Some Books That Have Influenced My Life

Should people who are not rich write about the books that influenced our lives? Does that amount to telling many readers, who want to become rich, what to avoid?

Whatever. Ten books that come to mind as having influenced my life may repeat with other lists I've posted  this year...

1. Good News for Modern Man

This was the collective name for early editions, first just of the Gospels, then of the whole New Testament, of what became Today's English Version of the Bible. As an adult I don't like "copyright" Bibles, but I will say that TEV makes it easy for children to follow the story.

2. Victory over Arthritis by Rasmus Alsaker

There must have been an epidemic of viral arthritis as a complication of flu in the late 1960s. Thousands of people read this book, marvelled at their quick, complete, long-lasting cures of arthritis (at least the post-infection kind), and went on to read some or all of the other "health food" books and buy "special," less popular products at "health food stores." My mother was one of those people. Within ten years after reading Victory over Arthritis she was one of the early readers for new books from the Rodale Press. 

3. The Waste Makers by Vance Packard

Not new when I read it, but there's a timeless quality to this writer's snarky skewering of Waste Age foolishness. Read this book and say farewell to fashion.

4. Little Town on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder

It's Laura's story, but she had considerable help from her daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, in writing and publishing her "Little House books." Most of these books are simple stories, written to be read aloud to four-year-olds by twelve-year-olds, about what children did and how they did it in the late nineteenth century. The character Laura enjoyed flowers and fashion and old songs, but she was not much of a philosopher. In Little Town on the Prairie there's a scene that's not unusual or out of character, but is unlike anything else in the books. Laura reflects on the Declaration of Independence, which used traditionally to be read aloud at Independence Day events, and thinks that being free means "governing" herself--taking moral responsibility for her actions. It's a short, simple reflection, suitable for children. It sank in and stayed with me after I read it. People have wondered, however, and have found evidence that it was written in by Rose rather than Laura. 

5. The Girl Scout Handbook (and The Boy Scout Manual for that matter)

A certain amount of political and philosophical twaddle was written into these books, but the general idea of "Scouting" was that children could be best amused by learning skills that might be useful. One can learn a lot of life skills by following the suggestions "for fun" in the Scout manuals. When we were at the right ages, I was a Girl Scout who usually wore the uniform and seldom missed a meeting, though the meetings weren't as much fun as learning the skills and crafts at home. My brother thought the Boy Scouts were just a lot of town kids who sat around fantasizing about doing the sort of thing we did at home. But we both got ideas for having fun at home from the manuals.

6. The Serenity Book by Marylou McKenna

Badly produced such that first editions didn't last long, it's not been reprinted and has become hard to find. It's a handbook of Sensory Awareness meditation, which is very useful for things like adjusting to temperatures, lowering blood pressure, and working out muscle tension that causes lingering pain after an injury. 

7. Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster

At a time when many churches were discarding traditional rules, especially the ones about frugality, Foster reconsidered the spiritual meaning these disciplines had had for people who chose to follow them. 

8. The Last Word: On the Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense by Suzette Haden Elgin

Applies principles of English grammar, not so much to avoiding specific kinds of sneaky verbal abuse (which were discussed at length in earlier books) but to presenting ideas in ways that minimize disagreement from the beginning. Because so many variables are present these principles of grammar won't guarantee that your first words on a topic will be "the last word," but they will increase its chances.

9. Men Are Just Desserts by Sonya Friedman

This is a longish psychological self-help book full of 1980s ideas--good and bad--but what stayed with me has been the title, in both of its senses. The men we attract are our "just desserts" in the sense that we build the relationships we get, and having men in our lives at all is "just dessert" in the sense that it may be a source of pleasure but we can get on very well without it. 

10. The Gift of Good Land by Wendell Berry

Explores humans' relationship with our environment and the value of ancestral roots. 

Web Log for 11.18.25

Cybersecurity 

Ganked from Messy Mimi. Lens traces it to Reddit and says the picture has been circulating, with a variety of captions, for at least nine years. 

But it reflects a real problem: As the Internet becomes crowded, some web sites push us to think of ever more bizarre, preferably unique, strings of characters--harder to remember, harder to type--as passwords. If we use one password for everything, hackers might discover what that password is, they fret. If we use something easy to remember, like "password" or even "password123," hackers are sure to guess--lots of people used to use "password." If we use something that's easy for us to remember and unlikely for anyone else to guess, like the name of our shelter at summer camp, we might--heavenforbidandfend!--type that into an ordinary sentence on a comment somewhere, which sets off enough bells and whistles in Chrome to tell the whole world: "Hey! Password! Over here! Password! LOOK! It's a password! What's the least common word in this paragraph? Either 'Floogle the Canary' or '#37OldHarmon' has to be a PASSWORD! Guess what it's the password to?" 

Some web sites offer to solve the problem for you. They will give you a really secure password, a combination of 40 random characters no human being would ever think of typing. Yes. And then some sort of "update" upheaval will lose that password and you'll never get into that account again.

It occurs to me that these web sites may be barking up the wrong tree. They might try simpler ways to identify hackers. If, for example, you always go online in the United States, any attempt to get into your account from a location in Vietnam needs verification. Every hacking I've survived has been traced to some company I've never visited. Web sites could take a little responsibility for this kind of thing.

Some means of "securing your account" are just bad ideas. Nobody should ever give a thought to the idea of letting a computer do a biometric scan of an image of us. That image is too valuable to too many serious evildoers. Nobody should consider letting a computer verify anything by ringing a phone, even if you work in a building that still uses phones. That number is likely to be ganked and then rung daily by nuisance callers for the next year and a half. A verification e-mail is harmless, provided that your e-mail and browser will open two different e-mail accounts at the same time. Otherwise, if something happens to your main e-mail account as jbartlebydoe@yahoo, and Yahoo shuts down that account when you log into your backup account as janebdoe@yahoo, you'll have to borrow an extra computer to recover your e-mail.

There's no real substitute for the basic cybersecurity policy: Although you don't want nuisances reading your correspondence with publishers or your e-friends' Substacks, although you may still have an inner teenager who would want to die of embarrassment if a nuisance saw that poem you're not sure you want to publish, that kind of thing is survivable. Other kinds of information leaks are less survivable so, always, assume that all web sites will eventually be hacked, and never put anyone's real name, anyone's home address, any Social Security or bank account or credit or insurance or even library card numbers, any phone number, or anything that might identify any specific child, on the Internet. Don't bank or pay bills online. Don't discuss anything online that you wouldn't want to see in the newspaper. And never, never, never touch a screen with your finger.

Education 

If you're going to have a child, which State should you rear it in?

Daniel J. Mitchell compares two politically biased metrics that, oddly enough, don't seem relevant to the child's experience. Children don't know or care how hard it is to get an abortion. Children do benefit when it's easy for their parents to find work or stay in business, but if anything their preference might be to live in poverty with full-time parents who spend all their time on the family farm, whether the farm ever makes a profit or not. Anyway, whichever politically biased metrics are used, Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia seem to be good States for parents. 

https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2025/11/18/a-case-study-of-sloppy-research-and-media-bias-part-ii/

For the actual child...it varies depending on your individual child. Quality of schools? (Virginia rules. Maryland, minutes away even by kayak or bicycle, drools.) Quality and number of libraries? (Are there any good public libraries any more?) Access to healthy outdoor experiences? Closeness to grandparents? Indigenicity, number and strength of family connections? Pollution levels? Homeschooling requirements? Type of house you can afford? 

