A few weeks ago, Yahoo threatened to stop doing free e-mail. I didn't think they'd really be that stupid, free e-mail being the only thing Yahoo's ever been good for, but I spent several days downloading documents I'd stored as Yahoo e-mail. Then I went home and spent a full 70 hours, maybe more, last week, re-processing those documents. I figured that if Yahoo was really stupid enough to stop providing free, reliable, efficient e-mail service I'd lose some things I'd preferred to keep, lose a lot of things I'd just never made the time to delete, and start all over with another service that offers only e-mail. (Gmail comes with Blogspot; I prefer not to publish that e-mail address.)
So I came back online this morning and, yes, it looks as if that's exactly what happened. Yahoo's not opening either this web site's published e-mail address or my personal business e-mail address.
Ho hum...In the 1990s when I learned to use the Internet, people were constantly having to set up new e-mail accounts because even the paid ones were so glitchy and unreliable. That is also why so many people my age or older automatically distrust anything they see online, just because it is online, and no matter how many e-books you've written people still say "So where's the 'real' book?" and so on. Yahoo was the solution to all that was wrong with Compuserve, Juno, Netzero, AOL, Hotmail, and a half-dozen or more others, for about twenty years. Today Yahoo is Being The Problem.
The first half of last week's weather was fantastic. What is so rare as a day in June that feels like a day in May?! All the spring flowers seemed to be in bloom at once. I took just one car trip, from Gate City to Norton, and saw iris, tulip, rose, daffodil, privet, black locust, honeysuckle, violet, buttercup, celandine, and I think even a few cherry blossoms, all on one gorgeous mellow day. Admittedly the different altitudes produce different climate zones but this year I'm still seeing privet petals drop right onto white violets at the Cat Sanctuary. It was one big greenhouse gardener's fantasy come to life, all week long.
The birds don't know what to make of it; the cardinal and the phoebe quarrelled over the Cat Sanctuary for several days before the phoebe retreated to his family's usual space, about a furlong downhill.
(A furlong is a semi-obsolete measure of distance more Americans should use more often. Eight of them make one mile. Five make one kilometer. Thus learning to think in furlongs makes translation much easier, although I personally learned to think in furlongs because the angle of slope on my private road roughly divides into them.)
There was just one little problem with the first half of last week's weather. Some public enemies were out spraying "Spectracide"--apparently more on lawns than on gardens. Local people can recognize these menaces by the regular brown patches, especially along the edges, of their efforts to make natural ground look like Astroturf. Mercy, I wish somebody would just send them a few big mats of Astroturf so they could relax.
If you want to have a flower border without "weeds" in it, anybody who can afford to put gas in a lawn mower can afford a few sacks of mulch. A little pine bark will keep the clover and dandelions from choking out non-native flowers like tulips and petunias.
"Spectracide" is made from dicamba, another Monsanto legacy product that Monsanto hadn't tried to market because they thought it was "worse" than glyphosate. The most obvious symptom of exposure to dicamba is coughing and wheezing. I also noticed myself feeling tired and even faint after spending time outdoors, breathing traces of vapor that had been released into the air at least half a mile away.
The main weed in my not-a-lawn is cinnamon vine, a.k.a. Japanese Yams. I grew up hearing my elders curse these "poisonous weeds" and the Roosevelt Administration's deliberate introduction of them in the Blue Ridge Mountains. Introduced honeysuckle (Lonicera japonica) is pretty, and cows and goats eat it. Introduced privet (Ligustrum spp.) is pretty and useful, and the cardinals love it. Introduced kudzu is a nuisance, but it was a desperate remedy to a desperate situation, at the time. Cinnamon vine is what one of my great-uncles was at length persuaded to buy, and his children and grandchildren, nephews and great-nieces, have cursed the day ever since. Cinnamon vine has a pleasant scent--it doesn't have showy flowers, but the whole plant and its fruits release a scent--but it will choke out flowers, vegetables, even trees, only not quite as fast as kudzu.
I use it as a meditative anchor for thoughts about non-interference. No matter how warm and fuzzy we may feel about some idea for interfering with what others may choose to do, there are probably good reasons why they're not doing it themselves. If we succeed in pushing our sweet, warm, fuzzy ideas onto other people, those ideas will probably have unintended consequences, and we will probably be blamed for those consequences. Somebody thought cinnamon vine would be a nice idea to sell to my great-uncle, and my whole neighborhood have been unhappy about it for almost ninety years. I think about this, and release any thoughts my brain might be trying to form for the improvement of other people, as I pull up baby cinnamon vines all...summer...long.
Japanese people eat them. My elders told me, accurately, that the cute little "cinnamon'tater" fruits that form on this "many-fruit" vine are inedible. They don't taste nearly as nice as they smell, and you might be able to keep one of them down, if determined enough to swallow it in the first place, but not two. The Japanese let the "cinnamon'taters" drop into the ground and grow into big yamlike roots. They claim that if you peel these tubers thickly enough, cut them up thinly, soak them in vinegar overnight, and cook them thoroughly, the result is digestible and even tastes pretty good, at least to people who have never tried eating a "cinnamon'tater." The Japanese can have all of mine, thanks. In fact, if I knew someone who wanted to sell them in an Asian market in a city, I'd find a place for the tubers to grow and sell them. To me, vinegar has never smelled like a thing that belonged in a kitchen, either.
So I was going out to pick the cinnamon vines. Each day. You can pick all of them out of a section of a lawn or garden in the morning, and come back in the evening and find more to pick out. And as I picked for ten or fifteen minutes, my sinuses would start to clog, my nose would start to run, and then I'd start to feel "the lazies" set in.
Well, you know, "the lazies." When there's nothing wrong, you're not ill or sick or hurt in any noticeable way, you've not done anything strenuous, and you got all the sleep you needed last night, but for no obvious reason it just occurs to you that you would rather lie down and take a nap than do something that is light, useful, and even enjoyable, e.g., shell peas or pick cinnamon vines or read a nice new book someone wants you to review, this affliction is known as "the lazies." It is caused by kidney malfunctions and occasionally becomes fatal, especially for those who nod off while driving.
C.S. Lewis died of "the lazies." One of my grandfathers did. More recently, during a glyphosate reaction, one of Dad's favorite cousins did. When "the lazies" become chronic and are not obviously associated with specific chemical poisons, doctors may prescribe heavy-duty medications or dialysis. Meh. People who have "the lazies" very often don't live very long but it does seem a pleasant way to die. You just lie down for a nice nap, and don't wake up.
Last week I hadn't eaten anything with enough glyphosate residues in it to have made me sick. But all food these days contains some glyphosate residues. Dicamba's other well-known effect is to aggravate glyphosate reactions, so last week I had another one of those.
I was coughing and sneezing and feeling lethargic, and you know how we're all being programmed to think these days. I thought, "Have I got the Dreaded Coronavirus?" Hmm. I didn't have a fever, but I did have a lovely excuse to stay home, puttering in the garden and going through electronic documents. I wouldn't have wanted to be seen coughing and sneezing on the street and scare people.
One morning I heard little cat-sized echos of my own coughs. I looked out. Poor old Sommersburr, the "grandpa" cat Serena adopted last winter, was coughing and wheezing. "Grandpa" is a human word for that kind of relationship; Sommersburr is more than two years older than Serena. With cats and dogs over about age 7, as with humans over about age 50, it's hard to distinguish signs of "age" from signs of ill health, but he is a geriatric cat. I said, "Poor old fellow," and rubbed behind his ears. That was all I could do. He accepted the gesture in the spirit intended. He really was a pet, once--while His Human was alive. Then he wandered slowly away, coughing, and I've not seen him since.
The good news? Bayer has agreed to stop selling glyphosate sprays in the United States--while they stall on those long-overdue payments to those cancer survivors. Lord have mercy. How many new definitions can one corporation give the word "tacky"?
Right. In England, I am not making this up, Bayer is still trying to tell people how "safe" glyphosate is. Glyphosate poisoning is still possible for food grown in other countries and imported to the U.S., and although I've never written to ask the present holder of Mother's many-greats-grandfather's title for any thoughts about the disempowerment of the House of Lords, I can't say I like the thought of Brits being poisoned either. Nor Thais. Nor Colombians. Nor anybody else, except maybe Bayer decision-makers inside a hermetically sealed dungeon.
Glyphosate Awareness is not over, Gentle Readers. But it's entered a new era. We have, to some extent, won in the United States. We have no right to sit in the United States and tell people in other countries what they ought to do. We have to continue supporting our allies in other countries, but only in an indirect, supportive, non-interfering way.
Then on Thursday the storm system moved in...it acted like an Edge of something that was doing a lot of damage somewhere else. It didn't do much damage here, apart from spoiling Friday Market. (Gate City had just exactly enough rain, off and on all morning, to keep people from bringing out anything that needed to be kept dry. If this weather had been deliberately planned out of spite, it couldn't have looked more as if it were.) In fact it cleared up my upper respiratory symptoms quite nicely.I had a pleasant, productive weekend.
Monday came. I sent a text message to the owner of the basement I'm sharing (with someone who uses it on the days I don't). Adayahi called with an update on his health. GBP did not pick up the phone to provide an update on her health. No text message got through.
