vote | The Direction of Intention

Take A Breath [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on October 27, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Sometimes the path serves as a pressure release valve. It’s curious that the need for a release-of-pressure often comes as a surprise. It’s like a mile into the path you suddenly allow yourself to breathe, completely unaware that you were holding your breath.

There’s plenty of reasons right now to hold your breath.

How many times recently have you heard or said this phrase: “I can’t believe where we are.” Or ask, “How did we get to this place?” References to our nation. Disbelief that we are teetering on the edge of authoritarianism.

The election is one week from today. In normal times no one would be holding their breath. These are not normal times.

In normal times, the people have the power. It’s sacred. It’s called The Vote. In normal times politicians honor the results of the vote. There was -and is – no reason not to honor the result since fraud in our elections is exceedingly rare. The politicians of the past believed in the democratic process even if the results did not go their way. Again, these are not normal times.

As of this moment The People still have the power, The Vote, but the current occupant of the White House and his party no longer believe in the democratic process. They are working overtime to undermine The Vote, which means they will do anything to undermine The People. It’s why we are collectively holding our breath. We’ve seen what they are capable of doing to stay in power.

The pundits and polls tell us that there will be a blue wave. The People are sick-and-tired of holding their breath. The pundits also tell us that if there is a blue wave it will likely trigger the ugliest phase yet. The last time the current occupant of the White House lost he unleashed a mob on the Capitol with the intent of stopping the certification of The Vote. That was child’s play compared to what he will do – or so we are told.

As Kerri often says, “They have no reverence.”

It’s the reason we head to the woods and walk the path. On the path we are immersed in Reverence and quiet. The gunk falls away and a greater truth rises. Pressure releases. Breath returns. Sanity is restored.

If there is a blue wave we will, for a moment, take a breath. We will afford ourselves a sigh of relief. And then we will take a deeper breath, one that we can hold until the newly elected congress is seated and the checks and balances that make our democracy viable are restored. Still, when it is all too much, when we need to bath in peace and quiet, we will head to the woods and walk the path, where, for a few moments we will surprise ourselves – and allow ourselves to breathe.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PATH

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Filed under: Two Artists Tuesday, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, reverence, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | Leave a comment »

Make A Statement [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on October 26, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

A week and a day until election day. It is an election that will either save our democracy or end it. The stakes could not be higher.

I have been encouraged by the line of early voters at City Hall. A local told me that he’d never seen lines like this before.

I have been discouraged by the pundits who expect that the political races across this land will be close. I wonder how that is possible given the depravity and disappearing act of the republican congress. The economy is in shambles. Our allies are abandoning us. Our food chain is soiled. We are embroiled in another endless war. The corruption is in plain sight. The republican candidates are as vile as their leader. How is it possible that any of these races will be close?

The common wisdom is that the democrats must win by a mile since we know that the wannabe-autocrat will contest the results. He has done almost everything in his power to undermine our free and fair elections. He has done almost everything in his power to undermine his own party. He knows that a democratic congress means accountability-for-his-corruption-is-coming. The Epstein Files will come out. Putin will no longer have full control of his puppet strings.

And so the people must come out to vote en masse because it cannot be close. We’ve slipped this far. This election cannot merely be won. It must be a statement.

Let’s make a statement. I will vote. I will protect our right to vote. Will you? The stakes could not be higher.

read Kerri’s blogpost about VOTE

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: accountability, artistry, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, election, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | Leave a comment »

A Well Known Truth [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on October 23, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I’ve been thinking a lot about truth lately. What is true and what is not – and in this age of technology how do we know? A photograph is no longer proof that something happened. Neither is a film or a voice recording. All can be manufactured and manipulated. The legacy news outlets are partisan at best: narratives are manipulated for ratings or some other less palatable agenda…but only loosely related to truth.

How do we know what is factual when there is a concerted effort – from every direction – to spin the truth?

If truth is a coherence that emerges when facts are lined up and stitched together, then the best way to undermine the truth is to deny the facts. In this age of rampant gaslighting and cries of “fake news”, indisputable facts are daily obscured by clouds of deceit and tsunamis of nonsense.

