Arctostaphylos ura-usi is the scientific name of kinnikinnic, an evergreen trailing plant related to the broad-leaf evergreen tree we called “madrona” when I was a girl, Arbutus menziesii, and more distantly to Gualtheria shallon, salal. Kinnikkinnik is found across North American and was smoked, though that’s not something I’ve ever tried. The name kinnikinnik, derived from the Unami Delaware /kələkːəˈnikːan. is enough to make me fond of that plant; I recall climbing a madrona when I was no more than five and tearing open a plastic packet of soy sauce to rub on the smooth red skin where the papery bark had already flaked away; and this morning, I picked and ate what are nearly the last of the salal berries on my way off the beach from a long run this morning.

Most mornings I plan a post while I run, usually about finding seaglass. Then I get home, have a last cup of coffee, and forget all about posting anything at all.

Gary had hernia surgery last Friday, his second. This one hurt les but turned a part of his body quite purple and swollen to an enormous size. He’s better now, but it’s going to take time. The last surgery was more painful but otherwise less disturbing.

I have found myself disturbed by this (that is, worried) and disturbed by the naiveté (that is, astonished) of young White people who think institutional racism doesn’t exist anymore, that powerful people do not keep to themselves—keep power and influence and money too, all to themselves. Racism is just one way to get people angry at the wrong cause of their troubles. The conspiracy theorists are not so wrong about there being a conspiracy to direct the opinions and votes of ordinary people. They are wrong about the specific people doing that, and the conspiracies they direct. There is no conspiracy to make anyone embarrassed about being white or to convert children to another gender or sexual orientation or to take away “black jobs”. There is conspiracy to gather and maintain power and money, mostly on the part of people with a lot more than their share of both.

As a result, people vote against their own interests because a conspiracy by entitled people have convinced them that some other group is depriving them. In America we often choose to punish what we resent rather than to change it for the better. We too often demand action that hurts ourselves in the process of dealing out “justice” to people we disapprove of.

Here’s an example: Children are removed from parents who are unable to provide proper housing for their family. This separation is permanently damaging to the family and the child, and far more expensive than it would be to provide better housing or helping the parent directly in other ways. Years ago, a city in Kansas (I think) decided that instead of assigning 30 cases to a social worker to see each month, they would have a social worker see one or two each day for a week, helping them do everything from finding tutoring for their child to fixing a broken window (that, unprepared, might have cost them custody of their child!). The parent is seen every day, then twice a week, then once, then checked with monthly. In the mean time the caseworker picks up other people. After a year, the system was highly effective in keeping children with their parents, and it cost less than removing a child and paying for care. Voters didn’t like it; bad parenting should be punished.

That doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. In order to punish those who fail, we punish everyone? Everyone is hurt, most notably the children. Children want to be with their parents. Even abused children want to be with their parents—if it’s possible to help parents do a better job as parents, might that not be the best solution? Why pitch our system against failure instead of coming together to help raise everyone up?

My dad used to explain that this was the strategy of the British Empire: get the locals busy fighting with one another and you can walk in and do what you like. It’s one way that tiny European nation managed to take over half the world, and permanently destroy local peace and culture in the process. Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart is a classic illustration of this.

According to The Guardian, “Trump is charged with knowingly making bogus statements in order to promote criminal conspiracies and with obstruction of the election certification processes.” The scientific name for “knowingly making bogus statements” is lying.