Web Log for 12.30.25

For next year!

[Posted by "Monsanto Tribunal" on X]

Books 

A more p.c. view of The Horse and His Boy...

https://irresponsiblereader.com/2025/12/24/a-few-scattered-thoughts-on-my-latest-reading-of-the-horse-and-his-boy-by-c-s-lewis/

One shouldn't have a favorite Narnia book--they need to be read together--but this is mine. It's the wittiest, the most subversive, the most deftly characterized. 

Today it may seem unfortunate that Lewis's mind, when asked to imagine a culture alien from Narnia's, leaped straight to the influences of the Arabic literature he'd been studying. (Lewis, a consummate word-nerd, could probably read all the living European languages without a dictionary, so to keep his mind awake in middle age he took up Arabic.) Calormen is simply "the hot land"; there's nothing Islamic about it, and in any world where humans live the residents of "the hot land" would probably tend to have darker complexions (unless the author goes to the trouble of inventing an explanation why they wouldn't, which I once did); but the few words of the Calormene language Lewis bothered to invent have an Arabic look, the houses are built and furnished like something out of the Arabian Nights, and the way the Calormenes speak English sounds as if it were influenced by the Victorian translation of the Arabian Nights too. 

It becomes more important in The Last Battle to remember that Calormenes are not Arabs, nor are meant to be. Writers of speculative fiction based on the idea of a possible future for our world have an easy excuse for the limitations of imagination. They can say, as Anne McCaffrey did, that the leaders of the human colony on the planet Pern were Irish and Iranian, so as the Pernese culture evolved it showed the influences of its founders' sense of ethnic pride; Pern has laws lifted out of Ireland's and so on. Lewis accounted for the British influence on Narnia by importing its royal family from London, but he never did explain the origin of Calormen at all, probably because it's not really Arab or Iranian. 

So what are Calormenes? They are unenlightened people, simply. Apart from the detail that the name Aravis sounds like "Arab" (but it also sounds like, e.g., the Welsh Arabus, "witty," and other words and names Lewis must have known)...Calormenes arrange marriages for their children without consulting the children's preferences, and resent that Narnian young people arrange marriage for themselves. Calormenes cheat each other in business. Calormene traffic laws consist of "everyone who is less important has to get out of the way of everyone who is more important." The Calormene religion does not adore a vision of the One God whose manifestation in Narnia is Aslan; Calormenes know about lions as dangerous wild beasts but they worship a vaguely Assyrian-looking vulture-man they call Inexorable Tash, who embodies no virtues but merely power, and who is ultimately identifiable with the Evil Principle. Tash is not Allah, the Arabic version of Elohe that invokes the God Abraham served, but he may be identifiable with some of the earliest Semitic male gods, who were identified with storms and battle and had no qualities we might call "spiritual." Lewis knew well that Arab and Persian civilization is, like European civilizations generally, at least illuminated with occasional flashes of enlightenment. Calormene civilization shows no such flashes. It is the civilization of people who may not be altogether bad, but who are, as a group, unenlightened enough that nice people like Aravis and Emeth are called away from a nation where most people are irredeemably nasty.

Each of the Narnia books is a teaching story about some aspect of Christianity. Prince Caspian seems generally to be about the Christian's private struggle against his own bad habits; The Horse and His Boy is more about the Christian's relationships with un-Christian people. Shasta, who is not even a native of Calormen, and Aravis, who is a native of Calormen but is eager to leave, have the right stuff in them; it's good for them to be in Narnia and to marry each other when they're old enough--there is no race prejudice here, Aravis may have a darker complexion than Shasta but she's good enough to be his wife and his people's queen. Rabadash, who seems to be more typical of Calormen, is not good enough to be Susan's doormat and there is a suggestion that Susan would have done better not even to visit his family and consider his proposal. Rabadash's courtship is not about friendship; it's all selfish lust. "I will have her," he rages, referring to Susan, "false, proud, black-hearted daughter of a dog that she is!" Susan is not a bad character, her eventually ceasing to be a Friend of Narnia does not necessarily rule out her going to the English part of Heaven as having been a good Christian back in England, but if she'd been "wise as a serpent" (as Christians are told to be) she would have recognized Rabadash's bad qualities sooner.

But much more than being a story about rejecting unworthy friends, The Horse and His Boy is a story about Christians' relationships with worthy friends--including animals. (Loving and respecting horses, Lewis understood, is not incompatible with riding them, but when the children are being taught to ride by grown-up horses they learn a lot of things many horsey people prefer to ignore.) It is full of love and loyalty, good faith and good will, adventures and tests of courage, green hills and blue sky. It is a delight to read.

So of course is Laura IngallsWilder's On the Banks of Plum Creek.

https://blbooks.blogspot.com/2025/12/130-on-banks-of-plum-creek.html

Sweet innocent childhood--kid drama, lost and found playthings, learning firsthand that friendly Plum Creek becomes dangerous in flood...

Health: Pain Management 

David Manney asked for comments on this post. I don't know. Could my father or my Significant Other ever have given him some. I collected a goodly number when actively doing massage, too. I hit the button to send him a few. The system wouldn't take them, apparently because I block cookies. I'm not suggesting that you allow cookies in order to weigh in with your opinions here...

https://pjmedia.com/david-manney/2025/12/29/the-quiet-humiliation-of-chronic-pain-care-n4947629

Some people assume that patients, especially women, need to have every experience of discomfort blocked by chemicals that cause more discomfort than they're meant to block. Impacted wisdom tooth? Pop a handful of Tylenol! Having a baby? Full anesthesia for the full period of labor, which may take longer because of the anesthesia, and never mind the possibility of long-term brain damage for either mother or baby because nobody should have to listen to a person gasping to control pain! Arthritis? Hey, in Canada now you can get tax-funded help to commit suicide!

Others assume that patients, especially young men, are wimps who want to be addicts and commit slow unacknowledged suicide at the taxpayers' expense if they need a refill of any pain medication. Maybe some of them are wimps. My father, a polio survivor who'd forced himself to work through the pain to rebuild every nerve and muscle he had, had forgotten more about non-drug pain management than most doctors have to learn; if he said pain was unbearable and untreatable, it was. So he took Tegretol and, though religious beliefs seemed to block any active suicidal thinking, he became obsessed with telling the world he didn't want any medical treatments more "heroic" than that if his health got worse, and with expressing support for Dr. Kevorkian (then regarded as a homicidal fool, now regarded as a pioneer at least in Canada). Giving patients Tegretol or other heavy-duty pain suppressants can feel like writing them off. It can be hard to admit that someone who is already missed may have exhausted all hope of either drug-free pain management or recovery of physical ability.

I've seen other patients whose problem was that they were too brave and tough about pain. They don't become drug addicts because they want to get high--the suggestion that they might be, or might know, that kind of miserable "scag" is fighting words! They end up becoming addicts because they don't want to take a week off to let inflammation subside or relocate a dislocated bone; they want to push on, working longer and harder and faster than younger (and sometimes bigger) co-workers, to impress their bosses, to earn bonuses or promotions, to keep their wretched dead-end jobs. Like champion athletes, they may own a sport (or a heavy labor job) for longer than normal people ever expect to do it, and still cry real tears when they start to slow down. Some of them need better ways to recover from injuries, or change what they do all day in time to prevent injuries; they don't need to be treated like scags. Though some of them become disabled and fade out of life in pretty much the same way the scags do--at best, at home or in a hospital rather than in an alley.