This morning came. I sent a message to the owner of the basement at 8 a.m. No reply. By 9:30 I was starting to worry... "Can healthy people who are only 65 or 70 years old get the Dreaded Coronavirus?" I took the cell phone further up the hill, where reception is better, and sent the third message. Right away three messages came through in a bunch. Person was doing fine, and had been.
Cell phone company is trying to drum up sales, to recover from the virus panic, by reducing service to "older" cell phones. I don't think they should be allowed to get away with that, Gentle Readers. I think we should keep our "older" phones. Refuse to be sold new ones by that kind of sleazy tactics. If the companies stop working with "older" phones, like mine, which was bought in 2008...well, convenient though cell phones have been, we all lived without'em longer than we lived with'em.
I expect a lot of corporations will do stupid, self-destructive things in a frantic, doomed hope of recovering from the virus panic without reducing the decision-makers' salaries, and I think back to what I learned from Ralph Nader's book and from his Public Interest Research Group, where I did my first real grown-up job. Corporations will take what they can take, where they can take it. If we the customers refuse to give it to them, they'll be reasonable and fair.
My last post here was provoked by some of the things people were saying about what appears to have been an act of bullying that suddenly turned into first-degree murder in Minnesota. The system, one correspondent has since noted, is working. The bullies, whom somebody made the mistake of hiring as police officers, first lost the protection of being employed as police officers. Then they were arrested and charged with murder. That's how it's supposed to go...Well, of course, actually nobody's supposed to be bullying anybody, even if it stops with stupid tricks like refusing to service or maintain a product in the idiotic belief that that will bully people into buying more stuff from you, and never reaches the level of physical blows. But if people do get to the point of choking other people, and one of them dies, society-as-a-whole is supposed to have a system for taking those people off the scene in a way that does not lead to personal retaliation and feuds and all that kind of thing.
Did race even have anything to do with the murder of George Floyd? Would those two goons have done the same thing to a White man if they'd seen a chance? I don't know, and I don't care. The group known at this web site as The Nephews includes at least one blue-eyed blond child of two naturally blond parents, at least one child who looks Black, and at least one child (actually old enough to vote by now) of the basic human color, like me. I have the same auntly feelings about every one of them that I have about the others. I want all violent bullies to be in a place where they will never, ever see The Nephews.
That's what we have an imperfect but workable system for, Gentle Readers. Don't let the virus panic break it down. As we all go back to work, by all means let's make allowances for people who want to work from home or miss work because they're ill, or their parents or children are, or they're afraid someone will be--but let's stand firm on the rules of ethical behavior. People can do the decent thing from whatever level of distance and quarantine they need, while they're alive.
It's the same with glyphosate. Sitting here in Virginia I care about the effects of glyphosate poisoning on a laborer in Bermuda as much as the effects on a laborer in California. I have, however, a right to browbeat elected officials in the United States that I don't have with regard to those in Bermuda.
Some people in the Glyphosate Awareness movement are much more "globally conscious" than I am. Some live in the countries where the battle to get glyphosate banned is still raging. It's their turn to lead the movement.
Some other people in the movement have much more money than I have to spare. It's their turn to support people like Vandana Shiva and Rosemary Mason. I sincerely hope they support those people better than they've done me.
But I'll keep watching, and so I hope will you. To the extent that the system works to reduce wrongdoing, in a democratic republic, it depends on the vigilance of active citizens like us.
Showing posts with label good news. Show all posts
Showing posts with label good news. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 9, 2020
Tuesday, August 21, 2018
Recommended Link (Christian, Fiscal Conservative, Libertarian)
This web site has stopped featuring links (for the time being)...but Stephanie Slade's America article, reposted to Reason.com for online readers' convenience, is important. It's like an important addendum to The Conservative Heart. All who read this blog for the political or religious content must read...yes, it's Catholic, originally written for a Catholic magazine, but this Protestant found it easier to follow than some Catholic readers seem to do.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/18/skeptical-of-the-common-good-dont-be?
Basically, libertarian politics work best when they're enlightened by public spirit. Yes, unenlightened people have often exploited the masses with appeals to public spirit that actually work out to "Give me your money in payment for bloviating about poor people," and sometimes "for sustaining a poverty industry, for demanding endless inflation of handouts to increasingly well paid 'needers' just because the money is there, and/or for interfering with poor people who try to improve their lives through honest work." Abusus non tollit usum. (Yes, Protestants remember oddments of Latin too.) Abuse does not take away the (proper) use. Public spirit is a good thing even if bad people have stepped on it. And libertarian policies support it.
Or, if we want to help poor people, even sending them money may do less good than just repealing protectionist policies that keep them from earning money.
http://reason.com/blog/2018/08/18/skeptical-of-the-common-good-dont-be?
Basically, libertarian politics work best when they're enlightened by public spirit. Yes, unenlightened people have often exploited the masses with appeals to public spirit that actually work out to "Give me your money in payment for bloviating about poor people," and sometimes "for sustaining a poverty industry, for demanding endless inflation of handouts to increasingly well paid 'needers' just because the money is there, and/or for interfering with poor people who try to improve their lives through honest work." Abusus non tollit usum. (Yes, Protestants remember oddments of Latin too.) Abuse does not take away the (proper) use. Public spirit is a good thing even if bad people have stepped on it. And libertarian policies support it.
Or, if we want to help poor people, even sending them money may do less good than just repealing protectionist policies that keep them from earning money.
Wednesday, January 3, 2018
Status Update: Too Much E-Mail, Missing Cat
Status update: I'm online at the cafe, with reasonable prospects of getting my desktop computer back into working order this evening. I opened twenty pages of e-mails. After ten days offline that's not an unreasonable volume, except that too many correspondents seem to be forgetting the direction of cash flow around here. I do not use the Internet to SPEND money. I use it to RECEIVE money, which will then be dispersed, as the amount received may allow, locally, in cash. Sending money to guest posters is still a dream this web site has but, until we start receiving serious funding, only a dream.
About half the e-mail is still obviously "bacon" or "trash." That leaves about ten pages that need at least to be opened before they're deleted...
Here's the current update on links you use to send this web site worth-based, not merely need-based, funding:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4923804 ...Has not been working for a lot of people lately, including me.
https://www.freelancer.com/u/PriscillaKing ...As noted before, I'm 99% certain this is a scam site, but if one other person is willing to risk US$30, we can either force it to work, or prove it's a scam site and shut'em down
https://www.guru.com/freelancers/priscilla-king ...This site works well and is recommended, but they prefer to handle payments over US$30.
https://www.fiverr.com/priscillaking ...As noted in December, this site's become a bit weird. If you want to send just $5 or $10 on Fiverr, let me know and I'll make sure my account is "reactivated."
https://www.iwriter.com/priscillaking ...This would be a very nice little site, encouraging small payments and short easy writing jobs, if it weren't coded using "i-frames," which basically means that the local server will cause any document I send you to arrive in a shortened and scrambled form. I don't go there often for that reason. You can, however, use that site to commission a blog post or article, give detailed instructions, and preview a draft before paying. To ensure that the draft/document you get is the one I wrote, you'd need first to notify me via this web site, then to pay for the post via Iwriter, then to receive the document via e-mail.
https://www.seoclerk.com/user/PriscillaKing ...This one works as a forum; I'd love to find out how it works as a paid writing site. SEO Clerks mainly discuss search engine optimization, so I hang out there to learn more of other hack writers' tricks. Affiliated sites Word Clerks and Pixel Clerks are about writing and graphics respectively. Links encourage you to meet and chat with other Internet hacks; that's encouraged and is a great way to find lively and literate Twits, if you want to follow and be followed by people on Twitter.
Or, as always, you can e-mail this web site for a link to the correct Paypal address, or send a U.S. postal order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, as shown at the very bottom of the screen.
For correspondents: How do e-mails become obviously "bacon" or "trash"? Quick checklist of rules for e-mails that you want to be opened:
1. Don't ask me for money unless a thorough reading of this web site has shown you that I have more of it than you do. (This might be possible if you were in, e.g., Zambia, and I'd be moved by your plight, but I still wouldn't have money to spare.)
2. Don't be a correspondent who has asked me for money in the past.
3. Don't scream for attention with things like "Last chance" or "Everybody needs THIS for..." (Your chance that I'll be interested in reading more about bananas or ginger or gold bullion, or whatever, than I've already read, is very small; if you try to "add excitement" with a teasing headline that doesn't specify what you're ranting or raving about, that small chance drops to zero. I have a real life and don't need online "excitement." I'm attracted to concepts like calm, stable, durable, reliable, and unchanging.)
4. Don't be a source of e-mails that contain videos, big splashy graphic, or anything that could possibly slow down the smallest, oldest, puniest browser you can imagine. If you have trouble remembering what to leave out, get a $5 cell phone with a screen slit that displays about three words at one time, and open your messages (and your web site) on that. If it's annoyingly slow or fails to open, that'll show you what to take out. Messy e-mails cause correspondents as good as Townhall.com to be filed as "bacon."
5. As a general rule, just don't bother sending me videos. If you have a large list that includes some people who prefer sitting through videos to reading text, please be sure your e-mail headlines mention "video" when you mail one out, so I can move them directly to the "trash" folder (but without hard feelings about you).
