Signature of Light, 66th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Atlas): As it turns out, I got my walk in yesterday, a full Van Buren - 8.2 miles. The weather cleared up in the midafternoon and I wasn't even a mile into my walk before I forgot what my reluctance to going outside even was in the first place. I feel better now for having walked.

I awoke this morning to a way-too-early 6:50 am text message from a neighbor saying her wi-fi was down and asking if anyone else was experiencing problems (the only problem I was experiencing was getting woken up too early about someone else's first-world troubles). There was a power outage sometime last night - I woke earlier in the morning, sometime around 2:15 am, to the beeps of various electronics resetting themselves when the power came back on, and had to get up and reset my alarm clock. But before it even went off, but after the 6:50 text message, the ominous rumble of distant thunder woke me up for the third time from my fitful sleep. I guess what I'm trying to say is I didn't get a good night's sleep last night, but I won't let that stop me from my alternating-day sitting today (meditation is challenging when one is sleepy).     

The thunderstorm blew over by 11:00 am with no incident.

Today's post was intended to be a criticism of the recent journalism by Jake ("I dated Monica Lewinski") Tapper and others about Joe Biden's mental acuity during his last year or so in office, and a broader attack on ageism in general, but then I saw the news today that Biden has been diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer. This sad development makes my intended point irrelevant, renders Tapper's current book tour meaningless, and highlights the pettiness of the reporting about the former president. A man in his 80s might need a wheelchair sometime in the future, according to an unnamed source? Is said not to have recognized Georgia Clooney at a fundraiser? How petty, how irrelevant, how disrespectful. 

Prostate cancer is the most common form of cancer in the U.S. and the second leading cause of cancer death among men, according to the American Cancer Society. The cancer has spread to the bone, Biden's office said in a statement.

Impermanence is swift.

Spectre of the Lapse, 65th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Helios): The air conditioning has been restored. The technician showed up for his 12-4 pm appointment at 5:45, and the cool air was blowing through the house by 6:15. His explanation for the breakdown was, "it had shut off," with no explanation as to why it had shut off other than, "it happens." But I'm a forward-looking kind of a guy. It doesn't matter why it had stopped, just that it's running now and I can survive another season. 

Waiting around for the technician, however, disrupted my mediation schedule. I didn't sit in the morning because, you know, mornings, and I didn't want my sitting to be interrupted in the afternoon by the technician's visit. After he left, I didn't want to sit and miss the Celtic's game, which went horribly wrong and was something I wish I hadn't seen. So I wound up missing the whole day.    

Last night, after the game (and the Celtics' season) was mercifully over, severe storms and tornadoes hit Missouri and Kentucky and killed at least 21 people, with the total number of deaths expected to rise. The tornadoes were part of a major system that rolled across the Midwest and the Mid-Atlantic Friday night and downed power lines and sent debris whipping through the streets. That storm came through here at around 8:00 this morning with thunder and rainstorms, but it was far weaker and diminished here in Georgia compared to what had earlier come through Missouri and Kentucky.

I knew the storms were coming when I went to bed last night due to the forecasts of the National Weather Service. Weather reports, from The Weather Channel to AccuWeather to iPhones to your local television weatherperson, all rely on the data and forecasts of the NWS. But due to DOGE-initiated layoffs and retirements, the Service has lost nearly 600 people from a workforce that had been as many as 4,000. Those reductions impact the work of collecting the data used to make forecasts, such as launching weather balloons, and reduce the number if people who turn that data into crucial warnings when extreme weather is on the way. The NWS office in eastern Kentucky that covered the area where last night's tornadoes hit no longer had a permanent overnight forecaster and had to rely on nearby offices for support.

Although the thunderstorms have passed, I'm reluctant to go on my alternating-day walk today because  it's still dark, cloudy and unsettled outside and I don't want to get caught in another downpour like I did a few weeks ago. I could stay inside today and make up for my missed sitting yesterday, or I can wait it out and see if the weather clears up later this afternoon. I honestly don't know what I want to do or what I will do, as already, after missing just one day of meditation, I feel disoriented and "off."

My official attitude toward my alternating-day schedule is to try and maintain it as best I can, but if I miss a day here or there, no biggie, just pick back up the next day as if nothing happened. No need to stress out over it, even if I miss a sitting day for one reason and then have to pass on a walking day the next for another reason. But that's easier said than done. It's apparent my mental health and wellbeing rely on keeping my alternating-day schedule, and I have to learn to adapt when disrupters like air conditioning breakdowns and inclement weather throw my schedule into a tailspin. 

 

Dream in the Rock, 64th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Electra): The most frightening words in the English language to people living in the Deep South, "The a.c.'s out." 

It's not that unusual to see record warmth in May, but summerlike heat smashed record highs in parts of the Northern Plains and upper Midwest the past few days. On Mother's Day, International Falls, Minnesota, on the border with Canada and nicknamed the "Nation's Icebox," reached 96 degrees. That was their hottest May high on record and the dry heat has helped fuel wildfires in northern Minnesota.

Here in Georgia, we reached a high of 87° yesterday, closer to the record high of 91° (set in 1947!) than the average of 81°. But yesterday, when I got back home from my afternoon walk, I noticed that the air conditioning wasn't working in the house. The fan was running, providing some air movement and a slight amount of cooling, but the compressor wasn't running, so the air coming out of the ducts was the same temperature as in the house. And that temperature slowly crept up to 77°, then 78, and then 79, even as the evening temperatures were dropping outside.

