About 43 million Americans receive federal food assistance through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). Those benefits ended today, though ongoing court cases might have them resume eventually. But not today, and maybe not soon.
Wherever you live in America, there are hungry people and a local food bank. You can find your local food banks here: Feeding America.
Please donate today.
Alas poor Yorick! I knew him…”
Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 1
Today, November 1, is Day of the Dead/Dia de los Muertos in Mexico and elsewhere. (It is also All Saints’ Day on many Christian calendars.)
Above is a famous skull scene from Hamlet. Shakespeare was all about everything, including death.
Here in Hamlet, Mercutio is stabbed, but still finds a way to pun his way out:
Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave man.
Hamlet, Act 3, scene 1
Dia de los Muertos has many traditions associated with remembering and honoring those in our hearts who have died before us. It is also a way of remembering that we too will die and be somebody’s memory. While thinking about that may sadden and scare us, it is not a dark day.
Skulls/calaveras are a main motif of Dia de los Muertos. Faces are painted as skulls. Candy sugar skulls are enjoyed.
A late tradition from the 19th century is the calavera literaria. These are humorous or sarcastic writings about someone who is still alive as if they were dead. What you might hear at a roast or wake.
Thinking about death on this Day of the Dead or any day:
“Cultivate the thought, “The time of my death is unknown, and were it to come suddenly, my sole recourse would be this practice….In this way, make sure you fortify your mind so that no matter when you die, you do so joyfully and with palpable warmth within.”
Tibetan Buddhist master Sé Chilbu Chökyi Gyaltsen (1121-1189)
Today, November 1, is All Saints’ Day on many Christian calendars.
Saints are in short supply—in your family, in your community, at work, in politics, in your mirror. So if the search for them is likely to come up empty, what’s the point of looking?
In the intersecting realm of faith, policies and character, it is balance we seek, not absolutes or perfection. You stand certain on a line, maybe informed by your god and your traditions, and believe that everything else stands closer or farther on that line, in one direction or another. You can measure the distance and decide when someone has gone too far.
In the case of faith, policies and character, there are at least three dimensions. Trying to evaluate people in that space is hard and uncertain. Some think this gets us creeping toward relativism, where suddenly everyone and everything is acceptable. But it is no such thing. It just means that we are asked to look at everyone and every circumstance on its own, for itself, eyes wide open, in our own well-considered light. That is a lot of work, and so we want a shortcut. We may think we are able to take shortcuts, but there are no shortcuts, only understandably lazy paths.
Saints are in short supply because even saints are not saints. That is the point. Go easy on yourself and others, or go hard. Do the work, if you have the time and inclination, and don’t depend simply on a bible verse, a rule or an ideology. You are gifted, so use those gifts wisely.
© 2025 Bob Schwartz
“If somebody doesn’t begin to provide some kind of harmony, we will not be able to develop sanity in this world at all. Somebody has to plant the seed so that sanity can happen on this earth.”
Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche
Always maintain only a joyful mind.
If someone punches you in the mouth and says, “You are terrible,” you should be grateful that such a person has actually acknowledged you and said so. You could, in fact, respond with tremendous dignity by saying, “Thank you, I appreciate your concern.” In that way his neurosis is taken over by you, taken into you, much as is done in tonglen practice. There is an immense sacrifice taking place here. If you think this is ridiculously trippy, you are right. In some sense the whole thing is ridiculously trippy. But if somebody doesn’t begin to provide some kind of harmony, we will not be able to develop sanity in this world at all. Somebody has to plant the seed so that sanity can happen on this earth.
Training the Mind and Cultivating Loving-Kindness – Chogyam Trungpa
An opportunity to feature the song Make the Madness Stop (1968) by The Free Design.
