The weather on 7H porch is too warm for comfortably sitting outside to enjoy the break of Wednesday as July 31 slides into August, leaving behind two of our six months hurricane season. Four months to go, but only fools wish their Time away; it's about the only thing we have that cannot be replaced. Expected and Unexpected News from Israel, Beirut, and Teheran this morning. Ismail Haniyeh et al.   Assassination and assassins?  Everyone knows "et tu, Brute" the assassination of Julius Caesar. Abraham Lincoln at Ford's Theatre. President McKinley. We've read about the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which gave an excuse to kick off WW1.  I remember JFK's assassination,  RFK's assassination,  MLK's assassination,  the assassination of Mohandas Gandhi.  As I grew up my parents were still talking about Louisiana Governor / Senator Huey P Long, who was assassinated the week before I was born in September 1935.  I don't specifically remember, but kn...

There is an uneasiness in this half of the year, June 1 to December 1, hurricane season. In this morning's case, the yellow X is not ominous yet, but the rapid development of storms that we have experienced recently, the obscene surprise of waking up the morning of October 10, 2018, turning on television to see a Category 5 hurricane offshore from Mexico Beach at least means Take Notice. Keep Watch: an Advent theme before Advent. For myself, I'll take it to the wildfires, and to the earthquakes, tsunamis and tornadoes; but it's our own natural scourge. A theologian I once knew used the term "evil in the nature of things."  Where "evil" is relative. The storm on the surface of Jupiter is not evil because there's no Being there to suffer from it.  In some sense, we bring these evils down upon ourselves. An arsonist starting a fire. In climate change that we have contributed to, a part of Antarctica breaking off to melt and raise the sea level.  +++++++...

Gut-wrenching, heart-rending stories coming out of California and Canada where wildfires are devastating lives, and we in the hurricane zone understand at least somewhat.  What to do? There are bound to be human-habitable places on Earth where Father Nature is not a threat to us, eh? Political threats of authoritarianism are vile enough to make folks who have witnessed it firsthand or from afar want to leave the country; but nature - - hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, earthquakes - - where could we go?  Well do I remember the anguish after Category 5 Hurricane Michael, over whether to stay and take my chances, or relocate to - - where? Highlands? Me, at this age? Where? Frankford Avenue? Nothing is to be gained, and everything lost, to move away someplace and leave one's heart behind. This is the place of my heart, and I'm more than fortunate to find myself in, for me, the most beloved possible spot in it, peace and tranquility, an outlook over St Andrews Bay and into infinit...