London but no foxes but a cat

I'm still waiting to see a fox or four in the backyard. M. Lee saw a mom and three juveniles when he was here in the spring so it's only fair but, so far, no foxes for me. The only critters who have graced the backyard of this airbnb is one American squirrel who eats the rose hips and the next door cat who drops by to poop.

Unfinished pieces

Went to the Louvre today. My favorite pieces were two unfinished sculptures of slaves abandoned by Michelangelo, beautiful work but a grim topic for sure.

Toledo for daggers

We're now launched on a 5.5 month stay in Europe. For the first three weeks my daughter and her family will be with us. Last week we stayed at an airbnb in Madrid. From there are three World Heritage sites within an hour of the city by train so it's an excellent base. Never mind the temperature hovered around 105° the entire time, the hottest in the city's recorded history, we visited a thousand year-old castle, 800 year-old cathedrals, 2000 year-old Roman walls, roads, and shrines stuffed with saints bones and the skulls of long dead Catholic Cardinals however, the big event was visiting Fabrica Zamorano, the shop of Mariano Zamorano, master sword smith of Toledo.

For just under $1000, Clark bought four daggers,
gifts for his two daughters, his wife, and one for himself.

Now we're in good old London where it's about 40° cooler and raining.

Don't mess with the press - 4th of July - America

Front page - Medford Mail Tribune - July 4, 2018

What is it about

FREEDOM and JUSTICE FOR ALL

that the Party of Trump doesn't like?

Oh yeah.
That's right . . .
the part about
FREEDOM and JUSTICE
FOR ALL.

Demonstration against the ICE incarceration of
1000s of refugee children being ripped from their
parent's arms who are now lost in internment camps
throughout America.
Medford, Oregon, USA - 06.30.2018

Don't be silent.

Vote.

Donate what you can of your
time, energy, talent, and resources
including cold, hard cash.

Call your representatives.

We can do together
what we can not do alone . . .

STOP

this compromised, neo-fascist President
and his spineless, neo-fascist Republican Party
from continuing to undermine our Democracy.

Jon Stewart Is Ready To Negotiate With Donald Trump

Summer Solstice 2018

Thunder and rain all night and now a cloudy, humid morning. It's almost feels tropical but this is Portland Oregon so I'm not counting on seeing a blue sky today on this, the official beginning of Summer now duly noted.

With over 2500 children currently imprisoned in internment camps by Trump and the Republicans and no end in sight, just fuckwad's useless magic marker scrawl on yet another impotent "executive order", I feel hypocritical and sad even mentioning summer as it calls to mind childhood and the golden days of summer but it is the beginning of summer so somehow make it count for good.

Common ground in the Era of Trump & Republican child internment camps and baby jails

In this darkest moment of Republican children internment camps, this twitter post from Steve Schmidt is a must read. If Republican baby jails isn't a wake up call and turning point, America is doomed.

Steve Schmidt
29 years and nine months ago I registered to vote and became a member of The Republican Party which was founded in 1854 to oppose slavery and stand for the dignity of human life. Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump. It is corrupt, indecent and immoral. With the exception of a few Governors like Baker, Hogan and Kasich it is filled with feckless cowards who disgrace and dishonor the legacies of the party’s greatest leaders. This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history. It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. It is immoral and must be repudiated. Our country is in trouble. Our politics are badly broken.

The first step to a season of renewal in our land is the absolute and utter repudiation of Trump and his vile enablers in the 2018 election by electing Democratic majorities. I do not say this as an advocate of a progressive agenda. I say it as someone who retains belief in DEMOCRACY and decency. On Ronald Reagan’s grave are these words. “ I know in my heart that man is good. That what is right will always eventually triumph and there is purpose and worth to each and every life.” He would be ashamed of McConnell and Ryan and all the rest while this corrupt government establishes internment camps for babies. Everyone of these complicit leaders will carry this shame through history. There legacies will be ones of well earned ignominy. They have disgraced their country and brought dishonor to the Party of Lincoln.

I have spent much of my life working in GOP politics. I have always believed that both parties were two of the most important institutions to the advancement of human freedom and dignity in the history of the world. Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and values. This Independent voter will be aligned with the only party left in America that stands for what is right and decent and remains fidelitous to our Republic, objective truth, the rule of law and our Allies. That party is the Democratic Party.