I called my HVAC people and a repairperson is scheduled to arrive sometime between noon and four pm, which based on my past experience means sometime around 6:00 or 7:00. It's 78° in here now, which is on the upper end of tolerable, but as the day warms up (it's forecast to reach 85 outside today) it will get more uncomfortable.

This is frustrating because it's happened to me every year since my new system was installed back in 2021. Each year, a technician shows up sometime in late March or early April for annual a.c. maintenance and tells me the system is fine, and each year when summerlike temps first arrive in May or June, the system won't kick on like it refuses to today. Each year I have to schedule a follow-on appointment and it gets fixed within an hour or two.   

Everything's impermanent and this warmth too shall pass. When the repairman leaves this evening, I will once again be enjoying cool, dry air circulating through my home again while offering a toast to Willis Carrier, the patron saint of the South, without whom life would be unbearable down here.           

 

Separation of the First Stage, 63rd Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Deneb): On today's Van Buren, I added the common grackle and white-eyed vireo to my life list (I already had the red-eyed vireo). Tuesday, I added the song sparrow, the most common and widespread sparrow of North America.   

I don't have anything to say today, so I'll just post Leslie Jones' rant from The Daily Show last night. 

Launching of the Dreamweapon, 62nd Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Castor): Oh, the mysteries of the New Revised Universal Solar Calendar! Ten days ago, the 52nd Day of Spring, was Establishment of the Dreamweapon and now, ten days later, it's Launching of the Dreamweapon. The ten days of the Dreamweapon. I tried to keep some conceptual continuity in the daily images here, including the color blue, the blue sky, the blue circle, and so on. 

I first became aware of Angus MacLise's Universal Solar Calendar from a 2014 mixtape curated by Stephen O'Malley of the band Sunn O))) for London's FACT Magazine (Fact Mix 445). He included MacLise's vocal recitation of the names of the days from MacLise's 2003 album, The Cloud Doctrine. It's a nearly 20-minute-long spoken word performance with no background music or context, and I had no idea what it was about. "Ways to the deep meadow, the white fleet's landfall, realm of violent dream, pre-dawn chart, sun quarter pass, basalt day," and so on, MacLise drones in a deadpan, monotone voice. It's a long, difficult listen, especially if one has no idea what it's all about.

It wasn't until months later that I discovered that Universal Solar Calendar was indeed an actual calendar, as quixotically laid out in MacLise's own handwriting. It's as much calendar as it is poetry and a piece of calligraphic art. I was further intrigued when I read that the visionary composer La Monte Young encouraged use of the Universal Solar Calendar to track the days rather than the traditional Julian calendar, and I  figured if it's good enough for Young, it's good enough for me.

But I found it hard to follow along with the calendar as MacLise had laid it out, but that's on me, not the artist. However, I retrofitted the calendar into the traditional grid, and then came up with the idea of six-day weeks with the days named for stars and added a leap year day (Fifth Twelve) on the 60th day of the year so that each year the calendar always begins and ends on the same day of the week. Launching of the Dreamweapon will always be on a Castor, the third of the six days of the week.    

It's still nearly impossible to track a year based on the names of the days (does Day of the Crooked Spirit come before or after Child Found Within the Tree, and by how many days?). But it is possible to understand the passage of time between today, the 63nd Day of Spring, and, say, the 12th Day of Autumn, especially when you know that each month contains 73 days (except for autumn, which contains 74).

Walt Disney once encouraged younger artists to take a good idea and stay with it, and work it until it's done and done right, or something to that effect. I know my new revisions to MacLise's Universal Solar Calendar has little to no practical value now, and probably confuses people more than it enlightens anyone, but I intend to keep at it and keep moving forward with it until I can figure out what can be done with it.

 

The Wooden Works, 61st Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): I got my walk in today, a Van Buren (8.6 miles) despite the threat of rain. I missed Sunday's walk because of the rain and it even rained on me briefly today, although very gently and while I was under tree cover. 

Even though I got my sitting time in yesterday, I felt very unsettled late last night, possibly due to not walking on Sunday. Or possibly because the Celtics lost Game 4 of the Conference Semifinals in New York on Monday night, and are down 1-3 against the Knicks. Or because Jayson Tatum went down in the late Fourth Quarter with a game, season, and, not impossibly, career-ending injury. All this on the same day that the Red Sox were humiliated in Detroit in a 14-2 loss to the Tigers. 

Yesterday, I noticed that a part of the lower dashboard of my car seems to have come apart from the rest of the dash. Everything still works fine, but it's an unpleasant reminder of impermanence and that my 16-year-old car isn't going to last forever, and I have no clear idea how to afford a new car on my fixed retirement income, especially in these times of tariff wars and recessions.

My eyes are getting worse. I was told I needed cataract surgery nearly a year ago, but I've done nothing about it to date. 

I live alone and have few friends. My cat, my only constant companion, is the same age as my car and is in worse shape. I'll miss the furry bastard when he's gone.

So all this unpleasantness was in my head last night as I settled in for the evening to read the ending of Cormac McCarthy's post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, a dark, depressing read by any standard.  

So, in summary, after a week of rain, I was housebound and cooped up, my teams had lost, badly, I felt like everything was falling apart on me, and to relax I was reading a grim end-of-the-world novel. 

But that was yesterday. The sun came out for a while today, enough that I got my Van Buren in (even if I did get a little wet), and now I feel much better. We think that we're such complex, sophisticated beings, capable of logic and discerning thought, but our moods are really controlled more by our metabolism than by the ideas rattling around in our minds.

