We had a very impressive storm Tuesday night, and of course rather than staying out of it, I was leaning out the studio window, getting soaked taking photos. Nothing was shot in monochrome, just playing about using different settings while listening to the thunder grumble. Click for full size.
© C. Ford.
Kengi got in on the bird excitement too, when a Gray Catbird showed at the feeder, click for full size!
© Kengi, all rights reserved.
Do not miss this video! (Just a bit over 2 minutes.) Link.
Open Thread. Don’t be an asshole, thanks. Previous Thread.
Multiple of our many Hibiscus plants have decided to blossom this spring. Three different colors so far, I hope the red ones join the party too.
©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.
©voyager, all rights reserved
This is a trail that Jack and I seldom use. In winter it’s drab and funnels the wind and in summer it’s full of mosquitoes. Today, though, it was perfect and Jack and I had a slow wander through the unfamiliar landscape. As we approached this section of the trail the trees began reaching out from either side to meet in the middle and close us in overhead. It felt as if we were stepping into a magical tunnel that would lead us to the secret forest places where fairies and pixies live. Of course today all the magical creatures were hiding, but the sense of possibility stayed with me. It isn’t often that Jack and I go to unfamiliar places and I think we both felt a sense of wonder at this special something new.
Wow, Coach Dave is on one hell of a trip. His latest lunatic screeth is quite long, and so full of batshit, it’s hard to know where to begin. What’s all the fuss? The latest royal wedding – it’s a major psy-op to enforce the worst of the worst: the blending of white people with :gasp: people of colour!
Daubenmire, who has declared that he is “proud to be white” because “white, heterosexual, Christian” men represent America’s only hope for survival, has fretted about the threat of white genocide, and has fumed that interracial marriage weakened this nation “because multiculturalism is spiritual AIDS [that] has brought an infection into what was once a great Christian American culture,” said that the marriage of Prince Harry to a woman of “mixed blood” is an attempt to corrupt the pure bloodline of House of Windsor.
Yes, Coach Dave is a fully paid up member of the White Patriarchal Assholes™. He’s also astonishingly dense, as we shall see.
“Let me just lay it out there, because most people won’t say it because they don’t want to sound racist,” Daubenmire said while wearing a literal tinfoil hat. “Prince Harry’s wife is half-black. Now, wait a minute. That ain’t that royal bloodline lineage there, is it fellas? Isn’t there a little bit of mixed blood coming in there?”
Pretty much everyone on the planet has a someone in the woodpile who comes as a bit of a surprise. Now royalty everywhere does have a perturbing history of inbreeding in an attempt to keep things within the right class, but I’d happily bet there are some right interestin’ people in those bloodlines. Royalty has also spent a lot of time breeding like out of control bunnies, and there was seldom much concern about all those babes born on the wrong side of the blanket, and there were a fucktonne of them, too. History, Coach Dave. Try learning some.
“Did you see who performed the service?” he said. “Was it the Bishop of Canterbury or some official WASPy guy? Was it? Did I miss something? Or did we see the ultimate—umm, how do I say this?—a blending of the races; one new world order, one-world government, the blending of the [races] in the House of Windsor coming together for the first time.”
Bishop Curry is the ultimate blending of the races? How on earth do you figure that one, Dave? It’s not as if Bishop Curry was getting married to Harry. You might be unaware, Dave, but there have been people of colour in England for a very long time. A really long time. There have even been people of colour at the royal court, going waaaaaaaaaay back. I did hear that Bishop Curry preached about love, and I rather expect that’s what got under your skin. As for the whole new world order blahblahblah blending of races in the House of Windsor, uhhhh, it was one wedding. I don’t think it even qualified as a herald to all that nonsense.
Daubenmire insisted that since Prince Harry is sixth from the throne and very unlikely to ever become King of England, he was allowed to marry Meghan Markle in order to send a message endorsing mixed race relationships.
Oh, all that idiocy has been downgraded to an endorsement now. Gotcha. Who the hell knows who is going to end up on the throne? I can’t be arsed to care. As it stands, Elizabeth might live to be two hundred years old, given her death grip on that throne. People aren’t influenced by this kind of thing as much as you seem to think, Dave. For most people, it’s a matter of falling in love, and skin colour doesn’t enter into it.
“I’m going to tell you something, if there was any chance that Harry was ever going to be King of England, do you think they really would have let him just choose any woman he wanted?” Daubenmire said. “Of course not. So what’s the message that is being sent to us? … Is it a psy op that now, all of a sudden, sixth to the throne, he ain’t never going to be king, now it’s okay for the crown to be diverse?”
