Bad Poetry: The Ice Dancers

Most of the Poets & Storytellers United have been watching the Winter Olympics. I have not, but I know the sort of eye candy that prompted this week's call for poems about dancing. I started writing a normal rhymed poem and then thought that this poem worked better with consonance rather than full rhymes...

They make it look so easy.

They're having so much fun.

We never see the hours

Of practice they put in.

Was it a planned and practiced move

Or a disastrous fall?

They're young! They're cute! They always grin!

We never can quite tell!

Whatever happened in real life,

They never let it show.

Defining grace in motion is

All they are paid to do.

For all our lives, and theirs, in our minds

They remain nineteen.

They go on to have private lives;

Nobody knows them, then.

Twirl on, the fairest of the land;

Your dances freeze in time.

Next year there will be different girls;

The dance will be the same.

1. Photo of Dorothy Hamill from Vogue

2. Photo of Tara Lipinski from facebook.com

3. Photo of Nancy Kerrigan from ebay.com

4. Photo of Michelle Kwan from britannica.com

5. Photo of Debi Thomas from alamy.com

Book Review: Counting Sheep

Book Review: Counting Sheep: The Log and Complete Play of Sheep on the Runway

Author: Art Buchwald

Date: 1970

Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

ISBN: none

Length: 219 pages

Illustrations: black-and-white photo insert

Quote: “Writing plays is pretty tough in Washington. Writing about anything except politics is pretty tough.”

So he wrote a play about how the American embassy destroys a small mythical Asian kingdom, not so much because the ambassador’s bratty kid wants to protest everything, nor because the embassy’s butler is a spy, but most visibly because a planeload of American “experts” want to sell the country a lot of things nobody really needs. Before the audience’s eyes, the peaceful kingdom is reduced to a banana republic whose prince has declared the whole embassy persona non grata.

Any resemblance to any small Asian countries our government was trying to help, at the time, is of course purely intentional, and the ethical acceptability of producing this play in 1970 was very questionable...but Buchwald’s light touch apparently made Sheep on the Runway acceptable. We all know the sequel: Buchwald became one of America’s best known and best loved syndicated satirists.

Sheep on the Runway, however, did not become a classic play. It went the way of almost all modern plays: it was protected by copyright laws, so while the author was waiting to sell it to Hollywood (or in this case writing witty newspaper columns) the student drama groups that keep live theatre alive, in most of the United States, were saying “We can’t afford it” and doing something by Shakespeare, or else by Gilbert & Sullivan, again. Too bad. Sheep on the Runway is quite funny.

Anyway, the book is now somewhat obscure. Many people became Buchwald fans only after Counting Sheep went off the market...Buchwald has fans who are younger than the book is. This means that, for Buchwald collectors, the book is a Rare Find.

Book Review: The Giant

Book Review: The Giant

Author: William Pène du Bois

Date: 1954, 1970

Publisher: Viking

ISBN: none

Length: 124 pages

Illustrations: black-and-white drawings by the author

Quote: “My first instructions to the lad were ferociously firm and severe. ‘You must not pick up anybody without the person’s permission’...”

William Pène du Bois dedicated this one to “My Big Friend I. Lawrence Richter.” It’s a simple story about the point in an impossibly enormous toddler’s life when the Giant begins to learn to talk to normal-sized humans. Pène du Bois couldn’t resist drawing gadgets and contraptions to fit the impossible story, but the story seems also to have been shaped by empathy for the social isolation being larger than, say, 6’6” or 250 pounds tends to impose upon people.

He also couldn’t resist giving the story a touch of sophistication: the narrator, who is American, meets the Giant, who is Spanish, while both are touring the capital cities of Europe. The text is sprinkled with foreign words and descriptions of quaint buildings and exotic menus.

If you’re aware that, according to various laws of physics, it’s impossible for a human body to grow big enough to pick up live elephants and play with them as if they were puppies, suspending disbelief long enough to enjoy The Giant may be hard. Then again, a bit of preposterous imagination might help a normal, fast-growing child feel a little less awkward about being only two or three inches taller than everyone else at school.

All this author’s books were to some extent picture books, and appeal to art collectors as well as to children. 

Web Log for 2.26.26

Economics, Basic 

The Nephews already know this, but some young person out there needs the explanation: When the minimum wage is raised, minimum wage workers have more money in their pockets for a month or so. Then manufacturers and retailers raise the prices of things to offset the cost of paying their employees what used to be considered a living wage. Then minimum wage workers end up having less money in their pockets, even though it takes more money to buy things. People who want to raise your wages are not generally your friends. It makes more sense after you've lived through a few rounds of inflation, but we don't need any more inflation, so please, young people, trust those over age 30 on this.

https://johnklar.substack.com/p/wage-hikes-aggravate-the-affordability 

Meet the Blog Roll: Ann Mackie Miller

This web site now has three series of posts on Thursdays: Meet the Blog Roll, Frugal Basics, and Dinner for Two for Less than Ten Dollars. Which comes next? You decide which to sponsor. All three series are sponsored by readers. 

For today, it is Meet the Blog Roll: Ann Mackie Miller, whose blog is "British Birds" at 

https://watching-bingley-birds.blogspot.com/

It's not been updated recently because it's pretty well filled. This blog gave me the mental model for my butterfly posts--only it consists only of bird articles, no link logs or book reviews or other fun stuff found here. Each article could be a chapter in a field guide, with clear, beautiful bird photos and facts about the birds' lives. If you are not British and have ever seen a reference to a bird in a British book and wondered what kind of bird the author meant, this web site will show you.