Please remind me to walk again on Thursday, even if the weather doesn't look ideal.

 

Day of Creaking Aftermath, 60th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Atlas): The Emoluments Clause is a provision in Article I, Section 9, Clause 8 of the U.S. Constitution that prohibits the federal government from granting titles of nobility, and restricts members of the federal government from receiving gifts, salaries, offices, or titles from foreign states without the consent of Congress. It was intended to shield federal officeholders against corrupting foreign influences. It reads:

No Title of Nobility shall be granted by the United States: And no Person holding any Office of Profit or Trust under them, shall, without the Consent of the Congress, accept of any present, Emolument, Office, or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.

In other words, we have no kings or queens or earls or lords or other royalty of any kind, and those holding office cannot accept title and cannot accept gifts from foreign countries.

Despite this, Donald Trump plans to accept a $400 million luxury jet from the royal family of Qatar for use as Air Force One and later as a fixture in his personal presidential library. This couldn't more clearly violate the U.S. Constitution but the Republican Party was brushed the Democrats' objections. Trump has praised the offer as a “great gesture” and said he would “never be one to turn down that kind of offer.”

Last week, it was learned that a memecoin launched by Trump's World Liberty Financial crypto venture is being used by an Abu Dhabi investment firm for its $2 billion investment into the crypto exchange Binance. Trump stands to earn hundreds of millions from the Arab firm's investment.

After the election, Trump took an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution. Accepting these gifts would violate the Constitution so Trump is not honoring his oath of office. He's derelict in his duties as President and for that must be impeached.

But Republicans are all in agreement about "well. what can you do?" and the MAGA base is applauding the "smart business move." 

So pay close attention as other than a few sharply worded letters and fund-raising speeches by Democrats, nothing happens.

 

The Divine Versions, 59th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Helios): Here are some questions worth considering: does the soul outlive the body? Is there rebirth after death? Are there eternal realms we inhabit after this mortal existence?  

Possibly considering these very questions, Zen Master Dogen once asked himself, rhetorically, “It has been said that we should not regret life and death, for a quick way to get free of the cycle of life and death is to know that our mental essence is eternal. In other words, the physical body, having been born, necessarily moves toward death, but the mental essence never dies at all. The mental essence is unmoved by birth, and decay exists only in our body. Therefore, the body is just a temporary form; it is born and it dies, never remaining constant. But the mind is eternal; it is unchangeable in the past, present, and future. To know this is to become free of life-and-death. 

"Those who understand this principle stop the cycle of life-and-death forever and, when the body passes, they enter the spirit world and gain wondrous virtues. However, our bodies have been shaped by our deluded behavior in past ages, so we are not the same as the saints. Those who do not know this principle will remain trapped forever in the cycle of life-and-death. Therefore we should just hasten to understand the principle that the mental essence is eternal. Is this not what the Buddhas and the patriarchs all taught?”

Dogen did not agree at all with that position. He answered his own question saying, "That view is absolutely not what the Buddha taught. According to that non-Buddhist view, there is a spiritual intelligence existing within our body. That intelligence can discriminate between pleasant and unpleasant and between right and wrong, it can know pain and irritation and suffering and pleasure. When the body dies, however, the spirit casts off the skin and is reborn on the other side so even though it seems to die here, it lives on there. Therefore we call it immortal and eternal. 

"If we assume this is what the Buddha taught, however, we are even more foolish than a person who mistakes a tile or a pebble for a golden treasure. If we think the Buddha taught that the mind is eternal but forms perish and believe that we can escape life and death when we are in fact promoting the original cause of life and death, are we not being stupid? That would be most pitiful. We shouldn't even listen to these wrong non-Buddhist ideas. 

"Remember, the Buddha taught that the body and mind are one reality; body and mind are not divided. How could we then say that the body is mortal but the mind is eternal? Does that not violate reason? Furthermore, we should realize that living-and-dying is itself nirvana; Buddhists have never discussed nirvana outside of life-and-death. Even if we wrongly imagine the Buddha taught that the mind becomes eternal by getting free of the body, that imagined idea itself intermittently appears and disappears in the mind and is not eternal at all. Isn’t that understanding unreliable then? 

"The Buddha consistently taught that body and mind are one reality. How could it then be that while the body appears and disappears, the mind independently leaves the body and does not appear or disappear? If there is a time when body and mind are one reality, and another time when they are not one reality, then it might naturally follow that the Buddha’s teaching is wrong. Further, if we think that life-and-death are something to overcome or get rid of, we are likewise contradicting the Buddha's teaching. 

"The Buddhist schools of thought that say the mind includes all forms consider 'all forms' to be the entire universe without dividing essence and form, and without appearance or disappearance. There is no state, even nirvana, that is different from the essence of mind. All the myriad phenomena and various things are just the one mind without exclusion or exception. All Buddhist schools assert that the myriad things and phenomena are the even and balanced undivided mind, other than which there is nothing. That being so, how could we divide this one reality into body and mind, or into life-and-death and nirvana? 

"We disciples of the Buddha should not listen to such nonsense from the lips of the madmen who speak these non-Buddhist views."

[This discussion is adapted from Dogen's Shōbōgenzō Bendōwa.] 

