tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31534966535756902732024-03-18T21:43:02.862-04:00Priscilla's Zine & BookstoreBook reviews, nature notes, recipes, hand crafts, local news, Green philosophy, and more.Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.comBlogger7330125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-13522037283348974652024-03-18T12:00:00.000-04:002024-03-18T12:00:00.131-04:00Link Log for 3.17.24<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Animals </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Happily-ever-after for a shelter cat!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://messymimismeanderings.blogspot.com/2024/03/naps-needed-ten-things-of-thankful-post.html">https://messymimismeanderings.blogspot.com/2024/03/naps-needed-ten-things-of-thankful-post.html</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Books </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lot of new genre fiction coming out this week. I actually found enough recommendable genre fiction this week that the reviews spill over into next week's schedule. (Is that bad?) If you are Sophia Clark, Diane Ezzard, Willow Finn, Luna Lovelace, Karen McSpade, or Bertie Stein, and you're not seeing reviews at all four book sites, you need to make sure your book has a page on each one. I've just tried to post reviews to each one. <i>Rescued by the Grumpy Doctor </i>may be banned from some sites. Reviews of those books will be appearing <i>here </i>over the next week; one book per day means some reviews will be showing here after release day, but at the big sites they've been reviewed.Lot of new genre fiction coming out this week. I actually found enough recommendable genre fiction this week that the reviews spill over into next week's schedule. (Is that bad?) </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-8451956977823663702024-03-18T09:00:00.001-04:002024-03-18T09:00:00.136-04:00New Book Review: The Deathly Visit<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>The Deathly Visit </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Diane Ezzard</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Diane Ezzard</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "I'm not surprised he has been attacked."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jimmy was annoying. But nobody else in Helen's new neighborhood was a saint either. When Jimmy collapses on Helen's doorstep, bleeding from a knife wound, everyone's secrets start popping out. The bigamist didn't stab Jimmy. The embezzler didn't. The cheating wife didn't. The police officer who's drinking her way through a messy divorce isn't as much help as she might be. Helen, "sixty-six years young," may have to solve the case all by herself.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This relatively cozy mystery--only one successful murder--has several memorable elements, including British cuisine and sober senior citizens whose quarrel gets physical as fast as the drunken yuppies disputing about a woman's tarnished honor. It's a full-length novel, not a short digital "prequel." More adventures lie ahead of Helen and her friends.</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-22820780985350113032024-03-18T08:30:00.001-04:002024-03-18T08:30:00.131-04:00Butterfly of the Week: Short-Lined KiteTennessee's official butterfly emblem, the Zebra Swallowtail, looks strange, exotic, unique among North American butterflies. There are actually several species that resemble it--the Kite Swallowtails. The other Kites are found in the tropics and Southern Hemisphere. This week, we consider <i>Eurytides agesilaus</i>, the Short-Lined Kite.<div><br /></div><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDh_3dYQKsX34X0TxQBwG28o1i7gifjBlfoLi6xem9OD5OZsVdD_HSI81kTqBvpVE_rRVAZoKkz1gLJr4pvY65deTVqtKbSv56fIKpgBDjS1EDWw05WwFwZjK7h8Gez6DY0f3FrwWueJ2WWCjvIc5l9K0QabseUnUdAOJzr2N6v3u96Uah1bg2Jxe/s1280/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="854" data-original-width="1280" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieDh_3dYQKsX34X0TxQBwG28o1i7gifjBlfoLi6xem9OD5OZsVdD_HSI81kTqBvpVE_rRVAZoKkz1gLJr4pvY65deTVqtKbSv56fIKpgBDjS1EDWw05WwFwZjK7h8Gez6DY0f3FrwWueJ2WWCjvIc5l9K0QabseUnUdAOJzr2N6v3u96Uah1bg2Jxe/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /><div style="text-align: left;">Photo from lepidigi.net.</div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Eurytides </i>is Greek for "wide form or shape," where "wide" was understood to mean mean a different shape from the "long" wings of another butterfly family. In the tradition of naming Swallowtails after heroes of ancient literature, Agesilaus was a King of Sparta who won two wars and lost one. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Short-lined" describes the butterflies' color pattern, with short black lines crossing the pale wings. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This species has gone through a few names. As a Swallowtail it was first called <i>Papilio agesilaus</i>. Another name for the genus was <i>Protographium</i>. Some of the subspecies have also been identified as separate species. An early description of something Hewitson described a distinct species he called <i>Papilio conon</i>, which he said was different from <i>agesilaus</i>, but other naturalists didn't think its differences even qualified it to be counted as a subspecies. . </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Several Greek men's names, meaning "(whatever) of the people, the tribe, the nation," end in "laus" and were given to what were described as species with resemblances to <i>agesilaus</i>; Three of those species are now recognized as subspecies of <i>agesilaus</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Their wingspan is typically about three inches. Males and females look pretty much alike. Females tend to have bigger white spots on the underside of the hind wings than males do, but, as with other gender differences between Swallowtails, this rule is not always reliable; as we've seen, female Swallowtails tend to look different from males, except for the individuals that don't.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They are found in Mexico and several parts of Central and South America. They are not believed to be endangered. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Seven subspecies are recognized. The "nominate" subspecies, <i>E. agesilaus agesilaus</i>, lives in Colombia and Venezuela. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>E.a. eimeri</i>, found in Costa Rica, Panama, and western Colombia, has a transparent band on each forewing. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>E.a. fortis</i>, native to Mexico, has wider black bands, and <i>E.a. neosilaus,</i> found in Mexico and Central America, has narrower ones.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGeurb2g_Y4CLj23k8IXpZhxaCASRbSPyjGU77iKAiZFHJfRSezZluBQTSdB4uH7vqcmirNcS6YJx-zN6Fnxy2ULe1eT1j796M-kQ6hWtMYFCjoKDh92jAkHOooAU8iCq4gNiw6K4wTz7TfMiWPAuUlqC9tsw3UuMgOZwkrmhmFQxnoN34KlC473v8" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhGeurb2g_Y4CLj23k8IXpZhxaCASRbSPyjGU77iKAiZFHJfRSezZluBQTSdB4uH7vqcmirNcS6YJx-zN6Fnxy2ULe1eT1j796M-kQ6hWtMYFCjoKDh92jAkHOooAU8iCq4gNiw6K4wTz7TfMiWPAuUlqC9tsw3UuMgOZwkrmhmFQxnoN34KlC473v8" width="180" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Photo of <i>fortis </i>by Morthoblue.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJzqnoJLGZkHoJ1N-vtd5V7vKQyOglZGfcqzupvLdcUNQIv6T9tCNFHyCggypsELP6eeAWA1D-Z-1i56NWhQjqqTv0-XWv1CzQTyAV1lpgeZ1iIJGMXwvvjKZuxCyyhyeJH749duCLDWZ8SaWBsTzwaazcxEiPi4Ls6S0ux8h80EpWwyUQKiMqbq2" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="655" data-original-width="1000" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiiJzqnoJLGZkHoJ1N-vtd5V7vKQyOglZGfcqzupvLdcUNQIv6T9tCNFHyCggypsELP6eeAWA1D-Z-1i56NWhQjqqTv0-XWv1CzQTyAV1lpgeZ1iIJGMXwvvjKZuxCyyhyeJH749duCLDWZ8SaWBsTzwaazcxEiPi4Ls6S0ux8h80EpWwyUQKiMqbq2" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo of <i>neosilaus </i>by Sandradennis in Mexico. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>E.a. autosilaus </i>has a black band "divided" by a ale streak on each wing. It is found near the Caribbean coast, in Venezuela, Brazil, and south into Peru.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRBdmPkiptrbjYs7niRgNaF8wnUg78Zvea5XXxIkYxAaU85LG3BDnuoroOt7KCDPbnq9hLDubg1UQKlqXRDgXIbuZcUtNYGu_gR4l9ZT7Scitgu40uuoE46Q6V12ZXPBiSxeiBv8ONKitdv1CPkCthoEd2N1BeTAi-_bTkwp2DMirezfPKVd8avpiF" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="678" data-original-width="1024" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgRBdmPkiptrbjYs7niRgNaF8wnUg78Zvea5XXxIkYxAaU85LG3BDnuoroOt7KCDPbnq9hLDubg1UQKlqXRDgXIbuZcUtNYGu_gR4l9ZT7Scitgu40uuoE46Q6V12ZXPBiSxeiBv8ONKitdv1CPkCthoEd2N1BeTAi-_bTkwp2DMirezfPKVd8avpiF" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo of <i>autosilaus </i>by Ombeline_Sculfort in French Guyana. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>E.a. montanum </i>is found in Peru, while <i>E.a. viridis </i>is found in Bolivia, Brazil, and Paraguay.</div></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFi2jtSCPHSivbclKwwvi36O-B_jOoSAhl0AyjaI5yWQyoxu1U8Vs4xfOb5D0XOBGo4jibaoZkwVNQxZFuBu7nwQC-2bo1_FLDFf6l2SUjOcagP9Aj3d44XxHi55KDwHkt2emWhvquK66u2VFuhg7s5dfqJ0JpXwJ1J-odBlA5oWYKJyuBWHExdcRk" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="417" data-original-width="570" height="234" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhFi2jtSCPHSivbclKwwvi36O-B_jOoSAhl0AyjaI5yWQyoxu1U8Vs4xfOb5D0XOBGo4jibaoZkwVNQxZFuBu7nwQC-2bo1_FLDFf6l2SUjOcagP9Aj3d44XxHi55KDwHkt2emWhvquK66u2VFuhg7s5dfqJ0JpXwJ1J-odBlA5oWYKJyuBWHExdcRk" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo of <i>viridis </i>by Salvador Mazza.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">They can be gregarious, forming large flocks, as documented by Huatulco in Mexico: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7YUCikF9i1P4juYA58pMJCGZK4Q8TjIgCvHxH-opddt55MJxiHY6qhKBu_e1lJu5C2ybE2MPLp4DB7j2DF928KKQuhmp1Wa1rb88UTJOCdiEO_0SFiX_s4-mZ26R2zvKEAUNX66ynvbU-rFb2cXyexIGCM_tEE9G5WtddJM2J2dOmM6v085PH7u2/s1024/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhl7YUCikF9i1P4juYA58pMJCGZK4Q8TjIgCvHxH-opddt55MJxiHY6qhKBu_e1lJu5C2ybE2MPLp4DB7j2DF928KKQuhmp1Wa1rb88UTJOCdiEO_0SFiX_s4-mZ26R2zvKEAUNX66ynvbU-rFb2cXyexIGCM_tEE9G5WtddJM2J2dOmM6v085PH7u2/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo by Huatulco at Biodiversity4All.com. This flock behavior is observed in several Swallowtail species. What seems to be going on in this behavior, which is described generally as "lekking" or more Swallowtail-specifically as "puddling," is that male butterflies emerge from their pupal shell a few days before they're ready to mate. They spend these days hanging out with other males, drinking water--often polluted water, by choice, since the mineral salts found in brackish or polluted water are what they need to help them mature. Female butterflies lack the taste for polluted water, and also tend to be ready to mate as soon as they unfold their wings, but they are likely to have to wait for the males to grow up. So the puddle becomes a lek--a site where unmated male animals gather, sometimes fighting for status, sometimes just hanging out, and an occasional female moves to the edge of the group and watches what the males are doing. Eventually one or more of the males will feel ready to leave the lek and wander off in the company of a female spectator. Female butterflies in these species are primarily pollinators who sip flower nectar, while males are primarily composters who sip mineral-rich water--although males sip nectar too, and females sip usually cleaner water. Females need mineral salts too, but they usually get their minerals from the male during mating. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDXw8cvXeUh8XyAp1sHY6I4yRFSpAn4eMQ8qjdFAP9jI5pe47NRh2T5Jxo1Y121eYf9VCqH6ax3KMgHVicEpRX3JRNXSZKZ7sYpj44QSfVaW31tEoFKnBDbrFl7dczOCEuQkIshVBz_HEoyU6D7W9EXed506WpRbco9H9yvkL5l8fADrsyVsdCsbi/s1024/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="691" data-original-width="1024" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicDXw8cvXeUh8XyAp1sHY6I4yRFSpAn4eMQ8qjdFAP9jI5pe47NRh2T5Jxo1Y121eYf9VCqH6ax3KMgHVicEpRX3JRNXSZKZ7sYpj44QSfVaW31tEoFKnBDbrFl7dczOCEuQkIshVBz_HEoyU6D7W9EXed506WpRbco9H9yvkL5l8fADrsyVsdCsbi/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo by Francofran. Both males and females sip clean water. . </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Human sweat contains mineral salts. It's not unusual for male butterflies who like polluted puddles to perch on a human and slurp the salt off our skin. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1qCQojRcniaPiBWSyjq5mMtrEBG6SQL4kpS-v7DAXj4QwpaW3p5F_QicMDaAqf_NEByiJHeMRgPIi15HMfJzUMxtrua1wxg8BkBq64fGjNTDv-I48KBiCQqtZ8ayRbHFr89h34vsWkn0uZFvJ5otu6yqXwZPI03HqmZkxDK4rmGmWV_vyzly4ReDG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1024" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh1qCQojRcniaPiBWSyjq5mMtrEBG6SQL4kpS-v7DAXj4QwpaW3p5F_QicMDaAqf_NEByiJHeMRgPIi15HMfJzUMxtrua1wxg8BkBq64fGjNTDv-I48KBiCQqtZ8ayRbHFr89h34vsWkn0uZFvJ5otu6yqXwZPI03HqmZkxDK4rmGmWV_vyzly4ReDG" width="180" /></a></div><br />Photo by Marcoantonio23. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Adult butterflies are easy to find and photograph. Everyone seems to have a picture of <i>agesilaus </i>puddling. About the earlier stages of heir lives, nothing seems to have been written. South American sources say the host plant is <i>Rollinia emarginata</i> but show no photos of eggs, caterpillars, or pupae. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-89218706232104189462024-03-17T12:00:00.005-04:002024-03-17T12:00:00.131-04:00Link Log for 3.15.24 and 3.16.24<div style="text-align: left;"> <b>Animals </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Barb Taub may be best known as the chronicler of Peri the Therapist With Paws, an Australian Shepherd dog, but she also lives with a pair of fluffy, lazy cats. She has finally yielded to the temptation to create comical cat videos. Choking hazard: Swallow food or coffee before clicking "play." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://barbtaub.com/2024/03/12/is-it-spring-yet-ask-my-cat-humor-cats/">https://barbtaub.com/2024/03/12/is-it-spring-yet-ask-my-cat-humor-cats/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Beth Ann Chiles determines that, although these very tame goats enjoy being petted and talked to, they don't actually take an interest in being <i>read </i>to. Goats, like cats and dogs, aren't altogether "dumb" animals but my guess would be that, if they were trying to understand actual words, they wouldn't want to be confused by having a fictional story read to them. But the farm that advertised "Read to a Goat Day" certainly thought of a clever marketing scheme, as well as a way to get people to post very silly selfies like the video at the end of this post.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://itsjustlife.me/read-to-goats-month-comes-to-its-just-life/">https://itsjustlife.me/read-to-goats-month-comes-to-its-just-life/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And we just can't leave out the Dogs.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/14/its-science-petting-dogs-is-good-for-you-n4927317">https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2024/03/14/its-science-petting-dogs-is-good-for-you-n4927317</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Relationship Advice, Ridiculous </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't know whether young people are unhappy because they are "lonely." I don't know whether they're unhappy at all. If they are I don't know whether promoting their parents to grandparenthood would help them; I suspect they're unhappy because socialism, to whatever degree it's been practiced, has destroyed their economic prospects, and they're depressed (if they are) because they're reacting to drugs and chemical contaminants, and a significant minority of them are claiming not to have hormone reactions to the opposite sex because they're living in overcrowded conditions. What I do know, and know ull well, is that if people are taking antidepressants and thinking about suicide, they should not be thinking about marriage and children. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I will say, however, that for those (male or female) who live in small towns and don't want to be on the jury when somebody's relative is on trial, volunteering for jury duty in a specific case is a good way to get yourself, according to Virginia law, "forever barred" from jury duty. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapter13/McCalls%201958%20129%20ways%20to%20get%20a%20husband.pdf">https://inside.sfuhs.org/dept/history/US_History_reader/Chapter13/McCalls%201958%20129%20ways%20to%20get%20a%20husband.pdf</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Songs, Relative Badness Of </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD_XLLxrNimZ50pzAJ5WdiKtrt-vrK5OwZR90_pNTpmZWYK1uFRbNO_l-MR1XhRAYK5_98cwasYJUr88syMCQtAfoDPjNYpwQpg9SEqfbbQW9uVR6gES6lB6tlbVQcKta-ndXVfqegrpKPzYLRExqh-f2zzG0GpdrGus5nlNYVUFs_K4-97TqDvzHU/s620/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="620" data-original-width="475" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjD_XLLxrNimZ50pzAJ5WdiKtrt-vrK5OwZR90_pNTpmZWYK1uFRbNO_l-MR1XhRAYK5_98cwasYJUr88syMCQtAfoDPjNYpwQpg9SEqfbbQW9uVR6gES6lB6tlbVQcKta-ndXVfqegrpKPzYLRExqh-f2zzG0GpdrGus5nlNYVUFs_K4-97TqDvzHU/s320/image.png" width="245" /></a></div><br />Person has a point. (To make that meme postable under the terms of our contract, let's understand that the last line was truncated and is meant to be "Your music just sucks all the pleasure out of listening to music <i>ssshhhlllooop!</i>" And Nicki Minaj's song is a sensitive historical portrayal of the feelings of an old-time slave, fourteen years old and always hungry, ordered, "You take that hoe and grabble some new potatoes for dinner, but don't you touch none o' MY berries! You just keep singing so's we can tell you ain't eating any berries!" <i>Right</i>.) </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But, seriously? Lame-brained, repetitious song lyrics are nothing new. In fact, they're common to primitive cultures where little or no writing was done and much, if not all, of traditional songs sounds like "La la la." or, if they wanted a little more mental stimulation, "Hey yo, hey yo, hey yunno-wunno, hey nay yo." Or, if the idea is to focus on the tune and harmony, "Amen." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3pjyNwz1-4">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X3pjyNwz1-4</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is Handel's "Amen" chorus from <i>The Messiah</i> a stereo vampire? I don't think. Really bad songs have to have not merely repetitious lyrics but deeply bad lyrics.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thanks to the sound quality of a monaural radio loosely mounted on the wall of an old rattletrap school bus, I remember some songs that I recognized as silly, but didn't hear clearly enough to realize how profoundly bad they were. It is possible that some baby-boomers failed to recognize the awfulness of some of our music due to fading transistor radio batteries. So often, even the good songs sounded so bad that it was easy to overlook what made the other songs so cringeworthy. YouTube has preserved deeply bad songs of every decade in a format that allows the web surfer to experience their full awfulness. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">While alone, on an empty stomach, the intrepid reader may want to reconsider...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The endorsement of obnoxious behavior in </div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_WEMCUhF0E">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_WEMCUhF0E</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The morbid, guilt-ridden grief in</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiEY3O-FWk">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rZiEY3O-FWk</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The self-destructive recklessness in</div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3fX2_bxEkg">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E3fX2_bxEkg</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I would never suggest that millennial pop music is as good as the best of the 1960s and 1970s or, for that matter, even the 1950s. Taylor Swift's following Joan Baez's steps to commercial success only calls attention to the fact that she's no Joan Baez. No Maybelle Carter, no Jeanette Macdonald, no Kate Smith, no Judy Collins, no Stevie Nicks, nor yet any Madonna Ceccone, either. Still, is anyone seriously claiming that any of her songs is as bad as the three above? </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-1516695257823599672024-03-17T11:30:00.001-04:002024-03-17T11:30:00.139-04:00Morgan Griffith on Internet Crimes Against Children<div style="text-align: left;">Editorial comment: It's been too long since I've found one of these e-mails on the appropriate weekend. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's a very relevant topic to this web site. We need good strong testimony on this. We have seen that efforts to censor online socializing in the name of discouraging crime, not inflaming criminals, etc., may actually <i>promote </i>violent crime--as when violent troublemakers turned the Trump rally into a riot in 2021. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Trump was being shadowbanned as the system worked at the time--his followers weren't seeing his tweets on their home pages, but people who were aware of this and clicked over to <i>his </i>page could see his tweets. The excuse for censoring the then President was that he was likely to inflame people who refused to accept the results of the electoral college votes. But in fact, as Dinesh D'Souza was able to share with some of <i>his </i>Tweeps, including me, Trump posted a video thanking his fans and advising them to go home. Trump was clearly trying to <i>prevent </i>the rally turning as ugly as it turned, and Twitter censorship was preventing his doing that.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">On the other hand, up to a certain point, allowing criminals to post about their criminal intentions helps fight crime and protect victims. Obviously <i>some </i>interference should take place. Using school bullies as an example, in order to avoid describing uglier crimes, although (trigger warning) some are mentioned below...I think that, at the point where a disturbed twelve-year-old starts live-streaming video coverage of exactly how he knocks down eight-year-olds and takes their lunch money, web sites should have a mechanism for reporting that to a human who can activate a mechanism allowing only police officers to see that video. But at the point where he's saying, "I knocked down this eight-year-old kid yesterday and took his lunch money, and today I'm going to beat up a few more little kids, until I have enough money to buy some bootleg antidepressants and get high," a case might be made for leaving that up. It might be disgusting to normal human beings--motivating them to shun the bully, which is good--but it might help adults, not necessarily police, supervise the sick twelve-year-old and keep him away from those little kids. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We need to keep the channels of communication open. We need to keep people who care watching them. People, not algorithms. People who know when children typing things like "You are a hideous, horrible, ugly person and deserve to die" are sitting side by side, giggling, playing a game in which the character addressed is a serial murderer, and when they're doing an unsupervised, unethical science experiment to see whether they can actually get a classmate--who is not sitting beside them or giggling--certified insane. Children's use of the Internet needs to be <i>very </i>carefully supervised...by their parents, not by computer programs.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith, R-VA-9:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Internet Crimes Against Children</span></b></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Recently, I attended a Republican Whip meeting where Tim Tebow and members of his organization stopped by to say hello to Members of Congress – Tebow was testifying the next day at a House Judiciary Committee hearing on child sexual abuse. One of the women who was with him was a familiar face, Camille Cooper, now the Vice President of Anti-Human Trafficking and Child Exploitation at the Tim Tebow Foundation.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">When we first crossed paths, I was in the Virginia House of Delegates and Camille was working to help Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown, who assisted with the formation of the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The ICAC Task Force Program was formed in 1998 in response to the growing number of children and teens using the internet, the growing number of child predators using the internet in an effort to contact and exploit underage persons, and the explosion of child sexual abuse images available online.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">The Program was started by the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), which works in conjunction with a national network of coordinated task forces, made up of local, state, and federal law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Today, there are 61 task forces throughout the country. Sheriff Mike Brown helped start the Southern Virginia (SOVA) ICAC Task Force when the Bedford County Sheriff’s Office was selected as one of the first ten task forces in the nation in 1998.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Originally called “Operation Blue Ridge Thunder,” the task force covered all of Virginia and West Virginia.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Today, the SOVA-ICAC Task Force covers from far Southwest Virginia to the Delmarva Peninsula on the Eastern Shore and north to Greene County.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Since 1998, the ICAC program has led to more than 134,000 arrests nationwide, based on complaints referred to the program. In 2019 (latest data available), the SOVA-ICAC arrested 291 individuals, identified and/or recused 129 child victims, and examined 745,911 gigabytes for digital evidence.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Though a real and ever-growing threat to our children, the internet and internet related crimes were still relatively new in 1998.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Knowing the importance of the task force, I fought to get funding for Sheriff Brown’s program into Virginia’s biennial budget.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">This wasn’t the first time I had done work to combat child sexual abuse.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In 1994, I started drafting legislation relating to civil commitment for sexually violent predators<i>.</i> Passed in 1999, the law allowed the state to hold certain sex offenders at psychiatric facilities after their criminal sentences if the offenders were deemed “sexually violent predators.” However, the state did not appropriate the money for the program.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">In 2003, I once again fought to get funding for the legislation. Joining me in this quest was then-Attorney General Jerry Kilgore and victim advocate Paul Martin Andrews. A native of Virginia, Andrews was kidnapped in 1973 at age 13, held in an underground box and sexually assaulted by convicted child abuser Richard Ausley for eight days. As an adult, he became an advocate for bolstering Virginia law for continued civil commitments for sex offenders after their criminal sentence ended.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Andrews testified about the urgency for civil commitment for sexually violent predators. Andrews spoke about how Ausley was scheduled to get out of prison soon and research data indicated he would offend again. Once the legislature heard Andrews’ testimony, funding for civil commitment of sexually violent predators was passed.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Unfortunately, child sexual abuse and internet crimes against children are still a major problem in our society. As the internet has become more and more a part of our daily lives over the past 30 years, the work to protect our children on the internet remains important.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I continue to look for legislative solutions on the federal level to support victims of sexual abuse and protect our children. For example, I just co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit the importation or transportation of child sex dolls and robots. Currently, people are able to make physical features and “personalities” of robots resemble actual children, even taking their voice from social media to make the robots sound like the child. This can lead to an attitude of normalization for sexual encounters between adults and minors. This bill will help stop that practice and help protect our children.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I am also extremely thankful to the more than 5,400 officials who are part of the ICAC program. They work every day to put child predators in prison and help victims achieve justice.</span></span></span></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><br aria-hidden="true" /></p><p style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, times, serif; font-size: 18px; margin: 0px;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: Aptos, sans-serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">If you have questions, concerns, or comments, feel free to contact my office. You can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office via email, please visit my website at </span><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 11pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><a data-auth="NotApplicable" data-cke-saved-href="https://morgangriffith.house.gov/components/redirect/r.aspx?ID=473812-71744744" data-linkindex="3" href="https://morgangriffith.house.gov/" rel="noopener noreferrer" style="border: 0px; color: rgb(70, 120, 134) !important; font: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;" target="_blank"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: 12pt; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">https://morgangriffith.house.gov/</span></span></a></span><span style="border: 0px; color: inherit; font-family: "Times New Roman", serif; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-style: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">.</span></span></span></p></div><div style="text-align: left;">"</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-51526777116309433332024-03-17T09:30:00.001-04:002024-03-17T09:30:00.132-04:00Bonus St Patrick's Day Book Review: Her Great Irish Escape<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>Her Great Irish Escape </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Michele Brouder</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2020</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Michele Brouder </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "Then why don't you show us the real Ireland?"</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Grace is your typical American mixed breed. Only one known Irish ancestor, but that's the one from whom she got the family name, Kelly. She's gone through life hearing even the nicest people she's met say "...but your hair is dark." Marriage to somebody called Mark would have at least put a stop to that but, on the morning before the wedding, Mark bolted. So Grace grabbed a last-minute chance to join a small tour group going to Ireland. The tour bus driver mentions that castles and scenic landscapes aren't "the real Ireland" in which he grew up, and Grace, goaded by a few wisecracks of his referring to the famous Grace Kelly's movies, challenges him to show them "the real Ireland." So they go to visit the neighbors' farm and have tea with his grandmother, and Grace decides she likes him. It's a Sweet Romance. You know where this is going to lead.