fact | The Direction of Intention

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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Filed under: Perspective, Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, belief, corruption, courage, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fact, fraud, hypocracy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, verity | Leave a comment »

Complete Verity [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 8, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Edward Hopper might have painted this scene. A lone person sitting on the bench would have sealed the deal. Everyday American moments of isolation made beautiful by light, line and perspective.

Edward Hopper would have wanted to paint Jack Smith sitting across the table from Nicolle Wallace during their recent interview. An American man isolated by his integrity. A few times during the interview, given the chance to complain or judge, he opted instead to elevate others. Rather than focus on the corruption he said he’d rather spend his time uplifting the true heroes of our nation, the people who honor their oaths and hold firm to their dedication to public service. People who seek facts and value truth rather than clamor for the spotlight. He would rather throw light onto the people holding the line of equal justice for all in our nation of laws.

Hopper most certainly would have been interested in painting Major Jason Watson as he was arrested on the steps of the Capitol. Isolated in his integrity, lonely in his commitment to upholding his oath to the Constitution, he held a sign, “Impeach, Convict, Remove”. A quintessential American moment. Protest. An action with real consequences for the actor. Strong lines and light. Perspective.

“Hopper created subdued drama out of commonplace subjects layered with a poetic meaning, inviting narrative interpretations. He was praised for “complete verity” in the America he portrayed.”~Wikipedia

Complete verity.

Verity: the quality or state of being true, factual, or accurate. Verity is in short supply in this republican administration.

A painter of verity. The America Hopper portrayed turns away from the noise and stares into the silent night. Hopper knew that lies are loud and mostly uninteresting. Truth is often whispered. Truth is tacit. Truth is worth honoring, dabbing brush into paint. Although the paper-cowboy-republicans might loudly proclaim exclusive ownership of the American spirit, Hopper would have no interest in them or their screeching leader.

Although the keepers of truth might appear isolated, most definitely under siege, made to look and feel alone by a raging authoritarian and his Murdoch-propaganda-fox-noise-machine, there are far more Jack Smiths, Jason Watsons, Nicolle Wallaces…out there – out here.

Jack Smith suggested that our path to reunification runs through reclamation of integrity, of attending to fact rather than losing ourselves in daily doses of ratings-driven-screeds.

Complete verity, as found on a lonely railway platform, staring into the quiet of a summer night. Waiting for the train. Strong lines. Powerful light. Perspective.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE TRAIN STATION

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Filed under: Art, Flawed Wednesday, Heroes, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Edward Hopper, fact, Jack Smith, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Major Jason Watson, Nicolle Wallace, perspective, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, verity | 1 Comment »

Born Anew [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on June 11, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A week ago they were buds about ready to burst. This week the petals are letting go. The lifespan of a peony blossom is short. I consider them the flower equivalent of the sand paintings made by Tibetan monks: upon completion of the painting, upon the fullness of the blossom, it is swept away. All things are temporary.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” ~ Alan Watts

One of the gifts of our democracy is its fluidity. It is mutable. It is a system that is built upon a foundational principle of continual change and renewal. It is alive, growing and adapting. The mechanism of renewal in democracy is the what we know as voting. The people vote for the change they desire. The people vote for the future they envision.

John Dewey wrote, “Democracy has to be born anew every generation, and education is its midwife.” The people vote for change but their vote is only meaningful when they are well-informed, when know the truth of the change they are voting for. When the people’s vote is based on misinformation, gaslighting and lies, democracy is stillborn. The only purpose for the incessant lies, for misleading propaganda, is to prevent change. To prevent democracy. To assault education, to erase history, to restrict knowledge, to flood the zone with misinformation…is to make the people ignorant and gullible. It is to prevent democracy.

Autocracy requires permanence. Democracy requires changeability. We are a sand painting, made anew again and again by a diverse people who participate in the perpetual change and renewal requirement of a democracy: government that serves the people.

This other thing, white national fascism, autocracy, built upon fearmongering that demonizes immigrants, that denigrates opposing ideas, that protects the criminals and punishes the victims…is inert. It intends to restrict change. It is meant to suffocate the voice and will of the people. It gerrymanders to hold onto power. It spreads lies about the security of voting to sow doubt, to challenge and upend the voice of the people when it loses. Autocrats serve no one but themselves.

More than to restrict the blossom-vote of democracy, the autocrats intend to kill the plant, cover the space with concrete, and erect a golden statue to dear leader. Lifeless. Corrupt. A sad monument to the gods of permanence.

