Perspective | The Direction of Intention

Our Dull Ho-Hum [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 23, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“In spite of indignation and anxiety over what has occurred, I cannot help wondering where we have failed. There was a time during the war when we enjoyed the trust and respect of little and big nations everywhere. What has happened to turn that, in some cases, into suspicion and disdain? We cannot blame our leaders, because we are a democracy. Somehow we the people have failed.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, August 23, 1946

Our conversation was sparked by a post by John Pavlovitz: “The people I’m struggling the most with right now are the polite people, the patient people, the people who are acting as though they are above those of us who have f*cking had it.“

If our democracy fails – as it now seems is almost inevitable – we could blame the cowardly Republican congress, the unscrupulous executive or the corruption of the Supreme court. What of the responsibility that falls squarely on our shoulders?

We the people voted the corruption into place. For years we’ve tolerated the lies, the meanness of spirit, the grift. We tuned in to news that was more interested in ratings that in factual reporting. We allowed an insurrectionist, rapist, felon to run for the highest office in the land. We did not express outrage when the Supreme Court not only protected the felon, but granted him immunity from the law, elevating him to monarch status.

We’ve normalized the abhorrent. We’ve made the monstrous acceptable, ho-hum.

We have, for a decade, watched the real-time dismantling of democracy like we watch reality tv. We perform the daily doom scroll, seeking, grousing about and then forgetting the latest outrage. I return, again and again, to the forward Neil Postman wrote for his book, Amusing Ourselves to Death:

“Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley’s vision, no Big Brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore the technologies that undo their capacities to think.“

We are allowing the whitewashing of history, the celebration of ignorance over education. Only an empty-headed society would tolerate the elevation of the most unqualified to positions of leadership. 90 million people yawned and rolled over rather than go to the polls when the very existence of democracy was on the ballot. Congress knowingly confirmed a kakistocracy that made no effort to hide its authoritarian agenda.

Last weekend 4 – 6 million people took to the streets to protest the ho-hum. It was the largest protest in the history of our nation. It had no visible impact on our elected leaders. Ho-hum. They pushed forward their Grossly-Gluttonous-Bill with language that prevents the courts from checking the overreach of the executive. They added language that would make it impossible for a citizen to seek redress from government abuse.

They no longer fear the vote of the people. They are counting on our passivity. They are counting on our dull-minded ho-hum. They are counting on our capacity to change the channel when we don’t like what we are watching.

“We seem to have forgotten to weigh our values and to realize that we have to pay for the things we want. The payment which can bring about friendly and peaceful solutions is infinitely less costly than the payments which will have to be made if we are going to be an enemy to all the world.” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt, My Day, August 23, 1946

read Kerri’s blogpost about HO-HUM

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Filed under: Education, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: Amusing Ourselves to Death, artistry, authoritarianism, cult of ignorance, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Eleanor Roosevelt, ho hum, ignorance, John Pavlovitz, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lies, Neil Postman, passive, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »

The Antidote [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 19, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

This photo is of Apollo’s chariot arcing across the sky. It’s only visible because the clouds buffer the chariot’s brilliance.

Zeus is scheduled to come through later tonight. There is promise of thunderbolts. Dogga is not a fan of the flash-and-boom. Frankly, neither am I. Zeus is too showy for my tastes.

Persephone is back from her stay in the underworld and Demeter couldn’t be more pleased. The blossoming peonies are proof. The wild grasses and ferns are a-poppin’. The tomato plant promises to be as tall as I am!

Ares children have been let loose on the land. Phobos and Deimos – Fear and Terror; they wear masks and ambush immigrants. They bully because it makes them feel superior. They pull people from their homes and cars. They take children from schools. They tackle senators. They answer to a minor deity, Dolos. He is renowned for his orange color, his penchant for lying, his empty promises otherwise known as deception.

