Pic(k) of the Week: It is so ordered.

On this day (26 June) in 2015, the United States Supreme Court ruled, 5-4, that the U.S. Constitution grants same-sex couples the right to marry and that, under the Constitution’s guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law, no state or jurisdiction can abridge that right.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy (now retired) wrote the majority opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges.

No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice, and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were. As some of the petitioners in these cases demonstrate, marriage embodies a love that may endure even past death. It would misunderstand these men and women to say they disrespect the idea of marriage. Their plea is that they do respect it, respect it so deeply that they seek to find its fulfillment for themselves. Their hope is not to be condemned to live in loneliness, excluded from one of civilization’s oldest institutions. They ask for equal dignity in the eyes of the law. The Constitution grants them that right. The judgment of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit is reversed. It is so ordered.

— Supreme Court.gov (pdf)

Image: Pride flag proudly flying over a pub, in Decatur (Beacon Hill), Georgia, USA, on 26 June 2021.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Condor extinct

Commerce bereft, 

 Laved in vernal set, 

The Condor extinct.

I've driven by this former automotive repair shop many times; on this day, the sunset light was fantastic. So, I tried my hand at capturing some urban decay or, if you will, some shuttered small-business Americana...with a bit of doggerel tossed in.

Decatur (Oakhurst), Georgia, USA. 14 June 2021.

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Pic(k) of the Week: 'Old-Fashioned' tacos

Cocktails and tacos!

Pop-up kitchen Mascogo Tacos ¹ was cooking up their fare on 4 June 2021, outdoors on the 'whiskey patio,' at small Independent Distilling Company, in Decatur, Georgia, USA.

We were there; we ate; we drank. Pictured clockwise from top:

• Old Fashioned cocktail ²
  Independent Distilling Hellbender Bourbon, demerara syrup, aromatic bitters, Regan's Orange Bitters, twists of lemon and orange.


• Barbacoa taco
  Braised brisket cooked in smoked chilis, with spices, onions, cilantro.


• Pollo con Chili Verde taco
  Hatch-chili-verde-stewed chicken breast, onions, cilantro, Cotija. ³


• Los Cactus taco (partially obscured)
  marinated grilled cactus, onions, cilantro, charred tomato salsa, with/without Cotija.

"What's the cactus in the taco?" I asked Mascogo Tacos' chef, Craig L. Headspeth, "It's tasty." "There's only one edible cactus," he replied. "Prickly pear." ⁴ "Ah!"

I thanked him; the other half complimented him on the two meatier tacos. Thanks were also proffered to Independent's 'mixologist' Corey for the cocktail and to Michael Anderson, Independent's owner/distiller, for the Hellbender Bourbon, the first bourbon distilled in the Atlanta area since before Prohibition. That's one hundred-one years ago, in 1920(!), in case you're counting.

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Pic(k) of the Week: Rapeseed stalk

A stalk of rapeseed (Brassica napus) blooms in Decatur’s Kitchen Garden —an immigrant-operated community garden— in Decatur, Georgia, USA. 16 April 2021.

In the cabbage family, rapeseed is the plant from which the vegetable cooking-oil, canola (an adman's portmanteau of 'Canada' and 'ola', the latter itself meaning 'oil, low acid'), is extracted. ^* The re-name may have seemed more, err, palatable.

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