Category: Thurber

6.18.2025 – burning with a hard

burning with a hard,
gemlike flame – it’s something they
learn in school, I think

First published on June 18th, 1938, in the New Yorker Magazine.

The drawing was republished in one of the editions of Thurber’s book, Men Women and Dogs with the caption:

It’s a strange mood she’s in,  kind of a cross between Baby Doll and Elizabeth Barrett Browning.

No explanation for the change but it would be difficult to get into a haiku.

According to Wikipedia: Baby Doll is a 1956 American black comedy film directed by Elia Kazan and starring Carroll Baker, Karl Malden and Eli Wallach. It was produced by Kazan and Tennessee Williams, and adapted by Williams from two of his own one-act plays: 27 Wagons Full of Cotton and The Unsatisfactory Supper. The plot focuses on a feud between two rival cotton gin owners in rural Mississippi.

Filmed in Mississippi in late 1955, Baby Doll was released in December 1956. It provoked significant controversy, mostly because of its implied sexual themes, and the National Legion of Decency condemned the film.

WOW!

Kind of a cross between Baby Doll and Elizabeth Barrett Browning or burning with a hard,  gemlike flame that might be something learned in school.

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm 

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4.18.2025 – we are all afraid

we are all afraid
because retaliation
is real – that’s not right

“We are all afraid,” Ms. Murkowski said, speaking at a conference in Anchorage on Monday. After pausing for about five seconds, she acknowledged: “It’s quite a statement. But we are in a time and a place where I certainly have not been here before. I’ll tell you, I’m oftentimes very anxious myself about using my voice, because retaliation is real. And that’s not right.”

Alaska Senator, Lisa Murkowski as quoted in the article, A Startling Admission From a G.O.P. Senator: ‘We Are All Afraid’ By Annie Karni.

Retaliation is real.

And that’s not right.

I am reminded of the James Thurber fable, The Wonderful O (Simon and Schuster, New York, 1957) that takes place on an island where the letter O is banned along with everything and anything with the letter O in in it.

Two geese were fine but if there was just one bird, that goose had to go because of the O.

Of course the people finally revolt against this madness.

This speech by Andrea, one of the islanders, stands out.

“Be not afraid to speak with O’s,” said Andrea at last. “We cannot live or speak without hope, and hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing. Hope contains the longest O of all. We mustn’t lose it.”

We cannot live or speak without hope.

Hope without its O is nothing, and even nothing is less than nothing when it is nthing.

Hope contains the longest O of all.

We mustn’t lose it.

Hard to have hope right now but it is about all we have left.

At least Thurber ends his fable with:

“Was it a battle? And did we win?” the children cried.

The old man shook his head and sighed, “I’m not as young as I used to be, and the years gone by are a mystery, but ’twas a famous victory .

We have to hope.

We have to have hope.

4.7.2025 – no authority

no authority
justification or grounds
facts say otherwise

In the matter of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, District Judge Paula Xinis wrote:

“As defendants acknowledge [United States Dept of Justice though the person who had the guts to acknowledged this has been put on leave], they had no legal authority to arrest him, no justification to detain him, and no grounds to send him to El Salvador — let alone deliver him into one of the most dangerous prisons in the Western Hemisphere,” Xinis wrote.

She said it was “eye-popping” that the government had argued that it could not be forced to bring Abrego Garcia back because he is no longer in U.S. custody.

“They do indeed cling to the stunning proposition that they can forcibly remove any person — migrant and U.S. citizen alike —to prisons outside the United States, and then baldly assert they have no way to effectuate return because they are no longer the ‘custodian,’ and the Court thus lacks jurisdiction,” Xinis wrote. “As a practical matter, the facts say otherwise.”

I should point out that House Speaker Mike Johnson has declared, “We in the Republican Party are the law-and-order team. We always have been, and we always will be, the advocates for the rule of law.”

Mr. Speaker … facts say otherwise.

Someone needs to refresh their memory.

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