A piece censored by the San Luis Obispo TRIBUNE--Put here so others can see what Tom Fulks wanted to say.

 Beware: Forbidden Fruit.

Tom Fulks

2 hrs  · 

(Author’s Note: The SLO Tribune has spiked this piece, my regular bi-weekly column scheduled for publication this Sunday, Jan. 3, 2021. I'll only note that we disagree on what's newsworthy and deserving of comment in our era of COVID, which influences nearly every aspect of our daily lives. Happy New Year.)

LET US NOT FORGET

Day 288 – Sheltering in Place: A Journal

This New Year of 2021 offers the hope of COVID vaccinations for the masses and a chance to leave behind a year of suffering and misery on a scale most of us thought existed only in history books or far-away lands.

For some – the COVID deniers, the anti-maskers, the indifferent elected officials – the New Year might also bring the wish for mass amnesia.

They may hope we forget what we saw with our own eyes in 2020, our Year of Tears. They may pray we disremember what we experienced with our own lives in 2020, our Year of Sorrow.

They may wish we overlook what we knew to be true but they challenged as false with lies and selfish, deadly behavior, these people we once considered decent and honorable before 2020, our Year of Disillusionment.

The Great Plague of 2020 changed that about us. It exposed our true nature. The New Year’s tidings of comfort and joy trigger the deep-seated realization that we’ve seen the essence of people as they really are, not necessarily as they want to be seen.

We’ve seen those who are worthy of respect and admiration for their sacrifice – the health care workers, hospital janitors, grocery workers, mail carriers, delivery people, restaurant workers – the employees who had little choice but to show up every day.

And we’ve seen the hypocrites, the toadies and the seekers of financial and political advantage, the maskless who could have helped but didn’t because they cared only for themselves.

The year 2020 taught us that even the most self-righteous, moralizing and boastful among us can be weak of character and lacking in ethical foundation.

In this New Year of Hope, let us not forget the COVID deniers, the recidivist community health riskers, the acquaintances and former friends who rejected medical reality in servility to malevolent political partisanship, propagandizing and fact-free hectoring.

Let us always remember the elected officials who chose self-serving ideology over the public’s health, who chose wrong over right, cold heartedness over kindness in denying science, deflecting responsibility and defending doing nothing instead of something to make things better.

Raised Catholic, sentenced to Catholic schools, the Bible was beaten into me from an early age by eternally annoyed Irish nuns.

One of the most commonly neglected tenets of Christianity is the admonition to eschew the blinding, soul-corroding effects of self-righteousness.

Had that lesson been followed by those who could have helped hinder COVID’s spread but chose not to, there might be more of us alive today to celebrate the end of this most wretched of years.

I’m thinking in particular of local elected leaders at all levels who try to immunize themselves from criticism and public accountability by hiding behind preening displays of political ideology or religious faith – those who accuse critics of infidelity to principle while ignoring the consequences of it.

I’m thinking also of their followers – righteously extolling the primacy of personal freedom and the “right” to infect others at the expense of our entire community’s wellbeing.

The Book of Proverbs warns against self-righteousness: “There are those who are clean in their own eyes but are not washed of their filth.”

In the Epistle to Titus, Paul alerts us to hypocrisy: “They claim to know God, but by their actions they deny him. They are detestable... .”

The Gospel of Matthew warns of the consequences of both: “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”

I’m reminded of Sister RoseMarie, who instilled in me and fellow grade-school inmates that self-satisfaction in faith leads to soiled hearts and minds in life.

She read us the Gospel of Luke’s parable of the self-righteous Pharisee in the temple who scorns the loathed tax collector as less holy than himself, while the tax collector asks God for mercy for being a sinner.

“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

There are some exalted folks in San Luis Obispo County who could stand a humbling, if justice be served.

As we depart 2020, our year of sadness and despair, we enter a New Year bursting with hope and confidence that the worst shall pass.

We wish for a New Year filled with the promise of science, medicine, inoculation and health, and we look forward to becoming whole again.

We long for the possibility of reconciliation, redemption and forgiveness after a year of history far easier written about than lived.

In this New Year, let us hope our elected officials and their God-fearing acolytes abide the teachings they profess to embrace.

And let's not forget who they are and what they did.

