There's no real reason for running three days' links together. I just forgot to publish them one day at a time. First the horrific Halloween meme...
Christianity, Fads in
Seriously: For my generation, the virtues of modesty and frugality were often attacked in the name of the virtue of tolerance. Now, Jake Meador says, the virtue of tolerance is being attacked in the name of other things--apparently, in the case of support for certain ideas that aren't even good for those in whose behalf they're advocated, in the name of tolerance. So the trend-victims don't say "tolerance"...
Election 2024
No, Rick Moran. Hillary Clinton doesn't have the crown for the worst presidential candidate. Some think Lyndon LaRouche took it, some think Warren G. Harding borrowed it, but it truly belongs to John C. Calhoun, who campaigned on the virtues and benefits of slavery. Even in Georgia people could see through that.
Mean Girl O'Dowdypants doesn't have a claim on the title to Worst Vice-President With Worst President, although people who've not read much history might think it's hers. Breckenridge and Buchanan may or may not have been boyfriends but they precipitated the Civil War.
This was the year I wanted to vote for a D who had a platform, too. Blast. Platform summary ganked from MichellesMirror.com.
Trump endorsed by one of the last survivors of that dead lunatic Tackypants just can't stop comparing Trump to, shared by Small Dead Animals:
Glyphosate Awareness
Wouldn't you like to know what this "private" website is telling chemical corporations to use to discredit and potentially harass you? If you have young children living at home, Glyphosate Awareness needs for you to maintain a low profile about encouraging our government to ban glyphosate, altogether, forever, also ban other "pesticides" known to be toxic, ban ALL pesticide spraying, and limit the use of chemical oils or powders applied directly to crops. We think it's safe for everyone to (1) promote more awareness of the benefits of eating the "weeds" from a kitchen garden, and (2) call for more research and development of boiling water as a genuinely safe way to kill "weeds." But the real scandal is that the US government has been implicated in supporting this nefarious "doxing" campaign that promotes attacks on the credibility, and potentially on the homes, families, and persons, of people who want you to know how much healthier you could easily be by making the food you love, and regard as "healthy," actually safe and healthy for use as food.
KAMALA HARRIS AND HER "CENSORSHIP PARTY" ARE PART OF THIS ABUSE. VOTE AGAINST HARRIS, IF YOU HAVE TO WRITE IN "BROCCOLI."
No, paraquat is not the answer. We have to accept that spraying poisons is not, ever, a real answer. Some chemicals may be less ridiculously far from "safe and effective" than others. No chemical will ever be "safe and effective" for very many years in a row. We have to kill the lifeforms we want to kill by ones, in ways that don't affect other lifeforms. Never, never, never spray anything on plants you want to get rid of. Cut, dig, if necessary burn plants--or, in some cases, you might just want to apply lots of rich compost to feed other plants, which will kill some "weeds" with kindness, or at least make them send their rhizomes somewhere else. You can even kill plants with boiling water, which, when it soaks into the soil, stops boiling and promotes growth for plants you don't want to boil. "Gramoxone" harms people even faster than "Roundup" does. We already knew this. Glyphosate Awareness never needed to tell informed people not to turn back to paraquat. This article explains how long we've known that PARaquat causes PARkinson's Disease.
Some may think, "Fruit flies will never be missed." Well, they would, by students preparing for a career in genetic science. But, for those who wonder why they're seeing fewer butterflies...yes. Virginia's butterfly populations are struggling to recover from efforts to slow the spread of spongey moths, but they're struggling with more than the natural caterpillar diseases from which their populations are expected to rebound.
Hurricane
"Love is a road."
"Asheville needs tourists." This person is saying it's okay to be a disaster tourist! Things to pack: flour, cooking oil, non-perishable proteins like canned meat and cheese, baking supplies, cleaning supplies, new bed linens, space heaters, shiny new toys for children, and lots of garbage bags. While strolling in parks you may still find enough trash to fill bags. and people you visit may want some. No need to overburden vehicles--call local businesses, see what you can buy locally. People are buying some things as far north as Virginia but the word is that you can find a lot in North Carolina now.
Does anyone Out There have a trailer for sale or rent? Someone was griping about the FEMA trailers growing mold post-Katrina. After a major mold-boosting event like a flood, all trailers will grow mold. So will houses, schools, churches, museums, libraries, stores, and office blocks. Spores will be in the air whenever it's not actually freezing. I'd be interested in comparing results with that stuff Norb Leahy recommends versus bleach. Trailers are not built to survive much scrubbing. Well, they lose value every year anyway; might as well let'm go down where they can be useful.
If visiting friends I'd try to take some clean fresh fruit. In a normal year they have plenty, but this year anything that was still in a garden was marinated in badly polluted water.
The cheerful deliveryman who supplies Serena with her favorite brand of bottled water, Pure Life, came up on Sunday evening and said, "We can't keep those bottles of water in the store. People keep buying them to take to North Carolina." He offered me a lift to a bigger store to see if they had any acceptable alternative. They didn't, really. All they had left were rip-off packs of baby-sized bottles that cost as much as the full pint size. I bought some of those, anyway. The cats don't know what things cost, and humans in North Carolina need pints or litres of good water.
Phenology
Photo essay from Illinois documents that their autumn is proceeding just a day or two ahead of the Cat Sanctuary's, which is a day or two or three ahead of the town in the narrow valley below.
Poetry
I'd expect that translation software will make this one reasonably accessible to those who don't read French. All North Americans ought to read French, anyway.
Women's Issues
On another forum I watched Melania Trump discussing her new book.Melania's a little different from the other Republican First Ladies. Younger. Foreign. Not afraid of the word "feminist." She presents herself as an intelligent liberal feminist. As such she's pro-choice, and she says, regretfully, that she thinks this has cost her "sisterhood."
Not with me, it's not.She's about the age of my sisters. She can be another sister if she wants to.
DANG she's good. How many native speakers of English can speak it so well for so long?!
I'll go first. I'm with her on women's right to choice, with the caveat that I think we should choose responsibly. The time to choose not to have a baby is before we make a date. It's not my place to judge women who feel that it's come to the fetus's life against theirs, which can happen. It is my place to say that people shouldn't take chances with unwanted babies. If she's not ready to give up being a model, or he wants to be free to travel, they should not deceive themselves about what that means they need not to do.
Can "conservative" women agree with that?
Can Melania find "sisterhood" after all?
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