The Wild Reed: July 2022

Saturday, July 30, 2022

“Queer Love Is My Divine Companion”

The Wild Reed’s 2022 Queer Appreciation series continues with my (ever-so-slightly) adapted version of “A Queer Take on Psalm 23” by Rev. M Jade Kaiser (formerly Barclay).

__________________________

Queer Love is my Divine Companion.
In Their company, I unfurl with delight.
They teach me to question the assumed and the rigid.
They lure me with eros, creative and extravagant.
They fill me with the spirit of uprising
and lead me in the ways of “no pride for some of us
without liberation for all of us.”*
Even as systems threaten and forces oppress,
I will forever Act Up; For Silence is Death
and in our holy provocation you are always with us.
You embrace us as chosen family – a comfort in our grief.
You celebrate all that nurtures our aliveness
in the presence of doctrines and policies that deaden.
You bless every trans body.
You declare sacred every sexuality.
Life overflows with possibilities for becoming.
Surely, the glory of the peculiar, the outcast,
the righteous freaks and the weirdos
will inspire me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell among the thresholds
where the Sacred Strange subverts every normalized terror
and the queers of all ilks fight for the right to grow old.

* This is a quote from Micah Bazant’s artpiece celebrating Marsha P. Johnson.

Above: At first glance this may seem a strange image to include in a post about queer love as divine companion. And yet I don’t believe one has to be sexually active and/or partnered with another to experience intimacy with the Divine Presence. Whenever we extend love and compassion to ourselves, including through comforting and pleasuring the body, we can experience an awareness of – and oneness with – the Soul’s Beloved, the loving and sustaining power of the universe. It is a wild and erotic power, one that resides deep within each one of us and all creation.

NEXT: Dyllón Burnside:
“For Me, the Term Queer Just Opens Up Space”

Related Off-site Link:
Psalm 23 As a Gay Love Letter – Deacon Grant (DeaconGrant.com, May 20, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• The Soul’s Beloved
• Meeting (and Embodying) the Lover God
• An Erotic Encounter With the Divine
• No Altar More Sacred
• Be In My Mind, Beloved One
• Your Peace Is With Me, Beloved One
• You Are My Goal, Beloved One
• Be Just In My Heart
• Beloved and Antlered
• Awakening the Wild Soul
• “Here I Am”
• Spirituality and the Gay Experience
• The Holy Pleasure of Intimacy
• Intimate Soliloquies
• Real Holiness
• The Many Manifestations of God’s Loving Embrace

Image 1: Subjects and photographer unknown.
Image 2: Anthony Mackie. (Source)
Image 3: “Queer Love Is Divine” by Nerdy Brown Kid.

Friday, July 29, 2022

Photo of the Day

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• O Breath of Summer
• Summer Garden
• In Summer Light
• Summer Blooms
• Summer Boy
• A Song of Summer
• Say Yes to the Light

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Thursday, July 28, 2022

Quote of the Day

If ever there was a time to stand for something bigger than ourselves, it’s now. We need a season of repair, an era of new beginnings, and a commitment to fundamental change. [All of this] will have to include inner as well as outer changes, or, in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., “quantitative shifts in our circumstances as well as qualitative changes in our souls.”

Years ago I used to go to Al Anon meetings, where I learned that there are times in life where we’re simply “sick and tired of being sick and tired.” And I would hear people say, “Get into the solution.” That, it seems to me, is where we are as a country. It’s so tempting to wallow in cynicism, desperation, anger, and hopelessness right now – but that is exactly what we must reject. We have a choice to make; to either be taken down by the undertow of current events, or make a commitment to ourselves that in whatever way possible we’ll be agents of change.
Sometimes we don’t exactly know how we’re going to do something but there’s a power in knowing that we’re committed to doing it. That’s how we need to see transforming the world right now. We don’t even need to know exactly how we’re going to do it. We just need to be receptive enough, and available enough – and in our better hours, courageous enough – to consistently show up for the task. The path unfolds when we are willing to walk it.

