whence do we come? what …
… are we? where are we going?”
I’m going outside!
Quo vadis?
Where are we going?
Whence do we come?
What are we?
Great questions for these troubled times!
Has there ever been a better response?
I came from my room!
I’m a kid with big plans!
I am going outside!
See ya later!
Kinda sums it up for me.
And I even know who Paul Gauguin is!
I am going outside.
See ya later!
who denies freedom
to others, deserves it not …
cannot retain it
Today’s haiku is based on the following letter written in 1859.
Springfield, Ills, April 6, 1859
Messrs. Henry L. Pierce, & others.
Gentlemen
Your kind note inviting me to attend a Festival in Boston, on the 13th. Inst. in honor of the birth-day of Thomas Jefferson, was duly received. My engagements are such that I can not attend.
Bearing in mind that about seventy years ago, two great political parties were first formed in this country, that Thomas Jefferson was the head of one of them, and Boston the head-quarters of the other, it is both curious and interesting that those supposed to descend politically from the party opposed to Jefferson should now be celebrating his birthday in their own original seat of empire, while those claiming political descent from him have nearly ceased to breathe his name everywhere.
Remembering too, that the Jefferson party were formed upon its supposed superior devotion to the personal rights of men, holding the rights of property to be secondary only, and greatly inferior, and then assuming that the so-called democracy of to-day, are the Jefferson, and their opponents, the anti-Jefferson parties, it will be equally interesting to note how completely the two have changed hands as to the principle upon which they were originally supposed to be divided.
The democracy of to-day hold the liberty of one man to be absolutely nothing, when in conflict with another man’s right of property. Republicans, on the contrary, are for both the man and the dollar; but in cases of conflict, the man before the dollar.
I remember once being much amused at seeing two partially intoxicated men engage in a fight with their great-coats on, which fight, after a long, and rather harmless contest, ended in each having fought himself out of his own coat, and into that of the other. If the two leading parties of this day are really identical with the two in the days of Jefferson and Adams, they have perfomed the same feat as the two drunken men.
But soberly, it is now no child’s play to save the principles of Jefferson from total overthrow in this nation.
One would start with great confidence that he could convince any sane child that the simpler propositions of Euclid are true; but, nevertheless, he would fail, utterly, with one who should deny the definitions and axioms. The principles of Jefferson are the definitions and axioms of free society.
And yet they are denied and evaded, with no small show of success.
One dashingly calls them “glittering generalities”; another bluntly calls them “self evident lies”; and still others insidiously argue that they apply only to “superior races.”
These expressions, differing in form, are identical in object and effect–the supplanting the principles of free government, and restoring those of classification, caste, and legitimacy. They would delight a convocation of crowned heads, plotting against the people. They are the van-guard–the miners, and sappers–of returning despotism.
We must repulse them, or they will subjugate us.
This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave. Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
All honor to Jefferson–to the man who, in the concrete pressure of a struggle for national independence by a single people, had the coolness, forecast, and capacity to introduce into a merely revolutionary document, an abstract truth, applicable to all men and all times, and so to embalm it there, that to-day, and in all coming days, it shall be a rebuke and a stumbling-block to the very harbingers of re-appearing tyranny and oppression.
Your obedient Servant
A. Lincoln
This is a world of compensations; and he who would be no slave, must consent to have no slave.
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves; and, under a just God, can not long retain it.
Can we choose up sides based on that last?
Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves?
Which side do you want to be on?
A Just God IS watching by the way.
let young come, says sea
let them kiss my face, tell where
storms and stars come from
The sea is never still.
It pounds on the shore
Restless as a young heart,
Hunting.
The sea speaks
And only the stormy hearts
Know what it says:
It is the face
of a rough mother speaking.
The sea is young.
One storm cleans all the hoar
And loosens the age of it.
I hear it laughing, reckless.
They love the sea,
Men who ride on it
And know they will die
Under the salt of it.
Let only the young come,
Says the sea.
Let them kiss my face
And hear me.
I am the last word
And I tell
Where storms and stars come from.
Young Sea by Carl Sandburg as published in The Complete Poems of Carl Sandburg, by Carl Sandburg, Harcourt, Brace, New York, 1950.
