Web Log for 2.17-21.26

I found one link to share on 2.17.26 before Microsoft "updates" zapped the Unsatisfactory Toshiba. It kept trying to restart and flashing the message "CRITICAL PROCESS DIED." Not only did Microsoft refuse to start Windows; it refused to allow Libre Office to run offline, which ought to be illegal, if it's not. Due to weather and schedule conflicts (you can't just walk out carrying a laptop on a wet day, and it's been a very wet week) it was 2.20.26 before I made my way to the shop to replace this little thing. Apparently enough other laptops had been fried that the shop didn't have a laptop with Linux available, though they'd had one only two days before; the few laptops they did have were in poor condition. I let the wonderful wizards of Compuworld rebuild the hard drive on the Unsatisfactory Toshiba. For now.

I sincerely hope that EVERY ONE OF YOU GENTLE READERS gives Microsoft the boot this summer. Even if it turns out that we all hate Linux...Microsoft needs to feel the burn. Google was forced by law to give up efforts to force people to buy more laptops. Microsoft needs the same kind of treatment. NO device should ever be forced out of service to its owner. Microsoft should be required to devote all of its resources for the next decade to renovating electronics from 1980 onward. We can live with Linux long enough to bring Microsoft to heel.

And I've been link hunting and interacting with people...on Saturday! My day of rest from the Internet, this week, was Thursday. 

Books 

I don't believe Sasquatch exist in my corner of the real world. They might exist, rare and cryptic as coelacanths, in places where condors perched in redwoods to watch for beached whales; things are a bit larger than life along the Pacific coasts. Here, "booger men" were an old staple of stories used to scare children off bad behavior, and more recently the Jefferson National Forest has acquired an absolutely real Bigfoot statue in celebration of the Sasquatch legend's contribution to our tourist economy, I think that's about as far as it goes. But they figure in some good stories. Priscilla Bird's "Ralph stories," gentle wholesome fiction about a forest where Ralph the Sasquatch is the chief of a settlement of cavemen, talking ravens, and smarter-than-average animals, are some of the nicest bedtime stories a grandmother ever made up for her grandchildren...and her e-friends! Volume 3 is out...

Blogspot didn't copy and paste her link with her graphic. You should know that she and a blog buddy have been working on that graphic for years. Everyone deserves to see it. The link is here.

Y'know...I'm not a mother, but reading this article did put me in touch with a source of minor, unconfessed guilt. As a teenaged baby-sitter, I was fond of one particular set of sprogs my brother and I used to baby-sit, and I thought very highly of their mother. And then, during my sophomore year in college, their father died. And even when I came back home...I avoided them. Nothing anyone said had been particularly helpful to my grief process when my brother died. I didn't want to risk blurting out any unhelpful drivel to this family. And, due to this adolescent shyness, I never gave a thought to the possibility that the newly single mother of those children might have needed a break from having the children, the girls literally, "in her hair," or that the children might have welcomed a break from their ordinary routine in their house of mourning. I didn't think I was the one who broke the friendship, but in hindsight I realize that I sort-of was. Dear relatives, I am sorry about that; I don't know that I could have done better, or less badly, at nineteen, but I regret it.

I shared that because somewhere out there somebody is avoiding a single mother of Now who needs a break, or at least some help with chores, now.

https://moxiemona.substack.com/p/things-single-moms-feel-guilty-about

Cybersecurity 

It would be diabolically easy for Congress to placate the Maoists, allowing this evil suggestion, and appease us Boomers by simply exempting accounts that have been active for more than 13 years from "age verification." Don't settle, early adopters of computer technology. For the young, too, it's crucial that whistleblowing does not amount to telling international terrorists where you live, where you bank, and where your children go to school. Real-world names, at least those of people who have not achieved "public figure" salaries and security, should be BANNED from the Internet. The only way any of us is physically safe--from fraudulent impersonation, harassment, robbery, rape, arson, or murder--and the only way our children are safe is to maintain an Internet where the quality of people's posts gives everyone an impression of their age, gender, and nationality, but nobody can prove that any of our e-friends is not a dog.

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

Glyphosate Awareness 

Your health forecast for the next year: You may get to enjoy a few more vegetables early this year. Then eating commercial vegetables will make you sick again. Trump just signed, and bullied Kennedy into supporting, a wimpy new "phase-out" line of drivel. What was supposed to have been complete by 2022 might, they think, be partly achieved by 2030. 

This web site does not call for violence. This web site wants to see them pay. Even if they had some mad idea about US-made glyphosate being less toxic than Chinese-made glyphosate...this web site wants to see at least one of these traitors falling down unexpectedly, and the other one gushing blood visibly, from conscience-karma-enhanced glyphosate reactions entirely and alone, this summer. No cheating. Absolutely NO cheating. They need to be rushed to Bethesda and told "You're having a glyphosate reaction." No wiggle room even for stress from being screamed at by Loony Lefties as a contributing factor.

"A total glyphosate ban would lead to famine"? I hate to say it but sometimes a short sharp shock is the best way to make a change. Yes, we as a nation should quit glyphosate "farming" cold turkey. People need to learn that most "weeds" are super-nutritious food plants, there to get you through until the tastier vegetables like beans and potatoes have a chance to grow. We don't spray chickweed and dandelions--we EAT chickweed and dandelions. They make scanty but adequate salads. They can get us through years without those glyphosate-soaked veg in the supermarkets. I didn't look forward to repeating, much less sharing, my years of living on weeds--but I lived, worked, and felt good so long as I ate only weeds and rejected supermarket treats, during thos years. So will other people.

History 

Fun facts about early US history...Y'know, I've been on Hillsdale College's mailing list for a while. They are in the upper Midwest, where historically most immigrants who didn't come from the British Isles came from the Scandinavian countries, so the incidence of blue eyes is high; even the incidence of naturally blond hair on adults is striking. I've wondered whether any Black people went to Hillsdale, or wanted to. The answer is yes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMyw8XWYaxo

Obituary 

Jesse Jackson: 

https://apnews.com/article/jesse-jackson-dies-43abb84d2ffc76d967f9a5596ebd0be1

Virginia Legislature 

Some may want to congratulate State Senator Pillion for this one:

https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/SB822

Judy Gray Johnson is still alive and writing. I hope she's pleased with the bill.

