This broad smile is brought to you through the lens of Peter Ralston...thank you, Peter, for bringing us all together this evening!
And this: "A host of brilliant journalists young and old, have started independent newsletters, covering tech, the state of the media, politics, climate, reproductive rights and virtually everything else, but their reach is too modest to make them a replacement for the big newspapers and networks. The great exception might be historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletter and Facebook followers give her a readership not much smaller than that of the Washington Post. The tremendous success of her sober, historically grounded (and footnoted!) news summaries and reflections bespeaks a hunger for real news." ~ Rebecca Solnit, the Guardian
Thank you, Lynell, for this excerpt! I had not read the whole article so did not see the marvelous shout-out to our beloved historian. That her audience has grown to (almost) meet that of the Washington Post is gobsmacking! It looks like our historian is not just capturing history, she's also making it!
Hey, Stacey. I did not link the article on purpose, because though it speaks to how we all feel about the mainstream media these days, it was this final paragraph that I wanted to highlight. Glad you got a chance to read it here.
Please donate something to the Guardian; they are standing almost alone for good, honest, thorough non-partisan Journalism, without which democracy fails.
Excellent article! Thanks for the link, and lovely to read the call-out to us mere mortals who helped raise the issue of P '25 on social media, and especially lovely to read the call-out to HCR! I'll most likely start donating, once I've taken care of the bills .... and found out just how much $ my household is going to have going forward - we are literally in the middle of buying a house in CA!
Thanks so much! The "paper" work is overwhelming and often confusing. We have 2 phone meetings about it just today. But it's a lovely house, and we're actually ending up with much more house than we ever expected to!
Congratulations on your house purchase! I have owned homes in both Northern & Southern CA and know just how expensive it can be. But remember, even a small donation to The Guardian helps & is very much appreciated!
Reading the article now, Tom. I do not feel quite so stridently toward main-stream media. Yet, I rarely watch or read it, at least systematically. Re-directs like yours, Tom, enable me often to access articles in the print media that I can trust. Thank you.
The news I tune into most is C-span (by far; ten-plus hours each week); the Brooks and Capehart (ten-to-fifteen minutes per week); the B.B.C. and D.W. news three or four nights per week; as well as, occasionally, Firing Line and John Oliver. For print media, I rely on three substacks: this one; Joyce Vance; and, Bandy Lee. Form those sources, I am often directed to fine articles.
Golly! You're watching a LOT. While we're staying with my mother (until we move into the new house), we have taken to watching Ch. 7 and the PBS news hour every night. I also read HCR, RH, JV, and sometimes a few others. There is SO MUCH to take in!
Thank you, Tom. I agree with you about The Guardian. It is the only paper I read, because of its straightforward, no nonsense approach, and I gladly donate to it twice a year.
Thanks you Tom for this link - hadnt seen this one but it sort of lines up with the link I posted earlier. Obvious to most thinking people but seems to escape our "news"??? media!
Over on Robert Hubbell's Today's Edition, I posted this quote purportedly credited to Groucho Marx: “When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.” So if/when we all get jailed by a revenge-seeking Republican administration, I'll be proud to have you, Miselle, in the adjoining cell next to me!
And Rebecca is another voice of sanity and clarity. Rupert Murdoch engaged in a deliberate, systematic, and evil quest to destroy the communication system which was not profit driven, but a public service. This started way before Fox went on the air in 1996. It took money, planning, strategy (killing the Fairness Doctrine, allowing one entity to buy so many outlets, and deliberate republican political manipulation, etc) and the likes of Newt and company to set the stage, and yell “Action” in 1996. Bill C. helped by giving the cretins a barn-burner 24-hour startup story that never let up. It had legs, aided by non-stop, self-righteous blather that enthralled some and disgusted others. Bill survived that onslaught at the time, but the taint has survived to this day.
And the rest is history, history that lives and breathes as we try to define our world as it is, the best we can.
However, I watched CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, and was disgusted by Ted Koppel’s take on our world. He is an old reporter who has a reputation as one of our best. I was not impressed. Horse-race politics with nary a hint of the insanity we see that can’t be effectively ignored. But it can be “Peckered,” as in The National Enquirer. Things can be emphasized, ignored, skewed, and presented as real, alien invasion notwithstanding. “Alternative facts” was mentioned like just another position that must be factored in. CBS, you tainted one of my “go-to shows.” Is 60 Minutes next?
