This little Echeveria is growing out of a hole in the side of a large flowerpot that sits on the terrace beside my pool. I must admit that I stuck it into that hole when it first opened up, but it has survived and grown larger over the past year.
Campfire
As we gather in the gloaming to shed the day’s despair,
the flickering wings of firelight heat up the evening air.
Good omens dispel shadows and chase away the dark
as the laughter of our comrades drowns out the wild beast’s bark.
In this camaraderie—friendship’s surrounding bubble,
thoughts of ghosts and demons are unfathomable.
At the end of day, this gathering’s a cunning
way to celebrate the end of a day of sunning.
Cool night soothes sunburned skin, providing us the balm
of release from labor and a welcome to the calm
arms of night that furnishes a cradle to the day
and a time to tuck its problems all away,
first in conversation with those who love us most,
and then in sleep, that afterwards is our loving host.
An ominous number breeds ominous words! The Word prompts for Wordle 666 are: demons, wings, flickering, heat, omen, dark, end, cunning, shadows, unfathomable, gloaming, despair. I have tried to try to counter their obvious intent in my poem.
Here is some information about how the number 666 came to be the “number of the beast.”
*The number 666 is identified as the Number of the Beast (Satan) as mentioned in the Book of Revelation (13:15–18).
*An interesting sideline to the number 666 is this: “On Friday, the Dow Jones industrial average plummeted 666 points. And while that news might be disturbing in a financial way, to people with an interest in, say, money and American markets, that fact was overshadowed on Twitter by the shadow of the beast, the Lord of the Underworld, the Devil himself. Because, you know, 666 is the mark of the beast, which, no big deal, identifies followers of the Antichrist.”
— Lizzy Acker, OregonLive.com, 2 Feb. 2018
*And this: “Preterist theologians typically support the interpretation that 666 is the numerical equivalent of the name and title Nero Caesar (Roman Emperor 54–68 AD). Written in Aramaic, this can be valued at 666 using the Hebrew numerology of gematria, and was used to secretly speak against the emperor.”
So, in writing this poem, I’ve tried to turn 666 on its head and to transform it into 999. If you Google that number, this is what you will find:
In numerology, 999 is a repeating number that some say is a sign from the universe, ancestors, or spirit guides. It can symbolize completion and new beginnings, and can have different meanings depending on the area of life it’s applied to:
The photo is actually a photo I took of a campfire where friends met to share music and poetry. I have always wondered if the shape of the fire at this point didn’t spell out a word in Hebrew or some other unknown (to me) language. What do you see in the flame?
Click on photos to enlarge.
I had been trying to think of an excuse to do a blog on feet and then out of the blue, my friend Angela sent me this quote along with the message, “More inspiration, not that you need it!” What synchronicity was that? Thanks, Angela, this one is for you.
Upon seeing this post, Forgottenman sent me this message: “In case you’d like to add some feet photos, a few of my favs of yours.” He’s right. These are my favorite ever photos of feet that I’ve published in blogs in the past:
And if you’d like to read my poem about paper shoes, go HERE!
Today, Aaron C. Davis and Carol D. Leonnig of the Washington Post reported that there is reason to believe that when Trump’s 2016 campaign was running low on funds, Trump accepted a $10 million injection of cash from Egypt’s authoritarian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sisi. It is against the law to accept direct or indirect financial support from foreign nationals or foreign governments for a political campaign in the United States.
In early 2017, CIA officials told Justice Department officials that a confidential informant had told them of such a cash exchange, and those officials handed the matter off to Robert Mueller, the special counsel who was already looking at the links between the 2016 Trump campaign and Russian operatives. FBI agents noted that on September 16, Trump had met with Sisi when the Egyptian leader was at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City.
After the meeting, Trump broke with U.S. policy to praise Sisi, calling him a “fantastic guy.”
Trump’s campaign had been dogged with a lack of funds, and his advisers had begged him to put some of his own money into it. He refused until October 28, when he loaned the campaign $10 million.