– Marianne Williamson
Excerpted from “On Recreating the World:
Musings On Inner and Outer Change”
Transform
July 28, 2022

Something to Think About . . .

Related Off-site Links:
The Official Website of Bayo Akomolafe.
When the Bones of Our Ancestors Speak to Us: A Fugitive Conversation With Bayo Akomolafe – Charlotte Du Cann (Resilience, October 28, 2021).
Is There a Solution for Climate Change? – Bayo Akomolafe (Science and Nonduality via YouTube, November 8, 2019).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Our Quiet Time
• Cultivating Stillness
• The Beauty and Challenge of Being Present in the Moment
• A Sacred Pause
• Aligning With the Living Light
• Mystical Participation
• I Need Do Nothing . . . I Am Open to the Living Light
• Returning the Mind to God
• Seven Principles for Living with Deep Intention
• Balancing the Fire
• Soul: The Connecting Force in Life
• Discerning and Embodying Sacred Presence in Times of Violence and Strife
• In the Garden of Spirituality – Thomas Crum
• Prayer of the Week – November 5, 2013
• May Balance and Harmony Be Your Aim
• The Most Sacred and Simple Mystery of All

Monday, July 25, 2022

Buffy Sainte-Marie: The Pope’s Apology Is “Just the Beginning”

Award-winning musician and activist is calling on
Pope Francis to rescind the Doctrine of Discovery

Earlier today Pope Francis issued a historic apology for the Roman Catholic Church’s cooperation with Canada’s “catastrophic” policy of Indigenous residential schools, saying the forced assimilation of Native peoples into Christian society destroyed their cultures, severed families, and marginalized generations.

“I am deeply sorry,” Francis said to applause from school survivors and Indigenous community members gathered at a former residential school south of Edmonton, Alberta. He called the school policy a “disastrous error” that was incompatible with the Gospel of Jesus and said that further investigation and healing needs to take place.

“I humbly beg forgiveness for the evil committed by so many Christians against the Indigenous peoples,” the Pope said.

The Associated Press reports that Francis’ words “went beyond his earlier apology for the ‘deplorable’ abuses committed by missionaries and instead took institutional responsibility for the church’s cooperation with Canada’s ‘catastrophic’ assimilation policy, which the country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission said amounted to a ‘cultural genocide.’”

Doctrine of Discovery

I was hoping that the coverage of today’s events in Canada would report that Francis had officially rescinded what’s known as the Doctrine of Discovery. Singer-songwriter, educator, and activist Buffy Sainte-Marie, for whom I have great admiration and respect, has long called for this action by the Pope.

In a June 21 CBC News article by Greg Hobbs, Buffy explains what exactly the Doctrine of Discovery is and why its dissolution would be so significant. Following is an excerpt from this article.

Songwriter, educator and human rights advocate Buffy Sainte-Marie says the Pope’s upcoming visit to Canada and expected apology for the church’s involvement in the residential school system won’t mean a thing if he doesn’t call for the dissolution of the Doctrine of Discovery.

“The apology is just the beginning, of course,” she said.

The doctrine is an international framework based on a series of decrees . . . called “papal bulls,” that were released in the 1400s and 1500s. This framework laid the legal and moral foundation for how Canada and other countries came to be colonized by European settlers.

As Sainte-Marie put it, “The Doctrine of Discovery essentially says it’s okay if you’re a [Christian] European explorer . . . to go anywhere in the world and either convert people and enslave [them], or you’ve got to kill them.”

As noted by the Assembly of First Nations, legal arguments relying on the Doctrine of Discovery continue to affect modern court rulings. As laid out in a 2018 document, the AFN says that doctrine is the root cause of multiple historical and ongoing injustices against Indigenous peoples.

Also last month, Buffy sat down with The National’s Adrienne Arsenault to discuss recent headlines related to Indigenous people, as well as her long career as an artist and activist.

