Out on an errand run, I grabbed this shot of an orange dot of a sun trying to burn through the smoke and haze blowing through the US from Canadian wildfires.
Forgot to grab my mask as I headed out for the short trip, so traveling from two parking lots into two stores, my throat and sinuses dried up with that burning taste in a hurry.
Seeing very little in town traffic for this time of day, it sounds like most folks are heeding warnings and staying inside. Wish I had.
Stay careful out there.
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Butterfly sightings of all types have been few and far between in the various necks of the woods I’ve been spending time in so far this summer. Here’s a photo of the the first Monarch Butterfly that crossed my path.
Hope we see more. They always give me a bit of joy.
Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to.You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.
Some days are insanely hectic, bordering on maddening. Some bring something resembling a calmer pace. Some days you just need to park the car, have a sit, and check out the scenery.
Thanks for reading. You can subscribe to this blog if you care to.You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.
Biker heroes, cheese thieves, and stupidity checklists
Sunday Morning Reading time with stories and good writing about crime, incompetence, technology, shifts and changes, and cheese. There’s also hope in and amongst the chaos. Add a slice of cheese to your morning repast and give a read.
Starting this week’s edition with a surprising feel good story that reminds us we shouldn’t judge books by covers. Marlon G. Baxter tells the tale of young hearing impaired child who was saved from being trafficked in a Walmart by what appeared to most as an unlikely hero. You need to read “Heroes Wear Leather Too”: How A Deaf Child And A Biker Stopped A Trafficking Plot.
UPDATE: This pisses me off. Apparently the feel good story linked above is fake. I and several others have looked into it and it’s not holding up. Pardon my swearing, but this is so goddamned frustrating. I’m leaving the link and my description in for two reasons. Pointing out that we can’t trust a damn thing on the Internet anymore. Secondly, that really sucks given we’re all in a posture of looking for hope whenever we can find it.
In the wake of what’s happening at the ICE Delaney Hall detention center internment camp in New Jersey, Josh Kovensky recounts the story of what happened in the courts after similar battles over humanity happened earlier in Chicago. Check out How The Broadview Six Fought The Trump DOJ—And Found Massive Wrongdoing In The Process. Tough to see hope in these horrible moments as they occur, and it’s hard to believe we have to rely on the incompetence of evil doers after the fact, but here we are.
On the arts and politics front, a court has ruled Trump has to take his name off of the Kennedy Center and not close it down for renovations. Sounds like a victory. In the long term it may be, but Janay Kingsbury tells us that in the immediate future the damage may already have been done in Trump Hasn’t Left Much Kennedy Center To Stay Open. So much of what’s happening these days hurts my heart, but this misadventure hits me where I live.
Everything is changing, like it or not. Sonny Bunch thinks Hollywood is standing on the doorstep of yet another pivotal moment. Check out Hollywood’s About To Change (Again).
As far as pivotal moments go, there are quite a few happening all around us. Especially regarding searching the Internet. Google is reinventing itself and the Internet, leaving an opening for companies like DuckDuckGo and Kagi. Doc Searls writes How DuckDuckGo Can Be A Hero. Let’s hope these search companies seize the moment that’s before them.
And while we’re on the topic of tech, John Siracusa has published The EV Stupidity Checklist, suggesting ways the EV industry might get back on track. John could and should publish one of these for so many things in the tech sector. Perhaps also for so many other sectors of our lives.
I’m a cheese fan, and I’ve been known to nick a slice or two off of the hors d’oeuvres tray before the guests arrive. Olivia Potts tells us how organized crime fell in love with cheese in The Grate Cheese Robbery. Who knew cheese was the most stolen food in the world?
If you’re interested in just what the heck Sunday Morning Reading is all about you can read more about the origins of Sunday Morning Reading here. If you’d like more click on the Sunday Morning Reading link in the category column to check out what’s been shared on Sunday’s past. You can also find more of my writings on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome. This site does not use affilate links.
Sometimes the city calls to you and begs you to pay attention.
Certainly on some early Spring evenings, when the air is clear, and there can still be a chill in the air.
You may want to escape a jacket during the day, but it brings comfort as the sky darkens. You may curse the morning chill, but not that of the early evening.
Because you know as the weather warms, the city works its weird meteorological magic and the air warms up with the setting sun as the heat of the day escapes the streets and the buildings.
In the Spring, in the early evening, the city calls to you, and says enjoy it while you can.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.
