Thursday, December 31, 2020

Shearing Sheep, and Hewing to Tradition, on an Island in Maine - The New York Times







Shearing Sheep, and Hewing to Tradition, on an Island in Maine - The New York Times




Maine was once a land of shepherds. Its islands and coastal communities were dotted with the fleeced bodies of sheep, its shrubs and trees grazed into oblivion. Historical photos show wide expanses of pasture that have now become thick with forests and houses.

Back then, there were more families like the Wakemans, who raised their own animals and grew their own food, who gathered people together to share both their work and a meal, who used dark humor and whispered their thanks on the days when animals gave up their wool or became food.









Wednesday, December 30, 2020

President Higgins and Sabina host New Year's Eve performance | President of Ireland

President Higgins and Sabina host New Year's Eve performance | President of Ireland: As a gesture to all those who have died, or who have lost a loved-one during the past year, President Michael Higgins and Sabina have invited Dan McCabe to perform The Parting Glass.
Thursday December 31  18:00 GMT  (EST = GMT - 5)

The Jolie Brise

Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Cry No More - Rhiannon Giddens //Video

 The move to zoom has impelled new modes of expression.  Rhiannon Giddens has shown us a new form of choral singing.


Friday, December 25, 2020

America's Cup AC 75s -First Impressions from a Sail Designer | North Sails





First Impressions from a Sail Designer | North Sails
North Sails is the world's largest sailmaker.  Innovators in design they produce winners at every level of sailing.
This video from a North Sails designer demonstrates sail design and has some good visuals.
When I was a kid I read Scientific Sailboat Racing by Ted Wells.  As you can see from the cover he was a small boat sailor - a champion in the 15' Snipe class.  Like my boat. He was a lake sailor - from Topeka, of all places.  But a sailboat's principles are the same - large or small, lake, river, or sea.  That commonality is the fundamentally similar principles of fluid and aerodynamics.

I came to understand a sailboat as an airplane turned on its side, one wing in the water and the other in the air.  Air and water work basically the same - both employ aerodynamic lift. 

In a sailboat it's the wing that provides drive.  The centerboard/daggerboard or keel prevent sliding, converting transferring the pressure of aerodynamic lift into forward drive.  That principle is behind the hydrofoiling America's Cup boats.  In the video you will see that there is an `airplane' at the end of a long arm.  The `wings'  provide both lift (bringing the hull out of the water) and lateral stability.  

The sail is a molded wing which provides aerodynamic lift which drives the boat forward.

Rachel Carson Salt Pond - // Courier-Gazette - Camden Herald





Rachel Carson Salt Pond - By Charles H. Lagerbom - Rockland - Camden - Knox - Courier-Gazette - Camden Herald
By Charles Lagerbom

A favorite local dive site in Midcoast Maine is Rachel Carson Salt Pond, just out of New Harbor. It is part of the Rachel Carson Salt Pond Preserve, a 78-acre parcel of land mostly on the north side of Route 32 on the way to the Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.

The pond and preserve were named for famous conservationist Rachel Carson, whose 1962 book about pesticide use entitled Silent Spring, helped prompt a ban on use of DDT. But Carson’s connection with Maine went farther back. In 1953, she built a summer cottage on the Maine coast at Southport Island. She was a co-founder of the Nature Conservancy of Maine. After her death in 1964, her ashes were scattered along Cape Newagen at Southport.

As a marine biologist, Carson often visited an intertidal shoreline on Route 32, just outside of New Harbor, where a salt pond appears at low tide. Taking samples and recording her findings, she often sat through entire tidal cycles. Her studies formed a good portion of her third book, 1955’s The Edge of the Sea.

As an intertidal shoreline, the pond disappears at high tide, only to re-emerge at low. At extreme low tide, the salt pond is a quarter acre in size. It was donated in 1966 to the Maine chapter of the Nature Conservancy by sisters Helen Williams, Elizabeth Gardner and Anne Hinners, and then dedicated to Rachel Carson in 1970.

