Commentary: This is what -40 feels like

By Washington Post : Christopher Ingraham 

RED LAKE FALLS, Minn. - The fact of the matter is I don't know exactly how cold it got at my house today.

The mercury thermometer on our porch only goes down to -30. The digital thermometer in our backyard weather station bottoms out at -40. For roughly two hours on Wednesday this thermometer registered -40.0, even, as the actual air temperature descended below that level to depths unknown.

What I do know, however, is that beyond a certain point the only thing you feel outside is pain.

My family moved to rural Minnesota in 2016 from Baltimore, and our first winter late that year brought my first exposure to sustained temperatures below zero. In those days I came to the belief all temperatures below zero are essentially the same in terms of how they're experienced. Ten below is bitter cold. Twenty below is also bitter cold. Therefore, by the transitive property, ten below and twenty below are the same.

I now know this to be false.

There are, in fact, endless variations of cold, pain and suffering that a person may experience on the long, dark slide from 0 to -40 and beyond. Down to about twenty below things aren't so bad, honestly. You need to hustle a little bit on your way out to the car, and you've got a few seconds to futz with your keys at the door before the cold starts to dig into your skin. You get a kind of thermal grace period between when you first expose your skin to the air and when the cold starts to bite.

As long as it's above -20, it's not uncommon to see Minnesotans out and about without a hat or gloves, or even in shorts. I used to think they were insane, but having lived here for several winters I now understand that if you're just making a quick jaunt out to the mailbox or into a store, it's overkill to go through the hassle of suiting up all the way. Rule of thumb: if the amount of time you expect to spend outdoors is less than the amount of time it will take to get your coat, hat, mittens and scarf on, you can just dash out of the house in whatever you're wearing.

Below -20, however, this calculus changes. Beyond this threshold the thermal grace period shrinks rapidly and disappears altogether. By about -30 the cold doesn't feel like cold anymore - it's just pure, unadulterated pain, a sharp, burning sensation. After a few moments the burning gives way to a deep, dull ache that feels like it's radiating from your bones. I've never been brave and/or dumb enough to test what comes after the ache but my assumption is that it's deeply unpleasant and possibly irreversible.

Wind adds a separate dimension to the experience of the cold up here. Starting around -20 the wind stops registering as a tactile sensation and is experienced primarily as a more urgent kind of pain. At -30 it's like a hot iron on your exposed skin. At -40 it's a burning scream.

At the moment there's about a 100-degree temperature differential between the air in our house and the air outside, which causes some weird things to happen. In the middle of the night, we hear thunderous creaks and pops emanating from the walls of the house as the building materials contract and settle. We've got a thick layer of ice growing on the interiors of our double-paned windows. Sometimes our doors get frozen shut, and when we open them it lets in a blast of frigid air that sucks all the moisture out of the house and turns it into a rolling fog.

Most of the homes around here are very well insulated, so we don't worry too much about frozen indoor pipes. Last year, however, part of the water main on our street froze solid. For several months one of our neighbors had to run a hose to someone else's house to get water. The city instructed the rest of us on the block to keep a faucet running at all times (they credited us the difference on our water bills).

After Wednesday the temperature is forecast to rise again - by Thursday we'll be back in the single digits below zero, which will be a welcome relief after several days below negative 20. I may even put my shorts on to celebrate.

____________________________________________________________________________

I don't know exactly where he lives, but the temps around Red Lake Falls were 50 below zero and colder. 

 

The Coldest Night So Far

Cotton Minnesota (my neighbor) hit 56 below zero this morning, that's temperature, not wind chill.

The State record cold was 60 Below zero in Tower Minnesota (another neighbor) a few years ago.

It was 41 below zero at my place.

At mid day it's still 20 below zero and colder around the State.

We will have one more night of 20 below zero, or worse.

We had 32 below zero before this cold wave ever came in and we will have plenty of sub zero weather before the Winter is over. 

A heat wave is moving in. By Saturday it will be 25 above zero.

Coffee Addict

>

Years ago when I had a desk job, I used to drink 3 pots of coffee before lunch and another 2 pots by the end of the day. It was commercial, not so good, coffee. When I left that job, I quite drinking coffee.

About ten years later, I started dating a clerk that worked at an independent, very nice coffee shop. They had their own roaster and high quality coffee beans. You guessed it, I started drinking coffee again. This time it was great coffee, not the commercial stuff at the office job.