I, for one, am waiting for Hestia to fully show up on the scene. Welcoming, unifying, an ancient powerful goddess who exudes peace and quiet. She is the hearth, the warm center of “home”. She is formidable because she deals in simple honesty. You might recognize her: she is the force that pulled people into the streets, uniting them to rebuke Dolos and his nasty servants. It seems she might team up with Athena who brings a healthy dose of wisdom and strategy to the mix, capable of easily corralling Fear and Terror and sending the orange Dolos back to the swamps where he belongs.

No doubt the goddesses will provide the antidote for the toxic masculinity that ails us.

[Juneteenth! It is especially important to commemorate the emancipation of enslaved people in the USA – particularly in the face of an administration that whitewashes our nation’s history]

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SUN

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: apollo, artistry, Athena, bully, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Demeter, hearth, Hestia, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, peace, Persephone, story, studio melange, the melange, toxic masculinity, wisdom | 1 Comment »

Follow The Lines [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 12, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“In the art world, lines are a fundamental element used to create a wide variety of effects. They can define shapes, create movement, guide the viewer’s eye…” ~A-I Overview to my inquiry about lines in art

I confess that I am having a hard time. I’m in the middle of a mini-moral crisis.

I’ve written this blog since 2010. I set out to write about positive things, affirmations and stories of the best of us. At the time I began writing I was traveling around the nation, working with incredible people everywhere I went, so I had a bucketful of stories to share, celebrating the best of the human spirit. Kerri and I began writing our Melange 382 weeks ago. We had so much art and music in our folios and files and we wanted to bring them into the light of day. Sharing the best of us – another way of celebrating the human spirit.

After all of these years I enjoy a small but enormously appreciated (by me) audience.

Lately, I am aware, that my daily writing and my focus is not about celebrating the best of us but has almost exclusively become about ringing an alarm against the worst of us. I am sometimes snarky. I am mostly horrified at how dulled we as a nation have become to the outrageous. I am alarmed at our normalization of the monstrous, the disappearance of Congress, the collapse of the system of checks and balances.

Each day I have a chat with myself about staying focused on the positive but I am lately finding that to be naive to the point of dangerous; it is akin to sticking my head in the sand or plugging my ears so I hear no evil.

Each day, more and more people are being swept off our streets. Each day, they are denied due process. This morning I’ve been reading – and verifying – accounts about the unnecessary death of a Haitian woman in one of our many overcrowded detention centers. The conditions are appalling. She is not the first. She will not be the last. Her crime: trying to escape abject poverty and enter the land of the free and the home of the brave.

90% of the people – human beings – are being held without due process in privately run detention centers that are by many accounts no better than concentration camps. Think about it: “privately run” means that they are detention-for-profit; the more people swept up and crammed into these camps the more money they make. Inhumanity with a profit incentive.

Which brings me to my moral crisis. I am both a visual and theatre artist. I know how to create movement that guides a viewer’s eye. I know how to make an audience see in a story what I want them to see. I also know how to prevent them from seeing what I don’t want them to see. It’s akin to the magician’s trick. Create a distraction so the mechanics of the trick go unnoticed. Our national media are masters of distraction. They make rather than report news.

We-the-people are being distracted. We are being pitted against each other so we do not look at the magic trick that is making our rights – and the rights of others – disappear. We are not supposed to see what is happening in the detention centers – we are not supposed to know how our taxes are being used, what we are paying for, what we are creating: a police state.

Follow the lines. It is not so hard to see what we are not supposed to see. It’s ugly. A president ignoring the law, exploiting brutal immigration sweeps to incite violence, manufacture an “insurrection” in order to turn the military against citizens. The suspension of elections will surely follow. The sweeps will include voices of opposition.

It is morally irresponsible to look the other way. It’s morally reprehensible to say, “There’s nothing we can do about it,” or “I didn’t vote for this,” or “I had no idea what was happening,” or “This doesn’t impact me.” It is fundamentally immoral to pretend that this is something that we “Can’t talk about.” It is depraved to roll along as if the current course of this nation is anything other than ethically bankrupt. People are dying, being held without due process in deplorable circumstances. And we-the-people are paying for it. We don’t like where the lines lead so we change the channel. We look the other way or swallow whole-cloth the media spin.

