Photography by Rich Gigli

Winter at Coney Island

Coney Island

Why did you bring me here?
The sand is white with snow,
Over the wooden domes
The winter sea-winds blow–
There is no shelter near,
Come, let us go.

With foam of icy lace
The sea creeps up the sand,
The wind is like a hand
That strikes us in the face.

Doors that June set a-swing
Are bolted long ago;
We try them uselessly–
Alas there cannot be
For us a second spring;
Come, let us go.

Sara Teasdale – 1884 – 1933

Photography by Rich Gigli

Solitude

William Butler Yeats, 1865-1939.
“And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”

Fidel Castro ... no fan of GOP field

By Bob Gaydos
Do you get the feeling that a lot of Republicans just don’t like Mitt Romney? Or Rick Santorum? That they can’t make up their minds which one is less objectionable to the rest of the country? And does it seem like Republicans have finally got the true measure of Newt Gingrich and see that he really is the opportunistic, self-seeking, mean-spirited, vindictive blowhard that he sounds like every time he has an opportunity? And that, while they can abide Ron Paul, it’s only on days with an “R” in them?

It has been pleasantly quiet lately without a Republican presidential
“debate” every other day. No one shouting, “Liar, liar, pants on fire!” or “Hypocrite!” or, “Immigrant-lover!” or, worst of all, “Moderate!”

Yet the primary campaign drones on. Interestingly, the most apt description of this field of screams that I’ve seen comes from out of left field, literally: “The greatest competition of idiocy and ignorance that has ever been” is the way Fidel Castro put it when asked about the GOP primary campaign.

Yeah, I know all those dyed-in-the-wool, red-white-and-blue, flag-waving, commie-hating, God-fearing, apple-pie-eating, Chevy-driving, heterosexual, over-taxed Republicans who hate the government of the country they love probably don’t give a fig about what the former Cuban dictator thinks about their party. But it doesn’t mean he isn’t right.

That’s a bit of subtlety that seems to be lost on a lot of Republicans these days. When you live in a multi-cultural society, people will have differences of opinion. They need not be based in hate or expressed in hateful language. And people who are different from you may have different opinions on how to go about things. And they may sometimes be right. It makes it really important to learn how to work things out rather than shout ideas down. Too many Republicans don’t seem to get this.

Truth of the matter and Castro aside, a lot of Americans think the candidates the Republicans have put forth to run for president are an insult to the nation and an embarrassment for the party. And Sarah Palin isn’t even part of the conversation. However, her unsuccessful campaign for the vice presidency in 2008 may well have been the catalyst for what has transpired within the GOP: The Coup.

The party of Lincoln is clearly no longer the party of the likes of Rockefeller or Eisenhower or Bush I or Ford or Dole or, for that matter, Reagan. In fact, you hear almost as little about Double R as you do about Bush II from Republicans these days. Last week, the Conservative Political Action Committee held its convention to hear from the GOP candidates to decide where to put its money, which, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, is the same as its mouth.

Santorum, fresh off victories in Minnesota, Missouri and Colorado, where a handful of ultra-conservative Republicans bothered to show up and cast votes that don’t really count, confidently told the CPAC gathering, “Conservatives and Tea Party folk — we are not just wings of the Republican Party, we are the Republican Party.” Huzzah! Huzzah!

Then they voted to support Romney.

* * *

Another bit of news that cannot go unnoticed: With the GOP candidates mostly silent, the biggest noise of the week came from another group of conservative men — the United States’ Catholic bishops. They felt obliged to give the rest of the country a lecture on sex and conscience. The bishops objected to an Obama administration plan that would require church-related institutions such as hospitals and schools to provide women employees with insurance coverage for contraceptives, free of charge. Churches themselves were exempt. More than 25 states already have such a law in place, guaranteeing that all women, regardless of religion or where they work, have access to free birth control, if they choose to use it.