Related Off-site Links:
In Canada, Pope Francis Tells Indigenous People He Is “Deeply Sorry” for Abusive Schools – Christopher White (National Catholic Reporter, July 25, 2022).
Iconic Canadian Singer-Songwriter Buffy Sainte-Marie Reminisces On An Eventful Eight Decades – Brad Wheeler (The Globe and Mail, February 19, 2021).
For Decades, Buffy Sainte-Marie Has Had to Navigate Systemic Barriers to Cultivate Her Art – Andrea Warner (The Globe and Mail, February 18, 2021).
Buffy Sainte-Marie: Truth, Justice, and Buffy’s Way – Benito Vila (PleaseKillMe.com, February 17, 2021)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Discusses What We Weren’t Ready For In 1988 – Glenn Sumi and Daryl Jung (Now, February 15, 2021).
Buffy the Truth Sayer: An Interview with Buffy Sainte-Marie – Mandy Nolan (The Echo, February 13, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Named As the Recipient of the Allan Slaight Humanitarian Spirit Award – Ian Courtney (Encore, February 14, 2020).
Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Authorized Biography Serves As a “Map Of Hope” – Scott Simon and Ian Stewart (NPR News, September 29, 2018).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Tells Her Life Story, Her Way – Sue Carter (The Star, September 29, 2018)
Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I Constantly Ask Myself, Where Are the Great Protest Songs of Today?” – Regina Leader-Post, (February 6, 2018).
Music as Medicine: Buffy Sainte-Marie Talks Politics, Sex Scandals and Her Brand New Album – Rosanna Deerchild (CBC Radio’s Unreserved, November 19, 2017)
Buffy Sainte-Marie Takes a Stand with Medicine Songs – ET Canada (November 30, 2017).
Buffy Sainte-Marie Makes Music for a New Generation of Activists – Tom Power (CBC Radio, November 17, 2017).
The Unbreakable Buffy Sainte-Marie: A Candid Conversation with the Resilient Songwriter and Activist – Whitney Phaneuf (Acoustic Guitar, January 18, 2017).
What Does Buffy Sainte-Marie Believe? – CBC Radio (December 30, 2016).

For The Wild Reed’s special series of posts leading-up to the November 10, 2017 release of Medicine Songs, see:
• For Acclaimed Songwriter, Activist and Humanitarian Buffy Sainte-Marie, the World is Always Ripening
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “I’m Creative Anywhere”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie Headlines SummerStage Festival in NYC’s Central Park
• Buffy Sainte-Marie, “One of the Best Performers Out Touring Today”
• The Music of Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Uprooting the Sources of Disenfranchisement”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie: “Things Do Change and Things Do Get Better”
• Buffy Sainte-Marie’s Medicine Songs

Saturday, July 23, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson: It’s Up to Us to Prove That Democracy Is Still a Viable Form of Government

This past Thursday saw the conclusion of the first part of the House Select Committee to investigate the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol. Thursday’s hearing focused on former President Donald Trump’s refusal to take action as his supporters attacked the Capitol.

As Democray Now! co-host Amy Goodman notes: “Lawmakers dissected the three-hour period on January 6 after Trump urged his supporters to march to the Capitol and ‘fight like hell.’ For 187 minutes, Trump refused to call off the mob or reach out to law enforcement or military leaders to try to stop the violence. Instead, Trump called Republican senators, urging them to stop the certification [of Joe Biden’s 2020 election win]. ‘For hours Donald Trump chose not to answer the pleas from Congress, from his own party and from all across our nation to do what his oath required,’ said Congressmember Liz Cheney, the committee’s vice chair.”

Goodman also reports the following.

