In the shadow of the crooked pine

Winter is a bummer. But without winter, we wouldn't appreciate summer.

I appreciate all four seasons. That's why I live here.

We've got a crooked pine along the driveway. I've been many times tempted to cut her down. She tilts noticeably to the north while all the other pines along the driveway are straight up and down.

Crooked pine vs. straight pine...

But I love that crooked pine!

She's still standing.

Crooked...


I usually head out to the front stoop early in the afternoon, glass in hand, after I've digested the daily news, and if necessary, posted a blog or two.

The daily news today is chock-full of bad news from South Sudan. That's the "newest" country in the world, don't ya know!?

They're having a famine crisis.

The reason South Sudan is the newest country in the world is because a pack of assholes in the US State Department connived long and hard to break South Sudan away from Sudan. Follow the links in this blog post to find out about their tactics and motivation.

Point is, Uncle Sam is the baby-daddy of out-of-wedlock South Sudan. Without the interference of all those smug American "wonks," there would be no South Sudan today. Too bad the citizens of this newest nation are on the brink of starvation.

Will Uncle Sam be held to account!

Of course not!

 But you can bet your bottom dollar that US armaments manufacturers are pocketing profits aplenty from both sides of the Sudanese civil war.

That's a big part of the exceptional nation's reason for being in the modern era; stir up hatred and violence and then sell guns and bombs to both sides.

After all, the USA and the Me-Too states don't really export much else. (Except the Germans of course...)

It's how we roll here in the Nations of Virtue.


In the afternoon the sun eventually goes down behind that crooked pine, at least till about the first of May. I am happy to report that with the advent of Spring and the sun getting ever-higher on the horizon, its evening trajectory now clears the top of the crooked pine.

Yup, I'm bathing in sunshine all afternoon long.

Too bad about those starving folks in South Sudan...