Web Log for 1.14.26

Status update--Today the Virginia Legislature opens to discuss bills that plumb new depths of badness under the leadership of a Governor who will insist that at least some bad ones become law. Our national leaders think we've done enough damage in an undeclared war on Somalia that we can afford to have armed Feds chivying Somali immigrants, some of whom show horrible damage from having been born in a war zone, such that any decent person would approach them with more than the usual patience and gentleness, but our Feds are chasing them around on the ice with firearms, to encourage them to go home after some of them thought they'd achieved citizenship, that some part of the US was their home. We have a Somali-American in Congress who ought to have volunteered to persuade her people to go home, who for some reason isn't doing that. (In polite speech it might be "Madame Omar," but her Twittername, or whatever they're now called on X, is @Ilhan or @IlhanMN. Just in case you want to lean on her.) We have a President who thinks the only alternative to letting nasty Nico Maduro destroy Venezuela is for him to take it over and call himself its President, which is a source of shame to many Americans, even to many Trump voters, or anti-Harris voters. We have Microsoft, so far unchecked by federal law, actively sabotaging "older browsers" in the insane idea that this is a way to sell Windows 11. On the weather front we have another cold front rolling in, with potential snow. On the sports scene the U-Tenn Vols are on a losing streak. And Scott Adams just died of cancer, almost but not quite live-on-the-screen, yesterday morning. He literally did one last podcast and then collapsed. I am sooo tired of all this cancer!

Perhaps you, like me, could face your computer this morning only if it brought you a burst of profoundly stupid comedy. Kate at Small Dead Animals rides in to the rescue with a performance of the Canadian national anthem on squeaky toys.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CirrEChyg60

I hope that helped, instead of making you think about the current political situation in...I didn't say it.

Books 

Little Town on the Prairie is my favorite volume in the series.

https://blbooks.blogspot.com/2026/01/5-little-town-on-prairie.html

Gifts, Re-Purposing 

When a gift was too special to re-gift on Boxing Day but you're never going to use it as intended...well, if it happens to be a fabric tote bag, this is a lovely idea.

http://themarthareview.com/tote-bag-pillow/ 

I'm going to pin yarn balls into one, put a few layers of rags and plastic over it, and give it to Serena to have kittens on.

RIP 

First best tribute to Scott Adams from a fellow cartoonist. This is actually the first one I've read from a fellow cartoonist.

https://stiltonsplace.blogspot.com/2026/01/rip-scott-adams.html

(I will have nothing much to add. Apart from the fact that I discovered him in the 1980s, when you couldn't have told me that shopping for things to amuse the sisters was not part of my job so I often spend a couple of hours on malls in the middle of work days, all I know about Scott Adams I've already posted here. Mostly in the link logs.)

Book Review: The Peltedverse Guidebook

Title: The Peltedverse Guidebook

Author: M.C.A. Hogarth

Date: 2025 (there were two earlier editions)

Quote:  "The genesis of the Pelted involved humanity wanting to seed space with friendly aliens."

The Pelted races are bioengineered humans with traits and features from other species spliced in. There are a few dozen races, most elaborations from the original Seersa (fox people) and Karaka'a (cat people) (species chosen at least partly because the author found cartoon fox and cat people fun to draw). They are found in a large, elaborate collection of novels with several series. This book is offered free of charge as a guide for those who want to know what sort of stories the Peltedverse series tell, choose which race they want to identify with, even create role-playing games and interact with one another as Pelted characters. 

A few truly alien species appear in the novels and are described in this book, too. 

If this description appeals to you, you can download The Peltedverse Guidebook free of charge from mcahogarth.org or studiomcah.com. The novels are not free of charge. People who have no personal prejudice against transhumanism in fiction say they're worth their price.

Do We Have Good Places to Eat in Gate City?

Over the weekend someone who'd grown up in Gate City, but lived in a nearby town as an adult, gave me a shock. "Apart from McDonalds Gate City doesn't have anywhere to eat any more, do they, except Taco Bell?"

Well.

As an alternative to McDonalds, in the same shopping plaza, there's that Subway where a sponsor of this web site, long dead, used to take me for lunch and discussions of bill reading strategy. I loved that dear old man in a niecely way, and haven't gone in there often without him. I think Subway is too much a big chain, not willing enough to let people forego the sauce and have more cucumber and tomato in their salad, but they used to do good gluten-free salads. 

Now in my personal opinion, our best restaurant--the all-around winner--is technically outside of town, but it's not in any other town and it gets its mail through Gate City. For quality and variety of food, cleanliness of building, period charm and atmosphere, fairness of prices, and a credible attempt at a Real Salad Bar, you drive briskly through Gate City and keep going west till you come to the Hob Nob diner out on Route 58. They used to grill the meat to your taste and have no problem serving just the meat and the veg on a plate. The menu had a nice selection of sandwiches from hamburgers to ostrich meat, side dishes including chili and corn bread, the salad bar, pie and ice cream and milkshakes, and juice as an alternative to soda pop or water. (They served tap water, but tourists used to think it must have been bottled because our local tap water doesn't taste bad--and has, in fact, been filtered and bottled.) They even hired carhops in summer--cute little teenagers who scampered around the parking lot serving customers in the convenience of their cars. Everything was straight out of the 1950s except the ostrich meat (vintage 1970), salad bar (1980), and, unfortunately, the prices. The prices were contemporary, but reasonable. That was before COVID. I've not actually been there post-COVID. That's a hint.

But if you're not driving and want to eat right in the heart of town, as it might be while you're dealing with the Department of Motor Vehicles, court, or some county office business, there are options.

Long John Silver's Seafood Shop was trendy in the 1970s. Meh. I have fond memories of eating there with a friend, also now dead. He was not much older than I and my feelings toward him were not niecely. That was before I went gluten-free. Just about everything on that chain restaurant's menu could and should have been gluten-free. Nothing, except the drinks, was gluten-free. Can't fix stupid. I've heard the restaurant's gone, or going, out of business. No loss. 

Hardee's...urgh ick...if they hadn't formed a solid clique of people who actually call themselves a club and get free meal tickets in the mail, that place would have died a long time ago. It's been long enough that I can laugh about it now...When I met the man known to this web site as my Significant Other, about twenty years ago, he asked, in the way of small talk, "What do you do?" I said, "I just got back in town and I'm looking for odd jobs." He said, "I can get you jobs...in construction!" It was a dare; he could tell that what I meant by odd jobs were things like teaching, typing, computer-ing, storekeeping, or tour-guiding. I said, "Yer on." So I signed on with a crew who were remodelling a house in Lee County. It was a delightful job. One day, I forget now why we were in Gate City early in the day, I was riding to or from work with the boss. He tried to maintain good relationships with all the other business owners in Gate City; he ate at all the restaurants in turn when he was in town. That day he wanted to eat at Hardee's. So I went in with him, looked at the menu, saw all the versions of meat and bread on it, and asked if they could do a sandwich without the bread, just put the meat and veg on a plate. They did. It wasn't great; it wasn't bad. I thought no more of it but the next time the boss was in Hardee's, he said, the help had said nasty things about being asked to prepare something different from what they always did prepare, by hand. They didn't want me to come back, he said. So then a few weeks later some other friend or relative wanted to use one of those free coupons at Hardee's. I looked at the menu. They were now advertising that they did special gluten-free meals without bread--for twice the price of the same meat and veg in the sandwich. I am not making this up. I seriously recommend that, while walking past Hardee's, all visitors make sure to spit ostentatiously on the pavement. But the place is still there. 