“A hunger for real news,” and all we get is just another carnival barker from our MSM.
So glad to hear that independent entities are breathing fire, may they spread like wildfire. Time is of the essence…
What I've discovered is that the propaganda/disinformation/misinformation campaigns designed to get ordinary Americans to vote against their own best social and economic interests have worked exceedingly well. [Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 2004. In discussions with two high school buddies, I am gobsmacked by their believing anything and everything that comes from Trump, Fox News, Newsmax, Alex Jones, OAN and other purveyors of oligarch propaganda while discounting everything else. There isn't the slightest hint of critical thinking skills in their responses.
Agreed, agreed, agreed! The independents are doing pretty much all the leg work. I have to laugh often as I listen to David Mure on ABC address the international scene in the Middle East. Everything is reported form Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as if that is the center or hub of reality. No accountability for the Israeli juggernaut that overtakes Gaza on a minute, hourly, and daily basis. All the three networks do is to report the horse race between the Israeli bullets and the lives survived or taken by them. No effort is given to the Arab/Palestinian side for interview purposes. To see those, one has to go to The Intercept, +972, The Guardian, or Al Jazeera and others. Margaret Brennan of CBS Face the Nation, on occasion, has pushed back; however, for the most part, it's go along to get along.
Repub crap is straight out of Mein Kampf, way before chump. As far as I can tell, Rush Limbaugh was the first successful loud mouth propaganda master of my adulthood. He really knew how to point Hitler’s hate speech to a designated target.
I believe we can thank the financialization of every business in the United States for the current state of mainstream "news". Stories about the horse race, polls and mudslinging are much easier to sell, and attract more eyeballs than actual discussions of the reasons people might want to decide between the candidates. What sense does it make to ask random people how they would vote if the election were held today, since (1) the election won't be held for another two months and (2) the voters have been unable to educate themselves about the issues they might base their vote on? Yet, every day the main, trusted sources of news lead with articles about polls.
The NYT and WaPo bend over backwards to find order in chaos when the obvious lead is that one of the candidates is clearly insane. Where is the small child who will point out that one of our candidates for Emperor is wearing no clothes?
A postscript to this comment: Kamala Harris released a list of her policy positions on Sunday night. It was a lead story in the Guardian. I didn't look carefully, but I don't believe it made the top ten in either the NYT or the WaPo on Monday. And yet they complain that the Harris campaign has no substance.
I believe that I 'get' that doubt as an honest, humble check on bias; Good for you Jeri. I know that I have a natural tendency to prefer 'grading my own tests' - taking steps to self-check is a must.
Always have to question myself since people I have valued have gone off the rails. I have to say most are Foxers. Their crap is just such obviously partisan bull Schitt I have no trouble dismissing it. But that show was more subtle and still set off alarms to me. More dangerous than Fox, I’d say
Thank you for posting this. I was not aware that Dr. Richardson's readership had grown so much. I did know that she was becoming sufficiently prominent to attract professional jealousy:
Ms. Solnit's observation in the last sentence of your excerpt is spot on. And I would say to Mr. Hogeland that it's OK for historians to be wrong, if wrongness can be demonstrated. Dr. Richardson supports her arguments in detail. You may not agree with the argument, and that's OK too. Putting the ideas out there for discussion is a useful service, one for which many members of this community are willing to pay. As for the wrongness of a prediction, so what? Look for what went wrong. Maybe you'll find something that will alter your perception.
I wish Solnit had had the good sense to put this at the TOP of her really well-written article, instead of as the final paragraph. I know Guardian readers are well-read, but not everyone will take the time to read the whole, lengthy, thing. Yes, it's important to review ALL THE WAYS the MSM is ignoring or sanewashing the idiocies and monstrousness of Felon45, MAGA, Project 2025, etm., but IMO it's vital to tell folks right at the outset that there are voices of honesty and accurate information, including analysis and opinion, out there. I hope HCR's important contribution to the anti-dumbing-down of the populace isn't missed, in the TL/DR world overflowing with information and dis- and mis-information in which we live today.
