In the face of other things in mind and to blog about, I think this editorial from the NYT (scroll down) is an intriguing idea, our Earth calendar year 2025 half behind us and half ahead of us, to contemplate and perhaps reset ourselves. Halfway points are often benchmarks anyway; daughter Malinda's June 25 birthday is alway halfway from Christmas and halfway there.  And it had occurred to me that my upcoming birthday (knock, knock, wishing me long years) will mark exactly half my life ago, on my 45th birthday, that I finally started theological seminary and headed into what my father suggested was my destiny. Do we have destinies? IDK, but that one did feel right to me. Anyway, half of 2025 done and half to go. Evaluating: what's been right and good? Maybe all of it, eh? As Linda and I sometimes observe aloud, "We're both still alive!!" Early dawning and, remembering a song they used to close broadcasting with every evening on UF radio when Philip and I were fres...

Anyone's writing can help others gauge the author's intellect, interests, and mental state. I wonder whether anybody has been quietly plotting a bar chart on my +Time blogposts for the past fifteen years, showing an obvious mental decline and waiting for The Moment to do what needs to be done? One of the reasons I write such nonsense is to throw them off. ++++++++ From earlier, the sky darkened with a dark wide cloud passing over the Bay, now is lightening up. Little to do today, but lots to watch as the kitchen demolition folks arrive and start their work of discovery. I'm especially interested in the voids and whether some of that empty space might be captured in the renovation. We've lived in houses while demolition and construction were going on inside, and it can drive you mad. At one Time, the kitchen floor in the Old Place was out and open to the ground for several days, not my favorite as even after we screened all the openings around the foundation there were b...

Good morning, then! In due course 'll find a picture to put up there, maybe a car, maybe a fish. Who knows?! Early, first hour with hot & black out here on 7H porch admiring Creation, the Bay, a few gulls, an osprey sailing then stopping to hover before moving on. Earth with its firmament, the light blue b owl that sits atop this flat surface.  That first hour was totally sans personal electronics for a trial to see whether not having my phone in my hand would give me the shakes, nomesane? It didn't, and basking in the freedom was - - I dunno. As one use of Time, I watched the street lights go out over at Tyndall.  My first cuppa was 8 ounces of my perfect June club coffee. Now back outside with a 12 ounce plastic pitcher drawn from my Keurig, and two thin wedges of a combo blue-streaked soft cheese from Aldi's. We don't hit Aldi's much when Bill's is right up the street. I disappreciate that Aldi's replaced Winn-Dixie with the fried catfish; and now a s...

There is a Jewish wisdom that says a worm living in a jar of horseradish believes himself to be in the sweetest place there is. Not to touch a perfect proverb, but it means that whoever, whatever, wherever we are in life, we believe that's the only place to be. It came home to me this week in something I read describing Iran's Supreme Leader, a self-certain religious despot, as having come to the job from obscure nobody and nothing, and bringing with him a total ignorance of world knowledge and lack of intellectual curiosity; believing he knows all. He is not alone among authorities.  ++++++++++++ Now about me: for one thing, I'm a strong believer that the pictures I post with my +Time blogposts don't need to reflect anything I may say in my blogposts. Here's a picture of son Joe, for example, holding Hendrix, whom he claims as grandson. Joe is 64, H is a few weeks old. Joe seems to be introducing H to motorcycles. H's parents may not want the photo up, and if s...

You know, I was wrong: I don't understand War any more. "Let's remember Pearl Harbor" meant releasing unrestrained fury and "go on to Victory" that left the foe in the ashes of fiery Hell. A nymore, War seems to be tit for tat: you attack me, I hit you back sufficient to consider that I have saved face without undue risk, and we call it quits.  Except for the way Russia wages War, which is old fashioned total obliteration, the main facet of War these days is the screaming and shouting muscle flexing threats of Blowhards on every side. When ours is at it, he lets his voice move from his chest up into his throat where it sounds high-pitched and strained instead of deep and powerful. It's good actually, not bad, eh? Hopefully, less destruction and fewer people hurt and killed. IDK about the MIGA hats, though, reckon they'll be green, white, and red? Make Iran Great Again. A new American venture into - - "Nation Building" - - ? Anyway, when was...

Is the U.S. at War With Iran?   is the New York Times headline this morning. And the answer is that certain things are acts of war, and Yes, the U.S. is at war with Iran.  "War" these days, though, has shrunk from releasing all out explosive force on the enemy to saving face by retaliating, exchanging punches and waiting for the other side to hit back; so, now we're waiting to see how Iran will hit us back. Their retaliation is not likely to be the all-devastating vengeance that the Iranian noisemakers threatened to scare us off in the first place. The fact is, though, that every American interest and every American person, is now a fair target.  Saudi Arabia, our pseudo-ally, condemned Israel for attacking Iran: will the Saudis now condemn the U.S.? +++++++++ Anyway: other facts of history include that if someone had taken out Hitler in the 1930s, twentieth century history would have been quite different, and so would the world today. We would still have had war with Jap...

  "So, what now?" wonders the big man, who is actually an idiot, "What next?" IDK, I know nothing, so I'll just wait and watch with everyone else. I was tired of war - - WW2, Korea. Especially Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, big mistakes of know-everything arrogance. My inclination, rather than precipitous action, is more toward stretching relative Peace out as long as possible. But IDK, this is  not a war about political idealogy, this is  a religious and racial war where in Time we Americans could have been friends with the Persians. But IDK, an attack like last night's engages a state of war, and this makes us enemies.  Was it wise, a good idea? IDK, history will decide. I do know that I am not a proud American this morning. Coming up on my 90th birthday, which seems to have become an obsession with me anyway, I'm not afraid either, I'm not scared of war, ninety is a long life; but war is no longer soldiers marching out on a field and kneeling to shoo...