Best Wishes for a Happy and Productive New Year in 2026

Best wishes to all, from Karen and I, for a productive, happy, and decent New Year in 2026. 
May you enjoy good health, and enjoyable exercise.
May your family and friends thrive.
May a more peaceful and cooperative world emerge.
May you prosper in your work and communities.
May your gardens thrive.
May you learn about truth and virtue from great books and universities.

"What can be said in New Year rhymes,

That’s not been said a thousand times? 

The new years come, the old years go,
We know we dream, we dream we know. 

We rise up laughing with the light,
We lie down weeping with the night. 

We hug the world until it stings,
We curse it then and sigh for wings. 

We live, we love, we woo, we wed,
We wreathe our prides, we sheet our dead. 

We laugh, we weep, we hope, we fear,
And that’s the burden of a year."

The Year by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

I am very sorry for all the hard-working people
whose jobs are in peril from the crazy, dangerous,
unhinged, failed, and insulting policies of our 
currently failed President Trump.  His crudeness,
and insults have caused massive boycotts of 
travel to America and loss of revenue from
boycotted products.  Impeach that foolish
pervert felon NOW!!

Till the Last Shots Fired

Till the Last Shots Fired
Sung by Trace Atkins 

"I was there in the winter of '64
When we camped in the ice at Nashville's doors

Three hundred miles our trail had lead
We barely had time to bury our dead
When the Yankees charged and the colors fell
Overton hill was a living hell
When we called retreat it was almost dark
I died with a grapeshot in my heart

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set my spirit free
Let me lay down my gun
Sweet mother Mary I'm so tired
But I can't come home 'til the last shot's fired

In June of 1944
I waited in the blood of Omaha's shores
Twenty-one and scared to death
My heart poundin' in my chest
I almost made the first seawall
When my friends turned and saw me fall
I still smell the smoke, I can taste the mud
As I lay there dying from a loss of blood

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set my spirit free
Let me lay down my gun
Sweet mother Mary I'm so tired
But I can't come home 'til the last shot's fired

I'm in the fields of Vietnam,
The mountains of Afghanistan
And I'm still hopin', waitin' prayin'
I did not die in vain

Say a prayer for peace
For every fallen son
Set my spirit free
Let me lay down my gun
Sweet mother Mary I'm so tired
But I can't come home 'til the last shot's fired

'Til the last shot's fired

Say a prayer for peace (for peace)
For our daughters and our sons
Set our spirits free (set us free)
Let us lay down our guns

Sweet mother Mary, we're so tired
But we can't come home (No we can't come home)

'Til the last shot's fired."

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Doug Johnson / Rob Crosby

Independence Day or Dependence Day

My Midsummer Celebrations in 2021 include: the Summer Solstice rites, Olympics in Tokyo, NBA Finals, Tour de France, the Fourth of July, Father's Day, local travel, gardening, and reading poetry.

We are very pleased that Clark County has finally banned the sale and use of fireworks--- a stinking, loud, and dangerous bad habit in urban America. I prefer the smells and colors of Roses to the stench of fizzling fireworks.

In America, the 4th of July is a National Holiday.  Americans celebrate our "Independence Day" on this day.  Family gatherings, outdoor meals, games and sports, visiting with friends, and summer fun activities are all popular.  Some towns also have patriotic parades.

I prefer to call today "Dependence Day" to reflect views of Inter-Being, community cooperation and peace, working together, finding "common ground," cooperation, ecology, etc.  

I hope everyone has a very safe and peaceful 4th of July weekend holiday.  

May we all be able to find a government that enables us to create and work for a better life, respect liberty, and pursue happiness.  May be enjoy freedom from religious oppression, and be allowed to speak our minds in a civil manner.  May we avoid hatred, fear, stealing, lying, and fighting for impractical idealistic causes.  We should not enslave people, disrespect the rights of women, and persecute minorities.  Let us encourage gun free zones in our civil society.  Let us cultivate peace, tolerance, patience, and prosperity.  Let us work at our jobs diligently, intelligently, creatively, and with pride.  Let us preserve and protect our environment for future generations.  Let is strive for good health, vitality, and positive mental health.  Let us mind our own business when appropriate, and avoid listening to men with extreme and angry opinions and facile solutions to difficult problems.  Let us encourage kindness, generosity, simplicity, and community cooperation.  May reason and justice be our guides.  May we deliberate calmly and avoid extreme and inflexible opinions.  May we remember and respect the hardworking and decent wise women and men of the past. 

Best wishes to everyone!

The Dead and Dying Are About

Halloween, Samhain, Dad of the Dead, End of the Year Coming, Fall

In America, today, we enjoy Halloween festivities.  People dress up in costumes.  Candy is exchanged and given to children.  Activities and games are played: bobbing for apples, scaring people, pranks, walking in corn mazes, pumpkin carving and rolling, nighttime fires, pie making, harvest activities, etc.  Of course, many people in America do nothing unusual today; and could care less about Nature religion and "pagan" Samhain festivities.   

I shoveled up the rotting remains of four pumpkins on our front porch ... limp, blackened yuck.  

We accidentally killed a squirrel on Highway 99, North Main, when it ran from the Red Bluff River Park onto the roadway.

Karen's friend's dog died today.

224 people died today in an airplane crash in the Sinai, Egypt.
Millions are dying from diseases: malnutrition, malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, typhoid, poisoning, cholera, cancer, stroke ....
Many are dying today because of wars and fighting all around the world.
Somebody dying has always been news, everywhere. 

Memories of Ancestors.

Greco-Roman Hellenistic Era
Memories of Traditions, Customs, Religions. Rituals, Languages
Time.  Death or Renewal Rituals

El Dia de la Muerte.
Remember and celebrate our Ancestors.

Halloween Skeletons will walk on the streets tonight.

Macabre.  Play acts and costumes.  

Reminding us of Darkness, Fears, Monsters, Fate, Death!

Happy Halloween!!! 

This post to the blog was first sent out on October 31, 2015.  

Karen at work as Special Education Instructional Assistant

Halloween Party 2014

November 2012

Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee

I don't think Muhammad Ali was "the greatest" boxer ever, but certainly one of the best for a heavyweight.  I'm seldom impressed by a converted believer to some organized religion who now claims to "know the truth."  I'm also not impressed by people, like Thomas Merton and Muhammad Ali, who claim to adhere to a pacifist religion when their military draft notice comes.  All that aside, Muhammad Ali was, like millions of Americans and people all around the world, against the war in Vietnam; and, I admired him for speaking out for that position.  I am a ambivalent about the Nation of Islam, but compared to the violent racism of WASPs in America, they seem quite tame and mostly community improvement orientated.  Muhammad Ali's voice rebuking segregation in the Southern U.S., racism everywhere, and the need for better understanding and peace among people around the world were very influential and widely respected.  

Unfortunately, his ability to continue to positively influence and change the world was greatly hampered by his Parkinson's disease.  Fame and athleticism and fortune mean nothing to diseases.  We all felt sorry for the man in that respect, as we do for all people subjected to chronic suffering and disability.  

His smart-ass fighter's bravado was at times humorous, but mostly annoying to me; and, taunting is not now favored by many elite athletes.  

A few statements attributed to the late Muhammad Ali (1940-2016):

"The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."

"Don't count the days. Make the day's count."

"No Viet Cong ever called me 'nigger.' "

"When I feel pain, that's when I start counting, because that's when it really counts."

"I know where I'm going and I know the truth, and I don't have to be what you want me to be. I'm free to be what I want."