I like a very strong Columbia, or espresso with equal amounts of water and espresso. I add sugar, no cream. For a while I got back to drinking coffee all day, not quite as much as I drank on the office job, but to much.



I got into buying beams, grinding them at home, had a French press, became a gourmet coffee person. A couple of years later, I cut back on my coffee consumption. These days, I have only one cup of coffee in the morning. It has to be good coffee, or I will just skip it.

I have to have my cup of coffee. It’s like a smoker bringing his habit down to one cigarette a day, but I have to have that one. I’m glad I got turned onto good coffee. I’m glad I only drink one cup a day (maybe 2 on Sunday). In the early days, I was addicted to coffee, no doubt about it. I’m still addicted, but my addiction is to only one cup a day.



I no longer wake up late, leave the house half dressed, gulping coffee in the car all the way to work. These days I get up earlier, do my personal things, get dressed, and make my coffee. No newspaper, no TV, sometimes some music, but usually I sit and just stare out the window watching the wildlife wake up, and savor my one cup.

To all you other coffee addicts out there, I understand. I would only advise, to stick with good coffee, and maybe that will help you cut down the amount you drink. Enjoy!

Very Cold

You have probably been reading in the national news about the cold front in my area.

It was 32 below zero the other night and will be 35 below zero tomorrow night. That's temperature, The wind chills are 50 below zero.

The news says that's a decades old record breaking cold wave. Last year we had about 2 weeks of below 25 below zero weather, not to mention that our normal temps are well below zero anyways.

It's 20 below zero now at 9:30 am, but the Sun is shining brightly.

The weather people are having their fun throwing buckets of water in the air and watching it freeze before the water hits the ground. Natural science changes at 35 below zero.

I have been lucky. My truck sits for days in this weather, but starts right up on the first try. Yes, it is parked outside.

As for me, I'm parked inside. I used to go outside in this weather when I was younger and in better health. These days this weather would be a death sentence if I'm outside to long.

I certainly understand why the older people get, the more they move down South.  I'd probably even live longer if I lived in a warmer climate, but finances won't allow that move.

So all of you living in 70-80 degree weather, enjoy it.

Michelangelo's Most Powerful Statue

Moses (1545, Carrara marble, twice life-size, San Pietro in Vincoli Church, Rome)
The angry Patriarch has just seen his people worshipping the Golden Calf and he is about to throw down the stone tablets with the Ten Commandments that God has given him.
And the horns? Moses had horns after seeing God according to a medieval tradition based on what scholars say was a mistranslation of the Bible. Later translations speak of a saintly radiance or rays of light.

People have always admired Moses’ beautiful arms and hands, as well as his long, soft beard. “One might almost believe that the chisel had become a brush,” says Vasari. But some have found fault with the strange outfit he is wearing—imitated perhaps from antique statues of barbarians.
This Moses is the central figure of the tomb of Pope Julius II.

Michelangelo began many figures for the Pope’s tomb but one after another they were scrapped or sold. The commission kept changing. Originally there were going to be forty statues and Pope Julius would have had the most spectacular mausoleum in the world. But he cancelled the first project and later versions by his heirs got smaller and smaller. This is the final, almost pitiful, result. Yet the single statue of Moses, one of the most impressive figures ever carved, is enough to perpetuate Julius’ memory.

GOP Tax Cut Had No Major Impact On Business Investment Or Hiring

Reuters

Full story here


There's a big surprise, NOT

3rd Party Candidate for President

Billionaire Mr. Schultz (former CEO of Starbucks) says he is thinking of running for president on the Independent ticket in 2020. This is different than the crowd throwing their hats in the ring for the Democratic presidential nomination.

A third party candidate would take votes away from the Democrats and leave Trump the equation for winning the election.

Schultz could obviously finance his own campaign.

Schultz says health care for all is a fantasy on the level of Trump's wall.

I doubt Mr. Schultz will get very far, but if he decides his money is worth the effort, even a small percentage of the vote could make the difference.

Television

>

My Dad used to call it “The Boob Tube” or “The Idiot Box.”

My Dad was in his mid thirties before television was even available to the average American. Most Americans did not own a television set. As shown in the above picture, Americans would gather around a shop window to get a look at this new, amazing, unbelievable technology.

Television had been around as a Scientific creation for years, but it was not until after WW II that Americans started buying TV sets. In a few short years TV ownership went from single digits to over 80%. Milton Berle was credited with getting Americans to go out and buy TV’s just to see his show.



