A year ago today, Bette and I moved into Holladay Park Plaza and I want to tell you a little about it. For me, there is always the question of what to call today. I have been celebrating the various month marks as we have gone along, so we celebrated our tetramensiversary (four) and our sesamensiversary (seven) and our decamensiversary (ten) “Anniversary” is the handy word for today, but if I wanted to stay with the monthly count, I think I would choose dodecamensiversary as the right word for today. That ought to mean “12 months.”
Bette and I did a lot of planning in anticipation of our move here. I wrote three sets of
essays about the process, so it wasn’t something we did without a good deal of thought. On the other hand, there isn’t really any way to know what it is like to live here apart from living here and we have now done a year’s worth of that. We live in a high-rise part of HPP. This sketch shows the East Building, which is being built right across the street from us and which we have watched since they first broke ground. Beautiful!
I think my one line summary is that living here is easier to do than I thought and harder to 
describe than I thought.
Let me deal with the thinking part first. I have written a fair amount about the major aspects of HPP in preparation for some first anniversary essays. I was thinking of following one of my favorite acronyms, PERSIA, and telling you about the political, economic, religious, social, intellectual, and aesthetic aspects of our new home. Having re-read what I wrote, I realize I simply don’t understand the experience. I thought it was better than I learn that be reading my own writing than to post it and have you all tell me. So…maybe next year.
Instead, I’d like to celebrate today by painting a picture or so and telling a story or so.
There are too many interesting people here for us to have met them all in our first year. The most common get to know you setting is dinner and the most common arrangement is to reserve a table with the new people you would like to get to know. We’ve been doing that for a year now and we haven’t gotten around and besides that, some new people have become residents since we have.
Bette and I have joined several kinds of activities and when you start an activity, you pick up a new kind of resident—a colleague. A colleague isn’t just a friend; a colleague is someone who is trying to get done the same things you are. Every ongoing commitment, whether it is the library, in Bette’s case, or the Plaza Singers in mine, gives you a new set of people who care about what you care about.
In closing this brief reflection off, I’d like to paint two scenes for you to think about. In the lobby outside the dining room, there is a little alcove with chairs set around. There is also a very advanced one-cup-at-a-time coffee maker, so people wander in and get a cup of coffee and stay to talk. It’s like a cracker barrel at an old country store.
Early in the morning, there is a group I call Barbara’s Coffee Klatch, after Barbara Tyler, who presides there every morning. It is a women’s group both in the sense that most of the participants are women and also in the sense that the conversations have to do with relationships and extended families and medical events and proposed travels and so on. Anyone is welcome who wants to have that kind of conversation and I stop by there most mornings to catch up on things.
In the afternoon, in the same place, there is a group I call Drasko’s Seminar, after Drasko Jovanovic, who presides there every afternoon. It is a men’s group both in the sense that most of the participants are men and also in the sense that the conversations have more of a debate style to them. Some observation is made and then challenged and then supported, and so on. One recent topic was, “Is Donald Trump capable of making a decision?” It was a serious question, carefully phrased, and backed up with decades of experience at the federal level. 
There are travelogues as well, because quite a few of these men have lived a lot of places, but we keep coming back to the question on the floor.
I like those two scenes because they suggest the variety of ways there are to live here. I prefer Drasko’s kind of discussion, myself, but I benefit a great deal from hearing what is said in Barbara’s and a place that has both is richer. This truck was very important to us in August of last year. I happened on it today and remembered just how important.
Our goal in coming to Holladay Park Plaza while we were still active was to get our chance to be a part of the robust life of the place, to help solve whatever problems we found, and to help formulate problems that had not yet been formulated, but that should have been. We have done that in this year. We have, in the words of one of the staff who is well-placed to see, “hit the ground running.”
I don’t have any goals for next year apart from continuing to do what we are doing, to make whatever contribution we can make, and to enjoy the company of a diverse and active set of friends.
I do hope to understand, better than I do now, what makes this place tick. But understanding sometimes takes longer and I’m not in a hurry. It’s only Year 1.
Even if you went up to the 16th floor for the purpose of watching the solar eclipse, you found a lot of competing claims on your attention. Here are Holladay Park Plaza (a really good senior center on the east side of Portland, Oregon) we make a lot out of events. So there was a whole table full of edible puns for us to enjoy. There were the dark Oreo cookies set on top of the light Oreo cookies. There were Starburst candies. There was a large container of ice and water sitting next to a large container of ice and a dark tea of some sort. [1] There were Sun chips, cut-out cheese moons, that you could mount on dark crackers. You could eat away the whole eclipse time if you wanted. This shows the roof from the west. We were up there just on the other side of the brown sign.
if only a few people felt that nothing was going on that needed their attention. We watched the construction of the building just east of us slow down and then stop entirely. It was still light enough to see how to cover the rafters with big sheets of plywood, but maybe a little break in the action would be appreciated.