Delegate Kilgore didn't introduce a lot of bills this year, but local lurkers will enjoy the full text of this House Resolution:

https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HR68

Older local lurkers should also enjoy this one, though the gentlemen forgot to mention Delegate Quillen's sympathy toward the school choice movement in Virginia. 

https://lis.blob.core.windows.net/files/1115912.PDF

Weather 

While I enjoyed the February Thaw this weekend, the thaw is definitely over for most of the US. The Northern States, Canada, and even California are getting record snow with even more bitter cold expected to follow. According to some models the Big Snow may move over Virginia. Gentle Readers, we the technorati have a responsibility to coordinate both evacuation plans for ourselves, if necessary, and plans to accommodate people who may need to be evacuated from other places, if necssary. (Praying that neither becomes necessary is optional...) 

Song Lyrics That Make Me Cringe

The Long & Short Reviews prompt I missed this week was "Song Lyrics that Make Me Cringe."  

Well, actually, some leading contenders in that field are so explicit they violate this web site's rules. Consider a lot of rap songs about how the b's ain't s't and the rappers' male buddies are even worse. Consider a lot of pop songs in which people who used to be able to do their caterwauling about walking under the moon, in the month of June, with yoo-oo-oo-ou, are now expected to simulate sexual acts while singing. 

The way some people sing makes me cringe, actually. The most off-putting quality in pop singers' voices is not nasality or "vocal fry," but a way of enunciating words that screams louder than the music, "I'm too drunk to pronounce words normally, actually, but I'll pretend you think my trying to sing while keeping my tongue hanging out is sexy." Shut up and rent a room, singers.

There are, however, some good old traditional songs that induce cringes by having idiotic lyrics. 

My family, being four generations of Jim Reeves fans, know a lot of 1950s pop songs by heart from singing along with Gentleman Jim's records. One that I used to like, because it has a cheerful-sounding tune, was recorded in a few different versions; I don't think any single recording includes all four verses, but they all go something like

"Each night as I wait here in the darkness,

I watch your window so high above.

I'm longing for a look at my old sweetheart,

Just a glimpse of the one that I still love...."

I think it was the 1990s before my mother paused, after we'd sung along with that one, and said "Isn't that what's called stalking now?"

In a more intentionally off-putting tone, Ray Stevens used to sing a song about a creepy stalker:

"It's me again, Margaret.

Hello? Is this Margaret?

You don't know me, Margaret,

But I know you-u-u!"

I had a short-term romance with a man who used to sing that song by way of a phone greeting. I think the whole family were glad when he went back to his ex-girlfriend. I was sort of miffed, but not exactly broken-hearted, myself.

But most pop singers were persuaded to sing worse lyrics. One that Dave Barry said a lot of people recommended to him as the worst of the worst sounds like the national anthem of pedophiles:

"YOUNG girl, get out of my mind!

My love for you is way out of line!

You're too YOUNG, girl..."

I've heard quite a few thirty-something men say that kind of thing about their twenty-something exes, but did Gary Puckett intend for the song to sound as if it were about a 15-year-old trying to pass for 18?

And there's been a lot of political controversy about "Baby, It's Cold Outside," to which I will add that, as a general rule, if a man calls a woman "Baby" nothing else he has to say is worth listening to in any case. 

I never heard of any unusual pressure that could have explained either Elvis Presley's or Dwain Reed's singing a once popular song that went,

"Break my mind, break my mind!

If you leave, yer gonna leave a babblin' fool behind!"

To which many people said that the song sounded like a valid reason for leaving the person, but then somebody calling himself Napoleon the Fourteenth recorded a sort of sequel in which "They're coming to take me away, ha ha, ha ha!"

I'm not aware of any pressure having been applied to Billy Ray Cyrus, either, to get him to sing that "You can tell my lips, or tell my finger tips...but don't tell my heart, my achy breaky heart! He might blow up and kill this man!" 

The song writer thought a man who talked like that would be missed?

It never really bothered me that the speaker in an oldie called "I Am I Said" sounds schizophrenic...

"I am, I said, to no one there,

And no one heard at all, not even the chair..."

Oh, but the bed, his old faithful bed...what was it saying? But all those love songs had already taught me that, when men try to write songs, it doesn't seem to make any difference what kind of drugs they're on. They all sound stoned. Or if they're not, they wish they were.

"On a sleepy Sunday morning,

Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned..."

Some say that, once a relationship reaches a certain point, it's appropriate to be conscious of your own sex appeal--for one other person, when you're alone with that person--but I maintain that an opposite effect is produced by anyone pretending to think person is attractive to the whole audience. Elvis Presley and Dolly Parton got away with trying to act sexy on stage because they were clowning and having a good time. Arguably laughing was what audiences were supposed to do when we heard an early 1990s song that was popular, all right, as in a good song to pop into your tape deck when you wanted your roommate to run out, screaming "I hate you" and planning to spill paint on one of every pair of your shoes, but anyway leaving you alone for a few hours:

"I'm too sexy for my shirt!

So sexy it hurts! I'm too sexy!"

In an amusing parody video the song ended, "I'm too sexy for my life!" and the screen went black.

Then there are all those songs about adultery.

"I know it's wrong for us to steal a kiss,

But when you hold me in your arms you know I can't resist.

I have a home and someone kind and true.

I know I'd lose it all if I was seen with you."

Do these people ever listen to themselves and notice how blatantly they're saying that they do not love the people they sing these songs to? If you love someone who is already married, or even divorced with a possibility of reconciliation, you want person to be a good wife or husband, to have a happy home, to be able to respect perself.

Romantic love is probably the emotion it's easiest to make ridiculous, unintentionally, in song lyrics, but that doesn't mean there aren't other possibilities. Religious songs are another genre that has seen some epic badness. Secular, "modern" Christmas songs also have a tendency to reek. 

Songs that express anger can easily go too far, as when Randy Newman went from the reasonable assertion, with which many people could agree at least for some people we knew who were shorter than we were, "They've got little bitty hands, and little beady eyes, and they walk around telling great big lies, and I don't want those short people around here," to what many of us thought was excessive: "Short people have no reason to live." Some tall people are just as bad, Newman.

School songs tend to go two ways: written by women, and smarmy; written by guys, and...a local deejay used to perform a real gem, riffing on the local high school teams being called the Blue Devils: "No, they don't have no angels there! They'd prob'ly kick them out!" Satanism in the schools! 

