springing

The appropriation controversy rages on. Everyone is weighing in, some with helpful calm perspective and some most decidedly not. On a friend's FB page, someone replied to a comment with this, which is helpful.
You can write anything you want, though you might be criticized if you take ownership of someone else's culture in a way that is shallow and opportunistic. Cultural appropriation is not the same as imagination or intercultural dialogue or any other nuanced idea. Cultural appropriation refers to a kind of exploitation of others with less power.

That helps me see the issue in a new way. And that's my last word on this issue. The whole world is disintegrating, climate change and the weather are destroying the planet plus there's a fascist lunatic with his finger on the nuclear button, no, two fascist lunatics, no, more, THREE, North Korea, Russia, and the U.S. Plus Turkey and the Philippines. Imagine, a worldwide gang of fascist lunatics which includes the United States. So it's the bigger picture that preoccupies me now.

To the point that I almost want to stop clicking here, stop reading the newspaper. The relentless explosion of news, yet another absurdity, another atrocity, another reason to tear out your hair. More importantly - another good friend is battling cancer. Brucie is still recovering in hospital in Italy. It seems perhaps he had a stroke; his sister is on the case. We are fragile, we older human beings. That's enough to deal with, without the horror of all the rest.

And yet despite all this, for the first time in a long time - I feel great. Because I'm home? It's spring? All that. I'm home, and it's spring, and I have some energy. Today, my friend Grace came to help me with technology - we upgraded the Mac to the latest operating system which so far has only caused two giant headaches - and she helped me take the plants that wintered in my study outside. It really must be spring.

Now I'm going to go watch a repeat episode of "The Handmaid's Tale" on Bravo. A dose of Margaret Atwood dystopia, just in case I'm feeling a little too perky.

And here, for your delight, is my beloved Macca, a bit hairier than usual ...