Coming down Route 1 from the Belfast area, I hang a left shortly after Moody’s Diner onto Route 32. The drive is a pleasant tour through typical Midcoast scenery, down through Bremen around Webber Pond, then through Muscongus and Round Pond then Chamberlain.

At the pond, there is parking along the shore side of Route 32, but one still needs to be alert about traffic as you gear up on the side of the road. Access to the cobble beach is along a row of trees and rose-bayberry shrubs, which partially screen the view of the pond. A few granite steps and an iron railing help you down to the cobble beach.

Rachel Carson wrote of periwinkles at the pond. There are three species: the rough (Littorina saxatalis), common (Littorina littorina) and smooth (Littorina obtusata). Roughs live on the highest driest rocks, commons are only underwater at high tide and smooths stay completely submerged.

Preying on them are carnivorous snails called Dogwinkles (Thais lapillus). They are there in profusion also and worth a looksee in and of themselves. My last dive there, a woman was filling buckets full of every kind of winkle, both peri- and dog-. After a seven minute boil with a little salt, they make a tasty treat, easily removed from their shell with a toothpick and dipped in garlic butter.

Rachel Carson Salt Pond is interesting, especially these periwinkles and dogwinkles, but scuba divers tend to arrive after the place has slowly refilled with the incoming tide. Divers use the pond as a gateway to the area just beyond, a dive location that is one of the prettier dive sites in the entire Midcoast Maine region.

We usually travel the 1.5-hour trip down from Penobscot Bay and meet divers coming up from Portland, it is that much of a desired dive destination for divers from around the state. Others come from Bangor and Ellsworth; one diver who joined us came from New Hampshire.

Why the interest? The dive site offers a little bit of everything. It involves a series of shelves that descend downward like a grand staircase to a depth of about 85 fsw (feet of sea water), which leads to a sandy/mud bottom. Abundant marine life can be found on every ‘step’ so divers can go as deep or stay as shallow as they want, neither choice disappoints.

To enter, you work your way out along the right side of the pond, so as to avoid the rocks which form its outer perimeter. These are seaweed covered and barely underwater even at high tide, making them difficult to traverse especially at the end of a dive.

In fact, my last dive there, we exited over those rocks rather than back through the more open end on the far side. It was not pretty as we emerged in an ungainly manner crawling, slipping and sliding (all with wet, heavy gear) while being bashed by waves and surge. Easy to take a digger. So stay to the right of the pond for both entry AND exit!

Once beyond the pond, a chunk of land juts out to your right appropriately called Salt Pond Point. From there, you can either continue towards the point or work your way North-North-East roughly parallel to shore.

Conditions can be tough, one dive we encountered a strong surge in which we had to fight our way out to the steps. We had to literally pull ourselves along by rocks on the bottom, while the sea pushed us back and forth. It was not a fun dive getting battered about like that, so we thumbed it early. On another visit, we surfaced near the point and found waves and surge almost too much, pushing us closer to the rocks.

Yet another time, we surfaced to find ourselves in a long shore current. That is where the ocean moves parallel to shore, usually caused by ocean swells coming towards the shoreline at an angle. This tends to move or push water along the shore. It was moving us in a North-North-East direction, when we really wanted to work our way back to the pond to South-South-West.

But the occasional challenging conditions are worth it, because the marine life you can see is just incredible. Lobsters and crabs proliferate, as do sea stars and fish. Lots of flora too. But the best sighting I think is the sea anemone. In fact, every time we dive there and are joined by a particular dive buddy who comes up from Portland, we head for Anemone-ville.

That is because his (and our) major goal is to hopefully find and photograph a Northern Red Anemone. The Northern Red (Urticina felina) is a large and hardy anemone, with 100 thick tentacles in multiple rings around its mouth. It catches small objects with vertical rows of suckers on its soft, wide column, which is flexible and can change shape. Northern Reds feed on small fish, urchins, and crabs.

They can be found shallow or as deep as 100 feet, the larger-sized ones we encounter at Rachel Carson Salt Pond tend to be found deeper, usually 60-80 fsw range. Sometimes their tentacles are retracted for protection, so you need to approach them carefully in order to get a good photo. Their color is variable and can be yellow, red, orange and/or white, occasionally these colors are combined.