(Scag is heroin. A scag is a person who wants to lie around seeking a drug "high" all the time, who has no reason to live and will never be missed. We say no to drugs because we don't want to be scags.)

Will there ever be better solutions? When people aren't able to muster their own endorphins to manage pain, will there ever be a safe, non-addictive replacement for natural endorphins? I don't know. I do know that a big part of the benefit of massage is that massage people listen, to patients' words and to their physical reactions, and pray or meditate with patients during each treatment. This makes it very easy to tell whether a patient is a wimp or a scag, or is doing everything person can to be healthy. When some people say they feel depressed, they mean they want their own way and their families may be relieved if they'll settle for dangerous drugs; when my husband said he felt depressed, he meant he was dying of cancer. If MDs broke the chains of slavery to insurance schemes and took the time to listen to patients in this way...why shouldn't MDs get this benefit, when treating patients who don't need massage? The doctors who are still respected already do.

Words 

According to the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, there may be any number of things people want to talk about but don't because their languages don't (yet) have words for those things. Coining a word allows us to talk about these things.

Well, I don't know. Did youall want to talk about the blur our eyes see in front of and behind the clear image on which our eyes focus? The word for the blur is now, officially, "bokeh." It should logically rhyme with "OK." 

https://ysabetwordsmith.dreamwidth.org/15253220.html

Costumes That Might Be Banned from a Church Costume Party

There's no Long & Short Reviews prompt for this Wednesday, so here's a thought I jotted down one night during the past year...

During 2025 I spent some time at one of those houses where somebody likes to share favorite television programs with visitors. We were watching one of those game show where people win prizes by answering questions, only the questions were the "We asked X demographic group this open-ended question that has a dozen or more valid answers. What did they answer most frequently?" sort of thing, rather than straightforward questions, as on "Jeopardy," with a factual answer you can look up. 

One of the questions asked people to name a costume that might be banned from a church-hosted costume party. 

The actual wording mentioned Halloween. Churches with which I'm familiar do not celebrate Halloween. Costume parties can be suggested by any occasion for which somebody has a costume and wants to wear it.

Anyway eight answers had been supplied before the contest, and the contestants took a long time guessing all eight, with many valid answers that weren't on the list and much hilarity.

We were guessing answers, too, of course. Not that anyone wanted to try out for the game show. I have thought from time to time that I might have a chance on "Jeopardy" but this was the sort of show where contestants seemed to be chosen for the ability to scream, fling their hair about, and do victory dances when they win a round.

"Nudist," "devil," and "stripper" had been filled in.

"Ku Klux Klansman," someone suggested.

"Terrorist."

"That former teacher who went missing after the child pornography was found on his computer." It is currently believed that such a character might have fled into our part of Virginia, though the report that he went off into the woods carrying a gun sounds more as if he'll be found shot in the head in the woods, near his home.

Nobody bothered to think of other "immodest" costumes for women, since "stripper" had already been mentioned. 

"Serial murderer." 

"Gangster."

"Feminazi." It is still necessary to explain, as Rush Limbaugh originally did, the difference between a feminazi, a feminist, and other varieties like the feminitwit. A feminist is anyone who believes that women are equally as valuable as men, which includes all sane people in the modern world, including some who think "feminist" is a term of contempt for a female left-wingnut. That's inaccurate. Wingnuts are wingnuts. Anyway, a feminitwit is a feminist who still believes in Socialism. A feminutcase is a feminist who believes that men can become women by choice. A femininny is a feminist, or self-proclaimed antifeminist, who believes that women are entitled to demand financial support based on their own very selective claims of incompetence. A feminazi is a feminist who believes abortion is a good thing and is happy when women "choose" abortion. There were, Limbaugh claimed when he started using the word, fewer than two dozen feminazis alive on Earth. Tragically there are still a lot of feminitwits.

"Nazi."

"Bolshevik."

"Pharmakon, the sort of witch Moses said should not be suffered to live among God's people--someone who makes or sells drugs for evil purposes." My mental picture of a pharmakon, if anyone wants to use one as a scary Halloween costume, is diverse and flexible. You could be an ancient Greek messing with mushrooms, a 1970s drug dealer handing out LSD, a modern-day narcotraficante, or maybe Dr. Fauci.

"Witch" was actually on the list, though without further clarification it suggests the cartoonish little-kid "witch" costumes sold in the Dollar Store. Sheer fantasy. The next level of cheap unimaginative costume above putting a white sheet over your head and calling yourself a ghost. Since the shapeless black dress, pointed black hat, optional green face paint, and essential broomstick aren't based on anything in real life I'm not sure whether churches would need to ban them, but I suppose they qualify as villainous characters.

Then there's the TV kind of witch, as played by Elizabeth Montgomery, who simply has psychic powers and is comically concerned about how to use them. I suppose, theologically, this kind of character might represent a spirit of confusion, but how seriously do churches take that these days?

The kind of Witch I actually know, in the real world, is a person--usually, not necessarily, either young or female--who has lost faith in prayer and is trying to cast spells instead. These are real people, usually on the self-dramatizing side but well-intentioned, who have chosen a different religion, and churches at least ought to be actively encouraging them to reconsider prayer. 

But the list of costumes the survey sample wanted to ban from church parties was much less imaginative. Apart from "witch" and "Satan," those people limited themselves to costumes for different categories of sex workers. Bah humbug!

I suppose it might be a sign of niceness if people can't think of any bad things to do or be beyond cartoon figures and sex workers, but that would have to be the kind of niceness that's very different from goodness.

Web Log for 12.29.25

Books 

A younger, more p.c. view of Little House on the Prairie...

https://blbooks.blogspot.com/2025/12/127-little-house-on-prairie.html

I read Wilder (and of course Rose Wilder Lane) as writing in the Realist tradition. The stories don't present Ma, Pa, Laura, Mary, or Carrie as perfect people. They don't really judge. Readers who can relate to Laura's point of view feel Laura's love of her family while seeing their flaws--with love. Pa Ingalls is a miserable excuse for a provider, Ma is narrow-minded and impractical, Mary has goody-goody tendencies, Carrie is a bit of a burden to the others, and though Laura's selfish/rebellious/angry moments are relatable...So in short they're ordinary imperfect human beings who can be loved. Their attitude toward indigenous people, and other "pioneers" from different backgrounds for that matter, is not exemplary but it is period-perfect. Wilder/Lane obviously left out a LOT of the kind of details that later Realists would force upon readers, but they give an excellent picture of human beings as they saw themselves. In By the Shores of Silver Lake we learn that Mary was an unimaginative person who didn't like metaphors--and while most book-loving children might understand that at first as saying that Mary was a nasty person who cramped Laura's style, adult readers have to appreciate it as having shaped Wilder/Lane's mastery of Realism. Neither Stephen Crane nor Willa Cather had much to teach this writing team. 

