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America Collection/General interest
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The Perfect Holiday Conversation Opener

by Fran Johns

NUCLEAR WAR. NOBODY’S NOT INTERESTED! NOBODY’S GOING TO ARGUE IN FAVOR . . .

(This article appeared recently on my new Substack page, “The Optimistic Eye,” where I plan to highlight, every Friday, individuals &/or organizations working to preserve truth, justice and our democracy – and the planet – in the coming years. Author Annie Jacobsen is such an individual, Ploughshares is such an organization; Jacobsen’s bestseller is a riveting book everybody on the planet should read. I’ll probably include other Optimistic Eye pieces here, or feel free to visit my Substack page via franmorelandjohns.)

OK, you may not think a pleasant conversation about nuclear warfare sounds like the best path to happy holidays with family and friends.

But think about it. Is anyone going to start arguing? Awareness v global annihilation? Does the prospect of blowing up the planet (or maybe not!) have a certain conversational cachet that everyone might buy into? Goodwill in the air. Plus — since we really don’t expect anyone to launch a nuclear war tomorrow, what better time to talk about catastrophe than when we’ve still a small chance of keeping it at bay.

Ploughshares, an extraordinary global peace and security nonprofit committed to eliminating the threat of nuclear weapons, wants us to talk about this.

To that end, Ploughshares Executive Director Elizabeth Warner recently arranged a conversation with historian of science and nuclear technology Alex Wellerstein and invited supporters to listen in (and ask questions!) Wellerstein’s writings on the subject have appeared in the New Yorker, the Washington Post and elsewhere and he’s currently at work on a second book. In addition to his day job as a professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology he is also working on a video game which millions of people far younger than this writer will eventually play.

You, and guests, may want to join this conversation.

Why? Well, for openers, we have just elected a man not known for calm, thoughtful deliberation to be in charge of pulling the nuclear trigger — or, hopefully, not. Doesn’t that seem a big enough deal for holiday dinner conversations?

If someone can’t be pried away from a screen there is also Wellerstein’s NukeMap. You can pick your target, choose your weapon, detonate, and see what havoc you have wrought. Pretty good way to convince anyone not to wreak nuclear havoc.

We may have little control over our new commander in chief, but we can talk about what’s at stake — that would be each one of us along with planet earth — and we can keep an eye on the man now in charge.

There are enough nuclear weapons around the globe — fairly evenly divided among good guys and bad guys — to blow it up several times over. Treaties signed by the U.S. and its adversaries over the decades have helped keep this from happening. But we have elected a president fond of pulling us out of treaties at the drop of a tweet.

Happily, we don’t have to have an in-depth understanding of nuclear treaties — that’s where people like Ploughshares president Dr. Emma Belcher come in. But how about a conversation about NPT, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, or START, the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (actually, New START now.)

Or. Additional great conversation-opener: For book lovers on your gift list there’s Annie Jacobsen’s new Nuclear War: A Scenario, also definitely a conversation starter. Jacobsen outlines a timeline of a hypothetical attack against the U.S. and how its response would play out.

Admittedly, this isn’t bedtime reading, but it is riveting. Jacobsen’s scenario, created from interviews with key figures, an exhaustive knowledge of once-classified documents and more, gives a minute-by-minute account of what will happen once that first strike unleashes nuclear global disaster.

Nuclear War: A Scenario (it’s been a best seller since publication) includes a sobering observation on p 83: “The U.S. president — as odd as this may seem — has sole authority to launch America’s nuclear weapons. The president asks permission of no one.” It ends with another food-for-thought truism: “It was the nuclear weapons that were the enemy of us all. All along.”

Here’s the good news: nobody, including Donald Trump, wants a nuclear war.

But we are living in the nuclear age. Designated “Nuclear weapon states” are Russia, France, China, the U.K. and U.S.; but other countries also have a few. Until some miraculous global coming-to-our-senses happens, the risk of some unhinged leader unleashing nuclear catastrophe is very real.

Ploughshares has been instrumental in reducing the global number of nuclear weapons in past decades. Just as we might all have a good talk about books and treaties and catastrophic scenarios, how about this for a conversation starter:

“Should the U.S. (&/or other countries) be increasing the supply of nuclear weapons on hand, or should we work to reduce that supply? What do you think? Why?”

Another ray of light: One of the best books on my 2024 reading list was British science journal Nature senior editor Henry Gee’s small book, A (Very) Short History of Life on Earth — 4.6 Billion Years in 12 Pithy Chapters. Dr. Gee, in his pithy chapters, makes you feel as if you’re just having a little fireside chat. And while he’s at it, puts our bumbling civilization in perspective.

It’s worth hoping that our civilization doesn’t bumble itself into oblivion with some stupid, totally avoidable nuclear war.

