3.20.2025 – these are heroes then

these are heroes then
on the street you see them
who will die fighting

These are heroes then — among the plain people—
Heroes, did you say? And why not? They
give all they’ve got and ask no questions and
take what comes and what more do you
want?

On the street you can see them any time, some
with jobs, some nothing doing, here a down-
and-out, there a game fighter who will die
fighting

From the The People, Yes: #19 by Carl Sandburg (Harcourt, Brace and Co., New York, 1936).

Asking that simple question, while the Bible saws way back even in the OLD Testament:

Do not go over your vineyard a second time or pick up the grapes that have fallen. Leave them for the poor and the foreigner. I am the Lord your God. (Leviticus 19:10)

Note the poor AND the foreigner!

So why do Republicans hate the poor and the foreigner?

To whom much is given … much will be … they know the rest and persist.

Here is the complete #19 of The People, Yes!

The people, yes, the people.

Everyone who got a letter today
And those the mail-carrier missed.
The women at the cookstoves preparing meals,
in a sewing corner mending, in a basement
laundering, woman the homemaker.

The women at the factory tending a stitching
machine, some of them the mainstay of the
jobless man at home cooking, laundering.
Streetwalking jobhunters, walkers alive and keen,
sleepwalkers drifting along, the stupefied and
hopeless down-and-outs, the game fighters
who will die fighting,

Walkers reading signs and stopping to study
windows, the signs and windows aimed
straight at their eyes, their wants,

Women in and out of doors to look and feel, to
try on, to buy and take away, to order and
have it charged and delivered, to pass by on
account of price and conditions.

The shopping crowds, the newspaper circulation.
the bystanders who witness parades, who
meet the boat, the tram, who throng in
wave lines to a fire, an explosion, an accident—
The people, yes—

Their shoe soles wearing holes in stone steps, their
hands and gloves wearing soft niches in ban-
isters of granite, two worn foot-tracks at the
general-delivery window.

Driving their cars, stop and go, red light, green
light, and the law of the traffic cop’s fingers,
on their way, loans and mortgages, margins to
cover.

Payments on the car, the bungalow, the radio, the
electric icebox, accumulated interest on loans
for past payments, the writhing point of
where the money will come from,

Crime thrown m their eyes from every angle,
crimes against property and person, crime in
the prints and films, crime as a lurking
shadow ready to spring into reality, crime as
a method and a technic.

Comedy as an offset to crime, the laughmakers,
the odd numbers m the news and the movies,
original clowns and imitators, and in the best
you never know what’s coming next even
when it’s hokum.

And sports, how a muff in the seventh lost yes-
terday’s game and now they are learning to
hit Dazzy’s fadeaway ball and did you hear
how Foozly plowed through that line for a
touchdown this afternoon^

And daily the death toll of the speed wagons, a
cripple a minute in fenders, wheels, steel and
glass splinters, a stammering witness before a
coroner’s jury, ‘It happened so sudden I
don’t know what happened “

And in the air a decree life is a gamble, take a
chance, you pick a number and see what you
get anything can happen in this sweepstakes
around the corner may be prosperity or the
worst depression yet who knows? nobody:
you pick a number, you draw a card, you
shoot the bones

In the poolrooms the young hear, “‘Ashes to
ashes, dust to dust, If the women don’t get
you then the whiskey must,” and in the
churches, “We walk by faith and not by sight,”
Often among themselves in their sessions of can-
dor the young saying, “Everything’s a racket,
only the gyp artists get by ”

And over and beyond the latest crime or comedy
always that relentless meal ticket saying
don’t-lose-me, hold your job, glue your mind
on that job or when your last nickel is gone
you live on your folks or sign for relief,

And the terror of these unknowns is a circle of
black ghosts holding men and women in toil
and danger, and sometimes shame, beyond
the dreams of their blossom days, the days
before they set out on their own

What IS this “occupational disease” we hear
about? It’s a sickness that breaks your health
on account of the work you’re in That’s all
Another kind of work and you’d have been
as good as any of them You’d have been
your old self

And what is this “hazardous occupation”? Why
that’s where you’re liable to break your neck
or get smashed on the job so you’re no good
on that job any more and that’s why you
can’t get any regular life insurance so long as
you’re on that job

These are heroes then — among the plain people—
Heroes, did you say? And why not? They
give all they’ve got and ask no questions and
take what comes and what more do you
want?

On the street you can see them any time, some
with jobs, some nothing doing, here a down-
and-out, there a game fighter who will die
fighting.

3.18.2025 – are vast and complex

are vast and complex
reaches between cat feet of
Fog and Remembrance Rock

Adapted from a letter by James Thurber to a Librarian in Asheville, North Carolina on January 30th, 1952, where Thurber writes:

Nobody ever gives me time to get things done, and such a project as yours can’t be batted off. I wouldn’t want to start writing in January something about Carl Sandburg to be finished in January. He may seem as easy to describe as a face carved on a mountain, but there are vast and complex reaches between the cat feet of the “Fog” and ‘‘Remembrance Rock.” I like to think of him informally, without putting on my stiff Sunday critical shirt and shoes. He was up here not too long ago, playing his guitar and singing, sometimes with me, late into the night, although it seemed early. I was proud to have taught him a new verse about Casey Jones, who went through Toledo on an open switch. He is an American institution, not easy to describe within the limits of January. Let the glib boys do that, and give him my love and fond wishes that he will go on forever.