The Free Design were one of the most inventive pop vocal groups of the late ’60s and early ’70s, transcending run-of-the-mill AM radio fare with intricate harmonies and arrangements that called on expanded instrumentation, uncommon time signatures, and advanced compositional touches. From 1967 to 1973, the band produced seven albums of their specific brand of pop sounds, one that appeared naïve and light on the surface, but held depth in its layers of precise production and emotionally unguarded musical themes. Perhaps too advanced for mainstream tastes, the Free Design would linger in commercial obscurity for their initial period of activity, producing only one charting single in their time while contemporaries like the Beach Boys and the Association dominated the airwaves and the charts. The group’s legacy would live on, however, as new generations of fans were blown over by their complex musicality and fearless sincerity. Artists like Beck, Stereolab, Belle and Sebastian, and Cornelius all cited the Free Design’s influence on their music, and the renewed interest in the band was enough for them to reconvene in 2001 for the album Cosmic Peekaboo.
Jason Ankeny, Rovi
Make the Madness Stop by The Free Design
Follow the way that leads between madness and madness
Flowers on both sides, each side has weeds and gladness and sadness
Pathways are green and black and white and yellow and crimson
Walk on the rainbow flooded by both sides’ truths and opinion
Deplete we must the store of hate immense
And grouping groping nonsense
Honesty and purity, beauty and sincerity
Doesn’t that sound corny?
Wish that I were corny
Walk the way of love, eyes open
Fly the skies above with hope and heart and sense
Blow your mind but not completely
Make the madness stop
Five years. First Covid. Then AI. Then Trump returns.
Were we ready? Are we ready yet?
It has been a mixed bag.
Ready for Covid? Science worked miracles in quickly developing Covid vaccines, saving countless lives. On the other hand, a number of people refused to comply with the most basic social guidelines, resulting in illness and death for uncounted millions. As an unreadiness bonus, many of those same people are now trying to end all vaccines, so that not only Covid but many other long-controlled diseases can get out of control.
Ready for AI? The vast majority of people don’t understand AI, beyond some applications they find useful or stocks to invest in. AI is a profound phenomenon, with tremendous upside and downside. Some who talk about the possibilities and perils know what they are talking about; many don’t. Meanwhile, AI rolls on, like Covid did, with few ready to address it knowledgeably and intelligently.
Ready for Trump? Monty Python said, “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition.” They were so right. It is confounding that having already experienced ten years of Trump before his return in 2025 (he announced his presidential run in 2015), including four years as president (10,000 certified lies), four more years as an angry and disgruntled loser, hardly anybody seems really ready to effectively respond. Maybe we should ask those same scientists who responded so brilliantly to Covid to create a Trump vaccine. Except that their research funding has been cut and vaccines are disfavored in some quarters.
The big point is that after Covid, AI and Trump, there is something else coming, something else we are not ready for. We don’t need to know exactly what that is, as if we could. We do have to train to be able to resiliently and effectively take on whatever it is. That is the ultimate readiness.
© 2025 Bob Schwartz
This is breaking news!
The story begins with archaeologist Richard Grey leading an expedition in Outer Mongolia. His wife had just given birth to a son, Richard Grey Jr.
The expedition came under attack. She hid her baby. All were killed, except for the infant.
Condors adopted the baby and taught him to fly. This led to his becoming the superhero Black Condor.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Tom Wright was faced with a dilemma. An appropriations bill was about to be voted on. Tom Wright knew the bill was graft, but did he want to cross his own party? He decides to vote against the bill.
The party had to get Tom Wright out of the way. They arranged to have him killed by running his car off the road. As Tom Wright lay dying, Black Condor swooped in to try to save him. Black Condor was astonished to see that he and Tom Wright looked exactly alike. Richard Grey Jr./Black Condor adopted the identity of U.S. Senator Tom Wright, committed to doing good, both as a Senator and as a flying superhero.
Most of us don’t know the names of every current U.S. Senator, so Senator Tom Wright sounds plausible, even if the rest of the story doesn’t.
Tom Wright was not a U.S. Senator. He is the creation of Crack Comics from 1940 to 1943. However, the idea of one of our Senators having a secret superhero identity is too tantalizing not to share.