It should probably be required by law: Before opening a restaurant, the owner must demonstrate the ability to cook and serve anything on the menu "free from" any of its regular ingredients. And thank the customer for letting person try. Food bullies should not be allowed even to eat in restaurants.

Taco Bell. What can one say? Taco Bell is writer-friendly; there's actually a literary magazine for people who eat there to use the Internet, the Taco Bell Quarterly. Before glyphosate I liked the food, so now I expect I'd like the food again. Still...it's a big-chain restaurant sitting on the site of a delightful little old house-made-into-a-shop, which I miss. 

You're on Kane Street, passing the Hardee's and Taco Bell, Long John Silver's, Pizza Plus--I'm not sure about the status of Pizza Plus. All they used to offer were combinations of bread and cheese with various meats and vegetables on top. Some of my young relatives liked Pizza Plus and I nibbled on cheese-free bread sticks in there a few times. They had nothing to offer the gluten-free so I can't say I'l miss them if they're gone.

Then you come to a structure that looks like some sort of art, a building-sized concrete sculpture of a big carry-out box--in glen plaid?--with a hot dog, a hamburger, and a box of fries on it. It is an actual building. It's not a restaurant open to the public, but cars roll around it, order fast food on one side, pick up fast food on the other side, and park somewhere nearby while people eat. This is Pal's Restaurant, a locally owned chain. The menu is straight out of the 1950s. The hot dogs, hamburgers, fries, chili, shakes, and sodas are excellent if you like that sort of thing.

If you like that sort of thing but prefer to sit down while you eat it, on the other side of the street is the Campus Drive-In. It's not actually on the high school campus; high schools and colleges were a trendy decorating theme in the 1950s. My opinion is that Pal's and the Hob Nob do 1950s fast food better, but the Campus Drive-In is a local landmark and has its devotees.

Anyway, keep walking; better restaurants are ahead of you. There is a little place that used to be a gas station, on your right, just below the intersection with Jackson Street. They advertise barbecued pork as a specialty. They do other things. I've never gone inside the place but one afternoon, a few years ago, a friend who was a local business booster directed a friend of hers to fill a take-out box with a selection of chicken and vegetable dishes, take it to me, and get a verdict. They passed. 

If you keep walking, on the corner above the intersection of Kane and Jackson Streets you'll see what is now the Maple Tree Cafe. It's a sort of post-COVID makeover of what used to be the Roberts Family Bakery & Cafe where I used to write. If you're in town to meet with your lawyer, and your case does not involve pleading extreme poverty, the Cafe is a good place to have coffee and a snack. The post-COVID influence on the decor started out by building in more healthy distance by having a mini-bookstore in the cafe. Mini-mini...Booksellers are, traditionally, gentlemen and -women. We naturally prefer that you buy books from us but, if another bookseller has a book you want, we'll direct you to per store. 

Across the street is a murky place that attempts to appeal to Northern tourists with an Italian-type name (the place is owned by a woman with an English-type name), dim lighting, and cleaning-fluid-based beverages. For about twenty years those who want to attract more money have been saying that what Gate City needs is a place where alcohol cravers can sit down and drink alcohol with food. I've been saying that we need that almost as badly as we need another episode where a drunk driver runs over a Sunday School picnic. Italian food that requires the look of a Mafia den is probably dreadful. Good Italian food can be enjoyed stone-cold sober in broad daylight.

There is, however, a decent little Mexican place, further up Jackson Street, closer to the courthouse. It's changed hands a few times but I think it's still owned by real Mexicans. Food is cooked fresh, reasonably authentic, with a reasonable range of heat, and sold at quite good prices for that quality of restaurant food. They offer an authentic selection of Mexican cervezas and vinos. 

I, like most people in Gate City, don't really do restaurants. They're not an authentic part of our cultural heritage. Our ancestors raised most of their food on their own farms and cooked and ate it in their own 

homes. When they got tired of their own cooking, they visited friends and relatives and ate food cooked their way. The quality of locally produced food as served by local farmers or their children, even if they use the really old traditional recipes that over-cook, over-salt, and over-grease food, is much, much better than 1950s fast food. So who even needs restaurants, except, as a male client said to me a few years ago, as a place where people of different genders, who are married to other people, can talk at length and everyone can see that all they're doing is talking about business. And of course everyone knows that that tells us nothing about what they do next as they drive off, probably in separate cars, possibly to a motel in Kingsport. And there's a movement in the Baptist church these days for men to practice moral rectitude by not going to lunch alone with women, because of the possibility of going somewhere else after lunch. So we probably don't need any restaurants. 

But we have them. Lots of people like to cook, have been told they could open a restaurant, have opened one, and have found themselves fighting like cornered rats to keep the places open. Surely, they tell themselves, there must be some way to make their dream of earning a living by cooking pay...

So, back in the 1960s, the restaurant owners of then kicked, screamed, clawed, and bit when Route 23 was being rammed through the mountains. It would make it easy for people just to roll on into Kingsport and never shop or eat in Gate City, they wailed. 

(Route 23 is still here. Most of the restaurant owners of then had retired from thirty or forty years of working and saving to open their restaurants, and aren't even remembered any more, though I do remember vividly where the Mill House and Liberty Bell restaurants used to be. When I rented a store space on Jackson Street, in between two later owners' use of it, that store space was where the Mill House used to be. (I had lunch in the Mill House, the first time I ever ate lunch in a restaurant alone, on grade eight's "career day." I don't remember what I ate.) I remember when most of the restaurants that now exist came to town. The Campus Drive-In and the Hob Nob have been around longer than I have. Pal's existed before I was born, in Kingsport, but opened the branches in the giant glen plaid boxes only in the 1980s.)

Then in 1980 the first effort was made to shut down the Friday Market. People were coming to town to trade there and were ignoring the restaurants and the regular stores, the restaurant owners of then screamed. The market was declared closed. People announced a real boycott of Gate City's restaurants and regular stores. The market reopened in time for strawberries to be sold.

Nobody messed with the Friday Market again during the next forty years, but while writing in the Cafe I learned that the restaurant owners still resented it. They wanted something else to be done with the space, something good enough to make people forget the Friday Market. 

Hello? Gate City is a farm and market town. It made an heroic effort to be a factory town, a hundred years ago, and you can still see where one of the factories used to be, but they're all long gone. If and whenever the Friday Market goes, I said, Gate City will become...not quite so much of an historical curiosity as Bray, because we'll still have the courthouse with the adjacent law offices, but similar to Bray. Which is still an interesting place on a tourist's itinerary, but which will never be mistaken for an actual town.

