From today: Assorted political signs and flowers:

Still Life with Fruit

Getting Older?

I’m on two diets. I wasn’t getting enough food on one.

A cold seat in a public restroom is unpleasant. A warm seat is worse.

Apparently RSVP’ing to a wedding invitation, "Maybe next time" isn’t the correct response.

Don’t irritate old people. The older we get the less “life in prison” is a deterrent.

Have you ever listened to someone for a minute and thought, “Their cornbread ain’t done in the middle.”

Aliens probably fly by earth and lock their doors.

I asked my wife if I was the only one she had been with. She said yes, all the others were nines and tens...

I really don’t mind getting older, but my body is taking it badly.

I miss the 90’s, when bread was still good for you and no one knew what kale was.

Do you ever get up in the morning, look in the mirror and think, “That can’t be accurate.”

I want to be 14 again and ruin my life differently. I have new ideas.

As I watch this generation try to rewrite our history, one thing I’m sure of… it will be misspelled and have no punctuation.

I thought getting old would take longer.

Confuse your doctor by putting on rubber gloves at the same time he does.

My wife asked me to take her to one of those restaurants where they make food right in front of you. I took her to Subway. That’s when the fight started.

Me: Sobbing my heart out, “I can’t see you anymore… I’m not going to let you hurt me again." Trainer: “It was one sit-up. You did one sit-up.”

Picked up a hitchhiker. He asked if I wasn’t afraid he might be a serial killer? I told him the odds of two serial killers being in the same car were extremely unlikely.

I went line dancing last night. OK, it was a roadside sobriety test… same thing.

Natal Plum in flower

No Place Like Home...

The Beach was nearly completely clouded out..........but!

She persisted!

I hope you'll enjoy. I had hoped for better shots, but I was glad to get these!

Well...........wish me luck!

The skies here were gloomy till 1 p.m. Now they are clear! And it looks like they will remain that way for some hours.

So.......I'm going to drive down to the beach (1 and 1/2 miles away) in order to take some photos, hopefully good ones.

That includes the comet, and probably the new crescent moon.

I don't often do this, but tonight I really feel compelled.



On edit: If I get anything worth seeing, you will be first to do that.

I have just received this petition from Courage California.

It's for Governor Newsom, asking him to refuse to let tRump's minions into our state as they have in Portland. I'm pretty sure anyone can sign it. I hope you all do!

From: Molly Watson, Courage California <info@couragecampaign.org>

Militarized police forces with no identification are grabbing Black Lives Matter protestors off the streets of Portland, Oregon, and shoving them into unmarked vans -- and California could see the same shortly.(1)

It's a terrifying civil rights abuse straight out of Orwell's 1984 or Soviet Russia, and it’s not just in Portland. Donald Trump is sending Department of Homeland Security (DHS) police to Chicago this week, and he said Oakland is next.(2)

We need Governor Gavin Newsom to send a strong, immediate message to Trump that he will not allow his state’s residents to be abused by unauthorized police. Will you sign our petition to call on Gov. Newsom to help in this fight for our basic civil rights?

Click here to sign our petition demanding that Gov. Newsom turn away Trump's secret police, and share with your friends.

It's unfathomable that we have people in military riot gear with no request or authorization from the local government, or warrants of any kind, who are patrolling America's streets with assault rifles and abusing innocent citizens -- but that is exactly where we are.

Portland's Black Live Matter protests were largely peaceful events until these forces arrived, deteriorating the situation into violent panic. There are reports of protestors having their bones broken, being shoved into vans to be mercilessly beaten, and having their lives threatened.(3)

Worse, the governor of Oregon has asked DHS to withdraw its out-of-control police—and DHS has refused.(4)

It's federal authoritarianism, plain and simple.

Sign our petition right away!