The Internet is full of web sites that offer ratings for schools, neighborhoods, etc., but these web sites were not designed by children. A few years ago, for instance, a school rating site rated my local public schools low, despite their stellar athletic programs and superior academic programs, because too many local people are legally White. Your child might be the only Black or Asian child in the class! The horror! Actually, most children in the United States are legally White and, although popular books and TV shows can induce them to say that they'd like to have a multiethnic social club like the Baby-Sitters Club or some current equivalent, the emotional weight they put on ethnic diversity in the classroom is minuscule. They care more about having a nice healthy place to play outdoors, even though some teenagers might say they put a higher value on being able to walk to the mall.

Book Review: Hollow of Lies

Title: Hollow of Lies

Author: J.J. Jax

Date: 2024

Quote: "For most people, Pine Hollow would be idyllic."

For Emily, Noah, and Oliver, it's the little town where a would-be whistleblower was murdered. They work for three different law enforcement agencies and don't initially like each other. They bond by facing the dangers of investigating the murder together.

So, what do they find, exactly? Where, for that matter, is Pine Hollow? We are not told. This "novella" is all about the main characters' emotions; those emotions are felt as if they were taking place inside the mind of a young hormone-ridden writer. The writer is enjoying the "thrills" of working out the emotional core of the plot. The novella would be a more effective "thriller" if the writer had done the research to put in enough information from the real world to convince us that the characters might be real people who are feeling their feelings about real events. At one point we're told that, minutes after finding a box of documents, the characters know they've found all the evidence to prove the case. What evidence would that be? What case? We are not told...

Some readers may like to meet Emily, Noah, and Oliver. What mattered to the writer has been written into this book; the characters' feelings and relationships are well enough drawn to interest readers. I think the book would have been much better if the author had taken the time to build a scene for the characters to emote and relate upon.

Web Log for 11.17.25

Art

Mandala, no doubt computer-generated, from 

https://booknvolume.com/2025/11/16/vibration-of-genesis-daily-mandala-series/ 

Dangers Facing You 

Is there a difference between Canada and the US, as far as the dangers of "digital identity" are concerned? Yes. The US has more enemies.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=uz9Z1lZTf3s

Peace 

Bill Watterson says it all. Curated by Joe Jackson.

Poetry, Light 

Susan Jarvis Bryant is the Internet's leading player with sounds in both serious and satirical verse.  This poem kicks it up to a level that could be called self-parody. I love the final couplet. She'll give us a break but she could go on!

https://www.classicalpoets.org/2025/11/snootsplaining-a-poem-by-susan-jarvis-bryant/

Book Review: Menu Cookbook

Another old book? I know...I read a new book today. So new that it won't be in the stores until next week. I'm trying to get back to a new book everyday but I did want to pop these older reviews, which have been sitting on the computer for years, out of their can. 

Book Review: Menu Cookbook

Author: Better Homes & Gardens magazine staff

Date: 1972, 1973

Publisher: Meredith Corporation

ISBN: none

Length: 96 pages

Illustrations: many color photos

Quote: “Each menu...consists of favorite foods, interestingly combined...All use the Basic Four Food Groups as a nutritional yardstick.”

Which is not as encouraging as the writers must have thought. The Basic Four Food Groups was a dietetic concept worked out on the assumption that, since rats and humans need pretty much the same nutrients, they need to balance these nutrients in pretty much the same proportions. Dietitians don't use it any more.

Basically humans seem to need more greens, more grains, and less protein, in proportion to our body size, than rats need. Humans who are not consuming huge amounts of fat and protein from other sources don’t seem to need to choke down a quart of cow’s milk every day. There seem to be different diet plans that can work for different humans, and some even think that humans may inherit different nutritional needs...anyway, a majority of humankind do not need dairy products at every meal. The authors of Menu Cookbook assume that we do, which is my main objection to this book.

If you are, or you want to eat with a friend who is, in the majority of adults who lose lactose tolerance over the years, you’ll need to adapt most of these menus. In some cases it’s simple: moisten dough with water, not milk; add cheese only to individual plates at the table. Given that lactase persistence is such a minority trait and that those who have it can always drink a glass of milk, common courtesy would suggest that most of the meals we serve to groups of people should be basically dairy-free, with dairy products offered on the side for those who want them. But in the long run it’s not quite that simple. Carnivores use most of the excess calcium found in cow’s milk to digest excess fat and protein; vegans don’t necessarily need all that milk, but they do need to watch fat levels in the diet to prevent imbalances.

If you are, or cook for, people with other food intolerances, this cookbook may be frustrating. As a gluten-intolerant adult who’s done most of my cooking for a lactose-intolerant, low-sodium-intake husband and various patients on low-fat, low-sodium, and sometimes diabetic diets, I look at these menus and think “No way.” I can adapt one recipe at a time from this book, but I can’t use the menus. Menu items too simple to be written out as full-length recipes, like “tomato juice” and “carrot sticks,” are acceptable. Of the recipes written out in this book I could use, without adaptation, 23...most of which are salads.

On the other hand the changes required for each recipe are slight. People who cook by the “humans are giant rats” theory will make a perfectly acceptable pot of chili and then dump a load of cheese into it. All I have to do is save time, money, and mess by leaving out the cheese.

There’s enough variety in Menu Cookbook that everyone can use or adapt some of the recipes. As a new book, this one might have been overpriced, but if you buy it secondhand, it may be a good deal. 

Petfinder Post: Do You Watch the National Dog Show?

The National Dog Show will be broadcast on NBC, on (US) Thanksgiving Day, at 12pm Eastern. 

US readers: On Thanksgiving Day, do you watch television?

If you do, football only?

The traditional US Thanksgiving feast involves relatives gathering at someone's house--sometimes the oldest family member's house, sometimes the one with the biggest kitchen--and cooking more than they can eat, together, of every vegetable that grows in North America plus turkey. 

Historians have questioned whether the first harvest feast celebrated by New England's religious "Pilgrims" and the Wamponaug people who felt sorry for them would have featured turkey. Turkeys had not been domesticated yet; somebody may or may not have managed to snare one. Nevertheless, by the nineteenth century our most edible native bird species was being raised on farms in sufficient quantity that everybody could have one, and Thanksgiving Day became Turkey Day. Now everybody had something to give thanks for. A person who can think of no other reason can at least give thanks that person is not a turkey.

Whether it was purchased frozen from the store or killed the night before, the turkey's body has probably been cleaned and left to soak in the refrigerator overnight. In the morning the stove is heated and the turkey is roasted until done. Meanwhile the vegetables go on and off the stove, in and out of the oven. The kitchen is full of steam and chatter. Maybe some people are told to keep out of the kitchen. Maybe those people have time to watch television. I wouldn't know. 

The aroma of roasting turkey usually does, in my experience, generate a dog and cat show. The family's pets, and in a city neighborhood often several neighbors' pets, all line up at the kitchen window, salivating.

Traditionally certain parts of the turkey and vegetables were simmered to make broth. The broth was then thickened with flour and served as gravy, which had the important function of making people feel that they'd eaten more turkey than they had actually eaten and allowed more people to share small pieces of the same turkey. At a smaller gathering the less appealing parts of the turkey can simply be cooked through and given to the dogs and cats. Dogs and cats can also safely be allowed to gnaw on carrot ends, corn cobs, bean pods, pumpkin rinds, and of course pumpkin seeds, and the grain products like rice and bread.

Do dogs and cats give thanks? I've known some who did. 

For the first two generations after they were rescued from the alley, my social cat family rubbed their heads against my hands before eating food I set out for them. 

Subsequent generations have seemed to feel entitled to regular meals. They've complained if meals were offered late or were unsatisfactory, or if I didn't share food or water with them for more than two days in a row. They still do the head rubbing gesture when given treats they especially like.