Yes, I expect Harry would have been allowed to marry who he wanted to marry. Even royalty has to make concessions to the current reality. If there was an obstacle, Harry could always choose to abdicate, it’s been done before. No, it is not a “psy-op”. Harry is not “all of a sudden” sixth in line. As for the crown being diverse, yeah, it’s just fine. There’s no reason it shouldn’t be.
Lurid / RouéLurid.
Adjective.
1a: causing horror or revulsion: gruesome; b: melodramatic, sensational, also: shocking.
2a: wan and ghastly pale in appearance. b: of any of several light or medium grayish colours ranging in hue from yellow to orange.
3: shining with the red glow of fire seen through smoke or cloud.
-luridly, adverb.
-luridness, noun.
[Origin: Latin luridus pale yellow, sallow.]
(1603)
Note: I have to say, this held surprises for me. I have never considered lurid to be light, let alone pale yellow! Lurid has always come across as very bold to me; daring and/or scandalous simply doesn’t scream pale or pastel to my mind. I never pictured it as a person being wan or ghastly pale, either. “His face was lurid.” Nope, that doesn’t sound right at all.
“Are my expectations possibly getting a little lurid? she wondered. Not really. After all, there is someone out to get me.” – The Burning Page, Genevieve Cogman.
Roué.
Noun.
A man devoted to a life of sensual pleasure: Rake.
[Origin: French, literally, broken on the wheel, from Medieval Latin rotare, from Latin, to rotate; from the feeling that such a person deserves this punishment.]
(1800)
Note: I found the origin of this fascinating.
“Don’t be,” Vale said, his tone as caustic as he could make it. “I hardly enjoy the experience. Your are one of the most notorious roués in London.” – The Burning Page, Genevieve Cogman.
By James Gillray. In this etching, he caricaturised a lecturer – most likely physician and chemist Thomas Garnett, as administering gas at London’s Royal Institution to a particularly long-winded member of parliament, Sir John Coxe Hippisley. Squeezing the bellows next to the pair is the grinning future Sir Humphry Davy. Just over a week after Hannah Humphrey published Gillray’s etching, Davy would replace Garnett as the Royal Institution’s Lecturer of Chemistry. Source. Over to the left, toward the bottom, there appears to be an interracial couple with a child. Click for full size!
New Discoveries in Pneumaticks!: or an Experimental Lecture on the Powers of Air, James Gillray, Etching coloured, 1802. Subject: New Discoveries, Equipment, Supplies, Teaching.
Zinnia.
Zinnias make for wonderful summertime garden flowers, attracting all kinds of pollinators and many birds which feed on their seeds. Snails (and slugs) also seem to like them, not only the flowers but especially the seedlings. It’s kind of a spring tradition for me, sow zinnias and hand-pick snails and slugs around them every night until they grow to a certain stage or until snails estivate. This photo was taken in November, when snails are active again, and some zinnias are still standing.
Oh, what a poignant and beautiful photo! Click for full size.
© Nightjar, all rights reserved.
Click for full size.
© C. Ford, all rights reserved.
This was yesterday: “Oh gods, I went and filled the feeder, then took Jayne on a walk around the property, and there were DOZENS of Cedar Waxwings in the apple tree. I’ve been trying to get a photo of them for years.” This was not easy shooting, but still, oh, this was so exciting! I sat on the ground under the apple tree, and shot up. Lots of photos here, 12 of them, most below the fold. The last set is underexposed, but I was once again shooting into the sun, so it was the only way to prevent a bunch of silhouettes. They are constantly active, so most of my shots were somewhat artistic blurs. These are also birds who excel at the quick flip the moment you get a focus, so I ended up with a lot of butt shots too. These 12 were the best out of them all. Altogether, a great and grand morning, sitting under the apple and box elder maple trees, in the shade, surrounded by the soporific buzz of bees in all the blossoms. Picked a bunch of lilacs for the studio, too. Click for full size!
©voyager, all rights reserved
It’s raining today and rather than get muddy on one of our trails Jack and I decided to stay close to home and walk on the nice, clean concrete sidewalks in our own neighbourhood. We haven’t done that in a while and it was fun to check out everyone’s gardens and see what’s come up and what’s been newly planted. Yesterday we celebrated Victoria Day, and traditionally this holiday weekend is considered the safe date to plant outdoors with no risk of frost. That means that gardeners all around get busy and get their hands dirty. It also means the end of spring bulbs and I do hate to lose the tulips. They’re one of my favourite flowers and they come in so many colours, all of them bright and cheerful. To mark their ending I’m posting these beautiful tulips belonging to one of my neighbours. I think they’re a double tulip, but I don’t know the variety.