How do we, as a nation, as a community, expect to debate best paths forward when we are incapable – or unwilling – to acknowledge facts? At the No Kings rally I had a conversation with a man who perfectly captured the challenge we face. Playing devil’s advocate, he said: “Who needs facts! If I believe it is true then it is true.”

These are facts:

~ Election fraud in our system is statistically zero.

~ In 2020 a mob incited by the current president attacked the Capitol.

~ He lost the 2020 election. He is a felon. He’s been found libel for sexual assault.

~ He’s a pathological liar.

~He wants us to believe that voter fraud is rampant in our elections.

Based on a plethora of facts, when stitched together, it is impossible to escape this truth: he is waging a war on our Constitution in order to install an authoritarian state. To do it he needs us to divorce ourselves from the facts. He needs us to be afraid.

Water freezes at 32 degrees. Fact.

Truth: The horizon calls us to the unknown. It invites us to ask, “What’s beyond?” It’s why we build ships, sail to the edge, seek religious freedom, play with fire, build roads, seek cures and imagine and strive for a nation governed by the people and not a king. It’s why we seek truth and rely on facts to get us there.

This is a well-known truth stitched together from facts: Democracy dies in darkness. “Without reliable information, the public cannot make informed choices, leading to the gradual erosion and collapse of democratic institutions.”

Kerri’s albums are calling you from iTunes and Pandora

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE PATH

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Filed under: KS Friday, Language, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, facts, gaslighting, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, the melange, truth, vote | Leave a comment »

The Basic Action [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 21, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“In a democracy, dissent is an act of faith.” ~ J. William Fulbright

Are you as confused as I am that people in a democracy choose not to vote? How is it possible to believe that your vote does not matter? That is the equivalent of saying to yourself, “I have no voice.” Or, it is an embrace of root rot, to uphold the victim-belief that the democracy is already gone and the act of voting is a sham.

To this day I am gobsmacked that in our last election more people decided not to vote than those who voted for either candidate. In one of the closest presidential races in our history, a race that was by all accounts the most important in our lifetime, 90 million Americans stayed home. 90 million people chose voicelessness. 90 million people thought that their voice did not matter.

Surrounded by the wreckage of our system, demolished over the past two years by an authoritarian regime, I challenge anyone to convince me that their vote did not count, that their voice does not count. In this case, silence is not dissent. It was surrender. Going forward, silence is conformity.

And here we are again only this time – this time – is not only the most important vote of our lives, it may be the most important vote in the life of our democracy. We are voting to fight for the life of government of, by and for the people – or to pull the plug and let it die.

Each day I read appeals to get out the vote – essentially an appeal to convince people in a democracy under siege – that they have a voice, that their voice matters. Given the utter corruption, the selling-out of the people to enrich the privileged few, it confuses me.

Standing in the rubble – and the wave of devastation of social safety net still-to-come thanks to the Big Ugly Bill, another forever war, The Epstein Class cover-up…I wonder why anyone would need convincing to speak up.

A vote is either an act of approval or it is an act of dissent. It is the fundamental, the basic action defining our system: the people have the power to choose their path by voting to stay the course or to change it. It is an enormous power and with power comes responsibility. In our government, it is sometimes hard to remember that we have the power – by design. Our democracy can only collapse if we allow it to happen.

The ongoing all-out-assault on our right to vote, waged by the president and his feckless party, is meant to render us voiceless. It is a power grab. They would squeeze us into conformity and if they succeed, the 90 million will have proven themselves as authoritarian-first-adapters, selecting voicelessness en route to a rotten system, modeling itself on Putin’s Russia or Orbán’s Hungary, a system of control that relies on a complacent and silent citizenry.

We have the opportunity, perhaps our last, to dissent. To speak. To uphold our responsibility. To vote.

“Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.” ~ Jacob Brownoski

read Kerri’s blogpost about DISSENT

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Filed under: Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Power, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, conformity, corruption, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dissent, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, responsibility, story, studio melange, the melange, voice, vote | Leave a comment »

The Reason [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on September 7, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“[Teddy]Roosevelt had come to believe that a strong government must regulate business. “The absence of effective State, and, especially, national, restraint upon unfair money-getting has tended to create a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power,” he said.