What is my responsibility to write? To paint? To draw? How can I celebrate the human spirit, the best of us, when the leaders of the nation are every day grinning at, applauding and investing in brutality, taking delight in human misery? And our tax dollars are making it possible.

read Kerri’s blogpost about LINES

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, DR Thursday, Edges, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, detention centers, fascism, fundamental, human spirit, immigrants, inhumanity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, police state, story, studio melange, the melange | 2 Comments »

The Freedom To Dance [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on June 10, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

The juxtaposition was startling. At the exact moment that we were packed in a raucous dancing and cheering crowd, watching our son Craig, an EDM artist, perform at PRIDE Milwaukee, the dictator wannabe was threatening martial law and sending National Guard troops to Los Angeles to quell what his toadies are trying to call “an insurrection”.

The celebration of individual freedoms meets the crushing of individual freedoms.

The language is important. By every account (except on fox news) the protests against the draconian ICE raids were mostly peaceful. The Los Angeles Police Department published a letter praising the protestors for peacefully exercising their First Amendment right. Even so, the word that the Republican administration wields is “Insurrection”. This is not an accident. It is laying groundwork for the invocation of The Insurrection Act, which “authorizes the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law…”

A protest is not an insurrection. What we witnessed on January 6, 2020 was an insurrection: a violent uprising against the government. What we are seeing in Los Angeles is a citizen’s right to protest.

The Republican administration has been paving the way for the final move in their authoritarian takeover for months, branding campus protests “illegal” and threatening to withhold funding from colleges and universities that allow “illegal” protests – meanwhile arresting and deporting international students. “The arrests and deportations of noncitizen students and scholars for expressing their political views are creating a climate of fear on campuses across the country,” said John Raphling, associate US program director at Human Rights Watch. “The Trump administration’s actions are an attack on free speech and threaten the very foundations of a free society.”

The music pulsing, the crowd reveling, I was suddenly overwhelmed. I stopped dancing and watched the people. PRIDE began as a commemoration of resistance: in The Stonewall riots and demonstrations the LGBTQ community “fought back against government sponsored persecution.” 55 years later, I recognized my privilege to stand with a community of people celebrating their individual freedom and triumph over government sponsored persecution.

What’s happening in Los Angeles and across this nation? It is the Republican-led government violently uprising against the fundamental rights of the people. It is – just like January 6th – an insurrection against our democratic institutions and ideals. Make no mistake: the people in LA are coming together to fight back against government persecution, the creation of a police state and authoritarian attack on our democracy.

I can only hope that 55 years from now, some proud father, dancing in a crowd of thousands to his son’s thunderous music in a commemoration-celebration of the people’s triumph over their government-run-amok, will, like me, be overwhelmed when he recognizes the profound meaning of the moment: the exercise of his privilege in a nation that, once, when faced with authoritarianism, vehemently defended individual freedoms, democracy and the right to protest. For a moment he will stand in awe and then, swept back into his son’s vibrant music, will give himself over to the pulse, the heartbeat, the freedom to dance.

read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE

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Filed under: Perspective, Possibility, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, First Amendment, freedom, individual freedoms, Insurrection Act, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Milwaukee Pride, pride, Stonewall riots, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Be Yourself. Stand. [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on June 9, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

All you need to know about the right to be yourself – and the current assault on that fundamental right – is found in this opinion piece by David Brooks: I’m Normally A Mild Guy. Here’s What’s Pushed Me Over The Edge.

“Deneen’s and Vance’s comments about men in combat are part of a larger project at the core of Trumpism. It is to rebut the notion that America is not only a homeland, though it is that, but it is also an idea and a moral cause — that America stands for a set of universal principles: the principle that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with inalienable rights, that democracy is the form of government that best recognizes human dignity and best honors beings who are made in the image of God.“

To reiterate his point – seriously – take a moment and consider: The United States of America is an idea and a moral cause (not just a place). It stands for a set of universal principles: All men (people) are created equal. All people are endowed with inalienable rights. Democracy is the a form of government that best recognizes human dignity.

