In 2018, new "official" painted portraits of the Obamas were unveiled, then started a cross-country tour for folks to enjoy. Here's Barack's portrait painted by Kehinde Wiley with his characteristic #Busy background. It was a #Busy day, too: a lot of people viewing 23 Nov 2018 #BlueskyArtShow

This is me, #Busy at crocheting what I called "Sue's Doily" (for the expected recipient), actually a large centerpiece in a modern pineapple design. (Size 10 ecru thread; shown raw & unblocked.) The overall length was about 25 inches (64 cm). 29 Sep 2009 #BlueskyArtShow #Crochet

In 2017 we went to the #Kutztown Folk Festival, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania [USA]. One moment I enjoyed was meeting this member of "Die Grossdaadi Grundsau Lodge" ["Big Daddies Groundhog Lodge"], a group of men who apparently gather to spend time together being NOT #Busy. 3 Jul 2017 #BlueskyArtShow

Last fall we had our "master" bathroom remodeled. Here is what half of it looked like after 2 #Busy days of demolition. I remember some anxiety wondering whether this chaos could ever turn into a new, beautiful bathroom. Dear reader: it did. 9 Sep 2025 #BlueskyArtShow

In one of our busiest days on a trip to Rome, we took in the amazing "Quartiere Coppedè", the "Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna", lunch in Vatican City & visit St Peter's. Here's my husband Isaac already looking slightly exhausted at the modern-art gallery. 31 Oct 2017 #BlueskyArtShow #Busy

This feels like an encouraging sign to me.

"In a democratic society, political power belongs to the people. And in a liberal democratic society, political power belongs not to 'the people' in general but instead to each and every one of its members." — Alexandre Lefebvre, "Liberalism As A Way Of Life" #CommonplaceBook

Handwringing liberal analyses I find less than helpful if they offer no solutions beyond "be worried". This analysis is useful in its details, and it does not give in to pessimism, but bolsters the idea of keeping up the fight, especially in ways that we know work.

On the Graham Platner question: I don't think I have a firm opinion yet. However, I think this essay may have contributed to my finding a path to my answer.

For local peeps: Adrian Boafo is one of many candidates in the Democratic Primary for MD 5th District House seat, being vacated by Steny Hoyer. Chances are Mr Boafo's name is familiar, largely because enormous amounts of money are being spent to run ads in our market. Aside from all that ...

Such a simple, sensible messsage.

In 2022 we were visiting friends in Milwaukee, Wisconsin [USA]. One evening we went for dinner at Ma Fischer's diner. Up front: I had their liver & onions which, along with country-fried steak, is my test for diner quality. Now, this was at a time when there was ... 24 July 2022 #FoodOnFriday

This is the first LEGO I've ever been attracted to—but I'm really, really, really attracted to it.

For our Pride needs: how beautiful is this! I'm seeing kilts on a bagpipe corps in a Pride Parade. I'm seeing faaabulous!

#CatchingMyEar today is this fun little moment (a complete piece, only 1.5 minutes long), called "Hello", from Elmer Bernstein's score for the 1984 film "Ghostbusters". It's worth hearing on its own at least as a puzzle to identify the various instruments/sound-makers as they play. #Music

#TIL that Dolly Parton & Robert Reich are the same age AND the same height.

@phidipdbq.bsky.social , did you once lead a secret life as Béla Fleck? I would have thought I'd have heard you practicing your banjo in your Altoona room.

Hey, Python aficionados! Interested in a "PyCon Ireland" this fall? Need a reason to visit Dublin? Why am I promoting this? Because I took the cover photo last year of the famous Ha'Penny Bridge across the River Liffey in Dublin, and I think it looks splendid! #Photograph #Dublin #HapennyBridge

The linked piece is a disturbing expose about how "official" *government" websites, built with gobs of dark-web techniques, are being built with no oversight, directed by the White House.

#CatchingMyEar today, oddly, was this performance of a very familiar piece by Sousa, his march, "The Thunderer". Since Morton Gould died in 1996, I presume this is an older recording but it sounds great. I was very satisfied by how it emphasized Sousa's typical use of countermelodies... #Music

Look at all those fools! Putting their money into solar (when sun don't shine!) & wind (wind don't blow!). So fortunate that OUR US leadership is concentrating on petroleum & "CLEAN" coal! We'll show those tree-huggers and climate alarmists!!

I continually wonder why Visa & Mastercard haven't been nationalized yet. Does it really make sense that a tax on virtually every consumer financial transaction should be left in corporate hands? Am I the only one who thinks a Visa/USA affinity card would be useful to reduce national debt?

I've always disliked crowds. Going to my first big Pride event in Washington, DC, I didn't expect that it would feel so comfortable.

Nuthatches are such entertaining birds! I always wondered why they were called "nuthatch".

“I do not want to see the Republican party ride to political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.” —Sen. Margaret Chase Smith, 1 June 1950, in a speech before the US Senate (quoted below) #CommonplaceBook

With these arial views of the White House, is this one of those "how it started / how it's going" situations?

