Pearls Before Swine
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But that’s easy for me to say because I no longer travel.

August 17, 2026

The BBC breakfast bulletin informs us that there is confusion over claims that Washington wants to annex the Strait of Hormuz and have it become ‘American territory’. Is this official policy or just a passing thought? No one seems to know. Amidst the confusion I shall continue to take the little BMW down to the garage to have its petrol tank filled once a fortnight.

He is focusing on what he can control, keeping his gas tank full.

August 16, 2026

Another beautiful, but chill, start to the day here in Scotland. It might get to 20C this afternoon. By contrast London is expecting their fifth heat wave of the year and a high of 35C . Last night a huge cruise liner drifted by the end of the garden. It’s the closest inshore we’ve ever seen one. A little later another ship, almost as big, joins it going in the same direction. We stand at the garden wall with a glass of Margaux and watch them drift towards the wind farms and the horizon. If you’d told me ten years ago that cruising round Scotland would go mainstream I would have laughed aloud and thought you quite mad. Until three or four years ago the only folks cruising these waters were hardy bird watchers looking for puffins on the offshore rock stacks. Nowadays the tell tale signs of climate change are slowly but surely mounting up.

20C is 68°F, 35C is 95°F

August 15, 2026

Mostly Justo y Franco aren’t my favorite, but I thought this one was funny.

Justo y Franco

The fellow is saying,

We ran out of little parasols, so I added sunscreen to them.

These are all about poor Charlie Brown:

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

Peanuts en Español

Peanuts

August 14, 2026

Ben
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August 13, 2026

Ben

August 12, 2026

Ben

August 11, 2026

Ben

Hurray for self protection! (As I have mentioned, I hated baseball.)

August 10, 2026

But no, they revised the forecast by the early evening.

I know the weather here isn’t nearly as bad as at other places, but I’m still glad the days are getting shorter and eventually it will cool off faster at night.

Fingers crossed for us all.

August 9, 2026

Wizard of Id

Wizard of Id

Wizard of Id

B. C.

Ziggy

But, of course, lack of intelligence is scarcely the problem nowadays. New discoveries, inventions, and technological developments — many of them beneficial — are changing the world. But human nature hasn’t changed — some people are always going to want wealth and power. That has been going on since the first civilizations.

Is that any reason to lose our courage? I agree with Mary Oliver, we can’t give up.

Don’t Hesitate

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,
don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are
plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed
or about to be. We are not wise, and not very
often kind. And much can never be redeemed.
Still, life has some possibility left.
Perhaps this is its way of fighting back,
that sometimes something happens better than
all the riches or power in the world.
It could be anything, but very likely you notice it
in the instant when love begins.
Anyway, that’s often the case.
Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid
of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

So we can still fight back — do what we can to try to change things, even if it’s little, and keep affirming that experiences like kindness, love, laughter, beauty, peace are more important than “all the riches and power in the world.”

August 8, 2026