Children's Day

 There are no federal holidays in August. I propose that the first Monday in August be declared National Children’s Day. On this day we would remember all the children murdered by guns, all the children who suffer mental illness, all the children who are abused and neglected, all the children who are hungry and homeless, all the children who are sexually abused.

Second Coming Day 2

 The Second Coming…Day two

Jesus is resurrected, witnessed by teenagers high on something, grandmothers walking their grandchildren to school and a former atheist

Jesus brings all the children murdered in mass shootings back to life and gives all the Republican senators leprosy

Jesus addresses the Anti-Defamation League, saying that he holds no grudges against the Jews and no one else should

Jesus sends a letter to the American Catholic Bishops reminding them of the commitment, intelligence, compassion and organizational skills of Church women and tells them he wants an answer by tomorrow

Jesus notes that his skin is pretty damn brown

Jesus plays bingo at the local church hall and doesn’t win anything

Second Coming

 The Second Coming…hmmm

Jesus on CNN

Jesus one-on-one with Tucker Carlson

Jesus on Meet the Press

Jesus and the Pope have a long talk

Jesus kicks the money changers out of the Met Gala

Jesus attends a performance of Jesus Christ Superstar

Jesus takes a tour of Jerusalem

Jesus explains love at commencement address at University of Notre Dame

Jesus rids the world of monkeypox

Jesus is shot by an 18-year-old with an assault weapon on the grounds of an elementary school

Large crowds form at his grave site

Hmmm…The Second Coming

humanity

 Some thoughts on humanity:

Human life is a problem with 8 billion solutions.

I’ve tried to figure out human beings. Are we essentially good? Bad? What motivates us? Why do we act like we do? Do we need love? I don’t have any answers. But I do believe there are human beings, flawed as all of us are, who work hard at being decent. Who measure their wealth in courage and integrity. Who are driven by compassion for others. Who live as if they have a soul. Who teach us what love is. It’s these people I put my faith and hope in.

“Humanity” is meaningless unless we see it as something we must earn. It’s the job of parents and the educational system to lay the foundation for achieving this in a world in which religion has so often lost its way. Where does a young person really look for the mentors and role models that can help them develop the strength and wisdom to reach this place of humanity?

Ukraine is our latest lesson in humanity. Putin has given up every shred of his humanity. Russian soldiers are confronted every day with the choice to remain human or not. The mundane daily life of most Ukrainians has been replaced with brutal assaults on their humanity. Still, we see endless examples of their irrepressible humanity.

The rest of us in the safe comfort of our homes cry with empathy and wonder about the state of our own humanity.

We try to achieve what’s humanly possible. Why don’t we try to achieve what’s humanely possible?

Republicans

 There is no question that Republicans are heavily funded by the NRA. There is no question that Republicans depend in large part for their dependence on the gun lobby and gun manufacturers. Everything but sensible control of guns is where the Republicans put the blame. It’s the failure of the mental health system. It’s the failure of schools for not being impenetrable fortresses. It’s the fault of law enforcement for not being well trained. It’s the fault of teachers for not wanting to carry guns in the classroom. Republicans are helpless.

Republicans are cowardly and stupid, wanting power over service.

 Paying attention is a form of love.

SRO

 My son is an SRO (school resource officer), so I know the range of skills and expectations that are a part of this job. This is why I see the recent school shooting as such a tragic and confused incident, it’s a sadly human drama. Dead children, a door left open, an 18-year-old with an assault weapon, law enforcement making poor choices.

My question is who would really suffer if all assault weapons were banned? Only those who make the profits and receive the campaign contributions in my estimation. It would make me feel better to know people with weapons of war were not roaming the streets.

Ted Cruz, Donald Trump and Gregg Abbott all have lame reasons why serious gun control is not necessary. It’s the fault of the schools because they don’t spend their resources to get all the students and teachers combat ready. It the fault of the mental health system because it’s not able to identify every possible mass shooter. It’s that the Second Amendment must be protected in its purity or else the threat to freedom is imminent.

Thoughts

 Some thoughts:

1. News coverage of the recent elementary school shooting focuses on the deceased and their families and on the performance of law enforcement. That’s not enough. They ought to be in the face of every Republican state and US legislator.

2. Republican senators admit that if they support gun control, their constituents would vote them out of office. But if they know something is wrong, isn’t it also their responsibility to educate their constituents?

3. I wish we could get past the worthless practice of needing adjectives like “black,” “Hispanic,” “Muslim,” “gay,” “transgender.” These are the adjectives that remind us of our divisiveness. I want to hear our humanity in adjectives like: compassionate, creative, industriousness, forgiving.

America suffers

 Democrats will squabble among themselves and bumble their way to legislative solutions to social problems, but Republicans are a different story. They hide fear inside ideology. They choose power over service. They parade lies as truth. They choose to be led by the likes of Donald Trump, Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy. America suffers.

Another mass shooting

 Another mass shooting. Another teenager with another fucking assault weapon. The governor of Texas pledges to do everything possible to curb this violence. Of course, he means everything but effective gun control legislation. We can’t manage all the emotionally and mentally unstable individuals, but we can do a great deal more to keep guns out of their possession.

