Grandmother is a color person, she likes it and not bashful in saying so.
When it comes to black and white photos that isn’t where her preference lies, though there are those she appreciates for the drama they can deliver.
In seeing the “birthday flower” in black and white she needed to ruminate for a moment but decided that she does like it and encouraged me to post it since I’d previously posted the color version.
So a little tweak here, a little tweak there and here it is.
I’ve never issued a photo challenge like those you’ll see on other blogs and don’t expect I will though I can appreciate them.
But I would issue a sort of taste test “challenge” that should be very easy to meet – it being to do a side by side taste comparison between the GMO produce featured in grocery stores and an organically grown pesticide free item.
The difference is nothing short of remarkable.
The above photo of cherry tomatoes is an example – they are hands down light years ahead of their GMO counterparts in taste and nutritional value.
I think a lot of stores have dropped the ball in the midst of promoting organic foods by pricing some segment of the population out of the market, but I also believe the vast majority of people are capable of planting a little garden in their yard or community to offset that and in doing so do themselves, their families, and the environment a good turn.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
I think to begin with an essential premise to understand is that all governments and their agencies lie.
They always have, and if the past is prologue there’s no reason to believe they won’t continue to.
For all the discussions about rights and the Constitution what is often ignored are a few simple words in the Preamble and they are to “promote the general welfare”.
That’s a very broad an inclusive statement – it can be assumed taking note of the remaining words that the general welfare includes the pursuit of justice, domestic tranquility, and providing a common defence against enemies both foreign and domestic while insuring the “Blessings of Liberty”.
In this promotion no mention is made of creating a caste system where any are favored above another – nowhere does it state that the wealthy or corporations are more deserving.
And yet it cannot be denied a caste system does exist – that corporations and the wealthy have the greater influence, receive special attention, and are routinely attended to by both political parties.
As long as such inequities exist the common welfare and domestic tranquility will amount to little more than words penned long ago.
Government and a majority of politicians have always been corrupt, but the bar has been so lowered that some demographics seem to believe this to be an acceptable norm – they in fact appear to revel in it.
And to what end? Do rhetoric or blatant lies possess a greater substance than truthfulness and the common welfare of all citizens?
Is it a “Blessing of Liberty” or an example of “justice” for people to work for substandard wages while the wealthy with influence and lobbyists literally make millions?
Does passing out ethics waivers to bring individuals into an administration or increasing the number of swamp denizens serve the common welfare?
Are Elders blessed when they don’t receive a cost of living adjustment for years in the midst of politicians giving themselves one? Is “justice” to be found in that?
If you believe so then you should support both the Republican Party and this administration because that is what they stand for.
This and nothing more, not “family values”, not justice and equity, not leaving no child behind, not clean water nor clean air and food, not consumer protections or regulations holding Wall Street and the banking industry accountable, nor a healthcare system that every over “civilized” nation has.
The current administration is the predictable culmination of an erosion of ethics in government and by extension voters who have served to enable the decline by ignoring their responsibility to hold elected officials accountable in lieu of swearing a loyalty oath to the party of their choice.
Whatever integrity the Republican party had went out the window when they allowed Evangelicals the influence they have – Evangelicals who thump their bibles and support a man who is the very antithesis of the principles they claim to live their life by……. which in my opinion makes them as fraudulent as Trump is.
Barry Goldwater a former long serving Republican senator warned of this, Eisenhower warned of the industrial/military complex and corporate greed.
Acceptance is an embrace, a surrender, to an in your face arrogance and dystopian belief that a lie has a greater value than the truth – that a bankruptcy prone pathologically lying real estate developer is in actuality a political savant.
That it’s acceptable to kick everyone else but the wealthy, robber baron corporations and their CEOs to the curb.
I submit there is really nothing new in any of this – it is a matter of degrees, and having gone down that path the nation has turned against itself, a nation in the midst of an ideological civil war the toll of which is yet to be determined, and in so doing cannibalizing itself and the very precepts it claims to hold dear above all others.
A working partnership that pays huge dividends.
Interesting article about pine cones.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/xaque-gruber/thirteen-things-you-never_b_11763858.html
They say the little people come to this place, that if you leave something they will take it and leave something in return.
There are stories I could relate to that but won’t go into detail or mention it’s location.
The current administration is a Confederacy of Dunces with Trump bearing a remarkable resemblance to Ignatius Reilly of the novel A Confederacy of Dunces.
A whiny self possessed “man baby” as Ana Navarro so aptly put it constantly railing against those he perceives as “sodomites” that populate the media nipping at his heel of lies.
Like Reilly it isn’t the ineptitude of Trump and his cohorts that create the myriad of problems they face it’s the goddess Fortuna.
They are merely victims who can’t catch a break, neither rhyme nor reason to be plagued in such a way.
Trump’s tweets can be likened to the difficulties Reilly experiences with his pyloric valve, there is a sudden and compulsive nature about them due to a build up of bile.
Ignatius is of the opinion that he is a learned and worldly man having once visited a neighboring city, his disgruntlement and agitation a constant in his belief that he is a big fish confined to a little pond reduced to wending his way among miscreants and those of lesser nobility – a pond of his creation which he doesn’t seem to be aware of or blithely chooses to ignore.
Trump on the other hand is a small fish, an invasive species in the much larger pond of global politics and the presidency completely devoid of the necessary understanding, ability, and character essential to the office.
Like his counterpart Trump doesn’t seem to be aware of his cartoonish nature either, the idiocy of his own confederacy – if only Fortuna would smile upon him and pluck the thorn of the sodomites from his side…..
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2017/07/501863/
