Various Assorted Photos

French President-elect Emmanuel Macron

Caroline Kennedy, President Barack Obama, and Michelle Obama

at the JFK Profile in Courage Award presentation

Lastest new baby (# 28) Sashay Lady and Prince  (sex unknown at the moment)

Yes, indeed!  Step right up - invest $500,000 and receive a visa for 

the United States through the Kushner family...

White House beer party celebration for passing AHCA by 3 votes...

Five Native American tribes worked together with officials for 8 years

to have Bears Ears declared a National Monument

The EPA Administrator just announced he's replacing half of the members

of the Scientific Board of Counselors who oversee testing results.

A Few Personal Observations

I was happy yesterday to learn that Emmanuel Macron was the new President-elect of France, even though the young man was born three years after I graduated from high school, and while I was still in college...
    I missed the first hour of the JFK Profiles in Courage Award presentation last night, but Caroline Kennedy's speech made me laugh and cry.  Then her son, Jack Schlossberg, made me cry.  And, finally, President Obama made me laugh and cry.  I don't know about the first half of the program, but the last hour was truly incredible and extremely moving.  I want to thank everyone involved in that presentation.
   The count of new foals on the southern end of Assateague reached 28 Sunday.  And each and every foal is remarkably good-looking.  One little girl is a little over at the knees, but I'm pretty certain that will straighten out...  And it looks like Surf Queen is pregnant this year.  After the death of Surfer Dude, and the birth of Surfer Princess, she did not have a 2016 foal.  I'm glad she took at least one year off from reproducing.  The thing is, she was running around with almost every stallion on the north end last summer and fall, and then was leading an all girl gang - so who's the daddy?  She is currently with Hoppy...
     Forty-five and his cronies had a little beer party celebration in the White House Rose Garden to celebrate the House of Representatives passing of a "new health care bill"  by three (3 !) votes.  Has America forgotten that the bill now has to go to the Senate for voting, and then to the joint committees, and then back to the House, and again to the Senate, for approval before the tangerine tyrant can sign it into law?  What the heck were they celebrating?  It's something that would equal the weight of a mosquito - and it's just as squashable.
    The orange and yellow pricktator spoke in New York City Friday and was greeted with thousands of protesters.  He didn't even visit his wife or youngest son.  He stayed the weekend in Bedminster, New Jersey, and tweeted that it was "saving the country money."  If he'd stayed in the White House, it would have cost a hell of a lot less, but it was $1.5 million less than a trip to Florida...
    Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke has spent the weekend visiting two National Monuments in Utah - Bears Ears and the Grand Stairway-Escalante - to decide on whether or not he'll recommend to rescind the National Monument protection for those two areas.   There is an very rich and large coal deposit in the middle of Grand Staircase- Escalante; and there are multiple oil and natural gas deposits inside Bears Ears.  I bet he'll advocate for mining and drilling - raping the earth, instead of preserving it.
    I am looking forward to Sally Yates testimony before the Senate Judiciary committee this morning about her visit to the White House regarding ex-staffer Michael Flynn.  I hope to hear new and impeachable things from the previous Attorney General.
    I had thought that the antics of the family members of 45 could no longer surprise me - but learning that a few weeks ago, and this weekend too, of the Kushner family's presentations to monied peoples of Beijing, China and Shanghai threw me for a loop.  If any of these people with a great deal of money invested in the Kushner real estate businesses in those cities, they could get a special visa (an EB-5) to come to America.  Of course, one must invest $500,000 for each visa received.  To me, that smacks of buying the right to a visa - not applying for one.
    And, finally, it was announced last night that the new Environmental Protection Agency Administrator, Scott Pruitt, has decided to replace half of the current members of the 18 member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises EPA's scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and upstanding integrity.  All of the members being dismissed are at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these are often renewed and not terminated.  And all of those being dismissed had been told in February that their terms would be renewed.  Pruitt says that this is to ensure "a clean break with the Obama administration."  The Republican party and the Koch brothers are trying their best to kill Mother Earth - and she is not replaceable.

