Tuesday, November 10, 2026

Shalimar Gardens, Lahore, Pakistan

 


Shalimar Gardens built on forty acres of land completed in1642
Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan (1592-1666) 



During his reign as the fifth Mughal emperor (1628–1658), Shah Jahan ushered in the golden age of Mughal architecture, characterized by a shift toward refined white marble, strict bilateral symmetry, and exquisite ornamental detail.

Major Architectural Achievements
  • Taj Mahal (Agra): Built between 1632 and 1648 as a white marble mausoleum for his favorite wife Mumtaz Mahal, featuring the pietra dura inlay technique (semi-precious stones embedded in marble), large bulbous domes, symmetrical gardens (charbagh), and Quranic calligraphy. 
  • Red Fort / Lal Quila (Delhi): A massive fortress-palace with red sandstone walls housing private marble palaces, audience halls (Diwan-i-Aam and Diwan-i-Khas), and formal gardens. 
  • Jama Masjid (Delhi): One of India's largest and most prominent Friday mosques, constructed with alternating red sandstone and white marble, featuring towering minarets and vast courtyards. 
  • Shahjahanabad (Old Delhi): A newly planned walled capital city established in 1639 along the Yamuna River, featuring grand boulevards and imperial infrastructure. 
  • Shalimar Gardens (Lahore, Pakistan): Terraced Persian-style water gardens laid out with symmetrical water channels, fountains, and marble pavilions. 

Saturday, November 07, 2026

A Champion Sprint Horse Signals BASTA!

 


Sometimes in sports you come across a story that separates the one participant from the many. Usually, it's due to amazing feats of athletic ability and achievement. The athlete cements their legacy into sport's record books by accomplishing what few if any have ever done in their particular sport. To be crowned with recognition of such unique talent and ability is an honor granted to the few amongst many. And yet, here we have one who's legacy of achievements include a most unusual decision on his part.

His name is Chautauqua, a former thoroughbred racehorse. Nicknamed "The Grey Flash," due in part to his grey coloring. Chautauqua was a phenomenon in that he was known for amazing come-from-behind victories, hence the "Flash" part of his nickname.



So here you have perhaps a once in a generation sprint horse (short distance), with the explosiveness of a cheetah, who at the top of his game (after winning the TJ Smith Stakes three consecutive times) decided he'd had enough of racing. And this is where I believe the horse showed his animal dignity and intelligence. 

Chautauqua, the legendary Australian Thoroughbred racehorse, began repeatedly to choose not to jump out of the starting barrier during official trials. It took six to seven consecutive non-launches before trainer, owner and those in the horse racing world got the hint. Chautauqua was saying, "Basta! Enough!" 

No physical health condition nor disease was found after examinations. Chautauqua was as healthy as a .  .  .  horse! He'd been examined by an equine specialist (horse doctor) who determined he wasn't being stubborn but that he was suffering from a psychological "freeze response" triggered by a massive surge of adrenaline when the starting barriers opened. Sure Doc! 

You know, maybe this is proof that animals are smarter than human beings. Two animals, one sits on top the other and rides him for competitive entertainment and financial gain. And as the animal doing all the carrying and running decides he's had enough and chooses not to participate, the riding animal along with his collaborators label the other unfit and/or psychologically disturbed. 

Where are Mr. Peabody and Sherman when a horse is misunderstood?

Chautauqua was retired after his seventh refusal to run. He retired as Australia's third greatest stakes-earning sprinter. In 2019, he began training as a show horse which involves trotting and circle work. He was formally retired from the show ring in January 2023.


In 2021, the Drummond Golf Stakes was renamed the Chautauqua Stakes in honor of this gifted Australian Thoroughbred Champion. We are left to wonder and speculate about the so-called "freeze response" of "The Grey Flash," whose gray brain matter just might have gone into prey survival mode to outwit and out maneuver all bipedal animals, including those with PhD. degrees. 





Thursday, November 05, 2026

Footage of Nazi Contration Camps (1945)


 Holocaust

Chronology & Escalation
  • 1933–1938 (Persecution and Disenfranchisement): Following Adolf Hitler's rise to power as Chancellor in January 1933, the Nazi regime implemented radical antisemitic laws, stripped Jews of German citizenship (such as through the 1935 Nuremberg Laws), and excluded them from public and economic life. State-sponsored violence peaked during Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) in November 1938. 
  • 1939–1941 (Ghettos and Mass Shootings): Following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, hundreds of thousands of Jews were forcibly relocated into overcrowded, unsanitary urban ghettos. After the 1941 invasion of the Soviet Union, mobile killing squads (Einsatzgruppen) began mass shooting operations. [
  • 1942–1945 (The "Final Solution" and Extermination Camps): Formalized at the Wannsee Conference in January 1942, the Nazis shifted toward industrial-scale mass murder. Millions were deported via freight trains to dedicated killing centers and concentration camps—most notably Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Sobibor, Chełmno, and Majdanek—where victims were murdered primarily in poison gas chambers or died from forced labor, starvation, and medical experimentation.

