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Thursday, April 30, 2020

Covid-19 ~

What a humiliation for those who think they are so powerful.

Sunday, April 12, 2020

Tuesday, March 31, 2020

Covid-19 ~

It is quiet in quarantine, but I can hear the birds chirping.

Sunday, March 08, 2020

Our Own Fault ~

Many of us make our own idols-- and then, adoringly, bend the knee before them.

Wednesday, February 05, 2020

After Impeachment Failed~

Congratulations America!

Now we have a Dictator. 

His First Impeachment Trial ~

They told us, all 52 of them, that they had refused to consider the facts, and without further ado, proudly acquitted him. 

Monday, January 13, 2020

Casting a spell ~

The majority of Germans fell victim to Adolf Hitler's strong magic spell.

Saturday, January 11, 2020

Abrupt Ending ~

On the town square this morning I watched them wrap a chain around the stem of the massive Christmas tree and hitch it to the back of a tractor. They then dragged it away, down along the main street. People stopped along the sidewalks and watched it passing by.

Saturday, December 07, 2019

How Trust is Destroyed ~

Since in office Washington Post has listed 15,413 false or misleading statements made by the President.

Friday, December 06, 2019

The Founding Fathers ~

The good Germans didn't have a mechanism like impeachment to oust Adolph Hitler.

Wednesday, November 27, 2019

Saturday, November 16, 2019

The Greater USA ~

What about the Kurds, the valiant Peshmerga fighters, who fought and died for us? He abandoned them.

Thursday, October 31, 2019

Respect for Women ~

How can a man show respect for any woman who does not loathe a President who brags: " Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything."

Sunday, October 27, 2019

Changes Once Held For Impossible ~

Now they make you go out front of a restaurant if you want to smoke a cigarette. Even in cold weather!

Monday, October 07, 2019

Unmatched ~

Tweet Tweet ~
"If Turkey does anything that I, in my great and unmatched wisdom, consider to be off limits, I will totally destroy and obliterate the Economy of Turkey."

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

Thinking back to Nine-Eleven ~

Nine Eleven

On September eleven
when it happened
while we watched
we could not help thinking about
our own thin brick walls
left standing around us
here, in the heartland.

Walled in between
panic and gratitude
we sat gaping,
not noticing
how our helpless tears
would not stop falling.

Monday, August 26, 2019

Tuesday, August 20, 2019

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Where is the Anger over the Trump Administration? ~

                                              Hamodia
What we need is the courage of an Alexei Navalny. But our boiling nation is just taking this sitting down.

Thursday, June 27, 2019

Monday, June 24, 2019

Observance ~

Over here in Germany the people would protest if you went out and cut your lawn on a Sunday.

Wednesday, June 05, 2019

Disillusionment ~

When the end is near, a monk who had really been a monk all his life ends up asking if he had not been deluded the whole time, and if what he believed was all made up.


Wednesday, May 15, 2019

Seeing ~

Let the birds be your prophets and saints,
Let the clouds be your prophets and saints,
Let the flowers be your prophets and saints.

Friday, May 03, 2019

The Thomas Merton Prayer ~



My Lord God,
I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am
following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and
in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me
to face my perils alone.

Tuesday, April 30, 2019

America First ~

And the world, as I have known it for the past 70 years, continues to be torn apart and destroyed . . .

Monday, April 22, 2019

America Crumbling ~



Two major American sports teams have announced that they will stop playing Kate Smith's rendition of the Irving Berlin patriotic classic God Bless America because of racist views she supposedly had.

Friday, April 19, 2019

Easter 2019 ~

And Daniel Barenboim would rather not perform Johann Sebastian Bach's St. John Passion with the Berlin Philhormoniker because of the antisemitic passages in it.

Tuesday, April 09, 2019

Protestant Theologian ~

After being tortured Dietrich Bonhoeffer was executed by hanging on 9 April 1945 at a Nazi concentration camp.

Friday, April 05, 2019

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Sunday, March 10, 2019

Final Exam for the Graduates ~

I had taught them for years and they were obviously frightened. Written and oral exams tomorrow. I told them to relax now and forget the books. They had learned a lot of German in four years. . . Go downtown this evening and go for a quiet walk. No drinking, no horsing around. Turn in early for a good night's sleep. Come in tomorrow alert and looking sharp: boys in jacket, shirt and tie, the girls wearing their neat dresses. Have happy thoughts and be confident. If you let it, everything will meld and fall into place, but you must be calm and receptive.

Monday, February 04, 2019

Burial ~

The childen stood at the gravesite and heard them lower the coffin,  but they refused to lean over and look in. Then they broke into tears.

Sunday, January 13, 2019

Hate ~

" . . . this ability he has to sense our darkest instincts and call to them, coax them out of hiding, when we'd prefer not to see them at all."
Nancy Gibbs    Time