Good evening, fellow denizens, and happy Samhain!

I write to you from one of my favorite spots, the base of a towering pine tree. It’s easily 150 years old. Some of its roots protrude from the ground and it makes for a great sitting spot. The roughness of the bark and curve of the trunk is almost therapeutic and ergonomic in a way that I don’t think the cleverest of Swedes could replicate. In addition, as Pepper sniffs after the trails of birds and other fauna in the drizzle, I find a bit of shelter in the tall canopy above me. She will expect me to toss the ball soon, so I must get my ideas down post haste.

So, Isaac Newton theorized gravity. This statement may conjure up the whole “he saw an apple fall from a tree” story he told in his old age. The real story is even cooler and far more a feat of scientific thought than a bit of fruit could manage.

A person of science in Newton’s day - undoubtedly - dabbled in astronomy. It’s an easy hobby to enjoy to any degree, with a smattering of famous names among the history books. So it should be no surprise that our man Newton also had his eyes pointed skyward a time or two in his own multidisciplinary pursuits.

Generally, our perspective of the universe is predictable. Days and nights have helped us craft calendars and mathematical systems to track the dates and the times. Throughout our existence, one of the few things that shatters that predictability in the heavens are comets. So when one comes and visits us in our night sky, only the gods could say what will come of it.

Well, one year, Newton is corresponding with the top notch Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed and they notice a comet, and it’s on one side of our view of the sun. I imagine they admired the view. Being men of intellect, they likely pondered its makeup, where it came from etc. Weeks later, another comet appeared on the other side of the sun. Flamsteed has a thought, ‘what if it’s not two different comets - but the same one?’

Newton initially disagreed.

Newton and his colleague Edmund Halley (the name could sound familiar) were hanging out and talking shop when he mentions this hypothesis about how comets make a reappearance in our night sky. They consider that the comets are commanded by an unseeable force as they are trapped in an orbit that is different than our own. Understandably, Halley was intrigued and started going through the data.

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I love a good code or cypher. I spent a good deal of my time as a youth trying to make my own secret alphabets. Some were borrowed from books and games, others crude attempts at recreating the Phoenician alphabet. I know, nerd alert, get the kid a pocket protector. For a random and useless tidbit of knowledge, the letters you are reading now come from the Latin or Roman alphabet, and these forms, while stylized by different fonts in our modern era, were shaped through long bouts of cultural mixing going through the ancient semitic cultures that came up in the eastern Mediterranean region such as modern day Syria and Lebanon.

When you look at a map, another thing can be noticed, the proximity of these regions with the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers which was the cradle of the Sumerian civilization. The Sumerians had a form of cuneiform writing that narrowly predates Egyptian hieroglyphs. And thanks to the Sumerians’ love of paperwork and the region’s geological makeup, we know a lot about the Sumerians and their writing.

What was I talking about? Phoenician alphabet…codes. Cyphers. Yes. This is the one with the secret code.

So, one of my favorite codes is a polyalphabetic code called Vigenère ciphers.

Despite its French namesake, it was first discussed by an Italian named Giovan Battista Bellaso in 1553. These ciphers can get really complicated to explain because often the explanation involves introducing either a very, very large chart of the alphabet or mathematical equations. I’m going to try to thread the needle between the two in a way that makes these fun the way they are for me.

Ok, first you need to know Caesar, who deployed a very simple cipher technique in military correspondence by shifting the letter values by a fixed amount. So, if Caesar texted “you up” but used a value shift of 2, A becomes C. So Caesar’s text would actually read “aqw wr”. Each letter is shifted by 2 in the same direction.

Now, for vigenère ciphers we take Caesar ciphers and get real fancy with it and apply the concept to a keyword or phrase to code a message. For the sake of simplicity, the code word for the example will be “two” one word, three letters. The example message to encode:

The store is open

Here is where it gets a little complicated. Our code word “two” is applied to the entire phrase, repeating.

T lines up with T

H lines up with W

E lines up with O

And so on for the entire phrase, repeating the code letters over the message. Now, each letter of the message is to be moved, dictated by the letter that corresponds with the code. In this code system, each letter is numbered with A = 0 and Z = 25. Thus, T = 19. So, the first coded letter, gets decided by 19 + 19, which is 38.

We can’t go over 25, cause there’s no letters after that, but fret not! We just repeat the alphabet with what’s left over, meaning the difference between 38 and 26 (the number of letters) which is 12. Which = M, making it our first coded letter in the message!

Remember, we code each letter starting with zero as a value but there are still 26 letters to use.

Repeat with the subsequent letters to complete coding the message.

H = 7 and W = 22 which equals 29.

29 - 26 = 3, which equals D.

I’ll save you the visual trouble. The final coded message looks like this:

MDS LPCKA WL KDXJ

So, some flaws in the code and structure. A thing that can happen is due to the mathematical properties of 0. Because A = 0, any number added to 0 stays the same. So, whenever the A in the code word lines up with a letter in the message, that letter is carried through into the coded message; a plaintext letter. This creates a weak point to puzzle out meanings from the presented code.

Additionally, double letters can potentially point out as repeating values as well, but not always reliable. You would need a code word utilizing a double letter aligning with a double letter in the message as well as a myriad of mathematical things aligning to produce a coded message with double values. I have seen it happen where a plaintext letter is carried through due to an A in the keyword and the next letter changing to an A, giving the impression of a double letter when it isn’t.

Also, three repeating coded letters chunks could indicate an article like ‘the’. Leaving the coded message in the same structure as the original message can really betray itself.

With the advent of ai models, simply dropping in the coded phrase or message and potential key words/phrases allows a machine to run the 100s of options to solve. Which it isn’t always capable of doing, especially if the code word/phrase is not correct.

So, below this, I will leave a coded message. Somewhere in here I’ve alluded to the keyword and I’ll give one hint. Drop your guesses and solves into the comments. You’ll notice I addressed the some presentation issues. There may be extra letters. There may be groupings meant to disguise the length of words. 🤓

Hint: sometimes a tangent is just a tangent, but sometimes it’s a region worth discussing anyways.

ESGENKY QZAALES NTEXEGC YBNCFMA VGESBRB PYIRPNM SAVYFET XZRNEYI RNRNCSI AYVZRIE PMTSISR

Art credit: Giovan Battista Bellaso, artist unknown, time style unknown

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There was a time that food was left on the porch for ancestors, while turnips and gourds were decorated to ward off the evil spirits wandering by. There were even named spirits like the púca, which was a strange shape-shifting spirit that sometimes takes the form of a sleek-black glowing eyed creature. The púca has a welsh cousin, a skeletonized horse like wraith - the Mari Lwyd. Now, Ole Mari Lwyd comes trotting along in the middle of winter looking for warmth and you must fend it off with battle verse, where a púca would need to be appeased. I live in the Pacific Northwest and blackberries are everywhere. Rumor is the púca spoils the remaining blackberries on the bush. You’ve been so warned.

We can poke fun at the strangeness of old holidays until the ancestors come home, however, there are much more ancient roots to Samhain.

For example, there are dirt mounds in Ireland associated with Samhain that date back some 4,500-5,000 years, which means that the holiday predates the Celts who settled in the area. The holiday is also believed to mark the end of their year. So, take all the sentiment of the New Year's promise and pumpkin spice it up with spirits, ghouls, fairies AND a feast? Count me in.

I read an interesting article that posited that there was a connection with the lighting of a large bonfire to mark the holiday and with a time of year where the days were getting shorter. Ergo, less sunlight. We modern homo sapiens know the days come and go, but this knowledge wasn’t always taken for granted. There was a time our ancient ancestors were very concerned with this shifting of the stars and Sol and took steps to ensure a balance. For Druid-following Celts, that would fall to druidic wizards such as Mogh Ruith who is believed to be a conglomerate of folk legends personifying a sun deity, who resides on Valentia Island in southern Ireland. As I tend to wander after Odin, I find it curious that Mogh Ruith is said to have been one-eyed in some stories, blind in others. A dirt mound associated with Mogh Ruith’s daughter, Tlachtga, has been the historical site of such bonfires to mark this holiday.

So, now, as you prepare your home with decorations of witches and goblins, plan costumes of slutty ghosts and ketchup bottles, and buy Costco-sized bags of mixed candies, know this: you are rocking the modern iteration of very, very ancient magic.

Happy Samhain!!!

Enjoy these curated poems and be safe out there!

Poetry

EYE

Do you see what I see?

Bless these sweet eyes,
How did you make out tonight?
Did you find 
What you were looking for?

Even with a gift of sight
You shouldn’t go
Chasing ghosts with perennial moods,
Looking for streams
You know run dry. 

Like a fool, 
Casting nets looking to consume
Making meals of rocks
As if they’re bits of cheese and meat pie.

~~

Frankenstein

What evil brought you?
What evil did they have in mind?
I ponder,
As I'm plucked from the void
To serve another lifetime. 
Coalesce while I convalesce -
Join me in my late night sermon
As I puzzle the dark matter -
Remnants of my ego death. 

Looking backwards into the interstellar
I can see the lost pieces and I
Quest to foreign lands 
To reclaim a few.
Tinkering in my solitude
Creating this hodgepodged monster - 
I, the mad doctor
And the reanimated tissue. 

~~

Starry Nights in Winter

Clear nights, fuzzy conscious;
The paradox I find often. 
The air is cold and crisp
I breathe a bit of fire;
my lungs can take the punches.

Small prices to pay
Waiting out the winter days
Hoping rations last 
And spring comes so we can lay seed
Then summer months
Where we pen indulgent oddessies.

Yes, I quite like that dream.
A deep breath mixed with smoke.
The skies will be a little different then
depending on how far I go.

~~

Hallowed Eve

A chill settles on the land
As the winds shift in the night. 
Old souls come in droves
And dance in the porchlights. 

We pluck the fall bounty,
Carve a hole to fill with gold.
Eyes ever watchful;
Fire eyes among the shadows. 

These harvest golems stand vigilant,
As a warning to the dead.
You'll find no shelter here!
Wander on to the next!

~~

Dreadnaughts Beyond

They bellow deep;
These beasts breathe danger.
Machinae that feast on souls
The horrors of Tartarus reflected 
In hollow eyes of ochre glow. 

Mystics speak of these ancient creatures
In hushed tones - afraid the mere mention
Will summon their gaze from beyond the grave,
These creatures that bore witness 
To the torture of Prometheus
For the fire he gave us to stave off 
Our shivering in the cold. 

~~

Delirium 

When I get to losing sleep
I get to wondering 
what the gods want of me. 
What gift of their delirium 
Am I to see?
Which auguries
Am I to decipher
On the 2 o’clock wind?

Dabbling with the woad,
With the hyacinth. 

I lie in the grass
Its chill and dew against my skin.
The city sleeps around me,
Even the insects rest. 
I hope my gods have the same clear view
So they can see me throw a bird or two
And curse their games!

In this essay, we will explore the historical roots of the Fifth Amendment through select case law overview and what can be gleaned from historical records around case law, as well as looking at modern-day intersections.

The text of the Fifth Amendment in full:

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

In plainer speech, the Fifth Amendment provides the right to not self-incriminate, a right to a grand jury in capital or infamous crime, a right against double jeopardy, and proper compensation from property seized by the government.

Abuses of the British Crown

Until the colonists fought for their independence, they were subjects under the British Crown, thus bound by their laws. One tool of the Crown, were writs of assistance, which were a type of search warrant that:

- did not expire until the current monarch died + six months following their passing,

- did not require a specific individual, entity or property be named regarding conducting searches,

- made it punishable with jail time if local colonists, sheriffs, and/or magistrates refused to comply with the order to force entry,

- the power is given to the holder of the warrant, which permitted higher officials to hand off authority of the writ of assistance to lower level subordinates and assistants.

Recall discussion in the Fourth Amendment page in relation to this Amendment. Where do these protections overlap? Can you have one without the other?

Another common practice of the British authorities was an ex officio oath that the infamous Star Chamber court would make a defendant swear to prior to even hearing the charges against them. This oath bound the person under the law and God so that lying was a criminal contempt as well as perjury in front of God. Refusing to take the oath or remaining silent was also criminal contempt. Lastly, truth-telling under this oath forced defendants to self-incriminate. One such case stands out as an example of what happened when defendants refused this oath.

John Lilburne and the Levellers, 1638

John Lilburne was a pamphleteer who published written material that was critical of the Crown and the State Church in favor of a government that serves its people. These ideas were seen as hostile by the Crown and by the Church. In 1638, he was sentenced for smuggling in printed material from the Netherlands and was taken to the Star Chamber to answer for his crimes. At court, he refused to take the ex officio oath until he knew the charges and invoked a right to silence after denouncing the Star Chamber saying that the oath “was against the law of God, and the law of the land.”

For his “insolence”, Lilburne was convicted anyways. The Star Chamber imposed a 500 pound fine, punishment via pillory and imprisonment until Lilburne took the oath in front of the law and God. He was also to be lashed as he was marched from the jail to the pillory. A pillory is a public shaming device, with holes cut into it and the punished are locked in an uncomfortable leaning position with their heads and hands trapped in the device. You’ve seen these in movies and other visual media.

Lilburne didn’t hold back in his writing and with others he continued to write in a decentralized leaderless movement of revolutionaries called The Levellers. In 1647, they co-authored a document called An Agreement of the People, in which they put forth a list of demands for a more democratic society by agreeing to ideals and scaffolding like regular elections, religious freedom, equality before the law, an end to conscription for war service, and equal electoral districts according to population. Sound familiar?

In 1641, the House of Commons declared his sentence illegal, calling it “bloody, cruel, barbarous and tyrannical.”. The Star Chamber’s notoriety had reached its limit as the government abolished it the same year.

However, coercion utilizing the weight of the legal and religious authority against the British subjects did not end there. The Crown often grew frustrated with the common law colonial courts. These courts had juries and often these courts dismissed charges and returned property to the defendants. Eventually a new tactic was used: indicting and bringing defendants in front of a maritime court called the Vice-Admiralty Court to ensure a favorable outcome.

Vice-Admiralty Courts

In a nutshell, these were courts established in the colonies to enforce maritime civil law, collect taxes on commerce and seize property. In these courts, there were no protections, such as a jury. A crown-appointed judge presided over the entirety of your case, reviewed evidence and determined fact, and handed down sentences. Unfortunately, many of judges in these courts also received a percentage of the value of the found guilty’s ship and properties.

There was no presumption of innocence and defendants were forced to testify and prove their innocence by providing receipts and legitimate papers. Keep in mind, this is after you have had your property seized. Refusing to testify was taken as semblance of guilt, following the logic that an innocent man would provide receipts, where a guilty man would not. If you were innocent, why would you stay quiet?

The geographic placement of these courts provided additional hurdles, in that the Crown placed them in major ports like Halifax in Nova Scotia that weren’t always easy to attend. These main ports would be where seized ships and cargo would be taken, even if it was seized in New York and further south. The defendant would have to travel 100s of miles into unfamiliar territory to attend the hearings to defend themselves and avoid the hefty fines these courts levied.

Consider, this was an intentional system to keep colonies under control of the Crown. These systems were to extend brutal consequences with little recourse against the issuing Court. This was the system that the colonists were faced with. Many lost property to the crown and paid heavy fines compared to the offenses.

Understanding the systemic realities of the time helps to better understand the importance of the protections in the Constitution. Now, let’s roll the clock forward and examine a few modern day intersections.

Case Selection: Miranda v. Arizona

Sometimes names are recognizable before the context of their importance is known. This is especially true for the name Ernesto Miranda. Phoenix Police sought Miranda as a suspect in a violent abduction and rape of then 18 year old Patricia Weir. He was taken into custody and interrogated where he eventually signed a confession.

At an early hearing, he was denied representation and when he did secure counsel, they objected to his signed confession being submitted into court. Another important element to keep in mind in this case, the police acknowledged that they did not inform Miranda of his right to counsel. However, his counsel was overruled and Miranda was eventually convicted on June 12, 1963. Counsel continued to challenge the nature of the tactics used and the denial of rights throughout Miranda’s case. By the time it made it to the Supreme Court, the question to be answered was:

Does the Fifth Amendment’s protection against self-incrimination extend to the police interrogation of a suspect?

