Post to the Host
Comments from the week of July 2
GK,
I wrote a year or so back and you replied in your Post column that I was funny. That was the high point in my comedic career, so I’m trying again:
“Make Love, Not War” was a sensible slogan for the ’60s, though I don’t recall being a beneficiary of the first part often enough. Today we need something to dissuade the politicians and pundits from the unrelenting promotion of division and discord and the vilification of civility and tolerance; to foster calm discussions and some basic face-to-face sharing. “Screen time” has morphed to “scream time.” And us old folks need some personal reminders to stay in touch while minding our own, increasingly voluminous, nonverbal pronouncements. So, I give you “Break Bread, Not Wind.”
Ed Dale
Vermont
Young people, Ed, will be amused to hear an old fart recommend against breaking wind. Just saying. How about “Make America Intelligent Again”? GK
Garrison,
In today’s column, you mentioned in passing that it was nice to see President Biden hugging his dog and grandchildren. However, Joe has opened the door on the subject of his grandchildren by publicly saying that he has six of them, and that he talks to each one of them each day. As we all know, Joe in fact has seven grandchildren, the seventh being a daughter of Hunter Biden. The girl’s mother was not Hunter’s wife, but that is no fault of the child. She has as much Biden genetic code in her as any of Joe’s acknowledged six grandkids. Could you possibly imagine yourself turning your back so cruelly on one of your own family, your descendent, no matter how inconvenient their existence? I am not a Catholic, but I can hardly believe that Joe is being a good practitioner of his faith.
Coleman Hood
Bishop, Georgia
According to what I read, the little girl’s mother and Hunter Biden, the father, have recently reached a settlement about child support, which avoided putting the child through a trial. The girl was conceived, according to the father, when he was addicted to crack cocaine and he has no recollection of the encounter. He has paid, he says, about $750,000 in child support though he has never met the child. She knows that her paternal grandfather is president of the United States and is proud of the fact. It’s a difficult situation, for sure, and it’s complicated by the focus of right-wing media on Hunter Biden — “anger looking for an argument,” as someone put it — and the child’s mother is doing her best to protect the girl from the publicity. Of course the president must want to meet the girl but he also has to be careful not to expose her to the wolves and coyotes of the media and internet. She is four years old, for goodness’ sake. This is not a political issue, so let the two families figure it out. GK
Garrison,
I loved your piece on visiting Thoreau’s gravesite at Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord; I made the pilgrimage myself some years ago. But you didn’t mention the pencils. When I visited, people had stuck many pencils in the ground around the headstone, a testament to his work in his family’s pencil factory before he got to pontificating in Walden (about which I rather agree, especially in the last chapter, though I generally enjoy his observations). Your comment about his grave being marked with a stone “the size of a pencil box” being particularly apt, I was wondering if the pencil thing is still a thing there. And thanks for reminding me of his journals.
Jim M.
I didn’t step into the Thoreau family plot and wasn’t on the lookout for pencils but I don’t think Henry would’ve approved of wasting pencils like that. It almost makes me want to pick up a pencil again. I went over to roller-ball pens years ago and never went back to graphite. My neighborhood stationery store has a good selection of pencils and next time I go by, I’m going to try some out. GK
Sorry to be pedantic but the dog in question is a Bernese mountain dog (Switzerland, Alps, etc.), not a mountain dog from tropical Burma. Yes, yes, it’s now Myanmar. This in no way interfered with such a refreshing view of H.D. Thoreau.
Thank you for listening,
Caren Rounthwaite
You’re right, of course. I guess the owner of the dog in question mumbled the word when I asked what breed it was. So now I’m wondering what the origin of “Burma-Shave” is. GK
Garrison,
Nice essay, but you met a BERNESE mountain dog, as in Bern, Switzerland.
There’s very little use for big, hairy herding dogs in the steaming jungles of Burma.
Doug
The thought of all that heavy hair in the tropics is painful, indeed. GK
GK,
Your I Won’t Be Playing Golf piece seems very confused. You don’t like Trump, or the way he does business, or the low pay of migrant workers in extreme heat, and the ethics issues involved in these business deals. And you think this is why vicious gangs are roaming the streets?
You think that crooks should be afraid of cops, but you will still vote for Democrats, who believe that crooks (if their skin has a high melanin content), must, in the name of social justice, not be punished for their crimes, and have insured that cops are too afraid to intervene in crimes perpetrated by the dark-skinned because their lives will then be ruined. This has nothing to do with Donald Trump.
