Bryan Tyler Cohen | The Direction of Intention

Harvest [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on August 12, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“It is very nearly impossible to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.” ~ James Baldwin

The first tomato of the season. We plucked it and, after its photo shoot, we split it and ate it. It tasted of the sun. We delighted in the first harvest of what we sowed.

I just read a million quotes about harvests. They all boil down to essentially the same platitude: you reap what you sow.

My favorite quote of the week is by Brian Tyler Cohen: “All of these alpha republicans instantly become beta the minute Dear Leader tells them what to do. He tells them to jump. They jump.” They swagger around, talking tough, but their actions reveal lemmings in cowboy clothes. Currently, at Dear Leader’s behest, they protect the identity of wealthy pedophiles instead of the rights of the little girls they violated. They gut social programs to give tax cuts to the morbidly wealthy. They’ve fully funded a terror squad currently plucking people off the streets and disappearing them into concentration camps. Rather than protect the nation, they are moving in lockstep to turn the military on the citizens. Do they know what horror they sow? Do they understand or even consider the crop that we will reap from such a planting?

Of course they do. It is the reason they are dismantling the Department of Education. It’s the reason that universities across the nation are under assault. It’s the reason arts funding has disappeared. It’s the reason that the free press has been cowed. It’s the reason DEI is being scrubbed and history thoroughly whitewashed. “Authoritarians despise universities, journalists, experts, artists and free thinkers – because truth is their kryptonite. Lies are the scaffolding of tyranny. A tyrant’s power is directly proportional to the population’s ignorance.” [youtube.com/@theintellectualist] This quote, by-the-way, is not a platitude. It is a siren call, an all-hands-on-deck alarm to the dismantling of democracy.

The party that swaggers and follows-the-leader-who-excessively-boasts is currently fearful and hiding from their constituents. Their constituents are angry because their representatives have become the poster-children of group-think. Their representatives no longer represent them. Independent thought seems anathema to the republicans. They are all swagger and no substance. We-the-people would like to ask them if they know the corruption that they sow – but can’t because they are ashamed to face us.

Do they know? They do. That is the reason they no longer hold town hall meetings. They fear the will of the people, so rather than listen to the people they move to rig the next election. Blatant gerrymandering. Purging voter rolls. Legislating obstacles making it harder for people of color and women to vote. Sowing authoritarianism. “Authoritarians despise…free thinkers – because truth is their kryptonite.”

There is one thing we can all agree upon: the harvest of what they currently plant will taste like something other than the sun.

read Kerri’s blogpost about the FIRST TOMATO

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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, arts funding, authoritarianism, Bryan Tyler Cohen, cowboy, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DEI, democracy, free press, group think, harvest, James Baldwin, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reap, sow, story, studio melange, the melange, tyranny | 4 Comments »

Smoke And Truth [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on August 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

I was not prepared for the number. In fact, I double checked it because it seemed so outlandish. Because our skies have been filled with smoke for many days – our air quality is “unhealthy” – from the fires burning in Canada – and because we are avoiding most sources of news, I thought it would be a good idea to check in on the fires burning in our northern neighbor. I was not prepared for what I read: there are 742 fires burning in Canada; 201 are considered out of control. 16 million acres have so far burned. It is a record-breaking fire season.

I was heartened to read that the USA has deployed firefighters and equipment to help fight the wildfires just as earlier this year the Canadians sent firefighters to help with the fires in Los Angeles. In some essential ways, our longstanding and cherished partnership with Canada is still intact. I will not bore you with the fire-and-renewal metaphors currently swirling around my brain-pan.

A few days ago I watched Bryan Tyler Cohen’s interview with Elex Michaelson and appreciated this exchange on the economy: in this era of rampant misinformation, in our media universe in which “we pretend that there are no objective truths, [but] there are objective truths! If you go to the grocery store, that number is a number. It is either higher or lower…” The insistence of baseline fact gave me some small measure of hope amidst our national delusion.

No matter the spin, the numbers are the numbers. It is the reason that the current president fired Erika McEntarfer, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) after the BLS released the current job data. He didn’t like the numbers so he did as he always does: he assaulted the objective truth. He wrapped a victim-tale around the numbers and whipped up a conspiracy theory to deflect from the baseline fact. He lit a fire to create a blanket of smoke in the hope of obscuring the data.

None of his shenanigans change the objective truth. Objective truth exists regardless of individual beliefs or opinions or tweets or the nonsense that he or fox news feeds its followers.

We are about to have a not-so-blind-date with objective truth. Medicaid will disappear for many millions after the midterms. As will SNAP. In the next year healthcare will become unaffordable for millions. Since tariffs are taxes that consumers pay, our prices are certain to escalate (they are already rising). The value of the dollar is dropping. The economy is shrinking. There is nothing mysterious or subversive about the numbers. There is no conspiracy. There is cause and effect.

Climate change is objective truth. 742 is the number of fires in Canada. It’s a record. The numbers are the numbers.

Yesterday Dogga woke us just as the sun was rising. I stood on the deck and watched in awe: through the smoke the sun was fuchsia. The sky was luminous yet an eerie yellow. Both were shades of color I’d never before seen. As it turns out I have to bore you with the obvious analogy: despite appearances to the contrary, the sun is not changed by the smoke. It’s not really fuchsia. The objective truth will remain long after the winds of change clear the smoke from our eyes.

Here’s an objective truth to pin our hopes on: even in the midst of all the posturing and bullying, in our hour of need, Canada sent help. In their hour of need, we sent help. When the smoke clears, perhaps the firefighters will help us re-member the objective truth of our relationship.