familiar themes.  Overall, 68 percent of registered voters said the government “mainly works to benefit powerful elites” rather than “ordinary people.”

Repairers of the Breach

Made another trip to 14th and Vliet to drop off winter and fall coats and jackets.  In retrieving my old garments from wardrobes in the basement, I realized I had a collection of sport coats down there.  I wondered whether to donate those along with the outer garments and decided it might be better to donate those to the House of Peace.  Still wishing there was a program focused on assisting men to prepare for job interviews with professional-looking clothing, especially to donate my Allen Edmund shoes.  I can't get myself to donate them to Repairers when they would be so much more useful for men seeking employment.  Ditto with the clothing bank at the HOP, where there's a good chance they would be scarfed up by someone just to sell them and make some money for God knows what, probably not food, or rent, or meds, but who knows.  I need to get on a stick about this.  The shoes have been sitting in their Allen Edmond boxes for years and ought to be used by someone.  

Barbara Chase-Riboud: I Always Knew

For several days, I have been listening to my Audible text of this collection of letters from Barbara Chase-Riboud to her mother.  The book is very long, 24 hours long in spoken form, and 480 pages in writing.  She is a truly extraordinary person - a celebrated sculptor, novelist, and poet.  In 1956 when she was 18 years old, she graduated from Temple University with a BFA and was awarded a scholarship to the American Academy in Rome.  She spent the next year in Europe, mostly Rome but also Paris, Egypt, Spoleto, and elsewhere where she rubbed shoulders with many artists, actors, models, and others.  She earned some money selling pieces of sculpture and by modeling and even playing bit parts in movies.  She met an extraordinary assortment of artists, scientists, and other significant people, including Charleton Heston, Ben Shahn, and Gian Carlo Menotti.  Her letters are interesting and I've listened to about 3 and 1/2 hours of them. but I'm wondering whether I should continue listening.  The letters I've heard are from a 19 or 20-year-old young African-American woman living an extraordinary privileged life in the late 1950s.  The many parts that are politically or sociologically or otherwise historically interesting are sandwiched between comments on clothing, hairstyles, friends and dates, etc., matters of great interest to a young woman in her late teens but not to me.  I'm guessing the letters get more interesting as she grows older and is more celebrated for her artistic achievements.  To continue or not continue, that is the question.😕  Actually, I think I know the answer.  I want to hear how she got into writing poetry and her novel about Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson.  Talk about a polymath!

YoutubeTV

Finally succeeded in subscribing to this streaming service but can't download the app that would let me control choices. 😡😠😢xfljattleavndaxx!!!!!