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The author's done a whole series of romances for people who dream not only of finding True Love but of finding it in Ireland. If you like this short book, there's an afterword listing the longer ones. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-23463528861529536162024-03-17T09:00:00.007-04:002024-03-17T09:00:00.129-04:00Book Review: The Gentleman Thief<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>The Gentleman Thief </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3GgjCeoE52f92YiwW2_dbZgyx5ZhdP90hPq39KhWDUVa07kPhdA50tF9Aj-YO0UluHqBUTdXYNGlJJoi5UP8pWokCSHQ-RLfuv0B_F0Qrx4xeeTm8N8KUmx5HUk1WLUWp2nwzRZtYuZS-9K5lox-sS9LkJepRteHtrdUtJTo7ZTlxBUbzw_8MhVO/s500/image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="333" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha3GgjCeoE52f92YiwW2_dbZgyx5ZhdP90hPq39KhWDUVa07kPhdA50tF9Aj-YO0UluHqBUTdXYNGlJJoi5UP8pWokCSHQ-RLfuv0B_F0Qrx4xeeTm8N8KUmx5HUk1WLUWp2nwzRZtYuZS-9K5lox-sS9LkJepRteHtrdUtJTo7ZTlxBUbzw_8MhVO/s320/image.png" width="213" /></a></div><br /><a href="https://bookshop.org/a/95558/9781942225195">Click to buy it on Bookshop</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Camille Elliot</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2020</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Camy Tang</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">ISBN: 978-1-942225-20-1</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "The magical night was awash with diamonds."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Most of them are, of course, cheap imitations. Even Holmendale wouldn't leave strings of real diamonds dangling from the rafters into people's faces. But he's celebrating the acquisition of a rare one. Ditzy teenager Rheda, who thinks she's "in love" with a boy who's obviously not interested in her, sees the lights go out, hears a violent confrontation, and learns that the precious stone has been stolen.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And the rest of the story is about the thief, whose identity is revealed to readers right away, and how he's caught, and why he did it, and what will become of him. Rheda, from whose point of view we saw chapter one, is forgotten.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> <i>The Gentleman Thief </i>is merely a "second prequel," a spin-off story that takes place earlier in time than a series of longer novels. In it we meet Lady Wynwood, a serious Christian who was widowed just in time and, at this early stage, still has feelings to work off by using her late husband's portrait for target practice. Lady Wynwood is neither the oldest nor the richest member, but surely the oldest and richest <i>female </i>member, of a social club of gentlemen crime fighters who want to do something about the barely checked crime that plagued real England during the Regency period. The diamond thief is another member of the club. Then there's Solomon Drydale, Lady Wynwood's admirer and mentor in crime fighting. Nothing like it is known to have happened in the real world, but in this fictional series the aristocrats and gentlefolk who become a private police force are religious people who attack social problems--not <i>only </i>crime--with love and prayer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The resulting stories aren't the Sunday School books of your childhood. They're action-packed, improbable but delightfully "romantic," adventure stories that can be used--if you want to think seriously about frivolous adventure stories--to stir up thoughts about how love and prayer can be aimed at social problems in the real world. They're written with good intentions and excellent storytelling skills.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, although we'll probably meet Rheda and the boy she has a crush on later in the series, I'm not altogether delighted by the way a novelette as short as <i>The Gentleman Thief </i>starts off as a story about one character and then shifts into being a story about some other characters the first one barely knows. It may fit into the series as a whole but it's not the best of storytelling techniques.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I still enjoyed the story. Now that you're warned about its flaw, I'd guess that, if you like Regency novels, you will too. The full-length novels should be fun to read.</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-41375505064728968842024-03-17T08:30:00.240-04:002024-03-17T08:30:00.134-04:00Unintended Consequences of "Left Behind"<div style="text-align: left;">I went to a Seventh-Day Adventist meeting during the past week. Temporary insanity I suppose. Maybe I wanted to see if I could really resist the temptation to try to make friends of people who have self-selected for a permanent lifelong inability to be real friends. Could I keep from being sucked into extrovert-style behavior? See their "You will do 'friendly' our way or not at all!" and raise them a "No, you will do 'friendly' <i>my </i>way or not at all"? Maybe I did that. Maybe I'm glad. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I thought I'd probably hear something worth blogging about at the meeting, and I did.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Nothing about the Adventists' attachment to their interpretation of biblical prophecies could possibly be new to me. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Adventists are the first to admit that the Bible tells us that God's prophecies are conditional. Most of what the prophets said, most of the time, simply reminded people of the natural consequences of different things people do. If you throw bricks at windows, glass will break. If you build a reputation for honesty, your business will prosper. That sort of thing. When the prophets delivered special messages that went beyond reminding people that obedience to God's law would have good consequences and disobedience would have bad ones, sometimes people warned of the consequences of sin repented, or people promised blessings fell into disobedience and lost some of the blessings. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So, the further ahead in time the prophets' vision ranged, the more difficult it is to be sure exactly what they were foretelling. Many people have believed that a Bible prophecy foretold some specific event in human history. The Adventist church began when one of those interpretations proved inaccurate, and has seen other interpretations proved inaccurate every year. Their own preferred interpretation has yet to be proved inaccurate, but it also has yet to be proved accurate. What we are clearly told is that we won't know <i>exactly </i>what to expect. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I can live with that, but some people can't. Some people like the emotional feeling of certainty even about things it's not possible to know. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When I think back to my years among the Adventists, I can even imagine them being told, "You understood all the prophecies, and all mysteries, and all knowledge, but you had not Love: you are nothing." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you've never been a vegan and a virgin and a total abstainer from all drugs, and picked up a nasty infection from an unnecessary vaccine thrust upon you by church members, and then heard those church members decide among themselves that your symptoms undoubtedly came from drug abuse and none of them would consider hiring you for any job...oh, you've never lived! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Over the years I've explained this to a few of the people who still talked to me who have not become ex-Adventists. They all react the same way. They twist and wriggle and try every trick they can think of to put me in the wrong, and when that fails, they say "But you can't let <i>people</i> affect your relationship with <i>God</i>." Of course not. That is why I stopped going to church, until the day, which has never come, when I found myself working with people, during the week, who all agreed to go to one church. If I have fellowship with people on the other six days, then I might have fellowship with them on the seventh day. Meanwhile...introverts don't need to spend hours being in a group of people above whom we think we have to rise. If people are not real friends and fellow laborers, we have no need to spend time just breathing the same air they do. They can go their own way. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't <i>hate </i>Adventists. I sell books by, and pray for, and hope God will continue to bless and enlighten, all Christians, impartially. I actually think the neurological facts about introversion being the healthy and desirable physical condition of humankind, and extroversion being a phyisical deficiency, have been available long enough that several church groups should be ready to learn how to behave in order to deserve the privilege of fellowship with introverts, and I'd be willing to help them learn. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Still, if there were Adventists I could love, they would be saying, "How can we make it right, at this very late date? How can we make ourselves worth your time?"" That might be possible. That is also what they <i>never </i>say. They want credit for putting things right but the last thing they want to do is actually put things right. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That some Adventists are unpleasant people, and that my generation in that church self-selected for having defective consciences, are separate things from the question of whether anyone has ever really interpreted the book of Daniel accurately. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Adventist minister told us a bit of news that would have dismayed the late Tim LaHaye, and may possibly inspire Jerry Jenkins to write another bestseller. (For what it's worth, Tim LaHaye may have lived and died in error about the word <i>apostateuo</i>, but he <i>also </i>won his fame by being the first to defend the character of introverts in those churches that preached Christ-plus-extroversion.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Adventist minister said that although the madly popular <i>Left Behind </i>series was speculative fiction, some people have apparently read it as if it were fact. They know the global dictator may not literally be called Nicolae and so on, but they think the details of the story, such as the time of tribulation lasting exactly three and a half years, are actually what the Bible teaches. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Regular readers of this web site may remember that Tim LaHaye wrote a serious nonfiction book explaining what he really believed would happen before the Second Advent. His "Pre-Tribulationist" vision had Jesus returning to Earth three times. First the secret return when so many Christians would <i>opostateuo</i>, which means stand apart, step aside. LaHaye curiously interpreted that word to mean "be raptured off into Heaven." In most contexts most scholars would interpret it to mean "become estranged, leave the church, backslide into their old ways," like Julian the Apostate. Then the three and a half years, this figure also reached by debatable interpretations, when all the previously converted Christians would have been raptured off and sinners would be free to make this world a place of torment. During this time it would be much more difficult and dangerous to be a Christian but last-minute converts who endured the danger and difficulty could still be saved. Then Jesus would come back, cast down the evil powers ruling the Earth, and reunite the last-minute converts with other Christians.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We are not told how to conduct the Final Judgment. We are told that "we shall judge angels" but, whether this means that we are to judge messages here and now, or that individual spirit beings called angels may be judged by comparison with us, we are not told that we can really know where our fellow humans are going. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">However, according to the "Post-Tribulationist" schools of biblical interpretation, the "day that shall come as a thief in the night" is what has been called a "rapture of the wicked," when the <i>unsaved </i>are removed from the Earth, possibly by Plague, Famine, War, and Death. The righteous have to live through the seven years of tribulation in this world, and then Jesus returns to take the righteous to Heaven, as by this time Earth needs a thousand years to recover from the devastation wrought upon it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It shouldn't make much difference which of these interpretations you find more plausible, or whether you have a preference. Do you love Jesus? Do you practice righteous love? If so you should find out soon enough where the saved are going. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For what it's worth, I think the evidence is stronger on the Post-Trib side, but I think the important question is whether we love and serve Powerful Goodness.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But the minister claimed that, at least in Indiana (from whence he was visiting), people who were not and had never been Christians were telling him, "I plan to 'get saved' after the Rapture. When I see all the Christians disappear, I'll be sure that I believe, and <i>then </i>I'll become a Christian and lead a Christian life." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sinner. Ohhhhhhhh, Sinner. If you are thinking that way, need it be mentioned that having to listen to me burst into quotations from <i>God's Trombones</i>, dire though that may be, is the least of your concerns?</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I <i>think </i>these people were merely making fun of both the Adventist minister and Tim LaHaye, but if the Post-Tribbers are right, the joke is on them. And even if that were not the case, it's not a very funny joke.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Among the last conversations I had with an old school friend from that church college was the one where the ministerial student told me, very slowly and awkwardly, how the Adventist ministerial colleges had apparently just discovered the idea that the saved love what is good for its own sake. In other words, they have consciences. Understandably, this is a very advanced and difficult concept in denominations that push away the people who have consciences. In Christianity, generally, it's basic.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">People who love what is good for its own sake do not want to postpone committing themselves to serve Powerful Goodness. They might struggle with confusion and doubt about doctrine, or not want to reject one church by joining another church, or want to wait until the ceremony of baptism can be done in some special way . Those things or other things might cause people who love God to postpone the public display of their commitment. But when they think about the whole idea of Powerful Goodness, they know they are thinking about what they want to serve and follow from that moment forward. . </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Reasonable people think long and hard before they commit their loyalty to a denomination within the church, which is only a group of people--but sincere Christians don't have to think twice about wanting to align themselves with God.</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-16380896467457908132024-03-16T22:30:00.002-04:002024-03-16T22:30:54.375-04:00Web Log for 11.10.23 and 11.11.23<div style="text-align: left;">These links somehow failed to post when they were fresh. Better late than never...here they are.