Christians and Politics

Last week, a friend introduced me to this blog post by Brian Zahnd. The theme of Brian's comments is how Christians ought to behave during this presidential election season. I thought it was very good, and I had an interesting discussion over it when I posted it on Facebook. Some of the comments I received there have prompted me to make a list of my own, intended as a supplement to Brian's excellent and timely comments. Here goes:

1. The United States of America is not the Kingdom of God--not now, not anytime in the past, not anytime in the future. Yes, American mythology holds that North America is the new Canaan, the new Promised Land. Yes, many talk about the faith of the nation's founders as if that makes the nation unique and special. While the nation is in many ways unique, the United States is still one of the kingdoms of this world and thus only temporary. It will last only so long as the present age lasts.

2. All elections are compromises. That's because all candidates are compromises. One cannot vote for an entirely right candidate or vote against an entirely wrong one. There is no such thing as a fully "righteous" or "unrighteous" candidate, and no election will ever usher in a righteous government (see point #1).

3. Christians, applying their faith and their convictions to the choice being offered them, will choose differently. There is never one candidate that all Christians should vote for or one that all Christians should vote against (see point #2).

4. We need to guard our hearts against turning our political beliefs into a false god. Once we start to equate a particular political ideology with God's will, we have started walking down the road to idolatry.

5.  When the election is over, we owe the respect of the office, and of our fellow voting citizens, to the winner--whether we voted for that candidate or not. We don't have to agree with the winner's policies; we don't even have to like him/her. But we ought to respect our fellow voters enough to accept the legitimacy of their choice.

6. We are all, first and foremost, God's image-bearers. Political labels like 'liberal' or 'conservative,' in addition to becoming less and less meaningful, are not good ways to identify our fellow human beings. Let's stop pigeon-holing people according to their political ideology, and let's stop using political labels disparagingly (if at all).

7. Finally, believers have no biblical instructions about voting or arguing about politics, but we are commanded to pray for our leaders. Since neither Jesus nor any of the New Testament writers lived in a participatory democracy, we cannot know what God-inspired wisdom they might bring to the election processes we are familiar with. But we do know what we should be praying for. And it's not that our leaders will see the light, be born again, or change their evil ways (Paul didn't exhort believers of his time to pray thus for the pagan Roman emperor); instead, it's "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty" (I Timothy 2:1-2).

An Irish Blessing

Back in mid-September, my high school class held its fortieth anniversary reunion. Many classmates came from as far as California for the weekend festivities, and afterwards all said they had a wonderful time. Only a few classmates who attended, however, knew that an Irish celebrity had given our gathering her blessing a full month before the reunion.

I was on the committee preparing for the reunion. My chief responsibility had been researching and compiling information about classmates who had died. At one of our Saturday morning committee meetings back in July, we were discussing what kind of memorial presentation we wanted to do for our departed classmates. Sharon, the committee member in charge of the memorial, was outlining her thoughts: that we could do a PowerPoint slide show with some recorded background music. I then suggested that, since our class was known for its musical talent, perhaps we could have live music instead of recorded music. The committee all thought that was a wonderful idea, so of course they put me in charge of arranging for the music.

The first thing I had to do was pick appropriate musical selections. I figured that two pieces would be enough to get us through the slide presentation. The first selection was easy. I wanted to use a setting of Psalm 23, since that’s often read or sung at memorials and funerals, and I remembered that the high school concert choir had sung a setting of Ps. 23 called “Brother James’ Air” that I thought many of the singers would remember.

But I was stumped about the second piece until the following morning, when we sang the hymn “Be Thou My Vision” during our Sunday worship service in my home church. I recalled that many of our classmates had loved that hymn during our high school years.

I found some simple arrangements of the two selections and began contacting singers.

The first weekend in August is always the weekend of the Dublin, Ohio, Irish Festival. Dublin is a suburb of Columbus, and we always look forward to attending the festival, most notably because we can hear some of the top Irish bands perform live. And we especially like to go on the Sunday of the festival, because several worship services are held in the morning, and admission to the festival is free if we bring canned donations for the local food pantry. The free admission allows us to attend worship and then stay for the rest of the day’s activities. So on this first Sunday in August my wife and I, along with our second son and daughter-in-law, climbed into the car with about eight cans of beans for the donation and drove to Coffman Park for a day at the festival.

The Dublin stage, a large, open-air pole building, is normally the venue for the biggest and best-known acts that attract the largest crowds. On Sunday morning it was being used for the most heavily attended worship service: a Roman Catholic Mass that was being said in the Irish language. A local priest who has learned the language presides over this service, which is held every year at the festival. We decided to attend the Mass to hear the Irish language spoken—we thought that would be something different and interesting. (At right: the front page of the bulletin for the Mass. Photos below left: Some last-minute preparations before the Mass began)


Before the Mass began, the organizers of the service introduced a choir—I think they were mostly from St. Brendan’s Catholic parish in Dublin—and then they introduced a singer named Moya Brennan, who was sitting with the choir in the front.

Some of my readers here may know who Moya Brennan is. I didn’t. I had absolutely no idea at the time that she is an Irish music celebrity. I honestly thought she was just a local talent, perhaps from St. Brendan’s. Readers who haven’t heard of Moya Brennan may recognize the name of her better-known sister: Enya. I didn’t learn who Ms. Brennan is until after all this happened.

I am sure that readers can guess what the opening hymn for the Mass was. Indeed, it was “Be Thou My Vision”! (Well, it is an Irish hymn, after all.) Moya Brennan sang the first verse in Irish, and then we all sang three verses in English. My heart melted when I heard the Irish words being sung:

Bí Thusa mo shúile

a Rí mhór na ndúil…

Moya sang it in that lilting Irish soprano that is so captivating. I was so touched by the words and by Moya’s singing that I told my wife I had to go speak with her after the service was over. She told me, though, that Ms. Brennan was scheduled to perform some music on her own at noon, according to the schedule in her hand. I replied that I wouldn’t be taking much of her time; I just wanted to ask her a question.

So, without knowing who she is, I did approach Moya Brennan after the service. She was setting up for her gig behind the stage area. I went up to her and asked her where or how I could learn to pronounce the Irish words to the hymn that she had sung.

She looked at me, smiled and then said, “Here’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you a phonetic rendering.”

As soon as she opened her mouth to speak with her Irish accent, I knew she wasn’t from St. Brendan’s. Although she was quite busy getting ready for her performance, she graciously took the time to help me with the pronunciations.

I stayed and listened to her performance while the rest of the family visited other attractions at the festival. About two hours later, after Moya’s performance was finished, I stood in her reception line. She was selling CD's, chatting with appreciative fans, and posing for photographs as well. When I got to the front of the line, I purchased one of her CD's, out of gratitude to her for her willingness to help me out even though she was so busy. (Photo below right: Moya Brennan in her reception line, talking with an appreciative fan)

I then took the CD and gave it to her for her autograph. I looked at her, smiled and said, “I wish to thank you for your gracious willingness to take time out of preparing for your performance to help teach me the Irish words to ‘Be Thou My Vision.’”

She smiled and replied, “It was my pleasure.”

“I want to tell you the reason I am interested in that particular hymn.”

“Yes?”

“I’m on the anniversary reunion committee for my high school class, and I was planning to use that hymn during our memorial presentation for our classmates who have died. Those Irish words truly inspired me.”

She looked at me, smiled, put her hand on my shoulder, and very kindly said, “Go for it!”

I will never forget that experience. Now our reunion, and especially our memorial presentation, has the blessing of an Irish celebrity! What more could I ever ask for?

The reunion was held during the third weekend in September. It was a marvelous experience and an emotional watershed for me as well as for many others. As it turned out, the elaborate memorial presentation we had planned, with the live singing and the PowerPoint slides, never materialized. Instead, Sharon simply read a poem that another classmate had written for the occasion and then read the names of the classmates who had passed. It was a very moving moment. (I did sing the two Irish verses of “Be Thou My Vision” that I had learned from Ms. Brennan privately to a few classmates.)

But most importantly, it was clear to me that Moya Brennan’s gracious and generous spirit permeated the reunion and all who attended it. After it was all over, many commented on how kind and friendly everyone was. Moya’s blessing certainly carried us through the weekend—her kindness, friendliness, and generosity being reflected in the attitudes and actions of all who were there.

New Development

Zane State College in Zanesville, Ohio, one of the two-year schools where I teach, is developing an associate degree program in sustainable agriculture. Take a look.

I was told that this is the only degree program of its kind offered here in Ohio. It will be fascinating to see how this develops. I'm assuming that this degree offering was inspired by the developing interest in organic farming, sustainability, and local food production. I will be watching this development with interest, especially to see how many students this offering attracts.

