Thunder Down Under: In a quiet place

“A Quiet Place” (detail)

Painting by Shirley Deane/Midyett

Text by Vic Midyett

After laying off painting for a couple of months following the holidays, Shirley is back, and finds herself in a quiet place.

Boldt Words & Images: The Bronze Age of Comedy

Three golden anomalies

By Bob Boldt

Bert Kreischer (aka The Machine) is a comic I just discovered (I don’t get out much) who does his routine without his shirt covering his beer belly. In what I call “The Bronze Age of Comedy,” he now stands alone with my other two anomalies, Puddles Pity Party (Mike Geier) and Louis C.K. You can keep the tapes of all the MSC’s (mainstream comics) in the Carson vault awaiting the Alien Apocalypse: Colbert, Silverman, Fallon, Kimmel, etc. – boring. All the Progressive Left have to keep themselves amused are the hyperbolic Jimmy Dore and Lee Camp. (Also very boring.)

Magic (a poem)

By Roger Owens















When the leaves on the trees
Will no longer support your weight

Thunder Down Under: Cyclone Debbie

Before U.S. news reports it

By Vic Midyett

Hurricanes are called cyclones in the Southern Hemisphere. As I write this [at about 8:45 a.m. Tuesday in Western Australia, or 8:45 p.m. Monday, Eastern U.S.], Cyclone Debbie is wreaking havoc already on the East Coast of Australia. The eye is not due to enter the mainland until this afternoon [after midnight Monday, Eastern U.S.]. The East Coast of Australia is already getting 120 mile/hr winds and 8 inches/hr of rain. It is currently rated a Category 4 and expected to go higher. It is huge and very slow moving. Boats, roofs, etc. are already lost.

West Coast Observer: The Republican House Intelligence Committee

An oxymoron

By William Silveira

The West Coast, but more specifically Tulare County, where I live, has been thrown into the national spotlight by the actions of our Congressman, Devin Nunes, the head of the House Intelligence Committee, which is supposed to be looking into ties between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.

Boldt Words & Images: Transformation

By Bob Boldt

[From a talk to be delivered on April 9 (two weeks from today) to the author’s local Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, in Jefferson, Missouri.]

From Maxim Gorky’s anecdote about Lenin listening to Beethoven’s Appassionata:

The Loneliest Liberal: What Big Pharma could learn from theatre production

Winning the Battle on Black Mountain

By James Knudsen

Well, here it is March, and I still have things to write about that happened in February. That’s not just a different month, as of a few days ago, that’s a different season. February, despite being the shortest month, was a busy month.

Thunder Down Under: The world’s biggest cattle ranch

But it’s called a “cattle station” in Australia

By Vic Midyett

The Williams [Family] Cattle Company’s cattle station in Australia has become the largest in the world. The company’s purchase of another enormous cattle station doubled their holdings, which are now a whopping 45,000 sq. kilometers (27,962 sq. miles) – larger than the country of Israel, and over seven times the size of the King Ranch in Texas, which is “only” 1,289 sq. miles.

Let us now praise a famous dog

With thanks and apologies to James Agee and Ecclesiasticus

By Jonathan Price

Sam is dead. Our dog died seven years ago. That seven is a key marker for dogs – a symbolic marker for humans. The memories somehow persist.

Tomorrow will be a special day

The 12th annual National Puppy Day

By Moristotle

“National Puppy Day,” according to its entry in Wikipedia, “was founded in 2006 by Celebrity Pet & Home Lifestyle Expert and Author, Colleen Paige, who is also the founder of National Dog Day and National Cat Day (among many others).”

Dogs, Boys, and God (a poem)

By Roger Owens

God made little Boys loud
So that Dogs, who Love little Boys,
Could hear them from miles away
And, hearing, prick up their ears
In anticipated Joy.

Copyright © 2017 by Roger Owens

Correspondence: Irony...and a public dole

Current events

By Moristotle

“Weaponizing irony”: could this be one of Trump’s greatest offenses? “Trump Ruins Irony, Too” [Moises Velasquez-Manoff, NY Times, March 20]. Excerpt:

Night light

Rather noir

By Moristotle

When I looked into the bathroom mirror early this morning, my visage illuminated only by the blue of our new LED night light, I thought the effect was...interesting?

A stop on Maui’s Ke’anae Peninsula

Ke’anae Peninsula

Lava at high noon

By Chuck Smythe

Last October in Hawaii, on the way to Hana, I visited the island of Maui’s Ke’anae Peninsula. [“Ke’anae” is Hawaiian for “the mullet,” a chiefly marine fish that is widely caught for food – according to hanamaui.com.]

Correspondence: Happy St. Patrick’s Day

The South Lawn fountain at the White House
was dyed green for St. Patrick’s Day

Hooray for America’s Irish immigrants!

By Moristotle

The author of this article about Irish immigration, Fintan O’Toole, knows whereof he speaks – he is a columnist for The Irish Times. “Green Beer and Rank Hypocrisy” [NY Times, March 16]. Excerpt: