Monday, June 30, 2025

Book Review: It's My First Time Getting Old

Title: It's My First Time Getting Old

Author: ChatGPT as "Charles Pemberton" 

Date: 2023

Quote: "The book you're holding in your hands is the book Dr. Pemberton would have written. If he wasn't a fictional character..."

And he's a likable character; he's familiar with all baby-boomers' favorite songs, books, and movies. And that's because he's the product of plagiarism. His book consists of unacknowledged quotes from other people's writings, remixed, without payment. 

Do not pay for this book. If it's offered free, it's a great playlist for a Youtube binge...but I wouldn't have let it clutter my computer if I'd known it was written by ChatGPT.

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Idaeoides

This week's butterfly is large, rare, threatened, and confusing. Graphium idaeoides, sometimes called the Giant Graphium, looks almost exactly like Idea leuconoe, the Giant White butterfly, and resembles other species in the genus Idea enough to confuse even humans looking at still images. The Giant White is much more toxic to animals that eat it than Graphium idaeoides is. These "giants" have wingspans of 4 to 5 inches--or more.


Museum specimen from March for Agusan Marsh, a conservation project from 2015.

Photos of this butterfly alive are rare on the Internet. Stijn de Win snapped some that are recognizable, though at odd angles, but then requested that nobody copy or link to them. 

How do humans tell these species apart? This page, with museum specimens of Graphium idaeoides above and Idea leuconoe below, shows some differences. The most reliable difference is probably that Graphium idaeoides has scalloped edges on its wings, with whte along the outermost edge, and Idea leuconoe has plain round edges with black around the outermost edge. The markings can be almost identical. Individuals of both species can look creamy white or yellow rather than flat white, especially in the  inside corners of the wings.

https://forum.insectnet.com/viewtopic.php?t=284

In order to be listed as "threatened" a species must have had a good deal written about it. Much of that information is, or should be, available to the public online. Greedheads at Google, however, won't show it, because they've made commitments (1) to show us only about one-tenth of what's available and (2) to prioritize paying commercial sites above academic, social, specialists', or individuals' sites. Most people searching for a living creature by its scientific name may want to know on what grounds it was ruled a threatened species (if it was), but Google has degenerated into a site that tries to distract you from that question with more and more "information" about sites that sell images or carcasses, rather than information about what Graphium idaeoides eats (as distinct from general blather about its being a "rain forest species"). 

Schools and teachers need to be aware of this, and require students to use only printed documents for research until such time as (1) Google searches are 100% clean of robotic plagiarism, (2) Google searches aren't cut off at any arbitrary point but will crawl on through 100,000 links if there are 100,000 links, and (3) Google searches consistently prioritize all academic information above any "shopping" information.

There is nothing wrong with painting pictures of butterflies, or putting pictures of butterflies on postage stamps, or reconstructing pictures of butterflies with toy blocks. Graphium idaeoides has been commemorated on a coin, on a Lego block, and in many drawings and paintings. There is something wrong with shoving these commercial images at people who are looking for scientific information about the real world.

Pardon me, Gentle Readers. I become grumpy when I have to go to Yahoo for information. 

Anyway, Graphium idaeoides (or ideaoides, but idaeoides is the standard spelling) is most likely to be found on the eastern sides only of certain Philippine islands: Luzon, Samar, Leyte, and all around the south side of Mindanao. It is almost always seen in March. 


Professor Jumalon wrote more than this about the Swallowtail species of the Philippines, and his children and grandchildren have chosen to honor his memory by maintaining a Butterfly Sanctuary in Basak:


Apparently they have not been able to determine what Graphium idaeoides eats. 

Sunday, June 29, 2025

Web Log Weekender: 6.27-28.25

It's still hot, despite storms that break the heat for a few hours at a time, and I've still been using more Internet time on writing articles than on hunting links. Nevertheless:

Economy, The 

For years all the news from Britain sounded a bit like this song. Their economy was ravaged by the wars and, no matter how many British imports we bought, it seemed hopeless. Then for the first ten years or so they screamed that PM Thatcher was only making everything worse--though she may have deserved credit for breaking the downward spiral. 

And now? The Waste Age in the 1950s and the dot-com boom in the 1990s were temporary booms. We've still mechanized away too many jobs and had too many babies The Economy does not need. We could impose artificial bans--taxing businesses ten times as much for each robot cashier as they'd pay a human, putting lethal tariffs on companies that contract to have all the parts for "American" products built and put together in foreign sweatshops--so that all the "millennials" can go to work and recover from socialism the way we did. We could have simply had fewer babies, but for my generation it's too late to make that choice now. I do recommend it to the "millennials," though. One child or none until everybody is working and everybody can afford a decent house, no apartments after marriage, with a vegetable garden.


Education 

"The question presented is: Do public schools burden parents' religious exercise when they compel elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality against their parents' religious convictions and with-out notice or opportunity to opt out?"

Multiple choice: 

a. Yes
b. Yes!
c. Bleep yes!

If children aren't allowed to opt out of listening to stories "designed to disrupt [their sense of gender] normativity," well, I think they're still allowed freedom of expression on T-shirts. To disrupt any sense that the children's parents' beliefs are being suppressed, stigmatized, de-normalized, shamed, etc., the children should logically have a right to wear little T-shirts saying "WHAT A PITY [the writers and/or characters in these stories] are going to BURN"...And yes,. the kids who don't join in "shaming" the teachers who read these stories to the class should be conspicuously un-invited to a few after-school parties. I'm sooo sorry if that hurts somebody's little feelings, but the political issue here goes beyond the feelings about "popularity" we all need to outgrow and the sooner the better. The Montgomery County schools need to pull a 180. Complaints of hurt feelings among the children of the few super-rich parents who send their kids to public school are the most efficient way to make them do what's necessary. Hurt feelings about "popularity" in primary school heal easily.