On my last dive there this November, we encountered a slew of Northern Reds. It seemed every time I turned around, there was one more looking to get photographed. All kinds of colors and sizes, they were spectacular! So even though we exited over the seaweed covered rocks and I took the occasional digger, I still emerged with a smile on my face from such a great dive.


Reliance: America’s Cup Beautiful Freak >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

Reliance: America’s Cup Beautiful Freak >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: The beautiful behemoth Reliance handily defended the America’s Cup in 1903, but her freakishly large size caused the contest’s rules on design to change

Tuesday, December 22, 2020

Thursday, December 17, 2020

3 minutes aboard with Vendee race leader Thomas Ruyant

At the halfway point, 39 days out, the fleet of (now) 27 is strung out across the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to south of New Zealand.  Leaders Yannick Bestaven, Thomas Ruyant, and Charlie Dalin are entering the Pacific Ocean.  With 12,000 miles to go the third place Dalin is only 125 nm behind the leader, having fallen out of first due to damage to one of his hydrofoils.

To get a sense of life aboard take a look at Thomas Ruyant skimming at about 18 knots.  Even in "good" conditions it's a bumpy ride.  You have to study weather, make routing decisions, trim constantly, and occasionally change sails. 



MontyPython: The Holy Hand Grenade

 

Sunday, December 13, 2020

Jets Win!! NewsMax/SNL

Precision Walking

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Dr. Tom Frieden: Weekly Covid 19 Report

 Former Director of the CDC

Friday, December 11, 2020

Wild oysters found—right here in New York Harbor




Wild oysters found—right here in New York Harbor







An exciting find at low tide!



In late September, while conducting a wild oyster survey in the Hudson and Harlem Rivers, we encountered thousands of young-of-the-year oysters! These glistening bivalves—attached to rocks, bulkheads, and bridges—were only visible at very low tides. Unlike the oysters spawned in our hatchery and strategically placed at our oyster reefs, this discovery suggests that oyster larvae in NY Harbor found a hard surface to land and a protected spot to grow on their own!

Since we started restoring oysters—12 years ago at the Harbor School—we have only seen three oyster sets this dense! 2011, 2018, and now, 2020. Even more encouraging? Each of these recruitment events was denser than the one before. To me, this is a clear sign that we are trending in the right direction.






While we can't directly attribute these oyster offspring to the 47 million oysters that Billion Oyster Project has restored to date, we do know that the more oysters we restore, and the better water quality becomes, the more likely we are to see wild oyster populations rebound without human intervention!


Thanks for reading, and being part of the Billion Oyster Project community!








Pete Malinowski
Executive Director

Thursday, December 10, 2020

Fauci on the Couchi - Jimmy Fallon

Every household needs one!

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

NYS Coronavirus Update: Vaccine Distribution Will Begin Soon - georgeconk@gmail.com - Gmail

NYS Coronavirus Update: Vaccine Distribution Will Begin Soon - georgeconk@gmail.com - Gmail

Humpback Whale - Lady Liberty


 

A look at Fordham's biological field station at Calder center, Armonk, NY

 Tom Daniels, Ph.D., the director of the Louis Calder Center at Fordham University, took alumni, students, parents, and friends, for a look behind the scenes at what goes on at the biological field station.

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

From Closets to Subway Tile: How Previous Epidemics Shaped Design | Architectural Digest

From Closets to Subway Tile: How Previous Epidemics Shaped Design | Architectural Digest

If you’re doing your part and social distancing from inside your home, you may start to notice small details of your house or apartment you hadn’t thought about before—like why your older home doesn’t have a closet, or how white subway tile became so ubiquitous. You may also be wondering if there’s anything you can do—aside from the usual cleaning and disinfecting process—to help keep your home as virus-free as possible during the coronavirus outbreak.