The United States Supreme Court on June 13, 1966 ruled 5-4 in favor of Miranda. Chief Justice Earl Warren wrote for the majority opinion, affirming that Miranda’s Fifth Amendment right was violated and overturned his conviction. Warren also ruled that procedural safeguards should be in place. The majority ruling in sum:

“The Court asserted that a defendant was required to be warned before questioning that he had the right to remain silent, and that anything he said can be used against him in a court of law. A defendant was required to be told that he had the right to an attorney, and if he could not afford an attorney, one was to be appointed for him prior to any questioning if he so desired. After these warnings were given, a defendant could knowingly and intelligently waive these rights and agree to answer questions or make a statement. Evidence obtained as a result of interrogation was not to be used against a defendant at trial unless the prosecution demonstrated the warnings were given, and knowingly and intelligently waived.”

While this shaped law enforcement practice going forward, Miranda was re-tried by a new jury with his signed confession excluded and he was subsequently convicted. While Ms. Weir reported her kidnapping and rape to the police with the help of her sister for the first trial, it was the testimony of Miranda’s common law wife - Twila Hoffman who attested that Miranda had confessed the crimes to her. He served about 9 years and was paroled in 1972. Here you can read the majority opinion as well as the dissenting opinions of the SCOTUS ruling. His name now functions as a verb in that officers ‘mirandize’ people they detain during the course of their investigations, especially when the detained are going to be questioned.

In 1968, Congress passed the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act. This was a large legislative package pushed after the Johnson Administration called for more comprehensive approach to justice. Anthony Luongo wrote a solid article going into depth on this legislation and can be found here. In summary:

“Key provisions of the act addressed critical issues such as the admissibility of confessions and eyewitness testimony, the regulation of wiretapping, and assistance for state firearms control. Over a span of about 14 years, the federal government allocated approximately $7.5 billion to various law enforcement initiatives, including funding for specialized units to manage civil disturbances and organized crime. Additionally, the act prompted universities to develop criminal justice academic programs through the Law Enforcement Education Program (LEEP), which aided officers in pursuing higher education. The establishment of the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) further facilitated the evaluation and support of community crime prevention strategies. This legislation reflects the evolving landscape of law enforcement in the 1960s, aiming to create a more structured and supported approach to public safety.”

For today’s page: 18 US Code section 3501 of this legislation made voluntary confessions admissable in federal court based on the totality of circumstances of the interview. Meaning that even if the police did not inform you of your Miranda rights and were not pressuring you, interrogating you or being coercive and you just told them what happened or confessed this testimony was willingly provided, thus it was not protected under the Fifth Amendment. A judge was the arbiter, deciding whether the confession was provided under these and other criteria. Now, we step forward to the late 90s.

Case Selection: Dickerson v. United States

This case stems from an FBI case where the feds were investigating an armed bank robbery that occurred on January 24, 1997. Charles Dickerson was detained and interrogated in regards to this crime, during which he provided statements that led the FBI to conclude that he was involved with the bank robbery and he was subsequently indicted. At trial, Dickerson tried to have his testimony thrown out as evidence because he was not read his Miranda rights until after he had given statements and was officially detained.

The District Court agreed to suppress his statement with his complaint that he had not been read his Miranda rights prior to giving a statement. However, it did not address §3501. At a Court of Appeals, it acknowledged the lack of Miranda rights but upheld the law and statute that his statement was admissable under 3501, because it was voluntarily made. Interestingly, the court ruled “Congress enacted section 3501 with the express purpose of legislatively overruling Miranda and restoring volunteering as the test for admitting confessions in federal court.”

Dickerson’s case was taken up at the United States Supreme Court. In a 7-2 vote, Chief Justice Rehnquist wrote that being read your Miranda rights prior to giving a statement was the right practice for both state and federal law enforcement, as well as iterating that Congress could not legislate a constitutional protection away.

Antonin Scalia wrote the dissenting opinion, asserting that the majority ruling gave needless protections to foolish statements. Clarence Thomas agreed.

Like all things legal, the cases discussed here are fractions of the case law around the Fifth Amendment. I invite you to examine the Supreme Court’s writing, especially the footnotes where the judges often reference specific cases alongside their opinion. Each of these cited cases can be looked into further, with each pertaining to specific aspects of the protections enshrined in the Amendment.

Modern-Day Intersection

The language of the Constitution and its amendments were specifically chosen. As such, the Fifth Amendment states that no “persons” shall have these rights infringed. Reviewing Article 1 of the Constitution clearly dictates requirements on citizens and their participation in Government, providing the differences. Article 2 says a foreign born person cannot immigrate and be president, since the President must be a natural-born citizen.

The Founders decided that all persons in the United States and persons under its jurisdiction have protections under the Fifth Amendment, including immigrants - legal and illegal. It is a bit semantic, however, when the difference in word usage and their legal ramifications and processes is also specific, so it’s worth considering Founder intent. Interestingly, there is case law for such debates as well.

Case Selection: Wong Wing v. United States

The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, was a legislative ban on Chinese Laborers immigrating to the country for a period of 10 years. CEA also forbid Chinese nationals already living legally in the country could not be naturalized. One of the common citations for the law were white labor leaders and politicians decrying low wages and unemployment due to Chinese laborers. Punishments for being found guilty of illegally immigrating was deportation, and with the passing of the 1892 Geary Act, also included a period of forced manual labor.

This selected case came in 1892, when Wong Wing and three other Chinese men were brought before a commissioner and sentenced without a trial. Even a writ of habeas corpus was denied. They were sentenced to a labor camp for 60 days followed by deportation. An important note here is that the forced labor sentence was a criminal-tier punishment and deportation was a civil proceeding.

Their case made its way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which seven ruled in favor, one justice recused and one justice agreed in part and dissented in part that the legislation violated constitutional guarantees and that due process was applicable to “persons” and not just citizens. While the court conceded that Congress can legislate immigration issues, when criminal punishments are used, due process with grand jury indictment and a jury trial must be satisfied. Effectively, the Fifth and Sixth Amendments’ provisions extend to all persons.

Wong Wing and the others were then deported. So while the courts did determine that these Chinese men were here illegally, this Supreme Court helped further define who the breadth of constitutional protections extends to.

Present Day

Consider, more recently a man by the name of Kilmar Abrego Garcia was wrongfully deported to El Salvador in 2025, despite having a court order against his deportation to that country. Sotomayor issued a four page statement, stating:

“Nevertheless, I agree with the Court’s order that the proper remedy is to provide Abrego Garcia with all the process to which he would have been entitled had he not been unlawfully removed to El Salvador. That means the Government must comply with its obligation to provide Abrego Garcia with “due process of law,” including notice and an opportunity to be heard, in any future proceedings. Reno v. Flores, 507 U. S. 292, 306 (1993).”

I intentionally left in one of Sotomayor’s citations. I challenge you to go search for ‘Reno v. Flores, 1993’ and explore the different sources provided. What was the case about? What were the decisions decided by the different levels of the courts? What was the outcome of the case once the connecting legal question was answered? Consider, Reno v. Flores is cited here in Sotomayor’s words regarding Garcia’s case. What is the connection? How does the resolution in one impact the other?

In Reflection

Garcia’s case has been prolonged by continual investigations, even attempts of the feds to reinstate a state government investigation to find charges against him in what his defense called vindictive prosecution against Garcia. While a judge did not agree the government proved it wasn’t being vindictive, they couldn’t definitely say that the government was either. The case was dismissed and the feds are pursuing an appeal to reinstate the case.

I wonder if there are other cases out there that rest on a challenge to the right to not be a witness against yourself. How would those cases further shape the depth and nuance of the Fifth Amendment? As I reflect on the challenges to inalienable rights throughout history, I am intrigued by the imprints of ideas. To think John Lilburne and the Levellers had such audacious ideas that threw sparks against an empire that our Founders would add tinder to and nurse that flame. Without their bravery in wielding swords and pens against the British Empire, we would not be here discussing the ideas that got put down in blood and ink.

We live in strange times. It seems like revolutionary ideas, ‘radical’ ideas are all around us. Much like the printing press helped challenge religious control with Reformers like Martin Luther, the Internet, this….thing that allows us to be interconnected, allows us tools to add our own lumber to the fires of change. However, we must be considerate of how these technologies can be used to harm us, harm our communities, and ensure that we, the People are unwaivering in the rights that make our Democracy the envy of the world. I fear we could lose some of that shield in a blind fury to find blame for the problems in society and we must not lose ourselves to serve someone else’s greed.

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Art credit: Paula Rego “Interrogation” 1950, oil on canvas.

Sources

1. https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4936&context=mlr

2.

3. https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-5/

4. https://scholarlycommons.law.northwestern.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4931&context=jclc

5. https://www.fletc.gov/audio/miranda-5th-amendment-mp3

6. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/virginia.asp

7. https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/amdt5-4-1/ALDE_00000864/

8. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/fifth-amendment

9. https://www.mountvernon.org/library/digitalhistory/digital-encyclopedia/article/the-coercive-intolerable-acts-of-1774

10. https://history.nycourts.gov/democracy-teacher-toolkit/criminal-law-civil-liberties/5th-amendment/

11. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1965/759

12. https://guides.loc.gov/miranda-v-arizona/timeline

13. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/384/436/

14. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1999/99-5525

15. https://www.casebriefs.com/blog/law/criminal-procedure/criminal-procedure-keyed-to-israel/police-interrogation-and-confessions/dickerson-v-united-states-2/amp/

16. https://congressionaldigest.com/issue/miranda-rights-and-police-interrogation/charles-t-dickerson/

17. https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:18%20section:3501%20edition:prelim)

18. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/politics-and-government/omnibus-crime-control-and-safe-streets-act-1968

19. https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/about-immigration/due-process-and-courts/

20.

21. https://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/lilburnelinks.html

22. https://constitution.org/1-History/lev/eng_lev_07.htm

23. https://www.britannica.com/biography/John-Lilburne

24. https://news.mobar.org/the-enduring-lesson-of-john-lilburnes-saga-self-incrimination-in-the-criminal-justice-system/

25. https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/wong-wing-v-united-states/

26. https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/163/228/

27. https://www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-Exclusion-Act

28. https://nashvillebanner.com/2026/01/07/kilmar-abrego-garcia-trump-administration-tennessee/

29. https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/noem-v-abrego-garcia/

30. https://www.npr.org/2025/04/10/nx-s1-5358421/supreme-court-abrego-garcia-deportation-decision

31.

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a949_lkhn.pdf

I did turn on a feature that paywalls articles after a year. This was done more to restrict app-based users as subscribers keep the articles intact and full in their emails that are always searchable. Substack is trying to catch more users by filling out their social media style features. If you run into an issue accessing older letters in your email, please reach out and let me know so I can address that.

Alright let’s get into it. 😉

~~~

I have a love-hate relationship with love poems, in that I feel there is a fine line between something with real flavor and something that is cliche and cheesy. I know, I know, cliches are cliches for a reason but relying on what boils down to Hallmark romantic sentiments to express romantic and erotic feelings is easy and void of authentic personality.

In my craft, good romantic gestures come from specific interactions, specific imagery that pulls from relatable experiences. Like a specific look or a moment within the intimacy. The wooing, the playful dance of flirting, the passions that are a runway for lust. Maybe even love itself.

I like the idea of polytheistic constructs and that floats behind all my poetry. The gods are envious of us mortals because our lives are finite, thus making our experiences that much more meaningful and fulfilling. We should own that. I’ve yet to read about a pantheon of gods and goddesses that did not in some form or fashion take to the mortal plane and enjoy romantic dalliances. Zeus, Odin, Athena, Hera, Apsaras, Gandharvas, Inanna… they all had sex with humans. Loki had sex with a horse in the form of a horse and birthed Odin’s own 8-legged steed. The Greeks stand out though, those horny devils. Curiously, the Sumerians ritualized unions with the gods with temple priestesses who were ordained to act as vessels of the particular god in which the king would have sex with as part of the ritual. No pressure lol.

I’m also assuming all temple ritual sex was heterosexual and I feel that we over-simplify sexual forays from history to contort to modern lenses and modern biases. There is a surprising amount of historical figures whose relationships stand out. Records claim Alexander the Great cried for weeks when his male best friend died. King James, the famous one with a named version of the Bible, had gay lovers. The reality of looking back at history with modern lenses is that it frames, at least in my eyes, that sexual norms and taboos are culturally driven and highly subject to change. If we were Spartans, sex between older soldiers with younger soldiers would be expected as bond-forming. That’s institutional gay sex. 👀

There are some rather blunt letters written between writers in the early 1900s that would rival the erotic fiction genres now. Back further, Victorian era sexting involved all kinds of codes and posturing like posting a stamp on a letter a certain way to indicate sexual desire. Steamy, right? We discovered pleasure bathhouses with erotic art on the walls in ancient Greece. To the shame of the discoverers and the zeitgeist they occupied, much of this erotic art was literally censored right on the walls. So while we have some of it remaining at dig sites, it's full depictions of eroticism are lost to us.

Who are we to judge?

I feel maybe I spend too much time thinking about my craft. Cliches dominate the rom-com genres. Love and lust is as dynamic as human personality is. As long as there is consent and no crimes are being committed, have at it. Do the kinky thing. We only get to live once so enjoy those experiences. Also enjoy these curated poems and if you have a special person in your life….let me be your wingman and send them on to your lover. 😈

*Art credit: “Le Bain Turc” or “The Turkish Bath” by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1862, oil on canvas.

Devotions

She's looking for soul,
In the best possible ways. 
Stop and go -
Playground games.

I give chase -
Cause she likes to run.
I never know what from.
Every time I catch her,
She just falls in my arms,
Something about feeling safe
In my charge. 

Proud devotions of the heart -
She will never know harm,
But she says what's off limits,
And the rest is on. 


~~ ~~
Call Waiting

I have a gift for tongues
And I'm skilled in morse code. 
Send me a message in a bottle -
You don't have to be alone. 

Who's to say 
We don't share a drink?
Laugh and mint inside jokes.

And if the passions find us 
We'll tell the robots to play
Our favorite songs
To dance together by the stove.

We can get lost
in a mansion of our love
Unbothered disconnected and enthralled.

All you must do is call. 


~~~
gold stars ⭐

I want to learn what you need -
Making pillow talk 
Playing games 
And craving things. 

The take of the day is squirreled away
We can hang up our axes and coats.

Let your hair down,

Pour a glass 
Enchanted with every move.
Let me earn gold stars
Fucking you. 


~~~~~
Midnight Sun

Have you taken in a drink 
From the midnight Sun?
Up at this hour 
Still chasing a couple shots of lust.

The gods saw us, smirked 
And gave us time,
To dance under their halos.
Let me marvel at your glow
My wandering soul
Lost in the laugh in your eyes. 

Let the machines
Play our favorite songs.
I get a buzz of your kiss
And chill down my spine
Undressing as you sway to the bedroom
Teasing me to come,
So,
Goodnight, Sun. 


~~~~
Sweet Nothings on a Trail Wind

We don't need beasts of burden
Move with the breeze
Abandon the chase of the sun.

All I need
Is your company mixed with
A drink to wet my tongue. 

We can find soul
Runnin' 'round church groves
Where we can just be us.

And when we make camp
Telling tales 'round the fire
Long past dusk

We'll weave memories,
And put us in the stars.
Drifting off
Still humming from sated lust. 


~~~~~
Tracer Paper 

You've left an imprint on my mind,
One I trace every night. 
Shadow souls 
That glow in the moonlight,
I'd bargain with the gods 
For the chance to hold up the sky,
And give us nothing but time. 
Let me build us a heaven 
Where even the gods come 
To marvel at your sight.


~~~~~
Dialogue with Desire
 
The best place to hide is in plain sight,
While we dance our dance,
And you confide. 
We all are searching for something 
Even if it's across a country...
I study,
You turning over all the rocks to find,
That image in the granite,
Please, 
Work out these shapes
With the sculptor’s eye.
 
I hold my pose,
Despite the crash
Of the hammer strokes
I cannot betray my desires.
Skillfully
Your hands stray
As you work me to clay
I crave a question 
That you can answer.
 