The crashing sky

Finally . . . 19:30 GMT (7:30 PM) . . .  and I have managed to crawl out from under the crashing sky of America one more time.

Seems I get sucked into that shit show at least once a day . . . 

... US Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III claiming he's doing "god's work" ripping children from their parent's arms at the border ... and Trump pretending Democrats are making them do it.

...Trump saluting North Korean generals and praising murderous dictator Kim Jung Un as a "pretty smart cookie" with a "very good personality"...

... lies swarming from his mouth are like great gray clouds of terminates rising from the foundation of a rotting house.

It's exhausting.

Through the glass

The South should just secede from the Union, erect a wall around itself and be done with it. They could have all the guns they crave ... machine guns, cannons, bazookas, ground to air missiles, bombs, whatever ... replace science class with bible study, deport anyone with skin darker than a peanut and worship Trump as the divine messenger they know him to be.

But I did go for a bike ride today. That helped. We're in Portland, Oregon at the moment. We rode down to the Sellwood bridge and along the way discovered the Portland Puppet Museum. That was a bright spot in the day. Swami would love it. Closest people to his friends at Artist's House in Bangkok.

Kafka

The girl who waits and watches

I got back on Wednesday after three weeks in Oregon visiting family. We unloaded the car and then I put a few peanuts out in the Bird Park. Good old Maggie, the 7 o'clock magpie. She showed up almost immediately. I love that bird. She's always appears with the 24 hours after I get home, even if I've been gone for months.

—William Moore—
Murdered between
the 9th & 14th of Dec. 1900

The next day Minerva the crow and her magpie partner appeared and, as I was watching them, it occurred to me that Minerva's companion doesn't have a name which is odd because they've been coming to the Bird Park together for years. He should have a name by now. For two days I couldn't come up with a thing then this afternoon, while strolling through the local graveyard, it came to me . . . Kafka, Kafka the magpie.

Au revoir

Henri, Le Chat Noir has retired. I weep.



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Henri's first video, 2006

Do

The word "do" entered our language sometime before 900 CE and although it's only two letters long it is incredibly nuanced. Whatever did we do before we got do?

There Is No White Jesus | Famalam

I doubt many in Trump's evangelical base realize that Jesus was a black man in the middle east . . .

Rest in peace, Sudan. I am so sorry.

Sudan, the last northern white rhino has died. His death leaves only two females of his subspecies alive in the world, his daughter and granddaughter and they are too inbred to conceive.

RIP Sudan :-(

Poachers and the black market animal horn trade is responsible for this pending extinction. And why? Because there is still a market for rhino horn on the bullshit folk or traditional Asian "medicine" market. Horns are believed to give a sexually impaired man big stiffies. It's a lie. Traditional "medicine" so-called doctors and herbalists add Viagra to the mix and sell the compound to fools and now the northern white rhino has paid the ultimate price. For this same reason, elephants are in line to go extinct as well as all the other horned animals in the world.

I just can not comprehend why we have not yet internationally stopped this criminal, immoral, unethical, cruel, deceptive trade. Oh, that's right! Unscrupulous shit-heel politicians are making money on it. The situation has reached such a critical juncture I seriously entertain the idea that idea that dealers and poachers should be sentenced to death and buyers should receive massive fines and serious jail time. Oh, and maybe give shit-heel politicians some or all of the penalties too. There's an idea.

Last moments of Sudan's life

Rest in peace, Sudan. Words cannot convey how sorry I am for what my species as done to yours.

Bird ways

Quail really don't mind body contact. In fact, bumping, cuddling and squeezing in is a major part of life in the covey. If two quail are drinking wing to wing at the water bowl, a third one would just as well squeeze in between them than find an open spot. Same when they are grazing seed under the butterfly bushes. They cluster and continually bump into each other and, except when they are chest bumping and chasing each other in dizzying circles, they act like one big soft gray feathery body sharing a single mind.

Nobody else who comes to the Bird Park does this. The magpie swoop and dive each other in a semi-congenial fashion, the lordly crows and ravens have the breakfast table to themselves, the little birds either battle or ignore each other all together, and the starlings gobble like they are competing for scraps in a madhouse. Only the mourning doves and pigeons eat together without boast or incident.

Cambridge Analytica