Bear; Don, Jr; Wray Senate Hearing; Joe Scarborough

Well, I'm sorry to report that the black bear that tried to munch on the 19-year-old guy's head near Ward, Colorado, has been killed by the Department of Wildlife.   -  I still want to know what the guy had in, or on, his hair when the bear bit him.  Bears do not, in normal circumstances, bite or attack sleeping people.  They might attack if they feel endangered, or a sow will attack, if her cubs are threatened - but to wander into a camp and just bite a man's head?!?!?!  Never heard of before.  Did he have food in his tent?  I am very upset that this happened - and especially upset that the bear was killed.

   So the President's Junior has admitted to meeting with a Russian lawyer - and having Jared Kushner, his brother-in-law, and the campaign manager, Paul Manafort - at the NYC T Tower, on my birthday in 2016.  How disgusting.  And how very stupid.  Even more egregiously idiotic was to release the string of e-mails to the public....   He thought he was healping his Dad - and was extremely happy to "get the dirt" on Hilary Clinton, his Dad's opponent.  But these e-mails state that this information is coming from Putin and the Russian government - and Junior embraces it.  That makes him a traitor.  He carbon-copied the e-mails and his responses to Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort prior to their meeting with the Russian lawyer - which makes them traitors.  All three have committed treason to our country.
   Of course, the lawyer who met with the three, and who is married to a Russian Intelligence officer, states that she only came to the US to talk about adoption sanctions - and that she has absolutely no ties to the Kremlin.  How can she claim she has no ties to the Kremlin when her husband is an Intelligence agent for them?  What a laugh!

   I tried to watch the beginning of the Christopher Wray Confirmation Hearing as the new Director of the FBI.  Unfortunately, Senator Chuck Grassley's reading of his own opening statement was so boring, long-winded, and full of incorrect reading followed by self-corrections, that I had to turn the channel off  before anyone else was able to speak, let alone ask and/or answer questions...   I'll be looking at the highlights later, since I can't stand to listen to him now.  -  I did just run out and listen to Senator Lindsey Graham's questioning of Mr. Wray.  It was good, it was probing, and it was intelligent....  Good questions, good answers.

   And, after listening to Joe Scarborough's comments for this past year, I was not surprised by his announcement that he is/has left the Republican party, and is now a registered Independent voter.  He has stated that listening to some of his former colleagues in Congress changing their words every day to go along with the 45th Administration's beliefs and ideals, has shaken his faith and his own belief in the Republican Party.  Joe, I salute you.

Snippets

A 19-year-old boy/man is making the news here-abouts because he says he awoke to "a crunching sound" and realized that his "head was inside the mouth of a black bear."  He was camping with a group of people at a ranch about 12 miles northwest of here.  He started yelling and punching the bear and it released him and ran off.  He definitely has bite marks on his forehead and other campers definitely saw the bear leaving the area.  But, looking at the marks, I'd say it was a yearling or two-year-old black bear, definitely not a full grown adult.  And I also want to ask the question - what did the guy have on his hair that enticed the bear to try a sample?  Bears go after food - they do not just bite someone for no reason....
    The 45th President is still changing his story about his meeting with Putin almost hourly.  And now he's saying that James Comey released top secret intelligence...  The man is so full of feces that it's a huge embarrassment to my country.
    Republican Colorado Senator Cory Gardner, who was one of the 13 GOP Senators to work behind closed doors on the ACA replacement, never showed his face to his constituents during the Congressional break.  He refused to hold any meetings, he cancelled a planned and announced appearance in a local 4th of July parade, and he never went to his office in downtown Denver.  People from Colorado, half of them with disabilities and members of ADAPT, had a sit-in at his office.  He had Denver police place a lock-down on the floor his office was on, and, as people tried to leave, they were arrested for obstruction of public property.  During the lock-down, emergency personnel were denied entry onto the floor the office was located on, and demonstrators asked what would have happened if there had been a medical emergency.  Gardner's representatives just shrugged.

    I am missing not going to Chincoteague Island this summer, having gone for the past two.  Up until I moved to Colorado in 2004, I had missed only two Pony Pennings since I was born.  Once here, I then missed 11 in a row, and then I was there again, for the 2015 and 2016 Homecoming.  Missing it this year is hard, but I plan on being there next year.  Next year, my filly will be a three-year-old, and I'll want to see her proportions and conformation again with my own eyes.  I am hoping that she will not be an "early mother" and have a baby at three; I hope that she will be able to grow to her full stature and not reproduce until she is four or five years old.
   In the meantime, I'm learning to use my new digital camera with the zoom lens, so I can once again take the photos that I want.  I'm practicing on local wildlife and things seen in Rocky Mountain National Park.
    The rhythms of the sea, the sounds of shorebirds, the baking beach sands, and the smell of marsh mud are, as always, pulling me back to the islands....