As with butterflies, several British species are found on both sides of the Channel and a few are found on both sides of the Atlantic. Many are considered close relatives of eastern North American species, having evolved only slight differences; some might be able to hybridize. Some, like the Mute Swan, Starling, and English Sparrow, were intentionally imported from Britain to North America. Some, like the Robin, aren't related, don't look much alike, and have similar names because British immigrants seem to have wanted to give familiar names to some sort of creature they found in North America. 

The British Birds blog may be more like a book-in-progress than like a typical blog, but those who enjoy birds will enjoy reading it. Its posts never really go out of date.

Some favorites:

https://watching-bingley-birds.blogspot.com/2015/08/pictures-of-birds-grey-heron.html

Great Blue Herons became the icon for the Chesapeake Bay and efforts to keep the water that flow into it clean. So they are among my favorite birds--in my top hundred list, anyway. We used to think they were solitary creatures, only ever seen by ones. We've learned, as some specific kinds of pollution have been reduced, that herons are as solitary as they need to be. They are obligate carnivores who are built to catch prey in what seems a peculiar, inefficient way, so they spread themselves out enough during the day that each bird can find enough fish and shore creatures to survive. At the end of the day, family groups gather in a favorite tree. It has to be a large tree, for herons to roost in it, and as it will probably be grossly over-fertilized it's unlikely to last long. Anyway they "talk" to one another, and sometimes even "kiss" with their long sharp bills. North America's Great Blue Herons are different from Britain's Grey Herons and the Caribbean Islands' Cocoy Herons, but their ancestors may have been one species and, conceivably, their descendants might some day be considered one speies again.

https://watching-bingley-birds.blogspot.com/2015/04/canada-geese-and-goslings.html

Same species, and what adorable close-ups of the fluffy little goslings! Canada geese are fun to watch. They may all look alike to humans, but they clearly relate to one another as individuals. Couples bond and mate for life; extended family groups divide into nuclear family units while raising their young, then merge back into big flocks in winter. Some migrate and some don't. The return of the migrating family members to a favorite lake is always an occasion of much happy excitement. During the winter younger birds pair off. A flock of Canada geese often picks up a few geese of different species, and these become part of the extended family. These bold birds don't seem to mind being watched by humans as their babies grow up, but if you come too close they'll "goose" your knees. From their perspective, a golf course is a sad waste of a nice lake, to be discouraged by every means possible. They are, however, pretty good mowers and weeders of ordinary grassy fields.

And, of course...

https://watching-bingley-birds.blogspot.com/2015/01/meet-long-tailed-tits.html

It's not the little birds' fault that a name intended to sound like a noisee they make happened to sound like "teat" in English. As a result Internet wits are always using "tit pics!" as a come-on and displaying pictures of small gray birds. Britain has a few different species of tits. North America has one, in the West; in most places we have to get by with chickadees, nuthatches, and juncos. Tits not only don't produce milk, but consume it. Britain's blue tits worked out a way to pick the tops off British milk bottles in the mid-twentieth century.

Book Review: The Pink Motel

I searched the Internet. Today a row of six little pink cabins on the beach is hard to find in Florida, because so much of the beach has been filled with big expensive hotel buildings...and yes, some of the big ones are pink! In real life, a pink motel has turned out to be a viable idea.

Photo from Google.

Title: The Pink Motel

Author: Carol Ryrie Brink

Date: 1959

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: none

Length: 183 pages

Illustrations: drawings by Sheila Greenwald

Quote: “Although they had been warned in advance, the Mellens were also astonished by the color of the motel...It was pink, pink, PINK.”

There’s plenty of nonsense in this tale of the bland Northern family who inherit the flamingo-pink motel building. There’s even a fictional motif I usually hate—the plot where the ten-year-old is the only one who notices or understands something any competent adult would have noticed or understood first—which becomes tolerable, in this book, because it’s deliberately exaggerated for comedy purposes. But it’s not pure nonsense; The Pink Motel is also a satire about conformity, and probably also about McCarthyism.

This is a comic satire about people who try to be sensible, inconspicuous, and predictable at all times, and therefore either fail to see what’s right under their noses, or else use their own superficial conformity to take advantage of anyone who believes conformity is good. Children and eccentric senior citizens have to rescue people like the Mellen parents from crimes, even though the crimes are both preposterously petty and preposterously obvious, because the Mellen parents have mental blind spots for anything unexpected. Kirby and Bitsy Mellen want to consult their parents when things look suspicious to them, but their parents keep telling them not to be silly—well-dressed, icily polite men with bulges under their coats can’t be carrying concealed weapons, and so on.

Kirby, Bitsy, and their parents have inherited the motel and its guests from an eccentric uncle. Kirby’s buddy, nicknamed “Big” because he’s the smallest in his family, speaks an outdated dialect but knows more about living in Florida than any other character in the book. Bitsy’s buddy, Sandra, has been trained to sit still “with her nose in the air” by her rich conformist parents, but the other children liven her up.

Then there’s Miss Ferry, whose shrewdness and ability to produce snacks out of nowhere suggest that she may be a “fairy” or wizard, and Mr. Carver, a very wise penniless eccentric wood carver, and Marvello, a depressed stage magician, and Miss DeGree, who will become the damsel in distress, and Mr. Black and Mr. Locke, who ooze criminality to such an extent that only conformists like the children’s parents would trust them for a second. Then there’s the baby alligator...

Carol Ryrie Brink is best known for realistic family stories that were based on facts, like Family Grandstand, Mademoiselle Misfortune, Two Are Better than One, and most of all the Newbery Award story of Caddie Woodlawn. Not all readers who liked those books appreciated The Pink Motel. Brink had written other whimsical stories in the doesn’t-have-to-make-sense-as-long-as-it’s-funny mode, however, like Baby Island and The Highly Trained Dogs of Professor Petit; and some of her readers liked her in both modes.