COVID happened. Friday Market traffic dropped. Efforts to recover from COVID began. The Weber City Fire Department, which is technically in a different town but I've never seen a tourist notice the difference, bought a shopping plaza and opened a bigger farm-and-flea market. Friday Market vendors moved. (Except for me, of course. I thought seriously about renting a place in Weber City to store my merchandise, but nobody really seemed to need the money and in any case the people I knew who had suitable places weren't what you could call close to the market, at least not in terms of carrying unsold merchandise after six or eight hours in the sun.) 

The restaurant owners, and "boutique-y" store owners, pounced. Mrs. Roberts, of the Cafe, had gone to a "splash park" in Tennessee with her grandchildren and thought that would be a wonderful way to fill up the space where our own Friday Market belonged. In town council meetings people demanded that a couple of food trucks that had started rolling around town be subjected to extra licensing fees, to make sure they weren't at any possible financial advantage over the restaurant owners. I've even heard wild talk about free drinks or free children's meals being offered to splash park patrons to entice them into our restaurants. 

Well, y'know what? I had already explained to Mrs. Roberts, at length and in detail, why attacking the Friday Market was just wrong, unbefitting a good Carson Republican like herself, and also doomed. I had, meanwhile, been working on other plans. An open-air market is not actually good for books. I think Gate City needs its Friday Market, and will have its Friday Market. I always had thought I, personally, needed a different kind of venue. People had said "If you don't want to take out a loan and make a big investment, just take a few books into Friday Market," and when better alternatives were not available I did, but I never once intended to stay there for long. 

When Mrs. Roberts had bought, and rented to me, the space where the Mill House Restaurant used to be, she said, "You'll find out"...what she meant was why I wouldn't make money there, although as it turned out I did. Now I say to her, "You'll find out." The splash park will be fun for a year or two. It will be little used, since local people don't need to go into town and splash in the same water other people are using when we want to cool off. It will lose money. The expensive gadgets will break down. The town council will end up reopening the Friday Market as one of several steps it will be taking to pay for the splash park. It will all cost me absolutely nothing, and I hope those who will be involved with it will enjoy it.

I think Providence has actually provided them with an opportunity for a safe and salutary learning experience, while most of the people who were earning significant parts of their incomes in the Friday Market have an opportunity to work in a bigger market with more traffic.

But if the splash park won't boost Gate City's restaurants very far, what will?

"Try to keep the customers they've got," the out-of-towner said. "That convenience store" (that we had passed) "is next to where the power company's headquarters used to be. In the morning you used to see all the company trucks stop at that store while the men went in for coffee. Now, of course, APCo has moved their headquarters to Kingsport. But those men don't stop there any more for coffee even when they're in town."

"They can get coffee closer to their headquarters in Kingsport?" I guessed.

"They go to a gas station in Weber City. Because X never liked cleaning the bathrooms. When the COVID mess started, she was the first to ask, 'Can we close the bathrooms?' They kept the bathrooms open but X wanted to keep them locked in the morning and make people ask for a key. Wanted to lock them up, a few hours ahead of closing time, after the last cleaning and not give people the key. I've seen her not let old people who could hardly walk, even after they had walked all the way to the bathroom and then back to the counter, into the bathrooms. Well, maybe they would have left a mess in the bathroom. Maybe they went out and made a mess in the parking lot. And you know they would not come back. Probably not come back to other places in Gate City, either."

"I have never minded asking for a restroom key," I said, "but I know some people do."

"Those linemen wouldn't ask a young lady about anything like that. And what they do, first thing in the morning, is go to the bathroom, wash their hands, then get their coffee and snacks for breakfast. So X just got rid of them, and who knows how many other customers. Now she complains because traffic is slowing down at the store."

"That is not the only problem that store has," I observed. "Maybe they needed to do some remodelling, but they went too far. They've tried to become 'upscale.' A convenience store is by nature downscale, and I don't see anybody actually buying the fancy snacks they have put in place of the old favorite junk food people looked for. I don't see people paying the 20 to 50 percent surcharge they've put on to all the old favorite convenience things they still sell, either." 

We got into quite a discussion of things some stores and restaurants in Gate City could try if they wanted to keep the customers they have.

1. Always have a restroom open to the public. Unless there is a specific temporary need to keep undesirable persons out of the restroom, let it be locked only when it's in use.

2. If you want to be a storekeeper, you have to sweep and mop the floor all day because people are too lazy to wipe their feet, and clean the bathroom when men leave spots on the seat and/or the floor, and put things back on the shelves where slobs fail to put them back in their places, AND say "Thank you, Sir" and "Thank you, Ma'am" whenever people pay for things. Deal with it. 

3. Absolutely no gossip. People drive to Kingsport to buy things even when the same things are available at a better price in Gate City, just to avoid seeing people who they know will gossip about them after they've left the store. 

4. Respect and appreciate all the customers--especially the ones who are poor, or old, or confused, or funny-looking. Some of these businesses have employees who've talked back to me because I'm not rich or because I walked into town rather than driving. B'y h...I can at least give them what they've paid for. Some people can't. What store employees need to know is that comfortably retired gentlemen like this former resident of our town, and arguably overeducated idle writers like myself, and our rich friends from the city, also notice things like, say, a certain bleach-blonde Lee County wench calling one of my former teachers, who happened to have grown old while Black, "honey" instead of "Ma'am." We notice. And we want to pull every yellow hair out of your head by its black or white roots. And we for sure do not want to support your store. That kind of thing has in fact been mentioned when I've asked rich friends from Washington to visit Gate City and they've declined.

You see somebody wandering around like a person who needs thick glasses and has misplaced the said glasses, muttering to himself, bumping into things, obviously no more aware that the prison pants fad is over than that it ever existed, but just not fitting into his clothes in the normal way, and finally stumbling into the bathroom, just too late by the look and smell of things...his name is "Sir" to you. And you thank him when he pays for a cup of coffee. And you shut your wretched yap-hole after he leaves, and keep it shut during and after the thorough cleaning the bathroom requires. Because in a place like Gate City you know that that wretched creature is somebody's grandfather, and he probably used to be a teacher or fire fighter or some such thing, too. Extreme respect.

5. In theory it's nice if you happen to "like" a customer. In reality it's not appropriate. The United States is a democratic republic where you, the store employee,  are considered the social equal of anyone else who is working for the minimum hourly wage at your age. At school you can sit beside people who have professional skills and own their own businesses. In social settings you can eat or play sports or watch birds with people who may even be rich. Your job, however, is not a social setting. On your job you need to focus on your work and not waste mental energy on emotional feelings about customers. Some customers, myself for one, don't want to receive special favors or attentions in a place of business. The ideal is not that you "like" customers, but that you wait on all customers, whether you "like" them or not, with equal honesty and civility. 

6. So, don't bother your head about who is buying what and why and for whom. If you think a product is bad, which is what I think about cleaning-fluid-based beverages, you shouldn't sell it. If you sell it, don't ask questions about people who are trying to help your business by buying it.

