Last sunset we'll see for a few days. All of the docks on St. John's River are now at an uncomfortable angle as the river keeps rising. Current forecast is for a crest near record flood stage (17.5 ft) at Cocoa over the weekend. Predicted tropical rains starting this afternoon will exacerbate extant flooding. For all practical purposes the river's entire length remains closed to boating and fishing unless you own a canoe or kayak, too dangerous otherwise.
In Florida Fall has become more of a sun angle change than any noticeable change in weather. It is still hot, humid, and buggy and will remain so well into November or December. As this is forecast to be a La Niña winter it will likely remain warm until it gets hot again in February.
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Leaf-footed bugs (Coreidae) mating on Emperor's Candlesticks (Senna alata). The insects don't eat the candlesticks but they do munch on my cotton. They are important direct pests of many seed, fruit, vegetable and nut crops but in my gardens they like to climb to the tallest candlesticks and sunflowers for copulation.
Now that most of the dead fish are gone from the St. John's River flood I've been exploring more by kayak and canoe. It is still too flooded and dangerous to launch a motored boat. I have no idea what's causing the algae bloom (green water) here at Wekiva Beach but I do know when I'm too close to a congregation of hungry-looking gators.
White Peacock butterfly (Anartia jatrophae) on Turkey Tangle Fog Fruit (Phyla nodiflora).
Fog Fruit has sprung up on the moist margins of the St. Johns River flood. One of the larval hosts for the White Peacock is Fog Fruit so we're seeing many of the peacocks. We grew up calling this Verbena family tropical species "Frog Fruit" a corruption of its 17th century name, "Fog," which then-meant grasses that sprung up in fields after the hay was harvested. Fog has subsequently garnered a completely new meaning.
Hiking the Little Big Econ State Forest.
The favored route to the Econlockhatchee River via the Barr Street trailhead in Geneva is still closed due to the Hurricane Irma flood. The 3rd route in from the Snow Hill Bridge is also flooded. This route is a scrub forest hike of 2.7 miles each way to the swollen river. The Florida Fall is still hot and humid so if you make the hike be prepared for bugs, sweat, and dehydration.
Halloween is Near
some of our favorite scarecrows
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Eminem says he's drawing a line in the sand.
In a cypher at the BET Hip Hop Awards, the hip-hop artist slammed President Trump for policies that Eminem considers harmful to America. He also had choice words for those of his fans who voted for Trump in 2016.
Any fan of mine who's a supporter of his / I'm drawing in the sand a line / You're either for or against . . .
Because Eminem's verse was laced with the f-word, we can't post the uncensored version here, but readers can find it elsewhere online. It’s not surprising that Eminem doesn’t like Trump. Some of the loudest criticism of the president in pop culture comes from the hip-hop community. But here’s why Tuesday's rap from Eminem, whom Trump previously called “a winner” during a performance in which the president pretended to endorse the rapper at a mock presidential convention, is resonating on social media and in the political conversation.
Eminem, born Marshall Mathers, rose to fame after starting his career in Detroit's underground hip-hop scene. He was born to a teen mother in a white, working-class family in a small town in Missouri. His family traveled often, looking for work and stability, before settling in a primarily black, working-class Detroit neighborhood where he discovered the freestyle hip-hop battle scene, according to Salon.
Much of Eminem's success in the hip-hop world stemmed from never trying to hide his roots and the chaos that defined them. Many of the stories he tells in his lyrics about his family are reminiscent of those toldin J.D. Vance's breakout “Hillbilly Elegy,” a book about the white working poor in the Rust Belt.
But unlike many white, working-class Trump supporters who count racism against whites as a bigger issue than racism against people of color, Eminem acknowledged many of the very real challenges that black Americans face when it comes to racism, police violence and urban poverty.
Eminem addressed that at various points in the cypher:
Now if you're a black athlete, you're a spoiled little brat for /
Tryina use your platform or your stature /
To try to give those a voice who don't have one
Because of his insight into the worlds of both working-class whites and blacks, Eminem is uniquely qualified to summarize how Trump plays to his base's worst impulses about race in America and address the real issues affecting all of Michigan's residents — the rural white and the urban black voters still fighting for racial equity.
Trump won Michigan, a state that Hillary Clinton and most political observers expected would remain blue like it had in every presidential election since 1988. But the state's white, working-class voters were drawn to Trump's populist message: He would return jobs to the Rust Belt that had left the state over decades.
It was also in Michigan — Detroit specifically — that Trump did some of his most aggressive outreach to black voters with the help of HUD secretary Ben Carson, a onetime Detroit resident.
“I fully understand that the African American community has suffered from discrimination,” Trump told attendees of Great Faith Ministries International in September 2016, adding that there were “many wrongs” that still needed to be “made right.”
However, Trump has since gotten more attention for attacking people such as Detroit native and ESPN anchor Jemele Hill after she called him a “white supremacist” and for calling NFL players “sons of bitches” for kneeling during the national anthem to protest racial injustice. Some of Trump's lowest approval ratings — in the single digits — are among black Americans.
Meanwhile, he is still enjoying relatively high approval ratings with those voters who propelled him to the White House.
Trump had not responded to Eminem on Twitter, but it is fair to assume that he doesn't like it when rappers speak for their audiences by saying
There's an argument to be made that the rapper's lyrics weren't directed at Trump — rather, Eminem was castigating those of his fans who support Trump and have paid no heed to the criticism coming his way.
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