Because public school attendance is mandatory, anything teachers say that is controversial can be construed as an attack by a government agent on a student's or family's religious freedom. That means the controversies teachers raise in the classroom should be limited to topics like "I enjoy springtime more than autumn." That means the schools have a responsibility to present the biological facts about the reproductive process, but nothing whatsoever about "sexuality," even after students are old enough that they might have some sense of their own sexuality. This is what makes babies. Anything else people may do is their own business. Class dismissed.


Extroversion, Consequences of Treating as Normal 

Until we stop electing extroverts who look charming on television and start voting based on people's records of wise decisions and good character, we can expect political news like this:


The Minister for Children's personal relationship with a teenager might be considered a political statement, but that petty thief...!

Book Review: Back Side of Calvary

Title (as printed, surely a typo): The Backside of Calvary

Author: Rod Parsley

Date: 1991

Publisher: Harrison House

ISBN: 0-89274-897-4

Length: 110 pages

Illustrations: black and white graphics presumably by the author

Quote: “Sin-infected humanity needed the kind of transfusion that only God could provide. And the only way such a divine exchange could be made was if God Himself provided the blood.”

With “backside” in the title and a blurry rear view of a crucifixion on the cover, I wondered whether this was some sort of parody of evangelical Christian books. It’s not, although it contains some other infelicitous phrasing. Rod Parsley has not become a famous writer but he was apparently a real minister.

Well...if he’d put this work of soteriology on a blog, I would have read it without comments. Christian writers are always feeling a need to write the gospel message in our own words. I always think the Bible writers did a better job than I have. I feel that way about the gospel according to Parsley, too.

If you want a book to share with unbelievers, Mere Christianity and Basic Christianity are the classic summaries of what we believe. Backside seems to have been written for that purpose but I don’t recommend it for that purpose. It’s too easy for uncharitable, unchristian spirits to ridicule.

If you want a devotional book that lingers on the core of a faith you earnestly believe, you can read this one in the spirit in which it seems to have been written.

If you challenge, “How can you recommend a book about the Christian gospel that’s less than the best? Doesn’t such a sacred topic deserve the very best literary treatment?” you’re right, but this book has something to say to you. The next time you catch yourself wondering why some writers, who are Christians, write anything and everything but evangelical books...read Backside, and you will understand.

Perfect Afternoon

Prompted by Rommy Cortez-Driks at Poets & Storytellers United:


Components of a perfect afternoon
begin with a day's work early begun,
done singlemindedly, thus finished soon,
before the heat at zenith of the sun.

This perfect afternoon is shared by more
than one, though not all human need to be.
(Hens always have their days' work done before
midday, so mostly afternoons are free.)

A garden's always better than a lawn
and much can be said for a cherry tree
as place to rest and take one's ease upon;
the breeze is cool, a sound like distant sea.

A view of water, somewhere, anyway
adds something to the perfect afternoon,
whether viewed from the garden as in May,
or waded into in the heat of June.

There should be children, if they can be found.
There should be board games, tennis games, or boats.
There should be cold food eaten on the ground
and old songs with precisely rendered notes.

Perfection's not required every day;
pursuit of it is tedious, in fact,
but satisfactory afternooning may
be sought in every morning's conscious act.

Friday, June 27, 2025

Web Log for 6.25-26.25

It's been hot. The laptop has had some siesta time. I've spent some time in town. I found only two links, both at the same place.

Glyphosate Awareness 

Sasha Latypova presents an interesting corrective to the frankly stupid "if anything is dangerous it must be dangerous because it's the SOLE and WHOLE cause of cancer" version of Glyphosate Awareness. Nothing is the sole and whole cause of cancer, though many things, including glyphosate, are pro-cancer factors. Many people who've used DDT never got cancer. Many people who smoked cigarettes all their lives didn't get cancer. Many people who had X-ray scans daily didn't get cancer. And apparently, in some places, the pro-cancer factors in town cause more cancer faster than the "pesticides," hormones, and antibiotics on the farm.

(And yes, glyphosate is classified as an antibiotic, though it's not used as such since it's likely to make more patients sicker than the bacteria would do. It promotes the growth of fungi and reduces resistance to virus and, apparently, to intestinal worms, but it does kill some bacteria. Your body can kill bacteria more efficiently without some "antibiotics.")


Latypova's link still gives only the abstract and some "snippets" of an important glyphosate study; that's more than the last report I found online. If you can get this report free of charge at school, I recommend printing copies.

Book Review: She's Having a Baby

Title: She's Having a Baby 

Author: Suzanne Jenkins 

Date: 2019 

Quote: "They hiked for miles with Mike still over Devon's shoulder, to a rescue truck from a different squad." 

This is volume 1 in a series about the lives and loves of San Diego fire fighters. Mike and Devon are lifelong friends. Both are badly burned in a fire. Devon survives. Is it right for him to marry his best buddy's widow? 

Need one ask? It's a romance novel. Other characters and plot lines develop but this book is mainly about how Devon marries his buddy's widow; or, if you can stand to watch a woman giving birth in a bathtub while waiting to be taken to the hospital, you can stand anything and might as well marry her. It's about brave, goodhearted people who subject themselves to a lot of emotional stress and find relief in a lot of emotional sex.

Enough details about romance, sex, and babies are spelled out to attract bad things to a computer, so if you buy this series, buy printed copies.

Thursday, June 26, 2025

Book Review: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do

Title: Breaking Up Is Hard to Do 

Author: Mary Keliikoa 

Quote: "My wife, Meghan, left me last week. I want you to find her." 

Kevin, who is female, accepts payment to find Meghan for her husband Jacob. But which of the couple is nastier? If they find each other, who will murder whom?

This very short story represents the "hard-boiled" murder mystery genre, where nobody is very nice and anyone may murder anyone else on or off stage. 

Product Review: King Arthur's Gluten-Free Baking Mixes

Gluten-free food is seldom cheap. I found some King Arthur's brand gluten-free baking mixes on a half-price sale, the week before the price went up, and decided to test them. Only torture-test them. Baking mixes are formulated for use in full-size stoves. I used a saucepan inside an old "electric skillet" as a mini-stove, or primary office heating unit on baking days. 