Indoor animals often become picky eaters who don't seem thankful for food at all. Usually the reason is easy to see. They are overfed. Their ribs are hard to feel. Humans may use food treats as a reward or a bribe, and after a certain point the animals don't even feel rewarded or bribed any more; they feel stuffed to the point of distress. Some dogs and cats, like some humans, will instinctively stop eating before they feel stuffed or put on surplus fat, and some won't. The humans who live with these overfed animals usually think "The poor things have so little time to live and so few pleasures, let them at least have all the food they want," and then after a certain point what the animals want is less food. If an animal's ribs are not easy to count when you stroke the animal's sides, it may well be that the best treat you could give the animal would be a fast day. 

Outdoor animals find it easier to maintain a healthy weight since they are likely to get more exercise. (Some outdoor animals even become underweight on the normal diet for their size range; this is usually a sign of internal parasites that need veterinary attention. With short-haired animals it's easy to see the ribs when the animals are too thin. It can be hard to tell by looking whether a long-haired animal is overweight or underweight.) They are more likely to rub their heads against your hand, or lick your hand, when you give them a treat.

However, an indoor pet who is adequately fed to maintain a healthy body shape will usually have a good appetite and may show gratitude for treats, too.

A cat or dog who makes a gesture of gratitude is watching your reactions. If you show that you're pleased, the gesture of gratitude will be repeated. My experience has been that an animal who is paying this much attention to its humans is not looking for more food as a reward, but is looking for words or touch that show appreciation of the animal and its nice manners. 

An animal who pays that much attention to you will probably let you know that it appreciates other things as well as food. Dogs' and cats' desires seem much simpler than ours, but there are lots of things they like--a chance to snuggle against you and enjoy the warmth on a cool day (even if they don't want to be in an overheated house), cool water on a hot day, the right kind of space of its own, a private litter box other animals don't use, the right sort of brush or comb of its own that other animals don't use, a nice walk, a good game, a head scratch or back rub, even hearing you say that you like them. Most cats and dogs don't really care much about toys as such, except perhaps as things to chew and shred, but most of them love any game you play with a toy, making it interesting. 

Sometimes it's not so much about the actual food or water as it is about a share of your food or your water. I live in a damp climate. My outdoor cats have a selection of water from springs, streams, rain puddles, and rain collected in food tins. Heat and thirst are not actually problems they have. Many of them reject city water that tastes of chlorine. Nevertheless they've agreed that the first splash from a bottle of distilled water, before I drink it, is a treat because it's something they share with me. In a similar vein, sometimes in autumn when rodents are easy to catch I've looked at the cats' rounded shapes and thought, "They're finding something to eat in addition to their kibble; I can go vegan this week," and the cats have told me in no uncertain terms that they felt rejected--where did their fish ends and chicken skins go? What I eat may be junkfood for them, they may not even want to eat it, but my experience has been that most cats would rather spit out a bean or a peanut as if to say "How can you eat those things?" than simply eat their own scientifically formulated meal and not share mine. Many cats have thanked me for morsels of food they sniffed and did not actually eat. It's the thought that counts, they nonverbally said.

Dogs and cats are not all that different from us. Pay attention, learn to recognize what your pets appreciate, and they will thank you in their own ways.

Here are some cats and dogs who would probably thank you for the blob of fat you cut off your meat, or a splash of your water.

Zipcode 10101: Mystery from NYC

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/mystery-78186948/ny/new-york/anjellicle-cats-rescue-ny488/

He's a spring kitten who's been officially homeless since August. He seems to be quiet and mellow for his age, but they still recommend he be adopted as a companion for another young cat. He seems to tolerate more tickling before he uses his teeth and claws than most kittens do.

Well...when our Drudge was six months old he seemed to be quiet and mellow for his age, and his only distinctive feature was that he'd lie still and tolerate having his underside rubbed and tickled, rather than exposing his underside as an invitation to play "Let's pretend your hand is the enemy" as most kittens do. Since then he's shown the ability to hunt, as most tomcats never do. He's shown a tendency to stay at home, as most tomcats don't do. He's shown willingness to baby-sit, defend, share food, share a lap, and even play gently with a small kitten, as most tomcats don't do. I didn't plan to keep Drudge, but he is most definitely a keeper. So who knows what unusual and wonderful qualities Mystery may show as he grows up.

Zipcode 20202: Cece from DC

Her web page: http://petfinder.com/cat/cece-77891468/dc/washington/lailas-legacy-animal-rescue-dc31/

She'd rather play and explore than snuggle, but she's friendly in her way and likes to be close to her human. Close, not touching. She's not reached the sleepy age yet. 

Zipcode 30303: Cali from Atlanta 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/cali-79453623/ga/atlanta/atlanta-humane-society-ga829/

Humane Society. That's all you need to know. Well, it's all you find out from her web page. Nobody's taken the time to write anything about her. She's not been on Petfinder very long so if someone adopts her right away she may be relatively un-traumatized.

Cali. She's a tortie, not a calico! Like that lot pay any attention...worraworraworraworra...

Bonus: Asparagus from Blountville, TN

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/asparagus-79033691/tn/blountville/the-bridge-home-no-kill-animal-rescue-tn95/

He was just a baby when brought to the shelter. He's grown fast. But that face! Have you ever seen such symmetrical markings on a tabby cat? Nor have I. He seems to be a fairly typical spring kitten, but you'll always be able to pick him out in a crowd.

Zipcode 10101: Max from NYC

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/max-78585690/ny/new-york/furry-smiles-international-rescue-ca2510/

International Rescue? He's originally from Canada? Shelter staff don't give out a lot of information about Max but they think he's clever and friendly. Nobody's even willing to guess what his ancestors may have been. 

Zipcode 20202: Nesta from Texas via DC 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/nesta-76959142/dc/washington/gracies-project-tx2503/

She's described as friendly, affectionate, gentle, quiet, and curious, a dog who could fit in with a big human family or share a quiet flat with a single adult. Those pale eyes, normal in a Husky but rare in a retriever (which is what they think most of her ancestors were), ought to make evildoers cross the street when they see you walking with her. Nesta doesn't seem to have had any chance to show whether she's more of a guard dog or a lap dog. They won't want to find out. But so far her training, such as it's been, seems to have been in the direction of lap dog.

Zipcode 30303: Bocephus from Texas by way of Atlanta 

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/bocephus-79304498/ga/atlanta/waiting-under-the-willow-foundation-wuwf-rescue-tx2467/

Some days choosing the best photo at the Atlanta site is easy, even though, when that photo is pasted in among the other winners, I'm sure it makes people think "Why...?" Because a lot of the photos at the Atlanta site were cluttered with computer graphics and trinkets rather than showing a dog as it really is, and many were badly focussed as well. This one was chosen from a half-dozen not very flattering photos of what does seem to be a cute dog.

This one they're sure would like to be a lap dog, "if you let him." He weighs 65 pounds. He has a lot of energy and is recommended to a family with energetic young people. He is thought to be a cross between a Staffordshire Terrier and a Border Collie. He is described as a playful young dog, not yet trained to do a specific job, though likely to benefit from having one. He could easily be too much for a lazy person to handle; that's why he's in a shelter. The adoption fee is $250 if you're willing to meet him in Texas, more if you prefer to pay to have him brought to you.

Web Log for 11.16.25

Just two pretty little linkies. Well, for me this post is not totally fluff. The poem mentions petrol in puddles being pretty. It is, of course, toxic waste, though pretty, but its detoxification starts with those flocks of (in the Eastern States) Tiger Swallowtails, Spring Azures, Silver-Spotted Skippers,and an occasional Red-Spotted Purple butterfly. They literally suck the toxicity out of the water and gush little streams of filtered, de-petroleumed water back into the soil. When I was growing up there were rafts of them. Now, because of our germ war on Spongey Moths, we see few moths and butterflies. Last summer I saw a very pretty, yet terrible, sight--single female Tiger Swallowtails flitting about roadside flowers, not finding those precious composter males and mating and flying up to the treetops to lay their eggs. Some of them found mates later in the week; female Swallowtails often eclose a few days ahead of males of their generation. Not enough. We need our butterflies...and moths...even the little annoying moths, some of which reveal surprising beauty when considered closely.

