12.13.2025 – more importantly

more importantly
what do you believe? and what …
what will you become

“To be able to tap into that source, that part of who you are that transcends thinking — that’s what I’m talking about. We’ve all done it; we’ve all seen it.
Faith is belief without proof. Something deeper than your own thoughts. Giving your all, win, lose, or draw—that takes some version of faith, whatever that means to you. And sometimes that faith is the only way you’re going to win that game, or the only way you’re going to get that contract. It’s the only way to reach a new level of excellence.
So I ask you: What is your big dream?
More importantly, what do you believe? And what will you become?”

Excerpt From Stay Sane in an Insane World: How to Control the Controllables and Thrive
by Greg Harden.

Greg Harden was known as Michigan’s Secret Weapon.

According to Wikipeda, Assoc Athletic Director Harden was best known for his work with 7-time Super Bowl champion quarterback Tom Brady. He also worked with Heisman Trophy winner and Super Bowl MVP Desmond Howard, and 23-time Olympic gold medalist Michael Phelps. Brady, Howard, and other athletes credit Harden with inspiring them to overcome obstacles and achieve success in their professional and personal lives.

Harden began work as a student-athlete counselor in 1986 when Michigan football coach Bo Schembechler brought him in after hearing of the work Harden was doing in Ypsilanti, helping people deal with the challenges of everyday life and work. In the years since, Harden has been named associate Athletic Director and Director of Athletic Counseling for the University of Michigan Athletic Department.

Sorry to say that Dr. Harden died a year ago.

Seems like his role and importance in that athletic program, was somehow, greatly underestimated.

When I was a student, I had one Art History Professor who could not resist a Monday morning comment about that weekends game.

One week he approached the lectern and popped open a can of Coke and took a big swig, then said in a VERY HOARSE voice … “I mean really … 72 points.”

Then Michigan lost to that team down south.

This Professor stood at his lectern that next Monday and stared out at us a while then said, “It is good to remember there are all just kids like you.”

So I ask you: What is your big dream?

More importantly, what do you believe? And what will you become?”

And always remember, Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

12.12.2025 – If lucky we may

If lucky we may
witness a spectacle vast
elemental things

The shore means many things to many people. Of its varied moods the one usually considered typical is not so at all. The true spirit of the sea does not reside in the gentle surf that laps a sun-drenched bathing beach on a summer day. Instead, it is on a lonely shore at dawn or twilight, or in storm or midnight darkness that we sense a mysterious something we recognize as the reality of the sea. For the ocean has nothing to do with humanity. It is supremely unaware of man, and when we carry too many of the trappings of human existence with us to the threshold of the sea world our ears are dulled and we do not hear the accents of sublimity in which it speaks.

Sometimes the shore speaks of the earth and its own creation; sometimes it speaks of life. If we are lucky in choosing our time and place., we may witness a spectacle that echoes vast and elemental things. On a summer night when the moon is full., the sea and the swelling tide and creatures of the ancient shore conspire to work primeval magic on many of the beaches from Maine to Florida. On such a night the horseshoe crabs move in., just as they did under a Paleozoic moon — just as they have been doing through all the hundreds of millions of years since then — coming out of the sea to dig their nests in the wet sand and deposit their spawn.

From the article, Our Ever Changing Shore by Rachel Carson, in Holiday Magazine, July 1958 Volume 24 No. 1 as reprinted in Lost woods : the discovered writing of Rachel Carson, Edited by Linda J. Lear (Thorndike Press, Thorndike, Maine, 1999).

12.11.2025 – truly light is sweet

truly light is sweet
pleasant thing it is for eyes
to behold the sun

Based on the Bible Verse, “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” Ecclesiastes 11:7 (KJV).

Regular readers know that I enjoy bragging that I work so close to the Atlantic Ocean that I am able to take a walk along the beach on my lunch hour.

It’s getting colder and the beach in winter isn’t as much fun as the beach in summer for many reasons but the draw is still there.

It is A BEACH.

The place where the land meets the ocean.

Still, I get asked, even by people I work with in this opportunely placed office, why?

Why do I walk the beach?

I can walk along and look out towards nothing and there are days where nothing is just what you want to, what you need to see.

