Scattershooting while wondering whatever happened to all those Golden and Silver Eagle buses Trailways used to use…
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SCENTS of SUMMER: Mimosa blooms are the scent of summer to me. The neighborhood where I grew up had a profusion of 20-60-year-old mimosas (they were a popular tree for planting in the early-mid 1900s, apparently), and fleeting streamers of their aroma often suffused otherwise hot afternoons while riding my bike to create a breeze. I’m glad we planted one on our property, even if the poorer soil here keeps it fairly small. Today I took off the last full bloom and brought it inside just to sniff for a while.
Magnolia blooms were the scent of May: school’s out! There were also magnolias of similar age, including an enormous one still present on the route I walked or biked home from elementary school and was huge then. The smell from just a few big, old magnolias in full bloom can spread through an entire neighborhood.
Then there were those who had jasmine bushes and somehow managed to keep them alive through winter. Honeysuckle always smelled great too; several neighbors’ fences were full of their prodigiously blooming vines. For a big, hot city, summer could smell good in Dallas for those paying attention.
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DEBBIE’S DOWNER: Debbie Schultz last week: “I’m in Cleveland if you need another chair to help keep your convention in order.”
Debbie Schultz today: Resigns (thank you WikiLeaks).
Why: “…after a trove of emails were disclosed showing DNC officials had worked to undermine the underdog presidential campaign of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders,” they needed a fall-guy (or in this case, fall gal), and she fits the bill. It fits a pattern too. In Chicago machine politics, always have a fall guy for scandal that occurs either above or below that person. I can’t say she didn’t deserve the scorn, though.
Sanders fans: your guy did get screwed over, and badly. The fix is in, and it’s obvious by how Hillary hired DWS within hours. Cronyism lives on, and on, and on. Too bad Bernie sold out to the Clinton machine like a cheap whore, and now is assimilated into their Borg. I wonder what kind of dirt the Clintons have on him. He seemed so idealistic and sincere, and despite our disagreements, I admired and respected him.
Both major parties seem hell-bent on self-destruction. I say, bring it on. The sooner both cease to exist, the better.
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SHORT REVIEW OF “HILLARY’S AMERICA”: I saw Hillary’s America today…agree with Elke that it was a little hokey with the music and symbology (Dinesh’s films often are), but also very weighty in substance. It didn’t teach me any new facts, mainly because I’ve studied enough to have read them all, but might educate many who haven’t dug into or been life-exposed to the Clintons’ older misdeeds yet. It reminded me of a few important events nearly forgotten, and wove them all together into a narrative that, in the broadest context, illustrates how pathologically corrupt, cold, cunning, calculating, and two-faced the Clintons are (and they do come as a duo). The Saul Alinsky connection, racist-history-of-Democrat Party storyline, and support for eugenics advocate Margaret Sanger all were powerful presentations.
The documentary plodded a little too slowly through the history and through the producer’s own experiences, and could have told many of the same facts as powerfully in half the time, leaving more time for pertinent items such as the original/failed health-care “reform” proposal, the serial sexual predations by Bill, and Hillary’s
If you haven’t seen it, please do. I suggest prefacing it with a DVD or streaming viewing of “2016: Obama’s America” for some background and even fuller context.
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TRUMP’S STUPID IMMIGRATION RHETORIC: Trump’s “wall” rhetoric is unhelpful, a backlash too far the other direction from the unfettered anarchy and handcuffed Border Patrol crisis of today, thanks to Obama’s transparent, “Let’s let millions of future Democrat voters in,” policy.
We need to allow the presence of only legal immigrants, through proper lawful procedure, and prosecute the businesses that hire illegals, and keep open to legal immigration. My wife is an immigrant who did it the right way–the legal way–agrees with me, and resents those who mooch illegally off the largesse of the country her family worked so hard not only to enter legally, but build for humans and wildlife thereafter. [Her dad designed the bore for the Eisenhower Tunnel; her mom saved 10,000 sick and injured raptors.] We need to welcome legal immigrants–especially highly educated and skilled people who can do big things for this nation such as cut Interstates through mountains and save our national symbol, the Bald Eagle.
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ELECTION ANARCHY: At this point, no election outcome would surprise me, even a Gary Johnson Libertarian win, because the dominant two-party system is so screwed up as to allow the likes of Trump and Hillary to be presidential nominees. Dignified statesmen, they’re not. They both need to be submitted for intensive anger-management therapy and evaluation for sociopathic tendencies.