“Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.”
Pablo Picasso

A collection of odd bits of news coming across my computer screen this week.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope everybody is doing well. Post any photos, memes, or music you like.

Well the heat wave the rest of the southwest has been dealing with finally arrived in San Diego earlier this week. Inland from the coast where I live the temps have been in the upper 90s and are expected to remain there until the middle of next week before cooling off. Thankfully it's been cooling off enough at night to keep the house comfortable without having to run the A/C.

They say every dog has its day. These dogs were having their day Tuesday morning at Dog Beach in San Diego. There were breeds of all sizes, shapes, and colors enjoying their time running around on the beach sans leash.

"Look Ma, No Paws! I'm flying!"

RootsAction sends me an email saying don't run, Joe. Here was the substance of its argument:

What is zydeco music? Wikipedia says this.

Now, that tells you kinda what to expect your ears to hear, but neglects to tell you what your eyes see, and your how your heart fills with passion and love.

On the last day of my vacation we went to a bar/restaurant on Taylor Bayou at LaBelle, Texas, near Beaumont, to listen to Leroy Thomas and the Zydeco Roadrunners at the Pine Tree Lodge. Listen to music, feed the gators, the usual stuff, was the plan. We got there early, scored a table ate a slow lunch, and by 2pm., the place was packed, standing room only, and the band started playing. Except, the leader of the band, the star, could be heard, but not seen. You could hear him playing the squeezebox along with the band, but there was no LeRoy. Hmmm...Well, his grand entrance was to hook up his accordion to blue tooth allowing him to make his approach to the dock via a swamp air boat from down the bayou! He got off onto the deck of the restaurant without missing a beat, wandered through the crowd, made his way to the stage, and the crowd went wild, stayed wild for the next 4 hours.

We sang and celebrated everything from love, crawfish, dancin', and the leader of the band pointed out the oldest person in the place, a 94 yr old woman, and he dropped his accordion, grabbed her hand, danced, and just begged us to honor her for her time and life on earth. Then, he resumed singing, playing using his accordion as his dance partner.

Here I would like to discuss Counterpunch's unprovoked publication of a piece by "Glenn Alcalay" (credited in other articles as being a professor of anthropology in New Jersey -- such a qualification!) about Ukraine, titled "No Gray Area: How Putin Wins," filled with all sorts of irrelevant, yet neoconservative, talking points.

Economic Gloom:

I was just browsing my emails the other day and came across an article in an email from Alternet. The title of the article interested me, because it seemed as though economist Robert Reich had turned... well, inside out, kinda, blaming Americans for not being more enthusiastic about our supposedly recovering economy. I'm not saying Reich's all that wonderful, but he's often better than almost all other well-known American economists...

So pay clear attention to the story told by Alex Christoforou here: