Amongst the flotsam and jetsam . . .
Friday, March 21, 2025. It's Freya's (Frigg's) day . . . Another blustery day is at hand for TulseyTown and Okieland. Forecasts indicate strong Southerlies, occasionally gusting over 40 mph, bringing mid 70's with a mix of clouds and sun.
Heads up, travelers: London's Heathrow airport is closed. An explosion at a nearby power station has shut down all power for the time being at Europe's largest air terminal.
Gary Oldman turns 67 today. The English film actor and Academy Award laureate was born in 1958, London, England.
One of the greatest composers of all time, Johann Sebastian Bach, was born on this date in 1685, Eisenach, Thuringia, Ernestine Saxon Duchies [Germany].
Der Trumpenfurher is becoming a bigger problem for the Supreme Court and they may not be able to control it. He's actually issued a vailed threat to Justice Roberts and the court at large.
It is the good deed that counts, not the “yes” with good intentions ... We learn by doing … Often, it is practices that shape us, that change our beliefs and help us internalize them in ways that are transformative.
That said, here's my doing practice for today: Let's be clear: TransPeople are people. Black people are people. Women are people. Even politicians who've decided some of us aren't people, are people. Any violence or discrimination against any one person among all us people is violence and illegal discrimination against all of us. If Trump can get away with arresting and deporting just one of us because he doesn't like what he/she said, he can do it again and again to any one of us for whatever reason his deranged mind can make up. In short: support your ACLU and People for the American Way. On a tight budget (like mine), send $1. Even if you are a life-long, hide-bound republican. Some day you may need them.
And email and call your Senate and House representatives at every opportunity. Otherwise, the next step is banging pots and pans in the streets of your town.
Among Other Things
. . . this is the part I’m reluctant to tell, is how, in my life, which has been going on
for a while, when one of these moments where something I’ve wanted
but thought wouldn’t happen occurs, like these wide-leggèd jeans,
– Arthur Russell, “Among Other Things,” Rattle #86, Winter, 2024. Rattle Poetry Prize Winner.
Even ghosts can be literate . . .
Thursday, March 20, 2025. It's Thor's day … I share this birth date with The Spring Equinox and with the fabulous playwrite Henrik Ibsen. Ibsen, Grieg, and Sibelius contribute to my now life-long love affair with all things Scandinavian and the blended balance of the romantic with logic, reason and hard truths won in the silence between words.
No matter how frenzied you feel, no matter how shoved and strangled by the rush of events, you are standing in a single exquisite moment. – Kathleen Dean Moore, “We Are Held by What We Cannot See,” in Tricycle, July 3, 2022.
Just so you know . . .
Roman poet Ovid was born on this date in 43 B.C. in what is now Sulmo, Italy.
Albert Einstein published his Theory of General Relativity today In 1916.
And in 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was published.
Now that you know . . .
What happens when Trump ignores the courts? We're about to find out today.
Trump thrives the most when Americans aren’t well informed about what he’s doing. We’re in this together. Excellent video posted by Joyce Vance, at Civil Discourse.
State of the arts of technology and science on display: if you missed it – watch NASA astronauts return home from their extended stay aboard the International Space Station. And stay with the video after it ends, with a update on the latest robotics project with the combined resources of Nividia, Deep Mind, and Disney Research lab. It's enough to make a borderline Luddite tear up as they change their mind after it's been stretched open to the edges of possibility.
“… we’re all of us Ghosts … It’s not only what we have invited from our father and mother that walks in us. It’s all sorts of dead ideas, and lifeless old beliefs … There must be Ghosts all the country over, as thick as the sand of the sea. And then we are, one and all, so pitifully afraid of the light.” – Henrik Ibsen, in Act 2 “Ghosts”.
Ten-thousand whispering and nobody listening . . .
Wednesday, March 19, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . and a windy one for TulseyTown. Forecasts indicate dusty-mixed-overcast skies and strong Westerlies turning Northerly as the day moves on. Temperatures were already falling on this morning's walk to the Mailbox. It's to be a blustery 49º by noon, with a windy night and 36º by dawn tomorrow. Winds could occasionally gust over 40 mph. Batten down them hatches.
Creatives’
Today is the birth date of legendary African-American comedian Jackie "Moms" Mabley, born Loretta Mary Aiken in 1894 Brevard, North Carolina.
Novelist Philip Roth, born today in Newark, New Jersey (1933)
The author of English translations of A Thousand Nights and One Nights, and The Kama Sutra, Richard Francis Burton, was born on this day in in 1821 Torquay, England.
Glenn Close turns 78 on this, almost, my birthday. The internationally recognized and multiple award laureate actress was born today in 1947 Greenwich, Connecticut .
Bruce Willis turns 70 today. The award winning actor is suffering from frontotemporal dementia. which went undiagnosed for a number of years – not inconsistent with the disease pattern. His wife, Emma Hemming, recently posted an emotional message about the disease and caregivers
And, surely, not least: Bob Dylan's debut album was released on this day in 1962 by Columbia Records. The album was produced by Columbia talent scout John Hammond.
A hard rain is falling . . . a good metaphor can reach all the way to a Nobel Prize.