Perspective | The Direction of Intention

An Avalanche of Change [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 26, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Who knows why the mind associates one thing with another? Synapse firing often seems senseless. Sitting in the backyard, the warm orange and yellow sunset reflecting on the back fence, calling attention to the rusty sunflower, I was transported back in time to the Little Theatre, a converted mechanics shop tucked beside the maintenance yard on a high school campus. I ran a summer theatre program in that ramshackle-yet-sacred building for several years.

The memory that caught me while staring at the ferns and sunflowers at sunset was the day I arrived in town and found students stripping the asbestos insulation from the wiring of all the lighting instruments. Their teacher, the woman who taught theatre during the regular school year, had recently read an article about the dangers of asbestos. Since the lighting instruments were old and likely insulated with asbestos, she thought it was a good idea to have her students remove the insulation from the instruments.

I was gobsmacked. Asbestos is not dangerous until disturbed. Lighting instruments, like all things electrical become dangerous when the wiring is exposed and stripped of insulation. Not only was she exposing her students to the danger that she was trying to avoid but she was rendering the electrical equipment dangerous and a deadly fire hazard. She had good intentions. She had no idea what she was doing. In one fell swoop, she endangered her students lives on multiple fronts while ruining every single lighting instrument in the theatre.

I don’t know how ferns and sunflowers evoked that memory but I know where it took me: it immediately became a useful analogy for the current administration. Since they’ve cut and stripped regulations and oversight protections, Cyclospora, salmonella and eColi are run amok in our food chain. Measles are back with a vengeance. The Navy can’t feed its sailors as we fight a war without a reason. The oil reserves are disappearing. The healthcare system is collapsing. The justice department is soiling itself. Inflation is rising, but not nearly as fast as the national debt. They do not know what they are doing. They are stripping the asbestos from the lighting instruments. They let loose The Doge, elevated the Sycophants and are daily placing us in harms way while hampering our capacity to function. They are like the theatre teacher though not so well-meaning. This group is self-serving in its ineptitude.

Thankfully, my analogy doesn’t stop at the destruction. The actions of the theatre teacher ultimately served to remove her from her position. It was easy to see that she was a danger to her students and herself. The immediate necessity of having to resurrect or replace the lighting equipment was a tiny pebble that began an avalanche of change. In a few years there was a new theatre building with rehearsal space and shop space and updated technology. Our capacity to function not only improved, it opened doors to previously unimaginable possibilities.

That is my hope as I watch this kakistocracy systematically strip the insulation from our democratic wires. It’s becoming easier and easier to see that they are a danger to the people, the nation and to themselves. Ultimately, they will be removed and held accountable. The immediate necessity of fixing what they broke will lead to an avalanche of change that will prevent incompetence from every again grabbing the reins of the nation, and will open doors to previously unimaginable possibilities.

***

(During my time at the Little Theatre I would often take a break at sunset, climb to the roof and watch the world bath in warm orange and yellow light. I would take a breath in a busy day before climbing back down the ladder into the vibrant creative space – my laboratory space – that was a small black box theatre made from a converted mechanics shop. Sacred space. Maybe those synapses make sense after all.)

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUNFLOWER SUNSET

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: analogy, artistry, cyclospora, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DOGE, incompetence, kakistocracy, Kerri Sherwood, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, regulation, story, studio melange, sunflower, sunset, the melange | Leave a comment »

The Immediate Reality [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 25, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Like everywhere in the world, we’ve had a very-strange-weather summer. Extraordinary amounts of rain, day after day of grey, and more tornado warnings than you can shake-a-stick-at. With the single exception of our coleus, most of our plants are smashed and stressed. Given the devastation we see across the globe, the fires and floods and drought…the 1000 year storms happening every year. Even though, like our neighbors, we daily proclaim that we are “sick of it,” I tell myself that we have nothing to complain about.

And then I catch myself. In fact, I do not want to normalize or accept the unacceptable. We should be sick of it. We should be shouting at the top of our lungs. This devastation is, after all, not necessary.

