fact | The Direction of Intention

Read The Rings [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on July 24, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The “Lost Cause” is a revisionist narrative that emerged in the American South after the Civil War to romanticize the Confederacy and justify secession. It falsely claims the war was fought over “states’ rights” rather than slavery, portrays slavery as a benign institution, and asserts that Confederate defeat was caused solely by Union advantages in resources and manpower.” ~ EBSCO

In 2023 I wrote a play entitled DIORAMA that explores our nation’s inability to deal honestly with our history. Even after all of my research and immersion into the topic, I have been agog at the lengths the current administration has gone in the past 18 months to whitewash our history in order to reinvigorate The Lost Cause narrative. White supremacy cannot face the mirror of history so must selectively distort, assault and/or eliminate fact and truth.

Last week Stephen Miller labeled progressives – or anyone who does not agree with his white nationalism – as less than human. We were witness to the president of the United States call the democrats and progressives “a danger to our democracy” and dust off the tired-old-chicken-little-cry: liberals are communists! It would be sad and laughable if history had not taught us of the dangers of desperate dictators and their nationalist sycophants.

As we have previously written, a storm recently broke our mighty maple tree. Kerri’s relationship with this guardian reaches back nearly 40 years. She has a long and precious history with this gentle giant. I have only had a fragment of that time but felt deeply the loss of this near-century old spirit. It is part of our history. As I watched the crew quickly take it down, I couldn’t help but think about how long it took to grow. It seemed unfair how rapidly it was removed.

Destruction is easy. Growth takes time, nurturing, patience. Perseverance.

A healthy history – a healthy nation – relies on the strength of its roots – all of its roots. The rings preserve and tell the story of the good, the bad and the ugly. To attempt to cut out the bad and the ugliness of manifest destiny, slavery, the trail of tears…to eliminate the rings of diversity, suffrage, the struggle for civil rights…is to badly weaken the tree. Kill the history and you kill the root. Kill the root and the democracy will not survive. And that is precisely why they attack our history. To be successful, an authoritarian regime needs to weaken and then cut down the tree of democracy. Systematically. Efficiently. And the fastest route to dismemberment of democracy is to amputate its history, eliminate entirely the struggle for equality.

Of course, like our tree, they can remove the exhibits from the institutions, they can fire women and people of color, they can vilify DEI, they can ban books and force universities to suspend programs of study…but that will never cancel the truth of the history of our nation. It lives in us as powerfully as the history of our tree lives in Kerri.

The Nazis made the same mistake as did the Daughters of the Confederacy when they concocted their Lost Cause narrative. Whitewash only temporarily covers the substance; it is not the substance. We the people hold the history, not a made-up curriculum. History is lived.

We-the-people are the “burning point of our ancestral ship”and history teaches us that sooner or later, given enough time, these scrubbers of history, these fearmongers, will eventually scrub themselves. They will become a single ring in our tree, a marker of a bad time, a forest fire that we survived and transcended. A moment in time that ultimately made our democracy stronger and, hopefully, a ring that marks the time when we finally faced – without fear – the complete story of our nation’s history.

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE STUMP

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Filed under: Edges, Identity, KS Friday, Metaphor, Transcendence, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democrat, dictator, fact, history, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Lost Cause narrative, perseverance, progressive, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, white nationalism | Leave a comment »

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

Posted on July 22, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

It is no small challenge we face.

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

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

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

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

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

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUNRISE THOUGH SMOKE

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

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

Posted on July 20, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about BUBBLES

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

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…