Patience, Patience
I'm the one you're after.
~~~~~~~~~~~

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He posited that each person exists within overlapping systems of influence, and the relationship between the person and the different systems are impactful to both the person and the overall system itself. I think it’ll make a little more sense with examples of the relationships Bronfenbrenner mapped out.

The microsystem is the immediate environment of a person and the relationships that person has directly with entities in the environment, like teachers at schools, doctors and clinics, peers in the neighborhood etc. This system is the most impactful for a person’s development. The next overlapping system is the mesosystem which maps the relationship and influences between Microsystems, such as how a person’s home life impacts how they experience school.

The next system - the exosystem - is where you step into the larger settings that impact a person’s life, like a parent’s workplace for a child or a spouse’s workplace for a partner, local governments and other administrative type entities. These systems are influenced by the people that come up in them as well as influence the people within them. For example, say a local government bans all swimming structures and swimming activities. Consider how such a rule would impact places, like the YMCA or playing in the creek. Water parks go away. No backyard pools. This exosystem decision could influence less people knowing how to swim or maybe even influences higher than normal drownings. Perhaps it has the opposite influence and people coming up under a ban of swimming activities push for exosystem change to lift such a ban. This is the influence between systems in action.

The next overlapping system is the macrosystem. According to Bronfenbrenner, this system is where ideologies, cultural identities, laws etc live. We influence the macrosystem with elections. The policies and choices made there in turn influence the systems below it.

The last and most encompassing system is the chronosystem. Here things like time and history have influence, such as the accumulative experience of a person’s life and era on the younger generation in a family tree. At the thresholds or intersections of these systems is what influences above and below.

With this framing of how people develop and grow, Bronfenbrenner also posited that a person’s development actively shapes their environment, which in turn influences the person. That human development wasn’t reliant just on base pairs in genetic code but also how the environmental factors from all these systems come into play.

I found myself agreeing with his notion that research endeavors should have real world relevance and application. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy pondering and exploring ideas for the sake of discovery and understanding, however, the institutional systems (exosystem) should be more tailored to improving society. It may surprise you that Bronfenbrenner was a pivotal co-founder of the federal Head Start Program in 1965 as he was quite adept at taking his research and developing actionable policies.

As a program itself, its focus is an exosystem level initiative to provide comprehensive child development programs for disadvantaged pre-school children by providing an infrastructure for microsystem level support for families. This support looks like in-home care programs, food programs, community center-based programs and school readiness curriculum. You can explore more info on Head Start here.

“Yo, Big Mike, I’ve heard about Head Start and that’s cool, but what’s this gotta do with Democratic Socialism?”

I hear you! So, Bronfenbrenner’s theories provide a framework to understand how systems interact. Let’s define some terms.

Socialism is an economic system in which there is collective or public ownership of the means of production. The ‘means’ can be anything non-human, like tools, factories, land, or the raw resources themselves. It is important to note the boundary here is within economic systems and yes such systems have influence throughout the different systems, but does not govern every aspect of life. Like all philosophies, there are extreme ideas of socialism like Thomas More’s ‘Utopia’ where his perfect island society thrived with everything being communal property aside from clothing to corrupt centrally controlled systems that ultimately collapsed the USSR.

True democracy is a system of governance in which the people hold the power and engage in this by voting in elections. If the People’s vote directly guides the decision, this would be considered a direct democracy. Or, if the People’s votes go towards electing representatives that go on to make laws etc, this would be a representative democracy.

A very important caveat is that in a true democracy, every single person’s vote carries the same weight. I would argue that our system in America places a higher value on the rich’s vote. Particularly because we allow unending amounts of corporate money to influence elections. So where you and I have one vote, one circle filled in on a ballot, the rich, like Musk, can operate an entire Political Action Committee to pump money directly into elections to influence for their benefit. As someone without $100,000,000.00s into the process, this feels like a finger on the scale.

So, a democratic socialist-minded system, in which the People own more of the means of production, allows the People to act within the macrosystem by voting for representatives. That elective power shapes the exo and microsystems that we all inhabit.

A “what if” Example

Consider: The Kisanfu Mine in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is privately owned, however, its chain of shell corporations is quite extensive. According to this 2025 article from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency:

“The Kisanfu Mine is operated by China Molybdenum Co. Ltd (CMOC) Kisanfu Mining SARL, which is 95% owned by KFM Holding and 5% owned by the government of the DRC. KFM Holding itself is 75% owned by CMOC Group Ltd. and 25% by Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Ltd (CATL).

In other words, CMOC Group has a 71.25% stake in the mine, Contemporary Amperex has a 23.75% stake, and the DRC maintains a 5% stake. In addition to the Kisanfu Mine, CMOC—the world’s leading producer of copper and cobalt—has an 80% stake in Tenke Fungurume Mining SA.”

The cobalt this one mine puts out is around 30,000 metric tons annually. For copper, around 114,000 metric tons of copper. Based on the current exchange rates, one ton of cobalt is roughly $56,290. So, our estimate is that 30,000 tons of cobalt is worth $1,688,700,000.00. For copper: one ton is $13,834.00. So, 114,000 tons is worth $1,577,076,000.00 In total, the approximate revenue out of this mine before operating costs and other things is $3,265,776,000.00. Now, I won’t take you through the entire shell company breakdown but the DRC takes 5% equity off of their profits, with a ceiling of about $163,000,000.00.

The 10,000s of people in the mine reportedly only make a couple of dollars a day doing artisanal mining, which is an illegal method. (I’ll drop a link here that expands on this concept, but it’s illegal because the individual doing it is not permitted by the government to extract minerals from the ground) The corporation says that they keep the illegal mining out of their claimed mining space, however, reports from the ground posit that the illegal mining and corporate-permitted mining are intermingled. This makes it far greyer if these minerals in the supply chain are ‘dirty’ or not. In the end, this is a capitalist system, with a handful of private interests taking in the majority of the profits at the very top.

Within this capitalist system, the owning interest isn’t even based out of the country where the resources are being mined, but large populations of Congolese rely on the fractional wages to mine something in their own country.

So what if there was more of a democratic socialist system in this same mine? One outcome: the workers extracting the materials would have more control over process and wages, especially if they were unionized. The more substantial money made by an exosystem level entity is more equitably dispersed down the systems to the workers’ microsystems. This leads to the larger ability of the workers to provide for their families as well as support others in society by participating in the economy. This would be an example of worker-owned means of production.

In a small way, the DRC having a 5% stake is some level of ownership of the raw materials and land, but even that compensation pales in the profits made by the Chinese-owned companies. I’ll drop a picture of the mine, let me know in the comments if you would want to work there for only like $5.00/day.

Alaska

Closer to home; consider the ACES legislation championed and signed by then Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin in 2007. The legislation raised a profit tax against the oil companies like Exxon, operating on rented state land. The subsequent tax led to major state surpluses and on top of the stipends with the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, a permanent citizen controlled sovereign fund source established in the mid 70s, the state sent out one-time rebates to all eligible residents.

A curious note about Alaska’s sovereign wealth fund; legislators cannot touch the appreciating funds without putting it to a vote from the People and the People of Alaska enshrined that into their state Constitution. This is an example of public-owned resources. I also argue here that this fund and its operation is a ‘democratic socialist’ type legislation, especially in considering how that fund is used and the ‘hands-off unless the People vote yay’ approach to keep politicians from tapping into the People’s funds for their own gains.

I wonder if we have failed a similar check and balance by allowing past administrations in the federal government to lend against our money from Social Security. This program itself is another example of democratic socialist-type legislation and a public-owned insurance program.

Closing Thoughts

So to recap, democratic socialism as economic policy in the exosystem can give workers within the varying ‘Big’ industries a larger and more equitable piece of the profits enjoyed by the current owners of those companies. Empowering People and increasing financial security through democratic socialist-minded policy gives the People on the ground working in factories or grocery stores more invested value in the company itself. A society thrives the more people are financially secure. This is what makes a robust middle class.

The owners will always be wealthy. Consider, in 2008, ExxonMobil netted around $45,200,000,000.00. Even in 2009, when they only made $19,280,000,000.00, they still were positioned to acquire a natural gas company, XTO Energy for $31,000,000,000.00. I don’t take issue with someone making high profits and having a successful business. However, record profits for a board room and owner when workers are struggling to make ends meet, that is indicative of an imbalance. Particularly with employers like Wal-Mart, who is consistently one of the top employers of SNAP and Medicaid recipients. You can look up Wal-Mart’s profits year to year and try to make sense of that. Costco practices their capitalism in such a way that opening a warehouse in an area has a measurable net positive impact on the community. It’s called the “Costco Effect”.

Paying workers a good wage is still profitable. It’s so beneficial with Costco, it helps increase worker’s wages at other businesses in the area as well as creating more business. Mutual benefit and people are still making money. If you shop at Costco, you are participating in an exosystem policy that puts more of the profits back into the employee’s wallets which has a net positive on the community, their microsystems.

So, is this all really something to be afraid of? You still have a vote. You also have work policies that benefit you and your neighbors because they are focused on your well being and security and not so much the corporate boardrooms.

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Sources

• https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/09/head-start-founder-urie-bronfenbrenner-dies-88

• https://acf.gov/ohs/comms-fact-sheet/office-head-start

• https://www.britannica.com/money/socialism

• https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/socialism.asp

• https://www.tearline.mil/printable/democratic-republic-of-congo-expansion-of-chinese-owned-cobalt-and-copper-mines-in-the-lualaba-province

• https://www.cobaltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cobalt-Market-Report-2023.pdf

• https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/cobalt

• https://markets.businessinsider.com/commodities/copper-price

• https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara

• https://apfc.org/about/history/

• https://investor.exxonmobil.com/sec-filings/all-sec-filings/content/0000034088-08-000102/0000034088-08-000102.pdf

• https://finance.yahoo.com/news/costco-effect-highlights-costco-stores-233117993.html

• https://miningindaba.com/articles/artisanal-and-illegal-mining-a-question-of-in

Among the Greek celestial beings is the titan Prometheus. He ultimately sided with the gods in the great wars, proving himself to be an asset. His brother, Epimetheus fought for the gods too. Their names are a familiar pairing in that Prometheus’ name means ‘foresight’ and his brother’s name means ‘hindsight’.

I suspect that Prometheus is more known for his particularly brutal punishment. However, that is only the end of a much longer story. Even though he had proven himself, he didn’t go live on Mount Olympus. Instead he lived ‘below’ on earth and would often go visit Athena, who taught Prometheus a great deal of knowledge. He would use this knowledge to fulfill a task given to him and his brother by Zeus - populate the earth with animals.

I have found the titans’ relationship to the gods very curious. Despite them being older and more primal, comparatively powered, and immortal, they still were defeated and locked away in Tartarus. Greek culture had ceremonies and marked the days for titans. So while Epimetheus put work to crafting animals and imbuing them each with special gifts of the gods, Prometheus molded the first human beings. Athena loved Prometheus’ creation and breathed life into it. Zeus admired these human beings’ simplistic mortalities and wanted them to worship the gods. So, he gave Prometheus another directive.

“Teach them how to properly worship us and give us the best sacrifices.”

Prometheus thought higher of his creations, and didn’t like Zeus’ desire that they worship by giving the gods the best parts of their sustenance. So, he saw an opportunity in how to cheat the gods. Prometheus showed humankind how to process a bull to leave an offering, stipulating that you took all of the choice, usable meat and skins and hide it under the entrails and then offer the bones and tough sinew to the gods. When Zeus came to claim the “best” cuts, he reeled from the gore pile of offal and quickly took the sinew and bones. It isn’t until Zeus returns to Olympus that he realizes he’s been taken for a fool.

The first punishment for having taught the worshippers this slight, Zeus decreed that humans were no longer able to use fire. Not for cooking and not for warmth. Zeus wanted humans to wander in darkness so they always remembered the power of the gods. Prometheus was not going to abide this. Without fire, humankind never gets a leg up.

Fire and humans are so intertwined that when archeologists find signs of consistent firepit use, they immediately expand their search areas and always find more remnants of human existence. Without fire, we don’t figure out the benefit of cooking food, which made it easier to digest a wider variety of food sources AND use less energy to do so. Our brains benefitted from the extra net energy and psychological safety through fire. Not a single human would survive the cold without a mastery of fire for warmth and food.

Anyways, Prometheus sneaks into a forge on Mount Olympus one night and took a single spark from the forge fire and hid it in a fennel reed. He raced it down the mountain, successfully brought humans the fire and stayed with them to teach them mathematics, astronomy, iron working, reading and writing. Godly knowledge. Epimetheus could not give humans a godlike gift at their creation like he did for the other animals, but that allows Prometheus to defy Zeus by teaching humans knowledge of the gods. Knowledge that would be foundational to humankind’s rise as bonafide civilization.

Zeus was not happy to be slighted again by Prometheus. Consider from Zeus’ perspective, Prometheus taught humans how to not rely on the gods. And so, Zeus had Prometheus captured and chained to a mountain by unbreakable restraints. Zeus arranged for an eagle (some tellings say a vulture) to visit Prometheus every morning and spend the day picking and clawing at him until it consumes Prometheus’ liver. Because the titans also have immortality, his liver would regrow and heal every night for his torture to happen again in the morning.

The legends are very clear that even suffering in this way, Prometheus does not regret defying the gods and giving his creations the knowledge of the gods.

At least within this myth, the gods expected us to worship them and give them our best and it was an older titan who not only made us but gave us what we have today. I reflect often on Prometheus’ story as he is one of my favorites among the mythology. It is an interesting comparison to monotheistic faiths which contend the central god is the creator and “endower” of name and abilities. In the Greek myths, the gods that are more widely worshipped were not the first ones with power nor particularly concerned with the ongoings of humankind. Within the Greek myths, we humans came from a more primordial titan and owe our knowledge base to it defying some of the other celestial beings.

We’re told the titans were foul creatures and deserved their imprisonment in Tartarus and yet we have one titan who created all of the animals, another to hold up the earth-plane itself, and Prometheus our true maker. History is written by the victor and it was Zeus and this younger vanguard of celestial beings that ultimately ruled the Greek metaphysical worlds.

Below are some curated poems to enjoy. As always, I appreciate your support!

Special credit: cover art for the article is Gustave Moreau’s ‘Prometheus’, painted in 1868, oil on canvas.

Poems 

Starry Nights in Summer

I try to get away,
Be loose tendrils of smoke,
Partial only to the way the wind blows.

Tracing trails back home,
Past where the field-bounty grows, 
I strike deals with the bees
And when I trek to the grove
I gather my fill of wild things.

I don’t worry in the woods
As the warmth fades from golden boughs.
I use the stars as my stepping stones.
~~
Purple Melancholia 

Black dahlias grow in my garden
Relaxing in the shade of the neighbor’s tree.
To see it grow
You must care for and water it,
Giving it space to bloom.
The hardest part is being patient
As the roots dig below.

You must be fully anchored 
To stand tall against the wind
To see your seeds dispersed
And see the field fill with kin.

Until then I tend to these black flowers
Making time to make it rain. 
~~

Old Man of the Lake

If you’re quiet
While you stroll along the lake,
You can hear his song
As he too strolls the shallows. 
During the day,
He seems to be a strange upright log
Bobbing along unbothered,
Never in the same place,
Making faces in the corner of your eyes.
At night,
If you catch his tune drift along the shore
Savor it,
As quick as it comes, it fades
As he covers the bottom of the lake in stride,
The top of his head shifting out of view. 
~~
Leaning Against the Garden Wall

Cremate me.
Let me be smoke. 
Then put my carbon
Back in the dirt.
Here’s hoping the planes 
Are easy to traverse,
That opportunities hang ripe on the vine,
That I can find new meaning
In a new life.
That’s the sum of the soul, right?

Right?
~~
Ship of Theseus

I dream of better things 
And better places for all my friends 
But it’s gonna be a while 
Before we’re better men. 

The trials are Sisyphus -
Hoping his grind nets him a sneaker deal,
The consequences - Prometheus concedes 
Are worse than his. 

What’s a war
If you don’t come back on your shield?
A jaunty countryside
Pulling ships from the trees
If you don’t strip the land of riches
Did you even conquer a thing?

~~
Shepherd's Pie

Under celestial eyes
And cloudy countenance best taken in stride,
I wander past the gravel roads