Glyphosate Awareness has had to bash, lash, and trash this company for using gluten-free, glyphosate-soaked flour, in the past. Even sneer..."Bleep has flour to do with King Arthur? King Alfred was the one whose legendary history features baking...silly name!" I'm glad to report that they have indeed learned about this. I believe these mixes are glyphosate- and glufosinate-free. That does not mean they'll necessarily work for any particular person. It's not that "celiacs may have multiple food allergies, because celiac disease is a very mysterious and complicated disease that nobody can fully control, so we all need to ask our doctors for prescriptions for patent medicines to suppress the symptoms" blah blah. It's that other ingredients may contain different chemical residues to which we may be sensitive in a different way. Anyway, the company has cleaned up its act enough to deserve a fair review of four of its products.

I should mention that, although this review is scheduled to appear in June, the baking experiments took place in early spring, whenever the morning felt chilly enough to justify using the electric skillet to heat up the office. As I recall, I baked the chocolate cake before the Internet Failure in March, the others during the nine weeks of Internet Failure in April and May. And this was a La Nina year when we had some refrigerator-cool nights in the first week of June...In a normal year, I would have tried to time this experiment in winter, but this year it worked in spring.

1. Gluten-Free Chocolate Cake Mix


[You can buy all four mixes shown online, and some other flavors I didn't see in my local grocery store, if they're not in a local grocery store near you: 

Totally did not work for me. The big cake mix did not bake evenly in the small saucepan, which is to be expected and should not put off people who bake enough to keep a full-size stove, or bake in their wood stove. What should put you off is that some ingredient, I suspect the cocoa, didn't trigger a celiac reaction but did trigger some sort of unpleasant reaction. I felt queasy most of the day after I tested this product. The possum got most of it. 

2. Gluten-Free Classic Yellow Cake Mix


Surprisingly, this one did work for me. There's enough flour in the box to bake a 9x13" sheet cake or 8" or 9" two-layer cake, but the mix did bake evenly and produce a thick cake, like two 8" layers stacked up together without frosting in between, even in the saucepan. That mix has to be idiot-proof. The cake tasted like cake and was good enough that I kept it around for a few days, eating my way through it. 

"Yellow" cake, as distinct from mineral yellowcake, is a US baking tradition. It tastes like butter and eggs and milk and vanilla and sugar. It's not quite as easy to add flavoring to as "white" cake, which tastes like vanilla and sugar without the protein-rich farm food mixed in, but it takes most alternative flavorings well; you could add carob, pecans, cinnamon, banana, orange, pineapple, lemon, coconut, even grated carrots and raisins, or most other flavors anyone would add to cake. Of course some of these flavoring agents would affect the texture and baking method more than others.

3. Gluten-Free Ultimate Fudge Brownie Mix


Well...if you like fudgelike brownies, you might like this mix. It baked fairly well and tasted fairly good in the saucepan; it'd probably bake perfectly in a brownie pan. Brownies are tricky because of their high fat and sugar content. When the flour in the middle of the pan doesn't scream "raw," the edges of the pan tend to have reached a consistency that reminds people of bricks. To avoid wasting either middles or edges of a pan of brownies it's good to use a thick pan in which the batter forms a thin layer and bake at a low temperature. You can't expect a traditional brownie mix to bake well in a saucepan. Again, no celiac reaction, but the cocoa didn't seem to want to stay down. 

4. Gluten-Free Banana Bread Mix


This baked well, even in the saucepan. I cheated by enhancing it with about half a bag of whole pecans. It rose and cohered well enough to make a good bread, even with the pecans, and even though I carelessly let the bottom scorch. With the pecans it was delicious

These mixes are expensive when they're not on sale, and I don't plan to heat up the house by baking again till September or October in any case. However, the banana bread mix is terrific. I believe it would work, with traditional spices and mixed fruit, for a fruitcake-that-people-will-actually-eat such as Grandma Bonnie Peters used to make. If people expected edible fruitcake from me I would start experimenting in September to get the right proportions of fruit and nuts to this batter, but it's well mixed and could probably carry almost as much fruit and nuts as a wheat-based fruitcake batter. If your family like fruity, nutty baked goods, this mix may be worth its price.

Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Web Log for 6.24.25

Economy, The 

It would be pleasant to see the free market tried.


Health News 

More things to worry about? It's all connected. Wheat and grain products generally tend to be contaminated with lots of things--"pesticide" residues, mold, weevil body parts, plain old rancid oil, and tiny particles of plastic from their biodegradable plastic wrappings. Glyphosate is the one aggravating celiac reactions and producing pseudo-celiac reactions, I'm 99.999% certain--partly because it'd be so easy for Bayer to fund a test that would not support this conclusion as resoundingly as all the anecdotal data I've ever found does, and they don't dare, which tells us something. That doesn't mean the other nasties aren't contributing to some of the chronic illness some people have. Glufosinate, which some corporations are substituting for glyphosate in "herbicides," is chemically similar to glyphosate and gives me reactions that are similar to glyphosate reactions but nastier. I've not noticed any reaction whatsoever that might be associated with plastic waste; that doesn't mean that people won't notice such reactions if we continue using biodegradable plastic at current levels of profligacy. The US government has made it possible that the "organic" label does NOT mean that food may not contain enough glyphosate to produce symptoms. "Organically grown" food packaged in plastic can contain plastic waste, too.


Music 

No actual train here, though the musical composition may recall the composer's "duet with a freight train" stunt from a previous summer. 


Weather 

The heat wave is not as bad as some people urged us to overprepare for, but it does lend this joke relevance...



Book Review: Chucky's Pride

Title: Chucky's Pride 

Author: Marissa Ann 

Date: 2021 

Quote: "The first week on vacation I stayed in Memphis with my best friend Rae. After all the nights spent trying to drink all the Jack Daniels in the area, I am completely surprised my liver is still working properly. She and I spent most nights partying down on Beale Street, which is where I got my tongue pierced." 

