Politics in Brief

In my post of April 12,​ I suggested that you wouldn’t hear much about politics from me. May I please recant and apologize for that? Politics is at the core of the American character and to avoid political discussion is to hand over control of our lives to others.

Over time, Facebook developed some unwritten rules of social media discourse which I found constraining and, I do not use this word often, un-American. Of course,​ Facebook has a particular problem with trolls so that any mention of a candidate, party or policy preference would bring them out to haunt your page.

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Elizabethan Madrigal Feast, 2018. Planning is underway.

Marc Davis and Summer Hughes in the Elizabethan Madrigal Feast production of 2016. The Feast is produced by the talent of Brazosport Center Stages for the benefit of the Brazosport Fine Arts Council every other year.Link to the photo on Flicker.

The committee that will produce EMF 2018 gathered last night to begin their serious planning for the 2018 feast in the Dow Arena Theater in November. Get ready for the auditions in late August or early September. In the photo above are two of my favorite photo objects from 2016, Mr. Marc Davis and Ms. Summer Hughes.

It is a joy to photograph this event: color, light, costumes, decor, actors who act, dancers who dance, singers who sing. And they allow me to lurk around wherever I wish and take as many pictures as I want. They even let me take my big camera to the dinner on our night at the table. No flash. Just a lens that will take in enough light to make a decent exposure. This was taken at the November 27, 2016, performance from the back of the room through the castle’s window. It was one of the first times to use my new 70-200mm lens.

And, of course we expect the Earl’s special guest to be invited again. She is always splendidly dressed.

Link to Donna Jablecki’s photo on Flickr.

This was taken the same afternoon with the same lens. Forgive me for cancelling the color. The black and white does a better job featuring the construction of her elegant costume by Cheryl Fowler.

Elizabeth played by Donna Jablecki in the Elizabethan Madrigal Feast at the Brazosport Center for Arts and Sciences, 2016

Goodbye Facebook

I began this journal after I deleted my Facebook account. I had been a dedicated Facebook user. There was no better communication tool available to fill that niche between mass media and face-to-face interactions. I shared a lot of photographs, mainly from our community theater, Brazosport Center Stages, and from our church youth group. I also did my share of celebrating our beautiful, talented grandchildren with occasional Facebook posts. They were, by my design, nameless and homeless in the eyes of strangers, although I was always careful to limit the distribution to “friends”.

I did the total wipe on Facebook. I don’t doubt the files are still out there as backups or as research data for some “university professor” serving a front for a marketing firm or Vladimir Putin. A blog offers only a bit more privacy. At some point, it will be open to the public and most of what I post will be there for all the honest world to see.

So there are some things you may as well know from the start. There is no need to go to all the trouble of developing a psychographic profile based on assumptions about my friends, likes, and ad clicking. So allow me to save you (and perhaps Mr. Putin) the trouble.  I am a United Methodist Christian, born once and only once into the faith at the age of six kneeling at the altar with my parents in Jacinto City Methodist Church. I am a Democrat, have always been a Democrat and your suasions on behalf of some other party will probably be wasted on me. I do not hate or even mildly dislike Republicans. I live among them in Lake Jackson, possibly the most conservative 1,609 square miles in the country, and although they caused me lots of discomfort with barbs about Democratic presidents, I don’t hold that against them because I deliver a few aimed at their Republican heroes from time to time. Not feeling the safety in numbers that they feel, I deliver most of my barbs in the privacy of my home.

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