Trying to find the nearest edge to travel,
Dare the devil,
Settle with soul,
And proceed to see,
My schemes prosper
And the means justify.

Battling,
I've got an axe to grind.

Too many wars to wage,
I sharpen mine
And dye the land
Shades of sanguine. 

Archimedes -
Please teach me how to float!
I'm spitting mouthfuls of black water,
Too comfortable in its pull.

Where I go,
The torch equipped
My beacon in the darkness,
Illuminating what lies beyond the fence…
Out where the lost souls wander
Working the glacial stream
Panhandling for sense…
Out where the lost souls wander
Living in dreams
Making meals of misery and discontent. 

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In bloom, it is a five-petaled yellow flower with yellow stamens protruding away from the center of the flower. A key identifying feature of the plant is its leaves that appear to have numerous holes throughout their structure. There are not actually holes in the leaf but transparent glands that produce a resinous and gamey aroma. The “hole” feature is named in this plant’s scientific name “perforatum”. The prefix “per” means ‘through’ and the root verb “forare” means ‘to pierce or bore’. The suffix “atum” completes the word meaning ‘marked by’.

Historical Roots

Interestingly, when you crush the plant, it produces a reddish color. This is so due to a compound within the plant called hypericin. When gathered and stored properly in olive oil (a common carrier oil and one that would have been in abundance in Greece) Wort taints the oil red. This feature of the plant led to much of its lore. For instance, there are old Christian tales that posit that the plant “bled” the day of Saint John’s beheading in August. Another variation of this legend posits the flower is at its most potent when harvested on Saint John’s Day on June 24th. I suspect its current name got picked up in Europe where this plant proliferates. Saint John’s Wort tends to blossom in June, so some of these stories may stem from cultural stories that developed out of interacting with the plant and a lesson on when to harvest it with peak benefits available in the plant.

The benefits of Saint John’s Wort were recorded over 2,000 years ago by some recognizable names such as Pliny the Elder and Hippocrates. Wort’s Greek origin name was hyperikon. In Pliny’s day, they listed Wort as a viable treatment for snake bites, intestinal worms, menstrual disorders and general-wound healing.

Saint John’s Wort was still in use during the middle ages. For example, in 1525, an herbalist by the name of Paracelsus recommended the herb as treatment for depression, melancholy and overexcitation. Through the 1700s and 1800s, it was reported to have been additionally used for anxiety, water retention and gastritis. Records also show it was used in topical treatments for hemorrhoids, sores, minor burns and abrasions.

Intersection with Modern Science

So that was like the 1500s, right? They hadn’t even seen cells yet, let alone understood germs. That wouldn't come until mid 1600s! Regardless, Saint John’s Wort is offered in 2026 as over the counter in a capsule formula as a dietary supplement. Its historical preparations as either a tincture or salve are still procurable if you know where to look, with varying levels of potency of the active chemicals found to be beneficial in the plant.

Chemical Breakdown

I could spend an entire essay delving into this section alone. Scientific analysis using a variety of methods has allowed us to look at the plant compounds and their structures and the action the compounds take in the body. There are a number of identified chemicals with three that stand out: Naphthodianthrones, flavonoids and hyperforin.

Naphthodianthrones

This was a new word for me too. Here’s Google’s pronunciation guide: naf-thoh-dy-an-throhnz. I will shorthand them as ‘n-thrones’. Hypericin was mentioned earlier as the compound that produces a reddish stain. It is the main n-throne present within Saint John’s Wort. Some of the research into this compound finds that it has photosensitizing and anticancer properties.

What does it mean to be “photosensitizing”? Essentially this quality means that the compounds interact with light in the presence of oxygen, causing a reaction that damages nearby cells. In the case of Wort, it has a well recorded negative effect on farm animals with light pigmentation like horses, sheep or cows. When ingested it causes hypericism, indicated by the lighter pigmented areas on the animal’s skin becoming irritated by light and sunburnt with oozing blisters. This progresses into swollen legs, heads and other infected areas as the body attempts to fight the compounds from the plant. Animals have been recorded scratching their bodies against available surfaces which further complicates healing. It can impact udders, and this often leads to refusal to nurse young, who can take on the hypericin through the milk. Chronic exposure leads to the animal’s diminished ability to produce milk or wool. It is this reality that ranchers and farmers have called it goatweed or cow’s itch. A noxious weed.

This level of reaction is not seen in human consumption or use because there are vast differences in the quantities. That does not mean that it cannot be harmful. Consider that too much ibuprofen or taking antibiotics inappropriately can be harmful. This is a quality of medicinal properties.

Flavonoids

These compounds are what provide anti-inflammatory properties. Some research has shown that these compounds tend to modulate cell growth rates and factors of a cellular ‘clean up’ process called apoptosis in relation to tumor cell growth.

Hyperforin

This compound is where the mental health benefits come through. Numerous clinical studies around depression have shown a positive relationship as well as shown dose-dependent therapeutic efficacy. However, hyperforin’s molecular actions within the body are still under scrutiny with some emerging ideas looking at how hyperforin interacts with the same receptors in the body that antidepressants do. Researchers are also looking at how hyperforin alters how chemical compounds cluster. This article here explored a specific transmitter location as a pathway for administering a hyperforin-based antidepressant compound.

This function of the plant is what many herbalists going back to Paracelsus were observing in Wort’s administration. Complicating all of this, though: Saint John’s Wort has known interactions with prescription drugs that can include birth control and HIV drugs. It can make them less effective in their intended functions by burning up the drug compounds in the body faster. Due to its natural mood benefits raising serotonin, when used with SSRIs, it can double the effect. This can lead to a spike in serotonin levels which can be life threatening. Most importantly, research and new methods are continuing to ask questions even now. Where possible, consult a doctor or accredited professional.

Noxious Weed Status

As mentioned earlier, it is largely considered a noxious weed. My state is no exception as WA labels it a class-c weed and leaves it to the counties to manage. Wort’s status was updated in 1998 due to people requesting it for its medicinal purposes and lobbying for a change in the laws. So, it can be bought and sold and can be grown, depending on county. That is partly why I only have a hybrid - Hypericum x inodorum. This offshoot does not have the oily and translucent glands seen with Perforatum varieties. Inodorum produces a berry that stays present through the fall, once the yellow petals fade away.

Conclusion

It is curious to see one plant hold two realities within itself - a healing plant with religious connotations and a weed to eradicate from grazing land for the benefit of the livestock. Modern society has largely moved on to more targeted treatments for all of the historical ailments listed in this essay. Wort still finds its way onto the wellness shelves. There was a time when all of our medicine came from the land instead of a lab. The knowledge of what is around us does not have to fade into the dust of time.

Don’t just stop to smell the flowers - study them!

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Sources

• https://www.morrisarboretum.org/blog/plant-names-tell-their-stories-hypericum-spp-st-johns-wort

• https://www.ahpa.org/herbs_in_history_stjohnswort

• https://ravensroots.org/blog/2015/6/8/hypericum-perforatum

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK92750/

• https://www.nature.com/nature-index/topics/l4/phytochemical-properties-and-biological-activities-of-hypericum-species

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/immunology-and-microbiology/photodynamics

• https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2667031322001750

• https://health.clevelandclinic.org/what-are-flavonoids

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6741737/

• https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-022-01804-3

• https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1874438/

Mom,

Happy birthday! I found these incredibly potent tea lights so when I light a candle for you, it comes with an aroma. Right now, I have some lavender ones. Do you remember when you used to make ‘monster spray’? If memory serves you mixed lavender essential oil and glitter in some water and would spray it under the bed and closet? Worked like a charm. Good thing we weren’t allergic to lavender!

The blueberry bushes we planted in your memorial garden have officially produced 3 blubes to date. I’m excited for these plants to continue to grow and produce. We always had the hardest time keeping up with the gardens growing up. Nothing beats the one we grew in Homedale. With the help of pollenators I think we managed to grow some of the hottest peppers I have eaten. Despite it being the most massive of gardens, I did enjoy digging the channel with Aaron to redirect some of the canal water. The benefit of living in farm land - farmland infrastructure.

We keep seeing this greyish bee among the flowers and we suspect it’s some kind of miner bee. I haven’t been able to snap a pic of it yet but I am keen to. Interestingly the bees love the lavender bushes, which is why we added a second type. One of the other types - a Spanish lavender - look like little purple pineapples. The bees love the oregano too. Every time the flowers bloom off the fresh stalks, it’s inundated in bees.

I was recently watching a documentary on insects and flowers and came away with two very curious tidbits. Research keeps churning out this notion that several species of insects (and spiders) are demonstrating some level of object permanence. Bees, praying mantis, jumping spiders. They seem to have an ability to “remember” things. This researcher in Europe has observed bees leaving the hive for the first time and flying backwards and at varying levels of height as they leave the hive. He suspects they are mapping out their home. He tests them often, at least the new bees in the hives by marking them with a yellow highlighter dot and then releasing them several miles away from the hive. Then, he sits by the hive entrance watching for the highlighted bees. 95% success rate on returning to the hive. Incredible! Regarding praying mantis and jumping spiders - the leading idea is that their hunting strategies work and rely on object permanence. The doc tracked a mantis as it squared up with a lizard AND WON. The wild thing there though is that it had to go find and re-engage with the lizard after a scrap. It hunted it down. You can only do that if you “remember”. Jumping spiders are in the same vein.

The doc I watched on that created little obstacle courses for spiders with a central spot that housed food that you could only see from certain perspectives and then they watched as the spiders seemed to map a course from a vantage spot often leaving behind the visible food to maneuver to a better spot and eventually catching the food. Its movement did not seem random - meaning that it appeared to hatch a plan and then execute it to get closer to the food. This is only doable if it can “remember”. Blew my mind. Oh, also they suspect jumping spiders have a variation of REM sleep. Dunno what to make of that.

Work is going really well. I miss swapping work stories with you. I put my work-drive on the back burner when you got diagnosed. I’m getting involved in some policy workgroups as the state continues to fine tune and accent its competency services. I’ve seen well over 400 people already, averaging about 115 a year since I started. I definitely enjoy the faster pace and shorter case times. When I was doing the BRS work with foster kids, at minimum we’d have one case for a year. Many teens stayed on our caseloads for 18+ months. I got my helper drive from you.

Grandma Judy sent me a letter recently. It was different than others she had sent, this one felt sincere and honest over the facade of harmony she sometimes projects. I dunno what to make of it yet and I wish I could get your take on it. You knew her much better than I ever did. I have a hard time letting my edges soften.

The family took your advice and Granny is in the care of a smaller adult boarding home. It’s a Ukrainian family that runs it and I was playing board games with Sam the other day and she informed me that Granny finally settled there. They also report that this place is doing a much better job of managing her diabetes. Get this - she’s only about 10 minutes from me! I am planning to get into a routine of visits. I dunno if she will remember me as I know she has had trouble in the past, but I want to sit by her bed the same way I sat next to yours.

I hope you are well on your next adventure, mom. I love you and know that we still mark the day.

Michael

Poetry

Atom Heart Mother 

Could you tear the ether
Chasing after ghosts?
Breaking space and astral trails
Climbing free from burdens;
Embracing the current, 
If you can’t fight the undertow.

I can’t dig a well in the sand 
Without the taste of grain. 
I’m diving for ill gotten iron
Playing games using the shade
To masquerade. 

My castle stands against the wind,
The hearth is tended with warmth. 
I cant leave the shore in hollow oud
Blessed in salt and the smell of dreams
Until I’ve been,
Until I’ve strode over the land 
Leaving appleseeds in my wake. 

~~

REM

Blink your eyes at me again,
Trust me, we’re both scared.
But you don’t have to fear the other side
Because I’ll meet you there. 
REM

I speak a mystic language, 
I stay low with the grubs.
I’m seeking vantage 
Keeping to the shrubs.
I walk with peace
But keep steel in my glove,
My dangerous cause -
Counting steps along the edge,
Enjoying vertigo 
And cheating Death. 
As I sit with the news
I wish I could say the same for you.
I can't rest my eyes 
And risk losing sight
Searching for clues. 

Blink your eyes at me again,
Trust me, we’re both scared.
But you don’t have to fear the other side
Because I’ll meet you there. 
REM
~~

Late Night, Mr. Sandman

You must have skipped me, Mr. Sandman
the dreary first light of dawn 
Comes creeping on my window sill.
Let me get a wink in before the alarm bells
Rouse me for fresh hells. 

How much more until the gods notice?

Questions watching wind shake the ponderosas.
Ive got my stars in focus,
Despite the storm clouds rolling over the hills.
When they break I get a peek at my destination
They say it's far -
I feel as though I'm looking home.

And just as my eyes begin to close
I feel a rushing urgency 
To poke around and re-light the midnight oil -
A busy mind has plenty to mull
If only sleep was optional.

What then could be possible?

I’ll till the fields to get my fill. 

Plainly stated, Unitary Executive Theory relies on a textualist read of the Constitution, specifically the language of Article 2. Linked here is the full text. In summation, Article 2 provides an outline of rules and responsibilities of the President and of elections. The rule that the President can only be a natural born citizen comes from Article 2, as well as verbatim the oath of office the President takes to start their term:

“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.”

Unitary Executive Theory states that the President solely has authority over the entirety of the executive branch of government: hiring, firing, policy changes etc. It is important to understand what all that actually consists of. President, vice president and their congressionally confirmed Cabinet members are a given. These individuals oversee the entirety of government departments like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Department of Defense (DoD). The Executive Branch also consists of 60 independent agencies like the Social Security Administration (SSA), the Department of Justice (DOJ), and Occupational Safety and Health Association (OSHA). The Executive Branch also includes regulative committees like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), Federal Reserve System (The Fed), and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Provided in the sources below are fuller lists to further explore the numerous entities in the federal government. Unitary Executive Theory posits that one person has direct control over all of these entities, their policy, and their personnel, reading in Article 2:

“The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States.”

This idea of wide breadth of power is championed by two recognizable names - Samuel Alito and John Roberts, and has been championed by them since working in the Reagan Administration. Most important in the theory is that none of the actions taken by the President are able to be checked by Congress. In 1988, a court case made it to the Supreme Court and that was Morrison v. Olson.

Morrison v. Olson

The controversy that led to this court case stems from the House Judiciary Committee trying to investigate officials in the EPA and the mishandling of funds for toxic waste cleanup. Congress suspected the EPA officials were withholding information. On counsel of the DoJ Assistant Attorney Theodore Olson, President Reagan ordered the EPA not to share information. The House Judiciary Committee subsequently pushed for the appointment of independent counsel to investigate misleading testimony from Olson and others.

The ability of a quorum of judges to appoint independent counsel stems from the passing of Ethics in Government Act in 1978 following the Watergate scandal. In ‘88, Olson challenged the appointment of the investigator, stating that it was unconstitutional and violated executive power invested in the Executive Branch by Article 2. The appointment of independent counsel was held as constitutional by a federal judge. An appellate court overturned, stating that appointment of independent counsel was in fact unconstitutional. The appointed independent counsel - Alexia Morrison - brought the case to the supreme court.

The court heard oral arguments and ruled in favor of Morrison in a 7-1 ruling. One justice, (Kennedy) recused. The dissenting opinion of Antonin Scalia upheld the notion of a unified Executive Branch and that being able to appoint independent counsel violates the separations of power as well as revokes sole executive authority granted by the Constitution. His dissenting opinion can be found here starting at page 44 of the pdf.

The majority opinion was written by conservative Chief Justice Rehnquist, affirming that the law passed under the Ethics in Government Act was constitutional, thus Alexia Morrison’s appointment to investigate was also constitutional. The majority opinion can also be found here.

Institutional support for unitary executive theory lives in well known conservative institutions like the Federalist Society, which was founded in DC in 1982, just 6 years prior to the Morrison v. Olson case. They champion conservative and libertarian legal framing, hosting debates and other events to further bolster their ideas.

To recap, the idea that executive power in the executive branch cannot be checked and balanced by the legislative branch due to a violation of separation of powers was a flawed idea according to our Supreme Court. At that time, Rehnquist’s court upheld the laws following the scandal and gave strength to a tool of accountability for the Legislative branch.

Present Day

Samuel Alito has written a great deal about a unified Executive. This concern was raised at his confirmation hearing for the Supreme Court. Judge Alito has even opined that the Executive should issue statements at the signing of legislation, to encourage the statutory limits of the law be the last interpretation set by the President and not Congress, the branch of government that actually writes the laws. Most directly, Alito gave a speech in ‘89 (a year after the Olson ruling) in which he criticized the decision handed down by SCOTUS and uplifted Scalia’s dissenting opinion.