Patriotic songs...I've never had a problem with the old slave supposedly wailing "Carry me back to old Virginie." In historical fact slaves put up for auction did have opportunities, and encouragement, to tell prospective buyers where they wanted to be and what kind of work they could do. If they could sing and be entertaining, that was another asset that might get them into a better or less-bad position. The whole idea of slaves having to treat an auction like a job fair is cringeworthy, but real. But I used to find the seldom sung verse, "Carry me back to old Virginie; there let me live till I wither and decay," too cringeworthy to sing with a straight face. "Till the day I die" is a cliche in traditional songs, but additional gross-out details beyond that....

I don't think "Our Great Virginia" is the greatest song, either, but I am glad that people at least wrote a new one. We needed a new song.

New Book Review: A Cupcake to Die For

Title: A Cupcake to Die For

Author: Camilla Clove

Date: 2025

Quote: "The scream cut through the sea breeze just as I was about to take my first bite of Aunt Mira's lavender cupcake."

One of Aunt Mira's friends and customers has just been murdered with an overdose of medication. Jasmine, who just came back from the city to inherit an uncle's business, wants to prove her family and friends innocent. The mystery's not very hard to solve but, after all, this short story is only an introduction to a series of longer stories. 

The names of several characters and the bakery's specialties give this story a whiff of Middle Eastern flavor--Syrian? Lebanese?--but in one important way it strikes me as an American story. Jasmine is fairly young and single. In this book she meets a nice police officer who takes care of the murderer, but it's traditional that if there is a love interest in mystery novels it develops slowly...and in this one we're told that in the next volume Jasmine is going to meet another nice single man. How many eligible bachelors are going to be useful contacts for solving mysteries before Jasmine settles down with one of them? Remains to be seen.  

Book Review: Circle of Fire Book 1 In Pakistan

Title: Circle of Fire, Book 1, In Pakistan

Author: Andrew Anzur Clement

Date: 2024

Quote: "I moved...to Karachi, with my uncle, to work as servants for two gora families."

This series of recent historical fiction is a dystopia in real life: it's set in present-time Afghanistan, so torn by civil war that nobody can trust anybody. Hafizullah, son of a Taliban leader, and Jan, son of a Polish defense contractor, and Kelly, daughter of an American contractor, aren't friends at the beginning of the story, though on the second or third page Hafizullah describes Jan as having become "closer than a friend, more like a brother" before it's done. Hafizullah resents being a servant even though it turns out to be his cover in a spy operation, and Jan probably is the arrogant gora (allied foreign) jackass Hafizullah calls him. Kelly has an immune deficiency condition and is sheltered and overprotected, though she turns out to be brave and tough. In the course of this story Hafizullah will marry a girl called Zlaikha, also brave and tough; she and Kelly will start to bond by the end of this story, after all of them have spent a lot of time trekking through the desert and have watched their fathers or father-substitutes die. None of them seems close to their mothers, which is probably intentional; at least readers don't have to watch the characters watch their mothers die.

Many teenagers like grim, bitter stories that make the reader feel tough. Well, this is one. I'm not a big fan of dystopian fiction but there's something to be said for gritty stories of dystopian reality. 

What you won't like is that this is only Book 1 of a longish series and you'll have to read the other volumes to know how the characters get to where they are when Hafizullah starts narrating the first chapter of this book.

Web Log for 2.16.26

Unfortunately all the links I found were in the category of...

Politics 

If the Governor and Lieutenant Governor can't serve two terms back to back, the Attorney General of Virginia probably shouldn't, either. Jason Miyares should have let someone else share the ticket with Reid and Our Winsome. But he's eligible to run for any slot on the ticket in the next election, as are they, and here's one good reason to vote for him:

https://merylnass.substack.com/p/we-did-it-22-attorneys-general-in

More generally...This is the kind of thing that's likely to derail the Trump Train. Hillary Rodham Clinton is not, in any of these clips, presenting ideas that were ever likely to be good for our nation. That is why she's getting hard questions and heckling. In one clip she's actually trying to brazen it out after four people were killed on her watch--which takes a high level of brazen-ness, to be sure. HRC was old enough at the time to have shed all of her lifetime supply of tears, but a little grief for those four people would have been appropriate. But she's being stereotyped and slandered as "shrill" and "unhinged" simply because she's female. Whatever might be said about the acts and ideas under discussion in these video clips, HRC is a model of levelheaded, cool-tempered, low-voiced, even ladylike tone in each of them. 

Men, it's probably best if you don't even try to describe any woman's voice or manner. Women know what "shrill" and "unhinged" sound like--we heard examples of both coming out of Minnesota this winter--and if you think HRC, in any of these videos, comes even close, you are just showing fear and bigotry. This is how women sound when we may be catching hate, but we are absolutely in control. In the last video, where the young man really needs to be removed from the room by the fat, out-of-shape man who approaches him but fails to do anything, HRC's voice does border on being "strident," but that is justified by the situation. These videos show how women are supposed to sound.

https://pjmedia.com/tim-o-brien/2026/02/16/theres-no-meltdown-like-a-hillary-meltdown-this-is-her-best-of-album-n4949547

Trump is failing to carry out his mandate:

https://www.thenewlede.org/2026/02/us-epa-reapproves-the-controversial-herbicide-dicamba/

Not that Virginia's D legislature is doing any better. This is disgusting. Anyone who wants to go on using paraquat, now, deserves Parkinson's Disease. Unfortunately his neighbors are equally likely to get the disease.

https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB1375

Petfinder Post: Pets Instantly Make Us Happy

[Ganked from Messy Mimi:]

I have become accustomed to thinking of my cat Serena as a non-cuddler. As she's moved into middle age and developed the capacity to sleep soundly, however, I've encouraged her to take naps indoors, and when napping indoors she often does snuggle beside me or on my lap. This may or may not mean I have permission to stroke her fur. Mostly it doesn't. But she's been behaving more like a house pet during the past year.

Well, not in front of kittens. Being able to take cuddling or leave it alone, Serena has used it as an occasional reward for good behavior during years when she's been very obviously training me, in an ethical behaviorist way. She's had no opportunity to read B.F. Skinner, whose books I don't own, but you couldn't prove this by her behavior. The junior cats' role in the training process has been to stay out of it. No soppy snuggling for them! For shame!