I found myself interested in whether people would think of the closest approach to totality as the end of the show or the intermission. I thought it would be fun to watch when the general exodus began. It began almost as soon as the bright crescent of the sun started to increase again, but by that time, I had thought how many other variables ought to be considered. A lot of people had been sitting out in the sun for a long time by then. Quite a few had been standing for awhile by then. The restoration of the sun may not have seemed all that different from the occlusion of the sun; not that much to hang around for.
So even Lincoln’s program under Lincoln’s leadership would have failed in the short run, but Lincoln wasn’t really in it for the short run. He calls, in the final clauses, not only to achieve a just and lasting peace among ourselves, but also to cherish that just and lasting peace. I don’t think Lincoln would have achieved it, but I do think he would have cherished it and I think that is where we have fallen down in our time.
I saw the result of that during my visit. Every way of embracing and cherishing Irish culture was at the same time a rejection of the Anglicization project. If it didn’t take all ten fingers to play the harp, I think one of those fingers, a finger with its own significance, would have been raised meaningfully against the English. That is the present day expression of all those years of denial and derogation.
(you see the problem) death camp. It was in Mauthausen, Austria [2] But I saw it twice because I took the Elderhostel bicycle tour twice and it was the historical site featured on that day. Before we went out to see the camp, we saw a film about the era and the camp itself. It wasn’t a preachy film, but the condemnation was consistent and powerful. The first time I sat through the film, these processes were attributed to “the Germans.” The second time, some years later, they were attributed to “the Nazis.”
against their country, except, of course, being unfaithful to their state. They would be the Southern Statesmen in a Losing Cause. They would be “the Germans.” Their statues could be revered because of their place in the Common Southern Narrative. These statues would be protected in every relevant way, both verbal and physical, by the whole coalition who put the Narrative together.
Bruni also agrees that the “check your privilege” exhortation rightly asks us to recognize that. I know that when I make an argument, the argument is affected by who I am and the experiences I have had and the same is true for you. That is as far, I think, as that truth should go.
and color don’t sound right to me. Didn’t we write some things in the Civil Rights Act of 1965 about disparaging people because of their sex or color? Is that why it sounds familiar? Clearly the dueling tee shirts point the direction of our future.
I think these instances are ugly and that is why I have cited them. But even more ugly to me, and I say this as a former professor [2], are the “classroom conversations” Lilla points to that take the form of “Speaking as an X, I am offended that you claim B.” Lilla says that the form of assertion precludes much more useful forms, such as “I think A and here is my argument.”
whatever you say both on the grounds of “how you know things” and also “what you know.” Those are just aspects of “who you are.” And I could. Now the two of us, completely heedless of the worth of anything the other might say, stand there and waste each other’s time. [3]
belligerency about North Korea, including both “fire and fury like the world has never seen” and “not tough enough.” And now, since I wrote those, to “locked and loaded.” But let’s start with President Bartlet and work back.
to support the kind of response the President is talking about. Bartlet just wants to hit back. There has been no engagement with Congress, not even the famous “Gang of Eight.” [1]. Nothing with Great Britain or Japan. There has been no foreign policy preparation at all and only a rookie President would act militarily in such circumstances and this rookie President if very fortunate t have someone who will tell him that. The caption is from a Fitzwallace fan. He didn’t have a nameplate that said that.
For example, it is not a difference of public and private person. Bartlet was as angry in this narrative as Trump is today about the threat of North Korea. It is not that Bartlet successfully muffles his anger, determined to act like a president, rather than like an avenger. Taking this scene as a fair instance of his early presidency, he “muffles his anger” no better than President Trump is reported to.
purpose of dealing with other heads of state, some friendly, some hostile, then he needs a strong staff in the very worst way. And he shows very little inclination—General Kelly is a possible exception—to appoint any. The recent televised cabinet meeting at which each secretary was given a chance to say what an honor it was to serve in the Trump administration, does not bode well for anyone giving the President good advice.
I ask you to imagine that sitting down at a table with friends to eat a meal is really just a palette; it is an occasion that you will use to paint a picture of yourself. In this scenario, the meal itself is just a color, just a tool. In such a setting, it makes no more sense to say “Enjoy your meal” than it would to say to an artist, “Enjoy your yellow.”
the meal at all, so very probably he is not enjoying it. Each kind of food is an occasion for recounting where else he has eaten this kind of food and how much better it was then than now. It is a self-aggrandizing performance and while it doesn’t, strictly speaking, preclude his enjoying the food, it is hard to think that he does.