I don't think the people who fret about the Ingalls family's never seeing the Plains point of view--which is easy enough for the reader to see!--are even all that concerned about a realistic portrayal of how "pioneers" who weren't hateful people could be as ignorant as, in fact, they were. I think what really bothers them is how independent the Ingalls family are of the government that claimed to grant them land, then withdrew the claim. They come close to starvation but they don't need or expect any handouts from the government--though they take some from a church group. The federal government does them wrong but they take responsibility for feeding and educating themselves. That's not the way some people want to believe poor people CAN be--or should be. It spoils their plans and agendas.

Little House in the Prairie is not as much fun to read as the happier memories in Little House in the Big Woods and On the Banks of Plum Creek. The plot is not "ultimately pointless." It has a sharp, sticking, painful point. The Ingalls family trusted government agents and wasted a lot of effort on what they, in their ignorant way, saw as a good thing. They don't have a lot of fun in this book. A writer less gifted than the team Wilder/Lane would have exaggerated the difficulties and made this story a bitter pill that child readers couldn't swallow. Wilder/Lane tell it in the grand Realist manner, through the eyes of the little girl Laura, who never quite understands how horrible her situation is but tries to remember as much of the tiny scraps of niceness, prettiness, and fun as this set of her memories contain, and make it far more effective than most writers could make it. There's not much danger that modern readers are going to buy into the "manifest destiny to tame the wilderness" mentality that the Ingalls family bought into. Wilder/Lane don't argue with that mentality--they just show, in devastating detail, exactly how it worked for the "pioneers." 

Their goal was to teach children how people used to do things before they had access to all the new ways of doing things that were available in 1935. By sticking to that goal they give child readers an insight into how the "pioneers" survived. One day they were fighting or fleeing the enemies. The next day little Laura was learning a song or a recipe, listing the flowers she saw or learning how to clean feather beds. I don't think any grandiose psychological phrases like "living in the moment" or "grounding your moods by focussing on the immediate details of present reality" are in the books, but they certainly show readers how those things are done...along with the recipes and the method for cleaning feather beds.

Poetry

Comic epic series begins:

https://www.classicalpoets.org/twelve-labors-more-part-i-a-poem-by-evan-mantyk/ 

Petfinder Post: Loving Cats or Dogs Requires a Few Sacrifices

The December Thaw usually occurs in the last week of the old year, obliging those who like a bit of snow for Christmas. This year it came early; and it was a long, warm thaw, too. The cats didn't need to come inside at night, and didn't ask to. 

One of my frugal practices is trying to become accustomed to the coolest temperatures humans were designed to endure. Earth temperature, the temperature inside caves, is about 55 degrees Fahrenheit. I try to get my metabolism up to the point where that feels like the right temperature, in winter. This means that if I'm asked to spend the night with a patient I'll probably spend the night clutching a cold water bottle, but I like my funny little two-figure heating bills. 

One small difficulty with this is that my sense of just what the outdoor temperature is can be affected.

"Rain washed away the Thaw. That north wind is chilly," I thought yesterday evening. "It must be getting down into the thirties (Fahrenheit). Let's see what Google says the temperature is in Kingsport and see whether it's exactly ten degrees colder here." I clicked and typed. Google said the temperature in Kingsport was 26 degrees Fahrenheit. Would the thermometer on the porch read 16 degrees? I looked. 15 degrees, it said. No, 14.5, it shivered. I started bringing things inside, not a minute too soon, and invited the cats to come inside too.

"I have missed this," Serena nonverbally said, making a beeline for the spot on my bench where I usually let her sit on my knees, before I had a chance to sit down. Serena was a non-cuddly cat for seven years; then, after her first serious illness, she seemed to decide to turn over a new leaf and make sure she'd expressed affection before our last goodbye. "Dear human," she nonverbally said as I edged into my usual spot, "I will sit right on top of you, all night long."

And so she did. Twelve hours, with a break every six hours to go to the sand pit. 

I reflected, as my legs stiffened up, on which of the cats here had ever seemed to love me back. Magic, yes. Minnie, no. Graybelle always seemed to be putting up with me because Her Man had asked her to; I liked her loyalty, anyway. Mackerel, yes. Polly, perhaps, in her way... and so on. I did not actually get much work done, nor did I sleep. I spent some time looking at the detritus of other sleepless brains on X.

Loving cats, the late British author Robert Westall wrote, demands a few sacrifices. (Westall's cat characters, most memorably News in Devil on the Road and Lord Gort in Blitz Cat, are some of the best fictional cats in literature.) 

Loving dogs? I remember the challenge of lifting wet retrievers over the fence as a dog-loving student. I remember LB Johnson's story of how Barkley cost her the use of a knee, for some time, but also led to True Romance (they are still married). I remember the athletic family who tried to keep up with Donald the greyhound...

And what about loving humans? Don't even start...

But I think we're hard-wired to like making sacrifices for the sake of love and friendship, with one another, with animals, for the sake of ideals beyond ourselves...

"Holiday adoptions," Messy Mimi reports, are cleaning out some shelters. Good to hear. Here are some animals who are still languishing in shelters. 

Zipcode 10101: Lillian and Shirley from NYC 

Their web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/lillian-shirley-f7e42c2f-c08b-4721-bb79-97f4b53d575c/ny/new-york/city-critters-inc-ny114/details/

Last winter's kittens. Both are Torbies, one lighter-colored than the other. Still growing, friendly, bouncy-pouncy,

Zipcode 20202: Rose from DC 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/rose-502207e9-4a5a-4995-910a-acbe93d612fe/dc/washington/metro-ferals-md-md307/details/

Trapped and rescued from the city streets as the frazzled mother of five kittens, Rose is recovering now that the kittens have been adopted. She likes being indoors, likes being petted, likes food, and may need to be watched to prevent overeating and obesity now that she's been spayed. The agency may specialize in feral cats but it seems clear that Rose has been a pet and wants to be one again.

Zipcode 30303: Mickey and Minnie from Atlanta 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/mickey-bonded-with-minnie-88a93012-aeae-4457-a675-13f009d5557d/ga/atlanta/catz-4-life-inc-ga1138/details/

Minnie is the mostly black one claiming the top position, in the photo. According to shelter staff she's the high-energy kitten (yearling cat actually) who likes to bounce about. Mickey is the snugglebunny who will start to purr at the sight of someone he wants to snuggle up beside. Of course, he likes to play with Minnie, too.

Bonus: Zipcode 37662: Jubilee from Kingsport 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/jubilee-824630f0-070a-4c53-81cf-2f4929d67675/tn/kingsport/petworks-animal-services-tn1058/details/

Just a kitten, she's so bouncy and energetic she seems to be celebrating something. 

