OK first up…what’s going on around Long Pond Road. Not much really, still waiting on Neil’s new camera body but other than that not much. Connie is now the President of the Ladies of Elks…she spent almost 2 full days this past week straightening out their IRS paperwork which didn’t get done before because the responsible party who was supposed to do it refuses to deal with the IRS. Like Neil sez…it’s hard to get good help. Nuts I say…but that part is straightened out…or it will be in 6 weeks which is how long the IRS takes to input the info she gave them into the computer system…seems like the info could have just gotten typed straight in but mebbe it has to get reviewed and approved because…ya know…the gummint is involved so it can’t be easy. 

We’ve suffered a lot of things under COVID…but eatin’ well ain’t one of ‘em…we keep coming up with simply outstanding meals. Neil does most of the cooking but Connie brainstorms ideas and passes them along to him so we end up with Good Eats as Alton Brown would say. Today’s gonna be carne asada…that’s pork marinated in orange, lime, and lemon juices with chili powder and garlic. One that’s grilled he’ll grill some onions and Shishito peppers since we don’t have a reg’lar old bell pepper…and he whipped up a batch of corn tortilla dough a bit before. It’s restin’ now so after the meat and veggies are done he’ll divide it up into portions, smash ‘em in our tortilla press, and cook ‘em on our griddle. Add in some salsa for Connie and hot sauce and onion dip for Neil, squeeze a lime over them and they’ll be mighty tasty vittles…

I dunno know why…but I saw on the interwebs this week…again…how the former President incited a riot and directed an insurrection…so I figured I would ‘vestigate and see exactly what he said. Sure ‘nuff…googling ‘President Trump Speech January 6’ turned up a CNN transcription of the speech for my elucidation. Now Ima not gonna claim he won because there ain’t no evidence he did or that the election was stolen, rigged, or otherwise fraudulent…and Ima not gonna say that everything (or anything for that matter) he said was correct…I was jus’ lookin’ for the part where he incited the riot and insurrection.

The closest thing I could find to incitement was where he said “we’re gonna fight like hell” and “we’re gonna walk down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Here’s the link to the transcription…I didn’t find anything else that seemed like incitement to me. Still though…they impeached him for it so it must be true.

But then I got to thinking ‘bout some other things I seen on the interwebs as well.

If it’s inciting insurrection to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue and is an actual insurrection to go into the Capitol…then why isn’t trying to burn down the police HQ out in Portland and taking possession of several square blocks in downtown and declaring yourselves independent of the US of A insurrection? Yeah…I know…BLM and all that and it was only a peaceful protest but I distinctly recall seeing a lot of fires, burning police vehicles, rocks getting tossed at the cops, and looting going on. Now the BLM folk claim that they’re being tarred with the wrong brush and it was just some ‘criminal elements’ who infiltrated their peaceful protest.

So’s…that got me to thinking. I don’t remember where I saw it but there were supposedly some 5,000 or 6,000 people at the President’s rally back on January 6…ya know, the one where he incited the riot and insurrection. I figure that maybe half of those people actually walked down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol so that’s call it 2,500 or 3,000 people at the Capitol. Yesterday…I saw that the DoJ was filing charges against about 400 or 500 people…total…over the incident…and that got me to thinking. If there were 3,000 people outside the Capitol and only 500 got arrested…then the other 2,500 must have been peaceful protestors. That means that the vast majority of the people at the protest were peaceful…just like the BLM ones are…and there were a few ‘criminal elements’ who took advantage of the situation. And of those 500 people arrested…I’m betting that the vast majority can only be charged with trespassing or not complying with law enforcement commands…just like most of the people arrested at the peaceful BLM protests.

Yes…there were some people who actively attacked the security forces, invaded and damaged property, and all that…but was it really as bad as the news is making it out? And if it is that bad…why is there no similar outcry against the BLM riots and the Occupy encampments which again took over city property a year or two back?

