3.6.2025 – government of the

government of the
orioles, by, for foxes
must perish from earth

The Birds and the Foxes

Once upon a time there was a bird sanctuary in which hundreds of Baltimore orioles lived together happily. The refuge consisted of a forest entirely surrounded by a high wire fence. When it was put up, a pack of foxes who lived nearby -protested that it was an arbitrary and unnatural boundary. However, they did nothing about it at the time because they were interested in civilizing the geese and ducks on the neighboring farms.

When all the geese and ducks had been civilized, and there was nothing else left to eat, the foxes once more turned their attention to the bird sanctuary. Their leader announced that there had once been foxes in the sanctuary but that they had been driven out. He proclaimed that Baltimore orioles belonged in Baltimore. He said, furthermore, that the orioles in the sanctuary were a continuous menace to the peace of the world. The other animals cautioned the foxes not to disturb the birds in their sanctuary. So the foxes attacked the sanctuary one night and tore down the fence that, surrounded it. The orioles rushes out and were instantly killed and eaten by the foxes.

The next day the leader of the foxes, a fox from whom God was receiving daily guidance, got upon the rostrum and addressed the other foxes. His message was simple and sublime. “You see before you,” he said, “another Lincoln. We have liberated all those birds!”

Moral: Government of the orioles, by the foxes, and for the foxes, must perish from the earth.

From Fables for Our Time by James Thurber as reprinted in The Thurber Carnival, Harper Brothers, New York, 1945.

See more Thurber Drawings here …

2.2.6.2025 – tell whether it was

tell whether it was
rising or setting – now know
… it is a setting sun

According to the National Parks Website about Independence Hall in Philadelphia, … George Washington used this chair for nearly three months of the Federal Convention’s continuous sessions. James Madison reported Benjamin Franklin saying … “I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I… know that it is a rising sun.“

If Dr. Franklin was alive today and reading the papers, it is easy to imagine him saying, ” … I have often looked at that behind the president without being able to tell whether it was rising or setting. But now I … know that it is a setting sun.“

2.17.2025 – can’t stop a nazi

can’t stop a nazi
with a lawbook – drop lawbooks
… and learn how to fly?

From the book, The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk.

Barney Greenwald explains to the officers of the Caine:

” … when all hell broke loose and the Germans started running out of soap and figured, well it’s time to come over and melt down old Mrs. Greenwald — who’s gonna stop them? Not her boy Barney. Can’t stop a Nazi with a lawbook. So I dropped the lawbooks and ran to learn how to fly. Stout fellow. Meantime, and it took a year and a half before I was any good, who was keeping Mama out of the soap dish? Captain Queeg.“

The tried and true standard operating procedure for on DJ Trump is delay delay delay.

His lightning speed blitzkrieg attack on the United States government from within has taken everyone off guard.

To defend ourselves, we run to … the lawbooks.

We run to the lawbooks and expect the other side to play by the rules.

But to the other side, the only rules that matter are the rules that help their side win.

Otherwise its a rule they don’t have to abide by.

To defend ourselves, we run to … the lawbooks.

It is as if we have been run over by a truck and left bleeding in the street and are running to the lawbooks to get a medical treatment.

The time it takes, and the known delaying tactics as well as the disregard for the lawbooks pretty much garruntees that regardless of how the lawbook action turns out, we will have died before any decision is reached.

In their Guest Opinion essay, This Is What the Courts Can Do if Trump Defies Them (New York Times Feb. 16, 2025), Trevor W. Morrison and Richard H. Pildes (Mr. Morrison and Mr. Pildes are both professors of law at N.Y.) write:

Executive branch defiance of the courts is not a simple, one-time-only decision. A prudent court will give the government officials covered by its order multiple opportunities to comply with the order, and will escalate things only when the officials by their own actions (or inaction) make their defiance clear.

Judicial independence and the stability of the rule of law take generations to establish in a credible, durable way. A foolish administration that seeks to defy the courts for short-term political gains or simply to show its “dominance” of other institutions would soon seek shelter from the whirlwind it would undoubtedly unleash.

Generations?

We don’t have 10 minutes.

You can’t stop a nazi with a lawbook.

2.16.2025 – words meant more before

words meant more before
explosion of cinema
and television

Adapted from the passage:

“He moves through the work of war poets, novelists and memoirists such as Siegfried Sassoon, Robert Graves and Edmund Blunden. Words meant more back then, before the explosion of cinema and television. Indeed, Fussell writes, ‘Sometimes it is really hard to shake off the conviction that this war has been written by someone.'”

In the article, This Book on World War I Changed How I Think of Nonfiction with the tag line, Paul Fussell’s 50-year-old survey of trench warfare deserves a new generation of readers, by Dwight Garner in the New York Times on Feb. 13, 2025.

I have to love that.

Words meant more back then, before the explosion of cinema and television.

Maybe just … words meant more back then.

At least IMHO.

2.9.2025 – charting disruption

charting disruption
what’s in your morning, your day
watching and waiting

For the most part my day starts in three different ways.

It depends on if I am working that day and if working, am I working from home or am I going into the office.

I have two days off, two days working from home and three days in the office.

Regardless of where I am working, at some point in my morning I am sitting in my rocking chair with a cup of coffee.

That is how my day starts.

I am reminded of a kid I knew back at Grand Rapids Junior College.

One term, to get to my first class, I would take a short cut through the cafeteria.

Every morning there was a kid I knew slightly from high school, sitting alone at a table with a Styrofoam cup of coffee in front of him.

He had what might be called, ‘The 2000 Yard Stare,’ looking down at his coffee.

He never looked up and never saw me, but I saw him everyday, sitting there, staring, with a steaming cup of coffee.

I always want to skip class and sit at another table and watch to see what happened as he came out of his stare.

I often thought about sitting down and greeting him with a loud ‘Good Morning,’ just to see what would happen.

But I didn’t.

I respected his routine.

Who wanted to be a disrupter especially at that hour of day?

Today life as we know it, from less than 1 month ago, is in almost complete distruption.

Some folks applaud it.

Some folks fear it and what it MIGHT all mean.

I am watching it.

I hate it and I can’t stop it and I worry about it.

And I wonder, when will it impact me.

Prices of eggs are impacting me right now but more than that, when will this pattern of moron, idiotic, petulant, whiney, willful and destructive disruption impact my day.

When, due to all this, will my day NOT start with a cup of coffee and my rocking chair?

That has become my barometer.

My canary in a bird cage.

That is what I watch.

Kind of a personal, ‘I know what is going on, but so long as … it doesn’t affect me’ stance.

That is when I will know it is affecting me.

When I am no longer able to start my day with a cup of coffee.

What would it take?

The price of coffee?

My job goes away?

My home goes away?

I go away as I don’t agree with the reasons for all this disruption?

I am lucky that my barometer is as minor as a cup of coffee and not what country I wake up in tomorrow.

I know its coming.

I know it will happen and probably sooner than I am ready for it to happen.

Not much we can do to stop it.

Watching.

Waiting.

Asking, ‘What will change in your morning?’

In your day?