6.1.2026 – purple – marine pests

purple – marine pests
jellyfish, stingrays … others …
are in the water

According to the United States Lifesaving Association website, for decades, lifeguard agencies in the U.S. and around the world have employed flags to notify swimmers of conditions, to warn of hazards, to identify safer areas for swimming, and to notify beach users about regulated areas. To help ensure global consistency, in 2004 the International Life Saving Federation developed international guidelines for warning flags.

Red – High hazard. Rough conditions such as strong surf and/or currents are present. All swimmers are discouraged from entering the water. Those entering the water should take great care.

Yellow – Medium hazard. Moderate surf and/or currents are present. Weak swimmers are discouraged from entering the water. For others, enhanced care and caution should be exercised.

Purple – Marine pests, such as jellyfish, stingrays, or other marine life which can cause minor injuries are present in the water. This flag is not intended to indicate the presence of sharks.

These guidelines have been adopted, in part, by the International Standards Organization and are endorsed by the United States Lifesaving Association. By consistently following these warning flag guidelines, lifeguard agencies can help ensure a universal understanding of their meaning and thus improve their effectiveness.

These flags are only approved for use on beaches where lifeguards trained to USLA standards are on duty. Flags are not an acceptable substitute for properly trained and equipped rescuers, but rather a tool for their use.

To be fully effective, the use of warning flags to notify the public of current hazard levels should be consistent, based on objective, measurable criteria that can be logged and tracked, and then changed as conditions change. They should be accompanied by good public education efforts to explain the meaning of the flags flown.

In the photo above, you see BOTH the yellow flag for moderate surf as well as the purple flag for marine pests.

The last line under the Purple Flag is the best.

This flag is not intended to indicate the presence of sharks.

I learned that there is a test down here for the prence of sharks.

Put your finger in the water and then put your finger in your mouth.

If it tastes salty, there are sharks nearby.

Growing up on Lake Michigan we had neither sharks nor marine pests.

I did experience the Alewife Explosion on the Great Lakes in the late 1960’s which took place because, according to the US Geological Survey, these invasive, saltwater fish are poorly adapted to the lake’s fresh water and struggle to handle sudden water temperature changes. When they undergo the stress of spring spawning or face dropping temperatures, their weakened bodies succumb to “osmotic shock” and they die by the millions.

I can attest to the dying by the millions as every morning the beach was cover with dead fish and our morning chore was to rake the beach and bury the fish.

There are no tides on the Great Lakes and the fact that twice each day the beaches here in South Carolina are stripped and power washed and resurfaced appeals seems to be worth the purple flags, stinging marine life and risk of sharks.

5.31.2026 – is no way one can

is no way one can
anticipate accurately
such wreathing vapors

The clouds were swift-moving, and I made a series of exposures.

There is no way one can anticipate accurately the positions of such wreathing vapors;

one situation appears worthy of an exposure —

and then appears another situation that seems even better.

From El Capitan, Winter Sunrise in Examples : the making of 40 photographs by Ansel Adams (Little, Brown: Boston, 1983).

This are images of a storm front over Port Royal Sound as viewed from Fish Haul Beach on the northern most edge Hilton Head Island on Saturday, May 30, 2026.

The clouds were swift-moving, and I made a series of exposures.

One situation appeared worthy of an exposure.

And then appeared another situation that seemed even better.

There is no way one can anticipate accurately the positions of such wreathing vapors.

And let me saw (and I have said this before) in NO WAY can I or DO I compare or imagine that my shots with an iPhone could be included in any honest discussion of the work of Mr. Adams … but, be that as it may, I am also the guy who edits Shakespeare into my definition of Haiku … so there you are.

But I get the girl in the end so all’s well that ends well.

For some reason, I just discovered the simple majesty of that phrase.

5.30.2026 – duty-bound fulfill

duty-bound fulfill
roles with due care, modicum
of independence

The Kennedy Center’s organic statute makes crystal clear that the Center is to be named for President Kennedy, and it cannot bear any other formal name or public memorial based on the Board’s unilateral say-so.

Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.

But, while public board service may be an honor, board members are not mere figureheads.

They are still duty-bound to fulfill their roles with due care and some modicum of independence.

That tenet holds especially true for board members tasked by Congress with managing property held in trust for the enjoyment of the American people.

From the ruling of United States District Judge Christopher R. Cooper in the case Beatty vs. Trump, et al.

Congress it seems, gets a muligan.

According to Wikipedia, A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder. Its best-known use is in golf, whereby it refers to a player being allowed, only informally, to replay a stroke, although that is against the formal rules of golf. The term has also been applied to other sports, games, and fields generally. The origin of the term is unclear.