Chief Justice Roberts has also supported a unified Executive. He has written that independent agencies within the executive branch were “constitutional anomalies”. Now, as the chief justice of a majority, Roberts has applied precepts of Unitary Executive Theory in severely limiting past rulings like Humphrey’s Executor v. United States. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Humphrey’s case was cited in support of Rehnquist’s majority opinion in Morrison v. Olson.

“That's cool, Bro, but why does it matter to me?”

Great question. When you and I look at what happens in our Government, even if we voted for the particular president, our direct connection is through Congress. Those elected officials are the People’s voices - our voices. By order of the Constitution, our states run elections to send those officials to make our laws. Along with this is a functional balance between the different branches of government which relies on checks and balances. The unitary executive theory seeks to eliminate the check of the People on the Executive Branch. It seeks to give one person direct control over the various employees, scientists, researchers that all work within the executive, direct control over their policy and scope of each and every entity under the Executive.

Playing out right now, the Executive fired at will two Democrat commissioners of the Election Assistance Commission and forced the resignation of the only remaining Republican commissioner as one other Republican commissioner resigned in May 2026. To note, it is a Commission that is supposed to function in a bi-partisan way, 2 Democrats and 2 Republicans. The function of this Commission is to verify and validate election equipment, disperse funds to the states for election security and distribute guidelines and updates on elections. It is worth reiterating: the function of this Commission held two of each major party and they worked with all of the states without partisan favor to provide the same data and support to all the states. The Trump white house issued the firing, citing the recent ruling on Trump v. Slaughter, which held that the Federal Trade Commission’s ‘for-cause” removal provision violated separation of powers.

With midterms coming, a key behind the scenes agency that was pivotal for red and blue states is now empty and shuttered until ‘TBD’. It is unclear what the white house plans to do as appointing four new commissioners is not possible. There was a built-in check and balance within this commission in that the president can only replace the conservative commissioners during their term with a simple majority in the Senate.

The strange thing about Unitary Executive Theory in my eyes is how certain checks and balances appear to be ok with getting certain people into the Executive Branch, but such authority to continue a check and balance on what happens in the Executive Branch is impossible due to a separation of powers. The top-down power structure gives one person incredible power over the entire political apparatus and rips out some of the accountability and protections for the People against that Executive. It gives one person the ability to shift entire federal entities that function bi-partisan by design into partisan entities with people picked to work towards one Executive’s goals. So when the Executive goes against the People, utilizing our first amendment rights to demand addressing our grievances gets incredibly more difficult.

The trouble with this for you and I is that it may make sense for certain issues/agencies as you and I have partisan opinions on what should be done. Say one Executive makes it harder to prosecute their cabinet members by eliminating offices meant to gather info on wrongdoing. Or perhaps an Executive fires people who won’t go through with quid pro quos to give loyal supporters of the that Executive kickbacks and favors by placing people on Commissions that will act in this way. Perhaps a Democratic Executive uses this same authority to alter independent agencies and commission to their benefit. Perhaps a Democratic socialist gets to the Executive and uses this unified Executive theory to shift governmental functions toward their goals. This level of authoritarian corruption is not as farfetched as it sounds - we are in it now.

We lose out on protections and support we take for granted by allowing a removal of a check and balance on executive authority. The constant purging and filling of partisan loyalists with every change in the Executive will create a slower and clunkier government beneath it. I posit that this is the point. Libertarian legal framing relies on a weakened government in favor of private interests and private interests can take advantage of the lack of regulations and protections.

Consider the changes that the Trump administration has tried to push through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). It has been cited that Russell Vought, Trump’s Acting Director of the CFPB, ended 22 enforcement actions in 2025 that would have returned $3,500,000,000.00 in funds to consumers.

For understanding, you and I are the consumers here.

Consider that the CFPB has helped return as much as roughly $21,000,000,000.00 to consumers through lawsuits against big banks and big corporations. That is an independent agency that seeks to make sure that we, the People, have some course of action if we are wronged by a company. For instance, we saw from President Trump’s financial disclosure that he made roughly $1,400,000,000.00 on crypto via memecoins. While people who purchased them have some digital asset worth fractions on their end, the “invested” money flowed to the current president.

Do those consumers have a case? They were promised some new venture of de-centralized currency in support of a president and what they hold has no value. The president made $1,400,000,000.00.

A unified Executive who made this much money wants to stop one of the government agencies who fight FOR the consumers who got ripped off. This theory allows the Executive to eliminate a check and a balance that - in this specific example - made themselves richer. This is textbook corruption greenlit by our current Supreme Court!

It’s amazing to see it all laid out how one dissenting opinion in the 80’s and the founding of a think tank of legal scholars has led to this moment where individuals enacting a theory you’ve never heard of has deep consequences to your Democracy as well as your wallet. Talking about theories can seem boring. It's important to understand that people can and will use theories as ideological frameworks for enacting policies. Policies become actions in your life like a shuttered election commission or dismissed consumer protection enforcement actions. When we see and hear about changes happening to us in our society, it's prudent to understand why, especially when those in power do not want you asking the question.

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Sources

• https://www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/thomas-cole/the-course-of-empire-consummation/

• https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/11/18/great-minds/

• https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/12/morrison-v-olson-and-the-triumph-of-the-unitary-executive-theory/

• https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/487/654/

• https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/article-2/

• https://www.usa.gov/agency-index

• https://libraryguides.lehigh.edu/c.php?g=369881&p=2499296

• https://www.congress.gov/bill/95th-congress/senate-bill/555

• https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/essays/understand-scandal-watergate-beyond-nixon

• https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep487/usrep487654/usrep487654.pdf

• https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/Chemerinski%20Testimony%20011206.pdf

• https://www.reaganlibrary.gov/sites/default/files/digitallibrary/smof/counsel/roberts/box-061/40-485-6909456-061-001-2017.pdf

• https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/295/602/

• https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-332_qn12.pdf

• https://time.com/article/2026/07/10/election-assistance-commission-trump-firings/

• https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/trump-v-slaughter-2/

• https://www.stinson.com/newsroom-publications-the-trump-administration-signals-significant-changes-to-cfpbs-january-2025-initiatives

• https://www.banking.senate.gov/newsroom/minority/new-report-finds-trumps-attack-on-the-cfpb-has-cost-americans-19-billion-in-one-year-alone

You may not have ever heard the name David Mech. He was an ecologist in the 1970s who published a book about wolves, entitled “The Wolf: Ecology and Behavior of an Endangered Species”. This is the kind of field manual that gets referred to often as it covers a wide range of topics regarding the wolf: physical characteristics, temperament, genetic expressions, hunting behaviors and social hierarchies. The ‘buzzword’ to drop in now is “alpha”. Mech bolstered the idea that wolves operated within rigid and brutal hierarchies, with an ‘alpha’ couple dominating and leading the pack. This notion came from another name that I am sure you’ve never heard - Swiss Behavioralist Rudolf Schenkel.

In 1934, Dr. Schenkel had studied 10 wolves kept in captivity at the Basel Zoological Garden. None of these wolves were related, were of similar age and were kept in an enclosure that measured roughly 32 feet by 65 feet for a square footage of 2,080 feet. Hold onto this number.

In wild observations of the re-introduced wolves in Yellowstone, the average territorial range is 165 square miles or 4.6 billion feet squared. This is an unfathomable amount of space for one pack to operate in. Especially in that this is just an average! There is data to support that if the environmental conditions are met with a solid pack, their territorial range can be upwards 3,200 square miles. Dr. Schenkel’s pack of ten was kept in the equivalent of a modest-sized home. Can you imagine 10 - 100+ lb wild animals living solely within a house?

What Dr. Schenkel invariably documented was a distinct kind of hierarchy that formed between 10 unrelated animals forced into close proximity. In the wild, wolf packs do cross paths and get scrappy, especially if one pack crosses into another’s hunting territory. This enclosed pen, effectively had 10 different wolves “crossing territory” with the others. They engaged in dominance fighting, which developed an ‘alpha’ pair and a hierarchy. Often not considered in experiments/observations like this is the mere presence of the cage and the interactions with a handler. This is especially important with the handler providing all of the food for the wolves.

Countless animal behavior studies, including human behavior, shows that pattern recognition makes it easy to associate humans with food, thus leading to behavior changes of the subject that can be observed. In nature, wolves hunt in packs deploying different strategies that can be pack-specific. Getting sustenance in the wild involves following prey for miles upon miles. Tracked wolves in the wild have covered as much as 120 miles in a day. In captivity, none of that happens. From the wolf perspective, food is dropped into its space by another animal. This changes the methods and conditions of survival, which changes behaviors that are observed.

I learned getting into the material for this post that Dr. Schenkel had noted in his studies that based on a small body of research in the 40’s, that it did not appear that wolves in the wild engaged in similar behavior, and it was inconclusive. However, this nuance and this bias was not initially discussed by Dr. Mech, who reinforced that the observed captive wolf behavior also described wild wolf behavior as he compiled his field manual, “The Wolf”. The idea of alpha wolves and a rigid and hyper-aggressive hierarchy within the pack was in the zeitgeist.

As a quick aside on imprisonment type observational science, similar behavioral changes have since been observed for numerous sea mammals such as dolphins and orcas as well as terrestrial animals like honey badgers and chimpanzees. Similar observations have been documented in human subject experiments too. Dr. Philip Zimbardo’s prison experiment is a great example of not only the changes in behavior that are observed in humans as prisoners in captivity, but also how observations of behavioral changes in humans as prison guards. Zimbardo faced results-altering criticism for this study when it was learned in 2018 that he had been encouraging certain behaviors by the pretend-guards and that many of the pretend-prisoners reported hamming up their responses and behavior, saying they felt that they had to perform for the experiment.

While murky research methods were rightfully called out, the prison experiment still demonstrates the variables at play with artificial scenarios and the bias that can be passed on in the results of an experiment due to the presence and interaction with the observer.

So What’s New?

Dr. Mech continued his research and started observing wolves in the wild and he realized that the behaviors cited in his manual did not seem to match observations of wild wolf packs. He went so far as to even retract the portions of alpha hierarchy that proclaimed that alphas had fought their way to the top of the pack structure. He observed that a pack in the wild is primarily led by a breeding pair, making the pack generational families, not wandering strangers grouped together and gladiatorially designating the alpha. A wolf pack is the Mother and her Mate and their litter. Often, it is observed that litter-mates from previous seasons stick around to help care for the new litter. Some of the most successful packs are three to four generations deep, all centered around the breeding pair and the new cubs.

Now, to be clear, this is describing a perfect scenario because Nature is beautiful and also relentlessly brutal. As mentioned earlier, wolf packs in the wild do cross paths and they do fight. Sometimes, one pack absorbs another by killing several members. Cubs can and do die. mothers die. fathers die. A Mother may find a new mate that comes into the pack. Packs can fracture after the death of a mating pair as well. Guiding the dynamic nature of pack dispersement and even the size of the individual packs is the availability of food and genetic diversity in mating.

Much of the understanding of wild wolf behavior comes from the introduction of wolves back into the ecosystems in Yellowstone. The wolf was largely driven out of the region and onto the endangered list due to overhunting as ranchers and farmers contended with predation. From an economic perspective, it is imperative that these professions reliably keep livestock. From a naturalist perspective, the wolf is seeing easy hunting opportunities only. There is no higher machination of ruining businesses and stock. Just survival.

What is being observed with carefully curated reintroduction and co-habitation is a larger balance in Yellowstone. Researchers have called this a “trophic cascade” following the nuanced changes in the environment down through the food chain. The wolves hunt the elk, trimming down their herd size as well as moving the herds more during hunting. This means that the elk are consuming and damaging less woody greenery along the rivers. Beneath the canopy of wooded river bends other animals can flourish, including insects and small mammals, which in turn provides food for other animals. Each animal, whether fox, wolf, hawk or insect, provides measurable impacts on the large scale. And while debate is ongoing, particularly around research methods of effects of reintroduction, this only adds to a much larger body of research trying to understand the balances within nature; the laws governing nature.

The social behaviors of wolves make their hunting strategies more effective. Not only are tactics taught to the younger generations but also something that is communicated amongst the pack members involved with the hunt. They do this through various grunts, yips, and growls to better coordinate role and position while pursuing their prey. The more experienced in the pack tend to lead, allowing the younger to mimic the behaviors and integrating the muscle memory into their own skill set. Additionally, wolves often observe their potential prey, watching the herd for the more vulnerable to increase the odds of a successful hunt.

While it is not clear how a wolf’s mind codes these observations, it is suspected that they look for young and injured members or slower, older members of the prey herd. These are also things that get passed down.

Considering that packs are largely family units, it tracks for me that researchers would observe an increase in pro-social behavior following a fight within the pack. This behavior can look like touching noses, the subordinate licking the lips of the dominant or mating pair, sniffing and grooming. If you have dogs you may see variations of these behaviors play out as well. Researchers hypothesize that because wolves are interdependent on other pack members, that when disagreements arise, they are quickly resolved to maintain the group’s cohesiveness.

I am reminded of the times I quarreled with my siblings. Usually, there were quick disagreements over something small and apologies and amend-making typically followed. For my human siblings, it looked like verbal apologies and a reengagement in mutual activities with them. Our cohesion as a group was more impactful to our mutual survival than as separate individuals. If we were wolves, we’d have to make these amends to ensure there were enough of us on the hunt so we all could eat. Us siblings still deferred to the counsel of our Mom - the wiser more experienced leader.

What strikes me most, sitting with all of this, is how much of the “alpha” myth was really a story about fear. That a pack is held together because one animal had beaten the others into line, and would keep beating them to stay there. It’s a tidy story, and it’s the wrong one. The real pack holds together because every member has something at stake in every other member’s survival. The mother leads not because she won a fight for the position, but because the whole structure depends on her. The yearlings stay not because they’re cowed, but because the hunt goes better with more claws and teeth on it. Next season’s litter is safer for their older siblings staying around to help. Nobody has to be terrorized into that. They just have to understand what they’d lose by walking away.

I think about this a lot in terms of what I’ve called ‘Domus Belli’ and the idea that you hold your ground not because someone’s forcing you to, and not because you’re chasing some rank at the top of a hierarchy, but because the people beside you are the reason there’s ground worth holding. A pack, a family, a movement, doesn’t survive on dominance. It survives on the math of interdependence: everyone eats better, and stands a better chance, for having stayed. That’s the pack law I’d rather live under. Not the one where somebody bloodied the people closest to them to be the alpha. The pack law where staying together was always the more sensible bet. The lone wolf must survive on hare where the cohesive pack survives on venison.

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Sources

1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/270361504_The_Wolf_The_Ecology_and_Behavior_of_an_Endangered_Species?__cf_chl_f_tk=7X3pFDGAJpUIFpuJ7_6hFgTvcs.hPJ64dxOxWFp7mpU-1783290289-1.0.1.1-.yMdllt6LVW8OeHCXzvR6a278Tw5BaNQY06r.3WDWEs

2. https://www.nathab.com/know-before-you-go/us-national-parks/yellowstone/wildlife-guide/gray-wolf

3. https://archive.org/stream/SchenkelCaptiveWolfStudy.compressed/schenkel%20captive%20wolf%20study.compressed_djvu.txt

4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2351989425000290

5. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/06/260613215510.htm#google_vignette

6. https://earthwormexpress.com/about-eben/k-b/sacred-salt-and-the-northern-gods/holisticus-index-page/academic-research-the-intricacies-of-wolf-pack-dynamics/#Wolves_Coordinated_Stamina-Driven_Hunts_in_Complex_Terrains

7. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0003347214000670

8. https://sqonline.ucsd.edu/2015/02/pack-dynamic/

9. https://www.simplypsychology.org/zimbardo.html

10. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31380664/