After all, he said, “[t]he object of government is the welfare of the people.” ~ Milwaukee Independent

It reads like copy from today yet it’s from a speech Roosevelt gave in 1912. The times have changed but the tension remains the same. The question is as it was then: is the object of government the welfare of the people – all of the people – or is it to protect the prosperity of the few?

Theodore Roosevelt believed that the purpose of government was to prosper the people. In today’s parlance that would make him a Democratic Socialist. Government must be strong in order to regulate corporations. Government is the firewall that protects the people from corporate greed and exploitation.

The current occupant of the White House and the contemporary republican party believe the opposite: The purpose of government is deregulation and tax cuts for the wealthy few. It’s an agenda that serves a long debunked claim that wealth will trickle down. It doesn’t. It never has. It never will. It creates “…a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.”

The purpose of DOGE was not to cut waste, fraud and abuse. The purpose of DOGE was to cut oversight and regulation of corporate activity. We are feeling the effects of a weakened government oversight in the grocery store, at the gas pump, in the gutting of healthcare and the social safety net.

“Over the past five decades, economic analyses indicate that roughly $50 trillion to $80 trillion in aggregate income and wealth has been redistributed upward or concentrated into the highest-earning brackets away from the bottom 90% of Americans.”

The cuts to healthcare, to Medicaid, to SNAP…to every program that served the welfare of the people pays for an enormous tax cut extended to the already morbidly wealthy. It is the centerpiece of the republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill. It balloons our national debt. Much of the damage is yet to be felt since they courageously (I’m being facetious) planned for the majority of the cuts to take effect AFTER the midterms.

Today is Labor Day. It has a history and a purpose: “Workers formed unions and held rallies. On September 5, 1882, the first Labor Day parade was held in New York City when 10,000 workers marched for better pay and conditions.”

Although the cost of living has escalated, the last raise to the minimum wage was in 2009.

The republicans under the current occupant of the White House have convinced many people at the bottom of the economic ladder that government is the problem. It’s not corporate greed. It’s not corporate influence in Washington D.C., it’s not that business driven policy and purchased-politicians that weaken the role of government… The MAGA cult famously votes – and continues to vote – for its own exploitation. They cheer the wreckage of the firewall built to protect them.

It’s Labor Day. It’s time for us to remember the reason why we gather this day and place our focus and intention on the workers. It’s time for us to remember that “the object of government is the welfare of the people.”

It is time for the people to reclaim their government from the small class of enormously wealthy people who exploit the people at every turn. And, more to the point, it is time for this nation to exit the question: is the object of government the welfare of the people – all of the people – or is it to protect the prosperity of the few? This nation has always prospered when the welfare of the people are the object of policy. It teeters when our government is hijacked and used to protect the wealth of the few.

We are a government of, by, and for the people. A government for the people. It’s in our founding documents. It is the reason why we vote, why we have the right to vote. It is the reason the republicans and this president are assaulting our right to vote from every direction.

It’s Labor Day. It’s time to remember that working people had to fight for their rights. They are not a given. They are tenuous. It’s time for us to realize how hard this administration is working to strip us of our rights, to gut the government whose purpose is to protect the welfare of the people while it is working overtime to protect “a small class of enormously wealthy people, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.”

What will you do now and in November to protect your rights, especially your right to vote in free and fair election, given that this might be our last Labor Day celebrated by people governed by a system rooted in the belief that the people should choose their leaders – and not the other way around?

read Kerri’s blog post about LABOR DAY

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, DOGE, elections, exploitation, free and fair elections, government, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, labor day, regulation, rights, story, studio melange, the melange, Theodore Roosevelt, vote | 1 Comment »

An Aspiration [David’s blog on KS Friday]

Posted on August 28, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

One of the first things I noticed on the day I met Kerri, the day that I first stepped foot in the house, was the abundance of peace signs. There was a peace sign dangling from the rearview mirror of LittleBabyScion. There was a peace sign decal on the back of LBS. There were peace sign necklaces hanging from the bathroom mirror. Peace sign ornaments hung from doorknobs and in front of windows. Peace signs were integrated in the kitchen and the living room. She had surrounded herself with an aspiration, a dedication to peace. The house felt like a sanctuary.

We’ve added a few more since my arrival. Peace has found its way into the garden, prominent in winter while in the summer it peeks from behind the tall grasses.