Sorry followed by apathy is useless. Congress doesn’t even wince anymore at these shootings. For them, power is more important than service. Ideology is more important than problem solving. The fucking Republican sheep don’t give a damn or give an inch..

Humans

 Evolution has the long leg up when it comes to creation. Evolution has determined the rules of chance, diversity, interconnectedness, survival and interdependence. Enter human culture with its rules, laws, assumptions and wants, believing, in its glory, that it knows best. 

Humans need to wake up to the evolutionary realities of nature, of human impact on the environment, of human sexuality and gender and pay attention to the true issues that call us to be fully human.

Marketing

 Kick Kelly Clarkson out of your living room.

Don’t buy it just because LeBron James tells you to.

Forget the $100 face cream—I like your wrinkles.

No to those Oprah glasses. I want to look at your lovely eyes.

Cook your own food, dammit, and eat it off a plate, not out of a plastic container.

All the companies that say they love you, really don’t love you.

There’s a lot of money and psychology behind the sales pitch. Don’t get hooked.

Celebrities are paid handsomely to convince you that they care about you.

Don’t be seduced by a pretty face or a fit body.

If marketing can convince us to purchase tension relievers for our cats, why can’t it convince us to value the truth.

If LeBron James can sell us cryptocurrency, why can’t he sell us love.

If Tom Selleck can make us comfortable with reverse mortgages, why can’t he make us comfortable with people who are not like us.

If we support the products and services that Serena Williams stands behind, why doesn’t she preach the values she stands behind.

Why do celebrities hire themselves out to sell us stuff, but not to convince us to live right.

Festivals

 Best least known summer festivals:

Kalamazoo Kazoo Festival

Boise Chest Hair Festival

Taos Desert Turtle Fighting Championships

Missoula Hula and Pineapple Festival

Taponga Toasted Cheese Festival

Dream jobs

 Since my first set of dream jobs were all filled, I had to go to a second set.

“Before” model for botox injections

Prince of Sweden

Reputation manager for minor celebrities

Manager at the Joe Burrow Boutique

Senior Center Tango instructor

Mathematics

 It’s not that well understood that mathematics is at the root of understanding the universe. The laws of physics. The search for the black hole. The measure of force, speed and growth. Chaos. Air travel. Engineering. All of it.

Geometry, a branch of mathematics, is the basis for nature’s architecture. Planetary movement. Spiral galaxies. Structure of plants and flowers. Phyllotaxis. Molecular and atomic structure. The double spiral of DNA. And symmetry everywhere.

All of it is right there. How is it possible to study mathematics and geometry in school for 10 years or more and not know this? 

Numbers

 Numbers measure people’s wealth, but we don’t pay as much attention to people’s generosity.

Numbers measure people’s popularity, but we don’t pay as much attention to people’s integrity.

We can list people’s titles, but we don’t pay as much attention to people’s service.

We revel in people’s outward beauty, but we don’t pay as much attention to their inward character.

We are awed by people’s physical prowess, but we don’t pay as much attention to people’s artistic or intellectual prowess.

Insane

 

Race and the City

 So here’s the lesson

A river is a boundary that laps both sides

Blindly, unless it flows between 

Abolition and Negrophobia

Pushing pigmentation to one side

Or the other, carrying the oppressor 

Forward, the slave is drowning

The law is a boundary, Black Laws

Walling out black voices

Yet walls surround white suburbia

And keep in fear and privilege

Negroes may have the tenements 

As their place to scavange for hope 

The highway is a boundary, pushing aside

Where folks dwell and build community

White roads shatter neighborhoods

Where black human beings make life

Then black folks scattering, them gone

Is all that really counts

The mind finds boundaries to wall in

All the delusions that make racism 

Invisible in every visible way, racism

Wearing every mask racism can invent

How is black skin so impenetrable

Couldn’t they see that humans were inside

Whites stood on the shoulders of blacks

To crush black dreams, believing wealth was worth it

The factory floor was a boundary

Only a few blacks could ever cross

White prosperity arrived on backs of blacks

But none for blacks, their arms and legs

Were saved for menial servitude 

Black spirit--human spirit—resisted 

Any boundaries, any walls, never was crushed

Always a spark or fire, always burning

With its own songs and dances, and churches

In defiance, personal courage and reform

In community, schooling one another

Holding together fast to dignity, despite

Brain

 None of us knows or can know how our brains develop into minds. What we see, hear, feel and learn as we grow from childhood all gradually build up an architecture in the brain that learns to collect and sort what comes at it. We get a vision of reality and a mechanism that allows us to engage the world.

This mechanism is different for every person, and it’s an accomplishment that we can all even find pieces of reality to share and agree on. How this happens is currently beyond our understanding and will probably always be.

We like to believe there’s some brain configuration that we could call “normal.” The rest is mental illness or genius. But in fact, it’s just the brains we start with, the brains we build and the brains we use to act on the world.

Some of us get brains that act as our own enemies. Some of us get brains that fragment our realities. Some of us get brains that are dysfunctional in the world we call sane. All of us get brains that will fall apart at paces we can’t control. All of us will, to some degree, lose ourselves and the ones we love with the aging of our brains.

