SNL, Trump and The Bible

 

Happy Easter (More Religious)

 If you are a Christian who believes every actual word of the Bible, well, chances are that you aren't thrilled with me, an atheist.

On the other hand, if you believe that Jesus preached loving your neighbors, taking care of the poor, humility, honesty, and kindness - I am totally on board with that.

I think that the 2nd Jesus is the tradition I was raised in - albeit we didn't not go to church very much.

So, Happy Easter, a day we celebrate the teachings of Jesus, and most people think about how to make the world a better place.

A day at the farmer's market

The Farmer's Market is about 1/4 mile away. We walk. 

Just 2 shots.

Fresh Berries.  Nice.

They also sell homemade tamales. Our Saturday breakfast of choice.

And proof that men will pay for the right cosmic surgery

 People were self-conscious about the weirdest things. 

Now, does David Beckham have nice nipples? 

Sure, I guess. I mean, men's nipples have never been a source of desire for me, but whatever.

But now men (the British papers say straight men) are having plastic surgery to get David Beckham's nipples. 

Thousands and thousands to have their nipples reduced and shaped to almond-sized.

That is just an unnecessary surgery to me. I mean, if you are self-conscious about your body, there is already a lot to worry about. But to add nipples to that list, which includes body fat > 10%, zero love handles, a square jaw, and a deep voice. That is just gilding the lilly.

Happy Easter

Every Easter, the television shows The Ten Commandments.

Sure, it is in French, but it is the only one that has a young (pubescent) Yul Brynner holding a giant dildo.

It has only dawned on me later in life that this is odd. I mean, The Ten Commandments is about Moses leading the Jews out of Egypt. 

First, God is kind of a dick in this movie. I mean, Moses led his people out of slavery, carried down two tablets of stone, saw a burning bush, and STILL God made him wander in the desert and die before his people got to the promised land.

Second, no Jesus. I mean, it is a show on Easter, which is when we celebrate the Easter Bunny rolling back the rock from Indiana Jones and Jesus walking out. The Ten Commandments has no Easter Bunny, no rolling rock and definitely no Jesus.

"Ha ha" says Ann, "You'll never have me, I love Moses."

Moses, Moses, Moses

Chuck and Yul - with how Yul's random object should look

John Derek - the image that launched 1,000 gays
PS - Before, you know, he was a misogynistic asshole.

Animals from the Guardian

 I am a fan of animals - as we all know. These are a few posted in The Guardian newspaper this month.

We begin with a Black Necked Grebe in the wild.

So this is from a British Safari park. There was a rainstorm that put a pond in the bear enclosure. The staff wondered if they would play with a padello awaiting repairs. They put it in the enclosure and the bear almost immediately jumped in.

South American Sea Lions off Peru

A fox in Kew Gardens. Because they have no predators left, the population of England has exploded. The same way deer in certain areas and coyotes in California.

Asian Lynx in central turkey (for Lynn)

These are British hares - you know sweet bunnies, going at it.

Yaks in a standoff in Norway.

Spanish Legion Celebrates Easter

 The Spanish Legion is an army group from Spain that seems to exist only for gay men. I mean for gay men to lust after, not gay men in the group. So the picture is quite a tug of way for your religious gay. Since I am not so religious, I don't look at the cross first. Or second, but that is just me. (No sacrilege meant. Really.)

I actually saw this is an "AP Photos of the Week." I was not cruising for pictures of hot soldiers.

I was not trolling for images of "Hot military men at Easter." Which is a disconcerting idea. Anyway, more about the Legion.

They are a legion that seems to prize facile hair and muscles over any fighting ability. Here are some favorite pictures.

"Help me roll up my selves." 

Natural Gay Sex from the Wild - and the dumbest take EVER!

 

Minding My Own Business and Then ....

 Here I was scouting the internet for a Red Panda picture (long story), happy as a clam.* And then I am hit by this from "The Guardian"

What I wanted ....

Just looking for a nap - don't bug me....

What I found...