 

Day of the Rainhouses, 58th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Electra): For some reason, I didn't want to sit for my meditation today. Everything about the day felt a little off - it started with the shutters rattling at 9:00 am from a 4.1-mag earthquake up in Tennessee and then continued with nearly constant rain. I felt hungry all day and eating didn't seem to affect my appetite. Perhaps subconsciously to avoid having to sit, I randomly started on a big cleaning project, emptying out the cabinets in my study into big piles of papers, books, junk, and ephemera onto my floor that I couldn't just ignore and leave there while I sat.

But I did eventually get the piles sorted and threw out recycled a lot of paper. Somewhere in the process, and to give you an idea of the size of the project, I found, organized, and stored all of my tax returns going back to 1980. But I did finally finish, and then, despite my preferences, sat down for my alternating-day zazen. 

It was easy. The hard part isn't sitting for 90 minutes - that's easy. The hard part is just first sitting down and getting starting.

When I finished and started to settle back into my housebound, rainy day, I saw that the Celtics game had started at 3:30 and was already well into the 3rd Quarter. I had thought it was an evening game, but had I known the tip-off was 3:30, I definitely wouldn't have sat down and started my zazen. I would have waited until after the game, and then put it off until after I fed the cat, and then after I ate dinner myself, and then after, well, whatever other excuse I could come up with. I'm glad now that I didn't know the start time. Ignorance is bliss.

The rain's forecast to last through tomorrow and for the next several days. I may not get my every-other-day walks in, but I'm glad I got the intervening-day sitting taken care of today. 

 

Day of the World Tree, 57th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Deneb): Towards the end of the Heart Sutra, the Prajñā-Pāramitā mantra is invoked  It is introduced in the sutra as "the great miraculous manta, the great bright manta, the supreme mantra, the incomparable mantra which removes all suffering and is true not false." 

It is my least favorite part of the Heart Sutra. It's so insistent on the virtue of the mantra and tries so hard to sell it that I've always wanted to go on and ad lib, "the really fucking swell mantra, it really is the best mantra, the guarantee your money back mantra, you won't find a better mantra, goddamn I really love this mantra," etc.

Buddhism is generally humble about its virtues and encourages its followers to question and critically evaluate the teachings. So it's a bit surprising the way the Heart Sutra insists that the Prajñā-Pāramitā sutra ("gate, gate,  pāragate, pārasamgate, bodhi, svāhā") is so superior to any other. That last phrase ("and is true not false") is especially jarring in its stark duality for a religion that preaches non-duality ("these is no up, there is no down, these is no true and false").

In 1994, Gudo Nishijima translated those lines of the Heart Sutra as, "So remember: prajñā-pāramitā is a great and mystical spell; it is a great and luminous spell; it is the supreme spell; it is a spell in the unequaled state of equilibrium. It can clear away all suffering. It is real, not empty." A later (2007) version of his translation used the traditional term "mantra" instead of "spell." 

I like "real, not empty" much more than "true, not false," especially in the way that "emptiness," or shunyatā, is understood in Zen (impermanent, devoid of an independent existence). 

In his commentary on the Heart Sutra, Zen Master Dogen pointed out that the manifestation of prajñā (wisdom) is the arising of the myriad things (the real dharmas), while the real dharmas are themselves aspects of emptiness. Form is emptiness, and emptiness is form.

So one can assume that the Heart Sutra is saying that actual wisdom, prajñā, not the words of the Prajñā-Pāramitā mantra or even the practice of chanting, is the manifestation of reality (the myriad things) and the myriad things are all impermanent and empty of an independence existence. I can understand how translators might come up with "true, not false" from whatever the original words were, but I like "real, not empty" much more.

At this point, someone out there is wondering, "Sure, but the sutra is saying it's 'not empty' and you're saying 'all things are empty.' So which is it?" 

I'm saying that all things are empty and without all things there is no emptiness. Interdependence.

 

Day of the Holy Mountain, 56th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Castor): These are the end times. 

I know that sounds hyperbolic and over the top, but I really believe it to be true. We are on the verge of so many collapses - ecological, climatic, political, economic - that I don't see any way the world continues without violence, and by violence I don't mean only mobs and riots (although that will happen) but also armies and bombs. It's not a question of if it will happen (it will) or when (soon), but where. Each person's best hope is that it happens elsewhere and affects someone else, not them.

It's already happening to Ukrainians and Palestinians and now to Kashmiris as well. It's been happening all across Africa and in Central and South America. It's been happening in Haiti.   

I'm not a prepper - my reaction to the impending collapse isn't to horde food and water and arm myself to the teeth, ready to kill anyone who tries to take away from me what I think of as mine. It's that kind of mentality on both a personal, national, and international level that got us into this situation to start with. I have no interest in being the last person on Earth to starve to death after I've exhausted my and everyone else's rations.

Preppers are actually optimists - they assume that there will be some version of society or a world worth surviving for if only they could make it through some temporary crisis. Pessimists assume things will get bad and then get even worse. Why delay the inevitable just to experience even more suffering?

But in the meantime, today. It's sunny outside and birds are chirping. Food is still available in the supermarkets and I get clean water from my tap. Why darken these days with anxieties about future famine and war? These are the days about which future people will dream. Enjoy them now.

Day of the Marauders, 55th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): The Union of Concerned Scientists' Doomsday Clock might officially be at 89 seconds before midnight, but my own sense of impending doom sets the clock far closer to the end of the world.   

India and Pakistan, two nuclear-armed nations, have exchanged deadly, although non-nuclear, strikes. Jets have been shot down over Kashmir and civilians killed. The conflict could quickly spiral beyond the nations' borders.