As a point of trivia, Wikipedia also says, The earliest known use of the term is in a 1931 issue of the Detroit Free Press, somewhat predating the earliest citation in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1936. The most common explanation of the term’s origin is that it was named after a golfer with the surname Mulligan, the main candidates being either David Mulligan or John A. “Buddy” Mulligan; however, no connection with these figures is recorded until several decades after the term entered common use.

Which I include as a shout out to the Detroit Free Press, but I digress.

As I was saying, Congress has been given a muligan, a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder over adding a name to the name of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center of the Performing Arts.

It is a mistake to think that that current man in office would ever wait for permission to do something.

Anyone who has managed to read all of Robert Caro’s bio of Robert Moses, The Power Broker, will recognize the game plan.

Mr. Caro writes about the efforts of people in New York to preserve the revolutionary era Fort Clinton at the tip of Manhatten Island.

Robert Moses wanted the old Fort demolished and the land redeveloped and he wasn’t waiting for persmission.

Caro writes, “In 1946, Congress was ready to pass the bill designating Fort Clinton a national monument. But, recalls Binger, “this would take six or eight months.” Moses moved faster. At four o’clock one Friday afternoon, he got a new demolition authorization from the Board of Estimate. (O’Dwyer betrayed the reformers; McAneny confided, “He’s not a very solid sort of person.”) Leaving City Hall, the reformers huddled desperately. Binger had been toying with the idea of bringing a new suit—on the grounds that the fort was a monument and hence permission was required from the Municipal Art Commission for its destruction.

Binger hired Frederick Van Pelt Bryan, who “called Windels and said, ‘I’m going to court Monday on this.’ And that’s when Paul Windels saved the fort. He said, ‘Are you crazy? There won’t be anything left of this fort Monday morning. He’ll demolish it over the weekend.’ This was all on a Friday, remember. ‘You bring this to court in half an hour.’ ” Bryan did, and persuaded a Supreme Court Justice to sign an injunction, which was handed to Moses that evening.

How right Windels had been was proven when the reformers rushed to Battery Park the next morning to see if any damage had been done. In the brief hours before the injunction had been served on Moses, Binger recalls, he “had already burned those great doors.” 

But again, I digress (though I have to add there is a lot to learn about the ways and means of that man currently in office from this book).

I feel on this one small thing Congress has got a second chance to perform an action, after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder.

As the Judge said, they are still duty-bound to fulfill their roles with due care and some modicum of independence.

Congress gave the Kennedy Center its name, and only Congress can change it.

Any bets on how this plays out?

5.29.2026 – when you travel you

when you travel … you
have adventures, to tourists …
time is valuable

Adding experiences in Georgia and Virginia and the Carolinas to their knowledge of Florida, the Johnsons saw and drank deep of Savannah, Charleston, Asheville, Richmond, and Newport News.

They were able to do all five cities in six days, while the Bezuzuses had taken eight for them.

In Charleston they saw Calhoun’s grave and learned all about the aristocratic society.

They were so pleasantly entertained there, by a very prominent and successful business acquaintance of Mr. Johnson’s, a Mr. Max Rosenfleisch of New York, who had bought a fine old Southern mansion in Charleston and thus, of course, was right in with all the old families socially.

Mr. Rosenfleisch said he liked the aristocrats, but was going to change a lot of their old-fashioned social ways, and show them how to have a real swell time, with cabarets and theater parties, instead of these slow dances, and teach them to dine at seven instead of three or four.

The Johnsons were quite thrilled at witnessing the start of this social revolution—I tell you, it’s when you travel that you have such unusual adventures.

They themselves would actually have met some of the inner social set of Charleston, but Mr. Rosenfleisch was having the den redecorated before giving any more of his smart, exclusive parties, and meantime the Johnsons had to be getting on—to a tourist, time is valuable.

Adapted from I’m a Stranger Here Myself as reprinted in I’m a Stranger Here Myself and Other Stories by Sinclair Lewis (Dell, New York, 1962).

5.28.2026 – to shoot the wall clock

to shoot the wall clock
make it stop, better yet, keep
backing up slowly

It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.

We are far less capable of those radical emotional moves advocated by magazines that specialize in puddle-deep psychologisms, the usual seven steps to a victorious emotional life, as if we could put ourselves on a figurative grease rack or automated assembly line for overhaul.

It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over. Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.

From True North by Jim Harrison (New York, Grove Press, 2004).

I woke from a dream the other morning where all was as it was when I was a kid on the shore of Lake Michigan.

It was a disappointment when I woke and realized it was a dream.

It was all so ordinary though I wanted to shoot the wall clock, over and over.

Anything to make it stop or, better yet, keep backing up slowly.

You can’t can you?

It’s not so comic the way that clocks race themselves with us in fragile tow and it’s not enough to say “What are we waiting for?” or “Why are we holding back?” though that might occur to us later.