Solstice

 June 21st, the longest day of the year, and that is just an astronomical fact.  Something to do with the tilt f the axis in our yearly orbit.  The ancients noted this day in their observatories (think Stonehenge).

The beginning f summer. Tomorrow, the sunlit portion of the day will be a bit shorter, culminating on December 21s when the cycle starts again.

Today, through a fluke of the calendar is also a Hallmark holiday.  Fathers Day.  It's a holiday that I truly don't care about.  I've never seen the  utility.

Flood

 When I lived on Bayuo Derbonne in southern Natchitoches pariah, I learned about flatland flooding.  Three days of rain and the creeks, sloughs and bayous are full.  Two days later, the water comes down from the hills with no place to go and all the creeks jump their banks.

When I lived on the bayou, it was simple luck that my house never flooded.  The old man who built it knew that floods happen and built the house on a tiny elevation that stayed dry. There were several times when we were flooded in, but the house stayed dry.

That's what is happening in Avoyelles parish right now.  Moreauville, Simmesport, Cottonport are all going under.  The old folks, who knew where the high spots are, built on those high spots.  The younger folks bought a piece of land and built a house may not have noticed that slight elevation and built their house in a place that floods once every ten years.  Worse yet, urban sprawl changes the way that water flows.  New rads, new shopping centers, new parking lots move water in new ways.

I feel empathy for those folks because I have been there.

Bats

 Sitting on the patio at dusk, I noticed a few bats circling over the pool.  I've noticed them the past several nights just after dark.  Someone must have a bat house around here.  Louisiana has several species native to the area and I'm no expert on bat identification.

I mentioned salmon patties earlier.  My standard recipe is one can of pink salmon, one egg, and one sleeve of Ritz crackers, crumbled.  Salt, pepper, garlic powder.  Fry in good oil at 350F until golden brown.  Old NFO says that they always used saltines. Interesting.

It's nice to watch the bats zip around in the early evening.

Rain

 The tail end of Arthur is overhead, and it is raining like a heifer pissing on a flat rock.  This is nt news in semi-tropical Louisiana where rain is a constant threat.  This too will pass and thankfully we have no wind to speak of.  It is supposed to rain, on-and-off for the rest of the day.  The ditches are full.  We sit atop a hill, so flashfloods are not a concern.  Not so for my neighbors who live in the flat river bottom.

Tomorrow is Juneteenth, a holiday commemorating June 19, 1865, when Union troops entered Galveston, TX and posted the Emancipation Proclamation. It is considered by many to be the date where slavery was ended in the United Staes.  Lots of towns and communities have celebrations.  For many across the South, tomorrows celebrations will be damp. Very damp.

But that, as they say, is for tomorrow.  Today we watch it rain.   I'm going to cook some crab cakes and salmon patties for no other reason than Belle loves them.   First, I need to chop and onion and crush some Ritz crackers.

Arthur

 Checking in at 1:00 pm, I see that we now have Tropical Storm Arthur in the northern Gulf and that he is expected to roll across my acre tonight.

Lovely, just friggin lovely.

Wednesday

 That tropical rain event we have been enjoying isn't done yet.  It very nearly became a named storm, but just could not pull itself together.  It is coming onshore and will lose steam soon.  But, the weather weenies tell us that it is going to lose steam as it runs across us one more time.  Oh, Joy1

I'm noticing the outrage from the usual suspects about Trump's refusal to release the text of the peace deal with Iran.  Trump may have good reasons for that, and he has promised to release it as soon as it is signed. I also note with some amusement that these same suspects have probably never read the surrender documents that Grant got when Lee surrendered. I also bet that they have never seen the text of the surrender from Japan.

Today, Belle has asked for a pasta dish with heavy cream. I thin that a stroganoff is the way to go.  If you'll excuse me, I'm off to the grocers.

Deloge

 It's been raining on my acre for over 24 hours.  Rain f varying intensity, from a light drizzle to a huge downpour.  Constant rain.  The diches are flooded, the pool is flooded and the yard is a moras.  Were I not on a hill, we'd be in a bind.

The weather weenies show no relief.  We are in some sort of tropical rain event.  All the tropical moisture of a hurricane without the damaging winds.  It's been a while since I've seen it rain like this. The only up-side is that I'm pretty sure that the burn ban is no longer in effect.  I have to g to the grocers later, so I'm hoping that it slacks off soon.

Jury Duty

 I got a notice for jury duty. On the notice, it told me that I had been selected for criminal jury duty.

Jury duty i the backbone of our judicial system, both criminal and civil.  It is the backbone against governmental overreach. Twelve citizens, unaffiliated with the system, pass judgement on both the defendant and the state.

Yet, as a long tenured veteran of that system I know that they don't want me.  The prosecution would not want me because as a long serving veteran f police work, I know what hanky-panky they are capable of and would apply that knowledge to the state's case.  The defense would not want me due to 37 years of putting bad guys behind bars.

Luckily, Louisiana applies an exemption to all citizens over age 70.  I need not waste my time, nor theirs. they can dispense justice without me. It is one of the vagaries of the jury system that the very citizen that might be capable of an absolute unbiased verdict is also the one that neither side wants on the jury.

My critique of the jury system is much the same as Mark Twain's critique in his book, Roughing It. If you were a criminal defendant, would you trust your freedom to twelve people too stupid to get out of jury duty?