I've never been to Kashmir (I've never been on the Asian continent), but by all reports it's one of the world's most beautiful places. It's literally the setting of the fictional Shangri-La, paradise on Earth. Mountainous and remote, it includes the India-administered territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, the Pakistan-administered territories of Azad Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, and the Chinese-administered territories of Aksai Chin and the Trans-Karakoram Tract. India and Pakistan have been contesting the boundaries and each others' claims to sovereignty for decades.

The last time the dispute escalated to a military confrontation was in 2019. Then, U.S. officials detected enough movement in the nuclear arsenals of both nations to be alarmed, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was awakened in the middle of the night. He worked the phone in an attempt to convince each side that the other was not prepping for nuclear war. That clash quickly cooled after India dropped bombs in a wooded hills near a madrasa that it claimed was harboring terrorists and Pakistan dropped some munitions on the Indian side soon after. Things remained touchy for awhile  time with the news in both countries in a jingoistic overdrive before returning to an uneasy middle ground.

That was six years ago. The attacks last week were very different: The Indian military did not drop bombs in the middle of the woods this time. The strikes hit near major population hubs, and Pakistani military officials said that more than 20 people, including a child, have died. The world is expecting Pakistan to retaliate and it’s hard to imagine this skirmish ending in memes and a media frenzy.

Formerly, the U.S .would have stepped in and steadied the situation, calming the fire, and leading diplomacy. That's not the case now. The President's financial and personal self-interests aren't served by this conflict, and a detached Trump simply called the escalation, “a shame.”

“We just heard about it,” he said of the Indian strikes. “They’ve been fighting for a long time. I just hope it ends very quickly.” Shortly after the strikes, Secretary of State Marco Rubio was briefed on the military actions. Rubio tweeted that he’s “monitoring closely,” as if watching a crisis unfold on TV counts as leadership.

This isn’t just embarrassing, it’s dangerous. The world no longer sees America as the stabilizing force it once was. Instead, it sees disinformation replacing intelligence, posturing instead of policy, and a White House that can't, or won’t, lead.

This is how trust collapses. This is how vacuums of power form, and authoritarian regimes boldly step into such vacuums. China has an obvious interest in a potential nuclear war breaking out on its border and in an area to which it has claims of its own. They're likely to step in and attempt some diplomacy, but with their ties to Pakistan and their own territorial interests in the area, they may not be as trusted by either side as the U.S. once was. China could decide to step in with military action. It's less clear how Shia Iran will react to the situation in Sunni Kashmir.

I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but Kashmir and situations like this have long been considered likely scenarios for the start of World War III. Add to this the stunning level of sheer incompetence and absence of leadership in the United States, where the president doesn't see how he personally could make a profit off this crisis, and the situation becomes even more dangerous. Add to this the current situations in Ukraine and Palestine, where Russia or Israel might decide to use fighting in the Kashmir as a diversion to escalate their own war efforts, and things are even more dire. 

When the world needs more than ever the cool-headed diplomacy of an Obama or even a Biden in his prime, we instead have the self-serving narcissism of a mentally diminished Trump, surrounded by his boot-licking lackeys who dare not question their dear leader. 

I don't see this all ending well for anybody.

 

Day of the Everlasting Moraine, 54th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Atlas): I may be the only one, but I couldn't care less about the Met Gala. 

I couldn't care less about the celebrity guests, the outlandish, attention-getting outfits they wore, or who attended which after party. The media insists on giving the event breathless, page one coverage, but it's really just another attempt by the entertainment aristocracy to continue their demand of our attention and veneration. 

I don't care about the 20-foot or whatever trailer on Diana Ross' gown. I don't care about Diana Ross (c'mon, it's 2025 and she hasn't done anything noteworthy since the 1980s). I don't care that Andre 3000 strapped a piano to his back. I wouldn't care if he arrived carrying the Christ's original cross on his back. I don't even know or recognize most of the so-called celebrities on the red carpet and their ridiculous-looking outfits don't compel me to learn more about them.

Some people just have too much time, money, and ego on their hands.

The planet is dying. There are wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Our president is a corrupt demagogue destroying our democracy. Life-and-death is the great matter. These are the things the press should be discussing, not the width of Chance the Rapper's lapels.     

 

Day of the Blue Circle, 53rd of Spring, 525 M.E. (Helios): Today, I resumed my alternating-day walking routine (I missed Saturday because of rain). I drove up to the Paces Mill trailhead along the Chattahoochee River, a different route than usual to spice up my routine, but the parking lot and trailhead were closed due to construction. Apparently, extensive repairs were needed after Hurricane Helene last year, but the Park Service claims it will all be completed for reopening later this month. From my quick look as I drove past, they still have a lot of work left to do and a May 2025 reopening seems optimistic.

I went back home and walked instead on my local Beltline/Tanyard Creek route. It was a lovely day for walking - high 60s, dry, and partly sunny. I also managed to double my birding life list from the 13 species at the beginning of the month to 26 species. Many of my new birds are quite ordinary and common, like the crow, the house wren and house finch, and the bluebird and catbird. Others are a little more exotic but hardly rare, like the cedar waxwing, red-bellied woodpecker, brown-breasted nuthatch, blue-gray gnatcatcher, and pine warbler. I finally spotted a barred owl, which are ubiquitous in this area but had been playing coy and eluding me lately. I also saw a pair of Canadian geese walking on the golf course and a pair of mallards swimming in Tanyard Creek. Naively, I always thought that "mallard" was just a term for a male duck of any species, but TIL that it's actually a species unto itself, Anas platyrhynchos (which sounds like a rhinoceros' asshole).