Kudos to Zane State College for anticipating the future!

Nature's Severe Mysteries

         Nature has many mysteries,
some of them severe.--Mary Oliver

I am the oldest of five siblings. Number two after me is a brother who is two years younger than I. Our only sister is seven years my junior, and the youngest brother is nine years younger. But between the second sibling and our sister, we had another brother. His name was Jerry. Few people outside the family knew about Jerry because he never went to school, he never attended church or Sunday school, and he never attended any of our school functions. Furthermore, I never talked about him with my friends and acquaintances from school. By the time he was seven years old, he hardly ever would have been found at our home.

Jerry was mentally handicapped--profoundly so. We used the word "retarded" back then, but I understand that word is out of favor now. We didn't know of his disability at first, of course, but it became more and more apparent when he simply didn't develop as a normal infant. A short time before his seventh birthday, my parents made the difficult decision to have him institutionalized because they didn't think they could care for him at home anymore. Caring for him simply took all of my mom's time.

Mom always hated that decision, even though she realized it was the only reasonable option. At first, Jerry lived at one of the state hospitals and was there treated little better than the livestock at some of those huge "factory farms" that we read about. We would go pick him up and bring him home as often as we could, usually on Sunday afternoons, but we could tell that he wasn't getting very good care.

Jerry's room and board at the state hospital cost our family four dollars per day. That was a lot of money in the mid-1960s for a family on one income with four small children at home. So mom made another decision that was difficult for her: she began working outside the home. At first, she worked as a housekeeper for the motel that her brother and his family managed. Then she took a job as sales clerk at a convenience store. Eventually, she was hired at the post office, where she sorted mail at first, then later became a window clerk serving customers.

Eventually, my parents were able to transfer Jerry to a nursing home that specialized in the care of people like him. (Some years after that, the state closed the hospital where he had been housed.) The care was better, but still he didn't get the kind of care he would have received at home, so mom still brought him home as often as she could. The nursing home was farther away than the state hospital, though. Eventually, though, the family no longer had to pay for Jerry's care. But Mom continued working anyway; college expenses were looming (beginning with me), and it simply made sense to keep the additional income flowing.

The chief reason I never told classmates about Jerry was fear. There was a small band of kids at school who teased and taunted me unmercifully. I figured that if any of them ever learned about Jerry, they would use the fact that I had a "retard" for a brother as an excuse to tease me all the more. So I never shared information about Jerry with anyone, for fear that it might get back to that group.

On April 11, 1992, long after the youngest of us had left home and gone out on our own, mom and dad brought Jerry home for another visit. One thing that Jerry always loved was taking a bath, so they would always put him in the bath right away. This day was no different. After putting Jerry in the bathwater, mom went to prepare his lunch. (He was never able to feed himself and basically lived on strained baby food which had to be spoon-fed to him.) While mom was taking care of getting lunch ready, Jerry somehow managed to turn on the hot water tap and scalded himself. Before anyone could do anything, Jerry was unconscious.

They rushed him to the emergency room, but it was too late. An autopsy was later performed, and I believe it was determined he died not from the burns themselves, but from shock leading to cardiac arrest. Jerry's death was ruled accidental.

We had a private family service for him; viewing hours were not advertised to the public, and no obituary was published in the local paper.

Jerry was 34 years old when he died.

Mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer in 1988. After the usual treatments--mastectomy followed by chemotherapy--her condition stablilzed, though the cancer never really went into complete remission. Mom's medical condition was still stable at the time of Jerry's accident, but mom always blamed herself for Jerry's death. "I wasn't there for him when he needed me," she would say. Of course it wasn't her fault; it wasn't anyone's fault. About a year after Jerry died, the cancer started spreading again, and two years later, on April 23, 1994, mom was gone too. I believe she had lost some of her will to live after Jerry died.

Mary Oliver's poem, "At the Pond," tells about six baby geese that the poet observed one summer. She would go every morning to the pond to watch them, and she describes how they "would paddle to me / and clamber / up the marshy slope / and over my body" (lines 5-8). At first it seems that the poet is simply going to continue describing "such sweetness every day" (10) that she observed that summer. But halfway through the poem, the tone abruptly changes. "Not there, however, but here / is where the story begins," the poet announces. "Nature has many mysteries / some of them severe" (14-17). Five of the six goslings grew normally: "heavy of chest and / bold of wing" (19-20). The sixth, however, "waited and waited / in its gauze-feathers, its body / that would not grow" (21-23). At the end of the season, the five that had grown up normally, along with their parents, observed their instincts and flew south for the winter:

And this is what I think
  everything is about:
      the way
         I was glad

for those five and two
   that flew away,
      and the way I hold in my heart the wingless one
         that had to stay. (25-32)

Like the baby goose in Mary Oliver's poem, my brother Jerry never developed and was never able to "fly" either. He simply didn't posses the normal mental capacity to attend school, develop talents and abilities, or eventually live on his own. And just like Mary Oliver's little gosling, Jerry's time with us was and continues to be a mystery. Why was he born the way he was? Why did he come to our family?

Mom always told us that she believed God knew Jerry would need special care and so gave him to our family, despite the fact that we weren't really able to care for him all the time. Perhaps Mom was right.

Mom and Jerry are buried side by side in a cemetery about 10 miles north of our family's home. The family paid for a memorial tree to be planted in Jerry's name; there's a plaque at the base of the tree. My wife and I visited the cemetery this past Memorial Day and took pictures of the plaque, the tree, and the graves.

We will continue to hold Jerry, our wingless one, in our hearts.





Work Cited
Oliver, Mary. "At the Pond." Evidence. Boston: Beacon Press, 2009. 34-35.

Urban Nature Preserves

I've been meaning to write on this topic for a few months. Back in March, my wife and I took a road trip to Texas. While there, our host (my sister-in-law) asked us if we wanted to visit the Trinity River Audubon Center in Dallas. We said sure. So on a hot day, especially for us Ohioans in March, we visited the center. Upon our arrival, I immediately encountered that deja vu feeling. It wasn't so much that I thought I had been to that specific location before; it was more that the Trinity River center had almost the same look and feel as the Grange Insurance Audobon Center right here in Columbus.

The family resemblance of the two Audobon centers was a prominent reason for this feeling, but it was more than that. Both are located within the city limits of their host cities: the Trinity River Center is in an outlying part of Dallas, whereas the Grange Insurance Center is close to downtown Columbus. Both are located along a major waterway: the Trinity River in Dallas and the Scioto River in Columbus. Both centers are built on reclaimed industrial wasteland. The Trinity River Center was once an illegal dump. The Grange Center is on a former industrial park called the Whittier Peninsula, formed by a U-shaped bend in the Scioto River. More recently it has been the site of the Columbus Police Division's vehicle impound lot, where abandoned and confiscated motor vehicles were kept. Both centers are only a few years old. Both have incorporated extensive wetland areas to attract greater biological diversity. And both have financial support from local government: the City of Dallas partly funds the Trinity River Center, while the Grange Center is incorporated into Scioto Audubon Metro Park and is partly supported by the Columbus Metro Parks system. And of course, both are islands of biodiversity in an urban setting.

Both centers take environmental education seriously, as do all Audubon nature centers. Both have education facilities housed in state-of-the-art, ecologically friendly, low-carbon-footprint buildings. Both nature centers have educational displays, a conference area, classroom space for lectures, hands-on activities for children, and a bookshop.

Here is the education building at the Trinity River Center in Dallas, taken in March 2011.

We first visited the Grange Center in Columbus in January 2010 when the Metro Parks held their annual winter hike there. This is what the education center looked like at that time.

 

Here is a view along the Trinity River in Dallas, in March 2011.

And a view of a mist-shrouded, partially frozen Scioto River. January 2010.

Both centers, of course, are valuable additions to the biological diversity of the urban areas in which they are located. The Whittier peninsula has been an important central Ohio stopover for migratory birds. Close by, on the opposite side of the Scioto river, is Green Lawn Cemetery, another area of high biodiversity, with its extensive prairie plantings and mature, mostly native, trees.

I might briefly discuss how these islands of biodiversity, while a great thing to have in the urban and suburban environment, are only part of the solution to the problem of urban ecological poverty. Property owners, from businesses to homeowners to religious and government facilities, also need to participate in the "greening" of our cities. Entomologist Douglas Tallamy, in his book Bringing Nature Home, discusses the need for urban and suburban landowners to add more native plants to their landscapes, and he then gives a thorough explanation of the reasons why this is important--highly recommended reading. Organizations like the non-profit Wild Ones are dedicated to demonstrating for homeowners how they can grow less lawn, plant more natives, reduce or eliminate the use of hazardous lawn "care" chemicals, and still have an attractively landscaped property. All who own even a small piece of property can help increase the spread of biodiversity throughout our urban and suburban landscapes just by adding a few native plantings to their yards.

