4/05/12 PLAYING THE THEME FROM "ROCKY"

FROSTY MORN

DAFFODILS BEGINNING TO BLOOM IN EARNEST

RED OAK AT SUNSET

Thursday, 7:45 AM.  33 degrees F., wind W, light.  The sky is cloudless and a bit hazy.  There is frost on some rooftops but none on the ground.  It is good to have some cooler temperatures to slow spring down a bit.  The barometer predicts fair weather so we should have a good day to continue with the raking, cultivating, sweeping and pruning. 
    Last evening was beautiful and we took a little ride through the orchard country.  We saw a total of over twenty deer on Torbic Road, in two herds.  It has been a number of years since we have seen so many deer. The sun was setting and the moon rising at the same time, always a time when wildlife is active.  The rather mild winter without deep snow and several more restrictive deer seasons have produced good results and maybe we will have a really good deer season this year.  I haven’t heard of many wolf sightings of late.  They probably moved on when the deer became scarce, but will probably be back now that the prey population has rebounded.
    President Obama seems to have a penchant for picking fights.  For the  past three years he has been fighting with the US business community, which has further damaged the economy. He has been fighting with congress, even though his own party controls the senate.  Not satisfied with those rather considerable challenges, he recently took on the Catholic church, a not inconsiderable opponent.  Now he has issued perhaps the most reckless dare of all, challenging the United States Supreme Court’s legal right to declare laws of the land unconstitutional.  As a result the 5th District Court of Appeals has given the administration until noon today to defend that premise  in a written brief.  I have never heard of such an action by a US court before and it must be a rare event indeed, perhaps unprecedented.
    The president claims to be constitutional lawyer.  He must realize how reckless his comments are, which appear to be an attempt to intimidate the justices in their deliberations. 
    The president is obviously an intelligent person, who one assumes can see the risks in all his pugnacious and reckless confrontations.  So one must ask the question, “why?” It is almost as though he is Don Quixote tilting at windmills.  The only logical conclusion I can come to is that these fights are all meant to divert attention from his embarrassing policy failures and encourage support from his far left political base.  But regardless of motive, it seems as though President Obama wants to add “Champ” to his many titles and achievements. Maybe he saw one too many Sylvester Stallone movies.  Perhaps In the future we will be hearing the theme from “Rocky” instead of “Hail to the Chief.”