My new game I play every day is to see how much further the current US President can sink into the pit of disgusting behaviors he’s creating. Honest, I’ve been trying to ignore it, but my body tells me that ain’t working.
I’m not going to list things that make me physically sick. You either have noticed them all or have some excuse that lets you put it aside so you can maintain your beliefs. We all do that.
Flower break! Henbit is up and starting to bloom. Good news for the chickens.
I’m just pissed off that it’s giving me anxiety pain and hurting others in much worse ways. I’m hoping the downward spiral breaks soon and we can live in only a semi-weird country, not a batshit crazy one.
I need to make another of these rocks for me.
At least it was a pleasant enough day and I got all my errands done, including lunch with our accountant. He’s a character, but then, my previous accountant was a Hare Krishna with bells on his office chair to remind him to chant.
Tomorrow will be another sunrise closer to the Winter Solstice. I’m gonna have to burn a big Yule log
Remember I still care for ALL of you. There should be room in our hearts for disagreement.
Full disclosure: Robert Reich is the American I admire most. So it’s no surprise that I hoped to enjoy his new memoir, Coming Up Short: A Memoir of My America (2025).
Yes. Punning is involved. He’s short.
Wow, this is an insightful book, both from a historical and philosophical standpoint. I think that, at last, I have a grasp on what was going on in the United States during my lifetime. I think I only had a superficial understanding of who won elections and who promoted wars, improved lives, made rich people richer, etc.
Robert Reich has known so many important political and intellectual figures in his lifetime, from all parties and perspectives. His first-hand accounts of historically significant events clarify my understanding of turbulent times and remind me that ours isn’t the only time of upheaval in the US. He freely admits where he made errors, too, which makes him much more credible than someone who’d claim to have never made mistakes.
I found his detailed analysis of how we got where we are today fascinating. I can see the current US leader’s appeal to disenfranchised citizens and how those folks have been distracted from their actual enemies, which are corporate interests out only for their own profit. I think we educated elites are also being distracted into thinking the enemy is Christian nationalism rather than corporate greed. Yikes.
Reich is someone whose thoughts and commentary I read daily, even though I get pretty alarmed sometimes. He does also try to point out where people are doing good work, speaking out, and standing up to bullies. It’s good to have a little hope. In that spirit, I give you this passage on patriotism from Coming Up Short:
“White male Christian nationalism has nothing to do with patriotism. True patriots don’t fuel racist, religious, or ethnic divisions.
“Patriots aren’t homophobic or sexist, nor are they blind to social injustices, whether ongoing or embedded in American history. They don’t ban books or prevent teaching about the sins of the nation’s past. They don’t censor truths that may make people uncomfortable, facts that are inconvenient, realities that people would rather not face.
“True patriots are not uncritically devoted to America. They are devoted instead to the ideals of America- the rule of law, equal justice, voting rights and civil rights, freedom of speech and assembly, freedom from fear, and democracy. True patriots don’t have to express patriotism in symbolic displays of loyalty like standing for the national anthem and waving the American flag. They express patriotism in taking a fair share of the burdens of keeping the nation going, sacrificing for the common good. This means paying their fair share of taxes rather than lobbying for lower taxes or seeking tax loopholes or squirreling away money abroad. It means refraining from making large political contributions that corrupt American democracy. It means blowing the whistle on abuses of power even at the risk of losing one’s job. It means volunteering time and energy to improving one’s community and country.”
P. 317
In summary, this is an important book for anyone who still cares about truth and ethical behavior. It’s also full of enjoyable anecdotes from a brilliant yet humble man. He will go down as a great American.
I think Americans should stop using their beloved guns to kill other people.
Here she goes again. No one is listening, says the greatest Egret ever.
It’s been made very clear that people love collecting weapons (knives and such, too) that aren’t designed to be helpful tools but rather to end the lives of other people. It makes them feel good. It makes them feel safe. Most of them do not plan to kill anyone else…unless they feel it’s justified.
All these folks murdering children in schools, former coworkers, their domestic partners, people of different religions, ethnic backgrounds, or political beliefs…they all feel justified.
Under the moon’s influence?
This society has lost the ability to act ethically. Otherwise we’d not think it’s okay to kill under certain circumstances (that you get to define).
Go ahead and use your guns and knives as the tools they were intended to be. I’m not in charge of your reality, mindset, or philosophy. I’m not some liberal snowflake or whatever the latest put-down is. I’m just begging you to actually pay attention to what your religious figures tell you. They tell you to be kind to others. Respect other living beings. Find a moral compass and follow it.
I’ll just be over here coloring.
Oh well. People are being told to hate, so they will. At least I can enjoy the demise of civilization with a nice horse. Today there was ZERO drama, and we did the “scary” and hilly part of our paths. And Drew was good for Vicki.
He is telling me to stop dawdling and unsaddle him.
I can’t ignore the outside world but I can treasure the goodness and love that surrounds me.
Worrying isn’t going to change anything. It never does. So I work at not worrying.
