Bugs

Ducklings And Mallard Hen At Dusk (video)

Last evening my neighbor called and asked if I had seen the Mallard hen and her ducklings that evening. She was, he said, quacking up a storm. So I grabbed my camera and tripod and what I discovered on the other side of the street is in the video below.

Enjoy

Bees (video photography and politics)

Photography by David H. Roche
(C)2017 

Syria: some thoughts and some art

I'm appalled at the willingness of humanity to display such anti-human characteristics. In a spiritual sense war is fratricide because in a spiritual sense we are brothers and sisters of one another in a worldwide family. Our fate, at present, is in the grip of principalities and powers that not only lack love but are the enemy of love. Jesus said, "Love your brother like your soul, guard him like the pupil of your eye." verse 25 Gospel of Thomas Nag Hammadi Library.

The ever expanding and ever increasingly unacceptable plague of war spreading over the middle east has a couple prominent explanations.  



One: it is a 'pipeline' war.  


Two: "The massive, direct and immediate power interests of the US war state -- not the determination to ensure that a pipeline would carry Qatar's natural gas to Europe -- drove the US policy of participation in the war against the Syrian regime."

Whichever of the two plans is at play is virtually meaningless. The atrocities directed against human beings are the same whether it be pipeline or power. How you define it is meaningless at that point.

My question is when will the majority of us forbid this kind of behavior by the so called elected democracies that are so much in the vogue these days? 

I am sickened at the Spirit of the Age which requires this kind of behavior.

People are being mistreated, driven from their homes, separated from their families 
and finally having their lives taken from them.  


So I speak.  

Enjoy a bite of a strawberry from my garden.

Pond Scum Meditation

Sometimes there is recognized by those whose minds have encountered the ordinary on a personal basis a subsequent realization that they have encountered the ultimate at the same time. 

I simply set up my camera on my tripod and began to video the interaction of the wind in the middle, the sky above and the insects in front of me. 

The pond becomes a metaphor for the earth which is mostly water. The insects represent us the life that was instructed to be fruitful and multiply. 

all photography (C) 2017

by David H. Roche

I Wonder How The President Is Sleeping (Satire from the peanut gallery)

President Trump, America's overwhelming choice to design and implement the nation's future, has encountered problems requiring him to hire a lawyer to speak on his behalf.  This unexpected glitch has been handled professionally and eagerly by the White House staff who are said to "love the man" and are pleased to have the chance to lick his boots, as this Washington Post article by Chris Cillizza indicates. (remember my article is satire.)  The writer actually reveals a dystopic White House work environment and does it very well.

The President and some of the President's men are now being investigated by Federal law enforcement for possible illegal activities. The investigation is of serious proportions if this New York Times article by Michael D. Shear and Charlie Savage dated June16, 2017 is anywhere near correct. After reading the report The memory of my old dog one hot summer day chasing his tail in frustration and biting fleas came back to me. It remains to be seen if the President can get it together again. Right now it does not look as if he can pull it off.  

This change in the political weather has got to make him antsy. He's not used to this kind of response to his attempts at making America great. It's got to be getting under his skin. I wonder how he's sleeping these nights. All this negative "Fake" press has to get his dander up. 

He probably asks himself why Americans take the allegations of misconduct so seriously. His alleged model of public service is time honored, having its roots in Tammany Hall. After all, he signed that pipeline deal and he pissed off our European allies and generally made the people of the world feel sorry for the average American that finds himself or herself sick and tired and with little hope in the foreseeable future locked into Trumpdom and waiting for the second shoe to drop.  

Americans are all too accustomed to being screwed by their politicians. But the Trump Administration had taken the screwing to a much higher level. There is some thought the Trump Administration has finally gotten the attention of those it is screwing and that a positive change is likely to come about after the courts see to it the trash is removed.

Those people who have finally caught on are glad to see the President squirm. Thankfully the conclusion has been reached that legal proceedings are the only honorable way to clear the suspicion that the Trump Administration has floated over the nation and the world like an ominous threatening storm cloud.

So what will become of the Trump Administration whose top officials now need lawyers to speak on their behalf? It's not often such enormous scandals have to be dealt with. But the Trump Administration was 'special' from the get go. If Trump has a scandal it is going to be bigger and greater than any other political scandal you can be sure of that. It may be time to stock up on popcorn and beer: the legal proceedings could be long winded.  I know several who are already planning Impeachment Parties, none of them to be held at a Trump Resort.

How will it all turn out? No one knows. It's hard to imagine how bad it can and will become if the courts are unsuccessful. It's terribly bad now and Trump's objectives will make the future unbearable for many if not all of us who already live at the bottom of the barrel and wonder if they will have enough to eat before the first of the month rolls around.  

To this day it astonishes me how the politically abused American citizen could have fallen for the P.T. Barnum of American politics. 

Maybe next time it will be different.

Two Roses: a video by David H. Roche

I photographed the roses which I have growing in a bucket at the end of the driveway.

Enjoy.

Dragonfly: photography of a dragonfly by David H. Roche

I happened upon a dragonfly who had attached itself to a blade of grass. It was a breezy day and this insect clung tenaciously to a blade of grass even after I plucked it. He did not let go until I placed the grass on a chair.   

It's quite a pretty insect.  A number of years ago I witnessed a dragonfly catch another bug in the air. It overtook the other insect and when it came alongside it turned its body 90 degrees and grabbed the other insect with its legs or feet or whatever they are called. It just like turned on its side and grabbed the other insect without missing a wingbeat. 