During their eighth and final hearing until the fall, the January 6 House Select Committee aired new testimony from an anonymous national security official detailing how Mike Pence’s Secret Service agents feared for their lives during the breach of the Capitol. “There were calls to say goodbye to family members,” said the anonymous official. Despite knowledge of the growing mob, Trump decided to publish a tweet at 2:24 p.m. saying Mike Pence “lacked the courage” to stop the certification. The tweet poured “gasoline on the fire,” said Trump’s ex-deputy press secretary, Sarah Matthews, who testified live on Thursday. Meanwhile, Trump was still reaching out to Republican senators, including Senator Josh Hawley, who was seen in footage racing to safety just hours after he raised his fist to the massing mob.

It seems to me pretty clear that the testimonies and evidence presented during the hearings, mostly by Trump’s own former staffers and/or supporters, make for a damning indictment of Trump and his lackeys. Whether or not this will lead to criminal charges is yet to be determined. And, of course, as the opening cartoon by Gary Markstein reminds us, there are some Americans who, no matter what evidence is presented, remain very much part of the cult of Trump.

Heather Cox Richardson is a political historian and the author of How the South Won the Civil War: Oligarchy, Democracy, and the Continuing Fight for the Soul of America. She also regularly posts a dispatch on her Facebook page in which she “uses facts and history to make observations about contemporary American politics.”

In her latest dispatch, Heather provides a timely overview of the ongoing efforts of the Republican party, despite the findings of the January 6th House Select Committe, to establish minority rule in the U.S. Following is an excerpt.

__________________________

Thursday’s public hearing by the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol brought to its logical conclusion the story of Trump’s attempt to overturn our democracy. After four years of destroying democratic norms and gathering power into his own hands, the former president tried to overturn the will of the voters. Trump was attacking the fundamental concept on which this nation rests: that we have a right to consent to the government under which we live.

Far from rejecting the idea of minority rule after seeing where it led, Republican Party lawmakers have doubled down.

They have embraced the idea that state legislatures should dominate our political system, and so in 2021, at least 19 states passed 34 laws to restrict access to voting. On June 24, in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health decision, the Supreme Court said that the federal government did not have the power, under the Fourteenth Amendment, to protect the constitutional right to abortion, bringing the other rights that amendment protects into question. When Democrats set out to protect some of those rights through federal legislation, Republicans in Congress overwhelmingly voted to oppose such laws.

In the House, Republicans voted against federal protection of an individual’s right to choose whether to continue or end a pregnancy and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide abortion services: 209 Republicans voted no; 2 didn’t vote. That’s 99% of House Republicans.

They voted against the right to use contraception: 195 out of 209 Republicans voted no; 2 didn’t vote. That’s 96% of House Republicans.

They voted against marriage equality: 157 out of 204 Republicans voted no; 7 didn’t vote. That’s 77% of House Republicans.

They voted against a bill guaranteeing a woman’s right to travel across state lines to obtain abortion services: 205 out of 208 Republicans voted no; 3 didn’t vote. That’s 97% of House Republicans.

Sixty-two percent of Americans believe abortion should be legal. Seventy percent support gay marriage. More than 90% of Americans believe birth control should be legal. I can’t find polling on whether Americans support the idea of women being able to cross state lines without restrictions, but one would hope that concept is also popular. And yet, Republican lawmakers are comfortable standing firmly against the firm will of the people. The laws protecting these rights passed through the House thanks to overwhelming Democratic support but will have trouble getting past a Republican filibuster in the Senate.

When he took office, Democratic president Joe Biden recognized that his role in this moment was to prove that democracy is still a viable form of government.

Rising autocrats have declared democracy obsolete. They argue that popular government is too slow to respond to the rapid pace of the modern world, or that liberal democracy’s focus on individual rights undermines the traditional values that hold societies together, values like religion and ethnic or racial similarities. Hungarian president Viktor Orbán, whom the [extreme] right supports so enthusiastically that he is speaking on August 4 in Texas at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), has called for replacing liberal democracy with “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy,” which will explicitly not treat everyone equally and will rest power in a single political party.

. . . Love or hate what Biden has done, he has managed to pull a wide range of countries together to stand against Russian president Vladimir Putin’s authoritarian attack in Ukraine, and he has managed get through a terribly divided Congress laws to make the lives of the majority better, even while Republicans are rejecting the idea that the government should reflect the will of the majority. That is no small feat.