In the early 1980’s I had a professor who accurately foretold what the world would look like in the 2020’s if we did not address the carbons we spew into the atmosphere and other pollutants we pour into our environment. He was not a sage or fortuneteller. He was a scientist who studied data. He considered factors like population growth, the ecological forces driving mass human migration and the stresses that a changing climate would put on our resources. He caught my attention one day when he said, “If you think the oil wars are bad, just wait for the water wars.”

Amazon has plans to build the biggest carbon polluter in the USA by a factor of two. The AI-data centers popping up everywhere are massive consumers of energy and spewers of carbon. In my latest rant (that Kerri had to endure) I wondered why the people who consider themselves the most entrepreneurial, the most innovative, namely the tech-bros, can’t seem to be bothered to REALLY innovate and insist on developing and using renewable energy to fuel their centers.

The current administration is squashing green energy while facilitating open season on the burning of fossil fuels. The fires burning across the globe, the storms dumping feet of rain, the mudslides, the drying rivers…are the result of our actions. Or our inaction. Decades of inaction. What I am writing is not news to anyone. In fact, it is old news, as old as my professor in 1980. It’s why I do not want to accept the weekly violent storms as the new normal. I – we – have everything to complain about. Our nation, our leaders plug their ears, cover their eyes, and stuff oil money in their pockets.

I read a heartening article this morning about the people of Hawaii helping each other the day after their community was devastated by Hurricane Lala. The people are helping their neighbors every way possible. Food, fuel, clothing, medical supplies…They are finding ways to help the extended community. They are taking care of each other.

It has been my experience that the best of humanity arises in people after a tragedy – at least for a few days. People helping people. They reach out. They bring what they have to give so they might lessen the suffering of their neighbors. They drop divisions and join forces. They deal with the immediate reality.

Make no mistake, climate change is a tragedy. It is a rolling storm, a human-fueled cataclysm. We need to recognize it for what it is. And then, in the midst of the devastation, in addition to bringing food and fuel and shelter to our neighbors, we need join forces, to come out, reach out, speak out and vote for representatives who will deal with the immediate reality, leaders who insist on protecting the future rather than enriching themselves.

read Kerri’s blogpost about COLEUS

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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, carbon emissions, climate change, community, data centers, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, environment, global warming, green energy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

What We Carry [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 19, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Purples and greens, secondary colors on the color wheel, accented with pops of vivid red, a primary color on the wheel. It is a brilliant study of contrast principle. The arrangement of opposites creates visual interest, dynamic, and focus. In other words, beauty. Remove the diversity of color and world is rendered bland.

The same principle applies to ingenuity. To the generation of ideas. To entrepreneurship. To good governance. Remove the contrasting ideas and the world is rendered insipid. It is a paradox: originality is a collision of a diversity of ideas and influences. Creativity requires an ancestry of imagination, a community of influence to stoke the fire in the artistic forge.

To all the white christian nationalists out there who would scrub this nation of color, keep this in mind: uniformity is by definition unchanging. In nature, the absence of diversity is a guaranteed wasteland. Only a wasted mind would strive for constant bland as its highest ideal.

Original thought and critical thinking is dangerous to the cult of wasted minds.

We are among the most entrepreneurial nations that has ever existed precisely because we are diverse. We are a crossroad of culture where ideas collide, debate is welcome and insight explodes into form. We are a great nation because we carry the contrast principle in our national dna.

Individualism is not the absence of other colors. It is the pop of red made vibrant by the field of green and purple that give it context and meaning. If rugged individualism is what makes this country great then it is way past time to recognize that the individual right is only made possible by the dogged support of the diverse community that created, protects and believes in the sanctity of laws that guarantee individual rights. An individual right is a societal ideal.

Think about that as ICE sweeps up and deports people with no thought to the law. Consider the rulings made by the rogue Supreme Court that put one man above the law, suspended due process rights, habeas corpus and dismantles voter’s rights. Consider the threat on the contrast principle when you next hear the rabid dogs of of this administration bark at the law while stroking their white-uniformity-fantasy that demonizes women, people of color, and anyone who has an opposing point of view.