The bishops, who have been looking for any issue on which to claim the high moral ground ever since paying off hundreds of millions of dollars in claims when priests around the world were discovered to be sexually abusing young boys, seized on objecting to probably the most effective method known to reduce the number of abortions — free birth control. They weren’t even happy when Obama switched the cost to the insurance companies. Everyone was too polite to mention that the bishops didn’t consult any women in voicing their objection or that, according to a Guttmacher poll, 98 percent of Catholic women say they use some form of contraception to practice birth control or for other health reasons.

One assumes, they do so in what they obviously regard as good conscience, never mind common sense.

bob@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
Estimates of the earth’s carrying-capacity vary according to which population you are measuring, since some populations live more sustainably than others. Some scientists say that not only are we living beyond earth’s capacity, but we are also eating up future generations’ ability to live within the planet’s means. We are literally emptying the earth’s bank account rather than living off the interest as our ancestors did, and leaving a “balance due” for people of the future.

British geographer, Ernst George Ravenstein is credited with first estimating the carrying capacity of the earth at around 6 billion people. Now, at 6.5 billion, at least a billion of our population does not receive enough food energy to carry out a day’s work. Even though Ravenstein was operating on statistics from last century, he hit fairly close to home.

Before Ravenstein, born in 1834, the English clergyman Thomas Robert Malthus argued that human population always increases more rapidly than food supplies and that humans are condemned to breed to the point of misery and starvation. The 200 years since Malthus’ essay was first published have proven him wrong. We can artificially increase food production above birth rates, and even decline in numbers in the presence of plenty.

The World Hunger Program at Brown University estimated that, based on 1992 levels of food production and an equal distribution of food, “the world could sustain 5.5 billion vegetarians, 3.7 billion people who get 15 percent of their calories from animal products [as in much of South America], or 2.8 billion people who derive 25 percent of their calories from animal products [as in the wealthiest countries].”

Clearly we have passed all sustainable estimates and are now entering the “borrowed time” area of the population chart. In order to provide the projected 9 billion people in 2050 with 2,100 calories a day (what food-aid agencies declare the minimum caloric intake) we would have to double our global agricultural production. Humans have already plowed over most of the usable farm land on the planet, and there is a limit to any field’s fertility. Could Malthus have been right after all?

This is not a new chapter in human history. We have faced starvation before, and triumphed. Lester Brown, the noted environmental analyst, has observed: “In the 15th century, Icelanders realized that overgrazing of their grasslands was leading to soil erosion. Farmers then calculated how many sheep the land could sustain and allocated quotas among themselves, thus preserving their grasslands, and a wool industry that thrives today.”

Here are some steps you can take to reduce your ecological footprint:

–Measure that footprint at www.myfootprint.org

–Walk, bike, or share a ride instead of driving or flying.

–Have a home energy audit to determine how much energy your home is using, and
how much you might save by improving its efficiency.

–Adopt energy-saving habits such as using “low tech” clotheslines instead of the dryer.

–Eat local, in season, and organic.

–Eat less meat.

–Have smaller families and support zero population growth.

Shawn Dell Joyce is a nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and director of the Wallkill River School in Montgomery.

By Jeffrey Page
So, once again two armies, each proclaiming purity and excellence of purpose, have lined up facing each other in firing squad formation. On one side is a student at Cranston (R.I.) High School, an atheist, who has determined that the school’s display of a prayer violates her First Amendment rights. On the other side are what appear to be the other 1,800 students, plus much of the community, who have decided that there’s not much wrong with the prayer and that it must remain as is.

Are we ever going to quit wasting time and get past these annual rituals that amount to tests of whose First Amendment rights supersede all others? Isn’t it possible for two sides that strongly oppose each other’s views to come together and acknowledge the humanity of the other side, and not bring in the lawyers? In this case, the attorneys have emerged, some poison pen emails have been posted, and the Board of Education seems to believe it has just two possible responses following the atheist’s victory in court.

Those are to spend a fortune on legal fees to appeal its loss, or take down the banner.

But there’s a third possibility, one that would require people of good will to sit down in a quiet room and actually communicate with one another.

