Always standing in the middle . . .
Sunday, July 13, 2025. It's Sol's day . . . Forecasts indicate ten hot Summer days ahead for TulseyTown with easy Southerlies and the usual 15% chance for storminess. One exception: Today looks to be cooler with easy Northerlies and mid 80's.
If you try to “fit in,” eventually you'll disappear.
The West is in conflict with itself...defining what our civilization is and what it stands for today divides vast constituencies who hold conflicting visions of the good life. How did we arrive at this gaping cleavage where a common worldview once prevailed, and what does it portend? – Nathan Gardels, “Civilizational Nationalism,” in Noēma Magazine, online, 11 July 2025.
Being a warrior against tyranny enables us to be on the right side of history. – Robert Reich, Sunday Thought, online 7/13/25.
You’re always standing in the middle of a sacred circle, and that’s your whole life ... Wherever you go for the rest of your life, you’re always in the middle of the universe and the circle is always around you. Everyone who walks up to you has entered that sacred space, and it’s not an accident. Whatever comes into the space is there to teach you. – Pema Chödrön, The Wisdom of No Escape, Shambhala Publications, 2018.
Tears we need to cry: Sometimes being deeply sad is a functional, not a dysfunctional response.
– Marianne Williamson, on Transform (online) 7/12/25.
The book never written . . .
Saturday, July 12, 2025. It's the Satyr's day . . . The weatherfeather indicates cloudy, rainy weekend in store for TulseyTown .Early morning rains are forecasted to pause for a few hours before resuming this afternoon. Mid 80's and moderate Southerlies are indicated.
We can’t be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest without courage. – Maya Angelou
Today is the birth date for Pablo Neruda. The Nobel Prize laureate for literature and among the most important, respected and read poets of the 20th Century, was born in 1904 Parral, Chile.
Henry David Thoreau was born today in 1817 Concord, Massachusetts.
And, Julius Caesar, born on the 12th or 13th of July in 100 B.C. Rome.
Where does the line between enforcing U.S. law and utter inhumanity lie? We don’t need to carefully parse its precise placement in order to understand that what this administration is doing has crossed it, is utterly reprehensible, and will be condemned by history, just as other governments that rounded up people and persecuted them are. – Joyce Vance, in Civil Discourse.
A president acts as a magnet, drawing into the highest levels of his administration people who not only share his values but amplify them...Trump is more extreme this time because he’s attracted people around him who are also extreme and pushing him to new levels of malevolence. – Robert Reich, online 7/11/25.
The facts about the Texas flash floods, from Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American
The Nobel Peace Prize? Trump wants one.
What you love – without the grasping desire to possess it – will find you.
The Night, The Porch
...baring oneself
to the wind is feeling the ungraspable somewhere close by.
Trees can sway or be still. Day or night can be what they wish.
[…]
There is no end to what we can learn. The book out there
Tells us as much, and was never written with us in mind.
Mark Strand, “The Night, The Porch,” Rattle, Tribute to Pulitzer Prize winners. Summer 2002.
The best ode yet . .
Friday, July 11, 2025 . It's Freya's (Frigg's) day … Another hot Summer day with moderate to strong Southerlies are in the forecasts for TulseyTown. Fair skies with a few clouds and heat indices in the low 100's are indicated for the afternoon.
[A]lthough the Napoleons and Putins of the world will rise to power again and again over the centuries, they will also fall, because there is something in us more powerful as long as we continue placing freedom, justice, and universal happiness at the center of our commitment to life, even as we live through nightmares. – Maria Popova, “The Remarkable Story Behind Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”,” The Marginalian,
Maybe Trump's Achilles heel: the red counties depending on the government they hate.
The 2025 Supreme Court term in review from The Brennan Center for Justice. May be the most important discussion you'll witness until free speech disappears from our rights. And . . . this is not hyperbole. Take the time.
To Kill a Mockingbird was published on this date in 1960.
The English-born American novelist and short-story Pulitzer laureate, among many other literary awards, Jhumpa Lahiri turns 58 today. She was born in 1967, London, England,
Today is also the birthday of Yul Brynner. The multi-laureate stag/ film/television actor/director was born in 1920 Vladivostok, Russia. His most notable role was that of the king in Rodgers and Hammerstein The King and I on Broadway and film.
And, there's a new Superman in town . . . maybe the best yet.