Think about the assault on the contrast principle when you experience the continued full frontal assault on voter rights from this administration. They make no secret that they will stop at nothing to remove the voice and power of the other party from governance. They want no contrast, no diversity of thought, no opposition, no free and fair elections.

Robbing any voter of their most sacred individual right, the right to vote for a diversity of representation, robs you of your most sacred individual right, too. If you care about your individual rights, you must first care about protecting those rights for all others. All others. No exceptions. That is how a societal ideal becomes manifest into action.

We are a great nation because we carry the contrast principle in our national dna. We have not come this far or fought this hard to give it all away to a cult of bland, wasted minds lost in a homogeneous control fantasy.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CONTRAST PRINCIPLE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, contrast principle, critical thinking, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, due process, entrepreneurship, free and fair elections, habeas corpus, ice, identity, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Opposition, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | Leave a comment »

Not Hyperbole [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 6, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I added an addendum to my post yesterday. I’d purposely avoided the news of the day. I was in overwhelm with the corruption and blatant disregard for human life by the current administration. I was tired of asking myself and others, ‘How is this possible?” And then, right before I scheduled my post for publication, I saw a news report of the fires in Spokane and around the world. And, as fate and the algorithm would have it, right next to the news of the fires burning across the globe, was an article about Shell Oil’s massive surge in profits. I wanted to vomit. This was my addendum from yesterday:

(a note about the current state of the nation and the world: today I simply do not know what to say. There is fire. The oceans are heating. River’s are drying. Crops are dying. And, “Shell reported a massive surge in profits, posting second-quarter 2026 adjusted earnings of $9.84 billion, more than double the amount from the same period last year.” What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood and then finding pleasure in profiting from it?)

My question was not – and is not – hyperbole. “Carbon dioxide emissions are the primary driver of global climate change.” Oil. Gas. Petroleum. Coal. What is there to say about people setting fire to their neighborhood while finding pleasure in profiting from it?

This is not a challenge without a solution. We-the-people and the people of the world have the capacity and the technology to slow the warming if not turn it around. Our challenge is not will. Our challenge is the profit of special interests. Rampant greed. It fuels the cries that climate change is a “hoax,” it is the driver behind the current attempt of authoritarian take-down of our democracy.

In the era of the emergence of the corporate monster from the swamp, Teddy Roosevelt – a Republican – warned that the only protection a citizenry had against exploitation by the monster was a strong government willing to regulate its actions. Our current situation is not a new challenge in the USA:

“At many stages in the advance of humanity, this conflict between the men who possess more than they have earned and the men who have earned more than they possess is the central condition of progress. In our day it appears as the struggle of freemen to gain and hold the right of self-government as against the special interests, who twist the methods of free government into machinery for defeating the popular will…Now, this means that our government, National and State, must be freed from the sinister influence or control of special interests. Exactly as the special interests of cotton and slavery threatened our political integrity before the Civil War, so now the great special business interests too often control and corrupt the men and methods of government for their own profit. We must drive the special interests out of politics.” ~ Teddy Roosevelt, The “New Nationalism” speech, Osawatomie, Kansas, 1910

The difference between now and then is the scope of the existential crisis. Teddy Roosevelt cited the Civil War which was a very real threat to the existence of our nation. Our warming globe threatens the very existence of humanity. This is not hyperbole. The water wars are on the horizon. Crop failures, the collapse of the food supply, are a reality today. This is data. Information. It is knowledge that somehow has not landed as understanding in the corporate boardroom or the republican congress.

Wisdom is nowhere to be found.

Last night we had a discussion with 20 about a man who has made his home a bunker. His basement is filled with canned food. He hoards ammunition because he believes in the coming world bullets will be currency. His is a cowboy fantasy. It is the same fantasy as those entertained in the boardroom and strutted by the maga-republican-madhatters. This man thinks that he will somehow be able to go it alone in a societal collapse. His strategy is built entirely upon the labor and support of others. It has yet to occur to him that his cans of food did not manifest themselves. They represent the labor and service of hundreds of people, people that he pretends that he does not need or depend upon. The same is true of his guns and bullets. He did not forge or construct any of his many weapons. He has yet to consider that his cans and bullets will only go so far. And then what?

