Sunday Morning Coming Down

The post office person made an innocent mistake this morning.  In my mail box I received a fund raising letter with all sorts of guns on the envelope.  I wondered how I got this letter.  Then I realized it was for my 93 year old neighbor Marie.  I'm not sure if she packs heat or is a card carrying member of the NRA.  I suspect she may have contributed to some group and the NRA bought that group's mailing list. I have forwarded the fund raising request to my neighbor.

Flying south in a small rental air plane, first buzzing the beaches along A1A it would a glorious morning. The sun just beginning to rise and the dark becoming light. A right hand turn at a light would bring me into rush hour traffic, then I realized I needed to pull up and get out of the crush, this was more than I bargained for, people would be after me.  I needed to land and figure out how to explain the plane in the parking lot at Joe Robbie Stadium. Struggling I rolled right to get out of bed and thankfully my feet hit the ground.  The blue light on the radio read 5:45 am.

Doing the right thing includes everybody.  The legislation that began the food stamp program was started as part of legislation in the Department of Agriculture.  Food security, as it is now called, has always been the goal of the program.  When the program started in the first great depression you could buy $1.00 worth of Orange Stamps and you were given $.50 in blue stamps for which you could surplus foods like beans, flour, eggs, and fresh vegetables.  This helped provide a market for farmers. During WWII the surplus food went to the war effort and the unemployment problem stopped.  The program was ended. In 1964 the program was restarted as part of  "Great Society Program". Again the farm economy would be helped and low income folks would be able to obtain food more cheaply.  The program was funded by the Federal Government but it was administered by the States.  The legislation prohibited discrimination on the basis of race, religion, natio...

It was reported that the World's Oldest Man died after suffering chronic heart problems.  My sympathies to his family but it goes without exaggeration he lived a long life.  Males born in 1951 in the USA life expectancy is 82 give/or take.  All righty!

Yesterday was a big day in the Florida Quarter Horse Racing Season.  Lots of stake races, cowboy hats and visitors from Texas, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Iowa. Jockeys came in from California and New Mexico. This is Randy Weidner saddling Eyelash Dash on Saturday for the 8th Race.  Eyelash finished 6th and won $175.00. This is the view of the track early on Saturday afternoon. The temperature was in the low 70's. The early morning fog burned off and it was chamber of commerce weather. This is the saddling area before the races. This is one of Matt Frasier's horses coming back from some early morning exercise, on the way to a short time on the hot walker and bath.  The track in the morning is serene. Today Randy Weidner has two horses running.  Mitey Thunder and Effortlessly Strutting will be trying to get to the winner's circle. Winning is great, but as I watch more and more races, getting the horse and the jockey home without and incidents is even more i...

Monday was as close to a walkover as I have ever seen at a race track.  The 3rd at Hialeah Park was supposed to be an allowance race with seven horses and a purse of $20,000. It ended up a two horse match race that really wasn't really a very competitive race.  The probable favorite, Dynasty of Habits, a five year old mare with career earnings of $154,637 would be running against Awesome Lawsen, a seven year old gelding with career earnings of $33,963 that hadn't run in almost a year. Five other trainers horse's did not compete for reasons that were unclear at post time. Truth be told, a quarter horse race between two evenly matched horses can be very exciting. Mine is faster than yours is deeply rooted in the sport.  The two horses left in this race were not very evenly matched.  I spent time handicapping the race which was wasted and the Pick 3, Pick 4, and Rainbow Pick 6 were compromised as betting opportunities.  I wasn't a very happy camper and will p...

There was a response by the Republican Party to the State of the Union Address given by Nikki Haley who is the Governor of South Carolina.  Governor Haley has also succeeded in getting the Confederate Battle Flag removed from the State Capitol Building in Charleston, South Carolina. "During anxious times it can be tempting to follow the angriest voices" according to Haley. Donald Trump was dismissive, Rush Limbaugh wondered why the response criticized the Republican front runner and Ann Coulter called for The Donald to deport Ms. Haley. I'm not a Republican insider but this makes me wonder about the long range future of the party of Lincoln.  Where are those better angels these days?

I just watched a short video of several penguins trying to get past a rope that tied up a boat to shore. Humans will try to make sense of what the penguins were thinking when they came upon the rope that blocked their path.  Unfortunately, from what I saw on the video penguins are seemingly very limited in how much they can lift up their feet to get up and over things. Eventually some of the more adventurous just plunged forward and were eventually tripped up by the rope as it caught their feet.  One lucky bird was able to step on the rope and get over the rope without tripping.  Those that tripped and fell just got up and moved forward.  And as the video ended a few of the penguins were still trying to figure it out. While it would be easy to compare this to human behavior, I'm not going to go there.