250 Years Later

It's hard to find a lot to celebrate today, but Major Jason Watson's protest on the Capitol Steps is, in my opinion, the most iconic and patriotic act of this year's Fourth.

Like the brave men who signed the Declaration Of Independence, he has pledged his life, his fortune, and his sacred honor to call for the end of the tyranny that is blighting our country.

On reading again the Declaration of Independence, I was struck by how many of the charges brought against King George could equally be applied to DJT.

"A long train of abuses and usurpations ..."

"He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

"...obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners..."

"He has obstructed the administration of justice..."

"He has made judges dependent on his will alone..."

"He has erected a multitude of new offices..."

"He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power."

"For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them . . . from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states."

I could go on. The parallels are there.

May Major Watson's bold protest mark a turning point in our history.

The Declaration of Independence.


When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume, among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That, to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That, whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.

Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and, accordingly, all experience has shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

But, when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature; a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people.

legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to the civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us;

For protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states;

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world;

For imposing taxes on us without our consent;

For depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury;

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses;

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries, so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies;

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments;

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the livon the ins of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress, in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that, as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.

Captain Mac's Adventure Trails

In Tampa, back in the Fifties, Captain Mac was pretty much the only afternoon kid's programming on television. We didn't have a TV for quite a while but my grandparents got one in '53 so my grandmother and her friends could watch the Coronation.

My brother and I quickly asserted our privilege to watch Captain Mac most afternoons. I think that even then, we thought he was kind of a dork, but oh how we loved his programming: Flash Gordon, Ramar of the Jungle, and (my personal favorite) Crusader Rabbit.

My addiction to Crusader Rabbit led to a moment of soul-searching. The television was in the sun room, which had a pair of glass doors between it and the living room. On this particular afternoon, during a commercial I'd gone to the kitchen for a drink. When I returned, Crusader Rabbit had just begun and my fiend of a brother had closed and locked the glass doors, as well as turning down the sound.

I was incandescent with rage. I yelled and threatened and briefly imagined getting in there and picking up a sharp-edged little metal clock that sat on a table and whacking my 7 year-old brother over the head.

And almost instantly, 11 year-old me realized how awful that was, even to have had such a thought.

I don't remember if he finally let me in or what. But I do (obviously) remember the impact that brief rage had on me.  The darkness that lurks in our core.

 

The Effect of Heat

Yesterday morning I made a quick trip to the grocery store, and, as always, locked the car doors.

When I came out with my purchases, I was annoyed to see that a back window was all the way down. Dismissing it as my own carelessness, I tried to open the driver side door with my key. (The fob hasn't worked in years.) No go. It seemed like the key wouldn't go all the way in. So there I was, key in hand and still locked out.

Then I realized that the open back window was my salvation. If only Josie had been with me, I could have hoisted her through the window and had her unlock my door.

I began to scan the parking lot in search of a suitably slender and agile person. Lots of hefty good old boys but no children. Then I noticed a young couple loading picnic supplies into their trunk.

I threw myself on their mercy and the young woman at once was quite nimbly through the window and had the door open. 

I have always relied on the kindness of strangers.

And on Mr. Google who, when I did a search, let me know that excessive heat can cause automatic locks to freeze, due to expansion of plastic and metal.

A lesson learned--don't lock the car doors when it's this hot.

 

Rabbit Rabbit

 

Dear Sirs

 Your president appears to have become bored with the war he started so now he's turning his attention to vanity projects. It wasn't enough that he destroyed part of the White House, shut down the Kennedy Center, and made the Reflecting Pool an ongoing joke--he has to turn his attention to a public golf course, an ill-conceived statuary garden, and now he wants 47 trees planted in honor of his presidency.

The laughable "Great American State Fair" is a perfect symbol of his failed presidency--quickly erected structures covered with wrinkling vinyl and attendance numbers that he inflates automatically "45,000 happy attendees" when those of us with eyes can see fewer than 2,ooo bored patriots wandering aimlessly through the lackluster exhibits.

When will you admit that your president is failing, mentally and physically? The moral failings have been with him from the beginning.

Meanwhile, he squanders the taxpayers' money on his unneeded war and ridiculous vanity projects.  Meanwhile the problem of homeless Americans is growing. As is the problem of unaffordable groceries, healthcare, and housing.

People are arrested for touching the water of the Reflecting Pool while the rioters of January 6 walk free and the Epstein files still haven't been released in unredacted totality.

Kinda makes it hard to celebrate our nation's 250th.

Yard Birds

Y

Young brown thrasher seemed surprised to find himself in a tree top. Just look at those charming gawky legs!

He stayed put for a good twenty minutes and didn't fly but finally moved behind some leaves. We guessed that this was a first venture in flight.

We have lots of goldfinches now. They seem to be quite companionable little creatures. 

 

A Fragrant Surprise

"What is that amazing smell?" I asked John. We were enjoying a pre-supper adult beverage on the porch when a wonderful exotic perfume caught my attention. I looked around but couldn't locate the source.

Then it occurred to me to check the greenhouse. I hadn't been in there is several days and lo and behold, the night-blooming cereus was beginning to open. It blooms only once a year and each bloom lasts only a day so perhaps it's not surprising that I forget that heavenly scent.