It is our fundamental belief in the ideal of equality, our steadfast dedication to protecting the inalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…due process…that affords and uplifts the right to be yourself. Not everyone on this earth is bestowed with the right to be themselves.

Currently, we are poised to lose it.

“Trumpism can be seen as a giant attempt to amputate the highest aspirations of the human spirit and to reduce us to our most primitive, atavistic tendencies.” ~ David Brooks

We are witness to the amputation of our highest aspirations in the baseless attacks on transgender people, in the scrubbing of DEI initiatives, the assault on institutions of higher education, the gutting of government agencies, the whitewashing of our history, the attack on news and media outlets, the assault on women’s rights, the draconian deportation and incarceration of immigrants, the ignoring of due process, the blatant shift of wealth to the hands of the few at the expense of the many, the gross and unapologetic profiteering by the president and his family…

It is meant to make us fearful. It is meant to make us feel powerless. It is meant to make us numb. It is meant to bully us into silent compliance. It is meant to deprive all of us of our basic rights as human beings. John Pavlovitz wrote:

“LGBTQ human beings in this country have never been more vulnerable or at risk than they are today. This Administration has built a platform upon their dehumanization. It is relentlessly targeting them with dangerous propaganda, willful disinformation, and predatory legislation, all designed to pander to the uneducated, ignorant, and fearful religious people who encompass their hateful base. Our trans brothers and sisters, in particular, have been fashioned into the monstrous enemy for them to aim their perverted theology toward.“

A few weeks ago I used a quote attributed to Oscar Wilde: “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.” If you are straight and white in the USA and find it hard to be yourself, just imagine what it takes to be gay and proudly (safely) be yourself. Imagine, if you can, what courage and fortitude it must take to be trans and be yourself.

The United States of America is an idea and a moral cause. It stands for a set of universal principles and inalienable rights. “Universal” means for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, gender or sexual orientation. Democracy is the a form of government that best recognizes human dignity.

“PRIDE cannot be a date on the calendar, it must be the calendar, a lifestyle that clearly declares that discrimination will not comfortably exist around us, no matter where it comes from.” ~ John Pavlovitz

This is PRIDE month. Be yourself. Stand for every human beings’ right to be themself. Do it now because your inalienable rights, your right to be yourself is rapidly disappearing.

[I wrote this post ahead of time, prior to the events now unfolding in Los Angeles. It is a historical moment, watching our inalienable rights disappear in this authoritarian take-down of democracy. I suppose we should not be surprised that the Republicans in Congress continue to mimic and support their standard bearer and chicken-out as history calls upon them to stand up, to speak truth, to honor their oath to serve and protect the Constitution. A sad moment for all of us.]

read Kerri’s blogpost about BE YOURSELF

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, David Brooks, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, due process, happiness, human rights, inalienable rights, individuality, John Pavlovitz, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, LGBTQIA, liberty, life, moral cause, pride, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Make Belief [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on May 27, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“People must surely be afraid, without knowing it, that their hold upon reason and sanity is precarious, else they would not so resent being asked to look at visual experience in a new way, they would not be so afraid of not seeing the world as they have always seen it and in the general publicly agreed way of seeing it.” Joanna Field (Marion Milner), On Not Being Able To Paint

We saw the little green men at an antique fair. They come in peace. I wondered so asked the Oracle Google why aliens – peaceful or not – are always depicted as green. The AI master responded:

“Green has been associated with aliens in folklore and mythology for centuries…” Forest creatures, fairies and sprites. Leprechauns…

“The term “little green men” gained popularity in the 1950s, coinciding with reports of flying saucers. This imagery was further popularized by movies and other media.”

“In summary, the “green alien” trope is a creative and cultural construct rather than a scientific expectation. It reflects how we use our understanding of life on Earth to imagine possibilities on other planets.”

A cultural construct. Imagining the possibilities of life on other planets has brought us to the common agreement that green is the color of aliens.

The term “common sense” refers to practical, sound judgment. In practice, however, common sense need not make sense at all. Common sense is not so much about feasibility as it is about group agreement. It is “common” sense, meaning that it is consensus. It need not be factual or practical.

