vote | The Direction of Intention

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

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Perspective, Possibility, Uncategorized | Tagged: artistry, authoritarianism, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, dragonfly, fascism, Heather Cox Richardson, Heather Delaney Reese, hope, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, story, studio melange, symbols, the melange, voice, vote | 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 »

Blue Blue Blue [David’s blog on Flawed Wednesday]

Posted on May 13, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

“The GOP is no longer made up of conservatives. It’s now wholly made up of (white) nationalists.” ~ Adam Kinzinger

“A one party system is authoritarianism.” ~ Heather Cox Richardson

If you are like me you spend a good part of the day looking to the sky for an explanation or some sense to be made of the madness plaguing our country. And, if you are like me, there is none to be found. Take this for example: the House Speaker in Alabama just called for a repeal of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. Apparently equal protection under the law for all citizens is anathema to the Alabama GOP. They would rather go back in time and deprive “certain citizens” of life, liberty, property and due process. Those “certain citizens” are of course, black.

What is the matter with these people? Look to the sky for answers! Nowhere on earth is there sense to be found for the Alabama GOP’s desire to return to life before the Civil War (read: a return to slavery and a world in which only white male landowners have the right to vote).

Here’s another example of the priorities of the modern GOP: “As of March 2026, the Ohio House passed House Bill 249, the “Indecent Exposure Modernization Act,” which aims to restrict “adult cabaret performances” in public spaces, defined in part by clothing choices.” It essentially polices what people wear. If it passes the state senate, a woman could be arrested for wearing a sports bra or going braless. Kerri could be arrested for wearing her flannel shirt because it might be deemed too masculine for a woman.

I’m not kidding. Their national priorities include a ballroom, mass deportation of any person of color, and an assault on voting rights. The end of women’s rights. And a tax cut for billionaires. And the elimination of healthcare and the social safety net. And the protection of wealthy pedophiles from prosecution.

The sky is not big enough to explain such malfeasance.

Perhaps it is way past time to look to the sky for answers and we need to begin looking at each other. This modern GOP is less interested in protecting our rights than they are in stripping rights from us. They want to control the news, academia (what we learn or do not learn), what we wear, who can and cannot vote, who has rights under the law and who does not. They want politicians to choose their voters because they fear what will happen if, as is meant to happen in a democracy, voters choose their politicians.

Our choice in November now has little to do with democrats or republicans. It is not about policy choices. It is whether or not we will return to life in a democracy, if we will have representatives – that is, people elected to government that serve the will of the people rather than being exploited by the whims of a dictator and his enablers. The past year and a half has given us a glimpse into life in an authoritarian state.

There is no help or advice coming from the blue blue sky. We are our last, best chance. The only path forward, the only escape from authoritarian red, no matter where you live or how gerrymandered your district, is to vote blue blue blue.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE SKY

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Filed under: Flawed Wednesday, Identity, Uncategorized | Tagged: 14th Amendment, Adam Kinzinger, artistry, authoritarian, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, democracy, Heather Cox Richardson, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, republicans, rights, story, studio melange, the melange, vote | Leave a comment »

Low Information Nightmare [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 17, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

We took down the chimes because we knew the blizzard was coming. We watched the monster winds , sleet and snow, approach on radar. I am forever grateful to have immediate access to weather radar so I know what’s coming. It saved us once-upon-a-time when we were caught in a tornado. Just after the winds lifted our car from the ground, we huddled behind a restaurant and watched the radar for a small break in the storm so we could make a run for safety.

Last night as the blizzard buffeted the house, as we ate bananas at 3am, we talked about all the things in the world about which we know nothing. Does ice on the tracks impact how the trains run? How do they move Anselm Kiefer’s monumental paintings from his studio to a gallery? In the age of Goggle it is possible to find out how to lay bricks but would I really know how to do it until I’d studied with a master bricklayer? At what point is abstract knowledge actually useful? At what point do we know what we are talking about?

Yesterday I heard a phrase roll through the news cycle that I’m coming to detest: low information voter. It’s sanitized language and brings up a number of questions for me. The first is obvious: are we mislabeling an intentionally misinformed voter as a low information voter? I’ve watched dozens of interviews with “low information voters” who are quite capable of regurgitating pat-phrases seeded into their brains from their source of misinformation. Are they then a low information voter?