Now Trump has his eyes set on other sites of successful Black Lives Matter protests where change is taking place -- New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Oakland, among others. Just this week, Bay Area workers walked off the job in a Strike for Black Lives to fight for better working conditions.(5)

Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf said she does not want Trump's troops in her city, and that it is just more of his racism at work, saying, "We are not experiencing any civil unrest right now. But I can think of nothing more likely to incite it than the presence of Trump-ordered military troops.&quot 6)

We need Gov. Newsom to use every resource at his disposal to keep these abusive secret police out of Oakland. If Gov. Newsom is able to stop this abuse of power, other governors will be able to follow suit, and we can shut down these secret police entirely.

Click here to sign our petition demanding that Gov. Newsom turn away Trump’s secret police, and share with your friends.

Yours in the fight for our democracy,

Molly, along with Angela, Annie, Brian, Caitlin, Deepthi, Gabby, Irene, Jay, Jen, Lindsay, Raquel, and Scottie (the Courage team)


Footnotes:
1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/christopher-david-portland-protest-video/
2. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/20/trump-threatens-to-send-more-troops-to-democrat-cities/
3. https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/07/20/christopher-david-portland-protest-video/
4. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2020/07/20/dhs-refuses-to-remove-trump-ordered-federal-officers-from-oregon-after-tear-gas-filled-weekend/#6ed0f6f67df1
5. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/20/bay-area-workers-to-join-nationwide-strike-for-black-lives/
6. https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/07/20/trump-threatens-to-send-federal-police-to-oakland-mayor-rejects-offer/

A liberal girlfriend of mine sent me this essay.

It's written by a liberal girlfriend of hers who lives in Portland. My girlfriend said it's OK to post this; she thinks that it deserves a wider audience. I agree.

> From Leni Tupper
> I joined the wall of moms at the protests at the Portland justice center and the federal courthouse last night. I made sure to talk with some Black and brown organizers before I went, to check that they didn’t feel that us middle-aged, mostly-white ladies were taking away from the activists who have literally been there every night for 53 nights (many of whom are moms themselves, it’s worth noting). Everyone assured me there was nothing but love for the moms.
>
> Except from law enforcement. The feds tear gassed us without warning, while they hid inside the comfort of their federal property. Once we got gassed and were trying to leave, they threw flash bangs, pepper balls, and tear gas cannisters at us (including expired ones- a friend kept the empty. In case you don’t know— I didn’t—expired tear gas can convert to cyanide). I could barely see the lines of unidentifiable men in camouflaged army fatigues approaching the crowd through a thick layer of smoke.
>
> Each corner we tried to calmly exit by, there were more hazy goons throwing more tear gas, pepper spray and flash bangs. A friend I was with shouted, “I don’t like this way!” as we waded through a cloud of gas. But when we turned around, we saw every other way out only had more.
>
> These are not your everyday cops in riot gear, holding a line, whose faces you can see and whose humanity you can at least imagine. I know that PPB has done all the same messed up shit and is working with the feds, but being attacked by nameless, faceless, camo-clad agents of war who only appear in a cloud of smoke and gas feels different.
>
> They were not dispersing the crowd, they were punishing us.
>
> I am proud to say that last night’s protest was one of the biggest since George Floyd’s murder. PPB and now federal agents try to quell the protests, to punish the protestors into submission. But the people only come back stronger, in larger groups.
>
> Please don’t buy the media and right-wing hype trying to cast protestors in a negative light. The worst that protestors have done is vandalize some property— primarily property that represents systemic injustices against Black and brown folks. And please don’t buy into the good protestor/bad protestor trope, or throw your respectability politics at the activists who are in the struggle. When people are literally fighting for Black lives, don’t police how exactly they do it. They get enough of that from the police and now the feds. Those are the only people who are being violent; those are the only people who deserve your scorn.
>
> Being a respectable middle-aged mom did not keep me from being tear-gassed. Being respectable does not save Black lives. In the words of Assata Shakur, “Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.”

Crescent Moon at Dawn...