An FBI investigation took years to get records, but Davis and Leonnig reported that in 2019 the FBI learned of a key withdrawal from an Egypt bank. In January 2017, five days before Trump took office, an organization linked to Egypt’s intelligence service asked a manager at a branch of the state-run National Bank of Egypt to “kindly withdraw” $9,998,000 in U.S. currency. The bundles of $100 bills filled two bags and weighed more than 200 pounds.
Once in office, Trump embraced Sisi and, in a reversal of U.S. policy, invited him to be one of his first guests at the White House. “I just want to let everybody know, in case there was any doubt, that we are very much behind President al-Sissi,” Trump said.
Mueller had gotten that far in pursuit of the connection between Trump and Sisi when he was winding down his investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election. He handed the Egypt investigation off to the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, D C., where it appears then–attorney general William Barr killed it.
Today, Brian Schwartz of CNBC reported that Elon Musk and other tech executives are putting their money behind a social media ad campaign for Trump and Vance, and are creating targeted ads in swing states by collecting information about voters under false pretenses. According to Schwartz, their America PAC, or political action committee, says it helps viewers register to vote. And, indeed, the ads direct would-be voters in nonswing states to voter registration sites.
But people responding to the ad in swing states are not sent to registration sites. Instead, they are presented with “a highly detailed personal information form [and] prompted to enter their address, cellphone number and age,” handing over “priceless personal data to a political operation” that can then create ads aimed at that person’s demographic and target them personally in door-to-door campaigns. After getting the information, the site simply says, “Thank you,” without directing the viewer toward a registration site.
Forbes estimates Musk’s wealth at more than $235 billion.
In June the Trump Organization announced a $500 million deal with Saudi real estate developer Dar Global to build a Trump International hotel in Oman.
In January 2011, when he was director of the FBI, Robert Mueller gave a speech to the Citizens Crime Commission of New York. He explained that globalization and modern technology had changed the nature of organized crime. Rather than being regional networks with a clear structure, he said, organized crime had become international, fluid, and sophisticated and had multibillion-dollar stakes. Its operators were cross-pollinating across countries, religions, and political affiliations, sharing only their greed. They did not care about ideology; they cared about money. They would do anything for a price.
These criminals “may be former members of nation-state governments, security services, or the military,” he said. “They are capitalists and entrepreneurs. But they are also master criminals who move easily between the licit and illicit worlds. And in some cases, these organizations are as forward-leaning as Fortune 500 companies.”
In order to corner international markets, Mueller explained, these criminal enterprises “may infiltrate our businesses. They may provide logistical support to hostile foreign powers. They may try to manipulate those at the highest levels of government. Indeed, these so-called ‘iron triangles’ of organized criminals, corrupt government officials, and business leaders pose a significant national security threat.”
In a new book called Autocracy, Inc.: The Dictators Who Want to Run the World, journalist Anne Applebaum carries that story forward into the present, examining how today’s autocrats work together to undermine democracy. She says that “the language of the democratic world, meaning rights, laws, rule of law, justice, accountability, [and] transparency…[is] harmful to them,” especially as those are the words that their internal opposition uses. “And so they need to undermine the people who use it and, if they can, discredit it.”
Those people, Applebaum says, “believe they are owed power, they deserve power.” When they lose elections, they “come back in a second term and say, right, this time, I’m not going to make that mistake again, and…then change their electoral system, or…change the constitution, change the judicial system, in order to make sure that they never lose.”
Almost exactly a year ago, on August 1, 2023, a grand jury in Washington, D.C., indicted former president Donald J. Trump for conspiring to defraud the United States, conspiring to disenfranchise voters, and conspiring and attempting to obstruct an official proceeding. The charges stemmed from Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election. A grand jury is made up of 23 ordinary citizens who weigh evidence of criminal activity and produce an indictment if 12 or more of them vote in favor.
The grand jury indicted Trump for “conspiracy to defraud the United States by using dishonesty, fraud, and deceit to impair, obstruct, and defeat the lawful federal government function by which the results of the presidential election are collected, counted, and certified by the government”; “conspiracy to corruptly obstruct and impede the January 6 congressional proceeding at which the collected results of the presidential election are counted and certified”; and “conspiracy against the right to vote and to have one’s vote counted.”
“Each of these conspiracies,” the indictment reads, “targeted a bedrock function of the United States federal government: the nation’s process of collecting, counting, and certifying the results of the presidential election.” “This federal government function…is foundational to the United States’ democratic process, and until 2021, had operated in a peaceful and orderly manner for more than 130 years.”
The case of the United States of America v. Donald J. Trump was randomly assigned to Judge Tanya S. Chutkan, who was appointed by President Obama in 2014 and confirmed 95–0 in the Senate. Trump pleaded not guilty on August 3, after which his lawyers repeatedly delayed their pretrial motions until, on December 7, Trump asked the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals to decide whether he was immune from prosecution. Chutkan had to put off her initial trial date of March 4, 2024, and said she would not reschedule until the court decided the question of Trump’s immunity.
In February the appeals court decided he was not immune. Trump appealed to the Supreme Court, which waited until July 1, 2024, to decide that Trump enjoys broad immunity from prosecution for crimes committed as part of his official acts. Today the Washington, D.C., Circuit Court of Appeals sent the case back to Chutkan, almost exactly a year after it was first brought.
—
Notes:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/trump-campaign-egypt-investigation
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/aug/02/trump-campaign-2016-egypt-investigation
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/02/elon-musk-pac-voter-data-trump-harris.html
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/donald-trump-egypt-228393
https://archives.fbi.gov/archives/news/speeches/the-evolving-organized-crime-threat
https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149/gov.uscourts.dcd.258149.1.0_1.pdf
X:
The Ballad of Poor Molly
Poor Molly Smith was lonely sure on every weekend night.
No lover had she to insure an end to her sad plight.
She’d read of match.com and then eHarmony and others.
No more would she be chickless hen if she could have her druthers.
She took her keyboard in her hand to find a true love there,
for sparsely was the household manned of this poor maiden fair.
She put her name upon a site and waited for some word.
A day went by and then a night, but nothing had she heard.
Her profile words were erudite, written with such care.
Everything was done just right, yet no man found she there.
She started blogging all day long, “liked” members’ every word;
but still something was very wrong. She found it all absurd.
Other women found true love on OkCupid, but
no pierced heart, no cooing dove released her from her rut.
She sought her profile to imbue and stretched the truth, I fear.
Her hair turned blonde, her bust size grew, her beauty knew no peer.
She found a picture of some tart both sexy, tanned and toned.
Perhaps it wasn’t really smart, but soon a suitor phoned.
They made a date to meet for drinks, then she began to worry.
Her hair had all these ugly kinks, her upper lip was furry.
Her height was five-foot-four, not eight, her dress size twelve, not six.
How could she show up for this date? Poor Mol was in a fix.
She read his profile once again: handsome, rich and funny.
She felt a surge of pure chagrin. He’d humor, looks and money?
She printed up his profile pic and pinned it to her couch.
His skin was bronzed, his muscles thick, while she was flabby. Ouch!
She took a bottle to her hair and died it light as flax,
bought heels as high as she could dare and tummy-control slacks.
She ran three miles or more that day (or she more likely walked);
and thought about what she would say If her new suitor balked.
Could medication swell one out for twenty pounds or more?
Would he accept without a doubt this apologetic lore?
The time grew short. She bathed and fussed and straightened out her hair.
Her body girdled, squeezed and trussed––to sit she didn’t dare.
She’d take a bus and spend the ride standing in the aisle.
The acid churning her inside was turning into bile.
She grabbed her purse and locked the door and sprinted for the bus.