July is special for two reasons. The celebration of American Democracy and the birth of my mother. This year has been filled with ‘first times’. That phrasing is special now as when my mom learned of her diagnosis, she wanted to fill her last days with last times. I think she had audacious ideas in mind. I pondered for several nights and kept coming back with the only thing that would matter to me day in and day out, and that was cooking for her. So my last time with her was preparing meals, recipes that I tinker with and keep in my own rotation. A domestic gift. After all, she prepared mine for so long, it only seemed right.

I do not wish to wallow in this sadness and I struggled to find a suitable prose topic for this month’s board. So, with my mom on my mind following the fourth, I decided to open up the ‘happy stories’ brain folder.

While we were living in South Carolina, my neighborhood friends and I came across a wild flock of turkeys that seemed to visit a section of woods that we liked to play in. Being rather adventurous boys, we realized we had an opportunity before us and so we returned home with sticks and spent an afternoon sharpening them into spears. I confidently told my mom not to worry about the turkey this year for thanksgiving, we were going hunting.

My mom was bemused and supported our endeavor. My friend group and I also had a side business selling small bushels of handpicked wild onions for $.25, something my mom purchased from us from time to time. (and yes they were legit wild onions. They were everywhere in Spartanburg). So, I think as far as she was concerned, we were just adding to the grocery offerings.

Armed with sharpened sticks, some apples, rope and pocket knives, we headed out on our trek. Now, it was easy finding these birds. It was a big flock, I'd say 20 or so. Unfortunately, we did not know that they could fly. So, once we found them again and started creeping on them, they would chortle and then scurry further away. We would get closer and then a flash of feathers and they’d be airborne, fluttering through the trees until they were away from us again. Alas, we returned home empty-handed but Mom didn’t hold it against us.

Still in South Carolina, my Uncle Ben came to visit and they decided to trek out to Myrtle Beach. Along the way, we stopped at a roadside market and tried all manner of peach products. My mom got excited because there was a stand offering boiled peanuts. We had to try some. I cannot express how unsatisfying a fully shelled warm and damp peanut is. That is a food that wasn’t for us. My mom threw the rest of them out.

In Tennessee, a church acquaintance was throwing a dinner theater themed birthday party and my mom participated as Mrs. Peacock. At the time, it was horrendously embarrassing how deep into the character she got. Ugh. From lipstick on her teeth and her outfit buttoned incorrectly, she played her part trying to give us adolescents clues to solve the murder.

Thunderstorms frightened me for the longest time as a kid. She helped me through this with education and observation of phenomenon and there were a few summers we debated signing up to tag along on storm chasing crews. Especially in Tennessee, we would watch the storms, using the meteorology to track the clouds and the storm itself moving. We saw several funnel clouds too in these storm observations.

When we finally ended up in Oregon, she started going back to school for nursing. It was also during this time that we had gotten the full box set of Stargate SG-1 and we were watching it as a family. We tried to keep pace with her but between her studies and class, the family would get a few episodes ahead and backtrack to get mom caught up. One day, I was going to the store with her and I heard something in passing and it sounded like a line from the show - “Jaffa, Cree!”. Highly unlikely someone was giving an alien command but that’s what I heard. Mom thought it was hilarious. I had been watching A LOT of Stargate.

We talked a lot on the many, many (many) road trips that we took. Discussing science and history. Mythology. What-ifs. Story ideas. Sometimes we rehashed some of the harder, sadder memories.

One thing we continued to marvel at was how far we had come and the things that we struggled through. Mom saw the world, at least as much as she could. She was a wild and untamable spirit. Even in her final days and being unsteady on her feet, she was restless.

I appreciate you all. Below are this month’s poetry selections.

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Corner Market Shop

I went to the wise woman
and told her I was unwell.

She gave me a potion,
then turned to the fire,
muttering her spells.

"Life’s not all rose petals and sex, young man,"
she chuckled, a glint in the eye. 

"Now be off!
Carry a torch where you go."

Furtively,
She spies clouds through the pane,
"Dark days are coming.
You have sight —
this you know."
~~

Stone Fruit Draught

The mash of stone fruit
Sits heavy mulled into elixir.
I send smoke signals to the ancients,
And await their message,
For guidance in nomadic endeavors.

Can you hear me up there?
You, dreamers of dreams?
I look for answers
Among the scattered pieces of ancient tongues
I listen…

But all I hear are my own whispers.

The night birds sing their songs, 
Their refrains my chorus
Only the wood-souls can hear me. 
I rake the dreams of burning forests -
As many cords of wood as deities.

I watch the skies for sign
But sunrise comes
As I finish the draught 
I must end my watch and rest my eyes.
~~

Raindrops Thunder

Mighty Thor’s Hammer is angry!
Catching the burst in the corner of my eye.
Charged earth draws currents
Unseen ripples clapping across the sky. 
The wind clamors in fury,
Bending boughs back and forth. 
Turning fields of green into waves,
Coming to shore. 
Heavy clouds let out their burden,
Curtains of water shade my view,
Though a calmness rests upon my shoulders
Against the window raindrops thunder. 
~~

The Wanderer

I made my way to the crossroad
Using the darkness to hide my face
I offer alms to the lost souls
In hopes they've seen a man 
Wandering from place to place. 

I've been searching for a while now -
There's no rock not tumbled.  
Down all alleys chasing ghosts,
Followed them in trenches 
Led by gilded tongues in masquerade 
Still empty-handed in my query.

With a crumble of hibiscus and lavender,
Mix in the ash then set to flame,
I'll wander the spirit world,
Clutching this old photograph
Putting my questions to the wraiths.
~~

Omens

The wolves are at the front door.
I can hear them pawing at the side gate.
They look for weaknesses in the fencing;
For points to penetrate. 

Why won't they heed the warnings?
Even the long gun grazed their mange!
Still they come, hackles raised, fangs showing.
Relentless in pursuit of prey.

The buzzards circle high on the thermals,
The last witnesses of breath.
They wait in line with the others 
For their turn to feed on my carcass. 

“I think we are facing an attack on the rule of law that is different in kind and scope to anything I’ve seen in my lifetime.” - Jack Smith, Prosecutor.

One of the bedrock aspects of a society are its laws. Going back as far as the Sumerians and most honored in this framing are the Babylonians and the official tablets of the law commissioned by Hammurabi. If memory serves, his law code consisted of some 280 laws and he even commissioned numerous pillars around his kingdom to depict them as far back as 1,750 BCE or ‘Before Christ’ for those theologically inclined. The term and concept “an eye for an eye” hails from Babylonian law. Further embedded in its legal code was the concept of classes and the responses to crimes committed by people within those classes. In essence, the punishments for a nobleman and the punishments of a commoner were different.

‘Laws’ throughout history, I posit, are all based on some innate need for structure as humans came together. From divisions of labor, to what gods and what rituals to follow, and to basic economic factors that needed group consensus to positively affect survival. At its most organized, humanity has done some incredible things. I know I have my favorites to reflect on through history.

A moment of silence for the burning of the Library of Alexandria and the sacking of Timbuktu.

Nothing exists in a vacuum. So laws and ideas about laws didn’t just spring up as ‘civic providence’. This is easily illustrated in how some of the foundational case work for the Fourth Amendment stems from 17th century British courts and cases that worked through them. The outcomes can and do get referred to when a similar grievance again passes through the courts. I’d argue here that legal code is akin to the moral and ethical stories told in the voice of Aesop, in that they are incidents with outcomes that we can reflect on for guidance.

As a society, we have agreed over numerous legal cases that people who steal face certain kinds of punishments or who murder face certain kinds of punishments and so on. We validate the charges against people by asking 12 strangers and a judge to listen to both sides of the grievance and say if they did it or not. Once this is answered in full, a judge then orders the punishments in accordance with these agreed upon infrastructure of laws.

Kings had laws, as demonstrated by Hammurabi and every king and queen that has followed, albeit, the weight and consequence of the law was rarely levied against the crowns. I think this is one of the things that America largely gets right, in that nobody is above the law, not even kings. I also think this area is where we have fallen off the tracks as a country too.

My baptism into politics was my mom scoffing at a news story on people being confused about ballot choices - even going so far as to pause the news on a picture of the ballot and asked me what I would do, as an 8 year old, if I voted for one candidate or another. I walked up and pointed to the bubbles next to people on the ballot. It didn’t seem that hard. I didn’t think much of it until I was 18 and eligible to vote in earnest and trying to find my own direction and the cacophony of opinions to contend with.

I found my patriotism when trump got elected in 2016. Even in those days, I caught the strange euphemisms he’d use like referring to undesirables as “vermin” and that them and the other political party were “enemies within” that were “polluting the blood of the nation”. This is the same language used by propagandists during the Third Reich. His speeches were peppered with them.

It didn’t matter that his business ventures were largely all failures or that he had dubious financial records and even at the time it was known that he had connections with sex traffickers Epstein and Maxwell. He was also sued by E Jean Carrol who claimed that trump had raped her, under a law passed in New York that allowed for alleged victims to do so under civil penalties.

At trial, Carrol presented testimony of her rape allegations - which you can freely go read as it is public record. Trump’s defense provided nothing more than trying to poke holes in her story. Particularly absent was Trump’s own testimony of the events of the allegation. So a jury deliberated and ultimately ruled he did rape her and that he had to pay civil fines. He’s been fighting this verdict ever since, even trying to get the legal system to substitute our United States as the defendant (instead of him) under some murky legal justification at appeal. It didn’t work and trump still owes Carrol money for this verdict. This is all public record.

A jury ruled that a woman was sexually assaulted and was owed compensation under New York law.

It didn’t matter. People embraced him and these kinds of grievances became political talking points instead of a reflection of someone’s criminal and amoral behavior. It didn’t matter when he was impeached for breaking the law and it didn’t matter when he sat and did nothing for hours January Sixth, 2021.

My patriotism matured that day when I watched a mob storm the Capitol. People were so whipped up into frenzy by the lies of one person, they donned shirts that marked the occasion and trump maga flags and broke into buildings. There were some who even defecated on desks and wiped their shit-stained hands on the walls. They stole stuff, they beat cops with stuff. Cops died.

We only ever charged the people who were there on the ground. We didn’t charge anyone who paid to bus the rioters in, who gave leaders of the event tours days prior to the attack, the people who gleefully watched the event on monitors set up in a large tent or who people in the crowd were coordinating with in the White House when it all happened. This was all the basis of some of the criminal charges Jack Smith was investigating. In the end, this didn’t matter either. This criminality was again pushed into a political debate. And now we celebrate the birth of a nation led by an insurrectionist, a rapist and a serial fraudster. Of course he pardoned his mob. Of course they are going to collect paychecks from us while they actively hide evidence that trump raped children with Epstein.

Trump is one person. There is a system at play that has allowed someone like Trump to come and sully the office of President. This Supreme Court gave us Citizens United, which has allowed corporations to dump unending amounts of money into political conversations. This sad reality was expanded on in Justice Thomas’s opinion in his National Republican Senatorial Committee vs. Federal Election Commission. This ruling will allow the rich to pump even more money directly into the political system by eliminating a check on how much money the central establishment of the party can funnel to candidates directly.

Administrations like Trump’s slash regulations both in his 2016 heist and his current one. Such include allowing corporations to pollute rivers, allow political action committee money to be less traceable, and a hallmark of Trump’s second heist is his pardons. From drug traffickers on the dark web to Medicaid fraudsters to his J6 goons and even people convicted of literal sedition against the United States - he either pardoned or commuted their sentences.

As we speak, there is dubious stock trading happening in conjunction with the public manner trump posts and even more dubious behavior recently documented in Trump's latest financial disclosure; it was reported that hes accrued upwards $1,800,000,000.00 from ripping off consumers with his meme coins. Often, there are multi million dollar stock trades that happen right before a major announcement, netting the anonymous millions of dollars following the news cycle. The through line for me is the lack of accountability for corruption. Here I do not mean ‘I don’t like their policies’. I mean the criminal charge of corruption involving things like embezzlement, insider trading, fraud, and quid pro quos.

The problem is that it isn’t just trump doing it, only we never get an honest answer about who or where or how, even though we can plainly see the actors involved.

Consider that Musk worked for the white house in some nebulous and unclear way through the minted DOGE office. During his “service” he gutted US Aid and ended investigations into his own companies by agencies that oversee contracts he’d been awarded through.

It’s worth repeating: one unelected official was given access and some murky authority under an Executive Order and he ended investigations into his own companies.

His DOGE team also had access to and uploaded social security data to an insecure server as well. Musk also traveled to foreign countries under the guise of United States business. Frankly, I don’t think it should be a surprise that the current administration doesn’t want to allow states to implement any regulations on AI or data centers. These products have valued Musk as a trillionaire. I also don’t think it’s any surprise that we in the States are not hearing about how France is investigating Musk’s company for fraud and its manufacture of child sex abuse material through its AI products. Here, you can read AP’s write up on this.

Musk via his political action committee has committed fraud in two different states, based on court cases out of Georgia and Minnesota. The former involved mailing people fake prefilled ballots that looked like official ballots and the latter he ran a fake lottery and gained voter data in the process.

Take your time and look up these cases and examples I mention for yourself. You don’t have to take my word for it or some news pundit reading a teleprompter. Escape the captured media of your curated news feeds and seek out information yourself. While I can’t speak for France’s rules around court filings, the vast majority of cases in America are publicly available for reading. You can look up RCWs and what constitutes a violation of the law in every single state. You can read what the attorneys say in court. You can review evidence as it is filed with the courts.

So why does any of this matter, especially today?

Because the success of our Nation does not rest on the shoulders of billionaires, even though they reap the most profit from our tax dollars through massive subsidies. The success of our Nation rests on yours and my shoulders - everyday Americans. The success rests in flesh and blood, not corporations that cease to exist without People.

250 years ago, a handful of men had some audacious ideas about independence from a literal king and despite being slave owners and theists, they wrote about freedom and liberty, free of religious persecution for all faiths. They defended it too. Their words were so moving, I’d argue they provided the very framework to end slavery and ratify equality for women through the Suffrage movement.

So as I enjoy sitting in my quiet getaway to reflect, as bombs burst in the air all around my horizon, I watch as new men rich-beyond-the-reach of the law raid our country coffers and use our equity and our value to make themselves richer. I watch as the same system of laws that guide you and me in life mean nothing to them.

Insult to injury, one of the most disgusting of these neo-kings is president on this hallowed celebration of the greatness of the ideas of America and its Democracy.

The only thing needed for selfish intentions, for nefarious plots against our success as a Nation, is for good and honest people like you and me to do nothing.

On this Fourth of July, 2026, I don a cowl of a Wolf of Liberty as I reflect on the Declaration of Independence and seek to reaffirm this vow against the “Crown”, against the putrescence of the billionaire class.

Happy birthday, America. I hope we can find out why the donors planning America's 250 got their money wired to a trump charity instead of the intended bank account for celebrating the nation.

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----

“In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.

He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

I randomly came across the bill that the governor of Oklahoma signed into law. Here it is in full. I will drop in a part of the source’s description of the bill:

“This bill, known as the Data Center Customer Ratepayer Protection Act of 2026, aims to protect existing electricity customers from bearing the costs of new, large-scale data centers and similar operations. It defines “large load customer” as new data centers, cryptocurrency mining operations, and AI computing facilities that add 75 megawatts or more of electricity demand. The act mandates that governing bodies overseeing electric suppliers ensure that residential, commercial, and industrial customers are not charged unfairly due to the electricity needs of these large load customers, and that costs are allocated based on “cost causation,” meaning those who cause the costs should pay for them.”

Data centers and the federal government’s desire for no restraint on the ambitions of the owners and builders of data centers does not benefit everyday Americans, as much as the billionaire class wants you to think.

Across the country, we are seeing data centers literally drain resources and put a strain on electrical grids with their usage. Insult to injury, the increase in cost is being shifted to rate payers also on the utility systems aka you and me and the rest of average America.

The innate problem with data centers is that they are the physical manifestations of our digital tools and landscapes. Everything that happens on social media, AI tools, and accessing cloud storage, it’s routed physically through the rows and stacks of computer processors and memory. It may seem like a big building constructed in an undesirable area, but every single real human user that accesses the function of the center itself is effectively ‘stepping there’; using something there. Its function is 24/7, constantly pulling from the same resources the physical people living around the data center also use.