The other night I suspect Serena thought I deserved a special reward for trying a new flavor of packaged rice mix. It wasn't advertised as "low sodium" but clearly was, with more grease cooked into the rice before drying and less salt. I hate that approach to preserving food--for one thing the lack of salt allows the extra grease to go rancid faster, though this was a new packet and didn't taste rancid so much as just greasy. I will not buy that flavor again. But cats don't care about salt and do love animal fat. 

"Cats," I said, "a mouse has been prowling around the closet. Go and watch for the mouse."

They know what this means, but it wasn't good enough for Serena. "You deserve a reward," she nonverbally said. "You may hold me on your lap."

I let her curl up in my lap.

"Silver," I said a few minutes later, "you know you are not allowed to curl up on my lap. Sit over there, beside us." 

"No, it's all right, she said I could curl up on your lap beside her," Silver nonverbally said.

"She has purrmission," Serena nonverbally affirmed, washing Silver's face.

Silver purred right out loud. Serena didn't even sniff in a disdainful way. 

They know how to push my happy-cat-lover buttons. As your pet does. Or the pet you adopt will do.

This morning Petfinder decided I needed to see the cats available for adoption in Tazewell, Tennessee. I didn't even know where that is. There is a town called Tazewell, Virginia, that used to have a high school big enough to be in the same league with Gate City, so I have a general idea where that is, but who ever heard of any other place being called Tazewell. If we don't know something it's a good idea to look it up, so I searched for Tazewell, Tennessee. It was named in honor of Tazewell, Virginia. Early explorers walked from one place to the other; it took them a few weeks. Whatever it may look like to visitors, it's pronounced "Tazz-well." (There's a linguistic explanation for this. It was not originally done just to confuse visitors.) Kingsport, Tennessee, is on the border between Sullivan and Hawkins Counties; if you drive all the way west through Hawkins County you come to Hancock County, and if you continue all the way west through Hancock County you come to Claiborne County, the seat of which is Tazewell, Tennessee, population just over two thousand. Some county buildings, including the animal shelter, overflow into what's called New Tazewell, which has its own post office.

I've never found a reason to make such an expedition, but Petfinder does have a reason why somebody out there would make one.

Zipcode 37825: February from New Tazewell

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/february-6aa12c19-2b44-4df6-9130-dcc9ca6e700f/tn/new-tazewell/claiborne-animal-shelter-tn704/details/

Doesn't that face make you think "Cheer up, it's not as bad as all that"? Will the illusion of tear marks on the cat's face be a source of love and laughter? February is a small cat with a healthy weight of just six pounds. Not much is known about her, but she seems to be a pet who's lost her human. 

Zipcode 10101: Rosalina from NYC  

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/rosalina-07870df0-2609-499d-9747-7c2fc33938d5/ny/new-york/animal-haven-ny17/details/

Amber-Eyed Silver Tip? They tend to become happy-mood anchors for their humans. Of course they attract good luck. What could be better luck than to be owned by one?

Lentil Soup from NYC 

His puppy face and the lack of other objects in the photo may make him look like a tiny fluffball. Do not be deceived. Lentil Soup is young and lovable but he already weighs over 25 pounds. He is probably still growing. And he may be less cheerful if his coat's not trimmed away from his eyes; sometimes long-haired dogs can become downright mopey when their hair irritates their eyes enough to cause constant tears. But LS is a dear little fellow, thought to be more Yorkshire Terrier than anything else. 

Zipcode 20202: Rose from DC

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/rose-502207e9-4a5a-4995-910a-acbe93d612fe/dc/washington/metro-ferals-md-md307/details/

Oh, such ridiculously sad eyebrows! Fortunately they're just an illusion. Rose is described as a friendly cat who loves human attention. She may have found coat coloring that produces the illusion of a sad face useful, but she's a brave mother cat who reared five kittens on her own and is ready to be someone's primary or only pet again.

Raven from DC

His web page: https://www.petfinder.com/dog/raven-26714507-47a9-4905-8031-a24d00c8da37/dc/washington/peps-pals-rescue-md539/details/

Born to a straying (or abandoned) pet in Maryland, Raven is described as a remarkably well brought up puppy, friendly, cheerful, clever, and curious. He's another terrier-mix pup who may look small in the picture but weighs over 25 pounds, and they don't say how much because he's still growing. 

Zipcode 30303: Indigo from Chattanooga 

Her web page: https://www.petfinder.com/cat/indigo-5c0482f6-3ad9-4cf1-8af3-79394761997a/ga/atlanta/your-local-fur-mama-tn1052/details/

My beloved Serena is a natural-born Queen Cat. Indigo is what might be called a Bossy Cat . She does not like sharing her living quarters with any other non-human animal, though she does like being close to a chosen human. She is too clever for her own good. She can and will open doors, with no constraints about politeness. She will let you know what she wants. And you will do it. And you will be delighted because it's so nice to know what your pet wants. 

I think an animal who was bossier than Serena might be too full of itself to survive and could hardly be much fun to live with. Then again, before she took over the Cat Sanctuary I would've thought an animal who behaved like Serena was too full of herself to survive and would hardly be much fun to live with. I then watched this kitten grow up, choosing her name before her ears even unfolded, and she's been more fun than a barrel of monkeys and a source of love and laughter every day. Somewhere out there is a person who will love every minute of life with Indigo.

Gage, also from Chattanooga 

https://www.petfinder.com/dog/gage-1dc3f5fc-5692-466f-9651-6a6ecd4bbedb/ga/atlanta/joyful-pets-animal-rescue-ma499/details/

Part cur and part coon hound, Gage has probably reached his healthy adult weight of 60 pounds. Coon hounds are stereotypically cool, self-contained animals who don't mind being neglected, but they're also intelligent animals who can enjoy being trained to be closer to their humans. Gage is working on cage, leash, and paper training so that he can live in the house with you. It would be a pity to send him back under the porch, now. He should be a great trail buddy but he's being socialized as a pet.

Book Review: A Dash of Murder

Title: A Dash of Murder

Author: Pearl Parsons

Date: 2025

Quote: "The road sign ahead...a battered wooden post with three arrows pointing in different directions... simply sat there...pointing left."

So Sylvia turns left. As it turns out, the country inn she's inherited is located in a different town than the one she reaches by turning left; she should have followed a different arrow. As a guest at someone else's inn, she's instantly drawn into a circle of quiet friendliness and warmth, then as suddenly--when the electricity goes out--flung into a murder mystery. Well, it's not first-degree murder, but one of the nice people in the town she's visiting does unthinkingly kill another one. And he injures the dog that has befriended Sylvia.

