05 Walking:

Madame Brett Park…

… while walking, i composed several micro poems…

_ Collecting eggs– while rooster casually rapes a chicken._

_ Early morning walk– the air thick and pregnant with heat._

_ Two cormorants, wings outstretched– we’re innocent!_

_ Plush rabbit doll lying on the trail– missing childhood._

_ Two redwing blackbirds fussing– love or war?_

03 The Daily Read, Part 2:

The Haiku of Issa…

… well, another round of poems i am slow to connect to…

… one about a toad that looks like it could belch a cloud…

… frogs and toads are auspicious signs in Japan, believed to bring good fortune, agriculturally, financially, and to journeys…

… is belching a cloud akin to spewing good fortune?…

… in Japan, frogs and toads are also related to the sun and, in particular, the moon, the three legged frog being symbolic of the moon and it’s three phases…

… or is the idea of the toad belching, bringing the toad back to earth… none of this is readily apparent…

… i inadvertently learn that a belching toad portends rain in Zambia…

02 The Daily Read, Part 1:

Reading up on the history of the Fairness Doctrine… this is a wikipedia entry that is pretty comprehensive and relatively neutral…

… after reading the wikipedia article, a couple of impressions…

• in general, liberals are for it, conservatives are against it… this makes sense in that a liberal society is more open to hearing opposing points of view and new information…
• conservative arguments are centered around issues of free speech and private property…
• the conservative theory is, that with the proliferation of information outlets it is not needed to provide access to opposing points of view…
• newspapers have never been subject to such regulation, the argument then is, why should other forms of media be?…

… personally, i believe the current media environment has allowed markets to be served by a prevailing and one sided point of view and that social media giants have ensured the siloing of populations into one sided media presentations of information and issues… the result is a public unable to debate the issues in a meaningful way, and therefor subject to demagoguery and division of and by politicians… it’s very unhealthy for the republic as we are witnessing…

… free speech is an important value, but it is also an important value that the public be well informed about the various sides of any issues and that a full spectrum of information be at least in front of them… current media market domination and social media algorithms that drive the public into silos is counterproductive and needs to be regulated… whether a new Fairness Doctrine can do that, or something more fine tuned to the present information acquisition environment is needed is a question for experts… that something is needed is beyond question…

01 First Thoughts:

… feeling so much better this morning… no sleep interruption from the dogs, little alcohol last night…

… Heather Cox Richardson mentioned Tucker Carlson… the hairs stand up on the back of my neck… a despicable person… i keep thinking there has to be a way to regulate misinformation, that if we don’t find a way, we are doomed…

… i am increasingly thinking i will remove myself from the services of the big tech companies, google, twitter, Facebook, instagram, etc… yesterday i created a ProtonMail account… i will withdraw from conducting personal business on gmail…

… a micro.blog member posted a quote by Carl Sagan, written in 1996, that is so prescient…

_ “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…_

The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance”¹

… what is the antidote?… it begins with killing the filibuster and passage of voting rights legislation… it then moves on to legislation to curb the spreading of disinformation, such as a modern day Fairness Doctrine… there are freedom of speech issues with it for sure, but propaganda masquerading as opinion is presently extremely unhealthy to society… one has to be held accountable for spreading demonstrably false information when it is done willfully, maliciously and/or for selfish and political reasons… there should be certain speech, sharing and topics of conversation that are banned altogether, as in Germany and some other European countries, where the ideology and symbology of White Supremacy and Nazism are banned…

… i don’t believe a society can function well with absolute freedom of the individual, there need to be boundaries… a certain amount of individual freedom must be given up for a greater good… the balance of individual freedom vs. greater good should be managed by substantive debate in the public and a continuous review and revision of the curbs, but the curbs need to be there…

04 Scenes From a Walk: 📷

… i generally process my photographs to black and white, but sometimes color is the whole reason you make a photograph…

03 Walking:

… despite exhaustion, i manage a walk… a fairly long one at that…

… i sit in one of my favorite spots, the bank of Fishkill Creek near the old bridge… the creek is full… i struggle to muster enough interesting thought to make a meaningful post… this is all i have…

02 Daily Read:

Haiku by Issa…

… six poems… none of them grabs me… maybe the one about one fly, one human and a large room… flies are annoying… Issa seems to have written a lot about flies… in searching for the cultural meaning of flies, nothing much comes up… an article in Kyoto Journal sites Issa as a major writer on the fly situation… i read the following poem a number of days ago…

やれうつな蠅が手をすり足をする

yare utsuna hae ga te wo suri ashi wo suru

No, not that fly!

