At this point, it’s possibly the most generous response we’ve heard to a fox news watcher, a maga-mind. It quickly goes downhill from there.
read Kerri’s blogpost about STUPID NOT STUPID
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Fox News, ignorance, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, lie, propaganda, Republican party, story, studio melange, the melange | Leave a comment »
In an attempt to get me to relax, my dear Arnie pointed me to The Fourth Turning. “It’s a necessary cycle,” he said of our current political and national chaos, “as winter is necessary for spring.”
Astrologers point to Uranus currently entering Gemini. Astrologically, we’re in a period of great disruption. The last time Uranus knock-knocked on Gemini’s door was 1941.
In either case, the message is the same: there’s a meta-story at play and there’s no avoiding it. The tornado is here. It is going to lift and spin the house. We are destined to crash-land in Oz for a spell. There’s nothing that will change it so we might as well put on our seat belts and hold on for the ride. We will find a yellow brick road that will one day bring us back to Kansas if we are careful not to smell the poppies along the way. However, we will not be the same as when we left. Neither will Kansas. This disruption is meant to change us. Grousing about it is a necessary phase but, in the end, is not helpful.
These cyclical storms necessitate a dive into our roots. Through chaos they force us into a period of introspection.
Introspection inevitably brings us to an appreciation of the only thing we really have anyway: the moment. The smell of mint. The birds splashing in the birdbath. The voice of a friend. A second cup of coffee. The cool breeze off the lake. The color of the sky. The meaning we choose to make. Gratitude.
In my life I’ve experienced earthquakes and tornadoes, riots and two passes through Martial Law. 9/11. There is one thing that is consistently true in times of upheaval: people come together.
The horrors we enact upon each other invariably – inevitably – make us reach for one another. People lend a helping hand to their neighbors and to strangers alike. Humanity is what we find when we dive into our roots. If Arnie and the astrologers are correct, the rediscovery of our humanity, our interconnection, IS the meta-story, the reset, the symbolic return of spring.
In the meantime, amidst the brutality and disgust, it’s not a bad strategy to everyday ask, “What else is REAL?” – and revel in what you find there. Appreciating the small things are like leaving a popcorn trail that will someday lead us safely home after being so lost in the very dark woods.
read Kerri’s blogpost about WHAT ELSE IS REAL?
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: appreciation, artistry, astrology, change, chaos, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, humanity, interconnection, introspection, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meta-story, story, studio melange, symbol, the fourth turning, the melange | 1 Comment »
Amidst of all the national gore, there is the stuff that really matters. The little stuff. We grew the basil. We made dinner together. We ate outside on the deck on the first cool evening that we’ve had in weeks. Dogga sat at our feet waiting for a bite of crust. We savored our moment.
I have the lyrics of a James Taylor song running through my mind: Well the sun is surely sinkin’ down/ But the moon is slowly risin’/ So this old world must still be spininn’ ’round/ And I still love you.
That’s it. That is all. It was exactly perfect.
read Kerri’s blogpost about PERFECT
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Filed under: Love, smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, basil, Close Your Eyes, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, James Taylor, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, presence, savor, smack-dab, story, studio melange, the little things, the melange | 1 Comment »
In chaos there is pattern. This is the pattern emerging amidst our national chaos: people are dying in floods because early warning systems were interrupted by “waste, fraud, and abuse” cuts to the National Weather Service. People all over the world are dying due to the shuttering of USAID. People are losing their social safety net and public services to afford tax cuts for the morbidly wealthy; it’s estimated that over 50,000 citizens each year will die unnecessarily due to loss of their health care and access to services. People are being plucked off the streets and out of their homes by masked government agents and being “disappeared”.
The pattern in the chaos: ordinary people are suffering and dying, sacrificed on the altar of financial gain. Apparently the common person is counted among the waste to be cut. Certainly, it’s clear that the everyday person on the street is seen as a resource to be exploited, used and discarded. Republican Joni Ernst in a contentious town hall told her constituents protesting cuts to MEDICAID that, “We are all going to die.”
Consider this: The children were swept away in a flood that surprised them because the early warning system broke down due to staffing cuts. There was no one staffing the office necessary to pass on the evacuation warnings. The director of the DHS couldn’t be bothered to sign off on an emergency response for over 72 hours after the flooding began. She was too busy posing for the camera.