I wondered about the origins of this ubiquitous-in-our-house symbol. I thought I’d find something ancient but instead learned that it reaches back less than a century. “..its very design was inspired by naval semaphore code. Semaphore is traditionally employed by seafarers who use flags held in different positions to communicate across distances…“ The peace sign is an integration of the “N” and the “D” of semaphore code. “N” and “D” signaled nuclear disarmament.

When I was in elementary school we practiced drills, crawling beneath our desks in case a nuke was dropped nearby. I’m certain the desk would not have protected us from annihilation but at least our last moments on earth would be an attempt to live. “In the United States, along with the underlying threat of the Cold War and nuclear disaster, additional tensions brought on by the Vietnam War and the fight for Civil Rights ramped up the movement for peace. Anti-War and Civil Rights activists took on the symbol for nuclear disarmament as a symbol for all peaceful causes.”

The peace symbols that surround us in our sanctuary home have taken on new import lately. Actually, it is not new import, it is renewed import. An aspiration for peace is much more than quaint. During the Cold War, when a little version of me was crawling beneath my desk, people took to the streets to protest very real threats. Nuclear holocaust in the world and racist inequity at home. It is ironic that the man currently pretending to be president has willy-nilly tossed us into a war with the excuse of preventing Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. A made-up boogeyman. A non-existent threat. And, the children in Iran who perished died at our hands and had no time to crawl beneath their desks.

Masked men who objectively answer only to the pretender-in-chief (not the law) roam the streets, shooting citizens while snapping up black and brown women, men, children and old people, whisking them away to concentration camps. Right here in the USA. Here, in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We are in a war with ourselves, enacting horror on a daily basis to address problems that do not really exist but have been whipped up to divide us. To assault our peace.

Is there not an immediate need to reignite and rally behind the symbol of peace? “N” + “D”?

The elementary school children today practice a survival drill necessitated, not from a foreign enemy, but from an internal threat. A young man with a military grade weapon who has more protected rights than do the children and teachers he will kill. The desk, the door, the teacher will not protect the scrambling children from annihilation but at least their last moments on earth will be an attempt to live.

Not so long ago this nation prided itself as being a beacon of hope. We aspired to be “The shining city on the hill.” A place where people of all backgrounds might come to make a better life for themselves. A sanctuary. Although glacial, we’ve moved ever closer to the equality promised in our Declaration of Independence from a tyrant king.

Today, our national body hosts a fast-moving cancer, a tyrant-cult, that eats our guts from the inside. We have one remaining shot at survival and it is to use the only tool left to us, the primary tool of governance by the people: vote. Vote for the restoration of peace. Vote for the end of this corruption and abuse. Vote. Ducking beneath the desk and hoping that we will survive is, as it has always been, an illusion meant to distract the children, giving them something to occupy their minds before the end.

We cannot act like children. Vote. Protect your vote rather than hide beneath your desk. Is there not an immediate need to reignite and rally behind the symbol of peace? Are we not standing on deck waving our flags over and over again: “N” + “D”? Is there not an imperative to remember what we stand for, what ideals populate our founding documents? Isn’t it time to reclaim who we aspire to be?

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

read Kerri’s blogpost about PEACE

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Filed under: KS Friday, Metaphor, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, boundaries, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, hope, ideals, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, nuclear disarmament, peace, sanctuary, story, studio melange, symbol, the melange, vote | 1 Comment »

What Took You So Long [David’s blog on Merely A Thought Monday]

Posted on August 24, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Isn’t it the most human of things, to look at a horizon and wonder what’s over there? Who doesn’t look at the calendar and wonder what tomorrow will bring? Isn’t that the point of celebrating the New Year? Casting hope upon the water. Intending to knock items off the bucket list? Make a real commitment to run at the dream?

And…isn’t that also the very thing that keeps people locked in their routine? The fear of what might happen? The fear of what’s over there. The conservative impulse meets the progressive impulse. To walk at the horizon is to welcome change, to take a step toward the unknown.

What is the necessary bridge between wishful thinking and taking the first step toward change? The word, “possibility” is a cousin of the word, “unknown”. It cannot be a possibility if it is already in hand. What is necessary to transform the scary unknown into the optimistic possibility? What moment, what insight is required to stir resistance into aspiration into action?

