Here and There, Then and Now

then

When I left the USA four decades ago, containers had become an established dimension of the shipping industry but most were TEUs (twenty-foot equivalent units) and they weren’t as all-pervasive as they are now. They didn’t appear so much on city streets and in all kinds of commercial settings.

now

Today I was stopped more than five minutes by a long slow train moving through our neighborhood on one of the main rail lines still serving Louisville. The first thing I noticed is that CSX has replaced our beloved L&N (Louisville and Nashville) railroad.

Next I noticed that the old TEUs which used to ride on standard flatcars have been replaced almost exclusively by the FEUs (forty-foot equivalent units), and in place of the old flatcars new purpose-built carriages convey not one but two stacked FEUs. Things have changed.

Here and There, Then and Now

There

In Cambodia I ate by myself and didn’t cook except to microwave what someone else cooked. For a typical supper I had a small bowl of rice, a cup of some mixture of cooked vegetables and meat that I bought, and two small Cambodian bananas.

here

In the USA and especially at Nazareth Home where I live, the meals I am served are HUGE portions that fill a plate. It’s way too much food and I keep asking for smaller portions but the serving staff keep changing and I still get too much.

A compassionate, constructive approach

I often think, myself, that we need to do a lot better job in the church to explain what the “common good” entails, and I would argue it’s not good for society if you are separating families. Regardless of whether or not they’re documented. If they’re peaceable families, and people are working, you need to find another way to kind of address the fact that they’re in an irregular [document] situation, like an expired tourist visa which could be addressed rather than just simply deporting the father, because that causes a rupture in what is a basic good of society, which is: You keep families together, you allow them to work to feed their families, and you address whatever legal issues are there within the context of the least disruption possible.

Bishop Daniel Flores of Brownsville, Texas (quoted in the NCR)

U.S. Democracy

A few hours ago the U.S. Supreme Court voted to block the administration’s attempts to limit voting in federal elections by manipulating mail-in voting. SCOTUS said that cannot be allowed.

Attorney Marc Elias has been instrumental in seeking to support the Constitution and the freedoms Americans have enjoyed. He has an online presence called Democracy Docket in which he updates the legal challenges facing the American electoral process. I recommend you sign up for Democracy Docket. More to come on that….

Kentucky Democracy

One of the positives of my returning to the United States is that I can do more in working actively to preserve our Constitution and promote democracy. Distance was a limiting factor when I was in Cambodia.

Tonight I went to a meeting of the Clifton (the Louisville neighborhood where I live) Community Council. Members of the council turned in their ballots for the governing board and then we heard from a member (L) of the metro group working on homelessness and from a deputy mayor (R) focused also on housing. Added to the main agenda items were various recommendations and suggestions for keeping democracy alive in the midterm elections 50 days away.

Laws of Nature

When I was working on a homily this afternoon, some big birds outside my window caught my attention. I gently parted the blinds so I wouldn’t scare them away. The reflection of the blinds created the horizontal stripes in the lower right corner. I didn’t notice taking this shot that two of the birds were eating something.

It turned out these were turkey buzzards and they were eating a baby raccoon. (See the ringed tail.) These two were young buzzards and they could eat together when the dominant male finished eating all he wanted. But when he came back for more, they had to scatter.

After an hour, all that was left of the raccoon was leg bones, some fur, and its rib cage.