My favorite season FALL is upon us! Horray!

And the beautiful colors it brings.

Check out Huffington Posts beautiful photos of bonsais (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/23/bonsai-trees-color-fall_n_3976912.html?utm_hp_ref=huffpost-home&ir=HuffPost%20Home#slide=2942080).  Here's a sampling.

Sunset last night at my home

This was the sky last night here in Palm Desert CA.  Some of these photos look like paintings.

A SWEET baby elephant is SAVED

I LOVE elephants.  This article is the best medicine from my last blog post. It is from DailyMail online.  To read more, click here.

Excerpt from the article:

"A baby elephant who was almost hacked to death by ivory poachers is walking again thanks to an ingenious new boot and lots of TLC.  The 17-month-old calf called Suni was found in Zambia almost a year ago dragging herself along by her front legs, weak and dehydrated, after suffering severe axe wounds."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311547/Orphaned-baby-elephant-nearly-hacked-death-left-paralysed-ivory-poachers-walks-thanks-special-boot.html#ixzz2QxfIMbZD
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

This gruesome story is happening in the few locations on the planet where elephants still live.  According to DailyMail Online, this and other violence to elephants continues, because:

"Elephant poaching across Africa is now at its highest level for more than 20 years, which campaigners say is due to increased demand for ivory from newly affluent Chinese consumers."

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311547/Orphaned-baby-elephant-nearly-hacked-death-left-paralysed-ivory-poachers-walks-thanks-special-boot.html#ixzz2QxgDE5kU
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

So basically we are wiping out the entire population of pachyderms that still exists on our planet (approximately 200,000 to 300,000), with great brutality I might add, simply to provide another trophy in the hobby/collection for/of a rich person.   I quote DailyMail article:

'The sale of any ivory - legal or not - is creating demand. No one needs ivory. It is a beautiful substance, but the only ones who need it are elephants'

 Cynthia Moss of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project in Kenya

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311547/Orphaned-baby-elephant-nearly-hacked-death-left-paralysed-ivory-poachers-walks-thanks-special-boot.html#ixzz2QxkmRZQx
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

There are so many organizations that you can support to eliminate the descimation of this noble species by our pathetic, ignoble species.  Please support them in any way you can.

Vets preparing Suni for her operation: Specialist flew in from Norway and the U.S. operate on the orphaned youngster and fit her with the aluminium leg support which has put her back on her feet


• Elephant Orphanage Project     http://www.davidshepherd.org/project/zambia-park-protection-programme-incorporating-the-elephant-orphanage-project/

• Amboseli:  Africa's Elephant Park

http://www.amboseli.com

• Elephant Orphanage Project http://worldwildlife.org/species/elephant

I LOVE Elephants

A protective elephant charges at a pack of hyenas to protect its injured calf

Add caption

These amazing pictures were captured by American photographer Jayesh Mehta, 47, in the Savuti region of the Chobe National Park in Botswana

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2303350/Heart-stopping-moment-protective-elephant-charges-pack-hyenas-protect-injured-calf.html#ixzz2QGgCKQo2 
Follow us: @MailOnline on Twitter | DailyMail on Facebook

A Magnificent species: the ELEPHANT

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2299872/Elephant-Savuti-Game-Reserve-Botswana-charges-photographer-Ben-Cranke.html

I LOVE Elephants

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289506/Mother-knows-best-Touching-snaps-host-patient-parents-bonding-boisterous-babies-animal-kingdom.html

This photos is from a Dailymail article about motherly love.  To see the article:  click here (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2289506/Mother-knows-best-Touching-snaps-host-patient-parents-bonding-boisterous-babies-animal-kingdom.html).

MYSTERY dolphin SCHOOLING in San Diego

This is magnificent.  I once saw a similar school of dolphins off the northern San Diego coast as I was driving on Pacific Coast Highway.  But there weren't anywhere near this many. If you follow this blog you know that I love dolphins and elephants, among many other things.  But this is truly a breathtaking image.  

Massive group of mammals: A ship captain spotted a group of 100,000 dolphins swimming together off the coast of San Diego on Thursday and experts are unable to give a specific reasoning for why such a large group would be there

A group of over 100,000 dolphins spotted off the coast of San Diego caused a spectacle for nature watchers as they traveled together in an enormous pack.

