“There was always a potential conflict of interest in any charity, since its director and employees depended on their livelihood on a continued supply of the unfortunate individuals it was supposed to help. Social agencies need clients; drug counselors need drug addicts, and and it was the same with animal rescue enterprises. If dolphins were banned from commercial aquariums and all nets were biodegradable, the sanctuary they had visited this morning might have to close. Meanwhile, when the supply of damaged individuals fell off, there would be a natural tendency to keep them in care as long as possible, to sentimentalize them and treat them as pets.”
—Alison Lurie, The Last Resort
1.
I’ve been listening to a very interesting podcast, the Democracy Paradox, where the host interviews Michael Ignatieff, a historian and former leader of the Liberal Party of Canada. In it, Ignatieff challenges us to think differently about our political adversaries and raises important questions about our own politics.
Some quotes from the podcast:
Democracy is the stage in which we mount the battle for power and we fight out our competing visions of what would be good for a society. But at the same time, the most dangerous of all things we try to do in a democracy is argue about what is democratic and what is undemocratic.
If you go forward into the 21st century and you look now at the debates there are a lot of people in the Republican Party of the United States who feel deeply that majority rule has been thwarted by unelected elites in the universities, in the regulatory agencies, in the media. They want to have the people rule. That’s actually a vision of democracy. Then you have, on the other side, liberal progressives, and I would align myself on that side, who think democracy is not majority rule. Democracy is majority rule balanced by minority rights and an independent judiciary and a free press. In other words, democracy is a balancing mechanism. It’s not majority rule and majority rule is actually dangerous.
When a Republican on the right-wing listens to that they say, ‘Ah, that’s typical elitist talk. He just wants to push us around and tell us what we should think.’ And I say, ‘No. That’s not the story.’ The story is there has always been a debate about how far majority rule should rule and I’m of the view, and I believe it was the view of Madison and the founders, that democracy is majority ruled balanced by minority rights, a free press, checks and balances, and an independent judiciary. But this debate goes on and on.
I think we all have a sense that one of our basic ideals of democracy is this ideal of equality. But secondly, it’s the best thing we’ve ever devised to keep our conflicts from becoming violent. So, the piece is trying to say over and over again - one of the reasons we care about democracy is not that it eliminates conflict, but it turns violence into politics and it keeps conflict from turning into the war of all against all.
For further reading, check out his article, “The Politics of Enemies,” in the October 2022 issue of the Journal of Democracy.
2.
And in one of the strangest election stories going, Cochise County in southern Arizona was still refusing to certify the election results up until yesterday, forcing Attorney General Katie Hobbs (who won the election for Governor) to sue the county. The irony is that it’s the Republican supervisors on the board that are refusing the results, but the county voted heavily for Republicans! Katie Hobbs could do nothing and it would most likely flip some wins to Democrats. LOL. As reported in AZ Central, Let the goofball Republican majority on the Cochise County board – who, ironically, squawk about non-existent voting irregularities – negate the votes of tens of thousands of their residents, the majority of them from their own party. There would be no easier way to “steal” a couple of elections. And any remaining chance for Abe Hamadeh, the GOP candidate running for Attorney General, to overcome his current 510-vote deficit against Democrat Kris Mayes, would almost certainly be gone. Bwwaahaaaaaaaaa…
And the Tucson Sentinel reports that In Arizona, losing candidates for the three top statewide positions continue to lobby baseless allegations of fraud at election officials. Gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake has refused to concede after failing to capture the office by more than 17,000 votes and Abe Hamadeh, running for the position of attorney general, filed a lawsuit alleging, without evidence, that his loss was due to a combination of illegal votes for his opponent and thwarted votes for him. Despite a margin of more than 120,000 votes, Secretary of State candidate Mark Finchem has also failed to concede and has begun crowdfunding for future legal challenges that will “bring those who trample on our elections to justice and fix the 2022 election.” Secure Democracy Foundation, a nonpartisan election policy advocacy group based in Washington D.C., conducted polls in five battleground states ahead of the midterms. Despite persistent and baseless allegations that elections in the Grand Canyon state are susceptible to fraud, 86% of Arizona voters responded they were confident in Election Day voting and 77% said they trusted voting machines.
And this just in yesterday, Pima County Superior Court Judge Casey McGinley ordered the supervisors to meet at 3:30 p.m. to certify the canvass of their county’s midterm election results after they failed to do so by the Nov. 28 deadline. And NPR reported, this week, former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, a Democrat, joined Richard Romley, a Republican former Maricopa County attorney, in asking for probes by Arizona's attorney general and the Cochise County attorney. Goddard and Romley say in a letter that the GOP supervisors likely broke at least three of the state's criminal laws by willfully refusing to perform their legal duty to certify the election results.
3.
A big thank you to all who attended the Carnivaleros Reunion show last Saturday at the Hotel Congress. There was an energy and joy in both the band and the SRO crowd, that mysterious synergy, that one attempts to achieve on stage every time out.
I mentioned on stage that it was Jonathan Holden, the founder of the Rhythm and Roots Concert Series in Tucson, who was one of the main supporters of the band in early days. Jon died in 2012, a huge loss to the community, but his wife Susan has carried on in fine style. She was the one who coaxed me last summer into thinking about doing this show, so it was several months in the planning stages. Many thanks, Susan!
I also cannot thank enough the musicians that have worked with me the longest—Karl Hoffmann, Björgvin Benediktsson, Joe Fanning, and Les Merrihew—and were all pumped to play a show again, and it showed on Saturday. We also enlisted Alex Flores to blow some sax, his first time with the band, who was also in fine form. Thanks also goes out to my wife, Connie Colbert, who helped me keep it together mentally and physically, and assisted in coordinating the ‘merchandise’ table, along with Syndi Taylor. We actually sold some of those coasters!
In case you’re planning your Spring schedule already, we have plans to perform at least twice next year. First one up will be at Monterey Court in Tucson on Friday, April 21. Reservations highly recommended.
4.
Who knows what else 2023 will bring? To finish out this year, I do have some gigs in December, mostly drumming with the Kevin Pakulis Band, but principally I’ll be gearing down for the month to accomplish some domestic projects, long on the back burner, and dabble a bit on the computer writing about it.
And drinking some wine. Yes, after rejecting alcohol in 2004 I had a glass of wine with most evening meals in Portugal in October. Damn, it was mighty fine to have a glass with grilled sea bass or grilled shrimp with garlic sauce, and the house wines were superb. So I’ve since been dabbling with some various reds here in Tucson.
And I’m still behind posting images from that trip. We visited two Bones Chapels while in southern Portugal, one in Alcantarilha and the other in Faro. These images are from the 15th century chapel in Alcantarilha, a sleepy little village about 10 kilometers from the coast. Supposedly the chapel sits on the site of a cemetery, and according to what I’ve read, in and around the 16th century when graveyard space was at a premium, Franciscan monks came up with the solution of exhuming old, long-defleshed bones and cementing them into the ossuary. It served the dual purpose of preserving the bones for the Day of Resurrection and providing a site of contemplation for the living.
And now…