Baseball

 I've loved baseball all my life.  The ballet between a pitcher and a batter, the way the infield covers the bases. The routine plays and the strategy in the game.  I don't follow teams, can't give you stats, I simply love the game.

Tonight, I'm watching clips from The Love Of The Game, a movie released in 1999.

So, the question for y'all.   What is the best baseball movie?

Karmelo Gets A State ID

 The Karmelo Anthony trial is over.  He's guilty of murder, sentenced to 35 years in the Texas prison system.  They will give him a state ID with a TDC (Texas Department of Corrections) number.  The evidence was plain, it could not have been more cut-and-dried.

The usual suspects are playing the usual cards.  And nobody wants to hear it.  You can go search, or I'll give you a link. You've heard it before.  The race card and the culture card,  worn and threadbare, poorly played.

"It was an all-white jury."

The defense played a huge part in picking the jury.  They didn't pick any black jurors.

"I'm a mother of five black boys.  What do I tell my kids?:

Tell them not to stab people in the chest.

Karmelo Anthony brought a knife to a high school track meet and stabbed another student to death.  That is the whole story. Karmelo will be eligible for parole in 17.5 years. If he makes it that long.

Tell your kids not to stab people in the chest.  Better yet, don't stab people at all.

Here We Go

 A little disturbance in the Bay of Campeche showed up on the NHC's tropical map.

It's a start to the hurricane season.  I reckon I need to start checking this map a bit more regularly.

Tuesday Tidbits

 I see that the Iranians managed to shoot down an Apache helicopter. The crew was rescued by an unmanned surface vessel.  That's cool.  That is verry cool.  The Iranians should not be patting themselves on the back.  The Apache is basically 1980s technology.  Oh, it's been upgraded, but it was designed to kill Soviet tanks in an Eastern Europe environment.

I've also been getting bits and pieces of the Karmelo Anthony trial.  From everything I've seen, Karmelo is guilty as hell. However, it appears that some of the melanin rich members of society want to make Karmelo the OJ Simpson or George Floyd mannequin of the year.  That is sad, because Karmelo is not a sympathetic character.  He's just another street thug who thinks he can get away with murder.

Courthouse

 I had to go to the Courthouse this morning to take care of a little family business.  A quick stop at the Clerk's office thin across the hall to the Assessor.  First, I had to go through the security kiosk in the lobby.  Knowing the drill, I left everything I did not need in the car before I got to the steps of the Courthouse. That metal scanner is set so tight that I am surprised it did not detect the filling in my teeth

This is all theater.  They started this bullshit after 9/11 to make the unaware unconcerned.  Anyone with a smattering of operational knowledge knows that a routine security protocol is easy to bypass. Anyone with nefarious intent would find it easy to defeat.  Even a feeble septuagenarian such as I could cause mayhem.

Still, the security detail provides employment for a half-dozen people.  I suppose that is a god thing, even if the mission is kabuki.

I Am Reminded

 I am reminded that 82 years ago today, Operation Overlord kicked off.  The crusade to retake Europe focused on five beaches on the Normandy coast.

Eisenhower had prepared a press release in the event that the landings failed.  He was prepared to accept full blame if the operation failed.  That was the ethical choice.  He was the Supreme Commander.  It was his show.

We can draw parallels to more recent military disasters and the lack of accountability.

Finally

 I mowed grass today, for the third time this season. I'm not proud of that, but we've had a wet May and my yard holds water.  I timed it perfectly, because when I finished mowing, it started raining. 

I don't have a lawn in the traditional suburban sense. I have a mixed-grass pasture.  The Bahia was going to seed and was nearly knee-deep in places. It used to drive the HOAS crazy.  When I moved here 20-something years ago, we had an HOA.  I and some like-minded neighbors decided to ignore the sonsofbitches and see if they could make their treats work.  They had no heart for conflict and folded up like a cheap pocketknife.

I'm not opposed to mowing grass, you understand, I am opposed to rutting up my yard. I raised beef cattle for 20 years and know that the proper use for good grass is feeding beef. I don't object to keeping a lawn, I am just baffled that anyone cares.

Tomorrow I'll break out the weed eater and trim around the culverts, then go to Popeye's.  Belle has a yearning for fried chicken.

Productive

 It was a god morning.  I trimmed some trees, cleaned a fence line, fixed a lawnmower and did a litlte gunsmithing.  Cooked lunch at noon.  Not a bd morning's work for an old fart.  I think I'll take the afternoon off.

I notice that we still don't have firm figures on the California races In this most advanced era of human civilization, the simple fact that California cannot count votes within hours of the polls closing is a damnable indictment of the way they conduct elections.

Local Politics

 Local politics should be local. A mayor's race is interesting to the locals, but past a certain mileage, it doesn't really matter.

I, for one, am damned tired hearing of the Los Angeles mayors race.   If those people don't have enough sense to elect a compete mayor, that is on them.  It doesn't affect me one whit.

Fox News needs to realize that they are a national news organization and quit covering local news outside of that local news market.

Fiddlers Green

 Running errands today I went to a sign shop and had a sign printed.   The guy wasn't busy and had a humongous priner, and in a few minutes, he had taken care of me.

Now, I need to decide where in the shop I am going to hang it.  If you know, you know.