Indignation is useful fuel but can only carry us so far. As Kara Swisher asked in a recent podcast, “Would you rather be right or effective?” Yes, we are right to be indignant about the lies, the gaslighting, the fraud, the corruption, the grift, the incompetence, the brutality, the immorality, the hubris…
And, as we watch our democracy swirl around the drain, it is obvious that we are not-at-all being effective in our response. Words to myself and to you: perhaps it is time to rethink our ranting and raising-awareness about how wrong this is. That certainly feels good to share in the indignation. It certainly feels like we’re doing something. A lesson I learned early in my consulting life: raising awareness is not action. It’s a step toward action. If raising awareness was action, gun violence would not be the leading cause of death of children in the USA.
If the republican’s BBB is any indication, we are not being effective at all because our actions are limited to awareness raising: we call representatives who no longer listen; we march in order to send a message to representatives who no longer care. The polls have the tyrant and his party in the basement and they do not seem concerned at all. We raise awareness within our social media bubbles with people who are already abundantly aware how wrong this is.
Calls to representatives. Marches and civil unrest. Polls. If you are hearing what I am hearing, then we have to realize that this is a whole new ballgame. They are playing as if our votes – our voices – no longer matter. We are assuming that our votes will eventually correct the course. The clear message that we need to grok is made obvious in the pattern: To them we are waste to be cut, an unnecessary obstacle on the road to their gluttony. We can protest all we want. They are aware. They do not care since democracy is not in their plan.
It’s way past time to be effective. Our right to vote, our representative government, is being auctioned off to the highest bidder. What actions – beyond awareness-raising – will effectively save our democracy from a leadership so bloated and corrupt that it cannot be bothered to care or to listen?
read Kerri’s blogpost about PATHETIC
Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: action, artistry, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, effective action, indignation, Joni Ernst, Kara Swisher, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Medicaid, pathetic, story, studio melange, Texas Floods, the melange | 1 Comment »
It turns out that the thing that makes capitalism viable is the same thing that makes a democracy healthy: a strong middle class. A stable consumer base is the essential ingredient for social cohesion and constructive civic engagement. It’s Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: when people are secure in their basic needs they turn their attention to meeting the needs of the community – things like equal rights, education and affordable healthcare; they ask, “What is my purpose?” and “How can I help make the world a better place?”
I’ve long believed that the greatest challenge to our democracy is that one of our political parties – the republicans – simply do not believe in it. The Reagan revolution might as easily be called The Great Erosion of the Middle Class. In the past forty years 50 trillion dollars have moved into the pockets of the top 1%. What was branded as trickle down economics has proven to be – just as economists foretold – pick-pocket economics. If we’ve ever needed proof of the republican’s repudiation of democracy we see it manifest in their Mega-Murder-Bill.
Democracies need a strong middle class. Authoritarian states need to keep their populace poor. They need to eliminate the middle class. That, too, is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: when people are trapped in survival-mode, insecure and daily struggling for their basic needs, they cannot focus on making the world a better, safer place. They ask, “How am I going to live another day?” Poverty is an authoritarian’s greatest tool for maintaining their grip on power.
In my lifetime I’ve seen firefighters run into The Twin Towers, an indelible act of courage. Now, I’ve seen an entire political party tuck their tails and vote to rob their constituents to enrich the top 1%* – an extraordinary act of cowardice. A permanent stain. It’s as if the NYC firefighters on September 11 had walked away from the burning buildings, saying, “Too bad, so sad,” and patted each other on the back for a job well done.
Cowardice. Unless, of course, their actual aim is authoritarianism. Then, the systematic decimation of the middle class and callous assault on the social safety net makes perfect sense. It is the ultimate fulfillment of the republican revolution against democracy.**
*They passed their Mega-Murder-Bill. This egregious betrayal of their constituents will most certainly haunt them in the next election. The threat of being “primaried” if they voted against the bill presented, at best, a conundrum, since both paths lead to the loss of their seat. The only possible way that their choice of constituent-betrayal makes sense is if they believe that they will never have to run in another election: in the face of such extreme cowardice, the suspension of free and fair elections cannot be far behind.
**To be fair, they might actually believe in democracy – but just not for everyone. When they read, “All men are created equal” they very likely understand that ideal to only include wealthy white men who claim to be Christian while ignoring all of its precepts. No matter, a wealthy ruling class rigging the system and exploiting the labor that makes their bloated-money-hoard possible is authoritarianism regardless of the label they paste on their back-slapping boy’s club.
read Kerri’s blogpost about COWARDICE
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, courage, cowardice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, maslow's hierarchy, middle class, story, studio melange, The Declaration of Independence, the melange | 1 Comment »
“The American people just got a taste of authoritarianism wrapped in judicial robes. In a stunning 6-3 ruling this week, the Supreme Court greenlit the mass deportation of immigrants, not to their home countries but to third nations where they have no legal status…Whether it’s a camp outside Kraków or a deportation center in Guatemala, the strategy is the same: create a zone of moral invisibility. A legal no-man’s-land where acts that would outrage decent people become routine, because they happen far away, beyond the reach of media, law, and conscience.” ~Thom Hartmann, Moral Cleansing, American Style, June 25, 2025
A zone of moral invisibility. Hear no evil, see no evil. Poof! Not only do the people disappear but so does our responsibility. So do our rights since due process was a right that applied to all people, not just citizens. Note for emphasis: I just wrote the word “was” in reference to a fundamental right that no longer “is”. The Supreme Court, supposed guardians of our Constitution – protectors of our fundamental rights – just discarded the 14th Amendment:
…nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.