Today, The Pink Motel is an obscure children’s classic...and my copy definitely shows the effects of fifty years of enjoyment by children. 

Things from Fiction that I'd Like to See in the Real World

This week's Long & Short Reviews blog challenge asks which of the things reviewers have read about in fiction we'd like to see in the real world.

Of course, some of these things exist in the real world already, in a less perfect form...

1. The wise and occasionally magical grandfather/chieftain, like Ralph in Priscilla Bird's Book of Ralph and (so far) two sequels. Ralph is the leader of a peaceful and enlightened group of Sasquatch. As such he's hailed as the king of a forest community that includes cave-dwelling Neanderthal-like humans, talking ravens, unusually clever and social pumas, various other wild creatures, and quite a few normal modern humans from town who find their way to the forest and learn from the forest dwellers. Each story from their enchanted forest has something to teach humans about solving our real problems.

I had the relative I've referred to as Great-Uncle Vito at this web site. Some of us had our own grandfathers or great-uncles, or family friends, or even our own parents were the wise elders of a little close-knit community.

2. Accommodation Spells, as in Piers Anthony's Xanth series. The writer known as Piers Anthony liked porn and liked annoying people. Although the Xanth novels keep sex off the scene, Accommodation Spells are sold mostly to allow magical creatures of different sizes to crossbreed. In practice you know they'd be sold to allow creatures of different sizes and shapes to use tools and devices, too. "I typed so much more efficiently on the smaller keyboard of the Original or Practically Perfect Toshiba Satellite," a character like me might observe, and use the Accommodation Spell to shrink the keyboard of the computer the character was using.

In the real world, unfortunately we have to do the work of building accommodations. Still, progress is being made. A few years ago I lamented that the Mexican restaurant in my town, being sold because its owners couldn't afford to restore the building after storm damage, was taking with it the cutest little movable wheelchair ramp you ever saw. Today when I was downtown I saw that another store had bought the little ramp, and meanwhile on each block of the downhill side of West Jackson Street a big, permanent wheelchair ramp has been built in to help visitors deal with the steep steps between sidewalk and parking space.

3. The ability to fly by simply learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss, as in Douglas Adams' So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. No more expensive, wasteful jet fuel!

Actually, the real world would be more fun if it only had Douglas Adams in it.

4. A book boyfriend for everybody who really wanted one, as in thousands if not millions of romance novels. Granted, most women don't actually like the heroes of most romance novels, but this is as it should be. We shouldn't like other people's men very much. Who cares how unappealing everyone else's book boyfriend is when her own book boyfriend is, if not already married to her, probably angling for a second chance to meet her now. Men could either evolve into book boyfriends, or settle for their own kind of fantasy girlfriends, many of which would continue to be inflatable plastic objects.

In practice it's probably best if women become our own book boyfriends. Book boyfriends do not exist in the real world and men who can be good husbands like women who take care of ourselves. Meanwhile the main obstacle to women's success and the main source of women's emotional problems is the way women rush into relationships with men who waste our energy and time.

5. The Chasti-tree, as in a Xanth novel I'm glad Piers Anthony did not write for me about 1990. The early Xanth novels annoyed women by including rape-terrorism. The Chasti-tree was a magic tree whose wood, if even a sliver of it was aimed at a male, neutralized all interest in sex for a day or two at a time. Once Xanth females discovered this tree, every home had one, every female carried a twig in her pocket, and further novels would be less annoying. In the Xanth novels as they were written, females achieved liberation in a sillier, funnier way, by discovering panty magic. The sight of panties turned out to be enough to stun Xanth males. 

In real life, the Bobbitt case had a salutary effect on my generation of men. We may need a similar case, though, to enlighten younger men. Especially if we want to allow men from Muslim countries to live in the English-speaking countries, it needs to be impressed on their minds that touching a woman in any way to which she objects can be more than their lives are worth. The punishment needs to be done by women, on the spot, and vigorously supported by men as well as women. 

6. Fully reliable election results, as in so many political speeches in this era when every election seems to be followed by a demand for a recount. 

In real life, after several generations of voting machines were invented to address the possibilities for confusion and cheating with paper ballots, paper ballots may still be the most reliable voting technology on Earth. It would be helpful if there were ways to keep people like Lyndon Johnson from mysteriously discovering boxes of ballots, marked in their favor, when the real popular vote seemed to be going against them. It would be helpful if there were ways to keep people like Lyndon Johnson out of the population altogether.

7. Odor-free biomass burners, as in the mind of Bill Gates and many other technological dreamers and science fiction writers.

I would like to live in a world where instead of feeling guilty if we flush the nastiest forms of biomass into rivers, or try to bury modern toilet outputs under rosebushes, we all sold biomass as fuel. All living things on Earth contain carbon. As we all should have learned in fifth grade science, that carbon can be purified by heating and compaction, forming the sort of cheap peaty stuff Europeans buy as "brown coal" while you watch in the classroom, and can, if you can afford the heating and compaction processes for several days, be further refined into your choice of soft coal, hard coal, or synthetic diamonds. Nearly all garbage--paper, plastic, banana peels, garden weeds, tissue paper and all it is used to wipe off--can go into a biomass burner. Biomass will burn well at the peaty stage, typically reached in 24 hours in a modern toilet, 48 hours in very humid weather. But it's not a perfect solution to everything because, as we already knew, even hard coal produces a lot of nasty smoke, soot, and ash, and the softer and less pure carbon is, the nastier. At the stage when biomass is ready to burn, the smoke makes it easy to tell exactly what went into the biomass burner. Nobody wants to cook food over a biomass fire. A bus that runs on biomass needs to have a lot of filters cleaned and/or replaced between runs.

