A big day in L.A. Federal Court . . .

Thursday, June 12, 2025. It's Thor's day . . . and rain showers, on then off, throughout TulseyTown this morning is forecasted for tonight and tomorrow morning. Moderate Southerlies and cool mid 70's this afternoon.

Anne Frank was born on this day in 1929 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

For the first time in a U.S. federal court, there will be cameras in the the courtroom today in the hearing in the California case, the one involving the state’s request for a temporary restraining order against the federal government after it deployed National Guardsmen and Marines to Los Angeles.

Peaceful protests don’t get covered by the national media. Most of the people who come together in places like Des Moines and Kansas City to express their outrage at what Trump is doing aren’t heard or seen. Yet such solidarity is to be celebrated. It is the foundation of the common good. – Robert Reich, Solidarity Now, online.

Maybe what we can do when we feel overwhelmed is to start small. Start with what we have loved as kids and see where that leads us. – Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Sophie Strand's June compost heap, in Make Me Good Soil, online.

Just as the Calendar Began to Say Summer

I went out of the schoolhouse fast

and through the gardens and to the woods,

and spent all summer forgetting what I'd been taught--

two times two, and diligence, and so forth,

how to be modest and useful, and how to succeed and so forth,

machines and oil and plastic and money and so forth.

By fall I had healed somewhat, but was summoned back

to the chalky rooms and the desks, to sit and remember

the way the river kept rolling its pebbles,

the way the wild wrens sang though they hadn't a penny in the bank,

the way the flowers were dressed in nothing but light.

–Mary Oliver, Long Life, Da Capo Press, 2004.

The generosity of a lily . . .

Wednesday, June 11, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . The sunny start to the day here in TulseyTown turns cloudy during the afternoon. So says the weatherfeather. Moderate Southerlies may make for a mid 80's day.

Generosity is an activity that loosens us up. By offering whatever we can—a dollar, a flower, a word of encouragement—we are training in letting go. – Pema Chödrön, in Comfortable With Uncertainty, Shambhala, 2018.

Today is the birth date of Jacques Cousteau. The ocean and underwater explorer was born in 1910, Saint-André-de-Cubzac, France .

It's the birthday of William Styron. The multiple laureate novelist was born in 1925 Newport News, Virginia.

And, playwright Ben Jonson was born on this date in 1572 London.

Under the Constitution, police powers are reserved to the states. Trump is clearly trying to assert himself as dictator. – Joyce Vance explains in Civil Discourse.

“This isn’t just about protests here in Los Angeles. When Donald Trump sought blanket authority to commandeer the National Guard, he made that order apply to every state in this nation. This is about all of us. This is about you. California may be first, but it clearly will not end here. Other states are next.” – Gov. Gavin Newsom, cited by Heather Cox Richardson, posted yesterday in Letters From An American.

The Noble Nature

It is not growing like a tree

In bulk, doth make man better be;

Or standing long an oak, three hundred year,

To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere:

A lily of a day

Is fairer far in May,

Although it fall and die that night—

It was the plant and flower of Light.

In small proportions we just beauties see;

And in short measures life may perfect be.

– Ben Jonson. This poem is in the public domain.

Searching for/with a lost mind . . .

Tuesday, June 10, 2025. It's Odin's day. . . and the “Strawberry Moon” became full around 3 a.m. this morning. The “Strawberry Moon” name has been used by Native American Algonquian tribes that live in the northeastern United States as well as the Ojibwe, Dakota, and Lakota peoples to mark the ripening of strawberries that are ready to be gathered. Alternative European names for this Moon include the Honey Moon. June was traditionally named after the Roman goddess of marriage, Juno. Following marriage comes the “honeymoon,” which may be tied to this alternative Moon name. – from The Farmer's Almanac.

Heather Cox Richardson's Letters From An American put into context Trump's attempt to create a police state.

The week ahead. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse.

The man who launched an attempted coup on the United States in 2020 and instigated an insurrection at the Capitol that resulted in five deaths now claims that people in Los Angeles are launching an insurrection. They’re not. – Robert Reich

Confronting reality: Today is Gustave Courbet's birthday. The French painter and leader of the Realist movement was born in 1819, Ornans, France.

Lost Mind

– after Joni Mitchel

Clouds come and go but are still clouds

just as do illusions. If fortune allows

love comes and as illusions, go,

but is still love.

Confounded pride

insists illusions real,

silencing our out loud

embrace of the one moment

when we could have known

what it meant to be alive.

– jab