The Blues

 HI Everyone!

I don't talk much about music. I do like all different genres. If I had to pick just one it would be the Blues.

I found this and had to share it.

Have a great day today.

 

 

                       

Wednesday Post Voting

Hi Everyone!

 

We all know that the "thing" in the white house has always wanted to stay in power no matter the cost, no matter the laws broken or the constitutional crises that WE ARE in.

 

A U.S. Postal Service official has accused the agency of defying court orders as it rushes to implement the Trump administration’s mail-in voting restrictions.

The allegations were made public Tuesday morning by way of a letter from Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal to Postmaster General David Steiner. Citing the insider’s testimony, Blumenthal said that the “risky and haphazard” implementation of the "thing's" March-dated executive order—which granted the postal service new gatekeeping responsibilities regarding mail-in ballots—could lead to a “catastrophic failure” in America’s voting procedures come November. 

Uhh I do believe that's what he wants

The executive order was in legal limbo for months—up until last week, when the Supreme Court decided that the lawsuit challenging the order was premature since the administration had not yet implemented it. The Supreme Court was clear that it had not ruled on the legality of the "thing's" order, but nonetheless allowed it to move forward. 

Yet how the postal service is planning to carry out the marching orders is already fraught with problems, according to the whistleblower report.

The snail-mail carrier has been building an entirely new federal ballot mail portal since June, months before the service was permitted to move forward with the executive order. The portal will screen all incoming ballots, but its development has been “rushed” and “risky” as the service tried to meet “impossible deadlines”.

For instance, the agency has eliminated testing procedures for the platform, a risk that could potentially “derail the midterm elections,” according to the whistleblower.

“Potentially millions of American voters may not receive their mail-in ballot this election cycle in a timely manner, or at all,” the official said.

Blumenthal told reporters by phone on Monday that “the main takeaway for me is that the Postal Service has designed a system to disenfranchise millions of Americans. One-third of all Americans cast their ballots by mail, and the USPS puts all of their votes at risk.”

 

Voting by mail will invariably become more difficult for the tens of millions of Americans who depend on the service under the "thing's" new order. Even if a voter does everything right, their vote could still be rejected by the Postal Service’s new portal.

 

Part of the problem is the system’s zero percent failure rate, which processes ballots in large batches but rejects the lot if one fails to pass muster.

“For example, if a state election official brings a batch of 10,000 ballots to USPS and USPS is unable to match just one of those ballots against the Portal—because, for example, someone has recently changed their name after marriage or they’ve moved—then USPS would refuse to mail the remaining 9,999 ballots as well,” Blumenthal wrote. USPS would then expect the state to “take back the entire batch to cure the issue with the single ballot,” according to the whistleblower.

The whistleblower claimed that developing such a portal and the infrastructure to support it should take the service a year or more, but USPS leadership nonetheless demanded that the electronic processor be launched by September 1—less than six months after the executive order was signed, and just two months before the midterm election cycle. 

 24 states and the District of Columbia have filed law suits against this. The President of the United States does not have the constitutional authority to control, administer, or dictate voting procedures in individual states.

However, we are dealing with the "thing". 

In addition The "thing's homeland security chief says ICE agents could be sent to polling places.

 

No matter how you vote make sure your information is up to date.

Contact your state voting website to get updated information.

Keeping the right to vote is everyone's fight.

Nicole
 

 

 

T stands for cooking

 Hi Everyone!

Today is Tuesday and that means a day with Elizabeth and Bleubeard.

 

Yesterday I was supposed to meet up with my 3 neighbors. It's our monthly gathering. I knew when I got up I wasn't going to make it. Lupus pain an overall feeling like crap. I called to let them know that I would not be attending. 

 Everyone texted to see if I needed help.

I don't. I just want to be left alone with feeling like this. 

Don't worry my friends, I'm OK it's just a day setback. Prednisone will take care of it. LOL

Friday we drove over to Bandon to the Farmer's market. It's late in the year and when we arrived there was only one vendor. However, it was the vendor I always shop with. This is what I got. The grow the best string beans. 

The sweet onions are always so good with long scrapes that I chop up and freeze.  

Can't leave without peppers and small heads of cabbage. 

Some of what we ate this week.

Steamed veggies with egg noodles. 

Doesn't seem like much but it is so good. 

Yumm homemade burritos. I make these and freeze them. Plain rice and homemade refried beans.

Perfectly cooked battered pork chops, coleslaw with apples and string beans.  

And sugar free chocolate pudding pie. 

 

Sorry this is blurry 

I got a coupon for a free 12 pack of bubly. Mr. M. likes the black cherry. With the sparkling waters I only like the plain. 

 Have a great day today.

Nicole. 

 

Monster Monday

 Welcome to

 

It's all about moveable monsters today. Better known as morphing.

 

 

     

 

  

 Now for some nice ones. 

