Light Shadows -36

We had a bad hailstorm back in May while I was in Germany. They are replacing the roof shingles this week.

Game, Set And Match

Perfect answer to the absurdity of building Trump's vanity wall.

The Parable of The Trump Voter

a wolf met a spring lamb
drinking at a stream
and said to her
you are the lamb
that muddied this stream
all last year
so i could not get
a clean fresh drink
i am resolved that
this outrage
shall not be enacted again
this season
i am going to kill you
just a moment
said the lamb
i was not born last
year so it could not
have been i
the wolf then pulled
 a number of other
arguments as to why the lamb
should die
but in each case the lamb
pretty innocent that she was
easily proved herself guiltless
well well said the wolf
enough of arguments
you are right and i am wrong
but i am going to eat you anyhow
because i am hungry
stop exclamation point
cried a human voice
and a man came over
the slope of the ravine
vile lupine marauder
you shall not kill that
beautiful innocent lamb
for i shall save her
exit the wolf
left upper entrance
snarling
poor little lamb
continued our human hero
sweet tender little thing
it is well that i appeared
just when i did
it makes my blood boil
to think of the fright
to which you have been
subjected in another
moment i would have been
too late come home with me
and the lamb frolicked
about her new found friend
gamboling as to the sound
of a wordsworthian tabor
and leaping for joy
as if propelled by a stanza
from william blake
these vile and bloody wolves
went on our hero
in honest indignation
they must be cleared out
of the country
the meads must be made safe
for sheepocracy
and so jollying her along
with the usual human hokum
he led her to his home
and the son of a gun
did not even blush when they passed the mint bed
gently he cut her throat
all the while inveighing
against the inhuman wolf
and tenderly he cooked her
and lovingly he sauced her
and meltingly he ate her
thanking his gods
for their bountiful gifts to him
and after dinner
he sat with his pipe
before the fire meditating
on the brutality of wolves
and the injustice of
the universe
which allows them to harry
poor innocent lambs
and wondering if he
had not better write to the papers
for as he said
for god s sake can t something be done about it 
                                                                        archy

(From Archy and Mehitabel by Don Marquis (1927))

For your edification- The wolf is fear mongering and was never really there. The lamb represents Trump voters, and the human is, of course, Donald Trump.

Merry Christmas

Oh tidings of comfort and joy
Comfort and joy
Oh tidings of comfort and joy

This Summer I Hear The Drumming

These are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
-Thomas Paine (1737 - 1809) American political activist, philosopher, political theorist and revolutionary.


I have voted in every city, state, and federal primary and election I have been entitled to since 1972. My mother taught me to never vote a straight ticket but instead to vote for the person who I thought would do the best job.

This advise came from a woman who was a diehard Democrat. I was also a registered Democrat until about 20 years ago when I switched to unaffiliated. Even though I wasn't part of either major political party, I still adhered to my mother's advice. This year will be different. This year I will be voting a straight Democratic ticket since this election is too important to do anything else. Our craven Republican Congress must lose control of both the House and the Senate if we are going to continue as a democratic nation.

This Republican Congress has put their party before country, Donald Trump before national security, law and order before the Constitution, and the rich and corporations before the people. It advocates a Christian form of sharia law and a fascist form of government where the checks and balances written into the Constitution is overridden by presidential executive orders.

It has a Senate leader who quashes any legislation that threatens that power instead of letting the democratic process function the way it is supposed to function. The Republican Party has lost its way and should no longer be a major political party. I am going to do my part in making this happen by using my greatest weapon, my vote. You must do the same.

Vote-let Donald Trump, this Republican administration and this Republican Congress know we reject their cowardly, venal, corrupt, bullying ways.

Vote- no matter what, don't throw away your greatest weapon.

Who Are You? Who, Who, Who, Who?

When Trump went off script during his Naval Academy commencement address, he repeated himself, rambled, bragged about himself, and, unconsciously, told us a lot about his fears and insecurities :

-Thank you. Thank you. Hello, midshipmen, hello ( Let me say to the entire brigade—please be at ease—enjoy yourselves, because we are all here to celebrate the amazing class of 2018.) Amazing job. Thank you. Really something.

-for the record, this year, Navy beat Army 19 times. And I will not mention, I promised, who won the football game. I will not mention it. I refuse to say it. But that is a great achievement.

-And let me take a guess, you are still not tired of winning. Winning is such a great feeling, isn’t it? Winning is such a great feeling.

- Hello, folks, back there.