This is an old Philco TV. This is the TV I grew up watching. Only black and white, color TV’s were not yet available. This TV was 2-1/2 feet high, 2 feet deep, it was all tubes and very heavy. It generated enough heat (see those big side vents) to warm yourself on a chilly night. Back then, we thought the picture quality was great. Today it would be considered horrible. It was truly a piece of furniture. A focal point in the living room.

When our family got a TV, we were only the third house on our block to have one. That increased guest traffic in our house by a factor of 15. In those days the set offered us 3 stations. CBS, NBC, and some local station that was mostly old movies and wrestling. Never heard of ABC.

I can’t remember, must have been over a year, but my parents decided to get the new COLOR version of television. This one (left) was the first color TV affordable and available to the public. We were the first to have color TV on our block and that created another and bigger rush of neighbors to our living room. Newer, better, in color. We were the Smiths surpassing the Jones. The “old” black and white TV set, was put downstairs, for us kids.

In a truly American trait, the television just got better and bigger, and families kept buying the newer models. American society seems to approach many appliances of comfort (cars, dishwashers, clothes washers and dryers, you name it) in that manner. Buying the newer, better model, even if there was nothing wrong with the old model.



On the high end, TV’s have always been a piece of furniture. The main piece in the room of the house, that entertained. Smaller TV’s allowed us to have one in any and every room.
This beautiful flat plasma screen is set in a handsome box, but you could just hang it above a fireplace.

These days TV’s can be a Dick Tracy wrist watch, or a 2-1/2 inch by 1-1/2 inch pocket size, which can also be a personal computer and telephone.

When I was a kid, I was outside all day. If I was not, my Mom asked if I felt sick. TV was an evening thing, with the family. I never sat and watched hours of TV by myself. When I moved out of my parents house, I did not own a TV for years. Then I got one of those 9″ B&W TV’s, just to watch the news. I did not own a color TV until I was over 40, even though, by this time TV’s were high quality and everyone had at least two.

Today I have a nice 36″ tube type (very heavy) color TV, it’s about 13 years old, but still gives a great picture. I keep my TV on ALL the time. I don’t watch it all the time, it’s just on whenever I’m home. I will cook, do house chores, work on the computer, whatever, it is always on. I tell the family I’m just waiting for the prices of flat screens to go down. Truth is, I’m totally happy with my TV, but I never thought I would have to pay to receive broadcast stations – another blog post.

As I get older, I sleep less. I would say, I have trouble falling asleep sometimes. When I do, I lay in front of the TV, and I’m asleep in minutes. Now the TV is on day and night. If my TV dies, I will drop everything, leave work, whatever, to make sure I can buy a new one, and have it plugged in by dinner time. Am I addicted? Oh yes. Is America addicted? Even worse than I am.

With all this retrospective on television, you might think I’m old. I’m not. Really, I’m not. That’s my delusion anyways. I choose to believe it that way.

Righteous Brothers

                                                   (You're My) Soul and Inspiration

Higher Taxes

Elizabeth Warren  proposes "Ultra-Millionaire" tax as part of her 2020 platform. Full report here

________________________________________________________________________________

It's important that we raise taxes to pay for badly needed new spending, not to mention paying down our national debt. This is imperative for our national financial health.

But it was not just the wealthy that got tax cuts from Reagan until today's Trump's largest tax cut in history. These tax cuts without spending cuts is what has produced our over 20 trillion dollar debt, and climbing.

President Bush was sending out $600.00 checks besides his tax cuts on top of his high unpaid for spending. It wasn't just the rich getting those checks, or tax breaks, or the benefits from unpaid spending.

History tells us that high taxes do not inhibit growth. The last time tax rates were high we also had the greatest growth period this country had ever seen and we were able to build a great infrastructure from schools to highways and our private sector was the envy of the world.

Our tax system has always been a progressive tax system. The more you made the more you paid. Recent laws have allowed rich corporations to pay little, or no taxes and rich individuals have received the same tax breaks. That needs to change.

No matter how the tax rate for the rich change most of our taxes come from middle to lower income Americans where the majority of tax payers are. We cannot tax just the rich enough to pay off our debt and finance new spending, nor should we try. That would be more than just a progressive tax system, it would be an unfair tax system. The middle class got those tax breaks also, over the last 40 years.