Penny wise and pound foolish. And arrogant. And blind.

We’ve only walked our loop twice since June. The storms, heat and humidity have made it impossible. While snapping his photo of the black-eyed-Susans, Kerri said, “I miss our loop. When do you think this gross weather is going to change?” I shook my head, not wanting to say what I was thinking because my thought was cynical: When the people stoking the fire in the world realize that their massive profit will not spare them from the flames.

Earth Interrupted VII, 48″x36″ mixed media

read Kerri’s blogpost about BLACK EYED SUSANS

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Edges, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, climate change, communal, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, existence, global warming, greed, humanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, profiteering, story, studio melange, Teddy Roosevelt, the melange | Leave a comment »

The Simple Basics [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 29, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Assess the damage. Begin the slow process of clearing the wreckage. Learn the forever-altered-landscape anew. Soon, the storm will be knit into a greater story. It will become the line between before and after.

After the storm there is clarity. Perhaps that is the gift of the storm? Standing amidst the wreckage it is common to hear the clarity: “No one was hurt and that’s all the matters. The stuff can be replaced but not the people.”

Neighbors who’ve rarely shared a word come out to help each other. The storm facilitates what countless sermons and public meetings could not. The fences are down. The politics erased. The devastation is owned by all. Helping hands are suddenly ubiquitous. Together, all share resources under the same narrative umbrella.

And why does it take a storm to bring us to clarity? To remember the simple basics of our shared humanity? The stuff can be replaced. Not the people.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE AFTERMATH

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, clarity, community, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, helping hands, humanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, storm, story, studio melange, the melange, togetherness | Leave a comment »

Take The Keys [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 22, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We’re writing a bit ahead so by the time you read this the smoke may have cleared. However, the challenge will remain.

Kerri just shared a short instagram piece. The cost of fighting the now mega-fires runs roughly a trillion dollars a year. The Instagram-speaker made it clear that, although forest fires happen every year, the mega-fires that are now an annual occurrence are avoidable. He asked an obvious question: why wouldn’t we put our trillion dollars toward combating climate change, toward green energy, toward the future…toward preventing the conditions that produce the mega-fires, tornadoes, floods and droughts that a heating globe produces?

There is a man in our community who claims to be climate scientist. Meet him on the street and he will loudly proclaim that climate change is a hoax. Hit him with some data and facts and he’ll reject it all as “fake science”. Apparently, his belief in himself is more powerful than actual science – which affords him the capacity to claim that only his science is real. It’s the same logic employed by RFK Jr., Dr. Oz and the rest of the authoritarian clown car, including the chief authoritarian who loves to yammer on and on about the virtues of clean coal. This is the same guy that suggested we shoot up with bleach to clean ourselves of COVID, the same man who lost an election six years ago and to this day refuses to accept the truth. His only recourse is to foment lies – much like the man in our community who thumps his chest on city streets and insists that he alone is the steward of facts.

It is no small challenge we face.

We took the keys from my dad when dementia unplugged him from reality. He slipped into a world all his own and that made him a danger to himself and to others. Listening to the confirmation hearings of Todd Blanche and Jay Clayton, the ramblings of a president in obvious mental decline, the white nationalist ravings of Stephen Miller…it’s time to take the keys. The whole maga country club is unplugged and dangerous.

Even though the actual fires are hundreds of miles away, the air in our region is too dangerous to breathe. That’s the way the systems on earth work. We are not separate no matter how much the current administration would like to pretend that we are. The number of tornadoes are breaking records. Record rainfall is causing flash floods here, there, and everywhere. “The world’s oceans absorb over 90% of the excess heat trapped in the Earth’s climate system. This relentless absorption is driving ocean temperatures to record highs, warming at double the rate they were twenty years ago.” (NASA Science)

The rising temperature in the ocean is akin to the canary in the coal mine. Our canary is currently motionless at the bottom of the cage.

