Number “one” on my list . . .
Wednesday, September 10, 2025. It's Odin's day . . . and the warming trend continues in TusleyTown. Forecasts indicate easy Southerlies, sun, clouds, and upper 80's. The mailbox was overflowing this morning…
Trump may try to declare that “there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States" in order to claim “emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward,” overriding the Constitution’s clear designation that states alone have control over elections. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, 9.8.25
The Supreme Court is playing “Calvinball.” “This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules, “We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.” – Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson.
[T]he president has ordered killings in international waters. Eleven people are dead, not through due process but by fiat. The defense secretary boasts about it on television. And the president will face no consequences....This is no longer abstract. The law has been rewritten in real time: a president can kill, and there is no recourse. That is not strength. That is authoritarianism. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American, 9.10.25
Joyce Vance and Heather Cox Richardson in conversation. Facts mean nothing to Trump, but everything to these historically grounded essayists. 9.9.25
We need a whole-systems approach to our health-care, one that recognizes that health is not simply the outcome of personal choices and bio-hacks but the product of collective conditions. – Jeff Krasno, Health Is A Commons, posted 9.9.25
Johns Hopkins has been hosting a series of conversations on Ai, present and future. The most recent focused on how Ai could transform the future of medicine. Long but worthy. Check it out, if you are curious.
Ken Wilber's latest book – Finding Radical Wholeness – has just been released in paperback. If you are unfamiliar with Ken, he's one of the leading philosophers of our time. In every book, Wilber integrates the wisdom of spirituality, psychology, shadow work, science, and integral theory with application to a specific concern. Always challenging, worth the time.
And, today is Mary Oliver's birthday. At the top of my list of fave poets to read every day, she was born in 1935, Maple Heights, Ohio.
In the face of absurdity . . .
Tuesday, September 9, 2025. It's Tiw's day . . . and the weatherfeather indicates a warming week settling into TulsyTown with moderate Southerlies and sunny skies. Today in the mid 80's. 90's return Thursday.
Robert Reich asks and answers: Should democrats shut down the government?
Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy was born on this day in 1828 on his family's estate in the province of Tula, near Moscow.
It's Paul Goodman's birthday. The author of Growing Up Absurd was born in 1911 Greenwich Village in New York City.
“It then becomes necessary to stop short and make a choice: Either/Or. Either one drifts with their absurd system of ideas, believing that this is the human community. Or one dissents totally from their system of ideas and stands as a lonely human being. (But luckily one notices that the others are in the same crisis and making the same choices.)” – Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd, Vintage, 1960.
And it's the birthday of Otis Redding. The soul singer whose life was way too short was born in 1941, Dawson, Georgia.
The new world . . .
Monday, September 8, 2025, It's the Moon's day . . . and the full Corn Moon begins to wane toward the Harvest, a month away. Moderate Southerlies are forecasted to bring a near repeat of yesterday's conditions to TulseyTown today. Mixed sun and clouds with low 80's. A week's worth of 90's begins Thursday.
It is a strange and wonderful fact to be here, walking around in a body, to have a whole world within you and a world at your fingertips outside you. – John O'donohue.
The Week Ahead from Joyce Vance in Civil Discourse today.
Trump is panicking and exhibiting a new level of unhinged. – Heather Cox Richardson, in Letters From An American.
The American Dictator – Joyce Vance in Civil Discourse posted yesterday.
Enduring structures of “power over,” like patriarchy, white supremacy, and unfettered capitalism, have limited most individuals’ power for so long that it’s difficult to imagine another way. Only very gradually does human consciousness come to a selfless use of power, the sharing of power, or even [its] benevolent use. – Fr. Richard Rohr, Meditations, The Center for Action and Meditation.
The Constitution needs defending. Calls for an Article V convention are gaining ground and must be stopped. I don't want to presume you don't know about this threat to our democracy. But if this is an issue about which you have questions, check out the issues at Common Cause.
Today is the birth date of Peter Sellers. The British comedic/character actor and Academy Award laureate was born in 1925, Southsea, England.
Bernie Sanders turns 84 today. The Senator from Vermont was born in 1941, Brooklyn, New York.
And. Composer Antonín Dvořák was born on this date in 1841, Nelahozeves, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now in Czech Republic].
"You don't have to say anything. You don't have to teach anything. You just have to be who you are: a bright flame shining in the darkness of despair, a shining example of a person able to cross bridges by opening your heart and mind" — Tsoknyi Rinpoche, in Open Heart, Open Mind, Harmony Publishers, 2012.
In every moment, a new world.