 

                      

                       

 I will be meeting up with my friends for our monthly gathering. 

Have a great Monday. 

                       

                           

Sunday in the Art Room SITAR

 Welcome to 

SITAR is about ANYTHING art. Your art, someone else's art, writing, photography, the art of cooking, the art of sewing and textiles. Sharing historical art, street art, a story about art. Do you have a question or need help with art? Write a blog post and link it up here. We will all try to help with it. My only rule is that if someone asks for critique it must be done with generosity and consideration. 

This is a place of learning, encouragement and inspiration.

 

I'm happy to introduce to you,

Betye Irene Saar.

July 30, 1926 – July 26, 2026 

Betye Saar was an American artist know for her work in the medium of assemblage. She was a visual storyteller and an accomplished printmaker. Betye was a part of the Black Arts Movement in the  1970s, which engaged myths and stereotypes about race and femininity. Her work is considered highly political, as she challenged negative ideas about African Americans throughout her career. Bety is best know for her artwork that critiques anti-Black racism in the United States. 

Betye Saar was born Betye Irene Brown on July 30, 1926, to Jefferson Maze Brown and Beatrice Lillian Parson in Los Angeles, California. Both parents attended the University of California, Los Angeles, where they met. Betye spent her early years in Los Angeles.  After her father's death in 1931, Betye and her mother, brother, and sister moved in with her paternal grandmother, Irene Hannah Maze, in the Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles. The family then moved to Pasadena, California, to live with Saar's maternal great-aunt Hatte Parson Keys and her husband Robert E. Keys 

She attended college and during that time met and married  Richard Saar and gave birth to 3 daughters. 

Betye started her adult life as a social worker, and then later pursued her passion for art. She began her graduate education in 1958, originally working towards a career in teaching design. However, a printmaking class she took as an elective changed the direction of her artistic interests. She described printmaking as her "segue from design into fine arts" 

 The  late 1950s-1960s began her artistic career primarily focused on design and printmaking. She created colors etchings, intaglio prints and drawings that incorporated stamps and stencils. Her early themes leaned heavily towards family, cosmology and mysticism. Her early prints were filled with windows, moons, hands, stars, eyes, astrological signs, and shadowy figures. They suggested that visible reality was only one layer of experience.

Betye's collected racist imagery and continued throughout her career. She was inspired to create assemblages by a 1967 exhibition by found object sculptor, Joseph Cornell. She was also greatly influenced by Simon Rodia's Watts Towers, which she witnessed being built in her childhood. Betye said that she was "fascinated by the materials that Simon Rodia used, the broken dishes, sea shells, rusty tools, even corn cobs—all pressed into cement to create spires. To me, they were magical."

Assemblage Art

 

The Grand Dame of Assemblage art. 

 Printmaking had allowed her to build symbolic worlds on paper. Assemblage allowed her to place history itself inside a frame.

She began searching flea markets, swap meets, antique shops and secondhand stores. Her collections of everything from clocks, bottles, beads, fabric, washboards, dolls, photos, boxes, bones and household objects held the spirit of those no longer remembered. She understood that objects absorb meaning from the people and systems around them. Some carried intimacy, others carried violence.  Among the objects found in American markets and kitchens were caricatures of Black poeple produced during slavery's long aftermath. Smiling mammies, grinning servants, exaggerated dolls, advertisements, postcards and household containers had been created to make racial hierarchy look comforting, humorous or harmless. 

 They were not harmless. They reduced Black men and women to obedient figures whose exaggerated smiles concealed the realities of forced labor, segregation, economic exploitation and  humiliation.

 By the late 1960's the Civil Rights Movement had exposed the violence required to maintain racial inequality. Black artists were demanding control over Black representation. The Black Arts Movement encouraged art that did not seek permission for white institutions before speaking directly to Black History, identity, anger and possibility. After the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April 1968, many artists including Betye became more politically aware. With 3 children she couldn't always march, and publicly demonstrate so she made art into her form of protest. 

In 1972, the Rainbow Sign, a Black   cultural center in Berkeley, invited artists to participate in an exhibition     about Black heroes. Betye could  have chosen any recognizable leader.    Instead, she decided to create a         Black heroine from an image     designed to deny Black women  dignity. She chose Aunt Jemima. 

The reaction to Betye Saar’s 1972 artwork, The Liberation of Aunt Jemima, was explosive and deeply transformative. By taking a demeaning, smiling Jim Crow caricature and arming her with a rifle and a grenade, Betye "touched a national nerve" and created a definitive icon for both the Black Power and feminist movements.

Betye Saar continued to create art until the day she passed.  

 

 

Everything I have read about Betye, tells me she was a fearless woman, in a time of fear, and an artist that shows the world a different direction. She was also very eloquent. 

Hope you learned something new today on SITAR

Nicole 

 

I will be joining Gillena
 

Studio Museum in Harlem 

Artsy.net 

Roberts Projects  

 

Saturday

 Hi Everyone!

