I’m giving myself a folk music break and listening to classical music while I write this. I’ve been trying to listen to as much new to me folk music as I can to find material for Gord’s Gold. The problem is that Ted Sturgeon was right, 90% of everything is crud. I often have the music playing in the background while I write. I’m doing that now with classical on WQXR. I can do also do it with albums I enjoy, to find tracks that jump out of me. The problem is with the crud. I really need to sample the songs and go, “next!” I can’t do that while I write. I’ve been listening to a motherload of old CDs that I got at NERFA and never got around to listen to. I separated out the ones I have reason to think I’ll like. There are a few treasures in there from artists I loved and whose CDs just got lost in the shuffle. I found one that I had listened to and loved but then lost the digital files to. I reripped it so now I can play it. It’s amazing how much time an hour radio show where I only speak for five minutes, takes to get ready. I need economy of scale. If I had a three hour show I’d have to spend no more time listening to music. Gord’s Gold is taking over my blog.
Gord’s Gold is even the name of my new Fantasy Baseball Team. Your beloved Nashional Batnoses are no more. Our old league fractured over politics. That’s not true, it fractured over bigotry. Bigotry isn’t politics. How to combat bigotry is a legitimate political debate, just as combating crime is a legitimate political debate. Bigotry like crime is an evil. Someone in the league gets his dog’s attention by saying “Heil Hitler.” He thinks that’s funny. Half the league has no problem with that. They buy into the 2020 election being stolen. They live in fear of people of color and Muslims. Those of us that would have no part of that have seceded. Strangely that makes us akin to the Confederacy, even though the rest of the league that shares the Confederacy’s values. Our new league took the idea of being the rebels in a different direction, the league is the Rebel Alliance. Thanks to Folk Alliance I use the word “alliance” often, just I’m never sure if there is one “l” or two. I know that’s off the topic, but I always like to acknowledge my personal quirks here. But back to the point, put your Nashional Batnoses gear in storage, they are now collectibles, and make sure to buy the all new Gord’s Gold line. Notice it’s not Gord’s Golds. There is no s in the team’s name. You can call them The Gold for short.
We in the Rebel Alliance miss our onetime leaguemates. They were our friends. We spent over 30 years together, half my life. The secession very much goes against my basic philosophy, that we shouldn’t separate ourselves from those we disagree with. This has a corrosive effect on the body politic. Losing an election is seen as an existential threat. This attitude is most clearly seen in the reaction to Trump losing the election. His partisans were ready to use force to overturn it. Keeping in touch with those on the other side of the divide let’s us see each other as humans, a mixture of faults and virtues, in separation we lose the virtues. The “Heil Hitler” is what put that element of the league beyond the pale. That doesn’t make it the morally right thing to do. It makes it selfcare on my part. I have friends that say they will not maintain a friendship with anyone that supports Trump. If they feel they need to do so for their mental health, I won’t judge, nobody can judge that for another. What I fear is that some people think of it as declaration of virtue. In this and other ways the left-right struggle is asymmetric. Accepting the faults and fallibility is a progressive value. We are not Puritans. We can’t lose sight of that.
The asymmetry looms huge is governing and making legislation. The guiding principle of the Right is Reagan’s “The government is the problem, not the solution.” When the Republicans as a block refuse to cooperate with a Democratic president it creates gridlock. The Republicans are happy with that. They are getting just what they want, do nothing government. Republicans in congress won’t give a Democratic president a victory even if it benefits their constituents. It’s more important to not give a victory to the Democrat. Democrats voted with Republicans for pandemic relief when Trump was in office. Not one Republican would cross the line to vote with Biden.
Some on the Left want to emulate the Right’s tactics, but they shouldn’t. Those are anti-progressive tactics. That’s the type of compromise to avoid, compromising with morality. For now, the Democrats will try to pass major legislation by the narrowest of margins as they should. It’s the only choice they have. But we can’t let this become a permanent situation. A democracy cannot be maintained when each side sees the other as illegitimate. We can’t wave our hands and make believe this isn’t the current state of affairs. We have to do something that will in time allow the rift to heal. I’m trying hard to not make gratuitous attacks. I won’t do the progressive version of “own the libs;” “own the cons?” Beyond that the only thing I can do is try to maintain as many ties as I can so that Republicans can see that progressives aren’t evil people with nefarious plans for global domination. That requires me as seeing them as fully formed humans’ beings with both virtues and vices too.
Now on to something important, food. I made the best mac & cheese I’ve attempted yet yesterday. First I stopped using the prepackaged boxes. Part of me still misses that I can make several meals out of a box that costs 49¢. There are health issues with it and of course it doesn’t taste as good as homemade. I had been making it with shredded cheese that I buy regularly for use in omelets. There seems to be universal agreement that it should not be used for mac & cheese as they coat the shreds, so they don’t clump. Yesterday I took out the cheese grater and shred it myself. I used to do that for omelets too, then I got lazy. But that’s not the only change I made. I used pepper jack cheese. I was a little wary of that, would jalapenos work in mac & cheese. It does! Give it a try. It’s far more labor intensive than pouring it out of a box but it’s worth it. I had it with leftover pork tenderloin, a barbecue dinner. I supplemented it with a piece of Aldi Stone Oven Baked Artisan Flatbread.
It’s Tuesday, you know what that means, you should listen to Gord’s Gold tonight at 11 PM EDT on Folk Music Notebook.
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Wise Madness 