Streaking to the music . . .
Monday, July 14, 2025. It's the Moon's day . . . and it has begun to wane from hunting in the forests. Sun and clouds in TulseyTown this morning are forecasted to yield to clouds and a 30% chance of rain this afternoon. Light North and Easterly breezes. Temps in the upper 80's.
Joy is not in things. It is in us.
Today is Bastille Day in France. It wa on this day in 1789 an angry mob stormed the Bastille prison in Paris and launched the French Revolution.
"Woody" Guthrie was born on this day in 1912 Okemah, Oklahoma. On a guitar he found in the street, he wrote “this machine kills fascists.”
Playwright Arthur Laurents (West Side Story) was born today in 1917 Brooklyn.
And, its the birthdate of novelist and playwright Irving Stone (Lust for Life) born in 1903 San Francisco, California.
Robert Reich posted a personal note today for his regular and occasional readers.
Trump and the Epstein saga splitting up the MAGA crowd. The facts posted yesterday by Heather Cox Richardson in Letters From An American.
The Summer of 1969 was the peak of the counter-culture “revolution” in the U.S. Easy Rider hit the movie screen, the Woodstock Music Festival was held in Bethel, New York. And, speaking of Bethel, yurs trooley, drafted into graduate school, I entered in August with a two day old start on a beard that is still with me. There were “hippies” in San Francisco, and naked “streakers” – even on the OU campus – capturing the media's fascination. The Grateful Dead and The Beatles dominated the music charts along with an album oriented sound track for the era rising on FM radio.
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.