So my modest, just-getting-started, life list after only five days is now:

• American crow
• American robin
• barred owl
• belted kingfisher
• blue jay
• blue-gray gnatcatcher
• brown-breasted nuthatch
• Canadian goose
• Carolina wren
• cedar waxwing
• downy woodpecker
• eastern bluebird
• gray catbird
• great blue heron
• house finch 
• indigo bunting
• mallard
• mourning dove
• northern cardinal
• northern house wren 
• pine warbler
• red-bellied woodpecker
• red-eyed vireo
• red-shouldered hawk
• summer tanager
• tufted titmouse 

It's not much, but it's a start.

Update: Shortly after posting this, I took out the trash and heard a bird practically screaming at me. It was quite loud and simply calling out a demanding "tweet" over and over. It was easy to spot: a fat, sparrow-like bird with a dark blue head and orange sides. It flew up on my roof tweeting at me, then down to a low branch on a nearby tree, and finally starting hopping around on the ground, all while loudly shrieking as if demanding my attention. I identified it, an eastern towhee, and added it to my life list above. It was as if it had felt left out and was demanding to be included. 

 

Establishment of the Dreamweapon, 52nd Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Electra): I didn't walk yesterday because of the chance of rain all day. There were dry intervals during the day when I could have gone outside, but now that my walks are averaging eight to ten miles they take three to four hours and I couldn't be certain that I wouldn't get caught out in the rain at some point like I did last week. You win some, you lose some, and some get rained out, they say. Yesterday was a rainout.

No worries. I'll just skip a day and pick it back up again tomorrow. Today was a sitting (meditation) day. 

The alternating walking/sitting cycle gives a sort of rhythm to my days and to my life. My preferences have become my habits, my habits have become my routines, my routines have become rituals, and rituals eventually take on the appearance of the sacred. 

In the middle of last month, I fell off my routine. A few rainy days disrupted my walks, and before I knew it, my walking disruption led to a disruption in my sitting. You miss a day or two of your routine and before you know it, you've missed a whole week. Then two.  I felt disoriented during those weeks. A rudderless ennui overtook me and I lost interest in other aspects of my life. Television, video games, even music - all boring. But after I resumed sitting two weeks ago, everything has snapped back into focus and rhythm, and my life, or my interest in my life, has resumed.       

Day of the Swan, 51st of Spring, 525 M.E. (Deneb): In 2016, as Donald Trump campaigned for the presidency, a woman using the name Katie Johnson filed a lawsuit claiming that in 1994 when she was 13 she had been held as a "sex slave" by Trump and Jeffrey Epstein at one of Epstein’s New York parties and forced to perform sex acts. The case was later withdrawn, not because she lied or because her story fell apart, but because she was terrified. Her attorney, Lisa Bloom, confirmed that Katie had received threats. Her client was supposed to hold a press conference but instead she disappeared and disconnected her phone. 

Sixteen women have publicly accused Donald Trump of sexual assault or misconduct. One said he raped her in a dressing room, and another said he forced himself on her when she was a child. Others said he groped them or kissed them without consent. Four women said Trump walked in on them while they were undressing at beauty pageants. 

He's denied every single case and he's called the women liars. He said they were making it up for attention and he successfully ran for president. Twice.

But in recordings released by CNN, Trump told Howard Stern in 2005 that he went backstage during a Miss USA or Miss Universe pageant when the contestants were naked. “I’ll tell you the funniest is that I’ll go backstage before a show and everyone’s getting dressed,” Trump told Stern. 

“No men are anywhere, and I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it. … ‘Is everyone OK?’ You know, they’re standing there with no clothes. ‘Is everybody OK?’ And you see these incredible-looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”

Former Miss New Hampshire Bridget Sullivan told BuzzFeed News it was “shocking” that Trump would come backstage to wish the contestants good luck when many of them weren’t dressed. "The time that he walked through the dressing rooms was really shocking. We were all naked,” she said.

E. Jean Carroll testified that she met Trump in a department store in 1995 or 1996. She described him pushing her into a dressing room and forcing his fingers inside her. Decades later, she came forward and pressed charges. A jury found him guilty of sexual abuse but he walked free. 

Jessica Leeds sat next to Trump on a plane in the early 1980s. He kissed her, groped her chest, and reached up her skirt. She moved to another seat in coach. “He was like an octopus,” she said.

Kristin Anderson says she was in a Manhattan bar in the 1990s when a man next to her reached up her skirt and touched her through her underwear. She turned and recognized the man as Donald Trump.

Temple Taggart McDowell was Miss Utah USA in 1997 and claims Trump kissed her without consent on two separate occasions.

Rachel Crooks was a 22-year-old receptionist in 2005 when she says she met Trump in an office building. He grabbed her, pulled her in, and kissed her on the mouth.

Summer Zervos was an Apprentice contestant in 2007. She claims she met Trump at a Beverly Hills hotel to discuss a job opportunity. Instead, she says, he grabbed her breasts, kissed her, and tried to lead her into a bedroom.

Trump has denied any of these accusations are true, although his own words seem to confirm the charges. In the infamous Access Hollywood tape, he said, 

"I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful... I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything," later adding, "Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything."

These allegations span decades and follow the same pattern - Trump is accused of forcing himself on women, groping them or kissing them without consent, only to deny every allegation, dismiss his accusers as liars, and claim they are politically motivated. But then he publicly brags to Howard Stern and Billy Bush about the very behavior he's denying. And a jury in New York, his home town, found him guilty of sexual abuse in the E. Jean Carroll case.