6. Notify your sponsors that their ads are most likely to be noticed, by me, if they're small, text-only--like cheap classified ads in a newspaper--and located at the bottom of the text. I dislike ads that scream for attention. I occasionally read ads from people who present themselves as modest, patient, and willing to take turns.
7. Don't use any rude words or refer to any body parts in headlines. Don't use images of any body parts or disease conditions anywhere in your e-mails or on your web site. (I can stand an occasional small face image, but please don't post any eyeballs.)
8. Don't bother sending me the same content your friend is sending me. All but one of those identical e-mails will go directly to "trash"--and the other one will generally go directly to "bacon."
9. Most people who read newspapers do not read every word of every story. We scan the headlines and read the actual stories if they are of personal interest to us. Who won, what's on sale, who died, etc., is usually as much information about a news story as I need. There's no reliable rule for predicting which news stories I'll read in detail, but there is a percentage; it generally runs about 1 news story out of 20 to 25.
10. If you want me actually to read every e-mail, BE A PAYING CUSTOMER.
A few hasty random words for The Nephews...
I'm back on the job, the youngest employees at the cafe are back on the job, but Gate City appears to be about three-quarters dead. Any time people here see ice or have a need to warm up a recent-model car, they tend to feel panicky enough to want to call in sick...Someone finally at least called the cafe to order lunch. Nobody else but the policeman on duty has been inside all morning.
Even I came online late this morning, because it really is cold outside. Not colder than some of you have become accustomed to being in Pennsylvania or New England, but cold enough that the mountain stream that runs past the Cat Sanctuary had formed sheets of ice all the way across the calmer, deeper sections. I'm not one of those lifelong Southerners who wail and huddle right up against a heat source when that happens...but Samantha told me very clearly that her kitten fluff does not yet provide enough insulation for her to enjoy this weather, so Samantha has been spending single-digit days and nights in my warm room, where the temperature stays above freezing. Since she's a bouncy-pouncy kitten, she's been in a cage. And yesterday she didn't get enough time outdoors after breakfast, so she used a basin of water I'd left in her cage as a water-flush toilet, which she learned to use as a baby. This was not what I wanted to deal with after walking home in single-digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures last night...so this morning I made sure Samantha had time to leave a treat for the possum before I brought her inside.
Heather is missing. She and Samantha went missing after some idiot kids lost a pack of small beagle-mix dogs in the woods over the winter break. I found Samantha up a tree. I didn't find Heather. I can't imagine those dogs even thinking about eating her--there were six of them but only one looked much longer or taller than she is. I can imagine them meeting her close enough to a neighbor's house that she sweet-talked a neighbor into letting her shelter in the basement when that 15-degrees-below-zero (Celsius) wind started blowing; I can easily imagine any of several neighbors letting her stay in the basement until we get a thaw, which the Weather Service is not expecting to happen this week either. I have neither died nor abandoned her. If delivered to her own house while a human is there, she'll be taken indoors and petted and fussed over, and I'll reimburse you for a bag of kibble.
Heather knows she's loved and missed; neighbors should curb the urge to try to alienate her affections or conflict her loyalties. She's quiet when pleased, but past master of radiating comfort and good will. If you're falling in love with her...my mother's ill, my Significant Other's ill, what I have in the way of friends are all claiming to be "old" (whether they're even eighty yet, or even sixty yet); I do not need to lose Heather too. I can find you a beautiful, lovable cat right away. I can't guarantee a calico (the locally available cats I know to be lovable, and in search of good homes, are gray) or a polydactyl, but I can put you on the list for one, or help arrange for you to get one from Petfinder.
What became of the dogs, I don't know. I hope the idiot kids found them because, after shouting at them to leave Samantha alone, I've not seen them again. That was the day the Big Freeze blew in; I felt bad about not having a safe place to shelter them, but I don't. A shed where dogs can stay out of the wind is on my long list of home improvement projects. Maintaining solid wheelchair-accessible floors and a watertight roof come first, and restoring electricity to the older part of the house.
Cat lovers may find this story heartwarming enough to click on a link to a site that behaves badly. Briefly, someone abandoned a baby on the street in a cardboard box. I didn't try to scroll down to see where this was; even in Florida it has been cold enough recently to make that very close to murder outright. Fortunately for baby, a cat was chilly enough to crawl in to share baby's scanty body heat while it meowed loudly for help! Thanks to the cat, both cat and baby were rescued. If you click on the link embedded in this paragraph, you may see photos. I don't recommend it. I'm sticking by last year's resolution not to share links to sites that don't open quickly and readably. If it jiggles, if it rearranges itself while loading, if it shoves a huge graphic in your face before you can see the text, #ReadersRevolt .
I'm still wearing the "nice" (looking) suede boots I've worn for the last three winters. They're still too long for my feet, but, because shoe manufacturers are still obsessed with the idea of making shoes in symmetrical points rather than the shape of human feet, they're beginning to pinch; my feet slide forward in the roomy middle section and the toes have shrunk enough that my toes slip down into those pinchy little point. They're faded and the stiff, slick soles have gained some improved traction by cracking, but anyone who normally wears a size 5 and wants boots that still offer room for warm socks may request them now. Real leather boots just seem to want to be handed down.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to bring back Link Logs via Paper.li, which is a mailing service some e-friends have been using for a long time. I've not tried it since it's been one more tab to open and step to take, but I'm told it's the approved way to circulate lots of links without activating spam filters.
Another one is to resume printing Newsletters, which will summarize what I've learned from the links and be available live, via real mail, or as PDFs. Customer complaints caused me to stop printing them in link-log form; customer demand is causing me to reconsider how to print comparable amounts of information in Proper Newsletter Form, as demonstrated by the late lamented John Holt and Suzette Haden Elgin. Market demand will determine whether they'll be weekly or monthly. Pricing will depend on the size of print required but I'll try to keep them down to a dollar.
Amazon links? Why not? Holt and Elgin were very dear pen friends of my whole family's for a long time (Holt died before Elgin launched the Ozarque blog), and here are the books that made them famous:
Now I'm off to open e-mails...
About half the e-mail is still obviously "bacon" or "trash." That leaves about ten pages that need at least to be opened before they're deleted...
Here's the current update on links you use to send this web site worth-based, not merely need-based, funding:
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4923804 ...Has not been working for a lot of people lately, including me.
https://www.freelancer.com/u/PriscillaKing ...As noted before, I'm 99% certain this is a scam site, but if one other person is willing to risk US$30, we can either force it to work, or prove it's a scam site and shut'em down
https://www.guru.com/freelancers/priscilla-king ...This site works well and is recommended, but they prefer to handle payments over US$30.
https://www.fiverr.com/priscillaking ...As noted in December, this site's become a bit weird. If you want to send just $5 or $10 on Fiverr, let me know and I'll make sure my account is "reactivated."
https://www.iwriter.com/priscillaking ...This would be a very nice little site, encouraging small payments and short easy writing jobs, if it weren't coded using "i-frames," which basically means that the local server will cause any document I send you to arrive in a shortened and scrambled form. I don't go there often for that reason. You can, however, use that site to commission a blog post or article, give detailed instructions, and preview a draft before paying. To ensure that the draft/document you get is the one I wrote, you'd need first to notify me via this web site, then to pay for the post via Iwriter, then to receive the document via e-mail.
https://www.seoclerk.com/user/PriscillaKing ...This one works as a forum; I'd love to find out how it works as a paid writing site. SEO Clerks mainly discuss search engine optimization, so I hang out there to learn more of other hack writers' tricks. Affiliated sites Word Clerks and Pixel Clerks are about writing and graphics respectively. Links encourage you to meet and chat with other Internet hacks; that's encouraged and is a great way to find lively and literate Twits, if you want to follow and be followed by people on Twitter.
Or, as always, you can e-mail this web site for a link to the correct Paypal address, or send a U.S. postal order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, as shown at the very bottom of the screen.
For correspondents: How do e-mails become obviously "bacon" or "trash"? Quick checklist of rules for e-mails that you want to be opened:
1. Don't ask me for money unless a thorough reading of this web site has shown you that I have more of it than you do. (This might be possible if you were in, e.g., Zambia, and I'd be moved by your plight, but I still wouldn't have money to spare.)
2. Don't be a correspondent who has asked me for money in the past.
3. Don't scream for attention with things like "Last chance" or "Everybody needs THIS for..." (Your chance that I'll be interested in reading more about bananas or ginger or gold bullion, or whatever, than I've already read, is very small; if you try to "add excitement" with a teasing headline that doesn't specify what you're ranting or raving about, that small chance drops to zero. I have a real life and don't need online "excitement." I'm attracted to concepts like calm, stable, durable, reliable, and unchanging.)
4. Don't be a source of e-mails that contain videos, big splashy graphic, or anything that could possibly slow down the smallest, oldest, puniest browser you can imagine. If you have trouble remembering what to leave out, get a $5 cell phone with a screen slit that displays about three words at one time, and open your messages (and your web site) on that. If it's annoyingly slow or fails to open, that'll show you what to take out. Messy e-mails cause correspondents as good as Townhall.com to be filed as "bacon."