And along with discarding due process, habeas corpus goes with it. Wrongful imprisonment with no recourse is now – according to six members of our Supreme-Kangaroo*-Court – permitted in The United States of America.
We are officially no longer a government of laws; we are by this ruling a government of whim.
“You may think this only affects immigrants. But consider: the legal precedent now exists for the government to forcibly remove someone from U.S. soil and drop them in another country without due process. Today it’s asylum seekers. Tomorrow, who knows?” ~ Thom Hartmann
What’s gonna happen? I don’t know. No one does – but if history provides a clue it paints a mighty bleak picture.
*Kangaroo Court (noun) – an unofficial court held by a group of people in order to try someone regarded, especially without good evidence, as guilty of a crime or misdemeanor.
read Kerri’s blogpost about I DON’T KNOW
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: 14th Amendment, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, due process, equal protection, habeas corpus, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, Thom Hartmann | 3 Comments »
“A man who chases two rabbits, catches neither” ~ Confucius
It’s called a split-intention. Boiled down to the bare bone, a split-intention is what ails the USA. We chase two rabbits.
The first rabbit is a higher ideal called Equality. This rabbit represents a government dedicated to public service and focused on protecting equal rights. It embodies values, like “Liberty and justice for all” and “e pluribus unum” (out of many, one). It understands that strength and unity are forged from difference. It is the rabbit of inclusion.
The second rabbit is inequality. This rabbit is concerned with Privilege. This rabbit represents a government dedicated to private interest by channeling wealth to the few. It champions unbridled gain for select individuals. It embodies beliefs like white supremacy and justice for the top-class. It understands strength as a rigged game of dominance. It is the rabbit of caste and exclusion.
A healthy, successful nation, like a healthy successful human, is clear on the ideals it pursues. It chases a single rabbit. It knows without question what it values. It understands that, with a single focus, it is not only possible but necessary to debate how best to achieve it.
We cannot tout equality and pursue exclusion. We cannot have justice for all while rigging the game to protect the few. We cannot be a thriving democracy and an autocracy.
We cannot fulfill the promise of The Constitution by betraying it. We cannot realize the ideal of our Declaration of Independence – that government derives its power and consent from the governed – by allowing oligarchs to purchase autocracy.
Our split intention has never been so clear. We have two opposing media bubbles weaving two irreconcilable narratives, each defining the other bubble as the enemy. We have two political parties: the blues chase democracy while the reds chase the privilege of the autocrat (please examine the detail in the Republicans Big Gluttonous Bill – in addition to stealing from the poor to give to the rich, our right of redress is on the chopping block).
“A man who chases two rabbits, catches neither.”
Proverbs are proverbs because they reveal a simple yet universal truth. We split ourselves in our political dishonestly. We can either serve the people or we can exploit the people. We have wrestled over this choice since our nation’s inception: Who do we mean when we say, “We the people…”?
How do we reconcile the vast difference between our rhetoric and the rabbit-rabbit-tug-of-war of our history?
One rabbit is worth chasing. The other we ought to chase away before we lose it all.
read Kerri’s blogpost about THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, autocracy, Confucius, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, e pluribus unum, exclusion, freedom, government, ideals, inclusion, justice, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, liberty, privilege, proverb, public service, split intention, story, studio melange, the melange, values | Leave a comment »
It comes to this.
Our nation is like an alcoholic in denial: it has never been capable of taking an honest look at the full scope of its history. And so, it can only take another drink of the thing that is killing it. Until it does, until it admits it has an addiction, it cannot move forward into health.
In our history is a mixology of ugly forces: Manifest Destiny (white males ordaining themselves as divinely appointed), with a splash of oligarchy shaken (not stirred) in a chilled tumbler that calls itself democracy. It’s a potent drink that favors racism, exploitation and continually pits the have-nots against the have-nots. It scars our liver, diminishing our capacity to process garbage.
It comes to this again.