I stayed up till 11 pm to get a picture of it at about three-quarters open. Just didn't have it in me to wait for the full show.
                                                              

 

Listen to the Flowers

 

The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu and Grace Harlowe

Working on the bookshelves in the loft above the living room and came up on some real treasures. I have always been drawn to old books--mainly the sort my grandmother might have read in the very early 1900s--and evidently I stowed a bunch of them up here.

One such treasure is The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, with the intrepid Nayland Smith, "a tall, lean man with his square-cut, clean-shaven face sunbaked to the hue of coffee," who is out to stop the fiend in human form known as Fu Manchu.

I find it great fun--opium dens, poisonous centipedes, a mysterious dealt green mist, a beautiful Circassian slave, dacoits, lascars, poisoned darts, cellar dungeons--it's a later Sherlock Holmes and an early version of James Bond. And the book includes illustrations from the moving picture!

Quite a bit tamer is Grace Harlowe's Fourth Year at Overton College. The eighth in a series about the redoubtable Grace, the book gives a look at college life for girls in the teens of the last century. There are little rivalries, progressive dinner parties, masquerades, plays and play-writing competitions, but scant mention of classes or courses of study.

Grace does a mild bit of sleuthing when she recognizes a criminal from one of her previous books. And when a "newspaper girl" who is a rather prickly member of her class, writes up the event and includes Grace's name after being asked not to, the rest of the book is devoted to turning this unpleasant girl around and making her see what true college spirit is.

My grandmother always lamented that she hadn't been able to go to college. I wonder if she read these books--she was just the same age as Grace.

The back of the book gives a fascinating indication of the many popular books available for young people at the time. I'm sure, like Nancy Drew, they were written by syndicates of hard-working, underpaid, ink-stained scribblers 

Touchingly earnest, the lot of them.

College girls, class of 191_, out for a stroll.

                                                              

Ozzie and Harriet

This is what John and I always think of as an Ozzie and Harriet sort of meal--all-American, no frills. Meatloaf, corn on the cob, green beans--and salad, though I doubt O and H would have had spinach, mango, blue cheese, and vinaigrette salad. Back in the Fifties, salad was more likely to be Jello.

And, of course, the corn back then would have been starchy and boiled--unlike today's sweet varieties that just need a little time on the grill. The green beans would have been boiled a long time, probably with a bit of fatback (I'm speaking from my own experience of the Fifties.)

And the meatloaf--which gets such a bad rap these days. My mother's meatloaf was composed of ground beef, cracker crumbs, egg, Worcestershire sauce, and milk. She might have grated a tiny bit of onion into the mixture. Ketchup was spread on top partway through the baking. It was good and firm and made fine sandwiches the next day. And, of course, it was economical.

These days, with beef priced so high, meatloaf is still a go-to for me. But I've jazzed up my mother's version considerably.

1 lb. ground beef

1 lb. hot pork sausage (bulk, not links)

4 slices bread, torn up and softened in about 1/2 c. milk

2 eggs

1 TB.Worcestershire sauce

1 TB. Gochujang sauce

2 medium onions, chopped

Using your hands, blend all these ingredients together. Put in a pan coated with oil, form into a loaf, and bake at 350 for an hour. Halfway through the baking time, coat the top with chili sauce (or ketchup) and another tablespoon of Gochujang, if you like it a little spicy.

I wonder what Ozzie would say?
 

Fooled

Note to self: not every red bird in those trees below our front yard is a scarlet tanager.

I was so excited, thinking to repeat the good luck of the day before. It wasn't till I got the pictures on my laptop that I saw the truth.

Let me hasten to say that there's nothing wrong with cardinals--they are quite beautiful. But we have lots of them at our feeder so tend to take them for granted.

It's the thrill of trying to capture a rarity, I guess.

 

Dear Sirs

                                                              

As your president continues to obsess over the disaster that was the Reflecting Pool, he has deployed the National Guard to protect it from the vandals that apparently exist only in his mind--anything to blame the botched and expensive job on someone other than himself. It's worth noting that he delayed for hours, refusing to call out the Guard during the January 6 riot that saw the Capitol itself damaged and defaced.

Meanwhile, he sabotages the diplomatic efforts to end the war he began and lowers the USA even more in the eyes of its one-time allies.

And STILL, the Epstein files are not released.

The damage this man and his enablers are inflicting on our country continues unabated. It is time for Congress to call him and them to account.

There will be a reckoning.

Stalking the Elusive Scarlet Tanager

I am so excited! Chuffed, as the Brits would say. For years we've seen Scarlet Tanagers flitting around in the distance, but this is the first time I've managed a decent picture.

That first picture was when he alighted on a nearer tree--a rare event. Mostly they stay at a distance. Like this picture above--and the sun was so bright on him that, though I saw a red bird, the camera saw yellow-orange. 

Then there was the female, who stayed at a distance but posed for many shots.  She's olive and yellow, unlike her flashy mate. I was pleased to capture her, but my camera isn't that good at such a distance.

I can't complain though. Bird watching from the comfort of our front porch with a gin and lime at my side is pretty pleasant.