We have the power to stop it. Our democracy can be reborn. Educating ourselves, sifting truth from lie, fact from fantasy, and then voting en mass as if our lives and livelihoods depend upon it – because they do.

read Kerri’s blog post about PEONIES

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Education, Identity, Perspective | Tagged: alan watts, artistry, autocracy, changeability, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, education, fact, gaslighting, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, renewal, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vote | 1 Comment »

Bill Moyers’ Question [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 13, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I wish someone could explain to me how diminishing our position from global superpower to a regional hemispheric bully makes us great again.

I wish someone would explain to me how isolation in the world is preferable and more powerful than global alliances. Especially given that our prosperity is a function of a global economy.

I wish someone could help me understand how learning and education has become anathema to our national identity. How is it that ignorance is preferable to inquisitiveness?

I’d like to understand how so many of my fellow citizens doubt what is obvious, apparent, what is right before their eyes, and fervently grasp onto lies (also obvious) as their chosen reality. For that matter, where-oh-where has our free press gone?

I want to know why science, data and fact are eschewed in favor of quackery, falsehoods and spin? When did we sign up to be the poster-nation for penny-wise-pound-foolish? As Kerri says everyday after surveying the latest wreckage, “Well, at least our Froot Loops are gonna be safe.”

Although I am curious how we managed to elect and assemble a kakistocracy (government by the least suitable or competent citizens of a state), I really wish someone could explain to me why they have not yet been tarred-and-feathered and run out of town. Protecting pedophiles, murdering citizens, threatening war both north and south, making a mockery of justice, profiteering, dismantling our constitution, weaponizing our data…why are they still being protected?

Lately, we walk our trails to unplug. To clear our minds from the latest horror of the nation-run-amok. To sort. To reclaim our attention span from the sharp fragments flying across our screens. To reaffirm what is real and what is not. To ground again in what is important.

On our latest loop I recalled, years ago, Joseph Campbell said that our mythology was dead. “You just have to read the newspapers,” he said as proof. Crime. Business-as-exploitation. A government increasingly protecting big business at the expense of the people.

A mythology is more than a cute story. Living mythologies reaffirm and reinvigorate the values of the people. They are the glue of society. Mythologies are “living” when the community lives the values reinforced in the stories. The Boston Tea Party is part of our national mythos. Paul Revere. Washington crossing the Delaware River. Rebels fighting for their freedom against an authoritarian king. Think about the value sets implicit in our founding story. We do not assemble on the 4th of July simply to coo at the nice fireworks. Or do we?

I wish someone could explain to me where our values have gone. We did not fight a world war against fascists only to become fascists. When did e pluribus unum, unity through diversity, become exclusive, ugly white nationalism? When did the shining city on the hill, a beacon for all, a land of promise and an aspiring moral exemplar, become the neighborhood thug?

Bill Moyers asked Joseph Campbell if a dead mythology could be revivified? Campbell paused and answered, “I don’t know.”

I guess it’s up to us to answer Bill Moyers’ question.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE WINTER TRAIL

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Filed under: Identity, Two Artists Tuesday | Tagged: artistry, Bill Moyers, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, fact, fiction, ignorance, Joseph Campbell, justice, kakistocracy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, morality, mythology, questions, society, story, studio melange, the melange, values | 1 Comment »

Just Another Week [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on September 13, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Winner of the most astute quote of the week: “It seems like we’re totally living in insanity,” he said, “every moment of every day.” ~ Erwin McClone, from the NY Times newsletter 9.12.25

But that’s not the winning quote. The Times reported that McClone also said that the killing (of Charlie Kirk) seemed to arise from an animus that was increasingly disconnected from facts, accountability and reason.

We are living inside the sickness of an administration that is increasingly disconnected from facts, accountability and reason. And, it’s not as if they started from a stable grounding in facts, a willingness to accept responsibility for their actions or a solid relationship with reason.

This week we experienced yet another shooting at a school. What else? The Supreme Court okayed racial profiling. The president declared war on Chicago. Despite a mountain of evidence to the contrary, he vehemently denies any connection to the Epstein Files and wants us to move on. He asks us – in all seriousness – to disconnect from the obvious facts, release him (and others) from accountability for their actions, and to unplug from our reason: to believe what he says and not what we see. We saw him, without evidence of any kind, incite violence against the democrats, blaming them for the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Animus. Increasingly disconnected from facts, accountability and reason.

