2.1.2026 – we should have a land

we should have a land
of love joy wine song, not this …
land where joy is wrong

Adapted from the poem, Our Land by Langston Hughes as printed in The collected poems of Langston Hughes by Langston Hughes (Knopf: New York, 1994).

(On the 125th Birthday of Langston Hughes.)

We should have a land of sun,
Of gorgeous sun,
And a land of fragrant water
Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief
Of rose and gold,
And not this land
Where life is cold.

We should have a land of trees,
Of tall thick trees,
Bowed down with chattering parrots
Brilliant as the day,
And not this land where birds are gray.

Ah, we should have a land of joy,
Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.

There is a call today to make America great … again.

Funny thing, I always thought it was great.

Feet of clay to be sure.

Lots of dirt swept under both now and in the past.

But something about it, still great.

Great maybe, for the reason that there was a way things happened.

A process for the way things happened.

A process that was due to all people to be followed.

Due process.

Rules.

Simple rules.

But that isn’t how the MAGA people see it.

They see themselves as victims and as being victimized.

They tell me that the guy in office will fight for them.

Fight for them regardless of the process that was due.

I my gut feeling is that they see themselves as the Undertaker in the Godfather movie.

The undertaker who starts out the movie with the lines, “I believe in America. America has made my fortune.”

The Godfather responds, “I understand. You found paradise in America. You had a good trade, made a good living. The police protected you and there were courts of law.”

The Godfather continues, “Had you come to me in friendship … and that by chance if an honest man such as yourself should make enemies, then they would become my enemies. And then they would fear you”

And then they would fear you.

Is that not the perfect line?

And then they would fear you.

They would fear you.

Fear you.

Fear.

The thinking goes that the guy in the oval office fights for me and then they will fear me.

Make America great again by making people fear America.

As so many people are saying.

That’s not who we are.

Or at least, who we were.

For me?

I trust in God.

Let people think about that one.

For this country?

We should have a land of sun,
Of gorgeous sun,
And a land of fragrant water
Where the twilight is a soft bandanna handkerchief
Of rose and gold,
And not this land
Where life is cold.

We should have a land of trees,
Of tall thick trees,
Bowed down with chattering parrots
Brilliant as the day,
And not this land where birds are gray.

Ah, we should have a land of joy,
Of love and joy and wine and song,
And not this land where joy is wrong.

One more time out loud please.

Ah, we should have a land of joy,

Of love and joy and wine and song,

And not this land where joy is wrong.

1.1.2026 – Janus, two faces

Janus, two faces
one looking forward, one back
doorway to New Year

January Latin Janus, the ancient Latin deity who guarded doors and entrances. Naturally he looked after the doorway to the New Year, too. Janus had two faces — one looking forward, one back. That useful but humble man the janitor derives his title from the same root, janua, door. Janus’ temple was closed only in times of peace, which were not frequent.

From In a Word by Margaret Samuels Ernst with illustrations by James Thurber (Great Neck, N.Y. : Channel Press. 1954).

Janus might have had two faces, one looking forward and one looking back but in the words of Willy Wonka, “You can’t get out backwards. You got to go forwards to go back.“

Hope for a new years worth of good thoughts.

One question I ponder, do fans of that team in Columbus feel better about this season that ended with a 1 win and then 2 losses then they do about last season that ended with a loss and then three wins and a ‘so called’ National Championship?

Deep in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s world of “a real dark night of the soul it is always three o’clock in the morning,” you bet they do.

12.2.2025 – every question has

every question has
a cousin, and suddenly
they’re multiplying

Going back to the roots of these essays and admiring wordplay in the news of the day, I want to recognize Dianna Russini who in her Nov. 26, 2025 article in the Athletic headlined, What I’m hearing about J.J. McCarthy, Jerry Jones’ trade steal and more, wrote:

So now what? Delay McCarthy again? I’ve been told there were some concerns about how another year sitting on the bench would affect him. And would it even help? Every question has a cousin, and suddenly they’re multiplying. Can a raw but talented quarterback grow fast enough to match a team built to win yesterday?