In my view, this allows literal millions of users interfacing with any one data center to inadvertently tap into the resources of the physical location of the building. On top of this high usage, also forcing the residents living around the centers to cover the increased cost of use and the cost of the needed infrastructure to power and cool data centers.

For example, there are data centers built to tap into the same aquifers that supply water to the Columbia River. While it is a large river, it’s resources are limited. The data centers in Boardman, OR are tapping into the same resources the farmers in that area also use for food production.

Immediately, there is a competition of needs for two different aspects of human society - the technosphere and the terrestrial need for food. When push come to shove, I would use all tech less if it meant the farmers got what they needed for the season. The problem we, the People face is: the needs are being shifted to the data centers and this pathway has a much more severe outcome for us.

Oklahoma state legislators saw this problem and responded for their constituents. Admittedly, I was surprised to see this kind of legislation come out of OK, but credit where credit is due.

I saw an article the other day discussing how tech investors were pressuring members of Congress to have the FBI investigate pushback to data centers as foreign influence campaigns. Here, you can read the elected officials’ ask.

It’s comical when you consider the people who are mad we aren’t building more faster, are the only ones making money on their construction and use with no concern to a negative financial impact to themselves. They live thousands of miles away in a bunker with no thought to water scarcity and higher costs to put power into your home. To label the concern for this foundational need of a modern day citizen as the ‘nefarious actions’ of -insert boogieman- shows their contempt for the rest of us.

Civic action does not need to be complicated. It ALWAYS starts in your community. You have a say. That is the beauty of Democracy.

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Good day Representatives,

As a Vancouver, WA resident, I am writing to urge you to follow Oklahoma’s example and pass our own version of their HB 2992, Data Center Consumer Ratepayer Protection Act.

This legislation ensures the cost of data centers, AI systems and crypto mining operations are the responsibility of these entities and utility costs are not passed onto families and small businesses.

The benefit of this legislation is that it does not impede growth in these industries. It ensures that the People are not taken advantage of as data centers shift the cost of using disproportionate amounts of resources onto the community. The added costs and burden we are seeing around the nation make this kind of legislation a bill that protects something foundational to everyone’s lives - their energy bill.

Considering the kitchen table economic decisions this would impact, I believe this legislation would find bipartisan support. I urge you to draft our own version of the Data Center Consumer Ratepayer Protection Act.

Michael Wallace

CC’ing Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission

Wealthy benefactors and billionaire class-funded political action committees work overtime superseding our voices, treading on our systems for their benefit. Recall that billionaire Thiel has written and maintained that he does not think Democracy and freedom are compatible. He wrote this boldly in an article for the Cato Institute. I unpack this more here. Unlike the middle class man who lords small power over his home, Thiel has the money to sway politicians, to tread on our collective wants and needs as a democratic society; to forsake the things that make us all equal for their benefit - the law.

The fallacy presented by the ultra-wealthy of less taxes and less restraint on their ambitions is that it’s a reciprocal promise. It’s pitched as if they stand beside you or me making the same decisions as you or me. It’s spoken of as if we are merely two or three decisions away from having our own superyachts, offshore accounts to avoid taxes and properties in several different states and countries and that we could be just like them.

I recall reading an interview that Jeff Bezos gave in which he said he purposefully set time aside each day to clean up his own dishes. His way of relating to the common man is scheduling time to do his own dishes.

Not even all of them, like any normal person living, just some of his dishes as a meditation on what makes us equal. He could reschedule this self-flagellation should he get busy with meetings. I’d wager that fork by Languiole and that plate by Haviland & C. Parlon would still get washed and put away by the Help. I would argue that he wouldn’t need to wash these dishes in order to eat his next meal either.

Perhaps he gives explicit instructions regardless of circumstance that these certain dishes must be left dirty so he can meditate later on this ‘common man plight’. I wonder if he maintains this ritual touring the oceans in his superyacht fleets like he’s some kind of self-funded Magellan. Who’s to say.

Even more recently, he gave an interview on CNBC where he proclaimed: “You could double the taxes I pay, and it’s not going to help that teacher in Queens.”

Now, the city of NYC has ordinances and rules just like every other city in the world. And Bezos’ company have been racking up fines in NYC to the tune of $9,000,000.00. The city finally made him pay it. Now, this isn’t a tax - this is a fine only. However that $9,000,000.00 fine is the equivalent of roughly 125 average salaries for a teacher in New York City. That’s easily an entire years worth of pay for an entire school. Maybe more depending on districts. Think about that - One fine supplying the means for 125 different teachers to exist in society.

If you or I had even a $9,000.00 fine anywhere, you really think the debtor would let you slide like Bezos has been? They’d be trying to garnish your wages! The mere thought of imagining having a $9,000.00 bill floating around out there is raising your stress levels as you read. But if you sit within the elite wealthy class, people overlook your debts.

Say you don’t use that fine for salaries. Let’s say you put it into funding budgets that fix that road with that pothole. You know which one I’m talking about. Or funding work crews who can finally clean up all that trash in that empty lot behind that quik-mart. You could put money into new books and computers at the public library, new swings at the playground. This is just with a $9,000,000.00 fine. I’d bet you can go look at your city council meeting notes and see where this money could benefit your community right now. I also wonder where else around the country Bezos owes fines and isn’t paying them.

The billionaire class’s ambition pollutes everything downstream. These people live in a bunker or in countries far from the site of their businesses’ travesties and tell the people drinking tainted water that the ability to rise above your fellow man just needs them to commit harder to a dream. That dream keeps getting more expensive and out of reach while the rich buy another superyacht and petition local towns to demolish a bridge so said multi million dollar water craft can go further up stream.

With their hoarded wealth and the permission structure within the Citizens United decision of Robert’s Supreme Court, the billionaires can funnel literal millions of dollars through political action committees of their own making. Most recently in court, it was learned that some of the $300,000,000.00 Musk spent was through his political action committee. He sent people in Georgia pre-filled ballots that looked official. This is against the law. In Minnesota, he staged a lottery to raise election engagement with millions of dollars in cash prizes. In court discovery it was learned that every single person who received money was handpicked to ensure political alignment. This means no one who registered their information with the “lottery” or registered to vote were actually entered into a contest. This is against the law.

This, however, is how the rich maintain their class, effectively muting our collective voices and even using captured media ecosystems to get you to cheerlead and vote for their interests over your own. Taxes are a key example of this in action. Taxes are why your kids can ride the bus to school. Taxes are why you don’t have to choose which fire station is cheaper to call for - you just call and they come. Taxes are why you have utility infrastructure like water and electricity.

We, a democratic society, are tread upon by the illicit collaboration of the ultra wealthy using their funds to push and pull influence where they can. It’s no surprise to me when regulations for transparency with campaign finance gets cut under Trump because following the money is how you figure out who is influencing politicians; who is seeking to gain favor over the good of the People.

The rich do not wish to stand shoulder to shoulder with you or me. They do not want equality of any measure. They continue to influence the political system by shifting wealth more and more into their coffers while constricting the options that are available to us. This has been happening since Ronald Reagan’s trickle down economics from the 1980s. When you or I pay more in taxes than the billionaires, there’s a problem. To look at it another way, the billionaire class now holds a majority of the wealth in our country and the middle and lower class pay more in taxes. We’re talking about roughly 1,000 people compared to 300,000,000 Americans. When Congress’s actions consistently serve the interests of a handful of people over the wellness of our communities, there’s a problem. This is you and me being tread upon.

This was the same message sent to the ruling class of England and the Crown. They waved the Gadsden flag. By then, it was known how dangerous the bite of the rattlesnake was. The First Nations understood this and taught the colonists. We watch the ultra rich scoff at our laws and fund their legislation to double their wealth. We watched our Supreme Court grant the President - a billionaire - immunity from the law. Here in America, this makes them no different than kings. Worst of all, we let this happen.

So ask yourself: how long are you willing to be tread upon?

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I recently watched a documentary on fire ants that explored this incredible thing ants do in floods, where they link up limb to limb building this tightly woven floating mass constantly adjusting it's size and shape to match the buoyancy needed to stay afloat. It should be no surprise, dead center of that raft - babies and the queen.

This ant-made structure has tensile strength, and can be submerged up to a few inches of water - which has like a 300 feet deep human comparison. They form into a ball as it's submerged and because of how tightly interconnected the ants are, it creates pressure and little pockets of air providing oxygen for the riders. Ants die in this process, but those who do pass during the raft, don’t fall away. They stay interconnected in the fire-ant mesh they made of themselves.

All for the colony.

At a pass, we take the organization of the ant for granted. I think in some parts it’s the size. As I’ve learned about the incredible makeup of jumping spiders’ neuronal connections, size probably doesn’t matter as much as think when considering the similarities between us homo sapien and the critters we share this rock with. Hell, we see travesties befall human young and most days all we can muster is political divides and arguments about solutions we won’t actually try. Heavy conversation for another time.

This months board I have included some poems that wax and wane on time as well as on sacrifice. Enjoy.

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End of May

It's true
Time heals rips in your sinew.
The absence of you 
Makes me wish it wasn't the first of June.
The heart grows fonder,
They say; 
Such cliches 
Do nothing but bury the truth -
I miss you. 

Shadows come off the wall
As we run a gauntlet of ‘first times’.
Only these I couldn’t care for.

‘she’s in a better place’…
Then tell me the incantations
And which water from which well,
And the measures of Boswellia
To let me visit for a spell. 
~~
Present Tense

I saw your dead body.

I felt the warmth from the night before
Already fading.
I kissed and held you anyways. 

I was lucky. Earlier that night
You said "I love you" to me.

Some of the last words you spoke.

It was fast, mom. 
We blinked 
And you were gone. 
We did what we could
Trying to smile when we cried
Savoring the presence,
Your love
One last gift before you left.

Just some things on my mind, mom
As I try to keep your light
Present tense. 
~~
Birdsong

I'm out of reach 
Paintbrush to the sky
Trying to keep out of sight -
These melancholy eyes
Sitting still and watching birds
Flutter about
Living their lives.

The peace of mind;
Gathering twig,
Thatching walls,
Stretching wings in the sun...
Searching for seed,
Feeding the young,
Seeing them struggle first
Then fly. 

Draped in the golden hour,
I enjoy their song
Outside my window 
Nursing a smoke;
Nursing a cry.

What I wouldn't give to trade the life
Little Sparrow,
You can have my woes -
I'll enjoy fending off the crow
From the millet offerings -
The bridge between
Your world and mine. 
~~
Vagari

I can feel it in my vagus
The urgency to run. 
To break camp and break trail
Leave no trace
Where I’ve been.
And if you must -
Keep to the game trails
To ease the wade through brambles.
Keep your cook fire low
Keep your blanket dry and darned. 
To roam is to thrive as the bees do
As the doe and the fox
And as the bear and the coyotes
Yearning for the offering you leave
Of trapped hare for their cause. 
~~
Vishnu

I have heard of you Vishnu, 
Dreamer of dreams,
Walking the ambulatory of the grove. 
Sky washes the green-sea
And the robin taking turns 
Going for grub and mosquito.

If this is your making -
I thank you
Watching the sparrow
Chase the red tail’s heel. 

I have come seeking counsel 
Rooted in basalt.
I have word of your struggle -
To sustain what cannot be saved.
Eyes like that have seen
And I need that insight
For my travels. 
~~
Untitled #71120

I've been at the summit too long 
Embedded in a dream state. 
Taking drinks from the clouds
Hoping I can achieve a clean slate. 

I must come around
And remember my place
Counting out astral mosaics
Painted above my living space. 

I've pretended my journey has ended
Dug the earth in preparation
True to form
Existence phased between worlds
Walking upright in the upside down. 

Swayed by the sun
I must sharpen my axes
And return to the front.
I'm far from the end;
Far from done. 

In a previous essay, I discussed the nature that government is treading upon citizens across the country trying to pass laws like the SAVE Act and hyper-partisan gerrymandering as well as the messy process of the federal government suing states for access to unredacted voter data.

In this continuation, I shine light on reproductive health and medical access as another intersection of causes and the Gadsden flag.

I recently saw an article in which a Tennessee hospital canceled a woman’s surgery to remove her fallopian tubes, citing the hospital’s Catholic Ethics Oversight Committee’s “duty to protect her sacred fertility.”

https://truthout.org/articles/tn-hospital-denies-woman-sterilization-surgery-citing-her-sacred-fertility/

https://www.wsmv.com/2026/02/26/tennessee-woman-says-hospital-canceled-her-sterilization-surgery-while-admitted-hospital/

Tennessee passed a law in 2025 called the Medical Ethics Defense Act. This law made it possible for doctors to not do procedures that went against their religious-minded morals. While the hospital in question still performs vasectomies, it appears to have had a moral dilemma with a woman’s surgery in particular.

This same hospital has also two recorded incidences of delaying or refusing to treat women with ectopic pregnancies. If you don’t know or understand why that’s bad: an ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilized egg takes root outside of the uterus (where it is supposed to). The most common place this happens is in the fallopian tubes.

This malady is a life threatening situation for Mom and fetus because the fallopian tubes are not meant or designed to house growing tissue. Eventually, the cluster of growing cells will force the fallopian tube to rupture. Treating this is life saving work for the mother.

If you are in this situation in the wrong state, these entities are treading on your right to Life, Liberty and Pursuits of Happiness, especially when refusing to treat you means you could die. It used to go against the Hippocratic Oath; something that unified all medical professionals going back as far as ancient Greece - Do no harm.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/16798/

Treating miscarriages in states with abortion bans is another area where laws passed in the wake of ending Roe v. Wade, tread on People’s access to medical care. I am of this opinion because the same procedures used to treat a miscarriage are the same used in an abortion. So even when there’s medical reasons to save a mother, treatment is still delayed out of fear. There have been four cases documented on the national stage out of Texas, one in Georgia as well as Ohio and Arkansas.

There was a Nevada case from 2018, in which a woman had a stillbirth and posted a message of grief online, which prompted a law enforcement investigation that involved excavating the remains of the baby. Nevada ultimately charged her under a 1911 anti-abortion law and she took a plea. She was sentenced to 8 years in prison. After 2 years in prison, her conviction was overturned and she was awarded a settlement from Nevada state.

I have heard the argument that these kinds of examples are outliers and I can see the inclination to that idea. Four cases here, an incident there. Hardly a pattern, let alone systemic. I would argue that such cases are under reported and multiple data pools would need to be evaluated for more concrete data. It is also an area where the political climate of shaming women for accessing healthcare and asserting autonomy over their own bodies may be contributing to under reporting - further treading on access.

Consider the stochasticity of posting a message of grief and ending up in jail for the cause of your grief. Consider the fear of knowing you need medical help, but you’re denied it.

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/pregnant-women-in-distress-report-being-turned-away-from-ers-despite-federal-law

https://apnews.com/article/pregnant-women-emergency-room-ectopic-er-edd66276d2f6c412c988051b618fb8f9

Most recently in regulating women’s reproductive health, courts in 2026 tried to ban access to a drug used in abortion procedures and the Supreme Court has stayed that, continuing it’s accessibility through telehealth and the mail. It’s still in the air as of this writing.

Here is the inequality: not a single one of the reproductive health issues for men are challenged. Ever. I can telehealth with a doctor right now for a minimal fee and get access to testosterone drugs. Ointments, shots, pills - I can get it. Erectile Dysfunction and other sexual enhancement drugs are being marketed now as fast acting chewables. There are product lines that also mix oxytocin into its formula. If you are unfamiliar, that is a pro-social neurotransmitter that scientists have identified is released by your brain and in the body through safe contact with others, during sex and is pumping through your body when you hold your child. It’s in ED medications now to ‘enhance the intimacy of sex’. Zero mention of how this is gender affirming care for men.

All is available by mail with zero outrage over its accessibility. We reinforce these kinds of misalignment in equality and access to treatment when we don’t call out the bias. If I wanted to get a vasectomy, I consult my doctor, schedule and get it done. No one at any point in the process is having to meet with me to convince me against it and no hospital committee deciding against my procedure. Most important here is that no governing entity is wanting to snoop around in my reproductive health-related information.

An example of the latter comes from Big Tech violating private data around wanting to know women’s menstrual cycles. What the fuck is that about? There is a recent case where a period tracking app called Flo - owned by Meta and Google - was found guilty in court of accessing private data of the users in the app. Read a detailed breakdown below.

https://www.labaton.com/cases/frasco-v-flo-health-inc

