SILENCE IS GOLDEN, BUT

Friends, this is a heads up that I won’t be posting for the next couple of weeks.  My wife and I leave this afternoon for Canada, where we’ll be attending a silent meditation retreat on Salt Spring Island, British Columbia.  After the first day, everyone but the teacher will avoid talking.  We’ll have electricity and running water, but no toilets.  Luckily, our cabin is near one of the best outhouses on the property.  We were there last year in March, when it was chilly and rainy.  The forecast for early July is that the highs will be in the upper 60s, with lows in the upper 50s.  That will be a welcome change of pace from the ridiculous 115 degree highs we’ve had in Tucson lately.

When I tell people about this trip, reactions are mixed.  Most folks are polite but skeptical.  Others are a bit envious.  The envious ones are usually mothers of young children

We’ll be in a media-free zone – no TV, no radio, no internet, and no cell phone service.  I won’t have a clue about what’s happening with Donald Trump, with the Republican health care bill, or anything else for the next two weeks.  I’ll start to catch up on July 15 when we get to Victoria, B.C., where we’ll spend the night before flying home on the 16th.   If things have taken a turn for the worse, we may ask for political asylum. 

What would be really great is if you guys could arrange for Donald Trump to leave office before we get back. 

In the meantime, happy Canada Day, happy Independence Day, and happy birthday to anyone who’s having one during the first half of July, and here are some inspirational quotes to tide you over.

Marshall McLuhan:  "World War III [will be] a guerrilla information war with no division between military & civilian participation.

Mort Sahl (the guy who single-handedly revived political comedy during the Eisenhower and Kennedy years):  “Liberals feel unworthy of their possessions. Conservatives feel they deserve everything they've stolen.”

Jim Wright (Stonekettle Station blog):  “This is what happens when religion and political ideology alike are based on the simple selfish principle of ‘Fuck you, I got mine.’  This is what happens when you elect billionaires to office and believe them when they try to sell you magic unicorns.  If you can't pay, you die.”

Octavia Butler (Parable of the Talents, 1998):  “Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought.  To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears.  To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.  To be led by a thief is to offer up the most precious treasures to be stolen.  To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies.  To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.”