I’ve written about this before. It is a life lesson so I revisit it from time-to-time. Once I stood on a cliff above a river, my friends in the water 70 feet below calling out, “Just do it! Jump!” I was terrified. Afraid of heights I climbed up the cliff to challenge myself. Once at the top my fear took over. My knees would not hold my weight. My friends became impatient, “Come on, we’re cold!” they shouted. I could not climb down. I could not step off the edge. I was frozen in place. And then, I heard this wisdom whispered into my ear: “If you put as much energy into jumping as you are into telling yourself that you are afraid, you would have jumped by now.” I stepped to the edge and jumped.

I remember nothing of the way down. I remember bobbing to the surface, my friends laughing, “Finally!” the cheered, “What took you so long?”

I am still afraid of heights. I am still afraid of many things. But I now have in my pocket a wisdom that helps when I am frozen: If you put as much energy into jumping…”

Lately I think about that leap everyday. As a nation we are standing on a cliff. We are less than 3 months to the most important vote of our lifetimes. The conservatives would have us filled with fear. They would have us sit on the cliff face and quake while they dismantle our democracy. They fill our streets with ICE in an attempt to purge us of our rich diversity. They paint our neighbors as enemies and rip choice from women. They pull out old boogeymen phrases like “communism” so we might point our bile at each other – a mechanism to keep us on the cliff face.

Voting is an action. We can vote for fear. We can vote for possibility. Our choice in November boils down to vote for one-party authoritarianism and ignore rampant corruption, or to reaffirm our democracy, a two-party system with accountability and checks on power baked into the design.

Democracy has always been – and always will be – an aspiration. It is not an achievement. It is an ongoing relationship between the people of the nation and possibilities that they pursue. One day, when we once again walk at the horizon of unequivocal equality-for-all – when we have finally-and-at-last purged the authoritarian impulse, the white supremacists and oligarchs who would have us cling to fear, surrender our volition, betray our rights and turn away from progress toward the ideal – one day we will ask ourselves, “What took us so long?”

read Kerri’s blogpost about WHAT COMES NEXT

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Filed under: Identity, Merely A Thought Monday, Metaphor, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: accountability, artistry, choice, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, fear, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, progress, relationship, story, studio melange, the melange, vote, wisdom | Leave a comment »

What We Carry [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on August 19, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Purples and greens, secondary colors on the color wheel, accented with pops of vivid red, a primary color on the wheel. It is a brilliant study of contrast principle. The arrangement of opposites creates visual interest, dynamic, and focus. In other words, beauty. Remove the diversity of color and world is rendered bland.

The same principle applies to ingenuity. To the generation of ideas. To entrepreneurship. To good governance. Remove the contrasting ideas and the world is rendered insipid. It is a paradox: originality is a collision of a diversity of ideas and influences. Creativity requires an ancestry of imagination, a community of influence to stoke the fire in the artistic forge.

To all the white christian nationalists out there who would scrub this nation of color, keep this in mind: uniformity is by definition unchanging. In nature, the absence of diversity is a guaranteed wasteland. Only a wasted mind would strive for constant bland as its highest ideal.

Original thought and critical thinking is dangerous to the cult of wasted minds.

We are among the most entrepreneurial nations that has ever existed precisely because we are diverse. We are a crossroad of culture where ideas collide, debate is welcome and insight explodes into form. We are a great nation because we carry the contrast principle in our national dna.

Individualism is not the absence of other colors. It is the pop of red made vibrant by the field of green and purple that give it context and meaning. If rugged individualism is what makes this country great then it is way past time to recognize that the individual right is only made possible by the dogged support of the diverse community that created, protects and believes in the sanctity of laws that guarantee individual rights. An individual right is a societal ideal.

Think about that as ICE sweeps up and deports people with no thought to the law. Consider the rulings made by the rogue Supreme Court that put one man above the law, suspended due process rights, habeas corpus and dismantles voter’s rights. Consider the threat on the contrast principle when you next hear the rabid dogs of of this administration bark at the law while stroking their white-uniformity-fantasy that demonizes women, people of color, and anyone who has an opposing point of view.