'They were coming from all directions, you could see them from as far as the eye can see,' Joe Dutra said after seeing the spectacle first hand.

Mr Dutra, who captains Hornblower Cruises, was out on his daily tour with a boat full of nature watchers when he spotted the massive group of dolphins. 

'I’ve seen a lot of stuff out here… but this is the biggest I’ve ever seen, ever,' he told the local NBC affiliate.

Dolphins typically travel in groups of anywhere between 15 and 200 which are called pods.

What Mr Dutra spotted on Thursday however is best described as a super mega pod given the astonishing size of the group.

He estimated that the trail of dolphins was seven miles long and five miles wide, and he was able to steer the boat alongside them for over an hour.  

Experts are unable to pinpoint any specific reason as to why so many of the mammals were traveling together on this particular night. 'They’re definitely social animals, they stick together in small groups. But sometimes, the schools come together,' marine expert Sarah Wilkin told NBC.

While it does seem like a once-in-a-lifetime experience, a very similar flock of thousands of dolphins were seen swimming together about this time last year.

At the end of February in 2012, an unspecified group of dolphins was spotted swimming about 65 miles north of San Diego, implying that there may be an unacknowledged migratory pattern.

This article is excerpted from dailymail.com.  To see a video or read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2280236/Mystery-group-100-000-dolphins-spotted-swimming-coast-San-Diego.html#ixzz2LIXF12uo

A DOLPHIN cloud

Matthew Sears/Eastnews

NOW that's TALL

These pictures were taken by German photographer Bjoern Lauen, who went up to the top of another building to capture the Burj Khalifa in Dubai, the world's tallest building, in the central business district at sunrise. Mr Lauen, who has lived in Dubai since 2005, added: 'It is a bit of a challenge for motorists on Dubai's roads and a rare natural spectacle for the very early riser.

'During those few moments before, Downtown Dubai, with Burj Khalifa...is covered under a blanket of white.

Standing at more than 828 metres (2,716.5 feet) and more than 160 stories, the Burj Khalifa is also the tallest free-standing building. That's 1,000 feet taller than the second tallest structure in the world, Shanghai World Financial Center which equates to almost a doubling of height.

Now that is my kind of tall. Taller, further, faster, more beautiful, more efficient. That is what human beauty and spirit should be. Unfortunately, how much of all the underbelly, the truly repugnant aspects of the species of man were substantially used to create this one item of exquisite perfectness and beauty. Was it worth it? I say yes and yet I'm also ashamed of how much harm we do to our world.

National News and Pictures

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2219800/Rising-clouds-The-worlds-tallest-building-peaks-mist-Dubais-skyscrapers-dwarfed-stunning-sea-fog.html

ELEPHANTS are magnificent

Just not the Republican kind.

Dmitry Stepanov/Soviet News

from

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2218015/African-elephants-tangle-battle-mating-rights.html

FALL: the most beautiful season of the year

Photos copyright AP and from Daily News

Elephant. COOL PHOTO

Hysterical PHOTO Drag Race TIME Picture of the Day

This made my morning. You gotta love those Aussies. They have such a great sense of humor. Go Girls!

Time Photo of the Day

Tim Wimborne / Reuters

DRAG RACES
Drag Queens race on the main straight of the Randwick Horse racing course during the Pink Stiletto race day in Sydney, Australia.
Friday, Feb. 26, 2010

NEVER FORGET: Memories of visiting Auschwitz 32 years ago

Peter Andrews / Reuters

NEVER FORGET

When I was a teenager, about 16 I think, I had the amazing and overwhelming experience of going on a 3-week trip to then-Soviet Union Russia and Poland. As a a member of my church choir we embarked on the trip to sing secular music, ironically, at some of the most beautiful churches in Russia and Poland. Our travels took us to Leningrad, as it was known at the time (it is now St. Petersburg); Moscow; Warsaw; Krakow and many other towns and villages.

