1.24.2024 – may the Lord bless the

may the Lord bless the
man who invented noble sleep
and was never told

Adapted from the poem, Glad to Sleep by Julius C. Wright in the 1906 book, Poetic Diamonds.

God bless the man who invented noble sleep
Bless his noble eye
Bless him that he didn’t keep
His wonderful invention, nor try

May the Lord bless him; yes, I say,
Lord, bless his soul
Invented almost the greatest thing
And was never told

Mr. Wright identified himself as, “A Youth of Twenty Years, Who Never Spent a Day in College.“

And he wrote in the preface to Poetic Diamonds:

Whether or not the contents of this little volume will suit you I can’t tell. But I have put forth my best efforts to compose something to please everybody —

The Saint and the sinner,
The looser and the winner,
The great and the small.
The low and the tall.

So I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated. And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness.

The poem took me as I had a late late late night the other and as I learned in college, it was the day after an ‘all-nighter’ that killed me, it was the day after the day after that I was a zombie.

But last night I had a noble sleep.

A sleep so tired that I didn’t dream.

Just a noble sleep.

Then that last paragraph I quoted from the preface.

I find it hard to get my arms around that I have been writing these haiku now for five years.

I started in January of 2019 after a morning of mindless commuting in Atlanta when I started to take note of odd combinations of words as I listened to books on tape and looked at the signs and advertising on my way downtown.

My admin page says I have made 1,786 posts and used 741,983 words (I know I copy and paste often so I cannot say I have written 741,983 words).

This is all a bit much and a bit nutz at the same time but the drinking song from La Traviata is playing on the radio just now so as I good Roman, I will take that for a positive omen.

I have pulled wide the throttle to let it go, and ask you to keep your eyes upon the rails that it may be widely and publicly circulated.

And I truly hope that it will find a useful field of labor instead of filling an early grave in the cemetery of forgetfulness.

1.23.2024 – CHANCE! Do Not Pass Go!

CHANCE! Do Not Pass Go!
Go To Jail, Do Not Collect …
Two Hundred Dollars

The Standard Monopoly deck consists of 32 Cards: 16 Community Chest and 16 Chance Cards. 1 of those Chance cards is a Go to Jail. So when you pull a Chance card, you have a 1 in 16 chance of being sent directly to jail.

Oddly enough, Chance is ranked as 39th out of 40 possible squares anyone playing Monopoly might land on with any given throw.

At least that is how I read the data in the Probabilities in the Game of Monopoly.

I think that sounds a bit low for a game board of 40 squares where three of them are Chance but I leave that to those who like math more than I do.

But consider the concept.

At anytime you can land on Chance.

You select an orange card.

1 out of 16 of those cards will send you to jail.

Any of those cards, and you have to take one, will impact your turn and could impact your game.

To much like real life except of the act of drawing your card and knowing the moment where ‘destiny takes a hand’ is upon you.

Yesterday we landed on Chance and got the Go to Jail card.

Well not jail, but the next best thing, the Emergency Room.

The how and the why is incidental to this essay but let me say that all is well.

The point being is that me and my wife and one of our sons sat in the ER waiting room from 7PM to 2AM in downtown Charleston, SC.

We sat there, that is, once we found it.

Construction changed the location of the entrance to the ER but not the information on the current road signs that direct you to the ER or in the info available in Google Maps (How many times can you hear ‘Go To the Route’ before you throw your phone out the window).

I had stop and GET OUT to ask directions THREE TIMES – once from Security in the Parking Garage – once from a EMT driver in a parked ambulance and once from a lady in the hall just to GET TO ER – the PLACE WHERE BABIES ARE BORN and the PLACE WHERE HEART ATTACK VICTIMS ‘Every Minute Counts’ Go.

But I digress as we did persevere and we did get checked in and did join the group in the waiting room in a downtown ER in a minor major American city late at night.

And I was reminded that an ER, like being on a jury, is some of the best live performance theater available in America today and that either place is the LAST place you want other people making decisions about your future …

1.22-2024 – one day will explain

one day will explain
how and why she morphed into
a total crackpot

Adapted from the article, Cheney Exposes Stefanik’s Deleted Statement on Jan. 6 Riot as GOP’s Stance Shifts Story by Jacob Miller at Trendy Digests | Your Daily Dose of Trending Topics.

Cheney recently took to social media to share a statement made by Stefanik on January 6, 2021, condemning the Capitol rioters, a statement which has since been scrubbed from Stefanik’s official website. “I’m told that, in response to my prior tweet, @EliseStefanik deleted her 1/6/21 statement,” Cheney wrote, “that those who stormed the Capitol ‘must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.’”

In her original condemnation, Stefanik said, “I fully condemn the dangerous violence and destruction that occurred today at the United States Capitol,” further stating that “violence in any form is absolutely unacceptable and anti-American. The perpetrators of this un-American violence and destruction must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Cheney continued by questioning Stefanik’s integrity, “One day [Stefanik] will have to explain how and why she morphed into a total crackpot. History, and our children, deserve to know.” The tension between Cheney and Stefanik encapsulates the Republican Party’s struggle with the legacy of January 6. While Cheney has committed herself to preventing Trump’s return to power, Stefanik has embraced the former president’s narrative, describing the Department of Justice’s probe into the riot as “baseless witch hunt investigations.” Stefanik’s defense of those convicted in relation to the riot, including referring to them as “hostages,” stands in stark contrast to her earlier stance.

1.21.2024 – Schmidt, Karras, Barney

Schmidt, Karras, Barney
Sanders, Charlie and Barry
Bussey, Hill, Moore, Sims

The Lions have won two playoff games in the same season for the first time since 1957, the last time they won an NFL championship. They play the 1-seed San Francisco 49ers in the NFC title game at 6:30 p.m. next Sunday at Levi’s Stadium for the right to go to the Super Bowl. It’s the second time the Lions are one win from a Super Bowl, losing 41-10 to Washington in the 1991 season in the NFC title game.

From Detroit Lions one win from first Super Bowl after beating Tampa Bay Bucs, 31-23 by Dave Birkett in the Detroit Free Press, 1/21/2024

Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
But he’ll remember with advantages
What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
Familiar in his mouth as household words
Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
This story shall the good man teach his son;
And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
From this day to the ending of the world,
But we in it shall be rememberèd—
We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;

Henry V, Act IV Scene iii

1.20.204 – make one’s own crisis

make one’s own crisis,
instead of getting them out
of the newspaper

There is some slight advantage to living as a recluse, in that one makes one’s own crisis, instead of getting them out of the newspaper.

E.B. White in a letter to Eugene Saxton & Cass Canfield in 1939.