Animals 

The thing about these pretty late-season moths from England is that they're all tiny. They usually fold their wings up and look like boring little blurs, bits of pocket lint or something. It takes a sharp eye (like that of a good camera with magnifying lenses) to notice that, if they were magnified into pictures, the pictures would be interesting.

Not much is known about the Microlepidopterae, very small moths of which some species really are as drab as they look on first glance and some are gorgeously colored. If "macro photography" interests you this might be your opportunity to become famous.

https://eastsussexwanderer.blogspot.com/2025/11/some-moths-during-october.html 

Poem 

First-rate boomer bait.

https://thefourswans.wordpress.com/2024/08/27/i-gave-my-word-to-the-black-night-bird/

Book Review: In the Storm

Title: In the Storm

Author: G.C. Camacho

Date: 2023

ISBN: 978-1-7782359-5-5

Quote: "Loren noticed his mentor locked in mortal combat..."

In an apparently anarchic multi-species galaxy, teams of vigilantes roam around fighting crime with whatever primitive or high-tech weapons they have plus whatever special abilities their alien species possess. Who defines crime and how to tell good guys from bad guys is not clearly defined. It's just one battle between, or among, different humanoid species after another.

This is a book but it reads like a video game and is probably designed to introduce one. People who are into games with lots of battles with monsters are the intended audience.

Butterfly of the Week: Meyers Jay

This week's butterfly is another rare and obscure species, Meyer's Jay (or Meyer's Triangle), Graphium meyeri. It is found on Sulawesi and Sula islands. It's not as rare or as obscure as Graphium mendana but there's still room for some student to become famous by filling in the gaps in what we know about this species, too. For example, we don't know that it's endangered, but neither do we know that it's not. Without knowing whether its populations are stable or declining, people can't protect it by law--and just might drive it into an unnecessary decline, or even into extinction.

Photo by Mangge_totok. We do know that this is not a picture of a mother butterfly and her young, because only adult butterflies have wings. And usually the butterflies who hang out for extended periods of time at shallow puddles, often preferring polluted water to clean water, are male. In many species that are primarily pollinators, males have to do some composting to build up levels of minerals sufficient to allow them to reproduce. Females seldom drink mineral-rich water, preferring to get their minerals from their mates, but do sometimes approach males at puddles, checking whether any of the little goofballs (female Swallowtails tend to be larger than males) is ready to mate yet. (Female butterflies aren't usually shy about notifying males that they're ready to unload some eggs.)

Photo by Gancw1. So, are these two male drinking buddies, or is the very slightly larger, less colorful one female? Is it possible to tell by lookng? Someone needs to learn the answers to this kind of questions.

Though tailless, Graphium mendana has a general attitude that can remind Americans of our Zebra Swallowtails when we look at the under sides of their wings. The upper sides look different...

Photo by Kaithefishguy. 

Photo by Rolandgodon. What about the color variation? Is it only the light that makes this individual's pale spots iridesce yellow and white rather than blue and white, or does the color communicate something to other butterflies about the individual's age, sex, or condition? We know this butterfly has lived long enough to survive some dangers, because its wings are damaged. Does its color reflect the extent of damage?

Photo by Erlandreflingnielsen. We know that Graphium meyeri don't avoid their own kind. When their food plants are rare, butterflies like to be the only one of their sex and species near a group of food plants; when their food plants are abundant, they're more likely to tolerate each other's company, and males may hang out together at puddles, seeking safety in numbers. In either case, male Swallowtails tend to tolerate the company of other kinds of butterflies. Large mixed flocks may include only smaller butterflies or, no doubt less often, only different members of the Swallowtail family. We don't know what this mix of species portends for each or all of the Swallowtail species here, because we don't know what the caterpillars eat. 

Photo by Zicky. Rothschild observed that Graphium meyeri and Graphium eurypylus "fly together and are common," at least in the right time and place, but don't seem to crossbreed--evidence that they are distinct species, not subspecies. 

There are two recognized subspecies of meyeri, Graphium meyeri meyeri and G.m.extremum, but their differences have not been documented online. Extremum is found on Sula island.

We do know (some of) the plants Graphium meyeri pollinate:

https://docsdrive.com/pdfs/ansinet/pjbs/2020/804-812.pdf

Graphium meyeri usually have a wingspan over  three inches but not quite four, with females averaging larger than males. Males and females look similar but females' black color is more likely to fade to brown. Nothing has been documented about the early stages of these butterflies' lives.

Book Review for 11.14.25: Step by Step Quiltmaking

Title: Step-by-Step Quiltmaking

Author: Barbara Danneman

Date: 1975

Publisher: Golden / Western

ISBN: none

Length: 80 pages

Illustrations: photos and diagrams

Quote: “Piecing together several layers of cloth to make warm garments probably originated in ancient China.”

Step-by-Step Quiltmaking is much shorter than most of the quilting books I’ve seen. It was published by a company famous for short, information-packed nonfiction books for children. In the tradition of books like the “Golden Nature Guides,” it’s less comprehensive than bigger books, but will keep a determined beginner busy for a good long time.

All the usual quilting techniques are covered, at least briefly, except for “cathedral quilting,” in which squares are folded into curved shapes that suggest cathedral windows. For basic instructions on how to cut and join patches, then quilt layers together, this book will suffice. 

Book Review: Be Intolerant

Title: Be Intolerant

Author: Ryan Dobson

Date: 2003

Publisher: Multnomah Publishers

ISBN: 1-59052-152-8

Length: 108 pages

Quote: “I want to bring you out of the darkness of political correctness into the light, peace, and freedom of the truth.”

Ryan Dobson is not, of course, encouraging bigotry here. He’s saying that when people try to make tolerance the core of their philosophy, they end up becoming nihilists. A line between “All the different things people sincerely believe have some truth, for those people, and deserve some respect” and “All the different things people believe are equally true” tends to fade. People turn into deranged Richard Dawkins sound-alikes furiously arguing that they aren’t really thinking and, furthermore, may not really exist.

If you’d rather approach Dobson’s points from a classical philosophical perspective, of course, check out C.S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man. If you’d rather be titillated by a hormonal stew of emotion, try Tom Wolfe’s I Am Charlotte Simmons. If you’re young enough, even at heart, to identify with Dobson’s “generation... being destroyed by manic tolerance,” you may appreciate his short, no-frills plea for standards of merit.

Dobson’s subtitle is ...Because Some Things Are Just Plain Stupid. He identifies five aspects of politically correct stupidity as making up a philosophical “T.U.M.O.R.” excessive Tolerance, obsessive Untraditionalism, falling in love with the Marginalized, worshipping the Outdoors, and excusing Reprobate conduct.

Can we be classically liberal and still eliminate these qualities from our thinking? I say we not only can, but must.

Excessive religious Tolerance means trying to believe that all religions are equally true. Most religions teach that no human mind can grasp all the truth in the universe, and there are times when dialogue with adherents of a different religion can enlighten people about their own overlooked beliefs. Still, how much sense does it make to pretend that the beliefs that have made some people poor, sick, and miserable are equally as valuable as the beliefs that have made others strong, rich, healthy, powerful, and even generous? 