Right. This very short "steamy romance" is the first of a set of fantasies about the "Night Howlers Motorcycle Club." Occasionally some of the men seem to do a legitimate job like delivering or working on a motorcycle, but they run drugs and brawl a good deal too. The women, too, may have jobs like tattooing, but mostly they waste whatever they have in riotous living. They have lots of sex, too. They have foul mouths. They are adults who've dedicated their lives to doing what seemed cool when they were in high school, even now that some of them have children. 

There are Christian motorcycle clubs for adults who are married to their children's other parents, who have jobs during the week and use their "hawgs" like cars, only burning less gas. I think I'd rather read about one of them.

If you want to read about aging kids who think the coolest way to live is one step ahead of the law, you will enjoy these stories. Despite the author's deft use of words to set the scene, quoted above, the stories are short--more than half the words in Chucky's Pride are first chapters of other e-books in the series--and most of the action takes place in beds, or in other places that are pressed into service as alternatives to beds, like, in Chucky's Pride, the girl's family's trampoline. Lots of explicit sex, likely to attract very bad things to computers. Lock these books in a storage barn before any children visit the house.

Do You Follow Celebrity Gossip?

This week's Long & Short Reviews prompt asks: Do you follow celebrity gossip? 

Not really. 

Why not? 

Because so many other topics are more interesting. A man I used to date could make a case for celebrity gossip having redeeming social value. Celebrity gossip gives people ways to find out who shares their beliefs before they risk discussing opinions about things about which they might feel more intensely, was the idea.

Right. If people who feel that way want to talk to me, they usually have lots of tidbits about actors' divorces and politicians' pasts to share, and I'll listen. But when I'm scanning news headlines, I don't click on the celebrity gossip. I don't care a great deal about how long some actor can hold on to the role of wife or husband or how badly some overnight-success musician was cheated on a real estate deal.

Belated Petfinder Post: Kitten Takes Over the House

Well, the kitten took over the house, so how could I get this post up on time? Easily, if I'd set my mind to it. People should not use kittens as excuses. 

Serena's kitten-who-shouldn't-be-alive now stretches out to 14" from fore paws to hind paws. He spends a lot of time sleeping and growing. He spends the rest of the time romping and chomping, preferring the latter. Serena has been feeding and tending him by fits and starts, apparently to limit consumption and get her milk production back into reasonable proportion to having one kitten, and now she's leading him around the office, making him work for his dinner. He would probably get more exercise if he had an adoptive sibling.

Kittens reach a stage where they really can't be left alone in a room that humans use, and benefit from having a special cat playroom if they can't be simply turned out in the yard all day. This one's not quite there yet, but soon will be.

Here are some of the most adorable, adoptable kittens and puppies in the Eastern States.

Zipcode 10101: Kanga & Roo from NYC


Technically it's Kanga's page, but these brothers are a package deal. Kanga has a slightly darker coat and more energetic temperament. Roo is mellower. Yes, this whole post is going to be an overdose of cuteness. Deal with it.

Zipcode 20202: Barbie and Skipper from South Carolina by way of DC 


This is Barbie. Skipper is also a Dilute Tortoiseshell, or grayzel, kitten but she has a distinct stripe of tan straight along her nose, so they'll be easy to tell apart. They're babies who can hardly be said to have purrsonalities yet. (They are old enough to be adopted. They're about the same size as Serena's month-old giant freak.) They're described as confident kittens who like to explore. Build that cat playroom.

Zipcode 30303: All That and Chips from Atlanta 


Chips is the brother, All That is the sister. Both are gray tabbies. They're a bonded pair who should be adopted together. 

Zipcode 10101: Princess Apricot from NYC 


She was getting along with her humans just fine until their mean old landlord made them put her up for adoption. You might want to get to know her former family and arrange visits if you like children as well as puppies. This little Princess is thought to be mostly Pomeranian, partly something larger. She likes to snuggle in laps and be carried as if she were a tiny purebred Pom. She's cautious and respectful of strangers but enjoys having children and other dogs as friends. The shelter want to wait until she's been spayed to send her to live with you. They recommend her especially to families with another dog and a fenced yard.

Zipcode 20202: Denali from Maryland by way of DC



The adoption fee is ridiculous. Haggle. This hound pup already weighs 35 pounds. He's still growing. There will be a substantial vet bill, which is probably included in the adoption fee; that would bring it a little closer to reasonableness. 

Zipcode 30303: Johnny from South Carolina by way of Atlanta 


Johnny and a sister, June, who seems to have been adopted already, were left in the woods to fend for themselves. Some people have very unrealistic ideas about what dogs, especially puppies, are capable of doing. It's not clear whether Johnny is really a German Shepherd, a Labrador Retriever, and/or some sort of mixed-breed coon hound. He does seem likely to be a large dog. He likes being indoors and they want you to promise that he can be an indoor pet. (Right.) He's described as a "100% sweet love bug" who likes to be petted and be close to humans. 

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Web Log for 6.23.25

Pretty pictures, and a warning...

Animals 

British butterflies, and some of the flowers they pollinate.


Vietnamese butterflies.


Glyphosate Awareness 


Is he sure it's not a glyphosate reaction? It's a common one!


Book Review: Ashes of Gold

Title: Ashes of Gold 

Author: Valena D'Angelis 

Date: 2021 

Publisher: Fabledink 

Quote: "Bravoure was supposed to be the kingdom where freedom reigned and dreams came true." 

But this is the short story of how it fell. I'm not sure why this fantasy world, populated by elves and dragons and magi and so on, should be called Terra, but it is. This short prequel enters the consciousness of a long-dead queen having her throat cut by the tyrant king of the evil forces. To follow are several stories about how subsequent generations int his fantasy world fight to reclaim Bravoure.

For those who like high fantasy, this series may be a joy to discover.

Monday, June 23, 2025

Book Review: The Ficus

Title: The Ficus 

Author: Jennifer Kyrnin 

Quote: "The Ficus was more important than listening to The Mom." 

