Backyard and Beyond

One of the Sarracenia pitcher plants at NYBG; they’ve at least 7 American species in the Native Garden, though only one, S. purpurea, is native to New York.

Something’s blocking the tube here, but this moth still can’t seem to get out. No, this isn’t a metaphor for the times.

But, speaking of natives: my people came to the U.S. at least 200 years ago on my mother’s side and in 1870 on my father’s. I myself was born overseas, in Japan, where my parents were stationed with the U.S. State Department. I grew up in Poland, Canada, Italy, and Germany, as well as in MD and VA around DC.

Cosmopolitanism has always been my thing. There are lots of different kinds of Americans, and I like it that way. I live, after all, in the multicultural-polygot metropolis of Brooklyn, New York.

Yet this scoundrel of a con man Trump has used the filthy flag of nativism to gain power, giving unprecedented moral support to the worst aspects of our history, the Klan and neo-Nazis, causing a spike in verbal and physical violence against people black and brown, not least in schools. Eternal shame on those dupes who voted for this garbage, even if all they thought and hoped they were voting for was “change”; eternal support for all they threaten. I’m a middle-aged white man, but I utterly repudiate the bullshit stereotypically assigned to my ilk and will do all in my power to undo it.