Zipcode 10101: Dulce from NYC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/dulce-69eccf33-77b9-4927-a2a7-4d79fa806eb0/ny/new-york/every-last-one-rescue-inc-ny1653/details/

In English "Dulce" sounds like a girl name, but in Spanish dulce can be either masculine or feminine. Dulce the puppy is masculine. Only just declared adoptable at eight weeks old, he's not giving humans much information yet, but he's a nice baby dog who likes to snuggle up for naps or play gently with his litter mates. The litter mate shown behind him in the photo is a sister and seems to be a favorite playmate. They may not have put together a web page for her yet, or she may not be cleared for adoption because she's so small. Nobody's even trying to guess what breeds might have gone into the mix, yet.

All puppies are tiny and adorable. Do not be deceived. Between the tiny helpless adorable stage and the fine handsome well-trained dog stage there's a rather long stage that calls for a lot of patience and tough love. First-time puppy adopters should try to work with experienced puppy adopters to ensure an optimal dog ownership experience.

Zipcode 20202: Cooper from DC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/mr-handsome-cooper-cdeb58bb-41ad-495e-9b6d-c28605fe195d/dc/washington/nowruz-animal-rescue-group-or459/details/

Though not purebred, this Maltese mix is close enough to the classic Maltese look to have an inflated "adoption fee." He's not for just any family, either. Though protective of apparently all women, he's wary of men and may growl at them. He likes calm, friendly dogs. Children make him nervous and he may growl, yip, or even nip if he has to spend time around them. He could be a nice pet for a single woman or a mature couple. If that's not you, click around--they may not have another Maltese but they're sure to have another dog who might fit into your family.

Zipcode 30303: Bijou from Atlanta 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/bijou-712b024c-e3ff-4902-a72a-18800668c25b/ga/atlanta/tiny-paws-rescue-ga1042/details/

This two-year-old, ten-pound miniature poodle was dumped out beside the road. He is somewhat insecure and the shelter staff insist that he be adopted by a family with a confident, well-behaved dog to show him how to behave. He needs a fenced yard. Once he decides to trust a person, he quivers and taps his feet with excitement when that person approaches. If you are the person he can safely trust, he'll make you feel loved for, very likely, another ten years...cat-sized dogs can live as long as cats.

Book Review: Stuck with My Secret Billionaire Construction Worker

Title: Stuck with My Secret Billionaire Construction Worker

Author: Kasia Kain

Date: 2023

Quote: "'Just take your shirt off, nothing else,' she instructs...When her brown eyes raise to meet my gaze, I see lust in their depths."

Alana is supposed to be a professional masseuse. But since she knows Landon is a billionaire and calls her brother a friend, she can't even finish massaging his muscular back before she's reassuring him that it's safe to do what makes babies because she's on the Pill. The next few pages are not a thorough discussion of how his muscle groups responded to pressure as distinct from light strokes as distinct from heat as distinct from ice, which might be interesting to read, but they are just a list of body parts interspersed with formerly unprintable words. In other words, it's porn.

Right. At this point, I know:

1."Kasia Kain" is a man. Finding an attractive woman who's as eager to rut as he is seemed, when I did some research on the subject, to be the male fantasy. Being that woman is not so high on the popularity charts for females, and it's not what we mean when we say "romance." A woman writing a male fantasy as a novel would know better than to market it to women.

2. If these characters were real, Alana would lose her license, and legitimate massage therapists would be the first to charge her with criminal prostitution. That's NOT what we do. Not ever. Some massage therapists may give a patient a hand job--not for therapeutic purposes, just to avoid an unpleasant scene if they think a patient is likely to throw one. Some will use an uncomfortable move to redirect the patient's mind. And digging into a trigger point is actually considered to be a better practice, as far as treating muscle cramps is concerned. 

What people seeking massage therapy need to know: Sexual pleasure involves a release of prostaglandins into the bloodstream. Prostaglandins are biochemicals that increase sensitivity. The birds sing more sweetly and the sky seems bluer for a healthy person. The pain increases for a person with a painful condition. Whereas trigger points can usually be worked out. So, if we indulge a patient's whim, the patient goes home feeling worse, whereas if we make per arm or leg hurt for a minute or two, the patient goes home feeling better. So, patients should take care of their "need" for sexual pleasure before a massage, in order to get the best results from the massage. 

I will speak plainly. As a legitimate massage therapist I appreciated that, at the time, Washington had decriminalized prostitution; if that was what a caller obviously wanted, I'd tell him to call someone who was doing it. I don't give a flip what some other woman does to finance her collection of hog-trotter-shaped shoes. I'm glad I've never even thought I needed to do that, but I don't feel called to judge those who do. But I was, and still am, directly insulted when people claim to be doing massage as a front for prostitution. Most of us are. 

3. My interest in this book is now at absolute zero. I know where the alleged story is going, and I don't care. It's a sick male fantasy that would do harm, not good, if anyone tried to enact it in real life. 

I would not sell this book in a store and I'm glad I only wasted the time it took to read the first few chapters of a Book Funnel freebie. 

This web site likes to encourage writers so let's say that all writers are hereby encouraged not to write fiction that slanders a health care profession. If you want to bash health care providers, bash the chemists who want everybody to be "hooked on" some sort of prescription medication for life. (It's not slander if it's supported by facts.) If you want to write a romance about a masseuse, make it a slow burn story where the man recovers strength and health but keeps looking for ways to see the woman again in a social context. Real massage therapists like when that happens. Sex is not our business but most of us do appreciate all the things that keep a great set of muscles feeling good...long walks by the beach, and chess games, and good healthy food, and whatever those may lead to when the people involved are young and fertile.

Oh, and 4. A lot of people my age and younger came into this world while their mothers were on the Pill. Effective birth control is a responsibility nature handed to men.

Book Review: A Giant Comes

Title: A Giant Comes

Author: Aj Saxsma

Date: 2023

Quote: "The boy's father was laid across the couch when the boy entered the apartment."

The boy and his derelict father seem to live in a place like contemporary India, where a lot of boys work instead of going to school and the only female they seem to know is the boy's judgmental aunt. The boy is the good family member who enables his father's alcoholism; the aunt is the disagreeable one whom the father can blame for it. The boy works as a courier, which his father tells him is the family's traditional occupation.

When the boy is asked to deliver a message to an old man, however, we enter the twilight zone. The old man tells the boy a story that takes up most of the book and seems to take place in medieval Europe; the old man specifically mentions that religious teachers there talked about the glory and the demands of God instead of teaching people how to meditate, and the religious teacher he has to contend with is specifically identified as a priest who quotes Scripture.

When he was a boy, the old man said, his neighbors were warned that a giant was coming. This giant was not simply a big man in the mundane Manute Bol sense; it was a mythical monster that could pop humans into its mouth and chew them up, or start earthquakes by stamping its feet. The brave men in the neighborhood set off to slay the giant. Meanwhile the boy who is now the very old man bonded with the traveller who brought the warning as they tried to help a lot of people who called themselves refugees, who were locked up, denied food and drinking water, and tormented by malicious local folk. When relieved, the refugees gratefully admitted that they were in fact travelling thieves, not refugees from places destroyed by the giant at all. So was there a real giant? Let's just say that, in the reality of the story, there was. 

