Category: Series

5.7.2026 – an ugly era

an ugly era
of ugly choices that is …
all I am saying

Adapted from the New York Times Joint Opinion piece, Graham Platner Is a Rorschach Test, by Frank Bruni and Bret Stephens where Mr. Bruni writes:

… an election is a binary, and, yes, Bret, I would choose him over Collins, who voted to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Russell Vought and whose vaunted moderation doesn’t match her fear of President Trump’s supporters.

You think that the guardrails are mostly containing Trump, and I think that he’s showing us how fragile they are and what peril we’re in. To believe as I do is to root for the candidate less likely to rubber-stamp his agenda. It’s that simple.

I don’t think we have the luxury of such big-picture, long-term philosophizing. Democratically speaking, it’s do-or-die time, and it’s essential that Trump not have a Congress under Republican control for the final two years of his current term. Sure, Democrats are favored as of now to win the House, but they might not: Look at all the gerrymandering still going on. So they must do everything possible to win the Senate. The Republican Party — to which Collins belongs, no matter her discrete and admirable rebellions — has shown that it cannot be trusted to stand up to Trump. So my relentlessly practical, far-from-jubilant take is that Platner is the better choice.

When I say I’d vote for him, Bret, that’s not “giving him a pass.” That phrase — that concept — doesn’t really apply. This is an ugly era of ugly choices. I’m saying that I’m less scared of Platner than of a Congress under Trump’s thumb. That’s really all I’m saying. But if we’re going to talk passes, it’s Trump I refuse to give one.

The Scotty Who Knew Too Much

Several summers ago there was a Scotty who went to the country for a visit. He decided that all the farm dogs were cowards, because they were afraid of a certain animal that had a white stripe down its back. “You are a pussy-cat and I can lick you,” the Scotty said to the farm dog who lived in the house where the Scotty was visiting. “I can lick the little animal with the white stripe, too. Show him to me.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “You ask the questions.”

So the farm dog took the Scotty into the woods and showed him the white-striped animal and the Scotty closed in on him, growling and slashing. It was all over in a moment and the Scotty lay on his back. When he came to, the farm dog said, “What happened?” “He threw vitriol,” said the Scotty, “but he never laid a glove on me.”

A few days later the farm dog told the Scotty there was another animal all the farm dogs were afraid of. “Lead me to him,” said the Scotty. “I can lick anything that doesn’t wear horseshoes.” “Don’t you want to ask any questions about him?” said the farm dog. “Naw,” said the Scotty. “Just show me where he hangs out.” So the farm dog led him to a place in the woods and pointed out the little animal when he came along. “A clown,” said the Scotty, “a pushover,” and he closed in, leading with his left and exhibiting some mighty fancy footwork. In less than a second the Scotty was flat on his back, and when he woke up the farm dog was pulling quills out of him. “What happened?” said the farm dog. “He pulled a knife on me,” said the Scotty, “but at least I have learned how you fight out here in the country, and now I am going to beat you up.” So he closed in on the farm dog, holding his nose with one front paw to ward off the vitriol and covering his eyes with the other front paw to keep out the knives. The Scotty couldn’t see his opponent and he couldn’t smell his opponent and he was so badly beaten that he had to be taken back to the city and put in a nursing home.

Moral: It is better to ask some of the questions than to know all the answers.

By James Thurber in Fables for For Our Time as published in The Thurber Carnival (Modern Library Edition, 1957).

5.6.2026 – not here and now but

not here and now but
now and here – a matter of
life, death, ticking watch

Fish Haul Beach at Low Tide – Spring 2026

Adapted from the collection of poems, After Ikkyū & Other Poems, where Jim Harrison writes:

Not here and now but now and here.
If you don’t know the difference
is a matter of life and death, get down
naked on bare knees in the snow
and study the ticking of your watch.

This collection of poems by Jim Harrison, released in 1996, is deeply influenced by his long-term engagement with Zen practice and is named after the eccentric 15th-century Zen monk Ikkyū Sōjun and was republished in The Complete Poems of Jim Harrison by Jim Harrison (Denver: Copper Canyon Press 2022).

Mr Harrison once wrote, To write a poem you must first create a pen that will write what you want to say. For better or worse, this is the work of a lifetime.

Not here and now

but now and here.

If you don’t know the difference is a matter of life and death,

get down naked on bare knees in the snow …

and study the ticking of your watch.

Not sure OF the difference of here and now or now and here so I am studying the ticking of my watch.

But I wear a watch that winds itself as I walk.

If its ticking I must be walking and if I am walking now I am here now.

For reasons of its own, my watch has stopped.

Now not sure if I am here.

5.3.2026 – the running water

the running water
home of living fish and
silver of the sun

The mountains stand up around the main street m Harper’s Ferry
Shadows stand around the town, and mist creeps up the flanks of tall
rocks

A terrible push of waters sometime made a cloven way for their flood
here

On the main street the houses huddle, the walls crouch for cover
And yet— up at Hilltop House, or up on Jefferson’s Rock, there are
lookouts.

There are the long curves of the meeting of the Potomac and the
Shenandoah,

There is the running water home of living fish and silver of the sun
The lazy flat rocks spread out browns for green and blue silver to run
over

Mascots of silver circles move around Harper’s Ferry
No wonder John Brown came here to fight and be hanged
No wonder Thomas Jefferson came here to sit with his proud red head
writing notes on the great State of Virginia
Borders hem the town, borders of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland,
Be absent minded a minute or two and you guess at what state you
are in

Harper’s Ferry is a meeting place of winds and waters, rocks and ranges

Landscapes Including States of the Union by Carl Sandburg as publishing Good Morning America in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1950).

Yes I went for the one line, There is the running water home of living fish and silver of the sun, to go with my photograph of Horse Creek on Hilton Head Island.

It is not Harper’s Ferry.

This is Harper’s Ferry with me on Jefferson’s Rock and my brother Eddie standing in front of me.

As Mr. Sandburg writes:

or up on Jefferson’s Rock, there are
lookouts.

No wonder Thomas Jefferson came here to sit with his proud red head
writing notes on the great State of Virginia.

I have to point out that visitiors are no longer allowed to sit of stand on Jefferson’s rock.

Today there are guard rails to protect the rock.

In Jefferson’s day there were no were upright stone post to keep the rock in place.

BUT I DIGRESS.

My photo is of the sun over Horse Creek in the center of Hilton Head Island.

Miles from anywhere and miles from anywhere.

Be absent minded a minute or two and you guess at what state you
are in.

4.29.2026 – ignorant of how

ignorant of how
they see, don’t see unless work
very hard at it

Paul Cézanne – The Village of L’Estaque Seen from the Sea (Le village de l’Estaque vu de la mer)

Sprawled there by the creek and cautioning myself against my canteen whiskey I stared at the assortment of dead leaves that had gathered themselves in the spring, with some floating, a few suspended in the clear water, and the bottom of the spring pasted yellow and dull red with the others.

I had once tried to paint this phenomenon, unsuccessfully in the minds of others because it is not the sort of thing one can see clearly.

There was the odd thought, absent for years, that nearly everyone was ignorant of how they see, lost as they were in the attraction for the simplicity of photographs, which is not how anyone sees.

We don’t see all at once unless we work very hard at it.

When I first saw Cézanne’s work I was dumbstruck at his comprehension of true vision.

From True North by Jim Harrison (New York, Grove Press, 2004).

I think that is why I enjoy the beach.

I want to see it all at once.

I work very hard at it.