May 2025

May 2025

Mother, may I live?
You may, my son.

Mother, may I crawl?
You may, my son.

Mother, may I walk?
You may, my son.

Mother, may I run?
You may, my son.

Mother, may I go out into the world?
To see and to hear and to smell?

To learn and to teach and to forget?
To have beauty and hate and love?
To have a job and tasks and toil?
To have a love and build a home?
To raise a son with worry and pride?

You may, my son.

Mother, may I live?

Mother?

Mother?

Mother, may I die?
You may, my son.

--John Magee

March 2025

March.
March. March.

In March we began marching.
Baby steps at first.

Small circles with little signs.

March.
March. March.
March. March. March.

"Are you here, too?"
"Isn't it terrible?"
"I wish there was more we could do."

March.
March. March.
March. March. March.
March. March. March. March.

By the time April arrived
We looked around,
Realized that we were strong,
And began planning to get stronger.

March.
March. March.
March. March. March.
March. March. March. March.
March. March. March. March. March.

But it began with baby steps.

March.
March. March.
March. March. March.
March. March. March. March.
March. March. March. March. March. 
March. March. March. March. March. March.
March. March. March. March. March. March. March....

--John Magee

You Like to Think You Could Do Better

You Like to Think You Could Do Better

You like to think you would have done as well,
Maybe even better.

You give thanks that you will never find yourself
In such dark times.

Then your times change, despite your efforts.

So you try to do better,
Or at least as well.

And you come to realize
That all you might be accomplishing
Is to make sure the yellow stars
To be pinned to chests
Are at least as pretty as possible.

You like to think you could do better.

--John Magee

January 2025

January 2025

 

It is January.

It has always been January.

It will always be January.

 

Now is the January of our discontent.

Made wintry by soul devoid.

 

It is January and Los Angeles burns.

It is January and it snows in Pensacola.

 

It is January and the news is flailing.

It is January and the news is failing.

It is January and the news is ailing.

It is January and the news is news no more.

 

Once more unto the ice, dear friends.

We close the month with our frozen dead,

Buried in slush beneath a river of lies.

 

It is January.

It has always been January.

It will always be January.

 

Even when February comes,

It will always be January.

We will always remember January 2025.

 

--John A. Magee

What I Plan to Do with My Next Four Years

I have very few illusions about how the next four years are going to go. As a nation we are recklessly plunging towards disaster. I hope I'm wrong. 

I've spent a fair bit of time over the last couple of months thinking about what I intend to do about it all. [Waves arms hopelessly in every direction.] 

The first thing is I'm going to start giving myself a bit more credit about how hard I'm trying at my job. I don't write or talk about my job a lot -- yes, this is probably why I'm afraid to watch the show "Severance" -- but I work with a bunch of people to make it easier to find good, truthful, accurate information in online library databases. If I do my job well, it becomes easier for good information to crowd out misinformation, and good information needs all the help it can get these days.

Still, these days in the Age of Misinformation it feels as if I'm one of those Japanese soldiers defending his foxhole on a remote atoll while the war has swept past him. So I'll also spend some time looking for a better opportunity to help good information.

Second, I'm going to keep an eye out for opportunities to help where I can be my most effective. It's easy to despair when it seems all about us is burning. It's impossible to fight everything. So pick one thing that you can do, then do your best at it. Then when you're done, rest up, find another thing then do your best at that. No single one of us got us to this place. No single one of us can get us out of this mess. But if all of us do just one thing to move the ball in the right direction, things will improve.

Along those lines I picked a few groups I like that will be extra busy over the next four years and sent them a little donation today: the ACLU, the Sierra Club, and Amnesty International. It made me feel better about things. I recommend it.

Third, we're headed into four years of meanness for meanness sake and performative cruelty. I'm going to do my best to fight back with beauty and joy and humor. When I say that my plan is to fight fascism with pretty pictures, I mean it. Fascism feeds on hopelessness. Beauty feeds hope. I intend to do my little part to feed hope.

Over on Bluesky the artist Jay Bigam (@jayispainting.earthskyart.ca) -- who created the wonderful #ArtAdventCalendar movement -- recommended that today be a day to post #OnlyBeautifulThings online.

I like that notion. So I leave you with a pretty picture.

Hang in there, everybody. Try not to let hopelessness get the upper hand.