Yes! Thank you for sharing this here. Rebecca Solnit's in my must-read column, too, and we're fortunate to have these women's wisdom in these days of questionable sources and the need for corporate profits.
Excellent point. This morning, I posted a scathing comment (with multiple caps, which I rarely use) in the New York Times about this not being the "normal horse race." To me, it's as if they want to put themselves out of business. I'm not surprised to see HCR so very widely read, and that MeidasTouch is so widely viewed. Good comment. Thank you.
I just cancelled that subscription yesterday for the reason you are speaking of. They have made it clear they are going to continue on that path. I read another article on substack about it yestersay.
Though my sentiments frequently diverge from those of Dr Cox Richardson, her sober-minded and often up-beat essays, grounded in history, *serve as a lantern through the dark night of our country's soul. 💡 In short, the good work of the great professor gives us a fighting chance of not being condemned to repeat dark histories burdening our collective past. 🗽
Thanks Lynell: I enjoy Rebecca Solnit and the Guardian. This causes me to recall a link that I posted a couple of weeks ago from "Wired" magazine about election influencers of 2024. They have a nice layout and some folks of influence I don't recognize. See >> https://www.wired.com/story/visual-guide-to-influencers-shaping-2024-election/
Thanks for telling us the readership of Professor’s newsletter is not so different from WP. Getting data from reading and from texting likely mutually exclusive. I count on the reader population to win the election for democracy.
I too, join in the chorus of gratitude to you Lynell for pointing this out. Rebecca Solnit is a magnificent and unique writer, and her words should deliver the good news about HCR with a bang equivalent to the power of Aryna Sabalenka's forehand this past weekend!
Buoys are wonderful things, especially bell buoys like the one in Peter’s photo. Ringing out a guiding note in whatever the wave rhythm is at the moment, in a sea world where the topography is invisible. Mariners rely on them. Governments put out and maintain buoys. Governments do a lot of things we all rely on, often without thinking about it.
A vertical striped red and white buoy, like the one in Peter Ralston’s photograph, marks the middle of the channel, the middle of the road. To the right or to the left, stay close to it and you’re safe.
“governments do a lot of things we all rely on, often without thinking about it.” And, I promise you, Republican sycophants are perusing every function of government (even those we don’t even think about) and determining in which agencies can they replace the public servants with their hand picked toadies. They told us. Project 2025
Exactly, and chump and his cronies have already proved that they are not loathe to redefine or destroy any aspect of the administrative state that we take for granted. In fact, it is a goal. Thank you for the reminder.
Ralph, my government students figured this out when I asked them to write a short essay on what would happen without government. Even the few (all male) who thought it would be great to run wild, came around in the end. These were not college prep students and yet they had the sense to realize some of the things government does for us.
I can't help but get "mushy" over photos such as this one! Whenever I see birds coupled, I always smile. The image of the birds on the buoy in the water calms my stormy, restless state of mind.
Thank you, Katherine, for sharing this article. It's a beautiful respite in this stormy cultural sea, and gives me the same sense of peace as the photos that Dr. Richardson shares.
The story behind this picture is so lovely and so typical of Peter Ralston,the photographer. In his picturesque home town of , Maine he ran into a couple who had just gotten married, and later on in the weekend, took him out on his boat, the Raven and coming back to Shore they saw this scene and he took the picture. He titled it “lovebirds”, produced it and framed it for them as a wedding present.
This reflects the generous heart of Peter Ralston, and fuels the hearts of so many of us who do our best to take advantage of the beauty and abundance in our lives to help make the lives of other people better and richer. And that’s what I believe Heather Cox Richardson does, as well. It’s about celebrating joy. We won”t go back! Thank you Peter, and Heather, from downstream in Scarborough.
This broad smile is brought to you through the lens of Peter Ralston...thank you, Peter, for bringing us all together this evening!
And this: "A host of brilliant journalists young and old, have started independent newsletters, covering tech, the state of the media, politics, climate, reproductive rights and virtually everything else, but their reach is too modest to make them a replacement for the big newspapers and networks. The great exception might be historian Heather Cox Richardson, whose newsletter and Facebook followers give her a readership not much smaller than that of the Washington Post. The tremendous success of her sober, historically grounded (and footnoted!) news summaries and reflections bespeaks a hunger for real news." ~ Rebecca Solnit, the Guardian
Thank you, Lynell, for this excerpt! I had not read the whole article so did not see the marvelous shout-out to our beloved historian. That her audience has grown to (almost) meet that of the Washington Post is gobsmacking! It looks like our historian is not just capturing history, she's also making it!
