tao1776

   We had our first "real" snowstorm last week. I remember some twenty years ago or so when I could look out my window and see the looping tracks of wild rabbit running in and out of the bramble. It created a sense of comfort somewhere deep within me; contentment without definition. Rabbits just doing what rabbits do.    Now I look out and see the snow untouched. The rabbit patch has long been weeded out by the neighbor in favor of having a fenced in yard for their many dogs. This week as I watch out my window, I am aware that I have this feeling of missing the rabbits but I don't begrudge the neighbors or their love of the dogs. Ever in a state of flux, rabbits go and dogs will come. How long will the dogs reign supreme in their fenced in yard?    The part of town in which I  reside was once referred to as "The Patch" and it was where many of the Irish immigrants came to live. The house was built about 1900 and my family may have been only the fifth family to

"The strongest and most effective force in guaranteeing the long-term maintenance of power is not violence in all the forms deployed by the dominant to control the dominated, but consent in all the forms in which the dominated acquiesce in their own domination." I used to get angry and drive off in my car alone, often finding solace at the home of a friend, or the wooded view by a lake or by sitting upon a stool bellied up to the bar. I would argue and defend myself until I realized that the source of discontent and anger was not about one being right with the other being wrong; it is about power and insecurity. The fragile and insecure seeking a guarantee that their emotional waters would seldom be troubled. The demanding of a promise as great as that "the sun rises and sets upon the earth day after day" - the irrefutable law of constancy. I too must strive for this level of promise. "It's all right. Everything is going to be all right". But this