In the evening we went to Johnson Ranch Terrace where we met our new friends to listen to the RJ Band. These are a bunch of old guys who can’t sing that well anymore, but they sure can rock! We enjoyed ourselves so much we danced all night and closed the place down at 8:15 p.m. Old people rock!
Category Archives: religion
Limitations
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m5z350p9ktg7tjw/Screenshot%202018-03-19%2023.50.50.png?dl=0
Scott Turow is a fine writer of legal fiction. I know a lot of people enjoy the novels of John Grisham. So do I, but Grisham is not a great writer. Scott Turow is a very good writer. “Great” might be too strong a word, but not by much. That is the difference.
Limitations is one of Turow’s legal thrillers. But like all good books–in fact like all good art–the real subject is empathy. The book is designed to make us walk in the shoes of someone else. No it is designed to make us walk in the shoes of others. The book explores the connections between people and the world. It shows how they (and of course, we) are all linked. We all have affinity for each other and for the world in which we are located. Great literature is like religion. The original meaning (I would even say the correct meaning) of “religion” is connection or linkage. Art and religion are what link us. They are metaphors by definition.
The story of the book is the problems encountered by an appeal court judge who is given a difficult case to decide. The appeal court consists of 3 judges. 2 of the judges have quickly decided what they think and they are on opposite sides. Of course, the case is not as simple as the other 2 judges make it out to be. So the protagonist George Mason effectively must decide the difficult case. He has to agree with one or the other. And truth, as always in good novels, as in life, is murky.
The case involves young men who commit a horrible crime against a young woman. They are clearly guilty, and were found guilty at the the trial, but the questioner the Appeal Court is whether or not the case is statute barred by the Statute of Limitations. In other words is it too late to legally find them guilty?
The case becomes more difficult to decide for 2 reasons. The first is someone is making mysterious threats against the judge. This distracts him. That makes deciding more difficult. Is the threat related to the case the judge must decide? As well, the case reverberates with the judge because of similarities to an incident in his life many years ago. As a result he feels uncommon sympathy for the 4 convicted youth of a heinous crime when perhaps he otherwise would have felt not any sympathy for them at all. And remember, sympathy or empathy is the point. How could a stellar judge, a kind man, have see any resemblance between himself and these loathsome appellants?
The judge asks his boss, the Chief Justice of the Appellate court, if he is disqualified if the case reminds him of himself. The Chief is wise, he replies, “They’re supposed to remind us of ourselves, aren’t they George? Isn’t that a quality of mercy (echoing Shakespeare’s exploration of similar themes in The Merchant of Venice)?” The judges are forced to ask themselves, “Who are we to judge?”
In the case the 4 youth clearly committed the horrible act but the legal question is whether or not the statute of limitations applies or not. Should guilty youth be acquitted for nothing more than the passage of time? The question in the book is summed up well by the judge in the final decision:
“As crimes so often do, this case has riled passions, broken hearts, and left behind a wake of lives forever disturbed. At is core, it asks us to reconsider a question the law has long pondered: how long and under what circumstances, punishment may be delayed before the balance of justice tips against it?”
People who would never want to acquit just because too much time has passed must consider that as time passes witnesses memories fade; it is more difficult for the defendants to mount a defence because evidence has dispersed, and should accused people be kept hanging, waiting for justice forever? This is an important question.
Even more fundamental is the question of what is to be done when the law (or justice) conflicts (perhaps) with empathy or fellow feeling? Which should prevail? What are the limitations to law or empathy? Really these are the same questions that Shakespeare reflected on in his great play.
The novel invites us to consider that “suffering has many faces.” It also warns, “Sainthood is not required.” And finally, in the end, each of us must ask, was justice done?
I urge you to consider this book. Its worth the read.
Sometimes Chris likes me (not often)
One day here in Arizona there was rejoicing in our home as there was in heaven when the prodigal son returned. No prodigal returned. But we got news that the law office I do a little work for had deposited as significant cheque (by our lowly standards) into our account. As a semi-retired lawyer who gets paid for specific consulting services I get paid only for the work I actually do. Since that is usually not much, I am not paid much. Seems fair. I am not complaining; that is the deal I made. Lawyers put such an arrangement in crude terms. I eat only what I kill. Well today I got paid for a significant file. This caused Chris to remark, “Hans you are so much more attractive with money in your account.”