The Communal Tax system that helped build the greatest country in the world demanded all pay taxes for the betterment of all the people. The progressive tax system simply stated that those who make more, pay more. This was the key to building the greatest country in the world, not just taxing the rich.

Maybe we should have a high Baby Boomer death tax rate, so Boomers would pay the taxes they refused to pay over the last 40 years which built out huge debts.

Money is what greases the wheels of capitalism and a progressive society. Everyone speaks highly of living in such a great country (America) and we cherish our civil and military institutions. It's time again, to put our money where our mouths are and regain the greatness we once had.

Botticelli

Living and working during the same time as greats like Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, it would be easy for even a great artist like Botticelli to get lost in that crowd Alessandro Filipepi, known as Sandro Botticelli, (1444-1510) began his career during the Italian Renaissance period. Botticelli was born in Florence around 1445 where he would live out the rest of his life. As the youngest of five children, Botticelli’s father, a tanner, allowed him to become an apprentice to a goldsmith. During this apprenticeship, the goldsmith he worked with gave him the name Botticelli, meaning ‘little barrel.’




After a time, Sandro convinced his father that he wanted to study painting and was chosen to be apprentice to the well known painter Fra Filippo Lippi. Lippi was well known for how he used color on church altarpieces and helped Sandro discover a similar style for his own work. Sandro Botticelli developed tender expressions in his subjects face and in their gestures. He also used decorative details that were influenced by his training. Botticelli quickly became recognized as a gifted artist all by himself. By the time he was 15 years old, he was able to open a workshop dedicated to his own work.

In Sandro Botticelli’s workshop, he chose to have many apprentices to help him complete his work. Sandro taught them to set up and prepare his supplies so he could concentrate on painting. When Sandro thought one of his apprentices was ready, he had some of them paint for him under his close supervision. Using these practices, he was able to produce large amounts of commissioned work.



Botticelli’s style evolved into one that was very distinct. His portraits seemed to have a melancholy or sad characteristic to them. Sandro stressed line and detail using them to bring his characters alive – as if acting out a scene. He included in his style a flowing characteristic that would clearly identify work as his. Botticelli also included Neoplatonism in his work. This meant that he would bring together in one painting ideas that belong to both Christianity and pagan ideas which may have included mythology. One theme that Botticelli used over and over again was the idea of a very sad young girl that was detached from what was going on around her. This theme appeared in many of his portraits throughout his career. Another theme Botticelli liked tackling were the roles male and females played in society. Sometimes Sandro would show traditional roles, but other times, he showed females as the dominant, most important figure.



Sandro Botticelli’s work was most in demand by the Medici family. The Medici’s were a very rich and prominent member of the Florence society. Botticelli is thought to have used them as subjects for a large number of his works. They traveled in very important circles and introduced Botticelli to some of the most influential people. In these different settings, Sandro gathered material to use in his portraits and scene portrayals. The Medici family would pay huge sums of money for Botticelli’s work.

In 1481, Botticelli was invited to Rome to take part in the painting of the Sistine Chapel. Sandro joined artists such as Perugino, Ghirlandaio and then Michelangelo in contributing to the most well known piece of Italian art. While there, Botticelli worked on several pieces in the Chapel. In all, Botticelli painted three large pieces, as well as seven papal portraits in the Sistine Chapel.



As Sandro grew older, his style underwent a remarkable change. Sandro became a follower of the monk Savonarola who was a prominent civic leader in Florence. He stressed giving up all worldly things. He was very charismatic and often spoke of death and God’s wrath upon the people. Many of Botticelli’s previous paintings were considered ungodly and were burned along with objectionable books and playing cards. When Savonarola’s popularity ended, he was burnt in the center of Florence. Many followers fled the city, but Botticelli stayed and continued to paint. Many of his works contained a very religious feel to them. Sandro included highly religious symbolism in his paintings; they seemed to be telling a story. Sandro became known as an excellent altarpiece painter and earned large amounts of money through those commissions.



Botticelli’s later years seemed to be a disturbing time for him. As times changed in Florence, Botticelli tried to keep up. He often took on difficult commissions that other painters turned down. His rotating style reflected that Botticelli was struggling as a painter. His paintings were full of emotion raging from violence to grace and compassion.

Even though Sandro was trying to keep up his status as a painter, he was still recognized with the honor to be part of the committee that chose the spot where Michelangelo would place his statue David. 