Ah.. Another reminder about the slow death of democracy

A screen grab of the story will solve who is behind this. Guess?  A hint - it used to mean the opposite of Kangaroo Kourt - but now basks in that honorific.  Which is horrific.

*Are clams happy? I mean they are basically known for chowder and making people sick. Although the whole "cooking them for chowder" may be why they attempt to make us sick.

This is an odd illustration

 The Palm Springs Paper (The Desert Sun) printed this picture to tell its story about the income rainstorm. I think it is an odd picture. I see it and all I can think of is "No more Girl Scout Cookies for you, old man!"

The Radiator Building

 Before I left New York, I took some cool shots of the American Radiator Building. It is an Art Deco touchstone. It is gorgeous and indicative of the style of excess, streamlining, and movement that was critical for that time.

Here are my pictures (and an introductory paragraph from Wikipedia).

The Building from Bryant Park - usually a tough view because of the trees.

(From Wikipedia)

The American Radiator Building (also known as the American Standard Building) is an early skyscraper at 40 West 40th Street, just south of Bryant Park, in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. It was designed by Raymond Hood and André Fouilhoux in the Gothic and Art Deco styles for the American Radiator Company. The original section of the American Radiator Building, a 338 ft-tall (103 m), 23-story tower, was completed in 1924. A five-story annex, to the west of the original tower, was built from 1936 to 1937.

Upper Detail

Lower Detail

How does Donny fleece his fans? Ask the RNC.

NOTE: This is not an enabling message. It is a look at the way Donald's influence on the Republican National Committee (now headed by his daughter-in-law) has increased the money to his lawyers while sucking up Republican money that usually goes to down-ballot candidates.

Donald J Trump uses his name and likeness to fleece his followers. A lot. We all get that. 

But his latest grift through the RNC (Republican National Committee) is truly epic. His daughter-in-law is the new head of the Republican National Committee. She has explained that from now on, money donated to the RNC will be divided between the "Save America PAC" and the "Maga Super PAC." This sounds scary to down-ballot Republican candidates who depend on this money for Congressional races, but at least some would seem to go through the traditional route.

Not So Fast...

The Machinations to funnel almost all the money donated to the RNC into the funds for Trump's Lawyers or Election 

This now joins the list of Presidential and Post-Presidential grifts he is famous for:

The latest, just in time for Easter, is a Bible. Because, you know, God likes him.

Only THIS Bible is endorsed. Not the other loser Bibles.

And before the Bible, these charmers:

Trump Trading Cards

Trump Presidential Coins (not legal tender)

Trump Mug-Shot Merch

Trump NFTs - a veritable  steal at $10,000 a set

Sold out Tennis Shoes because "the blacks lover tennis shoes"*

*Statement from FOX contributor - which is SO NOT a totally owned subsidiary of Trump Criminal Endeavors Inc.

Words of Truth (on penis size) from Michelle Wolf

 

Not sure if I remarked on this before, but here goes... Aluminaire House

New Life in Palm Springs

In 1931, a house was built for an industry trade show. The Aluminaire House was small and daring, small enough to fit into the exhibition hall's space. It was intended to last nine days. 93 years later, it was just reassembled in Palm Springs at the Art Museum.

Typical house of the era

In between, it sat on Long Island for use as a weekend house - purchased at the end of the expo for $1,000 (bout $20,000 today - still, nothing). When it was found, in a dilapidated state it was moved to the campus of the New York Institute of Technology, where various classes of students rebuilt it using original materials.

When NYIT closed the local campus, the Aluminaire House was ultimately sent to Palm Springs, already a living history of Bauhaus, Modern, and Post-Modern architecture. I haven't seen it, but I cannot wait.

Here is a bit of CNN's write up. 

The house was small — it had to fit inside an exhibition hall in Manhattan, after all — and entirely clad in corrugated aluminum panels over a steel frame. Elevated on pylons, it seemed to float lightly on the landscape. Very unusually for the time, large areas of glass let inhabitants connect with the outdoors, and the upper level housed an outdoor garden. Frey’s designs were fresh, precise, beautiful, and rigorous in their use of basic, off-the-shelf materials. This simplicity belied the genius of the man that created them.

