Thunder Down Under: Limestone rock wall

Limestone rock wall (Detail #1)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

This abstract-looking painting is actually a realistic interpretation of a limestone rock wall at the sight of the oldest jail in Western Australia, in Fremantle, where we live. It closed only as recently as 1992. It was built by Australia’s first convicts to house them and others afterwards, for whom its condition was notoriously disgusting.

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 11

Stepen Kabak

By edRogers

The black sedan pulled into the alley behind the hotel where Mary and Tom had stayed the night before. Two men got out of the front, and one opened a rear door. The man who got out of the back seat was shorter than the other two men, but there was an air about him that let you know he wasn’t someone to be disregarded. Just looking into his cold, unemotional eyes had made many a man wet himself.

Correspondence: Fanfare without Trumpets

By Moristotle

Oh my! This is good stuff! “We Aren’t Built to Live in the Moment” [Martin E. P. Seligman & John Tierney, NY Times, May 19]. The “mental health field” has been broken for so long. If this methodology is perceived well and expanded, it just might be what changes “the field” to actually being effective. Excerpt:

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 10

Bad Guys Everywhere

By edRogers

Tom stepped out into the cold morning air to find that the wind was no longer blowing and the snow had stopped, but there was still a chill coming out of the north. That time of the year, that close to the North Pole, the sun never really came up. It just went from being very dark to being a little light.

The Loneliest Liberal: Trump at the dinner table

Business as usual

By James Knudsen

We are currently in the midst of the latest drama to come out of the Trump White House. It is alleged that President Trump asked then-FBI Chief James Comey to “let go” of the Russia investigation. I offer the following explanation of the thinking – er, the mindset – behind that statement. I’m not making an apology and I’m not excusing a President seeking to make an uncomfortable situation go away. My only hope is to illuminate.

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 9

First Love

By edRogers

They moved quietly down the dark, cold hall. They stepped ever so lightly. The thought of confronting some Russian they might awaken wasn’t very appetizing. Expecting the toilet from hell, Tom and Mary held their breath as they stepped into the bathroom and found the light. To their surprise, it was very clean and with a nice big bathtub and small hot-water heater on the wall above the faucets.

Ten Years Ago Today

By Lucas van Valckenborch –
Grandes énigmes de l'humanité -
éditions Larousse, Public Domain

Our own Tower of….

By Moristotle

[Originally published on May 25, 2007, not one word different.]

The original world envisioned in Genesis Chapter 11 “had one language and one speech” [Verse 1] and “the people [were] one” [Verse 6]. The Tower of Babel, far from being a tower of babble, was built as a monument to that unity – as a bulwark, somehow, to protect it:

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 8

A Cold Day in Russia

By edRogers

Mary and Tom were taken through two doors and seated in chairs and their hoods were removed. From behind a table, two bright lights shone on their faces. All they could see of the man across from them were his feet under the table.
    “Welcome to Russia, Mrs. Cahill, Mr. Warring. Just what do you think I can help you with, my American friends?”

Thunder Down Under: Oval landscape

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

This oval landscape captures a scene adjacent to a travel park we stayed in about three years ago while driving through South Australia, near the Murray River. It is about 15" across.

The astonishing appeal of candidate Trump

Personal factors reflected in many mirrors

By Moristotle

It appears certain now that Donald Trump wouldn’t have been elected President without help from Vladimir Putin of Russia and James B. Comey of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. But even without winning in the Electoral College, Trump would still have gotten many millions of votes. How was that possible?

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 7

The Plane Ride

By edRogers

Tom took back everything he said about Finland being no colder than New York. The sun wasn’t up yet. It was that time of morning when the light of day and the dark of night seemed to be fighting each other. The wind came out of the north and it felt, as they walked to the hangar, like a thousand daggers hitting them.

Sketches from Salt Lake: Diamond of light

Sunrise poem

By Geoffrey Dean

Diamond of light –
Streaming through the attic,
Dancing with the dust.

West Coast Observer: Honoré de Balzac’s Unknown Masterpiece

The President and our Congressman

By William Silveira

Before his self-recusal from the Russian/Trump Campaign investigation, our California (22nd) District’s Congressman, Devin Nunes, head of the House Intelligence Committee, made a surreptitious trip to the White House (no doubt at the bidding of the President) to collect information on what he and the President seemed to think was the burning issue before the Committee – information leaks. He did this without informing members of his own Committee. When what was obvious all along became blindingly obvious (that Nunes could not impartially lead an investigation into the issue of Russian [read Putin] meddling in the 2016 presidential election on behalf of the Trump Campaign Committee), Nunes recused himself from the investigation.

Fiction: Unwanted President. Chapter 6

How Cold Is Too Cold?

By edRogers

Tom caught a plane out of Atlanta into Seattle. From Seattle, he flew over the North Pole to Helsinki, Finland. It was the long way to Finland, but the only other flights going out of Atlanta to Finland stopped in New York. He wasn’t sure how they had found him in the little town of Milton. He had no doubt the New York airports would be covered – his friends in the SUV would be all over New York looking for him.

Thunder Down Under: Sunflower

“Sunflower” (detail)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

A friend gave us some sunflower seeds that she had had for years. No one thought they would grow, but out of the entire packet, one did. Shirley painted “Sunflower” just for this friend: