Category Archives: Musings

A Raging and Shallow Sea

There’s many places where the sea
tests the shore to see if it will give in
and the land refuses access until the
sea rages and forces itself unto the land
and the land absorbs what it can until
it sends it back from whence it came.

We believe the stormy sea to be
relentless and impossible to stop
and yet it can do only what we let
it, we resist with what barriers
we have and we remain steadfast
against the rage because it is our land.

Through the long arc of history
there has long been this power
this fury, this rage, and yet we
resist, because we know that
the flood of hate washes away
all goodness if we let it win.

The erosion of goodness happens
at the edges which are being tested
and must be held, as we constantly rebuild
using our enormous reservoir of love.
A love that is greater than the
hate of a raging and shallow sea.

 

 

 

The Clouds Are Low

The clouds are low
bending light into fractions
washing the colors of everything
in the fog of quiet that overwhelms
all sounds of life, as it absorbs the
heartbeats and breaths of every
creature little and large alike.

Life is there, still beautiful
it is just quiet sometimes,
it is not only in the fiery sunsets
and mountains grand and sea
with waves trying to move the shore,
or parties and celebrations,
it is in the quiet contemplations
of the past, the present, the future
described in the truths, loves, and
memories that are both bigger
and smaller than we can imagine.

The mysteries of life
being held by the fog of
uncertainties, and at the same
time loving arms that are knowing
give us hope, vision and clarity
even when the clouds are low.

 

Happy New Year 2026 🇺🇸

I think, in the twists and turns
in the aggression and burns
of a whirlwind year such was that
how could one not lose their hat.

No one asked for that, but it came
and we will never be quite the same,
but we will figure out a suitable fix
in the coming year of 2026

For we are resilient, don’t you know?
we learned to see the lies falling like snow
in the great blizzard that was 2025
which we survived, barely alive.

But we know how to unbury ourselves,
how to pull those words off the shelves
that our forefathers fought for and gave to us
and we know for certain these words we can trust.

We will make this coming year, a year of change
we will not put up with further evil harangue
but we will need to fight for all that’s right,
to ensure we do not go quietly into that darkest night.

We will win because we know we must
because the next generation too must trust
that we did hold these ideals to be pure and true
and freedom is the legacy of the red white and blue!

 

 

 

 

Emotions and Ethics

I am reading a page per day of a book that is “365 Days of Philosophy” and I suspect it may inform my musings throughout the coming year.   The page I read this morning for December 28, was on Emotions and Ethics by Martha Nussbaum.   I will not repeat it here, but it is best summarized in the last sentence … “Emotions refined by reason can guide us with a richer moral compass, uniting the head and the heart for deeper ethical engagement.”

I have been writing for some time about the need for reason to overcome emotion as it is being stirred by forces that are using our fears and intentionally stoked anger to their own advantage of power gain.  Example the anger toward undocumented immigrants stoked by the occasioned stories of violent crime, in order to gain power in the polls.  Exceeding what might be possible  by the reasoned application of statistics.  Statistics which would point to the fallacy of painting all undocumented immigrants with the same brush.   Alternatively, another point of view could also be informed by the empathy of families being torn apart and deportations without due process.

Ethical policy, ethical behavior in our lives come from a necessary mix of reason and emotion.  Emotion is informative.  Empathy instructs us where to look to find reasonable solutions to problems.  We are stronger because we are a social species, and we have improved our world experience dramatically above all species because of our ability to reason and share this reason through language.  Building on knowledge, science, reason  we create, invent and grow.  The mother of invention is the need, of our own and others.  Empathy is necessary, and reasoned thought essential.

Where they come together, the heart and mind can work towards a richer ethical engagement.  God knows we could use more of this in the world.

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄

Oh
angel
spreading wings
over this Christmas
tree
 listen to supplications
of our love and hope for everyone
to experience the beginning of another
better time when we can truly say that we have
become what the child born for all of us would have
us be, in joy and happiness a kinder more forgiving world
so that peace will reign and forever remain like this evergreen
and
this
child
 within us!

It is the Thought that Counts

It is the thought that counts I’ve heard,
meaning I didn’t really think this through
and so I have the reaction of a thought
I have the shadow of a decision
I have the whisper of a notion.

I have the feelings in my heart and soul
that matter more than material gold.
that matter more than planning for
something not found in an empty store
and the day of days is here so soon.

So if you are the un-planning partner
and your heart is giving what the mind
could not, and your time has simply run out
just remember it is the thought that counts
and Seven-Eleven is open on Christmas day! 🤪

 

 

 

Not Long Ago, I Believed

Not long ago, I believed,
I believed in a bright shinning city on hill
I believed in a thousand points of light
I believed in truth, justice and a flag and
all it meant and represented to the world.

Not long ago, I believed,
I believed that we were moving toward
a more inclusive, more perfect union
of peoples who would live up to the
principles of enlightened founders.

Not long ago, I believed,
I believed in the strength of documents
of old, and the institutions that embodied
them and represented us as a beacon of
democracy, and hope to all who needed hope.