Sasse speaks up about his idiotic colleague from Missouri, Josh Hawley

 

Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Neb.) called the effort in Congress to reverse President-elect Joe Biden’s electoral college victory a “dangerous ploy,” underscoring the challenge President Trump faces in persuading even members of his own party to join it.

In an open letter to constituents, Sasse wrote that there is no evidence of fraud so widespread that it could change the results and said he has urged his colleagues to reject “a project to overturn the election.”

“All the clever arguments and rhetorical gymnastics in the world won’t change the fact that this January 6th effort is designed to disenfranchise millions of Americans simply because they voted for someone in a different party,” Sasse wrote on Facebook shortly before midnight on Wednesday. “We ought to be better than that.”

 

Lincoln promises that he will use "utmost care" not to destroy property or disturb "peaceful citizens."

 Lincoln 16 April 1861--Lincoln's call for [as it turned out] 75,000 soldiers

"I deem it proper to say that the first service assigned to the forces hereby called forth will probably be to repossess the forts, places, and property which have been seized from the Union; and in every event, the utmost care will be observed, consistently with the objects aforesaid, to avoid any devastation, any destruction of, or interference with, property, or any disturbance of peaceful citizens in any part of the country.

"Newspaper buildings and stores of old newspapers--burnt. Southern history destroyed.

Farm animals and crops destroyed, houses destroyed. Unrecorded deaths everywhere. 

Sherman loosed on Georgia.

300,000 men dead. How many women and children? How many hundreds of thousands doomed to poverty for four generations? Would the parents of dead members of the 75,000 have voted to pay slaveowners something to liberate their slaves? What was the monetary cost of the war to the north?

How far ahead was President Lincoln looking?  What effect did he think his proclamation would have in the South? Could he have thought a little longer before making a proclamation? Was there absolutely no way Lincoln could have delayed this proclamation and avoided the war?

William Barr jumping ship a few years too late

 

Barr Sees ‘No Reason’ for Special Counsels for Hunter Biden or the Election

The outgoing attorney general, William Barr, again broke with President Trump on his unsupported claims of widespread election fraud and the need to appoint a special counsel to investigate the president-elect’s son.

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Scratch Biscuits (as young Reavis and young Donis say)--but a far cry from Mother's

 She had a flour bin in the big wood-fired range. There was always a cone shape in the flour and she poured milk for the biscuits into the center and only what was dampened was removed and no dampness was left. She divided the dough with one hand. If only I had a film . . . .

Better than Pillsbury's, says the Caregiver.

A Virginia McGehee (i.e., MacGregor) settled in Georgia after the Revolution. A Model for Solitary Conviviality on my Paternal Side.

 

Micajah McGehee’s constitution was so strong, that he battled with death, taking brandy until he was upwards of eighty years old. When he was young, it took drinking all day to make him drunk. When he was old, he got drunk twice a day. He became a member of the Methodist Church during the great religious excitement of 1809-10-11. He still continued to get drunk. When he was spoken to about it, he said that the habit was so confirmed that he could not live without the free use of brandy. He was requested to say what quantity was necessary for his health. He agreed to try to limit himself to a quart a day, but the allowance failed to keep him alive.

Storm Dumps Snow on East Coast, Shutting Schools and Virus Testing

 What is snow?

All I know is that I could not survive dealing with it now. Heaven help the old and infirm in the East.

Costners and Parkers for Buttigieg--a repeat from last February

 

·         

Biden Taps Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary

Mr. Buttigieg would bring a younger voice to the cabinet and add to its diversity as its first openly gay member.

·         

·         Look back:

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Well, my cousin Bill Costner's son Kevin thinks a lot like me, though we have never met.

 But I love it that Kevin is putting himself out there for Buttigieg.

45 minutes ago

By Reid J. Epstein

And now a word from Kevin Costner, about Buttigieg.

Kevin Costner spoke at an event for Pete Buttigieg in Exeter on Monday.

EXETER, N.H. — It was an odd political trick, suggesting that maybe the candidate he was speaking for might not be the only one who can solve the nation’s problems, but Kevin Costner wasn’t there to deliver a firebrand introduction.

Mr. Costner traveled with former Mayor Pete Buttigieg of  South Bend, Ind., during the final day of New Hampshire campaigning. He delivered opening remarks for Mr. Buttigieg’s closing rally Monday night at Exeter High School.

·        But instead of a speech enthusiastically backing Mr. Buttigieg, Mr. Costner spoke for eight minutes and gave what could have been a monologue from one of his sappier films.