We are the frog in the pot yet still might have the capacity to control the stove if we show up en masse to vote, if we fight to protect our vote from the crew that insists on living in their alternative facts, who claim to be cowboys but daily cry that they are victims of the past administration-or-plots-or-the-other-party, that their facts are the only facts, even when nothing they espouse lines up with demonstrable truth. They want power in perpetuity and will do and say anything to get it. Anything.

The reality that they deny – or are too morbidly wealthy to see – is that they, too, are frogs in the pot. They believe power and money will put them out of reach of the natural disasters that they conveniently ignore. Magical thinking. There is, after all, only one pot.

It’s time to take the keys before their hubris – or dedicated ignorance – kills all of us.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNRISE THOUGH SMOKE

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Filed under: Edges, Flawed Wednesday, Pattern, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, climate change, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fact, fires, forest fires, global warming, hubris, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, science, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vote | Leave a comment »

Bubbles, Bubbles Everywhere [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 20, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A “useful idiot” is a derogatory political term for a person who is manipulated into supporting a cause or agenda without fully understanding its true goals or consequences. They inadvertently aid a political group that may actually oppose their own interests. ~ Merriam-Webster

Historians will write of maga as a coalition of useful idiots.

Farmers. Hispanic males. Blue collar workers. Red-hat-wearing-flag-waving-women. People. Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, despite an insurrection, a first go-round that left the world slack-jawed at the incompetence, these people bit the lie hook, line and sinker. They voted a second time – in some cases a third time – for their own demise and the ruination of the very system they believed they were voting to protect.

I’ve ask myself everyday, “How is this possible?” And then…

And then I watch on-the-street-interviews with hardcore maga-mates who are honestly shocked when shown images of January 6th. It is as if they’ve never seen them – because they haven’t. Their news source – their information source – edited the facts to maintain the illusion within their bubble.

I am agog at the legion of Hispanic males who voted for a candidate who promised mass-deportation. What bubble gave them the illusion that masked immigration agents running amok, targeting brown and black people for deportation, would not impact them? What bubble gave them the illusion that they and their families would not be the target of the horror?

The current occupant of the White House destroyed the farm economy in his first term. What info-bubble made is possible for them to once again vote for the man, the party and “policies” so ruinous to their livelihood? “The number of farm bankruptcies in the second quarter of 2025 was double the number of bankruptcies for the entire year of 2024″. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

I shake my head in utter disbelief at the Joe Rogans, the right wing media who are now gobsmacked that inflation is rising, that we are in yet another forever war, that this administration is throwing the full weight of the government behind protecting the Epstein Class, that billionaires are getting wealthier while the American dream is farther and farther out of reach for the rest of the nation. Why are they now surprised? They voted for it. They cheered it into existence.

What bubble prevented them from seeing the obvious? The grift. The lies. The corruption. The incompetence. Project 2025, the blueprint for fascism, was not hidden. What bubble promotes dross as valuable?

It’s possible that we’ve found the Achilles Heel of the 1st Amendment. None of us are impervious to misinformation. What happens when the right of free speech, the protected expression of opinion, is confused with the concept of “news”? What happens when fiction is juicier and more profitable than fact? Confirmation bias for you and for me. A people no longer seeking the truth, but opinions with which we agree. Bubbles, bubbles, here and there. Useful idiots everywhere.

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUBBLES

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, confirmation bias, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Epstein Class, Evidence, fact, immigration, inflation, info bubbles, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, MAGA, media, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, useful idiots | Leave a comment »

Say, “Enough.” [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 15, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Few symbols are as positive as a dragonfly. So we were heartened when two decided to visit, resting in the branch that we’ve wrapped in lights and affixed to our deck. New beginnings, spiritual alignment, harmony in relationship. They stayed with us for quite awhile. They were willing subjects with the spontaneous photo shoot.

