6 January

Poem: Do Not Waste A Day, Whispered Simon

by Jon Katz
Do Angels Cry For Simon?
Do Angels Cry For Simon?

When Simon had his stroke,

and toppled over to the ground,

and lay dying.

Lulu came over to him, and kicked him on one side of the head,

and then, soon after, Fanny kicked him in the other,

then they went off to look for grass, and barely looked back.

Animals know how to deal with life and death,

they are close to it all of the time,

they do not want dying animals anywhere near them,

scary things come running.

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Death is like that, in our very real world.

I want to tell you, dear friends,

that I am not heartbroken over Simon’s death,

my heart does not ache over him,

there is no weeping today

at Bedlam Farm, I shed my tears Saturday morning.

I am not a tough guy, anything but,

I am a life guy. Life and love goes on,

he was my donkey, and was dear to me,

we swim along behind life’s stream,

finding connection,

telling stories,

taking photos,

making love,

finding friends,

meeting donkeys and dogs,

sharing their stories,

drinking from the cup.

There are so many tragedies in the world,

they rain over and on us some days,

the death of a donkey, no matter how sweet,

is not one of them.

I am responsible for grief in so many ways,

I wrote the stories about him, I told his story,

so I have to be honest, I am honor bound to try

and be authentic, to find perspective, to share mine,

No one need listen.

I do not ever tell other people how

to grieve, or how long to cry,

or judge how broken their own hearts ought to be,

grief is a personal thing, we all do it our own way,

only God can say.

But grieving for Simon is not for me, not my path.

Simon was a joy,

from the moment I saw him,

to the morning he decided to leave,

and move on to another life.

His life is not a sadness for me,

not a cause for sorrow and lament,

or regret, I will not suffer over him,

my heart is full of joy and promise,

heartache is not what he was about for me.

Simon talked to me all the time,

and I to him.

At his last, he whispered to me of gratitude

and affection, he did not have one bad day

in his life with us, every day was filled with fresh hay and water,

carrots and apples, hugs and kisses, help and comfort,

brushing and rubs,

Lulu and Fanny,

visitors with good wishes, smelling of love.

What more could a donkey want,

what more could human beings do?

Do not mourn for me, he said, shaking his head,

there is nothing to be sad about,

move on, he said so softly, move on,

and then he was gone.

And how wise he was,

and how good,

and I thanked him,

this is me,

this is who I am,

I am grateful for your time here,

I told him, as his spirit rose,

death does not grieve.

Frieda is fading, Lenore

is growing older, sick sheep suddenly die,

barn cats disappear, my knees hurt in the morning,

death lives in our lives,

on my farm, in my pasture, I will be on good terms with it,

or it will find my heart and drive a stake right through it.

This is my life, so I will not waste one day of it,

I will get on with it,

make a joyful noise to the world,

sing my praise to the angels,

they will not weep for me,

Simon said,

there is too much death in the world,

neither should you. The angels will

sound their trumpets for me, he said,

and the glorious and

bountiful days of your life begin right now,

the second I am gone.

And they did.

6 January

Meeting Our Polar Vortex: Chasing Sunsets

by Jon Katz
Chasing Sunsets
Chasing Sunsets

Climate change deniers are missing out, I learned a few years ago that beautiful skies come with extreme weather, and I always look out for it when the weather reports start getting hysterical. My first winter upstate, it was – 30 at least a dozen times and I don’t think I ever  heard anyone mention it, although the weather has certainly changed since then. The animals seem to handle it by moving slowly and being still. We are graining them every day, giving them extra energy and the heated water also helps keep them warm. The sky looks cold, but it also looks especially beautiful.

Thursday sounds like a memorably cold day, even the farmers are talking about the cold wind. When I hear a farmer talk about the Polar Vortex, I will know times have really change.

6 January

New System, Simonless World

by Jon Katz
Simonless World
Simonless World

A farm is like an eco-system, when there is one change, it ripples throughout the system in many different ways. Simon kept the sheep away from the donkey feeder, Lulu and Fanny don’t, so now there is one feeder and all of the animals eat there. There is more room in the pole barn, it is quieter in there – Simon often chased the sheep out. There is less manure.

There is no bray either, which is sad, and no Simon, which is sadder. But life does go on, animals inspire me by their adaptability. They are not wasting a lot of time on grieving and lamenting what they have lost, they are moving into their new lives, new traditions, new patterns.

Simon liked to come to the outer gate, Lulu and Fanny wait in the Pole Barn. Some re-training for Red and the sheep, too. It is sad to lose an animal, it is fascinating to see the new life of the farm evolve.

