Through the Window (and a long rant)

Hi All,

I shot this image on one of my long walks of late with a Panasonic Lumix GX7 camera and 3-D lens using frame sides for phantogram processing. I'm can't name what kind of tree produces what these seeds, maybe one of you can. The overall width of this image was around four inches.

In what I see as a bizarre case of Trumpian Darwinism, the Donald is planning to make his acceptance speech for the republican presidential nomination on August 27 in VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena (capacity 15,000) in Jacksonville, Florida. August 27 is well known to people of color in Jacksonville as "Ax Handle Saturday." On that date in 1960 Hemming Park in Jacksonville was the scene of a racially-motivated attack by a group of white men on African Americans engaging in sit-in protests opposing racial segregation. The attack took its name from the ax handles used by the attackers. Just a coincidence I'm sure to give that speech on that day in Jacksonville.

Trump wants a wildly enthusiastic, packed house without face masks or social distancing. If that is not enough to make one pause to consider, Jacksonville's lack of hotel rooms will make it necessary to bring in cruise ships to accomodate the overflow of attendees as they have for past big events. Clearly the biggest elephant in the the arena and rooms on cruise ships will be our "hidden enemy", the coronavirus. This will quite literally be a trip to die for! Make your reservation right away!

The odd thing is, prominent republicans are known without exception to act in their own best interests, so will senators and congresspersons, govorners, mayors and countless republican party hacks really choose to travel to Jacksonville and put themselves in harms way to pay tribute and show adulation to Trump? I can hear the conversations between husbands and wives, one or both of which are Trump delegates? "... so OK, honey, I know we've kept safe so far, but we gotta go. Really, we gotta go. Our president, ...., he needs us."

As such the 2020 National Republican Convention will be reality TV at its utmost, real life and death stuff. And for those of the republican elite who choose self preservation and stay home, will there be a political price to pay? Will Trump supporters clamor to be part of it, or will they need to pay people to fill the arena?

If you're not sure you can make it to the Republican Convention in August in Jacksonville, but don't want to miss out on a great opportunity to contract COVID-19, you might consider next weekend in Tulsa, Oklahoma, where on Saturday June 20 Trump will be holding a his first big rally this year. Tulsa is no stranger to racial inequity, having been the scene of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, considered the single worst incident of racial violence in American history.

Originally Trump's rally was scheduled for the day before on Friday June 19, but Trump's advisors didn't think holding it that day would help his reelection efforts. June 19 is known as "Juneteenth", a highly celebrated day that commerates when in 1865 Union soldiers arrived in Texas and read the Emancipation Proclamation, which announced that slaves had been freed. Texas was the last of the Confederate states to officially receive the news.

Now for some good news: here's a big shout out to LeBron James, who announced this week that he and several other high-profile professional athletes plan to found "More Than A Vote," a charitable organization to protect black Americans' voting rights, aimed to encourage African Americans to register to vote and to show up to the polls for the November 3 elections. With LeBron and other notables calling out to mobilize voters, many will likely heed his call.

What a country we live in now! The single best thing anyone can do to minimize the spread of a deadly virus is to wear a face mask when around other people, but no, that's too much of a sacrifice just to save some lives. Somehow I can't imagine anyone from another country choosing to take a vacation in the USA for some time.

Barry Rothstein

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