Untraditional ideas, often marketed as someone’s creative take on some obscure foreign tradition, can be a rich source of artistic inspiration. And the ideas have to be pretty bizarre to offend the parents of today’s students, after three generations of infatuation with vestiges of vanishing minority cultures. If you want to study the Yuchi language, or some new language constructed on its remains, that’s fine with me. But if you embrace the ideas that failed those who originally believed them, or claim to, are you even being merely stupid, or are you also being disrespectful of the people whose culture you admire? Using Buddhist calming-and-grounding techniques to cope with mood swings is wonderful; bogging down in the kind of Buddhist passivism that allowed China to be bullied by Japan and India to be tyrannized over by England is, at best, stupid.

Not wanting anyone to be Marginalized is a noble idea and a lovely character trait, but it can be exploited and made functionally stupid. Does being non-racist oblige anyone to pretend that the Obama girls have been more victimized than homeless Anglo-American children are? Does fairness toward people with disabilities mean eliminating all requirements that students learn to read, because reading is too difficult for people with brain damage? Those who think that any claim to have been marginalized should get them anything they want make it hard for the rest of us to practice good will.

I have to question how many of Dobson’s generation really worship the Outdoors, since the main problem I see with this age group is that they don’t spend nearly enough time outdoors. Despite some beautiful exceptions, today’s colleges are full of pale, pasty, puffy, flabby, haggard, obese or skinny, repulsive bloated dronelets who couldn’t raise one bean vine if you gave them a pound of beans. It’s hard to blame them, since they grew up in cities where people constantly told them it wasn’t “safe” for them to go to summer camp, ride bicycles, or even swing back and forth on a swing set, so they’ve spent their lives “safely” watching TV. They are unfit for college, for jobs, or for military service, and if any readers recognize themselves or their children here, please shut down the computer and start power-walking now. I want to urge Dobson’s generation to be Greener every day. Spend time in green space. Demand more green space. Designate green space: raise vegetables in your back yards.

However, as Dobson explains, “Moral relativism...places nature on a higher plane. We humans should bow in reverence to it...Christians worship God and manage the earth, while moral relativists worship the earth and disregard God.” I see evidence of this kind of fanatical Greenies in cyberspace, although I’ve not actually met one in the real world, so I’ll take his word that they exist. Right. When Greenies reach the point of seeing no difference between eliminating coyotes from populated areas and strip mining in populated areas, when they don’t merely commit themselves to “one child or none” but start urging people to abort more existing babies—if and when they do—then they’ve become stupid and need to be scolded by Dobson and his readers.

The final piece of stupidity is the demand that we show tolerance of any behavior “as long as it doesn’t hurt anybody else,” even though we can see that some of the behaviors in this category—like taking drugs, or seducing Charlotte Simmons just to dislodge her from her secure position at the head of the class—do in fact hurt other people. Taking drugs might be a victimless crime if you could guarantee that no children you might have one day, nobody who has to share the road with you, no people you might abuse while in an altered state, could possibly be harmed by it, but in order to do so you’d need to be in a padded cell. 

The Bible does not recommend that people become moral vigilantes, sniffing around for hints of secret sin in other people’s lives. It’s not that my neighbor’s conscious, wilful, habitual cheating on his taxes is likely to alienate him from God less than the sin of a mugger or a child molester; it’s that I have to have faith that God can defend God’s honor. I have to step in only if I’m convinced that God needs to mobilize my body to protect the person being mugged or molested. But if my neighbor asks me what I think of cheating, or aborting a healthy child because my neighbor unrealistically believes that a travel opportunity like this one is more unlikely to recur than the chance of giving birth to a healthy child, or some other unchristian choice, then the Bible does tell me to be intolerant enough to admit that those things are wrong.

What Dobson has to offer young readers is a position from which to take their rightful place in college discussions of these moral issues. Toward this end, he provides them snappy comebacks, a selection of the most pertinent Bible verses (if you quote the translation he uses, your dorm mates won’t recognize them as Bible verses, but that may be the effect you want), and succinct, well-reasoned arguments. If you’re a college freshman who doesn’t want to be argued out of your traditional views on sex, drugs, honesty, etc., don’t leave home without Be Intolerant. 

Web Log for 11.12-15.25

During which days, altogether, I might have got in 18 hours of link hunting time. Nevertheless, one long rant...

Advertising 

Norb Leahy seems to imagine a place for traditional, commercial-TV-type advertising in the future. I say that that place had better be imagined as strictly limited to commercial TV. If people who use the Internet wanted an experience similar to watching commercial TV, we'd be watching commercial TV and not paying for the Internet. Advertisers should assume that commercial-TV-type advertising can only harm their brand if it reaches Internet users. Instead they should think about the potential the Internet offers for more introvert-friendly (respectful, patient, respectful, reciprocal, respectful, intelligent, respectful...) communication with prospective customers. 

No sane Internet user is going to admit to being rich; some of us do have disposable incomes and some don't, and it's unethical for you to try to form any idea which are which, but it is ethical, safe, and reasonable to assume that people who visit writing, other gig, and advertising sites are interested in only one direction of cash flow. Lose your fantasies about instant online sales. If people are interested in a product they may consider paying cash for it at a local store. 

Don't even think about barking "Grab this!" at us. Never use the imperative mode in communication with a prospective customer; if worst comes to worst the appropriate phrasings are things like "May we ask all customers please to walk quickly, not run, to the fire escape." Don't indulge in fantasies about another Waste Age where people spend days just shopping and buying things, just because they can, either. Think about making a good impression. 

The best number of times to repeat an advertisement is once. If you want Internet users to think "Oh, didn't they advertise a sale on those things? Which days?", have a web page where they can revisit the ad that interested them. This may not happen twice in any given week but, every time it happens, it's likely to lead to a sale. On the other hand, repeating a message is heard as nagging. Nagging hurts your brand. Don't let an advertising message be heard twice unless people look for it specifically on your site.

Understand that Internet users' interests are usually not in buying things even when we write about things. You can reduce the frustration you experience by planning your advertisements to be seen by people who may use them to coordinate their store displays with yours--either to compete, or to deliver a better integrated shopping/touring experience. 

You could have a commissioned link program, like the one Amazon used to have, and bloggers like me might throw links to "Virginia tourism" or whatever other kind of tourism, or whatever else, fit into our blog posts as sources for further information. When would that actually pay you or the affiliated bloggers? When people who spend money as if it were still the Waste Age read our blogs, of course. You could try promoting our blogs. You could also adjust to the fact that more people notice the Waste Age being over every year.

Advertising that does not fit integrally into primary content is wasted and can only generate negative publicity for whatever is advertised. Ads on YouTube would work better if they were posted as separate videos, rather than interruptions shoved into content where they're irrelevant and annoying. Would anybody actually watch ads posted as separate videos? It might not happen in every single year, but again, many of the people who did watch ads would be likely to buy the product.

There are people--this web site actually has a non-writing member who is one of them--who are interested in seeing how advertisers use Madison Avenue tricks like having a barker-type salesman voice blather about a product over a heavy drumbeat. I am not one of those people. I'm totally turned off by that approach. If you want me to listen to anything, don't let speech and music overlap. But some people think that kind of thing, or silly ad visuals where products dance or actors float through the sky, little cartoon dramas between the different colors of M&Ms, that whole 1950s-retro school of audiovisual art, are entertaining in their own right. Fine. Have your own channel. Don't try to force people who are not interested in your product to watch your ad so they can hear the rest of Joe Rogan's sentence. Entice people who are interested in the Art of Madison Avenue to visit your channel to see the latest way you've used digital audiovisual effects to create something they will find entertaining and, perhaps, persuasive.