Hey, Stacey. I did not link the article on purpose, because though it speaks to how we all feel about the mainstream media these days, it was this final paragraph that I wanted to highlight. Glad you got a chance to read it here.
Here's the link: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/06/trump-clinton-harris-election
Please donate something to the Guardian; they are standing almost alone for good, honest, thorough non-partisan Journalism, without which democracy fails.
I, too, donate monthly to the Guardian. I have to support the good journalism that is out there.
I subscribe. (It's a voluntary thing, but I believe in the Guardian and want them to continue.)
I subscribe, too, kd; and believe in them as you do!
I subscribe too
Excellent article! Thanks for the link, and lovely to read the call-out to us mere mortals who helped raise the issue of P '25 on social media, and especially lovely to read the call-out to HCR! I'll most likely start donating, once I've taken care of the bills .... and found out just how much $ my household is going to have going forward - we are literally in the middle of buying a house in CA!
I hope you are no where near any fires right now!! A friend of mine lives near Big Bear & sounds like one is getting closer - shes smelling smoke.
Scary. And thats an understatement.
Hope all goes well with your house purchase, Jocelyn!
Thanks so much! The "paper" work is overwhelming and often confusing. We have 2 phone meetings about it just today. But it's a lovely house, and we're actually ending up with much more house than we ever expected to!
Ca. - Yikes !
Congratulations on your house purchase! I have owned homes in both Northern & Southern CA and know just how expensive it can be. But remember, even a small donation to The Guardian helps & is very much appreciated!
Reading the article now, Tom. I do not feel quite so stridently toward main-stream media. Yet, I rarely watch or read it, at least systematically. Re-directs like yours, Tom, enable me often to access articles in the print media that I can trust. Thank you.
The news I tune into most is C-span (by far; ten-plus hours each week); the Brooks and Capehart (ten-to-fifteen minutes per week); the B.B.C. and D.W. news three or four nights per week; as well as, occasionally, Firing Line and John Oliver. For print media, I rely on three substacks: this one; Joyce Vance; and, Bandy Lee. Form those sources, I am often directed to fine articles.
Golly! You're watching a LOT. While we're staying with my mother (until we move into the new house), we have taken to watching Ch. 7 and the PBS news hour every night. I also read HCR, RH, JV, and sometimes a few others. There is SO MUCH to take in!
Thank you, Tom. I agree with you about The Guardian. It is the only paper I read, because of its straightforward, no nonsense approach, and I gladly donate to it twice a year.
I do!
Thanks you Tom for this link - hadnt seen this one but it sort of lines up with the link I posted earlier. Obvious to most thinking people but seems to escape our "news"??? media!
Thanks, Tom. The article really is a good read.
Fine article, Lynell. Thanks for accidentally linking it.👍🏻 I subscribe to the Guardian, but missed this.
Glad you got to see it, Jennie!
Hear, here!
"Followers" is too small a word to encompass the community here, methinks. l'm glad to be among you all walking this journey together.
Over on Robert Hubbell's Today's Edition, I posted this quote purportedly credited to Groucho Marx: “When you're in jail, a good friend will be trying to bail you out. A best friend will be in the cell next to you saying, 'Damn, that was fun'.” So if/when we all get jailed by a revenge-seeking Republican administration, I'll be proud to have you, Miselle, in the adjoining cell next to me!
Agreed x 100. Hopefully I'll be on the same cell block!
Oh, my goodness, Ally...you and I will be together if I get my way!
I’m right in there with you!
Miselle, you hit the nail on the head. This may be virtual, but this is a community.
