Inaugural interlude yields colorful fungi

I am doing nothing today but watching the Inaugural proceedings. And reading and eating and tending a fire (it's not going to get up to freezing outside today). I found these interesting ? fungal spots on an oak log after splitting it. As I have said before, in the winter we take our color and beauty where we can find them and in whatever sizes the world sees fit to distribute them. These are really small, the largest only a few mms in diameter, but they're really colorful.

They are so colorful I almost feel like they ought to be part of a coral reef, but they're just growing on a piece of tree in my woodpile. I have chipped out a piece of bark and will examine them under the dissecting microscope. Arboreal mycology might be an interesting field for a future life.no

There are very few days in my life, I can't remember the last one, when I have really nothing that I ought to be doing. Perhaps the oddness of today has put me in an odd mood, but I am going to observe something that I normally would note but not comment on. Aren't there any African-American newspeople with enough position, clout, or cachet to have been given an anchor's role in today's coverage of the Inauguration? The presence of Al Roker, a self styled comic figure, doesn't count, actually, it only makes the situation more obvious. I would have liked today to have seen an African-American anchor or even a pundit......it seems odd that as a country we can elect Barak Obama president, but the purportedly "liberal" electronic media can't find a non-white they consider capable of anchoring a national news event.....Patience I guess. Progress is inevitable but wow!