Isn’t that also worth a good conversation among friends? Happy holidays.

Optimism Collection
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Political Vibes from Brazil

by Fran Johns
Brazilian flag on blue background

A LOVE STORY, A FILM AND A FEW FEARS ABOUT THE FUTURE

(Warning: Sometimes I just can’t help but talk politics)

Photo by Samuel Costa Melo on Unsplash

A century ago two young people met and fell in love in Brazil, a continent away from their homes — his in Texas, hers in Virginia.

The story was that he’d been standing with a friend on a Porto Alegre hillside, watching the arrival of a ship full of newcomers that included a few fellow educational missionaries like themselves. And that he spotted her, a slender young woman with auburn hair woven in thick braids around her head, and said to his companion, “Saunders, I’m going to marry that girl if it’s the last thing I do.”

We had our own opinions about that story — my three older sisters and I — but we learned to smile politely and just let him tell it. The girl in question, who had come to teach music and folk dance to preschoolers, would answer our derision with her own smile and the response, “Well, that’s what he says . . .” Which may explain their long and happy union.

Remembrances are heart-warming; but reading about Brazil today can be scary.

“I’m Still Here,” the award-winning film by Director Walter Salles, has been nominated for a Golden Globe for best foreign language film, with leading lady Fernanda Torres, 59, up for best actress and generating talk about the Oscars. All this follows a failed bid, a quarter-century ago, by Torres’ mother Fernanda Montenegro for the best-actress Oscar that went to Gwyneth Paltrow.

As I’m not much of a movie buff, what I know about I’m Still Here is mostly what I read in the New York Times: “Set in Rio de Janeiro in the 1970s,” writes reporter Ana Ionova, the film “tells the story of Eunice Paiva and her five children, whose lives are upended when the family patriarch, Rubens Paiva, a former congressman played by Selton Mello, disappears at the hands of the military government.” Ionova quotes director Salles as saying “The personal story of the family is the collective story of a country.” And this is what, to me, is scary.

My family returned to the U.S. for good in the mid-1930s, when I was not yet two (yes, I’m sailing into my 90s now) and the winds of war were stirring around the globe.

Brazil, though, was forever my parents’ happy place, Portuguese the language they spoke to each other all their lives. They had been young enough to believe their schoolrooms were helping make the world better. Porto Alegre featured free opera and symphony in the city center, and they made lifelong friends whom I often met in later years. Though the politics of the country were tumultuous — my parents were friendly with the good-guy/bad-guy leader Getúlio Vargas (whose roots were in Porto Alegre’s state of Rio Grande do Sul) — those were joyful years for my family.

What I remember about my father’s politics — other than his policy disagreements with Ronald Reagan, whom he dismissed as “that cowboy in the White House” — was his ferocious opposition to any electorate that handed too much power to one man. He had watched the worst example of that with the rise of the Third Reich (born the same year as I) and had worked against more than one U.S. politician who had authoritarian inclinations in the last half of the 20thcentury.

The political forces behind the troubled 1970s of Brazilian politics were concentrated in a military junta  (supported by the U.S.) rather than a single person; but I remember my father’s sorrow over what happened to freedom and democracy there, and his joy when the dictatorship fell and democracy was restored. He was then in his mid-eighties; he would go on to live, active and engaged, into his 90th year.

My father did not live to know Jair Bolsonaro, who aspires to be dictator of Brazil, and whose supporters stormed the capitol when he lost his last attempt to reach that goal. But I think I know what he’d have to say about Bolsonaro and friends.

I have beloved friends and family members who voted, in the recent U.S. elections, for the not particularly truthful or generous man who has said he would be dictator “on day one,” who demands absolute loyalty, and has been given extraordinary power in advance by the courts that he put in place. I claim no superior knowledge and do not question the many reasons why they, and a slim majority of my fellow citizens, chose to send him back to the White House.

But still. The spirit of my father is omnipresent these days. I remember the loss of democracy in Brazil that I’m Still Here is bringing to light once again. And I know enough about autocracies not to want to live under one.

America Collection/General interest
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Moving Day, Millionaire Style

by Fran Johns
Crane hauling loading box to 5th floor apartment

PUTTING THE NEW PLACE IN ORDER, ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

Home delivery underway on the fifth floor (Author photo)

Oh well, folks have got to get settled in somehow.

Newcomers in my neighborhood are slowly getting their Stuff in place. (When I say ‘my neighborhood’ I mean six blocks and quite a few million dollars uphill from my place; but still . . .) As is demonstrated by the silhouetted dog-walker, everything is downhill, and steeply so, from here; sweeping views of Alcatraz, San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate Bridge etc come with the pricey territory of this apartment. 