At the time I was a messed up, confused teen. I'm not sure how much the trip helped or hindered that condition, although the experience did leave an indelible lifetime imprint that in essence changed inextricably who I was and who I have become today. It wasn't a change that really happened immediately at the time. I think it was a seed that was planted that over the years following, as I aged, became more distinctly entrenched and altered the way I processed the world. In some ways I think it made me a fatalist, although I rather think that's a genetic trait that I was born with, so it simply triggered a natural condition. You could say the trip made me a darker shade of grey.

That life-altering, perspective-skewing aspect of my trip to Russian and Poland in 1978 was a visit to the Nazi concentration camp, Auschwitz. We actually visited two former concentration camps, however, the other one had been razed by the Germans and was only a memorial to the many children who died there--if I recall it was a concentration camp for children.

Being a 16-year old and witnessing such human atrocities I think is a very beneficial experience. I don't know whether the visit had the same impact on my fellow choir singers--no doubt it had an equal impact on us all, but in distinctly different and unique ways. Others might have found hope from the visit that perhaps changed their lives inextricably too.

But for me, a child of the 70s who lived in terror because of my homosexuality, the visit I think highlighted the world in which I lived. I understood such hatred. I had witnessed personally hatred all of my life. I don't know that I knew that so much at the time as much as it slowly dawned on me as I grew up in the years following the trip.

That experience, awakened me to the world in future years with less of a naivete.

Seeing actual piles of glasses/spectacles, piles of hair of the remains of some of the 1.1 million people who were exterminated at Auschwitz is something that we should all witness. Standing in front of two of the ovens where hundreds of thousands of bodies were burned in the crematoriums or standing in the showers where millions of people were gassed, or standing in front of the walls which are pockmarked with bullet holes which killed thousands more: this is something we should all see. And never forget.

This is what we are. Our species is capable of this. No church, no religious institution, no political institution, no political party, no politician, no God/Goddess can illustrate or instruct us about the true basic nature of humankind, more than Auschwitz. This is what we are capable of and what we've done over the thousands of years since our existence, usually in the name of religion. We kill each other: brutally, barbarically, heinously. Our capacity as a species for love and intelligence, does not conquer all. Even with these supposed higher levels of capability, which give us a supposed advantage to the other species on our planet, look at the world that we live in today in 2010....a world that we are destroying. Look around you at the world that man has created, evolved, and which is still sometimes as barbaric and without reason as it was in the Dark Ages.

After that remarkably profound and seminal personal experience at Auschwitz, I never could see the world in any other way except with an inherent unease that somehow the same thing would happen again. I could see vestiges of similar hatred all around me as a young gay man growing up in Texas in the late 70s. I still see the same vestiges of hatred, and even more startling and prevalently some 30 years later, everywhere, as a gay middle-aged man living in Southern California. Auschwitz and the Holocaust happened over 65 years ago. And I'm afraid that it will happen, no, it is happening again. It has happened in countries in Africa over the last 50 years.

Time.com has a rather remarkable article with photos which marks the 65th anniversary of the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp's liberation. You can visit the site:

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1957088,00.html#ixzz0dqIV2tzW

These photos are austerely beautiful, the contemporary ones, which masks the hideous nightmare that existed 65 years ago. Underneath the photos below are the captions from Time.com

Peter Andrews / Reuters
Never Forget The barbed wire fences serve as a reminder of the horrors of the past. There were thought to be around 7,000 survivors in the camp at the time of the liberation in 1945 with only a handful still alive. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu honored the victims and those who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis. "We encounter the worst evil in the history of mankind together with the greatest courage in the history of humanity. This is not an easy encounter but it gives us hope and direction for our future."
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1956984_2029641,00.html

Peter Andrews / Reuters

New Day Rising The camp's barracks are pictured on the early morning of January 27, 2010. In 2005 the United Nations declared the date International Holocaust Remembrance Day. More than a million people were murdered by the Nazis at Auschwitz.

Read more: http://www.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1956984_2029648,00.html#ixzz0dqNdQ2tM

One of my favorite places to visit in Washington DC is the Holocaust Museum. Even if you cannot make a trip to Poland to actually witness Auschwitz, do make an effort to go to this museum in DC. For more information, visit The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum's website for more information: http://www.ushmm.org/ .