 
Sandro Botticelli died at the age of 65. Some say Sandro was poor and unaccomplished at his death. This could be attributed to the rising popularity of new and contemporary artists such as Michelangelo, Raphael and Leonardo Da Vinci. Even though his work is now thought to be among the most masterful of his time, his work lay forgotten for over 400 years after his death. Looking back at history, he now has the respect he earned through a lifetime of achievement. Sandro Botticelli contribution to the Italian Renaissance period was one of great distinction.

M. C. Escher

>



M. C. Esher (in photo) was a left handed graphic artist. He worked in many mediums, but was famous for his woodcuts. All these pieces are woodcuts. The color work above (Sun and Moon) is my favorite. The detail shows his craftsmanship. A true artist. If you would like to learn more about him, check out his official website here
There is more to his pieces, than the image you see at first glance. They are geometric illusions.

The Shutdown Continues

The baby president has no clue, nor does he care the damage this shutdown is doing to our country and individuals in our country. Of course, the poor are hit the hardest. The long term effects are serious.

The Republicans, especially McConnell are missing in action and supporting all this harm to our country and its people.

This is what the Republicans wanted. They wanted to drown our government in a bathtub. They wanted to destroy our government as we know it.

It's really sad.

I hope the Republican party disappears forever because of this act of national destruction. 

Shutdown Hitting Reservations Harder Than Most Places

By Evan Ramstad, Minneapolis Star Tribune on Jan 21, 2019 at 7:23 p.m.

MINNEAPOLIS — The federal government shutdown is hitting Native Americans harder than most people, with jobs on hold and critical funds cut to some of the nation's poorest communities.

Under treaties stretching back to before the founding of the country, the U.S. government pays for basic economic needs to Native American nations, including health services, education and infrastructure. Nearly all funding has been cut since the shutdown began Dec. 22, however, leaving Indian communities to dip into reserves or make cuts.

"We are in a cash flow crisis," Darrell Seki, chairman of the Red Lake Nation in northern Minnesota, said Monday. "But we are doing everything we can not to lay off people and to keep up services."
As well, Native American reservations have a higher proportion of federal employees than most parts of the country except for the Washington, D.C., area, making the lack of income resulting from the furlough of employees an acute economic problem.

On some in the Dakotas and other Western states, the income has been cut to more than 1,000 people, leading to a ripple in spending and consumption that is affecting thousands more.

"People are suffering," Patrice Kunesh, director of the Center for Indian Country Development at the Minneapolis Federal Reserve, which has been studying the effects across the country, said.

"Many of the furloughed employees are one-income families," she added. "Small businesses that depend on tribal spending are having a hard time. Even the relief programs are feeling pain."

Many Native Americans rely on the federal Indian Health Service for essential needs and a special banking system that processes land leases and other payments. The poor rely on a federal food distribution system. All of those services — along with the lead agency that deals with Native Americans, the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) — have been closed by the shutdown.

"The BIA is AWOL," Seki said. He said he would like to see President Donald Trump, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate leader Mitch McConnell visit a Native American community to see the effects firsthand.

Red Lake Nation suspended construction of two fire halls and a dialysis treatment center while it waits for the federal government to reopen, but it has maintained health services, Seki said.
The Bureau of Indian Education and most related schools have remained open because that agency's funding is scheduled differently. That bureau sent funds to schools weeks or months ago for today's operations.

Kunesh said fund transfers are staggered, however, and that some Native American schools that ran out of federal funds may have to be supported locally until the shutdown ends.

The federal government's outsized role on Native American life is rooted in history. In hundreds of treaties dating as far back as 1774, the government agreed to assist tribes that ceded vast tracts of land to the United States.

To some, the shutdown represents another moment when the government has abrogated its responsibilities to the country's 5 million Indians.

"Once again we have failed to meet our trust and treaty responsibilities to tribal nations," Rep. Betty McCollum of St. Paul said at a Democratic hearing on the shutdown's impact on Native Americans last week.

In some reservations, federal agencies employ one out of six people. In North and South Dakota, the Indian Health Service is one of the state's largest employers.

On Friday, the Federation of Indian Service Employees, a union representing federal workers across Indian country, filed suit against the government for failing to pay people who were ordered to keep working during the shutdown.