·        “He doesn’t compete to be the loudest,” Mr. Costner said of Mr. Buttigieg. “His silences are those of someone who is thinking.”

·        Mr. Costner did not implore the crowd to go out and volunteer and knock doors for Mr. Buttigieg. He was just there, he said, to tell them whom he is supporting. And that’s Mr. Buttigieg, he said, because the former mayor is a good listener.

·        “One person alone is not smart enough to have all the good ideas,” Mr. Costner said. “One party alone cannot have all the good ideas. So what we have to have is to have a candidate who has the good sense to not care where the good idea comes from. What we have to have is to have a president secure enough to let all Americans benefit without regard for who gets the credit for the good idea.”

 

Biden Taps Pete Buttigieg for Transportation Secretary Mr. Buttigieg would bring a younger voice to the cabinet and add to its diversity as its first openly gay member.

 What a really intelligent young man! Good news.

They clean up the yard--turkey at lower left of the stone wall

 

Monterey Cypress

 

The opportunistic Sir William Stanley on the sidelines at Bosworth Field--Dad, I never knew you!

 We watched the Time Team show last night about locating the exact site Bosworth Field. Late in the show a historical novelist informed us that 3 armies were there--Richard's, Henry's, and the Stanley brothers'. According to her, William Stanley held aloof until he was confident that Henry would win, then charged on Richard. One of my cousins, I said. Depression Okies have a better chance being a Stanley cousin than many Americans simply because if you get to Virginia in the 1600s and the Carolinas in the 1700s you are kin to millions, really millions, of Americans, and a lot of people in the smaller British pool. So while waiting for California's vote today I checked, and Geni says William Stanley is a 17th Great Grandfather, through the Rogerses and Glenns and Cokers and Moores and Warrens.  Wow? No, not "wow." That makes him, I think it is, one of 262,144. Not all are successful opportunists. But this does suggest strange thoughts. One is that 262,144 does not mean 262,144 men. Many of the men have to be multiples of your great grandfathers, given the population then.

Why Ted Cruz does not (again) have egg on his face.

 That is 2 or 3 feet away from where his lips are.

I am too old and frail for Microsoft to Treat Me This Way

 So a big DEGRADE this week. Did I have a choice?

Slowed down start up time from 1 minute to 6.

Left me without my great picture on the Desktop (successful installation of Mexican tiles on the roof.

Left me without sound.

Left me unable to write a WORD or speak a WORD because Office Configuration took its usual 10 minutes and then informed me that I had committed Error 1907 and wondered why I had not known that THEY could not register fonts or verify that I had sufficient permission to use them. It also asked if I knew I was born into sin.

Getting to Windows Office Home and Business could be done by someone not born into sin, maybe. All the "chat" line go find the first 5 minutes you are waiting then go blank.

I signed up for Geek Squad last summer at 3 one morning and got money's worth then. Getting to the Geek Squad locally was impossible. 

After many hours spent, I found someone on the Internet Geek Squad who in a matter of minutes gave me a link. That link descripted how to get to a chance to "Modify" Office. 12 minutes of grinding away "configuring" and I had my computer back, no longer (I believe) seriously DEgranded.

I really am too old for this. I am at the stage of preparing the Table of Contents for the Race book and really needed to work in Word.

Evil loosed in the country: why I woke up at 3 this morning with a nightmare

 THE PLOT TO STEAL THE ELECTION--FOR TRUMP

If the whole Congress is forced to vote, it probably would fail in the Democratic-controlled House and face resistance in the Senate.

“It’s just simply madness,” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) said. “The idea of supplanting the vote of the people with partisan legislators, is, is so completely out of our national character that it’s simply mad. Of course the president has the right to challenge results in court, to have recounts. But this effort to subvert the vote of the people is dangerous and destructive of the cause of democracy.”

The loss of Woodrow Wilson is one thing. The end of Johns Hopkins may be another thing.

 

I have reconciled myself to Princeton's taking away my 1959 Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship and my 1952 Woodrow Wilson Dissertation Fellowship because of the racial views of President Woodrow Wilson. I now have to say that I received something like Citizens and Ecometrics fellowships, a name arrived at by a hard-thinking elite committee this year. Well, I just won't use any new name. So today I see that my older daughter may have her Johns Hopkins PhD degree invalidated because the founder of that institution turns out to have been a slave-holder, not an abolitionist. And I have to worry about my 2 volume biography of Melville with Maurice Sendak's pictures of HM. What will Johns Hopkins University Press change its name to?