And why when Representative Maxine Waters says “We got to stay on the street. And we’ve got to get more active, we’ve got to get more confrontational. We’ve got to make sure that they know that we mean business.” in reference to a possible acquittal in the George Floyd case…why is that not incitement to riot?

And why…getting into another ‘person of color murdered by the police’ regarding the young lady who was shot by the police while lunging towards two other women with a knife…as clearly seen in the video…does LeBron James tweet out the name and photo of the officer involved with a note “You’re next.” How is that not incitement to violence. To his credit…it was a knee-jerk reaction on his part and once he saw the video he retracted and deleted his tweet and replaced it with one asking for a ‘full investigation’…or maybe that was just his PR flacks who told him to walk it back. 

I guess it comes down to what we’ve known all along…politicians and media lie and you can tell because their lips are moving. 

Anyways…enough of that…how ‘bout some pictures.

Since Neil does’t have the new body yet…on Friday it was a very pleasant afternoon so he took his camera and bird lens out along with a chair and sat in the shade by the lanai for an hour or so. He’s tried to sneak out when the birds are around but usually they get scared and fly off so he decided to just be part of the environment…and golly…it worked. Got some nice shots…mostly nothing special but there were a few excellent ones.

This Blue Jay was looking at him with one of those “what you talkin’ ‘bout, Willis” looks…if you can remember that TV show from the 80s.

Brown Thasher.

Mr. Cardinal…again looking at Neil rather strangely…or maybe he was working on romancing Mrs. Cardinal in the next shot as she was in the tree over his head.

This bunny was hunched down in the grass eating out of the neighbor’s shrubbery.

Out in the pond he spotted some fish…this one is about 2-1/2 feet long but I got no idea what it is…and more importantly why Ragnar hasn’t had him for lunch yet. Probably because there are dozens of them in there I guess based on the numbers we’ve seen at one time. That little concrete ledge it is over is about 10 inches under water or so and in another month will be dry by about a foot…but at the height of winter it was at least 3 to 4 feet under water…our pond level is falling pretty quickly as it does this time of year.

Mr. Cardinal displaying for his lady friend.

Another shot of the Blue Jay…or maybe a different one…who knows.

A Red Bellied Woodpecker…although to be more accurate it should have been called a Red Headed Woodpecker…but there was already one of those, the whole head is red like he was dipped into the paint bucket so I guess Red Bellied was the next closest thing…even though there’s really not much red on the belly…down by the legs it does go from tan to dusky sorta reddish brown…but they didna ask me when they named it. We usually see this one pecking on the trees but it was eating on the ground for a change.

Another shot of the Blue Jay…he kept coming back.

One interesting catch…a Swallow Tailed Kite…so named because of the scissor shaped tail feathers. This is a bird of prey…like a hawk or eagle…and not really a swallow at all. Sorry Neil didn’t get a shot of it from the front…but that upgraded camera that he’s still waiting on has a much more sophisticated autofocus subject finding algorithm and he couldn’t get onto the bird and focused quickly enough for a front shot…but he did get a nice display of the swallow tail. This is a medium to medium-large bird…wingspan about 3 to 4 feet and 2 feet long including the tail. Neil’s seen them several times out on bike rides but mostly up at the front of the neighborhood…this is the first time we’ve seen one back near our pond. I think he was looking for the bunny to eat but by this time the bunny had retreated to the woods. 

Another shot of the Brown Thrasher…this one was across the pond where the first one was closer out under the bush in the side yard.

A Snowy Egret flew in and he was in a good spot for a couple of action shots as it chased a late afternoon snack. Luv dem golden slippers…he’s not a stand still ambush hunter like most wading birds are…Snowy’s shuffle their feet along the bottom while moving slowly and the bright feet scare the critters out of hiding then they pounce on them.

And finally…a Boat Tailed Grackle…I’ll give you two guesses how they came up with the name.

I got no interesting stuff…at least cartoon or image wise…from the net this week…that’s just the way the cookie crumbles some days.

Cyas.