Again today, the writing and the photographs don't have anything to do with each other. The photographs are from my bike ride this morning... Pacific Beach and Mission Bay.

THE WRITING FOR TODAY comes from my 1991 journal. When I was looking this afternoon for something I thought I had written around 1990 or 1991, I didn’t find what I was looking for; but I came across this poem I had written on Monday, August 9, 1991. I don’t remember the circumstance that prompted its writing. Perhaps I made it up, as they say, out of whole cloth. I imagine, however, a mother asking my help in trying to convince a son that he should try to organize his life around school and family.

THE SMELL OF BREAD

What I want is a source of income,
not employment,
he said.
There is no delight in being at someone else’s beck and call.
Life on the Arctic plain has a certain appeal
because clocks are irrelevant there.

Of course, I understand,
he said,
that everybody has to eat and sleep,
but is the schedule,
the routine,
the circling round and round essential?

His mother answered,
there is beauty in a thing done twice
or three times
or every day.
The smell of fresh baked bread is what it’s all about.

I WISH I COULD DELIVER THESE FLOWERS TO THE PEOPLE OF EGYPT.
How could I not think about Egypt and the people there as I did my journal writing today... How could I not think of Emma Lazarus and her poem at the base of the Statue of Liberty... and how could I not be grateful today for the freedom to write and speak what I think about my country and its leaders with absolutely no fear of reprisal.. and how, indeed, could I not feel tremendous sadness when news came that Hosni Mubarak refused to leave his office in Cairo as the majority of his people are asking him to do. It has been reported that the Mubarak family has amassed a fortune of approximately 70 billion dollars, stolen from the country’s treasury when fifty percent of Egyptians live below the poverty level. Half of the people live on less than two dollars a day.

I was in Egypt five years ago; and I saw the poverty; but like most other tourists I was dazzled by King Tut’s gold and the awesome pyramids and the immutable Sphinx and most of all the beautiful Egyptian people. I was so much under the spell of Egypt’s distant past that I failed to notice the desperate present. What I hope for them today is what we have in my country... Democracy... their democracy, not one that is bought and paid for by America or any other country.

My friend Tom Fagan's paint brushes are the subject of my photograph for today. For good measure I'm including in the BLOG some of his amazing paintings done with those brushes.

People who receive a photograph from me every day (a picture I've taken on the day it is sent) know that my habit is to try to find something beautiful... restful... inspiring... or instructive. My photo du jour for February 8, 2011, is not beautiful, restful, inspiring ... and not really instructive. I took the picture from inside the car in the city of Vernon in Greater Los Angeles. Just to balance things, I got the more restful tiles when I got back to SAN DIEGO.Actually, I have to say that more of Los Angeles is like the tiles than it is the confusion of utility wires, industrial flim-flam, and snarled traffic in Vernon. I must also confess that I like Los Angeles, but I wouldn't want to live there... because, as Gertrude Stein famously said, "there is no there there."

Oh, I know, I know... The picture is an owl and the poem I made a couple of days ago is about a hummingbird; but it's the best I could do... and not so bad because the owl came to our house last week from Susanne in Amstelveen, The Netherlands. She made it herself, which makes it very special indeed. And I like this owl. It has attitude... personality. But it's not a bully... that's clear.I Know a Hummingbird Bully

A Hummingbird bully I know
looks like a flying matchbox
that feints and darts and dives
around the hanging free food
on my porch he thinks is his.

Even birds five times his size
buy the bluff and fly away fast
not looking back or returning
to check out the little fellow
to see if his fierceness is real.

His long sharp menacing beak
is positioned slightly up and out
in reconnaissance readiness
until an intruder into his air space
triggers his launched response.

On attack he flies up and aims
the beak down toward soft neck
of even the largest interlopers
keeping well back out of sight
to give an impression of might.

With bullies it must be the way
they’ve learned to camouflage
the reality that what they are
isn’t adequate to protect what it is
the world is trying to take away.

Another Birthday Celebration...David (5th), Stewart (16th), Margaret (2nd), and David (10th)
SUPERBOWL SUNDAY...At John's Place... with Elaine, Patrick, Justus and the birthday people.

Today is David's birthday. I couldn't decide which of these portraits should be my picture for the day; so I chose both of them. ...and I might have something to say about the four dry brush images of lilies... if I could have talked about them with Georgia O'Keefe. Click on the images to see them larger.

QUITE LITERALLY, THERE IS MORE THAN A LITTLE BIT OF LONDON AT LAKE HAVASU CITY ON THE COLORADO RIVER IN THE ARIZONA DESERT. In 1971 the London Bridge on the Thames River was purchased for just over two million dollars by some people with a vision. The bridge was taken apart one stone at a time and moved to Arizona where it was put back together again at a cost of almost five million dollars. I expected not to be impressed, but I was. The reality of the London Bridge in the Arizona desert is so improbable and unexpected that it rises to a level in the imagination that defies any impulse to scorn.Ed has bought a house in Lake Havasu City and Randy and Lisa have opened a store there.Arizona's desert mountains make a perfect backdrop for the Colorado River which is remarkably peaceful after its rush through the Grand Canyon.

"OH, SAY CAN YOU SEE... BY THE DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT... that homelessness is not a memory but a present reality in America. In conversations with homeless people, I have learned that the reason many of them sleep through the day is that they are afraid they will be assaulted and the few possessions they have will be stolen if they sleep at night; so they try to stay away at night to protect themselves.If you know San Diego, you'll recognize the Old Globe Theatre complex next door to the sculpture garden where I got the pictures of the homeless man sleeping. Strolling through the park with Justus, from Almstelveen, Netherlands, I felt a self-conscious need to find a way to explain how a country like the United States could have so many homeless citizens. My explanations weren't satisfying... even to me.

HAPPY DAY! We celebrated Margaret's birthday today at the Mission Cafe in North Park.

NO... Once more with feeling! When does “NO” not mean no?

Republican congressman Chris Smith from New Jersey obviously thinks a woman is equally responsible when she is raped, but not forcibly, by a man who doesn’t stop when she says “NO” and says she doesn’t want him to have sex with her, but doesn’t struggle out of fear of being physically hurt. 173 other Republican members of Congress agree with Smith and have lined up to support a far-reaching anti-choice bill he has introduced. His bill includes a provision that redefines rape and sets women’s rights to the years before Rowe vs. Wade.

Already federal dollars can’t be used for abortion except in cases of rape, incest, or when the woman’s life is in danger. The Smith bill (H.R. 3 -- a.k.a. the “No Taxpayer Funding for Abortion Act”) would narrow that use to “cases of ‘forcible’ rape but not statutory or coerced rape.” What is means is this: a woman who is drugged or given excessive amounts of alcohol, rapes of women with limited mental capacity, and many date rapes” would no longer count as rape. Apparently, for a woman to prove she has been raped, she must have bruises and/or broken bones. Lack of consent under the bill doesn’t count as rape. She can't prove she didn't want it.

Once again conservative, fundamentalist Christian members of Congress are taking aim at the poorest Americans. Federal funds for abortions, already severely restricted, would hurt lower-income women in particular. Most middle- and upper-income women have access to resources totally out of reach of women who are struggling to subsist on minimum wage incomes or on welfare.

I urge clergy and all other persons whose voices are heard and respected by congregations and other groups to step up boldly and voice concern and objection to Smith’s H.R. 3 bill. I urge voters to talk with neighbors and send letters and make phone calls to their representatives in Congress.