Cities of the Plain
Cities of the Plain, by Cormac McCarthy is the concluding book in a trilogy of books (you might say trinity) that follows All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing. It has taken me about 15 years to complete the trilogy. That is because the books are so intense. They contain scenes of excruciating violence. I could not abide the thought that I should quickly go from one to another. The books are dark and skewer all facile optimism. These are books that make you think and make you feel at the same time. Like Saul Bellow, I do not believe thinking and feeling are severed from each other. I have the feeling/thought that it is the same with McCarthy. They are one.
The first book, made into a film, was about 2 boys going to Mexico from New Mexico in a search of stolen horse taken after their father died. The boys grow and meander though the 3 novels. Each of the 3 books are powerful. They are not easy reads. McCarthy makes it difficult. But the books are worth the trip. Like Steinbach claims (with much less justification). Read them all.
The books straddle the old and the new like the plains and the cities of the title. They also straddle the border between the US and Mexico–the blood meridian. They also straddle the time of the old west and the new west. The people are tough–incredibly tough.
At the end of the trilogy (I won’t tell you who so as not to ruin the surprise) the one character who has meandered (I love that word again) through the series, is sitting next to a woman whose children have been regaled by his stories of “horses and cattle and the old days” is watched by her. They look at his old weathered (experienced) hands: “ropy veins that bound them to his heart. There was map enough for men to read. There God’s plenty of signs and wonders to make a landscape. To make a world.”
Each book in the trilogy is dark in its own way, yet each has a vision of light that pokes through the darkness as well. John Grady, the young protagonist, learns a very hard lesson. He learns what Eduardo says, “The world may be many different ways for them but there is one world that will never be and that is the world they dream of.” Dreams are important in the book yet they are also not entirely real. Yet at the end we also learn, “This life of yours is not a picture of the world. It is the world itself and it is composed not of bone or dream or time but of worship. Nothing else can contain it. Nothing else be by it contained.” Is that really dark?
Read the series. You will be well rewarded.
Sonoran Desert
We have been staying in southern Arizona for 3 months for the 4th year in a row. Where we live is part of the Sonoran Desert. It is fantastic place. It is what keeps us coming back.
According to A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert it contains 100,000 sq. miles according to the current definition of what constitutes a desert. In any event it is big.
Usery Regional Park where we spend a lot of time contains about 120,000 acres of the Sonoran Desert. This is really just a small part of it. The park is part of the Maricopa Municipal Park system, the largest such system in the United States.
We have often gone on guided walks with Ranger B from Usery Park. He said that when he first appeared in the Sonoran Desert after living in Wisconsin he thought he had landed on another planet. I know what he means. I had the same experience when I first saw the Sonoran Desert and compared it to Manitoba. It was a different world. All the plants and all the animals were so different.
On one of our guided walks, Ranger B asked us what was the toughest thing in the desert. One person said the Gila Woodpecker, another said the rattlesnake, one said mountain lion, and another said coyotes. Ranger B disagreed. He said in his opinion the the toughest thing must be a plant. Plants of the desert are very tough. The animals can move. They can find shady spots when the sun is hot and a warmer spot when it is cold. Plants are stuck in one place. They have no choice but to adapt. If it is 120 °F that is just too bad for the plant. It must accept that for it cannot run away or hide.
There are about 2,500 plant species in the Sonoran Desert and many of them are extremely tough. Otherwise they would not be able to survive here.
The Sonoran Desert has the greatest biodiversity of any of the 30 (or so) deserts of the world. That is because it has more precipitation than most deserts and the granitic soils are permeable and hold water well. It also has mild winters. Some deserts get very cold in winter. It is also blessed by having 2 rainy seasons, one in summer and one in winter. This diversity is quite visible in Usery Park. Looking at the desert from inside that park makes one appreciate the variety of plants. Vegetation is not as sparse as one might expect.
This is from San Tan Mountain Regional Park, another park we frequently visit.
Ranger B explained that this year this year however it received a lot less rain than normal and to make things even worse, with higher than normal temperatures. That is not a good combination for deserts. He said in his 15 years here he has never seen the desert so stressed. That is really bad for a wild flower guy like me. It is the worst wild flower season he has seen in 15 years and it might the worst ever. That is how dry and hot it has been. Great for tourists; not so great for wild flowers. This is a big disappointment for me, as I love to photograph wild flowers.
In extremely dry years plants do not even issue forth leaves, let alone blossoms. The roots lie dormant and wait for better years and thoughts of reproduction are tamped down until the good times return.
Meanwhile wild flower photographers like me gnash our teeth.
