Hate distracts while Constitution is torched

Poetry still exists in the world

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When you’re ignoring the constitutional separation of powers and claiming for yourself the congressional right to allocate money; and you’re sending teenage tech bros to access Americans’ personal financial records; and you’re giving an unelected billionaire the power to fire tens of thousands of federal civil servants, you’d better have a way to distract the attention of the American public.

Immigrants and trans men and women are the scapegoats Trump has chosen to take attention away from his abuses of power. His executive orders about them have nothing to do with protecting U.S. citizens or helping the country prosper and everything to do with finding someone to demonize.

Executive orders have in the past read like legal documents. Trump’s read like midnight manifestos duct-taped to a telephone pole.

“Across the country today, medical professionals are maiming and sterilizing a growing number of impressionable children … “ begins his order of Jan. 28, which would withhold federal funding from facilities, such as hospitals, that provide gender-affirming care to people under age 19.

The order substitutes the phrase “chemical and surgical mutilation” for “gender affirming care.” It associates the prescribing of hormones with female genital mutilation, the brutal, non-medical removal of parts of the genitalia of female children and young teenage girls, which still takes place in some countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Female genital mutilation is illegal in the U.S. It is an oppressive, forcible practice that is a reflection of sexual inequality in the places where it occurs.

Gender affirming care is a way for young people to assume the identity they feel in their souls suits who they are. It allows them to feel comfortable in their own skins. It is a path to self-realization critical to their good health.

An order from the highest level of our government that casts the deepest desires of transgender youths as self-mutilation does nothing but harm them.

About 100 to 150 young people are transitioning in any one year in the Warren, Washington and northern Saratoga County region served by Lower Adirondack Pride, according to Cam Cardinale, the president of the organization.

Since December, after the election of Donald Trump, the organization has had a 250 percent increase in its case management program, he said.

“The executive order has created chaos with our local community,” he said.

But he has been heartened by local support, which has not declined. Lower Adirondack Pride is run by volunteers and entirely supported by donations from local businesses and individuals.

“It’s completely grassroots — no government funding, no grant funding,” Cardinale said.

Despite Trump’s order, local trans youths have been able to continue their care, because Planned Parenthood never paused its treatments, he said.

We are lucky to live in New York, where Democratic state officials are fighting back against oppressive presidential actions.

Attorney General Tish James recently joined 12 other state attorneys general to make sure no hospitals or other providers withhold necessary care.

A federal court ordered the Trump administration to unfreeze funds. Since Congress decides on funding, Trump’s desire to defund hospitals and other health care facilities has no legal force, no matter how big he makes his signature.

“If the federal administration takes additional action to impede this critical funding, we will not hesitate to take further legal action,” the press release from the attorneys general states.

Trump is trying to overwhelm and discourage us with an extra-legal blitzkrieg. But we can fight back one battle at a time. From the New York attorney general to the North Country Light Brigade, we all have a role in stopping him.

North Country Light Brigade’s most recent message shines above Quaker Road.

Barbra Banda

Without plunging into the details of the debate over trans women athletes, I want to point out that one female athlete is being pursued by the same wolf pack that starts howling every time a trans athlete comes to their attention.

Barbra Banda, an elite soccer player from Zambia, is 24, already Africa’s all-time top scorer and was named by the BBC as its Women’s Footballer of the Year for 2024.

In response, J.K. Rowling said this: “Presumably, the BBC felt this was more time efficient than going door to door to spit directly in women’s faces.”

Why the harsh and crass hostility from a billionaire author?

Because Banda looks like a boy.

Banda was born a female, has lived as a woman her whole life and competes as a woman. But because she looks like a man, Rowling is disgusted by her athletic success.

It has been reported that Banda has a high level of naturally occurring testosterone. Hormone levels vary in men and women — some women have higher levels of testosterone than some men, some men have higher levels of estrogen than some women. So what?

Some women are taller and stronger than some men. Some men have high voices. People aren’t robots with exact “male” and “female” specifications.

Isn’t Banda doing just what the gender police want by taking advantage of her natural physical gifts? Or should someone have told Shaq it wasn’t fair — he was just too big?