Is Jameson merely "a dull male child" who's not able to love his parents, but has projected some sort of bond onto their potted plant? Or...can boys be dryads?

Even for Amazon this is a short story but it's the kind that gets printed in magazines: well written, short, sharp, and painful.

Butterfly of the Week: Graphium Hicetaon

This week's butterfly is found on a few Pacific islands. Its name, Graphium hicetaon, commemorates a legendary prince of Troy. 


This snapshot by Michael Pennay may be the clearest photo of a living Graphium hicetaon yet published on the Internet. Though popular (apparently as an occasional visitor species) in Australia and Vanuatu, it's not native to either of those countries and not well documented online. It flits about smaller islands where less writing and publishing goes on. 

Its image has been used on postage: 


One source gives its wingspread as about 10 cm, 4 to 4.5 inches. Females are larger than males and some authorities give its wingspread as 4.75 inches. In its range, as shown by the stamp sheets, it's not considered a very large butterfly. Males have scent folds on the inner edge of each hind wing.

Even the time of year when it flies is undocumented on Google. The islands on which it lives just are poorly documented.




















Sunday, June 22, 2025

Web Log Weekender: 6.20-21.25

Gossip 

Matt Margolis avers that "we know Michelle Obama really is a horrible person" because of a wisecrack she made. Asked "Why didn't you have a son?" she didn't say "Because two children are enough" or "Because we were older, and a third baby did not be happening," as most women would, nor did she say "Why don't you go home and learn some MANNERS?" as would have been fully justified, if not necessarily endorsed by Miss Manners herself. She said that if they'd had a son "he'd be another Barack Obama." 

No link, because I don't think a case of foot-in-mouth disease is enough to identify "a horrible person," but it was a horrible joke. Never  mind her being his wife--I think it's a flat joke even for a voter to make.

I mean, I didn't vote for him, and I think historians already agree that his presidential administration did more harm than good to the nation, but even I can think of a lot of worse things than "another Barack Obama" to bring into this world. Another Bill Clinton? Another Saddam Hussein? Think about it. If people remembered not to elect him President, another Barack Obama might choose the right employment and accomplish good things just as a role model of well controlled extroversion.

And meanwhile, while Trump struggles and Biden failed to clean up Obama's mess, Obama's legacy is also that now all four serious political parties are positively eager to groom Black candidates for a political career, as far as they can possibly go. Now little Black boys still have to think about the possible hazards of Driving While Black, though at least we're all more sensitized to those, but little Black boys also have to think that they too can grow up to be President. 

Winston Peters, anyone? (This is an earlier version than the one that made him Calypso King.)


Now, about little White boys who don't have the idea that they can coast through life on looks alone knocked out of them at school...


Gavin Newsom would be a fabulous choice to play an elected official on TV. I hope Californians keep that in mind while electing someone who can actually do the job next time around. 

Health News 

It's a logical puzzle: If measles vaccines are worth the trouble of having, then unvaccinated people present no threat to vaccinated people. Measles is often described as a long, miserable infection, like a head cold that goes on and on and gets worse and worse and settles in the eyes and also itches for a month or more, but people have a free ethical choice whether to have the disease--which is almost never fatal, though permanent damage to the eyes used to be common--or have the vaccine--which, as a live-virus vaccine, will always carry an especially high risk of contamination and long-term side effects. Neither alternative guarantees a long healthy life after exposure. Playing the statistical odds has suggested to many people that the best course of action is to try to have measles during the middle school years when resistance tends to be high, but, if not immune and interested in having  babies, have the vaccine before starting a pregnancy since the virus is most harmful to fetuses. Based on what everyone knows, or thinks we know, about measles, the incessant whine that unvaccinated people can infect vaccinated people with measles seems like a definition of venality, a "Yes, of course you should make the choice that carries a higher risk of worse injuries for you and profit for me" that it's hard to believe people can utter with a straight face.

So why can they? Jon Fleetwood offers new data. Apparently vaccinated people can infect both vaccinated and unvaccinated people with a laboratory-bred, stronger strain of measles virus. This strain of virus is unaffected by vaccines against the ordinary or "wild" strain, and also, being a super-virus (in the sense that COVID-19 was a super-coronavirus, more dangerous than normal coronavirus), it's more likely to be fatal or have long-term side effects than normal measles virus ever was. And--don't read the rest of this sentence if you've already had your recommended daily allowance of irony!--tax-funded efforts to improve public health are probably to blame.


History 

Making history in an attempt to celebrate it, the Governor of North Carolina proclaimed an "Igbo Day."

"What's an Igbo and why should I care?" arose a cry from the western point of the State. And, "I thought the word was 'igmo,' and why are we celebrating them?"

Igmos are Individuals Geographically Marooned Outside (the) South(ern States).It should probably be "igmots," but even if it were, the T might be silent as in French. The word also means what it sounds like in English. It means people who are dangerously ignorant due to their unfortunate upbringing in some backward foreign place such as New York.

Igbos, otoh, are an ethnic group found in Nigeria, adjacent countries, and also the United States, where the local customs in some Black American communities have been traced back to Igbo roots. Many Igbos are also igmos, but not all. There are thousands of Igbo-Americans in eastern North Carolina. Wikipedia says 98% of Igbo-Americans identify as Christians, 35% as Evangelical Protestants. They have an interesting, for English speakers quite challenging, language and a substantial body of folklore. They are credited with the Carolina coastal "junk canoe" celebrations of which town festivals are made--profitable. 

It is probably unfair, but it is too rich not to giggle about, that the Igbos' best known contribution to humankind is the Classic Nigerian E-Mail Scam: you know, "Some billionnaire just died and left all his money to you. Send me the information I need to get access to your bank account and I will send you the money." And I am the Tsarina Anastasia. Anyone who fell for that scam deserved it.

The Governor probably intended to give his official blessing to those coastal towns whose main tourist attractions involve parades, but he will go down in history as the patron of e-mail scams. We learn something every day.

