Meanwhile, in Springfield, Ohio

                                                               

I'm not exactly what put this into my brain, but... 

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Birthday Book

 

     The royal "memoir" series has been good to this blog.   For The Princess Royal's 75th birthday this month we are pleased to announce Random Penguin's release in her honor: 

    Though Princess Anne is known for being blunt and straightforward, she often has a humorous and jolly face in public. Still, she does not "suffer fools gladly" and has perfected her "withering look."

     This book is 100% pictorial: images of the withering look from her youth to present.  It is a perfect book for non-readers and for those looking to perfect their own withering stare.

Holiday Cook-Out

 

Shake up that tired old summer barbecue, festive potluck or holiday meal with this interesting smorgasbord:  toasted beef brain sandwiches, haggis [Scottish dish including sheep heart, lungs and liver], Braunschweiger [German liver sausage], beef tongue, menudo [Hispanic dish including beef tripe], chitterlings [pronounced "chitlins"; Southern dish, especially known as "soul food", made of stuffed pig intestines], and boiled Brussels sprouts.  Yummy!  🥴🥺  

Very international-- perfect for an immigrant country such as ours!

A New Flag

 
   We're in a whole season of patriotic holidays and recognitions.  Memorial Day just passed, both the Monday holiday and the former "proper" observance on May 30th.  Flag Day is on June 14th.          

     Independence Day is July 4th.  Labor Day is more to honor us workers, but it's kind of a patriotic fest, too.

    So, here's a proposed flag for a movement that ought to exist!

     (Some Semafor and Signal conversations were leaked in spring 2025. They showed a group of billionaires having private chats, trying to figure out how to "steer" the country.  Of course, the ideas were primarily for their benefit.)

Service with Dignity

More Sensible Tax Schemes

Easter Art

 HAPPY EASTER!

      The butterfly is a symbol of the resurrection. The caterpillar "sleeps" for a time in the cocoon and comes out as a glorious butterfly.

     This picture is a pen & ink drawing of mine that I made for a self-published book on nature and the Bible in the 1990s.  I recently colorized it with the Paint 3D program. 

The Unexpected Memoir

              What does a famous royal do after many months of staying in and caring for a recovering spouse?  They write a non-ghost-written memoir that contains nothing salacious.  Random Penguins brings you the memoir you've been dreaming of in time for Valentine's Day.  Keep dreaming:

      You were expecting the obvious title, Heir?  If royal life is predicable, why should the book title be, also?  

      Square: A Tale of Maturation; chapter headings and partial synopses:

• Forward:  No More Wild Child
• Aristos:  Allies or Adversaries?
• This Rex Is Not Oedipus (moving from a childish to an adult view of parents)
• Sneaking Camilla's Ciggies
• Annoying Baby Brothers, Part 1: The Eton Years
• Altered Reality & Moving On  (Harry has insinuated he has more sibling dirt.  *Yawn*  Almost no one would be shocked.  Some people move on.)
• Discretion is the Better Part of Valour  (keeping "first times," and every time after, private)
• Piloting Without Preening  (from 2009-2015, there were various military and civilian postings as a helicopter pilot)
• Undergoing Therapy: It's Not a Whinge Fest (A good therapist tells you things you don't want to hear: it's important to listen.  Includes special insertion by various therapists discussing the phenomena and pitfalls of stubbornness.)
• Care & Feeding of Staff:  From School Matrons to Protection Officers to Palace Staff
• The Wedding of the Century 
• 50 Shades of Grey Tweed: From City Boy to Country Squire
• Adult Highs:  Bicycling with Children
• Bratty Baby Brothers, Part 2  (with a special section by 'Pa' [King Charles III] on how his youngest of brothers, Uncle Edward, matured better than Uncle Andrew)
• Environmentalism Is Not Performative Art
• Royal Todgers are Private Business [There is no other text for this chapter; this is it.  Prince Harry went too far, not only in discussing his own nether regions, but also in alluding to his brother's on the matter of circumcision. --ed]
• Caring for Catherine (no "naughty nurse" outfits, as in her past Halloween looks, just lots of love & care)
• Epilogue:  "It's Hip to Be Square" (Huey Lewis & The News put out their song "Hip to Be Square" in 1986.  'Mummy' was fond of all sorts of 80s pop music.  The song not only brings back memories; it describes daily life now.)   

Janus-wary

  

        Happy January, named for the Roman god "Janus."  Janus represented beginnings & endings, ins & outs at the same time.  Thus, he is usually pictured with two faces.  One of these dichotomies represented is the beginning and the and ending of the year.  Hence, January being "his" month.