I thought my volunteer flower collection would be cheerful.
The problem for me is that I don’t know what we can do to prevent a bleak future with very few powerful people and many, many people who must fend for themselves.
I don’t remember ever wanting to know what it was like to be one of the educated people in the Dark Ages who weren’t in power.
The present is still here, and we can make our little corners of the world full of respect and kindness as we wait to see what those in power, elected by people wanting to back to the past, decide to do with us.
Bleak. I’m feeling bleak today. It was a bad news day for the poor, the sick, and the elderly. I have a right to feel pessimistic. At least for now I can say so in public.
On the other hand, on a local level, it’s a good day for Texas Horned Lizards, because I found a nice new harvester ant bed. Horny toads eat them!
This large ant bed is near the horse pens Ants are busy.
To cheer me up, I’ll share that I had a visit from a beautiful female Summer Tanager this evening around sunset. She bopped around the salvia plants for quite some time, though I was too entranced to get a photo. What a treat!
I’m taking a break from Facebook, since the fallout on a post I thought was not too controversial turned out to incite strong partisan feelings among my friends. I respect their rights to debate, and find areas of agreement with each, but I’m so damned hypersensitive that I had to take a break. I also snoozed a few very nice people for a while. So, I’m no longer listening to the fallout until I’m up to it again. I do want to hear all views, but I also want to remain mentally stable.
But I can still blog and write on my Substack, which is where I rant. I’ve been trying to listen to birdsong my porch or birding slab, but I’m thwarted. There is an incessant throbbing sound echoing through the trees. It fills most of the spectrogram on Merlin Bird ID.
The faint rhythmic lines are a Cardinal.
It’s cicadas. I can hardly hear myself think for them. Once they start up around 9 am, they’re in all the trees every minute unless it rains. My best birding the past couple of days has been right after a storm, when birds have a feeding frenzy thanks to flying insects, and I guess the cicadas need to dry off.
Annoying. Photo from Pexels.
Only the loudest and closest birds pierce through the wall of cicada sound. I do get a lot of House Sparrow chirps. That’s because their nest is above me (to the right; I’m not putting chairs under their extra-decorative nests.
Mrs Sparrow, who alternates with Mr Sparrow in insect deliveries.
These mofos are everywhere. When not feeding, they’re sitting around pooping on our outdoor furniture, grills (which are covered), etc. They’re not native, so we could dispose of them, but nope. I just make sure they stay out of the new screened porch.
Grr.
Speaking of our lovely new porch, the Barn Swallow eggs haven’t even hatched yet, so who knows when we will be able to shut the door. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t quite so dang law abiding and could remove the nests.
Photo yesterday by Lee.
I do have a bit better luck with birds on my walks, where there are some areas a bit farther from the cicadas. Plus, there are always good old eyeballs for spotting birds! Yesterday I found a Mississippi Kite and today a Green Heron.
Blurry, but I could tell what it was from colors and call. This guy didn’t have to say anything. I know a Green Heron!
So, between traipsing through mud to tend to horses and listening to birds, my last free week before my consulting gig starts is full. I also keep crocheting, and now April and May are connected on my temperature blanket, and June is caught up. The nice KnitPicks lady said that if I do not get yarn by ten working days to call them rather than patiently waiting a month like I did. I am now warned.
April and May. Getting warmer.
I’ll leave you with bugs and flowers. Please send healing thoughts to everyone who’s affected by world events, and listen hard, even when it’s difficult to hear.
Maize calligrapher waspLighted furrow beeVelvet ant? Not sure.
Living in a place where two incompatible world views exist and where each world view sees the other as filled with stupid, hateful liars has become almost too painful for me. I hate being able to see how strongly each faction sees itself as right and true and the others as blind.
I don’t think my own beliefs and values even matter. Those of us who want to live in harmony with our friends and loved ones, all of them, will be the first to be caught in the crossfire when it all falls to pieces. We’re just expendable wimps.
It’s like cats versus dogs, and I’m the rabbit they both want to eliminate.
Today people I admire were vilifying people like me for daring to express their beliefs in public. These weren’t extremists, just who I thought were regular people with different views from the other people I admire.
It’s painful to witness. Time for me to retreat and try to regroup. I won’t heal completely or forget how frightened people act towards the “other” but I need to regain my incentive for participating in the world outside my little ranch.
How on earth can I be worn out on a day when I couldn’t do much due to drizzle? That’s easy. I wore my mind out.
Yet another bluebonnet photo will help!
I lost my detachment from current events and got angry. It’s a good thing fewer than 30 people read my Substack, because I went off on the concept of “improper ideology” for many paragraphs. You can read it if you want to. I just blathered. It will bite me in the butt someday, but I’m old and have no employer to defer to, so who cares?
Bluebonnets and slightly more full pond.
I got my stuff ready for our in-person horse show tomorrow, though Apache is filthy and I’m not sure how great he feels. My shoulder still hurts a lot, but otherwise I’m okay. I have all sorts of wound care and cleaning stuff for him. I just hope I have time to get him ready.