In the book, The Caine Mutiny, Herman Wouk write of young officer Willie Keith that:

The sea was the one thing in Willie’s life that remained larger than Queeg.

The captain had swelled in his consciousness to an all-pervading presence, a giant of malice and evil; but when Willie filled his mind with the sight of the sea and the sky, he could, at least for a while, reduce Queeg to a sickly well-meaning man struggling with a job beyond his powers.

The hot little fevers of the Caine, the deadlines, the investigations, the queer ordinances, the dreaded tantrums, all these could dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.

It was impossible for Willie to carry the vision back below decks.

One rake on his nerves, a wardroom buzzer, a penciled note, and he was sucked into the fever world again.

But the relief, while it lasted, was delicious and strengthening.

Willie lingered on the gloomy splashing forecastle for half an hour, gulping great breaths of the damp wind, and then went below.

All things dwindle and cool to comic pictures, contrasted with the sea — momentarily.

It is impossible, most of the time, but an iPhone photo can help, to carry the vision back.

But the relief, while it lasts is delicious and strengthening.

Boy HOWDY but I am privileged.

I get to walk along the beach at lunch time.

Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.

12.10.2025 – restore decorum

restore decorum
professionalism, changing …
its standard typeface

From the United States Department of State Offical as quoted in the article, Font of ‘wasteful’ diversity: Trump’s state department orders return to Times New Roman credited to Reuters that states:

But a state department cable dated 9 December sent to all US diplomatic posts said that typography shapes the professionalism of an official document and Calibri is informal compared to serif typefaces.

“To restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department is returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface,” the cable said.

“This formatting standard aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications,” it added.

The change to Calibri in 2023 was recommended by diversity and disability groups in the US government, according to US media reports. Some studies have suggested that sans-serif fonts, such as Calibri, are easier to read for those with certain visual disabilities.

A friend recently posted a screed by someone who listed all of the reasons that someone should not support the current administration and that feller in the Oval Office.

At the end, though, this someone said despite on in spite of all those reasons, this someone whole heartedly and devotedly, supported that feller in the Oval Office because this someone felt that, finally, the feller in the Oval Office ‘fought for the someone’s in this world.‘

For myself, I find it difficult to identify with any of the fights that feller is having but there you are.

That fight, I guess, includes the efforts to restore decorum and professionalism to the Department’s written work products and abolish yet another wasteful DEIA program, the Department by returning to Times New Roman as its standard typeface.

This formatting standard aligns with the President’s One Voice for America’s Foreign Relations directive, underscoring the Department’s responsibility to present a unified, professional voice in all communications.

I am reminded of the line from My Cousin Vinny where Lisa comments on deer hunting while Vinny is concerned about what pants to wear. Lisa says:

Imagine you’re a deer. You’re prancing along, you get thirsty, you spot a little brook, you put your little deer lips down to the cool clear water… BAM! A fuckin bullet rips off part of your head! Your brains are laying on the ground in little bloody pieces! Now I ask ya. Would you give a fuck what kind of pants the son of a bitch who shot you was wearing?

Imagine you are the leader of a country.

And you get a cable from the United States Department of State.

Maybe its a birthday greeting?

Maybe its a list of problems?

Maybe its a declaration of war?

Now I ask you?

Would that leader care what font was used?

Fighting for me?

I had no problem with Calibri.

But while you were out the room, I lost my mind trying to deal with this.

12.9.2025 – scopes conviction stands

scopes conviction stands
for violation anti
evolution law

100 years ago – Today in History

The courtroom in Dayton Tennessee has been preserved from the way it was back in 1925 and I was able to walk around by myself a couple of years ago on a visit to Dayton.

A local lawyer saw me wandering around and came in and explained that that the audience seating, the counsel tables and the Judge’s bench all dated from the Scopes Trial.

He said some efforts were made at better sound proofing and that carpet was added in places and the floor made such a racket.

You could hear the voices.

Folks forget Clarence Darrow and Dudley Field Malone and Arthur Garfield Hays, well, they lost their case, which so far as I know, still sits on the books of the State of Tennessee.

John T. Scopes was found guilty and had to pay $100.

Whether it was ever paid, I do not know.