Tiny Tree Cafe

30/05/2026

Japanese Artist Nikichi “The Land of Lamentation”, 2023, carved wood sculpture.

24/05/2026

“One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious “-Carl Jung

“PANDORA’S BOX”, 39”x28”, charcoal and graphite on paper, ©Laurie Lipton

24/05/2026

Donald Trump's approach to the Iran war reflected his personality, not strategy—and he is on his way to losing the war for that reason, David Frum argues:
https://theatln.tc/90aycxTI

🎨: Alex Wroblewski / AFP / Getty

23/05/2026

Writing at the moment a short story which delves into parts of my youth, I just, for the first time since I left Austria in 1986, have laid eyes on the house I lived from my birth to 1978, when I emigrated to Toulouse in France. It is amazing seeing that house and seeing that almost nothing has changed, even the Cypress Hedge is still there, only my father’s handiwork of natural stone paving has been replaced by something ugly, at least I think so. Compared to Australia, homes aren’t a speculative investment and they stay almost unchanged for quite long times … even shops and businesses in Mureck haven’t changed at all, or if, they changed business-wise where as the families who own it are still the same!

18/05/2026

Perfect weather for writing, second manuscript coming along, word count going up, up and away …

17/05/2026

16/05/2026

Israel’s efforts to influence the vote for the Eurovision Song Contest were broader and started years earlier than previously known, a New York Times investigation found. Here is the inside story of the controversy that almost broke Eurovision. https://nyti.ms/4wyk004

13/05/2026

Another Trump Con … he is a Shyster!

Nine months after the Trump Phone was meant to be released, no confirmed customers have received one—and there's no release date in sight

12/05/2026

President Donald Trump’s most consistent, and perhaps most compelling, justification for choosing to go to war with Iran was the “imminent threat” of the Iranian regime developing nuclear weapons with which it could not just destroy Israel but the entire Middle East, or cause a nuclear holocaust in Europe, or even threaten the U.S. via the intercontinental ballistic missiles he also alleged Iran was close to developing. “We would have had Iran with a nuclear weapon, and maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now,” Trump told a group of schoolchildren in the Oval Office last week.

None of this was or is true, writes Jonah Shepp. Iran was nowhere near developing a nuclear weapon or ICBMs, according to the assessments of the U.S. intelligence community and credible independent experts. Still, Trump has continued to insist that the Iranian nuclear threat was grave and imminent and furthermore that his war has ensured the elimination of that threat.

But after ten weeks of war, amid a tenuous cease-fire and worsening standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, the prospects for either a military or negotiated resolution to the conflict seem dim. “In the longer term,” writes Shepp, “the war could amplify the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran by increasing the Iranian regime’s determination to pursue a bomb even while damaging its technical capability to do so.”

Read Shepp’s full column: https://nymag.visitlink.me/5KF1dp

12/05/2026

Artist Michele Petrelli “Looting of the Innocents”

‘Looting of the Innocents is a raw allegory of the systematic despoliation of the younger generations carried out by a predatory power devoid of vision, representing not an act of spontaneous violence but a calculated process of dehumanization. The Deceptive Guide, embodied by the fox, represents institutions that, wearing a mask of reassuring concern, lead the youth toward the abyss, turning the outstretched hand into a dragging bond and the manipulation of curiosity into blind obedience. The Ferocious Folly of the jester personifies a ruling class that has lost every trace of far-sighted intelligence, manifesting the indifference of those who govern without understanding long-term consequences and enjoying power as an end in itself. The Parasitic Greed of the thief-the crouching monkey snarling over the stolen shoes— symbolizes the momentary profit that devours the foundations of the future, as stealing the shoes means removing the foothold, the rational stability, and the ability to walk autonomously in the world. At the center of the work, the child is the only figure emanating light, yet it is a captive light: the blindfold symbolizes the rupture from culture and historical awareness, while the naked feet represent the extreme vulnerability of those deprived of solid contact with their own land and rights. The painting thus denounces a deliberate global choice aimed at rendering the intellectual territory of the youth arid to make them easier to plunder, sucking away every vital resource to feed a monstrous present and leaving behind only an unfillable void.’