Picasso

>
 
Born: 25 October 1881
Birthplace: Málaga, Spain
Died: 8 April 1973
Best Known As: The 20th century’s most famous artist
Pablo Ruiz y Picasso showed artistic ability at an early age, and when he began to study art seriously in Barcelona and Madrid, he was already a skilled painter. In the early 1900s he visited and eventually settled in Paris, where he was part of a vibrant artistic community that included Gertrude Stein. Although greatly influenced by other artists in Europe and beyond, Picasso was inventive and prolific, and early in his career earned a worldwide reputation as an innovator. Along with Henri Matisse, he is considered one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. His enormous body of work spans so many years that art experts generally separate his career into distinct phases, such as the Blue Period, the Rose Period and his most famous contribution to modern art, Cubism. Picasso, unlike so many before him, was an international celebrity as well as an important contributor to the world of art.

 

Henri Matisse

> 

Henri Matisse was born on December 31, 1869, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis, France. He grew up in Bohain-en-Vermandois and studied law in Paris from 1887 to 1888. By 1891 he had abandoned law and started to paint. In Paris Matisse studied art briefly at the Académie Julian and then at the cole des Beaux-Arts with Gustave Moreau.

In 1901 Matisse exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris and met another future leader of the Fauve movement, Maurice de Vlaminck. His first solo show took place at the Galerie Vollard in 1904. Both Leo and Gertrude Stein, as well as Etta and Claribel Cone, began to collect Matisse’s work at that time. Like many avant-garde artists in Paris, Matisse was receptive to a broad range of influences. He was one of the first painters to take an interest in “primitive” art. Matisse abandoned the palette of the Impressionists and established his characteristic style, with its flat, brilliant color and fluid line. His subjects were primarily women, interiors, and still lifes. In 1913 his work was included in the Armory Show in New York. By 1923 two Russians, Sergei Shchukin and Ivan Morozov, had purchased nearly 50 of his paintings.

From the early 1920s until 1939, Matisse divided his time primarily between the south of France and Paris. During this period, he worked on paintings, sculptures, lithographs, and etchings, as well as on murals for the Barnes Foundation, Merion, Pennsylvania, designs for tapestries, and set and costume designs for Léonide Massine’s ballet Rouge et noir. While recuperating from two major operations in 1941 and 1942, Matisse concentrated on a technique he had devised earlier: papiers découpés (paper cutouts). Jazz, written and illustrated by Matisse, was published in 1947; the plates are stencil reproductions of paper cutouts. In 1948 he began the design for the decoration of Chapelle du Rosaire in Vence, which was completed and consecrated in 1951. The same year a major retrospective of his work was presented at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and then traveled to Cleveland, Chicago, and San Francisco. In 1952 the Musée Matisse was inaugurated at the artist’s birthplace of Le Cateau–Cambrésis. Matisse continued to make large paper cutouts, the last of which was a design for the rose window at Union Church of Pocantico Hills, New York. He died on November 3, 1954, in Nice.

Arlo Guthrie

                                                       Alice's Restaurant Massacree

Poetry

> 
“High Flight”
 
by John Gillespie McGee Jr.
 
Born in China
Poet/Pilot in WW II
Royal Canadian Air Force
Died at the age of 19.



Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew.
And, while with silent, lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

Greatful Dead

                                                                               Truckin'

End Selfishness

It’s no surprise that the Baby-Boomers elected Reagan, Bush, and Bush, and now Trump. It reflects a selfishness, that is no different than when they were kids. Always out for themselves and their good time.

Well, they have had their good time and their free lunch government. Unfortunately, they have also left future America’s government broke.

I don’t know what kind of government young people want, or if they even expect anything from their government. They will find out, that they DO need government to get things done, no matter what they hear from the conservatives of the country who would prefer to destroy government as we know it, and as it has produced the greatest country in the World.

Politics is a messy, ugly business and always has been. Promises by a politician, or expectations of a politician are false and always have been. There is no such thing as a political messiah. The young are idealistic and naive. Political hopes are always dashed in some way, or another. In my day, political hopes were dashed by murder and assassinations. Today, political hopes have been dashed by the weak leadership of their candidate.

What we all need (not just the young) is more sales resistance when listening to politicians. We all need to be better citizens. We need to look beyond our own selfish interests and think of what’s best for all Americans, especially future Americans. We need to regain the common sense and true compassion Americans were once known for. We cannot simply walk away from the centuries of progress blood and sweat has achieved and just say, we have to stop now, this has all gotten out of hand.