8. Reliable Resistance computer networks, as in a forgettable apocalypse novel by Pat Robertson.

Robertson imagined that persecuted Christians would have a strong, worldwide, unhackable computer network so they could go on using their Internet. Ha. Ha. Ha. Though, seriously, someone who wanted to get rich could build a network of computers that didn't try to defy global tyranny, but merely tied into the Internet while running as durably and reliably as Windows Millennium Edition.

9. The island of Lilliput, as in Gulliver's Travels.

Swift's Lilliputians didn't sound as if they had enough sense to live very long if they had existed. But Lilliput sounded so cute!

10. Big businesses that stay wholesome, as in The Way Things Ought to Be.

It's happened so many times in the real world: J.C. Penney or Sam Walton or Jeff Bezos thinks of a way to make a store stand out, adds that to a mix whose main ingredient is incredible customer service, and builds one small-town store into a global empire of wealth. It's heartwarming to watch his business grow. His contemporaries love this man, or sometimes woman. His younger contemporaries, however, note that after his retirement his business "embraces change," whose main component is reducing the fabulosity of customer service. In a mere fifty years the business's trajectory can go from pushcart to mall shop to corporate empire to manifestation of cosmic evil. There ought to be a way to preserve the ethical purity of big businesses or organizations. I don't know that there is one.

Book Review: Don't Sit Under the Grits Tree with Anyone Else but Me

Book Review: Don’t Sit Under the Grits Tree with Anyone Else but Me

Author: Lewis Grizzard

Date: 1981

Publisher: Warner Books

ISBN: none

Length: 289 pages

Quote: “First, go out to your grits tree arnd pick a peck of grits.”

Grits are the peeled inner hearts of corn kernels. (Ever tried to peel a corn kernel? Traditionally it was done by soaking the corn in wood-ash lye.) Lewis Grizzard wrote many fact-based columns, some of which are reprinted in Don’t Sit Under the Grits Tree, but his “True Grits” column (page 83) is pure nonsense. There are other silly columns scattered through this book, like the advice from “Dr. Feelbad” for hypochondriacs, or the “Drinkin’ Wine” column, which seems intended to sound as if Grizzard had drunk a lot of wine before writing.

Then there are the serious reactions to actual news, like the column Grizzard, who otherwise couldn’t quite forgive Ronald Reagan for having run against Jimmy Carter, wrote after President Reagan was shot. Some people thought Grizzard did “goofy” better than he did sincere columns about people he admired or missed, but he wrote plenty of sincere columns. This book contains columns on behalf of dog owners who ran afoul of new leash laws, people who were out of jobs and money, writers whose books Grizzard wanted to launch, and several tributes to athletes and local celebrities.

Knowing that Grizzard was suffering from the hereditary condition that killed him, and refused to try to buy time by practicing better health habits, lends a special poignancy to the articles he wrote in defense of unhealthy pleasures. “Take This Salad Bar and Shove It.” “White Bread or Bust.” “Refill Time in Heaven.” These are the essays of a thirty-year-old man who, at forty, would be writing that a good bowel movement had become more satisfying and memorable to him than sex was; in his early fifties he would be dead. He always knew it. Like P.J. O’Rourke’s eco-hog persona, Grizzard’s junkfood-hog persona is best appreciated as a way of whistling in the dark.

The fact that many of these columns are more than thirty years old, by now, lends a touch of nostalgia to the cover of my copy, which identifies the book as “The New Bestseller.” It’s a nostalgia trip for all who ever voted for Jimmy Carter, drove a 1957 Chevy or wanted to, yelled “How’bout them Dawgs” in a crowd or wanted to, thought “nekkid” deserved to be considered a separate word from “naked,” copied Richard Petty’s mustache and glasses or dated a man who did, doubted that any word processor would ever work as well as a Royal Standard typewriter, or found it necessary to tell someone what Slim Jims are.

If you have not had these Southern-Preppie-baby-boomer experiences, but would like to grow up to avoid foot-in-mouth moments like Joe Biden’s claim that FDR did press conferences on television, reading Grizzard’s books will help. For many people in cyberspace, books like Don’t Sit Under the Grits Tree may provide the same sort of pleasure that reading Dorothy Parker, Will Rogers, and “Pogo” cartoons give me. And until time machines become reality, there’ll never be a more enjoyable way to study history. Therefore, this book is warmly recommended, not only to those who get all the references, but perhaps especially to those who don’t.

Petfinder Post: The Gray and the Blue

The thing about a "snow schedule" is that one tends to stay on it even if, as today, there's hardly any snow on the ground. Snow, as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez reminds us, does not melt at 20 degrees Fahrenheit, but when the sun hits it the snow quickly reaches temperatures above 30 degrees Fahrenheit and starts to melt, so even though the air temperature has stayed below the freezing point of water you see much less snow in  the sunshine than in the shade. When there was less than an inch of snow before the sun came out, the snow vanishes in a few hours--in the sunshine. So today I'm still seeing an inch of snow in shady spots but hardly any left on most of the ground...and, nevertheless, I am running on a snow schedule.

This is because, instead of relying on an alarm clock, I let Silver and Serena join me in the office, then immediately leaned over on the bench and fell asleep. Exactly six hours later, I felt my warm velour robe being pulled away from my head. Something solid but furry bumped my forehead. 

"Is that you, Serena?" I said.