Following are some of the pages that tell the story.
Would a political party run a dissident Senator off the road? While we are at it, which of our current Senators do you think might have a secret superhero identity?
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
I have not posted about Bob Marley’s Redemption Song for years.
I do listen to his music often, and with the unfortunate news about Jamaica and Hurricane Melissa, today is a good day to feature this song. Actually, given the state of so many things, every day is a good day to listen and dance to many of Bob Marley’s spirit-filled and lyrical messages.
There is redemption from craziness, but it is right here, not hereafter. He sings:
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds…
Won’t you help to sing these songs of freedom?
Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it’s just a part of it
We’ve got to fulfill the Book
Won’t you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Redemption songs
Bob Marley, Redemption Song
“A mysterious mental force is behind the attack on our democracy…only young mind can resist its powers!”
In October 1941, America had not yet entered World War II and the fight against insanity and fascism. That didn’t stop comic book publishers from entering the fray.
The Rangers of Freedom were a team of America’s most valiant young people who took on the lunatic enemies of democracy.
Above is the cover of the first issue. Following are some of the panels showing the fanatics and the formation of the Rangers of Freedom.
Where are today’s Rangers of Freedom? We need them now!
Maybe you think you have too much stuff, too little stuff, or just the right amount of stuff.
I’ve acquired stuff, moved stuff, disposed of stuff, acquired more stuff.
It is not that I have too much, too little, or just the right amount. It is that each thing is supposed to be doing something, or maybe has done something, or has the potential to do something in the future.
Books on the shelf are there to be read or referred to, to serve as colorful display, and to show visitors how well-read (or at least literarily acquisitive) I am. As for the books behind cabinet doors and in the closet, well, not as much showing off. In either place, am I actually reading and referring to most of them?
Everything here is like that—useful, decorative, both. Useful for practical, intellectual, emotional, spiritual purposes. Aesthetic and eye-pleasing, or not so much. Everything.
I’ve been considering talking to each of these things individually and asking: What exactly are you doing here? I would make it clear that they are not having to plead for their life (a little disingenuous, since disposal might be in their future). I just genuinely want to know what purpose they serve.
I’m looking at the floor lamp in the corner of my office. If asked, it would be a pretty simple conversation. It is the entire light in the room when the sun is down. It is not the only light I might have here, but here it is, so when it comes to purpose, the case is made.
Not as simple with many other things, the hundreds of things, big and small, that are everywhere here. Some of them are like the lamp, obviously useful. Others, either because there are too many of them (certain pieces of unworn/unwearable clothing) or of questionable/non-existent utility (dozens of pieces of old-school electronic equipment) would have a harder time explaining themselves.
But explain themselves they should. What will each of them say? What will each of your things say? Maybe we should ask.
© 2025 Bob Schwartz
Is Santa Claus a Blue Jays fan? We don’t know, but the northernmost city in Canada is filled with Blue Jays fans, a city much closer to the North Pole than Toronto. So, yeah, it would make sense if Santa was among them.
The Blue Jays bar at the end of the world
There are no roads in and out.
Only planes can get you there, and of course, boats. But that’s only if Frobisher Bay isn’t frozen over (which it is for about nine months of the year).
Canada’s northernmost city is closer to Greenland, nearer to the North Pole, than it is to Toronto.
“It feels like we’re on the moon,” Valerie Hill, general manager of The Storehouse Bar and Grill, told me in a call.
Although the residents of Iqaluit have spotty cell service, a climate that’s more fit for polar bears and almost total darkness for much of the winter — they do, during these late, exceedingly exciting October nights, have their pennant-winning Blue Jays.
And during the team’s greatest playoff run in 32 years, they mostly gather to watch in the warmth of The Storehouse Bar and Grill — one of the few watering holes in the zero-stoplight town.
In fact, more than two percent of the city’s population can be found there….
Matt Monagan, MLB.com
Bob Schwartz 