“Empires have risen and failed before, but to my knowledge no state has ever chosen to kill its own power, and succeeded with such rapidity.”

Something like lilac.

So yesterday, the president's allies unveiled a 22-foot-tall golden statue of him that they prayed around, and then the president confused Iran and Iraq, seemed clueless about his FDA commissioner getting fired, and called a reporter a bitch? Cool. Cool cool cool.

Bruce Davidson, Time of Change, 1962

Today is National Train Day.

"In the case of end credits, a clever animated sequence keeps the audience in their seats so proper acknowledgement can be given, not only to the stars but to all of the people who have worked on the film.

Sorry state we’re in when the president of the United States can call a reporter a bitch for asking a legitimate question about gas prices and the media says nothing… ? Shameful 😔

"As Nietzsche observed, we mostly rely on the façade of Christianity to restrain overt violence while still expressing it in sublimated forms whenever we can get away with it. We are only moral in the West mostly because we are cowardly, frail, and comfortable."

Foggy Pine

Witnessing southern states rush to dismantle black voting power is truly truly some heartbreaking shit to behold

Pope in Pompeii: “The wars that are being fought in so many regions of the world demand a renewed commitment not only economic and political, but also spiritual and religious. Peace is born within the heart. We cannot resign ourselves to the images of death that the news reports offer us every day.”

"Before we can grow up and learn to carry others we must learn to carry the weight of the fears that live in our own shadows. That’s a task that can only be done inwardly. Left undone, it leads to an adult with the power to do great damage as he or she projects their inner darkness on others."

Robert Johnson was born on May 8, 1911.

Jesse Welles

"The cardinals can choose well or poorly, and history will judge. But the Catholic conviction has always been that, in a way more mysterious than coercive, the right pope is somehow given to the Church for the moment in which the Church finds herself."

Flashback of the Flash for Friday. At 656pm on Monday, lightning strike and a double rainbow over the Chicago skyline. Enjoy!

I think we’ve found our favorite station….Van Buren Street Station.

jefferies apples, painted by royal charles steadman, 1920

At the FDR Memorial

"In short, the Archdiocese, and the USCCB, want to be able to receive public funds, while maintaining the ability to deny admissions to certain 4-year-old children. They want to deny school admission to children who identify as LGBTQ+ or who have parents who are LGBTQ+."

"You can’t defeat a dictatorship with poetry, but without poetry, and this is no metaphor, humanity disappears, literally, in the next five minutes."

"If you live in a more enlightened part of the country, in a state where lawmakers are not rushing back into session to make sure politicians get to pick their voters instead of allowing voters to choose their representatives, please do not ignore what is happening in the South."

A moment from the past frozen in time. About 2,000 years ago, it seems a dog stood on a wet clay tile in Verulanium (modern St Albans) and someone (the tiler?) threw a stone at it. The stone lodged in the tile along with the paw print. What a wonderful thing. 🏛️Verulanium Museum 📷 my own

A Timid Tulip

Ron Padgett

Standing before the White House to demand we close the concentration camps where roughly 70K people are now forced to endure horrific conditions by virtue of who they are, not anything they've done. #CloseTheCamps #BringThemHome

Red trillium (Trillium erectum) Adirondack Park, New York 4/29/26 Photo: Bekky Honkala

In the ER Him: You should have brought some poetry. Me: I’ve got plenty on my phone. Want me to read you some? Him: No. I’m in enough pain. Morphine kicks in.

Calumny (n) mid-15c., "false accusation, slander," from Old French calomnie (15c.), from Latin calumnia "trickery, subterfuge, misrepresentation, malicious charge," from calvi "to trick, deceive."

“The true strength of a nation lies in the cooperation of everyone in pursuing the common good. Authorities are called not to dominate, but to serve the people and foster their development.”

"There shall be no slaves. There shall be no masters."

Here is a nice mushroom

Sand Ripples

A chilly stiff breeze from Lake Michigan this morning at 63rd Streeet Beach.

"I fear that if I return, I will face arrest, violence, and possibly torture."

It’s rare to see a Virginia rail standing out in the open like this. Filmed this morning at Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary.

"Yet here, he is not only choosing to portray a man who could hardly have been further from royalty . . . but, he is also intentionally depicting him with this “kinglike” stature."

Last Summer

"The dollars can be recovered. The policies can be reversed. But those habits of the heart, once corrupted, take generations to mend—if they mend at all."

Lake Michigan Fishermen, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. September, 2019. 📷 Fujifilm X-T3 + XF16-55mmF2.8 R LM WR 🎞 55 mm – 3.2″ – f/16 – ISO 160 🏷️ #Photography #Landscapes

Green Point, September 1988. (No. 93) Pacific Rim National Park. British Columbia, Canada. Photograph© by Gary Nylander. Website: www.garynylander.com #artphotography #canada #vancouverisland #artist #photography #EastCoastKin #PhotographersOfBlueSky #ClassicMono #ECK

"I rushed back, and all five had their necks fully extended, mouths as wide as physics would allow, each one utterly certain, in the way that only the very new can be, that they are the most important thing in existence."

Wendell Berry

Trying to replace a brother's toilet seat, it comes to me that the world (or at least this toilet) is designed to make me feel incompetent. I guess I'm taking it kind of personally.

Seems about right to me.

Took a walk on Fullerton last night and captured many of the remaining tiles...and so begins the first of our Avondale series.

"Freedom is not a state; it is an act. It is not some enchanted garden perched high on a distant plateau where we can finally sit down and rest. Freedom is the continuous action we all must take, and each generation must do its part to create an even more fair, more just society." —John Lewis

Use the Think Luke!