4.17.2026 – low tide high tide date

low tide high tide date
location is H H I
what more need to know?

I ask again?

If you know where you are and you are on Hilton Head Island.

If you know where you are and you know when high tide and when low tide is.

If you know where you are and you know the date.

If you know where you are and know what the colors of the warning flags mean.

Red flags mean there is a high hazard of dangerous currents and/or surf – OR Sharks – OR lightning seen in the area.

And that’s a pretty good list of hazards to be aware of.

Yellow flags mean there is a medium hazard of moderate current and/or surf and it says nothing about sharks (though a good friend of mine says if you put your finger in the water and then taste it; if it tastes salty there are sharks in the water).

Purple flags mean there are Marine Pests Present. Marine Pests mean things that STING like jellyfish or stingrays while I include anyone on the beach that has to, and I mean HAS TO play some game that involves throwing something. I mean really, you put all this effort into getting to the beach and relaxing in the sun by the water and yet there are those who after one or two minutes of relaxing, jump and say, “who wants to throw something.” That includes baseballs, tennis balls, footballs, frisbees and just anything that can be thrown if any of those items were not brought along. It also involves kicking soccer balls, bumping volleyballs and golfing. It makes no matter if its low tide and there are acres of beach, they set up right next to you or high tide when there is no space for such games but these pests persist in throwing footballs or baseballs or kicking soccer balls through a crowded mass of people like their lives and their vacations depended on it. And as a good part of these pests are imbibing beverages of an adult nature, their accuracy steadily diminishes as the day goes on. These pests may possibly be the biggest hazard on the beach.

BUT I DIGRESS!

If you know where you are and you know the when high tide is.

If you know where you are and you know the when low tide is.

I ask you.

What more do you need to know?

PS: Do I need to mention I took this picture when … I was on my lunch break from work. Yeah, I guess I do.

4.16.2026 – foul tirades demean

foul tirades demean
presidency, the country …
every one of us

In today’s Opinion Conversation in the New York Times between Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens headlined, The Second Coming of Trump, Mr. Bruni states:

I think it’s a mistake to become too practiced at shrugging off his depravity — which is a non-hysterical, wholly accurate word for it.

I agree that focusing exclusively or excessively on it and hyperventilating is a waste of good breath, but his foul tirades demean the presidency, demean the country — demean every one of us — and it’s important that we never forget that.

We can’t let those tirades become the new idiom for political discourse; we can’t pretend they haven’t diminished our standing in the world.

“That’s just Trump being Trump” is an inadequate response when, for example, he posts a video of himself as a pilot dumping torrents of excrement on protesters. (That was his A.I. gift to us in October.)

Mr. Stephens replied:

I agree.

Yet 77 million Americans voted for him.

That’s the country we live in.

We can’t pretend.

If the latest images that man currently in office showing him as Jesus and with Jesus do not offend you as a Christian then I feel I am on solid ground when I point out that you have plank in your eye.

I got lots of planks in my eye but the one I am pointing at in yours will cause you to take paths you don’t want to be on.

It’s important that we never forget.

God is not mocked.

The foul tirades of that current man in office demean the presidency.

The foul tirades of that current man in office demean the country.

The foul tirades of that current man in office demean every one of us.

And that is bad enough by itself.

But I repeat.

It’s important that we never forget.

God is not mocked.

4.15.2026 – no more for him life’s

no more for him life’s
stormy conflicts charging like
clouds across the sky

HUSH’D be the camps to-day;
And, soldiers, let us drape our war-worn weapons;
And each, with musing soul retire, to celebrate,
Our dear commander’s death.

No more for him life’s stormy conflicts;
Nor victory, nor defeat—No more time’s dark events,
Charging like ceaseless clouds across the sky.

But sing, poet, in our name;
Sing of the love we bore him—because you, dweller in
camps, know it truly.

Sing, to the lower’d coffin there;
Sing, with the shovel’d clods that fill the grave—a
verse,
For the heavy hearts of soldiers.

Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day by Walt Whitman as published in The Patriotic Poems of Walt Whitman (Garden City: Doubleday, 1918),

Wikipedia says: “Hush’d Be the Camps To-Day” is a poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to Abraham Lincoln. The poem was written on April 19, 1865, shortly after Lincoln’s assassination.

Whitman greatly admired Lincoln and went on to write additional poetry about him: “O Captain! My Captain!”, “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d”, and “This Dust Was Once the Man.”

“Hush’d” is not particularly well known, and is generally considered to have been hastily written.

Some critics highlight the poem as Whitman’s first attempt to respond to Lincoln’s death and emphasize that it would have drawn comparatively little attention if Whitman had not written his other poems on Lincoln.

Although they never met, Whitman saw Abraham Lincoln several times between 1861 and 1865, sometimes in close quarters.

The first time was when Lincoln stopped in New York City in 1861 on his way to Washington. Whitman noticed the President-elect’s “striking appearance” and “unpretentious dignity”, and trusted Lincoln’s “supernatural tact” and “idiomatic Western genius”.

He admired the President, writing in October 1863, “I love the President personally.”

Whitman considered himself and Lincoln to be “afloat in the same stream” and “rooted in the same ground”.

Whitman and Lincoln shared similar views on slavery and the Union, and similarities have been noted in their literary styles and inspirations.