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Green </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jeff Gibbs blows the whistle on what happens when big corporations try to do "Green" their way. It's not even Poison Green so much as it's Stupid Green. "Biomass" is supposed to mean burning garbage and sewage. Trees give us lots of dead wood that nature intended to burn, without ever felling a living tree. Surplus plant and tree material composts slowly, and even one acre of land yields more than enough to get things you don't want to spread on the vegetable garden burning. Toilet contents, chicken bones, fish tails. Dry heat converts all carbon-based waste back to carbon, so it burns like coal. Like coal, it burns hot and produces lots of sooty black smoke. If you want to use a biomass/trash fire to do more than detoxify waste, you have to be careful about safety, but seriously, Gentle Readers, dung, bones, and animal fat can heat your house or fuel your car. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">I don't have a good, insulated, filtered biomass burner. They are expensive but nice ways to convert the foul-smelling biochemicals from dung and carrion into clean Green energy. Purely because the smell of smoke clings to the pot, I usually cook food over a candle or a handful of hard wood, and don't get much use from things I burn just to convert them to a less disgusting form. But you can. That's what "biomass" is properly used to mean. You can refine the process to the point of having a burner that will heat the house or charge a battery just on the methane from human and animal bodywaste alone, if you invest in the equipment.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Because the equipment to make really sophisticated and efficient use of things too nasty to compost <i>does </i>cost money and take up space, it makes sense to build big biomass burners for neighborhoods rather than small ones for private homes...but big-spending corporate types, unclear on the concept, are apparently building huge biomass burners, which produce large amounts of foul-smelling smoke, and using them to burn more wood than nasty stuff. And they're cutting down forests.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When True Greens talk about burning biomass, we mean as an <i>alternative </i>to burning wood on a large enough scale that anyone ever needs to cut a living tree. At most you prune a weak limb that's likely to cause a fruit tree to split, or cut out a diseased branch from a tree. Any reasonable True Green family can heat a house with wood and never cut down a living tree. Wood-burning stoves may require more cleaning and filtering than some people want to bother to do, but they do not endanger forests. But Gibbs claims the corporate types are clear-cutting acres and then using expensive technology to spray chemical fertilizer on the ground in the hope of getting something to grow in acres of fresh wood chips left behind. They say that's Green because they have no idea what Green <i>means</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk11vI-7czE</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Music </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You may have heard it said that two wheelchair users don't make one dancer. Ha! Watch this Portuguese version of "Smile." Study the Andaluces-inspired dance. Fun for couples who want to hug to music; fun for physical therapists and patients, grandparents and grandchildren, dance video soloists. Wheelchair users can do it. For some styles of dancing, footwork is optional! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-3md7ieck">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC-3md7ieck</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Psychology </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">US Rep Rashida Tlaib has ticked a lot of people off, saying things that don't sound much like "Minnesota Nice," but what else could she do? The current Situation In The Middle East is harrowing enough to think about if you only have Saudi or Israeli relatives. Tlaib should be granted six months of compassionate leave to go home, pray, and cry. Cynthia R. Wallace offers suggestions for those whose reactions to recent news, though overwhelming, can't possibly be as horrible as Rashida Tlaib's. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/culture-of-life/when-following-the-news-becomes-too-distressing">https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/culture-of-life/when-following-the-news-becomes-too-distressing</a></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-1419650824138481992024-03-16T20:30:00.001-04:002024-03-16T20:30:00.133-04:00Bad Poetry: The Peculiar Spring Rituals of My People<div style="text-align: left;">(At the <a href="https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2024/03/friday-writings-118-strange-springs.html">Poets & Storytellers United page</a> that prompted this, Magaly Guerrero said that people in New York think it's strange to visit graveyards in the spring. Well, it's Southern.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One day when the weather is almost always lovely</div><div style="text-align: left;">is officially designated as Memorial Day</div><div style="text-align: left;">and, although wills direct heirs to pay</div><div style="text-align: left;">for a burial plot in a field that's tended gravely,</div><div style="text-align: left;">the proper tradition is to gather flowers,</div><div style="text-align: left;">friends, family, often a picnic meal</div><div style="text-align: left;">(real sticklers for tradition may still feel</div><div style="text-align: left;">that one graveyard should be considered "ours"</div><div style="text-align: left;">so all the graves are visited together)</div><div style="text-align: left;">spend mornings placing flowers near the head</div><div style="text-align: left;">of each grave in the family. The dead,</div><div style="text-align: left;">some think, may join the relatives who gather.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Some tell the year's news to the dear departed.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Some tell their stories to the young. It started</div><div style="text-align: left;">with earlier spring festivals; the Romans</div><div style="text-align: left;">spent <i>Rosalia </i>hanging roses round</div><div style="text-align: left;">the doors of tombs, and our ancestors found</div><div style="text-align: left;">in memories of ancient Rome good omens</div><div style="text-align: left;">for our Republic. After the observance </div><div style="text-align: left;">the holiday's observed with games and sports</div><div style="text-align: left;">and shopping. Children play, and sweethearts court.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Being serious for four hours seems a burden</div><div style="text-align: left;">on such a day as our tradition's chosen</div><div style="text-align: left;">for serious thoughts. How quickly our moods change!</div><div style="text-align: left;">And we think water festivals are strange,</div><div style="text-align: left;">or fire festivals, where land's still frozen,</div><div style="text-align: left;">or living things, for springtime celebrations?</div><div style="text-align: left;">Some of us still offer our dead libations.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">(As might be expected, my family tradition--this one goes back a few generations--scorns "wasteful" displays of remembrance and emphasizes remembering the dead by carrying on something they did or stood for. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/08/memorials.html">https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/08/memorials.html</a> )</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-78924463708679899592024-03-15T09:00:00.015-04:002024-03-15T09:00:00.149-04:00Book Review: The Sculptor's Knife<div style="text-align: left;">Book Review: <i>The Sculptor's Knife </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Penny Silverbrook</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2024</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: High Mountain </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "I'd like to get another quick look around the gallery."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Little does Jasmine know that that quick look around the gallery where her paintings have been entered in an art competition will make her the last person <i>known </i>to have seen the statue that's about to be stolen, or that that will make her the one who has to clear her own name by finding out who stole it...or that solving the cozy art theft mystery will lead to someone being murdered. But readers don't have to meet the character who is murdered, and are assured that he deserved it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jasmne is not an amateur detective and, refreshingly, doesn't pretend to be. It's possible that solving this mystery will be enough for her. The author promises "another book in the works" but doesn't say it will have Jasmine in it. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-70380199614633027862024-03-14T14:33:00.004-04:002024-03-14T14:33:55.080-04:00Fun with Functional Shifts<div style="text-align: left;">This web site owes somebody a series of posts on the topic of frugality. Those posts have been funded, and will appear here on Thursdays. I have not whipped them into shape yet so here's a little reflection on word usage I dashed off some time ago, for this week. Frugality studies are forthcoming.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">One of the most confusing things about English is the way English words (but only <i>some </i>English words) can undergo what is called "functional shift" (but only <i>some </i>"functional shift") in what is considered correct English.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A "functional shift" is the use of a noun as a verb, or a verb as a noun, or a noun as an adjective.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Native speakers of English might <i>note </i>something, or <i>take note </i>of something, or <i>notify</i> someone of something, or <i>annotate </i>something, or <i>notate </i>something--and those are different actions. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is no general rule that tells native speakers of English when a "functional shift" will sound right or wrong. We just pick these things up by hearing them. Sometimes using a noun as a verb or vice versa is correct, and sometimes it sounds all wrong, like a way to identify a non-native speaker of English. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"Invite," for example. In the twentieth century when most of us were learning English, there was no such thing as "an invite." If we wanted <i>to invite </i>someone to do something, we sent the person <i>an invitation</i>. "An invite" was commonly found in nineteenth century fiction, in the sort of "dialect writing" where someone's incorrect English was supposed to be the joke. Fiction that was written to teach people etiquette used to describe characters who were very poor, or ignorant, or foreign, who were just thrilled to get "an invite" to dinner with someone who was better off. The character who got "an invite" would then proceed to do and say other things that displayed per ignorance, at the dinner. Depending on how snobbish the writer was, the character might be presented as a complete fool, or more sympathetically portrayed as someone who just didn't fit in with more sophisticated people. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">That's why older English speakers still cringe when we read "an invite," or "an e-vite," today. Around the turn of the century computer users, who liked to abbreviate everything, started typing "invites" rather than "invitations." It's no longer absolute proof that English (or "standard" English) is not their native language but it calls to our minds the suggestion that they're making fun of people whose native language is not "standard" English. If you want to express altogether good intentions, you send people <i>invitations</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"A read" is not really "standard" English either, but "a good read" has been accepted in colloquial English for a long time. "A fun read" is newer, but sounds colloquial rather than awkward. "A read" sounds wrong to many native speakers of English. It's new slang; I've seen it on the Internet but not heard it spoken in real life.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"A write" is another bit of computer users' slang that sounds clunky to native speakers of English. People at writing sites type "a write" with tongue in cheek, as a bit of new slang. Victorian novelists didn't make a cliche of members of the so-called lower class having enough education to try submitting "a write" to a teacher or editor. So "Thanks for sharing your write" doesn't sound like a reference to Victorian fiction, but it doesn't sound <i>right</i>. It sounds to me as if the person typing it isn't sure what the piece written was supposed to be... "<i>Was </i>that a letter? I wouldn't call it a poem, but did s/he <i>think </i>of it as a poem?" What participants in a formal class or informal writers' group submit, if you want not to offend them, are <i>written pieces </i>or <i>pieces of writing </i>or perhaps <i>writings, writing samples, </i>or <i>writing exercises</i>. Or, on the Internet, simply <i>posts</i>. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some functional shifts have appealed to some native speakers of English who thought they ought to become standard. Would people use their leisure time more creatively, feel more satisfied with life, or even produce more or better folk art and folk music, if we said "to art" and "to music" instead of "to make art" or "to make music"? Some writers have hoped so. Would English speakers <i>be </i>less judgmental, or sound less judgmental, about other people's feelings and attitudes if English were one of the languages that don't have the "noun-verb-adjective" sentence pattern, but use adjectives as verbs? Would it be easier to make clear whether we meant "he felt or showed happiness at a given time" or "his entire life can be called a happy one" if we said, in the first case, "He happied"? Some competent writers have made cases for "They were on the porch, musicking" or "She happied when she read the letter," but these functional shifts have not caught on. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"To joy" came closest. A few hundred years ago poets did sometimes use "joy" where "enjoy" became standard. The only really well known example of this word usage that is still around is the English version of the Bach chorale, "O Sacred Head Now Wounded," which contains the line "I joy to call Thee mine." This is one of the lines that are accepted because they are traditional in songs or poems, but would be less acceptable in speech or writing. People who sing "I joy to call Thee mine," in a traditional hymn, would raise their eyebrows if they read "I joy to call you my friend" in a letter.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"A swear" was occasionally used to mean "an offensive word" in the twentieth century--"he said a swear"--but this usage was perceived as childish. Children who heard and repeated an offensive word were scolded or punished for "swearing" or "using 'swear' words" even when the word in question was <i>not </i>used in "frivolous swearing." "Frivolous swearing" used apparently to be a more common way of using English to offend people than it is now. People apparently used to say things like "By God, that was a good meal" <i>just </i>because it was offensive, in the same way they'd say "Then I went to f'ing lunch" today. "By God" was, in such cases, frivolous swearing such as Jesus taught His followers not to do in first-century Greek, which apparently had many analogs to "by God" referring to the hundreds of different "gods" Greek Pagans recognized. Technically speaking, the offensive word in "That was a d'd good meal" is a profane word rather than a "swear' word, and the offensive word in "That was a f'ing good meal" is an obscene word rather than a "swear" word. All of them are of course things native speakers of English say with the intention of being offensive and identifying themselves as habitually angry, bad-tempered, unpleasant individuals. "That was a <i>good </i>meal" is what a native speaker of English who is not habitually angry would say.