There are people, quite a lot of people, who are interested in a product if they get one in exchange for writing about it. I think this works best for single-use products such as novels. I'll read a novel if it's sent to me in exchange for a review. Some people will test foods, toiletries, clothing, luggage, and who knows what else in exchange for a review.  If the reviews are quirky and voicey and part of an uncensored blog that attracts readers in its own right, that's effective advertising--worth more than a thousand "commercials"--and should be paid accordingly. You have a right to look for bloggers who are more likely to say "This product is for people who prefer garlic-flavored to mint-flavored toothpaste" than they are to say "This product stinks, it's disgusting, and I will never use any product made by this company again," but the advertising is not going to be effective unless blog readers know that at some point a blog post might say, in one way or another, "Don't buy this." Of course, when I'm reading an e-friend's blog, I am likely to skip the "...and today I tested Brand X hand lotion" posts, but there is some remote possibility that the next time The Nephews visit one of them will need some hand lotion, we'll go to a store and see Brand X on display, and I'll say, "Oh, that's what my e-friend tested last month. She liked it," and we'll try it. I can't say that that's going to sell enough of any product to justify investing a huge amount of money, but I can say that it's likely to sell more of the product than interrupting an instructive video on, say, "How to Clean Oil Paintings" with a lot of drivel about a product nobody wants to see within ten yards of an oil painting.

Advertisements for patent remedies should be allowed only toward the ends of hour-long documentaries in which respectable doctors, i.e. doctors who don't take any kind of gifts or samples from pharmaceutical companies, talk about how symptoms are most likely to be caused and cured by simple lifestyle choices, and at minute 50 either the doctor or a corporate employee is allowed to say, "Drugs such as Brand X are sometimes prescribed to treat these symptoms." There should be no suggestion that "you" are among the lazy, foolish people who want to pop a pill when it's so much more effective to preserve health by not making ourselves sick. Anything addressed to "you" should discuss natural choices. Advertising jingles and blandishments should be saved for things that really might be part of a healthy, happy life, such as clothes, shoes, and sports equipment.

If you want me to remember a brand if and whenever I buy a particular kind of product, your best bet is to pay me to write a research article about how that brand compares with others on customer ratings and review sites. Actually the different brands of products that are designed to compete with each other tend to be unsurprisingly alike, but you can earn loyalty points by being a good customer. 

One more tip: Because some corporations that advertise products have brought censorship into the Internet and earned the contempt of the world, it's a good move for advertisers to uphold freedom of speech and oppose censorship...even when product-unfriendly content seems absurd to you. Do you or I mind people's chattering on phones in stores more than we mind their chattering with their car pools? I don't; if anything one person talking on a phone is easier to steer a shopping cart around than four people conversing with each other. Do you uphold people's right to object to other people's chattering on phones in stores? You should, even and especially if you sell phones. 

I'm not convinced that polypropylene fabric causes cancer or that the light from electronic products left to charge in bedrooms overnight causes weight gain, but I am sure that I am obliged to oppose anyone who interferes with other people's right to say that they believe those things. If your product is polypropylene winter gear or laptop chargers, you can lose one customer in a hundred when somebody claims that those products are harmful, or you can lose ninety-nine by trying to suppress the person who believes the products are harmful. 

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2025/11/tv-ads-lame-11-12-25.html

http://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2025/11/ad-nauseum-11-12-25.html

Animals 

I visit Messy Mimi's blog almost daily and try to avoid linking to the same writers daily, now that we're no longer on a pay-per-click site, but some people may not know that one of the many jobs that make her site wonderfully various ("Messy") is work for an animal shelter. Adorable adoptable pets in Louisiana are featured on her blog at least once a week. This week's photos definitely quality for a Petfinder Photo Contest winner. If I were looking for a tomkitten with purrsonality, which I don't want to be because I have Drudge, I'd want to meet Cheese.

https://messymimismeanderings.blogspot.com/2025/11/say-cheese-feline-friday-friendly-fill.html

Books 

I've reviewed it before...the first (published) volume of Narnia does happen to be one of the best children's Christmas books of all time. Narnia doesn't have the Nativity scene in its history at all; there is no pretense that Christmas is about the birth of Christ, which is an anachronistic splice that was made hundreds of years after the event, not because anyone thought it could have been true, but because some people found it convenient. Narnia doesn't have St Nicholas of Myra in its history either; that's another splice. Narnia has, as we will later learn from its earliest history, a vague tradition that winter starts to subside after a child-friendly holiday called Christmas where somebody called Father Christmas distributes presents. Narnia's celebration of the miracle of God's forgiving love shown through Incarnation starts with the story told in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. We, or some of us, have a tradition of celebrating all these things together but, in the history of our real world, they did not all happen together; the connection is loose and was made by humans, after the fact, because the first half of winter is an excellent time for people to give presents that other people may need to use during the rest of the winter. 

My take on the "faux medieval" language throughout the Narnia books is that Lewis was trying to give children a sense that his fairytale royalty talked and acted like proper fairytale royalty without requiring children to learn much about how medieval royalty did talk. (They picked up that speechmode late in life, we are told; most if not all of the humans who came to Narnia were middle-class or working-class Londoners, some born before but all alive in the early twentieth century, so it's understandable that they sound like fairytale royalty rather than the real medieval kind.) In another volume a prince dictating one of his first princely edicts says "abhominable--don't forget to spell it with an H, Doctor," and in another a character who objects to another character's telling a story not quite right is told "She's telling it in the grand Calormene manner." If I think about it this code-switching does seem selfconscious and clunky. When I first read the books myself, and later when I read them aloud to children, it seemed just right. It could even have been used to open a discussion of "linguistic registers" and how we word things differently when we're talking to friends than when we're writing doctoral theses, and so on.

https://irresponsiblereader.com/2025/11/12/a-few-scattered-thoughts-on-my-latest-reading-of-the-lion-the-witch-and-the-wardrobe-by-c-s-lewis/

Changes, Beneficial 

Here's another example of a useful social change: that prejudice against lefthandedness. Medieval Europe got this from the Crusades, I was taught. Medieval Arabs had strict rules of etiquette. Right hands were used for relatively clean tasks like writing and eating. Left hands were used for dirty work like self-cleaning. The Crusaders picked up this rule and brought it home--unfortunately they didn't bring the more important rule of washing after using the toilet--and, being Catholic, they worked into their mystical tradition the idea that the virtuous sit on the right hand and the vicious on the left, so the right hand is for God and good people and the left hand is for the Devil and bad people and so blah blah blah...This was all very well for art but it made it unnecessarily difficult for some people to learn to write, draw, and do other useful things. Bah. Today we can keep both hands equally clean so we use the hand we are naturally wired to be able to use. Those of us who are interested in medieval art can file the symbolism of right and left hand, along with the other gestures that sometimes make pictures of medieval saints look so strange, as quaint medieval lore that allowed messages to be worked into images by primitive artists. Those who work with our hands can divide the work between the hands to reduce repetitive motion injuries.

https://roberta-writes.com/2025/11/13/roberta-writes-dverse-no-more-freeloading-bird-of-the-week-and-thursday-doors-with-cffc/

Christian 

Something I've often pondered: When Christians focus on "love" we can easily focus on fellow mortals, fallible creatures, body-ridden things. The "love" for which they clamor is not Christian love; it's indulgence of their sinful nature. Not only sexual lust. Unenlightened humans cry out for kinds of "love" that indulge every one of the Deadly Sins. 

"If you REALLY loved me you'd WANT me to be happy and you'd buy me CANDY!" 

"If you REALLY loved other people YOU would be free from the ego-defenses that make you feel their egos' attacks, and you'd LET them HAVE their little dominance displays." 

Perhaps even "If you REALLY loved your country you'd be SYMPATHETIC to the plight of people who are economically harmed by peace, and you'd support another mindless war with another puny little country that doesn't even have economic value for yours, JUST to crank up the industries that profit so much from war!" 

The demands for indulgence can come from both sides of a question and be equally unenlightened from both sides.

"If you REALLY love me, your disabled and/or unbelieving family member, YOU'll stay at home with ME and not WANT to go to church." 