When you buy a fifth floor residence in a posh, historic building on Washington Street you then face the issue of how to get everything settled into its new surroundings. For a century or so, hefty moving guys presumably hauled stuff up the freight elevator. Today, though, the solution is to hire a giant truck with a crane, several other giant trucks and (by my count) upwards of a dozen workers to load, supervise and direct traffic.

For openers you take out the fair-sized corner window. Three sturdy guys could be seen stationed in its gaping hole to guide stuff inwards — a job I would not find wonderful. But then, watching the whole work crew for 15 or 20 minutes made me grateful for this desk job.

The mystery object rises to its destination (Author photo)

Once the new load is wrestled (cautiously, I might add) into the traveling container, it swings slowly upward. Crane operators, I guess, factor for things like the wind that was swirling around the park across the street, but if they were as nervous as I about the thing crashing into the wrong window it did not show.

On-time delivery (Author photo)

I watched as the loading box descended from one delivery to pick up the next item (rising above.) It was just one giant, bulky something wrapped in layers of felted cloth. When I inquired of the workers about the cargo, I got a deadpanned reply, “They have a lot of statues.” 

Presumably, if you can afford a home-with-a-view in San Francisco, your art collection might as well include a few works by Rodin or Ai Weiwei for the family room. That, at least, was my imagined package being hauled aloft. It helped to look up at another noise and spot a helicopter hovering above which I further imagined to be a few private eyes keeping an eye on the transaction below.

(I am only reporting what I see here. Details have not been verified.)

Seen overhead (Author photo)

Back on planet earth, there was more than a little irony in finding, parked in the small courtyard of my building, a couple of trucks ushering in one of my actual neighbors. The old-fashioned way, with hand-propelled dollies moving from truck to garage entry to elevators hung with padded cloths.

Not a single helicopter could be spotted overhead.

America Collection/General interest
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Leaving, on a Jet Plane

by Fran Johns
Washington DC

SOME TARMACS OFFER BETTER DEPARTURE VIEWS THAN OTHERS

The capitol from the tarmac, seen from Alaska Flight 7 (Author photo)

Departures, when heading home after a good trip, are always bittersweet. But few offer a farewell equal to DCA:

The capitol alit across the Potomac (above) and tilting downhill (below) as the plane gathered speed, amount to a salute to democracy and a farewell metaphor for at least one westbound passenger. 

The city making a metaphor (Author photo)

But the sparkling Northern Virginia landscape (below) on take-off serves as postscript: we’re all still in this beautiful world together.

On to San Francisco.

Leaving the Potomac, and DC, behind (Author photo)

General interest
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Can I Get a Glass of Milk?

by Fran Johns

I MEAN, JUST AN OLD-FASHIONED GLASS OF MILK, PLEASE?

Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash

Maybe it’s just our multiple- choice culture. Accustomed as we are to 87 varieties of what used to be a cup of coffee . . .


But milk? I have been addicted to milk ever since my Uncle Porter taught me how to get it from a cow when I was in second grade. This was in the old-fashioned hands-on days. On Uncle Porter’s farm. I was pretty good.

Photo by Gonzalo Facello on Unsplash

My current senior living place features soy milk, almond milk, lactose-free milk and assorted percentages-of-fat milk.


And now I read about A2 milk, which lacks some pesky A1 beta-casein neither cows nor milk drinkers ever heard of.


“The rise of A2 milk comes,” I learn, “as the broader dairy industry is in crisis, facing declining sales amid the explosion of plant-based milks. A2’s proponents hope it will stage a comeback for dairy.”


Uncle Porter would be proud.



America Collection/General interest
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Walking the Streets, After the Rain

by Fran Johns

AN URBAN PALETTE WORTHY OF THE IMPRESSIONISTS

The atmospheric river just washed over California. San Francisco was spared the worst, but a few torrential interludes kept us aware.

Good news? Fire season is officially over. Bad news? Flooding, downed limbs and trees, plenty of disruptions. Standing in the spot above I had just walked past the scene below.

The skies were still gray, a slight drizzle reminding everyone of the downpours just past.

But it was hard to stand on the quiet sidewalk and not admire the palette Mother Nature had dipped into to create a scene Camille Pissarro might have wanted to paint.

America Collection/General interest
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Is Your Husband In? Could You Get Him to Help You?

by Fran Johns

ULTIMATE INSULT HURLED BY THE TECH SUPPORT GUY

Photo by SEO Galaxy on Unsplash

It started with the Earthlink support person issuing instructions — you know the drill: scroll down to this, click that, from the dropown box select this, type in the other. We were trying to get the Sent function of my email out of a snit; it had begun greeting any attempt to send messages with one of those dreaded “Cannot Send Mail. SMS Error something or other” boxes.

I had finally connected with a tech support guy on a phone help line.