And Rebecca is another voice of sanity and clarity. Rupert Murdoch engaged in a deliberate, systematic, and evil quest to destroy the communication system which was not profit driven, but a public service. This started way before Fox went on the air in 1996. It took money, planning, strategy (killing the Fairness Doctrine, allowing one entity to buy so many outlets, and deliberate republican political manipulation, etc) and the likes of Newt and company to set the stage, and yell “Action” in 1996. Bill C. helped by giving the cretins a barn-burner 24-hour startup story that never let up. It had legs, aided by non-stop, self-righteous blather that enthralled some and disgusted others. Bill survived that onslaught at the time, but the taint has survived to this day.
And the rest is history, history that lives and breathes as we try to define our world as it is, the best we can.
However, I watched CBS Sunday Morning yesterday, and was disgusted by Ted Koppel’s take on our world. He is an old reporter who has a reputation as one of our best. I was not impressed. Horse-race politics with nary a hint of the insanity we see that can’t be effectively ignored. But it can be “Peckered,” as in The National Enquirer. Things can be emphasized, ignored, skewed, and presented as real, alien invasion notwithstanding. “Alternative facts” was mentioned like just another position that must be factored in. CBS, you tainted one of my “go-to shows.” Is 60 Minutes next?
“A hunger for real news,” and all we get is just another carnival barker from our MSM.
So glad to hear that independent entities are breathing fire, may they spread like wildfire. Time is of the essence…
What I've discovered is that the propaganda/disinformation/misinformation campaigns designed to get ordinary Americans to vote against their own best social and economic interests have worked exceedingly well. [Thomas Frank, "What's the Matter with Kansas?" 2004. In discussions with two high school buddies, I am gobsmacked by their believing anything and everything that comes from Trump, Fox News, Newsmax, Alex Jones, OAN and other purveyors of oligarch propaganda while discounting everything else. There isn't the slightest hint of critical thinking skills in their responses.
Agreed, agreed, agreed! The independents are doing pretty much all the leg work. I have to laugh often as I listen to David Mure on ABC address the international scene in the Middle East. Everything is reported form Tel Aviv or Jerusalem as if that is the center or hub of reality. No accountability for the Israeli juggernaut that overtakes Gaza on a minute, hourly, and daily basis. All the three networks do is to report the horse race between the Israeli bullets and the lives survived or taken by them. No effort is given to the Arab/Palestinian side for interview purposes. To see those, one has to go to The Intercept, +972, The Guardian, or Al Jazeera and others. Margaret Brennan of CBS Face the Nation, on occasion, has pushed back; however, for the most part, it's go along to get along.
Repub crap is straight out of Mein Kampf, way before chump. As far as I can tell, Rush Limbaugh was the first successful loud mouth propaganda master of my adulthood. He really knew how to point Hitler’s hate speech to a designated target.
I believe we can thank the financialization of every business in the United States for the current state of mainstream "news". Stories about the horse race, polls and mudslinging are much easier to sell, and attract more eyeballs than actual discussions of the reasons people might want to decide between the candidates. What sense does it make to ask random people how they would vote if the election were held today, since (1) the election won't be held for another two months and (2) the voters have been unable to educate themselves about the issues they might base their vote on? Yet, every day the main, trusted sources of news lead with articles about polls.
The NYT and WaPo bend over backwards to find order in chaos when the obvious lead is that one of the candidates is clearly insane. Where is the small child who will point out that one of our candidates for Emperor is wearing no clothes?
A postscript to this comment: Kamala Harris released a list of her policy positions on Sunday night. It was a lead story in the Guardian. I didn't look carefully, but I don't believe it made the top ten in either the NYT or the WaPo on Monday. And yet they complain that the Harris campaign has no substance.
Thanks, JD. I had the same opinion as you when I watched.
Good, sometimes I don’t know if I should trust my own view of things.
I believe that I 'get' that doubt as an honest, humble check on bias; Good for you Jeri. I know that I have a natural tendency to prefer 'grading my own tests' - taking steps to self-check is a must.
Always have to question myself since people I have valued have gone off the rails. I have to say most are Foxers. Their crap is just such obviously partisan bull Schitt I have no trouble dismissing it. But that show was more subtle and still set off alarms to me. More dangerous than Fox, I’d say
Thank you for posting this. I was not aware that Dr. Richardson's readership had grown so much. I did know that she was becoming sufficiently prominent to attract professional jealousy:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/07/biden-step-down-history-heather-cox-richardson.html
Ms. Solnit's observation in the last sentence of your excerpt is spot on. And I would say to Mr. Hogeland that it's OK for historians to be wrong, if wrongness can be demonstrated. Dr. Richardson supports her arguments in detail. You may not agree with the argument, and that's OK too. Putting the ideas out there for discussion is a useful service, one for which many members of this community are willing to pay. As for the wrongness of a prediction, so what? Look for what went wrong. Maybe you'll find something that will alter your perception.