Start this process with a close reading of the banner’s message:

School Prayer
Our Heavenly Father:
Grant us each day the desire to do our best,
To grow mentally and morally as well as physically,
To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers,
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others.
Help us to be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win.
Teach us the value of true friendship,
Help us to conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School.
Amen.

If you remove “prayer,” “heavenly father,” and “amen” you’re left with a student wish list to do what? To do good work and to treat people with respect. Nothing subversive there.

The third possible solution could be settled in 10 minutes with a brief rewrite of the banner. Can anyone seriously object to this:

School Credo
In the name of friendship:
May we strive each day to do our best,
To grow mentally and morally as well as physically,
To be kind and helpful to our classmates and teachers,
To be honest with ourselves as well as with others.
May we be good sports and smile when we lose as well as when we win.
May we understand the value of true friendship.
May we conduct ourselves so as to bring credit to Cranston High School.

Of course to turn the prayer into a declaration of beliefs would require people on both sides to back off a little and recognize that the other side could also have some valid points.

Therefore – call me a cynic – compromise will never happen; people will be too busy defending their turf. More’s the pity since there are so many more important things facing our high school students than a hallway banner.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

Red Sunflowers

By Carrie Jacobson

Here are things that make me happy:

• My husband, our family and our families
• My friends
• God
• Painting
• My sobriety
• Strong weather of any kind
• The feeling of freedom, even if it’s fleeting, even if it’s just a taste
• A big sky, with no pesky trees
• Coffee
• Bacon
• Knowing something before others do
• A clean house
• A house that’s dirty because I’ve been so busy doing things
• The smell of dust rising in the early moments of a rain storm
• The spring songs of birds
• Going somewhere I’ve never been
• Change
• Sunflowers

And you? What makes you happy?

Sunflowers, oil on canvas, 30x40

By Carrie Jacobson
The moon was so bright last night it cast shadows on the snowless, frozen ground. And this morning, I heard the springtime calls of birds.

Spring will come, though winter barely visited – and for me, it can’t come soon enough.

The little teeny early spring daffodils are poking up in the garden. As I drove on the highway the other day, I could see the red tinge of buds on the tips of the trees. Often, in the morning, there’s the springtime smell of earth thawing, that rich, dark smell that must evoke some basic essence in us all, some ancestral connection with the soil.

Yes, there are piles of snow in the yard, and yes, my fingers freeze when I take the dogs out in the morning – but soon enough, even the dawn air will be warm, and the grass will green up, and the sunflowers will begin to bloom.

By Jeffrey Page
Job description for a hypocrite: Tell people how to run their lives, and cover your tracks well so you don’t have to mention the events of your own life that could prove you’re not as sincere as people might believe. In fact, they might see you as a fraud and you don’t want that.

So here’s Rick Santorum this week coming off a surprisingly strong day in the campaign for the Republican nomination. It’s Rick Santorum who has long been a leader in the anti-choice cause. It’s Rick Santorum who would ban abortions in all cases. Your daughter was raped after the prom and got pregnant? Hey, buck up. She was attacked by her slobbering, half-witted uncle and got pregnant? Hey, it wasn’t the baby’s fault, was it?

As for allowing abortions to save the life of the mother, Santorum recently said: “When I was leading the charge on partial birth abortion, several members [of the Senate] came forward and said, ‘Why don’t we just ban all abortions?’ Tom Daschle was one of them, if you remember. And Susan Collins, and others. They wanted a health exception, which of course is a phony exception which would make the ban ineffective.”

But 15 years ago, Santorum was ready to elect this phony exception to save his wife’s life. Remember those words – “a phony exception” – as you read the rest of this article.

Note 1: This is not based on new reporting. This is a story that’s been around since 1997 but bears repeating when a presidential candidate dismisses a woman’s health and life as phony exceptions.

Note 2: Ordinarily, a candidate’s private life ought to be respected, assuming it contains no felonies. But when hypocrisy rises to such epic levels as Santorum’s, it demands public discussion.