Whether it will be enough to prove that democracy is still a viable form of government is up to us.

– Heather Cox Richardson
via Facebook
July 23, 2022

Thursday, July 21, 2022

Quote of the Day

Incremental change can never develop the transformation which is required in situations like this. . . . It just does not deliver. The only thing that delivers quickly and effectively is system change.

And while we have been messing about with these ridiculous micro-solutions, the [extreme] right has instituted a global insurgency and has achieved system change. It’s tearing down democracy. It’s tearing down equality before the law. It’s tearing down basic human rights, tearing down regulations, tearing down tax, ripping down everything and changing the system to suit billionaires, to suit oligarchs, to suit predatory corporations. While we’ve been saying, “Oh, yes, we’re worried about asking for too much,” they’ve said, “We’re going to have the lot.” And they’re succeeding.

So, what [the extreme right has proved] is that you can do system change. Unfortunately, [they’ve proved] it in all the most horrible ways. And our timidity, our failure to demand [another form of] system change has been a big part of the reason why we are stuck where we are and why there’s been almost no effective measures to address this greatest of all crises.

– George Monbiot
Excerpted from "Paper Straws Are Not Enough.
Only ‘System Change’ Can Halt Climate Crisis"
Democracy Now!
July 21, 2022

Wednesday, July 20, 2022

“It Is in Our Hands”

Half of humanity is in the danger zone from floods, droughts, extreme storms and wildfires. No nation is immune. Yet we continue to feed our fossil fuel addiction.

. . . What troubles me most is that, in facing this global crisis, we are failing to work together as a multilateral community. Nations continue to play the blame game instead of taking responsibility for our collective future. We cannot continue this way. We have a choice. Collective action or collective suicide. It is in our hands.

– António Guterres
Quoted in Fiona Harvey’s article,
“Humanity Faces ‘Collective Suicide’
Over Climate Crisis, Warns UN Chief”
The Guardian
July 18, 2022

Related Off-site Links:
A 117 Degree Day in Portugal: Record-breaking Heat Waves Hit Europe – Lee Yaron (Haaretz, July 18, 2022).
European Heatwave Death Toll Soars Above 1,500 as Temperatures Soar Across Continent – ABC News) July 19, 2022).
Bill McKibben: Record Heat Wave in Europe Is Latest Warning That Action on Climate Can’t Wait – Democracy Now!) July 18, 2022).
Disappointed by Climate Speech, Activists Say People Are Dying “While Biden Dithers” – Jessica Corbett (Common Dreams, July 20, 2022).
Rallies Held Across U.S. for “Climate, Care, Jobs, and Justice” – Kenny Stancil (Common Dreams, April 23, 2022).
Climate Emergency! – Marianne Williamson in Conversation With Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus – Transform (via YouTube), April 22, 2022.
Activists Blockade Corporate Newspapers Over Inadequate Climate Coverage – Jake Johnson (Common Dreams, April 22, 2022).
We Can’t Solve the Climate Crisis With a Broken Democracy – Mark Hertsgaard (The Guardian, January 10, 2022).