Increasing the native plantings in our cities and suburbs can go a long way toward rebuilding our damaged ecosystems. The Audubon Society and its educational programs, along with those resources I mentioned and still others, also dedicated to restoring biological diversity, can help us achieve that goal. If you're ever in Dallas or Columbus, I encourage you to check out these unique Audubon centers and spend some time there.

I Have Emerald Ash Borer

This is so, so, sooooo--not good. We looked at the white ash tree in our front yard today and noticed one branch that hadn't leafed out. It looked dead. I looked closely at the branch and noticed the characteristic and unmistakable half-moon bore holes. Ever since the borer had been found in a metro park nearby, we have been expecting to see it sooner or later. We were always hoping for later, of course.

Now we have to decide whether to try and save the tree by using a systemic chemical drench that is implicated in honeybee colony collapse disorder, or to just let the borer have its way and turn the tree into firewood. Not a happy choice.

Sigh.

How Quickly Will the Poison Build Up Again?

How many deaths will it take 'til he knows,
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowing in the wind,
The answer is blowing in the wind.
--Bob Dylan

I have been in a somber mood for most of the last week. Those of you who read the last post on this blog know part of the reason why, as I wrote about my wrestling with an uncharacteristic and unexpected emotional reaction to a tragic bit of news. In the time since then, the intense emotional pain has subsided, although my feelings are still tender, and I can be set off weeping just by thinking about it or being reminded of it. (Music, especially singing, can do it, for example.) But just as I was beginning to feel more or less "normal," another event, much larger in scope, imposed itself on my conscience.

I was working here on that high school classmate Facebook page last Sunday evening when someone posted a note saying the president was going to speak at 10:30 on a "national security matter," so I went downstairs and alerted my wife. We turned on the TV and then waited and waited for the president to come out; finally I gave up and went to bed, so I never heard his announcement. But in the meantime, the information that the president was going to deliver had leaked to the media, and the CNN reporters told me all I really needed to know: that terrorist leader Osama bin Laden had been hunted down and killed by American forces.

I have to say that I didn't react at all, one way or another, at the time. I simply accepted it as another news fact, no different than any other news fact. It wasn't until many hours later that I began to recognize that this initial reaction to such a significant event was rather strange. Maybe my emotions were still too raw to react? I don't know.

All the next day (Monday), I think I was in some sort of daze or trance. In light of my emotional vulnerability over the past two weeks, I didn't think I needed anything to happen that day that could provoke another emotional breakdown. (No, I didn't think it would be good to start blubbering in class!) So I tried to keep my distance from the whole thing. I deliberately stayed away from news broadcasts and newspaper reports about the details of the search, the raid, and the final outcome; I'm still purposely avoiding news reports of the affair and only slowly peeking at reports of other events. There are facts about this event that I simply didn't--and still don't--want to know; at least not now. But by Monday morning, I began hearing people talking about celebrations during the night, and that disturbed me. People celebrating bin Laden's death? How does that make us any different from the people ten years ago who filled Middle Eastern streets celebrating the collapse of the towers?

Then a friend and colleague from school posted some comments on Facebook, expressing a sentiment similar to what I had begun formulating:

[Name withheld] considers posting an opinion about recent events and wonders how many people will 'unfriend' her for finding all this kind of anti-climactic, thinking more about the deaths and permanent damage (visible and invisible) visited on many MANY good goood people, and wondering how quickly the poison will build up again.

So I came around and posted my own comment, echoing her concerns, and even borrowing some of her wording:

Don Plummer is still processing what he thinks about the news that broke late last night.

Like another Facebook friend mused, I've wondered how many people will ‘unfriend’ me if I post what I'm really thinking? Thirst for blood has been satisfied, I suppose, but what a horrible cost has been paid! Far more lives than were killed in the terrorist attack. Desire for revenge killed Hamlet in the end, after all.

Right now, I'm not willing to:

• engage in flag-waving;
• gloat over bin Laden's death;
• begin to think that this event will solve our problems; rather, it may unleash even more terrorist threats as bin Laden has now gained martyr status;
• think that targeted assassination, even of the most diabolical figures, is anything more than sanctioned murder.

I posted my comments not because I wanted to make a definitive what's-right-and-what's-wrong statement, but because my mind and my spirit were still trying to process the event and the nation's reaction to it--just like they're still trying to process the earlier-learned fact of my classmate's death.

Later Monday morning, I posted a snippet of dialogue from The Lord of the Rings, a work that has profoundly influenced the way I view the world. It's one of my favorite scenes, in fact, and features an exchange between Frodo and Gandalf that takes place after the latter had finished telling what he had learned about the creature Gollum, the miserable soul that had possessed (or rather, had been possessed by) the One Ring for so many, many years:

 "What a pity that Bilbo did not stab that vile creature, when he had a chance!"

"Pity? It was Pity that stayed his hand. Pity, and Mercy: not to strike without need ..."

"... I do not feel any pity for Gollum ... He deserves death."

"Deserves it! I daresay he does. Many that live deserve death. And some that die deserve life. Can you give it to them? Then do not be too eager to deal out death in judgment. For even the very wise cannot see all ends."

This passage came to my mind very soon after I posted my first Facebook comment; again, not a statement of right or wrong, but a commentary on our all-too-human rush to "deal out death in judgment" (not to mention that Gandalf's comment, "some that die deserve life," reminded me again of my departed classmate).

In the comments thread generated by the earlier Facebook posting, I explained that my biggest concern was that we as a nation have dragged ourselves to the level of our enemies and have become what we hate. The temptation to do that is all too natural and must be fought against. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem we were up to the challenge.

I can be certain that none of my tears over the last six days were shed for Osama bin Laden. He was a despicable figure--far more despicable than Gollum, in fact, who, although a murderer, was really more of an old, miserable wretch, totally in thrall to that shiny object dangling from Frodo's neck. (If there's an analogue to bin Laden in Tolkien's narrative, it's more likely to be Saruman than Gollum.) But I have been mourning for what our nation apparently has become--how we have allowed the event that bin Laden will most be remembered for to make us forget who we are as a nation and to become something we were not. And I have mourned for the countless thousands that have died, multiple times more than died when the towers fell, in our nearly ten years of senseless war: some of them our own brave soldiers, of course, but many more non-combatant, innocent Iraqi and Afghani citizens.

As I said, I've deliberately stayed away from the news this past week, but I have been told some of the circumstances of the raid on bin Laden's compound. I understand that the "official" story has changed and I would presume that we may never know exactly how events transpired. Although I cannot second-guess why the special forces troops on the scene decided they had to shoot instead of capture, it just doesn't strike me that cornering and then killing an unarmed bin Laden in his own bedroom, while surrounded by family, can ever be regarded as our nation's proudest moment or most noble achievement. We've been told that the death of bin Laden serves justice, brings closure, or causes satisfaction. The Columbus Dispatch even used the word solace. But I don't feel any of these sentiments. Rather, just thinking of this entire affair makes me feel hollow and gives me a sinking feeling. Hence the somber mood I've been in.

Violence begets violence. Or, as put far more eloquently nearly two thousand years ago, "all who take the sword will perish by the sword". This past week, another friend blogged on the myth of redemptive violence. I highly recommend reading it. Already al-Qaida is plotting revenge on their new martyr. When will it end? Why couldn't we have ended it at the beginning, by responding differently to the initial attack?

I don't pretend that my words here are the last word on the subject. I'm still trying to make sense of this event and don't feel I could give a definitive word if I tried. If you think you must break off contact with me because of what I wrote here, do what you feel you must do. But I would hope, even if you disagree with me, you will read these comments in the spirit in which they are written: the cries of an anguished heart, concerned about what our country has become; and that you will receive them in that way.

Bone-deep connections

How can I write about something I cannot begin to understand?

I've been undone. My emotions have become unhinged. I've awakened at night with moist eyes; I've been weeping in my sleep. I've found myself crying audibly during the day. I've felt tears welling up as I walk between classes. I've lost sleep. I've neglected some of my work. As one who normally doesn't display his emotions, this is a totally new experience. And after a week, it isn't letting up. Moreover, I don't really understand why it's happening.

What has caused me to become such an emotional basket case? I recently was told of a tragedy. Just last week, I learned of the untimely death of a grade school/high school classmate--almost ten years after the fact. Clearly, I'm grieving. It's quite natural to grieve, of course. But I've never, ever, experienced this depth, level, or intensity of grief in my life--not even when my mother died (which was seventeen years ago this past week). And the classmate, who died in November 2001, was not really a close friend; she was more of a casual friend. What is happening? Why has this particular bit of tragic news so upended my emotions?