Whitman later declared that “Lincoln gets almost nearer me than anybody else.”

As for the New York Times article, I am always re-amazed at the amount of correct detail the reporting had when you consider this was 1865 and the paper went to press within 24 hours of the assassaitnation.

Maybe more than his Birthday being a holiday, April 15th should be a national Day of Mourning when you look at how much this Country gained when he was born and how much this Country lost when he was killed.

Then of course, my relationship to the history has changed so much in the last decade as I review all the actions and the struggles of the past, I find it difficult to reconcile that all that history led to where we are today.

What a mockery on so many levels.

What Mr. Lincoln said on the field at Gettysburg has just as much application TODAY as it did in 1863.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced.

It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us —

that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion —

that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain —

that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom —

and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

4.14.2026 – his behavior is

his behavior is
refreshing and transparent
does not apologize

Adapted from the NYT Opinion piece, Trump Posted a Picture of Himself as Jesus. Now He’s Trying to Explain It Away, by Katie Rogers, where Ms. Rodgers writes:

As a rule, Mr. Trump does not apologize for doing and saying things that hurt or offend people, and officials in his White House characterize his behavior as radically refreshing and transparent.

I am reminded of James Thurber’s short story, The Owl Who Was God, from Fables for Our Time (Harper and Brothers: New York, 1939).

Once upon a starless midnight there was an owl who sat on the branch of an oak tree. Two ground moles tried to slip quietly by, unnoticed. “You!” said the owl. “Who?” they quavered, in fear and astonishment, for they could not believe it was possible for anyone to see them in that thick darkness. “You two I” said the owl. The moles hurried away and told the other creatures of the field and forest that the owl was the greatest and wisest of all animals because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. “I’ll see about that,” said a secretary bird, and he called on the owl one night when it was again very dark. “How many claws am I holding up?” said the secretary bird. “Two,” said the owl, and that was right. “Can you give me another expression for ‘that is to say’ or ‘namely’?” asked the secretary bird. “To wit,” said the owl. “Why does a lover call on his love?” asked the secretary bird. “To woo,” said the owl.

The secretary bird hastened back to the other creatures and reported that the owl was indeed the greatest and wisest animal in the world because he could see in the dark and because he could answer any question. “Can he see in the daytime, too?” asked a red fox. “Yes,” echoed a dormouse and a French poodle. “Can he see in the daytime, too?” All the oilier creatures laughed loudly at this silly question, and they set upon the red fox and his friends and drove them out of the region. Then they sent a messenger to the owl and asked him to be their leader. I

When the owl appeared among the animals it was high noon and the sun was shining brightly. He walked very slowly, which gave him an appearance of great dignity, and he peered about him with large, staring eyes, which gave him an air of tremendous importance. “He’s God!” screamed a Plymouth Rock hen. And the others took up the cry “He’s God!” So they followed him wherever he went and when he began to bump into things they began to bump into things, too. Finally he came to a concrete highway and he started up the middle of it and all the other creatures followed him. Presently a hawk, who was acting as outrider, observed a truck coming toward them at fifty miles an hour, and he reported to the secretary bird and the secretary bird reported to the owl. “There’s danger ahead,” said the secretary bird. “To wit?” said the owl. The secretary bird told him. “Aren’t you afraid?” he asked. “Who?” said the owl calmly, for he could not see the truck. “He’s God!” cried all the creatures again, and they were still crying “He’s God!” when the truck hit them and ran them down. Some of the animals were merely injured, but most of them, including the owl, were killed.

Moral: You can fool too many of the people too much of the time.

4.13.2026 – sense of proportion

sense of proportion
in good and bad experience
loses its appeal

Adapted from the passage in the book, The Road North by Jim Harrison (Atlantic Monthly Press New York, 1998) where Mr. Harrison writes:

With age I need not make judgments about their comparative merits, having lost the impulse to be right.

One is one, and the other is another.

With age one loses all sense of the supposed inevitability of art and life.

Vivid moments are no longer strung together by imagined fate.

The sense of proportion in good and bad experience loses its appeal.

Bad is bad and you let it go.

Good you cherish as it whizzes by.

Mental struggles become lucid and muted with particular visual images attached to them, somewhat irrationally or beyond ordinary logic.

Money shrinks to money.

Fear is always recognizable rather than generalized.

It is sharp and its aim is very good indeed.

If there is wisdom as such, it is boiled down by fatigue.

The sense of proportion in good and bad experience loses its appeal.

When you have a man who sits in the office of president of the United States who post images of himself portrayed as Jesus Christ, all things, good and bad, lose their proportion on a level of good of bad.

Landing in the land of the unbelievable, I need not make judgments about their comparative merits, having lost the impulse to be right.

The sense of proportion in good and bad experience loses its appeal.

When there are no comparative merits, their is little effort needed to be right.

As I wrote the other day that I struggle mentally to become lucid and I feel muted with particular visual images attached to them, somewhat irrationally or beyond ordinary logic and ask how a man could become not immoral, not amoral but, somehow infinitely worse, morally extinguished and president.

The sense of proportion in good and bad experience loses its appeal.

Beyond belief.

I what for the outcry but where your treasure is, their your heart will be also.