It is 1997, and Senator Rick Santorum is being interviewed by Steve Goldstein of the Philadelphia Inquirer. They’re talking about the pregnancy of Santorum’s wife Karen in 1996, a time when Santorum’s position was to abort no pregnancies except those that resulted from rape, incest or to save the woman’s life. Nowadays, there are no exceptions as far as Santorum is concerned.

Goldstein reported that in her 19th week of pregnancy, Mrs. Santorum was informed that her fetus was fatally defective and would die. The Santorums elected to try long-shot corrective uterine surgery, during which she came down with severe infection that would kill her unless she aborted the pregnancy because the fetus was the source of the infection. At times, Goldstein reported, Mrs. Santorum’s temperature reached 105.

How to remove the fetus? By inducing labor, essentially aborting it. “Ultimately they did not have to make a decision; nature made it for them. Karen went into premature labor from an infection, delivering a boy who had a fatal abnormality. The child died two hours later,” Goldstein reported.

But what would have happened had the fetus not died?

“If that had to be the call, we would have induced labor if we had to,” Santorum said. “I consider it a blessing that we didn’t have to make that decision.”

“The doctors said they were talking about a matter of hours or a day or two before [Mrs. Santorum would be] risking sepsis and both of them might die,” Santorum said. “Obviously, if it was a choice of whether both Karen and the child are going to die, or just the child is going to die, I mean it’s a pretty easy call.”

Do you smell a phony exception?

Mrs. Santorum told Goldstein: “If the physician came to me and said if we don’t deliver your baby in one hour you will be dead, yeah, I would have to do it. But for me, it was at the very end. I would never make a decision like that until all other means had been thoroughly exhausted.” But she’d make it if she had to.

That was then. Nowadays Santorum opposes every abortion no matter who the father is, no matter how the pregnancy occurred, no matter what degree of damage that pregnancy would cause the mother.

jeffrey@zestoforange.com

By Shawn Dell Joyce
We see the effects of globalization as local jobs are outsourced, and the recession proves that things just aren’t working. Economist and author Michael Shuman notes that “about 42 percent of our economy is ‘place based,’ or created through small, locally-owned businesses.” This means that almost half our economy depends on small independent businesses, which make up the backbone of our hometowns.

These small firms are what give our towns local color and local flavor. They are what differentiate us from every other exit on the highway that has the same six chain stores. Local concerns are also committed to their hometowns, and support the local economy by hiring people in the area, donating to support Little League and volunteer ambulance and fire services, and paying local taxes.

The key to economic recovery is localization, the reversing of globalization. Shuman estimates that we could expand our national economy to be 70 percent local or more by incorporating 10 simple steps that will actually save you money in the process.

–Localize your home! The biggest expense most of us have is our mortgage. Actually, 60 percent of our annual expenditures go for shelter. By renting from a local landlord, or buying your own home with a mortgage from a hometown bank, you can localize this expense. Local banks and credit unions typically have the best rates anyway, possibly saving you money in the process.

–Drive less! According to Shuman, Americans spend one out of every five dollars on transportation. That amounts to almost $5,000 a year! Until we can start replacing imported oil with locally produced biofuels, our best bet is to drive less.

–Using mass transit, bicycling, or walking saves money but is not very easy for us rural folks. Still, use the car sparingly. Buy gas from an independent station if you can find one, and use a local repair shop you trust.

–Eat independently! Households spend about $2,300 a year on restaurants; unfortunately most of that is spent at fast food chains. This one is a simple matter of choice with very little effort required to find a wonderful independently owned restaurant.

–Local arts and entertainment! Most people opt for a movie at a corporate multiplex at the mall. Enjoy homegrown talent! Visit the small repertory theaters to see a real play instead of a movie. Visit an art show and buy art from local artists. Buy music directly from the bands.

