Cherry Cobbler Day
Same Sex Marriage Day *
Turn Beauty Inside Out Day *
National Walnut Day *
World Hypertension Day *
World Neurofibromatosis Day *
World Telecommunications and Information Society Day *
International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia *
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Biographer’s Day *
Coquilles Saint Jacques Day
Mimosa Day
Honor Our LGBT Elders’ Day *
National Love a Tree Day
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International Families Day *
Chocolate Chip Day
National Straw Hat Day
Nylon Stockings Day *
Peace Officer Memorial Day *
International MPS Awareness Day *
TSC Global Awareness Day *
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“National parks are the best idea we ever had. Absolutely American, absolutely democratic, they reflect us at our best rather than our worst.”
– Wallace Stegner
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By ann summers
Apparently Trump cheats at golf. Why are we not surprised … there are terms for reasonable doubt in golf that test the limits of decorum, if not integrity. Like Caddyshack is a mulligan for cinéastes, but Happy Gilmore is a bridge too far.
So from now until the end of our long national nightmare, Trump’s golf score should be a matter of public record when he plays a round, because public sphere and all. And let him refute it since we know he never apologizes or cries. Not to mention that he made Melania a golf widow on Mother’s Day.
Surely his golf scores are (not) alternative facts, and his whole life is about keeping score, what with audience ratings, crowd size, voter majorities … bigly-ness with a tiny grip.
A mulligan is a second chance to perform an action, usually after the first chance went wrong through bad luck or a blunder. Its best-known meaning is in golf, whereby a player is informally allowed to replay a stroke, even though this is against the formal rules of golf.
We don’t have to take Samuel Jackson or Oscar de la Hoya’s word for it. Trump’s denials are much like those for his political (Roger) and criminal (Felix) associates.
But like the suppression of WH visitor logs, whenever we find out with whom Trump played golf, we learn interesting things like impending media tactics or even personnel decisions. There are fewer mulligans in marriage or even public policy.
Journalists need to do a better job about reporting his scores and identifying his playing partners. Isn’t the whole deal with Trump the pathetic elitism of a game played by an obese man who claims that exercise shortens your life.
And who was present when he shot that 66.
On Tuesday, Trump released a letter in which he said he was firing Comey based on an attached memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. The memo, dated Tuesday, argued that Comey had violated Justice Department protocol by treating Hillary Clinton unfairly. Every White House spokesperson, including Vice President Pence, attributed the idea of sacking Comey to Rosenstein. Counselor Kellyanne Conway hailed Rosenstein as a “nonpartisan figure” and quoted extensively from his memo. Press secretary Sean Spicer said, “It was all him.” Deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders declared, “When the president gets a recommendation from somebody like that, that is so well respected, he has no choice but to listen to him and to make a swift and decisive action.” Pence, when he was asked on Wednesday whether Trump had requested the memo, said that Rosenstein simply “brought that recommendation to the president,” and Trump acted on it.
These stories were false. Trump had solicited the memo in a meeting with Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday. And he had already decided, even before the meeting, that he would terminate the FBI director. Pressed by NBC’s Lester Holt in an interview on Thursday, Trump admitted: “Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.” Trump gave reasons for his decision—including disgust with inquiries into contacts between Russia and his associates—that were completely different from the reasons in Rosenstein’s memo. Rosenstein had been set up.
Buttermilk Biscuit Day
Lewis and Clark Day *
The Stars and Stripes Forever Day *
Underground America Day *
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Baby Sitters Day
Frog Jumping Day *
Mother Ocean Day *
National Archery Day *
National Windmill Day
World Belly Dance Day
World Fair Trade Day *
World Migratory Bird Day *
Armed Forces Day Crossband Military/Amateur Radio Communications *
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![C_cyRO1VwAQqMO5_1_[1]](https://flowersforsocrates.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/c_cyro1vwaqqmo5_1_1.jpg?w=513&h=288)
We now reached the beginning of a foreseeable end to the long national nightmare, if only the check and balances of a sane democracy can reclaim some vestige of stability from Lord Dampnut.
Personal fealty and abusing power are not features of a modern democracy. Trump’s hubris has apparently triumphed. King Leer must step down.
This is interesting from Harvard Law’s @tribelaw. POTUS created opening for Congress to get details on his private convos with Comey. https://t.co/yocA5WDZHo
â Jessica Yellin (@JessicaYellin) May 12, 2017
We cannot now trust any of Trump’s GOP enablers to save our Democracy. 2018 must sweep the sickness from the White House.
Even as other narcissists like Ted Cruz found their own, more doctrinaire conservatism attractive to the second-most number of 2016 RNC delegates, conventional RWNJs lost to the reality television celebrity because Trump had a less complicated, reactionary message.
Despite the ability to create a perfect storm of media disruption and terrible Democratic campaign tactics the election was won by a simplistic and absolute conservative ideology which now must be driven back into the sea by Congress and the Courts.
Public Gardens Day *
International Nurses’ Day
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Day
Fibromyalgia Awareness Day
Limerick Day
Military Spouse Appreciation Day
Nutty Fudge Day
One Day Without Shoes Day
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by NONA BLYTH CLOUD
This is the second in our series of May poets — and it’s almost ‘Too Many Poets” week — seventeen poets were born this week. There are probably even more, but these have either published in English, or had their poems translated into English.
Of course, we can’t really ever have too many poets, but it’s been a real challenge to come up with a format or a theme. So I decided to just list them in order by birthday, with mini-bios, and give you some poems you might not have discovered yet.
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Most English-speakers have read at least one poem by the famous English Victorian poet Robert Browning, but in the 21st century the rest of these poets, some very well-known in their day, may not be familiar to you.
Rabindranath Tagore was born in British India’s Calcutta (now Kolkata), and if you’re from India, you know he’s had a major influence on Bengali literature and music. He was also very popular with the Flower Children in the 1960s. His brief poems in the collection Fireflies are still favorites of mine.
My fancies are fireflies, —
Specks of living light
twinkling in the dark.
The butterfly counts
not months but moments,
and has time enough.
The soil in return for her service
keeps the tree tied to her,
the sky asks nothing and leaves it free.
The tyrant claims freedom to kill freedom
and yet to keep it for himself.
Trees are the earth’s endless effort to
speak to the listening heaven.
While God waits for his temple
to be built of love,
men bring stones.
Nicole Plyler Fisk
Gene Howington
FFS Guest Blogger
Joy of Fishes
Chuck Stanley
shortfinals
Terry Welshans
ann li-summers
wordcloud9
Flowers For Socrates 