It wrings its hands,

its feet, imploringly.¹

… about which the author of the Kyoto Journal article says…

_ Among the hundreds of poems written by Japanese authors about flies and their vexed hunters, the most famous —there’s a whole book about its long genealogy and vast progeny — is without doubt the one written by Kobayashi Issa (1763–1827):²_

… i wonder why Issa had such a preoccupation with flies?… i am not sure that the straightforward answer, that they are ubiquitous and utterly annoying, is the best answer… i think one needs to look to what the spiritual purpose of flies are in a religion like Buddhism, to remind one that being in the moment is important, but not always likable… and that compassion is often difficult…

… another article in Tricycle, a Buddhist publication… about compassion, about flies… a quote from it…

Compassion in all its flavors is woven through the enormous canon of Buddhist thought. Its root meaning is “to suffer with.” We are able to feel compassion toward those beings who look like us and those who are most familiar. (These are not the same thing; dissimilar creatures can be deeply familiar, as we know from our time spent with dogs, with horses—even lizards.) At what point do we extend this circle past what is known, past what looks like us? At what point do we suffer with what is completely strange? And how far must that circle extend before it includes the sheep bot fly?³

… well, it seems after all, there was something to pay attention to in the morning’s poems…

01 First Thoughts:

… Fiona, evil dog… she is determined that i will not sleep… she got restless at 1:30 AM, for 1 1/2 hours i tried to ignore her, she would not settle down… i got little more than three hours sleep… my whole day will be disrupted… this has been a pretty sucky week between restless dogs and mother-in-laws having car accidents… the one good thing happened yesterday, a young woman friend was highly complimentary of some photographic work i shared on FB…

… right wing conservatives in Tennessee have gone bat shit crazy… putting an end to vaccination outreach for children… not just COVID, all normal childhood vaccines… the state’s director of vaccination programs was summarily fired for sending out a memo reminding vaccine providers that teens older than 14 didn’t have to get parental permission to get vaccinated, which is actual state law… a whole lot of unnecessary sickness and death will be the result… why?, because politicians are stoking the culture wars in hopes of getting elected… the situation is so bad that Fitch, a bond rating company, is considering lowering the United States Government bond rating from AAA status… because of the political situation… there has to be a better way… maybe politicians need to be a professionally licensed class of workers and there should be severe penalties for disinformation…

… i am fed up with just about everything that intrudes on my life right now… just about everything…

08 First Tomatoes!

… of the season… three San Marzano’s…

07 Today I Learned:

… who Olivia Rodrigo is…

06 Micro Poems:

… a couple today…

Upon hearing about my mother in law’s car accident…

Unintended acceleration– what consequences!

… and…

In an antique shop window– goddess Kali for sale.

05 Scenes From a Walk:

📷

04 Walking:

… Main Street walk… staying close to home in case H needs me…

… right now, sitting by the falls on Roundhouse property…

… when i arrived, a young, redheaded woman avoiding passing me in a narrow space… i don’t blame her…

… along the way, i photographed a statue of the goddess Kali in an antique store window… i also wrote a micro poem about it… it occurs to me that when i photograph religious statues i should look up their cultural significance and record it… this would be useful for possible photo assemblages in the future…

03 Photography:

… an article by Miss Rosen, one of the small number of women photography critics… in it, i learn about Prince Street Girls, an iconic documentary work by Susan Meiselas… the reference to Meiselas gives the article footing in photographic history, some gravity, but the Zine being reviewed is a fashion Zine… Miss Rosen presents, but doesn’t critique the effort… since all proceeds from sales of the zine are to benefit a charity serving the neighborhood of the creators, one could imagine Miss Rosen writing the piece to promote a good cause… the zine itself lacks the compelling depth of Meiselas’ work… young womanhood as imagined by the fashion industry…

02 Daily Read:

Haiku by Issa…

… one about a staring contest with a very large frog… this is a famous one i think… i look up the cultural significance of frogs and find an article on the usc.edu website that has this to say about frogs in Japanese culture…

In Japan, the frog is usually seen as a symbol of good fortune associated with magical powers. Because the Japanese word for frog is “kaeru”, which is pronounced in the same way as “return”, travelers carry a small frog amulet with the intent of returning safely home.¹

… another article on frog symbolism confirms the above and adds the moon as an association with frogs, the three legged frog and the moon, the three phases of the moon…

… the frog is associated with rainfall and good harvests, and is a symbol of spring, the seasonal reference in the poem… that the artist has a staring contest with the frog presents a kind of stand off moment… is it reluctance to pursue a spiritual journey?… is it a latter stage in life confronting youth?…

… another poem about being a devout Buddhist while killing mosquitos… Buddhism argues respect to all creatures, even the annoying ones… some sects can barely walk through the landscape for fear of killing something unwittingly… yet, there are annoying creatures that can actually make us sick… we kill them regardless of our devotions… mosquitos are a spring-summer reference… the poem perhaps about spiritual journeys having difficulties…

… here is an article about insects and Japanese culture that is more general in nature…

