10.9.2026 – the paucity and

the paucity and
moral vacuity of
human decency

I am pro life.

I am for life.

I believe in the sanctity of human life.

I know a lot of people who claim to make the same claim.

I grew up in the State of Michigan and I was and am proud of the fact that, in the words of Wikipedia, Michigan was the first Anglosphere jurisdiction in the world to abolish the death penalty for ordinary crimes.

The Michigan State Legislature voted to do so on May 18, 1846, and that has remained the law ever since.

Although the death penalty was formally retained as a punishment for treason until 1963, no person was ever tried for treason against Michigan.

Thus, Michigan has not executed any person since before statehood.

According to one online source, the State Constitution of Michigan is the ONLY Constitution in the world to specifically outlaw the death penalty (Michigan Constitution, Article IV (Legislative Branch) Section 46 that says in one short sentence, No law shall be enacted providing for the penalty of death.

Last night I was shocked and sickened to hear from my Wife that the United States was planning to execute someone on live TV.

Is this what we have become?

Is this the United States?

This morning’s newspapers were filled with reactions.

The words used in the article, Execution TV? Pete Hegseth has taken the once ‘greatest democracy’ to a horrific new low by Paul Daley hit hard in so many places.

Mr. Daley writes:

State-sanctioned killing as entertainment! Yes, the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy has arrived at an horrific new moral nadir.

Can we repeat that bit again?

The part about the world’s supposedly greatest (or formerly greatest) democracy …

But being so closely allied to a country that now wants to turn the execution of a human being – no matter what their crimes – into a live entertainment event, promises to redefine depravity.

Meanwhile, it’s hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event.

But there we are. We have arrived.

I have to wonder if this is the work of those tortured souls in the current administration who endeavor to come up with ways to further shock us and have to go further and further into depravity to come up with something new.

As Mr. Paley put it:

Here I was thinking nothing that America’s Trump administration could do or say, no matter how politically and morally bankrupt, no matter how venal or violent, was capable of shocking me any longer.

Then I woke to today’s news …

Are those tortured souls in the current administration yanking our chain and right now laughing over a diet Coke at the angst they have created.

Is this all designed just to get us to take our eyes off the ball and look at the latest shiny object while those tortured souls in the current administration sell off or destroy something else?

Or is this truly how those tortured souls in the current administration feel?

They want to watch the execution of a another human being.

Then, regardless of WHY those tortured souls in the current administration have released this plan, there are those folks, those good Christian folks, those good Christian folks who embrace the efforts of those tortured souls in the current administration, falling in line to voice approval, even glad anticipation of watching this on their television sets at home.

It’s hard to contemplate a more audacious appeal to American society’s darker angels than this looming entertainment event.

But there we are.

We have arrived.

Mr. Paley closes with:

This represents a significant lurch in the US from civilisation towards savagery.

You can’t choose your family. But you can choose your friends and allies. And you can also tell them firmly when they’ve careened off the ethical rails.

Actions speak louder than words.

And this planned livestreamed execution says it all about what is happening in America today, opening the window ever wider on the Trump administration’s moral vacuity and its paucity of human decency.

In short, this planned livestreamed execution says it all.

10.8.2026 – does this bother you?

does this bother you?
desperate need of mending?
feel need to fix it?

Based on the article, Experts Agree: Nobody Knows What ‘Bimonthly’ or ‘Biweekly’ Means By Nitsuh Abebe in the New York Times Magazine where Mr. Abebe writes:

There are also usage guides for “biweekly” and “bimonthly,” but most of their advice just face-plants right back into uncertainty. Merriam-Webster suggests using “semimonthly” for “twice a month,” which doesn’t much clarify “bimonthly” unless people know you’re doing it. An English professor named Michael Adams told CBS News that we should bring back “fortnight,” the old shortening of “14 nights,” so that we “don’t have to worry about ‘biweekly’ or ‘bimonthly’ meaning two things.” But two weeks and half a month are not the same: A semimonthly paycheck arrives 24 times per year, a fortnightly one 26. Every “biweekly” or “bimonthly” explainer seems to arrive at the same drastic conclusion: Abandon these words. They are hopelessly compromised. Just say “twice a month” or “every other month” or whatever.

