In the Heat of the Moment

It is the 4th of July and all is quiet on the Van Story front.  I am sure it the hottest day of the year thus far.  We have had nineties in the past few week, and it has been oppressive outside.  No moving air and unpleasant.  You could manage.  CSX has been active this entire week earning their revenue servicing the Cargill vegetable oil plant on the Cape Fear River.  It would seem they have a dedicated mule on steroids, an ES44ACH which does the dirty work for the second largest privately-owned company in America.  I don't have a beef with Cargill.  They are not owned by a Mexican conglomerate like DAK Americas.  The trouble is making vegetable oil requires HEAT.  I remember reading that hot temperatures outside make their life easier either for transporting the finished oil or heating the soybeans in the vats.  I started driving around that plant a few years ago just to see what the process was.  They were so paranoid they erected a fence and gate enclosing a public road which went through their plant.  I really was trainspotting, something a handful of hobbyists do.  After they built the subdivision across the street and adjacent to the CSX mainline railroad tracks, CSX also came in and built a chain link fence to keep playing children off of their tracks.  I am positive that when the realtor sold these homes there was no mention made of the train activity.  There is a long line of trees meant to disguise the Cargill siding.  Since then they have cleaned up the tracks and put new ballast down.  The other subdivision along the Cape Fear River flooded recently without a hurricane.  Several years ago there was a televised City Council meeting where builders were petitioning the city to grant permits to build this subdivision.  I am positive no mention was made of potential flooding in a watershed area, the Cape Fear River basin.  I am positive those people living in the subdivision of Monclair were not aware that the Aberdeen & Rockfish tracks ran through their neighborhood.  Perhaps they did.  It only was when hazardous material tank cars showed up and were left sitting there that there became an issue.  Usually the EPA or some regulatory agency polices this activity.  Change gears.  When they showed Mount Rushmore last night on the evening news, I almost felt sick to my stomach.  It was startling how inappropriate this monument is.  There is a reckoning happening, and I agree with it.  The rich white men took this county for themselves.  They took it from native Americans killing many of them and their families.  It seems to me that the conquering European white man is on the decline.  The roots of America are not in Europe, although its influence is welcome.  If America had to fight a Revolutionary War to free themselves from an oppressive British rule, then one would think they would embrace the knowledge and wisdom of the Native American.  Could Christopher Columbus have survived without the friendship of Native Americans?  The reason why white supremacists only can recognize a colorless palette, a bland, tepid, soulless pile of dough, is beyond me.  It must be they are intimidated and frightened by color.  We'll call it, "Afraid of the Dark."  Trump supporters are, "Afraid of the Dark!"  Seeing these clearly European faces on a mountain in the Dakotas....  it was unsettling.  It felt like they sailed over, set up shop, and gave nary a thought for those who all ready lived here.  Heathens I believe they would call them, because they wore animal skins and rode horses.  Many Americans, including Texas ranchers, enjoy this lifestyle, the Western lifestyle.  Leather, wood, Colt .45's, and lassos.  I myself find it an appropriate model for quality living.  Why pollute the air with carbon emissions if you could just ride an indigenous animal?  The names come flooding in.  Nelson Rockafeller.  Andrew Carnagie.  J.P. Morgan.  What would have America been without them, but also what would have America been without African-Americans?  Is it possible jazz could have been born without blacks?  According to Ken Burns the academy, or music teachers and scholars in the east, readily were anticipating the new American music.  It did come, but it came in an oblique direction. Is it coincidental that Aaron Copland and Charles Ives often are cited as America's purest composers, artists who studied the American landscape and created a musical voice for our country.  I love "Appalachian Spring," and I listen to it often, but that is not the only voice of America. On the opposite end of the continuum is Charles Ives, and insurance salesman who adopted the ideals of the Second Viennese School.  There are not many mainstream Americans who choose this aesthetic to represent their country.  Why?  We must ask the "Russian Five."  The man of Russia was Petyr Tchaikovsky and appropriately so.  He is one of my favorite composers, because he is so prolific.  There is so much work, and all of it is exemplary.  Several years ago the Fayetteville Symphony, under the direction of Farad Fakouri, played this work in its entireity outside at Festial Park for the Fourth of July celebration.  There were cannons provided by Fort Bragg, real howitzers which were brought in to augment the performance.  It was very moving, because in Tchaikovsky's writing one can hear logic and beauty.  There is no nebulous finger wiggling.  There is no fodder.  Staunchly he understands form and content in music, and you can hear it unfold in a great exposition of human expression.  Isn't it ironic that America uses a piece of music by a Russian composer to represent it patriotism?  Not really.  America has been unusually fertile soil for freedom and creativity.  That has changed, and now we are in a trench, a white, tepid, soulless ball of dough which has no yeast.  It may rise a little, enogh to get an erection for a few minutes, but it will not sustain.  Sustenence is created by soul which is created by spirituality.  America has implemented an "erradicate God" campaign, and now there is nowhere to go except down.  Many people are realizing this.   America has begun the process of reclaiming herself in spite of the white rulers.  It is disappointing that heterosexuality took a hit in the process.