6 January

Carriage Horses. Liberty, Security. Common Sense. There Is A Right.

by Jon Katz
Common Sense
Common Sense

 

  “Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions.” – Thomas Paine, Common Sense.

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Every time I write about the New York Carriage Horses – every single time – someone posts a message on one social media page or another complaining that the effort to ban the horses in New York is yet one more liberal  or Democratic plot to take away our freedom. When I can, I point out that I support the carriage horses and they are supported by all kinds of people.  I am neither a conservative nor a Republican. I hope that I am never either on the left or the right, I would hate to have my mind and thought labeled and defined in such a shallow and limited way.

Liberty is not the exclusive province of the “left” or the “right,” it is not an abstract idea to be debated on our mindless and divisive cable news channels. It is the cause of every person who believes in freedom and who does not take it for granted. Like so many of you reading this, I am the descendant of immigrants who fled to America for their lives in search of freedom and security. These are not abstract or foolish ideas to me, they do not belong to one political party or another.

Jefferson wrote that freedom is fragile, it is can be taken away suddenly or die by a thousand cuts, and we when turn our backs on fellow citizens whose freedom and security is being taken from them by our own government, we betray ourselves and the dreams of our children.

Thomas Paine wrote that the cause of America is, in great measure,  the cause of all mankind. Some principles are not local, they affect all of mankind. The laying waste of the work of honest people, the dehumanizing of them by their own leaders, the warring against their natural rights without cause, the seizure of their property without due process, this ought to be the concern of every person who believes in freedom,  not matter what label they wish to affix to themselves.

This was the cause and purpose of our revolution.

I am not much of a political person, but when I do think about politics, I think of myself as a radical for liberty, I’m not sure Thomas Paine, the eloquent philosopher who helped launch our revolution,  ever wrote a word I could not live with or support.  I believe that a commitment to freedom and security was the common idea that united all kinds of disparate and diverse Americans and sparked the American Revolution – then and now the world’s greatest experiment with idea of individual freedom, then unheard of in the world.

There was no “left” and “right” when it came to freedom, this was our common value.

The “right” to me has come to represent a hatred of government and a cruel and xenophic disregard for the poor. The “left” has become a social movement that has lost its moral compass and values the rights of animals more than the rights of people.  Both live inevitably in the realm of perpetual argument and rage.

Ideologues cannot think for themselves or lead, they can only follow, and it is this issue, this question of freedom and security,  that are at the heart of the New York Carriage Horse controversy. Beyond the questions relating to animals and their welfare, there is a much larger one.  I have little doubt where Thomas Paine would stand were he alive today. He would recognize, as I do, and so many people on all sides of the political spectrum do, that there are serious and fundamental questions underlying this agonizing and pointless controversy.

This week, I have been re-reading “Common Sense,” and for the hundredth time in my life, was inspired by it again. It applies to this carriage horses, it is what drew me to it and has kept me there.

It is a serious thing – more serious than taxing tea – when government acts without mandate or cause destroys the work and reputation and way of life – the freedom – of innocent and blameless people, and joins with the mobs harassing and frightening them and accusing them of crimes they did not commit.

Americans have always been divided, often bitterly, about many things, but they have always been united about one thing: it is the role of government to protect freedom and property, and to preserve liberty and provide the security that citizens need to live their lives in peace, contentment and prosperity. This has drawn all sorts of people to the cause of the carriage trade – workers, poets, progressives, actors,  conservatives, artists and animal lovers and romantics from all over the world. The horses have transcended the hoary divisions of left and right, they have called to their cause and survival people who love freedom and grasp it’s importance.

For more than 150 years, the people in the carriage trade have lived in peace and freedom. They have worked long and hard and honestly, provided for themselves and their families, run their business successfully, obeyed the laws and regulations of the city and the state, paid their taxes. Today, they find themselves under a cruel and prolonged assault that threatens to take away their liberty and security and their property as well, and that has already damaged or destroyed their dreams for their children and grand-children.

Their government has not protected or defended them from this unjust persecution, quite the opposite, it has initiated and sanctioned the assault on their way of life and is seeking to destroy their industry, deprive them of their sustenance, security and property. All of this has been done without any consultation of representation of them or their interests, it has been done outside of the law and the purview of the civic bodies and agencies that have regulated them well and for generations.

And it has been done in defiance of all evidence and of the public will, which has repeatedly and overwhelming said it supports the carriage trade and wishes that the horses remain in New York.

I would highly recommend that anyone who doubts the seriousness of this wrong-headed campaign or considers the issue to be frivolous or a waste of time re-read Common Sense, the pamphlet that started a revolution, a small book that sold 500,000 copies in a country of two million people. It always reminds me what the struggle for freedom is about, and how it never really ends.

