He's Dead, Jim
A curiosity from Saturday's excursion to Dexter's Civil Wars Days: The day broke cool & cloudy over Grand Blanc & over Red Patton's home in Millington, but the Accursed Sun shone bright & merciless over Dexter. As the man wrote, "Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun," or, in this case, Midwestern Americans. To spite the Accursed Sun & defend myself against its death rays, I shielded my melon with a broad-brimmed straw hat & slathered my arms & the back of my neck with S.P.F. 100 sunscreen, the tube of which I carried in my short's left cargo pocket. Red Patton is proudly of Portuguese extract, as signified by his unconventional surname (not repeated here to protect his privacy), & boasted that his skin would simply turn a lovely olive under even the most harsh beams from the blazing ball of atomic death that lurks high above. I was less sanguine about his lack of a hat. The future Mrs. Red Patton is a redhead, with the predictably pale complexion to match her flaming locks. Red Patton complained about the heat several times, repeatedly citing that the day was hotter than he'd anticipated. The future Mrs. Red Patton shed first her denim jacket & then her cardigan. I, by contract, was comfortable. Yes, I occasionally drew my handkerchief from my pocket to dab sweat from my brow, but this is entirely to be expected when wandering about a field on a sunny June afternoon. Perhaps it has all to do with expectations, that I anticipated being hot & so was not bothered by being hot. Perhaps it was my broad-brimmed hat, which shielded me from the Accursed Sun's wearying death rays. As I remarked to them after one of Red Patton's complaints, "Maybe that's the advantage of being a big fat guy—I'm always hot, so I'm used to it."

The Stars My Destination
Just a friendly reminder that thanks to President Obama's premature retirement of the Space Shuttle fleet & two-year pause in the development of the Orion spacecraft, the People's Republic of China must be considered a more technologically advanced nation than the United States of America, because the U.S. has no ability to send astronauts into low Earth orbit, instead having to hitchhike on the Russian Federation's spacecraft. The latest trio of Chinese to slip the bonds of gravity: blastoff-link.

Thanks for the continuing national embarrassment, Mr. President!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Ross Lynch, "Not a Love Song" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)