Just within this case, users were tread upon by these private companies. I’d argue these private companies doing so is just as bad as the federal government doing so. Thankfully, a jury agreed with the plaintiffs. It is much of the same grievance as Wilkes and Entick from a Democracy’s Almanac page discussion - a governing entity violated their privacy by snooping around in files it had no business in.

Another angle where people are tread on is watching the federal government intentionally under funds or outright defunds, which deprives medical access and infrastructure across the country.

Under the Big Beautiful Bill passed and signed into law, rural areas in my state are now at risk of losing access to medical care. For example, Klickitat Valley Health in Goldendale, Forks Community Hospital in Forks, and Coulee Medical Center in Grand Coulee are just a random pick off of a much longer list of places on the chopping block.

https://modernmedicaid.org/rural-health-care-at-risk-medicaid-cuts-in-washington-state-spark-concern-among-health-care-leaders-and-patients/

https://www.markey.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/letter_on_rural_hospitals.pdf?ref=cascadepbs.org

Goldendale is an isolated area. From Vancouver, it takes almost 2 hours to get there. With cut funding, if/when that medical center closes, denizens in that area will have to travel further for care they used to be able to access in their city - which gets expensive. There will be people who defer medical care and the distance makes that even more of a viable choice financially. However, because a handful of bureaucrats 1,000s of miles away decided against funding citing tangential claims, the community at large gets tread on as a ‘cost-saving’ move.

The medical centers’ closures are not events that happen immediately either. It starts with reducing staff and offerings. Where they used to do certain scans in house, now they need you to go to a different place or have you come in to the clinic at a certain time. Where they had a couple of doctors rotating, now maybe one or two. Fewer clerical and nursing staff, so more work for less hands and for the patient that means longer wait times and a decrease in patient satisfaction. My mom could tell you with a deep ire how frustrating the latter is as a metric in the medical world.

How long each center can maneuver through this degradation starts to rely on the people holding onto the jobs and local funding. Unfortunately, that creates an even larger disparity as some states have tax structures that could pick up some of the slack; some outright can’t. The federal dollar’s sole purpose is as a means to remedy these disparities and overall wellbeing of the infrastructure and personnel of these rural areas. Tread on by people who will never see the end results as something that matters.

I have seen rattlesnakes out in the wild. Once at a rest stop in the mid-west, my then 7-8 year-old brother jumped over one. I’ve seen and heard them rattling, its senses locked in. Its body coiled, ready to strike with venom should you come too close. They are fierce animals. We, too, must be loud. We must call attention to the grievances in our communities through protest and through strikes, through coordinated campaigns to raise awareness. Sit-ins, stump speeches, mailing postcards. These are our “rattle”, the Gadsden your ensign.

There’s another essay in the works about other barriers the average Joe faces in our Democracy, so stay tuned.

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The swastika as a symbol of the Nazi movement appeared in other cultures, most notably in Buddhist iconography.

The Nazis’ tainting of its cultural meanings within this religious practice led to its expulsion from the sect.

In sociological study, a ‘symbol’ is defined as: objects, words, gestures or images that carry meaning beyond their intrinsic form. Symbols allow for complex ideas and meanings to be expressed and shared more efficiently. The meaning of symbols is learned, which is how and why their meanings can change.

And so, I find myself in these strange political times reflecting on a controversial symbol - the Gadsden flag.

I first came upon a Gadsden passing through Idaho. I’m certain you’ve seen one as a bumper sticker or as a flag. Its bright yellow background with a coiled rattlesnake on grass with the slogan “don’t tread on me” is hard to miss. There’s also a large swath of merch poking fun at the Gadsden too.

The historic root of the Gadsden is in American Revolutionary history. Designed by Christopher Gadsden, a South Carolinian delegate and military leader, in 1775. The coiled rattlesnake was also flown from ships as an ensign; a quiet warning to British ships.

The Gadsden rattlesnake isn’t the first time this species has appeared in American conversation either. Around 1754, Benjamin Franklin commissioned a wood-cut print of a segmented rattlesnake and the phrase “Join, or die”. It was meant as a call to the colonists to unite during the French and Indian War.

Now, the Gadsden is most associated with gun culture and the stalwart struggle of gun rights advocates. When I crossed paths with the flag, I didn’t see meaning in the imagery as a quiet warning to would-be-treaders until politicians started throwing their support behind the SAVE Act.

When I married, I changed my last name. This means, under that bill, if passed by the Senate and signed into law, I would have additional hurdles and poll taxes to pay to prove that I am who I am to vote. Millions of others with name changes also face this hurdle under this proposed legislation. Understandably, there is a fear that should it pass, that millions of people who don’t have copies of documents or the funds to get passports or whatever papers needed to prove your identity, would not be able to vote. It would effectively keep eligible voters away from the voting booth.

My right to vote, my right to mark on a ballot who I think should be my elected official, is being challenged in the federal government by special interest groups that don’t want me voting.

That certainly feels like being tread upon. Fortunately, SAVE didn’t make it through the Senate.

This is only one moment of celebration. Even as you read these words, the federal government under Trump is flailing to sue states for their unredacted, full profile voter data. The DoJ is 0-8 as of May 22nd, according to Elias’ Democracy Docket. If you’re not familiar with his writing and front line pro-democracy work, check it out.

Unfortunately Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia have willingly handed this data over. 30 others actually give a damn about protecting this data. My state is one of them.

In fact, I celebrate the DoJ’s newfound incompetence as they attempt to tread on me by pressuring my state for my info. The DoJ under Bondi sent their letter and our DA, Nick Brown, said ‘ok, file it appropriately and we will litigate’.

The DoJ failed to do so, effectively tripping over their ties to manufacture more lies in their drive to upend democratic norms. I imagine this level of sloppiness is bound to continue across the other states even under Todd Blanche, acting as AG and Trump’s fixer, the new ‘Michael Cohen’.

It’s not stopping gerrymandering though, as that bureaucratic arms race is underway across the country. While SCOTUS in the Callais decision struck down section 2 in the VRA, they also approved Alabama and Louisiana doing gerrymanders to eliminate their Black congressional districts - during - elections. To give this murky electoral pivot some room to be implemented, the Louisiana Governor declared a state of emergency to call off the election. Some 40k+ ballots were just tossed out.

Within days of this occuring, SCOTUS denied Virginia plaintiffs a hearing, which upholds the VA Supreme Court striking the state’s recent vote down as ‘unconstitutional’. So even though Virginia put it to a vote, albeit with a technicality, their state is not able to use their partisan gerrymandered map.

On the other hand, Texas et al decided without consulting their People and it remains unchallenged. Virginia’s mistake was voting on it. Their state legislature should have just done what Texas did under Gov. Abbott.

Politicians in office should not be able to unilaterally decide changes that affect representation and elections across the state without a vote from the People. So not only did Texas tread on their People by giving up private data, Texans’ elected officials tread on their votes through gerrymandering.

A lot of these problems can be legislative fixes. In 2021, a House vote tried to pass a ban on gerrymandering in favor of non-partisan third party map making. Every single Democrat voted in favor. Every single Republican voted against. A slim majority tossed this regulation into the trashcan. It doesn’t help when the Supreme Court of the United States also plays partisan games over unbiased legal stewardship.

To my joy, I am hearing a great amplification of SCOTUS reform. When you call and write your elected officials, be specific. Reforms being discussed:

1. Expanding the court to 13 judges, making a 1:1 ratio of justices to US federal districts

2. Term limits for justices

3. Enforceable ethical codes regarding recusal in conflicts of interest, more stringent financial disclosure guidelines

This is only one intersection I have reflected on in regards to the Gadsden, and one of the more personally affected inflection points of politics and Liberty. Within the spirit of Democracy, let's expand on some other causes where the Gadsden can be your ensign.

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I met up with a friend recently in Portland and our plans coincided with the ‘No Kings’ protest day in March. The protest route cut right through the Saturday Art Bazaar - a fixture in the city. I stood listening to a protest song written by someone in the community and observing the people gathered. Especially the signs.

Protest signs are a form of artwork, using some level of artistic medium to express a frustration. Some find creative means to do this, others less so, the through line of it all is the general grievance that brought the protest together in the first place.

The news sort of covers the protests. You’d think they would do more considering the crowds range, just in Portland mind you, from 50,000-100,000 people. That’s a lot. An entire professional athletic stadium worth of people. That’s enough people to fill Portland’s Mota Center 3x over.

In a country as large as ours, people on the East Coast are only going to see our protests here on the West Coast through some form of news media. That also means that the grievances and their intended targets are less likely to hear them. They are easier to dismiss.

Now, I like protesting.. It is a fundamental right and it also helped me see that this nation’s backsliding into some strange autocracy wouldn’t be a quiet one. That I was not alone in seeing concerning happenings in the news; decisions made far away from me that are consequential to my Democracy.

However, protests feel more like the pressure release and I content is only the first step in civic duty. It took America a few years to undo the damage done by what is largely considered the worst Supreme Court decision - the Dred Scott ruling.

If you are unfamiliar, this ruling stated that the 1820 Missouri Compromise was unconstitutional, reaffirmed that black people - free or enslaved - could not be US citizens and that slaves were constitutionally protected property.

The Senate and the House are our representatives. We entrust them to uphold our rights while they make laws to structure and improve our lives. All of our lives. It’s why we must take the energy from the protests, the community, the collective grievance and we take it to the people that are the problem.

So, following the Callais decision, I collected my thoughts and penned a letter. It won’t be the last. I can’t call a SCOTUS judge, but I can call my Reps.

Call and write yours too. Whatever your grievance is. Some have email platforms for our digital age. This though, I think needs to be paper. Even if they ball up my letter and bin it without it ever being seen, it still was. And the more they receive, the harder it is to just “throw away” our grievances.

There is a lot of gatekeeping happening, about what is effective and what isn’t. Naysayers and pessimists who will tell you writing doesn’t do anything that protest doesn’t do anything. Someone I used to trust and admire is that person for me. Find your way of protesting, of pushing back and lean into it. Write letters, post signs, call offices, show up for the community.

I’ll close on the words of one of our Founders. “Always stand on principle, even if you stand alone.” - John Adams.

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Chief Justice Roberts,

I am writing to you as a citizen of this great country to inform you that your bias, undermining of precedent, and willingness to abandon clear-eyed stewardship of the law in favor of political power is palpable.

I personally found it particularly rich to read in one of your last end of year writings in which you espoused a great deal about the violent rhetoric being directed toward judges. Surely, it can’t be lost on you from your elevated position that much of those threats are coming from the same party your decision making is serving? The same radicals who tried to flood the Capitol on January Sixth in hopes to deter an election from being certified.

Perhaps you share some ideals with that crowd and while outside of robes that may be your prerogative. When you come into chambers, you aren’t serving just one group of anti-democratic pardoned criminals - you’re serving all of America. All of us.

There’s been some discussion regarding the commissions your wife receives from firms with cases that go before your court. It’s joining a similar discussion of the numerous ethical failings of Thomas and his lavish yacht trips and lavish gifts from Harlan Crow, massive house payments and school funding. How compromised has this court actually become? Your “ethics” aren’t enforceable, which is something our Legislative branch needs to address. There is more accountability for the judges and their conduct in my county courthouse than the court that sits over our entire country.

Alito may try to pooh-pooh a dissenting opinion it’s clear that he didn’t read, but Jackson is correct - this court undermines its own precedent when its verdicts serve the right interest. Where on one hand, your court will close the door on wading into political questions, the other hand will assert itself with heavy consequence. I’m talking about Louisiana and Alabama districting cases and the Purcell precedent. I’m talking about the infamous ‘shadow docket’. I’m talking about the Citizens United decision. I’m talking about ‘presidential immunity’.

Perhaps you all are also scared of an unpredictable tyrant in the White House as he hosts only the conservative justices on the eve of Callais. All while he publicly calls your colleagues “embarrassments” and “weak and stupid”. To that, I would remind you heavily that the entire bench is a co-equal branch of government - that you fail our country when you willingly give in to political power instead of remaining stalwart in your duties to Lady Justice and the stewardship of the rule of law in this country.

Allowing money to creep in and corrupt is the manifestation of unenforced ethics in your court.

These are things not lost on my fellow Americans, though, they are difficult things to articulate. Change is coming for this court. Try as you might to put your fingers on the scales for the signer of the checks waiting giddily in the wings, the pendulum will swing back around. I am pushing my elected officials consistently about term limits for SCOTUS, about enforceable ethics, and about expanding the courts. I am just one citizen, but I know I’m not alone in my convictions.

I am used to unfair fights. I don’t expect my words to have any sway or to change the course of this court. I do, however, want you on notice that your actions are seen by us common folk. Your actions make you unfit to take a seat and share a meal at my kitchen table.

A true Patriot,

Michael Wallace of Washington

CC. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp-Perez WA 3rd District, Senators Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of WA

Note to readers: I am curious if there are those who are interested in collaboration, whether it is on civic style writing or poetry. I enjoy building community around these creative processes. Hit me up.

The story goes that ancient human gathered and stored a variety of goods and the foodstuff got exposed to wild yeast and water, and fermented into a rough alcoholic slush. Likely consumed more out of a necessity to survive than a curiousity, ancient human liked the experience. From then on, our curious minds recreated the process and fine tuned to vary the results.

Such discovery wasn’t a one-off that spread out from a central area. Every group of ancient people found their way to making alcohol. Whether it’s sake, wines made from literally any and every fruit you can imagine, meads from honey, or beers from wild oats and other cereals, ancient human made their drinks.

I recall coming across an interesting perspective in that the alcoholic slushies would have provided a more potable water source than standing water. Fermenting the foodstuff into a longer lasting drink would also provide another avenue to positively affect survival.

The Natives in eastern Idaho found that it was cold in the lava tubes and small caves that formed under the overlapping feet of repeated lava flows. Anyone who has explored Ape Caves in my neck of the woods would understand that too. You could keep food down there longer. Natural fridges. Storing alcoholic mixtures in these cool, dark places led to stronger substances.

Much like ancient human, modern human still uses alcohol in its many forms. Whether it’s gathering to enjoy a sporting event to religious practices, its uses vary depending on cultures. There are even some cultures that abstain entirely from its consumption, even in ritual.

Every person must find their own way. However, toasting to someone’s memory seems more appropriate lifting a glass of spirits over water or a soda. It feels more appropriate to accompany death rituals, like wakes and celebrations of life. A savory burn feels the same way ‘remembrance’ does.

For this month’s board, I have curated a few poems that I feel sit within this vein, highlighting ritual in grief and healing.

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Sipping Whiskey

Sip slowly, my wayward son,
Savor the sweet and the smoke.
Wise words mull over the flame -
The warmth spreading like honey
Down your throat.

I raise a glass to you,
This amber from Islay,
Biting my cheeks
To stave the grief.

To those in the seats
And lined the walls;
We told your tales

Such mischief made!

To you, mom
The glory of the day.

~
Birdsong

I'm out of reach
Paintbrush to the sky
Trying to keep out of sight -
These melancholy eyes
Sitting still and watching birds
Flutter about
Living their lives.

The peace of mind;
Gathering twig,
Thatching walls,
Stretching wings in the sun...
Searching for seed,
Feeding the young,
Seeing them struggle first
Then fly.

Draped in the golden hour,
I enjoy their song
Outside my window
Nursing a smoke;
Nursing a cry.

What I wouldn't give to trade the life
Little Sparrow,
You can have my woes -
I'll enjoy fending off the crow
From the millet offerings -
The bridge between
Your world and mine.

~~
Unanchored

Captain's Log...
Flotsam at sea,
Drifting with a north wind
Finding withered brine visions of
Dancing Valkyries
Pouring libations
Merry salvation aloft in the breeze,
The smell of roasted meat
Sparking sensimilla revelries
These phantosmia out of reach.

My hungry eyes blinded by the sun,
Breaking the anchor chain;
I set my path for this splendor
With whatever it takes.

Chasing or escaping
I'll take it either way.

~~
Trailhead

The sign said:
'leave your worries at the trailhead'
Wise advice, these woods are haunted.
You can feel it in the air;
A subtle shift in the wind,
And when the fog settles,
Silhouettes dance in your peripheral.

They drift outside the torch's reach,
Playing on your troubles,
Every step further into the trees
Luring with familiar scents;
Spiced ciders and toasted apples,
Phantosmias of creature comforts
Far away and ethereal.

Leave your burdens, at least for a while
They're safe with the others who followed suit
Everytime I do
I return to find them a little more immaterial.

Note to readers: I am curious if there are those who are interested in collaboration, whether it is on civic style writing or poetry. I enjoy building community around these creative processes. Hit me up.