"So what about the links?" 

Best igmo jokes: 


Igbo Village as permanent museum exhibit in Staunton:


Seriously, Igbo community organizations exist in some cities and regions, including Charleston, Nashville, and Seattle. Here's a link to one in North Carolina:


Here's a list of North Carolina's top 100 town festivals. The western mountains are, let us face it, the most interesting part of the State and have most of the top 100 festivals, and still need tourist money this summer. Raleigh and places further east, however, advertise specifically African elements in their summer events. 


Reenactments of "John Canoe" parades have been publicized in other years. Google doesn't show any major ones scheduled for this year, but they were often associated with Christmas, so there's still time.


Seniors Only

Do not talk about this until you can prove you are over age 55: I have no plans to retire. I did pay into Social Security when I was younger. I knew the money was going into a fund out of which some of my elders' retirement pensions were being drawn, and I wished I'd been able to put in more; I sent some of these people money, back when I was earning. I didn't expect that Social Security would last until I was 55, but even if it had, when people stop working they start dying and I like being alive. 

Some say things like, "But I've never liked my job, particularly. I did it because it was the easiest way I, with my peculiar mix of talents and disabilities, could earn the best wages possible for me. Every year it's become more tiresome, and after thirty years..." So, after thirty years you have a right to pick a new job. Realistically, it'll probably be classified as self-employment, as gigs rather than a full-time job. This may give you more time to be a better grandparent (or aunt or uncle). Do what you wanted to do before you settled for the easiest job that paid the best wages.

One year in my late twenties, some people who thought it was their business, in some way, were giving me well-intentioned advice about spending too much time doing things that they saw as Fun and not enough time chasing the dollar almighty. "If you'd just give up writing, drawing, knitting, and music and concentrate on job hunting, sooner or later you'd have to get a job at Wal-Mart or Wendy's or..." It was still the 1980s; I was still young enough to apply for entry-level jobs and be considered. I filled out forms and was even hired for a few entry-level jobs. None of them lasted long. Came the end of the year and I added up my accounts and showed them to these people. "You realize I made four times as much money from writing, drawing, knitting, and music as I made from entry-level jobs and (the dying market for) office temp jobs together?" So they never nagged me any more and I never looked back. This is the situation in which many people of my age are going to grow old, without having become accustomed to it in their twenties. Well...youall never should have relied on the inherently unsustainable Social Security scheme. Save some money now

But keep working...if you enjoy being alive. 

Mildly Sadistic Book Review: A Woman's Journey to the Heart of God

Title: A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God

Author: Cynthia Heald

Date: 1997

Publisher: Nelson

ISBN: 0-7852-6820-0

Length: 234 pages plus 5 pages of endnotes

Quote: “The Bible is the guidebook to the heart of God.”

First of all let’s note that Heald describes her vocation as a ministry to teach young women. 

Stereotypical men are meant to be turned off by the sentimental language in this book. Women who want Christianity to mean that it’s their duty to be “happy” or “popular” are meant to be seduced by it, although they may be disappointed that that’s not what the book’s about.

As regular readers know, there’s nothing new in me saying that Christians should be careful not to confuse being a Christian with the worldly ideals of “happiness” or “popularity” (that so conspicuously meant so little to Jesus). Christians have much to be happy about and should be good friends to have, but “happiness” and “popularity” are luxuries that aren’t necessarily available to everyone.

If we are healthy we’ll tend to feel cheerful (eupeptic), and if we’re not we may feel anxious, depressed, grumpy, or exhausted—and although distracting ourselves from those feelings can help us work through them, the spiritual life, all by itself, won’t change our physical condition. The feelings will persist. 

If we live in places, or attend churches, or work in offices, where adults re-create the social patterns of middle school social cliques, the mere fact that we’re following Jesus and not the Queen Bee of the ruling clique will make us conspicuously unpopular.

And in fact the way too many church ladies try to seem happy and popular, in order to give others a good impression of their Christian life etc. etc., actually has a repulsive effect on people who may be Christians but shudder at the thought of being like those weird, creepy church ladies.

Or like their male equivalents. A boy I liked at university (who was a Christian) once agreed to go with me to a prayer meeting “as long as they don’t ask me to pray out loud, or hug other guys.” I assured him that this group didn’t do that sort of tacky stuff. So of course that was the night some idjit decided to try doing them...Talk about the Christian Life’s Embarrassing Moments. This is a woman’s review of a woman’s book addressed to women readers, but the problems definitely have their male counterparts. Christian men should write about them.

We need more writing, generally, addressed to Christians who are not going to find fellowship among the evangelical extroverts.

Long ago an extrovert church lady asked me, “How can you see another person, a whole separate child of God, and not want to get to know him or her, not want to claim that person as a friend?”

I said, “Of all the people you’ve claimed as friends in your life...if you get paid on Friday, and on Wednesday you have one loaf of bread left and no money, and one of your friends hasn’t got even a loaf of bread before Friday, how many of your friends would get half of your loaf?”

“Well...well, none of them, actually,” she spluttered.

“The people I want to call friends,” I said, “are the ones who’d get half of my last loaf of bread.”

I was underwhelmed by one of Cynthia Heald’s other books, a strangely mismatched collection of “morning devotional” pieces with a focus on “calm” that struck me as suitable for bedtime reading, but downright unhealthy for mornings.(Maybe living with a hypothyroid patient sensitized me to the dangers of inappropriate clinging to “calm.”)  I was tempted to start burning this one when I read the nauseous opening poem about how “Sorrow...is a carefully chosen tool in [God’s] hand.” 

We need laws about this kind of...of blasphemy. God is not the sort of stupid, abusive parent who thinks we need to inflict pain on children to teach them things. God has enough sense to know that, of the ways people learn things, pain is the least efficient. Rather, God allows us to make choices that have consequences, many of which involve sorrow. It’s important for new Christians to know that the joy of the spiritual life does not remove all future feelings of grief and pain, that some people have in fact become better singers by singing through the pain of arthritis; but I wish churches could agree that people who pretend that (always other people’s) sorrow is going to make them better people, smirk-smirk, need to be made better people, immediately, by the discipline of flagellation. Whack! “Since you like sorrow, Sister Heald, please tell your students how you believe the blood running down your back is making you a better person today!” Whack!