Inside the soccer world, Banda is popular with players and coaches, who have defended her, and she has many fans. A shortlist of five players for footballer of the year was put together by coaches, players, soccer administrators and non-soccer journalists, but the winner was determined by a vote of readers of the BBC Sport website.

People who know their soccer admire and respect her. It’s the ignorant and the aggrieved making a fuss, as usual. But that fuss can be hurtful and damaging.

I’m writing about Banda to show that the uproar over trans women athletes is about more than athletic fairness. The harsh treatment of trans women athletes is like some other prejudices in that it starts with a reaction based on appearance. Visceral discomfort is what inflames this debate, not the facts on hormone levels or chromosomes.

This discomfort can be overcome with a little effort, but as with other prejudices, you first have to admit to yourself what you’re feeling.

Barbra Banda in 2023

Poetry

Richard Carella is a poet who lives in Hudson Falls and is a friend of mine. Carella was friends with William Bronk, a well-known poet from Hudson Falls who won the National Book Award for poetry in 1982 for his book “Life Supports” and who died in February of 1999. Carella and I get together when we have the chance and talk and sometimes he sends me a poem. Here is the latest:

Plane of Existence

Like fog hot breath breathes–                                                                                              onto cold panes-of-glass,

we appear in the world...

and cling to it, fiercely:                                                                                                            for as long as we last.

Readings

The email listed on Tom Clavin’s website is beachreading@gmail.com, and it’s a perfect descriptor, judging by the one book out of his 25 that I have read. I read “Tombstone: The Earp Brothers, Doc Holliday and the Vendetta Ride from Hell.” It was a Christmas gift from my sister, Erin, and a change of pace, because she has been giving me literary novels, the last three of which — “Trust,” “North Woods” and “James” — I liked a lot more than I expected. The first gift book was “The Flamethrowers” by Rachel Kushner, which was utter trash and continues to win literary awards, including being listed last year as No. 56 on the New York Times list of the 100 best books of the 21st century. (It was an excellent gift, because I learned so much from reading a really bad book. The same was true for “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen, a large, watery custard of a novel that had one very funny scene at the beginning and got worse and worse as it went on and on.)

“Tombstone” does not suffer from obtuse pretentiousness like Kushner’s and Franzen’s books. It’s very readable — the pages fly by — and has a great subject. I was curious about the truth of the circumstances around the gunfight at the OK Corral, or as close to the truth as can be determined, and Clavin, a former investigative reporter, answered all my questions.

Essentially, the famous gunfight was the climax of a power struggle between a faction, represented by the Earps, that wanted law and order and the relative tranquility that accompanied it. This faction saw Tombstone growing and prospering by attracting families and shops. On the other side were the ranchers and their hired hands, who embraced a more lawless vision of a community they could dominate through force. I couldn’t help seeing in the circumstances a very rough parallel with what we are experiencing now as a country, with a wealthy cabal making their own rules in Washington, while citizens on the other side want the law equally applied. It was more complicated than that in Tombstone — some lawmen were corrupt, disinformation persuaded some citizens to take the ranchers’ side and some people resented the Earps as high-handed and meddlesome. It’s complicated in Washington, too, and unlikely to be settled by 30 bullets in 30 seconds.

History all around

Speaking of historical events, lots of them played out across the landscape of the local area, particularly during the French and Indian War and the Revolutionary War. Many years ago — I think it was before we moved to Glens Falls — I read a book about the ways the geography of upstate New York influenced those wars. It’s called “Fields of Battle: The Wars for North America,” by John Keegan, and it’s fascinating, especially considering that many of the key locations discussed in the book are right around us.

One of those many local historical sites is the Little Carrying Place at Fort Miller on the Hudson River along Route 4 in Fort Edward. I’m not going to say much about it, because I’ll probably get some historical detail wrong if I do, but it’s a scenic spot, and I took a few photos of the area recently.

Here is the historical marker for the Little Carrying Place in the Fort Miller area of Fort Edward, where, at one time, a waterfall on the Hudson necessitated a portage.

Lock C-6 of the Champlain Canal is located in Fort Miller.

This little cemetery — Riverside Cemetery — is also located in Fort Miller, next to the river and near the Little Carrying Place.