Without spoiling either the old man's story or the boy's, let's just say that this is not a cheerful or uplifting book. Nobody is heroic, or even consistently nice. The priest is especially repulsive, and meets an especially repulsive end. Nearly everybody in the story is male. There is a brave woman who makes an heroic speech on behalf of abused people, and gets killed. The aunt promises to help the boy and doesn't. A movie version of the story might make it look as if the boy were at least showing love and loyalty to his father in the only way he knows; the story as written makes it clear that he's showing no such thing, that he's coexisting with his father because he doesn't see any easy alternative.

Then we come to the note at the end in which Saxsma identifies as "a queer writer," and that seems to account for a lot. The grim world in which these stories are set is the world as it appears to the Men Who Can't Love...the ones who want to use women, and the ones who prefer to use men, without any "obligation" to show love or loyalty or self-sacrifice in any way. The priest, and his loveless, self-serving version of the Bible, are what they--especially but by no means only the "gay" ones--are in bitter rebellion against. (The priest denounces "the sodomites" and, though the boy and the traveller seem pretty fully occupied with other things, he describes the boy's show of--is it loyalty to the traveller, or despair plus contempt for the priest?--as "lecherous.") But the bitterness consumes their spirits. The boy in the present time of the story, and the boy the old man describes himself as having been, who might be seen as innocent or idealistic, are neither; they do some kind things, even some brave things, but they're not kind. There is relief from the depths of suffering and despair, but there's no joy. They dwell in a darksome land, wolf-cliffs wild and windy wilderness...

If that's a world you want to visit, you might enjoy the mythical quality of the story. It's not pretty but it is consistent, and vividly evocative. Saxsma's ability to tell a fairytale in the grand manner is outstanding...think Tolkien minus all of the ideals and beauty and joy that people reread Tolkien for.

Web Log for 12.28.25

Animals

Just a quick update...This morning the junior cats were scratching and mewing at the door.

I said "Oh all right, you can have some chicken treats."

I opened the door and Drudge nonverbally said, "No, actually, do you want a piece of this gray squirrel?"

He's not Mackerel II. He's not a mackerel tabby; he has long soft smoke-gray fur. But he walks in the ways of Mackerel, the Only Tomcat I've Ever Liked, and carries the archetypes of Simba and even Aslan in his heart.

He was supposed to have been adopted together with Dilbert and Diego, who were in constant competition to be The Friendliest, Purriest, Cuddliest Kittens Ever. Since he looked very similar to Dilbert he was rejected; Diego seemed friendlier and, being orange instead of gray, was easier to tell apart from Dilbert. After they left I learned that Drudge was just as much of a snugglebunny as his little brothers were. Possibly it was his being protective of his litter mates, that made him seem cooler while they were around; he didn't compete seriously with them for anything they wanted. He still loves to be picked up and petted, even turned upside down and tickled. He can stand ten or fifteen minutes of tickling, just lying there and purring, before he grabs at the tickling hand, and even then it's a gentle soft-paw swipe rather than the usual claw-grab. (He must have inherited that from his father. Most cats have very little tolerance for tickling; certainly none of Drudge's mother's family have.) 

He is still gentle and protective of smaller cats, but he can give Wild Thyme a rough game and, when he sees prey that needs to be pounced on, he's a better than average predator, too. As is shown by the squirrel. 

He is no longer up for adoption.

If Serena produces any more adoptable sons or grandsons, would-be adopters, don't miss your chance. I  hope Dilbert and Diego have become as delightful pets as Drudge.

Music 

I hadn't heard this one until John S posted it on the Mirror as a favorite of his. I can see why...it's worth adding to your list of carols if you still sing for a cause.

https://youtu.be/Y5bKtRU0Q6c

Northerners 

What other category could this go under? It's like a classic Ohio joke, only it's not from Ohio.

[Meme shared by Joe Jackson, a native of New Jersey.]

(Before you unfollow, unsubscribe, or e-mail: I already know that some Northerners are intelligent, right? My mother grew up in Indiana. This is about State government. It is aimed at mine.)

Racism, Serious 

I don't know that it is insanity. I think Gavin Newsom is one of those White Californians, of whom there are many, who say that California has never had a race problem, but (they don't mention that) they really, really, really don't like the fact that a lot of Californians look different from them and speak differently from them. I think he's seriously trying to thin the Latino and Asian populations.

If there is a Californian who'd be worse on the national level of government than Kamala Harris...The rumor persists that Harris was a pretty little courtesan who'd already been promoted beyond her level of incompetence by her grateful customers, but what's Newsom's excuse?

https://pjmedia.com/catherinesalgado/2025/12/27/california-mandates-additive-many-cant-process-rfk-cries-insanity-n4947589 

Words  Another One That Sounds Rude Though Perfectly Legitimate 

"Butt" means to push up against something, or something that pushes up against something...including a specific size of barrel. A butt load has been defined as 128 gallons. The measurement is no longer used in the US, but...butt...

Book Review: Promotions and Poisons

Title: Promotions and Poisons

Author: L.C. Turner

Quote: "Susan would argue with me just for the sake of arguing, evne if she didn't actually disagree iwht me."

Nobody much liked Susan Smith. (Even her author didn't like her. Turner had to know she was naming this character after one of the more loathsome female murderers of all time.)  The question is who felt desperate enough to murder her. Narrator Presley (that's a female given name now) and her superficially collegial competitors are all suspects and hence motivated to find out which of them did the deed. 

It's a very simple cozy mystery so it may not matter, but one detail rang glaringly false to me. A character asks another character, suspiciously, "How did you know that oleander is poisonous?" Child. When I was a wee tot, every two-year-old in California was close enough to an ornamental oleander to have the flower pointed out to us and to be told, "If you ever have to touch that, wash your hands right away. Just the amount of sap that might get on your hands could be enough to kill you." The suspicious character would be the one who might be asked, "You say you didn't know that oleander is poisonous?"

Maybe it's different for the young...

Butterfly of the Week: Olbrecht's Graphium

Graphium olbrechtsi, Olbrecht's Graphium, is found only in the Congo. It's not a well known species. It looks very much like the other Graphiums that some scientists want to classify as a separate genus Arisbe, such as G. abri, G. adamastor, G. almansor, G. auriger, G. aurivillusi, G. kigoma, G. poggianus, and G. rileyi. It has been listed as a distinct species only since the 1950s. Not all scientists count it as a separate species even now. Some say that G. olbrechtsi and another species name that's found on only a few lists, G. odin, are the same animal as G. auriger or maybe G. schubotzi. As a result science sites are cautious about displaying photos or descriptions of Olbrecht's Graphium. 

Photo by Kizkizito, taken in February in Kongolo.

If it is a species, it's rare, and may be threatened, but nobody seems certain. Most sites that have pages for this species have yet to fill them in with information.

There are two subspecies, olbrechtsi and tongoni, found in different parts of the nations called Congo or Zaire. Names and boundaries in this part of Africa have changed a good deal even during my lifetime. Some sources play it safe by giving specific locations where each subspecies has been seen: Graphium olbrechtsi olbrechtsi is found in Kabinda, Lomami, Lualaba...or, generally speaking, its territory is south of tongoni's. Territories mapped for the subspecies don't overlap, or even touch.