Whether you realize it or not, a number of the design features in our homes today originated, or were popularized, because of previous infectious disease outbreaks, like the 1918 flu pandemic, tuberculosis, and dysentery. There is a very longvery interesting history of the intersection of health, architecture, and design going back to ancient times, but we’re going to skip ahead to the late 19th and early 20th centuries to focus on architectural and design features you could potentially find in your home today. Here are a few examples of home design elements tied to attempts to prevent or slow the spread of infectious disease.

Monday, December 7, 2020

Cassius and his wagon

 

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

Russian Atlantic Salmon Fishing – A Cold Beginning! Miramichi Info. - Brad Burns Fishing



Brad Burns is from Friendship.  A hell of a fisherman.  This post is of his trip to the Kola Peninsula three years ago.
Russian Atlantic Salmon Fishing – A Cold Beginning! Miramichi Info. - Brad Burns Fishing
The Varzuga River


Ane Brun - Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan cover)

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

From Mayday to Safely Aboard Yes We Cam! Kevin Escoffier Explains - Vendée Globe - En


Kevin Escoffier (40)
Jean LeCam (61)



News - From Mayday to Safely Aboard Yes We Cam! Kevin Escoffier Explains - Vendée Globe - En
VIDEO interview

Speaking this morning after being rescued Kevin Escoffier said, 

The damage
“It’s unbelievable what happened. The boat folded up on a wave at 27 knots. I heard a bang, but to be honest, I didn’t need to hear that to know what had happened. I looked at the bow. It was at 90°. In a few seconds, there was water everywhere. The stern was under water and the bow was pointing up to the sky. The boat split in half in front of the mast bulkhead. It was as if she folded up. I promise. I’m not exaggerating. There was an angle of 90° between the stern and the bow.  

 

Mayday
“I didn’t have time to do anything. I just had time to send a message to my team. I’m sinking I’m not joking. MAYDAY. Between the moment when I was out on deck trimming the sails and when I found myself in my survival suit, barely two minutes had passed. It all happened extremely quickly.”
Organising my survival            
“I came out of the boat and put on my survival suit. I could see smoke. The electronics were burning. Everything went off. My only reflex was to grab my telephone to send the message and pick up the survival suit which I never stow away. I wanted to pick up the grab bag, but I couldn’t get to it with the water rising. I grabbed the liferaft at the stern. Open I couldn’t get into it as it was three metres under the water. The water was up to the door in the cockpit.”
Jumping in the raft         
“I would have liked to have stayed a bit longer on board, but I could see it was all happening quickly and a big breaker came and I was in the water with the liferaft. At that point I was not feeling very confident. Being in a raft in 35 knots of wind is not reassuring. I was only reassured when I saw Jean. But the problem was to find a way to get on board with him. We said a few words. It was a real battlefield out on the water. He was forced to move away, but I could see he remained close by. I stayed in the raft until early this morning.”
The recovery      
“I didn’t know whether the weather would ease enough to carry out a manoeuvre. He was 2 metres from me. He sent me a line, but it was difficult to stop the boat. In the end I managed to reach some tubing and lift myself aboard. The sea was still heavy with 3.5m high waves. It is hard in such conditions to climb aboard a 60’ boat, particularly as it is hard in the survival suit. It’s lucky I’m in good shape physically, as I can promise you it is not easy.”
 
Aboard Yes We Cam!
When I found myself on board with Jean, we hugged each other. He said to me. ‘Shit you’re aboard. That was tricky!’ I replied, ‘I have spoilt your race. You were doing so well.’ He replied, ‘That doesn’t matter. Last time it was me who upset Vincent’s race.’    

What next?
“For the moment, I don’t know what will happen. We’ll sort that out with the Race Directors. I have just slept for 2 hours and am well rested. I have eaten something. I did all I could with the boat. I reinforced her and did everything. So I don’t have any regrets about what I did.”
 