5. As a general rule, just don't bother sending me videos. If you have a large list that includes some people who prefer sitting through videos to reading text, please be sure your e-mail headlines mention "video" when you mail one out, so I can move them directly to the "trash" folder (but without hard feelings about you).
6. Notify your sponsors that their ads are most likely to be noticed, by me, if they're small, text-only--like cheap classified ads in a newspaper--and located at the bottom of the text. I dislike ads that scream for attention. I occasionally read ads from people who present themselves as modest, patient, and willing to take turns.
7. Don't use any rude words or refer to any body parts in headlines. Don't use images of any body parts or disease conditions anywhere in your e-mails or on your web site. (I can stand an occasional small face image, but please don't post any eyeballs.)
8. Don't bother sending me the same content your friend is sending me. All but one of those identical e-mails will go directly to "trash"--and the other one will generally go directly to "bacon."
9. Most people who read newspapers do not read every word of every story. We scan the headlines and read the actual stories if they are of personal interest to us. Who won, what's on sale, who died, etc., is usually as much information about a news story as I need. There's no reliable rule for predicting which news stories I'll read in detail, but there is a percentage; it generally runs about 1 news story out of 20 to 25.
10. If you want me actually to read every e-mail, BE A PAYING CUSTOMER.
A few hasty random words for The Nephews...
I'm back on the job, the youngest employees at the cafe are back on the job, but Gate City appears to be about three-quarters dead. Any time people here see ice or have a need to warm up a recent-model car, they tend to feel panicky enough to want to call in sick...Someone finally at least called the cafe to order lunch. Nobody else but the policeman on duty has been inside all morning.
Even I came online late this morning, because it really is cold outside. Not colder than some of you have become accustomed to being in Pennsylvania or New England, but cold enough that the mountain stream that runs past the Cat Sanctuary had formed sheets of ice all the way across the calmer, deeper sections. I'm not one of those lifelong Southerners who wail and huddle right up against a heat source when that happens...but Samantha told me very clearly that her kitten fluff does not yet provide enough insulation for her to enjoy this weather, so Samantha has been spending single-digit days and nights in my warm room, where the temperature stays above freezing. Since she's a bouncy-pouncy kitten, she's been in a cage. And yesterday she didn't get enough time outdoors after breakfast, so she used a basin of water I'd left in her cage as a water-flush toilet, which she learned to use as a baby. This was not what I wanted to deal with after walking home in single-digit (Fahrenheit) temperatures last night...so this morning I made sure Samantha had time to leave a treat for the possum before I brought her inside.
Heather is missing. She and Samantha went missing after some idiot kids lost a pack of small beagle-mix dogs in the woods over the winter break. I found Samantha up a tree. I didn't find Heather. I can't imagine those dogs even thinking about eating her--there were six of them but only one looked much longer or taller than she is. I can imagine them meeting her close enough to a neighbor's house that she sweet-talked a neighbor into letting her shelter in the basement when that 15-degrees-below-zero (Celsius) wind started blowing; I can easily imagine any of several neighbors letting her stay in the basement until we get a thaw, which the Weather Service is not expecting to happen this week either. I have neither died nor abandoned her. If delivered to her own house while a human is there, she'll be taken indoors and petted and fussed over, and I'll reimburse you for a bag of kibble.
Heather knows she's loved and missed; neighbors should curb the urge to try to alienate her affections or conflict her loyalties. She's quiet when pleased, but past master of radiating comfort and good will. If you're falling in love with her...my mother's ill, my Significant Other's ill, what I have in the way of friends are all claiming to be "old" (whether they're even eighty yet, or even sixty yet); I do not need to lose Heather too. I can find you a beautiful, lovable cat right away. I can't guarantee a calico (the locally available cats I know to be lovable, and in search of good homes, are gray) or a polydactyl, but I can put you on the list for one, or help arrange for you to get one from Petfinder.
What became of the dogs, I don't know. I hope the idiot kids found them because, after shouting at them to leave Samantha alone, I've not seen them again. That was the day the Big Freeze blew in; I felt bad about not having a safe place to shelter them, but I don't. A shed where dogs can stay out of the wind is on my long list of home improvement projects. Maintaining solid wheelchair-accessible floors and a watertight roof come first, and restoring electricity to the older part of the house.
Cat lovers may find this story heartwarming enough to click on a link to a site that behaves badly. Briefly, someone abandoned a baby on the street in a cardboard box. I didn't try to scroll down to see where this was; even in Florida it has been cold enough recently to make that very close to murder outright. Fortunately for baby, a cat was chilly enough to crawl in to share baby's scanty body heat while it meowed loudly for help! Thanks to the cat, both cat and baby were rescued. If you click on the link embedded in this paragraph, you may see photos. I don't recommend it. I'm sticking by last year's resolution not to share links to sites that don't open quickly and readably. If it jiggles, if it rearranges itself while loading, if it shoves a huge graphic in your face before you can see the text, #ReadersRevolt .
I'm still wearing the "nice" (looking) suede boots I've worn for the last three winters. They're still too long for my feet, but, because shoe manufacturers are still obsessed with the idea of making shoes in symmetrical points rather than the shape of human feet, they're beginning to pinch; my feet slide forward in the roomy middle section and the toes have shrunk enough that my toes slip down into those pinchy little point. They're faded and the stiff, slick soles have gained some improved traction by cracking, but anyone who normally wears a size 5 and wants boots that still offer room for warm socks may request them now. Real leather boots just seem to want to be handed down.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to bring back Link Logs via Paper.li, which is a mailing service some e-friends have been using for a long time. I've not tried it since it's been one more tab to open and step to take, but I'm told it's the approved way to circulate lots of links without activating spam filters.
Another one is to resume printing Newsletters, which will summarize what I've learned from the links and be available live, via real mail, or as PDFs. Customer complaints caused me to stop printing them in link-log form; customer demand is causing me to reconsider how to print comparable amounts of information in Proper Newsletter Form, as demonstrated by the late lamented John Holt and Suzette Haden Elgin. Market demand will determine whether they'll be weekly or monthly. Pricing will depend on the size of print required but I'll try to keep them down to a dollar.
Amazon links? Why not? Holt and Elgin were very dear pen friends of my whole family's for a long time (Holt died before Elgin launched the Ozarque blog), and here are the books that made them famous:
Now I'm off to open e-mails...
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Status Report: Money, Phenology, News, Schatzi Cat
(Finances: $20 this week--in "sales" to a local sponsor who insisted on overpaying, bringing you a few free posts. I plan to do another "good" one in addition to this me-me-me one. If your income for 2016 was US$12,000 or more, you should support this web site. Here are the current links you can use...note that the easier ones to use encourage you to make this web site more valuable to your web site. Sponsorship will not only make more posts available but stop this list of links appearing at the top of every post.)
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4923804
https://www.freelancer.com/u/PriscillaKing
https://www.guru.com/freelancers/priscilla-king
https://www.fiverr.com/priscillaking
https://www.iwriter.com/priscillaking
https://www.seoclerk.com/user/PriscillaKing
You can also mail a U.S. postal money order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322.)
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4923804
https://www.freelancer.com/u/PriscillaKing
https://www.guru.com/freelancers/priscilla-king
https://www.fiverr.com/priscillaking
https://www.iwriter.com/priscillaking
https://www.seoclerk.com/user/PriscillaKing
You can also mail a U.S. postal money order to Boxholder, P.O. Box 322, Gate City, Virginia, 24251-0322.)
This post has four more sections: Phenology, Politics, Headline News, Cat Sanctuary Updates. Should we make things easier by separating them with bold-type headings? Why not? Some correspondents say they like even blog posts broken up into small sections by bold-type headings.
Phenology
So we've had a heat wave this week. Autumn weather is getting off to a delectably slow start. An early spring and a long cool summer have brought some things to their "autumn" phases based on how long leaves have been on trees, like the pawpaw trees, dutifully bearing fruit and turning yellow on schedule. (The Cat Sanctuary had a nice pawpaw harvest.) Other trees, like dogwood and sycamore, are changing color on a schedule that seems to be directly tied to seasonal changes in light, independent of temperature. Trees that stay green until frost are still green.
This weather seems more favorable to the family known as Brush-Footed Butterflies than any weather I can remember. I'm seeing more of these autumn-flying beauties, in richer variety...Two members of the Nymphalid butterfly "family," both of which are common and well distributed in the Eastern States but unusual at the Cat Sanctuary, are the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral.
Some form of Painted Lady is found in almost every part of the world. Scientists think most of those seen in the Eastern States are the same species found in Europe, but a minority of our Painted Ladies, which have darker upper sides and more vivid lower sides, are a distinct species. The fun part is that individual butterflies vary, with variations depending partly on weather, so even experts can disagree on which species an individual Vanessa cardui or V. virginiensis should be counted among...Here's V. cardui, the "basic" Painted Lady, sometimes also called the Cosmopolitan or Belle Dame:
I've seen both kinds in the last week or two; I looked them up for you because the underwings of V. virginiensis looked--startling. If I'd seen one before, I hadn't noticed how much bigger and more contrast-defined the camouflage pattern on the underwings can be.