A few months ago, my wife received an e-mail from a high school classmate. With her 40th graduation anniversary approaching, a few classmates decided to use e-mail and Facebook to contact other classmates and try to organize a face-to-face reunion. In response, I realized my own high school class' graduation is also approaching its 40th anniversary, but nobody to my knowledge was organizing a reunion. So after a few electronic correspondences with another classmate, we thought it might be a good idea to set up our own "virtual reunion" on Facebook. Last week, on Monday, I did it; I set up the Facebook group and enrolled eight classmates who were also Facebook friends. It has been a great success so far; classmates who have Facebook accounts are signing on; then they're letting other classmates know of the group. Interest is spreading, and it appears that a face-to-face reunion will be organized for later in the year.

All is going as expected, right? Well, not quite. Along with the excitement and pleasure of reacquainting ourselves with long lost school mates, we're uncovering the always sad news of classmates who are no longer with us. Some of them I didn't know well or at all. Others I knew, but was never very close to. It's always a tragedy to be told of someone's death, but it's still less painful to say, "I'm sorry about ______'s passing" when one didn't know the deceased person well. However, when one classmate mentioned that she thought Mindy had died and another confirmed it, also sharing some details, I was devastated. I wanted to shout out, "Say it ain't so!" Not Mindy! This has to be wrong! Thus, one week ago, my inexplicable emotional ride began, with no end in sight.

Her name was Melinda, but she was always known simply as Mindy. It was a lovely name for a wonderful person. She was one of those extremely rare people for whom the word "special" doesn't begin to do justice. She was unabashedly friendly, and her friendliness was absolutely genuine, never contrived. She was full of energy, and always ready with an enthusiastic greeting. Most importantly, she was a warm, caring person, who always took interest in others' needs ahead of her own.

I cannot remember when we first met. We simply grew up together. Mindy was born three months ahead of me (and two days after Christmas) in the same small city that we both called home. We didn't attend the same elementary school after completing first grade, though it's quite possible that she and I knew each other by the time we were in first grade, if not earlier. I can be almost certain that she and I attended Sunday school together at the Methodist church from an early age, and that we were in the same confirmation class. It's also likely that we also both attended summer Vacation Bible School sessions together. Later, we were both involved with Methodist Youth Fellowship. By our junior high years and through high school, we would have been in many of the same classes together because we were both in the top 10% of the class and were normally enrolled in the same Advanced Placement classes. However, Mindy was clearly my superior in the intelligence department; she finished second in our graduation class of about 250, while I was several steps lower. Finally, Mindy and I shared one passion: we both loved to sing. We were in Concert Choir and Swing Choir together during our senior year, and we both sang in the high school youth choir at church.

After high school graduation, we went our separate ways, as so often happens to high school graduates in our mobile society. We attended separate private colleges in different corners of Ohio, and eventually both of us moved away from our hometown. Our families still lived there, though, so occasionally I would encounter her when we were both visiting family, usually in church over a holiday like Christmas. She would invariably give me her enthusiastic, warm greeting, like she always did, and we would briefly exchange pleasantries.

I believe Mindy attended our 20th high school class reunion in 1991 (we didn't have a 30th reunion in 2001), but I don't recall either seeing or speaking with her. Therefore, I may never know the last time I actually spoke with her. We simply lost contact with each other over time. The 20th anniversary reunion directory indicated that Mindy earned a doctorate in clinical psychology in the early 1980s, married, settled with her husband, also a psychologist, in a large city in another state, and had a daughter who was three years old at the time. However, I never learned that she had been diagnosed with scleroderma in 1983. I only learned that last week, after I was told of her passing. Scleroderma is a systemic disease; it is thought that the body's immune system turns against the body and begins attacking vital organs. Mindy suffered with it for eighteen years before it finally ended her life. The daughter would have been around 13 when Mindy passed away, so she's a young adult woman by now.

So why have I reacted so emotionally to the news of Mindy's death, when I never reacted similarly to the deaths of dear family members, including my own mother? Is the emotional intensity my way of crying out at the seeming injustice of Mindy's predicament--the age-old, unanswerable question of why someone as wonderful, generous, and kind as Mindy would be made to suffer as she must have, and made to die before she even reached the age of fifty? Or is it because the news came out of the blue and I was totally unprepared for it? When my mom died, it wasn't at all unexpected; we had watched cancer slowly devour her life over the six years after she was diagnosed. Until I heard otherwise last week, I would have assumed that Mindy was still as active, healthy, and energetic as ever. Or am I perhaps punishing myself for failing to keep in touch with a true friend? At the very least, I could have put her on my Christmas card list; we could have exchanged cards over the years. Perhaps all these are factors. But an essay by Scott Russell Sanders suggests that there might be a far deeper, more primordial, reason.

Sanders grew up in northern Portage County in northeast Ohio. During his high school years, the state decided to dam the west branch of the Mahoning River, which flowed through a valley near his home. The dam was completed during his senior year, but his family left the area right after he graduated from high school, and Sanders went off to college, so he never saw the reservoir after it had filled. About two decades later, Sanders happened to be doing some work in the area and was traveling on the interstate when the familiar town names on the highway signs lured him back to the area. He was shocked not only by the vista that the reservoir presented him, but also by the fact that the land surrounding the lake, including the area where his home had been, had seemingly been abandoned by humans and was reverting to wilderness (Sanders 7-11). But as unprepared as he was for the change in the landscape, he was even less prepared for his emotional reaction:
"My worst imaginings had failed to prepare me for this. I stood there dazed. I could not take it in, so much had been taken away. For a long spell I leaned against the guardrail and dredged up everything I could remember of what lay beneath the reservoir. But memory was at last defeated by the blank gray water. No effort of mind could restore the river or drain the valley. I surrendered to what my eyes are telling me. Only then was I truly exiled" (11).

Sanders believes that his emotional reaction to the inundation of the valley where he grew up was related to the inevitable tie we humans have between ourselves and our "native ground":
"One's native ground is the place where, since before you had words for such knowledge, you have known the smells, the seasons, the birds and beasts, the human voices, the houses, the ways of working, the lay of the land, and the quality of light. It is the landscape you learn before you retreat inside the illusion of your skin. You may love the place if you flourished there, or hate the place if you suffered there. But love it or hate it, you cannot shake free. Even if you move to the antipodes, even if you become intimate with new landscapes, you still bear the impression of that first ground" (12).

While Sanders is speaking here of what he calls our "bone-deep attachment" (14) to our formative physical geography, is it possible that we also, similarly and indelibly, bear an equally bone-deep connection to the people who were part of our formative lives? Sanders' story, especially his emotional reaction to the sudden realization that things around the reservoir did not remain the way he had remembered them, parallels my own experience from this past week. Is it possible that my life, Mindy's life, and the lives of perhaps other classmates I might not even realize right now, were woven together in some very deep, mysterious way during our formative years as we grew, learned, played, and, yes, sang together? Is it possible that this very palpable, almost physical pain that I've been experiencing since learning of Mindy's passing, a pain that is welling up from some deep, unknown, and heretofore unexplored depth of my being, has been caused by the severing of that bond--that deep, mysterious connection that was woven all those years ago? I don't know, but I'm beginning to imagine that it might be so. If so, it's a reminder that we humans are social creatures, and that we're not meant to live the autonomous, atomized lifestyle that's so relentlessly promoted by our American, consumerist culture. The bottom line is that we cannot live lives contrary to our own nature. We may ignore or neglect these connections, but we cannot escape them.

It's true that both Mindy and I, along with our families, made new friends and acquaintances in the places where we eventually settled. Mindy certainly had a secure support network that helped see her through the tragedy of her illness, and I believe I also have one. But new relationships do not replace these primordial bonds; they can only supplement them. Finally, although learning of Mindy's passing has caused me great emotional pain over the past week, I would never, never want to deny that deep, mysterious connection, even if doing so would allow me to avoid the hurt.

I began this essay by asking how I could write about something I am unable to understand. I'm ending it by imagining that, perhaps, the writing process itself actually helped me reach a kind of understanding--however inadequate that understanding might be--and has helped begin the healing of the Mindy-shaped wound that was inflicted in my soul. The pain and emotional intensity I'm experiencing now will, sooner or later, fade, and my life will go on. But it will probably never be quite the same. Such wounds never completely heal. The bonds that hold people together; the bonds that remain an essential part of our humanity, will endure come what may. Mindy, you have been and will continue to be sorely missed. May you rest in peace, Mindy, and may God continue to bless your family and loved ones.