Mr. Thurber also remembered the evening singing with Sandburg with a drawing.

Just fun thinking of the two of them in the same room.

Fog you ask??

Fog is …

The fog comes
on little cat feet.

It sits looking
over harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.

Remembrance Rock is Carl Sandburg’s only novel. Sandburg described it as an epic, weaving the mystery of the American Dream with the costly toil and bloody struggles that gone to keep alive and carry further that Dream.

And there are vast and complex reaches between the two.

3.12.2025 – strive to learn before

strive to learn before
we die what we are running
from, and to, and why

The Shore and the Sea

A single excited lemming started the exodus, crying, “Fire!” and running toward the sea. He may have seen the sunrise through the trees, or waked from a fiery nightmare, or struck his head against a stone, producing stars. Whatever it was, he ran and ran, and as he ran he was joined by others, a mother lemming and her young, a night watch lemming on his way home to bed, and assorted revelers and early risers.

“The world is coming to an end!” they shouted, and as the hurrying hundreds turned into thousands, the reasons for their headlong flight increased by leaps and bounds and hops and skips and jumps.

“The devil has come in a red chariot!” cried an elderly male. “The sun is his torch! The world is on fire!”

“*Tt’s a pleasure jaunt,” squeaked an elderly female.

“A what?” she was asked.

“A treasure hunt!” cried a wild-eyed male who had been up all night. “Full many a gem of purest ray serene the dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear.”

“It’s a bear!” shouted his daughter. “Go it!”

And there were those among the fleeing thousands who shouted “Goats!” and “Ghosts!” until there were almost as many different alarms as there were fugitives.

One male lemming who had lived alone for many years refused to be drawn into the stampede that swept past his cave like a flood. He saw no flames in the forest, and no devil, or bear, or goat, or ghost. He had long ago decided, since he was a serious scholar, that the caves of ocean bear no gems, but only soggy glub and great gobs of mucky gump. And so he watched the other lemmings leap into the sea and disappear beneath the waves, some crying ‘““We are saved!” and some crying “We are lost!” The scholarly lemming shook his head sorrowfully, tore up what he had written through the years about his species, and started his studies all over again.

MORAL: All men should strive to learn before they die what they are running from, and to, and why.

As published in Further Fables for Our Time by James Thurber (Hamish Hamilton Ltd, London, 1956).

See more Thurber Drawings at For Muggs and Rex.

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 …

3.3.2025 – it is better to

it is better to
have ring of freedom in your
ears than in your nose

The Bears and the Monkeys.

In a deep forest there lived many bears. They spent the winter sleeping, and the summer playing leap-bear and stealing honey and buns from nearby cottages. One day a fast-talking monkey named Glib showed up and told them that their way of life was bad for bears. “You are prisoners of pastime,” he said, “addicted to leap-bear, and slaves of honey and buns.”

The bears were impressed and frightened as Glib went on talking. “Your forebears have done this to you,” he said. Glib was so glib, glibber than the glibbest monkey they had ever seen before, that the bears believed he must know more than they knew, or than anybody else. But when he left, to tell other species what was the matter with them, the bears reverted to their fun and games and their theft of buns and honey.

Their decadence made them bright of eye, light of heart, and quick of paw, and they had a wonderful time, living as bears had always lived, until one day two of Glib’s successors appeared, named Monkey Say and Monkey Do. They were even glibber than Glib, and they brought many presents and smiled all the time. “We have come to liberate you from freedom,” they said. “This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.”

So each bear was made to wear a collar, and the collars were linked together with chains, and Monkey Do put a ring in the lead bear’s nose, and a chain on the lead bear’s ring. “Now you are free to do what I tell you to do,” said Monkey Do.

“Now you are free to say what I want you to say,” said Monkey Say. “By sparing you the burden of electing your leaders, we save you from the dangers of choice. No more secret ballots, everything open and aboveboard.” For a long time the bears submitted to the New Liberation, and chanted the slogan the monkeys had taught them: “Why stand on your own two feet when you can stand on ours?”

Then one day they broke the chains of their new freedom and found their way back to the deep forest and began playing leap-bear again and stealing honey and buns from the nearby cottages. And their laughter and gaiety rang through the forest, and birds that had ceased singing began singing again, and all the sounds of the earth were like music.

MORAL: It is better to have the ring of freedom in your ears than in your nose.

Fables for Our Time and Famous Poems Illustrated by James Thurber, New York, Harpers, 1940.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Federal Reserve Bank said today that:

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2025 is -2.8 percent on March 3, down from -1.5 percent on February 28. After this morning’s releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcast of first-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth and real private fixed investment growth fell from 1.3 percent and 3.5 percent, respectively, to 0.0 percent and 0.1 percent.

Bills do come due and a fall of GDP from -1.5 to a -2.8 in five days is rather stunning.

This is the New Liberation, twice as good as the old, since there are two of us.