7. If you don't have wheelchair-using customers, hire a wheelchair consultant to show you why, and fix the problem right away. Wheelchair users should be able to understand that older stores have oldfashioned charm that should not be lost, even when it involves stairs...and store employees should be working to equalize the situation. If your store has lovely historic staircases and some of your customers love shopping on the upstairs and downstairs levels, for example, you might make those levels virtually available to wheelchair users via videos they can watch on the street level, sending you up or down to bring out whatever interests them for inspection.

8. Discrimination is not your friend. We are not a big enough town that anyone should even want to start excluding anyone else. "Oh, but isn't it nice to keep a store or a row or a whole neighborhood 'upscale' so that nobody really minds paying a little more...?" No. It is not. The nature of a business does tend to attract some types of people more than others. Bookstores don't attract a lot of coal miners but a good bookstore should be a place where a determined coal miner can educate himself to qualify for a different kind of job. A good hardware store should be a place where a rich lady feels secure enough to walk in and ask for PVC pipe, or a plumber's tool, or a plumber.  And a good town is walkable enough that, if people ride into town in a car and need to leave that car at the mechanic's garage for a few hours, they can still visit all the little "boutique" shops they wanted to visit.

9. Asking for protection from competing entrepreneurs is an indication that you don't deserve it. From the downtown merchants who feared competition from the Friday Market I heard, "But an open-air market attracts a different kind of people...they don't walk around town..." This is false. I worked the Friday Market, and I know. People buy food from a food truck rather than a big-chain restaurant because they don't like the big chains. They buy food from a food truck rather than a real, locally owned restaurant because the food truck owner has made sure to offer better deals on something or other. If you panic, "That food truck is going to destroy my business," you're locking into refusal to meet your customers where they are and offer them an equally good deal, so you can't keep a loyal customer base and probably won't keep a business. Getting rid of a modest, friendly, lovable Mennonite bakery truck will attract the attention of an unscrupulous foreign-owned ethnic restaurant chain, which will bury you. If you accept your restaurant's limitations and offer good deals on good food, on the other hand, you'll keep a loyal customer base. The food truck will take a few sales because it's offering something new and different, but then after a while your customers will want to see you and eat your food again. The food truck will probably build up a route that brings it here only weekly, or fortnightly, so there'll be business for all. 

10. No matter how righteous you feel about losing a customer, the bottom line is that Gate City loses customers because too many of us would rather feel righteous about losing customers than try to see their point of view and keep customers. Any customer you lose has relatives. Even if those relatives see your point of view at the time, they'll see the ex-customer's point of view, too. A lot of people stopped eating at Hardee's after that little display of stupidity on the menu. If you want customers, instead of going into ego defense mode about a request that you do something differently, take pride in being able to accommodate every customer's tastes or needs. Find topics other than religion or politics to talk about with people who disagree with you, too. And make peace with the grandchildren of your least favorite primary school teacher.

Web Log for 1.13.26

Christian 

Did you know there was a Hutterite Youtube channel? 

https://www.youtube.com/@gisellewaldner9406/

Meanwhile, some local people who don't know what fascism is but have heard that it's a bad thing that just-noticeably-less-ignorant people associate with the President have chosen, at least, a positive anti-fascist statement to make, with no input from "Antifa." They are building "Giving Boxes" where people can leave non-perishable grocery store items, food or non-food, that have or have not been classified as ineligible for purchase with SNAP cards. 

It's a lovely idea but, if planning to use these boxes to help handout-dependent friends get the sugary junkfood they like, you may want to make sure they know when to pick up those items. This morning's other news story was that, for the fourth time in three years or some such ridiculous thing, a candy store in Gatlinburg--where tourists are thrilled by the chance to see free-range black bears--was vandalized by a bear. Sugary junkfood also attracts raccoons, rodents, and ants. And a lot of it melts in warm weather.

Probably a better idea would be to use "Giving Boxes" to offer people the sort of things they see in grocery stores but never have been able to buy with food stamps: soap, toilet paper, paper towels, personal hygiene products, laundry detergent, cleaning products, giftcards, batteries, cables, basic office/school supplies, matches, light bulbs/tubes, magazines, paperback books, dishes and cooking utensils, sewing kits, motor oil, umbrellas, hot-air fans, postage stamps, postcards, infant care supplies...

English 

These rules were taught at my school, but evidently they weren't covered at a lot of schools...

Shared at the Meow. Lens, which has become quite annoying now that some clever little boy insists on showing off his plagiarism-bot's efforts to tell you what you've shown it, says this appeared as a PDF on a site called "Pooh" owned by Cindy Claire Avila. The link to "Pooh" didn't show me this PDF but did show some other printables apparently intended for schools and homeschools to use. If you want to see CCA's current offering of "numbers animals," click:

https://www.scribd.com/document/974071181/pooh

Homicidal Motorists 

In Minneapolis a protester sitting at a car that was pointed right at a federal agent yelled "Drive!" The agent was armed, and shot the protester. 

Sad. 

Probably not what either of them intended.

The agent probably thought, as most people standing in front of motor vehicles think, that human beings don't aim cars at other human beings and start the engines.

The protester probably thought that the agent would instinctively leap out of the way when the car moved.

Unfortunately for the protester, when some people (and rats) are cornered, they fight. Instead of leaping, the agent fired...

And while the protester undoubtedly is missed and some news media want to scream on and on about that, the position of this web site is: Thus be it ever to homicidal motorists. Drive irresponsibly and die!

If you want to prevent recurrences of this unfortunate event, I'd support putting sensors on motor vehicles that activate emergency brakes whenever the vehicles are within a hundred yards of any warm-blooded lifeform, even if it's inside another car. If Renee Good's car hadn't moved, the agent wouldn't have shot her.

Reportedly his legal defense fund has already been set up on GoFundMe and filled by one rich sponsor. I must admit I'm glad. I think the way Trump has chosen to deploy ICE looks very very bad, for the department and for Trump, and can't possibly be the best way to handle the situation...but, in the very bad and messy and icky situation that existed, I think the young man did the right thing. If anything, he was too forbearing. He shot only the horrorcow who was yelling "Drive, baby, drive." He lost the opportunity to shoot the one who was actually driving. 

Introvert Things 

If we weren't an oppressed class, I'd think this kind of story was sweet and charming, too...

https://whatever.scalzi.com/2026/01/09/a-quick-thought-on-nice-moments-with-strangers/

But I really think there's more of a need to affirm all the times when we saw a stranger, or a casual acquaintance, maybe someone we might have met twenty years ago or maybe that was someone else?, anyway, saw them about to turn into the same aisle at the grocery store, so we moved on to the next aisle in order to maintain a healthy distance, and they shared our preference not to waste time on idle chatter and went their way leaving us alone, and that connection through mutual respect made the trip to the store so much better...

