James Bethel James Bethel

Here's lookin' at everything . . .

Wednesday, November 26, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . Moderate Northerlies are in the forecasts for TulseyTown, bringing much cooler condtions in the low 50's and cloudy skies.

Every day, I am struck by all the ways in which we are reliving the 1890s.In that era too, consumers organized, using their buying power to affect politics. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.

There's trouble in toy-land. Ai bots hidden in holiday toys.

Cartoonist Charles Schulz (“Charlie Brown/Peanuts”) was born on this day in 1922 St. Paul, Minnesota.

The film Casablanca had its first showing today in 1942.

It's the birth date of Eugène Ionesco, the Romanian-born French dramatist who inspired a revolution in dramatic techniques and helped inaugurate the Theatre of the Absurd, was born in 1909 Slatina, Romania. FYI: Yers Trooley acted in Ionesdo's Rhinocéros, and Becket's Waiting for Godot, as well as directing that one.

Fresh Air – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.

Standing in the Center of Your World

When we talk about mindfulness and awareness, we’re not talking about something stern, a discipline that we impose on ourselves so that we can clean up our act and be better and stand up straighter and smell nicer. It’s more that we practice some sense of loving-kindness toward microphones and bowls and our hands and each other and this room and all the doors we go in and out of. Mindfulness is loving all the details of our lives, and awareness is the natural thing that happens: life begins to open up, and you realize that you’re always standing at the center of the world. – Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom Of No Escape, Shambhala Press, 2018.

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James Bethel James Bethel

Birds: Civilized . . .

Tuesday, November 25, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . Forecasts indicate moderate Northwesterlies and clouds for TulseyTown . The sun may make an appearance this afternoon along with upper 50's. The season's first lengthy cold spell settles into the area overnight and into tomorrow for at least ten days with overnight freezing temperatures, slight rain chances this coming weekend and maybe a touch of snow by next Monday.

Where have all the birds gone? – Andrew Rothman, Environment America, 9.30.25

Why are the ultra-rich buying up so much of the media? Vanity may play a part, but there’s a more pragmatic — some might say sinister — reason. – Robert Reich, A Toxic Combo, 11.25.25

Asphalt Civilization

A full winter moon howls from the West

from behind the mountain where the sun will rise

fourteen hours from now. A cold night

to be followed tomorrow by clouds and snow.

Deer on the East slope across the valley

stare into the occasional headlights

leaving silver river ribbons burned into retinas

blinded to our asphalt civilization

and my little cabin.

Dawn stills their confusion making it safer,

hour by hour, from those wolves

whose solos and chorales name the howling moon.

They know, the deer know, and after many,

many moons I've come to know the howling is mutual.

The rising and falling a choreographed dance

as ancient as Lascaux’s caves.

– jab



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James Bethel James Bethel

Thanks . . . in advance .

Monday, November 24, 2025. It's the Moon's day . . . Hiding behind clouds until tomorrow afternoon, which bring on/off/on rain – so say the forecasts for TulseyTown. Moderate Southeasterlies are to be cool, into the upper 50's.

The Week Ahead – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.

How to get rid of “Citizen's United.” – Robert Reich, online, 11.24.25

Republicans desperately want to change the conversations around the Thanksgiving dinner table. But, they can't. – Matt Kerbel, “A Thanksgiving Thought,” in Wolves and Sheep, 11.25.25

The Putin/Trump “peace” plan for Ukraine. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, 11.24.25

Your fave French painter, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was born in1864, Albi, France.

Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection was published on this day in 1859.

Gratitude, real thankfulness, is a mental return to the moment of need—a physical, spiritual or emotional need…. Gratitude requires returning to that moment of need even after the need has been met. – Fr. Richard Rohr, “Do I Say Thanks?” , in Meditations, The Center for Action and Contemplation.

Do you have needs being met in this moment of which you are unaware?

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