Think about the assault on the contrast principle when you experience the continued full frontal assault on voter rights from this administration. They make no secret that they will stop at nothing to remove the voice and power of the other party from governance. They want no contrast, no diversity of thought, no opposition, no free and fair elections.

Robbing any voter of their most sacred individual right, the right to vote for a diversity of representation, robs you of your most sacred individual right, too. If you care about your individual rights, you must first care about protecting those rights for all others. All others. No exceptions. That is how a societal ideal becomes manifest into action.

We are a great nation because we carry the contrast principle in our national dna. We have not come this far or fought this hard to give it all away to a cult of bland, wasted minds lost in a homogeneous control fantasy.

read Kerri’s blogpost about CONTRAST PRINCIPLE

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Perspective, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, contrast principle, critical thinking, culture, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, Diversity, due process, entrepreneurship, free and fair elections, habeas corpus, ice, identity, innovation, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, Opposition, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | 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 »

Say, “Enough.” [David’s blog on Not So Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on July 15, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

Few symbols are as positive as a dragonfly. So we were heartened when two decided to visit, resting in the branch that we’ve wrapped in lights and affixed to our deck. New beginnings, spiritual alignment, harmony in relationship. They stayed with us for quite awhile. They were willing subjects with the spontaneous photo shoot.

Each morning we read the two Heathers: Heather Cox Richardson and Heather Delaney Reese (It’s A Lovely Life). The news is bleak but their message is hopeful: we will get through this authoritarian nightmare if together we show-up and speak-up. This full frontal assault on our rights by the executive, republican legislative, and judicial branch (the extreme supremes) is unprecedented. The Heathers have faith in the will of the people. They are calling the people, all of us, to assert our will in this extreme moment in our nation’s history. Government of, by, and for the people requires the people to stand up to their government – the people that they elected – when their government goes rogue.

I couldn’t help but project the positive meaning of our dragonfly visit onto the entire nation. Somewhere out there is a new beginning, a nation of people, diverse and complex, that values harmony over division. From this hot fire a Phoenix will rise. But first, the fire. What is becoming more and more clear is that we cannot wait to stand up. The election in November is not certain. The window is closing. The authoritarian attacks are ramping up. We are the hope of the nation – if we stand up and say, “Enough”.

Enough. This week ICE killed two more innocent men. Their crime? They were driving to work. Enough. Due process and habeas corpus are guaranteed to all people in our constitution, citizens and non-citizens alike. Where did they go? Concentration camps and deportation without due process are blatantly unconstitutional. They are also un-american, not to mention amoral. Enough. Our government should not be providing cover for a rapist and a global pedophile network. Enough. And why-oh-why are we at war? Enough. Enough. Enough.

The basic right that they would now corrupt is the right to vote. Our vote is the final line, the only thing separating us from an ugly fall into fascism. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. There is no evidence – none – that our elections are or have ever been corrupt, why-oh-why are we inundated and permitting the incessant lies of a man so clearly afraid of a free and fair election. Enough.

Republican silence. Dedicated cowardice. A majority of ideologues populating the Supreme Court, wrecking our system of checks-and-balances in order to give an out-of-control executive unchecked power…it is anti-democratic. Enough.

Both Heathers caution that the days ahead will be darker because this administration is desperate. They – he – will do anything to hold onto power. Their – his -corruption is so egregious that they – he – will do anything to avoid accountability. Anything. And so we must meet their – his – “anything” with an equal and opposite force. A unified voice saying, “Enough.”

There is no more time for complacency. Wait-and-see will guarantee the end of our democracy. No one is or will be untouched by what this administration is attempting (I am suddenly awash in a memory: responding to a woman in a workshop who expressed a desire to find her voice, my business partner asked, “If you had your voice, what would you say?”). There is no more time to search for voice.

For me, the Heathers serve as dragonflies sitting on the branch above us. Hope. A new beginning. They remind us each day that our nation, living the promise of democracy, is possible. This is a cusp. What happens next is ours to decide, not the spineless republicans, not the corrupt supremes, not the wannabe dictator. Ours. The line gets thinner and thinner every single day. Together – together – we must grow louder, stronger, every single day speaking with a unified voice. Enough.

read Kerri’s blogpost about DRAGONFLIES