world spins sunlight shifts tides scour back and forth endless everyday motion
Gravity.
Rotation of the Earth.
The moon.
The Sun.
They all come together and pull the ocean up and down the coastline twice a day.
Sitting still on the beach.
The water retreats and the water advances.
Sitting still.
Not moving.
And everything is in motion around you.
Just a little mental gymnastics, and you become the center of the universe and everything revolves around you.
Part of a series based on an afternoon spent at the beach on Hilton Head Island.
I wanted to see if I would be ‘inspired’ by what I saw, by what I heard, by what I smelled, by what I tasted, what I felt emotionally and what I felt tactilely.
Some turned out okay.
Some were too forced.
Some were just bad.
Some did involve some or all of those feelings.
As far as it goes, I guess I was inspired by by what I saw, by what I heard, by what I smelled, by what I tasted, what I felt emotionally and what I felt tactilely.
then it will be my duty to cooperate to save the Union
On dark day during the United States Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln presented his cabinet with a folded over piece of paper.
Some accounts have the piece of paper glued shut.
President Lincoln asked all the members of his Cabinet to sign the paper.
The paper is known as the Blind Memorandum.
This was on August 23, 1864.
General Grant was bogged down in Virginia while advancing on Richmond.
General Sherman was bogged down in Georgia while advancing on Atlanta.
And things overall looked rather bleak for President Lincoln’s re-election in a little over 2 months.
It was so bleak in fact that John Nicolay, the President’s Secretary wrote, “Everything is darkness and doubt and discouragement. Our men see giants in the airy and unsubstantial shadows of the opposition, and are about to surrender without a fight.”
With that in mind, President Lincoln prepared his ‘Blind Memorandum’ and asked his Cabinet to sign and agree to what it said sight unseen.
Within weeks General Sherman took Atlanta.
When that happened the outlook for the future of the Lincoln Administration and the outlook of President Lincoln improved.
That fall, President Lincoln was relected.
Sometime afterward at a Cabinet meeting, President Lincoln took a penknife and sliced open the ‘Blind Memorandum.’
It stated it President Lincoln’s brief but clear and concise reasoning and wording that:
“This morning, as for some days past, it seems exceedingly probable that this Administration will not be re-elected. Then it will be my duty to so co-operate with the President elect, as to save the Union between the election and the inauguration; as he will have secured his election on such ground that he can not possibly save it afterwards.“
The President signed it with his customary, A. Lincoln.
The back was signed by:
William Seward (Secretary of State)
W. P . Fessenden, (Secretary of the Treasury)
Edwin M. Stanton (Secretary of War)
Gideon Welles (Secretary of the Navy)
Edwin Bates (Attorney General)
Montgomery Blair (Postmaster General)
Caleb Usher (Secretary of the Interior)
Abraham Lincoln was the 16th President of the United States.
Donald Trump was the 45th President of the United States.
They both lived in the White House in Washington, DC.
you are free to do, free to say and free to choose what I tell you to …
Adapted from James Thurber’s Further Fable, “The Bears and the Monkeys.”
Not sure why (oh sure) but it came to mind this morning.
Maybe it was the line, “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.”
The Bears and the Monkeys.
In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”
The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.
Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”
So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.
“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”
Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.
MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.
Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber, New York, Harpers, 1940.
Things going downhill? Time to get in drivers seat . . . and step on the gas!
From the classic British political satire TV Show, Yes, Minister.
The new Minister, Jim Hacker, takes over the Department of Administrative Affairs he makes the grand announcement that, “This government is here to govern, not merely preside like our predecessors did. When a country is going downhill, it is time for someone to get into the driving seat, and put his foot on the accelerator!“
I had to make some American English changes.
Drivers seat for driving seat.
The Gas for accelerator.
There are times when I get the feeling our Congress is watching Yes, Minister as a HOW TO Guide.
(Much like my old company used the movie OFFICE SPACE as an HR Manual.)
Have you seen the YouTube Clip, “A Millennial Job Interview”?
The young lady just DOESN’T GET IT.
It is really funny and scary at the same time.
Take the young lady and her outlook and assign them to our people in Congress.
It is funny until it sinks in how accurate it seems to be.
Plans are have been announced that the election of the President of the United States will be questioned based on (wait for it) … ALLEGATIONS.
You have no proof.
But we have ALLEGATIONS.
All investigations have shown no irregularities.
But we have ALLEGATIONS.
The Attorney General of the United States has said there is nothing to back up these Allegations.
But we have ALLEGATIONS none the less (and we may need a stress related day off).
I don’t get what they don’t get.
Maybe its the old lead a horse to water but can’t make it drink syndrome.
You can elect someone to Congress back you can’t make them think.
I am reminded of the old story of the young man trying to get a mule to move.
Nothing he could do would make any difference as that stubborn old mule stood there.
Old timer walks up and smacks the mule in the head with a 2 x 4.
And the mule starts to move.
“See?” says the old timer, “you just have to get their attention first.”
whatever it took humanity to arrive worth it ultimately
Adapted from the book, A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton, and the passage:
‘For what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world? What is the end of the pursuit of wealth, power and pre-eminence?’ asked Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), going on to answer, ‘To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation’ – a set of ambitions to which the creators of the Concorde Room had responded with stirring precision.
As I took a seat in the restaurant, I felt certain that whatever it had taken for humanity to arrive at this point had ultimately been worth it.
Part of the series of Haiku inspired by from A Week at the Airport: A Heathrow Diary (2009, Vintage Books) by Alain de Botton. I discovered this book entirely by accident. When searching for books online, I will use the term ‘collections’ and see what turns up. I figure that someone who has taken the time to gather together the etexts of any one author to create a collected works folder is enough for me to see what this author might be all about.
In this case I came across the writing of Alain de Botton. I enjoyed his use of language very much. Much of the words he strings together lend themselves to what I do.
As for his book, I recommend it very much though written in 2009, it misses the added layer of travel under covid but still the picture of the modern airport is worth the read.
No Haiku For You 