Fortunately there’s not a lot of rubbish about the supposed value of sorrow in this book, although there is some. Most of the book is standard advice about the spiritual life: faith, forgiveness, study, worship, prayer, practicing virtue, choosing the right company, putting God first, witness, acts of charity, arranged in the sequence Heald found new Christians facing each thing. Each chapter draws on the Bible and quotes a few older devotional books. Heald tries to be tactful, often evading any specific or practical details that might embarrass the readers to whom they’d be useful, but occasionally aiming a firm point at herself: “I will never be alone with another man.” “I was in the wrong.” “I have asked for direction, but...”

One nugget of real wisdom appears on page 97. It is customary for Christian writers to repeat the standard advice that everybody needs to go to church. In an ideal world, church meetings would be the place where we all found “wise traveling companions” and were drawn to “that which is lovely and Christlike.” In the real world, I’ve known many Christians who found that “living a radically obedient life,” in the sense of reserving a day for “rest,” prayer, and worship, was incompatible with churchgoing; in fact, for some of us going to church seemed to be “walking with fools.”

People who instantly want to claim everyone as a “friend,” without particularly admiring the so-called “friend,” without having shared any meaningful experience with the person, without feeling any special loyalty to the person, are not offering love and good will to humankind. Their real motive is fear. They are fundamentally very unhappy, probably because their brains aren’t fully developed, and they try to control their inner pain by controlling the people around them. That is what is really going on when they demand attention for themselves. Because of their neediness and lack of respect for others, they are positively dangerous to any younger Christian who might ever mistake the neurotic ideas that spew out of their ever-babbling mouths for a “message from Heaven.” Given half a chance, they’ll indulge their craving to feel “one up” by tearing their “friends” down, and their advice will become more of a “message from Satan.”

In contemporary North American culture, they tend to have learned that they can always attack introverts just because we’re not extroverts, and “if you really had a loving heart...” blah blah blah. Introverts need to be vigilant about this. I’m not sure how much churches can do about it short of flagellation. I don’t know whether flagellation or any other discipline could improve a true extrovert very much, since they have incomplete brains, but just shutting them up might make churchgoing a little less harmful to serious Christians. And getting them out of the churches, where they do not, in the strict sense, belong, might bring serious Christians back in.

Meanwhile, introverts who are serious about following Jesus no doubt need to be careful about association with people who drink and gamble and use bad language, as everyone has heard, but I have found that I need to be even more careful about association with verbal abusers. Like my self-accepting introvert friends, I enjoy health, sanity, and sobriety too much to be seriously tempted by the sins of the flesh. On the other hand some introverts are naturally so hyper-conscientious that we take verbal abusers’ accusations seriously and lose the faith to despair, and others of us are naturally inclined to return every verbal attack that is served to us. Neither of those things draws us nearer to the heart of God. In fact the company of extroverts generally tends to drive me away from God, even if they are bullying someone else, or merely wasting time. Wise choice of friends means that, until I know for sure that people are wise and loyal and particularly congenial to me, the time I spend with them needs to be brief and impersonal. The fewer words, the better. My practice of mercy and charity, toward all the people who are my neighbors (or townsfolk or fellow believers) but are not called to be my close friends, thrives on “conversations” that consist of orders, prices, and thanks.

So what is the nugget that’s worth the price of the book, on page 97? Buy a copy and find out.
There may well be churches in which some introverts feel drawn to “that which is lovely and Christlike.” As a young singer I visited many churches, throughout the Eastern States, and I can’t say I found one; what I remember as being “lovely and Christlike” were rare experiences and seem, upon reflection, to have been limited to songs or windows. If you feel that you really are supported, respected, and affirmed in following Jesus’ example, at a church, by all means join it. If you find a church where “fellowship” is understood entirely as the feeling people get, when kneeling between pews and columns and hearing unseen living voices join a song or prayer from the other sides of those separating devices, that other people you know nothing about are worshipping the same God along with you, even that is a wonderful thing.

Personally, I have had to find my Christian fellowship in the way Heald explains on page 97 of A Woman’s Journey to the Heart of God, with or without the companionship of other Christians who didn’t find Christian fellowship in the organized churches either. And if I’d found an evangelical Christian book that mentioned this idea sooner—at least ten years before this book was published—I would have felt blessed.

Bad Poetry: Anger as Healthy Fuel

When the Teacher who never had suffered
from petty anger or spite
looked down on the money-changers
the tables flew left and right,

as those very respectable merchants
cringed, squealed, and then fled without hope
from a young man raising and swinging
the end of a harmless rope.

Yet his followers, feeling not thinking,
have worked themselves back around
to the claim: "Women should feel no anger,
or not show it by sight or by sound."

No, I say, it's no sin if we're angry.
It may be a disgrace if we're not.
Some worry about pressing charges
against those who deserve to be shot.

It will not look like sober reflection
if we find ourselves fighting a fire.
It will not look like tender affection
if we stand up and challenge a liar.

Still the feeling of rage can debilitate
patients with certain kinds of disease.
Meditation or prayer can facilitate
the emotion of anger's release.

When my husband was dying of cancer
anger's causes were thick on the ground.
Disrespect, neglect, regimentation--
yet when he vented anger, he found

himself weaker for each time he sat up
and called for the changes he'd want.
So he bowed down before the Great Spirit
that can do what we know the flesh can't.

Things so awful they seemed almost funny
made us angry, and also afraid.
He avoided a friend with pneumonia
yet lack of hand washing conveyed

the pneumonia bacilli to him, just the same.
And some young men tried to steal his coat.
And a patient no one was sure quite how to help
called in vain till he injured his throat.