The ghost of Neil Postman whispered in my ear:

“The question is not, Does or doesn’t public schooling create a public? The question is, What kind of public does it create? A conglomerate of self-indulgent consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses? Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and tolerance? The answer to this question has nothing whatever to do with computers, with testing, with teacher accountability, with class size, and with the other details of managing schools. The right answer depends on two things and two things alone: the existence of shared narratives and the capacity of such narratives to provide an inspired reason for schooling.” ~ Neil Postman, The End of Education

Shared narratives. An inspired reason to ask questions and to seek greater understanding. These two things actually form a feedback loop. They are fluid and not fixed: greater understanding informs and evolves shared narrative which opens new questions. You might think that shared narrative and pursuit of greater understanding would be essential concerns for our democracy but we are learning – I am learning, much to my surprise – that is not true. Our narrative is intentionally divided. The current republican party openly and intentionally demonizes learning. Low information voters are easily manipulated and a political party empty of ideas and ideals relies exclusively on a voting public that readily swallows their rubbish.

If our democracy took itself seriously, would we tolerate highly profitable sources of misinformation? Would we so easily polish “ignorance” into a shiny phrase: low information voter? If we took our democracy seriously and intended to protect it, wouldn’t “low information voting” be unacceptable since the responsibility of casting a ballot is predicated upon knowing what you are voting for?

I live in the age of Google. I can see storms coming and that informs my choices: I take down the chimes. I secure anything that the wind will destroy.

I live in the age of Google. I can -and do – in a moment fact check any assertion that comes my way. For instance, I know that the Save America Act is not what it appears to be. It is a storm coming. It does the opposite of what it purports to do. It has nothing to do with voter ID and everything to do with preventing voters from voting. It is a straw man; incidence of voter fraud in the United States is statistically zero. Do low information voters know that? This wind will destroy our democracy.

The woke folk on my side of the divide read Project 2025 and learned from the chaos and grift of the first four years of the authoritarian wannabe. We screamed, “There’s a storm coming!” The necessary information – like weather radar – was readily available. It was easy to see. Low information is, in actuality, the unwillingness to look.

What’s happening now in our nation is not a surprise. The campaign to create low information voters was -and is – successful. Eliminate education. Demonize truth as a hoax. Create “alternative” facts (legitimize lies) while labeling actual news “fake”. Split the people.

If we survive the attempted take down of our democracy, an item high on my list of things to address is the elimination of the possibility of the low information voter. One need not have a mass of information in their brain to be educated, they only need the desire to question, the dedication to discern what is true from what is dross. One need only understand the need to check the radar and act accordingly.

“Because we are imperfect souls, our knowledge is imperfect. The history of learning is an adventure in overcoming our errors. There is no sin in being wrong. The sin is in our unwillingness to examine our own beliefs, and in believing that our authorities cannot be wrong.” Neil Postman, The End of Education

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE CHIMES

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Jiggle The Eyes [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on March 3, 2026 by davidrobinsoncreative

I inverted the canvas. Turning a canvas upside down jiggles the eyes and loosens the grip of a mind that is fixed on seeing what it wants to see. It helps to pop the assumptions and see what is there and not what I think is there.

If the United States was a canvas it is a fair assertion to make that we’ve been inverted. Our eyes are jiggled. Our assumptions are popped. We can clearly see what has been here all along and it’s not what we thought. Power protects the pedophiles and threatens the lives of those abused. The Justice Department refuses to seek justice and, instead, covers-up the crime. Thugs in masks brutalize citizens, invade homes and kidnap people from the streets, all the while claiming that they are making our cities safer.

We are upside-down so we can see it.

We clearly see the lies of those who insist that all is as it should be. They stand and applaud the liar. They attach themselves to the lie and so create a very low bar to jump, wrecking democracy and giving rise to authoritarianism. The enthusiastic embrace of an obvious lie. Huzzah! The felon convicted of over thirty counts of fraud concocts a “war on fraud” to distract from his ongoing titanic swindle. His party pumped their fists and cheered. And then he started an actual war, Operation Epstein File Diversion.

Have you ever for a moment mistaken the sun for the moon? The disorientation is temporary but inspires an immediate question: What time of day is it? Later it might seem a silly question but it is, in the moment, necessary for reorienting in space and time.

As a nation we are upside-down. We were momentarily disoriented. Now, it’s only a matter of time before go to the polls and remind the liar and his sycophantic tribe that we see what is there, that we reorient to the Constitution, the rule of law, and give boot to the clown-car-cult of the would-be king.

read Kerri’s blogpost about SUN/MOON