Photographs from Bogota's Museo del Oro

By Jack Brummet, Precious Metals Ed.

Bogota's Museo del Oro contains more gold than all the other museums I've seen across the world put together.  Gold is so interlinked with the history and destiny of Colombia that it's inevitable they have this museum.  It ranges from fascinating to amusing.  

My love of museums most often focuses on those that contain paintings (portraits in particular, and sculptures), but this was a glorious exception.  Naturally, I was most fascinated with the faces and masks, but I also include some other pieces here.  Even a couple that are not made of gold, like the carved stone diorama immediately below:

click to enlarge

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drawing: ballistics

By Jack Brummet

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The Botero Museum in Bogota

By Jack Brummet, SA Travel Ed.

The [Fernando] Botero Museum in Bogota is an excellent collection and introduction to this beloved Colombian's painting and sculpture. The building itself is a large old colonial mansion, and is gorgeous, spacious, and well-laid out.

In 2000, Botero donated 123 paintings, and sculptures to the museum, as well as 85 20th century pieces from his personal collection, including art by Chagall, Picasso, Renoir, Degas, Picasso, Miro, Rauschenberg, and several French impressionist works. Botero himself chose the building, decor, lighting and the arrangement of the works into galleries.

A Joan Miro canvas in the museum

Not at the museum - KeeKee and Senor Daveed in front of a Botero sculpture in Cartagena
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Faces # 572 - Three Women

Drawings By Jack Brummet

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Meeting the Scouts in Bogota

By Jack Brummet, South America Travel Ed.

On our second day in Bogata, we we were lucky enough to bump into a group of Colombian Scouts, and their leaders.   They were interviewing people about their careers for a project, and seeing a pack of gringos, buttonholed us.  Keelin and Mo answered their questions as Senor Daveed and I shot pictures and talked to the kids in our typically awful Spanglish. . .

What I loved most about the Colombia Scouts is that they are fully co-ed.  And it seemed like it was split about 50-50 between boys and girls. 

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Music in New York City, 1963

By Jack Brummet, NYC Metro Ed.

From 1963—this would have been a pretty good week to visit New York.

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Non-postcard views of four historical sites and monuments (Statue of Liberty, The Pantheon, Giza/Sphinx/Pyramids, Stonehenge)

By Jack Brummet, Monuments and World Heritage Sites Ed.


Here are some backsides/darksides of those gorgeous photos and postcards of famous monuments and sites.  If you have other ones, send them to us!

The Statue of Liberty as seen from Jersey City, as opposed to from the harbor:

A view of Stonehenge from the parking lots, as opposed to the normal image you see:

Two photos of Giza/The Sphinx, and the more usual postcard shot:

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Hillary Clinton 2016, or, why Joe Biden is so effed

By Pablo Fanque, National Affairs Editor

There is no question in my mind anymore that Hillary Clinton is running for President.  She's running, which doesn't necessarily mean she will remain running.  But for the moment, she's in.  She is making the rounds of all the appropriate conclaves, has worked to solidify her position with the black community after majorly offending many of them (in particular some of the things Bill Clinton said on the campaign trail caused a lot of hurt), and is checking in with all her old friends and supporters.  The strategy seems to be working.

As much as she and BHO tilted during the 2008 campaign, she was a loyal and hard working Secretary of State, and they seemed to have emerged from it all with at least a deep mutual respect.  So much so that President Obama has done literally nothing to help grease the skids in case Joe Biden decides to throw his hat in the ring.  In fact, in 2012, the White House took their sweet time to deny persistent rumors that BHO would dump Joe Biden and replace him on the ticket with HRC.  A President would normally give a serious boost to their VPOTUS at this point in the game.  But BHO is sitting on his hands.  And Smilin' Joe is understandably frustrated.  But, judging from his visits to various Democratic rallies and numerous visits to the early caucus state, Iowa, he too is running for President.  For now. 

In numerous appearances in the last year, former SoS/Senator/First Lady Clinton has differentiated herself from VP Biden, often by reiterating her support for the raid that captured and killed Osama bin Laden (which the Veep strongly opposed).    

In a September appearance in Iowa, Vice President Biden said that John Kerry, Clinton’s successor as secretary of State, was “one of the best secretaries of State in the nation’s history." Clinton was not even mentioned.

Joe Trippi, the veteran Democratic operative who ran Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in 2004, told Real Clear Politics that he did not believe Biden would take on Clinton but that it was possible that something unforeseeable might make her decide not to run (or leave her seriously weakened or wounded).

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Poem: Sailing To Athens

By Jack Brummet

In a pale grey fog, ghosts

Of Helleniki mariners

Wheel phantom sloops, prams, dories,

Catamarans, dinghies, and sailboats,

Across the cerulean blue sea,

Trawling for long-gone  fish.
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Aviophobia/fear of flying part 7 - Poem: The trouble with flying

By Jack Brummet

The trouble begins,
and usually ends,

When you make an unplanned transition
From an initial flying state

To a subsequent not flying state.
Falling per se is OK.

The hitch comes the moment
Falling becomes not falling,

Or, what the pros call
The uncontrolled landing problem.
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Photo: Catastronomy

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Flowers: No 58 - rose #5

By Jack Brummet

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