"No, it's Silver," Silver nonverbally said, sniffing my face in the way cats do as a friendly greeting, "and I hope you slept well and feel good and all that, and I really want to go out now." 

At which point the computers, which are set to "go to sleep" after six hours so that their faint blue glow leaves some confusion about whether anyone is in the office, went black. And the cats went out. 

Cats' digestive systems generally work on a six-hour schedule, very efficient. Even if they've been encouraged to use a litter box regularly and stay indoors all the time, they still have an instinctive tendency to wake their humans after letting us sleep six hours. Possibly they think we need to be exercised and encouraged to use the bathroom. Too bad about those of us who feel a need for more than six hours of sleep every night. That is a concept only very old cats understand.

If you, too, would like to be awakened in a quiet, friendly way after exactly six hours, consider adopting a cat. Dogs' sleep cycles may be more variable depending on the age and size. Both dogs and cats basically sleep in short naps rather than sleeping through the night, though older dogs and cats take back-to-back naps and can stay in the same sleeping spot all night. Smaller and more energetic dogs' digestive cycles can be even shorter than cats', while bigger, older, and generally slower-moving dogs' digestive cycles are much longer. Both species normally total at least twice as much sleep time in a 24-hour period than their humans do. Most humans, however, find it easiest to get up during the night at 90-minute or three-hour intervals, so it may feel more tolerable to put the cat out after exactly six hours than to go through the run, sniff, scoop routine with an Australian Shepherd after four hours' sleep at night.

Alternatively, of course, some people succeed in training their pets to rest in a crate or cage with a litter box. The crate or cage should be big enough for the animal to stand, sit, lie, and change positions comfortably. Room for puppies to run a few steps, for kittens to climb and jump, is a great asset. A secure water container can be harder to build in, especially if the temperature is warm and the animal learns to cool off by tipping out water and rolling in it, but also enhances the probability that the animal will think of its crate or cage as its comfort zone. Most animals I've known showed no interest in toys unless a human was playing with them, but some do like to have a favorite toy in the crate.

In theory, at least in the country animals stay outdoors at night the way nature intended. In practice, I'm not sure whether Silver really feels the cold so much or just learned to associate being indoors at night with her few months of being treated like a Queen Cat; anyway, since she's come in from the woods, when the temperature dips into even refrigerator range she wants to be indoors, preferably curled up against Serena or me or, if possible, both. 

Beside Drudge and Serena Silver looks tiny, but it's fair to mention that she's not exactly a midget; she lost weight while living in the woods and is getting back up to eight or nine healthy pounds. \

In honor of the cheerful sight that was the first thing I saw this morning, today's Petfinder post celebrates animals whose coat color is a flat, even shade of pale black that's often called "blue" or "silver," though it's nearly always a shade of gray with warm brownish undertones from the drab undercoat. Anyway, they're not tabby-striped, as a majority of gray cats are. (In a bright light you can see faint tabby stripes on "blue" cats; in most lights they look flat gray.)

As always, if you can't adopt or foster a shelter animal but would like to help it find a good home, just sharing the photos and links helps improve its chances, and you can also sponsor its adoption. 

Zipcode 10101: Mush from NYC

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/mush-8bc1b18b-aa49-4844-898e-1a047b8b4fa0/ny/new-york/best-friends-animal-society-so-ho-ny1183/details/

Few details are available about Mush. She is believed to be ten years old and shows no major health or behavior problems.

Omaha from NYC 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/omaha-ab60c72d-4e16-4e2c-98c1-d693396b2574/ny/new-york/good-world-animal-rescue-and-protection-inc-ny1521/details/

Are you the sort of person who should adopt a Siberian Husky? Omaha is not all that husky--38 healthy pounds and, at two years old, unlikely to grow bigger. She was brought up as a pet and has a friendly, gentle pawsonality, but she was born and bred to run long distances in snow. If you're not sure about your willingness to run with her, you could apply for a "foster to adopt" arrangement where you provide a healthy environment out of the shelter (preferably with a big fenced yard) and let her meet other potential adopters until you decide you can't bear to let her go. 

Zipcode 20202: Troll from DC 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/troll-69e8b01e-5388-4d2e-9ff0-97c8af88dcd7/dc/washington/lailas-legacy-animal-rescue-dc31/details/

Described as the leader of his litter, sassy and sweet, Troll is a lovable adolescent cat. They warn, though, that he's not completely "housebroken" and they offer no refunds, Male cats do often show status by scent-marking their favorite things, sometimes including their humans' legs, feet, or shoes. When neutering doesn't "fix" this behavior, the cats are probably best off in a barn.

Zipcode 20202: 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/tatum-217ea641-a48d-433f-a25e-012739cfbda3/dc/washington/k-9-lifesavers-dc19/details/

Thought to be a Catahoula Leopard Dog, or more that than whatever else he is, Tatum is about a year old and weighs about fifty pounds. He is still a puppy and needs some training, and this organization specializes in supplying professional training for dogs. He is available as a foster pet. He is friendly with humans but not with other dogs. Guarding a big fenced yard would be a suitable job for him. 

Zipcode 30303: Glacier from Marietta 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/glacier-a78c425b-826a-4e3f-8808-d210ce2cae01/ga/marietta/homeless-pets-foundation-ga140/details/

His paws are exaggerated in the photo, but they really are large. He is still growing into them. He is described as very sociable, perhaps even social, inviting attention from humans and friendly with other cats. He will need another kitten to play with and has a look-alike brother who might be a good choice.