--------------------

Work Cited
Sanders, Scott Russell. "After the Flood." Staying Put: Making a Home in a Restless World. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993. 3-15.

FINAL NOTE: In order to try and protect the privacy of Mindy's family, I did not include last names; I also purposely left out the name of our mutual hometown, the names of the schools and the church we attended, and the name of the city to which Mindy eventually relocated. However, I couldn't bring myself to avoid using her real name.

George Will's Flip-flop

My previous post, "George Will: Driving a Wedge" was re-posted late last Thursday on the Energy Bulletin site. It received a few comments from Energy Bulletin readers; among them was a comment from Eddiejoe67: "George Will was for high speed rail before he was against it." Eddiejoe's comment linked to an article in Grist published on March 4 and written by cities editor Sarah Goodyear. Goodyear mentions a reader who "tipped [them] off" to an article Will had written almost ten years earlier, shortly after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Goodyear writes:

In the dark days immediately after 9/11, Will seems to have had a revelation about how a certain mode of transportation could help our nation be stronger and more secure. In an Oct. 1, 2001 column syndicated in the Jewish World Review, Will recommended three steps in response to the attack that the nation had just sustained. First, buy more B-2 bombers. Second, cut corporate taxes. And third? Let Will speak for himself (emphasis mine):

Third, build high-speed rail service.
Two months ago this columnist wrote: "A government study concludes that for trips of 500 miles or less -- a majority of flights; 40 percent are of 300 miles or less -- automotive travel is as fast or faster than air travel, door to door. Columnist Robert Kuttner sensibly says that fact strengthens the case for high-speed trains. If such trains replaced air shuttles in the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, Kuttner says that would free about 60 takeoff and landing slots per hour."

Thinning air traffic in the Boston-New York-Washington air corridor has acquired new urgency. Read Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker essay on the deadly dialectic between the technological advances in making air travel safer and the adaptations to these advances by terrorists.

"Airport-security measures," writes Gladwell, "have simply chased out the amateurs and left the clever and the audacious." This is why, although the number of terrorist attacks has been falling for many years, fatalities from hijackings and bombings have increased. As an Israeli terrorism expert says, "the history of attacks on commercial aviation reveals that new terrorist methods of attack have virtually never been foreseen by security authorities."

The lesson to be learned is not defeatism. Security improvements can steadily complicate terrorists' tasks and increase the likelihood of defeating them on the ground. However, shifting more travelers away from the busiest airports to trains would reduce the number of flights that have to be protected and the number of sensitive judgments that have to be made, on the spot, quickly, about individual travelers. Congress should not adjourn without funding the nine-state Midwest Regional Rail Initiative.

So long before passenger trains turned into a tool for socialist control, Will thought they might be useful both as a transportation and as a national security solution.

It's really a tragedy that a writer as intelligent and incisive as Will can be is apparently unwilling to counter the right-wing echo chamber.

George Will: Driving a Wedge

On February 27, Newsweek published a column written by George F. Will titled "High Speed to Insolvency: Why Liberals Love Trains", in which he lambastes the Obama administration for proposing to build (and fund) a nationwide high-speed rail network. Will goes on to ridicule "liberals" for supporting taxpayer-subsidized passenger rail service in general. While Will repeats many of the shibboleths that commonly trip off the lips and pens of all passenger rail opponents (it will  drain our public treasuries, nobody will ride them, people prefer to drive, etc.), he goes a step further by presupposing an ideological divide over the issue. It's "liberals" who want trains, and, further, the real reason these "liberals" want trains is to use them to modify the public's behavior. These seditious "liberals," after all, want to "[diminish] Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism."

It's quite unfortunate that Will would frame his complaint in ideological terms, because doing so only drives another wedge between Americans. The simple fact is that those of us who want to see a nationwide passenger rail network re-established believe that restoring rail transportation in the USA is a practical necessity. We don't want trains for ideological reasons; we're only seeking solutions to pressing transportation and energy problems.

Will's argument that train travel would somehow lead the American public to embrace collectivism is extremely weak. I wonder whether, during the heyday of rail transportation in the USA in the early 20th century, anyone thought that trains were leading people down the socialist track. I wonder if the commuters waiting for the Metro in DC, the subway in New York, the T in Boston, or the Metra in Chicago experience pangs of worry that their support of public transportation is subverting American values. And since air travel, like train travel, forces passengers to abide by timetables and only takes people to predetermined destinations, I wonder if air travel might already be corrupting our individualism the way Will maintains that rail travel would.

The facts are these, in case Mr. Will is interested: we have a serious energy crisis and an even graver potential crisis. Petroleum resources are depleting worldwide, and new reserves aren't coming into production fast enough to offset the rate of depletion. Fuel prices are once again on the rise. Many people can't afford to operate their automobiles now, and it's likely to get worse. The civil unrest in the Middle East threatens to disrupt the flow of petroleum and, thus, torpedo our global economy (This column by Michael Klare details how, historically, oil producing nations that have gone through political or social upheavals never return to their previous level of production). In this age of energy instability, do we really want to say no to rebuilding our passenger rail capabilities?

Of course, George Will can disagree with the Obama adminstration's high speed rail plan if he wishes. (Even some rail advocates, most famously James Howard Kunstler, believe "high speed rail" is a pipe dream and that the money would be far better spent, not to mention go further, if we used it to rebuild a standard-speed system.) Will has the right to disgree with taxpayer-funded rail transportation altogether. But if he wishes to oppose passenger rail, he ought to give us his real arguments. In the Newsweek column, Will dismisses the arguments offered by rail advocates as "flimsy" and claims they point to an ideological purpose. I'm sorry to tell Mr. Will, but that doesn't work. He need to answer our arguments; if they're really as flimsy as he maintains, he should have no trouble whatsoever countering them. But because he offers us his ideological red herring instead, I suspect that he doesn't really have any substantive rebuttals to our reasoning.

Public Transportation: Not a High Priority in Ohio

The Columbus Dispatch reported last week that under the administration of Ohio's new Republican governor John Kasich, the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is cutting funding for local transit agencies that had been promised by the administration of the previous governor, Ted Strickland, a Democrat. While this comes as no surprise, given that Governor Kasich managed to kill a major passenger rail project for Ohio before he was even sworn in as Governor, it still comes as a blow to those of us who believe that the government should stop favoring highway construction and automotive transport--those of us who believe we should begin to fund more sustainable transportation systems that will help us cut petroleum use and also provide transportation alternatives to those who need and want them.

Specifically, former Governor Strickland had pledged $150 million out of ODOT's budget over three years to ten Ohio transit agencies, mostly to help them develop new routes. The intent of the new routes was to help connect people to places that offer jobs and job training programs. The Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), which serves the Columbus area, was among the intended recipients. COTA was planning to use the money to begin a new bus route that would have connected the area's hospitals, including The Ohio State University Medical Center and Nationwide Children's Hospital, to several local educational institutions, including Columbus State Community College where I teach. Given that Ohio's unemployment rate remains above the national average, and given that fuel prices are currently hovering around the $3.00 per gallon range and are rising, such a boost for public transport services seems to be a no-brainer to me.

But this expansion of transit services is not to be. Although ODOT will still share some $80 million in mostly federal transportation money with local transit agencies over the next three years, and although our public transit agencies will be getting more money this year than they have been getting in previous years, the increase won't be enough to allow COTA to offer the planned service connecting health care and higher education services.

According to the Dispatch report, a spokesperson for ODOT dismissed Strickland's funding promise as "not realistic and short-term." One wonders, however, why it isn't realistic. One also wonders what ODOT plans to do with the previously promised money. It is my understanding that ODOT's annual budget hovers around $3 billion per year. I also understand that ODOT's funding, since it comes from federal transportation money and fuel taxes, is not accounted with Ohio's general fund, which is currently running something like an $8 billion projected deficit over the next two years, and over which a lot of hand-wringing is now occurring over imminent and severe budget cuts. Again according to my understanding, ODOT spent about $10 million last year on public transportation. That's only about 60% of the amount ODOT spends every year mowing along the highways! Is most of the money that Strickland had promised to the transit agencies now going to be used for highway construction? One wonders. And if so, one wonders why we need to dedicate even more of the ODOT budget to highway construction, since that's where about 98% of it goes right now. Partly because of the fuel price crunch and high unemployment, Ohioans, like most Americans, are driving less and many younger Ohioans, like many younger Americans, want other transportation options besides driving and being saddled with the cost burdens associated with automobile ownership and maintenance. (Some young Americans aren't even getting their driver's licenses until they're in their 20s, and there's a boom in auto sharing and ride sharing among them.)

