FOLIO OLIO: FRIDAY #2161

Astronomers have captured the most detailed image yet of planet formation around a young, sun-like star...

As I understand it, the dark bands are where the new planets are swallowing up the debris.

Do you think you live here...

...to do this for most of your waking hours?

I find it mind numbingly boring...

I post many images of the fall of the wall...

That's because it marked very clearly the decline of my chance to be vaporized with an H-bomb. I found it one of the most dramatic events of the century.

I recently viewed a photo essay about where the pieces of the wall ended up - and they ended up all over the world...

This next one is a piece of the Berlin Wall, which has been on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum since 1990....

How appropriate, since he more or less demanded that the wall come down.

Ten segments of the Berlin Wall, which constitute the longest stretch outside of Berlin, are seen on display in Los Angeles, California September 18, 2014. On November 9, Germany will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

I remember all sorts of images of people risking life and limb to flee East Berlin. They still touch me...

And then one day it was gone...

The more I talk, the more I understand why I don’t have many friends.

Oh, Jack.

You know that feeling when you yawn at a bar and your inner poor star moan comes out.

As I have often stated, I hang out with a whole bunch of young college students. I really hate to say it, but I bet less than 10% of them would get the above joke.

And he scared the shit out of US citizens...so scared there seems to be no end to the freedoms we will give away if someone just promises us we will be safe.

But at other times Americans had a reason to be afraid and didn't freak out...

And some of our grandparents had real bombs falling out of the sky daily and refused to act like scared rabbits...

(A V-1 flying bomb lands in a street off Drury Lane, London, 1944)

And in other parts of the world, WE are the ones raining down death on children...(a Banksy)....

Speaking of messages on a wall...

I have no idea who did this or what it means, but I'm still insulted...

The coldest of cold shoulders...

How much kale do I have to eat to offset an entire bag of Mini Snickers bars?

Ladies and gentlemen, an idiot...

Look, I don't care if you don't want to wear a helmet, but this man in putting those wee children in great peril. On more than one occasion I have seen a grown man let his motorcycle fall over while at a complete stop. He has no right to do that.

If find it strange that to a woman nothing is more offensive to a woman than being asked if they are on their period while they are on their period.

I have no idea what that means, but it seemed like a cool thing to scream on a train.

How nice...

First, let's take a looks at a few photographs...

Now let's take a look at a couple of paintings by my pal, Mark Rothco...

Yes, it is really that easy to make sense of "modern" art.

You are what you eat...

A park ranger reacts to insanity...

Poaching is a VERY REAL problem, with idiots thinking that their horns, made of the same material as our nails and hair, have medicinal properties. If nothing is done, the next generation (our children) will never see a rhino except in photographs.

Grandmother's stove was missing a knob...