If you have a healthy brain, have patience with those whose brains are failing, crumbling, attacking or are plagued by delusions or paranoia.

Sacred

 How can nothing be sacred in a world where everything is sacred?

20 thou

 What if we introduced 13-year-olds to the promise that, if they reached age 18 without becoming addicted to drugs or alcohol, without having started smoking and no felony record, they would be guaranteed $20,000 toward college or career education?

Dream jobs

 My dream jobs:

Foot model

Senior citizen TikTok influencer

Pole Dancer

Prince of Denmark

Nudist camp fashion designer

Elementary school tap dance teacher

Traveling librarian who puts banned books back on the shelf

Warhol

 $195 million for a Warhol Marilyn. This not the apotheosis of art, but rather the further muddling of art. It’s not the art that is important, but owning the art that is important. The art is not the art, it’s mere status.

Warhol was a master of turning himself from persona into icon. He knew how to use cultural trends to his advantage. He could turn the lack of substance into substance itself. He was the art, and what he produced were artifacts of himself. In that way he taught us a lot about ourselves.

But in a world full of uber-billionaires, what’s a couple of hundred million anyway.

Human Being School

 

Abortion

 There is merit in the concerns of those fighting abortion. But where is their concern and even passion to build a healthy society the unborn will enter. For many children and young people love is rare. They see anxiety for the future, violence in the streets, divorce, poor educational opportunities, pervasive mental health issues, poverty and homelessness. Media sexualize entertainment, and drug use is also portrayed as sexy. Marketing is also sexualized in clothing and personal care products. Young people believe they are in charge, when in fact, they are manipulated as a means to profit through social media influencers.

When these issues are attacked with vigor and honest concern, I will begin to believe that the fight against abortion is more than politics.

 

Abortion

 I’ve given a lot of thought to the abortion issue. The woman’s body. The role of the father. The consequence of rape or incest. The consequence of casual sex. The consequence of a cheating husband. The consequence of carelessness. The hapless teenagers. The trauma for the mother. How many scenarios are there?

In the end, it’s not the fetus that is the victim for me, but the unwanted child in a society that gives protection at birth and then is largely abandoned. When we seriously and fully love all of our children, we can think about abortion in a different way.

Making art

 At this point in life, I ask myself why I make art. The simple answer: I have to. Then the question: Why is my art the way it is? In college I studied mathematics and chemistry, Spanish literature and art history. As I developed my teaching career at the Art Academy, I taught myself contemporary physics, theory of evolution, science history, mythology, philosophy of love and contemporary art. Curiosity like this fed my art. These disciplines were rich in ideas that kept banging against one another, clustering, forming patterns and relationships. Art was the way I could sort them out and try to make some sense of them. For me, the media never drove the ideas. The ideas always directed the form they needed to take, including taking various forms of writing.

In love

 When you’re done falling in love,

You stand up straight in love

And you walk confidently in love

You may fall on your face in love

But you get right up in love

And you run in love

Even a marathon in love

And you dance in love

You may finally hobble in love

But the trek as worth it

Abortion

 Pregnancies don’t happen without the contribution of a male. While I understand the validity of considering pregnancy an issue of the female body, the father must be held responsible in a legal way. This is certainly already the case in cases of rape or incest. But what about cases of casual sex or failed relationships. I can’t see how expecting responsibilities of the father wouldn’t be helpful and wouldn’t enlighten all the men who are anti-abortionists.

It’s hard for me to see the push against abortion as anything but political. If lawmakers truly care about the life of the unborn child, then they must truly care about the life of the abused, neglected, hungry, mentally ill child. They should be acting with the same legal zeal to care for these children. Do we see this happening?

Deep

 I’m convinced that every human being has a center of deep humanity. For some, it explodes outward naturally. For some, it gradually asserts itself. For some, fear requires that it be enticed out. For some, it withers. But it is there as a yearning, as a call to live the fullness of humanity. 

We live in a culture where the institutions that can call out this deep center and bring it to life—family, schools, religion, the arts—are failing. They are distracted, rigid and afraid.

Great nations

 Every great nation has its failures, great and small, in which it does not live up to its values. America is not an exception, and we know what those failures are. But greatness is measured in a nation’s ability to admit its failures, right itself and move forward in its commitment to its values.

America’s values of liberty, freedom, equality and opportunity have made our nation envied and admired. Sadly and frighteningly, we now have a large part of our population who want to deny the truth of our history, who fear and distort the very values that America has lived by, among them white supremacists, evangelicals and the core of the Republican Party.

America has become a fearful nation, a violent nation, a divided nation, a nation unable to govern itself effectively. We’ve always come back to our values as a nation, and the leaders we’ve needed have always emerged. Where are they now?

Spring haikus

 Spring haikus

Ferns

Spiral heads, hairy spines

Face inward, hands welcoming

Green with symmetry

Snow Drops

Spring before it’s spring

Drooping heads spring up pure white

A welcome herald 

Dandelions

Persistent as hell

Seed ball, pure geometry

I give up my fight

Daffodils

Crowns and crinkled horns

Quiet blasts, orange white yellow

As faithful as spring