Nothing is known about the life cycle of this butterfly, though information about what it eats and when it flies might help scientists decide whether or not it's a species.

Web Log for 12.26-27.25

It's Saturday. As youall know, I don't normally go online on Saturday. However, four days and two half-days without the Internet left me a lot of reading to catch up on...so here I am...on Saturday. The Internet is working again. Now I only have the endless "updates," which were supposed to have stopped but actually doubled down in October, to contend with.

Animals 

You know it's a mild winter when people are seeing coldblooded animals and new growth on plants in Britain. Even southern Britain. In December. Even early December...

https://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2025/12/early-winter-on-pevensey-levels.html

Christmas Decorations 

I don't decorate for Christmas, but I appreciate the talent people put into it. Here is a celebration of color and nostalgia and tradition and things that will make a certain kind of tiresome person go away.

https://thepolkadotchicken.blogspot.com/2025/12/reflections-of-christmas-on-slow-sunday.html

Cultural Change 

It was a bit of a wake-up call to realize that, having grown up with all seven of these seldom discussed "oldfashioned" habits, I can still claim only one of them as a habit. You?

https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/2025/12/theres-something-to-be-said-for.html

Good News 

Technically Canadian author/activist Tamara Lich was sentenced to a year of house arrest.  However, Canadians sentenced to house arrest are allowed to travel on/for their jobs...so Lich is now employed as a journalist. Hoot! Score one for free speech...

https://x.com/RebelNewsOnline/status/2001727063472865749

Technology 

And if you think US-made "smart TVs" aren't spying on their humans, you might be interested in some beachfront property in Kansas...

https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/2025/12/whos-smarter-you-or-your-tv.html

Web Log for 12.19-20.25

This was meant to have gone live last Sunday, when the power line and Internet cable literally went down, on the ground, under a large section of tree. 

Cartoons 

Truly timeless classic. Gary Larson would no doubt have appreciated the irony that clunky flat phones came back, a little smaller, but just as hard to fit into any kind of pocket, bag, backpack, or briefcase.

Comedy 

No politics here. Well, none to speak of...the way my Friday morning Substack does reflect political views such as "Everyone has the right to read and write light verse," but it's not more partisan than that, trust me, it's 100% Trump-free... Just pre-holiday laughs. 

https://youtu.be/LHB1x3Dnqsk 

Homeschooling 

The son of an eccentric homeschooler has written a memoir suggesting that all homeschooling should be supervised by the federal government. As if, in the extremely rare cases where homeschoolers are abusive parents, a visiting bureaucrat would help. 

Actually, most State governments already do supervise homeschooling, in a benign way, by offering curricula to ensure children pass the same tests everyone else does and in some cases supervising homeschooled children's exams. Children are at far more risk in tax-funded schools. Using Bitter Boy's arguments for more "supervision" of homeschoolers, we'd need to investigate every public school on a weekly basis to ensure that the quality of public education is brought up to within screaming distance of the quality of homeschooling...

* children maintain a good healthy distance from one another at all times--desks six feet apart, lines along a rope knotted at six-foot intervals to ensure that children aren't breathing germs on each other

* children bring their own meals and don't share, or else school meals are prepared with due consideration for each child's dietary requirements

* all religious and political views are represented in textbooks and classroom discussions, and all textbook materials are approved by every parent for use in every class, as being age-appropriate as well as being factually accurate and having some merit for private reading

* children learn to spot religious, political, or philosophical bigotry just as they learn to spot demographic prejudices, and call them out, so that smears on, e.g., Republicans, are met with shrieks of "Bigot! I don't want to see or hear this!" from six-year-olds

* the school is fully liable for any side effects of any recommended vaccines or medications

* any child who shows symptoms of any communicable disease is immediately taken home

* children spend at least ten times as much time interacting with adults as they do with other children, which has long been known to be the secret to language skills development (children with a sibling, or siblings, less than ten years older than they are are at a measurable disadvantage)

* all social interactions among children are mutual--children are carefully monitored to prevent any persistent chatter, or other bids from attention from a child who does not clearly show interest in conversation

* children with extrovert tendencies are monitored to ensure they learn to wait patiently for permission to make noise or call attention to themselves; after one reminder to be quiet, they're promptly escorted to isolation carrels so that they don't violate others' space

* no adult school employee is EVER alone with a child for ANY reason (yes, this means schools are not allowed to engage in "counselling" beyond full-classroom consultations about class schedules), because being alone with an adult who is not part of your family is just too icky when you're a child

* and children have the option of getting all their book work done quickly and going home, so that they are not forced to waste time feeling that their time and attention are valueless, which has an incredibly detrimental effect on their social and emotional development, as is shown by the social behavior of so many public school graduates!

https://libertysentinel.org/ny-times-joins-war-on-homeschooling-parental-rights/

Status Update: The Year This Web Site Took a Christmas Break

It was not planned...on Sunday the twenty-first, about 2 p.m., the lights suddenly went out. I didn't hear the bang or see the flash, but some wires had been broken about a city block away. I saw the electric company trucks roll up, and saw that where they spent time replacing wire was downhill from my home, between 4 and 5 p.m., when the lights came back on.

The Internet did not come back.

I did not make the time to walk three miles to the store that still has a phone and was open this week. I waited for Serena's cheerful deliveryman to arrive on Tuesday evening. (Quite late Tuesday evening; he works late, though not as late as I do.) He cheerfully shared his phone and sat with me through three recorded messages about the office being open during normal business hours but the technical support line being open all the time. Finally a technical support person took the message that a wire seemed to have broken downhill from my home.

On Wednesday morning a young man drove up to see for himself that yes, in fact, a wire had broken downhill from my home, though he wasn't qualified to do anything about it. The company has not worked in this inefficient way before and I hope they're not planning to do it again. I don't think my sponsors should have to pay for the time of someone who can't do more for the company, or for me, than I've already done. Grump grump grump.

However, around 9 a.m. the crew who could actually replace wire drove up, and about 10 a.m. the Internet connection came back. 

The December Thaw came early so I was safe and warm during all this time of disconnection. Turkey, oranges, and a few presents lent a little festivity to a week I spent mostly catching up on offline chores.

Now off to the Substack...

Book Review: Damaged Baby Daddy

Title: Damaged Baby Daddy

Author: Anne Martin

Date: 2023

Quote: "I know what happened last night at the bachelor party."

Kenna thought she knew. She trusted the source of the story. She should have verified it. She refused to marry her fiance on the big day, and as a result she's now a single mother with a Damaged Baby Daddy. 

But this is a romance, albeit a steamy one, with liberal use of street names for body parts. Turner, the DBD, married someone else and had a child, but she was killed by a reckless driver. Kenna has never married. Their children are young enough to accept each other. You know how this must end. 

The suspense is in finding out what really spoiled their wedding. I won't spoil that.