Photos - Martin Luther King, Jr and John Lewis

1963 March on Washington:  (l-r) Whitney Young Jr; Martin Luther King Jr;

Walter Reuther; Eugene Carson Blake; John Lewis

Doctor King at the microphones - 1963

Martin Luther King, Jr (center) and John Lewis (right)

A smiling Reverend King

The man down on the grass is John Lewis being attacked on Bloody Sunday

Mug shots taken of John Lewis in Nashville, Tennessee -

opponents tried to use these against him when he first ran for Congress

President Obama presenting the Medal of Freedom to Representative

John Lewis in 2010

A Brief Break From Pony Penning...

Boulder has had a week of cool, humid weather, which has been a great help to our fire fighters.  Yesterday was the first anniversary of the Aurora theater shooting, and local news media have been covering the dead and survivors intensely; the police, firemen, EMTs, etc. are still under a "gag order"  from the judge in the shooter's court case.  The man is pleading not guilty by reason of insanity.  If he was insane during all of the planning and actual doing of these deeds, then I am my own great-grandmother....
   I cried listening to President Obama's address to the Press Corps about Trayvon Martin.  Having grown up in the segregated South, I knew what he was talking about and felt sadness.  The next day I was amazed when I read a comment that the President was half  black, so he should have identified more with George Zimmerman, who is half Hispanic.  Then the writer went on to state that the President "had chosen to be viewed as a black man, and not a white man," and, thus, any ensuing difficulties the President had faced was due to his choice of being black.  My jaw dropped.  With President Obama's genetic make-up, which dictated the color of his skin and the texture of his hair, Obama would have been ridiculed had he even tried to pass himself off as a Caucasian.  I am still shaking my head over the announcement that the President "chose to be black" -  it's just plain stupid.
*****
 The southern herds on Assateague Island were rounded up yesterday afternoon.  Surfer Dude and his band of mares and foals, the bachelor boys, and a group of yearlings are now corralled near Tom's Cove in the main holding pens.  The northern herds are being rounded up today.  Each and every pony will be individually checked by Dr. Cameron (and/or his associates) in the holding pens.  Mares that are close to foaling, and mares with extremely young foals will be separated and trailered to the Carnival Grounds, to ensure their safety.  A few of the trouble makers - fighters, biters, and a few natural jumpers - might be left behind on Assateague when the rest of the ponies come to Chincoteague.
  All foals will have their blood drawn and tested for communicable diseases, so that buyers can confidently take their new ponies home across state lines.  The ponies will swim the Assateague Channel during slack tide (when the tidal current will not carry them out to sea) on Wednesday; the current projected time is slack High tide, between 10  and noon.  On Thursday, the foals will be auctioned, with all proceeds going to the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company for fire fighting equipment and training, and for EMT training and ambulances. (Remember, the closest hospitals to Chincoteague are 60 miles away in either direction.)  On Friday, the reduced herd will swim back to Assateague. -  This is the 88th Annual Pony Swim and Auction.
 

September Sunday

I spent last night sleeping with the Skipper - he's awfully warm.  But I had just spent 4 hours combing out his hair, and he had been very gracious about it, so when he wanted to sleep with me, I couldn't refuse.  I awoke off and on during the night and early morning because he was licking my hand -  I guess it felt nice not to have any mats or dread-locks.  When I arose this morning, he meowed me all the way to the kitchen to get his breakfast...  He's a sweetheart.  He's developed some behavioral problems lately, but I think they are due to the bouncing hulk of Finn, who loves to pin Skippy down with one paw and slobber all over him.  In any event, Skippy was a good buddy last night.
  Lovey and Nedi have had breakfast and are out chasing bugs in the back yard.  I've also taken care of Ooch this morning.  I have a ticket to go see President Obama today, but I'm getting the beginnings of a migraine, and I think I'm going to have to pass on this opportunity - between the heat, the crowds, and the crowd noise, I'm not sure I can take it all.
  All of the football (college) teams I root for won over the past three days; except the CU Buffs, who lost the Colorado Challenge to CSU.  That game was in Denver, and not here in Boulder, thank goodness.  Next Saturday is the first home game for CU, but I'll be staying at Alexy's; and next Sunday is the Boulder Buffalo Bicycle Road Race, so I'll try to avoid that, too.
  We lost a great thoroughbred race horse and sire on the night of the last blue moon.  Theatrical, the 30-year-old son of Nureyev, was put down due to the infirmities of old age.  He had been pensioned as a stallion in 2009.  But I remember him in his prime, racing for Allan Paulsen, and as North American Horse of the Year in 1987.  The racing world has lost a great one.