This land is our land . . .

Tuesday, July 14, 2026. It's Tiw's day . . . those slight Summer chances for a thunderstorm sneak back into the forecasts for Green Country. Easy Easterlies, low 90's fill the afternoon in TulseyTown.

Today is the birthdate of Woody Guthrie, born in 1912, Okemah, Oklahoma. Not far from my front porch and all our minds.

And today in 1960 Jane Goodall set up camp in Tanzania.

Swedish director and writer Ingmar Bergman was born on this day in 1918 Uppsala.

And it's the birthdate of playwright Arthur Laurents, born in 1917 Brooklyn.

It's Bastille Day, celebrated around the world by all French supporters.

China’s open Ai models are advancing its global soft power while America’s closed models are falling behind. – Nathan Gardels, Noema, 7.10.26

As predicted: Tech companies are turning to Ai to cut staff and increase profits. Prepare to say goodbye to the middle class.

Can ChatGPT Be Your Therapist? USC Study Tested AI Responses to Mental Health Questions.

Woody, Arlo, Steve Goodman, the songs and memories continue.

Always in the small hours . . .

Monday, July 13, 2026. It's the Moon's day . . . and it is new tonight and tomorrow. Green Country forecasts for today are much like yesterday's. Sun, clouds, moderate Nor'easters for TulseyTown. Low 90's with an index in the upper 90's late afternoon.

Leave the door open for a little joy.

Robert Reich remembers Lindsey Graham. – Lindsey Graham R.I.P. 7.12.26

On May 3, 2016, Senator Lindsey Graham posted on social media: “If we nominate Trump, we will get destroyed…….and we will deserve it.”

Call your Senator and explain why Todd Blanche should never, ever become U.S. Attorney General. – Robert Reich, substack, 7.13.26

Nobel Laureate Wole Soyinka is 92 today. The Nigerian playwright and political activist was born in 1934, Abeokuta, Nigeria.

Today is the 94th birthday of Harrison Ford, born in 1942, Chicago, Illinois.

English poet John Clare was born on this day in 1793 Helpston, Northamptonshire.

In the Small Hours

Blue diaphane, tobacco smoke
Serpentine on wet film and wood glaze,
Mutes chrome, wreathes velvet drapes,
Dims the cave of mirrors. Ghost fingers
Comb seaweed hair, stroke acquamarine veins
Of marooned mariners, captives
Of Circe's sultry notes. The barman
Dispenses igneous potions ?
Somnabulist, the band plays on.

…

Departures linger. Absences do not
Deplete the tavern. They hang over the haze
As exhalations from receded shores. Soon,
Night repossesses the silence, but till dawn
The notes hold sway, smoky
Epiphanies, possessive of the hours.

This music's plaint forgives, redeems
The deafness of the world. Night turns
Homewards, sheathed in notes of solace, pleats
The broken silence of the heart.

– Wole Soyinka In the “In the Small Hours,” in Early Poems, Oxford University Press in 1997.

It's not a disease . . .

Sunday, July 12, 2026. It's Sol's day . . . Easy Northerlies are to bring cooler conditions to Green Country today. Sun, some clouds, upper 80's and an index in the mid 90's are forecasted for the afternoon in TulseyTown.

We have thousands of opportunities every day to be grateful…There’s opportunity upon opportunity to be grateful; that’s what life is. — Br. David Stendl-Rast.

Today is the birth anniversary of poet Pablo Neruda, born Neftali Ricardo Reyes Basoalto in 1904 Parral, Chile.

It's also the birthdate of Henry David Thoreau. The author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, tax resister, and transcendentalist, was born in 1817 Concord, Massachusetts.

And, (Gaius) Julius Caesar was born on or around this day in 100 B.C. Rome.

The Republican Party’s message four months before the midterms appears to be, “You’re not getting affordable housing unless you give up your voting rights.” – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

Robert Reich is grateful today.Sunday Thought.

Contemporary western culture conditions us to see loss as a problem and grief as some kind of disease. You are expected to get over it, solve it, move on. Marabai Starr invites you to move in. A free workshop for anyone who've ever experienced loss of any kind no matter how profound. There will be two sessions: July 25-26 at 1 pm Central timr. Sessions are recorded for future registrant access.

Love Sonnet XVII

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,

except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

– Pablo Neruda, “One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII” from The Essential Neruda: Selected Poems, translated and edited by Mark Eisner. This edition: City Lights Books. 2024.