So we've had a heat wave this week. Autumn weather is getting off to a delectably slow start. An early spring and a long cool summer have brought some things to their "autumn" phases based on how long leaves have been on trees, like the pawpaw trees, dutifully bearing fruit and turning yellow on schedule. (The Cat Sanctuary had a nice pawpaw harvest.) Other trees, like dogwood and sycamore, are changing color on a schedule that seems to be directly tied to seasonal changes in light, independent of temperature. Trees that stay green until frost are still green.
This weather seems more favorable to the family known as Brush-Footed Butterflies than any weather I can remember. I'm seeing more of these autumn-flying beauties, in richer variety...Two members of the Nymphalid butterfly "family," both of which are common and well distributed in the Eastern States but unusual at the Cat Sanctuary, are the Painted Lady and the Red Admiral.
Some form of Painted Lady is found in almost every part of the world. Scientists think most of those seen in the Eastern States are the same species found in Europe, but a minority of our Painted Ladies, which have darker upper sides and more vivid lower sides, are a distinct species. The fun part is that individual butterflies vary, with variations depending partly on weather, so even experts can disagree on which species an individual Vanessa cardui or V. virginiensis should be counted among...Here's V. cardui, the "basic" Painted Lady, sometimes also called the Cosmopolitan or Belle Dame:
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| Photo donated to Wikipedia By Jean-Pol GRANDMONT - Self-photographed, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27747981 |
And here's V. virginiensis:
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| Photo donated to Wikipedia By Patrick Coin (Patrick Coin) - Photograph taken by Patrick Coin, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=768953 |
Today on Twitter someone posted a photo of a butterfly and asked if anyone recognized it. It looked a lot like V. cardui but, without size and location information, it's hard to say; some little Checkerspots have wing patterns that look a lot like V. cardui. One way to tell the difference is that Painted Ladies are largish butterflies, as big as some of the smaller Swallowtails, with wingspreads that would probably cover the palm of your hand (well I've not seen your hand). Checkerspots are small, with wingspreads only about one inch.
Red Admirals, V. atalanta, average slightly smaller than V. cardui and have even darker colors...
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| Photo donated to Wikipedia By Ernie - Own work, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7738907 |
All three species eat "weeds" when young, sip flower nectar when mature. Cardui, meaning "thistle," refers to one of their favorite foods.
And, although the poisoners have left Spanish Needles and cow-toxic Johnson Grass (the tall wild grass that's easily mistaken for young cornstalks in spring) as dominant species along Route 23, at the Cat Sanctuary several flowers keep on blooming. I don't think my flybush has ever bloomed so profusely for so long. Dayflowers are finally subsiding; ladies' thumbs are not. Several species of bedstraws and Eupatorium are blooming beautifully. Black-eyed Susans...as I just mentioned on Twitter, the specimens in the not-a-lawn at the Cat Sanctuary are almost five feet tall. But I'm not seeing wild sunflowers along Route 23 where I've seen them in other years.
Politics
Yesterday I spent most of my online time writing an article about Alabama's Moore-Strange primary election. (It'd be interesting to know +Andria Perry 's preference, if any; I didn't ask.) Here's what that article did not say...
"Can this election get more strange?" quipped Jim Geraghty, although apart from the candidates' names, and Judge Moore's claims to fame, it doesn't seem to have been an especially strange bit of Republican Party infighting. From here in Virginia, it seems a bit like deja vu.
Obviously I don't have a vote in Alabama, so I'm not sure how I got onto the Moore mailing list. If he'd asked me about some of his publicity stunts, I would have advised against them. Roy Moore of Gadsden, Alabama, is an evangelical Christian who's never avoided any possible controversy. He achieved nationwide fame by plunking this 5,280-pound rock into his state's rotunda:
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| Photo donated to Wikipedia By maorlando - God keeps me as I lean on Him!! from Far NW Houston, Pinehurst, Texas, U.S.A. - Front of Impressive Ten Commandments Monument, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=62091917 |
Anti-Christians screamed and howled. Moore dug in his heels, and eventually surrendered his position rather than his monument, which brings the word "graven image" to some minds...even if the person also concedes that any crybullies claiming a chunk of stone hurts them should be allowed to waive the fine they deserve for wasting a judge's time if they carry the stone to where they say it won't hurt them any more, on their backs.
Then there was a flap about same-sex marriage, on which I would have advised him not to feed the monster any more attention than it's already consumed. Homosexual lobbyists think annoying people with their "weddings" is more important than securing equal rights for widows and bachelors...what more need be said? That fact disparages those homosexual lobbyists so much more thoroughly than any comment anyone could add to it. There have to be more worthwhile moral battles to fight. A Real Leader might have chosen the rights of widows and bachelors.
And I think the position of this web site on Republican infighting has been made sufficiently clear. In Virginia, Republicans had several acceptable candidates for governor. All of them ran at the same time. All of them did the Democrats' job for the Democrats. That's how our governor's mansion came to be occupied by a Democrat who, when a deranged member of his party opened fire on Republicans, blurted out one of the tackiest-sounding shock reactions of all time. I won't even type his name here because I do feel sorry for him, but Lord have mercy.
There is a very wide range of opinions these days about who Republicans are, who they should be, what they should stand for, whether some of their favorite authors (e.g. Thomas Sowell
) even are Republicans. In the presidential election we had so many legitimate Republican candidates they couldn't even all be fitted onto one stage for the preliminary debates, and what did we get? I'm still getting e-mail from Republicans who still hate that infighting brought us an alleged Republican President who has no politics, neither has he any shame, and whose hand many Republicans vow they'll never shake. Deal with it, Republicans. That's what infighting does for you. There are times for thinking in terms of tennis, or NASCAR racing, or chess, and times for thinking in terms of football.
) even are Republicans. In the presidential election we had so many legitimate Republican candidates they couldn't even all be fitted onto one stage for the preliminary debates, and what did we get? I'm still getting e-mail from Republicans who still hate that infighting brought us an alleged Republican President who has no politics, neither has he any shame, and whose hand many Republicans vow they'll never shake. Deal with it, Republicans. That's what infighting does for you. There are times for thinking in terms of tennis, or NASCAR racing, or chess, and times for thinking in terms of football.
This web site would like to have been able to report that Mr. Moore and Mr. Strange sat down and worked out a strategy they could use as a team, rather than locking horns. Did not happen. But it's not too late; that could happen.
NBC featured a priceless photo of Roy Moore's impression of Roy Rogers, cowboy hat and buckskin horse and all. Right. A lot of the electorate miss Roy Rogers. I'm sure the Old Left can think of many snarky things to say about this. Myself, based on yesterday's reading and what I've learned while writing this blog, I see an important lesson for the nation here:
1. Circa 2007, yes, 2007, Democratic Party bloggers were aware of rifts within their ranks. Specifically, a poll that surveyed lots of Democrats' attitudes on lots of issues found that there were basically three types of Democrats: (1) centrists whose views differed from those of centrist Republicans on only a few issues--and those were individual differences, not solid enough to be used to define a difference between centrists in the major parties; (2) another large bloc of benefits-oriented voters, including many women and members of ethnic minorities as well as retirees and welfare recipients, who identified strongly as Democrats because of their handouts or concerns about discrimination, and whose views on everything else were generally well to the right of John McCain; and (3) a minority of left-wingers who expressed the kind of views President Obama and Candidates Clinton and Sanders have been expressing in the past ten years and who were solidly committed to their party, financially and otherwise. The Democratic Party gambled on party loyalty, financial dependency, and fear, to allow these extremists to take control of the party's policy and direction. Real Democrats, including friends and relatives of mine and people for whom I'd still be willing to vote, still exist...but you never hear about them any more.
2. And, as Hugh Hewitt 
explained in detail in his wearisome little book, and as the same poll also showed, there are several distinct types of Republicans too. The ones who, if not solidly committed to their party, are solidly committed to preserving their wealth and willing to invest some of their wealth in politicians, are "good old boy, country club" types with very little noticeable politics, religion, or shame. The ones who at least fear and loathe "liberal" attitudes toward "immorality," the Religious Right, are another distinct bloc within the party. Civil libertarians, constitutionalists, most of the serious Tea Parties, might be considered a majority of Republicans if we could be lumped together as Republicans, but (a) we don't like being lumped together and (b) we're not necessarily even willing to identify ourselves as Republicans, which makes it hard. We saw this acted out last year, didn't we? Candidates Carson, Cruz, and Paul each had many passionate supporters, Jeb Bush had his share of the vote...and the rich guy who'd never even been a Republican, in any noticeable way, ended up getting the richies' vote and thus the nomination.
explained in detail in his wearisome little book, and as the same poll also showed, there are several distinct types of Republicans too. The ones who, if not solidly committed to their party, are solidly committed to preserving their wealth and willing to invest some of their wealth in politicians, are "good old boy, country club" types with very little noticeable politics, religion, or shame. The ones who at least fear and loathe "liberal" attitudes toward "immorality," the Religious Right, are another distinct bloc within the party. Civil libertarians, constitutionalists, most of the serious Tea Parties, might be considered a majority of Republicans if we could be lumped together as Republicans, but (a) we don't like being lumped together and (b) we're not necessarily even willing to identify ourselves as Republicans, which makes it hard. We saw this acted out last year, didn't we? Candidates Carson, Cruz, and Paul each had many passionate supporters, Jeb Bush had his share of the vote...and the rich guy who'd never even been a Republican, in any noticeable way, ended up getting the richies' vote and thus the nomination.