A lot of thought went into this cozy mystery. Not just lining up the clues, but thinking about the people (including the dog) and their lives and feelings. In the series of longer mysteries she's plotting, Parsons wants readers to know, she intends to think about the people as if she were Dorothy Sayers.

If Dorothy Sayers' are just about the only murder mysteries you like, you'll probably want the series that follow this mini-book.  

Web Log for 2.15.26

Books 

Books about the trending flower every front yard needs to display this spring:

https://lydiaschoch.com/top-ten-tuesday-books-about-dandelions/

Emotional Politics 

When they've practiced using emotions to support their political side but do not, in fact, feel anything in particular about people other than themselves:

https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2026/02/15/trump-derangement-syndrome-has-hit-a-sick-new-low-n4949529 

Shared by Joe Jackson. Google says it comes from Ralph Hagen at Orato.world.

Book Review: A Taste for Murder

Title: A Taste for Murder

Author: Daisy Belle

Date: 2024

Quote: "You finally drum up the courage to reopen Granny's bakery, and one of your first customers kicks the bucket."

Not seriously suspected of poisoning the mean-mouthed critic's cream puff, Samantha still feels a need to find out whodunit. The trouble is that several people had motives to want the victim dead. None of them seemed violent. Can Samantha find out which of them is violent before that person kills again?

This being a cozy mystery, she'll have a confession in 24 hours or less. I think the pace of this short-short e-book diminishes its credibility, but it's only a fictional, theoretical puzzle to solve anyway.  

Butterfly of the Week: Coastal Swordtail

Graphium porthaon has several English names. "Coastal Swordtail" may be the most commonly used. In some places it's the Dark Swordtail, in some the Cream-Striped Swordtail. Along with the Graphium species policenoides, liponesco, and biokoensis, it's in a group of African butterflies that look very similar to Graphium policenes but show some consistent differences.

Photos above and below by Ryan G. Fessenden.

Why are these butterflies called Graphium, anyway? Graphium is a Latin word for a writing instrument. Originally it meant a stylus, the "pen" used for punching cuneiform designs into wax. Later the word came to be applied to pens and pencils. It's yet another way of describing the long projecting ends of their hind wings.  

Porthaon was a king of ancient Greece. Little is known about him. He was called a son of Ares, probably meaning a warlord. His family included a sister called Demonice or Demodice. (Whatever that may suggest in English, in Greek demo means "the people, group, tribe." Nice or Nike meant victory. Dice meant justice.) 

Graphium porthaon is thought to breed and fly continuously when the weather is warm enough. In some of its range there is a cool season when eggs and pupae wait for warmer temperatures. Its range extends from South Africa to Kenya. It lives in deep, damp forests. In some places it's considered rare.

The species as a whole is not believed to be endangered. It is sometimes considered challenging to photograph. Butterfly tourism is a way some parts of Africa hope to build or boost their economies, so they allow butterfly farming to produce dead bodies for those who want to collect butterflies the oldfashioned way, and positively encourage photographing the lifeforms seen on walking tours. This issue of Metamorphosis has several articles about what can be expected on a butterfly walk, one titled "Cloudy with a Chance of Swordtails." Several nice clear photos of Graphiums, including porthaon, are scattered through the journal.

https://verlorenvalei.org.za/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/ABN-2022-1.pdf

This issue has a list of the Graphiums in Kenya and what they apparently eat, the authors emphasizing that these caterpillars normally live in a tangle of vines that can make it hard to tell what they are eating and what they are merely passing over.

https://metamorphosis.org.za/articlesPDF/50/Metamorphosis%20Vol%2020(2)_43-72%20June%202009.pdf

Its wingspan is about 3 inches, males usually under 3 inches and females sometimes a little over. The pale parts of the wings reflect light and can show a bluish, greenish, or pale turquoise cast, but usually look white to yellow.

It is not a shy species. It often flies near human habitation, and often sips water from puddles in large mixed groups, sometimes hanging out with the brighter blue Graphiums it resembles.

Photo by Clare Matake, Zambia, December 2024.

It has a wider range of food plants than many Graphiums, being able to eat leaves from some species of Artabotrys, Cleistrichlamys, Monodora, and Monanthotaxis as well as Annona and Uvaria.

There are at least three subspecies: G.p. porthaon, mackiei, and tanganyikae. Older sources may still list subspecies adjectus and vernayi, but most entomologists now consider those "synonyms." 

Graphium porthaon mackiei is found in Kenya and Tanzania. I found no photographs specifically identified as mackiei.

Graphium porthaon tanganyikae is found in part of Tanzania. It is described as slightly darker than G.p. porthaon with slightly different spots on the undersides of the wings. Its range seems to be more narrow than G.p. porthaon's; the nominate subspecies has been found at altitudes from sea level to 1900m, while tanganyikae has been found between 780 and 1000m. 

Photo by Butati, Tanzania, October 2021.

Graphium porthaon porthaon is found in Angola, Botswana, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. INaturalist has pages devoted to each subspecies; not all are filled in, but there's quite a gallery at 

https://mexico.inaturalist.org/taxa/667581-Graphium-porthaon-porthaon/browse_photos

Photo by Tomaschiripiburuwate, Mozambique, November 2020. Male and female often look alike.

Photo by Anibotani, South Africa, October 2024. Or females may have lower-contrast colors while males have crisper, bluer, higher-contrast colors.

Adult butterflies are thought to have about two weeks to fly,. During this time they mate, and the females lay eggs, which look like little round beads, whitish yellow at first darkening to yellow-green before they hatch.

Like all butterflies they hatch out as caterpillars, eat until they burst out of their skins into new skins a few times, then enter a motionless pupal stage during which the body undergoes enormous changes, and finally emerge as butterflies. New-hatched caterpillars look black; their skins lighten to gray or taupe as they stretch out. They are camouflaged when they hide inside flowers or along chewed edges of leaves of their host plant. Later skins are gray and then green with stripes. Final-stage caterpillars are described as green, blackish, or yellow, with bands of white, black, and yellow. They don't try to be camouflaged, but rest on the upper edges of leaves where they are concealed from most predators by more leaves. 

This pupa of Graphium porthaon matured into a butterfly that flew in the Reiman Gardens but, inexplicably, the Gardens web site doesn't have photos of the adult butterflies. Graphium porthaon has also been reared and displayed at Britain's Stratford-upon-Avon butterfly gardens but their web site doesn't have a photo page. 