The $80 billion that the Kasich administration indicates it will deliver to local transit agencies, spread out over the next three years, represents almost quadrupling the state funding for public transportation from last year. I guess that's better than nothing, and I suppose I shouldn't complain. But other states do far better than this. According to All Aboard Ohio's Ken Pendergast, Pennsylvania spent close to $400 million last year on public transport. And the results are evident in clearly superior services to the public, as Pendergast reports here. There's no real reason why Ohio can't do at least as well.

One more thing: John Kasich, in his inaugural address on January 10, 2011, enjoined Ohioans to "rebuild our great cities in Ohio." I honestly don't know how he can accomplish that without significant and serious increases in spending on viable, convenient public transportation for our cities (not to mention inter-city passenger rail). Just look around: the cities that are vibrant and alive all have excellent and convenient transportation services that the residents use frequently; they are cities that are designed for people and not automobiles. Then take a look at many of Ohio's cities: the central cores are deserted after business hours. Walk around the downtown areas and notice the wide streets cluttered with fast-moving traffic; then look at the relative lack of safe places for people to walk. Notice the parking lot deserts where shopping and other services, as well as residences, could be built instead. (Columbus' downtown has long since been abandoned by retailers; to compensate, if one can call it that, we built a fake downtown in the suburbs, called Easton. One has to drive to go there, of course.) If we want to rebuild our great cities, we need a real commitment to invest in public transportation.

This is not a funding problem; it's a problem of priorities. So long as road-building and automobiles remain a top priority, the full transportation needs of all Ohioans will be neglected. Ohio can do better than this. Ohio must do better than this.

Winter Hikes

Last week I changed my Facebook profile picture. The new photo features me bundled up in my winter coat, hat, gloves, and scarf. Liz and I were participating in one of the Columbus Metro Parks' winter hikes. A few moments after I posted the new photo, I got a comment: "Are you cold?"

I replied, "Nope." Then someone else commented that she was glad she lives in a balmier climate.

I honestly don't know what it is about winter that makes people cringe. I love the season. Things are quiet. The garden is at rest. Mosquitoes aren't bothering us. And most of all, there's nothing more invigorating than taking a walk in the woods on crisp, cold, clear winter days.

Winter hikes in the Metro Parks are fun. We can go on a guided hike, or we can just go at our own pace. When we are finished, there's hot cocoa and soup waiting for us.

  This chinkapin oak is growing alongside Big Darby Creek at the Prairie Oaks Metro Park west of Columbus. The tree's architecture is plainly visible in winter when the branches are bare. The dried leaves of oaks often cling to the branches all winter, but this tree dropped its leaves in 2009, the year I took this picture. We were back at Prairie Oaks two weekends ago, and the tree was bare again. Maybe this one simply doesn't enjoy having its dead leaves hanging around all winter.






In February 2007, we hiked at Wahkeena State Nature Preserve southeast of Columbus as part of a guided hike. The naturalist took us off the marked trails. We saw things few visitors to the preserve ever see. It was an amazing trip and a learning experience as well. At one point we climbed up a narrow passage between two rocks, hanging onto a rope for support. We saw icicles clinging to the rocks. (Note the evergreen rhododendrons growing on top of the rocks here.)


In some places, the snow had partially melted away to reveal early growth, a clear sign of spring despite the cold.

Note the large leaf in the upper center of this photo. This is a native orchid. I wish I could remember which one. The leaf is not dormant. It will gather solar energy and photosynthesize until later in the spring, when, a flower cluster will arise. It does not flower every year.

Below the orchid leaf is the frond of a common Christmas fern.



And this is Lycopodium, commonly known as ground cedar. Like ferns, it reproduces by spores, not seeds.


Lycopodium is the modern descendant of one of the oldest vascular plant families.

More evidence that not all living things go to sleep in the winter. These woodpecker holes certainly would not be readily visible in summer when the forest would be in full leaf.

Back to Prairie Oaks Metro Park two weekends ago, we noticed this area of open water in an otherwise frozen pond. The geese were keeping the area ice-free.









There is natural beauty in every season. I really don't believe I would ever want to live in a place that didn't have four clear seasons and where snow never, or rarely, fell.

Animal Care Settlement--Agreement or Surrender?

Last week a surprise announcement issued from Ohio Governor Ted Strickland's office. He had mediated an agreement on animal care standards between the Humane Society of the United States (hereafter Humane Society) and the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation (hereafter Farm Bureau).

A bit of background is needed. Over the past several years, the Humane Society has been sponsoring petition drives to put livestock care initiatives on the ballots in several states. The purpose for these initiatives is to outlaw certain practices common in confined animal feeding operations (CAFO's), colloquially known as factory farms. These practices include extreme confinement of animals for their entire lives, among other rather dreadful practices. They've won these initiatives in several states, most notably California, and Ohio was another state on their list of states to begin a petition drive.

Last year, the Farm Bureau succeeded in persuading the Ohio General Assembly to place its own initiative on the ballot. The legislature's proposal was to create a livestock care board made of several individuals involved in agriculture, including some farmers. The board would be chaired by the Commissioner of Agriculture and would set standards for animal care on all commercial farm operations. The voters of Ohio approved the initiative in last November's election, but many felt that the voters had had the wool pulled over their eyes--the Farm Bureau had simply asked the legislature to intervene to thwart the Humane Society's efforts. The campaign advertising emphasized animal care, but the Farm Bureau and its agribusiness allies outspent the opposition by thirty to one, so hardly any Ohioans heard arguments against the proposal. Many believed that the board, created and staffed by Big Ag personnel, would have no teeth and would simply rubber-stamp current CAFO animal care practices.

The Humane Society vowed to fight back, and early this year they announced sponsorship of a petition drive to place specific animal care requirements on the November ballot. Their petition drive was quite successful, and last week the Humane Society was prepared to turn in half a million signatures to Ohio's election officials--more than enough to place the issue on the ballot.

Thus this brokered agreement between the two sides came as a total shock to most of us, who were expecting a real knock-down-drag-out fight during the upcoming campaign. That the two mortal enemies--the Humane Society and the Farm Bureau--had suddenly come to an agreement was so unexpected that Columbus Dispatch writer Thomas Studdes suggested in an opinion column last week that maybe Gov. Strickland should be nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Looking at the details of the agreement, however, it appears quite clear that the Humane Society achieved just about all of their goals and then some. The agreement includes:
-permits will not be issued for new farms to use battery cages for housing hens;
-gestation cages for sows will be phased out;
-elimination of confinement for veal calves;
-humane euthanasia procedures for sick or injured farm animals;
-keeping "downer" ill or injured animals out of the food supply; and
-several animal issues not directly related to farming: making cock fighting a felony; prohibiting the keeping of exotic animals like lions and cobras as pets, and cracking down on so-called puppy mill dog breeding operations. These changes would have to be enacted by the General Assembly.

So what was in this agreement for the Farm Bureau? The chief thing they won is that the Humane Society agreed to withdraw their petition drive; therefore, the issue will not appear on the ballot in November. The voters will thus be spared the promised fight over the initiative.

Both sides, predictably, claimed victory. One can go to their Web sites and read their press releases, where both sides put a positive spin on the agreement. (Here's the Ohio Farm Bureau president Jack Fisher's comments.) But it's hard to see that the Farm Bureau came out on top. And indeed, some of the comments from members on the Farm Bureau site indicate that many feel they gave in, caved in, gave up, surrendered, or expressed similar sentiments. Some asserted that the Humane Society is associated with "terrorist" organizations.

But Thomas Studdes' column speculated that the reason the Farm Bureau agreed to this settlement is that they knew their cause was already lost. In May, an animal rights group known as Mercy for Animals released an undercover video they had made at a dairy farm northwest of Columbus. The video (linked here--WARNING: some content may be disturbing to watch) gave graphic displays of animal abuse. Studdes thinks that perhaps the Farm Bureau realized they couldn't fight the video, so they called the Governor and agreed to meet with the Humane Society.

Perhaps. Whatever the reason, the agreement seems like good news for those of us who have become concerned about the quality and safety of food from CAFO's (not to mention the horrific animal treatment typical of these operations). We'll have to wait and see.

I'm just glad that the two sides agreed to get together and talk, whatever the motivation was. I've been saying all along that this is what they should do. Maybe during their discussion, they began to realize that the people on the other side of the table were normal human beings and not the monsters that they had come to think they were. Imagine that.

NOTE: The farmer who owned the dairy farm shown in the video was exonerated yesterday when a court declined to press charges against him. His own actions, though they might seem abusive in the video, were not considered to be so after the video was viewed by experts. But one of the employees, shown in the video abusing a calf, was fired.

