A brief poem

The poem is by Yamabe No Akahito, and appears in the book One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, translated by the American poet Kenneth Rexroth (1905-1982).  The book was originally published in 1955 by New Directions.

In the book's notes, Mr. Rexroth writes that Akahito "lived during the reign of the Emperor Shōmu," which extended from the years 734 to 748.  Akahito, he writes, is believed to have died in the year 736.

There is a reference in the poem to "Asuka," which, Mr. Rexroth explains, "was a former Imperial Palace site."

To view the poem more easily, please click on the image below.

 

(Images from the paperback edition of One Hundred Poems from the Japanese, 27th edition, © New Directions Publishing Corporation. Paperback edition first published in 1964.)

From Barton Gellman, writing in The New York Times

His essay is titled:  "Trump’s Stunning Power Grab on Elections."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/opinion/trump-voting-mail-in-ballots.html?unlocked_article_code=1.g08.PjDi.Y7gDJtd3anhG&smid=url-share

Henny Youngman...and Donald Trump

 A joke, decades ago, from comedian Henny Youngman, went like this:

"I have a very fine doctor.  If you can't afford the operation, he touches up the X-Rays."

I've always loved this joke.

Now, though, one turns to Donald Trump.

What does President Trump do, when he is faced with facts he doesn't like, facts that he believes make him look bad?

He tries to touch up the X-Rays. 

On Friday, he fired the Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Erika McEntarfer, after the Bureau released less-than-optimal jobs numbers for July--and also released downwardly revised jobs figures for May and June.

Trump wrote, on social media, "In my opinion, today's Jobs numbers were RIGGED in order to make the Republicans, and ME, look bad."

(In the 1970s, journalist Tom Wolfe wrote of the "Me Generation."  We now have the "ME presidency.")

New York Times chief economics correspondent Ben Casselman wrote this, on Sunday, of the firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics Commissioner:

It was a move with few precedents in the century-long history of economic statistics in the United States. And for good reason: When political leaders meddle in government data, it rarely ends well.

Here, too, is an important, sobering column by Thomas R. Friedman, of The New York Times. It was published this week, in the wake of the BLS firing, and is titled "The America We Knew Is Rapidly Slipping Away."

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/opinion/columnists/friedman-trump-labor-firing.html?unlocked_article_code=1.cU8.TBHB.a2lklAZyVZc8&smid=url-share