Monday, May 27, 2019

The El Dorado Nature Walk


.  Stephanie pointed out that Julian Assange’s arrest turned out to be not that good of a thing for the United States.  We still don’t have his extradition to face the numerous charges here.  So it kind of makes Trump look better because as you know Trump loves wikki-leaks.   This would have been an opportunity to associate Trump with a criminal enterprise.   Of course at the time of the broadcast the full Muller report had not been released even in redacted form.  Hence Trump thinks he got off Scott free noit having to face any charges as consequences for his many acts.  And from a political standpoint it would have been a lot better if Muller himself had lodged charges.  But another thought occurred to me that democrats need to be quaking in their boots about.  As you know the US Senate is still in Republican hands.  This means that if any democratic supreme court justices die in the next year and a half they can be replaced with all deliberate speed.  Senator Mc Connell will forgot what he said about Merit Garland and the lengthly delay we faced then.  Even if it’s only a few months till the election you know darned well that they are going to ramrod a justice through the Senate and be confirmed.   Hence even if a democrat is elected in 2020 he may well be facing an adverse 6 to 3 majority.

Tim and Paul showed up just about nine thirty.  They just missed my going out to smoke at a quarter after nine.  Paul didn’t have any of those supplies with him so we didn’t stay in the room long.  El Dorado Park wasn’t that far down Cerritos at all.  We paid our six dollar parking fee and then crossed the street and drove around in the main part of the park.  We saw people with their dogs and also squirrels and gophers and people flying giant model planes.  There is a street that goes under a bridge under Wardlow so we can see the northern part of the park.  It was probably after ten when we came to the visitor’s center.  We used the restroom and looked at all of the mouse bones they had.  Owls catch a lot of mice.  We had our maps ready.  There were a lot of people on the trail but most of them passed us up because Paul wanted to savor every moment capturing the essence of it all and pointing out shrubs and flowers.  It was a one mile trail that we went on at my suggestion.  There was a quarter mile trail and also a two mile trail if we wanted that.  They said to turn off cell phones and capture just the sounds of nature but that had to compete with all the traffic from the San Gabriel freeway and other noises.  There were a lot of switchbacks in the first two thirds of the trail.  They had markers and at marker six out of fourteen I suggested that maybe we go back not realizing how far we’d come.  But we kept on.  There were a lot of little pre school kids on the trail with their mothers and grandparents.  There was one little kid named Charlie.  Paul took movies but one of his clips didn’t turn out.  I was amazed at how old I looked.  “That old guy was talking to Paul”.   The trail itself was rather organic in that it had leaves on it and stuff, and unobtrusive, so you hardly knew you were on a trail because a couple places the trail faded out entirely and you didn’t know which way to go.  There were tortises and lizzards and other things, some I didn’t see.  The weather was perfect.  It was a sunny day but we were in the shade and it wasn’t too hot.  We finished up at a few minutes to twelve.  We were on the trail over an hour.  We went to the Sizzler Tim had looked up.  We had to go through some sort of maze to get to where you order.  They had benches to sit down on on the trail but toward the end I didn’t avail myself.  I had a tri-tip steak that actually looked pretty big.  It was the first actual steak I’d had in literally years.  I had French fries with it and tried their cheesy bread.  I also got a really big “dinner salad” I didn’t finish, with thousand island dressing.  Tim and Paul liked the salad bar.  We managed to talk about politics a little.  I brought up the topic with Tim starting with the terrifs issue and we talked about impeachment.  I had a small cheese cake cup and also had the last few spoons of an ice cream, chocolate sauce and peanut thing of Paul’s.  We got back here in no time at all and it was only about twenty after one but I told you Paul gave me the choice of getting those things today.  He also mis-heard me say that I wanted to get back here to smoke a cigarette.  We’ve already written the rest of this.  .  We pulled into the driveway here a little before one thirty and then Paul says “We can still get those things over at our house”.   So Tim and I and Paul went over to Paul’s house and we went inside and Judy was in the back someplace.  The bird was chirping loudly.  Paul gave me two pairs of dark blue socks and two pairs of light blue socks and I split the six pairs of white socks with Tim.  I gave him three pairs.  Paul gave me a belt I thought at first was way too small but it turned out it was just my hanging belly that made it appear so.  Paul also gave me four batters, two AA and two AAA and I haven’t put them in yet.   I never saw Judy face to face.  Tim took me home and we talked a little more about politics.  It was after two.  After this I talked to various people out back, either Phyllis, Millie or later Dorthey, about my trip. 

I had a dream I was (or became) trapped in this religious cult filled with nuts who send out crank letters and spread gossip.  This was before the internet.  Some of them were familiar with Chuck Smith.  They met in this building at Broadway and Magnolia but it was kind of “in the parking lot” and in front of where Staters used to be.  One time I thought a guy was chasing me.  I ran east on Broadway toward the frematic tract and crossed over to the other side and slowed down at the corner of Monument and Broadway.  Strangely the guy was right over my shoulder.  How did he get that close.  The frematic tract had been turned into a giant shopping center.  It was really all one giant interior store with street signs.  But they didn’t have “Level” because they had bulldozed that and turned it into a trailer park.  There was also a steep gradient downward to Lincoln and lots of stairs to walk down.  In another part of this dream I was back at the Bosc house and Clay and other housemates were getting ready to listen to Chuck Smith on the radio on a Sunday night.  It was dark outside.  This was near the end of the dream and I hoped this meant the dream was over but still it lingered and was hard to shake.  I began singing a song loudly about “Ships go down to the sea” in a tune I didn’t know.  I was glad to wake up.  

There is a new argument for taxing the rich above $130,000 for the 6.2% FICA tax on Social Security.  All these many years we as workers haven’t gotten our fair share as far as wages are concerned.  Wages have gone down and wealth for our employers has gone up.  The argument is now that we are retiring, shouldn’t these now unduly rich task masters pay something back and give us now what they denied us during our working years.  This is at least allow us to be paid based on a wage we should have been getting all along. 


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