"If you REALLY love GOD, YOU can find someone ELSE to baby-sit your disabled family member so that YOU can come to CHURCH."

I worked out some time ago that trying to love only God and not listen to the clamor of sinful human neediness is getting above ourselves. We can only do love for God through love toward our fellow humans. We can sit around contemplating Perfect Love but that's not what Christ called us to do with most of our lives. 

But there has to be some anchor to sanity. Love is not indulgence of other people's sinful demands. Love is the practice of Good Will. A Hebrew word for this practice is Tov.

https://howtomeowinyiddish.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-most-essential-thing-believer-in.html

Related: 

https://pjmedia.com/caskeet/2025/11/09/conservative-christians-yes-you-read-that-right-should-leave-usha-vance-alone-n4945777

It is traditional to criticize any current Vice-President on any day of the week that ends in Y. It is traditional to criticize a lady when she is beautiful, accomplished, and popular enough to send a writer into spasms of envy. Envying the wife of a Vice-President is, however, indicative of a deeply troubled soul. The position of this web site is that people who are behaving in such a way as to turn Mrs. Vance off Christianity should ask a doctor whether in-patient psychiatric treatment is right for them.

Comedy 

These vintage-ad-inspired flash fictions get funnier as they go along. They need a warning: DO NOT read while using your mouth for any purpose other than laughing out loud.

https://www.tom-cox.com/the-true-stories-behind-the-photos-in-some-of-the-vogue-magazine-adverts-of-the-late-1960s-and-early-1970s/

History 

People are still trying to use the doomed, unrealistic wheeze about how "climate change is global and can only be dealt with by setting up global tyranny." Humans have not had modern means of documenting weather extremes very long; every year some new weather records are still being set, somewhere. If it's not the hottest summer or the coldest winter, in some place or other it's always, still, likely to be the hottest eleventh of June or the coldest twenty-fifth of February. 

Measurements of the awfulness of hurricanes, and earthquakes and fires and snowstorms, are often based on the cost of the property damage they did  As more people pack into smaller areas with more expensive buildings, those measurements have risen steadily, in North America, from 1700 on, and are likely to go on rising for some years. However, the combination of a hurricane that was about as awful as any that's been seen since, and some human decisions about human technology, means that the record for human lives lost to a hurricane was set 125 years ago...before the fad for giving human names to storms. Blogger and commenters share fun facts about the Galveston hurricane:

https://theviewfromladylake.blogspot.com/2025/11/is-climate-change-new-thing-cause-if-ya.html

Language Abuse 

When a native speaker of US English writes "Epstein allegedly claimed that [Vince Foster] and Hillary Clinton had a relationship."...RRR-crunch.

Of course Vince Foster, Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Webb Hubbell had a relationship. They were school friends who went to work at the same place. They were young and put-upon together. They ate lunch together and even laughed together, sometimes. When they went to an Italian restaurant a thirty-year-old Hillary called her lunch buddy "Vincenzo Fosterini," and giggled. Everyone always knew that. Anyone who begrudged hard-pressed, nearsighted HRC an occasional chance to act young is too mean to be reading this web site. 

What Epstein allegedly claimed was that they were having sex, which is a different kind of relationship and which it's hard to imagine where Epstein would have got any inside information about, anyway. There always was a lot of groundless speculation about Mrs. Clinton's possibly adulterous relationship with one or both of her lunch buddies, usually Foster, who was considered the good-looking one of the three whereas Hubbell was chubby. (Fat people who are not asexual probably get away with a lot just because some fat people are asexual. Webb Hubbell was tempted to embezzle money because he had four children. I suppose those who want to believe that...do those people believe that any Arkansans are related to their mothers' husbands?) If you can believe that Chelsea Clinton looks more like Vince Foster than like Bill Clinton, your believing skills are above average. 

But what bothers me is that native speakers of US English let this use of "a relationship" to mean "an adulterous relationship" stay in a serious article. Owch. Owch.

Men, Appealing 

Both the man and the broom could have been better drawn, but men need to know: They appeal to other men when they're playing little boys' games. They appeal to women when they're doing something useful. This is a pose I, for one, would like to see more of.

[Drawing: Vincent van Gogh]

Obamacare

Well, it's failed. And instead of "installing socialized medicine," this administration needs to double down on the message of keeping the cost of medical care within reason by eliminating unnecessary third parties, i.e. the insurance racketeers. 

Pay the real cost, and not one penny over!

Insurance is not a medical need!

Pay for the medicine--don't pay for the meddling!

Do fund the "health care," but don't fund the greed!

Obituary 

Is it a proper obituary if it only describes the writer's childhood friendship with someone who died old?

https://vincestaten.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-eternal-car-pool.html

Poetry

Though based on Trinidad island (and writing with a Trinidadian accent), this poet doesn't seem to be looking forward to an increase in tourism from vacationers who will not find hotel rooms in Jamaica this winter. Call this a correction to my thoughts about "Montego's Monster." Trinidad is just off the coast of Venezuela. I hadn't been paying attention to the possibility of Venezuela's economic situation worsening. That possibility is impossible to ignore in Trinidad. I apologize.

http://myblog-verses.blogspot.com/2025/11/1332.html

Politics

On which side of the proverbial aisle is more verbal cruelty found? Senator Fetterman's inside view confirms what this Independent has long thought:

https://x.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1988670736924336374

On which side are you found these days? Since I believe that God hath made of one blood all nations of men, have spent my adult life in non-traditional family arrangements, consider myself a more radical feminist than Gloria Steinem, like most of the immigrants I've met, and oppose war, it surprises me to find myself mapped as a moderately conservative Republican. I am not and have never been a Republican! I may respect some of them, I may vote for some of them, but I am an Independent! And always will be!

https://yourpoliticaltribe.com/

Anyway, speaking of Senator Fetterman: Let no one ever say he "caved," because that's not what he did. He knew his constituents. He was like our Senators in Virginia in that respect. Senator Warner is primarily a man of the Hump--Northern Virginia, where the federal employees are. His base was telling him to cling to the stupid filibuster, and he did. Senator Kaine is primarily a man of the Swamp, down around Richmond, where some actual low-wage workers live. His base was telling him to show some mercy, and he did. (If you think that something is missing from this picture and we in the Point of Virginia ought to have our own US Senator, I might agree.) There are low-wage workers in Pennsylvania too. Fetterman was decent enough to listen to them, he took a brave stand on behalf of his base, he's caught no end of hate about it, and he's had another cardiovascular incident and is in the hospital. The usual "Thoughts & Prayers" go out to him and I hope some of them are at least coming from his own party. The Democrats used to be a viable political party representing nice people who were often wrong, but for the best of reasons. Let it never be said that they killed their own man with stress just for being a decent human being.

Due to the echo-chamber effect of having the news reported by frankly partisan writers, it is possible that some Ds think right-wingers were the ones urging Ds to end the shutdown. Not true. Real right-wingnuts were egging Ds on, saying that the longer the shutdown lasted, the more easily it could be made permanent. They had a point there. Again, I ask those under age 60 either to stay out of any discussion of Social Security pensions or to vote to protect your parents' pensions, depending on whether you have parents and they depend on pensions--but those of us who are over 60 and have no  living parents should be talking about redefining retirement from the jobs we did when younger as taking the jobs we wanted to do when younger than that, and cutting Social Security funding back to a point where existing federal revenues can take decent care of those of us who become disabled, if and when we do. I don't want to sit around growing fat and unhealthy--I want to keep working and enjoy the eighty to ninety-year lifespan that seems to be in my DNA. And so no doubt do you. So we want to hold on to the disability pensions that will allow us to enjoy old age while our friends' disabilities are taken care of. The most efficient way to do that is to cut out the idea of retirement pensions. Real right-wingnuts were saying "Don't let's wait for the baby-boomers to decide they'd rather be senior workers than 'retirees.' Just cut'm all out of the budget now! And we know a lot of people on food stamps are the most shameless, obnoxious, disgusting sort of cheats--likely they all are. End food stamps now, because we personally don't know any poor hardworking couple who've planned to raise a child while she goes to college and he works for Wal-Mart with the help of the food stamp program and, if we did, we'd feed them. And all public schools could be made virtual, permanently, overnight, too." If any Ds were "caving" to the right-wingnuts, they were Schumer, Pelosi, Sanders, and the rest of the Stubborn Jackasses in the Senate.