Buster from Texas 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/buster-29e55e21-6bee-43b5-ae4f-efb4c00be426/ga/atlanta/spring-branch-rescue-tx2397/details/

Buster is believed to be a Staffordshire Terrier, a popular breed for house pets. The dominant trait of all terriers is that they are built for digging, and may dig out terroirs whether there are mice or moles to hunt or not. Buster does not like cats or other male dogs, but does get along well with medium-sized female dogs, although he's neutered. He is regarded as house-trained and has had some veterinary care. He can meet you in Georgia or Texas, as you prefer. (Points in between? Ask.)

Web Log for 2.23.26

The Edge of the Big Snow is here. Itsy-bitsy snowflakes have gently floated through the air, by ones,  for about 36 hours now. It's the kind of snow that you see in the air and think that it can't possibly stick, but it is gradually accumulating in spots, and as the ground continues to freeze it will accumulate faster. In the North we've seen people saying "Schools must not close." This is Virginia and I say schools must close. We can't have children in school buses on the road with Southern drivers in this. Not that most of the roads aren't clear, but Southern drivers panic when a snowflake hits a car window. So public-spirited Southerners stay home. Keep their children home, too.

Not that I'm not sitting here praying, "Please keep my lights on! Please keep my computer connected!" because I've lost enough computer time already in the past seven days. I need a glyphosate ban, for survival purposes, but I also want a federal law limiting all computer "updates" to the hour between 2 and 3 a.m. on the 29th of February.

Animals 

England has had such a mild winter that these cabbageworms reportedly were active and growing outdoors, in the wild, in December and January. 

https://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2026/02/large-white-larvae-during-winter.html

Poetry 

Norma Pain has written one for the front porch and one for the bathroom:

https://www.classicalpoets.org/mice-and-midges-and-other-poetry-by-norma-pain/

Photography 

With jokes:

https://www.tom-cox.com/the-20-best-interdimensional-portals-i-have-photographed-on-walks-in-the-british-countryside/

Racism, Gavin Newsom's 

Even Newsom had no business saying anything that stupid...One of the weirdest things about California was that even after the massive three-day race riot in Watts, White Californians would still look at people with straight faces, sincerity in their blue eyes, and say, "We don't really have race problems because there are hardly any Black people in California." (And there were significant numbers of Black people in California. Only they used to be "redlined," not officially segregated but sort of quietly segregated, into different neighborhoods. And some of them even used to play along. At age five or six my brother said to another litle kid, a playmate he liked, "You look Black. Are you?" and the kid said with a straight face--I was there--"Oh no, they wouldn't let me live in this neighborhood if I was Black! Everybody knows that! I just play out in the sun all the time and never take a bath.") So there is a kind of mass delusion or something going on, but you have to read Newsom's very words.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2026/02/23/newsom-tells-black-audience-hes-just-like-them-because-he-has-a-mental-disorder-n4949839

Dyslexia is not a mental disorder, but stupidity is.

https://pjmedia.com/victoria-taft/2026/02/18/gavin-newsom-is-offended-that-no-one-cares-about-his-lysdexia-n4949650

Whatever else they did the Bushes, father and son, wore dyslexia in a liberating way. Thousands of reading-avoiders and skid-talkers dared to speak in public, even about our brainquirk: "I'm dyslexic, like the President," I started explaining when I skid-talked. "I'm dyslexic, in a different way from the President," people who knew how to read but didn't like reading or do it well could say. Newsom is embarrassing us all over again.

Book Review: Going Rogue

Book Review: Going Rogue

Author: Sarah Palin

Date: 2009

Publisher: Harper Collins

ISBN: 978-0-06-193989-1

Length: 403 pages

Illustrations: photo sections

Quote: “The way forward is to stand and fight.”

Fair disclosure: I’m not a real fan of Sarah Palin’s. I do respect her calculated decision to hand her political opponents what I think ought to be the most discrediting thing about her: her position on the use and sale of natural resources.

I will now display my moral superiority to most people who call themselves liberals these days. I admit: I never dug up the facts to debate Palin’s position on the most controversial issue in her campaign. I find her position philosophically reprehensible, and feel emotionally that beating her in a fair debate ought to be doable, but without being paid to do it I didn't try it. But I think the greater shame goes to the Democrats for not even trying to fight Palin clean. If anything could make a “Green” non-Alaskan think that there might be some actual reason for chanting “Drill, baby, drill,” it would be this left-wing pusillanimity. I say forget about her lipstick (if I lived in Alaska I’d pile it on too, and I’m a woman who, living in Virginia, seldom manages to use up an Avon lipstick sample before it melts) and focus on defeating “Drill Baby” in a reasonable, a self-respecting way.

In Going Rogue, Palin reveals more of her strategy for deflecting cheap, mean attacks by making them on herself first,. She claims authorship of some of the cheapest of the shots taken at her, including “Sarahcuda” and “pit bull with lipstick.” She might have learned the trick from observing W Bush, who authorized, if he didn’t compose, some of the cheapest shots about his intelligence.

A large part of Going Rogue analyzes how party headquarters’ attempts to “market” Palin and McCain may have cost them votes. Along the way, Palin also corrects some of the rumors we’ve heard.

During the campaign, Palin was identified as a single mother. In the book, she replies with a wisecrack: “Have they seen Todd?” I turn to the photo section. I think it’s a good thing, actually, that women have never been able to reach a consensus about the relative attractiveness of other people’s husbands.

Going Rogue also gives people who don’t like Palin’s position, or any number of her positions, reasons to like her. Dana Bash is quoted as publicizing one of the best. “McCain sources say Palin has gone off-message several times...she labeled robo-calls—recorded messages often used to attack a candidate’s opponent—‘irritating’ even as the campaign defended their use.” I have to give “the campaign” points for remembering not to call me at home, not ever, unless you (a) are paying for my time, including phone time, or (b) have a “phone appointment,” or (c) are having a personal emergency and need my help. I wasn’t aware that Senator McCain had defended this nuisance; I wasn’t aware that any sane person could. But if the Democrats really couldn’t challenge Palin on facts, which is hard to believe, can’t they at least give us a campaign without “robo-calls”?

