7.2.2025 – we’ll forget, but now

we’ll forget, but now
absence feels like a loss – game, set
match to the gizmos

It’s the perfect Wimbledon. The sun is out, the Brits are firing and as for the scoring, that too will be somewhat perfect, this being the first Wimbledon since the tournament told the line judges, long the arbiters of accuracy, that after 148 years, their services will no longer be required.

Arguments, unpredictability and, as the cameras zoom in to the line judge whose eyesight judgment prompts a participant explosion, buttock-clenching awkwardness in close-up: goodbye to all that. Hello, AI and sharp-eyed robots, analysing in real time 18 lots of footage.

It’s perfect now, but is it progress? After the first day, players complained that while the calls were perfect in their accuracy, they were imperfect in that the gizmo’s volume was set too low and they could not hear the verdicts.

To some extent, Wimbledon is falling into line – both the Australian and US Opens, and very many of the lesser professional tournaments, have waved goodbye to the humans and embraced electronic line calling. The players wanted it. They strive truly, madly and deeply for perfection; their short, explosive careers cannot hinge on the human fallibility of others.

But look at Centre Court without the sentries posted around the border, and without the quiet ceremony that has always marked the departure of one set of line judges and the arrival of another. One day their absence will feel natural and maybe we’ll forget they were ever there, barking their assessments. But for now, their absence feels like a loss. Game, set and match to the gizmos.

From the article, Look at Wimbledon without human line judges and tell me this: do you really want life to be perfect? by Hugh Muir.

Major League umpire, Bill Klem famously said about making the call in baseball games that, I never missed one … in my heart.

Past University of Michigan Football Coach, Bo Schembechler once said something along the lines that his game plan always took into account 7 points that could go either way because of the calls by the referees … it’s part of the game, he said.

I like to follow Cricket when I can.

I follow Team England.

In Cricket the difference between an being called OUT can depend on whether of not the ball hit the player or his uniform or if the ball hit the bat.

To make sure the correct call is made, Cricket uses HOT SPOT and THE WHISTLER.

The HOTSPOT is an infrared camera on the play because the HEAT SIGNITURE of a ball hitting wood (the wicket) is different than that of the ball hitting the cloth of the uniform of the batter.

If that doesn’t work, there is the WHISTLER that is a microphone under the plate because the SOUND SIGNITURE of the ball hitting wood is different from the sound of the ball hitting cloth.

Oh give me a break.

But sports are a billon dollar industry.

Betting on sports is a billion dollar industry.

To quote General Jack Ripper in the movie, Dr. Stangelove, Clemenceau once said that war is too important to be left to the generals.

Well, today, in or out, in bounds or out of bounds, before the horn or after the buzzer or what have you is too important to be left to humans.

I guess.

I understand that athletes strive truly, madly and deeply for perfection; their short, explosive careers cannot hinge on the human fallibility of others.

I don’t know.

It used to be part of the game.

It used to be … a game.

One day the absence of humans will feel natural and maybe we’ll forget they were ever there, barking their assessments.

But for now, their absence feels like a loss.

7.1.2025 – once laughed at routine

once laughed at routine
now knew crucial if wanted
a life worth living

From the article, ‘My mind was shrieking: “What am I doing?”’ – when the digital nomad dream turns sour by Emily Bratt

I knew coming home wouldn’t be easy. As the plane from Ho Chi Minh to London descended, I looked out over England’s patchwork fields and was unsure what I was returning to or for. Those first few months were spent flitting between my family home and more pet-sitting stays. Friends and family wanted to know “my plan” and I felt more diminished each time I told them I didn’t know. The reverse culture shock was acute. I discovered that people don’t ask about your travels because the experiences are too unrelatable. Plus, a relationship I had formed overseas, and was trying to maintain, was nosediving and it was hard to discuss it with friends, since they didn’t know the person or the context. I was disoriented, but also felt as if I had never been away.

Gradually, the idea of having a space that was mine, neighbours to get to know, regular exercise classes to attend and a coffee shop where they knew my name felt exciting. I had once laughed in the face of routine; now, I knew it was crucial if I wanted to build a life worth living.

Perversely, many digital nomads end up doing a global tour of Starbucks. “It was the one place with reliable wifi,” says Matt, 25, a fellow British writer and on-off nomad since 2019. “I hated that I was in there, but finding somewhere to work was always difficult.”

Lots and lots of thoughts here.

But the phrase that comes to hit home for me was I discovered that people don’t ask about your travels because the experiences are too unrelatable.

