Gallery

I came across these examples of street art during a recent walk along the Rio Grande.  They are located under Albuquerque's Central Avenue Bridge.

Some insight into street art culture and what motivates these artists can be found at FATCAP.COM.

The Morning Routine

I get up about 5:00 or 6:00 and stagger out to the kitchen to make a pot of coffee.  The next hour or two is devoted to catching up on the events of the day.  The cats, and now the dog, accompany me on this part of the daily journey.  Sometimes, I snap a few pictures as the morning sun comes through the blinds.

I took my Everything Else blog off line for a while because I was feeling overloaded with the task of trying to sort out the country's political dilemma.  The problem with that is that I am left with no place to post my random thoughts about the world, and I don't want to just dump them into my other blog, Photography and Vintage Film Cameras.  So, I am reopening this blog -- no promises about frequency, content or quality.

Spring

I've seen some flowers on fruit trees in the neighborhood.  The wolfberry I planted last year has leaves.  Lettuce is coming up in the garden. 

I made myself a Manhattan and sat out on the deck.

The neighbor's cat stopped by to visit.

Alternatives

Well, I've heard enough -- more than enough -- from Trump. I don't know if it was just good luck or if there was some underlying agenda, but I found that at the same time Trump was addressing the joint session of Congress, FNX was broadcasting a replay of the 2006 documentary about Buffy Sainte-Marie.

So, I put on the earphones and turned up the volume. What an amazing life story! And, how nice it would be to have her in the country's top spot. Of course, she would never accept the job as it has been defined over the last couple centuries, but I would be perfectly happy to have her there just singing her fine songs.  Maybe Oprah will invite her to perform at the White House.

Just around the corner

Looks like Spring in Albuquerque.

I put some lettuce plants in a bed beside the south side of the house a few days ago.  They survived the last of the cool nights we'll have for a while, and they look healthy.  The pots on my desk are lettuce and zucchini.  The lettuce sprouted in a couple days.  Amazing.

The Enablers

Not yet a month into the Trump era and it is not at all clear if The Donald will continue to play the clown or get past that to become the authoritarian despot he aspires to be.  He faces a steep challenge as he is so ignorant of techniques of governance and diplomacy, and seems to have no fundamental understanding of important social and economic issues.

In the meantime, it is all too obvious that Trump is disruptive and dangerous.  His rants and crude bullying are causing consternation in capitals around the world and there is a growing fear that he will push the wrong button, either inadvertently or on purpose.  That said, while Trump may be unique in his unsuitability as a sitting President, he is probably not that unlike other historical despots.  Hitler and Mussolini also exhibited a lot of clown-like behavior that was fodder for satirists.  However, that did not ultimately prevent them from causing death and destruction on a massive scale.

Of course, the accomplishments of the great despots were not theirs alone.  They relied on the acquiescence of millions and the skilled manipulations of an inner circle.  Stalin had Malenkov and Beriia.  Hitler leaned on Speer, Hess, Goebbels and many other skilled propagandists like Leni Riefenstahl.

Regardless of the arc of his personal development, Trump's path through history will be largely guided by those around him who have the skills he lacks.  The rigors of the political process will weed out many of the sycophants and incompetents like Flynn, but political and constitutional processes will not prevent the ascension to power of the enablers like Tillerson, Sessions, Mnuchin, Ross, Coats, Perry, Carson, Zinke, Perdue, Shulkin, Mattis, Kelly, DeVos, Puzder, Chao and Price.

UPDATE:

The good news:  Puzder is out as Labor Secretary.
Not so good:  The guy who nominated Puzder is still (sometimes) in the White House.

The reasons for the withdrawal included the likelihood of four Republican senators voting against confirmation.  The reasons for that and other factors are dissected in a post at 538.

More Resistancce Resources

Carolyn Carlson at the Weekly Alibi authored a good article on current resistance activity which included the following list of national and local New Mexico resources:

www.Moveon.org

https://www.indivisibleguide.com

https://www.womensmarch.com

http://workingfamilies.org

https://dailyaction.org

https://www.runforsomething.net

https://5calls.org

https://www.resistancemanual.org/Resistance_Manual_Home

https://www.aclu.org

Local resources include:

http://progressnownm.org

http://abqpeaceandjustice.org

http://www.abqresistance.com