Photo-Mythology

Took care of my home office chores. Really tired

We have had a president who played a cowboy in the movies. But Ronald Reagan, despite his love of his horses and his ranch, knew he was no cowboy and knew he wasn't really up for a high noon style pistol duel. We have had a president in George W Bush, who lived on a ranch in Texas who sent us cowboy-like into wars of choice in the middle East and on the Asian continent. He could fly a plane, but he knew that he couldn't single handedly dive bomb his enemies into submission. And when he retired he took up a less macho hobby and bought a house in the suburbs. Now we have Trump who went to a military high school, but like many of his generation, dodged the draft. Who could blame him? Vietnam was literally a sucking swamp,destined to fail from day one.  But now this man envisions himself rushing unarmed into a hail of bullets? This man who lies in bed watching only his supporters on Fox News while munching on McDonald's sees himself as an avenging angel who could have halt...

I think that the real story here is that even as Trump’s disapproval numbers go up, there are still a somnolent by rabid 40% who stick by him. A sort of Manson Family syndrome. Source 538.com

At Dizzy’s Club at Jazz at Lincoln Center Beautiful venue. Wonderful jazz. Great company.

I think that the way Olaf was staged was pure postmodern genius

Tell me I can’t take photos and the urge to take a picture.

This is my new favorite non-electronic hobby. It fills the old Facebook time slot.

In this time of craziness, I find solace in spending an afternoon with Glo. We saw Frozen on Broadway—fabulous, but much darker than the movie, which I guess is what made it wonderful. I had dinner at my daughter’s. A healthy and textually complex meal. I don’t post pictures of my granddaughter so you will have to use your imagination—she is brilliant, a great critic of visual media and stage, and beautiful inside and out. I hope that we pass through this nightmare of Trump politics so that she will grow old in a world that is better than this one.

The Washington poem discussed “The Snake” lyrics frequently repeated by Trump. Trump might be surprised to learn the origin of the song. Long before he used it as an anti-immigrant poem, “The Snake” was just a simple tune, a parable open to interpretation. The lyrics were written in the 1960s by Al Brown, an outspoken singer, songwriter, social activist and former Communist Party member from Chicago. His work has been described as a celebration of black culture and a repudiation of racism. He wrote the lyrics for drummer Max Roach’s 1960 album “We Insist! Freedom Now Suite,” one of the first jazz records to deal heavily with the growing civil rights movement. Brown directed stage shows that cast gang members and other teens from poor neighborhoods in Chicago. And he created the musical adaptation of a play about a black militant leader that made it to Broadway with Muhammad Ali as the lead. Brown’s daughters sayof the lyrics, “Of course it had nothing to do with prejudice or racist tho...

Okay we’re not actually backward, but we are our country that idolizes our roots as a society that conquered the wilderness . We dream of that single brave family rushing west and claiming a free homestead. That rugged individual, who actually existed but has been mythologized out of all reality as what made America Great in the first place. This is simply false. Life was hard and short. People travelled west in groups, and disease and massacres and failures, social and economic took a major toll. Success was rare. As for America’s great industrialists, they worked people to death or until illness threw them out on the streets and into poverty. They destroyed our ecology they created conditions where water was ruined and where the dust bowl of the 30s became inevitable. What actually made America great was the activist policies of presidents like Theodore Roosevelt, FDR, and LBJ. Those men knew that American freedom could only be great when we took care of each other and our natural en...

And today in Canandaigua NY

The Blue Ribbon, Phelps NY.

It is a sad state of affairs when pension funds of teachers and other Florida are invested in a crime feeder business 41,129 shares The Florida Retirement System Pension Plan, which serves the state’s teachers, has a significant investment in American Outdoor Brands Co. — the very same company that manufactured the AR-15 assault rifle used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting last week — to the tune of 41,129 shares, worth roughly half a million dollar Source: Bloomberg

I had a wonderful time photographing the falls and the gorge.  Nature is so inspiring In so many ways. Peace is present I cannot understand why some people will not see it’s value Why they want to destroy it. Well, of course the answer is money.

After 18 months I’ve decided to post here again. I am deactivating my Facebook account because I am angry that social media has refused to do anything to stop bots and trolls. Today, I feel very good about this action. I am a fairly solitary person, and many times FB has made me feel lonely. I buy stuff I don’t need.  I have suddenly found time to read and do their things that make me happy and make me more productive. I may change my mind about this decision, but in the meantime, I can post  here...photos and my incidental musings. The first one is, I know the old truism that we always fight the last war, but really Donald? After the Florida shooting he goes back to Vegas and banning bump stocks?