Today was Shirley Floyd's Birthday Party... Mission Valley... Shirley's birthday is Tuesday, February Second, the same day as Margaret's birthday... so the party today was for both of them.  Shirley was Margaret's teacher at the Mission Valley Y... a very good person... someone to know and keep track of  through many years.  

We had rain today... and wind.  After the party we went outside and I saw a Sycamore Tree that had almost all its leaves blown away... and later I saw pieces of palm trees scattered around the ground.  Today was a good time.

It’s no secret that I like trees… perhaps even love trees.  They teach me… and care for me… and I’m always trying to notice anything about a tree that speaks to me.  Today I received an invitation from the New York Times, which I read online.  The invitation urged me to read for the next couple of weeks a written piece about trees, beginning with trees in a German forest.  You may want to take a look:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/30/world/europe/german-forest-ranger-finds-that-trees-have-social-networks-too.html?mwrsm=Email

Friday… Symphony tonight, Beethoven and Brahmes.  Iowa Caucuses next week… I’m wondering what difference the caucuses will make.  The huge question continues to be whether or not the Donald is really, truly thought to be the answer to a majority of Republicans wishes for a different kind of America, beginning with a wall across the southern regions of the U.S.A., or is he just part of the drama… and the “star” figure in the Republican debates or are the Caucuses and early commitments just part of the theatre surrounding the beginning of American political decision culminating in a real election in November?  The weekend talk shows will feature leaders in the parties.  I’ll try to avoid them, but I can’t keep myself from wondering what the conservative citizens of the country think these prominent leaders of their party can do change the country… Do they really want a Christian caliphate?  The last minute appeals to “church” people to make Rubio or Cruz or Trump their candidate in the general election are downright scary.  Either the candidate who pledges in front of cameras and microphones to be a devout follower of Jesus who will lead him and the nation into a heaven on earth is either a hypocrite or a fool… and neither a hypocrite nor a fool would make a suitable president.  Either way, the nation is not served well by the person making public, specific confessions of devout religious conviction just to get attention and affect his or her standing in the polls.   

Thursday again…  I parked on the west side of the Laurel Street Bridge, so as I walked back to the car I took pictures.  A very strange tree with green bark is  located in one of the larger courtyards between MOPA and my car, so I took a picture of it.  It’s a large tree, so I’m guessing it was planted at the time when different trees were preferred … maybe even planted by Kate Sessions.  The deep red bougainvillea at the edge of Plaza de Panama are in full bloom.  The guy playing guitar whom I’ve seen nearer the museum was today in the corridor across from the Old Globe Theatre complex.  A traffic motorcycle police officer was checking the speed of cars entering the Park from the Laurel Street Bridge. I decided not to pass up a chance to photograph the cracks in the sidewalk on the bridge.  I also couldn’t pass up a fallen piece of bark.  Early in the morning I saw the Davids’ neighbor Jyla out with her grandmother Judy and Anne, a neighbor.  I couldn’t pass up that picture.  

A caucus is a meeting of a legislative body who are members of a particular political party, to select candidates or decide policy.  I got that sentence from the Google definition of caucus. It is important to know the difference between states with a caucus to select their candidates for office and those that use primary elections for that purpose.  Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nevada, North Dakota, Wyoming and Iowa are the states that use caucuses to decide who will represent the parties in elections.  The territories of American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands also use a caucus to determine their nominations from each party.  Puerto Rico uses primary elections.  There are two kinds of primary elections.  In an open primary, all registered voters can vote for any candidate.  In a closed primary, voters may vote only for candidates of the party to which they are registered.

We must settle in for a long period of campaigning for the job of President of the United States.  The November election this year will also be a time when other people are elected to local, state and national offices. I’m still trying to get my thoughts together for a BLOG piece on caucus and primary strategies for selecting the person who is sent to a state convention by each party.  

The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act, which took effect January 1, 2011, in California created "voter-nominated" offices. The Top Two Candidates Open Primary Act does not apply to candidates running for U.S. President, county central committees, or local offices.

Most of the offices that were previously known as "partisan" are now known as "voter-nominated" offices. Voter-nominated offices are state constitutional offices, state legislative offices, and U.S. congressional offices. The only "partisan offices" now are the offices of U.S. President and county central committee.