Psychology 

According to one of those old stories Freud and Jung found so illuminating, once upon a time, there was a little extrovert who was sent out to watch the sheep of the village. Growing bored, he cried "Wolf! Wolf!" and all the adults rushed out to help him fight the predator. There was no wolf. The adults scolded him and went back to work. About a week later the wretched extrovert grew bored again, and again he cried "Wolf! Wolf!" Again the adults rushed out to help. To the scolding they added spanking,  and the extrovert, feeling his bruises and noting that no bones seemed to be broken yet, realized it was dangerous to cry "Wolf!" when he wanted attention. Nevertheless, winter came on, and one day a real wolf approached the flock. The boy cried "Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! There really is a wolf! Help! Please! Wolf!" The adults, who had agreed that they had done all that spanking could do for him, grimly ignored his cries. The sheep scattered. And the wolf decided to attack the creature that seemed to be making the most noise and least speed...and that is why so few extroverts survived in more primitive environments throughout the ages. Anyway, the moral was that if people receive false messages, they stop listening. 

Not only has this been found true of people; it's been documented in herd animals. Animals can give false alarms just for attention, or to start games, or because they were genuinely alarmed by something that wasn't dangerous. Chicken Little may really have thought the sky was falling down. Chickens are easily scared. But then the other animals learn from the experience of the animal's giving a false alarm that that member of the flock is not a reliable source of information. The next time the panicky chicken or the mischievous crow squawks, the others look at it and carry on with what they're doing. 

I see too many members of the Party of the Burro doing this these days. They emote. They caaaare so much about a situation. It's so hopeless because the President or their Congressman doesn't agree with their idea of the solution. What happens if you feel empathy for these distraught Ds and propose a solution that might work, although it does not involve State or federal government? They're furious! They don't really care about the people in the story they're telling--they only want their party in power! Nothing else can relieve their distress! How dare you suggest any other possibility! How dare you imagine that their emotions were normal human emotions rather than political game-playing!

[Google traces the photo to Instagram and shows that dozens of people have used the same picture with different captions.]

And so I notice myself reacting to the Little Boy Who Cried "Wolf!" effect. That D activist was out demonstrating. Demonstrating what? Stupidity, apparently. When someone has a lethal weapon and is obviously ready to use it, but is not attacking you, and you have a lethal weapon too but you are not a murderer, you try to de-escalate the situation. Nobody needs to kill anybody, you say. If you attack, and the person does not kill you first, then you are a murderer. Renee Good was a homicidal, suicidal fool and deserved what she got. 

A case might be made, by rational nonviolent people, that the melodrama of sending armed ICE men out to "round up" would-be immigrants violently is excessive, likely to cause more violence than, say, simply offering them the amount of money that would be paid to an agent, in cash, as a bonus for voluntarily going home. To that I'd still be sympathetic. I think cash bonuses need to be longer tried and better publicized. I think even giving somebody like Ilhan Omar bonuses for each fellow Somali she repatriates would be better style than having armed men bully and hustle these people.  

But oh, woe, wail, boohoohoohooooo, somebody somewhere misses Renee Good! they wail. Cry me a river, Democratic Socialists of America. Some people miss Charlie Kirk. Some people miss Doug La Malfa (R-CA), who died last week. Some people still miss little Iryna Zarutska. I still miss my mother, who deliberately pursued first pneumonia and then a stroke after learning that her glyphosate reactions were worsening, becoming chronic, because they'd finally developed into liver cancer. I find myself giving neither flip nor hoot about Renee Good. And maybe if youall had at least shown some respect for the losses of people who are missed more than that idiot ever will be, maybe the Internet would show less of a probably unhealthy, but genuine, rejoicing that Renee the Motor Terrorist is gone. One less car...!

The Democratic Party as a whole need to note the lack of empathy for their trumped-up, fakey, hokey grief about Renee Good as an indicator that they've used hyped-up emotion too many times in the past decade, that people who feel normal adult-type empathy are starting to feel cynical and even oppositional when Ds start emoting, and stop trying to manipulate our real emotions with their faked ones. 

RIP

Scott Adams, who really will be missed...I'm glad this morning's post was delayed because I was watching his last podcast and taking the last Simultaneous Sip. Glad I tell you. Some writers wouldn't even bother to post on the day an e-friend died. I'm glad the end came while he was still feeling the "highs" from hospice-type medication, too. 

Book Review: The World's Shortest Stories

Book Review: The World’s Shortest Stories

Editor: Steve Moss

Date: 1995

Publisher: New Times Press

ISBN: 1-880284-11-1

Length: 231 pages

Illustrations: drawings

Quote: “Pandemonium erupted. The next witness was walking through the courtroom doors. ‘Order in the court!’ the judge bellowed, cracking his gavel. All eyes focused on Tommy, who was sitting in the stand, his mouth open in shock. It was quite obvious now who’d murdered his wife. No one.”

In 1987, Steve Moss started the annual “55 Fiction” contest. Each story compresses a plot into 55 words or fewer., The genre was slow to catch on, Moss reports; the first batch of entries weren’t impressive. Over time, as people saw that this literary feat could be accomplished, the quality of entries improved. Over the years, Moss compiled enough 55-word stories he considered good to publish this collection. Horror, humor, romance, and more...like the courtroom drama quoted (in its full length) above.

There are now whole magazines, as well as anthologies, devoted to "flash fiction." This book represents the beginning of a new trend in American literature.

This book really ought to be reviewed in 55 words or fewer, but since I’ve already used more, all I’ll say is: buy a copy if you can—it won’t disappoint you.

The First TV Show I Remember Watching

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt is "The First TV Show I Remember Watching..."

...Was the weather updates in Macon, Georgia. (I am not Macon this up.) The fun stuff we expect from weather forecasts now hadn't been invented yet, and the forecasts weren't nearly as accurate as they are now, but there was a TV station in Macon that at least made their weather forecasts amusing. Their weather guessers had put together a set of little cartoon clouds and sun faces that romped across the screen during the boring news program my parents wanted to watch. I was charmed. It was a disappointment, a few years later, to be in Macon again and not be able to find that news and weather show again!

We caught that news and weather program while driving south to spend the obligatory month at my aunt's rental property. Real estate prices were so explosive in that part of Florida that special taxes were put on unoccupied rental properties, so whenever one of this aunt's properties was unoccupied, somebody had to spend January in it. It was more duty than pleasure. I always brought back shells and talked a good line about having to pick oranges off the tree in the yard and eat them with spoons, because nobody in Florida would even bother with the sort of pulpy dried-up oranges they send north...but I always liked snowy winters at home better than beach-weather winters in Florida. I think now it must have been because of the nasty stuff people sprayed in the hope of controlling the mosquitoes. I  knew they still had mosquitoes, because the mosquitoes bit Mother, but the mosquitoes never bothered me. The spray did.

