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"If religious freedom is to retain its moral and theological coherence, it must be oriented toward the protection of persons rather than the exclusion of them."

Acceptably prolific cussing, apt landscape/architectural critique, and educational as f.....

1/2. He took the greatest military force in history, lost a war to a middle power in a week, begged the world to save him, & demanded the media lie about this & everything else. I try, but at a simple human level I do not see how anyone mistakes this man’s almost supernatural weakness for strength.

NY’s Archbishop Hicks: “Just as Irish immigrants once came to this country seeking hope and opportunity, today many immigrants come to our nation. …we are called to see them not as strangers, but as brothers and sisters.” thegoodnewsroom.org/full-text-ar...

"Thousands are sailing across the western ocean To a land of opportunity that some of them will never see Fortune prevailing across the western ocean Their bellies full, their spirits free They'll break the chains of poverty And they'll dance"

Listening to The Body of an American and Thousands Are Sailing.... If Shane MacGowan were alive, I think he'd have something direct to say about the complicity of so many Irish-Americans in crimes against migrants. It would be unprintable. And, it would be right. RIP

Travel Restrictions

Early Winter Beach

This late 19th-century build-your-own Statue of Liberty, from a well known producer of French popular prints, harking back to a time in which the US was not yet an international pariah & could still be seen as (literal) beacon of liberty. From Met Museum collection: www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

"Blue is a beautiful yet difficult hue to replicate in the natural world. The pigment made from Lapis lazuli was difficult to procure, mined from the far-off mountains of Badakhshan in what is today northeastern Afghanistan."

Part of a Sculpture

Peeking between the tombstones at Graceland Cemetery

Via NCR - Pope escalates call for ceasefire in Iran by addressing those responsible for the war during his Sunday address from St Peter’s .. #Iran #IranWar #PopeLeo #Lebanon www.ncronline.org/vatican/pope...

“Mass detention and mass deportation are a ‘grave moral evil,’ El Paso Bishop Mark Seitz said Sunday, calling on the faithful in the diocese who work in immigration enforcement to follow the Gospel over the orders of the Trump admin.” “No one has to obey an immoral order,” Bishop Seitz said:

Spring flowers and an indoor pot plant, very old watercolour of mine (from 1988). Sold ages ago and I don't know who has it now. #watercolour #crocuses #ipheion

Another pastel still life with lilies and a shell. It's not signed in this photo but I think it might have sold ages ago. #pastel #stilllife #lilies

Wendell Berry

If we made the green energy transition this war would be unthinkable and these authoritarians wouldn’t be in power — not in the US, not in Iran, not in Saudi Arabia, not in Russia. Hydrocarbons are killing our freedom and just plain killing us.

You should know that just after the invasion of Ukraine, Russia enacted two laws that criminalized independent war reporting and protesting the war. The laws made it illegal to spread “fake news” about Russia’s military or call for an end to its deployment. Penalties up to 15 yrs in prison.

Poem by Muriel Rukeyser www.divasofverse.com/2016/02/poem...

A good one ... unsettling.

Deceased Crustacean

Back home where we belong, looking up in the Cultural Center.

"Put power in the hands of people like that, as we have so tragically done, and they join the ranks of the world’s most dangerous people. Owing no debt of gratitude to anyone or anything, they wield their power solely for the sake of personal gain, indifferent to the rubble they leave in their wake.

"Umberto Eco, in Ur-Fascism lists the many faces of the creeping invisible fascism ... please take heed when pluralism is painted as weakness, questioning as betrayal, criticism as disloyalty, and disagreement as treason." Mary Ocher, Weimar: Reflections on History, Narrative, and Resistance

Posing a Leaf

funny guy

I saw a short-eared owl flying over the Montrose Beach Dunes this morning. It seemed to be making a brief visit as it was flying north up the lakefront.

comice pears, painted by amanda almira newton, 1910

"A real war with real death and real suffering being treated like it's a video game— it's sickening."

A Book on Display

new discovery strawberries, painted by mary daisy arnold, 1913

"New Ways Ministry’s Executive Director Francis DeBernardo adds that the two Catholic groups supporting Greater Than 'represent the fringe of traditional Catholicism, not the mainstream.'”

Oriental poppies, nettles and Macleaya cordata leaves, watercolour. I wonder if that Macleaya (plume poppy) will come up this year? It often disappears for a while and then pops up again. It's a lovely plant, not particularly invasive. #art #watercolour #botanicalart

"... corruption and incompetence go hand in hand."

In the Desert of the Heart

"The difficulty with clouds" and Three Other Poems by Judith Willson

This interview with the great @rebeccasolnit.bsky.social was a "wow" moment for me. Thanks, New York Times and David Marchese. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/07/m... I couldn't help noticing the question that seemed the most Times-like to me.

niagara grapes

Nice

"It is not adequate to protect yourself in bubble wrap and go through life while waiting for some perfectly sanitized way to do good in the world, for an encounter with suffering that you can hold at arms length."

'jails in search of prisoners'

Up a Tree

Suzanne Valadon (French painter) 1865 - 1938 Église de vieux Moulin près Compiègne (Oise), 1914 oil on canvas 65 x 54.5 cm. #art #painting #artist #BlueSkyArt

"The moral quest has never kept us moral; it’s just kept us from each other."

Turtle Tuesday!

On Harriet Tubman Day, one of my all-time favorite images by Jacob Lawrence: the joyful & ebullient screenprint "Play," based on panel #4 from the 1940 "Life of Harriet Tubman" series. The series, thirty-one paintings in all, was one of Lawrence's first major bodies of work