Three wishes

Some sparrows in a field gone to brush.  Any sparrow will do.

A wren nest-building and singing.

A quiet moment sharing an old abandoned stonewall with a chipmunk.

Thank you, Lord.
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Who would have believed it?

Believe what?  That it would be the  Republican party who put a Russian mole in the White House._____________________________________________________________________________________

The Trump-Comey dinner

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."


----- Quotation from Upton Sinclair

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Welcome to Trump World

The following was written in 1990 by Michael Thomas for an essay titled "The Money Game."

In such conditions time itself breaks up into discrete parts.  An enterprise that may have sunk its roots in commerce and community over a century can be disassembled by a takeover artist in a matter of  weeks.  Continuum means nothing.  Relationships mean nothing.  The modern financier lives and dies by  the  transaction.  Each day is wholly  new, the wheel subject to  endless reinvention.  There is no need for coherence because there is no advantage for coherence  Action is all , , , Critical judgment is neutered by celebrity, censure collapses in the face of  success."

Prophetic, wasn't it?

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Wendell Berry introduces some of his essays here

http://home2.btconnect.com/tipiglen/forward.html

Paul Valery on the future

The future is like everything else, no longer what it used to be."

          - Paul Valery

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A line from the Greek poet Callimachus

"The dead do not rest but travel over the sea like gulls."



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Please! Save it for the end.

The end of the year just past brought forth a number of ways by which Americans could save for their retirement.  Commercials and advertisements for this task flooded the  various media.  People were advised to 'have a plan.'

They  were told to decide if they wanted to maintain  the life style they have now  when they retire. Formulas were provided for determining  how many millions of dollars one would need to  achieve that goal.

Americans were told to think small.  "Start early and put away 1% of your wages or salary."

  401k's.  Hedge funds.  The stock market.  On and on it went.

I have a suggestion, a better idea (I  think) that will assist in this task.

Don't buy  what  you don't need.  Save  and invest every  dollar you saved from not buying  what you don't need. 

You will have more money saved than you thought possible.  You will definitely retire into the same life style you  enjoyed  throughout your life.

Royalty, long dead, did not have the wealth that average Americans earn today.

Walking through Walmart this Christmas, looking at the  piles in  the aisles and the  stock on the  shelves, I  couldn't help but wonder who buys all this stuff and why?  Most of  what I  saw I wouldn't take home if it  was free.

Here is a simple rule to help you.  Lord Falkland had a quote which I  have  admired ever since I  read it.  He wrote : "If it is not  necessary  to make a decision, it is  necessary not to make  a decision."

That aphorism is useful in many  different situations.  I alter the  saying when required.

For  the subject of  this  post, I think:  "If it is not  necessary to buy,  it is  necessary  not  to buy"

Try it.  You might like it.

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In the Wrong Hands

When the Patriot Act was created shortly after 9/11,  and when the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) was enacted somewhat later, serious concern was  expressed about  the danger these bills presented to our liberties.

Our concerns were mollified by statements  that we had nothing to fear unless these powers fell "into the wrong hands."


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Dylan Thomas (expressing my feelings on 2016 American election)

I have longed to move away
From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I  have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
From there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode,
Out of the old lie burning on the ground.
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention, half lie.

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Dylan Thomas on Power

The hand that signed the paper felled a city;
Five sovereign fingers taxed the breath,
Doubled the globe of dead and halved a country;
These five kings did a king to death.

The mighty hand leads to a sloping shoulder,
The finger joints are cramped with chalk;
A goose's quill has put an end to murder
That put an end to talk.

The  hand that signed the treaty bred a fever,
And famine grew, and locusts came;
Great is the hand that holds dominion over
Man by a scribbled name.

The five  kings count the  dead but  do not soften
The crusted wound nor stroke the  brow;
A hand rules pity as a hand rules heaven;
Hands have no tears to flow.

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Ashes

Ashes slip from hand
to earth.  Tears wet some.  Others
settle in.  Selah.