Anyway during my first two winters in Florida, which were non-consecutive, my grandmother was living with my aunt; she tutored me before and after the programs I was allowed to watch came on TV--"Romper Room," "Lassie," "Mrs. Beasley," and at least once I was invited to stay in the evening and watch "Hee Haw," which ran up to my bedtime so I fell asleep during the show. Another time I was invited to watch an original Lucille Ball show; the jokes went over my head. Sometimes I caught a bit of the news and weather shows. A couple of times nobody interfered with my watching a few minutes of Flip Wilson or "Bewitched," but I wasn't supposed to watch those. "Mr. Ed," the actual show with the horse who supposedly talked, had been broadcast before but was not broadcast during those winters. 

Everybody remembers "Lassie" but apparently not all baby-boomers remember "Romper Room" and "Mrs. Beasley." They were the educational programs before "Sesame Street." I remember those shows because I had tie-ins to remind me of them during my ordinary TV-free life. There was a storybook about "Romper Room" and a talking doll who recited eight or ten of Mrs. Beasley's lines. I don't remember the actual TV programs, and suppose they were probably uninspired, but it was fun to pull Mrs. Beasley's string and see whether she'd say something boring, or one of her "fun" lines--"If you had three wishes, what would you wish for?" or "It would be such fun to play jump rope, don't you think?"

Much more than the TV programs, I remember Grandmother. For one thing she had been a more competent child and had more interesting adventures than that pitiful little Timmy on "Lassie." By the time I came along, being an untreated celiac had made her a difficult-to-treat diabetic patient; she'd lost a leg to the disease but she could still thread needles and sew, insist that pans of vegetables be brought to her so she could cut up veg for meals, sing old songs--on key--and teach all the elementary school subjects, with the best. She remembered the horses she used to ride, by name, and told stories about them. She spoke Tex-Mex Spanish, and Texas German, and even some bits of Texas Cherokee. She had been a horse trainer, a telephone operator, a dressmaker, and a school housemother while doing ordinary things like farming and raising children--more than two dozen foster children, actually--and having a physical disability. TV broke up the monotony of being ill, she said, and she and I enjoyed it, but it was even better when she sat up and taught me things. 

Petfinder Post: Follow Me to the Lab

(This is Gracie...scroll down for more about her.)

I hadn't thought of a good lead-in for today's Petfinder post before I found this on the Mirror...

The forum participant known as Grumpy Rabbit shared it. Can Google tell us who drew it?

So today we celebrate retrievers, and American Short Hair cats. 
 

Zipcode 10101: Cat: Gracie from NYC 

Her photo is above. Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/gracie-74781ac9-610c-4b74-aad8-919c36dc070b/ny/new-york/city-critters-inc-ny114/details/

Gracie won on looks, after I scrolled past Kevin McAllistar Cat and Mila-Amber from previous posts here. Apart from her distinctive looks she seems to be an ordinary cat who gets along well with other calm, mellow, friendly cats. Has been a pet; likes to snuggle.

Dog: Whatchamacallit from South Carolina via NYC  

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/whatchamacallit-46c0ce15-6a2b-4a7d-9be4-f05ca8ba14f1/ny/new-york/final-victory-animal-rescue-sc497/details/

He's only about five months old so not much is really known about this feral-born pup, except that he's being socialized to become a cuddly pet. They think he's clever and are optimistic about the prospects for training him, though retrievers aren't known for learning skills outside their breed's special skill set, at least not very well. 

Zipcode 20202: Cat: Sprinkles from DC 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/sprinkles-138e8fde-cb34-468f-ab7d-4fa7bc00e8d7/dc/washington/lucky-dog-animal-rescue-dc20/details/

Sprinkles is a large kitten--over 12 pounds at 7 months--and may become an extra-large cat. She is friendly and cuddly, and does well wth other cats and children.

Dog: Cruz from DC 

His web site: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/cruz-e6c63322-f44d-492d-954e-b7c7554bdc6e/dc/washington/k-9-lifesavers-dc19/details/

Friendly with humans though not with cats, Cruz was 15 months old and weighed 35 pounds at the time of posting. They think he can learn at least basic commands and encourage enrolling him in a training course with an affiliated organization. 

Zipcode 30303: Cat: Greenly from Atlanta 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/greenly-eff0675c-1a98-402f-9194-cc0ed4b0d2aa/ga/atlanta/atlanta-humane-society-ga829/details/

Through no conceivable fault of her own, poor little Greenly has fallen into the clutches of the Humane Pet Genocide Society. Which is more important: rescuing the animal, or not giving money to this deeply corrupted organization? Decisions, decision. Greenly is a small cat; she seems healthy, weighs about six pounds, and looks old enough that she's not likely to grow any bigger. 

Dog: Snuggly Joe from Texas via Atlanta

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/snuggly-joe-4be40cb8-961b-404e-a434-be24cfe412af/ga/atlanta/texas-canine-rescue-tx2448/details/

Retrievers are good-sized dogs. Weighing 26 pounds at 6months old, Snuggly Joe seems likely to reach the full size of his retriever ancestors, though his known ancestors also include some Chihuahuas. His web page sounds as if his foster humans would really rather keep him, so they may be inflexible on the very high price and, although they say it includes a substantial vet bill and a professional driver to bring him to Atlanta from Houston. You can always try. Or you could check the Petfinder site for another lovable retriever. They currently have over six hundred.

Book Review: Off the Court

Book Review: Off the Court

Author: Arthur Ashe with Neil Amdur

Date: 1981

Publisher: Signet / New American Library

ISBN: 0-451-11766-2

        

Length: 230 pages including statistics sheets

Quote: “Tennis is a metaphor for life.”

Arthur Ashe was the only African-American male tennis star of his day. In 1981 that was all he was known for. Fans expected his post-tennis memoir to be a tennis success story, and it is—lists of tennis scores at the back, memories of games, some harmless gossip about other athletes. About the rest of a young man’s life in the 1960s and 1970s it was, well, tactful. Ashe didn’t claim to have been a monk before marriage, nor did he tell sleazy locker-room stories; he didn’t claim to be un-bothered by race prejudice, nor did he rage about it. His image as a Perfect Virginia Gentleman never really slipped before, during, or after the writing of his first book. 

He would become famous for other things after 1981. Though trim and fit, he had a heart attack at 37 and had bypass surgery before publishing Off the Court. A blood transfusion, thought necessary to save his life, infected him with AIDS. A later book about life with AIDS was, briefly, an international bestseller.

Meanwhile, stardom had given Ashe unique opportunities to practice quiet generosity. Off the Court gives only passing mention to his belief that successful minority-group athletes would raise the social status of their groups even in segregated South Africa. It remained for the writer known as Mark Mathabane, and Ashe’s tennis-playing friend Stan Rogers, to describe what Ashe tried to do—and did—for South African youth.

This makes Off the Court an extraordinary, perhaps unique, specimen of the celebrity memoir genre. Most entertainers’ books downplay the well publicized mistakes these celebrities have made, and attempt to publicize—in a good way—the good things they are doing. Ashe was still fairly young, and in Off the Court he made some comments that seemed more outspoken than his quiet manner had led fans to expect, but he didn’t try to publicize his charitable efforts...and a few minor testosterone surges seem to constitute his biggest mistakes. He could, without attracting criticism, have included a full chapter on the young athletes he wanted to sponsor, their merits, their needs, and so on. He didn’t. Offhand I can’t think of another recent celebrity memoir that downplays the nice things a celebrity is doing.