That Slate link really does smack of professional jealousy.
At 6 P.M., on 9/9/24, EST, I'm reading that 'Slate' article. So far, he's really focused on her; style / motives, as he see's them.
👍🫶🏻✌🏼
I wish Solnit had had the good sense to put this at the TOP of her really well-written article, instead of as the final paragraph. I know Guardian readers are well-read, but not everyone will take the time to read the whole, lengthy, thing. Yes, it's important to review ALL THE WAYS the MSM is ignoring or sanewashing the idiocies and monstrousness of Felon45, MAGA, Project 2025, etm., but IMO it's vital to tell folks right at the outset that there are voices of honesty and accurate information, including analysis and opinion, out there. I hope HCR's important contribution to the anti-dumbing-down of the populace isn't missed, in the TL/DR world overflowing with information and dis- and mis-information in which we live today.
Since you mentioned “sanewashing”, I’m attaching this link from TAFM: TC does a good job with it:
https://open.substack.com/pub/tcinla757/p/sanewashing-is-insanity?r=3hlhv&utm_medium=ios
It's a good one; thanks for letting me know about it.
Oh, now I see; TC's substack. I love reading him here - he's one of those favorites of mine. I'd read his substack regularly if I could swing it.
Great point, Lynn.
Oh my... I like that - "sanewashing"
Yes! Thank you for sharing this here. Rebecca Solnit's in my must-read column, too, and we're fortunate to have these women's wisdom in these days of questionable sources and the need for corporate profits.
WOW! That is quite an endorsement!
I did not link the article itself, but can do so if you would like, Judith.
Excellent point. This morning, I posted a scathing comment (with multiple caps, which I rarely use) in the New York Times about this not being the "normal horse race." To me, it's as if they want to put themselves out of business. I'm not surprised to see HCR so very widely read, and that MeidasTouch is so widely viewed. Good comment. Thank you.
I just cancelled that subscription yesterday for the reason you are speaking of. They have made it clear they are going to continue on that path. I read another article on substack about it yestersay.
https://www.findinggravity.net/p/the-new-york-times-publisher-understands?r=mal7d&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Though my sentiments frequently diverge from those of Dr Cox Richardson, her sober-minded and often up-beat essays, grounded in history, *serve as a lantern through the dark night of our country's soul. 💡 In short, the good work of the great professor gives us a fighting chance of not being condemned to repeat dark histories burdening our collective past. 🗽
Morning, Lynell, and thanks for this. It is nice to see Professor Richardson get such a great shout out from the Guardian.
It is a gorgeous photo!
You and I are in sync for sure; morning (again?), Ally!
You know, Lynell, I was at the event where Heather spoke and Rebecca Solnit hosted in Oakland.
Glad you got a chance to be there, Marlene!
Lynell, thanks for sharing this by the Guardian that I somehow missed; I could not live without the writings of HCR.
Just goes to show you, what a few good people can do.
Thanks Lynell: I enjoy Rebecca Solnit and the Guardian. This causes me to recall a link that I posted a couple of weeks ago from "Wired" magazine about election influencers of 2024. They have a nice layout and some folks of influence I don't recognize. See >> https://www.wired.com/story/visual-guide-to-influencers-shaping-2024-election/
Ahh, thanks, D4N. I hope you are doing well these days.
How I'm doing is... complicated Lynell. Thanks for your ever thoughtfulness though.
Thanks for telling us the readership of Professor’s newsletter is not so different from WP. Getting data from reading and from texting likely mutually exclusive. I count on the reader population to win the election for democracy.
I too, join in the chorus of gratitude to you Lynell for pointing this out. Rebecca Solnit is a magnificent and unique writer, and her words should deliver the good news about HCR with a bang equivalent to the power of Aryna Sabalenka's forehand this past weekend!