    

          

 

     He also represented the beginning and ending of war, though Mars was the god of war, with Minerva playing some role in this. He was the god of "entryways", such as gates, doorways and arches.  

     In a broader sense, he was the god of transitions.  As such, he was seen as the representation of the prime beginning and end of the universe itself. 

     Romans turned concepts into deities much more frequently than Greeks did.  Thus, there was no Greek equivalent of Janus.  

For more reading on Janus:

Janus: Encyclopedia Britannica

Janus: World History Encyclopedia

Dualities from/based on Ecclesiastes

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, 11

A Riff on Ecclesiastes 3:1-11

Pleasant Sound

 

     There is a band instrument called euphonium ["good sound"] or baritone horn.  It has roughly the tone range of a trombone but a "mellower" sound.  It is not as widely known as the trombone because jazz bands and traditional orchestras have not used it. (In more recent times, a few symphonies have used it and have featured it as a special solo instrument.)

     Being so unknown, it seems like it doesn't get as much respect as many instruments.  Still, John Phillip Sousa liked it and wrote special musical lines for it.  In other places around the world, it has gotten more attention.

     Besides being called the euphonium or baritone, it has also been called the tenor Saxe. This is not to be confused with the tenor sax(ophone).  The German inventor of saxophones, a cross between brass and reed instruments, also improved upon existing brass instruments.  He developed distinct brass instruments in various ranges which were all Saxe horns.

     This is a great time of the year to feature euphoniums.  They will be in all those school marching bands getting into full swing right now.  They will also pop up in a lot of the Oktoberfest bands around the world.

     These instruments are on display at the Musical Instrument Museum in Phoenix, AZ.  It is amazing how many of these "shy baritone" types are there.  (Technically, baritones have straighter tubing, while euphonium tubing flares more.)  This isn't even close to the entire array of similar instruments there; they even had some double-belled horns, with one of the bells giving a "brighter" sound than the other.

     This is an instrument I have played many years, though I don't claim to be a virtuoso.  

America the Fun

 

Why can't our Donkey & Elephant be as fun as these guys?         

     Why do these private entities get to consider themselves statesmen and run the country?  Political parties are not mentioned in the Constitution, and their status interferes with the checks and balances of the Constitution.                  
                                                            

Who's Paying?

 

     Elon Mu$k is insistent that the population should keep growing, not stabilize or shrink.  Many people had called for population control for environmental reasons. Mu$k wants growth for continued economic expan$ion.

     If the population expands, there will be more children born who will have a lifetime of needs. Yes, they will also be con$umer$, but some will need significant social supports.

     Also, if there are more consumers, there will be more environmental impacts.

     If Mu$k wants this expansion, then he needs to be the billionaire leading the charge to raise marginal taxes* on the wealthy.  These tax revenues will provide more services for those born with more needs and will pay for environmental clean-ups.  Perhaps it could also provide more daycare and early childhood education free to more people (via vouchers, of course, so it wouldn't involve Mu$k indoctrination).

    Instead, billionaire$ like him are fine with increa$ing the gap between rich and poor. But a larger population gives him more people from which to increa$e his own wealth.  He and other billionaire$ need to pay higher marginal taxe$ on their upper earning$.

*Marginal taxes:  taxes charged only on income above a certain level or "margin."  When people talk about charging higher taxes on the rich (this blog repeatedly calls for a 42% upper income marginal level), that percentage (i.e. 42%) is not taxed on the person's entire income, but only on amounts above a certain level, say, $500,000 or $1 million.

From Sea to Dark Dead Sea

 

[This poem is about the modern American mindset and its influence upon the Church. It does not reflect a crushing depression on the part of the poetess. Cleary, this is not a new line of thought.]

The Jordan in but never out,
So knowledge takes in me such route
In brackish waters to brood about
The suppression of true freedom's shout---
The Dead Sea.

At lowest point, then, here I sit.
The deepest depression of deep'ning rift.
The deep'ning gloom---and shall it lift?
Integrity's shroud, hides Holy Writ. . .
Apathy.

As just-hatched bird by Nature bred
Lives just to squawk and so be fed
I now by histr'y do so defend
By justified means I reach this end:
The Bland Me.

I lived through day, I lived through night;
I lived through love, I lived through fright;
I turned inside to put to flight
The hopeless failures from crueler sight:
The Dead Me.

Whether by mindless shallowness
Or endless, stale analysis,
In Sophist and in Hedonist
The fear of Feeling here exists:
The fear "to be."

On me they float but can't dive in:
Cannot drown but cannot swim.
Advance in skills. . .Retreat within. . .
A merry-go-round with fatal spin. . .
Technology?!?!