Monday, November 30, 2020

International Lightning Class Association

I've owned two Lightnings.  My fave - the woodie, of course - hull #8885.
The second a Lippincott - glass.  But I've forgotten the #.
Home - International Lightning Class Association

About the Lightning

  • Design: Sparkman & Stephens, 1938
  • Over 15,000 built
  • More than 100 active Fleets worldwide
  • Length: 19'0" (5.8m)
  • Beam: 6'6" (2m)
  • Displacement: 700 lb (318 kg
  • Draft (board down): 4'11" (151.3cm)(board up): 5" (12.8cm)
  • Mast height: 26'2" (7.9m)
  • Sail area (main & jib): 177 sq.ft. / spinnaker): 300 sq.ft.
  • Crew (racing): 3



Sunday, November 29, 2020

A day in the ER // Craig Spencer, MD, MPH

 Craig Spencer lives and works in our neighborhood.  He is an ER doc at Columbia University Medical Center where he is an Assistant Professor of Medicine.  He first garnered attention when he was infected with Ebola while a volunteer treating patients in Guinea.  He fell ill on return from Africa.  He survived.

This animation describing a day in the ER at Columbia Presbyterian really hits home with me.  I've been there - short of breath - sucking oxygen from a tube, waiting for a room; cared for by nurses, tested, stuck, probed, stared up at the meaningless monitors above me in the "Cath Lab".  This is A Day in the Life in the ER at 168 and Broadway, NY, NY.   



Thursday, November 26, 2020

Wednesday, November 25, 2020

The Humble Confidence of Seamus Heaney | Roy Foster - Literary Hub



The Humble Confidence of Seamus Heaney | Literary Hub
By R.F. Foster

When he first began to publish poems, Seamus Heaney’s chosen pseudonym was “Incertus,” meaning “not sure of himself.” Characteristically, this was a subtle irony. While he referred in later years to a “residual Incertus” inside himself, his early prominence was based on a sure-footed sense of his own direction, an energetic ambition, and his own formidable poetic strengths. It was also based on a respect for his readers which won their trust. “Poetry’s special status among the literary arts,” he suggested in a celebrated lecture, “derives from the audience’s readiness to . . . credit the poet with a power to open unexpected and unedited communications between our nature and the nature of the reality we inhabit.” Like T. S. Eliot, a constant if oblique presence in his writing life, he prized gaining access to “the auditory imagination” and what it opened up: “a feeling for syllable and rhythm, penetrating far below the levels of conscious thought and feeling, invigorating every word.” His readers felt they shared in this.

The external signs of Heaney’s inner certainty of direction, coupled with his charisma, style, and accessibility, could arouse resentment among grievance-burdened critics, or poets who met less success than they believed themselves to deserve. He overcame this, and other obstacles, with what has been called his “extemporaneous eloquence” and by determinedly avoiding pretentiousness: he possessed what he called, referring to Robert Lowell, “the rooted normality of the major talent.” At the same time, he looked like nobody else, and he sounded like nobody else. A Heaney poem carried its maker’s name on the blade, and often it cut straight to the bone.

KEEP READING

Saturday, November 21, 2020

At 75. May hope and history rhyme.




At 75.  I chose a couple of passages to read before we cut the chocolate birthday cake Marilyn baked.

Remembering my father

If all a man does is to watch from the shore,

Then he doesn't have to worry about the current.

But if affection has put us into the stream,

Then we have to agree to where the water goes.

- Robert Bly


Hope and history

from The Cure at Troy

History says, Don't hope

On this side of the grave,

But then, once in a lifetime

The longed-for  tidal wave

Of justice can rise up,

And hope and history rhyme.

- Seamus Heaney 

 

Vendée Globe: A well-tuned Renault 4 >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

61-year-old Jean Le Cam’s boat, designed by Bruce Farr of
Annapolis in 2007 is leading the 33 boat fleet through the south Atlantic, 
despite lacking the hydrofoils of the next 9 boats in the 33 boat fleet.

Vendée Globe: A well-tuned Renault 4 >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News: For the 2016-17 Vendée Globe, of the 29 IMOCA 60s, six new prototypes had been fitted with foil appendages and one older boat modified to include them.  For the 2020-2021 Vendee Globe 18 of 33 have been fitted with hydrofoils which give a 3 knot advantage in off-wind conditions.  Wily Jean LeCam describes his fifteen year old boat as a Renault 4 racing against Ferraris.

