• Gun Sick

    Another mass shooting. This one close to home. A fetishistic fascination with guns, power, and violence permeates American society. It’s symptomatic of a deep cultural pathology, and it’ll take more than laws to address the sickness. BUT, at least gun regulations are a place to start. And, compared to treating a moral illness, they’re low-hanging fruit. So, let’s make gun regulation an “easy” first step in trying to find a cure for this disease in our national soul.

  • in the alley from the coffee shop
  • St. Fiacre of the Sorrel
  • Noble beast
  • California Hills in August | Dana Gioia
    Golden California Hills in summer with dramatic shadows

    I can imagine someone who found 
    these fields unbearable, who climbed 
    the hillside in the heat, cursing the dust, 
    cracking the brittle weeds underfoot, 
    wishing a few more trees for shade.
    
    An Easterner especially, who would scorn 
    the meagerness of summer, the dry 
    twisted shapes of black elm, 
    scrub oak, and chaparral, a landscape 
    August has already drained of green.
    
    One who would hurry over the clinging 
    thistle, foxtail, golden poppy, 
    knowing everything was just a weed, 
    unable to conceive that these trees 
    and sparse brown bushes were alive.
    
    And hate the bright stillness of the noon 
    without wind, without motion, 
    the only other living thing 
    a hawk, hungry for prey, suspended 
    in the blinding, sunlit blue.
    
    And yet how gentle it seems to someone 
    raised in a landscape short of rain – 
    the skyline of a hill broken by no more 
    trees than one can count, the grass, 
    the empty sky, the wish for water.
    
    
  • Dust | Dorianne Laux
    Someone spoke to me last night,  
    told me the truth. Just a few words,  
    but I recognized it.  
    I knew I should make myself get up,  
    write it down, but it was late,  
    and I was exhausted from working  
    all day in the garden, moving rocks.  
    Now, I remember only the flavor—  
    not like food, sweet or sharp.  
    More like a fine powder, like dust  
    And I wasn't elated or frightened,  
    but simply rapt, aware.  
    That's how it is sometimes—  
    God comes to your window,  
    all bright light and black wings,  
    and you're just too tired to open it.
  • stem the flood, americans
    Russian propagandists do not need to wait to check facts or verify claims; they just disseminate an interpretation of emergent events that appears to best favor their themes and objectives. This allows them to be remarkably responsive and nimble, often broadcasting the first “news” of events (and, with similar frequency, the first news of nonevents, or things that have not actually happened). They will also repeat and recycle disinformation. The Russian "Firehose of Falsehood" Propaganda Model: RAND Corporation, 2016.

    ... flood the zone with shit. Steve Bannon (to Michael Lewis, 2018)
  • love this photo 🐶
  • Chairman Archie presiding 🐶

    “The meeting will come to order.”

  • Always Marry an April Girl | Ogden Nash | 🎂
    Praise the spells and bless the charms,
    I found April in my arms.
    April golden, April cloudy,
    Gracious, cruel, tender, rowdy;
    April soft in flowered languor,
    April cold with sudden anger,
    Ever changing, ever true --
    I love April, I love you.
    
  • Good Friday, 2023

    Cabora Drive Trail, Playa Vista, Los Angeles, CA🥾

  • PTR
  • Watch out for that dino-dragon, Archie!
  • Dad and Mom
     
  • take the wheel
    Jill Filipovic via ayjay

    Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well-being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life — to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, not that they are simply being tossed around by an uncontrollable ocean — are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization, hurt, and a sense that life simply happens to them and they have no control over their response. That isn’t to say that people who experience victimization or trauma should just muscle through it, or that any individual can bootstraps their way into wellbeing. It is to say, though, that in some circumstances, it is a choice to process feelings of discomfort or even offense through the language of deep emotional, spiritual, or even physical wound, and choosing to do so may make you worse off. Leaning into the language of “harm” creates and reinforces feelings of harm ...

subscribe via RSS