UPDATES: “It’s Already Happening”: Ugandan Activist Vanessa Nakate on Deadly Climate Crisis in Africa – Democracy Now!) July 21, 2022).
Paper Straws Are Not Enough. Only “System Change” Can Halt Climate Crisis, Says George Monbiot – Democracy Now!) July 21, 2022).
Thousands Evacuated Over Wildfire Near Yosemite as California Governor Declares Emergency – Associated Press via The Guardian (July 23, 2022).
Greenland Loses 6 Billion Tons of Ice in 3 Days, Harbinger of Unprecedented Coastal Flooding – Juan Cole (Common Dreams, July 24, 2022).
The World Burns and the Richest Profit. It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way – Adam Ramsay (Common Dreams, July 24, 2022).
Climate Endgame: Risk of Human Extinction “Dangerously Underexplored” – Damian Carrington (The Guardian, August 1, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Declaration of Interdependence
• For Earth Day 2022
• Biophilia, the God Pan, and a Baboon Named Scott
• Bernie Sanders: Quote of the Day – July 1, 2021
• The Stakes Have Shifted
• Examining the Link Between Destruction of Biodiversity and Emerging Infectious Diseases
• The Landscape Is a Mirror
• Something to Think About – February 10, 2020
• In Australia, “the Land As We Know It Is No More”
• Greta Thunberg: Quote of the Day – September 23, 2019
• Five Powerful Responses to the Amazon Fires
• Greta Thunberg: Quote of the Day – March 16, 2019
• As the World Burns, Calls for a “Green New Deal”
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – August 29, 2017
• The People’s Climate Solidarity March – Minneapolis, 4/29/17
• “It Is All Connected”
• Standing Together
• Standing in Prayer and Solidarity with the Water Protectors of Standing Rock
• The Paris Climate Talks, Multilateralism, and a “New Approach to Climate Action”
• Earth Day 2015
• Thomas Berry (1914-2009)
• Rachel Smolker: Quote of the Day – September 19, 2014
• Earth Day 2013
• Superstorm Sandy: A “Wake-Up Call” on Climate Change
• Chris Hedges: Quote of the Day – May 31, 2011

Image: A still from a video by Eusebio Pazos Gullón showing firefighters hydrating a roe deer during the wildfires raging in Spain.

Monday, July 18, 2022

“He Deserved to Live; He Deserved a Chance to Heal”

In my neighborhood last Wednesday night, just a few blocks from my home, 20-year-old Tekle Sundberg experienced a mental health crisis and began shooting a gun in his apartment. Because some of the shots he fired went through his apartmemt walls, Tekle’s actions endangered his fellow residents, including children.

I was on the nearby Franklin Ave. Bridge with my friend and neighbor Kurt at the time Tekle started shooting. We were with others watching the Buck Moon begin its majestic rise above the Mississippi River. Our quiet summer evening was suddenly shattered by the wail of multiple police car sirens and the persistent drone of a helicopter overhead.

Tekle’s apartment complex was quickly evacuated and a tense stand-off with police began. Tekle’s parents arrived but were told by police that they could not attempt to approach or speak face-to-face with their son. Hours passed. Then at 4:30 a.m on Thursday, Tekle was shot dead in his apartment by two police snipers positioned on a nearby roof.

“We know Tekle is an imperfect human, as we’re all imperfect humans,” said Cindy Sundberg, Tekle’s mother. “He did not deserve to be picked off like an animal from a rooftop.”

No, he didn’t.

Following is a 4-minute interview with Tekle’s parents and siblings. A number of hard truths about the state of American society as it pertains to Black lives and Black bodies are laid bare in this interview. I think you’ll find that watching it will be the most powerful, informative, and heartwrenching four minutes you’ll spend today.

Related Off-site Links:
Parents of Tekle Sundberg in the Dark Over His Killing by Police – Adam Uren (Bring Me the News, July 15, 2022).
Family Calls for Release of Video of Police Shooting of Tekle Sundberg – MPR News (July 17, 2022).
During Rally for Tekle Sundberg, Neighbor Expresses Frustration That He Shot Into Her Apartment – KARE 11 News (July 18, 2022).