Spent the day at the beach with Grandkidz Jaxon, Stefano, Essence and Kendra.
I was lifeguard, activities director and caterer but it was really just an excuse for me to have a play date at the beach.
extreme heat expected
to intensify across
much of the southeast
Extreme heat is expected to intensify across much of the Southeast and Tennessee Valley today, with the most dangerous combination of high temperatures and humidity occurring from Monday through Wednesday. This will lead to a prolonged and extremely hazardous heat wave. Heat levels will become dangerous for anyone without adequate cooling or hydration.
High temperatures will soar into the upper 90s to low 100s, with heat index values (“feels like” temperatures) surpassing 110-115 degrees.
Several major metropolitan areas–including Raleigh, Charlotte, Nashville and Orlando–are expected to face Extreme Heat Risk for multiple days, with over 20 million people impacted at the peak.
Short Range Forecast Discussion NWS Weather Prediction Center College Park MD 247 AM EDT Sun Jul 27 2025
Valid 12Z Sun Jul 27 2025 – 12Z Tue Jul 29 2025 …
Dangerous, long-lasting extreme heat expected across the Southeast this week…
… Severe weather and flash flooding possible for portions of the Upper Midwest, Ohio Valley and Northeast/Mid-Atlantic today…
if feels unhelpful
completely at liberty
to stop at any point
In the UK and elsewhere, bibliotherapy – which also includes recommendations for non-fiction and self-help literature – has been soaring in popularity as a means of improving people’s wellbeing, help navigate tough life decisions, and even to treat specific mental health conditions.
For people wanting to try out bibliotherapy for themselves, Carney recommends trying to find a club for group discussions. Jolly recommends public libraries, where you can try lots of books for free – and if a book isn’t resonating with you, pick up another one instead, try something shorter, or a different genre like poetry. And if reading isn’t for you, Poerio adds, maybe there are other ways to improve wellbeing, like music or visual art. “If you feel it’s helping you, if you’re feeling the benefit… you’ll want to carry on,” Schuman says. “But if it feels unhelpful or intrusive, then [you] should feel completely at liberty to stop at any point.”
From the article, ‘It opened up something in me’: Why people are turning to bibliotherapy by Katarina Zimmer in BBC Books.
The idea or concept sounds good – improving people’s wellbeing, help navigate tough life decisions, and even to treat specific mental health conditions by reading.
BUT anything that needs the caveat … But if it feels unhelpful or intrusive, then [you] should feel completely at liberty to stop at any point …
Really?
I mean if I find something unhelpful or intrusive, something kicks in that makes want to finish everything in the bowl anyway.
Well, no that’s not true.
The truth of the matter, I go into any enterprise looking for any reason to bail out.
But what to do with that … And if reading isn’t for you.
Gosh.
Heard of those folks.
Glad its a complaint I have avoided all my life.
Of the many things I have written about, I am not so sure that the line, if reading isn’t for you, if it feels unhelpful or intrusive, then feel completely at liberty to stop at any point.
Boy Howdy but that sounds sad.
Don’t get me wrong on one part of that.
I have long felt that mature reader is someone who can pick up a book and after investing in a few chapters – pages – paragraphs – lines can feel that the book unhelpful or intrusive … or just a bad book and I feel completely at liberty to stop at any point.
Nothing makes me drop a book or a show quicker that a historical story told incorrectly or incompletely.
One feller I can think of wrote about the greatest College to NBA basketball transition of all time (the Ervin Johnson/Larry Bird era) and claimed to have grown up in East Lansing and knew most of the people in the book but couldn’t kept confusing Jay and Sam Vincent.
I found that book to be unhelpful or intrusive and into the bottom desk drawer.
Maybe one of the worst examples I came across was a book about Theodore Roosevelt where the author repeated a lot of writings and speeches AND CORRECT THE SPELLING of words like lite, thru and laf WITHOUT seemingly to know that Mr. Roosevelt embraced the concept of Simplified Spelling … oh well.
I digress.
I love to read.
I often find therapy thru what I read.
I hope you do it.
You can find a book and read about it.
