Good morning

Helen Allingham (1848-1926)
A Garden in October, Aldworth 1891
wc on paper

John Stobart (b.1929)
Night Run to Friar's Point

Joseph-Marius Avy
The Black Ball, 1903

Michael Rodriguez is one of more than 60 American service members who sat for a portrait by President George W. Bush. They are pictured together at Bush's 70th birthday bike ride at Prairie Chapel Ranch in Crawford, Texas.

Michael Rodriguez is both a military man and a muse. Years after President George W. Bush sent him into war, the two men now call each other friends.

Rodriguez was a U.S. Army Special Forces Green Beret who served from 1992 to 2013. He's featured in President Bush's book of portraits of more than 60 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who served in wars under his watch. It's called Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors.



"The story behind the colors of my eyes being different is I actually wear prosthetic lenses to help correct some of the neurological vision issues that I have which are secondary to the number of brain injuries that I received in my service," Rodriguez explains.

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Ole Ring (1902-1972)
An overcast day in the village

Allan Walton (1891-1948)
A sunny corner

Angèle Blanche Denvil (French, 1874 - 1934)
Snack Time 1913

Pieter Brueghel the Younger (1564–1638)
The Four Seasons, Spring

For a few hours Monday, the bitter face-off between a bull and a girl in New York City got a curious, four-legged interloper: a tiny pug, with one of those legs suggestively raised beside the girl's leg. There was no urine, no caustic caption, but it was clear where the dog's disdain was directed.

The statue's placement by sculptor Alex Gardega marks an odd, if brief, digression in a contentious chapter that's been unfolding off Wall Street for months. It was there that the financial district's nearly three-decade-old Charging Bull confronted a new arrival earlier this year: the statue of a defiant girl, hands placed firmly on hips and chin thrust forward against the bull's implied threat.

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Knud Erik Larsen (1865-1922)
Flowery Garden Exterior with Three Women at a Table 1916