Her girdle crawled an inch or more. It made her want to cuss.
She tugged it down, got on the bus and tried to stand erect.
One way out of all this muss would be to have a wreck!
The driver drove with extra care to take her to her meal.
Yet when she wobbled down the stair, she broke one three-inch heel.
By then her hair had kinked again, her girdle slowly rose.
She had peroxide on her chin and also on her nose.
She almost left, gave in to doubt; but then she stopped to think.
Her curiosity won out. She’d stay for just one drink.
She saw him just as soon as she had entered in the door.
He was tall and golly, gee, was handsome, fit and more!
She ducked into the ladies room to tame her crazy hair
and contemplate upcoming doom. What an unlikely pair!
Then gathered all her courage up and went to meet her fate.
She’d have a drink, forget the sup and end this nightmare date.
She walked right up and tapped his arm and said his name,”Dupree?”
And when he turned, his look was warm, but he said, “That isn’t me.”
She felt a touch upon her hair and turned to find out who
or what had deigned to touch her where she’d recently changed hue.
A little man about her height, really cute, but chubby, too,
was chuckling with all his might and looking at her shoe.
“What in heaven happened to you?” he asked, and then he snatched
and snapped the heel right off her shoe so both of her heels matched.
“My name’s Dupree,” he said, “You’re you. I’d know you anywhere.
You’re tall and slim, your eyes are blue, your hair is straight and fair.
I hope you’re not too mad at my prevaricating way.
I’m really not too bad a guy no matter what they say.
I know I stretched the truth a bit. Not all I say is true,
but how else would I find a fit with such a babe as you?”
She went into the ladies room and slipped out of her girdle.
The date foreseen with dread and gloom was not the foretold hurdle.
They ate four courses, then one more. They laughed and traded quips.
He drove her home right to her door and kissed her on the lips!
Now Molly’s nest is feathered. Of chicks, she numbers three.
And Dupree is firmly tethered with Molly on his knee.
For SOCS prompt: Poor
For Cee’s FOTD
For Fibbing Friday, the prompts are:
The Olympic Games originated in Ancient Greece but in which year were the first known Games held? It’s all Greek to me.
What prize was given to winners in the ancient Games? The prize was that they were allowed to live. Losers were exported to the Roman Colosseum and disposed of to protect the gene pool.
The flame which burned during the ancient Games was in honour of which goddess? Joan of Arc. (A Soothsayer predicted her future birth and death.)
What was the only event type at the first Ancient Olympics? Discus throw.
Which Roman Emperor declared himself the winner of an Olympic chariot race, even though he fell out of his chariot? Feebleus Erectus the First.
When did the Ancient Olympics cease and why? Not enough athletes left. They’d all been sent to Rome and disposed of in the Colosseum.
In which year were the first modern Olympics held? In the new century, 1900
How often are the Olympic Games held? Too often.
In which year were the last solid gold medals given? In 1907, the year plastic was invented.
In 2024 Paris will equal which other city in hosting the Olympics three times? Barely worth noting as a record, as they were held in Olympia, Greece for 383 years.
Man Child
He’s a bomb at being serious. He’s jolly, rash and wild.
In essence, he’s never grown up. He’s a perpetual child.
His rustic simplicity is anything but charming,
for he’s redolent of fishing smells and horse riding and farming.
His impetuosity has often brought on trouble,
leading to some barroom brawls and the resulting rubble.
For all these things, he’s won a sort of infamous renown,
and he’s banned from almost all the pubs in his little town.
The local folks have made excuses for him all his life,
but such crass indulgences won’t garner him a wife.
He’d like to have some kids himself–a most unlikely bid
so long as he himself insists on acting like a kid.
Today’s prompt for My Vivid Blog is Man.
This is a “man” I used to see at the beach. Those squirrels are real!! They later had a baby squirrel, increasing the family to four (including the man child.) This is a reblog of an earlier blog.
lifelessons - a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown 