Summer Drum, 40th Day of Autumn, 526 M.E. (Betelgeuse): One change I'm going to have to make in the next version of the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar (New Revised USC 2.0?), is move "Summer Drum" out of the Autumn season. The title clearly belongs in Midsommar or the Dog Days. For some reason, old Angus MacLise had it near the end of Autumn in his five-season USC. I need to find a day-name in one of the two summer seasons in the New Revised USC that sounds evocative or at least appropriate for the fall, and swap it with Autumn's Summer Drum.

Or do I? There's poetry in MacLise's day-names, and "Summer Drum" in mid-Autumn could be intended to evoke nostalgia for the warmer days behind us as the post-equinox days get shorter and the air grows colder. Beating the Summer Drum could mean something like taping the fallen leaves back on the trees in a futile attempt to avoid the inevitable arrival of winter, of the cold, of death and the cold, cold ground.

Impermanence.   

There I go again. 

Hurricane Isaias behaved itself and followed the NWS' predicted path to the millimeter. It ran dead center straight up the middle of Alabama like a Georgia linebacker breaking through the o-line and charging for the end zone. There were a couple of deaths in Florida near where the storm made landfall, and hundreds of thousands of people left without power, but its impact was pretty minimal here in Atlanta. It rained like hell here for some 16 or so hours but the wind was manageable. No trees fell on my property or in my neighborhood and I didn't lose power. Earlier this year, I bought a pair of rechargeable battery-powered lamps and they've worked like a charm - ever since I bought them, I haven't lost power once.

Twelve more days until my cardiology exam.

New reports are emerging in the news about shootings by federal ICE agents. The US government is continuing its unlawful program of extrajudicial murders of offshore boaters, claiming they're smuggling drugs. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't, but there's no due process to support the killings and no transparency on how the government arrived at its conclusion.

It is written, "Things that bring about suffering are called evil, things which invite joy are called good" (Shobogenzo Zuimonki, 4-11). I don't think that many people can honestly claim that ICE's actions  invite joy, or that murdering random fishermen is a joyful act. Both cause suffering, and both therefore are evil. Those who direct, instigate, and perpetuate these acts are also evil, and it is evil to support these things. The Stable Genius, by this definition, is evil. So it is written.