When faced with overwhelming evidence that the earth is round, there are people on this round earth who adamantly insist that the earth is flat. They claim that it is common sense; one need only look at a flat horizon.

Similarly, conspiracy theories are rooted in “common” sense. Mob mentality is not rooted in reason. Lemmings regularly run over cliffs.

Common sense is not necessarily a representative of truth. Common sense need not be rooted in fact. Common sense is just as easily an agreement built on fiction or fantasy. MAGA is an example: a group awash in an agreement of a reality that is sourced in make-believe. Make-believe: make-it-up-to-create-Belief.

Make-Belief. It is the fox’s game. Is there really any sense to be made from an orange man in a blue suit spewing balderdash? Common or not? Simple minds united under red hats of outrage? Do little green men really arrive in saucers that fly? No sense required; only group agreement awash in nonsense. Like the Republican Congress. Common.

read Kerri’s blogpost about ALIENS

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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, common, common sense, conspiracy theory, cultural construct, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fantasy, fiction, Joanna Field, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Marion Milner, reason, republican, sense making, story, studio melange, the melange | 3 Comments »

On This Day, Ask [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on May 26, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Conscience (noun): an inner feeling or voice viewed as acting as a guide to the rightness or wrongness of one’s behavior.

This day that we call Memorial Day began as a way to honor and remember the Union soldiers that died in the Civil War. Theirs was a just cause: the end of slavery. The preservation of a nation. Originally, this day was known as Decoration Day. Now it is an observance of all military personnel who died serving – and preserving – the conscience of the nation.

It is important to remember on this day – especially on this day – that the men and women we commemorate, each and every one – swore an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of The United States” against all enemies foreign and domestic. They gave their lives honoring their oath and defending the Constitution.

Today, current members of the military face an untenable conflict. In their oath they have also sworn to obey the orders of the President of the United States. Currently, their oath is to a man who has no interest in supporting or defending the Constitution. He is actively destroying it.

Today, we face an untenable situation. We cannot in good faith both decorate service member’s graves and subscribe to the actions of the current administration. We cannot in good faith whisper words of hallowed remembrance and keep silent while these fallen men and women are being betrayed by a Republican Congress that actively dismantles the Constitution – at the behest of a Republican President that is, himself, a draft dodger, a man who regularly debases service members and ridicules their sacrifice. We make hypocrites of ourselves if we do not defend the sacrifice made by these men and women interred in our cemeteries.

When will our consciences grow?

Our Civil War was fought ostensibly to put an end to horrific human suffering. It was a war fought for the conscience of our nation. That is why we began the tradition of decorating the graves of Civil War veterans – so that we wouldn’t forget them or the cause that they gave their lives to defend.

They knew what was right. We know what is right. We also know what is wrong. So does the Republican Congress, even as they betray their oath.

Standing graveside we must ask why so many who have sworn a similar oath to The Constitution follow the lead of a man who has no conscience, a man who lacks the still small voice. A child-man who cannot see beyond an-eye-for-an-eye. A man who threatens to turn the rifles of the servicemen and servicewomen that he commands upon the citizens of the nation in order to achieve his objective of demolishing democracy as outlined in The Constitution.

What will our service members do in that moment? Will they serve or betray their oath to the Constitution? Will they serve a President who asks them to betray all they stand for, who commands them to ignore their still small voice while he moves to silence the voice of the people and the conscience of the nation?

“What will it take for our consciences to grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?” ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

It’s important for us to ask on this day – especially this day – what will it take for us to act, to defend our Constitution, to honor in more than whispered words the sacrifice of those who died defending the conscience of our nation?

read Kerri’s blogpost on this MEMORIAL DAY

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Filed under: Heroes, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, Civil War, conscience, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Eleanor Roosevelt, good faith, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Memorial Day, oath, observance, right and wrong, sacrifice, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, tradition | 1 Comment »

The Fog [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 21, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The only thing worse than being blind is having sight but no vision.” ~ Helen Keller

A mile to the west it is 75 degrees and sunny. Here, by the lake, it is foggy and 10 degrees cooler. The inland heat meets the cool lake water and produces a layer of thick fog. Standing on our front porch we cannot see the end of the street.

