Dia: Beacon and Storm King Art Center

We went to Newburgh, New York, yesterday, and I forgot to take along my Airbook.  Sorry.

We visited the Dia: Beacon.  It is an art gallery in a huge old Nabisco building in the town of Beacon on the Hudson River.  The museum specializes in very large installations.  This is not the kind of art you would put in your living room unless your living room was a warehouse.  

Richard Serra’s “Torqued Ellipse II”  and “Double Torqued Ellipse” are giant iron sculptures that weigh tons and would need very large machinery to move.  Are they art?  That’s in the eye of the beholder, but they certainly are impressive.

Today we visited the Storm King Art Center, about 10 miles south of Newburgh.  I liked this one very much.  Giant outdoor sculptures are scattered around about a 400 acre property, and they are amazing.  My favorites were Alexander Calder’s “The Arch,” Andy Goldsworthy’s “Storm King Wall,” and Zhang Huan’s “Three Legged Buddha.”  You can see most of the sculptures by taking a tram ride, which we did.  What a great weekend.

The Big Sick

What do you do when you break up with your girlfriend and then you are called to the hospital where she’s just been admitted to the ICU and the hospital wants you to sign a paper allowing it to perform a dangerous procedure?

Linda and I saw “The Big Sick” today.  It’s a comedy, but it is also a movie about the difficulty of being a Muslim in American and the problem an immigrant has in breaking with his parents’ culture.  

In the 1990s I saw “Mississippi Masala,” a film by Mira Nair, in which the Indian heroine falls for Denzel Washington.  Her mother is scandalized.  I never forgot her reply.  “This is America, Ma.” 

Whatever evils Trump may impose, we are still individuals trying to cope and get along.  See this movie.  Be prepared to laugh.  Ray Romano and Holly Hunter are wonderful.  Bring along some extra Kleenex.

Spoiler alert.  Emily does not die.

Carbon County Fair Booth

Every August the Carbon County Republicans and Democrats sponsor booths at the Fair.  Every year the Republicans draw in more people, have more activity, register more voters.  They give away free bags of peanuts, have an animatronic elephant, and usually have a plethora of signs and bumper stickers.  Last August people were lining up to get Trump signs.

While the Democrats probably wouldn’t have done as well with Clinton signs, it was a moot point, since the Clinton campaign didn’t provide any.

This August both parties will again be at the Fair.  I’m on the Committee to come up with Democratic booth attractions.  We are going big this year; we have rented two spaces.  Now we need something to draw in fair attendees, something interesting, even exciting.

I’m looking for some suggestions here.  Any ideas?  And don’t suggest an animatronic donkey.

It's all connected

Item 1:  An iceberg the size of Delaware has broken off the ice shelf in the Antarctica.  

Item 2:  “Biological Annihilation  said to be underway.”  (Headline in today’s Times.)  Elizabeth Kolbert already wrote a book about this.  We are in the middle of the Sixth Mass Extinction.  This is the first one that is human-caused.

Item 3:  “The Deep Industry Connections of Trump’s Deregulation Teams.”  (Front page headline in today’s Times detailing the industry connections of Trump’s “deregulation teams,” charged with eliminating environmental, consumer, and labor protections.)

Our grandson, age 11, just spent two weeks with us.  I dread to think about the world he will inherit.  I don’t understand Trump supporters who stick by him.  “Drain the swamp.”  “Make American great again.”  Really.?  When does reality sink in?  When will they see what this man is doing to our country and our globe?

Stupid and evil

Yeah, you know who I’m talking about, and it is the worst combination, although I probably could have thrown in greedy.

Kathy Talento, who believes that birth control pills cause cancer, infertility, and miscarriage, is now a White house domestic policy aide.

Erik D. Prince, a founder of the firm Blackwater, and Stephen A. Feinberg, the billionaire owner of DynCorp International, a giant military contractor, have been tapped to give advice on Afghanistan.  Both are strong believers in the use of military contractors rather than U.S. troops, and both stand to make money if contractors are used.

I keep hearing from Trump supporters that we should give the President a chance, that we need to be patient.  I’m sorry, but that train has already left the station.

Solving Beltzville State Park problems

Every year on Memorial Day, July 4, and Labor Day, Beltzville State Park, just about three miles off the Pennsylvania Turnpike, suffers from overcrowding, parking problems, litter problems, and even toilet problems.

I understand there is an on-line petition to charge people to use the park.  Locals sometimes talk about “our park” being overrun by people who litter, ignore rules, and generally leave the park in an unholy mess.  

In fact, one “local” showed up on my front porch on July 5 to castigate me for writing a letter last year opposing charging park visitors a fee.  He yelled at me, and when I mentioned I should have been down at the beach helping to clean up, he went ballistic.  “Why should locals help to clean up after these PIGS?”  Whenever I hear people described as “pigs,” I bristle, but I said nothing.

OK, so let me explain my position on Beltzville State Park.  First of all, as a member of a family who had the largest single parcel of farmland and woodland taken by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (they took 431 out of 460 acres of the Christman farm), I obviously have an interest in how the park is used.

Secondly, I am fully aware that when that land was taken under eminent domain proceedings, it was paid for by U.S. taxpayers’ dollars.  Taxpayers from Danville, California; Rawlins, Wyoming; and Tuscaloosa, Alabama, helped to pay for that federal project.  “Locals” need to remember that.

Thirdly, I am very much aware that Beltzville does have problems.  In part this is a result of the Pennsylvania legislature starving DCNR, the agency that runs Pennsylvania State Parks.  It is my understanding that Beltzville has two (TWO!) full time rangers.  Beltzville is a huge park.

I have some ideas on how some of the issues could be handled, including more enforcement during non-holiday weekends, closing the park when it nears capacity, public service announcements signage on the Turnpike, and handouts to park visitors.

What I will oppose is any effort that targets Latinos and African Americans and tries to prevent them from using “our” park.  Beltzville was paid for by the U.S. government, and some of the comments I’ve been hearing are racist.  If a fee is imposed to help to pay for park improvements, it better be charged on every park visitor throughout the entire year.

Hawks, chickens, and robber barons

Today we visited the J. P. Morgan library and museum in New York.  The museum is featuring the journals of Henry David Thoreau along with explanatory materials.

Thoreau has had a major influence on the way I think.  As you may know, I keep chickens.  Over the years I’ve lost two to hawks and had one badly injured, although it recovered.

Here’s what Thoreau said about hawks:  “I would rather never taste chickens’ meat nor hens’ eggs than never to see a hawk sailing through the upper air again.”

My sentiments exactly.

I must add something.  Guys like Frick, Morgan, Stanford and Carnegie were not nice people.  They exploited workers, built giant mansions, collected priceless artifacts.  On the other hand, they also endowed colleges, founded libraries, and on their deaths opened their collections to the public.

Contrast them with our modern billionaires.  Yeah, the Koch Brothers give a pittance to cancer research, but it hardly erases the evil they do.  Look at the robber barons in the Trump cabinet.  Look at Trump.  These people do not contribute in any way to the well-being of this country.  It makes one long for the Carnegies, Fords, and Rockefellers of the past.