Then my husband called for the Great Eagle
that would carry him up through the sky,
and he offered it prayers for those he would leave
on this Earth when they started to fly:

May God help the friend who was foolish,
who threw his great talents away.
May God help the teen whose parents have not seen
him as his friends see him every day.

May God bless the city policeman brought in
when he lay on the ground as if dead,
and how he reached that situation
not even himself could have said.

The mind can do only one thing at a time
and when it is devoted to prayer
it can leave fear and worry and anger behind
and see glimpses of what's "over there."

It is wrong to preach about this to the young
because nobody wants them to pray;
people want them to have no minds of their own
and live for nothing but to obey.

It is wrong to lie still, contemplating,
when called to arise up and fight.
When people may die, never mind how we feel,
we must do whatever is right.

But when my husband prayed, praying was the right thing,
and bought days of less loss and pain.
Letting his mind blend into the Mind of good will
let him die as he'd lived, strong and sane.

Friday, June 20, 2025

Bad Poetry: An English Slave

I am a slave, despite the pearls
That dangle from my ears.
They say it's worst for pretty girls.
I bite back sobs and fears.
Papa died first; Ma close behind.
Then my rich uncle sent
Men to collect what they could find
To sell to pay the rent.
Here I stand at the village fair.
A rag's all that is left
To tie up my long dirty hair.
I'm wary, gaunt, bereft.
A lady looks me over well,
Then smiles, and moves right on.
She'll be back. I wish I could tell
Whether she has a son.

Though African slaves were the ones some people wanted to make a permanent slave caste in the United States, a majority of the first generation of slaves owned by English colonists were English--brought over from England, as slaves. Some were sold as punishment for crimes, and some out of desperate financial need, at times when begging or even vagrancy were criminalized.

Over at https://dversepoets.com/2025/06/19/greetings-from-boston-and-an-invitation-to-join-us-live/, Lillian the Home Poet invited poems suggested by one of three portraits of people. One of the portraits depicts a young girl dressed in real old-style rags and tatters with a twig caught in a wisp of hair that dangles out from under a faded bonnet patched with different faded rags, and a pearl earring. All the painting said to me was "imperfect realism" until someone observed that the girl looked a bit like Scarlett Johansen. Then my mind flashed back to her role as Anne Boleyn, and a story in which (the young) SJ might have played an English slave popped into mind. 

English slaves in England, unlike African slaves, could afford to be ambitious; they could earn their freedom and rejoin the working class. The character SJ played as Anne Boleyn might even have aspired, if she'd been poor...probably not to marry a rich man, but to be "ruined" by one who would give her enough money to support her and the child. (If she'd been a boy, she might have been able to hope to learn a trade and go into business for herself by the time she was full-grown. Discrimination is bad for people's characters.)

Rich people in Renaissance England weren't in town every day. Free laborers might get year-long job contracts at a fair. Slaves and just about everything else might be sold at one.

But how would this girl have dared to present herself for domestic service in this condition? People expected cheap domestic help to be half-grown, likely half-witted, certainly not educated or even trained for their jobs. Standards of cleanliness were lower for everyone than they are now. Still, a competent domestic was not supposed to show visible hair or a smudged face. The only way even SJ's version of Anne Boleyn could have carried that off would have been if people saw someone else deliberately...This is a poem, not a novel, though a novel about this character might be interesting.

Web Log for 6.19.25

The computer's misbehaving. I almost forgot to post this.

Glyphosate Awareness 

In honor of June as "Pollinator Month," a poem:


Highly Sensory-Perceptive 

HSPeople can take real head trips on the simple beauty of this world. Jeffrey Essmann describes early meditations on the color called periwinkle.


Juneteenth 

In memory of that clearheaded Democrat, the late Delegate Onzlee Ware, this web site officially observes Juneteenth with links to Black-owned businesses within driving distance from Gate City. There aren't a lot to choose from. That does not necessarily mean they don't exist--some local businesses don't have web sites. 

Both Google and Yelp featured mentioned Azafran, a catering business in Boone, as being in recovery from last year's hurricane; they deserve support, but they work in North Carolina only. Also featured on the Internet, but not here, were 

* a legitimate massage business in Chilhowie, because if I had to drive to Chilhowie I'd need a massage after getting back

* restaurants in the Gatlinburg, Dollywood, Pigeon Forge tourist sprawl, because that's a day trip not a drive

* a lawn care service, because (1) lawns and (2) the one Yelp rating they received was bad. (This does not mean they didn't get better ratings. Yelp is a total sellout site on which nobody should rely. But: lawns.)

* an auto body service, in direct competition with old family friends right here in Gate City

* a couple of places that advertise alcohol and e-cigs in Johnson City, because even if they also sell food and vitamins, the ghost of Grandma Bonnie Peters still has some influence on this web site

The Barber's Loft


Hair stylists don't like to be discriminatory, but different types of hair do need different styles of management. Mr. Rashid is a traditional men's barber who specializes in shaving and trimming curly hair.

Beck Center


Knoxville is a day trip, not really a quick drive. Still, the place looks interesting and is endorsed by Nikki Giovanni.

Mr Do It All Greeneville


He's busy doing odd jobs all over Tennessee; how's he supposed to have time to maintain his own web page? At the time of posting, he still has a phone. If you need help with home repairs, check the link--he may have upgraded. Yelp says you can request a quote for a job through Yelp. His map of where he's willing to work seems to include Gate City but not Clinchport. 

Quantum Leap Trampoline Park


Back in the Associated Content days, when The Nephews were living in Tennessee, we would've loved this place. It has spaces for bouncing on trampolines, wading through foam blocks, throwing axes at targets, generally getting exercise on wet (or hot, or spray-poisoned) days, and for sitting down and eating after working up an appetite.

And I wanted to give a shout to a quirky little Christian bookstore in Bristol where the West Indian proprietor entertained a client and me with some of the silliest sites that purport to show photos of famous dead people secretly living it up on some island--partying, not porn--but I can't find a web link for them. Maybe they're no longer there.