To my mind, #Libraries are essential for #Growth, both personal and cultural. This is the main-stacks area of the [then] newly built South Bowie Branch of the Prince George's County [Maryland, USA] Memorial Library System. 28 Dec 2016 #BlueskyArtShow #Books

Springtime: rebirth, #Growth, flowers! This is a gorgeous flowering #Quince (Chaenomeles x superba 'Mandarin') in full bloom at the [US] National Arboretum, in Washington, DC. 7 Apr 2013 #BlueskyArtShow #USNA #NationalArboretum #Chaenomeles

#Growth & #Decay seem to travel together. This is the #Cemetery at the Old Sacred Heart Church in Bowie, Maryland. 30 Oct 2016 #BlueskyArtShow

#Growth seem to be most anywhere you care to take a look. This was some moss growing on an out-of-the-way path in the garden of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes, behind Mount Saint Mary's College, in Emmitsburg, Maryland [USA]. Oct 2003 #BlueskyArtShow

Look at the crazy #Growth pattern of this manifestly old Paper Mulberry tree that we saw on the #Monticello estate of Thomas #Jefferson, near Charlottsville, Virginia [USA]. 28 Dec 2009 #BlueskyArtShow

If you're short and your #Growth is slow, you might be a #Bonsai! This is a small copse of miniaturized Trident maple trees (Acer buergerianum) at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum of the US National Arboretum, Washington, DC. 19 Feb 2023 #BlueskyArtShow #AcerBuergerianum #USNA

Hear #Growth, think flowers. This is the flower of a Glenn Dale Azalea, so called for having been developed at a USDA farm in Glenn Dale, Maryland [USA]—about half a mile from my house—to create more cold-tolerant plants. This is Rhododendron 'Bravura'. 5 May 2018 #BlueskyArtShow #GlennDateAzalea

About 10 years ago we were in Munich, wondering about dinner. Too tired to go to a restaurant, we went to the nearer Lidl and bought things that could be eaten cold & with the fingers. It was very satisfying. So now, when we're too lazy for making dinner and ... #FoodOnFriday #GermanPicnic

#CatchingMyEar : I don't know what it is that makes composers think of oboe concertos as the perfect way to evoke a pastoral mood, but here's another fine example: the 1st movement of Bohuslav Martinů's "Concerto for Oboe and Small Orchestra", played by Marion Gibson & Louisville Orchestra. #Music

When one arrives at our favorite Cafe ("Grump's", in Crofton, MD), they put a plastic animal on one's table with the number that goes with one's order. We often get the pig or duck, but on this day we got the giraffe, and giraffes are #Tall. 3 July 2025 #BlueskyArtShow

When we stayed in #Pisa for a couple of weeks, it was at the Hotel Duomo; here's the view up the street, from our room's balcony window, of the Duomo and it's celebrated, #Tall bell tower. The tower does NOT appear to be leaning from this perspective—but it is. 18 July 2007 #BlueskyArtShow

Here I am (on the right) with an old [!] college buddy on a balcony above the floor on which sits a very #Tall green-glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly. In the atrium of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts [USA]. 9 February 2016 #BlueskyArtShow

This #Tall bell tower goes with the church at this "Father Fitzgerald Retreat & Renewal Center" which, it seems, is now "permanently closed". We stopped briefly on a drive (10 years ago!) through Jemez Spring, New Mexico [USA]. 8 October 2016 #BlueskyArtShow #NewMexico

This is a favorite photo of mine—again! The main feature is the #Tall clock tower of the Old City Hall in #Toronto, illuminated by golden-hour sunlight to contrast with the dark canyon of buildings along this street. 27 October 2022 #BlueskyArtShow

These #Tall hyperbolic sections are the infamous (to those of us of a certain age) twin cooling towers of the Three-Mile Island Nuclear Power Plant, near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania [USA]. They became symbols after news broadcasts about the partial-meltdown in 1979. 27 May 2019 #BlueskyArtShow

This is a tall-case clock built by William Claggett in Newport, Rhode Island, c 1725. It's in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts [USA]. 9 February 2016 #BlueskyArtShow #Tall #Clock #Claggett

Once upon a time, at the #Maryland #RenaissanceFestival (Crownsville, MD, USA), there was a store called "Tall Toad". It sold fancy headgear for toads and "the upwardly noble". 26 September 2015 #BlueskyArtShow #Tall

Now, here's a fine bit of historical bizarreness.

#DönerKebab stores seem to be easy to find in Europe; they serve a pretty satisfying, quick meal, prepared to order. This store was near museums in Munich and gave us a nice picnic break from art and antiquities. 23 July 2014 #FoodOnFriday

I'm enjoying how Festus is becoming a familiar name of a Missouri town AND a model for The Resistance.

I suspect I've been visiting "Futility Closet" for decades now; also "Kottke.org" (Jason Kottke has a BSKY presence, too: @kottke.org ).

Just for practice, let's repeat: "That's not socialism; it's just better accounting."

#CatchingMyEar : this sprightly "Scherzo", from Jean Martinon's 1st String Quartet, is like a tart, little lemon bar for your afternoon tea. #Music

Memorable words from Stephen King. #CommonplaceBook