3. Centrist Republicans like John McCain, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham, and let's never forget W Bush, work very well with Democrats--because typically on all but one or two issues they could be Democrats. In Faith of Our Fathers
McCain said that in so many words: apart from his commitment to military issues he could as easily have been a Democrat. So no wonder he worked well with politicians who--so far as I know George Stephanopoulos
is the only one who's said it in a book--could, apart from one or two issues, as easily have been Republicans. Similarly, Mark Warner gets along well with his still majority-Republican constituency, and Jim Webb gets along so well with Republicans that in some years he's actually let himself be called one...and this is where the majority of Americans actually seem to be these days. They're not right-wingers, they're not left-wingers; some of them are loyal to one party or the other for just one or two personal reasons, and some of them are swing voters because they truly have no preference between the major parties. And the election between Bill Clinton's moderate right-wing buddy and Bill Clinton's extreme left-wing buddy was a jolly close one; if Trump won the popular vote--which has been questioned--he won on the votes of those centrist Democrats and swing voters.
McCain said that in so many words: apart from his commitment to military issues he could as easily have been a Democrat. So no wonder he worked well with politicians who--so far as I know George Stephanopoulos is the only one who's said it in a book--could, apart from one or two issues, as easily have been Republicans. Similarly, Mark Warner gets along well with his still majority-Republican constituency, and Jim Webb gets along so well with Republicans that in some years he's actually let himself be called one...and this is where the majority of Americans actually seem to be these days. They're not right-wingers, they're not left-wingers; some of them are loyal to one party or the other for just one or two personal reasons, and some of them are swing voters because they truly have no preference between the major parties. And the election between Bill Clinton's moderate right-wing buddy and Bill Clinton's extreme left-wing buddy was a jolly close one; if Trump won the popular vote--which has been questioned--he won on the votes of those centrist Democrats and swing voters.
4. So when Penny Nance
e-mailed, recently, that her correspondents were bewailing the way the extreme left just keeps winning, what can they do-o-o? and PN replied that for a start they could pray...praying is good, yes, but a secular answer also suggests itself to me. The centrists of these United States could just stop letting the extremists play both ends against the middle. They could, as Arthur Brooks
suggested, recognize themselves as being a majority. That's not where the money for the big expensive TV campaigns is, granted...but it is where the American grassroots vote is, and in these days when every eighteen-year-old seems to have a web site, it's possible that the centrists could win the popular vote without the big expensive TV campaigns.
e-mailed, recently, that her correspondents were bewailing the way the extreme left just keeps winning, what can they do-o-o? and PN replied that for a start they could pray...praying is good, yes, but a secular answer also suggests itself to me. The centrists of these United States could just stop letting the extremists play both ends against the middle. They could, as Arthur Brooks suggested, recognize themselves as being a majority. That's not where the money for the big expensive TV campaigns is, granted...but it is where the American grassroots vote is, and in these days when every eighteen-year-old seems to have a web site, it's possible that the centrists could win the popular vote without the big expensive TV campaigns.
Purely as a strategy...if "conservatives" or "Republicans" could agree to represent the Religious Right viewpoint Judge Moore embodies, and "liberals" or "moderates" or "Democrats" could agree to represent the mainstream viewpoint Senator Strange has represented, the first thing I'd expect would be that the party of Luther Strange, Mitch McConnell, Jim Webb, Lindsey Graham, and so on, would rock the first popular vote in which they could get themselves unified.
I'll stop there, let Republican correspondents chew on that thought, and move on. As far as I'm concerned, today's national news brought one piece of good news and one piece of bad news.
Headline News, Good & Bad
Good news: Steve Scalise. If you watch TV or follow anyone who follows any news site on Twitter you've seen the official pictures of him limping back into the Capitol. Tear-inducing, maybe. I am so glad the suicidal lunatic failed in his effort to murder a Republican.
Bad news: yet another hurricane, after all that disaster relief money's already been poured out, and our President's extremely controversial suggestion for funding...I don't seriously think he's going to get away with what Twitter reported he was threatening to do to fund the evacuation of flooded-out Puerto Ricans. They are U.S. citizens. They have rights. They also have friends, and it is to be hoped that those friends have got their backs. I tweeted "Say WHAAAaaat?" with extra A's for extra outrage, but I suspect it was a shock reaction intended to generate better ideas; our President may be orange, old, and obnoxious, but he's not really that stupid.
Enough politics, some are saying, what about the cats?
Cats
Some local lurkers might consider it a fail: Heather is still the only full-time resident cat at the Cat Sanctuary. I do consider it a fail that Suzie-Q rejected me, and a tragedy that sweet little Boots died during the round of animal mortality following the glyphosate poisoning disaster. But as far as the other cats I agreed to adopt? I'm seeing a clear win.
I think the core cat family at the former Cat Sanctuary on Jackson Street are definitely social, and definitely tame, gentle, and lovable cats, although not pets. Nobody had been petting them; when I lured some of them within range, grabbed them by the scruff of the neck, and picked them up, they made it clear to their human neighbors and to me that they liked being petted.
As discussed in earlier posts, I tried to adopt the young black cat, Boots' mother, first. I called her Schatzi. She looked as if she recognized that as a name. I said, "Is that your name? Schatzi?" She looked as if she'd accepted it as her name. And I've been speaking to her since, and she has definitely continued to respond to the name "Schatzi."
So she is a Listening Cat--one of a minority even among clever social cats who become devoted pets. If anybody goes to the trouble of bonding with her and teaching her words, I can guarantee they'll be bowled over by her cleverness. Schatzi was born to be another once-in-a-lifetime pet, like my Heather, or Mogwai, or Mackerel, or even Black Magic.
But not mine. She made that clear. She let me pick her up, pop her into a carrier, and take her to the Cat Sanctuary. Then she saw Heather, Boots, and Bruno. Then she bolted, and although I set out food for her, I didn't see her again...because I didn't go back to the former Cat Sanctuary on Jackson Street. One of her neighbors on the block Schatzi considers her home called to tell me that she was back there.
She had found her way back home, after being carried more than a mile away in a carrier from which she wasn't able to see out.
We are not talking about a normal cat here, Gentle Readers. Well, she is Heather's cousin. Heather's great-uncle Pell also had an uncanny homing sense...I took him into the Duffield market one day while he was up for adoption, and although he hadn't been able to see out from the truck in which he was transported, he knew which way Gate City was and spent the entire day pulling in the direction of home. He accepted a new home when he was ready to move out on his own, and not before.
I went back to the house Schatzi called home, and she knew me, she knew her name, and she would not take a food treat from my hand again. She was where she wanted to be, she nonverbally said. So I petted other members of her family and talked to the human neighbors about how most cats really feel more attached to a place than to a person, and a trailer park really needs a few resident cats, and I did not particularly need more cats, and although I couldn't let cats as clever and lovable as that family go to a shelter the cats were obviously happy where they were...
Well, they're still there. I saw Schatzi and her larger, equally black brother, and her friendlier, gray-tabby brother, too, out in the yard this morning as I walked past. They still look very pleased to be in what they consider their home--the little strips of grass that constitute yards in a trailer park. As far as they're concerned, one of them has claimed a human pet of her very own and got that human to feed the rest of them a few yards from where their original human used to feed them, and they're still a happy social cat family. And Schatzi still knows me, still knows her name, and is still nonverbally saying "Don't call me, I'll call you, if I ever want a new home, which I don't."
From these cats' and my point of view, the Cat Sanctuary did rescue and place five particularly valuable cats in a good home, this summer...and I only had to pick up one of them to get them into their Fur-Ever Home.
I give all the credit to Schatzi, another little black alley cat who is evidently smarter and nicer, in some ways, than some humans.
Do youall miss Petfinder links yet? I do too. When they get rid of the nasty sticky cookies I'll post more Petfinder links. Meanwhile, here's an Amazon link:
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| Edgar Allan Poe seems solely to blame for the myth that black cats are unlucky or sinister; in England it's orange cats that are said to be unlucky, and black, black-and-white, or three-colored cats are said to bring good luck. Meh. They make lovable pets, anyway. Just ask anybody who's been owned by one. |
Tuesday, October 20, 2015
Morgan Griffith on Movies
Two movies about our part of the world? Well...sort of. From U.S. Representative Morgan Griffith:
"
Fightin’ Ninth in Film
In recent weeks, two films have given the nation the opportunity to learn some about the Ninth District.
Big Stone Gap, released nationwide on October 9, was shot on location in Wise County. It is based on the novel set in the 1970s by Adriana Trigiani, a Big Stone Gap native. Actor Patrick Wilson has family ties to Big Stone Gap as well. Near the end, the supporting actor suggests visiting the Hob-Nob Drive In, a real-life Gate City family diner still in business, owned by my Emory and Henry fraternity brother Ross Jenkins.
Also in the news is Steven Spielberg-directed Bridge of Spies, which was released nationwide on October 16. In one of its subplots, Bridge of Spies – set in the Cold War era – tells of pilot Francis Gary Powers, who spent his childhood in Pound before his family moved to Buchanan County. After graduating from high school and college, Powers joined the Air Force and was recruited by the CIA.