Trump, Paris,The Old Farmer, The Mule And Climate Change: A Parable

I remembered a story my brother told me about an Old Farmer who had a Mule. This was a story with a lesson. My older brother was directing the lesson of that story at me on that particular day. But it is the kind of story whose meaning can be applied to different situations and I remembered it this morning when thinking of what President Trump had done to us all by deciding against preserving the environment. This is a decision contrary to the well-being of not only Americans, but the rest of the world. Well anyway, the Old Farmer liked to brag about his Mule by telling visitors that it would obey voice commands.

Mules are notorious for being obstinate. One day a visitor to the Farm, after being informed of the Mules characteristics, replied that he did not believe it. The Old Farmer said: "Go ahead and tell him to do something."

The visitor went over to the other side of the barnyard and called to the Mule to come to the cart that was under the hay loft. The Mule was accustomed to being hitched to the cart on a daily basis around the Farm, but today it didn't move. The visitor gave the same command a few more times with similar results and then turned to the Old Farmer and said: "I knew he wouldn't do it."

The Old Farmer replied: "You didn't ask right."  The Old Farmer picked up a six foot 2 X 4 and walked over to the Mule and whacked the beast in the head so hard the animals knees buckled. Then the Old Farmer turned to the visitor and said: "Tell him to do it now."

The visitor told the Mule to go to the cart. The Mule went directly to the cart and backed up to be hitched directly under the hay loft. The visitor looked at the Old Farmer as if he had caught him in a lie and blurted out: "That's not what you said, you said all I had to do was tell him what to do."

The Old Farmer replied: "That's all you did. We just had to get his attention first!"

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There's several lessons to be garnered from this simple story. The one that is coming to my mind this morning concerns the imminent effects of climate change, global warming and all the associated social consequences which are inevitable. (some of the social consequences have been enumerated by the climate action network website) Now that President Trump (who fulfills the role of the Old Farmer in the story) has revealed his intentions by removing the U.S. from participating in the Paris Climate Agreement (in depth info in this NPR report) you and I have been smacked with a big 2 X 4 right between the eyes. 

The writing is indeed on the wall for the future of life as we know it on the planet.  Are you paying attention? 

This lesson I'm drawing from the story this morning places the populace in the position of the Mule. Now the Mule has gotten it's attention grabbed with that whack in the head in Paris by the Old Farmer. What do you think the Mule WILL do? What do you think the Mule SHOULD do? Will the Mule pull the cart until it drops dead?  Or will it behave like a camel that knows when it's being taken advantage of?

The application of the story gets fuzzy at this point. The Old Farmer (played by Trump) is making decisions that are predictably going to affect the Mule (played by the people) negatively. The Old Farmer displays little concern for the negative effects which the present and future generations will encounter because of his decisions to make a profit instead of making sure the Farm can continue to provide the means of life for the Family. (Article in National Geographic report on climate change and related effects)

Humanity, it would seem, finds it incumbent upon itself to modify the anti-human activities of its culture if it is to survive. I have begun referring to the decisions of the Old Farmer as anti-human and it is a poetically as well as literally apt designation. 

When our way of life requires that 7 million people die prematurely each year anti-human is an excellent way to describe those kind of goings on. As many as 7 million human beings die each year prematurely from effects related to air pollution according to the WHO. Let that sink in, 7 million unnecessary premature deaths each year! 

To be fair not all air pollution is caused by industry and our way of life. The majority of pollution is created by our way of life. The pollution created by our way of life is the only pollution able to be curtailed and it is able to be curtailed by deliberate choice, by simply changing our minds. 

Volcanoes cannot be stopped, methane eruptions occurring from the gut of the earth cannot be stopped. But we can stop using coal and oil and natural gas. We must stop the pollution we are making. If we do not stop polluting, the designation of being anti-human is a perfect fit!

Maybe if Trump has done one good thing, and that by accident, he has the world set against allowing his attempt at 'bio-cide' to succeed. Can it get anymore insane than this? 

Damn.  I almost wish I were young again so I could see what happens.

The connection is genuine. The decisions of the corpocracy which have guided the ship of state have brought us to the shores of an ocean whose rising temperatures are whipping up winds and dropping water in far away places causing floods, wreaking havoc over the length and breadth of the earth. This is not a joke. 

The problem is a genuine problem. (Bill Moyers.com) The risks are genuine risks and if we fail to turn this around we who have sown to the wind will as the night follows the day reap the proverbial whirlwind. 

My personal understanding may differ from yours.  I believe the roots of the problems facing us are spiritual. Why else would we shit in our own bed and refuse to admit it?

Others who do not think in spiritual categories also understand the problem is of our own making. Regardless of which perspective we understand the problem we are agreed that we as a culture must make changes in order to be responsible to ourselves, our children and the future of our children's children. The culture that has sown carbon death to the winds awaits the harvest.

The artwork and text in the body of the post above was done by myself.(David H. Roche (C) 2017) 

I am appalled at the plan to lay waste to the nation's environment by the Old Farmer and his band of corporate enablers. This art and writing is how I voice my opposition. Thankfully i'm not the only artist who has seen that a problem exists. Hopefully more will appear to educate, motivate, shock and instigate for Climate Justice for all.

One of my favorite artists, Alex Grey, has made a much more eloquent and artistically esthetic defense of the environment and the Spirit than my feeble attempt. I would encourage you to watch his wonderful poem / art / play / visual odyssey titled World Spirit.  It's primo, click the orange letters!

Below is a video poem I wrote and put together.  It is titled "The Death Of Love" and seems to go with the reasons I feel are the cause for the present state of society.

Visitor At Bedtime

I've seen this critter come to the porch to eat food I leave for the feral cats that also come.  Last night just before the day became stingy with the light I spied the raccoon and decided to take the videos.

In the past a raccoon has given birth to 3 kits under my trailer, there is no evidence in these pictures that offspring are on the way.

The animal was not too concerned about my being there.  Not enough to leave, as you can see.