Book Review: What You Need to Know About Masons

This review has been sitting on the computer for a while. The book was given to me by an Insane Admirer. The late gentleman known to cyberspace as my Significant Other was belonged to a "Shriner" group. What the book actually says is that these groups can become corrupt and unchristian, of course, not that they all do. 

Title: What You Need to Know About Masons

Author: Ed Decker

Date: 1992

Publisher: Harvest House

ISBN: 0-89081-945-9

Length: 218 pages

Quote: “I discovered from an angry church deacon that the ritual of the Masonic Lodge was the actual foundation of the LDS Temple ritual.”

What you need to know about Masons, or what you’ll learn about them from reading this fictional exposé, is that they’re a group of human beings. Any group of human beings has the potential to go bad. Any organized group of human beings that has a formal structure, “rituals,” hierarchy, and long-term establishment, has the potential to become an evil personality cult. Decker reiterates throughout the book that this doesn’t mean every men’s group is a cult—only that some can be.

Although he did extensive research (which he describes) for this book, Decker was obligated to present his research in the form of a story that shows How Bad It Can Get when a social club enjoys a lot of influence in a small town. A young minister, invited to join the local lodge, objects to Pagan-inclusive language in a Masonic ritual and immediately locks horns with his father-in-law. Lodge members call for the removal of the minister. People in the church take sides. Violence erupts. A building burns down, and “being overinsured...he may not have lit the match, but no Mason in Badger Lake is going to burn down a building insured by Roy Wallace [the father-in-law] without first getting his okay.” The minister wins the congregation over by keeping his temper and being charitable, and eventually gets his job back.

It could be worse. Wallace is portrayed as a stubborn, cantankerous old man, not a real cult leader; encouraging someone to overinsure a warehouse and burn it down is as low as he’d go. The minister objects to invocations of Pagan gods, not the vice that has been uncovered in some investigations of actual lodges. There’s no suggestion that the fictional Masons of Badger Lake practice sodomy or prostitution, or even buy elections. Decker’s intention is not to turn people against the friendly Shriners in their neighborhood, but to make people pray for the Shriners’ souls. No harm is likely to be done by praying for people’s souls; therefore this should be a harmless book.

Who needs to read What You Need to Know About Masons? Probably men who have joined a club, marched in a parade, or taken up a collection for a children’s hospital, and been invited to consider “a higher degree” of Freemasonry. These men may appreciate Decker’s warning that, while most lodges simply dedicate themselves to God, some “higher level” rituals identify God with Baal, Jupiter, Osiris and other unsavory characters from ancient mythology. To most who participate in such rituals, an invocation of Jupiter probably seems less like initiation into a real Pagan cult than like riding a child’s tricycle in a parade, but some men of scrupulous conscience may want to back away.

Plenty of mainstream novels have portrayed the potential for any kind of social group to turn into a personality cult festering with vice and violence. Serious documentaries have exposed how it’s happened in social clubs, religious groups, therapy groups, corporate offices, and even, notoriously, the Nixon White House. I don’t see a need for Masons to complain about this little reminder that their organization is as vulnerable as any other. 

Web Log Weekender for 2.13-14.26

Birth Control, New Cheap Option 

It's probably not 100% reliable, but some men may be able to achieve temporary sterility, with no obvious side effects, just by wearing polyester pants. Downsides: polyester pants work by raising the body temperature, they trap sweat, and probably reducing sexual opportunities by increasing body odor.

https://greenmedinfo.com/content/yoga-pants-and-mystery-disappearing-fertility-worldwide 

Then again, it seems, some young people are just skipping sexual relationships altogether. Guys don't want to be accused of sexual hatecrimes. This is good. Nobody wants the expense of parenthood in their twenties, and a lot of people don't want to try to keep a child in an apartment. This is good. 

A declining birth rate means that (gasp!) there won't be so many people around in a few years.  This is excellent! This is something the whole world needs! It's nothing to worry about...except for public-spirit-challenged seniors who want to do retirement the way it was done in the 1950s, when a handful of survivors of plagues and wars enjoyed a few years of luxury at a tiny expense to masses of young working people. We can't have that demographic balance again. Too many of us want to enjoy our old age. So the only real solution is for Boomers to buck up and keep working while we're able, in order to have a large working population paying into a disability pension plan, and discover the health benefits of staying active as long as we're able to walk.

When population reaches healthy levels again, the young people of then--however few or many of them there may be--will feel enthusiastic about having one or even two children again. Nature works that way.

Meanwhile, if we can give thanks for the declining birth rate and tolerate a little homosexuality and gender confusion, we may be able to avoid nature's final response to overpopulation, which involves lots of same-species killing, and sometimes cannibalism. 

Grief

Somebody out there needs to read this:

https://seandietrich.com/the-church-lady-elegy/

Book Review: Fire in the Whole

Title: Fire in the Whole

Author: Robert G. Callahan

Date: 2024

Publisher: Westminster John Knox

ISBN: 978 16469 84053

Quote: "I can call myself a survivor of racialized spiritual abuse."

So he can. So, in this book, he does. He does not convince me that he's survived whatever he endured long enough to have reached any really edifying insights. This web site's goal is to encourage living writers; I want to encourage this one to pursue some further lines of thought that might have given this book more lasting value than it gets from his engaging "writing voice."

Robert Callahan is an evangelical Christian who left his church, apparently, because he fell for the Very Fine People Hoax. A racist group attended a pro-Trump rally; Trump said there were very fine people at the rally; Democrats immediately began screaming, and Callahan apparently believed, that then-candidate Trump meant the racist group, specifically, as distinct from the other people who had organized the rally, which of course were the ones Trump obviously meant. 

Callahan had survived numerous race-related microtraumas before the Obama administration, which led Black Americans to expect that all race conflict was going to be over, and left them feeling disappointed as a new wave of race riots broke out. He claims that that was what started him turning against the church he had been attending, that the Very Fine People Hoax was the last straw. He also asks readers to believe that he thought people's shift from tweeting "#BlackLivesMatter" meant that they didn't think Black lives mattered all that much, really--as distinct from "Black Lives Matter" having been registered as the name of a specific group many of us didn't want to support. The publishing process is slow. This book was published in 2024 yet, apart from a few throwaway references to COVID, it reads as if it were written in September 2016.

