3.12.2025 – strive to learn before

strive to learn before
we die what we are running
from, and to, and why

The Shore and the Sea

A single excited lemming started the exodus, crying, “Fire!” and running toward the sea. He may have seen the sunrise through the trees, or waked from a fiery nightmare, or struck his head against a stone, producing stars. Whatever it was, he ran and ran, and as he ran he was joined by others, a mother lemming and her young, a night watch lemming on his way home to bed, and assorted revelers and early risers.

“The world is coming to an end!” they shouted, and as the hurrying hundreds turned into thousands, the reasons for their headlong flight increased by leaps and bounds and hops and skips and jumps.

“The devil has come in a red chariot!” cried an elderly male. “The sun is his torch! The world is on fire!”

“*Tt’s a pleasure jaunt,” squeaked an elderly female.

“A what?” she was asked.

“A treasure hunt!” cried a wild-eyed male who had been up all night. “Full many a gem of purest ray serene the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.”

“It’s a bear!” shouted his daughter. “Go it!”

And there were those among the fleeing thousands who shouted “Goats!” and “Ghosts!” until there were almost as many different alarms as there were fugitives.

One male lemming who had lived alone for many years refused to be drawn into the stampede that swept past his cave like a flood. He saw no flames in the forest, and no devil, or bear, or goat, or ghost. He had long ago decided, since he was a serious scholar, that the caves of ocean bear no gems, but only soggy glub and great gobs of mucky gump. And so he watched the other lemmings leap into the sea and disappear beneath the waves, some crying ‘““We are saved!” and some crying “We are lost!” The scholarly lemming shook his head sorrowfully, tore up what he had written through the years about his species, and started his studies all over again.

MORAL: All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

As published in Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber (Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1956).

See more Thurber Drawings at For Muggs and Rex.

3.8.2025 – set aside to suit

set aside to suit
vanity, obstinacy, and
one man’s ignorance

In a letter to Winston Churchill, Oct. 1, 1938, during the Munich Crisis where Europe gave Czechoslovakia to Hitler in hopes that Hitler would go away, Guy Burgess wrote:

Traditional English policy since the reign of Elizabeth, the policy of Marlborough, of Pitt, of Eyre Crowe, of Vansittart, has been blandly set aside to suit the vanity, the obstinacy, & the ignorance of one man, no longer young. We shall be told he has saved the peace, that anything is worth that. This is not true. He has made war inevitable, & lost it.

Young Mr. Burgess at the time was the BBC representative at the House of Commons, responsible for the Week in Westminster program and had gone to interview Churchill about the efforts of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain to placate Hitler and found Churchill, of all people, at a loss for words and unable to take part in a radio interview.

In respect to transparency, it must be mentioned that later in life, Mr. Burgess would be part of what became known as, The Cambridge Five. Five notable figures in Britain who became committed communists during their time at Cambridge and were secret agents for the Soviet Union.

Nevertheless, the words, the vanity, the obstinacy, & the ignorance of one man ring loud today.

As does the warning:

We shall be told he has saved the peace, that anything is worth that.

This is not true.

He has made war inevitable, & lost it.

*As recounted in Winston S. Churchill – The Prophet of Truth (1922-1939) The Official Biography of Winston Churchill: Vol 5, by Martin Gilbert (Houghton, Mifflin, Boston, 1966).

3.7.2025 – not create any

not create any
right or benefit at law
by any party

A current Presidential Executive Order begins:

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

And ends with:

Sec 6 General Provisions, Part C: This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

As President Lyndon Johnson said, and take him for all in all, he would had the current person in office for lunch, that the goal of his programs was to write it in the books of law.

Why go to all the trouble of legislation and dealing with bills and committees and votes when you can issue an Executive Order that is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

Not making anything up, here is the order in question.

If you learn anything in TV it is the triumph of perception over reality.

3.4.2025 – justice is coming

justice is coming
and everybody seems to …
to be dreading it

Adapted from the line: Inside the Richard J. Daley Center, they passed through security scanners and took the elevator to the sixteenth floor. The place was bustling with lawyers and litigants, clerks and cops, either hustling about or huddled in little pockets of serious conversations. Justice was looming, and everyone seemed to be dreading it.

In the book, The Litigators by John Grisham.

Really nothing from nowhere about anything in particular but the idea of the folks in this current Executive Branch of the Government are, in the back of their minds, in their hearts, where they are truly honest with themselves at 3 in the morning, there are thinking this.

The know that what they are doing is wrong.

Justice is looming.

And they are all dreading it.

3.3.2025 – it is better to

it is better to
have ring of freedom in your
ears than in your nose

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.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Federal Reserve Bank said today that:

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.8 percent on March 3, down from -1.5 percent on February 28. After this morning’s releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real private fixed investment growth fell from 1.3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, to 0.0 percent and 0.1 percent.

Bills do come due and a fall of GDP from -1.5 to a -2.8 in five days is rather stunning.

This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.