I thought back to a party where I found myself, to use Tom Wolfe’s term, in a ‘conversational bouquet’ where the discussion between the two other guys focused on, one, which side of Italy was better to drive down … the Adriatic Side or the Mediterranean side? – and, two, – was it better to rent a car when in Europe or BUY a car when in Europe and use a broker to sell it once your trip (which I guess was at least a month long … I hope) over.

I had little to contribute aside from historical commentary on the Appian Way and the Campaigns of World War 2 that were fought on those roadways.

Needless to say I discovered that people didn’t ask about my travels because the experiences were too unrelatable.

I tried to interject my thoughts on driving down the east coast versus the west coast of the State of Michigan … Alpena through the Thumb to Port Huron or The Long Blue Edge of Summer as we called the Lake Michigan coast, but I found no traction in the conversation.

I had a real guilty pleasure that to read that these world travelers, these digital nomads, found themselves doing a global tour of Starbucks because it was the one place with reliable wifi,

Well, I can do that.

I mean, I can sit in any number of Starbucks and use the wifi and have the same view of the world as these digital nomads.

Oh well.

I don’t travel much.

If offered the chance to travel, I would most likely ask if I could take the time to go visit and play with the grand kidz.

I do do this though.

My office is about 5 blocks from the Atlantic Ocean.

At lunch, I’ll change into shorts and T Shirt and walk down to the beach for a bit.

Often I am stuck in a group waiting to cross the street to the beach walkway and someone will say to me, “What a great week to be here!”

I look them in the eye and agree and smile then say, “I’m here on my lunch.”

But back to the article.

Routine.

I have long said that one of the things I loved about college was the 4 month length of the term and the syllabus that was handed out at the start of the term.

The syllabus would list the 100 books I had to read, the term paper I had to write and the dates of the mid term and final.

I had no idea how I would get all that done.

But I knew, that by the end of the term, it would be done.

It was … great.

Out of college no one hands out a syllabus.

I get quarterly goals but in all the years I have been working, I can’t remember anything that was considered a quarterly goal at the start of the quarter, that was around at the end of the quarter.

Something else would have replaced it of course, but that points to the syllabus and lack of routine.

Most Professors had taught their courses for years and the syllabus was un changeable.

You could depend on it.

You could get into … a routine, a rhythm.

Working for the last 40 years, boy howdy, do I miss it.

The current administration pushes something they call, strategic uncertainty.

Oh, for routine.

And a life worth living.

6.30.2025 – this will reduce the

this will reduce the
deficit, not increase it …
that is simply false

Three times in the past half-century, Republicans have enacted large tax cuts that necessitated significant increases in federal borrowing. Each time they insisted the cuts would drive economic growth, even claiming that the expansion would be so large that the government would collect more tax revenue. Each time, they’ve been proved wrong.

Mr. Trump’s bill would be the fourth iteration of this failed experiment, and some Republicans are still retailing the same fantasies about the consequences. “This will reduce the deficit, not increase it,” Senator John Thune of South Dakota, the Senate majority leader, said last week. That is simply false.

The expected increase in the debt is particularly absurd because the government would borrow much of the money from the same people who got the biggest tax cuts from the bill. Roughly half of the government’s debt typically is sold to American investors, and those investors are disproportionately affluent. When the government borrows from them rather than raising taxes, it is getting the same money from the same people on less favorable terms. Instead of taxing the rich, the government pays them interest.

From The National Debt Is Already Causing Bigger Problems Than People Realize by THE NEW YORK TIMES EDITORIAL BOARD in an opinion piece on June 39, 2025.

The expected increase in the debt is particularly absurd!

I am also struck by the phrase, That is simply false.

In my day, that was called … a lie.

Somewhat along the lines of, we are only departing gang members and drug dealers.

And telling a lie was considered bad.

Bad to tell it.

Worse to get caught telling it.

Today … who cares.

But why no one cares, is beyond me.

6.29.2025 – moral failure for

moral failure for
American society
as a whole … all … each

Adapted from the New York Times article, Catholic Bishops Try to Rally Opposition to Trump’s Immigration Agenda (NYT June 29, 2025), where Elizabeth Dias writes:

Leading Catholic prelates including Cardinal McElroy and Cardinal Joseph W. Tobin of Newark went even further in an interfaith letter to Senate leadership on Thursday night, strongly urging them to vote against the bill entirely.

In their letter they claimed that the bill, which calls for billions of dollars to bolster ICE, would spur immigration raids, harm hard-working families and fund a border wall that would heighten peril for migrants.

“Its passage would be a moral failure for American society as a whole,” the letter states.