That black-and-white blob is a Mournful Thyris moth.
Ah well. I’m glad for the rain. It’s much greener already. Maybe more will come, after tomorrow.
I don’t think I’ve been as cold as I was today in a long time. In fact, it was ten years ago, the last time I worked in Canada. They can really do a good polar vortex there!
Toronto, 2015
The wind chill was around 6° when I was feeding the chickens, but my insides were warm all day. It’s absolutely astounding how friends and supporters show up when you need them, and I sure got a lot of help after my earlier post today. Maybe I should remember to ask for support more often.
Support meeee!
Never forget that there are many kind, smart, and thoughtful folks out there in social media land, not just bots and trolls. Thanks to comments, messages, and memes sent my way, I now have great ideas on what I can do to make positive use of my concerns and insights into how recent events affect others. Even the posts from thoughtful people I disagree with helped me gain perspective.
Hmm, this is jittery, like me.
So thank you, all of you. You make the world more positive, and keep me more grounded.
First. It’s extra cold with a big helping of icy wind to top it off. Gotta love those polar vortexes right when the leaves are getting ready to bud.
It was a two-dog night. If Harvey could get upstairs, it would have been three.
If Hell hasn’t frozen over, at least Texas has. When I looked out the door this morning, a Dark-eyed Junco hopped up as if to ask if she could come inside.
I braved taking off my glove to capture these chilly White-crowned Sparrows.
Second. Perhaps it’s a good thing it’s so cold, because it cools the white-hot rage burning inside me since I woke up to read that the head of the Executive Branch of the USA issued an executive order stating only he and the Attorney General can interpret US law. I think that pretty much completes the coup.
Not true anymore, o protester.
Truly, I hope the voters who approved this administration remain happy with how things are going. Some of the developments have to be hard for Faux News to put a positive spin on.
Irrelevant (except Second Amendment)
Perhaps I’m living in Hell. Hell is, after all, other people (according to Sartre, who wasn’t American and was an intellectual so no longer matters where I live).
PS: I read this soon after writing this blog post. It’s by Rev. Jim Rigby, my hero in Christian thought. I hope it helps you.
Dearly beloved…and I’ll end my Prince quote here. I’ve been thinking about life, whatever it is, exactly. What a privilege it is to interact with our environment in these bodies, with these senses, hormones, and sentience.
These colors are incredible, even if we don’t all see the same.
Whatever it means to be alive is a mystery, which we humans have come up with many ideologies, myths, belief systems, and science to try to explain. I’m one of those humans who think there is something we can’t perceive or comprehend that keeps our illusion of life, time, physics, and all that together. I’m not even sure that all life perceives the same things, not even individuals of the same species.
That’s right. No two calves are alike, either.
So, here we all are wandering around perceiving and judging, harboring the illusion that everyone else is living in the same “world” that we are. I contend that we’re wrong about that. I’m not positive that even folks we agree with are perceiving what we think we are.
I perceive this to be a Mockingbird. But that’s just me.
It’s no wonder, then, that we keep hearing the same things said about members of our fractured culture in opposing “sides.” And they are sincerely baffled about why those “sheep” have “drunk the Kool Aid” and need to “wake up.”
I’m not a sheep but I’m very fuzzy.
Depending on how your brain chemistry is set up, you might see liberals, conservatives, Marxists, Greens, or Libertarians as making sense and everyone else is an idiot. Or worse. I’m so tired of this shit and how it’s affecting all life on this planet.
Perhaps this is why Lee dragged me out of the house to enjoy a burger and a flight of wine (and Brussels sprouts).
It’s making it harder and harder to keep placing one foot in front of the other and appreciate this amazing gift of LIFE, even though I’m going along with the Buddha in positing it’s an illusion.
Illusion of an elusive Vesper Sparrow.
The big illusion that I, and many of my generation, allowed ourselves to believe was that history was arcing toward peace, equality, and freedom to be and believe however we see fit and that we were all working towards these goals. I was pretty wrong about that!
But nonetheless, life is precious and I want to appreciate the opportunity to live as long as I’m allowed to. In this life I’m going to love deeply, cherish the planet and its inhabitants, and learn as much as I can, even though it may be unpleasant much of the time.
Hey, sometimes there’s humor! Like a cyber truck actually being used as a truck.
Mostly, I will accept with grace that a good portion of the people I share the world with want me eliminated. Yeah. People in my town who carry cards saying “Spay or Neuter Your Democrat” or post signs in their yard saying they have PTSD: Pretty Tired of Stupid Democrats.
You can get the shirt on Amazon. But don’t, for many reasons (and I’m sure there are offensive shirts with opposing views; this is an example.)
Stuff like that is why I do not intend to engage in tit for tat with these folks. We live in different worlds, and they live in different worlds from many people of similar ideologies.
I’m glad some of our worlds overlap a bit. Not everyone who voted differently from you or practices a different religion is an extremist. So many of us just want to have an enjoyable life. Somehow.
The Hermits' Rest 