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Often a functional shift is used in one context but not other possible contexts, in English. Scott Adams often uses "a tell." All native speakers of English know that "True is the tale that I tell of my travels"--we can call the travelling we have done or are doing "travels," but we have to call the telling we have done or are doing a "tale," not "tells" or a "tell." (And we say "my travels," not "my travel," even in reference to one single journey...but "my travel" could refer to a person's whole history of travelling, so that the singular word could refer to more different events than the plural word. Are we completely confused yet?) So "a tell" is something different from "a tale." In this particular case "a tell" is old show-business slang for what a larger number of English speakers would call "a giveaway," meaning the bit of someone's behavior that tells observers (or "gives the person away") when someone is thinking or noticing something. "The way Donald Trump's voice rose on that sentence is the tell that he was lying" is more logical, more literal, than "The way Donald Trump's voice rose on that sentence is the giveaway that he was lying," but "giveaway" is still closer to being "standard" English. However, during the twentieth century hypnotists successfully upgraded their image from being a class of mountebanks who often sold useless or toxic patent medicines to being a class of psychologists, lower in status than PhD researchers or MD's specializing in psychiatry, but at least as respectable as counsellors or therapy group leaders. Accordingly, when Adams uses "the tell" as hypnotists' jargon, he's making it a higher-status alternative to "the giveaway." This would not have worked in previous centuries. It may work now. "That's a tell" is not yet standard English, but it's the kind of high-status deviation from standard English that may become standard English in the future. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"To note" is used when someone makes either a mental or a literal note of something for their own use, "He noted that they were running low on paper towels." "Noting" can sometimes extend into writing: "As Shakespeare noted in <i>Romeo and Juliet</i>, students often show a lack of enthusiasm for homework." Mental "noting" may involve a little more attention than simply "noticing," but a "notice" is posted more publicly and formally than a private "note" handed to a friend. This kind of variation in word usage developed over centuries of history and was not<i> </i>deliberately planned to confuse language learners, though language learners could hardly be blamed for thinking it was.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">"A do" is one (or two) things, "ado" is another thing, and "a deed" is yet another thing. Most things people do are deeds. "A do" used to be slang for a party, and, after most people had forgotten that bit of slang, reappeared as slang for a hairstyle. "Ado" became acceptable even in written English, as a word for a state of unrest, confusion, distraction, excitement, and/or bustling about among a group of people, because Shakespeare used it/ "To-do" is a variant from. In casual conversation these words are likely to be used when the level of activity rises, sometimes in a good way, as when people decide to restore an old house or a store runs a big clearance sale.<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What a person sings is always "a song." If some people stand still and sing, and others stand or sit still and listen, different words might be used depending on the formality of the event. It might be a "sing-along," a show, a performance, a concert, a recital. "A sing" is rarely used when the event takes place within a traditional culture that believe singing has special spiritual or magical powers; it seems, when I think about it, that I've seen sentences like 'The tribal healers came in for a sing" only in reference to Navajo people.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What is given is always "a gift," but if it's made by hand the effect of its having been worked on might be "the work," or "the handwork," sometimes "the needlework," "the brushwork," or "the work" of whatever other tools or techniques were used. Ornamental work can be either "worked" or "wrought"; the use of "wrought" tends to reflect the influence of "wring" and describe things with scrolled, rolled, or twisted effects, which is why James Thurber's joke about someone who "wrote, or wrought, a piece of writing--it sounded wrought to me" is funny. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What is taken is not usually "a take" or "the take," unless the speaker is asserting that the person taking it is "on the take," an old slang phrase that used to be associated with Irish-Americans whose energy and good work allowed them to get ahead of English-Americans who had started out with more and made less of it. Confusingly, "on the take" was usually used with disapproval, because people who used it were often expressing the Deadly Sin of Envy. "A take" is used now, in a neutral sense, to mean one photograph or video sequence from a group of several that were "taken" or "shot" in a quick sequence. A photographer might display "the best take" in the batch; the video sold after a movie has had its chance in theatres may contain "out-takes" that were cut out of the movie version due to time limits. In colloquial English, "a take" can also refer to an opinion that differs from others' opinions because of someone's different position or experience: "My take on what Donald Trump said about the value of the house, as someone who used to live in New York City, is that <i>everyone </i>up there used to inflate the value of <i>any </i>house, because the local real estate prices were so inflated."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Occasionally a word has meant so much to so many that one can find examples of its being used in almost any way a person can think of. As if it weren't confusing enough that "to love" can refer either to the practice or to the emotional feeling of any combination of admiration, affection, loyalty, benevolence, friendship, compassion, sympathy, enjoyment, preference, infatuation, and other things, either a thing or a person loved may be "a love," especially of a particular individual: "She was his love," or "Astronomy was his love." The variety of use of the word "love" has prompted some people, even lovers, to say that the word has been so much used that it's lost its meaning. As a remedy some English teachers used to teach, as a rule of grammar, that we should at least use "like" when the object of admiration, affection, etc., is an inanimate material object. One does not love strawberries, they preached; one can only like them. Other English speakers feel that the difference between liking and loving is a matter of enthusiasm. Others feel that it has more to do with the quality of the feeling or relationship expressed--that liking things means merely enjoying them, while loving them means serving their needs or interests, so a gourmet likes strawberries but a gardener loves them. Then there is Internet-specific usage, where promoting or advertising things can be regarded as serving their interests, so product reviewers "love" the products reviewed, while "liking" things tends to mean, specifically, clicking on a button to award points to things that may or may not get any further benefit from the points awarded. And then...native speakers of English bicker and "correct" one another's use of "love" often, but at least they always seem to enjoy the debate.<br /></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-39943283339183990982024-03-14T12:00:00.001-04:002024-03-14T12:00:00.131-04:00Link Log for 3.13.24<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Farming & Gardening </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">I remember a time when True Greens wanted a federal Environmental Protection Agency. That was fifty years ago and I'm not sure exactly why. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/chlorpyrifos-damages-kids-brains-epa-allowing-food-crops-rtk/">https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/chlorpyrifos-damages-kids-brains-epa-allowing-food-crops-rtk/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Even more reasons to break any addiction your local ecosphere may have formed to "pesticides":</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://8point9.com/creepy-crawlies-protect-apples-when-flowers-planted-on-farms/">https://8point9.com/creepy-crawlies-protect-apples-when-flowers-planted-on-farms/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Frugal </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is a repair cafe a <i>religious </i>thing? Only if the participants want it to be. But it's fun and frugal.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/sustainable-living/whats-a-repair-cafe">https://www.plough.com/en/topics/justice/sustainable-living/whats-a-repair-cafe</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Technology </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Regular readers may remember when this web site linked to the nostalgic sound of a vintage computer spinning a floppy disk. Did <i>that </i>technology ever beg for upgrades. "A floppy disk leads a sheltered life...and usually leads a short one, anyway." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But y'know what I'd like to add to that file of nostalgic sounds computers don't make any more? What about that whir that means that either five minutes have passed, or you've typed or clicked, so in any case it <i>must </i>be time for another "update"! </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Meaning Microsoft basically barges into your office, yanks your computer out of your hands, whacks it against the wall, and then throws it back to you so you can find out how much damage they've done to whatever you were working on. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Hello? How is that legal? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The computer is your property, or your client's, school's, whatever; some person bought it. Microsoft does not own your computer.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The Internet time is your property, or your client's or whatever; some person is paying for it. Somebody is paying for that connection. Microsoft is not paying for your Internet time. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><i>Your </i>time is your property, or your client's or whatever. Your time is worth money. Microsoft is not paying for the amount of your time it's using up.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The amount of time Microsoft and other tech firms are demanding to "update" and tweak and mess up things on your computer, your connection, and your time, is not just a few minutes now and then. It adds up to hours--sometimes hours in a day. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">We need a federal law: If Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Mozilla, Linux, whoever, does something that interferes with your computer's responding to your commands and working on your project, <i>even for a "moment," </i>that could potentially affect your entire day. They need to pay for that day when they arrogated unto themselves ownership of your computer, your connection, and your time. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Writing </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">I can do SEO writing, for those who pay for it. But here's why this web site is not "search engine optimized." David B. Clear doesn't talk about how search engines handle Blogspot or Live Journal blogs but, basically, search engines lump them together as (name of host's) personal blogs and suppress them from search engines, bar the occasional niche post that is so informative as to be <i>naturally </i>SEO and frequently revisited and linked back to. Consciously using SEO to write about butterflies wouldn't boost this blog up Google; lots of people write about butterflies (though not some of the ones we'll be meeting this spring). But, hello, nobody else writes about stingingworms--which is why those <i>Hemileuca </i>moth posts, which are obviously gross-outs for a lot of people, are actually this web site's big attraction! So few people want to think about that horrid topic that the ones who do are going to gather here. Because just about anything informative that can be said about stingingworms is going to rank in the top 500 search results, in spite of Google. SEO apps might not even find any secondary keywords for <i>Hemileuca </i>stories, but if people were searching for that topic, the secondary keywords they <i>would </i>use are all naturally lined up right in the moth articles. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Y'know, I do my share of complaining, but I actually love my job. I only wish it paid better. The paid moth posts are all live now. Someone will have to sponsor a few more so moth enthusiasts can read about <i>Hemileuca juno</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Now, if you readers want a topic that will be your blog's attraction....don't pick stingingworms, because I'm already doing them. There are all kinds of other obscure creatures you could feature--mosses, say, or seaweeds, or snails. Or you could pick some esoteric aspect of history, science, technology. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Anyway, here are some considerations for those who are and are not trying to do or learn SEO:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://writingcooperative.com/why-seo-is-a-waste-of-time-for-most-online-writers-14a4077bddc7">https://writingcooperative.com/why-seo-is-a-waste-of-time-for-most-online-writers-14a4077bddc7</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://writingcooperative.com/why-seo-is-a-waste-of-time-for-most-online-writers-14a4077bddc7">https://writingcooperative.com/why-seo-is-a-waste-of-time-for-most-online-writers-14a4077bddc7</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Politics (Election 2024) </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">In which Trump sounds "old."Dithering. Doddering. He's about the age Biden was in 2016, an age where he might even feel fit to run now, but be looking unfit by July. Said it before and I'll say it again: Trump needs to choose a vice-presidential candidate whom his fans will want to see in the Oval Office. So does Biden, and unfortunately he's stuck with a Veep whose career in Washington, I'm told, was based mainly on "dating" married men. And Kennedy--who is younger than they, but did himself a lot of damage in his rich-brat stage--needs to do likewise. No Vice-Presidents as Life Insurance in this election.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2024/03/10/unforgivable-trump-self-congratulates-brags-about-covid-vaccines-again-n4927182">https://pjmedia.com/benbartee/2024/03/10/unforgivable-trump-self-congratulates-brags-about-covid-vaccines-again-n4927182</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Zazzle </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What will Zazzle think of next? Their new thing is reversible foamboard posters. These posters can be displayed on stands outdoors or hung on walls indoors. They're two-sides, and you can choose which image to display on each side. Shown are two butterfly photos. You could substitute flowers, or prints of classic paintings, or digital photos of your children's artwork. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.com/save_the_butterflies_foamboard_poster-256963972269614979">https://www.zazzle.com/save_the_butterflies_foamboard_poster-256963972269614979</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not mine, but you could substitute the picture for mine and still support "Save the Butterflies." (<i>We are talking about a campaign to save butterfly habitat by banning glyphosate spraying</i>.