But this is not just about one man. There will always be another Trump, another Epstein. Another name added to the list of powerful men who used power as a shield while their victims carried the weight alone.

Bill Cosby’s victims spent years screaming into the void before anyone listened. Harvey Weinstein silenced his accusers with money and threats. The Catholic Church buried thousands of child abuse cases. Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell ran an international trafficking ring that catered to the most powerful men in the world. They went down, but their clients walked free.

Larry Nassar was trusted with the bodies of young girls—Olympians, gymnasts, children—while he molested them under the guise of medical treatment. They told their coaches, trainers, and officials. Nobody wanted to hear them. The institution and money were more important. By the time Nassar was finally held accountable, hundreds of girls had already been abused.

Jerry Sandusky was a legend at Penn State. He molested young boys for decades. People knew. A man saw him rape a child in the showers and told his superiors. Nothing happened. The program was worth too much. The coach was too valuable. The child were mere footnotes.

But again and for the record (please don't sue me), Trump claims the allegations aren't true and are politically or monetarily motivated. But who are you going to believe, 25 separate women who have accused Trump of rape, kissing and groping without consent, looking under women's skirts, and walking in on naked teenage pageant contestants, or a man found to have committed sexual abuse by a New York jury and has bragged about that behavior in the media?

On Last Legs, 50th Day of Spring, 525 M.E. (Castor): They call it "Trump Derangement Syndrome," as if any criticism of the worst, most incompetent, and hands-down plain stupidest president we've ever had must be some sort of mental disorder. But even if we were to agree to overlook the fact that he incited an insurrection against the government on January 6, 2021 (something I won't agree to), there's the fact that he separated children from their families and then lost those children somewhere in the bureaucracy, pressured Georgia's governor and secretary of state to “find” him nonexistent votes, and got impeached and then got impeached again.

After his first disastrous term, Trump had the worst jobs record of any president in modern history, increased the national debt by nearly $8 trillion, and had three of the highest annual trade deficits in U.S. history. He got into a losing tariff war with China that forced U.S. taxpayers to bail out farmers but claimed that his losing tariff war was somehow a "win" for America. He pushed through massive tax cuts for the wealthiest but balked at helping working Americans.

He repeatedly used the  racist dog-whistle term “China virus” as he mismanaged a pandemic that killed over a million Americans. He claimed that the coronavirus would “magically” disappear on its own, withdrew the U.S. from the World Health Organization in the middle of the crisis, and frequently attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading scientist on infectious disease. He suggested that people should inject bleach into their bodies to fight the virus, mocked wearing face masks as a protection against transmitting the disease, incited anti-lockdown protestors in several states at the height of the pandemic, and held rallies filled with maskless supporters. He claimed that if we tested fewer people for covid we’d have fewer cases. He told Bob Woodward in private that the virus was a big deal but then downplayed it in public. After he eventually and inevitably came down with the illness himself, he suggested that it really wasn’t that bad because he recovered with the help of top government doctors and treatments not available to the public, and forced maskless Secret Service agents to drive him around Walter Reed Hospital while he was still contagious.

He called neo-Nazis “very fine people.” He tear-gassed peaceful protesters on Lafayette Square so he could get a photo op holding a Bible in front of a church. He tried to block all Muslims from entering the country, and hired a senior staffer who cited the non-existent "Bowling Green Massacre" as a reason to ban Muslims. He encouraged police officers to rough up suspects.

He pressured Ukraine to dig up dirt on Joe Biden, coddled the leader of Saudi Arabia after he ordered the execution and dismemberment of a US-based journalist, and abandoned our allies the Kurds to Turkey. He announced a withdrawal of troops from Syria which not only handed Russia and ISIS a win but also prompted his defense secretary to resign in protest. He praised dictators and authoritarians around the world while criticizing allies, got played by North Korea's Kim Jung Un and his “love letters,” and openly discussed national security issues in the dining room at Mar-a-Lago where everyone could hear him. He pushed the leader of Montenegro out of the way during a photo op, called Haiti and African nations “shithole” countries, thought that Nambia was a country, and got into a telephone fight with the leader of Australia. He once left a NATO summit early in a huff and nearly got us into a war with Iran after threatening them by tweet, but still maintained that he should be awarded a Nobel Peace Prize.

By a conservative measure, he lied over 30,000 times, tweeting so much dangerous propaganda that Twitter eventually banned him. He falsely claimed that he had won the 2016 popular vote, forced his press secretary to claim without merit that his was the largest inauguration crowd in history, refused to concede the 2020 election, refused to allow the presidential transition to begin, and refused to attend his successors’ inauguration. He fired the head of election cyber-security after he said that the 2020 election was secure, and subsequently lost 60 election fraud cases in court, including some before judges he himself had nominated. He claimed that legitimate investigations of his wrongdoing were “witch hunts” and considered firing special counsel Robert Mueller on several occasions. He claimed that he single handedly brought back the phrase “Merry Christmas” even though it hadn’t gone anywhere, and drew on a map with a Sharpie to justify his inaccurate claim that Alabama had been threatened by a hurricane.

He suggested that the government should nuke hurricanes.

He held private meetings with Vladimir Putin without staff present and didn’t disclose those meetings -  the US had to find out about the meetings via Russian media. He took Vladimir Putin’s word over that of the US intelligence community, fired the FBI director for investigating his ties to Russia, and did absolutely nothing after Russia hacked the U.S. government. He tried to get Russia back into the G7, blurted out classified information to Russian officials, and said nothing when Vladimir Putin poisoned a leading opposition figure.