While on a spying mission in 1960, Powers’ U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory by a Russian missile. He was captured, interrogated, and held prisoner for two years.
During this time, Powers was put on trial in Moscow. In Southwest Virginia’s legal circles, it is well known that Powers’ parents obtained the services of Norton attorney Carl McAfee. According to the Roanoke Times, below McAfee’s office was Powers’ father’s shoe-repair shop.
Bridge of Spies gets its name from the 1962 prisoner swap in which Powers was exchanged for a convicted Russian spy. The two walked from opposite ends of the Glienicke Bridge – the so-called “Bridge of Spies,” which links Berlin with Potsdam – to freedom.
Not mentioned in the film is Norton resident Kim Mullins. Ms. Mullins, a local official who is Powers’ second cousin, told the Roanoke Times Powers took her on her first flight. She is now a licensed pilot, and spearheaded successful local efforts to rename the terminal at the Lonesome Pine Airport in Powers’ honor.
Powers’ son, Gary Powers Jr., told the Roanoke Times, “The Powers family is very honored and humbled that my dad is considered an American hero of the Cold War.” Mullins tells us she and others are hoping to collect memorabilia for use in an exhibit at the airport.
As always, you can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office by email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
"
"
Fightin’ Ninth in Film
In recent weeks, two films have given the nation the opportunity to learn some about the Ninth District.
Big Stone Gap, released nationwide on October 9, was shot on location in Wise County. It is based on the novel set in the 1970s by Adriana Trigiani, a Big Stone Gap native. Actor Patrick Wilson has family ties to Big Stone Gap as well. Near the end, the supporting actor suggests visiting the Hob-Nob Drive In, a real-life Gate City family diner still in business, owned by my Emory and Henry fraternity brother Ross Jenkins.
Also in the news is Steven Spielberg-directed Bridge of Spies, which was released nationwide on October 16. In one of its subplots, Bridge of Spies – set in the Cold War era – tells of pilot Francis Gary Powers, who spent his childhood in Pound before his family moved to Buchanan County. After graduating from high school and college, Powers joined the Air Force and was recruited by the CIA.
While on a spying mission in 1960, Powers’ U-2 spy plane was shot down over Soviet territory by a Russian missile. He was captured, interrogated, and held prisoner for two years.
During this time, Powers was put on trial in Moscow. In Southwest Virginia’s legal circles, it is well known that Powers’ parents obtained the services of Norton attorney Carl McAfee. According to the Roanoke Times, below McAfee’s office was Powers’ father’s shoe-repair shop.
Bridge of Spies gets its name from the 1962 prisoner swap in which Powers was exchanged for a convicted Russian spy. The two walked from opposite ends of the Glienicke Bridge – the so-called “Bridge of Spies,” which links Berlin with Potsdam – to freedom.
Not mentioned in the film is Norton resident Kim Mullins. Ms. Mullins, a local official who is Powers’ second cousin, told the Roanoke Times Powers took her on her first flight. She is now a licensed pilot, and spearheaded successful local efforts to rename the terminal at the Lonesome Pine Airport in Powers’ honor.
Powers’ son, Gary Powers Jr., told the Roanoke Times, “The Powers family is very honored and humbled that my dad is considered an American hero of the Cold War.” Mullins tells us she and others are hoping to collect memorabilia for use in an exhibit at the airport.
As always, you can call my Abingdon office at 276-525-1405 or my Christiansburg office at 540-381-5671. To reach my office by email, please visit my website at www.morgangriffith.house.gov.
"
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Where's Priscilla?
Priscilla is absolutely thrilled through and through to report that sponsors are finally pitching in to help me open a workspace that's closer to home, where I'll be able to spend as much or as little time online as I need to spend, without commuting issues. As a result, I expect to be online only intermittently this week.
Here's today's Link Log, such as it is:
http://blogjob.com/priscillaking/2015/10/11/announcement-links-and-supplementary-rant/
If you want to comment, you may need a Blogjob account. Setting one up is fast, free, and unlikely to fill your inbox with spam (you'll get notifications about people's blog posts only if you ask for such). Dissent is fine; hate is banned. Click on this link to create a free account:
Set Up Blogjob Account
Here's today's Link Log, such as it is:
http://blogjob.com/priscillaking/2015/10/11/announcement-links-and-supplementary-rant/
If you want to comment, you may need a Blogjob account. Setting one up is fast, free, and unlikely to fill your inbox with spam (you'll get notifications about people's blog posts only if you ask for such). Dissent is fine; hate is banned. Click on this link to create a free account:
Set Up Blogjob Account
Thursday, September 17, 2015
D.J. Patil to Young Scientists
Ahmed Mohamed's teachers panicked at the thought that an innovative electronic clock might be a bomb, and the U.S. Chief Data Scientist steps forward to clear the boy's name:
"
Yesterday, a 14-year-old student named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing his engineering project (an electronic clock) to his high school. Officials mistook it for a bomb.
When I was growing up, my friends and I were fortunate to know how to use soldiering irons, circuit boards, and even a bit of duct tape when nothing else worked. We played, experimented, and learned through trial and error.
The best part? When I brought my work in, my teachers loved it. And that fed my desire to embrace science, engineering, and technology. That learning to play with technology -- that curiosity -- has helped me on every step of my journey so far.
That's why I’m so proud to see people across the country standing up for the innovation and intellectual curiosity that Ahmed has shown.
That includes the President.
And he's not the only one. Today, Dr. John Holdren -- the President's top science advisor -- reached out to Ahmed and personally invited him to come to join us at the White House Astronomy Night on October 19, where we'll bring together scientists, engineers, and visionaries from astronomy and the space industry, along with students and teachers. They'll share their experiences and spend an evening stargazing from the South Lawn.
We think Ahmed will fit right in.
That's because we think it's really important that kids with a passion for science and technology have the opportunities they need to reach for the stars (sometimes, that's literal).
It's why the President has prioritized broadening participation in science and technology to a more diverse pool of students.
It's why we regularly host kids from across the country at the White House Science Fair.
It's why we believe that the National Maker Faire is so important and why we are a nation of makers.
And it's why we're dedicated to telling the untold stories of some of the brightest minds in our country -- to inspire young people to follow in their footsteps.
Ahmed, you inspire us -- and we can't wait to meet you.
D.J.
DJ Patil
U.S. Chief Data Scientist
The White House
@DJ44
P.S. -- Don’t forget your NASA shirt. I’ll be wearing mine."
"
Yesterday, a 14-year-old student named Ahmed Mohamed was arrested for bringing his engineering project (an electronic clock) to his high school. Officials mistook it for a bomb.
When I was growing up, my friends and I were fortunate to know how to use soldiering irons, circuit boards, and even a bit of duct tape when nothing else worked. We played, experimented, and learned through trial and error.
The best part? When I brought my work in, my teachers loved it. And that fed my desire to embrace science, engineering, and technology. That learning to play with technology -- that curiosity -- has helped me on every step of my journey so far.
That's why I’m so proud to see people across the country standing up for the innovation and intellectual curiosity that Ahmed has shown.
That includes the President.
And he's not the only one. Today, Dr. John Holdren -- the President's top science advisor -- reached out to Ahmed and personally invited him to come to join us at the White House Astronomy Night on October 19, where we'll bring together scientists, engineers, and visionaries from astronomy and the space industry, along with students and teachers. They'll share their experiences and spend an evening stargazing from the South Lawn.
We think Ahmed will fit right in.
That's because we think it's really important that kids with a passion for science and technology have the opportunities they need to reach for the stars (sometimes, that's literal).
It's why the President has prioritized broadening participation in science and technology to a more diverse pool of students.
It's why we regularly host kids from across the country at the White House Science Fair.
It's why we believe that the National Maker Faire is so important and why we are a nation of makers.
And it's why we're dedicated to telling the untold stories of some of the brightest minds in our country -- to inspire young people to follow in their footsteps.
Ahmed, you inspire us -- and we can't wait to meet you.
D.J.
DJ Patil
U.S. Chief Data Scientist
The White House
@DJ44
P.S. -- Don’t forget your NASA shirt. I’ll be wearing mine."
Friday, June 26, 2015
Confessing the ABCs
It's a meme! I was starting to think that species had gone extinct. Here, because her Q post cheered me up at an earlier, wearier time this afternoon, and because her blog is relatively simple, are my answers to the meme +Sandy KS shared at http://challengeyourwriting.blogspot.com/2015/06/i-will-confess-my-abcs.html. I want to do this one in combination with Grandma Bonnie Peters in order to help readers tell us apart:
A: Age
PK: 51
GBP: 80
B: Biggest Fear:
PK: The Apocalypse
GBP: (Didn't admit any. Changed the subject to my hair. I say it might well be...) Giving somebody a bad haircut.
C: Current time: 6:45 p.m.
D: Drink you last had
PK: Mountain Dew
GBP: Water
E: Easiest person to talk to
PK: My husband, while living
GBP: Have no trouble talking to anybody. A motor mouth.