With the weather finally warming I’m getting back into the habit of taking a good long walk each day through the neighborhoods surrounding my digs. I have to admit I got out of that habit during this past winter with family travels and other things on the agenda.
Occasionally I stumble across something new, or at least something I don’t remember. This wooden sculpture of a sausage skewered on a fork in a local dog park is one of those things. A clever bit of whimsy on a nice afternoon.
We can all use a bit more whimsy these days.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above. This site does not use affilate links.
Starting to warm up a bit. We might have touched 40 degrees Fahrenheit today on our journey back from a short weekend visit with the grandkids. Hope the trend continues, so we can all head outdoors again.
It’s such a joy to watch these two, two years apart, come into their own, watch them learn, watch them learn how to learn, watch them fail, watch them succeed. We only get brief periods of time with them to see that unfold, but we’ve enjoyed three successive trips merely a few weeks apart and seen such growth in each 3-week separation.
Given all the talk of a world of AI that supposedly will set us free (don’t think of that necessarily being in a good context), from having to think, learn, and discover on our own, when, or at what age would that kick in?
Admittedly an unfair example, here, But, after watching these two (spurred on by the older brother) beg to go outside, go through the rigamarole of getting bundled up, only to get outside and discover that it was indeed too cold to have any fun, I’m not sure we want to shortcut any human learning process. For any group at any age.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
If you haven’t been paying attention, Cook has indeed seemingly been captured by his efforts to hang onto Apple’s success in the face of the Trump administration’s intent to drag everyone into his ever increasing cesspool view of the world. Attending the premiere of the Amazon produced film Melania on the night that Alex Pretti was murdered in Minneapolis is just the latest in a series of what can politely be called missteps by Cook, but in my view more appropriately called sucking up out of naked and unabashed fear.
Cook, hearing the large number of complaints about his latest knee bending issued a memo to Apple employees expressing his heartbreak over the events in Minneapolis and notes that he had a good conversation with the president about trying to deescalate the situation. From the reactions I’ve seen nobody is buying it. Issuing memos designed to be leaked is another cowardly PR move, certainly from a company once admired for its supposed civic conscience.
Sure, corporations are corporations and do what they need to do to protect their market share and shareholders. You can make that argument with assurance until the MBAs are all penned up in the same pasture. But when you’ve built much of your success by heavily marketing civic engagement, and I dare say a civic conscience, it becomes not just a dent in that hard earned reputation, but a tougher row to hoe going forward. But we are living in the age of melting myths and laughing at legends.
Malik posits:
When your company is worth more than most nations, you cannot afford principles that inconvenience presidents. The moral equation changes. What once seemed unthinkable becomes necessary. Cook learned this the hard way after he skipped a presidential photo op and was thrown back under the tariff bus. So now he shows up. He sits in the front row. He claps when expected. This is what happens when valuation becomes destiny.
Siegler says Cook should have pulled out of the event and “has lost his way,” and probably should wait out Trump or the GOPs defeats before passing on his dimmed torch.
I don’t disagree with Malik or Siegler. But if you carry the captured analogy further it makes one wonder if reaching the top doesn’t just turn you into just another zoo animal behind bars.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
The unceasing tumult of insane happenings continue rolling in, like a relentless pounding of waves threatening to drown us all. It’s enough to make you look for even the slightest glimmer of light in the darkness.
I’m not sure such a glimmer exists. To my way of thinking what’s happening can only continue to get worse until something, anything breaks in a way that no one is going to be able to control. It’s wretched enough that I find myself hoping that happens each morning.
The history of humankind proves that however this reaches a conclusion, that climax and its denouement will make its crescendo seem almost palpably tame by comparison. And, as we’ve proven and continue to prove, we’re certainly no smarter and no better than those who’ve screwed things up in the past.
Sorry for the bleakness. But it’s how I’m feeling things in the middle of this cold, darkening winter. These days remind me of the first stanza of Christina Rossetti’s poem, originally published in 1872 under the title A Christmas Carol.
In the bleak midwinter
frosty wind made moan,
earth stood hard as iron,
water like a stone:
snow had fallen,
snow on snow, snow on snow,
in the bleak midwinter,
long ago.
Although today does not feel so long ago.
You can also find more of my writings on a variety of topics on Medium at this link, including in the publications Ellemeno and Rome.I can also be found on social media under my name as above.
Life on the Wicked Stage: Act 3 