Frankly, fickle . . .
Friday, June 27, 2025. It's Frigg's day (Freya) . . the heat dome over TulseyTown is easing. The weatherfeather indicates a 50/50 chance for rain. Which translates to “either it will or it won't.” Chances remain tonight and tomorrow but drop off into our usual 20%.
You are the sky. Everything else – is just the weather. — Pema Chödrön
One of my heros, Bill Moyers died yesterday.
Today is the birthday of Helen Keller. The blind, deaf author and educator was born in 1880 Tuscumbia, Alabama. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Keller
Trump news continues to hi-jack the blog.
[The] unprecedented strike has shown the Islamic regime for the second time, that nuclear diplomacy is reversible, fragile and vulnerable to changes in leadership in Washington. There will not be a third time. If Iran now decides to move towards a bomb, it will do so following a clear strategic logic. No one bombs the capital of a nuclear-armed country. June 21, 2025 may go down in history not as the day the Iranian nuclear program was destroyed, but as the day a nuclear Iran was irreversibly born.” – Enrique Mora, European Union Iran nuclear negotiator, cited by Heather Cox Richardson in Letters From An American.
Wars pose particular challenges to democracy because nations at war often become more xenophobic and willing to give those in power extra leeway to protect the homeland. That’s an underlying danger with Trump’s warmongering. – Robert Reich, “What Trump Will Do With His War.”
A president who is uncomfortable with liberal democracy and civil rights and religious tolerance might welcome an attack so as to declare martial law and cancel the midterm elections. I hear sensible people discussing this lunatic idea and it is troubling. – Garrison Keillor, The Column, 6.24.25.
Trump administration officials have restarted aggressive social media screenings of student visa applicants. If we let the government punish students for what they post online, what’s to stop it from coming after citizens next? Like this blog. Or that you read it.
ICE is holding roughly 59,000 people in detention, likely the highest number in American history. Nearly half have no criminal record.
[The Supreme Court justices] work for us. The job may not always be easy. They will not be able to avoid a confrontation with this White House over the scope of presidential power, unless they are willing to concede that the president has the powers of a king, because that is clearly what Donald Trump is trying to acquire. – Joyce Vance, Civil Discourse.
“When a pickpocket meets a saint, all he sees are the saint’s pockets.” – Soren 2.0, 6.26.25
You am, I are, We
– remembering e.e.cummings
The universe is our temple, a pimple,
a humble gimbal, a dimple, frankly fickle.
Left in a pickle, loud proud and ignomineously
deaf, dumb and blind to the level of a stubbed toe –
toiling in the shambles
of spilled leftover soup
on a linoleum floor, slipping
out from under foot at a speed
faster than that of light.
– jab
You can't always get what you want . . .
Wednesday, June 25, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . Moderate Southerlies are in the forecasts bringing a few clouds and the slightest of rain chances to the afternoon. The Moon is new. Hiding from the heat? As it begins its waxing cycle this weekend, forecasts indicate good rain chances as the high pressure heat dome begins to wane.
Burying the lede: It seems to me long past time to question the 79-year-old president’s mental health. – Heather Cox Richardson in yesterday's Letters From An American.
Anne Frank's diary was published on this day in 1947.
Today is the birth date of George Orwell. The author of 1984 was born Eric Blair in a small village in 1903 Bengal, India. 1984 has been translated into 62 languages and sold more than 10 million copies.
Two pieces posted in the past two days by Robert Reich seemed to me to be extraordinarily worthwhile … So here they are:
Perhaps the most important message for these times from someone who wasn't Liz Cheny.
A conversation with a group of students, friends and colleagues on the occasion of Robert's 79th birthday.
Sailor, Home from the See
Nobody told us
how to navigate the watercourse way,
that waking up anyplace we woke up
was an OK place to be –
at least for that one instant
before the current carried us
to where we are right now
reading this.
– jab
Chasing the extraordinary . . .
Tuesday, June 24, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . Moderate Southerlies are forecasted to bring a few clouds to TulseyTown today. Still hot this afternoon.
“Joy comes to us in moments—ordinary moments. We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.” ~Brené Brown
I find people are either deeply engaged in the news these days and stay totally tuned in, or they are totally tuned out. – Maria Shriver, “Peace Begins With You” The Sunday Paper.
If you're one of those who are engaged, here's the latest from Joyce Vance's Civil Discourse.
The first widely reported UFO sighting in the U.S. occurred today in 1947 over the Cascade mountains of Washington state.
The Puritans were the first to record strange shining lights in American skies.
Extraordinarily Ordinary
Seemingly adrift in The Watercourse Way,
each and all, the ordinary and extraordinary:
infused with mysteries. We are ordinary mystics.
What distinguishes us is awareness amid
encounters with moments, with epiphanies,
in silence, a song, a line in a poem, or conversation.
Such moments are not confined by the dramas of relationships,
rituals, nor the majesty of nature and its vistas. Once experienced,
we are changed—expanded.
Recall: the first moment you were actually
riding that bike, when the kite actually flew,
surviving the fall, waking after the operation.
The view of the world through the lenses of
your first eyeglasses, the first time you thought
“this must be love,” the first time your heart
was broken – and the second; then there's
witnessing the birth or first step of a child,
the rising of the Harvest Moon
and it's blood-red eclipse, the Aurora Borealis;
a caring –even “accidental” – touch.
These differences collapse
into singular, undifferentiated experience.
There are no words here.The silent vista
of the Grand Canyon cannot be embraced
by the words “awe” and “thankful,” even while being
filled with a gratitude the dimensions of which
we were not previously aware we possessed.
— jab