Offhand I can’t think of a recent book in any genre that better explains what Virginians’ famous sense of honor requires of us. Off the Court is recommended to everybody. 

Book Review: Democracy in America

Title: Democracy in America

Author: Alexis de Tocqueville

Translator: Henry Reeve

Date: 1835 (French), 2000 (English paperback)

Publisher: Bantam (2000)

ISBN: 0-553-21464-0

Length: 943 pages, plus introduction by Joseph Epstein

Quote: “America is great because America is good; and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.”

Yes, this is the book that contains the famous quote. First, let me acknowledge the three things students hate about this book: (1) it’s long, (2) it’s assigned reading, and (3) it’s written in generalizations with a minimum of fun facts and anecdotes. About the first two of those objections nothing can be said, but it may be helpful for students to know that French intellectuals of Tocqueville’s day defined science as the pursuit of generalizations; Tocqueville had to write for his audience.

Sometimes  people wonder why writers “show off” by using long, bland, ugly words. Was it necessary to say “This repugnance naturally attains its utmost height” rather than “People are disgusted”? Yes; in Tocqueville’s case, there is a reason. Many of those bland, four- and five-syllable words are common to French and English; repugnance was the word Tocqueville actually wrote (with an accent mark over the first E). English editions of Democracy in America aren’t hard to find, but if you had to read the book in French, you could read paragraph after paragraph without having to look up a word.

Although Epstein makes the point that Tocqueville would have thought his book gained “power” from its generalizations, he did cite some specific facts. Like many nineteenth-century authors, he often copied material from other books without acknowledgments. He also tended to feel that, as he says when making a statistical point on page 339, “A single fact will suffice to show...” the generalization he’s about to make. In an AC article on Ellen White, who instructed her secretary to copy whole pages from other books but not to insert footnotes or other credits, I mentioned that one obsessive-compulsive reader had dug up dozens of uncredited sources that were quoted in her books. The same thing could have been done for Tocqueville. If you wanted more details about his assertion that “Congress completely abandoned the principle of the tariff,” you could obviously check the Congressional Record, but for which year? He doesn’t say. Or did he read the story in current newspapers? He doesn’t say. You’re supposed to take his word for these things. If it really mattered to you, you would already have known the story...right?

A feature of Tocqueville’s writing that may be more pleasing to modern readers is his concern with “equality,” the extent to which Americans were really learning to practice democracy. His concern for minority groups was at least a hundred years ahead of his time. If his generalizations about ethnic groups are sometimes judgmental, his tone is consistently that of a logical critic who wants to help everyone toward perfection. There’s an especially scathing comment on the French-American minority on page 399.

Many European authors visited the United States, during the early nineteenth century, and criticized our ancestors for the benefit of European readers. Charles Dickens’ and Sarah Kemble Knight’s efforts in this line are still occasionally read for their literary merit, and a shameless poseur called Favell Mortimer has recently been reprinted because (a) she didn’t actually travel and (b) her book is so awful, but Tocqueville is the only one who’s still found on required reading lists. Because he had enough insight into human nature to tell us that we were great because we were good? Partly. But he also probed more seriously into our political theory and practice than many Europeans, who were more interested in describing the roads (primitive) and lodging places (very few of which rated five stars). The selections from Democracy in America reprinted in textbooks tend to be flattering, but the book also called early Americans to account for several things.

“The zeal of [the legislator’s] enactments induces him to descend to the most frivolous particulars: thus a law is to be found in the same Code which prohibits the use of tobacco...In 1649 a solemn association was formed in Boston to check the worldly luxury of long hair.”

“It is the misfortune of [American] Indians to be brought into contact with a civilized people, which is also (it must be owned) the most avaricious nation on the globe...and to receive knowledge from the hand of oppression.”

“It is...my opinion that by changing their administrative forms as often as they do, the inhabitants of the United States compromise the future stability of their government.”

Although it’s a long slow read, this book really is valuable for all students of history and government. 

Butterfly of the Week: Eastern White Lady

Graphium philonoe, the Eastern White Lady, is found in much of eastern Africa, from Sudan to Mozambique, in Congo, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, and Uganda. It is not especially large by tropical butterfly standards, with a wingspread of only three or four inches. Itn most of the countries where it's found, it is considered common and in no danger.

Photo by Wasinitourguide. This individual, found near the coast of Kenya in May, is typical of the subspecies Graphium philonoe philonoe.

This report, containing many photos of tropical wildlife (though not of Graphium philonoe) and confessions of how globalists do ecological studies (trapped animals that might have been released are invariably killed), explains how it's been possible for scientists and naturalists to pay as little attention to these great gaudy butterflies as they have done. There are just so many interesting lifeforms, most of them so new to people from the English-speaking countries...

https://museums.or.ke/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Kaya-Kauma-Biodiversity-Report-2019F.docx-African-World-Heritage-Fund.pdf

So, even a book that has a lot to say about the even showier butterflies that share the Taita Hills nature reserve with Graphium philonoe has little to say about Graphium philonoe: 

https://jrsbiodiversity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/A-field-guide-to-Taita-Hills-butterflies-NMK-JRS-2021.pdf

It is one of a group of butterflies that show about as much black as white, and may look more brown and tan than black and white. Presumably they are called Ladies because, though otherwise similar to Swordtails, they carry no "swords" on their hind wings. Some of the Swordtails are much whiter. The Eastern White Lady is also sometimes called Dappled Lady or Dappled Graphium. Many accepted names for butterflies are as arbitrary as the scientific names that identify them with literary characters. 

In Greek literature, at least two princesses and a minor goddess were called Philonoe. As written in English the name seems to mean "lover of the intellect"; as written in Greek it meant "mind of the people." As a goddess Philonoe or Phylonoe may have represented public spirit, or even something like a democratic consensus of opinion. She was worshipped mainly in Sparta. Philonoe was also said to have been the name of Helen of Troy's little sister and of Bellerophon's wife.

The white patches on the Eastern White Lady's wings come closer to the body than those on other members of the White Lady family, and this species is much more a pollinator than a composter. Males sometimes join puddle parties but seem to need to spend less time sipping polluted water than some other Swallowtails do. Both sexes are often found flying around flowers, and females, more easily found in open areas at the edges of woods than some Swallowtails, are often photographed choosing host plants for their young.

Photo by Albert190, June, Kenya. Like most Swallowtails, they like nectar from a variety of relatively shallow, accessible flowers. Long as their tongues are, Swallowtails have proportionately shorter tongues than other butterflies.

There are two subspecies. Their ranges don't overlap, and some think they may be separate species that look alike. Graphium philonoe philonoe is found further east than G.p. whalleyi. 