Let’s take it for granted that people like President Trump do whatever they feel is in their best interest. [2] And I take it for granted that people listen to what they think is in their best interest and believe what they think it is in their best interest to believe. And I think it has always been like that. I think that characterizes the presidencies of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton. [3]
remind me of the “pep rallies” of my high school days. Speaker after speaker praises the home team and vilifies the next team on the schedule. Coaches will say things like, “And we are going to win because we are winners” with complete impunity. It doesn’t imply anything about the actual prospects of the home team in the coming game. We may have lost every game so far and be confidently expected to lose this one as well. No one takes what appears to be a prediction as a statement with any factual content at all. It is just a way of praising ourselves and fortifying ourselves against whatever reality will bring.
There is no down side, in the current environment, to being shown to be a liar. In fact, now that I think of it, I don’t see that word used. We see stories that some percent of a politician’s statements (I saw a 70% ranking for Trump during the campaign) are lies, but not that the candidate was “a liar.” In the current environment, lies are honored equally with truths as “courageous,” or as “standing up for the downtrodden” (or the downtreaders) or “saying how he really feels.”
public officials by treating some things as acceptable and others as not acceptable. Politicians who thought their campaigns would be seriously damaged if they could be shown to be lying about public matters would stop lying about public matters. Mrs. Motter trained my friend Bruce to understand that he was not really being called for dinner when she called his name. Bruce responded exactly as you would expect, and as any politician would, who was doing something rewarding and illicit and was not punished for it.
2003 and I had the kinds of grieving difficulties men have when their wives die. One of the difficulties was confusion. A lot of the things that were being recommended to me didn’t seem to help. Some of them made everything seem worse. That’s why I was confused.
But there is the matter if whether that is the best question to pose. In posing this one, he bypassed the other two question we are keeping in mind. The first is whether “broad allowances for emotional expression” are good for people. In focusing on the possibility that these limits are bad for boys, Reiner bypassed the question of whether people in general are benefitted from rich and unconstrained emotional expression. If that were true, we would expect to find that cultures that presuppose free and unfettered emotional expression would be healthier than cultures that do not. I am not aware of any research that holds that to be true, but I will keep my eyes open.
Furthermore, some girls would benefit from a more limited emotional vocabulary and others would not. This is the most important kind of question for parents, but I agree with Reiner that it isn’t very good for outsiders. The research Reiner reports has to do with mothers and fathers with young infants. No one is asking what kind of treatment is going to benefit this particular infant. That is not a question that can be asked yet.
Looking at this from my standpoint, I see the precursors of the intuitive style of grieving and the instrumental style of grieving. The lesson I took from that setting is that there is a perfectly good style of grieving that doesn’t require an expanded emotional vocabulary (as well as one that does) and I am inclined to look at Reiner’s piece from that standpoint.
which we confess our sins together—have not been able to find a form for that confession. The old style (a very attractive example follows) was bold and without any amelioration at all. “We have sinned in thought, word and deed.” Not much wiggle room there. “We have done that which we ought not to have done and we have left undone those things that we ought to have done.” So again, nowhere to hide.
unity—as if I were watching the Rockettes in New York and marveling that they kick exactly the same kick at the same time—and being a part of the unity. If it’s visual, you have to do one or the other. The saying/hearing the Lord’s Prayer is aural. Not only can you say it and hear it—hear yourself as one of many—at the same time, but you can try to approximate the way you say it to match the way you are hearing it. [6]
About his execution, More is reported to have said, “I die the King’s good servant, and God’s first.” It is More’s claim to the ultimate sovereignty of God and the valid, but subordinate, claim King Henry has on his loyalty. More took his stand and paid the price as many honorable men and women have done through the ages. But what he said to the king, cannot be said to a “a truth.” Nor can it be said to be a fact. It is a witness. [2]
temperatures have been increasing at rates unprecedented in the modern era. The elites have nothing but contempt for “people like us” and will say whatever they want with no concern at all for our welfare. One of those is not “truer,” as we like to say, than another. Each “truth” determines the subsequent actions of one community or another—the scientists by the first truth, the “climate deniers” by the second.
What we have here is a clash of narratives each supported by experimental data. The narrative supported by Brady’s findings is about the stress of decision making. The monkeys bore the burden of choosing and paid the price. The narrative supported by Weiss’s findings is about the stress brought on by powerlessness. The animals (rats in Weiss’s case) received shocks with no opportunity at all to avoid them and that is what produced the stress and the ulcers.
The Dilettante's Dilemma 