It is quiet in our pocket of fog. Today I welcome the protective solitude it inspires. It provides a magical respite from the happenings of the world. Fog brings permission to unplug, some breathing space from the news of the day. Sitting on the back deck I imagine that we are on the shores of Avalon, disappearing into the mist, becoming invisible to the rest of the troubled, enraged world.

In the Arthurian legend, Avalon is a magical, mystical place. It is symbolic as a place of virtue.

Virtue requires vision. Choose any adjective that describes virtue – goodness, morality, integrity, dignity, honor… – all serve a clear ideal. A vision. A vision based on the capacity to discern between right and wrong, truth and lie, service and exploitation. A vision that follows a steadfast moral compass.

By this or any standard, our current leadership has sight but no vision. The milksop Republicans in Congress play cowboy while sacrificing themselves on an alter of greed. How else do we make sense of their dedicated impotence in the face of the worst constitutional crisis in our nation’s history? It’s a crisis that they could stop in a day if they honored their oath to the Constitution. If they did their jobs. The Republican president sells the national soul to the highest bidder, personal profit the glutton-master he and his peers serve. A fall from grace, our isle of vice is not disappearing into a fog of uncertainty, rather it reveals itself in the harsh light of moral indifference, it adorns itself in a festival blanket of foxy-lies producing angry maga-followers awash in a cultish brain fog. Sight without vision.

There is nothing mystical going on here. The unprincipled disavowal of ethics, the blatant bribery and unbridled greed, the hard right turn away from truth and democratic ideals – all happening in plain sight – renders us worse than blind.

Is it any wonder I welcome the fog and imagine myself disappearing into the quiet of the mystical island, a sanctuary symbolic of virtue?

read Kerri’s blogpost about FOG

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Metaphor, Perspective | Tagged: artistry, avalon, Congress, corruption, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dignity, goodness, greed, Helen Keller, integrity, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, story, studio melange, the melange, uncertainty, virtue | 1 Comment »

Cartoon Worthy? [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It was unusual. The vine coiled around the tree like a boa constrictor. It seemed in no hurry to squeeze the life from its captive, content with the threat of imminent constriction. “Now, that’s a happy thought,” she said.

I’m bumping into a problem I’ve never before encountered. MM is prompting me with many great cartoon ideas borne of the daily outrage from the baggy blue suit and his clown car cabinet. My problem is twofold. First, they lampoon themselves so completely that every drawing seems like been-there-done-that. Since they are already dedicated made-for-tv-cartoon-characters, a kakistocracy (governance by the least competent), the challenge seems less about poking fun and more about cartooning cartoons. It’s dangerously redundant. How does one lampoon a president who posts pictures of himself as the Pope or a Jedi knight? He’s doing an excellent job of making a fool of himself. As is his cheering squad.

Second, their entire media strategy is meant to keep us outraged. Outrage is a very potent drug. Outraged people do not think clearly. They react. They hunker down in their reptile brain. I’m having an inner debate about my part in fueling the outrage. I’d love to draw cartoons that moved folks forward into their neocortex and engage their higher order thinking. Critical thinking is, after all, the enemy to MAGA, the fox, and this Republican administration. “Stop and think about it” is exactly what this administration and their propaganda machine does not want us to do. We might then see what is actually happening behind their comedy-chaos-curtain.

Stop. And think about it:

We have a Republican party whose characters strut like cowboys (even the cowgirls don bulletproof vests and pull their rhetorical pistols at the least sign of altercation) and yet, day after day we witness events like the vomit-inducing-sycophancy of the most recent cabinet meeting. Really. Stop and think about it: emasculation is the price Republicans pay for playing the role of cowboy for their leader. This lean, mean, destruction machine is all strut and no cajones.

Republican cowboys’ self-castration might be a worthy cartoon.

Hypodermic needles filled with outrage might be a worthy cartoon. A drug den of people screaming at each other while the dealer makes off with their wallets and purses.