Each morning we read the two Heathers: Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese (It’s A Lovely Life). The news is bleak but their message is hopeful: we will get through this authoritarian nightmare if together we show-up and speak-up. This full frontal assault on our rights by the executive, republican legislative, and judicial branch (the extreme supremes) is unprecedented. The Heathers have faith in the will of the people. They are calling the people, all of us, to assert our will in this extreme moment in our nation’s history. Government of, by, and for the people requires the people to stand up to their government – the people that they elected – when their government goes rogue.

I couldn’t help but project the positive meaning of our dragonfly visit onto the entire nation. Somewhere out there is a new beginning, a nation of people, diverse and complex, that values harmony over division. From this hot fire a Phoenix will rise. But first, the fire. What is becoming more and more clear is that we cannot wait to stand up. The election in November is not certain. The window is closing. The authoritarian attacks are ramping up. We are the hope of the nation – if we stand up and say, “Enough”.

Enough. This week ICE killed two more innocent men. Their crime? They were driving to work. Enough. Due process and habeas corpus are guaranteed to all people in our constitution, citizens and non-citizens alike. Where did they go? Concentration camps and deportation without due process are blatantly unconstitutional. They are also un-american, not to mention amoral. Enough. Our government should not be providing cover for a rapist and a global pedophile network. Enough. And why-oh-why are we at war? Enough. Enough. Enough.

The basic right that they would now corrupt is the right to vote. Our vote is the final line, the only thing separating us from an ugly fall into fascism. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. There is no evidence – none – that our elections are or have ever been corrupt, why-oh-why are we inundated and permitting the incessant lies of a man so clearly afraid of a free and fair election. Enough.

Republican silence. Dedicated cowardice. A majority of ideologues populating the Supreme Court, wrecking our system of checks-and-balances in order to give an out-of-control executive unchecked power…it is anti-democratic. Enough.

Both Heathers caution that the days ahead will be darker because this administration is desperate. They – he – will do anything to hold onto power. Their – his -corruption is so egregious that they – he – will do anything to avoid accountability. Anything. And so we must meet their – his – “anything” with an equal and opposite force. A unified voice saying, “Enough.”

There is no more time for complacency. Wait-and-see will guarantee the end of our democracy. No one is or will be untouched by what this administration is attempting (I am suddenly awash in a memory: responding to a woman in a workshop who expressed a desire to find her voice, my business partner asked, “If you had your voice, what would you say?”). There is no more time to search for voice.

For me, the Heathers serve as dragonflies sitting on the branch above us. Hope. A new beginning. They remind us each day that our nation, living the promise of democracy, is possible. This is a cusp. What happens next is ours to decide, not the spineless republicans, not the corrupt supremes, not the wannabe dictator. Ours. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. Together – together – we must grow louder, stronger, every single day speaking with a unified voice. Enough.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DRAGONFLIES

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dragonfly, fascism, Heather Cox Richardson, Heather Delaney Reese, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, symbols, the melange, voice, vote | 1 Comment »

The Willingness To Change [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on July 14, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We will have a bumper crop of tomatoes this year. The heat, the humidity, the ample rain have provided the perfect tomato growing conditions.

Keep in mind that I am not an expert on tomato growing conditions. I have no knowledge and limited experience growing tomatoes so when I assert that we have perfect-tomato-growing-conditions I am being hyperbolic. I really don’t know. I am borrowing statements from 20 who is a seasoned grower of tomatoes. I do know and can write with certainty that our tomato plants are a’ poppin’. They are climbing to the sky. They are out of control.

What is it in us that needs to be right, with or without knowledge of the subject? Or at least appear to be? I suppose it is not a trait unique to our time but is a characteristic common in human beings. What is it in us that needs our opinions and judgments to masquerade as facts?

We live in the age of rabid confirmation bias. We seek easy reinforcement of what we believe-to-be-true while soundly rejecting any fact or mountain-of-data that contradicts what we believe. Every day we witness leaders make up what they want to be true, what they want us to believe. They ask us not to believe our eyes and many – too many – comply. Firmly planted into lazy minds is the phrase, “Fake News”.