The Iowa Caucuses, the first step (actually not the first step… the first step was the months of television campaigning), is slated for Monday, February 1.  As I understand it, the Iowa caucus is the first of four steps toward selecting delegates to attend the Democratic and Republican national conventions.  Precinct caucuses send delegates to the county convention, which sends delegates to the district convention, which sends delegates to the state convention, which decides which delegates to the national conventions where each political party selects it’s candidate for the 2016 Presidential election.  The Iowa Caucuses’ decisions may not determine who will be the representatives elected finally for the general election in November, but the persons proposed in Iowa will have been given a huge  boast for the general election.  

Since a bit of a personal health crises in the middle of last year, I have kept my blog writing non-focused and aimed at non-political subjects; but I can’t hold back any longer. I have grumbled about Donald Trump’s antics, and I have grinned and born other Republican candidates with as much grace as possible.  With the Iowa Causes coming up next week, I break my fast from politics. I admit to my own ignorance about the caucus procedure; so I’ll be learning in the next few days.  

In the meantime… bicycling.  I rode out to Ocean Beach this morning and back home again.  It was a longer bicycle ride than I’ve been doing a couple of times each week…  so I feel as if I am back again to the routine that I had for years of retirement. As I learn about caucuses, I’ll be back to ranting about both parties.

Yesterday and the day before

my pictures were of a Eucalyptus in the backyard.

Today:  A Melaleuca on our hill.

Same Tree...

I went back to it...

I'm in love with that Eucalyptis

in the backyard beside the Rosemary Shrubs...

Life is Good...

Watching the storm... I went outside a couple of times today, once to take pictures of the eucalyptus tree in the backyard, and the other time to go to the gym...  Life in San Diego can be easy.

The tree which I have always called “The Orchid Tree” actually goes by that name in San Diego and in other parts of Southern California.  It is a variety of Bauhinia, which, of course, I won’t remember, so it will go on being the orchid tree to me.  I got a picture of the orchid tree in Balboa Park yesterday, and decided I would go to one in my neighborhood for pictures for today because this tree reminds me of Jim and Irene Fudge, our neighbors who are moving to Paradise Village next Tuesday.  I’m glad to be reminded of Jim and Irene, and this flower is the perfect reminder.  They are beautiful, and so is the flower. 

All of the pictures today....I took on the way back to where I had parked the car before my volunteer job at the Museum of Photographic arts.  The first picture us what is left if a poster on a wall near the Museum of Man. The second picture is not far away from the first.  It's across from the entrance to the Museum.  Not far away is the San Diego Museum of Art at the Plaza de Panama.
The fourth is a flower blooming near a sidewalk between the Museum of Man and the Plaza de Panama... not far from where a plant, a palm I'm guessing, had been cut down, and then some other remnants of plants that had been cut down.  The weather in San Diego was perfect today.

Minor White Exhibition

Museum of Photographic Arts

Balboa Park

One More Week Before the Exhibition Closes

Rainbow chance
Accident

                is ever symbolic or never?

For what am I
                       spared?

To live till I pick
   any straw answer
 select the reasonable twig
 or grasp at nothing at all
 Before I am permitted to die?

To live so long
I can not resist turning chance
 into symbol
Nor help but twist accident
          into sign?

—Minor White

FROM THE ALL PEOPLE’S BREAKFAST… Information that is encouraging…

In the four decades since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s death, the percentage of people of color in the American population has tripled.  America has a new political reality.  In 1968 when I was a young teacher, America had approximately 25 million people of color, or 12 percent of the U.S. population.  By 2008, the year Barack Obama was elected President, 36 percent of the population (104 million people)  were “people of color.”  The  Voting Rights Act of 1965 began the change in the American voting public. We are the Potpourri nation some of us have wanted for a long time.  Now that we have what we wanted, it’s not so simple.  We’ve come to the realization that prejudices and bigotry are still strong in America, and especially in an election year, some people are using bigotry to attract followers…  Ah, well… at least we are a nation of different people, and each group is getting recognition and attention and… young people, more in all ethnic groups, are our hope for the future.