Government is a necessary evil, wrote Paine, it exists only because of the inability of moral virtue to rule the affairs of mankind. Kings are not fit to govern free people, he wrote, because they represent only themselves, not the will of the people they serve. “And however our eyes may be dazzled with snow, or our ears deceived by sound; however prejudice may warp our wills, or interest darken our understanding, the simple voice of nature and of reason will say, it is right.”

Paine foresaw that his country would grow, and that the affairs of the country would have to be governed by a select number chosen from the whole body of citizens, “who are supposed to have the same concerns at stake which those have who appointed them, and who will act in the same manner as the whole body would act were they present.” This, he wrote, is the opposite of tyranny, and anything else is tyranny itself, the behavior of Kings, not representatives of free people.

In a free society, leaders do not have the right to don the crowns of Kings or rule by fiat. They exist to represent the freedom and security of the people, and to reflect the wishes of the people who chose them, they are a necessary evil, not the sons and daughters of divinity.

In New York City, the mayor has chosen to take away the freedom, way of life, liberty and security of hundreds of his citizens. In this, he is opposed by nearly three-fourths of the citizens of the city. By every newspaper.  By labor unions and business organizations. By the rich and the poor, by every racial, gender, age, ethnic and geographical entity in his city, and by countless animal lovers, children, tourists, visitors and lovers of the great park that is a crown jewel of the city. He has consulted no experts, taken no surveys, talked to no driver or horse owner, entered into no dialogue, negotiation or discussion. He has, by decree,  labeled the targets of his campaign and their work “immoral,” and refused to discuss it further, stating repeatedly that he is correct, and that he knows he is correct because he believes it to be so.

This, then, enters the realm of tyranny, not democracy, and Paine cautioned that there is no such thing as tyranny small or tyranny large, once the crack is opened, it can open wide.

He has introduced legislation that would ban the carriage horses and banish them from New York with no mandate at all.

 “A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason,”  wrote Paine, and time has produced no converts for the mayor and his ugly pursuit of the carriage horses and the people in their trade.
There are many disturbing issues to talk about it in the campaign against the carriage trade. The campaign against them is cruel and unjust, characterized by harassment, dehumanization, defamation and unproven accusation. They is absolutely no evidence that the horses are being mistreated, that they are unhappy or discontent, that they are unsafe in the city, that they are ill from dangerous fumes, or are unfortunate in any way. Quite the opposite, animal lovers know they are the luckiest horses in the world. There is no evidence that they are a danger to others, that they would prosper or prefer a life in “the wild,” or that they are being abused.
But there is also this other issue, the one raised by Paine in Common Sense more than two hundred years ago, but that is as relevant today as it was then. The mayor of New York, in almost every respect when it comes to the carriage horse issue, is behaving like a King, not the leader of free people in a free city in America. In this, he is behaving like a monarch, not a mayor.  He is speaking only to his God, he has no need to consult the people, listen to them, or represent them.
 “The King,” wrote Paine, “is not to be trusted without being looked after, or in other words, a thirst for absolute power is the natural disease of monarchy,” the greatest threat to freedom and security. Kings suppose themselves to be wiser than the people they serve. The American idea is that the people are wiser than the people who serve them. The people in New York City have spoken, loudly, clearly and consistently. Their wishes have been discarded.
 Paine, in his writing, was calling upon his fellow citizens to wake up, and see what was at stake in the turmoil surrounding them.
In New York, it is common now for City Council members, editorial writers and commentators to dismiss the war against the carriage trade as foolish, as a waste of time. as a silly thing when weighed against the monumental and  issues facing New York. Paine’s passion has gone stale in the great city, where condos are safe but horses are not, where ferrets will soon be legal but horses may soon be banned.
I don’t think this issue is silly or stale,  and I don’t think Thomas Paine would have thought so either.  When we are exposed to the same miseries by government that we are by Kings, Paine wrote, then that is a calamity. So it is, and it is just the calamity that hovers over the innocent people of the carriage trade.
“Government, like dress,” wrote Paine, “is the badge of lost innocence; the palaces of kings are built on the ruins of the bowers of paradise. For were the impulses of conscience clear, uniform and irresistibly obeyed, man would need no other lawgiver; but that not being the case, he finds it necessary to surrender up a part of his property to furnish means for the protection of the rest.”
But he or she does not need to surrender their freedom, security or property.
When prejudice warps our wills, or private interest darkens our understanding, the simple voice of common sense, of justice and reason, must say, there is a right, and there is a wrong, and the campaign against the people and the horses of the carriage trade is wrong.

 

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