Patiently I followed instructions. After an hour or so we came painfully to the end, hit Refresh, no luck. Smile, repeat. Another hour and my default pleasant demeanor was tested, but still in place. Problem not solved. 

On background: I do have a brain. Though hardly a tech nerd, I am able to follow instructions. The support person, however, was convinced I was not following instructions properly. This is where things started downhill.

“Do you have someone there to help you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” I replied. “I thought you were helping me.”

“Is your husband there,” he asked? 

So, here we are. Still living in a world wherein it is assumed that “the little woman” — especially if she’s as old as I am — really doesn’t know much beyond how to bake a pie, so if you’re a tech support guy of course you need to speak with the man of the house.

“He’s been dead for six years,” I said. “When he was alive I had to help him with the computer. Do you have any other questions?”

“Oh, I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. I found this unhelpful.

Because I live in a building with an Activities staff, just for fun I called that department and asked if someone had a few minutes to stop by. My friend Oli immediately walked in.

“Here’s my friend Oli,” I said to the tech guy on speaker phone.

“Hello,” she said in her most authoritative young voice. “I graduated in computer science; what can I do for you?”

The tech support guy thereupon put Oli through the drill while she checked exactly all the same boxes etc etc etc until they came to the end. Hit refresh, no luck. “You are not solving the problem,” Oli said before leaving. (She gave me a two-thumbs-up sign.)

Update: My emails are now merrily sending. This morning, following the instructions of a third tech support guy, I managed to change that one elusive number or letter or whatever needed changing. The one the first two had never managed to identify. But with someone, finally, who knew what steps needed to be taken I was able to get my Send function out of its snit.

With no one else at home.

America Collection
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This Is Who We Are?

by Fran Johns

SURELY AMERICA, AND AMERICANS, ARE MORE THAN ONE PRESIDENTIAL VOTE

Photo by Anatol Rurac on Unsplash

“That’s not who we are!”

It may have been the most repeated phrase of political speeches — particularly among Democratic candidates — from the moment Donald Trump was officially named the standard bearer of the Republican party last summer.

The phrase morphed, after the recent election, into a new and perhaps applicable form: “This is who we are.” I heard it repeated, on November 6, in anger and through tears.

But perhaps it’s a little early to declare our national identity. Perhaps we’re still, as we have happily been for centuries, an amalgam of shapes, sizes, colors, opinions and origin stories. Even if a majority of us voted to install, as our leader, a man utterly abhorrent to the rest of us.

Does that mean — because he is a vulgar, misogynistic, narcissistic, adulterous felon incapable of compassion or other human virtues — that we are also defined in those terms? That this is, indeed, Who We Are?

I think not.

Whichever way you voted, you’re still who you were on November 5, right? A regular human being full of contradictions and complexities. That holds true for the American citizenry, as far as I can tell. So the rush to define “us” in one grim-group term is, it seems to me, premature.

A recent article in the New York Times bore a headline proclaiming that the victory “tells us who we are.” I respectfully disagree.

Very few Americans voted for Donald Trump because of the characteristics listed above, despite the fact that they are universally known. Here are just a few of the fellow citizens who voted Republican, and why. Some were pictured in the Times story, others are pulled from other reports.

A woman in a hijab believed Trump’s promise that he “will end the Israel-Hamas war.”

A man from storm-damaged Western NC believed Trump will “take better care of citizens who don’t have homes.”

A man in New Orleans voted Republican for the first time in many years, he said, because he blamed the Democrats for letting inflation get out of hand. He acknowledged that he and his wife both held good jobs and were making more money that four years ago (the reporter asked,) but said he felt weighed down by the struggle to get ahead and believed Trump when he said he was “going to fix things.”

A Muslim man in Pennsylvania blamed Biden for enabling Netanyahu’s genocidal actions and thus had to vote for Trump.

A first-time voter in Arizona believed illegal immigrants were going to take away his job, and that Trump would “solve the immigration crisis.”

A woman in Ohio believes that “Ukraine is not our business,” and said Trump “will end that war.”

Another North Carolinian believes Trump will “protect us and keep us out of future wars.”

A woman in Georgia feels vaccine mandates violate personal freedoms.

(Interestingly, I have not yet read of one person who voted Republican out of a desire for a national abortion ban, something I greatly fear.)

Were any of these fellow citizens concerned about our next president’s vulgarity, utter immorality, felony convictions or common cruelties? Just asking such a question would have created hostility in a nanosecond.

But the fact that you and I perceive Donald Trump as unfit and would disagree with most (or all) of the above arguments does not make us ‘better,’ and certainly does not make us ‘right’ in the national eye. It only makes us part of the complicated mix of a democracy.

Democracy really does die in darkness, and it will take all of us to keep the lights on. You and me and every one of the above. Because all together, all of us in the mix — this is Who We Are.

There’s work to do.

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