-(Victory.) A very important word.

- And we are respected again, I can tell you that. We are respected again. A lot of things have happened. We are respected again.

-(Bruce Voorhees.) Well-known all over.

-(he spent most of his time teaching the city slickers from the east the correct pronunciation of Nevada.) And I had to learn that, too, to win the state. Great place.

-(he was just like you in many ways.) Just like you. Not a lot of difference.

-(and 35) very tough, very well conditioned (Navy SEALs.)

-And in case you have not noticed, we have become a lot stronger lately. A lot.

- No money for the military? Those days are over.

-you have read all about it,

-a $700 billion, largest-ever amount of money to support our great war fighters. And I might add that next year—the $700 billion, not million. They’re liking the sound of million, but billion is better-the $700 billion goes to $716 billion,

-and we are going to be stronger than ever before. We will have the strongest military that we have ever had, and it won’t even be close. And when did we need it more than now?

-That means new ships. You like that. We have now the lowest number of ships we have had since World War I. And very soon, we are going to get to 355 beautiful ships. That is almost a couple of hundred more ships. So you will be around for a long time. We are not running out of equipment. We’re not running out of ships. And that has been approved. And we are honored by it.

--(You are going to have new equipment, and well-deserved pay raises. We just got to a big pay raise for the first time in 10 years). We got to a big pay increase, first time in over 10 years. I fought for you. That was the hardest one to get. But you never had a chance of losing.

-We are going to take care of our veterans. We are doing a great job with it. We are taking care, finally, after decades, we are taking care of our veterans.

- (We passed VA accountability.) Everybody said it could not be done. If you didn’t do a good job, ou could not get fired. Now, you don’t do a good job and take care of our veterans, they will look you in the eye and they say, “Jim, you’re fired! You’re out! Out!” Get him out of here. They all said you could not get it. They tried to get it for 35 years. We will say, “Get him out of here, he doesn’t take care of our vets.”

-And hopefully, we never have to use all of this beautiful, new, powerful equipment. But you know, you are less likely to have to use it if you have it and know how to work it. And nobody knows how to work it like you.

-(Victory, winning,) beautiful words, but that is what it is all about.

-(We are rebuilding our defense industrial base to forge American iron, aluminum, and steel,) which, by the way, we just put tariffs on when it comes in from other countries. Okay? We are taking in a lot of money now, our country. They pay that big, beautiful tariff and it goes right into building new ships.

-(Don’t give up the ship.) Famous phrase. We even use it in business. Things are going bad, you say, “Don’t give up the ship.” Keep fighting. Don’t give up the ship. But it’s really—you guys started it.

- (“Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead.”) Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead.

- What should I do? What should I do? I’ll stay. I’ll stay. I will stay.

This Little Light Of Mine, I'm Gonna Let It Shine

I followed this car for a couple of miles at lunchtime and we finally got stopped by road construction. Now you know why America is so messed up. It's because we are messed up. Those who love and admire Jesus are aggressive, hateful, and dismissive as hell. The irony is they do not see the irony in that.

Top left- You Give Peace A Chance

               I Will Cover You When It Doesn't Work

Top middle- Do You Follow Jesus This Close ?

Top right- You Have Your Family
                 I Have Mine
(Above a row of assault rifles and handguns)

Bottom left- Get Off My Ass Before I Inflate Your Airbags

Bottom middle- I Miss John Wayne & Real America Values
(With profile of John Wayne in a cowboy hat.)

Bottom right- Box with Cross (Pro God), Box with Gun (Pro Gun), Box with Heart (Pro Life), Box with Obama for President logo and a line drawn through it (Anti-Obama).

Under licence plate- I Miss John Wayne

S'Wonderful

I drove down to Denver today to have lunch with my sister at the Punchbowl Social in the old air traffic control tower at Stapleton. (Tip- if you are a grown up without any children, eat in the bar on the second level.)  After that we went to Rare Finds Warehouse which has furniture and an eclectic bunch of stuff.  We spend almost a couple of hours wandering around looking at everything. And then I saw this:

So now I am a proud owner of my own piece of Denver history.  This five-loaf pan still has bits of crust attached around the top edges.  The darn thing weighs about 10 pounds.

Cosby Found Guilty As Sexual Assault Awareness Month Comes To An End

I know this is a snarky headline but Caitlin Doughty is even better at snark than I am.

Read article about guilty verdict here.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Yesterday with 40 MPH winds and over-tilled soil.

Today.