"Philosophia" by The Guggenheim Grotto

Zoom Zip Zoom! I love this song.

Blue Sponge Newsroom Update

Twenty Democratic lawmakers are raising a fuss about supporting any health care bill that would pay for abortions. Democrats? The one thing you can say about Republicans is that they know how to fall into line. Dems cannot do this. HBO’s Bill Maher mentioned recently how we need a liberal party in the U.S. I agree. The Dems are now mostly what moderate Republicans used to be. We really do need a party that is for liberal ideals – a party for marriage equality, abortion rights, higher taxes on the wealthy, helping the poor, gun control, real health care reform, and anti-war.

The Senate voted to not fund the F-22 Fighter Jet, which the Pentagon doesn’t even want funded. The main argument for the jets was to prevent a loss of jobs. These are the same people complaining about people on welfare and they want to spend Government money on a program just to keep people employed? I’m guessing that most of the employees working on the F-22 would not lose their jobs, but would be incorporated into other projects. However, the cut would save taxpayers $1.75 billion, but it still has to be finalized with the House of Representatives.

In an interview with NBC, President Obama has finally admitted to looking “a little frumpy” in his baggy jeans at the all-star game last week. Really? They are talking to the President of the United States and this is what they choose to discuss? Do I smell a Pulitzer Prize?

I was surprised by a poll result in the Express newspaper. It asked, “Does Michael Vick deserve a second chance to play in the NFL?” Vick is a football player convicted and recently released from prison after serving nearly 2 years for his role in dog fighting. He is still suspended from playing. The poll results showed 58 percent voted no and 42 percent voted yes. I was surprised that nearly half the people voted yes, he should be able to continue to play. Though I agree, he served his time and should be allowed to play, I can’t imagine any team would be foolish enough to hire him.

DVR Alert: TLC is premiering season 2 of Toddlers & Tiaras tonight. How did I miss season 1 of this show? There is nothing sadder or more bizarre than child beauty pageants. I never get tired of watching this stuff and remembering that gay people are not allowed to adopt children in some states, yet these parents are lawfully permitted to do this to their kids.

Hump Day Art -- Richard Roflow Watercolor

Here is yet another painting from the Blue Hill Bay Gallery, in Blue Hill, Maine. It is a watercolor by Richard Roflow called South Deer Isle Bridge. It measures 16 by 16 inches.

I thought it was an amazing watercolor. I realize this photo taken with my iPhone is horrible. I had to take the picture at an angle because of the reflective glass over the painting. Even with the horrible photography though, you can see it is an exceptional work. The water alone is quite an effect. I'm not art expert, but I thought this painting was very good.

The following is from an article in the Mainely Art section of the Just Art web site: Deer Isle [Maine) painter Richard Roflow was one of the winners in the 1995 National Park Academy of the Arts competition, Arts for the Parks. Most of the artist's paintings are inspired by the drama of the Maine coast and coastal weather.

"He rarely paints on a sunny day. It's always misty, foggy, and dramatic. He paints those days that Mainers know as being a Maine day," said Barbara Entzminger, whose Bar Harbor [Maine] Birdnest Gallery exhibits many of Roflow's paintings.

"I fell in love with Maine by reading the Kenneth Roberts novels when I was in high school," said Roflow. But it was more than 20 years later when he and his wife, Jerry, first traveled to Maine where they bought a wharf-side house on Deer Isle.

"I consider myself a light painter. I try to paint the light I see and how it creates distances," Roflow said, explaining the prominence given to plays of light in his compositions.

"Roflow captures the qualities of atmosphere and its light-color shows which most of us hardly notice," writes Fran Watson. "Tiny droplets of moisture in the air act as color magnifiers, bathing landscape in eerie glows of uncommon intensity for brief moments, transforming the ordinary into the exotic. The most familiar objects attain an importance through his eyes as he renders them with a combination of softness and accuracy. His depictions are tinted fragments of hushed time, caught in the manner of masters like Corot and Daubigny whose visions changed rural simplicity into mythological magic."