Wine, Local Food, and Local Resilience, Part 4

In this series’ previous post, we discussed making wine at home as a possible solution to wine availability in an age of declining cheap energy. In this the final post of this series, we will discuss in some detail the advantages of home grape growing and wine making. Along the way, we’ll mention organic viticulture methods and briefly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of specific grape varieties that might be considered for a home vineyard.

Advantages I see for home wine production include the following. First, we’re by no means limited to Concord and Delaware; we have many, many more choices than Gene Logsdon’s immigrants did (Logsdon 78). Many of these newer choices have a fair degree of disease resistance, and they include a much wider variety of wine types and flavor characteristics. Second, the home winemaker can rely on his/her own wine tastes in choosing vines to cultivate; he/she is not restricted to what will sell commercially. Third, it’s easier to practice organic soil maintenance on a small scale, and this could prove very important in maintaining vine health in an era when fungicide sprays may be difficult to obtain. Fourth, growing one’s own wine as part of a household economy means minimal carbon footprint and possible long-term sustainability. Finally, for those who have the attention to detail, the interest, the patience, and the space to raise and test hundreds of grape seedlings, breeding one’s own grapes for wine quality, better disease resistance, and suitability for one’s local conditions remains a possibility.

Choices, Choices
We have many more possible grape variety choices in the east and Midwest than just about anywhere else on earth. I have listed a mere few of them at the end of this post. There are so many others that one could try, with new varieties being released every few years or so, that it can be almost overwhelming. The key is to pick vines that ripen well in one’s climate, that have at least some disease resistance, and that can produce the kind of wine that one’s household enjoys. And another key is not to pay attention to what the wine snobs say.

Antidote to Wine Snobbery
Leon Adams defined wine snobbery as “drinking the label, not the wine” (13). Snobbery occurs when people turn up their noses at a wine someone else enjoys just because they don’t like it (or think they don’t like it). Wine, for some strange reason, seems to encourage this boorish attitude. Here in the eastern US, a kind of wine snobbery has arisen against the French hybrids—especially the red ones—among those who enjoy the vinifera wines grown and produced here and elsewhere. Growing the kinds of grapes that make the kinds of wine one likes, and then making the wine oneself, is perhaps the best preventive to snobbery, since the wines can be enjoyed at home without disparaging comments from others.

Furthermore, grapes that aren’t widely grown by commercial operations can often be good choices for home winemakers. I’ll talk about a few of these in my comments on specific grape varieties. The home winemaker is free to experiment with unusual varieties since there’s no bottom line to keep in mind.

Organic Grape Growing
Organic agriculture has made significant strides in recent decades. The key to organic growing is building, maintaining, and protecting the soil structure, including the complex soil ecosystems of microorganisms and other soil dwellers. We are learning more and more every year about the vital importance of maintaining and encouraging good soil ecology, as it provides direct benefits to the plants we are trying to grow, including increased disease resistance. Lon Rombough, in his excellent book on organic grape growing (see the Works Cited list at the end of this post) gives a detailed discussion of the benefits of organic soil maintenance. I highly recommend Rombough’s book, not only for the organic techniques themselves but also because it provides all the basic information one needs for successful grape growing—not just the basics of organic soil maintenance, but also the fundamentals of grape growing such as training and pruning.

One of the most interesting and helpful discoveries about soil maintenance is the importance of micorrhizal fungi. These fungi live in the soil and develop symbiotic relationships with the roots of many plants, including grapevines. The fungi provide soil nutrients to the plants, and the plants in turn provide sugars to the fungi through photosynthesis. This symbiotic relationship can help keep vines from becoming stressed, making them more resistant to disease and insect damage. Lon Rombough provides detailed information about micorrhizae in his book; he also posted this article online. Micorrhizae inoculant is available online and is easy to use.

Many techniques for organic soil maintenance exist; one of the best known is the French bio-dynamic system. Lon Rombough recommends that anyone interested in growing grapes look into this system (Rombough 72). I don’t know much about bio-dynamics specifically, but it and similar organic techniques (I think of John Jeavons’ and Toby Hemenway’s books) seem to be ideal for home and small producers. They will likely become vital in an age when fossil fuel inputs are not available or are extremely expensive.

Home Economics
Growing one’s own grapes and making one’s own wines with them, just like growing and canning one’s own tomatoes, can be a valuable support to a household economy. And it can eliminate most of the carbon emissions caused by industrial-scale wine production, distribution, and retailing. Here’s a simple example: a home winemaker can clean and re-use empty wine bottles much easier than a commercial operation could. One can even learn how to culture wine yeast strains and keep them viable from year to year.

Creating New Grape Varieties
I won’t go into detail about this because Rombough devotes an entire chapter to the topic. Anyone interested in the topic should consult Chapter 13 of his book. All who are interested in maintaining the cultivation of good wine grapes in the eastern third of North America into the future will be interested in breeding efforts, whether they actually want to participate in it or not. The goal for breeders would be a vine that reliably produces grapes capable of making high-quality wine, is well-adapted to one’s locality, and that is so highly resistant to the indigenous diseases and insect pests that it can be grown successfully in a given location without chemical spray. Those who have the inclination, the patience, and the space to engage in breeding grapevines will help carry the tradition of quality wine into the future.

Musings about Specific Grape Varieties
I don’t know this, of course, but my guess is that the immigrants Gene Logsdon mentions did not spray fungicide on their Concord or Delaware grapes. Neither of these varieties is immune to fungus attack, but if the vines were planted in a favorable location with good air circulation and trained to take best advantage of that circulation, they would have been less likely to contract disease. If they did, the grower might have picked off diseased leaves, shoots, and/or clusters and burned them. Active and meticulous grower attention to how the vines are doing, along with removing and disposing of any infected plant material, can go a long way toward maintaining vine health. Add to that solid, organic soil building and soil ecosystem maintenance techniques, including the cultivation of micorrhizal fungi, and the grower can increase odds that the vines will stay healthy most of the time.

But the vines themselves come first. Choosing vines that have natural resistance to infection is the first line of defense. It isn’t infallible, but it’s the best place to start here in the humid east and Midwest. I’m going to end this discussion with some thoughts about specific wine-grape varieties, including a few that are not commonly seen in commercial vineyards, if they are grown there at all. I’m basing these choices primarily on disease resistance and wine quality.

These are NOT recommendations, however. These are mostly observations. The varieties one should try depend on one’s local conditions (including such factors as disease pressure, winter cold, length of growing season, air circulation, and soil type and drainage) and one’s personal tastes in wine. One may or may not wish or be able to consider any of the varieties mentioned here. Nevertheless, readers might use my descriptions as a guide to the things to look for when choosing grape varieties to grow.

I did not include any vinifera varieties here, since they are all well known—if you live in a favorable location (such near the shore of one of the Great Lakes) and want to try Riesling or Cabernet Franc, by all means go for it. Just keep in mind that you likely will be committing yourself to rigorous and systematic spraying against disease. Also, I didn’t discuss most of the standard labrusca varieties—Concord, Catawba, and Niagara, not because of snobbery (if you enjoy wine from these grapes, by all means grow them!) but because they usually need sugar amelioration. I’m assuming that refined sugar, just like fungicide chemicals, may be in short supply in a future without cheap energy, so I think it’s best to include only grapes that are capable of obtaining adequate sugar levels on their own.

For Red Wine
Baco Noir—this French hybrid is a good choice for beginners. The vines are easy to grow and it’s easy to handle in the wine cellar. It can make a good red wine. Vines are quite vigorous—secondary shoots with secondary clusters need to be pinched off. Grapes ripen quite early and must be protected from birds. A friend in southeast Ohio told me it is susceptible to black rot there, but the vines were always healthy for me in Bowling Green. Baco tolerates heavy soils.

Chambourcin—Considered one of the best red French hybrids. Productive, moderately disease resistant, Chambourcin produces a balanced dry red wine that is often highly rated. But it needs a long growing season to ripen fully. The other common French hybrid reds—Chancellor, Chelois, and De Chaunac—ripen earlier than Chambourcin and have similar wine qualities. Of the three, Chelois, perhaps, is the most disease resistant. Some commercial operations blend two or more of these four varieties for a proprietary red.

Corot Noir—A new variety from the Cornell breeding station in Geneva, New York. The release notes claim that Corot makes a vinifera-like red wine with lots of tannins and none of the grassy, herbaceous character that some dislike in the red French hybrids. They also claim good disease resistance.

Frontenac—Developed at the University of Minnesota breeding program for cold resistance, Frontenac produces a uniquely flavored, more vinifera- than hybrid-charactered red wine. I’ve tasted wine from Frontenac and it had a luscious, cherry-like aroma and flavor. It lacks the typical red hybrid herbaceousness. Frontenac vines should be highly disease resistant.

