Stones Not For Throwing

Another one of my collections from beach walks were stones polished by the sea and deposited at the tideline. I've long been fascinated by tidelines. If you have access to a relatively calm, large body of seawater, you can see the jagged line of detritis floating in and out with the tides. There are leaves, branches, dead fish, coconuts, and unfortunately waste products like paper cups in that line. There are birds above and fish below feeding on the edibles. It's part of the visual poetry composed by the sea. Deeper down, the stones, sand dollars, crab shells and heavier wood turn and churn on the sand, migrating through seaweed including kelp fields on their eventual journey to the shore. The romance of the beach has not always been limited to my times there alone. Sometimes my partner would join me, sometimes the family for a picnic, and some of them helped me collect gems like those pictured above. *** I can hear joyful shrieks by my grandson playing video games remotely with a friend in his room. Given the social isolation he and everyone is enduring, video games are more important than ever. Kids learn to master the software that is built into the games, helping them comprehend coding without explicitly teaching them to be engineers. This is why I always encouraged my kids to play those technological games. Of course, such habits can be overdone and are no alternative to real in-person friendship and play or outside time like going to a beach. But there's a place in a child's life for such pleasures, which include visiting magical worlds and occasionally being able to be the hero. *** * This year, as the University of California faces rising calls on a number of fronts to operate more equitably, it achieved a milestone: For the first time in the university’s history, Chicano or Latino students made up the greatest share of Californians admitted to the freshman class, 36 percent. (New York Times) * Biden Is Polling Better Than Clinton At Her Peak -- Election Day is now just three months away, and the overall trajectory of the race hasn’t changed much recently: Joe Biden continues to hold a sizable lead over President Trump. Biden is now up by 8 percentage points in FiveThirtyEight’s national polling average, and he has an advantage of 5 points or more in several key battleground states like Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. (FiveThirtyEight) * Biden to skip convention because of virus; will accept nomination from Delaware -- The former vice president will deliver his speech accepting the Democratic presidential nomination in his home state of Delaware, convention organizers said Wednesday. (Washington Post) * Twitter temporarily restricted Trump campaign's ability to tweet over false Covid-19 claims (CNN) * Facebook removes Trump post falsely claiming children are 'almost immune' to Covid-19 (CNN) * Dr. Anthony Fauci tells CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta that he has had to get security protection after his family received threats and harassment. (CNN) * He Predicted Trump’s Win in 2016. Now He’s Ready to Call 2020.Most historians just study the past. But Allan Lichtman has successfully predicted the future. Watch video. (New York Times) *** Sittin' in the mornin' sun I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes Watchin' the ships roll in Then I watch 'em roll away again I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay Watchin' the tide, roll away I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay Wastin' time      -- Otis Redding  -30-