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.com/viceroy_on_queen_anne_s_lace_16x20_photo_print-190135049698340888">https://www.zazzle.com/viceroy_on_queen_anne_s_lace_16x20_photo_print-190135049698340888</a> </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here's a butterfly lampshade...mine:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.com/save_the_butterflies_lampshade-256809781118789842">https://www.zazzle.com/save_the_butterflies_lampshade-256809781118789842</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Not mine. You may never get another chance to buy a Morpho in support of North American butterflies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.com/blue_morpho_butterfly_lamp_shade-256816533073973424">https://www.zazzle.com/blue_morpho_butterfly_lamp_shade-256816533073973424</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">People who shop online really should visit the Save the Butterflies Collection. I've tried to put a butterfly on everything Zazzle sells. They're all customizable, which means you can buy things like pencils printed with your child's name so people can return it if it falls out of child's binder, or substitute your own graphics for mine if you want to. If you start with one of my product links, it counts as buying something in aid of "Save the Butterflies." There are luxury gifts for people who have everything (but the latest fad--cornhole boards? pickleball paddles?), and there are cards and stickers you can buy for less than one dollar.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.zazzle.com/collections/119738737624002582">https://www.zazzle.com/collections/119738737624002582</a></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-2691946184240248752024-03-14T09:00:00.023-04:002024-03-14T09:00:00.239-04:00Book Review: The Bride's Dream Wedding<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>The Bride's Dream Wedding </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Jennifer Faye</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Lazy Dazy Press</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "[Y]ou know how important this day is for me. I've been dreaming of it forever. Nothing can go wrong." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What a bride really wants is to know her bridegroom really wants the wedding to happen. Luckily for the heroine of this short romantic comedy, a ditzy, klutzy, undercapitalized entrepreneur who's likely to need a husband who can bail out her business, Carter really wants to marry Angela. Luckily for Carter, he knows he wants the wedding more than he wants to defend his ego, because Angela and her mother spent her mother's last days planning Angela's wedding, and now Angela is so superstitious about it that she keeps cancelling the wedding. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This romance is recommended to all engaged people suffering from "jitters," in the hope that it will warn them not to act as foolish as Angela. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-53639590738037844382024-03-13T21:31:00.000-04:002024-03-13T21:31:06.390-04:00A Book Trope I Wish Happened More Often in Real Life<div style="text-align: left;">This week's Long And Short Reviews question was "Which book trope do you wish happened more often in real life?" </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">My answer is late because I wanted to see whether we all said the same thing at once.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Well, no. Other people seem to be less scarred by our low-paid job than I am. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Book tropes other reviewers wanted to see in real life included:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* The reformed character. Especially the mean, greedy rich character who becomes kind and generous, like Scrooge at the end of Dickens' <i>Christmas Carol</i>.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* Talking to animals. (We <i>almost </i>can. I think I do pretty well at understanding what Serena has to say to me, but that's probably because she understands that, in real life, about all it's worth the trouble to try to tell me in so many eye-rolls and tail-twitches are things like "Let me in," "Let me out," "Where's my breakfast?", and "That vegan meal you're cooking would be even better with chicken.")</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* Time travel. Meh. What if you accidentally prevented yourself from being born? But the paradoxes of time travel are fun to think about.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* Happy endings. Who wouldn't.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* The weird stuff that happens to people causes them to develop super-powers. Being bitten by a vanomous animal might make you able to fight crime more effectively, say. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">* People get what they deserve...often a sad or at least embarrassing ending. Baddies don't even have to be brought to justice by the good characters because they roll their cars over cliffs, get stuck in trees, and are found waving for help and crying feebly, "I robbed the bank. The money's in the trunk. Please get me out of this car. I don't mind going to jail." <i>Love </i>it.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"> * "Marriage crisis" motivates people to work things out and fall in love all over again, instead of splitting up and making their children miserable. I'd like to see more of that one, too.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">But my choice is still the Billionnaire Romance. I have everything but money and <i>deserve </i>to be the heroine of a Billionnaire Romance where an extremely rich gentleman, who is also attractive, but has no living family members, falls in love with my diligent work, kind heart, bright eyes and black lamee hair. Well, at least enough to notice the eyes and hair above the assets lesser men notice first. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Billionnaires have been so thick on the ground in recent romance novels that there really ought to be two. Brothers, perhaps. So when I met the one who is sixty years old, with beautiful snow-white hair, and we share our fantasies, and mine is about a store, he can say "But do you really <i>like </i>storekeeping? Wouldn't you rather <i>just </i>go to the store to write and let someone younger keep the store?" and I say, "Well I can handle the work, but I have this sister who has hearing loss and is not distracted by having other talents to use," and we hire my hard-of-hearing sister to keep the store, the brother who is just fifty and still has sort of gray-brown hair can marry my sister, too. In order to live happily ever after I'd need to know that that sister was taken care of. Also they have an employee who has been well enough paid to have saved up a good bit, during his career with them, and can provide for the girl my brother ought to have married. And we all live happily ever after in large and well separated houses. Having to live with the increasingly hard-of-hearing sister may rate somewhere between a broken leg and a broken knee, with me, but I do want a happily-ever-after trope for her story.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There ought to be more happily-ever-after endings in real life. And I'm not even particular about whether it's billions or millions, or whether they're prospective husbands or oily relatives who leave what's left of the oil money to us.</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-77083514306404169392024-03-13T09:00:00.026-04:002024-03-13T09:00:00.250-04:00Book Review: Tilly and the Grump Next Door<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>Tilly and the Grump Next Door </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Grace D. Miller</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2023</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Grace D. Miller</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "I would've loved to see him smile. But that wasn't going to happen."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For a full week after she spills coffee on her new boss in the elevator, Tilly won't see him smile. Then they start to bond when it turns out that they're also renting flats in the same building, and he looks adorable when he smiles at his six-year-old son. Then they fall in love. It's a sweet romantic comedy, so we know where this is leading. The office politics is the part that strains belief, but "romance" has historically meant that the details of the plot don't have to make perfect sense. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For women who don't mind a romance involving a single father, but prefer that the heroine fall in love with the father more than the child, this short sweet romance is recommended.</div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-79975650835945459182024-03-12T09:00:00.004-04:002024-03-12T09:00:00.136-04:00Book Review: My Billionaire Boss Surprise Baby<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>My Billionaire Boss Surprise Baby </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Anita Shaw</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2023</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Anita Shaw</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "...but sometimes I wish I had a dad like the other kids."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is this romance <i>ever</i> a fantasy. Emma has made a career of doing everything everyone's always advised young women not to do. She had a baby as a teenager, she kept him, she slept with another man while baby Max was just a tot and got dumped for the next baby-free woman he met, and now, here she goes again...taking a job as personal assistant to a rich man, and sleeping with him, even when the last woman he's used and dumped files a lawsuit. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And it's a romance, so we're supposed to believe this leads to happily-ever-after.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">And it's worse than that. Every Booktober Blitz book can't be above average and this is one of the ones that's not. Romances are supposed to provide someone's insight into personal relationships, but in this one I got an impression that Anita Shaw never knew anyone for whom anything like this fictional relationship worked, or could have worked, or seemed to be working for a while. Characters aren't characterized; scenes don't show any reason why they'd be likely to feel the way we're told they do, except that this was the story a SEO search suggested readers would like and Shaw cranked out something like what she thought readers wanted. Emma's and Jack's friendship "had ups and downs"--but we don't see what those were. They just keep building up those emotions on cue and, y'know, the tension couldn't be ignored, because she's thinking <i>Billionaire!</i> and he's thinking <i>Desperate Female Body!</i> and before you know it, before the engagement's announced, Emma's pregnant again. Because we never see exactly what their business is but we do see them making babies in approved tasteful-romance-novel terms. But it's all right because they can "do" the wedding before it's really obvious, and six-year-old Max thinks it's interesting that Emma has the beginning of a baby bump when she sails off on her honeymoon...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">For every book there's someone but I'm finding it hard to imagine who really wants this book. If you collect romance novels... If you <i>just </i>want to fantasize about premarital baby-making with a billionaire... If you're a man who wants to fantasize about <i>being </i>a billionaire, using and dumping desperate women, and finally feeling that your emotions and hormones have settled down (for the moment) on a woman who won't mind being alone with your baby when your hormone tide turns...yes, the ideal reader for this book would probably be a man. It's told from the woman's point of view, but this is a male fantasy. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-7382024651784972382024-03-12T08:30:00.001-04:002024-03-12T08:30:00.242-04:00Petfinder Post: 2023 in Review, Part 6<div style="text-align: left;">While the majority of the pet photo contest winners from last year do seem to be finding homes, several are still looking. We can expect to find more pets still looking for homes in the second half of the year because they've had less time. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtjxCNlxS2cXVvu2ecW_ScYqFCoI_RYaohqE1UFz6dDK4UM7714cWkzo-d5XtHQ2_IuVXMDRy9FJDoUYM5H4608fpl_Sh-eqgfTQgua0laDywsIvWQtIwxwcZEmT762EPgai8JZ1iTNlyCwrE9vCnk6F0jvMt8pYacqM_SGo1p9J7ikfWVDRgkHf9K" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="197" data-original-width="320" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjtjxCNlxS2cXVvu2ecW_ScYqFCoI_RYaohqE1UFz6dDK4UM7714cWkzo-d5XtHQ2_IuVXMDRy9FJDoUYM5H4608fpl_Sh-eqgfTQgua0laDywsIvWQtIwxwcZEmT762EPgai8JZ1iTNlyCwrE9vCnk6F0jvMt8pYacqM_SGo1p9J7ikfWVDRgkHf9K" width="320" /></a></div><br /> So let's proceed...Opie, the terrier, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dash the Doberman may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Iman and Bowie, the kittens, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Apple, Apricot, and Artichoke have positively been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sammy, the Australian Shepherd, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Jett, the Australian Shepherd, has definitely been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Austin, the Australian Shepherd who was too smart for his own good, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Banjo, the Australian Shepherd, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Annie, the Australian and German Shepherd mix, has been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Aveena in New York City is still looking for a good home, and doesn't even have an updated photo. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpH2THqJPbNNTYJZ8Eb88E1nTR1d3Wn_6j4ChoYjTJ7MObH3-dheLu9gzo76r1YF-mwCY_zhHGeXJbNl6VbusM5XBNnQN_XUngoZSnJUw_c4dd-qRzCUqDwrULs1yBYEJJu63xk4MVNYtcR_AFCnsn8ZdjPFubBulqA9nK719IfRlzn2HwLnzKu6IJ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhpH2THqJPbNNTYJZ8Eb88E1nTR1d3Wn_6j4ChoYjTJ7MObH3-dheLu9gzo76r1YF-mwCY_zhHGeXJbNl6VbusM5XBNnQN_XUngoZSnJUw_c4dd-qRzCUqDwrULs1yBYEJJu63xk4MVNYtcR_AFCnsn8ZdjPFubBulqA9nK719IfRlzn2HwLnzKu6IJ" width="320" /></a></div><br />Her web page: <a href="https://www.petfinder.com/cat/aveena-64560405/ny/new-york/place-for-cats-ny374/">https://www.petfinder.com/cat/aveena-64560405/ny/new-york/place-for-cats-ny374/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">What's keeping her unadopted? Shelter staff say she's a talker, and they mean a <i>talker</i>. She wants not to be picked up or stroked, but to be talked to, when she chirps at humans. Based on my acquaintance with Serena and Traveller I would consider the possibility that she's trying to establish a pidgin language she can use to communicate, at least to give simple commands. After working out a language she may settle down a bit, though she's also said to prefer games to snuggles. If only because Serena's been a profoundly lovable cat and great fun to know, all these years, I'd guess that Aveena might be another wondrous pet, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime pet. The problem may be that the shelter staff ask too many questions before arranging for the cat to meet prospective adopters. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Lucious, the white kitten, has been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Larkspur and Hyacinth, the white and gray kittens, have been adopted together.