Legislators who preach free markets but prohibit free thinking – that might be a a worthy cartoon.

The party that loudly promotes itself up as champions of limited government while imposing draconian limits on the rights of the many to give unlimited privilege to the few – that might be worthy. Imagine armored knights high atop war horses trampling unarmed peasant farmers while patting themselves on the back for their strength and courage.

Oops. I’ve worked a circle back to outrage. Outrageous.

One wonders when the red hats will move out of their reptilian brains and recognize that they are wrapped by a boa constrictor. They, too, strut like cowboys and do not see how they castrate themselves. Cartoon worthy? Or simply too sad to stop and think about?

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE VINE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Seeing | Tagged: artistry, cartoons, castration, constriction, critical thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, limits, outrage, reptilian brain, story, studio melange, sycophant, the melange | 6 Comments »

Ancient Oak Wisdom [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on April 25, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Oak may live for 1,000 years, although 600 may be more typical on many sites.”

It’s very possible that this oak tree is older than our nation. It stands in a field plowed and prepared for planting, visible from a trail that we recently explored. The trail passes through a stand of ancient oaks, gnarled and twisted with time.

There is wisdom in the oaks, something not found in our leaders who view the world exclusively through the lens of dollars and cents. Power people who play let’s-make-a-deal with the lives of others.

Even though we knew it was coming, even though it was a trumpeted intention in the fascist blueprint, Project 2025, the sale and privatization of our public lands for short-term profit has arrived like a surprise unwelcome visitor on our doorstep:

“Elon Musk is now effectively in charge of America’s public lands,” says Jennifer Rokala, executive director at the Center for Western Priorities. Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum just issued an order ceding oversight of the Department of the Interior to the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (which is not a government department at all)…”

The ruse is – of course – that our protected public lands, our national parks, are nothing more than waste, abuse and fraud. To the fundamentally greedy and terminally myopic, they are resources ripe and ready for exploitation. Destroying them, so the marketing spin goes, will not only save the nation money, it will make lots of money for the privileged few. And then there will be trickle down! (insert eye roll here).

Dollars. No sense.

“Project 2025 is a ‘wish list’ for the oil and gas and mining industries and private developers. It promotes opening up more of our federal land to energy development, rolling back protections on federal lands, and selling off more land to private developers.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American, April 22, 2025

It is shortsighted hubris akin to the Taliban’s destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. Two monumental statues carved in the 6th century in the Bamiyan valley in Afghanistan, a holy site for Buddhists, a cultural treasure for the people of Afghanistan, a UNESCO World Heritage site, destroyed [by the Taliban] in 2001, “..so that no one can worship or respect them in the future” Fundamentalists. Nationalists. Ideologues.

Islamic or Christian, nationalist fundamentalism, rigid ideology, leads to the same end. Purblind action, senseless destruction for short-term gain. Violence enacted on people and culture. Suppression of the many so the few might profit.

Purblind (adjective): having impaired or defective vision. Slow or unable to understand. Dimwitted.

Like the Buddhas of Bamiyan, once destroyed, our public lands, our Grand Canyon and Arches and Bears Ears, our old growth forests, our Yosemite and Yellowstone and Glacier National Park and Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, our protected ocean shelf ecosystem…once mined and drilled and developed, will never come back. Our national inheritance, sacred sites, reduced to rubble for profit so that no one can worship or respect them in the future.

Wisdom is the province of the ancient oak, borne of an acorn of understanding that grows beyond knowledge, beyond information, and far beyond the accumulation of data. It cannot be attained through fundamentalism nor through righteous nationalism wrapped in greasy paper-thin religiosity. It cannot be bought or sold or legislated. Wisdom transcends passing ideology since it takes time and perspective. Wisdom is an open hand, not a tight fist.

It takes no time and requires little in the way of perspective to recognize that the destruction of the sacred in the name of private gain is nothing more or less than the avarice of the purblind, the action of the profoundly dimwitted.

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read Kerri’s blogpost about the OAK TREE