Oh, to be that other sea,
Parted to let young Israel free,
Closed to drown out cruelty,
Fluid with fresh-faced vitality:
The Red Sea!!!

-----C. Marie Byars, 1987

Let Freedom Ring

Downfall of Our Forbears

Happy Mother's Day

 

Mom, you "meme" so much to me!

Pathways

Our society is a little crazy right now.  The internet makes it worse.  Things come across as if our whole society is SJW's (Social Justice Warriors) vs. neo-chauvinists; no gun restrictions at all vs. total banning of guns; unrestricted capitalism vs. full socialism; MAGA vs. laissez faire belief systems; hard core Christian evangelicals vs. atheists; etc., etc. When you get people talking, get them away from labels, there's still a lot of overlap in the directions Americans think this country should go.  There need to be methods to support the consensus areas.

Failed Products

     Sometimes products just don't catch on the way developers hope.  Here are some product disappointments of recent years:

Oh, yes and Happy April Fools' Day!  😁 😜

Sunny Days

 

     Winter has been dragging on a long time in some places.  Here are some of our terra cotta (and poured concrete) sun (and moon) faces to hopefully cheer you up.

     This poured concrete one is new:  one of my Christmas gifts to my husband.  Some of the turquoise paint was on there, but I made the turquoise eye more noticeable.  The moon part was all turquoise, no accents.  We both thought it would look better with a terra cotta eye, "stars" and other accents, so I added those.

 

 This terra cotta one was our out-front stand-by for years.  It was also a past Christmas gift to my husband.  I added the turquoise details for effect.  (Our current house, Mediterranean style, has a terra cotta house number sign.  I painted the numbers turquoise, too.)  The cracks are just the aging of untreated terra cotta, which is like those pots for plants.  The super glue will prevent further cracking, but he's "lost points", too.  He's going on the back wall.  

Rodney Dangerfield dopplegänger?

  

 

        This smaller terra cotta face has mostly been an inside decoration.  He's too small to see well outside.   Turquoise accents also added by me.

     

   This sun/moon was also a gift to my husband.  He painted this one quite brightly years ago.  It is also an indoors decoration.

     And, finally, this coloring sheet, shaded with colored pencil.  It's kind of an impressionistic view and could be a house here in the desert, surrounded by Eurasian poplar trees. 

   

Truman's Swans

  

     In the early months of 2024, FX generated a lot of buzz about its Season 2 series of The Feud.  The season focused on Truman Capote's "swans."

     But decades before the FX program, even before the real Truman Capote was famous, there were the original Truman's swans.   Harry Truman loved his swans.  Biographies will say that Harry had no middle name, just the letter "S" to honor his grandfathers.  In reality, the "S" stood for "Swans", his mother's great love.  In 1948, he even threw a Black & White Valentine's Day Ball for them in the White House.

     The swans were a jealous bevy.  They turned on each other and became aggressive.

     They even started attacking Truman and the iconic Presidential Desk.  They had to go.

     Truman got his revenge.  He sent them to the Kansas City (Missouri) Zoo.  Their descendants are still annoyed by loud humans and their offspring today.  

Beyond Dreaming

 

• This MLK Day, how about we do something more than dream it?  How about we live it?  --Marie Byars

Spare No Expense

      

      The one-year anniversary of Spare in January 2024 has been an inspiration!

     Many hoped that Harry and Meghan would "platform" a little less.  The pontificating was wearing to many of us.  They don't really seem like the shining examples they would like to portray themselves as.

     Whatever they do, they will still seek income.  As Meghan develops her line, perhaps Harry could develop these Spare-related products, which would practically sell themselves:

       Obvious but useful!  In an era where most "spares" are the annoyingly small donut tires (tyres), Harry could spearhead a movement back to full-sized spares!

     Who doesn't need to keep a few spares of these around?  Even though we're past the COVID shortages, you don't want to be caught without extras of toilet paper, or loo rolls, as Harry's native UK refers to them.

  

     Most of us keep some spare towels around.

     Or if you want to play up the "misfit" aspect, as Spare does, maybe this collection is for you:

For more ideas on possible Harry merch, check out these links:

Prince Harry in a Can

Other Spare Things

Euro Christmas Battle

 

Which nativity* is better?

My mom's brightly colored German style?

Or the Italian faux-wood muted style we bought in adulthood?

I may be of German descent, but I like the Italian nativity better!

*Wise Men to come later.  We celebrate their coming on Epiphany, January 6th, so I put them out around New Years.  We've acquired 6 for our Italian set. Since the Bible only numbers the gifts and not the men, we put them all out!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!