Thanks, Daniel. Always happy to spread good news about our professor, as I'm sure everyone else on this page is and will be!
Buoys are wonderful things, especially bell buoys like the one in Peter’s photo. Ringing out a guiding note in whatever the wave rhythm is at the moment, in a sea world where the topography is invisible. Mariners rely on them. Governments put out and maintain buoys. Governments do a lot of things we all rely on, often without thinking about it.
A vertical striped red and white buoy, like the one in Peter Ralston’s photograph, marks the middle of the channel, the middle of the road. To the right or to the left, stay close to it and you’re safe.
And the sun is indeed rising again on the nation.
Thank you, Heather. For everything.
“governments do a lot of things we all rely on, often without thinking about it.” And, I promise you, Republican sycophants are perusing every function of government (even those we don’t even think about) and determining in which agencies can they replace the public servants with their hand picked toadies. They told us. Project 2025
Thank you, JD. That’s the point of my comment. Government is not an unnecessary evil, it’s a necessary benefit.
Exactly, and chump and his cronies have already proved that they are not loathe to redefine or destroy any aspect of the administrative state that we take for granted. In fact, it is a goal. Thank you for the reminder.
Ralph, my government students figured this out when I asked them to write a short essay on what would happen without government. Even the few (all male) who thought it would be great to run wild, came around in the end. These were not college prep students and yet they had the sense to realize some of the things government does for us.
Thank you! Fits nicely with the “make love not war” (here in the USA) vibe from the Harris-Walz campaign! ☮️❤️
I can't help but get "mushy" over photos such as this one! Whenever I see birds coupled, I always smile. The image of the birds on the buoy in the water calms my stormy, restless state of mind.
"Mine!"
Sorry. I have kids who watched that movie incessantly.
hahaha
That's a fine buoy. The loving couple's not bad either. Super pic! Smileworthy.
Exquisite. What an eye!
I'm buoyed by this evening's image Professor ⭐.
Many thanks
How lovely!
A most appropriate photo for Heather & Buddy’s anniversary week!
https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-11-2022
Happy anniversary Heather and Buddy!
This may not be the right timing, but the place may be appropriate, as clearly this community loves loves loves Maine. Perhaps like me, some of you will find much in the article’s narrative is woven through your own lives. (Disclaimer: I have been known to say when I grow up, I want to be a Miss Rumphius.) https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/a-picture-book-guide-to-maine?utm_source=nl&utm_brand=tny&utm_mailing=TNY_Daily_090824&utm_campaign=aud-dev&utm_medium=email&utm_term=tny_daily_digest&bxid=60e1e7168e370608ed7e6dbd&cndid=65590462&hasha=55886b0971e9ef0f3390ef54d78c13bf&hashb=d737a99d4eacbe104d29b51252fa9e6f7c780867&hashc=748a3b440fd8d8496a1c1e3e32a3d54a20623e645889658a5ce410edf8088332&esrc=OIDC_SELECT_ACCOUNT_PAGE&mbid=CRMNYR012019
Thank you, Katherine, for sharing this article. It's a beautiful respite in this stormy cultural sea, and gives me the same sense of peace as the photos that Dr. Richardson shares.
Loved this Katherine.
I too, keep a copy of Miss Rumphius.
Thank you for posting this delightful article
So grateful you shared this. Thank you.
Thank you!
The world needs more Misses Rumphius!
Katherine H. Terhune -- Thanks so much for this reference! I look forward to reading it for the first time, thanks to Amazon!
Rest my dear… storms are a comin’
Gorgeous!
Awww. WONderful!! ❤️
The story behind this picture is so lovely and so typical of Peter Ralston,the photographer. In his picturesque home town of , Maine he ran into a couple who had just gotten married, and later on in the weekend, took him out on his boat, the Raven and coming back to Shore they saw this scene and he took the picture. He titled it “lovebirds”, produced it and framed it for them as a wedding present.
This reflects the generous heart of Peter Ralston, and fuels the hearts of so many of us who do our best to take advantage of the beauty and abundance in our lives to help make the lives of other people better and richer. And that’s what I believe Heather Cox Richardson does, as well. It’s about celebrating joy. We won”t go back! Thank you Peter, and Heather, from downstream in Scarborough.
Simply lovely!