The Beautiful Land--a Gift

“I should understand the land, not as a commodity, an inert fact to be taken for granted, but as an ultimate value, enduring and alive, useful and beautiful and mysterious and formidable and comforting, beneficent and terribly demanding, worthy of the best of man's attention and care.”
― Wendell Berry, Poet/Novelist/Writer

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If I had five minutes to evacuate--what would I take with me?

If I was told there was a bomb in my building and I had five minutes to evacuate my apartment I’d grab a grocery bag and quickly toss these items into it: 1. A photo of my grandparents, Mom and Pop and me, when I was 15 years old. I learned what love is made of from them. I learned what it is to be kissed on and hugged in arms so tender they felt like God’s arms. I discovered self worth from those two angels in human flesh. Of all the people in my life, they were the ones who made me feel I counted. Honestly, whatever capacity I have to love others came from them. 2. A sentimental, dog-eared, stars in the margin copy of Pat Conroy’s, “The Prince of Tides.” It is a book I have read three times and often return to for its wisdom. It is a harsh, profoundly tragic novel, the story of a family so broken and tortured by such flawed and wounded people that it is sometimes difficult to turn the next page. And yet it is the story of such Herculean courage and endurance that you want...

A Losing Strategy

OPINION PAGE (c) 2024 Timothy Moody The Republican strategy to mock and judge others has passed into some form of insatiable, all-devouring nastiness. It is so poisonous and contemptuous that it is now just evil. Republican Governor of Arkansas, Sara Huckabee Sanders, suggested to a crowd of Trump supporters Tuesday night that Kamala Harris can't be humble because she doesn't have any children of her own. When will Americans decide they don't want government leaders who are so arrogantly insensitive, as Sanders was, that they offend everyone? This crude, villainous rhetoric transcends political partisanship. It’s evil, dangerous, and insulting. The poet Ezra Pound’s brief lines are appropriate here, “Pull down your vanity, How mean your hates” To suggest that someone cannot be humble because they don't have children is not just a cheap political comment. It's an attack on a person’s humanity and worth. And that is now, and has been fo...

OPINION PAGE:

OPINION PAGE © 2024 Timothy Moody The apparent assassination attempt against Donald Trump last Sunday afternoon at his Trump International Golf Club was foiled by the Secret Service. Details are still coming in about it, and it's not yet known why the suspect, Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, apparently wanted to shoot Trump. The botched attempt was amateurish in every way, just as the one in July was by a kid 150 yards from Trump. Conspiracy theorists are having a field day. The former President is, of all things, blaming these attempts on his life with what he called the “violent rhetoric” of President Biden and VP Harris. Of course, that is absurd, especially coming from Trump, who has consistently been guilty of that very thing since he became president in 2016 and even before. His speeches, X posts, and comments on his Truth Social platform have been endlessly filled with threatening language and incitement to violence. He suggested those protest...

The Unclad Soul

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