If you think one side, or one person has all the answers to our problems, think again. If you think it’s not important to balance (pay as we go) our government budgets, think again. If you think our government should not help, or care about its citizens, think again. If you think all people of the World should live under our kind of government (even if that is not compatible to their culture and society) think again. If you think America is easy, think again.

Janis Joplin

                                
                                                              Me And Bobby McGee

Extremism

We cannot run our society, or our government on extreme ideologies. Extremism is not compatible with the Constitution. The Constitution is an inclusive set of rules to govern people. Extremism is an exclusive pronouncement of one sides political and/or social convictions. If we are to hold true to the goal of the Constitutions proclamations, then extremism is automatically eliminated as a realistic path to achieving the goals of the Constitution.

Supreme Court Justice Scalia used to denounce those who describe the Constitution as a “living, breathing” document. He states that legal decisions must be decided by the intent of the founding fathers who wrote the amendments that make up the Constitution. Yet, the founding fathers wrote a document that can be amended, with the obvious understanding that as society changes, so would the laws that society lives by, have to change.

Can we make decisions about gun laws in the 21st century based on the realities of gun use in the 18th century? Is the Constitution to be blind to the progress of humanity? Technological advances, more highly educated people, more freedoms for people, naturally brings different moral and legal questions that could not have possibly been foreseen by people who lived in the 18th century. They understood that, thus a legal process that could, in fact, must be amended.

Extreme view points are and must be protected by the Constitution, but must not be allowed to be the governing ideology simply because they have gamed the system in political activism. We have done much to protect minorities in our society. We must be vigilant in protecting the majority in our society.

The majority is to blame for allowing extreme ideology to gain such a high position in our politics. Their poor voting record and lack of exercising their duty as good citizens is a laziness that endangers a healthy democracy. Money is not the voice of the people, it is the voice of those who understand how to make their voices louder than their actual numbers deserve. Money perverts the system by aiming at the temptations of human greed, not the popularity of their ideology.

Our partisan bickering and party line votes are holding us back from real progress in our society and government. Compromise is no longer a consideration for other viewpoints, it has become a simple defeat by the numbers. Things may change now only because the voting numbers have changed. We still haven’t made the hard attempt to pass laws that are not constantly disapproved of by one segment of society, or another.

To have harmony, is to eliminate anger. We will never agree on everything, but to be constantly mad at each other, is to foster resentment, hate, and disunity. Reject the extreme, loud, angry, voices coming from any side.

Patsy Cline

                                                                         Crazy

Buddy Holly and the Crickets

                                                               That'll Be The Day

The Gentrys

                                                                 Keep On Dancing

Rene Magritte

> 

Rene Magritte (1898-1967) was a Belgian Surrealist painter who was trained in Brussels and traveled in France, Britain, Germany and Holland. He lived near Paris, 1927 and came into contact with the French Surrealist movement, although he painted some Impressionist-style pictures during World War II. He later lived in Brussels and painted murals for Belgian public buildings. His pale and dryly painted works have a dream-like clarity, with, frequently, an unexpected wittiness. They often have nude women, sometimes accompanied by men in bowler hats, and similar incongruities.

The Electric Prunes

                                                     I Had To Much To Dream Last Night

Brenda Lee

                                                        The End Of The World - 1963

Space Art

Now that our scientific instruments can see more than 15 billion light years across the Universe, the  Earth is indeed a small, fragile planet.

 

Space Art has been around a long time. From the illustrations of a Jules Vern story, to the animation of The Jetson cartoons. Space Art became popular in the 1950’s when the imaginary became reality. Space Art today, is more about human interpretation of reality, than an imagination building an unreal world.




Space Art can be generated in minutes on a computer. The pioneers of the medium spent days and days creating the color, light, and composition that was truly their own invention, not to mention that everything was hand painted. The Hubble Telescope creates its own real life space art through its photographic lenses.




The artwork of the space shuttle is merely a full color enhancement of a real mechanical design. The design lost out, that is not what the new shuttle will look like. It is amazing how the old Space Art was so reflective of today’s real space technology.



It’s the appeal and infinity of space itself, that still allows the imagination of both the artist and the viewer, to be enthralled. As imaginative as these Space Artists are, they can’t match the real beauty and oddities of space itself.



Below is Alan Bean’s hand painted rendition of what he actually saw as an astronaut.



Below is Norman Rockwell’s hand painted rendition of “Man On The Moon”



Just like the old masters, these images are a result of talent, and take us beyond our own little world.