The letter was organized by Archbishop John C. Wester of Santa Fe, N.M., who attended an ecumenical protest against the bill last week.

“This draconian, heavy-handed, meanspirited way that the country is dealing with immigrants today, it is not fair, it is not humane, it is not moral,” he said.

“It’s something we have to really be earnest about, and do everything we can within the law to make our voices heard.”

I think that last needs to be repeated.

This draconian, heavy-handed, meanspirited way that the country is dealing with immigrants today, it is not fair, it is not humane, it is not moral.

It’s something we have to really be earnest about, and do everything we can within the law to make our voices heard.

Is that hard to understand?

This is not statement from a national news service not named FOX.

This is a statement in a letter to the United States Senate (as it us understood) from the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in America.

This draconian, heavy-handed, meanspirited way that the country is dealing with immigrants today, it is not fair, it is not humane, it is not moral.

It’s something we have to really be earnest about, and do everything we can within the law to make our voices heard.

Will folks dismiss this as just something from a bunch of liars?

I will wait to see anything similar for organizations like the Southern Baptist Church or Protestant leaders like Franklin Graham.

I will wait, but I won’t hold my breath.

I will add that this would be a moral failure for American society as a whole.

As a WHOLE.

That’s all of us.

As Mr. Lincoln said, “We … will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.“

That also is worth repeating.

We … will be remembered in spite of ourselves.

No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

Christians talk about a judgment day.

When that day comes, no personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us.

Where do you want to line up on that day?

*The Last Judgment* by Michelangelo – this is on the wall in the Sistine Chapel and Cardinals get to ponder it while selecting the next Pope.

6.28.2025 – eyes of those who fight and

eyes of those who fight and
starve for bread – there is doom, change,
silence, denying

Adapted from the poem, Sea Music, by Babette Deutsch.

There is a place of bitter memories
Dreary and wide and lonely as the sea,
Foaming and moaning; there they come to me
Like wild gulls crying sea-taught monodies:
Iron-winged hours, heavy, heavy with dread;
Dawn after death; the sound of a shut door;
And shining love that has a withered core;
The eyes of those who fight and starve for bread.
There is doom, and change, and silence, and denying;
Memories of these pluck at the heart of me.
And over the bitter roar of the old dumb sea
The air is filled with the noise of wild gulls crying.

I started this morning still at a loss for words.

Wanting, if for the sake of self discipline if nothing else, to write something today I turned to my other project for inspiration.

Over the last year I worked to gather digital versions of every known published James Thurber Cartoon.

When I am at a loss for word, I will go to my Thurber archive and see if there might be a drawing and caption suitable to be adapted to a haiku.

Searching the archive for June 28th, I found that on June 28, 1941, the New Yorker published a drawing with the caption, Miss Gorce is in the embalming game.

That didn’t do much for a haiku.

But when I created my archive, I also did a screen grab of the two page spread of the New Yorker so users could see how New Yorker readers first saw the Thurber drawing.

I found this necessary to show that all Thurber drawings DID NOT just magically appear in books, one after another, but were part of the fabric of the magazine.

Looking at the spread of pages 14 and 15 for June 28th, 1941 edition of the New Yorker, I saw opposite the Thurber drawing a poem by Babette Deutsch.

Never heard of her but liked her poem and thought would do so I search for an online version I could copy and paste into this post and when doing so, came across this poem, Sea Music.

Just yesterday I was bemoaning the fact that I had no words in me to describe how I felt after the highest court in this country decided that the feller in office was a better judge of Justice then they were and here was a poem that described how I felt.

Iron-winged hours, heavy, heavy with dread;
Dawn after death; the sound of a shut door;
And shining love that has a withered core;

Wikipedia reports that: Babette Deutsch was born on September 22, 1895, in New York City. Her parents were of Michael Deutsch and Melanie Fisher Deutsch. She matriculated from the Ethical Culture School and Barnard College, graduating in 1917 with a B.A. She published poems in magazines such as the North American Review and the New Republic while she was still a student at Barnard.

The Poetry Foundation website states: Aligned with the Imagist movement, Deutsch typically composed compact, lyrical pieces using crisp visual imagery. Many of her poems are ekphrastic responses to paintings or other pieces of visual art.

Many of her poems are ekphrastic responses to paintings or other pieces of visual art.

I like that.

Re reading again the lines,

Iron-winged hours, heavy, heavy with dread;
Dawn after death; the sound of a shut door;
And shining love that has a withered core;

All I can say is what a perfect ekphrastic response to our current states of affairs.