I know it's the end of August and no where near Halloween for most of you. But for me, it's all year round. One of the things that I truly love is that more and more AI morph videos are out and some are pretty scary. 

Really, recreational fear is a good thing. Like a good horror movie. It provides a safe way to experience a rush of adrenaline and emotional release is the safety of your home.

 

So here is your adrenaline release for the day. She is actually quite eloquent 

Nicole 

 

Friday Face OFF (FFO) 8/28/2026

 

Welcome To Friday Face OFF (FFO)

This is the place to show off your face art.

You know, ANY type of face, nature, the face of a flower, photography, drawings, paintings, AI. There just needs to be a face in your blog post, a link back to my blog and please use the image below. 

Thank you.

 

YAY! I got a face drawn for this week.

She starts like this. 

 

Then this. If you have noticed I'm more controlled on how I draw now. Before, I was all over the page.  

 

Even though I do like being all over the page I'm beginning to see the benefit of started on the top and working down.  

 

And to finish off she ends like this. Not my favorite, but she's OK.  

 

Here are a few AI faces.

 

Now for some features

 

 Lusca

 

Jeanie

That's it for now 

Don't miss

Sunday in the Art Room.

 

I will be joining Gillena 

 

Now it's time to show me your face.
 Nicole  

Short and sweet

 Hi Everyone!

Mr. M. has done so well with eating what he is suppose to, like lean meats, beans, and roasted veggies.

 

That I thought it was time for a treat.

One of our favorites

Thick crust. Crunchy on the outside soft bready on the inside. 

The cheese was perfectly melted.

It was soooo goooood.

 

I have been wanting some high top rubber boots for EVER! They are expensive here like $79.00. However, I was in Bi-Mart and they were $29.00. Now that I can live with.

 

plus I love the polka dots.

That's it for now. 

See ya for FFO

Nicole

T Stands for Tuesday

 Hi Everyone!

 

Today is Tuesday and that means a day with Elizabeth and Bleubeard.

 

You all know I love cookies. Actually, the cookie dough. 

Not store bought rather homemade with good ingredients. Even though I have not made any lately here are few from my past. 

Almond 

 

Whipped Shortbread

 

 

 

Root beer Cookies

 

Chocolate chip

and my all time fave peanut butter.

These are just a few of the types of cookies I have made. So, why am I showing these?

Because to my dismay I read this article. 

 

Scientists have successfully turned plastic bottles and agricultural waste into edible, protein-rich cookies

 

Whenever I read something like this I immediately think of 

"Soylent Green." 

 

Ya know, the 1973 movie that was based on the 1966 scify book,  

"Make Room! Make Room!" by Harry Harrison?
 

Welllllll.... it seems that NASA has backed researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale to turn plastic waste into edible, 3D-printed cookies called µBites. 

 In the simplest terms, the team uses high heat, pressure, water, and oxygen to break down plastic bottles and plant waste. Specially programmed yeasts eat the broken carbon pieces and turn them into proteins, fats, and vitamins. The final mixture, "slurry or slime" is put through a 3D printer to form small, disc-shaped cookies. 

The cookies have passed the smell test.

To make the cookies appealing, the team programmed specific yeast strains to generate vanilla flavoring directly from the plant biomass. Another engineered strain converts ethylene glycol into beta-carotene, which the human body turns into Vitamin A. 

Uhhhh I'm going to get my Vit A from real carrots.  

Once printed, the uBites are hardened in a microwave. This means they likely have a firm, dense, or slightly uniform structure rather than a light, crumbly texture of traditional oven baked cookies.

At this point the FDA has NOT approved human taste testing. 

 

The cost.

Currently, production costs sit at roughly $60 per kilogram, meaning they are far from commercial supermarket shelves.  It breaks down like this per cookie.

Small cookie, (15 grms) .90cents.

Medium cookie, (25 grms) $1.50.

Large cookie, (30 grms) $1.80. 

This may not seem like a lot but the cookies you buy now at the store run pennies to produced. Yeah, a rip off.

 

To sum it up. 

The research team 

 By using synthetic biology to turn inorganic trash into organic sustenance, the researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale (SIU) have created a proof-of-concept for a closed-loop food system. Lead researcher Dr. Lahiru Jayakody notes that with global food demand skyrocketing, we must urgently "reinvent the food production system to ensure food security." 

My personal note. 

We already have bio engineered foods in the stores. Governments start slow getting people used to what's available. Then, as this concept proceeds in creating other foods they will be introduce into the food chain.

When "real" food becomes a luxury fear driven government policies will easily cause the public to conform. Hunger makes the human spirit cross lines it once thought impassable. 

I'm old so maybe I won't be around for this but my grand and great grand kids just might be.  

 

 I think I will go bake come cookies to have with my real milk.

Photo from internet.
 

Have a nice Tuesday  

Nicole