Just another week inside the sickness.

read Kerri’s blogpost about AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: accountability, animus, artistry, Charlie Kirk, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, disconnect, Epstein files, fact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, NY Times, reason, story, studio melange, the melange | 1 Comment »

Re-Right The Un-Real [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 30, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

She teased herself, saying, “Look how many posts I’ve written lately using the word “Real” in the title!” There were 3 in the past few weeks.

“Of course you have.” I said, “We’re living in a time that reality is just damn hard to believe.” For instance, our current president has his very own Wikipedia page listing the numerous accusations of sexual assault against him, dating back to the 1970’s. It’s a lengthy list. One of the women on the list was thirteen years old when she claims he raped her at one of Epstein’s parties. Of course, this page, these accusations, have been available for all to read for years. How unreal is it that he is being protected by the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, those who call themselves Christian – all the while the red-red-party loudly proclaims moral authority and trumpets their mission of “protecting” our sons, daughters and wives against the evil Woke?

Un-real.

It is one of the reasons why we planted the sweet potato vine. First, I was awed by its color and luminescence. Seriously, I’ve never seen a plant glow or grow like this vine. Each day I step out back and stare at it, saying, “Unreal.” It’s more beautiful than I can believe. In an upside-down era it re-rights the world. It is real.

Recently, as if it intended to delight me to my core, a single caladium leaf emerged from the field of sweet-potato-vine-vibrant-green. “Look! An outlier!” I called to Kerri.

“Just like us,” she said, admiring the misfit. We poked around the plant to make sure this lone caladium leaf was really emerging from within the sweet potato vine. It really is. It, too, is real.

Real (adjective): 1. actually existing as a thing or occurring in fact; not imagined or supposed.

What’s real? Our current president is an adjudicated rapist, a convicted felon, a serial liar with a wiki-rap-sheet of sexual assault accusations that takes more than a single sitting to read. Those are facts, not imagined or supposed. Even so, his sycophants are doing back flips to keep we-the-people from seeing what is really in the Epstein files. They claim – as they have for over a decade – that what’s real is fake and what is fake is real. Apologists for the unforgivable. Apparently, accountability is nowhere in their party, nowhere in their plan, nowhere in their president, thus we are hit each day with a tsunami of conspiracy, chaos and blame, a festival of the fact-free, the supposed fantastic, the un-real.

Is it any wonder that each day we shake our heads and huff, “Really?” And then we head outside to check in with our sweet potato vine and outlier caladium leaf in an attempt to re-right our topsy-turvey world, affirming for ourselves what is actually real – and what is blatantly not.

read Kerri’s blog post about THE CALADIUM LEAF

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Seeing | Tagged: accountability, artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Epstein files, fact, felon, fiction, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, outlier, rapist, real, reality, serial liar, story, studio melange, sycophants, the melange, upside down, wikipedia, woke | 1 Comment »

A Second Glance [David’s blog on DR Thursday]

Posted on May 22, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

Look carefully and you will see the shadow that the dandelion cast upon the white petal.

Can you see the veining of the leaves? The watercourse way? The ridges in the petals serve the same life-giving purpose although by a subtly different, visibly beautiful design. Can you see it?

There is a small spot of purple. Can you find it? It pulls the eye. It provides the tension necessary for focus, inspiring movement of the eye.

Is the ant adventuring across the dandelion apparent at first glance? Like the spot of purple, it is there though probably not apparent at first glance.

At first glance. To the casual eye. On the face of it.

And then there is the purpose beyond the pretty. Do you see it? The petals of white, the yellow pistil attract pollinators in an attempt to perpetuate their species. The ant does not adventure for fun but for food.

Do you see the dried leaves supporting the green and white, the yellow and purple? Once green themselves, drinking the sun, they now provide sustenance to the next generation, warmth to the root.

It was the shadow of the dandelion cast that caught her attention.

It takes time to see the purpose beyond the pretty. It takes a longer second glance. Seeing – and understanding – interdependence takes more than a first glance. It requires some learning. Observation. Study.

My father used to tell me that I’d educated myself into stupidity. I did not take it personally as I knew that he was captive to the fox. He knew, as do I, that the fox is dedicated to the superficial. He was schooled by the fox to believe that looking beyond the superficial, a thing called “learning”, was a worthless thing. The fox preaches simple idiotic solutions. Build a wall. Deport without due process.