He hired his unqualified daughter and son-in-law to work in the White House and appointed corrupt heads to the EPA, the Interior Department, HHS, and the USDA. He placed a political hack in charge of the Postal Service, berated and belittled his hand-picked Attorney General after he had recused himself from the Russia probe, called his vice president a pussy for following the Constitution, bragged about firing the FBI director on TV, insulted his own Cabinet members on Twitter, and forced those same Cabinet members to praise him publicly as if he were some sort of cult leader. His own Secretary of State called him a moron.

He called Black Lives Matter a “symbol of hate,” claimed that Black people would overrun the suburbs if Biden won, insulted reporters of color, insulted women reporters, insulted women reporters of color, and told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by,” yet he claimed he did more for African Americans than any president since Lincoln.

He banned transgender people from serving in the military, insulted war hero John McCain, even after his death, vetoed a defense funding bill because it renamed military bases previously named for Confederate soldiers. He called veterans and soldiers who died in combat losers and suckers, blew off honoring American war dead in France because it was raining, and diverted military funding to build his wall, the one that Mexico was supposed to pay for (it didn’t).

He ejected reporters from the White House briefing room who asked tough questions, walked out of an interview with 60 Minutes' Lesley Stahl, and repeatedly called the media “enemies of the people.” He gave the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Rush Limbaugh at a State of the Union address.

He withdrew the US from the Paris climate accords, from the Iranian nuclear deal, and from the Trans-Pacific Partnership which was designed to block China’s advances, and failed to reiterate US commitment to defending NATO allies.

He repeatedly violated the emoluments clause and refused to release his tax returns. He charged the Secret Service jacked-up rates when they had to stay at Trump properties, used his Twitter account to blast Nordstrom when it stopped selling Ivanka’s merchandise, held blatant campaign rallies at the White House, tried to pressure the U.K. to hold the British Open at his golf course, and tried to force the G7 to hold their meeting at his golf resort in Florida.

He spent an obscene amount of time playing golf after criticizing Barack Obama for playing (far less) golf while president, spent countless hours every day watching Fox News, and falsely claimed that he turned down being Time’s Man of the Year.

He called the city of Baltimore the “worst in the nation.” He insulted various members of Congress and the media with infantile nicknames, including calling a U.S. Senator “Pocahontas” and an African-American Congresswoman “low IQ.” He insulted the leader of Canada, the leader of France, the leader of the United Kingdom, the leader of Germany, and the leader of Sweden. 

He hired and associated with numerous shady figures, many of whom, including his campaign manager and national security adviser, were eventually convicted of federal offenses. He pardoned several of those shady associates.

He opened up millions of pristine federal lands to development and drilling, rolled back regulations that stopped coal companies from dumping toxic waste into rivers, allowed political hacks to overrule government scientists on major reports on climate change and other issues, and overturned energy conservation standards that even industry supported, all while personally obsessed over low-flow toilets and showers.

He botched the response to Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico and threw paper towels at Puerto Ricans when he finally visited them.

He ignored or didn’t even take part in daily intelligence briefings, suggested that wind turbines cause cancer, stared directly into an eclipse even though everyone over the age of five knows not to do that, said that he had a special aptitude for science, and called himself a very stable genius despite significant evidence to the contrary.

Given all of that, do his critics really have a "derangement," some sort of mental illness, or do his supporters have a combination of short memories, willful disbelief, and cognitive dissonance?

 

Day of Discovering Neverness, 49th of Spring, 525 M.E. (Betelgeuse): Happy May Day, comrades.  May oppressed working-class men and women all over the world overcome the tyranny of oligarchs and cast off the chains and shackles of autocracy. 

I discovered the North Loop of the Cochran Shoals Trail, today. I don't mean "discover" in a Christopher Columbus way - I recognize that many have walked on that trail before me, including  the U.S. Park Service employees who cleared it and maintain it. It's just that today was the first time I included it in my alternating day walk so it's new to me.

The North Loop adds about two miles to my 10-mile Cochran Shoals/Sope Creek walking route, but ironically I finished today at 8.7 miles, less than my usual distance. I bypassed part of my 10-mile loop since I was initially unsure how much mileage I was adding and overcompensated. But now I have a future goal of completing a 12-mile North Loop-Cochran Shoals-Sope Creek hike - something to look forward to.

During my walk on the North Loop today, I recorded, but didn't see, a belted kingfisher. The belted kingfisher is a stocky and large-headed bird with a shaggy, punk-rock crest. It's powder blue on top with a white underbelly with a blue band. It's almost always solitary, perched along the edges of streams, lakes, and estuaries and emitting the loud, rattling call I heard. 

I know all this because my brilliant daughter suggested I try the free Merlin Bird ID app by Cornell University, which recognizes and identifies birds by song. On my first walk Tuesday, I recorded the usual robins and blue jays endemic to the eastern U.S., as well as many cardinals, Carolina wrens, mourning doves, and tufted titmice. I was excited to also get a downy woodpecker, red-shouldered hawk, indigo bunting, and even a great blue heron wading in the Chattahoochee River. Today, in addition to the kingfisher, I also recorded a summer tanager and a red-eyed vireo. My life list is now 13 species, which isn't a lot but is based so far on only two walks. I haven't even recorded my neighborhood barred owls yet.