Enjoy the Outdoors. Love the Planet.
All about Nature, about the outdoors<>I love it, photograph it and protect it.
Yes, the Astronauts Do Get to Vote
On the list of really important stuff that you may not have been wondering about: do astronauts get to vote?
They most certainly do.
Of course, this intrepid crew member did have to take the time to request a ballot, but request it she did. And she made sure her vote got counted.
To view this very cool video about celestial balloting, just follow this link.
With both feet firmly on Terra Firma, I am,
Bulldog Ben Basile
© 2016 Ben Lawrence Basile
Hurricane Matthew: I’m Not Your BFF!
I’m doing what all Floridians are doing today: hunkering down in my apartment, waiting for Hurricane Matthew to pass.
I starting preparing a few weeks ago. I’ve always stashed batteries, candles and that sort of thing; I’ve got battery-powered lanterns aplenty, a good digital radio and something most folks here never get: battery-powered fans.
And food. I’ve got lots of canned food. And plenty of bread, buns and bagels, all of them whole grain. Butter, jams, cream cheese. Pre-cooked sausage, a fair amount of lunch meat and cheese and ten day’s worth of brown rice cooked and ready to eat. (I love my version of vegetable fried rice; believe it or not, it works quite well with brown rice.)
I’m certainly not going to starve! Did I forget to mention peanut butter? No pantry is complete without some!
We’ve lost power five times so far but got it back within four or five minutes. And even though I’m about as well-prepared as one can be, I am hoping we’ll dodge the bullet and not end up using all that battery-powered stuff we’ve stashed away! I guess we’ll see…
I lost power for three days when Charley came calling twelve years ago. Didn’t lose it with Frances or Jeanne. Whoa! Just lost it again! Okay, it’s back on now. That was for 30 seconds or so…
I think I better publish this post, as my laptop will be fine for a few hours if we lose the juice and don’t get it back, but I’d have no internet connection, of course! I’ll do that in just a moment.
If you’re here in the Sunshine State, too, I hope you’re riding out this storm in fine style. If you’re in Brevard County or the other parts of our Peninsula where folks were told to evacuate, I know this sucks even worse for you and yours. Here in Orange County, we’re not doing too badly.
Stay safe! And remember, another calamity will strike the citizens of our fine state in about 72 hours from now: we’ll all have to show up at work on Monday morning! Yikes!
Battening down the hatches in Orlando, I am,
“Bulldog Ben” Basile
Fave Fotos: Bulldog Loves Planes, Trains and Automobiles
I’ve been an aviation bug for as long as I can remember. And — as you know if you’ve come over to this blog and looked around — I’m also a passionate amateur photog. This shot gave me a chance to pull together those two loves of mine.
The plane is one of those unusual home decorating accents and it adorns a spot above my bar; I found it at Marshall’s a few years ago but only recently decided to shoot it. I like it. Have many variations of this pic, some of the others may come out after a while.
Photo credit Benjamin Lawrence Basile
Golf Legend Arnold Palmer Has Passed
It’s quite possible that Arnold Palmer was the best-known golfer of all time. He had a home here in Orlando for a very long time and he was well-loved in this part of the world.
Although he was a true legend in the game of golf, he was just as well-known for being a wonderful human being and giving away vast sums of money. The Arnold Palmer Hospital for Children here in Orlando is such a part of our community. I had so many fares to or from that place in my taxi driving years. And The Bay Hill Invitational is a huge event in Central Florida. Arnie, as his friends and fans often called him, just might have been our most beloved celebrity around here; God knows we have plenty. Especially in the world of sports.
I haven’t played golf in over 30 years, but it’s such a fine sport. It’s lots of fun to watch. (I enjoy living on the seventh fairway of one of our many, many country clubs in Florida, but that’s as close as I get to the action.) Now that he’s passed, many will point out that Mr. Palmer had thousands of admirers who have no connection to the game of golf. That’s his greatest legacy. Rest in Peace, Arnie.
By the time you’ve read this, there will be hundreds of obituaries on Mr. Palmer. Here’s one that came out right away, as Golfweek pretty much scooped the rest of the world.
Photo credit Benjamin Lawrence Basile
Fave Fotos: Made It Back to the Beach on Sunday
I did get back to the beach yesterday, it had been way too long. It’s still summer down here in the Sunshine State. Although the too-hot temps were no fun, I had a good time.
This would be my fave foto from this outing. I call it Cocoa Boat Man.
