This and That Miscellany

Our family moved to Gainesville, Florida in July of 1961; Dad had retired after 22 years in the Navy, was going to get a teaching degree at the University of Florida  using the GI Bill, and I had just turned 5 years old.  Dad wanted to live in "a place where I never have to shovel snow again," and he had been stationed at Vero Beach and at Whiting Field, near Pensacola.  I spent my school years, except the summers, in Gainesville, and I also attended the University of Florida after graduation from high school.  We lived in the south east section of Gainesville, a relatively poor section of town, outside the city limits.  We were friends with people of all colors, races, and religion.  We frequently traveled to the island of Cedar Key, in Levy County, in the Gulf of Mexico.  I had no idea we were going through what would have been the town of Rosewood, were it still standing.  In 1982, information about Rosewood and the horrific racial injustice that happened there became common knowledge.  Today, I was saddened by reading a newspaper article about the last house in Rosewood, and I am wondering what it's fate might be....   Please read this article.  I wish I had the means to purchase, keep, and develop this building and the land around it, for the sake of all people who have had to withstand injustice - including the current owner.  Her story, too, is heart-rending...    http://www.tampabay.com/data/2018/06/06/the-last-house-in-rosewood/

  Justify, the newly honored Triple Crown Champion, has returned to Churchill Downs and seems to have no ill effects from such a compacted major schedule.  He ran in his first race 112 days before he won the Belmont, and won the 13th Triple Crown in 100 years.  He will appear for racing fans on Saturday, June 16, in the paddock and on the track.  Then he will travel back to Santa Anita, his home base.
   And I had to laugh out loud at  an owner of another horse in the Belmont Stakes, who claimed that Justify's stablemate, who is not even owned by the same people, was sent out to "run interference" for the big chestnut.  Restoring Hope bolted at the start, under jockey Florent Geroux, went wide on the first turn and then moved back closer to the rail.  He finished 8th.  The horse usually runs back in the middle of the field and then runs in the later stages. 

  And the orange turkey in the White House seems to loose more marbles every day...  First the G7 Summit, where he wanted his pal Vladi reinstated, and then refusing to agree to the final compact.  Then he insults all of the members, except Abe of Japan, and tries to belittle and beat down Justin Trudeau of Canada.  He leaves early to go to Singapore to met with Kim Jong Un, where he gives the North Korean dictator everything he wants, and gets nothing in return for our country.  Stopping the US-South Korea war games is a significant concession to Kim, and to receive in return only a promise of a "complete" denuclearization - rather than the complete, verifiable, and irreversible kind to which the current administration has been referring in the entire lead-up to this summit - is NOT enough, in the immediate term.
Not to mention two of the orange majesty's comments in a news conference about the meeting: 
1:  "Honestly, I think he's going to do these things.  I may be wrong, I mean I may stand before you in six months and say, hey, I was wrong - I don't know that I'll ever admit that, but I'll find some kind of an excuse."
2:  "As an example, they have great beaches.  You see that whenever they're exploding their cannons into the ocean, right?  I said, "Boy, look at that view.  Wouldn't that make a great condo?"  And I explained, I said, instead of doing that you could have the best hotels in the world right there.  Think of it from a real estate perspective.  You have South Korea, you have China, and they own the land in the middle.  How bad is that, right?  It's great."