Wednesday, November 04, 2026

Liberation Day America (Nov. 3, 2026)

2026 Election Results: Live : NPR

"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." [1]

Preamble - We the People | Constitution Center



American voters have rejected the continued Trumpism of the country by voting into office newly elected Senators, Congressmen/Congresswomen and Governors who believe in Democracy and upholding the U.S. Constitution. There is much work to do in building back up what was recklessly torn down since Inauguration Day 2025. There are illegal wars to address, inflation to corral, healthcare losses to recoup, immigrants to liberate, rights to restore, corruption to uncover and a country to reunite and give back to "We The People."

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" 
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall (The Life of Voltaire)

America must listen to and follow what doctors prescribe and advise patients before, during and following illness. Start with a healthier political diet with good mental and bodily exercise. Reducing stress and anxiety. Getting the recommended sleep and rest for restoration of physical, mental and emotional strength. 

Today, America awakens to restoring the hope and outlook addressed in the final line of a memorable presidential speech during wartime:

"that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863


"government of the people, 
by the people, 
for the people, 
shall not perish from this earth" not today!


Liberation Day by George Saunders | Goodreads


The "best short story writer in English" (Time) is back with a masterful collection that explores ideas of power, ethics, and justice, and cuts to the very heart of what it means to live in community with our fellow humans. With his trademark prose--wickedly funny, unsentimental, and perfectly tuned--Saunders continues to challenge and surprise: here is a collection of prismatic, deeply resonant stories that encompass joy and despair, oppression and revolution, bizarre fantasy and brutal reality.

Review by Michael Burke

“Liberation Day: Stories” is his latest collection. He once again shows why many consider him to be the finest short story writer practicing today. The imagination, creativity and dark humor are driving while questions are posed about our behavior. Personal freedoms are looked at in stories such as “Liberation Day,” where three characters are attached to a wall and obligated to perform for a wealthy man and his friends. In “Elliot Spencer” we see a man being brainwashed and cleansed of his memory so that he may serve in the employ of a political group. “Ghoul” examines Hellish underground amusement park workers who may or may not have been told the truth about their fate. In Saunders’ most overtly political story, “Love Letter,” a elderly man explains to his son how democracy lost so many freedoms when it did not take “clownish leaders” seriously.

Not every story here is political or sci-fi / fantasy. In “Mom of Bold Action” we are in the mind of a mother out to seek vengeance for a relatively minor attack on her young son. She goads her husband into exacting retribution on a possible suspect. She feels bad about the consequences for the man in question… but her guilt has its limits. In “Mother’s Day” there is a showdown in a hailstorm between two women, long time rivals, who have only ever seen the other as undeserving of the man they both loved.

Every story here is a gem, every tale thought-provoking and entertaining. Highly recommended reading.


Saturday, October 31, 2026

History Making Golden State Valkyries Are Champions


Applause, Applause, Applause on a Championship Series Victory. The Golden State Valkyries have made history in more ways than one as they took game 7 of the WNBA Finals to win their first Championship Trophy.

Parting gifts go to the runner-up Atlanta Dream who played hard down to the wire. But the GS Valkyries on their homecourt, on Halloween night (a San Francisco Holiday), in their second WNBA year were not going to be denied. 

We SF Bay Area residents are feeling mighty blessed to have such a great group of basketball players who play and win as a team. Head coach Natalie Nakase is deserving of all the accolades a championship coach is due. She kept her finger on the team pulse, making the speeches and adjustments needed to lead our team to the WNBA mountaintop. Great Job Coach!

The San Francisco Bay Area will be savoring this sports championship for quite some time. 

You Go Gurls!!!

Dream 63
Valkyries 68

Thursday, October 22, 2026

Vote As If God Is Watching - November 3, 2026

 



From a distance The world looks blue and green And the snow-capped mountains white From a distance The ocean meets the stream And the eagle takes to flight From a distance there is harmony And it echoes through the land It's the voice of hope It's the voice of peace It's the voice of every man From a distance we all have enough And no one is in need And there are no guns No bombs and no disease No hungry mouths to feed From a distance we are instruments Marching in a common band Playing songs of hope Playing songs of peace They're the songs of every man God is watching us God is watching us God is watching us From a distance ------------- From a distance You look like my friend Even though we are at war From a distance I just cannot comprehend What all this fighting's for From a distance there is harmony And it echoes through the land And it's the hope of hopes It's the love of loves It's the heart of every man (every man) It's the hope of hopes It's the love of loves This is the song for every man And God is watching us God is watching us God is watching us From a distance Oh, God is watching us God is watching God is watching us From a distance



White Too Long by Robert P. Jones (Banned in 2025)

 

Winner of 2021 American Book Award

From NPR's Fresh Air conversations with Terry Gross (2020). An interview with author Robert P. Jones charting the history of American Christian Churches, including Catholics, and their segregationist policies. Here the author discusses his southern upbringing and just how embedded systemic white supremacy has been throughout America's christian history.

'White Too Long' Author: Churches Need To Reckon With 'Legacy Of White Supremacy : NPR


In 2025, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered this book "purged" from the academic library at the US Naval Academy. Hegseth's action is more proof of today's white denial and refusal to account for past racial inequality and injustice. And unfortunately, many evangelical and other christians today condone these whitewashing actions. 

SHAME ON ANY RELIGIOUS INSTITUTION that would overlook, forgive, or implicitly allow behavior that is considered morally, ethically, or legally wrong. 

Bette Midler - From a Distance lyrics [ God is watching us ]

Distinguishing Shame from Guilt | Desiring God - interview with author John Piper