*I really liked that song Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer by Nat King Cole when I was in elementary school.
Don’t know if you can make out the details in the above picture, but this is artwork that mimics reality. It is located in Centennial Park.
This is a picture of a click beetle. I thought I had never seen a click beetle before, but I had. The ones I’ve seen in the past were solid black and did not have the eyespots. I never got close enough to them to know that these beetles “click” when threatened! This is the eastern eyed click beetle which is sometimes seen in this area and reminds me of the cyber worms used by the Cybermen in Doctor Who!
I was in the car on the way home when the debate started between the putative candidates. I noted what many noted…Biden had facts; #45 had lies. If #45’s lips were moving, he was lying. Seems like the media has finally begun to note #45’ws propensity to lie. That is good, but how can a liar, no matter how confident win a debate? It was heartening to see that the President did not lose support because of what critics are saying was a failed delivery. Seems like the President was not to deliver facts but was to appear “not old”. I’m glad the President spoke and reminded people that yes he is old and that in no way hinders him from knowing and communicating the facts.
Part of the problem in the United States is its obsession with youth and lack of veneration of those who have aged. Aging is a fact of life. With aging comes limitations, sometimes physical and/or mental. And, sometimes with age comes wisdom that can only be gained through lived experience. As I do not want to live in a country led by a vengeful narcissist who has no character or morals and who has told us that he will be a dictator, that he will bow down to christian nationalists and their plan to turn this country into a theocracy, that he will promote policies that will turn back the clock on my rights as a woman, as a Black person, and that the government under him will no longer protect my life, liberty, and happiness as set forth in Project 2025… #45 will never receive my vote.
We already have a Supreme Court of ideologues who have been bought by the rich and who appear to be intent on doing their part to implement Project 2025. The United States has a dysfunctional legislative branch and there is no way that any meaningful legislation will be passed to explain how any legislation on the books is to be implemented. See, https://www.npr.org/2024/06/10/nx-s1-4998861/supreme-court-chevron-doctrine.
But Republicans want chaos–that is the reason no legislation was passed regarding the border. Chaos, real or imagined, is used to exacerbate the fears of the impressionable MAGA ignorants to keep them voting against their interests.
And the MAGA judges will do their duty by ruling for the rich and the corporations. You’d think the coal miners would remember their fathers and grandfathers who died of black lung disease while in the employ of coal companies that had no care for them as they were expendable replaceable cogs. But, most of us who live in the United States have very short memories and the Republicans want to ensure that no history is taught so they can rewrite history to justify their insatiable greed and power mongering.
Two days ago I went into a crumbling dilapidated smokehouse that, in the past, was featured in a number of my nightmares. I remember when I was maybe eight or nine, a huge snake was found there. My mother called a neighbor who, at some point, plowed the corn fields and planted the tobacco, to deal with the snake. He shot the snake and I remember he showed us the corpse which was draped over the gun’s barrel before he tossed it into the pigpen.
Now, I know the snake was not poisonous…the neighbor said it was a chicken snake, whatever that is. I think he said it ate the eggs and the hen house was attached to the smokehouse. Made sense at the time. Eggs were for us, not snakes.
When I lived there, the smokehouse was never used to smoke meat, but the smell from past smokings lingered. Anyway, the smokehouse is now open and anyone could access it and steal the contents. There were some crocks that my mother used to make sauerkraut and pickles, a jug that was used to store homemade whiskey, an iron kettle, and some old fashioned irons. I’ll have to clean up the rusted items. My sister wanted one of the crocks. Maybe a dried flower arrangement in the crock? Have to think about that.
Also, in front of the henhouse were a few blackberry bushes. We picked about a pint of ripe berries. The birds and snakes will get the rest.
Inner City Blues–Marvin Gaye (with a slight revision by me)
Rockets, moon shots
Spend it on the have-gots
Money, we make it
‘Fore we see it, you take it
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