Other writers may find their bonding-with-Sarah moment on page 322: “The special needs coordinator also called...to say that we should no longer use the term ‘special needs people’ because special needs families find it offensive.” Maybe we need a special campaign to stamp out p.c. censorship.

The book also explains the names of the Palin children...admit it, you wanted to know. You wanted to read Going Rogue. That’s why it became a bestseller.

On the whole, book sales have probably been good for Palin; in the book she comes across as a likable person. Is this good for the country? Well...somebody should have beaten Obama in 2012, and it wouldn't have been Mitt Romney (who suggested the most un-American and loathsome features of Obamacare). Considering the way the mass media distorted Palin’s image (the “single mother” bit was, according to this book, an outright lie) I think it’s definitely good that people are reading her book. We may not want Drill Baby in the White House but we need a good solid proof of just how unreliable broadcast news stories can be. 

Book Review for 1.22.26: Family Walk

Trigger warning for some: Christian content. Actually a newer Christian book review should have been here on Sunday. Well, this is the review that is here.

Title: Family Walk

Editor: Bruce H. Wilkinson

Date: 1991

Publisher: Zondervan

ISBN: 0-310-54241-3

Length: 276 pages

Illustrations: cartoons by Martha Campbell

Quote: “You’ll never run out of the riches of wisdom.”

In 1976, Bible teacher Bruce Wilkinson organized Walk Thru the Bible Ministries in Portland, Oregon. In 1978, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where his ministry really took off. In this 1991 devotional book, he reports that the organization has trained over 200 teachers to read the Bible with over a million students, in 21 countries, in 30 languages.

Family Walk is designed for short, simple family meditations. In between “New States” and “Christmas,” with strategically placed chapters on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas music, parents are free to move around among Worship, Holiness, Leisure, Success, Angels, Love, Listening, Proverbs, Peace, Serving, Growth, Mankind, New Life, Prayer, Joy, Gentleness, God, Creativity, courage, (the Epistle of St.) James, Sin, Meditation, Humility, Money, Reading, Faithfulness, Heaven, Good News, Patience, Memory, Forgiveness, Church, Commandments, Learning, Peer Pressure, Honesty, the Holy Spirit, Suffering, Anger, Youth, Endurance, God’s Names, Contentment, Values, Goals, Fear of the Lord, and Giving.

Each of these chapters contains five one-page meditations on short passages from the Bible, suitable for use at breakfast or after dinner,. There’s a question, an answer, a short-short story, a Bible verse to look up, usually more verses quoted in the text, and a paragraph or two of commentary, which may include a song, poem, or cartoon.

Although it’s more Protestant than Catholic, the book is meant for interdenominational use, and one note to parents suggests, “If vacation travel permits, expose your family to the richness of worship experiences by attending a service at another church.”

Some of the stories are commonplace: a boy’s mother “watched him slam the gate, kick two garbage cans, and angrily shove his dog” and act surly all evening until “the truth came out. He was mad at himself for failing a math test.” Others are taken from history. Randomly flipping through my copy, I notice brief stories about George Müller’s orphanage ministry, Haralan Popov’s book Tortured for His Faith, Nicky Cruz’s conversion, Amy Carmichael’s mission, and Abraham Lincoln’s brainstorming process.

Few Christians will find anything really offensive in this book, although those who know that pumpkins are one variety of squash may chortle over the phrase “squash pie cleverly disguised as pumpkin.”

Family Walk is recommended to any family who would like to study Bible teachings without bogging down in the ancient history and genealogies. It is as suitable for adults who feel “young in the faith” as it is for children and teenagers. 

Book Review for 1.20.26: The View from Chivo

I had intended to review some new books by now, but guess what happened just after the week with no laptop at all? Next Kindle "updated" in such a way that even the new book I had made time to read, review, and schedule a review for its actual publication date in May, was suddenly "old, incompatible," and unable to be opened. So here is a nice review of a vintage book.

Title: The View from Chivo

Author: H. Allen Smith

Date: 1971

Publisher: Trident (Simon & Schuster)

ISBN: none

Length: 275 pages

Quote: “Their festivals were organized...around the most important industrial or agricultural products of their areas. Chivo County didn’t have any.”

H. Allen Smith was a comic writer who enjoyed great success in the mid-twentieth century. It’s not hard to guess why he fell out of favor. He could be comical on many levels at a time, but his comedy always relied on politically incorrect stereotypes.

Since my stereotype is that Texans consider themselves above whining about being ridiculed, in the way members of some other groups might whine, I propose as an example this wisecrack: “The four greatest pleasures afforded by life, in the code of the Texan (according to a study made by Dr. Dewey D. Mook, the distinguished Oklahoma psychotechnologist) are (1) outsmarting an opponent, preferably a close relative, in a business deal; (2) being seen in church; (3) sexual gratification, and (4) full participation in community festivals.”

As late as 1971 the code of the American Who Wished to Be Credited with a Sense of Humor, which was just about every American, mandated that Texans must laugh first, loudest, and longest at this kind of jokes. Social change took place rather quickly. Smith had similar jokes about other demographic groups, too. As long as people were being stereotyped as quirky but not, y'know, loathsome, it was all supposed to be funny.