Book Review: Little Bear and Mommy

Title: Little Bear and Mommy

Author: Petula Edwards

Quote: "Little Bear...is very hungry and he went searching for food."

Little Bear leaves the cozy cave without Mommy, but he misses Mommy and heads back to the cave, where Mommy has caught a fish for him. 

This is a picture book. The quality of the story and pictures is average; not Dr. Seuss or Good Night Moon, but a book preliterate children are likely to sit still to listen to. It doesn't look great in a computer browser but it's readable. Know your students; this is a story children who have learned to read are likely to reject as "babyish."

Top Ten Things to Do If You Feel Depressed Today

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with feeling sad if this is your first Christmas without your grandmother, or whoever. That can happen. Especially if Grandmother was the one who really enjoyed all the red and green and carols and chimes, and now that she's gone you find yourself not enjoying them much this year. Likewise if Grandmother was the one who insisted "We don't do Christmas! We are not Christians!" and, now that she's gone, you have the right and opportunity to decorate a tree and sing carols, but you feel strangely uninterested in doing that. In that sort of case, go ahead and cry. It will help. You'll be able to remember her and enjoy the shopping-stimulant silliness next year.

People who are not grieving any fresh loss, are not ill or disabled or in great financial disstress, but are just depressive, and need a good auntly scolding, are the intended targets for these ten recommendations:

1. Stay with a disabled relative. Most extended families include someone who is a burden on the relatives who live with person, who needs continuous care ...that relative.

2. Clean cages at your local animal shelter. Depression is often caused by mold reactions. Working with strong disinfectants may help you feel better.

3. Take a long walk. It may stir up your metabolism and boost your mood.

4. Buy a carload of fancy toiletries--shaving kits, shampoos, toothbrushes, deodorants. Donate them to your local food bank or homeless shelter. (You can probably get better prices if you pay cash at a local store, during the week before Christmas, next year.)

5. Homeless people go through socks and underwear faster than people who can bathe frequently. Buy a carload of all-new socks and underwear, say one full kit for each size the store has for as long as your money lasts. Donate them to your local food bank or homeless shelter. 

6. Adopt two or three "spent" factory-farm hens. They won't look like much. They are considered "spent" when they're one year old. They may or may not ever lay eggs again, but if they're fed a healthy diet and allowed to scratch on unsprayed grass, they may be loyal outdoor pets for another year or two. They will start to look more like healthy birds who have something to live for in a few weeks.

7. Treat a couple of hardworking young parents and their toddler to a day at an amusement park. 

8. Hard as Amazon has been pushing Audible, there are still books that are not available as audio recordings. Ask a blind person. Read one of those books on tape, CD, or as an audio file or files on a computer, whichever the person uses.

9. Do the chores and errands for a disabled person who needs continuous care.

10. Ask your local charity resale store for a bag of rejected clothes. Make a quilt, some shopping bags, a floor mat, cushions, or some other useful item.

Book Review: The Southern Heritage Company's Coming Cookbook

Title: The Southern Heritage Company's Coming Cookbook

Author: staff of Southern Living magazine

Date: 1983

Publisher: Oxmoor House

ISBN: 0-8487-0603-X

Length: 143 pages including index

Illustrations: many photos

Quote: "[C]ompany's on the way! Let's give them a real Southern welcome."

If you need something fancy to put on the table at this critical time of the holiday season, this book is for you. Here are fine and fanciful--and not cheap--recipes that are easy to prepare.

This book represents a transition point in its publisher's history.

Real "heritage" menus and recipes tend not to be very popular these days. One reason may be that the relative prices of different food items have changed. Plain corn meal used to be cheap home-grown fare, served with resignation or defiant pride by poor people; now it's a specialty item. Oranges used to be special treats, available north of Florida only during the Christmas holidays; now they're available, if not always very good, all year. People whose grandparents used to "have to" eat "weeds" such as burdock now think of gobo as a new, special Japanese thing, and may not recognize that it's basically the same plant they try to kill when it appears in their gardens.

Another reason is that even the Atkins Diet recommends less fat and fewer calories than Grandma might have served in good conscience. Today's Southern Living magazine now emphasizes Cooking Light. Less butter in the biscuits, less grease in the gravy, and less sugar in the coffee, are important new rules. A hundred years ago most Southerners spent enough time working on the farm to burn off all the extra calories they could get, nobody expected retirees to live very long, and Southern cooking was rich, sweet, and buttery. Now that more of us commute to office jobs, the demand is for low-calorie cuisine.

The recipes in the Company's Coming Cookbook can't be called "light" but they're not as heavy as some of Grandma's recipes. Very few call for a cup of butter, or insist that lean meat be completely covered in bacon while it's being roasted in lard.

Some of them also call for what used to be specifically Southern ingredients like rice, pecans, and oranges...on the other hand, these items are now sold in supermarkets almost everywhere. This is not the book to consult for specific regional treats like sorghum gingerbread, pawpaw pudding, ground-cherry pie, fried morels, or field cress.

Vegetarianism is not a Southern tradition. "Seasoning" cooked vegetables with a chunk of fat meat is a Southern tradition, although it's not mandatory. Because corn and rice grew in the South better than wheat did, because sugar was often rare, and because cheesemaking was traditional in only a few Southern families, this book does offer a good number of wheat-free, sugar-free, and cheese-free dishes. Several are dairy-free, too. There are also lots of substantial vegetable dishes that can be served as vegetarian entrees, but there aren't any completely vegan menus. As usual, people on special diets need to select and adapt recipes, but they'll be able to use this book.

Book Review: Every Which Way but Home

Title: Every Which Way but Home

Author: Kit James

Quote: "I'm just a dog who's got himself lost."

Barney is an Australian mixed-breed dog who loses his scent trail in the rain and can't find his way home. This is the story of his adventures getting to know other dogs in the pound. In Australia, at least, these chapters are part of a novel about how Barney becomes a television star, but the free e-book ends with Barney leaving the pound along with a set of rich, showy Young Things. 

The story doesn't specify a time of year but, since being rescued is a gift to a shelter pet, it fits into our Christmas theme. (I received only a few Christmas-theme books this year and can squeeze in a few books that were written to be read at an time of year.) 

Of course, lovely as the idea of a living gift may be, it has some hazards, and the biggest one is described in this story. At first Barney shows no interest in the visitor who volunteers to take him for a short walk. She's not his type. He belonged to a young man, though the young man's had to move in with a sister who doesn't like dogs, and the young man intentionally loosened the rope when the sister made him tie Barney. Barney didn't intend to move out, though, and misses his man. He realizes that the man's not looking for him, though, and other dogs warn him that he has to make a good impression even on the volunteers if he wants to be recommended to a good home. Next he's cautioned about making too good an impression on everybody he sees. He doesn't want to be a "boomerang" dog--returned to the pound.

My guess would be that "fostering" is the best way to keep an adorable shelter pet from being a boomerang. Foster arrangements vary; some shelters' idea of "fostering' is very venal, but the standard arrangement is that the foster family gets to keep an animal at their home free of charge, with free veterinary care and sometimes free food, in exchange for letting the animal be advertised for "adoption." If foster families really like an animal, they have ways to impede adoptions while they scramble to pay the adoption fees themselves. 