Tuesday, November 17, 2020

Snipe Class: Changing the gender balance >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News



Snipe Class: Changing the gender balance >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

by Kathleen Tocke
When the 2020 Snipe US Women’s Championship on November 7-8 was cancelled mid-week due to the impending hurricane, some sailors were already on their way south to Miami, so the fleet organized a heavy-air clinic, pairing women with heavier male teammates.

For safety reasons, only three boats were rigged and the women switched in an out from a RIB, which had a female coach on it, who explained the technique for very heavy air Snipe sailing. What the sailors learned was invaluable and it was an opportunity of a lifetime to sail with Class greats like Augie Diaz and Ernesto Rodriguez.

The clinic was just one of the things the Class is getting right in terms of increasing opportunities for women’s sailing.

At the recent Frigid Digit regatta in Annapolis, over 60% of the sailors in the 28-boat fleet were women. This is becoming a trend for major Snipe events in the US and women’s Snipe sailing is growing exponentially in many places around the globe. What has the Class learned? What have the women learned?

Sunday, November 15, 2020

Bronagh Gallagher - The Healing Has Begun

 And we'll walk down the Avenue in style...


Tuesday, November 10, 2020

Friendship Sloop ‘Blackjack’ added to list of historic places | PenBay Pilot

Friendship Sloop ‘Blackjack’ added to list of historic places | PenBay Pilot

ROCKLAND — The Friendship Sloop Blackjack, owned and restored by the Sail, Power, and Steam Museum of Rockland, was recently listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The National Register of Historic Places is the Nation’s official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation, according to the Museum, in a news release. The Register is a program of the National Park Service but the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, a state governmental agency, oversees the administration of the Register program in Maine.

In the words of Ann Morris, former SPSM board member, curator of the Rockland Historical Society, and the person who initiated and oversaw the application process, “Blackjack is significant as a fine example of the Friendship Sloop type of sailing vessel designed by Maine boatbuilders specifically for fishing and lobstering along the Maine coast. And she is significant as one of the oldest surviving Friendship Sloops designed by Wilbur Morse, the most prolific builder of these vessels.”

Originally built in 1900, the 33-foot Blackjack was donated to the museum by owners who had come to realize that the restoration was a much bigger project than they had anticipated. Capt. Jim Sharp, founder and director of the museum commented at the time: “We rebuilt the vessel entirely. She had a broken keel, all the frames and planking were gone, and the sheer was lost. We replaced everything but the transom!”

Consulting with wooden boat experts such as Maynard Bray and boat builder Ralph Stanley on design and techniques that Morse might have employed at the time, a team of master builders that included Jim Loney, Tim Clark, and Garrett Eisele worked for countless hours with dedicated museum volunteers to complete the project, according to SPSM. Re-planked cedar the waterline and native pine above, the wood for the new frames came from a stand of English oak from Friendship. Sharp was quoted in an article in the Maine, Boats, Homes and Harbors Magazine as saying that the museum was “keeping her genes in the right place.”

Upon completion of the restoration, a grand celebration and launching was held on Saturday, July 7, 2018 at the site of the old Snow Shipyard, currently home to the museum as well as the city’s Snow Marine Park. With bagpipes and fiddlers playing the soundtrack for the day, Blackjack was moved from the museum’s boat shed by a team of oxen from Cox Kennel and Farm in Woodstock. Sharp noted that the boat may well have been launched in the same way over 100 year prior to that time, according to SPSM.

Monday, November 9, 2020

Sunday, November 8, 2020

Vendée Globe: Who to watch and why >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

I love sailing single-handed.  Taking water over the bow, bucking up against waves, sliding down the back.  For an afternoon. Followed by a hot shower.  But yesterday 33 solo sailors - six of them women - headed out for the eight running of the Vendee globe, a French obsession.  The rules are simple:

Leave Les Sables d'Olonne, heading south.

Keep Africa's Cape of Good Hope to port.

Keep western Australia's Cape Leeuwin to port.

Keep Antarctica to starboard.

Keep South America's Cape Horn to port.

Return to Les Sables d'Olonne, heading north.