(Someone may be wondering...I try not to have anything to say to other people's Congressmen until they've voted on an issue. It can be hard, since some of them aspire to national positions and use Twitter to seek attention outside their States, but I try. I didn't even tweet to Senator Fetterman before the vote; I nagged Senators Kaine and Warner, and hoped one of them would be first to break the shutdown. It may not make sense to international readers but each State was originally meant to be its own independent self-governing political entity in an alliance that did not dictate policy to any State. That anyone active in State government, e.g. Lady Lemon Locks who claims to be our Governor-elect, should be receiving funding or advice from out-of-State connections is discrediting.)

Norb Leahy has the list of thirteen D Senators whose terms expire next year. At least one of them (Shaheen of New Hampshire) voted to end the shutdown--eventually; though she reportedly intends to retire anyway. Most, like Booker, voted to sustain the shutdown because concerns about poor hardworking parents were the only way their minority party could manipulate the majority. Does one of these people misrepresent your State? Time to find replacements is now.

https://ntlconsulting.blogspot.com/2025/11/us-senate-midterm-11-15-25.html

Women's Issues 

Prompted by a lot of things scattered around the'Net that don't deserve links...

If the Rs want there to be a Red Wave, they need now to set a policy of zero tolerance for misogyny. 

The Loony Left may appeal to a certain type of she-bachelor...a woman who is not usually a very strong, or radical, or committed feminist, but whose conscience is inflamed, even infected, by her having had or considered having an abortion. (Sometimes, like the sad antiheroine of a "novel" or teaching story about birth control options that circulated in the 1980s, she was tearfully deciding to have a surgical abortion when her barren body expelled the never-to-be-a-baby all by itself.) The men of the Left don't respect her, nor do the women who've shoved her down while crawling past her up the ladder of the D Party. She knows this. She is not a happy D Party member. She is not happy at all; she may or may not have been diagnosed as clinically depressed, but she's not having a lot of fun. But she votes for the party that tells her she has a "right" to "choose" abortion, whether she's chosen it, whether it's happened to her, or whether it's been an academic question since the men who've molested and exploited her all had the good sense to avoid causing pregnancy. The D Party does base its whole appeal to women on this wretched female, so she probably does exist. She's probably the sort of government 

employee who actively hates a competent contractor.

Calling her a cat lady is a mistake. She's not a Southern Lady; she thinks "lady" means "old" and at no age does she admit being one. And she probably has neither the fortitude nor the living space to keep cats. 

Identifying her with "women" or "single women" or even "single middle-aged women" is a mistake, because most women, even most single middle-aged women, don't want to stand too close to this sad apple. Her moods are too likely to swing and her resentment is too likely to latch on to the nearest person as a cause of her misery. "And you think you're so popular and pretty and healthy now but, let me tell you..." "Oh stow it," say her flatmates, going out to parties to which she's not been invited and dances she doesn't have the energy to do, planning to move in with other housemates or flatmates next summer. 

How can this wretched creature be identified? By her politics of course. She is the Woman Whose Political Issue Is Abortion. Bless her heart. 

Other single middle-aged women can and should be recruited away from a party that offers them nothing better than "abortion rights." That party's opposition should not waste their talents by offering them nothing better than advice to marry young and have babies, instead of allowing immigrants, to become the huddled masses of second-class citizens on whose backs some people want to balance the dysfunction that is the Social Security system. Republicans need to hire, promote, and encourage working women who do and do not have babies, or husbands, to think about. They need to be the party of the women who really do Have It All though, for maximum enjoyment, not all at the same time. They need to have the offices where women don't have to worry about harassment by male bosses because nobody on a management level is male, and where a "mommy track" resume showing two years off to nurse the baby and ten years of part-time work and homeschooling is recognized as showing all kinds of added skills when the woman comes back to full-time work. ("Mommy brains," some studies have shown, actually gain some functionality after recovering from postnatal brainfog.) They need to focus on the woman entrepreneur who may or may not have a male partner, the "Mom'n'Pop" or "Just Mom" business, that has been represented very poorly by the R Party, in the past, but positively resented and despised by the Ds, so these people tend to vote R. Rs need to recognize these people as an important part of their base.

Between ages 20 and 40 women do tend to polarize around the question of whether or not we are actively mothering babies. Friendships between the baby-free and the baby-addled tend to go into inactive mode...in theory sisters, cousins, and old friends would baby-sit for each other but in practice baby-free women seem to have to push for this, and Zahara Heckscher was the only one I knew who did. We can work together, but our brains are working differently. The mommy brain is even capable of entertaining paranoid fantasies that her baby-free friends covet the little fountain of baby-spew that we blame for having destroyed our friend. Corporate cultures of competition don't help, though in their absence we're probably working on our own as Mom'n'Pop or Just Mom entrepreneurs...

After age 40, however, women who did and did not have babies tend to outgrow the possibly hormone-based antipathy and can reunite as women. The most obvious thing we then have in common is that, whether or not we want to believe that a fetus is a baby or that women who don't want babies probably aren't going to have viable ones anyway and should have a right to abort with no questions asked, our most immediate and pressing concerns do not include abortion. If a woman over 40 is pregnant the role of friends in her life is probably to persuade her that the fetus, if it becomes a child, won't enjoy answering to the name of "Miracle" at school. We can, however, rally around things like the need for all of Hamas and all of the Berlin rapists to be publicly executed, the need to reclaim streets and public space generally as women's space, the need for adequate compensation for women who take boring STEM jobs...and the need for better women candidates for public office who show more rational understanding of women's issues. We should be able to unite in saying to candidates like Angry Abigail Spambucket, "How dare you suggest that all we want is more tax-subsidized abortion!"

Rs must not flinch away from what Charlie Kirk actually stood for in his life--open, uncensored debate, opposition to censorship. They must not be distracted by the detail that, as a very young man, Charlie Kirk was in a position to hire a slightly older woman (already beyond the bounds of what normally happens), and that when he told her he wanted to marry her instead of hiring her she said yes instead of suing him (definitely part of a unique personal relationship that nobody else can reasonably expect to replicate). There are envious, resentful, bitter little boys who might want to rally around the idea that girls should all drop out of school and stay home and have babies. Rs should not make the mistake of giving those boys a platform. What the bitter little boys need is a spanking. Rs should encourage girls to stay in school, have one child or none, after age 25 if ever, and prepare for responsible jobs. 

Bashing "feminists" is another move Rs should avoid. Leftist feminists like Betty Friedan and Gloria Steinem obviously did make themselves bashable. Laura Ingraham's Hillary Trap documented ten of the major ways left-wing feminism failed even left-wing feminists like Mrs. Clinton; it's worth reading by everyone, male and female. The alternative to left-wing feminism was not antifeminism, which withered up and died of lack of contact with reality, but moderate and conservative feminism. The idea that women are inferior to men can survive only in a culture where everyone does heavy physical labor to survive, so it needs no reviving. The idea that women's equal or superior value to society might mean treating motherhood as a counterpart to military service, on a management-level employee's resume, has a better base in contemporary reality and should prove easier to defend.