01 First Thoughts:

… late last night, a call from L to let H know their mother had been in a car accident along with P who was driving… injuries did not seem to be life threatening, but the plan was to get them off island to a hospital… this was proving difficult because of fog… h came to bed without news of their actual arrival at a hospital… the accident was caused, apparently, by P stepping on the gas instead of the brakes… there will be discussions in the family about whether P should be driving anymore… also whether M should be living on the island at all…

… we have been watching Outlander for weeks now, about half way through the third season which is starting to seem a little campy at times… in last night’s episode, Claire returns to Jaimie, Jaimie faints dead away… cut to credits…

11 Micro Poems:

…several in one post…

_ Returning to normal– one eye on the variants._

_ Squashing ants in the kitchen– doesn’t bode well for my karma._

_ Restless dog– is it really only 3 AM?_

_ To escape the rain– I buy coffee I don’t want._

… i think that’s it for today…

10 My Photography:

📷

… rather than use pano mode, i take multiple photos and stitch them together in Lightroom… i feel the results are better?… nothing to base that on… i will have to do a side by side comparison…

09 Scenes From a Walk:

📷

08 Ulysses Discovery, Obsidian

… a Micro.blog member makes me aware of Obsidian app, it’s got a free version so i download it to see what it is about…

… my immediate reaction is that it may be too complex for me… a steep learning curve and i am not sure i need the complexity…

… i decided to see if Ulysses has some of the functionality that was attracting me and discover a functionality that i didn’t know was there, creating custom search folders which means it is easy to gather together stuff on the same subject material…

… super excited about that…

07 Walking:

… feeling rather uninspired, tired, a little depressed… lack of sleep…

… i had ambitious plans for my walk, but i can’t, not today…

… we need to solve the problem with the dogs waking me up early… messes up my whole day…

… i give up on the walk, make my way to Kitchen & Coffee… J is in the house, a cheery round-faced redhead greets me at the counter and takes my order… a woman i recognize is sitting across from me, Liz is her name i think… a waitress somewhere in my past…

… i buy coffee beans, there are none in the house, H will be unhappy about that…

… J has filled out a bit, i might have noted that before, can’t remember…

… as i was walking and thinking, i decided i would like the night off from Salon… just sent K an email informing him of that fact…

… suddenly L is J… hmmm…

06 La Veneno, Spain’s Badass Trans Superstar:

… an article about La Veneno in Hyperallergic…

… trans women interest me… it’s the one form of alternative sexuality i could fancy myself being, except i think i would make an unattractive woman and i do enjoy heterosexual life… there is a biographical miniseries on HBO about La Veneno…

05 Art Installation by Sarah Sze:

Image of Fallen Sky installation by Nick Knight

… this article in Colossal catches my attention because Storm King, the installation site, is 15 minutes from where i live… we are fortunate to live near two major art installation sites, Storm King and Dia Beacon…

04 Creation Story by Aaron Canipe

… an article in Booooooom…

Aaron Canipe from Creation Story

… an all black and white project…

Seen through the lens of the South, this edit of work takes the viewer through a cosmological and primordial journey of a world created by a divinity disrupted…¹

… it’s an interesting set of images with an interesting concept for their organization… the creator suggests that it is a selection from a broader body of work, pulled together to tell a story the photographer may not have specifically intended in the beginning, but there are themes and you pursue them…

03 The Daily Read, Part II:

The Haiku of Issa…

… today’s haikus are a little enigmatic…

… one about a moth finding brightness in the chamber of a woman, and being burnt to a crisp… the woman’s chamber is significant and brings the poet directly into the action… there is no need to describe the setting as a woman’s chamber unless there is an intended double meaning, that the poet is drawn to the flame of the woman and metaphorically burnt to a crisp for his labors… it does not sound as though his visit was entirely satisfactory… i look up moths as cultural symbols and find nothing substantial…

… another about scarecrows all being crooked… i look up the cultural significance of scarecrows in Japan and there is some… it is a folk deity, known as Kuebiko, representing folk wisdom, knowledge and agriculture¹… Issa notes that he doesn’t know about the people in the town but the scarecrows are crooked… is this meant in a corruption kind of way?… or just a state of general disorderliness represented by lack of attention to their scarecrows, which are deities after all… or that one can expect problems with wisdom, knowledge and agriculture from the town he is entering… he identifies the town as his home town, so maybe it is about memories and formative experience… is he talking about himself more than the town?…

… another about plum trees blooming in January in other provinces… this is odd, plum trees do bloom from January into February and are considered harbingers of spring… so Issa is saying they bloom in other provinces but not where he is… since he does not identify the province he is in, i assume it is metaphorical, something about old age perhaps?… reaching the place of having little life left to offer?… an article in Wikipedia² confirms the plum blossom as a symbol of spring and is believed to be a protective charm against evil… so the lack of blossoms is likely about old age and or lack of protection against evil… both?…