I’ve never found a bit of confusion in your writings that are nonpolitical, only pure delight. I respectfully recommend that you work on not thinking about Trump.
I wish you well!
Elisa DeBoer
I wish you well too and I work hard on not thinking about him but there he is, commanding attention more or less continually. Policing is an issue for many cities and the simple answer is: training good cops and paying them what they’re worth. The point I made was fairly simple: if the billionaires are above the law, then you can’t expect the peons and peasants to respect it. You can disagree with that but it’s not confusion on my part. GK
Hello, GK.
I enjoyed your commentary on Henry, but respectfully disagree. Quite possibly, Henry may have partnered with the wrong mate and wound up a miserable scoundrel who only sought refuge in the forest as a way to avoid her nagging. I’m not a pessimist, just a realist. Life is a coin toss. We’ve all made mistakes in our dating years, haven’t we? Just sayin’...
Carl Arrechea
I think Henry obsessed about plants and birds as a distraction from his own desperate loneliness. If he’d found a good woman to converse with instead of talking to himself, he’d have been a better writer. Look at his poems: unreadable. GK
My dear Garrison,
It isn’t your fault that all your readers feel you are a good friend. Well, yes, it is. Never mind.
When you scoff at “defund the police” you forget several things:
1. British police do NOT carry guns.
2. When people talk about defunding, they really mean “redirecting” (re-educating). U.S. police need to be trained to be guardians, not warriors.
When police officers shoot a man running away from them (in the back), they need to be asked: “Were you protecting and guarding this person? You took an oath to guard people.” and number two: “Were you afraid that this person running away from you was threatening your own life?”
Yup, this terrible criminal who ran a red light just might get away … (the end of civilization). Our police have been empowered to murder, NOT protect us.
Thank you for everything. You are much loved.
Susan H. Liang
I respectfully disagree about disarming police. The defunders should not use the word if it’s not what they mean: yes, the answer is training. Also sensible gun control. Recently in Minnesota there was a heartbreaking incident of a fentanyl dealer driving 95 in a 55 zone and crashing into a car and killing five young women who’d been preparing for a friend’s wedding. The dealer was armed. He was not being chased by cops, was probably high on his own goods. There are dangerous people out there and the community needs trained guardians to protect us. GK
Garrison,
Look where being a hunter got Dick Cheney. Cost him the presidency.
Sincerely,
Jo Schaper
I didn’t know he was interested in being president: he owned Mr. Bush 2; he already had the presidency. GK
Good morning, Garrison Keillor.
I enjoyed your recent performance in Annapolis, Maryland, but did not spot your entourage. At the Library of Congress National Book Festival more than ten years ago I heard you state that retirement is a slippery slope, and I was so pleased to learn firsthand in Annapolis that you continue to have a firm foothold in doing what you love and share the mirth.
Gerald Lorentz
It was just me and Sam the Manager in Annapolis. A lovely evening. I wrote a column about it, coming next week. GK
GK,
On page 36 of Cheerfulness you say authoritarianism is raising its “horny” head. Did you mean “hoary?” I think it might work both ways though!
Great book so far and waiting for you in Madison, Wisconsin.
Glen Karlov
I meant “horny,” as in a snapping turtle or a Gila monster or a crustacean. GK
Garrison Keillor may be coming to a city near you! CLICK HERE to see his upcoming shows in July, August and September.
So let’s all simply agree, once and for all:
1) Hunter Biden is unfit for public office
and
2) None of us will ever vote for him again.
Good morning Garrison
Two brief points about “Defunding the Police”:
1) As noted, the primary intention behind the term is, and always has been, to _redistribute_ the funding in more appropriate ways[*].
2) But you’re certainty correct that the name, as given, is --at least-- idiotic[**]. But, of course, it would certainly not be the first time that the left (to the extent that this is an issue of the left) has shot itself in the foot when trying to present an otherwise good idea.
[* A standard example being that when dealing with, for example, what is clearly a mental health issue, to rearrange things so that instead of sending only already overworked/over-stressed/undertrained armed police officers, there should also be more appropriately trained professionals to deal with the situation. A point virtually every police professional I’ve discussed this with has agreed.]
[** Leaving its proponents open to nonsense charges, like the one popular in my neck of the woods, that “These people are trying to get rid of your 911!!”]