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!

Satire and Comedy Wins

Trump has been attacking Kimmel, Colbert, Meyers, Stewart and other comedians because their comedic attacks are working.  Yes, there may be a wee bit of thin skin involved.  But more importantly Trump knows from his own experience with his political rallies that insults, comedy, and wild accusations get people’s attention.  Even violence or the threat of violence can get people to pay attention.  But comedy, and especially satire are a mainstay of American politics from the earliest years of our Nation, even before we had a nation; satire was used against the King George to rally people to the cause of Independence.

Comedy has a special way of breaking through with ideas.  Pointing out the absurdities of a deranged Orange King in order to gain the opportunity to remind us of American values, morals, and ethics is extremely effective.

This coming year,  building to the mid-terms, the opposition to Trump would do well to have rallies headlined by comedians, and followed with politicians addressing policy and return to democratic norms.   The absurdities and the danger of the Trump administration must be pointed out continually, but there must be leadership to replace it, something that raises us up.   Happy warriors with positive positions on affordability, on health care improvements, and sensible border security and immigration policy.  The disregard for the issues that matter to Americans and the abject cruelty of the current administration actions can be pointed out through comedy and once the attention is gained then new policy can be addressed.

Sensible leadership would be addressing the rules of the road for AI as this may have profound impact on future jobs and how people work.  Sensible leadership would be addressing the cost of housing for young families, they would be addressing the denial by insurance companies of doctor prescribed procedures and medicine.  They would eliminate surprise medical costs.  Sensible leadership would give undocumented workers with no criminal history a path toward documented residency in our country.   Sensible leadership would not confuse and conflate war fighting with crime enforcement.

Yes, a winning combination is to use satire and comedy to point out the absurdities of a want-to-be autocrat and follow it with real solutions for real people.  Trump used the showmanship of his rallies to gain the attention of people who otherwise felt ignored by policy wonks and coastal elites, in order to bring in to play the prospects of an oppressive autocratic government.  He did it because it worked, and it got under the skin of the “politically correct”.   The loyal opposition to Trump should return the favor!

 

They Say

The annoying anonymous 
who seem to know everything
or at least that’s what they say.

But do they mean we need
not think for ourselves, 
relying on the wisdom-less they?

Who gets to decide they 
are they? Those who repeat 
the banality of the common they?

You know they say that Rome
wasn’t built in a day as an excuse
for not getting their work done. 

They say that ignorance is bliss,
as an excuse for failing to learn, 
like a happy blithering idiot. 

They say that the camera 
doesn’t lie, but I guess they
know nothing of deep fakes. 

They say a pessimist is 
simply an optimist with experience,
now that is something I could agree with. 

They say that love is blind,
but I believe we see far more
with eyes of love, then eyes closed by hate. 

 

 

Honor Veterans

Honor today our Veterans,
those who served
those who made a difference
those who believe in the flag
they wore on their shoulders.

Service is not to be taken
for granted, not to be
viewed as anything other
than devotion to country
devotion to our way of life.

For their path was not easy,
not with the intent of wealth
not with the intent of glories
but with the intent of honoring
our traditions and constitution.

Along the way they discover
that they are part of something
greater than themselves,
something that represents
the strength of our diversity and ideals.

We all who honor them,
have much to learn from their
experience, have much to learn
from their commitment and service,
and it is right we honor them today.

 

Nary a Whisper

Nary a whisper of a wind
contented clouds calming
with colors deep and many hues

The water still and quiet
is purple tinged, peacefully
mirroring a secret sky

The world sleeps silently
and yet captured here are these
words and image of beauty and peace

Keeping the turbulence of life
below the surface, the troubles
beyond the horizon

For we are fortunate to
know beauty, to know each
other and to know peace.

 

 

Life Resonance

I was thinking this morning about how nursery rhymes and songs of long ago stay with us, how poems well written to music resonate through time in our souls, How, music of 50 years ago is so persistent today.  How we can hear the rhythms of life in children… the same for nature.  We need to see, hear, and be connected to this life resonance…

 

Life Resonance

There’s a life resonance all around us
we find it in everything, feel it about us.
We never say ‘oh I’ve seen a sunrise,
I don’t need to see another again.’

We don’t say, ‘I’ve heard the ocean
waves, and the babbling brook or
the wind through the pine trees,
so I need not hear them again.’

We seek the sunset and birds singing
not for the rarity but for the clarity of
the repeating songs, the resonance
which assures us life continues on.

We listen to the rhythms of life
in those we love, their breaths,
their movements and sounds, and
we hear and love their songs of life.

We hear not a song and say,
I’ve heard this before, we need not
hear it again, but rather we sing along
or hum for then it brings us greater joy.

These poems with notes are not
alive in us because we heard them once
but because they become part of our
life-story, our life-love resonance.

So sing along, sing loud for this
is life resonance, these are the
rhythms which enrich our souls
as they flow through us.

Even a little snoring is good for the soul! 

 

 

My Stories, Poetry, Thoughts of the day