Christmas is canceled in Bethlehem. Palestinian Christian leaders plan to forgo celebrations in solidarity with Gaza, The Washington Post reports. While reading my email bulletin from the New York Times a few minutes ago, this story prompted a pause. Much by the light of decency ought come to a halt while there is egregious…
Monday is gray outside with cloud cover. The light is muted, the leaves of Fall are almost all descended from branches. This is the week of Thanksgiving. Proclaimed as a national holiday by President Lincoln on October 3, 1863 in a context of the Civil War, the day was a bid for unity, and…
The night was restless. It was as if I awakened every hour or so, unable to be sufficiently comfortable to drift off into sleep until morning. Awake at five AM ceasing attempts to shake the foreboding which had invested my mind since the early evening, I gave up the quest for sleep. I got…
It’s a Saturday, inside of Starbucks it is unusually quiet. There is a steady rain falling. Movement in the out-of-doors is avoided by most. The temp is comfortable yet, for mid October. It would be fine to go for a walk in the rain. Gazing at the empty tables, the view is peaceful, unobstructed…
Geneva, the Fox river Valley is overcast, rain is expected for this afternoon. That is well, as growing things are eager for a drink before the sleep of frost comes. All things in due time is the rule-of-thumb. Reading the Zhuangzi, the admonition is to forget oneself, to be oblivious to the human, that…
The air is cool, cleansed by a day of rain. I do not remember the last time of a full day of rain. Rain comes infrequently, as if nature is diffident, inattentive to the thirst of plants and creatures living on a thin crust of the earth. Another consequence of climate warming, perhaps? Heat…
Monday brings the prospect of rain. Weeks without precipitation and the grass is dormant, the shrubs appear thirsty and dull at the end of a growing season. Some trees are shedding leaves, without any retrograde movement of temperature thus far. Does anyone pray for rain? I know that my grandfather did. Granddad owned a…
I felt ambivalence. Not being a connoisseur of antique automobiles why would I desire the press of congestion at the Geneva Concours d’Elegance? Contemplating vintage vehicles on the flat screen in the course of a television historical drama is enough for me. On the other hand, the event was free… As you would guess…
Sunday, late summertime is fine here. Sunshine, the beds of flowers display a riot of life and colors. But not so everywhere. In the aftermath of the Maui wildfires the death toll stands at 93 so far. Did anyone think a tropical paradise could be vulnerable to wildfires? Neighborhoods wiped out, now become skeletal…
Today will be another sweltering day. Heat and stifling humidity. One adapts to conditions as one is able, constraints presented by the thermal energy-surge of atmosphere, of ocean currents, a result of millennia of sequestered carbon release since the advent of the industrial age. The “waste” must go somewhere… Wouldn’t you agree? You cannot…