Related Wild Reed posts:
• Remembering Philando Castile and Demanding Abolition of the System That Targets and Kills People of Color
• Nancy A. Heitzeg: Quote of the Day – March 31, 2016
• “This Has Got to Stop”

See also the previous chronilogically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
• Rallying in Solidarity with Eric Garner and Other Victims of Police Brutality
• In Minneapolis, Rallying in Solidarity with Black Lives in Baltimore
• “Say Her Name” Solidarity Action for Sandra Bland
• “We Are All One” – #Justice4Jamar and the 4th Precinct Occupation
• Something to Think About – March 25, 2016
• “This Doesn't Happen to White People”
• “I Can’t Breathe”: The Murder of George Floyd
• He Called Mama. He Has Called Up Great Power
• Honoring George Floyd
• “New and Very Dangerous”: The Extreme Right-Wing Infiltration of the George Floyd Protests
• Mayor Melvin Carter: “The Anger Is Real, and I Share It With You”
• Marianne Williamson: Quote of the Day – June 2, 2020
• Trevor Noah on the “Dominoes of Racial Injustice”
• Emma Jordan-Simpson: “There Will Be No Peace Without Justice”
• Out and About – Spring 2020
• The Language of the Oppressor
• A Very Intentional First Day of the Year
• The Problem Is Ultimately Bigger Than Individuals. It’s Systemic
• Minnesota Governor Tim Walz: “We Need to Make Systemic Changes”
• “Let This Be a Turning Point”
• “And Still and All, It Continues”
• Remembering George Floyd on the First Anniversary of His Murder
• “An Abolitionist Demand”: Progressive Perspectives on Transforming Policing in the U.S.
• Hamilton Nolan: Quote of the Day – August 3, 2021
• Love, Justice, and Amir Locke

Sunday, July 17, 2022

Yes, the Children Too

It’s the 104th anniversary of the murder of the Romanov family – Tsar Nicholas II, Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodovnora, Tsarevich Alexei, and Grand Duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia.

The seven members of Russia’s last Imperial family were shot and bayoneted to death by their Bolshevik captors in the cellar of the “House of Special Purpose” in Ekaterinburg in the early hours of July 17, 1918.

Also murdered were four members of the Romanov household – lady-in-waiting Anna Demidova, footman Alexei Trupp, cook Ivan Kharitonov, and court physician, Eugene Botkin.

As I’ve noted previously, I’ve long been fascinated by the Romanovs and their tragic story. In marking this year’s anniversary of their deaths, I share an excerpt from the most recent addition to my collection of Romanov-related books, Helen Rappaport’s The Race to Save the Romanovs: The Truth Behind the Secret Plans to Rescue the Russian Imperial Family.

______________________

[In March 1917] the old tsarist government – the State Duma – fell, and Nicholas was prevailed upon to abdicate. Now prisoners of the new Russian Provisional Government, the Romanov family were held under house arrest, first at [their home] the Alexander Palace from March to July 1917, then transferred to Tobolsk [in Siberia] from August to April 1918, and finally [after the October Revolution] to the House of Special Purpose in Ekaterinburg.

It was here, in the centre of the Urals mining industry in Western Siberia, during the last ninety-eight days of their lives, that the Romanovs finally began to sense an ominous change in the atmosphere. Until then they had endured the monotony of their captivity with a combination of intense boredom and calm resignation. But, for the Bolshevik Revolution, the endgame was in sight; and that meant one thing: a brutal and vindictive act of retribution would be carried out against the entire Imperial Family. Nicholas and Alexandra must have sensed that sooner or later the revolution might take its revenge on them. But the children too?

Above: An unknown artist’s depiction of the Romanovs and their retainers moments before their execution in a cellar room of the Ipatiev House. There are two errors in this depiction. First, the Empress and all four Grand Duchesses were dressed in simple white blouses and dark skirts (as shown in the opening image of this post). Second, Alexei was unable to stand or walk at the time of his death, due to his haemophilia. He was actually sitting on one of two chairs that had been brought into the room. His mother, who suffered from sciatica, was sitting on the other.

The violent deaths of those seven royal victims, along with their doctor and three loyal servants, although horrific to us now, were soon forgotten at the time. They were rapidly swallowed up in a much more hideous catalogue of savage fighting and murder that saw eleven million Russians die during the years of upheaval and civil war of 1917-1922.