Hope your work week is off to a good start. I’d rather be on the beach, truth be told, but having a paycheck is how I can afford a little fun on the weekends. I think that’s how it works…
Bulldog Ben, nose to the grindstone in Orlando
The Other Shoe Drops In North Carolina
In a previous posting about North Carolina’s discriminatory House Bill 2, I wrote about the NBA’s decision to move the 2017 All Star Game out of North Carolina because of the newly-enacted law that removed local protections for LGBT people. That posting hit da bulldog blog on July 22nd. HB2 also mandated that transgendered people use the bathroom corresponding with the gender listed on their birth certificate rather than the one with which they identify.
The back story here is that the city of Charlotte had just passed an ordinance giving specific protections to LGBT citizens; this sent conservative people and legislators into a state of virtual panic. HB2, aka the Public Facilities Privacy & Security Act, was their strategy to make sure that no city in North Carolina could get away with the horrible crime of offering protections to LGBT citizens or allowing transgender people to use the bathroom corresponding with the gender to which they had or were in the process of transitioning.
When the NBA made the decision to take away the All Star Game, North Carolina was put on notice that the NCAA was also taking a hard look at the NCAA events which had been scheduled for the up-coming year in the state. Well, the proverbial “other shoe” just dropped; the price paid by a state for openly discriminating against some of its citizens just went up. Went up quite a bit.
To read an in-depth article about the latest economic hit North Carolina is taking because of its elected officials carrying on this guerrilla campaign against civil rights for gay and transgender people, follow this link.
Governor Pat McCrory played a major role in bringing into being this hated law. The good governor and his cronies are not going to reconsider this very, very ill-advised piece of legislation. Their position is that the God-fearing citizens of North Carolina must be protected from crafty, skirt-wearing male predators hell-bent on committing unspeakable crimes in the locker rooms and bathrooms of their state. Protected at all costs. Even if it puts at risk the safety of transgender people; even if it causes very, very serious economic damage to their state. They will not back down.
People who are very upset that the country at large has made a conscious decision to stop treating LGBT people as second-class citizens will go on passing laws that allow them to keep up the discrimination. The justification may be the safety of the (straight) citizens of the state; the justification may be the preservation of religious freedom. The bottom line is that they’re not going to stop. And people and institutions — such as the NBA and the NCAA — are going to go on letting North Carolina know that that is not acceptable. Watch this space…
An Ibis and a Splash of Color
I love the Ibis. Fascinating bird. You see them everywhere you go in Florida. I love zoos. Here is a photo of an Ibis at the Brevard Zoo in Melbourne, Florida. It features an Ibis with unusual color seeming to be trying to adjust the Christmas lights. Well, that’s the way it looks to me…
Regardless of what this bird might be doing — or not be doing — I think it’s a pretty good photo. Hope you like it.
© 2016 Ben Lawrence Basile
Photo credit Benjamin Lawrence Basile
Another Look at North Carolina’s Voter Suppression Bill
Rethuglican legislators in many red states have been trying hard to keep the “wrong kind” of voters from the polls ever since the SCOTUS gutted the 1965 Voting Rights Act; that unfortunate decision, Shelby County v. Holder, came down in June of 2013.
There have been so many regressive laws passed since that decision which were calculated to keep the a large segment of Democratic base from participating in elections — Presidential elections — in particular. One of the most notorious and far-reaching of those bills came out North Carolina in July of 2013. HB 589 was hastily passed with very little public comment and was immediately challenged. Although it was originally upheld on appeal, last month the Appeals Court for the 4th Circuit struck down HB 589 saying — among other things — that it was crafted “with surgical precision” to keep African Americans from voting in North Carolina.
I first blogged about the decision striking down this accursed bill on July 29th. That posting was entitled Strict Voter ID Law Overturned by Appeals Court; you can view it by clicking on the category American Life and Politics without having to scroll back through four months’ worth of posts.
This is really a follow-up to highlight an excellent WaPo article by William Wan which lays out the larger story about how this hellish bill came to be; I found it to be a very good and detailed piece and recommend to anyone who has an interest in North Carolina’s Voter ID law or voter suppression techniques in general. You can read it by following this link.
Now that we’re a mere 62 days away from a truly monumental Presidential election we need to remain on-guard. The Republican Party knows that a huge chunk of the American electorate — and the courts — are onto their game. We can’t afford to sit idly by while they do their damnedest to disenfranchise voters they don’t like on election day.
Enjoy the Outdoors. Love the Planet. 
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