Photo by Thierrycordenos, July, Ethiopia. These males belong to the subspecies whalleyi. Sudheer Kommana photographed a puddle party of philonoe males in Tanzania; the photo is on page 82 of this PDF newsletter:

https://verlorenvalei.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/ABN-2022-4-1.pdf

Sudheer Kommana has his own web site, and its page for Graphium philonoe is empty: 

 

https://chitrapatangah.com/photo_gallery.php?id=164

From a distance they look like another African butterfly, the Forest Queen, which on closer examination seems more "related to" our Monarchs than to the Swallowtails. As with our Monarchs and Viceroys, both species live on plants that make them distasteful to birds, and each species seems to get some survival benefit from its resemblance to the other. However, Forest Queens are probably more toxic to more birds than White Ladies. 

A book by Congdon, 2009, is said to contain photos of the early stages of this butterfly. No photos seem to have been digitized.

Eggs are usually tucked into curled-up leaf buds, where it's hard to find an egg even after watching the butterfly lay it. 

Caterpillars can eat the leaves of a few different plants in the custard-apple family. As with some other Swallowtails, the caterpillars are good-sized, creatively ugly, and greedy in the final instar, so they can seem likely to be destroying their host tree. Actually the butterflies are likely to be keeping the host tree alive. Not all of the Annonaceae live in such complete symbiosis with one Swallowtail species as North America's pawpaw trees have with our Zebra Swallowtails; Graphium philonoe can eat more than one kind of leaves and in some places their host plants are pollinated by more than one kind of butterfly, but the butterflies still pay for what they took when they were caterpillars.

https://kilifigarden.info.ke/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/026-Kilifi-plants-Annonaceae-butterflies.pdf

Photo of a pupal Graphium philonoe from the Reiman Gardns, where butterflies hatched from pupae were on display in 2019.

Adults fly for up to two weeks.

Book Review: The Light After the Storm

Title: The Light After the Storm

Author: Terri Michelle Hutchinson

Date: 2021

ISBN: 978-0-9857712-1-8

Quote: "[E]ven our individual eyes see slightly different rainbows."

This is a short collection of short reflections on rainbows as spiritual metaphor. For daily devotional reading it will last only about a week, but it's designed to offer biblically sound, anti-depressant thoughts. A printed edition would be very slim and light--good for hospital reading. 

Bad Poetry: Otherwise Engaged

"I worry when I see no post!

Was damage done by storms that raged?"

Worrying's never worth its cost;

I have been otherwise engaged.

"This war that 'refugees' have waged

Upon the public exchequer"--

I have been otherwise engaged;

Cela ne fait rien d'en parler.

This web site's, I consider, paid

(Though I've been otherwise engaged);

Free Internet time's a fair trade,

While frantically the mouse pad's paged

Where I've been otherwise engaged

With other topics, other sites.

Dear readers, please don't be enraged

If posts are later than by rights

They should have been; the time I've gauged,

But I've been otherwise engaged.

This started out as an exercise in a classical French verse form, but it twisted in my typing fingers.

Cela ne fait rien (often pronounced fast enough to sound like "San-Ferry-Ann") = it's not doing anything, it's no use. D'en parler = to talk about it.

Now a short quick rant about what's been blowing up the Internet...I'll say this about the bogus day care scandal. I think that actually, if "day care providers" for young children go through the trouble of certification, then only care for one or two children of friends of the owners and close their doors once those children are in school, that is the ideal type of day care. The only problem is that some day care providers have continued pretending that they're minding dozens of children when in fact they're not even bothering to open the building. 

I'm not pleased by the stereotypes people are throwing around about Somali refugees, specifically, as if they were any worse than any other lot of people who would prefer to be earning a living as artisans but can't get work and are pushed into the position of full-time "needers"--social parasites. If the society around you forces you into the role of parasite, beggar, thief, prostitute, slave, etc., you constantly see that you are not getting as much respect as people who have more money are getting, and you will naturally feel that it's reasonable to take the social system that oppresses you for all you can take, with a goal of going somewhere else as a person who has a normal amount of money and gets a normal level of respect. I'm not saying that the "daycare" and "health care" grifters are justified in fraudulently reporting that they're "caring for" more and more people when in fact they're caring for none. I am saying that the behavior pattern is not specific to any ethnic group or age group or religious group or any other kind of demographic. 

Nor am I opposing our government's decisions...What the "conservatives" forget, when blaming Congressman Emmer for legalizing so many Somalis' coming here, is Congressman Emmer's reasoning at the time. He observed that people who had lost their homes and livelihoods in that country's civil war were vulnerable to a Muslim extremist group called Al-Shabaad, a separate group from Al-Qaeda or Boko Haram but similarly dangerous, and he thought bringing people to the US would give them the information they needed to judge Al-Shabaad's rhetoric. As a guess he expected that some of these refugees might be a burden on our budget but thought they'd be less of one than any more attacks like the ones on the World Trade Center or the London Tube. Is it terribly cynical to guess that Al-Shabaad has become less of a threat now? 

This whole "breaking news" story shows all the signs of something that's been brewing for a few years, probably planned by Al-Shabaad watchers. People knew that these businesses were not actually doing any business. Those whose job descriptions didn't require them to pay attention probably thought that was because of the COVID panic--which obviously did shut down legitimate day care facilities for children and disabled adults. Those who were paying attention knew that this business and that business had become shameless scams. Charlie Kirk was probably the rising star who would have been given the tips and leads to break the news story, if he'd been alive. He wasn't, so Nick Shirley was picked. One news reader's comment seemed particularly idiotic--one should never underestimate the intensity of adolescent energy--but, yes, not only did older people help Shirley plan and fund his fact-finding expeition, but one of them actually spoke on camera in his video report. The way the news broke does suggest to me that old, rich people were discussing and deciding: "Yes, we can send those Somalis back home now. Pick the young talent we're going to make famous. White men are feeling discriminated against--let's pick a White boy." 

So, should the Somali scammers be sent home now? I'm not really happy with the President of the United States having to step in when a large group of people are doing something wrong; I think local governments should be able to handle that sort of thing before the problem expands to include a large group. But yes, if they've been here for more than ten years, and despite all the radios blaring "You Don't Have to Live Like a Refugee" at them they're still living like refugees--I think that is an indication that they should be looking for another place to live. They can't go on scamming us for government grants and subsidies forever, and they're obviously not qualified for other jobs here, so if they don't want to go back to Somalia maybe they should be choosing other places to go now. 

And I am thoroughly bored with people who cling to that image of a man who shows one of those patterns of malnutrition producing an irregular kind of face (didn't everyone see the chart pinning different kinds of less-than-classic face shapes to different dietary deficiencies, in Adelle Davis's Let's Have Healthy Children, in the 1970s?) and say "Yes, that's what they're all like, and their IQ score is below 70." Those effects are found when people grow up in disasters, famines, and wars. Somali people who were born and grew up in normal circumstances are not stupid or ugly. Far from it. 

For years the model rated "the most beautiful woman on Earth" was Somali. You readers undoubtedly knew that. Please feel free to share this fact with all the igmos whose comments you have to wade through when doing online research.