But it was the ideas that the house embodied that made it so important in the canon of Frey’s work: The style was European but the construction was all American in its assembly-line nature, using off-the-shelf materials. It showed the public in three dimensions how ideas put forth by Le Corbusier and the Bauhaus movement — simplicity in design and honesty in construction — could be translated into a new and modern way of living. It had an inventiveness and optimism that had not yet been seen in the US, and offered a solution for low-cost housing so prescient for the times.

Two Polish Documentarians Married in the US - at our pool

Palm Spring is sponsoring a Documentary Film Show. They do this yearly, often where documentaries are screened by the Academy. Well, it turns out some people in town host the producers to help them save money.

Two Polish women were hosted by someone here in our community (the Vibe). The host found they couldn't get married in Poland, but they wanted to eventually. So, the hosting couple asked if they could set it up. The hosts helped them get the marriage certificate, set up a marriage officiant, and held the marriage less than 24 hours later, here at our pool/community center.

It was on the news and very sweet.

Not just Palm Springs : Gateway

This past weekend, Eddie and I visited a "community group fair" at a park here. Turns out, Palm Springs is divided into about 30 or so "neighborhoods" each with an association. Ours is "Gateway". I love the little signs that go on top of some of the street signs.

"Some of the other neighborhoods"

There was also a dog contest, but we didn't see it. Just a contestant.

Cowboys and Native Americans just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Two more shots.

You May Wonder why I post so little about Donny

He says horrible things, and we (I) normalize it with repeating it and spreading the issues.

No thank you.

You can skip - rant about the Supremes

 The Supreme Court is killing me. Well, killing Democracy (big D), hopes, rights, the Consitution, a d anything else they can get their grubby little mitts on.

I did this with AI - asking for a Supreme Court in a snow globe held up by Elephants (Republicans).

Recently (like last 3 weeks)!

Refused to act on Trump's "unlimited immunity" until so late that the trials could not start until after the election. They were petitioned by prosecutors in January. They will hear arguments in May and will rule in June or July. The last time something came up like that was in 2000 - they ruled in 3 days. So it is just a feint to allow Trump to run.

Decided that Amendment 14: section 2 - which disallows participants of an insurrection from holding office - doesn't mean that. It ONLY works for non-federal elections. Exactly the opposite of what it meant and means to any non-political judge. They say before you can do that, Congress must impeach you. Just so you know how f*ckjing asinine this is - impeachment was the only way to remove a President UNTIL the amendment in question. Impeachment depends on a 2/3 vote in the Senate. It has never happened due to politics alone.

They have let stand "for now" a rule that Texas can arrest and deport illegal immigrants on their own. And they can do it under ANY reasonable suspicion. That would include ANY Hispanic citizen because they look foreign to a Texas State Trooper. So if you aren't carrying your passport, green card, citizenship papers, or birth certificate ON YOUR BODY, they can legally send you to Mexico, and you have to prove you are American to get back in. And no, driver's licenses do not work. The Constitution EXPLICITLY reserves the right to enforce immigration to the Feds - not the states. The Supreme Court doesn't give a shit.

They are not apolitical. And 6 are very conservative. 3 of those are reactionary conservatives.

Everyone has their own priorities

 This headline makes it evident that everyone has their own priorities. I would not have posted this:

Here is my issue with this.

1. The Houthis have NOT declared war on the environment. The Houthis have sought to make the world pay for the attacks in Gaza. The straight where the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea have a choke point and area to attack ships. It is an excellent area for this action - right or wrong of the Houthis.
2. The Houthis have been at war for decades against the Saudis and the Emirates of UAE, and they have wanted to attack those countries that supplied equipment for these attacks, the Americans and their allies. They have never threatened "the environment".

I worry about the environment, but this adds about 0.0001% of the pollution that affects the environment. The article's chicken-little approach turns off even environmentalists like me.

Service Penguins

 There are two penguins from the Detroit Zoo that are comfort animals. The aquarium takes them to see patients with Alzheimer's and Dementia. Apparently the patients, even though they can't remember everything, love them.