Not long ago, I believed,
I believed in the collective goodness and
empathy of a people who would reason
and hold and shelter those who were weak
and in desperate need.

I no longer believe in our exceptionalism
I no longer believe in our inherent goodness
I no longer believe we know right from wrong
I no longer believe we know what patriotism
leadership and sacrifice looks like.

We understand power, money, and fame
as we align to these as the laws we worship
as we become what our forefathers fought
as we become what we once disdained
as we give up on what we once believed.

 

Do They Think We Are Stupid?

Do they think we are stupid?  Are we are gullible enough to believe that open speed boats are making a cross-ocean delivery of drugs across 2000 miles of ocean to deliver drugs to the USA?  That these boats which would be at sea for more than two days and have to  carry more fuel than cargo would be the way drugs are brought to our country?  Do they expect us to believe after being destroyed by a missile, two survivors clinging to the wreckage of their boat were going to get back in the “fight” by paddling to threaten us across 2000 miles of ocean?   So we kill them without mercy and we beat our chest and celebrate our military prowess!   Let’s give out medals!  As Trump is receiving his FIFA Peace Prize – a first ever, inaugural peace prize invented so that the FIFA world cup gets left alone in how they run their world cup in the USA.   And our so called -war on drugs apparently doesn’t include those who can buy a pardon for their crimes from Trump.   Trump claims Hernandez prosecution was a Biden set-up because he was a right-wing president of Honduras, so it’s done.  I say follow the money.

Trump is redefining our strategies.  See the National Security Strategy for 2025 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
to hear how we are striving for times where regional hegemony is the order of the day instead of global cooperation.  Where we are encouraging the whitening of our country, and those of Europe as well.  Because migration is the great evil.   Let global powers take care of their own regions… remember how well this worked out in history?  Why not just colonize to get what we want – maybe the Panama Canal, maybe the oil and mineral fields of Venezuela, and of course, Canada would look better on the map so that we’d be all one country from the Gulf-of-America to the Arctic Ocean… which we would then need to protect, so let’s grab Greenland too.

Now I’d like to rant a bit about Science Technology Math and Research funding and Education – which is getting decimated – as we are falling behind in education we are more worried about eradicating DEI and rewriting history to show what a great Nation we always have been.

No, maybe I should talk about the lack of government attention to AI and how we will compete in a new world of productivity tools?  Because we have a congress busy not really doing any oversight.

Oh, but then there is the wholesale firings of immigration court judges by the DoJ (yes they report there, not into the independent judiciary) so that Pam Bondi can ensure a total disruption of immigrant due-process.  Then we can shackle 19 year old college students and deport them to a country they left when they were seven.

While we are there, should we go into the revenge and retribution prosecution campaigns by the DoJ and the use of resources for these performative prosecutions instead of criminals?

Or no, there is the affordability crisis that is “a total con job” that is going to get a break by reducing tariffs that are causing price increases even though tariffs aren’t a tax on consumers, it is paid by other countries… really, try to follow that contortion of logic!

But wait there’s more!  We could talk about the Supreme Court’s Samual Alito allowing Texas to continue with redistricting ordered by Trump because Trump wants 5 more republican congress members.

I haven’t even got to the Epstein mess…

And then there’s healthcare… for which there’s no answer… just more turmoil, because Trump has a plan for a plan.

Geez, they think we are stupid as they make a great mess and tell us how great it is!

 

The Great Undoing

The bee’s know their role
The frogs know too, as they croak
The birds chirp and know
The insects know
As do the mice and
the snakes which hunt.

The fish know this, or suspect
That the coral is in on the game
The seabirds know,
The turtles, the sharks
the dolphins and whales know

There’s a certain ecology of a meadow
an ecology of a pond or the sea
just as there’s an ecology of a city,
of a nation, of a people who live and work
in the homes, offices, factories or fields.

But what of this ecology when the
Great Undoing comes, what of
the plans of those who think they
are in control of their futures,
and those dependent on others?

In the Great Undoing the pieces fail and fall
shattering.  Because we forgot
we are of one great ecology,
because we forgot we are dependent on
laws, rules and each other?

What happens when we turn from
what works and toward a power
reshaping history, redifining law, economy,
freedom, and reason?  Destroying our
bio-diversity and thought-diversity?

What should we know of the Great Undoing?

That putting it back together will
take several generations, if ever.

And for millions, their will be no recovery at all.

 

 

Thank You

Thank you for family and friends
Thank you for all life energies
Thank you for the health we enjoy
Thank you for the gift of comedy
Thank you for the wonders of the world
Thank you for the diversity of thought
Thank you for the lyric and melody of music
Thank you for letters and language
Thank you for moments and memories
Thank you for the bounty of the table
Thank you for the comfort of the couch
Thank you for all the seasons of sports
Thank you for the sun, the moon and stars
Thank you for the wonder of it all
and mostly for life and each other’s love!

Happy Thanksgiving!