–Localize your health care! Get your meds from an independent pharmacy, preferably one that also uses local suppliers

–Buy locally grown! Eating locally by buying fresh vegetables, meats, and dairy products from nearby farms reduces transportation costs and vitamin loss. The closer you eat to home, the more you improve your health, your view, and your local economy.

–Localize electricity! We could save thousands a year just by increasing our energy efficiency.

–Give locally! More than 6 percent of the U.S. economy is nonprofit according to Shuman. Most of these nonprofits are in the forms of hospitals, universities, and churches, but locally we also have arts organizations, environmental groups, and many others.

–Buy local! In the time it has taken you to read this, Americans have collectively spent $23 million. Shuman says that $16 million of this figure could be spent in small locally owned stores. How far would $16 million go in your hometown today?

Shawn Dell Joyce is the director of the Wallkill River School of Art in Montgomery. www.WallkillRiverSchool.com

By Randolph Hurst
Despite never-ending extremist attacks, President Obama displays brilliance, grace and humility. In the face of Republican animosity and obstructionism, he has remained poised and steadfast, calmly arguing the case for the American people. It is a kindness to suggest that the GOP’s behavior is based on ideology.

It does not become a president to call them out about their conduct. But most of us know that the attacks against this president are more about resentment of a man of bi-racial heritage who has demonstrated the acumen, leadership and bravery to do what none of his foes have the will or backbone to do. That is, to champion peace, justice, integrity, ingenuity, environmental stewardship, harmony in our diversity, and a reasonable quality of life for all Americans.

But there is more. Their conduct is grossly influenced by corporate money and manipulation of government officials through unbridled campaign and political action committee (PAC) activities. Controls on these ended after the Supreme Court ruled in the Citizens United case of 2010 that corporations have the same free speech rights as individuals. The court’s decision could easily be called the Koch Decision, for the gas and oil billionaire brothers who invest millions to gain political control of our nation and to ensure their own wealth.

It is no longer of the people, by the people, and for the people. It is of the corporation, by the corporation, and for the corporation. Lincoln would be aghast.

Why is it that McConnell, Boehner, Cantor, and Republican presidential candidates attack and reject every initiative President Obama proposes even when to do so is contrary to positions they have taken previously? It defies common sense, and disgraces our country. The answers are fear, greed, power and envy; envy that a black man just might succeed in doing what they would not.

These politicos are empty suits and empty skirts behaving as members of a corporate goon platoon. As long as they toe the party line, they will have access to millions of campaign dollars and the marketing resources to denigrate opponents and cover their own agendas. And all this is predicated on the misguided and insulting assumption that the American people are gullible, uninformed and easy marks; that the disenfranchised are so disillusioned they will not vote, and that party loyalty, deceptive rhetoric and prejudice will trump intuition, sound judgment and the American spirit.

President Obama is betting on the American people. He has more confidence in us than we have in each other, and it is going to be a long and arduous battle to November and thereafter should he succeed, and depending on who takes the House and Senate.

In his State of the Union address, President Obama laid out a common sense vision that encompasses many noble initiatives, all articulated in a clear and forthright manner. He made an overt attempt to persuade his “Republican friends” and fellow Democrats to follow the good example of our armed forces; men and women putting differences aside, selflessly watching each others’ backs, working together to the achieve their mission for the good of our country. In his way he extended an olive branch to his “colleagues.”

Yet, after listening to the Republican response by Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels and others, it is evident the president’s words fell on deaf ears. Corporate money and special interests will drive this historic election and turn it into a circus. Romney, Gingrich, Santorum or maybe Paul will carry the corporate banner and it will get even uglier than their own campaign for the Republican nomination. Are they really the best the conservative establishment has to offer?

The campaign will be a crapshoot. Will Americans go to the polls and vote? Will bigotry and racism be major factors? Will we vote with our heads, our hearts and our conscience, or will the clever, dishonest and deceptive marketing that caters to baser attitudes win the day?

Randolph Hurst, a guest writer, is a Vietnam War era veteran, green technology advocate, and a member of the 99 percent. He lives in Orange County.

Send comments to jeffrey@zestoforange.com