Critical thinkers and active questioners are less likely to eat the smorgasbord of drivel and easy conspiracy served up as sustenance by the fox. The fox relies on the superficial. The fox defends against a second glance. The fox talks fast, a carnival barker, enticing people into the tent with freak-show promises, bearded ladies and conjoined twins, performances guaranteed to shock the most hardy of viewer.

Every carnival barker knows that a longer second glance would shed some light on the subject. It would reveal the make-up, the spirit gummed whiskers, the hollow dumbbells of the strongman. A little study would reveal the purpose: outrage in exchange for your nickel.

The only way to keep the viewer in the tent is to escalate the outrage. Keep them solidly in their reptile brain. The only rule? Never ever provide a second glance. Prevent at all cost a deeper look. Stigmatize learning. Undermine fact. Distract. Gaslight. Blame. Assault education. Oh, and never ever pass up a chance to charge another nickel.

Look carefully and you will see the shadow…

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SHADOW

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Filed under: DR Thursday, Education, Seeing | Tagged: a second glance, artistry, complex, critical thinking, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, education, fact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, learning, observation, outrage, shadow, simple, story, studio melange, study, the melange | 3 Comments »

The Baseline [David’s blog on saturday morning smack-dab]

Posted on April 26, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

It is the challenge of our times: discerning what is real and what is not. We lack a baseline for truth.

Photographs used to be proof. Video and audio clips were once incontestable. No more.

We live in bubbles of outrage fueled by easy misinformation. Journalism has morphed into entertainment that amps-up the outrage. Fuels the division. Manufactured division is probably our baseline. Our shared truth.

As MM recently wrote, attributing some of our lack of discernment to, “a toxic level of the willing suspension of disbelief required for the mass consumption of “reality television”. After all, reality tv has nothing to do with reality. The act of pointing a camera at something changes the basic nature of the event into a performance. We behave differently on camera than we do off-camera. Reality television is not real just as “truth social” has nothing to do with truth. We are drowning in misnomers. We are lost in our branding.

MAGA world likes to point at 47 and call him a businessman. That, of course, is a role he played on television. In reality, off-camera, he’s driven his companies into bankruptcy six times. There’s an entire industry of media apologists and spin doctors dedicated to painting lipstick on this pig, committed to torturing cowboy-sense out of his dangerous nonsense, his incessant lies, his grift.

In the absence of discernment, conspiracy theories grow like so much mold. Many in this nation without question (or the capacity to question) swallow swill and call it sugar. Heavily addicted to outrage, fed a steady diet of an anger-drug by our media, we are rendered incapable of shared truth and impervious to common (shared) sense. And, sadly, fact-checking seems to take too much effort.

We eschew discernment.

We are in desperate need of Occam’s razor: “a guiding principle in logic and philosophy that suggests when faced with multiple explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest one is usually the best. It emphasizes the importance of minimizing unnecessary assumptions or complexities when seeking an explanation.”

The simplest explanation: “from 1981 to 2021, $50 trillion moved from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%.” The minimum wage hasn’t risen since 2009. Manufactured division, divided as we are in our media-fueled bubbles of outrage, keeps us easily distracted from our actual antagonists.

Perpetually seeing red prohibits us from seeing the rest of the color-sense-spectrum, prohibits us from discernment rooted in a baseline of shared truth. It’s a fact: 90% of us grow poorer and poorer as the 1% openly trashes our democracy to give themselves a tax cut and a guaranteed cheap labor force. Is it no wonder that we are outraged?

Outrage should be our baseline. Just not focused at each other.

read Kerri’s blogpost about REALITY

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Filed under: smack-dab | Tagged: artistry, baseline, branding, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, division, fact, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, misnomer, Occam's Razor, reality, reality tv, story, studio melange, the melange, truth | Leave a comment »

Face It [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on March 7, 2025 by davidrobinsoncreative

“Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore.” ~ Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers

Given the collapsing farm markets with the annihilation of USAID, tariffs imposed on our allies, with Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security in the DOGE crosshairs, the dedication of tax dollars to prop up crypto-currency, the Department of Education on the chopping block…the folks in my bubble ask this question each and every day: “How bad does it have to get before they realize they’ve been had?”

I, myself, have often asked this question. Today, on our trail, as we watched the sun struggle to burn through the clouds, I came to a blindingly obvious realization: consistently discarding reality is the single requirement necessary to support the despot-wannabe. Consider all that had to be ignored: rapist, felon, insurrectionist, an estimated 461,000 excess deaths from a bumbling response to the pandemic, pathological liar, twice impeached, rated among the worst presidents in our history…This is a short list of a very long, long catalogue of reality-to-disregard. In other words, the red-hats will never realize that they’ve been had because they would rather swallow a fire hose of “alternative facts” than plug into substantive reality.