Marechal Foch—A very early ripening French hybrid, originally from Alsace and named for Marshall Ferdinand Foch, the French World War I hero. It’s highly resistant to cold and disease. It ripens well in cool growing seasons. Ron Lombough indicates that in the cool coastal Oregon climate it can be grown without spray and the cool nights help it develop a deeply-colored, complexly flavored wine (188). It’s grown successfully here in Ohio, too, though it usually ripens with perhaps less complexity. A sister variety, Leon Millot (from the same cross as Foch), ripens a week earlier and produces a very similar wine. Millot was disease free in Bowling Green, but I had to protect the ripening clusters from the birds. Foch and Millot might be good choices for home growers the northern Great Lakes regions.

Marquette—A new variety from the University of Minnesota breeding program, Marquette is supposed to be capable of producing a vinifera-like red wine with lots of tannins and without red hybrid herbaceousness. Marquette should be quite disease resistant and very cold-hardy.

Noiret—From the Cornell breeding program, Noiret is a newer variety that, like sister release Corot Noir and Minnesota’s Marquette, promises to produce a high quality, vinifera-like red wine with none of the red hybrid herbaceousness. One commercial winemaker recently told me he’s very excited about offering it when his first crop is ready for release in a couple of years. Noiret may be a bit less resistant to disease than Corot.

Norton—An old American variety, also called Norton’s Virginia and Virginia Seedling in the east and Cynthiana in Missouri and Arkansas. Thought to be pure or mostly Vitis aestivalis, Norton can produce a high-quality red wine with no off-aromas or flavors. It needs a very long growing season to ripen properly. It may not be a good choice for beginning winemakers, as it requires expert handling to make good wine. Norton vines are said to be virtually immune to fungus disease.

For White Wine
Beaumont—The late Byron T. Johnson of Cincinnati bred grapes for both disease resistance and wine/juice quality and released several named varieties. Lon Rombough claims that Johnson’s varieties can be grown “in much of the central Midwest” without fungicide spray (242). Unfortunately, of the varieties Johnson released, only Beaumont and Kee-Wah-Din (a Baco Noir cross) are available commercially, so far as I know. (Someone who is interested in starting a grapevine nursery and who likes to do detective work might want to track down and obtain cuttings of other Johnson releases like Scioto, Beaufort, Joyous, and Chief Wauwautan [Rombough 242], propagate them, and begin offering them to the public.) Beaumont is descended from Delaware; the clusters are similar to Delaware in appearance, but the vine is more disease resistant than Delaware. Johnson thought that it made an excellent white wine with a slightly musky or spicy character, similar to Delaware. Beaumont certainly is worth experimenting with at home.

Cayuga—From the Cornell breeding program, Cayuga (often labeled Cayuga White) was their very first wine grape release, and it immediately became popular among growers and winemakers in upstate New York and beyond. Cayuga makes an excellent, fruity white wine that some have compared to Riesling. The vine is vigorous, easy to grow, and quite resistant to disease. Cayuga has Zinfandel and Seyval in its ancestry.

Chardonel—From the Cornell breeding program, Chardonel is a cross between Seyval and Chardonnay and is supposed to have wine qualities similar to its more famous parent. It isn’t widely grown in Ohio, however, possibly because Chardonnay itself grows well along the Lake Erie shore, but it’s popular in places like Missouri where summer heat and humidity are simply too much for Chardonnay. Moderately disease resistant.

Delaware—Among the old labrusca varieties, winemakers considered Delaware the best for wine quality. And it’s still worth growing, in my opinion. My favorite wine from the old Steuk winery in Sandusky, Ohio, was a dry Delaware. Unfortunately, Steuk went out of business about fifteen years ago and I haven’t found another source for dry Delaware. Unless grown in deep, fertile soil, Delaware vines should be grafted to increase their vigor. It’s not a heavy producer, but in most years, Delaware develops enough sugar not to require amelioration. The vine is not as disease resistant as Concord.

Horizon—Cornell’s second wine grape release (Cayuga was first), Horizon has not become commercially popular. Horizon comes from the same cross as Cayuga. Lon Rombough says the fresh juice has a strong apple aroma and flavor. He also says the clusters are prone to botrytis bunch rot, like Seyval, one of its parents, if wet weather coincides with ripening (Rombough 187). The vine is vigorous and productive. Experimental home growers might wish to try it out.

Melody—Another release from Cornell’s breeding program, Melody has also not caught on among commercial winemakers (maybe it was the name). But it’s a heavy producer and might be ideal for a home wine making operation. Melody has Pinot Blanc and Seyval in its ancestry and is said to produce a wine with Pinot Blanc character. Disease resistance is supposed to be moderate.

Seyval—Considered the best of the French hybrids for wine quality. Well made Seyval, or Seyval Blanc, compares favorably to Sauvignon Blanc. Not highly disease resistant, Seyval is also susceptible to bunch rot (botrytis) if cool, wet weather coincides with ripening. Cayuga might be a better choice for a home vineyard, unless local growing conditions are favorable for Seyval.

Steuben—From the Cornell breeding program, Steuben was bred as a table grape, not a wine grape. The grapes are quite tasty: very sweet and juicy, with a unique spicy tang (though they are not seedless). Steuben also makes great unfermented grape juice. However, if the juice is pressed out and fermented at low temperatures, without contacting the dark blue skins (the way “white Zinfandel” is made), and a small percentage of residual sugar is retained, German style, Steuben creates a unique, spicy, slightly pink wine that is the only wine I know of that really can complement the sweetish-smoky taste of ham. I don’t know whether any commercial winery makes wine from Steuben grapes today; Dr. Tom Wykoff’s Cedar Hill Wine Company in Cleveland Heights made it and sold it in his Au Provence restaurant back in the 1970s and ‘80s. Unfortunately they’re out of business. His Steuben wine was very tasty. Making Steuben wine might be the perfect project for a home winemaker who wants to do something unusual. It also helps that Steuben is a very healthy and vigorous vine. It’s also one of the relatively few vines that develop attractive autumnal colors. Ron Lombough says Steuben would probably do very well trained on an arbor (191).

Traminette—A Cornell cross between Gewürztraminer and a French hybrid, Traminette is the latest big hit among growers and wineries. It’s much easier to grow than its vinifera parent, and it can produce a spicy, aromatic wine very similar in character to Gewürztraminer. Doing well with it, though, probably requires some winemaking expertise. I’ve tasted Traminette wines that ranged from very excellent (try the 2008 Traminette from the Meranda-Nixon winery in Ripley, Ohio!) to good to so-so, and one example tasted downright medicinal. The vine is moderately disease resistant.

Vidal—Vidal, also labeled Vidal Blanc, is probably the most popular and widely grown French hybrid, at least here in North America. One of its parents is one of the most widely grown grape varieties in Europe, known as Trebbiano in Italy and St. Emilion or Ugni Blanc in France. Vidal is easy to grow, very productive, and versatile, so it’s a good choice for beginning grape growers and winemakers. I grew Vidal in Bowling Green and could regularly count on a yearly harvest of at least five gallons of juice from four vines. The wine is pleasing to excellent, with a slight herbaceous aftertaste if finished dry. The best wine I ever made came from Vidal juice fermented in a cool place with Epernay yeast. Wineries make a wide variety of wine styles with Vidal, including an unusual sweet wine called ice wine (the sweet juice is pressed from frozen grapes that are left to hang on the vines until a deep freeze). Aside from that, wineries typically make Vidal into an off-dry, aromatic, German style wine (try Farmers White from Troutman Vineyards in Wooster, Ohio; it was so aromatic I even asked them if there wasn’t a bit of Traminette blended in. They assured me it was 100% Vidal). However, I once tried a dry, barrel-fermented, malolactic, sur lie Vidal labeled St. Mary’s Blanc from Rockbridge Vineyard in Virginia that was also quite excellent. My Vidal vines in Bowling Green were somewhat susceptible to powdery mildew but otherwise healthy. Vidal needs a fairly long growing season to ripen properly.

Vignoles—A French hybrid, Vignoles has gained some popularity, mostly for sweet dessert wines, though a few make a dry table wine from it. I have never tried wine from this grape. Moderate disease resistance.

Conclusion
Much more could be said. I hope that these musings spark further discussion among those concerned about coping with the end of cheap energy. I believe that wine will become an important part of the future home and local economy as we begin doing more and more things for ourselves.

Cheers!

Works Cited
Adams, Leon. The Wines of America. 2nd ed. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1978.

Logsdon, Gene. Good Spirits: A New Look at Ol’ Demon Alcohol. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 1999.

Rombough, Lon. The Grape Grower: A Guide to Organic Viticulture. White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green, 2002.