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

This month's camera club outing was at the Self-realization Fellowship Meditation Garden in Encinitas. Located on a bluff overlooking the Pacific ocean, the garden has a wide variety of trees and plants, Koi ponds and plenty of benches where you can sit and relax (or meditate if that's your thing) and enjoy the garden and the view of the ocean.

https://www.travelandleisure.com/most-peaceful-place-in-california-self-...

I'm not sure if this has become a big issue yet, but it's easy to predict that it will. This is how Fox News reports it.

Have you asked yourself where this is all headed?

I spent most of my life as a staunch Democrat. Raised in a blue family in a blue city in a blue state. I voted straight line Democrat starting in 1972.

The years of Republican rule, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush solidified my Democratic Party convictions.

Than along came Bill Clinton and after 12 years of Republican control I was ready for change. But, it didn't take long into his administration that I started to question it all. Clinton was a master of gaslighting the public. To me, that was the start of the Democratic Party's illiberal policies that have metastasized into the upside down party that we're dealing with today. They have lost their way.

How can a political party call themselves democratic, with a small d, when they do things like putting up a presidential candidate that no one has voted for? They do everything within their means to keep third party candidates off of state ballots. They've unleashed weaponized tech giants on their ideological opponents and non-conforming adherents. I thought democracy was about choice. Of course, all here know better, Bernie Sanders comes to mind. We are presented, election after election, with no real choices other than corporate lackeys that are only concerned about their own best interests.

Don't get me wrong, the Republicans are no better. In fact, they have helped in this climb to bastardized governance by playing a game of leapfrog with the opposition party that has contributed greatly to our current state of affairs. Every subsequent administration for decades has brought us closer to the constitutional crisis we are now facing. The constitutional crisis I speak of is the lack of adherence to said constitution. It is all but ignored by our supposedly duly elected leaders, and I say leaders with tongue in cheek.

The Harris campaign, if it wants to keep the reconstituted Obama coalition together, has very little time to announce a policy change in regards to Israel. Either she does something measurable, or she'll quickly lose young voters. It starts next week at the DNC in Chicago, but it doesn't end there.

Bravery

Yesterday I read about a young man who showed so much bravery and dedication to service that he died. Cpl. Spencer R. Collart was a young Marine who burnt to death in the fires that resulted from an Osprey crash in Australia in 2023. (The article is also on the AP and other websites.)

It sounds kind of 'normal' in a way, burning to death in a fire because a military air plane crashed - especially an Osprey which doesn't have a great record. But what wasn't normal was this, Collart got out of the burning plane just fine, after all the other Marines that were in the back of the plane escaped. And then, he saw that the cockpit was on fire. So he went back inside the burning plane to rescue the pilots. Unfortunately, he and the pilots all died in the fire. Because of his bravery he is being posthumously awarded the highest non-combat medal the Marines and Navy have - the Navy and Marine Corps Medal. It's awarded for acts of heroism which are a great risk to the service member's life.

The Navy and Marine Corps Medal from the military times website linked above.

Dear Harris voters:

I remember reading early on that your candidate's Website had no discussion of issues. I looked just now, and it doesn't appear that the Website still has any such discussion. It would be nice if you were to be apprised of what you would be getting under a Harris administration.