Ongoing decoration of Holiday Tree in Chinese Pot--Contains the Seydor Spouting Whale

 

How Cousin Sam Glenn Killed his First Indian and Became a Storyteller

 They were using steers for work the way they used oxen in Southern Texas. Sam took two steers and went out to haul some wood:

As I was going through the bush I ran upon a warrior of the Comanche tribe--just one--that was plenty. Then the race began--yes, I run him plum to death by keeping in the lead. There must have been two there at the time, or he lived over the race, for an Indian came up to me at Fort Griffin 12 years later. He said, "Howdy Leaping Deer."

Charlie Daniels, today THE DEVIL CAME DOWN TO GEORGIA

 AND PLAYED HIMSELF

Music in Texas even before Bob Wills--A Glenn Violin in Kerr County

 Kerrville Mountain Sun 27 February 1936

The first musical instrument brought to the county was a violin, brought by the Sam Glenn family in 1860. The family still has the instrument, a copy of Stradivarius, and in which are kept rattlesnake rattles, said to “improve the tone.”

Photo of record early in 86th year, after trip to Contagious Disease man about the Valley Fever

So, Fluconazole till I die should prevent a new attack on the eye. Vertigo is under control by exercises, apparently. Now if the swollen left leg could get better from my shooting up twice a day with enoxaparin! I still have to outlive Great Grandmother Bell (a Henderson) and then my Costner mother. And I am making good progress on planning the book on races and the family.
 

NEW MOTTO after the Year of the Downward Spiral: WHAT ARE WE SAVING IT FOR?

 Your blue sweater is ragged? 

My ink is in its last dying throes before becoming blank?

There's just a bit of Crisco around the sides?

I can get Reavis Wortham's 8 Red River books, some of them cheap hardbacks?

WHAT ARE WE SAVING IT FOR?

Calculations at 85. My mother lived to 92. Maybe the 2020 Downward Spiral can be Checked.

 She would have wanted me to outlive her. 

I have outlived the Costner-Bell and Parker-Rogers grandparents. I have outlived all the Costner-Stewart and Parker-Hill and Rogers-Glenn and Bell-Henderson great grandparents except Martha Izora Henderson Bell, but if I outlive my mother I will pass her grandmother Bell on the way.  

Not feeling very competitive right now but a little hopeful.

I have outlived a lot of family members. And younger friends such as Brian and Henry and Noel I think of every day and others I think of often.

A Cousin in Oklahoma describes how hard it is to get treated for Covid 19.

  "Had a hard time finding a hospital that could take him. . . .  All the hospitals seem to be full and have no beds for Covid patients.  He tried Weatherford, Oklahoma City, and Tulsa before he finally got admitted.  He happened to know a Doctor in Tulsa that he had used as a Cardiologist. . . ."

One of our Glenn cousins has died of Covid.

Shame on Kim Davis and Emily Murphy for what they have done to justify fat-shaming

 Psychologists are renewing study of how people who have no control of their own bodies tend to exert cruel control over others. That makes sense.

2020 One disaster after another. Now Vertigo.

2 days ago, bookshelves falling forward against me, skylight falling on me; yesterday, projectile vomiting and at the ER big clocks spinning spinning, would not stop spinning. Diagnosis, Vertigo. Today, feeling good, fell hard in small bathroom with no previous warning signs.

We were about to leave to see the great doctor who in April said, "I have only good news for you. You do not have lymphoma. You have Valley Fever." So we lost him as the man in charge and we were handed off to the infectious disease doctor. Now, after the Blood Clot, we get back to the great doctor because he is both oncologist and hematologist. He does not like seemingly unrelated horrors following last horrors. He will find out what is wrong. 

Tomorrow, simple exercises to see if the Vertigo will respond and go away. Then strict treatment and blood work every 2 weeks to see if there is progress on the clot.

How much do we admire him? I wrote a comment on his site. When I described how I was working one-eyed to draft my book on family and race months ago he said he wanted a copy. I have done exciting and disturbing things on it since then, but today I brought him my last copy of MELVILLE BIOGRAPHY: AN INSIDE NARRATIVE because no more can be purchased and the reprints will not have the dust jacket.