True, Spring can seem fleeting. But chronicling that phenomenon is not the intent here. Rather, the title refers to a class of plants known as “Spring ephemerals,” meaning that, like Spring itself, they are here and gone. Ephemerals tend to emerge early, bloom quickly, and die back well before Summer’s heat holds sway. They are of the moment, and sometimes, if you blink, you miss them entirely.
The 150th Run for the Roses occurred Saturday, May 4, 2024, at the Churchill Downs racetrack in Louisville, as the Kentucky Derby reached a milestone anniversary. Despite competing with five higher-ranked horses in a field of twenty, Mystik Dan came across the finish line barely a flared nostril ahead, in the first photo-finish at the Derby since 1996. The three-year old colt, ridden by jockey Brian Hernandez, paid off at 18-1, and I am heartily wishing I’d had the foresight to investigate this race before its running, and placed my bet!
As many of you know, I don’t much bother with the planetary patterns of the day. I mean, I know they’re up there, I just find planetary astrology so frickin’ boring. Like always getting the fried chicken on a buffet that includes so much more. And there are plenty of other astrologers covering that base, no need for me to weigh in.
So when protests against the Israeli conduct in their war on Hamas began to erupt on college and university campuses across the US in mid-April, I cast a jaundiced eye skyward to see what was up. Inescapable was the conjunction between Jupiter and Uranus on April 20th, and my atrophied planetary keyword brain mused, ‘Jupiter = higher education, Uranus = protest.’ I halfheartedly looked for asteroids that would match the nascent story, but found little, so I yawned, rolled over, and went back to celestial slumber.
South Dakota Governor and 2024 Republican Vice-Presidential nominee hopeful Kristi Noem was splashed across the news in late April, when an advance copy of her new book, “No Going Back” was obtained by The Guardian. In it, Noem recounts the story of how she executed her 14-month-old wirehaired pointer puppy Cricket, after she had proved herself to be irrepressibly joyful and an inadequate hunting dog. Two being better than one, Noem went on to slay a family goat that was smelly and had been annoying her and her children with head butts.
The witness box, that is. And the pecker in question is David Pecker, National Enquirer publisher, long-time Trump friend and political ally, and currently exhibit A in the Manhattan DA’s criminal case against the former US president. Everybody knew that Pecker, once he’d gone soft on Trump, was gonna spew, but nobody knew how hard he could make it for The Donald. (And that’s the last of the cheap double entendres you’ll get from me in this article. Maybe.)
On Friday, 21 April 2024, just across the street from the Manhattan courtroom where jury selection in Donald Trump’s hush money trial had recently concluded, a man set himself alight, first dousing himself with a liquid accelerant. Police responded immediately, being onsite for courthouse protection, but were unable to stop the flames for several minutes; the man was later pronounced dead at a local burn center.