Deserts
What is a desert? That is not as simple as I thought. Deserts are defined by water—or rather, by the absence of water. Dryness and sunlight are what deserts are all about. Buckets of sunlight, rather than buckets of rain. Plants or animals that don’t like that cannot survive here. Some plants, amazingly, even prefer the south facing side of the mountain.
Geographers define deserts as land where evaporation exceeds rainfall. I was surprised to learn that there is no specific amount of rainfall that serves as an agreed upon criteria as what is and what is not a desert. Deserts range from extremely arid regions to those that are ample for the support of life. Geographers classify rainfall into semi-deserts that are ones that have precipitation between 150 and 300 to 400 mm per year. So called “true deserts” are those that have rainfall below 150 mm per year and extreme deserts as those with rainfall below 70 mm per year.
Deserts occupy about 26% of the continental areas of the world. Deserts occur in 2 distinct belts. One is between 15º and 35º latitude in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres—the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn.
There are 14 deserts in the world (depending on who is counting) with an area larger than 52,000 sq. km (20,100 sq. mi.). It may surprise some that the largest desert in the world is not the Sahara desert. It is only the second largest. The largest is Antarctica not often thought of as a desert, but that is what it is. Antarctica has 14,000,000 sq. km. and the Sahara with 9,000.000 sq. km.
There are 5 distinct deserts in the American Southwest: the Sonoran, The Chihuahuan, The Great Basin, and the Mojave. Some also include the Colorado as a separate desert. Although each is a desert, each is also different.
The Sonoran Desert, where we have been living for the 4th year, is semi-arid desert and it covers part of southern California and Arizona as well as northern Mexico. Because of summer’s “monsoons” and winter storms this is the wettest of all the North American deserts. It is most well known for its iconic tall Saguaros cactus some of which can reach 50 feet in height.
The Great Basin is the most characteristic of the Southwest with its canyon, mesas, buttes, and cliffs.
The Mojave Desert is a large desert that spreads across northern Arizona, Nevada, and California. It is dry most of the year but a small amount of winter rain can bring it to life.
The Chihuahuan desert is found mainly in Mexico but reaches north to Albuquerque, New Mexico, so we spent some time in it too.
One of the things that struck me about the desert was the amazing way that plants grow there. If you have a pine forest, unlike our pine forests, the trees are not crowded. They are well spaced. Where shrubs cover a mountainside, they do so in the most spotty of fashions. Vegetation never covers the ground, even where it grows best. The plants demand space from all around them—like snooty royalty.
The plants even want some separation from those fantastic rocks that I love so much. Usually they are found well-spaced, like surprisingly obedient school children. Willa Cather put it well. She said,
From the flat red sea of sand rose great rock mesas, generally Gothic in out-line, resembling vast cathedrals. They were not crowded together in disorder, but placed in wide spaces, long vistas between them. This plain might once have been an enormous city, all the smaller quarters destroyed by time, only the public buildings left.
Get Out
This film has been almost universally praised, but I felt it was lame. I know it explores racism and even slavery and it is very important to do that, particularly in a country that seems desperate to forget that there ever was, or still is, racism. I just thought the movie was a lame horror flick. And I hate horror flicks. Perhaps my prejudice blinded my limited critical judgment. I wonder what others think. Was I wrong?
More broadly, the fact that this movie earned near universal applause makes me think that perhaps films are universally overrated as an art from. Films are still a very immature art form. Give them time to grow up. Is that true?
Call Me by Your Name
In many ways this is a traditional ‘coming of age movie.’ It celebrates the time of a young many finding love for the first time. The twist is that he experiences both heterosexual love and homosexual love and it is homosexual love that triumphs. Yet the themes explored are really universal. Just like Brokeback Mountain’s exploration of a failure to grasp love when it was on offer demonstrated the tragic loss that can occur when that offer is not accepted, whether straight or gay, this film considers the tragedy that can still occur when the chance is taken, but ultimately short-lived, again whether gay or straight. In this film the love ends in heartbreak, but is still treasured. Perhaps that is as good as it usually gets.
What I liked about the film was that while it lavishly explored the excitement of youth exploring new ideas, music, art, and in this film above all the sensuality of love, it did not have to lead us to believe that love conquers all in the end as every Hallmark movie does. Sometimes it is good while it lasts, but when it is over it is never a mistake, but it is still over. A chance was seized. When it was over it was simply over, with heartbreak perhaps, but never for nothing. It is still good.
I also like the fact that the older boy (man really) may have appeared to be a shallow cad, and perhaps even turned out to be one, but he was not without empathy and understanding in the end. Shallow maybe, but deep too. Are such contradictions not permitted in matters of the heart?