Children have a hard time understanding about "fostering," though, so the next best alternative might be described as mentoring the adoptive family. I'll always regret that nobody did this for my brother and me--my brother really wanted to have been able to train and keep the puppy someone gave us, and wanted to find another, more congenial dog all his life. I've done it with some Cat Sanctuary "graduates"--visiting the home, encouraging the adopters, recommending vet visits if needed; not much mentoring is needed for cats, but a lot of mentoring may be needed to ensure that people can live with the sort of dog they've always wanted. 

In the story Barney is destined for stardom because he has a special talent. He's a Listening Dog, and more intelligent than the average dog, too. He doesn't want to see the Treeing Jack Russell Terrier in the shelter be euthanized, so he advises the dog to learn to play with frisbees rather than showing off his unusual talent, which nobody seems to want. (Because of their relatively small and very muscular build, some terriers really can climb a short way up the right kind of tree.) He feels sorry for the big watchdog, too, so he advises that dog to be friendlier. Then he grumbles, "Everybody gets adopted but me," but then, a few days later...

You can't not love Barney and it would be fun to watch a movie or TV show about a clever mutt who's told early on that he's "not cute, or even handsome," and learns to use what he has at the dog pound.

Book (?) Review: Let Me Hold You

Title: Let Me Hold You Crossbody Bag (as Featured in the Once Upon a Starry Night Box Set)

Author: Camy Tang

Quote: "It's the crossbody bag worn by Jan [Thompson]'s character Maggie in Let Me Hold You."

The Once Upon a Starry Night boxset was a bargain bundle of twelve Christmas-themed romances that was sold, not sent out free of charge, through Book Funnel. Tang, one of the featured authors, is a knitter and designed a hand-knitted beach bag as worn by a character in one of the e-books. 

If you want a cute string bag, this pattern ensures a fairly easy knitting job. It uses only about 400 yards of cotton yarn (or saved-up string), so you can afford to knit it...for yourself, or as a holiday or birthday gift. 

Recommended to all knitters whose computers can handle PDF.

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Nomius

This week's butterfly is sometimes called the Spot Swordtail. Nomios means "of the pastures" in Greek; it was the name of a few obscure men and of a nature spirit, similar to Pan, but identified with open grassland. Graphium nomius is found in forest land in India and southeast Asia, sometimes visiting islands even as far away as Australia; the males, like so many other male Swallowtails, hang out in groups at puddles, sometimes in pastures. Common in some places, these butterflies are also found in flocks around flowers and flowering trees. 

Photo from Wikipedia. The hind wings always start out with long, thin, pointed dark tails but the tails may be lost by misadventure. This individual's plump shape and interest in a leaf bud suggest that it's a female looking for a place to lay her next egg.

Photo by Pam-Piombino. Though often photographed alone, males sometimes share puddles with large mixed flocks of other butterflies. 

Photo by Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne. They are liquid composters. They drink brackish liquid (sometimes from dead or dying animals), store and use mineral salts, and excrete more nearly pure water. 

Photo by Antonio Giudici at ThaiButterflies.com. If you magnify the photo you can see the tiny stream of clear water being excreted. 

Two subspecies are recognized: Geaphium nomius nomius, which is common in much of India, and G.n. swinhoei (or pernomiums), which is not common anywhere. A subspecies hainana, reported from China, is not mentioned by most sources. Swinhoei is said to be the subspecies found in Hainan. Rothschild described its difference from G.n. nomius in terms of slight variations in the proportions of spots on the wings, and of swinhoei having little or no white hair along the inside edge of each hind wing while nomius nomius has an inner border of thick white fur. Both subspecies can look black and white or pale blue-green, or yellowish brown and light yellowish green, depending partly on the angle at which their wings catch light. 

Their resemblance to Graphium aristeus is strong, and in some places the species fly together, but no intermediate or hybrid form has been identified. 

The wingspan is about four inches, more or less. Females often measure more and males less, and in some places (colder places?) they reach only two and a half to three inches. This species does not show a consistent visual difference between males and females. The ones who look egg-stuffed or are seen laying eggs are female. They average a little larger than males, but the difference is not obvious in every couple. 

Photo by Saravanaraja_Vicky. There is not a consistent color difference in every couple, either.

Photo by Rajivthanawala. If the female weren't so full of eggs, could anyone tell them apart?

For Swallowtails this species seem "shy and wary" of humans. This may be because they fly closer to the ground, rather than up among the treetops, and are likely to be crushed. They will fly higher, though, to get at the nectar of their favorite flowers. They like a flowering tree called gamhar, or Gmelina arborea, which resembles the paulownia but has yellowish brown flowers.

Photo from Wikipedia. Humans don't eat the gamhar tree but prize honey made from its blossoms.

They are most often seen in March or April. Individuals sometimes fly as early as February or as late as June, and in some places they may fly as late as October. 

Eggs are laid by ones, and look like little yellow beads stuck to the undersides of leaves or buds. The host plant is usually Miliusa tomentosum, but this species can also use M. velutina and Polyalthia longifolia. The eggs take three or four days to hatch.

Caterpillars have "glossy green" osmeteria rather than the usual orange or yellow. They have the humpbacked shape typical of Swallowtail caterpillars, sometimes so pronounced that the caterpillar seems cone-shaped. Bristles near the head of the young caterpillar are lost in the first molt. Bristles at the hump and at the posterior end shrink down to little spikes, harmless to humans but probably scratchy and disagreeable to caterpillar-eating birds. 

Photo by Shivan Bhatt. This is a young caterpillar.

Photo from Vivekvaidyanathan. This is an older caterpillar. Its head is upward.

Photo from Ygurjar. This species does not seem as hard to provoke to put out its osmeterium, or "stink horns," as some Graphium caterpillars are. In older caterpillars lengthwise stripes break up the outline in a variety of ways that seem likely to confuse predators about what they might be trying to grab. 

Photo by Maxncharlie. This black and white pattern on top sometimes accompanies green bands along the sides. 

Phoro by Anil Kumar Verma. The stripe almost looks as if it were a separate animal and the main body of the caterpillar were only a rolled-up leaf.

Photo by Prajwal Ullal. This neutral-colored individual might have lived in the shade where it would have been well camouflaged. The caterpillars are most active, or least inactive, late in the evening. (Swallowtail caterpillars are not very lively animals. The less they move, the less they're noticed and the more likely to live to grow up.)

Caterpillars gobble their way through five skins, usually in less than three weeks. If conditions are unfavorable it may take 22 days for a caterpillar to be ready to pupate.

Pupae are shaped like others in this genus, and are usually brown. This species does not normally pupate near its host plant, but usually finds a crevice near or in the earth.

Photo by Rajiv Thanawala. Some pupal shells are green, but brown is more common. The pupal stage lasts twelve or thirteen days. 

In places where their food plants are producing new, tender leaves all year, this species can have eight generations in a year. Adult butterflies usually fly for a week to ten days.