Anyway, The View from Chivo is one of a series of slapstick comedies describing the adventures of a super-rich cat, his young-rich-and-gorgeous human guardians, and the small-town types they meet while travelling with the cat, and they’re all stereotyped in what have since become offensive ways. Of course, stereotypes aren’t the only jokes. There are literary jokes, mock histories, mock quotations. There are awful puns, as when an old man doesn’t react to being called a “windbreaker,” so the rude person elucidates further: “old gasbag.” There are oldfashioned “dirty jokes,” as told by middle school boys who lump sex, digestion, and all bodily illnesses together as gross-outs. There are perhaps unintended anachronisms: a character described as young in 1971 was deploring an Italian tour guide’s unfamiliarity with American authors in 1951. There’s some classic vintage ridicule of rock music, and scenes and lyrics to prove that if this book had been made into a movie the soundtrack would have contained plenty of rock music.There are author-intrusive self-deprecations: an elaborate description of scenery ends with “It takes a lot out of a man to write like that!”; a compound-complex sentence segues into “look at that sentence if I’m not careful I’ll start writing like that guy Faulkner and win the Nobel Prize...” Eventually all these jokes coalesce into a sort of slapstick-comedy plot, although it remains, consistently, more slapstick than plot.

It never happened, never could have happened, and wasn’t even made into a movie...but if you enjoy totally unfashionable jokes, The View from Chivo should be good for several days’ worth of chuckles.

Web Log for 2.22.26

I spent more time transcribing and copying than surfing the'Net, while the Edge of the Big Snow trifled with local people's worries, dropping a snowflake here and a snowflake there, all day. 

Animals 

This Florida Panther has adjusted to encroaching human settlement and urbanization...

Joe Jackson shared this photo, apparently first posted on F******k. Nobody seems to know the name of the man who observed this panther looking as if it wanted to withdraw some money from its bank. He is just a North Florida man, and yes, it's possible that he doesn't want his name known because the photo has been through the Photoshop program.

Cybersecurity 

This must not happen. How do we make sure it won't happen? By making plans now to unplug from the Internet if anything like it starts to happen. If anyone in cyberspace asks to see any identifying documents, bank information, credit cards, etc.,  close the window and don't open it again.

https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/40-attorneys-general-urge-congress-tie-online-access-to-id/

Elections, Integrity of 

Nick Shirley is now being encouraged to blow the whistle on "people" who vote from fraudulent "addresses." He needs to understand that the appearance of mailing and business addresses on voter registration cards, drivers' licenses, and similar identification documents is not inherently evidence of fraud. It is evidence that people don't want the whole world to know where they live. When verifying that Richard Roe at PO Box 123, Professor Rudolfine Umlaut at PO Box 124, and David Copperfield at PO Box 125 may in fact be the imaginary friends of election cheaters, we need to be careful not to violate the privacy or the security of Tracy Smith at PO Box 126, who lives within the election district with a son who works for the police and an Internet celebrity dog valued at $5000. 

https://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2026/02/17/margin-of-fraud-180/

Electricity 

Why Nikola Tesla opposed the construction of a central electric power grid...

Because they can. We have to break up that grid.

Glyphosate Awareness 

People I know who still have phones are required to use them for their jobs and for nothing else, but if you do still have a phone, and know any of these Congresspeople, you might want to call: 

https://t.co/h6hAJIthFF

This writer is (not unjustifiably) worried that euthanizing babies with gross deformity and extremely painful conditions will lead to euthanizing babies who look like someone other than their mothers' husbands, or who just aren't convenient for their parents to keep. Why does this link go under Glyphosate Awareness? Because the Seralini Effect causes some females, of all species, to flush out toxins like glyphosate by forming and giving birth to grossly defective young. We are not talking about cleft lips or even short arms here. Seralini puppies, chicks, calves, kittens, and also human babies, can be born without skin. Or without heads. Or with skin on one side of the head and a bare optic nerve dangling out through a skeletal eye socket on the other side. Most of these horrors are born dead anyway, but more glyphosate means more animals, and more human babies, are going to come into this world looking as if they need killing--which they do.

No baby of any species deserves to show the full Seralini Effect but it would be sort of appropriate if Trump became the grandfather of a Seralini baby this spring. And I would hope, if the poor little thing showed any sign of feeling the condition it was in, somebody would be humane enough to euthanize it. Left Hand Man adjusted very well to having been born with only one hand, which has only two fingers on it, but that's a different thing from being born with a brain and nerves rattling about in a half-empty, mostly-bare skull.

https://pjmedia.com/tim-o-brien/2026/02/21/new-canadian-anthem-o-cannibals-let-us-kill-the-babies-now-n4949789

Jokes, Cheer-Up, Sick 

This one goes with a little song I used to sing:

"When you're lying in the gutter and you're thinking that your misery is pu-re,

Cheer up! For the next day you might find yourself...lying in the sewer."

Ohio Joke, This Should Be an, Only It's New York City

To be fair, Mamdani's not demanding multiple copies of five forms of identification for everyone who wants to clear a path...only those who want to be paid almost twenty dollars an hour for doing it.

https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/2026/02/in-nyc-theyre-gonna-get-dizzy-shacking.html

Weather 

Residents of Michigan, where Hell has frozen over, looking for their next overdose of global warming.

Found on the Mirror, with terse comments (http://www.michellesmirror.com/2026/02/waiting-for-spring.html). Google traces their first appearance to someone called Nasty Bear on F******k.

Google also says that the official recorded temperature in downtown Hell is three degrees warmer than the temperature at the Cat Sanctuary, and my thermometer is pretty reliable about the freezing point of water I might add. So it may be possible that Hell is getting some local warming. Doesn't seem like a big enough town to get a lot, but some.