For instance, elections in these United States are – and have always been – safe. Actual incidents of corruption or fraud in our elections are so minuscule that they are statistically zero. You’d never know that if you listened to the current occupant of the White House, the Speaker of the House or the maga republicans who currently clamor to pass a bill that will rob people of color and women of the right to vote. They commit fraud in the name of fraud prevention – and their base eats it like candy. People-who-want-to-believe-what-they-want-to-believe so participate in the destruction of the very system they claim to defend.

It would only take a moment to check the verity of their belief. That, to me, is the ultimate tragedy of our times: we’d rather defend a lie than confront a truth. We’d rather vehemently insist on our righteous belief, arguing over the existence of the iceberg in our path rather than turn the Titanic in time. As we are discovering, as becomes clearer every day in this kakistocracy, the USA is not unsinkable.

And it would only take a minute. And some courage. And some commitment to fact.

In 2020 we saw the insurrection with our own eyes. People died. In the wind-up to the insurrection we heard the loser-of-the-election call the Georgia secretary of state asking to “find” enough ballots to overturn the election. The loser spent months sowing the seeds of doubt in our elections, whipping his followers into a frenzy, readying them for violence because he knew he would lose. We are now, in 2026, witnessing a repeat performance, only this time it is more dangerous. We are everyday inundated with the false claim that our elections are fraudulent – and witnessing the republican party pretend that it is so. They act “as if”. It is a stage-performance with very real consequences that could include the end of our democracy.

Just a little commitment to fact. And some courage.

We must all face the fact that we cannot survive in a nation of dueling “facts”. The white nationalist fantasy of pure blood is – a fantasy. We are a diverse nation that strives for equity and inclusion. We are a nation of laws and not a nation of tyrant kings. Voter fraud is concocted by fraudsters who intend to usurp power from the hands of the people so they might forever live above the law.

If these republicans are successful in their attempted coup, they will successfully flip every statement I just wrote. We will be a nation subject to the rage of white supremacists, an authoritarian nation with the power firmly in the hands of the few, their crimes never subject to the law. We will be a democracy in memory only.

Truth takes just a few minutes to verify. And some courage. And the willingness to change when the facts do not support belief. Truth requires the ethical fortitude to call a lie a lie. Just a little commitment to fact.

read Kerri’s blog post about TOMATOES

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Just In Case [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on July 6, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Just in case you were confused, there is no such thing a clean coal.

Just in case you were confused, mining and drilling in National Parks destroys the park. The purpose of the “park” designation is to protect the land from commercial exploitation.

Just in case you were confused, the Environmental Protection Agency was meant to protect human health by protecting the environment. Having been gutted, industry now considers you and me as acceptable losses in their pursuit of profit.

Just in case you were confused, the CDC, The Center for Disease Control and Prevention was meant to protect public health and safety. Having been gutted, the severely reduced CDC now “benefits specific political, corporate, and decentralized entities. This primarily includes pharmaceutical and supplement companies marketing alternative or deregulated products, certain private healthcare conglomerates, and political advocates promoting decentralization over federal oversight.” (A-EYE) In other words, corporate profit and quackery triumph at the expense of public health.

Can you see the pattern? The same agenda has been applied to every-now-obliterated government protection agency. FEMA, The National Weather Service, USAID, Veterans Affairs, Consumer Finance Protection, The Social Security Administration, Medicaid…Privatization over people, profit over principle, pillage over prudence. And for good measure, destroying the Department of Education guarantees generations of uneducated people; an ignorant populace is more easily exploited.

As John K used to say, “Penny-wise and pound-foolish.” A new brand motto for the republican party? They love hoarding all the pennies while sending their not-quite-sincere-thoughts-and-prayers to the future.

(for a template of government that works for people, merely flip the current agenda on its head: public service that serves the public rather than corporate profiteering. It is not so hard to imagine.)

read Kerri’s blogpost about THEIR QUEST