I understand the desire, the hope that our family members and fox-hypnotized community members will reclaim their capacity to discern fact from fantasy but I am now convinced that we should stop waiting or hoping or investing any energy in trying to reach them. We need to stop ignoring the reality that they have no interest in fact or data or verifiable truth. They simply do not care. They simply do not want to care. To borrow a phrase from Stephen Colbert, they are so far down the “stupid hole” that no amount of rope will reach them.

We should also stop waiting for members of the Republican party to honor their oath to the Constitution. They, too, are engaged in a fantasy world of “hear no evil, see no evil.” They are studied apologists for every outrage. If rape was not a bridge-too-far, if colluding with Russia is not a deal-breaker, if the tyrannical boast about “getting things done” without the participation of Congress doesn’t set off every constitutional alarm bell in their caucus, then there is no desecration that they will not swallow, excuse or justify.

A few nights ago, in commencing his tariffs on our allies, a move that will further wreck the farm economy and our alliances, the tawny tyrant tweeted for farmers to “Have fun.”

“Of course he wrote that,” I thought. Amidst all the fun that farmers are about to have, I am certain of one reality: when they lose their farms they’ll blame Biden or Obama or the woke or the Democrats or DEI for their pain because they’ll never turn away from the fox-cult and face the fact that they’ve been had.

“Been had” is an informal idiom that means to be tricked, cheated, or deceived by someone.

reality (noun): the world or the state of things as they actually exist.

Kerri’s albums are available on iTunes and streaming on Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about REALITY

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Filed under: KS Friday, Perspective | Tagged: alternative facts, artistry, authoritarian, been had, blame, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discernment, fact, fantasy, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reality, story, studio melange, taking stock, tariffs, The Constitution of The United States, the melange, truth, USAID | 1 Comment »

Caterpillar Kindness [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on December 4, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

It seems an odd time of year to see caterpillars. I am not a caterpillar expert. I’m not even a caterpillar novice so my perception of caterpillar oddity is based on nothing. Were we at a party and the conversation swung to caterpillars, I’d express my baseless opinion with forceful conviction. “Isn’t it strange!” I’d proclaim, “Caterpillars on the trail in the fall! Who’s ever heard of such a thing!” My conviction would have the other party-goers nodding their heads in agreement. Conviction without substance would make me a man of my times.

Of course, confessing my caterpillar ignorance compelled me to consult with the great oracle Google. I do not want to be a man of my times. As it turns out, as nature would have it, as is easily found with a simple-one-second search, Woolly Bear Caterpillars are abundant in the fall. They will someday transmogrify into Isabella Tiger Moths. And, as folklore would have it, farmer’s lore, the severity of the upcoming winter might be predicted based on the color of its bands. Fuzzy black indicates a harsh winter. Abundant brown bands indicate a milder winter. This fully black fuzzy caterpillar has me dusting off my snow shovel.

There is, however, a caveat: the great oracle Google was careful to note that the caterpillar-color-winter-prediction-method is not scientifically accurate. It is not as reliable as The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration. By-the-by, NOAA is on the cut-list of the incoming administration. Who needs science when there’s an unreliable old-farmer’s-tale-method of weather prediction!

Another Woolly Bear Caterpillar weather prediction myth is based on the direction it is traveling. If it is scootching along in a southerly direction, that indicates to old-farmer-information-less believers a severe winter. If it is wiggling its way north, then the winter is meant to be mild. I didn’t have my compass on the day that we saw this caterpillar crossing the path but I can assume by its full-black-fuzziness that it was sprinting to the south. Again, Google cautions that the caterpillar-direction-method-of-winter-severity is unreliable, not scientifically accurate.

This is the only part of this post that is verifiable: had we been on a path traveled by bicycles, Kerri would have lifted the Woolly Bear Caterpillar from the path and carried it out of harm’s way. She wants to do everything in her power to ensure that the little critter will meet its miraculous destiny and awake someday as an Isabella Tiger Moth. In this case, we watched it all the way until it reached the far side and disappeared into the fall grasses. I could tell that part of the story at a party and be absolutely certain that I was relaying accurate information. I have data. And experience. I’ve seen her caterpillar kindness with my own eyes.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CATERPILLARS