call this a govment!
Why, just look at it and see
man can’t get his rights

“Call this a govment!

Why, just look at it and see what it’s like. …

They call that govment!

A man can’t get his rights in a govment like this.

Sometimes I’ve a mighty notion to just leave the country.

… Says I, for two cents I’d leave the blamed country and never come a-near it agin.

… I says, I’ll never vote agin.

Them’s the very words I said;

they all heard me;

and the country may rot for all me — I’ll never vote agin as long as I live.”

So said Pap Finn … better known as the no account father of one Huckleberry Finn in the book, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

Gulf of America?

Buy Greenland?

Re-Take the Panama Canal?

Annex Canada?

I will say one thing for the incoming Govment ….

Nobody … and I mean NOBODY is asking about plans for improving the overall economy, lowering inflation or the cost of groceries.

Everyone seems to be focusing on the date of D-Day for the invasion of Greenland.

Call this a Govment?

remember our sons
grandsons going to do things
that would stagger us …

Make no little plans.

They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.

Make big plans; aim high in hope and work, remembering that a noble, logical diagram once recorded will never die, but long after we are gone will be a living thing, asserting itself with ever-growing insistency.

Remember that our sons and grandsons are going to do things that would stagger us.

Let your watchword be order and your beacon beauty.

Think big.

Sitting on the cusp?

Standing on the cusp?

Waiting for the 2nd era of Presidential Administration that defies comprehension.

In the ‘Baseball Speech’ in the movie, Field of Dreams, James Earl Jones has the line:

America has rolled by like an army of steamrollers. It’s been erased like a blackboard, rebuilt, and erased again.

We all listen and we nod and say yes, thats true.

But that army of steamrollers, that army of erasers, come with an eye on the future.

A look to rebuild better.

A plan to move forward.

We sit at the start of another 4 year effort to turn back the clock.

No vaccines.

No education.

No progress.

Go back.

They have no magic to stir men’s blood and probably themselves will not be realized.

It will be rough.

I hope we survive.

I think of my grandchilden.

The ones who will rebuild this country.

I hope they will stagger us with what they do.

I am making no small plans.

My watchword be order.

My beacon beauty.

Thinking BIG and hoping for the best.

• The quote is from architect Daniel Burnham, the man who rebuild Chicago. According to wikipedia, “A proponent of the Beaux-Arts movement, he may have been “the most successful power broker the American architectural profession has ever produced.” A successful Chicago architect, he was selected as Director of Works for the 1892–93 World’s Columbian Exposition, colloquially referred to as “The White City”. He had prominent roles in the creation of master plans for the development of a number of cities, including the Plan of Chicago, and plans for Manila, Baguio and downtown Washington, D.C. He also designed several famous buildings, including a number of notable skyscrapers in Chicago, the Flatiron Building of triangular shape in New York City, Washington Union Station in Washington D.C., London’s Selfridges department store, and San Francisco’s Merchants Exchange.”

don’t ever have it
as bad as you think – someone’s …
always got it worse

“We didn’t have a lot of money growing up,” the coach recalls. “When you’re young, you just know if you can have something or you can’t. Most of the time, you can’t.

“But then you see we’re giving so-and-so our old coats, or we’re giving them food, or this car has been in the family for years and we’re going to give it to another family because they had a house fire.

“As a kid, it doesn’t make sense, because these are people you don’t even know. But it taught me that you don’t ever have it as bad as you think you have it. Someone’s always got it worse. My mother taught me that. My mother and father both. Be thankful for what you got. And treat everyone equally.”

Detroit Lions Head Coach Dan Campbell as quoted in “Mitch Albom: Dan Campbell’s roots helped make him Detroit Lions savior.“

… you don’t ever have it as bad as you think you have it.

Someone’s always got it worse.

My mother taught me that.

My mother and father both.

Be thankful for what you got.

And treat everyone equally.

I read this and I ask myself why not?

Yet I know there are a lot of folks, many who just got themselves elected to high office, who will read this and ask, “Why?”

no authority and
an ideological
opposition … but

The quote, “I have zero authority on the subject and also an ideological opposition to this question, but yes” was in response to the question, “Good table manners?“

Readers of this blog will remember that on Saturday Mornings, I enjoy a feature in the Guardian titled Blind Date where two people are selected to meet on a ‘blind date’ at some London Restuarant.

After the date, the two people get a questionnaire to fill out on their experience.

I really like this response.

I have zero authority on the subject and also an ideological opposition to this question, but yes.

Zero authority … on table manners?

Ideological opposition to … table manners?

Honestly, the way the world is today, I guess I thought maybe table manners was something we all might get together on.

But an ideological opposition?

In an era when dogs are allowed?

I wrote that before I even looked up the place where these two met.

Some restaurant called The Cavendish in London.

The online navigation lists:

Sunday Roast –

Dining …

and of course …

Dog Menu.

The menu also lists such American favorites as 24h slow cooked ox cheek and Orange and beetroot-cured salmon with tiger’s milk, herb oil and parsley glass cracker.

It will cost me some readers but I have an ideological opposition to dogs in public eateries.

As Mr. Wright might say, “There you are.”