In our history, this is not our first cycle with an attempted oligarchical takeover. This is the third. The first led to a Civil War (slavery was/is the engine behind the oligarch). The second, our “Gilded Age” culminated in severe economic depression [created by tariffs], the assassination of a president (McKinley) and the rise of a progressive president, Republican Theodore Roosevelt. “Progressive” meant – and means – checking corruption and corporate power while moving toward economic equality and equal rights for all citizens – regardless of race, gender, or sexual orientation.
“Progressive” is a term used when our nation attempts to fulfill the ideals of our rhetoric. Equality. Liberty and justice for all. “Conservative” is the term used by the oligarchy when it attempts to drain resources from the people and into the pockets of the few. Liberty for some. Justice for the select. For the fox crowd, “progressive” has become synonymous with the epithets “woke” and “socialist” – it serves as a testament to the power of fox-intoxication that maga – a group comprised of have-nots – are the champions of the oligarchy that openly mocks and blatantly exploits them.
The current administration is in a panic to white-wash our history. White males who consider themselves divinely appointed like to edit their ugly history so they appear, well, divinely appointed. Just. Righteous. Their Big Bloated Bill is not the first time in our history that the richest of the rich would take the spoon from the mouth of the poor so that they might have more, more, more – and gloat about it. And lie about it.
It’s ugly, this bar-stool denial cycle. This time around we are subject to an embarrassing military parade, a Congress that flees town AND their responsibilities, while a delusional executive whips up discord so he can order the military to fire on citizens – en route to suspending future elections. Conserving power has become more lucrative than serving the Constitution.
So. It comes to this. Again.
All we need do is to put down the toxic tumbler and look honestly at ourselves as a nation – a good hard full-scope look. We need to admit to ourselves what we are wrestling with – again and again and again.
Perhaps in our march against a would-be king, on the same day as the sham-shame-parade, we will find the fortitude to stop and ask ourselves a few candid questions: Who are we when not intoxicated with division? How do we get off this swiveling bar stool and actually – finally – fulfill the promise of democracy for all? A sober aspiration like equality is neither progressive nor conservative. It is the calling of the nation and, if we can be honest with ourselves, we just might someday come to it.
read Kerri’s blogpost about THIS COUNTRY
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Filed under: smack-dab | 1 Comment »
This is our first ever re-post of a smack-dab. We first posted it exactly 52 weeks ago at the beginning of PRIDE month 2024. Our nation is a much different place now than it was a year ago. Or, perhaps it is not so different. Perhaps the ugly face of our nation is now visible, unmasked. Homophobia is but one of the many phobias run amok in the meager minds of our Republican controlled courage-less capitol.
The problem with their collective yellow-belly is that it sanctions violence against all the colors of the rainbow. Wrapping a cloak of religious righteousness around prejudice and cruelty does not change it. It permits it.
The people participating in PRIDE events all across this nation this month are showing more courage, demonstrating more of the authentic American spirit of freedom-of-expression and inclusion – than the rigid right will ever understand. It is the celebration of difference that has always made our nation vital.
Given our current technical limitations we were going to use the same smack-dab images from last year and rewrite the dialogue – but decided against it. We liked the original message: love is love. Period.
read Kerri’s blogpost about PRIDE MONTH
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, Chicago Pride, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, inclusion, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, love, Milwaukee Pride, prejudice, pride, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »
Our democracy is almost gone. The judiciary is under attack for doing their duty to the Constitution, acting as a check on an out-of-control executive. Mindbogglingly, Congress, rather than performing their duty to check the rogue executive, is attempting to neutralize the courts. They’ve written the final straw that breaks democracy’s back into their big-beautiful-bill.
“When authoritarian leaders attack judges as “enemies,” history shows us exactly where this leads. Trump’s assault on “USA HATING JUDGES” isn’t just inflammatory rhetoric—it’s following a script written by strongmen worldwide. But other countries show us how to fight back.”
“So how do we combat this? BUILD broad coalitions beyond party lines. MOBILIZE professionals, not just activists. SUSTAIN pressure through strikes and protests, FRAME it as defending democracy, not partisan politics.” ~ Adam Bonica
“Every authoritarian who successfully destroyed judicial independence did so because civil society failed to unite in time,” Bonica writes. “The key difference? Whether people mobilized.” ~ from Heather Cox Richardson, Letters From An American, May 27, 2025
“None of this is easy. But democracy never is.” ~ Adam Bonica
It seems that we have a clear choice: to mobilize now and save our democracy – or to miss it.
read Kerri’s blogpost about BEFORE IT IS GONE
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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: Adam Bonica, artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Heather Cox Richardson, judiciary, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, mobilize, story, studio melange, The Constitution of The United States, the melange | 7 Comments »
The Direction of Intention 