Yet despite this, for some people the Romanov family will always represent, historically, the symbolic first victims of the new, Soviet regime and a system that would go on to kill even more millions in the decades of Stalinist repression that followed. . . . But ultimately, it is the murder of innocent children that horrifies us the most.

– Helen Rappaport
Excerpted from The Race to Save the Romanovs
St. Martin's Press, 2018
pp. 3-4

Above: The children of Nicholas and Alexandra, photographed in 1913. From left: Olga, Maria, Anastasia, Alexei, and Tatiana.

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Remembering the Romanovs
• Remembering Olga Nikolaevna and Her Sisters
• The Tragedy of the Romanovs, 100 Years On

Related Off-site Links:
The Legacy of the Romanovs: How Is the Last Russian Royal Family Remembered in Russia? – Helen Rappaport (HistoryExtra.com, July 16, 2018).
DNA Analysis Confirms Authenticity of Romanovs’ Remains – Brigit Katz (Smithsonian Magazine, July 17, 2018).
Inside the Romanov Family's Final Days – Caroline Hallemann (Town and Country, July 1, 2018).
The Race to Save the Romanovs and How It Fell Apart – Bob Ruggiero (Houston Press, July 11, 2018).
How the Royal Houses of Europe Abandoned the Romanovs – Helen Rappaport (The Economist, June 28, 2018).

Saturday, July 16, 2022

Skylight View of the Buck Moon

Related Off-site Links:
July’s Buck Moon Will Light Up the Sky This Week – Rachel Fadem and Ashley Strickland (CNN News, July 12, 2022).
Why July’s Full Moon Is Known as the Buck Moon – Valerie Stimac (How Stuff Works, July 13, 2022).
A Buck Supermoon Rose on Wednesday. Here’s What It Looked Like Around the World – Wynne Davis (NPR News, July 14, 2022).

See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
• Flower Moon Rising
• Thomas Moore on the Circling of Nature as the Best Way to Find Our Substance
• Moon Over Minneapolis

Image: Michael J. Bayly.

Thursday, July 14, 2022

Quote of the Day

Yes, [Democratic] Senators Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema team up with Republicans to stymie vital measures. But [President Joe Biden’s] refusal to issue executive orders that could enact such popular measures as canceling student debt and many other policies has been part of a derelict approach as national crises deepen. Recent events have dramatized the downward Biden spiral.

Biden’s slow and anemic response to the Supreme Court’s long-expected Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade spotlighted the magnitude of the stakes and the failure. The grim outlook has been underscored by arrogance toward progressive activists. Consider this statement from White House communications director Kate Bedingfield last weekend as she reacted to wide criticism: “Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign.”

The traditional response to such arrogance from the White House toward the incumbent’s party base is to grin – or, more likely, grimace – and bear it. But that’s a serious error for concerned individuals and organizations. Serving as enablers to bad policies and bad politics is hardly wise.

Polling released by the New York Times on Monday highlighted that most of Biden’s own party doesn’t want him to run for re-election, “with 64 percent of Democratic voters saying they would prefer a new standard-bearer in the 2024 presidential campaign." And, "only 26 percent of Democratic voters said the party should renominate him.”

A former ambassador to Portugal who was appointed by President Obama, Allan Katz, has made a strong case for Biden to announce now that he won’t run for re-election. Writing for Newsweek under the headline “President Biden: I’m Begging You – Don’t Run in 2024. Our Country Needs You to Stand Down,” Katz contended that such an announcement from Biden would remove an albatross from the necks of Democrats facing tough elections in the midterms.

In short, to defeat as many Republicans as possible this fall, Biden should be seen as a one-term president who will not seek the Democratic nomination in 2024. . . . A pledge to voluntarily retire at the end of his first term would boost the Democratic Party’s chances of getting a stronger and more progressive ticket in 2024 — and would convey in the meantime that Democratic candidates and the Biden presidency are not one and the same.

– Norman Solomon
Excerpted from “The Nation Needs You, Mr. President,
So Please Don’t Run in 2024”
Common Dreams
July 14, 2022