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Image and Technology, Daniel Boorstin has a say

This  is a good time to re-post a trenchant  quotation  by the Swiss novelist Max Frisch"

"Technology...the knack of so arranging the world  that we don't have to  experience  it."

The above quotation is found on the title page of "THE IMAGE", a book written by Daniel J. Boorstin and published in 1962.

The book is  divided into six sections, titled as follows:

1.  From News Gathering to News Making
     A Flood of Pseudo-Events

2.  From Hero to Celebrity
     The Human Pseudo-Event

3.From Traveler to Tourist
   The Lost Art of Travel

4.  From Shapes to  Shadows
     Dissolving Forms

5.  From Ideal to Image
     The Search for Self-Fulfilling Prophecies

6.  From the American Dream to  American Illusions?
     The Self-Deceiving Magic of Prestige

Sound intriguing?  Read it.  You won't regret it.  Maybe.

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Medical shame

I received a card from my primary care doctor today.  He has acquired a new name.  Now he is called The Medical Group of South Florida.

In the card, the good doctor is quoted as follows:

"The time I spend with a patient is the most vital ingredient of excellence in medical practice.  There are no shortcuts or substitutions."

That quote is followed by this statement:

We are living in a time of extraordinary medical technological advances.  I strongly believe  that we are losing ground on the other important side of the medical balance, the personal touch or human side.That is why I will now concentrate on a smaller number of patients called Concierge Medicine.



I look forward to you becoming part of the exciting times in our relationship.

This is followed by a list of services that will be part of Concierge Medicine.

They include:
Same day appointments, if needed.
Patients have 24/7 access to the doctor.
Minimal office waits.
Etc, etc.
The cost per person is $3000.00.  Per couple $5000.00.

Well...
that's one way to reduce the workload.  Separate the wealthy from the not-so-wealthy.
The gentrification  of our social structure continues apace.

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Such beauty in one sentence.

"It is an uneasy lot at best, to be what we call highly taught and yet not to enjoy;  to be present at this great spectacle of life and never to be liberated from a small hungry shivering self - never to be fully possessed by the glory we behold, never to have our consciousness rapturously transformed into the vividness of a thought, the ardour of a passion, the energy of an action, but always to be scholarly and uninspired, ambitious and timid, scrupulous and dimsighted."

- George Eliot
   Middlemarch

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I believe this.

An economy cannot sustain itself without giving back.

Wendell Berry

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Pedastal

PEDESTAL


I loved her then.
I love her still.
We never touched.
We never will.

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Apology

I apologize for neglecting this blog.  The few readers I have deserve better.





Closing with this poem by Robert Frost:


CARPE DIEM

Age saw two quiet children
Go loving by at twilight,
He knew not whether homeward,
Or outward from the village,
Or (chimes were ringing) churchward.
He waited (they were strangers)
Till they were out of hearing
To bid them both be happy.
Be happy, happy, happy,
And seize the day of pleasure.
The age-long theme is Age's.
'Twas Age imposed on poems
Their gather-roses burden
To warn against the danger
That overtaken lovers
From being overflooded
With happiness should have it
And yet not know they have it.
But bid life seize the present?
It lives less in the present
Than in the future always,
And less in both together
Than in the past.  The present
Is too much for the senses,
Too crowding, too confusing -
Too present to imagine.

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June 7, 2010

To fill a gap
Insert the Thing that caused it-
Block it up
With Other - and 'twill yawn the more-
You cannot solder an Abyss
With Air.

Poem # 223 by Emily Dickinson
From the Final Harvest Edition by Thomas H. Johnson

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Do you remember me?

By an accident of circumstance,  the woman on the other end of a call he made  was a friend of 55 years ago.
 
Do you remember me? she asked, after telling him her name.

He hesitated.

Do I remember you?   You had a bronze-colored late 50's Plymouth.  Your license plate number was RO-7477.  Your telephone number was SL3-2128.  Your birthday is December 22.
Yes, he thought, I remember you.
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