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Thelma and Louise, who are actually in Puerto Rico but have a second-chance web page in New York City, are still up for adoption. Here's Louise: </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6o2VGJrrKx4wlmPaSlO2dmuS9Wy625q8_9b2d465NND5otlnnZfULk8k4BeOCEYbXHZPPQ9GFRDTaXbQwi7jTlNQw2ZS-2Dq-ycIqmYIg_wobooic93UFolEASqZEoWNk7FZIDdwgNPW0EPOLC21S7J9C6VzfGhjHkAOP9y_NrkGkcL2UWJ0jbWTs" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1080" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi6o2VGJrrKx4wlmPaSlO2dmuS9Wy625q8_9b2d465NND5otlnnZfULk8k4BeOCEYbXHZPPQ9GFRDTaXbQwi7jTlNQw2ZS-2Dq-ycIqmYIg_wobooic93UFolEASqZEoWNk7FZIDdwgNPW0EPOLC21S7J9C6VzfGhjHkAOP9y_NrkGkcL2UWJ0jbWTs" width="160" /></a></div><br />Her web page: <a href="https://www.petfinder.com/dog/louise-bonded-w-thelma-50910700/ny/new-york/miracles-for-satos-rescue-ny1518/">https://www.petfinder.com/dog/louise-bonded-w-thelma-50910700/ny/new-york/miracles-for-satos-rescue-ny1518/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">The shelter staff mention that these are good-sized, energetic dogs looking for an active, even athletic human to run with. That's the main reason why some dogs get into shelters but it's a valid reason why some people adopt them. Maybe it's the idea of bringing the dog <i>all the way from Puerto Rico </i>that's putting people off. So, maybe a web site that's read in the Southeastern States can help. Maybe readers in Florida can get a discount on transportation fees for a pair of lovable, cuddly, sterilized she-hounds. (Thelma is not as pretty as Louise, but they say she's a dear girl too.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Valentina, the tough little Rat Terrier, may have been adopted.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Dolly from Peachtree City, Georgia, is still seeking a home. Shelter staff still haven't taken a new photo of her or put any further information about her on her web page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLCuSY6x_p7zxS4mr1C4SzK1uu9xmukP8uwrXsDawLyV_DzUNslKmkMNNy4MgEsyrvPHMcntS9mXc1l2A-kIXgBOZKS0BeM5hr32HkXNbytBzAYGUeegiSIcQ4jCfR03elgdWJiCbDDmDXJ0gpYcSX5hQDCbzodCz2mYhiRz3SuSwyKD7RJK9x06JJ" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="480" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjLCuSY6x_p7zxS4mr1C4SzK1uu9xmukP8uwrXsDawLyV_DzUNslKmkMNNy4MgEsyrvPHMcntS9mXc1l2A-kIXgBOZKS0BeM5hr32HkXNbytBzAYGUeegiSIcQ4jCfR03elgdWJiCbDDmDXJ0gpYcSX5hQDCbzodCz2mYhiRz3SuSwyKD7RJK9x06JJ" width="240" /></a></div><br />Her almost empty web page: <a href="https://www.petfinder.com/dog/dolly-64171916/ga/peachtree-city/cocos-cupboard-ga787/">https://www.petfinder.com/dog/dolly-64171916/ga/peachtree-city/cocos-cupboard-ga787/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">You can do this, Gentle Readers! Share these photos everywhere and see if we can't Picture Them Homes. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-2306127219453382532024-03-11T09:00:00.000-04:002024-03-11T09:00:00.135-04:00Book Review: Saving Her Fake Fiance<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>Saving Her Fake Fiance </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Betsy Hayes</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2023</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Betsy Hayes</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "He's been unconscious for a long time, which can have...a risk of short-term amnesia."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">He's got short-term amnesia all right. His father's not sympathetic to illness, his jealous brother is the one who caused his concussion, and he's living with a gorgeous blonde who says she's only his fake fiancee and she's not supposed to tell him anything because that might interfere with his recovering his own memories. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There are only 51 e-pages in this "sweet romance," formatted as one chapter, with the clear hint of a full-length novel forthcoming. I acquired my copy in the Booktober Blitz. It's possible that the full-length novel is available by now. How do you feel about the practice of sending out the beginnings of full-length books as e-books? </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-73243520529209185372024-03-11T08:30:00.001-04:002024-03-11T08:30:00.152-04:00Butterfly of the Week: Chinese Three-Tailed Swallowtail<div style="text-align: left;"><i>Bhutanitis thaidina </i>comes last, alphabetically, of the four species of <i>Bhutnnitis</i>. (Some sources count more than four species but most scientists classify the additional types as subspecies of <i>thaidina</i>.) Historically it came first. Though not common or easy to find, it was less rare and hard to find than the others. Its name recalls a character from ancient literature, Thais, a legendary beauty. Did Thais ever have a daughter? Anyway, another butterfly was named <i>thais </i>so this one was <i>thaidina</i>, a Roman-style name for Thais' Daughter.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Here is a long rambling paper, written for an audience who liked detailed travel stories, about the butterflies, their habitat, and how they got their name. (In French.) The reprint that made it into the book photocopied here is believed to be the first non-Chinese article written about these butterflies.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://archive.org/details/comptesrendusheb72acad/page/807/mode/1up?view=theater">https://archive.org/details/comptesrendusheb72acad/page/807/mode/1up?view=theater</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_NV3ERGfbEsWM2M2SgldmVsIeQXX3yZPbZY8umD37ASup_Xx6byeCH2XQHU2q5ul3vXJKHhxbr0BFW353fCSTMxNUr1khf6se1-60ePPNXz5YVvJXa2q5OI3GUzn2fhAD8I7Z_F2fupqqN071QLNFYBGQv1S6E8HpFPtzOuKWZFUDJSh3dJBA0Rb5/s1620/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1440" data-original-width="1620" height="284" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_NV3ERGfbEsWM2M2SgldmVsIeQXX3yZPbZY8umD37ASup_Xx6byeCH2XQHU2q5ul3vXJKHhxbr0BFW353fCSTMxNUr1khf6se1-60ePPNXz5YVvJXa2q5OI3GUzn2fhAD8I7Z_F2fupqqN071QLNFYBGQv1S6E8HpFPtzOuKWZFUDJSh3dJBA0Rb5/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br />Photo from Earth Unreal, documenting that, though rare, <i>thaidina </i>can be locally abundant at the right place and time. And, when they are, they congregate at puddles. Though not really endangered, their populations are scattered and localized enough to be always at some risk.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">A few other species in this genus have been named and determined to be subspecies of <i>thaidina</i>. Full information about each subspecies was not available, at least not in English. These butterflies live at a minimum altitude of a mile above sea level, so they've not been as exhaustively studied as other showy, popular Swallowtails.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's been celebrated on a postage stamp:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFQPb1uB3HdDTtJSHqkQ0VRwDocfCzWUeBoxVS_96h7gknnXR89epoY7JRYVDBSjZA9LVGxTsUywxtxwl7QjOXbvf0qONJzY3UeuHC3lSOSxNhzd3v_JH9afN4wvhp8F5Ehty_sss9ySesPVoAs99nHSCYnndZxXTJ4SpO_eutkL6GgZBRh7f78c3g" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="250" data-original-width="173" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiFQPb1uB3HdDTtJSHqkQ0VRwDocfCzWUeBoxVS_96h7gknnXR89epoY7JRYVDBSjZA9LVGxTsUywxtxwl7QjOXbvf0qONJzY3UeuHC3lSOSxNhzd3v_JH9afN4wvhp8F5Ehty_sss9ySesPVoAs99nHSCYnndZxXTJ4SpO_eutkL6GgZBRh7f78c3g" width="166" /></a></div><br />Photo from touchstamps.com.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Studying butterfly behavior is fun. Some lucky scientists got funding for a three-year study of how and why wildlife population estimates tend to be wrong.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://hds.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/pierce/files/wang_bhutanitis_2022.pdf?m=1668273207">https://hds.harvard.edu/sites/hwpi.harvard.edu/files/pierce/files/wang_bhutanitis_2022.pdf?m=1668273207</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is also the fascinating (at least, when taking an interest in it means spending months or years in the mountains rather than at school in a polluted city) question of why <i>thaidina </i>forms a vestigial sphragis after mating. The female butterfly has a passage through which the spermatophore gets inside and one through which the eggs get outside. The sphragis forms when butterfly body secretions dry on the outer surface after mating, apparently holding the spermatophore in and preventing other spermatophores from being admitted. It incorporates loose scales and hairs from the male butterfly, presumably adding a whiff of his scent to the female's scent. However, with time and determination, a couple of butterflies can use fresh, wet body secretions to dissolve an old sphragis, transfer a second spermatophore from male to female, and form a new sphragis. The sphragis is sometimes described as a "chastity belt," but, like those devices, it prevents only hasty or unplanned "unchastity." </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Both male and female butterflies release most of their viable reproductive cells the first time they mate. Their lives are short and uncertain; many, probably most, have only one opportunity to mate, so there would be little survival advantage in saving viable reproductive cells for later, as longer-lived animal bodies do. Both male and female butterflies instinctively seek mates who have not mated before. In some species it's possible even for humans to tell which individual butterflies have mated; a sphragis is one of the indicators we can see, though butterflies seem likely to rely on scent. The sphragis does not need to make second or third matings impossible if its function is to make it obvious that a female has mated before. Most males will keep looking for a female without a sphragis, thus ensuring maximal DNA dispersal.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So <i>thaidina</i>, and also <i>Bhutanitis lidderdalei</i> and <i>ludlowi</i>, when examined closely, show a small inconspicuous dot of a sphragis that often fails to cover the sperm passage. Nature's design in their case seems to be not to discourage second matings, but to give male butterflies fair warning. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In 2021 a <i>thaidina </i>family was successfully reared in captivity: One female butterfly laid 36 eggs, which produced 25 caterpillars, which yielded 9 pupae, from which emerged 3 butterflies, which is a typical rate of reproductive success for butterflies. It was headline news!</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-07/17/c_1310067556.htm">http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-07/17/c_1310067556.htm</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">In addition to their generous supply of "tails" on the hind wings, and their barely discernible sphragides, another feature these butterflies have in common with other <i>Bhutanitis </i>species is--literally--hairy eyeballs:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL6ywYOqy563G11zgxgUjeQrJMLZRkxzzWKFpWTbpbF4zTiN9ks0uI4-HqNODKco-YzBvsGDfnaPwQN1GgItrIfntvSNDOiTMBwhZizj0n1PBqmCJEY2v1pTswl6UNT7-_JQNCb_tU-Qsn7mAhkRy483Cd9M61LAyE9qvNvY0MhcQ4Nl43TcjFg2iB" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="666" data-original-width="1000" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgL6ywYOqy563G11zgxgUjeQrJMLZRkxzzWKFpWTbpbF4zTiN9ks0uI4-HqNODKco-YzBvsGDfnaPwQN1GgItrIfntvSNDOiTMBwhZizj0n1PBqmCJEY2v1pTswl6UNT7-_JQNCb_tU-Qsn7mAhkRy483Cd9M61LAyE9qvNvY0MhcQ4Nl43TcjFg2iB" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo by LC Goh. Surface scales all over these butterflies' bodies extend into hairs. The eyes are actually compound, with room for hairs to grow between the ocelli that make up each big black eye. Like the smaller mountain Swallowtails in Europe, these butterflies' bodies look furry at close range. The hairs probably provide some insulation against heat and cold. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">As with other <i>Bhutanitis</i>, the upper surface is usually colorful while the underside of the wings is pale and reflective. Even on the upper surface, however, the red and yellow color can fade.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIn5FoEXhGbk-c7NahP_zz6u1-H3asUty4gSuQkcntusX49GM0NDGTm5t3_bCLFEL6RAVgb5XZzYvfmlsHrXfy1Xm9mhrVmGyrd7uE9BkUYwJQCBTEjEUqJakkeD7kFkajCCkCHuYubq2aK7_sc3onISRuL0wh6_MUPU2_HP8BEEf0otqI-G7MCnCz" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="500" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhIn5FoEXhGbk-c7NahP_zz6u1-H3asUty4gSuQkcntusX49GM0NDGTm5t3_bCLFEL6RAVgb5XZzYvfmlsHrXfy1Xm9mhrVmGyrd7uE9BkUYwJQCBTEjEUqJakkeD7kFkajCCkCHuYubq2aK7_sc3onISRuL0wh6_MUPU2_HP8BEEf0otqI-G7MCnCz" width="320" /></a></div><br />Photo by Geilsloi.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Caterpillars are vulnerable. (This is news? All caterpillars are vulnerable.) Though they eat a species of<i> Aristolochia </i>and are toxic to birds, they're still vulnerable to ants and spiders that tolerate their toxicity. They seem to do best in open glades where they receive some shade and insulation from large trees overhead, with relatively few lower shrubs. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Obviously Chinese lepidopterists know what the early stages of these butterflies look like, but neither photos nor descriptions in English for the early life stages are available online. European naturalists did not describe any conspicuous differences between early stages of <i>thaidina </i>and the other species, so they probably look similar, as do the adult butterflies. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-83333594424167514302024-03-10T12:00:00.001-04:002024-03-10T12:00:00.136-04:00Link Log for 3.8-9.24<div style="text-align: left;"><b>Birds </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f6U_E5Hya3kHjzVutW3HAR7lR5DKghRbMyQyS8CCXb1goByfWHpIZ-LCDP4djzPyKkfCxmgjGVVVl4vN5wgnI6iMfjciG36Ulnwv9vj5dGszBtdbfD26aWkRqd5nI3cF-RVSY2Cbh7vJybTGRcglKsgM7IyTpgeFVX-GsyAQAkXnwRTDwpuFD35i/s768/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="768" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1f6U_E5Hya3kHjzVutW3HAR7lR5DKghRbMyQyS8CCXb1goByfWHpIZ-LCDP4djzPyKkfCxmgjGVVVl4vN5wgnI6iMfjciG36Ulnwv9vj5dGszBtdbfD26aWkRqd5nI3cF-RVSY2Cbh7vJybTGRcglKsgM7IyTpgeFVX-GsyAQAkXnwRTDwpuFD35i/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />I wanted to link directly to TheViewFromLadyLake.blogspot.com, but both the direct link to the post and the caption on this owl photo contan words that violate this Blogspot's contract. So here is the great horned owl, prepared to defend her nest with a mean little hooked beak that could probably destroy most cameras. Fortunately nobody <i>wants </i>to molest her eggs or young.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Glyphosate Awareness </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Beautiful meme...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhGdqtMjwlygFJaIab1fVIA_P5lP_AsVyIOf3t0mIZsIHryNArNYQ23TyiFv7_4UEHVgOZW5chCtrPOtTdSx7x3Hu-bbVVL_H2KkvkTPHGsKRGxqRYmmIt9_nsYYmKS7nYE2iij64QUNwPHJaas6ckCsF8UZcSDASv-NGcSX4_LdDRM2f2CdjDYPf/s640/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="640" height="298" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGhGdqtMjwlygFJaIab1fVIA_P5lP_AsVyIOf3t0mIZsIHryNArNYQ23TyiFv7_4UEHVgOZW5chCtrPOtTdSx7x3Hu-bbVVL_H2KkvkTPHGsKRGxqRYmmIt9_nsYYmKS7nYE2iij64QUNwPHJaas6ckCsF8UZcSDASv-NGcSX4_LdDRM2f2CdjDYPf/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />...shared by Pbird Refusenik, who also found some good Tom Petty songs for a movement that has to be led by the grandparent generation...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvlTJrNJ5lA</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKenyYBCjQ">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YCKenyYBCjQ</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Do we need a playlist? Songs do not have to mention glyphosate, pesticides, or Monsanto to embody the spirit of the movement...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Politics </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfwU43d1vMLdVXkAR7FOsGm3f-d7RvYRMiZ2VEc5P60a08ggSOv3BJrBPelIKpzLOjrh0s4LdV39YFmp6DW3dFTp99AXjup9DyIWpSDSXW5RGLzcJICaMlXB6-6s4S2v_DxgfBSUk46aPcamSvpVSA2tuvdlE4abyuF3N9o6jDjSv0qXeyVHb-Ck--" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="570" data-original-width="600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgfwU43d1vMLdVXkAR7FOsGm3f-d7RvYRMiZ2VEc5P60a08ggSOv3BJrBPelIKpzLOjrh0s4LdV39YFmp6DW3dFTp99AXjup9DyIWpSDSXW5RGLzcJICaMlXB6-6s4S2v_DxgfBSUk46aPcamSvpVSA2tuvdlE4abyuF3N9o6jDjSv0qXeyVHb-Ck--" width="253" /></a></div><br />Also from TheViewFromLadyLake, where the headline that would be linked would violate this web site's contract. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Short Story </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://jaerose-jaerose.blogspot.com/2009/09/cheese.html">https://jaerose-jaerose.blogspot.com/2009/09/cheese.html</a></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-9302151391774768522024-03-10T09:00:00.001-04:002024-03-10T09:00:00.130-04:00New Book Review: Bluebonnet Cowgirl<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>Bluebonnet Cowgirl </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Brooks Wright</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Date: 2023 </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "She was dirty, sweating, and probably looked more like a homeless person than the rodeo star she'd been."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">An on-the-job injury can be a real job jinx these days. When Shelby, the barrel-racing champion, comes out of the hospital, her valuables have been stolen and she's not welcome with that rodeo outfit--or likely to be with any other. She still has her truck, but it's old and breaks down. That is how a very nice Christian police officer, the sheriff himself actually, comes to find her trudging into town to find a tow truck and repair shop the oldfashioned way. Sheriff Luke just happens to live on a ranch, with a sister who raises Quarter Horses, so he offers Shelby a job and a place to stay. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">There is, of course, a mutual attraction, but because this is a sweet <i>Christian </i>romance, Luke won't admit it in so many words until Shelby has become a Christian too. As a bonus treat readers are invited to a wedding that might be unachievable in real life, but works in fiction. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">If you're looking for a sweet romance with a spiritual dimension, <i>and </i>a certain sense of not-quite-comedy-but-fun, <i>and </i>Texas Bluebonnets in it, this book's for you. </div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-37927239483546356642024-03-08T14:04:00.000-05:002024-03-08T14:04:18.079-05:00Friday's Bad Poetry: Your New Fashion Fad, the Cotton Tabard Sweater<div style="text-align: left;">(Notes below.)</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Since every knitter always ought</div><div style="text-align: left;">to own the perfect sweater,</div><div style="text-align: left;">I thought about some ways to knit</div><div style="text-align: left;">a sweater that was better</div><div style="text-align: left;">than those I've worn in other years.</div><div style="text-align: left;">This one's for growing old</div><div style="text-align: left;">and sweating out a fever in </div><div style="text-align: left;">a room that might feel cold</div><div style="text-align: left;">or really be cold, as I grow</div><div style="text-align: left;">more stubborn, each year older,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and seek to lower heating bills</div><div style="text-align: left;">by leaving the house colder.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Well. If you want to read or knit</div><div style="text-align: left;">while ice forms on your drink</div><div style="text-align: left;">and say "Of course I'm cozy in</div><div style="text-align: left;">my hand knit! What d'you think?"</div><div style="text-align: left;">then pull down vanity about</div><div style="text-align: left;">yarn that began as oil</div><div style="text-align: left;">and wear Red Heart acrylic, for</div><div style="text-align: left;">all weather it can foil..</div><div style="text-align: left;">But when you want to show a bit</div><div style="text-align: left;">of fashion sense remaining,</div><div style="text-align: left;">then choose a cozy cotton knit</div><div style="text-align: left;">requiring less explaining.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Being worked from side to side, it forms</div><div style="text-align: left;">stripes subtly up and down,</div><div style="text-align: left;">or they can be less subtly worked,</div><div style="text-align: left;">bright, cheerful as a clown.</div><div style="text-align: left;">And it can have a hood, a cowl,</div><div style="text-align: left;">or open boatneck top</div><div style="text-align: left;">for those who tend to overheat</div><div style="text-align: left;">and out of it will pop.</div><div style="text-align: left;">And seams are laced instead of sewn</div><div style="text-align: left;">so that you can decide</div><div style="text-align: left;">each time you put it on, how much</div><div style="text-align: left;">stays open at the side.</div><div style="text-align: left;">And front and back don't have to match</div><div style="text-align: left;">so it can form a blanket</div><div style="text-align: left;">down front alone, or back alone,</div><div style="text-align: left;">without a need to yank it</div><div style="text-align: left;">up on the other side. And it</div><div style="text-align: left;">can form a trendy, arty</div><div style="text-align: left;">diagonal line at waist and hip</div><div style="text-align: left;">if you think that looks smarty</div><div style="text-align: left;">or leaves space for a purse, a pocket,</div><div style="text-align: left;">a tv-remote,</div><div style="text-align: left;">a wheelchair brake, a service bell,</div><div style="text-align: left;">whatever floats your boat.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Mine is designed for typing even</div><div style="text-align: left;">if screen porch grows ice,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and having put it on, I thought,</div><div style="text-align: left;">"Though I knit nothing twice,</div><div style="text-align: left;">the 'sampler stitch stripes' could go on</div><div style="text-align: left;">for years without repeating,</div><div style="text-align: left;">and all who <i>sit</i>, at work, in bed,</div><div style="text-align: left;">one of them will be needing.</div><div style="text-align: left;">Oh, that was an imperfect rhyme!</div><div style="text-align: left;">My verse trademark is "Bad,"</div><div style="text-align: left;">so I'll compound my lit'ry crime</div><div style="text-align: left;">and publish this--an <i>ad!"<br /></i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div>Because my muse is snarky, it was hard to decide whom to add to the list of Bad Poetry I've already written about people who've influenced my life. I didn't particularly like the "Papa Don't Preach" one last year. I did like the one about my fourth grade math teacher, "Ode to Mr. Ed. --." </div><div><br /></div><div><a href="https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/02/educational-poem-ode-to-mr-ed.html">https://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2018/02/educational-poem-ode-to-mr-ed.html</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>So maybe posting that link will get it off my mind and I'll think of another one. Anyway, a poem about sensuous clothing is right up a knitter's alley, especially this winter as I've been designing and knitting the prototype Tabard Sweater. There ought to be a picture of it but I don't have even a bad digital camera...woe, wail...maybe I can knit and sell enough of these sweaters to buy one...</div><div><br /></div><div>The poem jingled out naturally to about 350 words, Putting notes above the poem, I've been warned, messes up the word counter at the <a href="https://poetsandstorytellersunited.blogspot.com/2024/03/friday-writings-117-sensual-clothing.html">Poets & Storytellers United </a>web site. This Blogspot page doesn't even <i>have </i>a word counter. Anyway, to stay inside the official word limit, I moved the notes to the bottom.</div><div><br /></div><div>They cost $40 for a short shrug or bed jacket style, $60 for a tunic style, or $80 for a robe style, or half the price indicated if you already have the yarn. If I buy the yarn, acrylic is cheaper and other natural fibres are more expensive. If you have the yarn, the cost of knitting is the same--a little higher for lightweight yarn. Each tabard will be unique.</div></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-36819395912221677632024-03-08T12:00:00.001-05:002024-03-08T12:31:08.494-05:00Link Log for 3.7.24<div style="text-align: left;">Another short one...</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Animals </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: left;">Sussex, England, apparently had more Thaw than February too. Spring moth pictures to prove it:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2024/03/some-butterflies-and-moths-during.html">https://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2024/03/some-butterflies-and-moths-during.html</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><b>Censorship </b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-weight: bold; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3E9LpizJV9fHaxjAn5lmYwm9ef3_D44n8_YWFQHY-g2f6IyDcrwulGEx5yl32uadqjjwHToEoorH0aeGUtWqJZS9ywCFfdIReQ5om8Exo28watQRQKzqL4fN3TDdRo46K9-YgcgkBDG3ZVPlKg0hdCq52apgJnkDQ0oAhzQUmGFEUIBy6XCPUOaI1/s600/image.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="600" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3E9LpizJV9fHaxjAn5lmYwm9ef3_D44n8_YWFQHY-g2f6IyDcrwulGEx5yl32uadqjjwHToEoorH0aeGUtWqJZS9ywCFfdIReQ5om8Exo28watQRQKzqL4fN3TDdRo46K9-YgcgkBDG3ZVPlKg0hdCq52apgJnkDQ0oAhzQUmGFEUIBy6XCPUOaI1/s320/image.png" width="320" /></a></div><br />Is that not the coolest hoodie in America? I'm no fan of large-scale "marches on Washington" where, if there's enough of a turnout to be noticed, that's enough to be a major nuisance to people living and working in Washington, but I do like the shirt. There are other shirt styles and hats to match, too:</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://childrenshealthdefense.org/product/unisex-heavy-blend-zip-hoodie/">https://childrenshealthdefense.org/product/unisex-heavy-blend-zip-hoodie/</a></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3153496653575690273.post-62097734845499372472024-03-08T09:00:00.002-05:002024-03-08T09:00:00.127-05:00Book Review: Never Trust the Rain<div style="text-align: left;">Title: <i>Never Trust the Rain </i></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Author: Laura D. Bastian</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Publisher: Laura D. Bastian</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Quote: "He didn't know how much time Chris and Jessie would need, and he had to keep her busy until after the baby came."</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">It's the ultimate pretty-face job. Not quite a professional "escort," Duncan is the guy people ask to guide their visitors around Edinburgh when they're not doing it themselves. This means, of course, that he's too handsome and popular for Ami to take her attraction to him seriously. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">So Ami doesn't try too hard to attract Duncan. They can just relax and enjoy seeing the sights when Ami's not actually helping her sister with the new baby. As so often happens when people try just hanging out and being friends instead of trying to rush into "love," they find themselves enjoying each other's company more than that of anyone else either of them has ever dated. But is that <i>only </i>because they've tried being friends first? Can long-distance romance work? Should either of them consider immigrating to a different country so they can be together? </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Is this a Christian Romance? I'm not sure...characters do refer to God where, if they were Jewish, they'd be more likely to refer more "modestly" to life, love, or providence, and Duncan does invite Ami to go with him to a friend's wedding, which is unconventional but still presided over by a minister. No moralizing, though. Just a simple Sweet Romance where two twenty-somethings give an attraction time to build up, as it does in real life, at the pace that's realistic for many women of any religious tradition or none. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Women can, of course, decide at first glance whether a man looks handsome or not. But, as Ami keeps reminding herself in this book, women don't necessarily want a man whose looks and popularity might turn out to be more of a liability than an asset. Who wants to watch other women throwing themselves at her date? An ordinary-looking man might react to a woman in a way that's far more attractive than a mere accident of physical conformation. How interested in <i>us </i>a man looks to be, especially after realizing that we don't flop into bed on the first date, is a much bigger part of his attractiveness than a mere photograph could capture. So, instinctively and automatically and without any conscious effort, many--perhaps most--of us don't start to feel a strong physical attraction to one man more than others the first half-dozen, or dozen, or hundred times we see him. There are a lot of bodies in the world. The way a man behaves toward us, over time, is what makes him attractive. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">This pattern of feeling (and behavior) is common to women around the world, and frequently develops with a little life experience even in girls who formed intense "first crush" reactions to boys who weren't pursuing them. Most religious traditions encourage caution about acting on physical attractions, but women's tendency to wait and see how men behave toward us is instinctive, not produced by religious teaching. If we kept a level head about the fact that we felt attracted to these boys, and waited for them to notice and pursue us, and noticed instead that they were asking other girls for dates or just acting so silly and juvenile as to squelch our attractions, as high school boys so often do...each month's secret attraction felt less intense until we reached a stage of maturity where our emotional feelings just naturally waited to be evoked by the way men pursued us. It's part of our sexual identities. It is not to be confused with asexuality, in which blood hormone levels physically don't produce the biochemical reactions associated with physical attraction, at all, ever, for anybody. Women for whom physical attractions develop slowly often, like Ami in this short novel, feel a general interest in sex and motherhood. Around the midpoint of their hormone cycles this interest may feel quite intense, but still, attractions to one man more than others take time to form.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Nothing kills this slow-building, stable attraction that allows women to be monogamous faster than a man's rushing ahead to ask "Do you want me? Answer yes or no!" Phew. Even Jim Reeves' "velvet" voice couldn't make that kind of question less fatal. The answer is <i>always </i>no, because the question was asked too soon. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">When the question is not asked too soon, as in this novel, the answer may depend on other factors besides hormones. For a considerable part of this novel Ami knows she's attracted to Duncan but doubts his willingness to commit to the monogamous marriage she wants. It's a Sweet Romance, so according to the current rules for the genre he'll have to find a way to convince her before the last page, but this couple will spend a lot of time enjoying the special pleasure of a frustrated attraction. Which makes this book a good choice for women who want to remember what having to wait felt like. </div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;">Some may feel that I should have saved this review for a Sunday. I just don't feel that way. Neither "Christian" nor "Presbyterian," which is the default affiliation for Scots, appears in the text. The characters probably are Presbyterians but they don't <i>talk </i>about it. <br /></div>Priscilla Kinghttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02564805564265436613noreply@blogger.com0