One of those days when it looked as if it were about to rain, but hardly a drop fell, all...day...long.
Animals
In Greek literature Calliope was a woman's name. In English it's a musical instrument, but it's also a species of hummingbird found in some Western States.
Photo from https://roadsendnaturalist.com/2026/05/22/calliope/ , which has more photos and live video of the little guy stretching his wing and tail feathers.
A flamboyance of flamingos:
Book
For snark aficionados: A memorable moment in the history of a copy of Andrei Codrescu's book Bibliodeath, which this web site warmly recommended more than ten years ago, and recommends still.
Christian
C.S. Lewis fans will remember that, in his writing about the pure essence of friendship, Lewis often seemed to have in mind his admiration for one of the Inklings in particular: a younger Christian writer called Charles Williams, who died before most of the older Inklings did. I've not seen a copy of Williams' nonfiction Christian book yet, though I have read his brilliantly strange fantasy fiction. (Once the background reading's been done the fiction makes sense. Not before.) Here, anyway, is a selection from a US edition of The Descent of the Dove that may still be in stores.
Conspiracy Theories
A right-wing correspondent reports that people are voluntarily wearing face masks again. Is it a new conspiracy to revive the COVID panic?
Save your fear energy, right-wingers. Some of my other correspondents are freely discussing their use of face masks. (No link, because nobody needs to harass these people.) It's what's called a dry season. Great for people with mold allergies; not so good for people with pollen and dust allergies. Rain's not dampening down the pollen and dust. Nor is it washing down the chemical pollution that I suspect really causes the reactions that pollen and dust merely trigger. Some people find that by wearing masks they can enjoy more sunshine before they start coughing and sneezing.
Really.
Not that it might not be a good thing to address the pandemic of government dependency, which has reached such dysfunctional depths that people actually imagine that governments should somehow be able to manage diseases. Not that it might not be useful to lock down government offices, reduce the government workforce by two-thirds, raise the cost of regulations to a level where anything less life-and-death urgent than a glyphosate ban could end a bureaucrat's career, and generally bring government budgets down in proportion with the way the COVID panic brought the economy down. Not that non-essential, not-really-even-government organizations like WHO shouldn't go the way of your neighborhood ethnic restaurant.
But what's with this sexist bigotry of blaming (mostly women) for trying to cope with their own allergies in their own harmless way? Isn't that the old coward instinct to attack what appears to be a weak target and never mind whether it has anything to do with the actual threat?
Funny
Well, I chortled.
Arguably this should go under "Politics," but when the "politician" in question is the bad boy character from a scripted "reality TV" program of years gone by, and the opposition is coming from the sister-in-law of a has-been comedian whose show was cancelled for making groundless accusations of murder...
Memorial Day
As regular readers know, I don't have a lot of patience with the idea of decorating graves. If people were worth remembering, and of course they were, it was for what they did, for what they gave to this world. Remember that. Carry it on. In whatever tiny, inept, unworthy way, carry on a little of what your departed friends and relatives did.
I'm not claiming that I, personally, have a lot to build on the foundations my departed friends laid while they were alive. I don't. All I'm saying is that I think whatever I can do toward their goals is a better memorial to them than a lot of flowers left on a grave. It's good to maintain some reminder of where graves are, so that people don't inadvertently dig them up; there's no need to be mawkish about it.
But it's worth remembering, too, that Memorial Day started out as a day to remember the war dead.
This link is to a grim, gruesome, disgusting war story. I think Dennis Santaniello timed this story for this weekend for a reason. I think it's appropriate to reflect on those killed in wars, and how they died, and what they died for. The characters in this story died in what they were told was a war to end all wars.
What have we done toward that goal?
Music
Not many music links today, but here's Wings.
John Scalzi...has done much better "covers."
Obituary
Vince Staten remembers Frank Gibson.
Weddings
According to actual scientific studies, it may be best for the marriage if a wedding party skimps on decorations and goes wild on invitations. Apparently, the investment that really shows commitment is not the biggest diamond or longest skirt, but the number of relatives who gather to celebrate.
In line with which, a party idea I've always liked specifies that bridesmaids must wear skirts (provided) and groomsmen must wear bow ties (provided). This allows the bride to pick a color scheme and enforce it without anyone having to spend a lot of money on a dress or suit that the person considers unflattering, overpriced, or itchy.
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