5.6.2025 – alter? redefine?

alter? redefine?
To this court, answer to each of
those questions is ‘no’

In the article, Federal judge says Democrat’s North Carolina election win must stand by Sam Levine in the Guardian, Mr. Levine rights:

Richard Myers II, a district judge and Trump appointee, agreed with Riggs and said that Griffin was essentially trying to change the rules of the election after election day.

“This case concerns whether the federal constitution permits a state to alter the rules of an election after the fact and apply those changes retroactively to only a select group of voters, and in so doing treat those voters differently than other similarly situated individuals. This case is also about whether a state may redefine its class of eligible voters but offer no process to those who may have been misclassified as ineligible,” Myers wrote in his opinion. “To this court, the answer to each of those questions is ‘no.’”

How far that little candle throws its beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

5.5.2025 – we are such stuff as

we are such stuff as
dreams are made on, little life
is rounded with sleep

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.

Tempest (Act IV, Scene 1) by William Shakespeare.

Or for further thoughts on a new born grand daughter …

But among the reeds and rushes
A baby girl was found
Her eyes as clear as centuries
Her silky hair was brown

Never been lonely
Never been lied to
Never had to scuffle in fear
Nothing denied to
Born at the instant
The church bells chime
And the whole world whispering
Born at the right time

From Born at the Right Time by Paul Simon.

For myself, a teeny, tiny little girl, less than a few days old, hadn’t known her for more than a few hours … and I cannot imagine a life without her being in it.

5.1.2025 – changes in our lives

changes in our lives
accidents, happenstances
the slightest pushes

It was the first truly important night of my life.

Despite my aching bones and blistered feet I sensed a possibility of strength, of a mission that drew solace and the chance of success or victory from the fire, from the dog, from my fellow human Fred, the night, the bright moon and stars, even the owl we were hearing intermittently.

This sounds vaguely absurd now but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction, and on the more negative side the girl you met at a gathering you didn’t want to attend who infected your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

but then so many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction

From True North by Jim Harrison ( Grove/Atlantic, New York, 2004)

So many changes in the direction of our lives come as a result of accidents, happenstances, the slightest pushes in any direction.

Then toss in the forward march of time.

Like the tide that twice a day comes in and sweeps the beach clean and leaves a clean slate wide open for accidents, happenstances or the slightest pushes in any direction.

All blank and wide open for changes that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

Maybe this is where Jesus was going when mounted up on that hill side and sermonized saying, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”

Trouble enough for each day that will infect your life to the extent that the scar tissue will follow you into old age.

4.26.2025 – wondered why should be …

wondered why should be …
we are made for a bright world
but live in a dark one

He didn’t know it, but by then he was the very last knight of the Round Table still alive.

All the others were gone.

And when at last his time came, too, he lay down on a hot dry hill in the shade of an ancient silvery-leafed olive tree, alone except for his horse, and a single tiny perching bird that almost seemed to glow from within, as if it had swallowed a star, though it could just as easily have been a trick of the light. He looked up at the empty clouds, and as he died he wondered, not for the first time but for the very last, why it should be that we are made for a bright world, but live in a dark one.

The closing sentences of The Bright Sword : a Novel of King Arthur by Lev Grossman, New York] : Viking, 2024.

I love Arthur books.

Not so much the movies as no one really gets Arthur right because of the timing of it all.

As Mr. Grossman write in a note a the end of his book: “But the Arthur of our collective popular imagination comes primarily from versions of the story written a thousand years after that, in the high medieval period, by authors who weren’t much interested in historical rigor. A historically accurate sixth-century Briton wouldn’t have fought in plate armor, because there wasn’t any in Britain at that time. He wouldn’t have lived in England, because England didn’t exist yet—England is named after the Angles, one of those Germanic tribes Arthur was fighting so hard to keep out. Likewise he wouldn’t have competed in tournaments or lived in a castle, and if he did it definitely wouldn’t have been Camelot, which was also made up by Chrétien de Troyes in the twelfth century. He couldn’t have known Sir Palomides, because Palomides is a Muslim, and Muhammad wasn’t born till around the year 570. This Arthur—the Arthur of Malory and Tennyson, of T. H. White’s The Once and Future King and the musical Camelot—is a loose mash-up of a thousand-odd years of British history.

So Knights of the Round Table but no suits of armor …

Luckily its all fiction and disbelief is suspended anyway.

But I do enjoy the Arthur stories.

I especially like the ones were Lancelot comes off as a royal pain in the arse.

I like a little redemption of Guinevere and more mystery to Merlin.

And I have always liked a Nimue who is independent and can show the way home.

And I enjoy how writers stuggle to get Morgan le Fey into the story line.

From A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court to Bernard Cornwell’s Arthur Trilogy, I read them all.

Of all them however, its Mr. Grossman’s Bright Sword that got me to think the most.

Not want to so too much as maybe some one will read it on there own.

If you do, let me know ur thoughts.