I think that’s pretty good.

Good enough to repeat.

Every question has a cousin, and suddenly they’re multiplying.

Can a raw but talented quarterback grow fast enough to match a team built to win yesterday?

Applying to other topics … Can a Saturday Morning TV Anchor run something else like the Frosty Boy Ice Cream Stand in Grand Rapids, Michigan or, just wondering out loud, the Department of Defense?

Every question has a cousin, and suddenly they’re multiplying.

More Thurber at For Muggs and Rex.

10.23.2025 – I cried over things

I cried over things
knowing no beautiful things,
not one, not one … lasts

Adapted from:

I cried over beautiful things knowing no beautiful thing lasts.
The field of cornflower yellow is a scarf at the neck of the copper sunburned woman,
The mother of the year, the taker of seeds.
The northwest wind comes and the yellow is torn full of holes,
New beautiful things come in the first spit of snow on the northwest wind,
And the old things go, not one lasts.

Autumn by Carl Sandburg in Chicago Poems as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, (Harcourt Brace and Company, New York, 1950).

It’s just a building, I know.

And I know it was MASSIVELY renovated under Mr. Truman.

But understand, without much structural attention since being turned over to John Adams and being burned by the Brits in 1812, that building was falling down.

According to wikipedia:

By late 1948, three main options were considered for replacement of the White House:

Demolish and rebuild the interior, keeping the exterior walls intact.
Demolish the building entirely and construct a new executive mansion.
Demolish the building entirely, salvage the exterior walls and rebuild them and a new interior.

Two of the options were DEMOLISH ENTIRELY.

And the decision was made to Demolish and rebuild the interior, keeping the exterior walls intact.

Also from Wikipedia, Historic preservation of buildings during this time was not as strict or defined as it became later. For its time, simply not demolishing the entire structure was deemed “preservation”. Winslow envisioned many of the interior items – from doors, trim, woodwork, and ornamental plaster – would be reused. Most were carefully dismantled, labelled, catalogued, and stored. Much of the paneling was reinstalled in the main public rooms, but other historic elements were simply copied to accommodate increasing cost and time constraints. Many of the original materials that were not deemed of significantly identifiable historic value, such as marble fireplace mantels, or not deemed to be readily reused, such as pipes, were sent to landfills.

So is it the building where Mrs. Adams hung her laundry up in to dry, where Lincoln walked and FDR rolled?

Well not really, but there is this scene in my memory that I read about where Carl Sandburg, visited FDR in what is now the Yellow Room but in that day, was FDR’s study.

Sandburg, according to the story, stood at a window, hand on the window frame, and said something like, “This is where Lincoln stood, looking south to Virginia.”

FDR asked, “How can you know?”

Sandburg responded, “… I can tell.”

That window, the window Mr. Lincoln looked through, the window that Sandberg rested his hand on, that’s still there.

Still there … for now.

10.5.2025 – she predicts either

she predicts either
a war or the end of the
world in October

I know how she feels.

So I had to add another “a” to make it work.

Thurber, depending on the time of day, might have forgiven me.

More Thurber here at formuggsandrex.com.

Reading some odd stuff online I came across in review of the book of Thurber Letters titled The Thurber Letters: The Wit, Wisdom and Surprising Life of James Thurber , edited by Harrison Kinney,

In a reviewer states, Thurber never warmed to William Shawn.

Shawn took over as Editor of the New Yorker when Harold Ross died.

I also recently came across the fact that after three years, Shawn dropped out of the University of Michigan and went to New York to find his fortune.

Thurber never graduated from Ohio State after being a student there for five years.

Both institutions wrestled with how to handle these famous but non-degree holding alums.

But did it also sprout the roots of a non-working relationship?

Some one’s PhD dissertation is waiting to be written.