If you look around you every moment of the day, hatred is so prevalent and rampant in every aspect of our lives. I read today that Fox News is now the most trusted source of news in the US.....now that's a whole lot of hatred spewing that emanates from the most trusted news source. I even examine my own hatred for right-wing Republicans and Christian conservatives and I see the same base essence of our species that created an Auschwitz and its outcome approximately 65 years ago. The ushmm.org website has a very good section dedicated to genocide. Please investigate.

I remember reading and listening to mythology/religion scholar Joseph Campbell in the late 80's. He made the statement, which seems even more prophetic today, that somehow in our modern technologically advancing (these days at dizzying speeds of light) world we had not evolved a new mythology in which to find a spiritual path which resonates for our times. His assertion was that, throughout man's history, societies had created mythologies that were necessary and helpful to humans and that were based upon mankind's evolutionary maturity. Campbell's observation was that we were long overdue for a new mythology which reflected our evolutionary progress. We seem as a species to be stuck at a spiritual age of a two year old, although our intellectual maturity is that of a 40 year old. When I look around today that is most evident and even more frightening than when I heard Mr. Campbell make the observation two decades ago.

So this blog entry today isn't positive, I'm sorry. It is most fatalistic. We really can only do one thing though: NEVER FORGET what we are capable of. It's chilling enough to make one reconsider your own thoughts and to examine more closely the world in which you live today.

Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day

I won't ever forget that visit to Auschwitz. I cannot ever forget that mankind is capable of such horrific acts. It can and will happen again. Unless we never forget.

Roger Viollet / Getty

Unimaginable The ovens of Auschwitz. "The Holocaust is the tragedy which unites Europe," European Jewish Congress leader Moshe Kantor said on the eve of the anniversary, which President Barack Obama was due to address by video.

Another Cool photo from TIME, Pictures of the Week.

Ian Langsdon / EPA

Going For A Stroll
Paris' Eiffel Tower gleams through a heavy snowfall.

http://www.time.com/time/picturesoftheweek/0,29409,1948494_2014267,00.html

The goddess DOROTHY PARKER: another great quote

"Heterosexuality is not normal, it's just common."
-Dorothy Parker

I am sorry for introducing such hideousness in the photos below, which is the opposite of this blogs purpose: this website is dedicated to beauty. But the hideous atrocities below illustrate Parker's beautiful observation in the most effective way:

The 787 Dreamliner makes its first FLIGHT. Isn't it beautiful

Amidst all of the horrors of the world something beautiful took place yesterday. The long overdue first flight of Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner airplane took place yesterday in Seattle. It is an exquisitely beautiful machine, no? It's made up of mostly composite materials and is much lighter than traditional aircraft.

It's wings almost resemble a bird??

New commercial aircraft are a rare breed these days. According to Boeing only every decade or so (although I think they left out Airbus planes, including the perfect A380). So yesterday was a special day....the birth of a new aircraft which will usher in a new era of aviation. Read more about the Dreamliner to find out just why this will be an historical aircraft.

I watched the takeoff live yesterday. It made my day! The photo below is of the plane's first landing.















The plane is the fastest selling aircraft in aviation with almost 900 orders currently, before the plane has even received its airworthy certification. The interior will usher in a new era for passenger comfort. Because of the composite material of the body of the aircraft the plane will not need to be pressurized at as high an altitude which will dramatically decrease passenger jet lag. The windows will be larger (I love large windows...see my post on the Gulfstream). The cabin will be more open.

This is a really gorgeous plane. It is designed to replace Boeing's 767 aircraft. It has two aisles and can fly long distance international routes, like the big boys 747 and A380, but with a lot few passengers.

The aircraft will carry 200-290 passengers depending upon the configuration and model of the aircraft.

Please visit the Boeing website to see this beautiful plane and find out more.

Wonder if Roman Abramovich will also order one of these as a private jet (see my previous posting on the A380 private jet).

I still think it a damn shame that our stupid species hasn't created a new breed of supersonic passenger jets after the demise of the pioneering Concord SST. It is one of the few examples in human history of mankind taking several giant step backwards.

Maybe Boeing's only number left: the 797 will be supersonic jet?