He doesn't say whether people at his church tried patiently correcting his facts, which as he presents them are subject to a good deal of correction. He says he's embraced a reasonable, nonviolent, justified anger at the church he left. 

So be it, you might say. Many people have left many churches for good reasons and bad ones. I'd place Callahan in the category of people who've left for bad reasons, though he may have had better reasons that were too personal to be discussed in a book. What he tells us is basically that he left a right-wing church because his politics are left-wing. For hyped-up, specious reasons unsupported by facts. It is possible to be a left-winger for reasons based on legitimate facts, even if those facts are as specific to the individual as George Stephanopoulos' story (in All Too Human) that he replied to advertisements for jobs with both parties during the 1988 election, and joined the party that offered him a job. Callahan became obsessed with a claim that was made for rhetorical reasons and easily refuted. 

What he describes is a political, not a spiritual, journey. He makes the valid point that some Christians, the ones I like to call churchians, aren't characterized by outstanding love of their neighbor. However, his quest for any new fellowship was not guided by the Bible; in fact, he tells us, he stopped reading the Bible because it reminded him of the people who had emotionally abused him by voting for Trump. 

Or by being socially inept. So many Black Americans' real grievance against their White neighbors seems to be based in a fantasy that White Americans are or ought to be perfect. Callahan fixates on an incident where a White church lady didn't make conversation with him easily. She and he had taken their children to the local playground, greeted each other casually, then realized that they were acquainte from church. The woman's feet beat retreat in what, since she fled into a building where White men were standing, seemed to Callahan a racist way. Maybe it was; I don't know the woman. But Callahan doesn't prove that her thinking was closer to "That cannibal from Africa wants to eat my child" than it was to "That Democrat wants to pick a political argument" or "That trial lawyer is likely to make me sound stupid." 

What White people so often find ourselves defending to our Black friends is that most White people are not, in fact, haters; are, in fact, more likely to be socially awkward or inattentive, when they want all Americans to enjoy equal rights and opportunities but either don't know what an acquaintance expects or don't think the acquaintance's expectations are reasonable. Haters are rare. Socially awkward and/or inattentive White people are common. Small towns are full of White people who are afraid, not even always without some reason, to talk to their own White cousins in public because "S/He is so much 'smarter,' went so much further in school, I don't know what to say to him/her." I've observed this pattern of behavior among biracial Americans, and am credibly informed that it's been seen even among Black Americans.

Callahan is a good enough writer, with a snarky enough sense of humor and intriguing enough lists of references, to keep me reading along, hoping the book improves. Does he, for example, realize that although fair treatment for Black Americans is not a partisan political issue, the only steps toward it he seems to recognize are partisan political issues? Does he turn to his Bible and notice the odd mix of separatism and humanitarianism in its texts, and even, perhaps, organize group studies of the humanitarian messages that run throughout the Bible? Does he...? Long story short; he doesn't. He owns his righteous anger and grief at the kind of "White Christianity" that preferred to ignore the incidents cited as triggers for riots. That's as far as he gets. He's written this book from the position of being stuck in unpleasant emotions, not having any step toward emotional resolution or societal solutions in mind.

It would be possible for this to have been a really useful study of how evangelical Christianity can be Bible-based, true to its traditional doctrine, and also supportive of Black or other minority-American believers. Well...too bad. This is documentation of how a Black man who was old enough to know better let himself be emotionally manipulated by a callous political group and has spent eight years repeating campaign falsehoods. 

I'm disappointed. I was supposed to have received an advance review copy of this book in 2024. It probably arrived in a form Amazon had decided to stop supporting; I never received a readable review copy, but I received at least two things that might have been meant to be copies of this book. Other people gave the book favorable reviews; it's still on its publishers' lists. The publishers kindly sent me a copy now that the book's been published. But where are the insights into anything beyond party-line hype and hysteria, for which I've waited for two years? There aren't any. Robert Turner's Creating a Culture of Repair was rich with possibly good ideas, a book-length brainstorming about what people can do to demonstrate, accept, and cultivate good will. Robert Callahan's Fire in the Whole is devoid of ideas that don't boil down to a trendy but unhelpful "I just can't stand Republicans."

The story of how Callahan comes to understand that he's been politically exploited, turns back to the Bible, and commits to having a solid relationship with his own Black family as an emotional base for coping with the cluelessness of whatever White people he chooses to claim as friends, is the story he has to write that will be worth reading. Unfortunately he's not written that one yet.

He could profitably pursue the topic of separatism and unity in the Bible. Both Jews and Christians are told "Come out from among them and be separate" in the Old and New Testament, but they are also told, "You shall not oppress a foreigner," told that the blessing of the Sabbath is to be shared with "the foreigners within your gates," told that foreigners who accepted their religious beliefs were to be accepted into the community as equals and allowed to marry into the best of families, and so on, all the way up to the statement that "In Christ there is neither...Jew nor Greek, bond nor free." The Bible says a great deal that ought to have inspired or at least influenced whatever people did about the incidents that triggers race riots. 

In some cases--and I think this is behind some of the harsh judgments of White women in recent anti-ICE demonstrations: White Christians feel more free to say it to people they see as like themselves--Christians might observe that, however unfairly they were treated, people like Rodney King ought to have been obeying applicable laws; as should the policemen who beat him. A hundred years ago, in many cases, Christians should have been (and sometimes were) the ones shouting most loudly that "in Christ" ethnic identity means nothing, that any practice of injustice toward any demographic group is taking people "out of Christ." Today that particular sin is less common and, for that reason, much less tolerable. Our grandparents or great-grandparents might have been in mortal danger if they'd said anything about the Black patient left to bleed out in front of a White hospital. Today all most of us are even required to do about race prejudice is to say, "They were here first," or, "While we particularly look for stories that add cultural diversity to our web site, all manuscripts are read in the order received before the cut-off point." Some churchgoers may, however, need further encouragement to say those easy things.

In some cases Christians might ask ourselves where we went wrong. While being legally White, I've been told--by churchgoers!--"You're stupid to try to build a business by hard work these days. A smart person would find a government grant to exploit." Now we see White Christians waxing indignant at the sheer magnitude of Somali immigrants' exploitation of government grants. Why did they all open day care services? Because government grants were offered to people opening day care services. Naturally there's no reference to this item in a book that was published in 2024, but I, as a legally White person with "background," would like to know which White Christians guided the Somalis to keep those day care centers open after the friends' children for whom they'd provided any day care they ever did were grown up. Yes, it was exploitative. Yes, abusive. Yes, taking money away from blind people and combat veterans and cancer survivors. And I'm 99% sure that some White Christians encouraged them to do it. Let them stand forth and confess. 