Alone. Nonstop. No help allowed.



Vendée Globe: Who to watch and why >> Scuttlebutt Sailing News

Saturday, November 7, 2020

Bob Dylan explores death to self in 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' | National Catholic Reporter

Bob Dylan explores death to self in 'Rough and Rowdy Ways' | National Catholic Reporter
By Fr. John Gribowich

One of the bright spots for me during the COVID-19 summer of 2020 was the unexpected release of a new Bob Dylan album in June. The album, entitled "Rough and Rowdy Ways" was announced via social media after Dylan released two of its tracks earlier during the pandemic.

Being an obsessive Dylan fan, I very much looked forward to what the Nobel Prize laureate had to offer the world during this unprecedented time.

Dylan's last album of original material was in 2012 with the release of "Tempest." (In fact, the first track that was released from the new album, "Murder Most Foul," was most likely an outtake from that album.)

Once again, the singer-songwriter does not disappoint, and even as he approaches his 80th birthday, he is still able to reinvent himself and surprise even his most loyal fans. The dark sound and lyrics of the album initially suggest Dylan's personal wrestle with mortality, yet I find that this record is not a "swan song" or the musings of an old man who is waiting to die. "Rough and Rowdy Ways" highlights an ongoing death to self, which every person must choose to embrace.

In 2018, author Robert Hudson released an engaging book entitled The Monk's Record Player: Thomas Merton, Bob Dylan, and the Perilous Summer of 1966. The book highlights the famed monk's profound interest in the music and lyrics of Dylan. The image of Merton cranking up "Bringing It All Back Home" on vinyl in his hermitage with visitors, who included the 83-year-old French philosopher Jacques Maritain, is amusing to say the least! Yet, what Merton recognized in Dylan's earlier records can be equally applied to what Dylan unknowingly recognizes now in Merton's writings.

In the early pages of New Seeds of Contemplation, Merton writes that "contemplation is always beyond our own knowledge, beyond our own light, beyond systems, beyond explanations, beyond discourse, beyond dialogue, beyond our own self. To enter into the realm of contemplation one must in a certain sense die: but this death is in fact the entrance into a higher life. It is a death for the sake of life, which leaves behind all that we can know or treasure as life, as thought, as experience, as joy, as being" (emphasis mine).

Saturday, October 31, 2020

'I hope it makes a difference': voters on remote Maine island cast their ballots | US news | The Guardian



'I hope it makes a difference': voters on remote Maine island cast their ballots | US news | The Guardian

by Katy Kelleher and Greta Rybus

Located over 20 miles off the coast of Maine, Matinicus Island is often among the first communities in the state to report their official vote counts. It doesn’t take long, explains clerk and registrar of voters Eva Murray, because they have so few registered voters. “Out of the 70 active voters, I’ve already handed out 26 ballots,” she says.

In addition to running the election, Murray also runs the solid waste program, operates a bakery out of her house, works as a freelance writer and is a certified pilot and EMT. She knows most everyone on Matinicus, and most everyone knows her. There seems to be little confusion about how, logistically, to submit a ballot on the island. She predicts a “good turnout” this year.

Although the ferry runs only 30 or so times a year, it is possible to get on and off the island via plane, and that’s how the paper ballots will get to Rockland city hall if there is any call for a recount. Otherwise, the islanders’ votes are collected, counted and reported on Matinicus at the town office. The results are sent “by both computer and fax”, explains Murray, “to the secretary of state’s office, bureau of elections, in Augusta, just like any other town.” She takes great pride in this process, and stresses that they’re a small community, but they’re committed to “doing it right”.

Eva Murray, the island’s municipal clerk, oversees the election proceedings on the island.
 Eva Murray, the island’s municipal clerk, oversees the election proceedings on the island.

Before the global pandemic, “doing it right” typically involved donuts at the town office, paper ballots and a very short wait (if any) to color in the bubbles. This year, things are a little different, both because of the implementation of ranked choice voting (which allows Maine voters to rank all state and federal candidates from most preferred to least), and because of Covid-19.

Halloween at Castle Village in the time of COVID 19