The trouble is that deciding what is “correct” does not really resolve ambiguity. There is, for instance, solid agreement that bi- will for some reason affect “annual” in the opposite way it affects “monthly,” giving us “biannual” (twice a year) and “biennial” (every two years). This does not remotely stop people from confusing the two: Clarity solves nothing.

My question is: Does this bother you? Does it feel like a tiny piece of linguistic machinery has snapped off and is clanking around in desperate need of mending? Do you feel a need to fix it?

I enjoyed reading the article very much as it was focused on words.

But that last quote.

Does this bother you?

Does it feel like a tiny piece of machinery has snapped off and is clanking around in desperate need of mending?

Do you feel a need to fix it?

I really need to ask these questions of just about everything today.

Because …

So many things bother me.

So many tiny pieces of machinery have snapped off and are clanking around in desperate need of mending?

I feel a need to fix these things.

And I don’t want things to bother me.

I don’t want to feel anything is in desperate need of mending.

I don’t want to fix anything.

Just let me go to the beach and I am good.

Maybe in a fortnight or so I will be ready to get back into letting things bother me.

10.7.2026 – the brain camera

the brain camera
records all such moments with
sounds scents emotions

But when we walk, the environment changes every moment and our senses are continuously being alerted. Around each corner of a city block, around each bend in a country road, there is something new to greet the eyes, the ears, the nose. Even the same walk, the one we may take every day, is never the same from one day to another, from one week and season to another.

This is true not only in the country, but anywhere at all. In New York City, a group of executives meets every weekday morning to walk from their homes in Brooklyn Heights to their offices in downtown Manhattan. Their way takes them through quiet streets of old brownstones, one of the oldest neighborhoods in the city, then up and over the Brooklyn Bridge with its cathedral arches supporting the weblike drapery of cables, then down into the tight skyscraper canyons of the financial district.

As it happens, Bill, a photographer, had his camera with him, being a convinced member of the school of photography that believes you get your good pictures only on foot—in his own words, “A photographer must walk if he is to be a photographer at all.”

He got some excellent pictures.

But even if he had not had his camera to record them, they would be his forever, on the indelible film of his mind. The camera of the brain records all such moments, and records them, moreover, in their full orchestration, with the accompanying sounds and scents, most of all with the accompanying emotions.

From The Magic of Walking by Aaron Sussman (Fireside: New York, 1980).

10.6.2026 – man walking is own

man walking is own
pilot, sailing private ship
on his private sea

A walk is an escape, not only from the larger world and its madnesses but from one’s own immediate world: the desk and the papers on it; the household and its clamoring tasks; correspondence, conferences, contracts, shopping lists; children, parents, spouse. We need escape even from our nearest and dearest occasionally, and for a walk we have the choice of companionship or solitude.

It does not matter whether the walker’s destination is near or far, or whether he has a destination at all. He may be walking for a day, for many days, or for less than an hour. While he is walking he is a free spirit, as separate from his ordinary world as if he were on a plane, a train, a ship at sea.

A man walking is even freer than he would be on any of these, for he may choose his route at will. He may stop, change direction, or return as he came — and whenever he likes. He may note the passing scene or not, invite communication with others or not, as he pleases. He may be sociable and observant or he may walk enclosed within himself, insulated from distraction as though in a glass bubble. He is his own pilot, sailing his private ship on his private sea.

From The Magic of Walking by Aaron Sussman (Fireside: New York, 1980).

10.5.2026 – we look on past with

we look on past with
condescension, what if we
are a after-glow

The complete quote is, “We look on past ages with condescension, as a mere preparation for us… but what if we are a mere after-glow of them?”

It appears in The Siege of Krishnapur by J. G. Farrell in his empire triology as the characters in the Novel begin to wonder if the past is leading to a higher and higher calling in the Victorian era … or are they and the end of something.

Tony Soprano in the TV show, The Soprano’s famously said, “It’s good to be in something from the ground floor. I came too late for that and I know. But lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end. The best is over.”

I read the papers.

I watch the news.

I listen to the commentators.

Thinking about the United States of America.

Lately, I’m getting the feeling that I came in at the end.

The best is over.

We are a mere after-glow of our past ages.

I would be happy to listen to argument against such feelings.