There are a lot of things White Christians might feel moved to do, after reading the Bible, or Creating a Culture of Repair, or the Big Book of Alcoholics Anonymous, or any number of other things. They might even ask Black or other "minority" Christians to guide them; they might even ask introvert Christians to guide them in making reparations to us, and Heaven speed the day. The danger with Fire in the Whole is that, because the Democratic Party has used hyped-up, often insincere, emotionality as a rhetorical device too often in recent years, all they'll feel moved to do after reading this book is ask for refunds. Because about all it tells them they can do is vote...for a party that has yet to find its way after inflicting poverty and race riots on Black and White Americans alike? How's that supposed to help?

An occupational hazard of Callahan's day job is that it encourages skill in making accusations at the expense of skill in saying anything more uplifting. Perhaps, as a balance to writing accusations, he should practice writing "daily devotions." Write things that tell a White American undergraduate, trying to pay bills and tuition on a student-labor job, how to practice the good will person feels toward per Black classmates. Tell a White American combat veteran, motivated to learn to walk on his "peg" but not guaranteed a full-time job when he learns, how he can become his Black neighbors' friend. Tell a White American grandmother, rearing three grandchildren, how to make Black Americans feel welcome in her little restaurant. (Most White Americans do not consider themselves rich, nor are they perceived as rich by other Americans.) Write for real people, as the individuals God made them, not the demographic groups that exist in the minds of leftist political theorists. Then I can celebrate his talent for writing by pointing to a book that people will feel better, and be better, for reading. And Heaven speed the day.

Bad Poetry: Fourteeners for St Catherine de Ricci, et Al.

What has an aging widow to say on the theme of love?

Well, not the silly teenaged kind, red hearts and sugar dove,

But of the kind called public spirit age has more to say,

So let's consider public spirit on Saint Catherine's Day--

Not Catherine of Siena, who for teaching won acclaim,

But Catherine de Ricci, student who received her name.

This Catherine's illness to the common people did appear

To show spiritual marks the people could admire and fear;

From public spirit this young, modest nun began to pray

That not her pain, but her distinctiveness would go away;

This prayer answered, then she found she had the strength to teach,

And walk, and talk, and work, and write, and even make a speech.

She never has been many people's very favorite saint

But those who heard her teach said, "There ain't no saints, if she ain't."

Mysteriously preserved, her body has reposed in state

For near five hundred years; Italians think that she was great.

Meanwhile many others also loved their people well.

Their stories and their glories we might profitably tell.

With malice toward none let's be, with charity toward all;

When caught up in disputes, on charity let's always call.

The kindest thing to do with extroverts might be to keep

Them ever from possessing power to make others weep;

Once they're in power, the only way's to praise them when they're right

Ignore them when they're wrong, thus force them up toward the light.

Protests puff up the egos of some tedious, tacky hacks

Who otherwise would fall down, disappearing, through life's cracks.

But "feed them good examples, and reward if they do good"

Might help them heed direction, if there's anything that could.

Cut-off point for tired eyes

Fourteen is a key number in English poetry. There are fourteen-line verses, sonnets and quatorzains, and last year we tried our hands at fourteen-word verses, and the fourteen-syllable lines that form the couplets above are a form called fourteeners. Fourteeners have been described as an excessively easy form that encourages doggerel. Well, this is the home of Bad Poetry (TM); we like doggerel.

The Poets & Storytellers United prompt of the week, looking ahead to Valentines Day, proposed "love" as a topic. Then this week's hostess at that site, Rosemary Nissen-Wade, "subverted the topic" with a reflection on protests and violence...

Valentines were named in honor of a man, a saint. What saint do Catholic Christians honor on the day before his official day? I looked it up. (I'm not a Catholic.) They rotate among at least a half-dozen very minor saints, I learned. Nobody ever gets as much attention as Valentine. One obscure saint who's being remembered this year was a sickly girl who was named Alessandra Lucrezia Romola de Ricci at birth; when she entered a convent, apparently unfit for marriage, she became Sister Catherine, a name chosen in honor of her mother and St Catherine of Siena. Exactly what was wrong with Sister Catherine will never be known, but it included narcolepsy, trances and visions, and what were perceived as "the stigmata," wounds in the places of Christ's wounds and of a wedding ring on her skin. Once convinced that she was spiritual and sane, the other nuns elected her Prioress, and her prayers were granted--that she would be able to show people the teaching of Christ rather than merely showing her "stigmata." She managed the convent well, surviving past age 60. A Dominican women's community is still called the Order of St Catherine de Ricci.

Monastic people can be tempted to slip from spirituality into mere masochism. I don't think that is good. I'm not saying that people in free countries should submit to misguided government without protesting at all. As regular readers know, I think we should call out bad ideas more early and often than we do--but we should respect, even love, people as we encourage them to reconsider bad ideas. 

Book Review: The Mystery of the Cupboard

Title: The Mystery of the Cupboard

Author: Lynne Reid Banks

Date: 1993

Publisher: Morrow

ISBN: 0-688-12138-1

Length: 246 pages

Illustrations: pencil drawings by Tom Newsom

Quote: “She was some kind of actress back around the time of the First World War. Going on the stage in those days was considered fairly wicked.”

This is the concluding volume of a four-book series about a little boy called Omri whose toys come to life when locked in the magic cupboard. He’s still a little boy, but he’s become quite mature through his relationships with his miniature adults, including the soldiers. Omri has, however, observed only the most family-filtered effects of his toys’ sexuality, as when a miniature man turns out to have a wife and child. Now he’s old enough to learn about the effects of sex by discovering the long-hidden diaries of his “wicked” aunt, who made the cupboard magic.

Reviews of books that were published in sequence usually say that it’s possible to enjoy this book without reading the ones that came before it. In the case of The Mystery of the Cupboard I’m not sure that that’s true. There’s a lot of back-story behind this novel. Moreover, the series reads as if it were written for one or more growing children: The Indian in the Cupboard was a story for middle school students, but The Mystery of the Cupboard is much more of a story for adults who still enjoy whimsy enough to want to know how the author tied up the loose ends from The Indian in the Cupboard. I’d think twice about handing volume four of this series to the average child who’d enjoyed volume one.