Birdfoot scruitinized the rain . . .
Wednesday, January 28, 2026. It's Odin's day . . . Forecasts for TulseyTown indicate thawing continuing this afternoon with moderate Southerlies and mid 40's. There could be some black ice tomorrow morning until Noon due to the wet conditions from the thaw refreezing overnight. That morning pattern could continue for some time until the snow pack disappears. Jus' sayin' …
Not everything that is faced can be changed; but nothing can be changed until it is faced. –James Baldwin, “As Much Truth as One Can Bear.” Essay in The New York Times Magazine, 1.14.1962
The murder of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis on Saturday morning at the hands of federal agents has put wind in the sails of those trying to rein in the Trump administration and has changed the course of national politics. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.
ICE is getting the scrutiny it deserves … but will it last? – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse
The abstract expressionist painter Jackson Pollock was born today in 1912, Cody, Wyoming.
It’s the birthday of the novelist Colette. The author (Gigi), actress, and journalist was born in 1873 Saint-Sauveur-en-Puisaye in the Burgundy region of France.
And, Alan Alda is 90 today. The multiple laureate actor, writer, director was born in 1936, New York City.
Birdfoot's Grampa
The old man must have stopped our car
two dozen times to climb out
and gather into his hands
the small toads blinded
by our lights and leaping,
live drops of rain.
The rain was falling,
a mist about his white hair
and I kept saying
you can’t save them all, accept it,
get back in we’ve got places to go.
But, leathery hands
full of wet brown life,
knee deep in the summer
roadside grass,
he just smiled and said
they have places go to
too.
– Joseph Bruchac, “Birdfoot's Grampa,” as Poetry Postcard No. 28, Cold Mountain Press, Austin Texas, 1975.
The good light . . .
Tuesday, January 27, 2026 The good light . . .
It's Tiw's day . . . A three-day thaw is in the forecasts for TulseyTown. Light breezes bring a few clouds to otherwise sunny skies and this afternoon with upper 30's.
At least once a day: Stop. Be still for a moment. Look. See without labeling what your vision brings.
On this day in 1945 the Red Army entered the gates of Auschwitz in horrified awe of what they encountered.
On the same day in 1944 the Soviet Red Army ousted German and Finnish forces from Leningrad (what is today St. Petersburg), concluding an 872-day siege.
Today is the birthdate of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. He was born in 1756, Salzburg, Austria.
Mikhail Baryshnikov is 77 today. born in 1948, Riga, Latvia, U.S.S.R.
It’s the birthday of Lewis Carroll. The author of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, was born in 1832, Daresbury, Cheshire, England.
How Can We Fix America's Corruption Problem. – video from The Brennan Center for Justice.
Finding the light of America. – Robert Reich, Tipping Point, online for 1.27.26
Colorado poet laureate Andrea Gibson and fellow poet partner Megan Falley are the subjects of the documentary Come See Me in the Good Light, recently posted on Apple+ and which I watched last night with a box of tissues. The film documents their marriage and how they dealt with Gibson's terminal cancer diagnosis and impending death. She died soon after the film’s production ended. Searing emotionally and gently radiant, the film was directed by Ryan White and produced by comedian Tig Notaro, it won the Festival Film Favorite Award at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and has been nominated for this year's Academy Award.
Two lines from the film to nudge you into seeing this wonderfully moving film experience:
“You can't take your gender with you to the other side. So consider: how hard are you holding on?”
“ Everything you are experiencing: Name it love. Everything you are feeling: Name it love.”
. . . I could wear my heart
on my sleeve and never grow
out of that shirt.
. . . every falling leaf is a tiny kite
with a string too small to see, held
by the part of me in charge
of making beauty
out of grief.
– Andrea Gibson, “How the Worst Day of My Life Became the Best.” From You Better Be Lightning. Button Poetry, 2021.
Redefining the calm within the storm . . .
Monday, January 26, 2026 . t's the Moon's day … making its welcome appearance tonight. Forecasts for TulseyTown indicate sunny skies this afternoon, although remaining cold, in the upper 20's. Westerlies are to become Southerlies tonight bringing a brief thaw above freezing until the weekend.
May such calm be mine, so as to meet the force of circumstance.
The Phantom of the Opera, award-winning stage musical by composer Andrew Lloyd Webber began its Broadway run on January 26, 1988. It celebrated its 35th anniversary on Broadway in 2023 and closed later that year, having earned the title of Broadway’s longest-running production.
Irish statesman, co-founder of Amnesty International, and winner of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize, Seán MacBride, was born on this day in 1904 Paris. His mother was Maude Gonne, Yeats’ unrequited muse.
And its the birthdate of cartoonist, novelist, and playwright Jules Feiffer. He was born in 1929 the Bronx, New York.
The week ahead: even Oklahoma's Governor Stitt is concerned. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse, 1.26.26
What else can we do? – Robert Reich, Mourning in America, 1.26.26
As the nation mourned yesterday, Trump watched a movie. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, posted yesterday.
The following blog entry is a severly edited version of the original Pearcy essay dated yesterday – too long for this space, sad to say.
Immigration Enforcement & The Emerging Dual State by Raymon Pearcey 1.25.2026
In One Battle After Another, the newly released and already award-winning film by Paul Thomas Anderson, a moment of civic terror arrives without warning. Armored vehicles materialize at the edge of a quiet American town. No one knows what rules apply, who is in charge, or what compliance even means. The town doesn’t collapse—it is taken, in real time, by forces that refuse to explain themselves.
Minneapolis crossed a wildly similar threshold this January.
Conclusion: Reclassification, Repeated
What One Battle After Another ultimately depicts is not a coup but a malignant pattern: towns reclassified one by one, citizens unsure when the old rules stopped applying, power moving procedurally rather than ideologically.
Minneapolis now occupies that same narrative space.
The [recent] killings there—of a nurse, of a protestor—are not isolated tragedies. They are signals that the United States is flirting with a system in which constitutional rights remain intact on paper, but apply in practice only to those who remain within an increasingly narrow band of normality.
A government empowered to punish enemies without restraint will eventually redefine who its enemies are. Minneapolis confirms the warning—and sharpens it.
In a dual state, no one is permanently inside the law. Some are simply inside—for now.
Extended Endnotes (Augmented)
1. On the Dual State
Ernst Fraenkel’s The Dual State (1941) remains the canonical account of how legality and arbitrariness coexist. Its relevance lies not in totalitarian analogy but in structural bifurcation: law for some, discretion for others.
2. On Immigration Law as Exception
U.S. immigration law has long functioned as a “constitutional borderland,” with reduced due-process guarantees justified by sovereignty claims. Interior deployment converts this exception into a governing norm.
3. On “Normal Status”
Authoritarian systems rarely begin with universal repression. They begin by shrinking the category of the normal – rendering others administratively naked without formally naming them enemies.
4. On Protestors as Friction
Contemporary security doctrine increasingly frames protest as disruption rather than speech. Once protest is treated as operational interference, coercion escalates rapidly, even absent criminal intent.
5. On the Second Amendment Paradox
The Minneapolis shootings suggest a future in which lawful gun ownership increases vulnerability during federal operations – undermining the amendment’s foundational claim as a bulwark against state overreach.
6. On Emergency Without Law
Democratic erosion rarely requires formal suspension of rights. It proceeds through stretched statutes, normalized exceptions, and delayed accountability—what some theorists call “permanent emergency.”
7. On Cinema as Early Warning
Films like One Battle After Another function less as prophecy than rehearsal, staging procedural authoritarianism before it becomes socially legible.
Except as we have loved
all news arrives
from a distant land.
– Mary Oliver