F: Favorite song
PK: Too many to pick just one. To sing in church, "Ein' Feste Burg." To sing at a folk song gathering, "Wildwood Flower." To sing at a gospel gathering, "The Blood." To sing at a shape-note singing event, "Soar Away." Or maybe I'd really rather listen to other people's favorites anyway.
GBP: "He Lives" (gospel song)
G: Grossest memory
PK: Norovirus. (For the record, Sandy, I don't think a healthy animal birth process is gross at all. That's OK though. I'd rather not know what was gross about the one you mentioned. There are enough gross-outs in the political news!)
GBP: (She didn't want to pick one. I mentioned a skin infection about ten years ago that has left scars. She said, "That's not the grossest one." We agreed that it was the grossest one we'd discuss here.)
H: home town
PK: Gate City, Virginia
GBP: Monument, Indiana (town no longer on the map; flooded by the TVA). Some would say Fort Wayne.
I: In love with
PK: The famous Significant Other, Mr. Privacy
GBP: "We're all supposed to be in love with Jesus. What's that scripture? Leave everything and follow Me." (She actually walked over to the bookshelf, got a Bible, and looked up Luke 18:29.)
J: Jealous of
PK: Mr. Privacy of course.
GBP: (denies being either jealous or envious of anybody)
K: Killed someone?
PK: No one human. Lots of nuisance insects. A copperhead (venomous snake), once. Dying animals.
GBP: Hit a dog once...it ran out between parked cars. (She's not counting small, cold-blooded animals. I've seen her kill those.)
L: Longest relationship
PK: Married almost ten years
GBP: Married 37 years
M: Middle name
PK: No middle name
GBP: [middle name withheld by site policy]
N: Number of siblings
PK: Two living sisters, same age, different colors
GBP: One sister (would be 93 if living)
O: One wish
PK: How does it go? To see my great-grandchildren eating off golden plates?
GBP: In the Resurrection, to see Jesus
P: Person you last called
PK: A car pool
GBP: A neighbor
Q: Question you are always asked
PK: "Are you married? Going steady?" Apparently I don't look like the celibate type, but I am.
GBP: "Do you really walk to the post office?"
R: Reason to smile
PK: Thought of something cute/clever/funny to blog about
GBP: (Other than that, yes, she does walk to the post office, I said.) In good health and looking forward to the coming of the Lord!
S: Song you last sang
PK: Hard to remember. I seldom sing when the weather is humid and my sinuses clog; usually in dry weather. It's been a humid week!
GBP: "Our God Is an Awesome God" (GBP sings in the choir at the Seventh-Day Adventist church and also, by invitation, at the Presbyterian church.)
T: Time you woke up
PK: 5:50 a.m.
GBP: 6 a.m.
U: Ultimate friend
PK: My modem-free computer at home
GBP: Jesus
V: Vacation destination
PK: Home. I've outgrown the urge to travel.
GBP: Well, (relative) thinks a vacation destination ought to be Branson! (Missouri.)
W: Worst habit
PK: Staying up late when I want to get up early
GBP: Oh I've forgotten! (Chortles. I nominate preaching.)
X: X-ray
PK: Molars
GBP: Broken wrist
Y: Yummy food
PK: Sun-ripened strawberry washed under the garden hose
GBP: Stir-fried veg
Z: Zodiac sign
PK: Whatever. (Priscilla King was born into cyberspace in June 2005, "about 40," and was surprised, some years later, to find that according to the identity data set up for her on Yahoo she'd been born in January 1964. This is currently complicating one of my e-jobs as a hostess at a "seniors" web site; Priscilla King is a very junior "senior," at 51, thus eligible for the job in cyberspace, and I certainly needed the money, but the real-world body PK inhabits is still a few weeks under age 50, thus ineligible to do the job at a physical site where it might be helpful to real seniors.)
GBP: I remember it was "on the cusp."
At this point, for some reason GBP felt motivated to show me her favorite photo (snapshot of a young man who's now in high school, as an infant) and favorite greeting card (it says "You're the best Grandma on Earth," and was printed by the best Grandson called Joshua Namewithheld on Earth, too). I don't know that anybody had asked, but if youall are getting to know her, you probably should know that her grandchildren are her favorite people.
A: Age
PK: 51
GBP: 80
B: Biggest Fear:
PK: The Apocalypse
GBP: (Didn't admit any. Changed the subject to my hair. I say it might well be...) Giving somebody a bad haircut.
C: Current time: 6:45 p.m.
D: Drink you last had
PK: Mountain Dew
GBP: Water
E: Easiest person to talk to
PK: My husband, while living
GBP: Have no trouble talking to anybody. A motor mouth.
F: Favorite song
PK: Too many to pick just one. To sing in church, "Ein' Feste Burg." To sing at a folk song gathering, "Wildwood Flower." To sing at a gospel gathering, "The Blood." To sing at a shape-note singing event, "Soar Away." Or maybe I'd really rather listen to other people's favorites anyway.
GBP: "He Lives" (gospel song)
G: Grossest memory
PK: Norovirus. (For the record, Sandy, I don't think a healthy animal birth process is gross at all. That's OK though. I'd rather not know what was gross about the one you mentioned. There are enough gross-outs in the political news!)
GBP: (She didn't want to pick one. I mentioned a skin infection about ten years ago that has left scars. She said, "That's not the grossest one." We agreed that it was the grossest one we'd discuss here.)
H: home town
PK: Gate City, Virginia
GBP: Monument, Indiana (town no longer on the map; flooded by the TVA). Some would say Fort Wayne.
I: In love with
PK: The famous Significant Other, Mr. Privacy
GBP: "We're all supposed to be in love with Jesus. What's that scripture? Leave everything and follow Me." (She actually walked over to the bookshelf, got a Bible, and looked up Luke 18:29.)
J: Jealous of
PK: Mr. Privacy of course.
GBP: (denies being either jealous or envious of anybody)
K: Killed someone?
PK: No one human. Lots of nuisance insects. A copperhead (venomous snake), once. Dying animals.
GBP: Hit a dog once...it ran out between parked cars. (She's not counting small, cold-blooded animals. I've seen her kill those.)
L: Longest relationship
PK: Married almost ten years
GBP: Married 37 years
M: Middle name
PK: No middle name
GBP: [middle name withheld by site policy]
N: Number of siblings
PK: Two living sisters, same age, different colors
GBP: One sister (would be 93 if living)
O: One wish
PK: How does it go? To see my great-grandchildren eating off golden plates?
GBP: In the Resurrection, to see Jesus
P: Person you last called
PK: A car pool
GBP: A neighbor
Q: Question you are always asked
PK: "Are you married? Going steady?" Apparently I don't look like the celibate type, but I am.
GBP: "Do you really walk to the post office?"
R: Reason to smile
PK: Thought of something cute/clever/funny to blog about
GBP: (Other than that, yes, she does walk to the post office, I said.) In good health and looking forward to the coming of the Lord!
S: Song you last sang
PK: Hard to remember. I seldom sing when the weather is humid and my sinuses clog; usually in dry weather. It's been a humid week!
GBP: "Our God Is an Awesome God" (GBP sings in the choir at the Seventh-Day Adventist church and also, by invitation, at the Presbyterian church.)
T: Time you woke up
PK: 5:50 a.m.
GBP: 6 a.m.
U: Ultimate friend
PK: My modem-free computer at home
GBP: Jesus
V: Vacation destination
PK: Home. I've outgrown the urge to travel.
GBP: Well, (relative) thinks a vacation destination ought to be Branson! (Missouri.)
W: Worst habit
PK: Staying up late when I want to get up early
GBP: Oh I've forgotten! (Chortles. I nominate preaching.)
X: X-ray
PK: Molars
GBP: Broken wrist
Y: Yummy food
PK: Sun-ripened strawberry washed under the garden hose
GBP: Stir-fried veg
Z: Zodiac sign
PK: Whatever. (Priscilla King was born into cyberspace in June 2005, "about 40," and was surprised, some years later, to find that according to the identity data set up for her on Yahoo she'd been born in January 1964. This is currently complicating one of my e-jobs as a hostess at a "seniors" web site; Priscilla King is a very junior "senior," at 51, thus eligible for the job in cyberspace, and I certainly needed the money, but the real-world body PK inhabits is still a few weeks under age 50, thus ineligible to do the job at a physical site where it might be helpful to real seniors.)
GBP: I remember it was "on the cusp."
At this point, for some reason GBP felt motivated to show me her favorite photo (snapshot of a young man who's now in high school, as an infant) and favorite greeting card (it says "You're the best Grandma on Earth," and was printed by the best Grandson called Joshua Namewithheld on Earth, too). I don't know that anybody had asked, but if youall are getting to know her, you probably should know that her grandchildren are her favorite people.
Sunday, November 9, 2014
At This Point, Any News from Karen Bracken Is Good...
At this point, any news from Karen Bracken is good to me, so I'm glad to report that one of her e-newsletters came through. U.S. readers may view the content, with links you may use to subscribe to her e-newsletters, here:
http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382
Or go directly to her Weebly, which is working as of today:
www.tnacc.net
http://connect.freedomworks.org/node/195382
Or go directly to her Weebly, which is working as of today:
www.tnacc.net
Thursday, April 3, 2014
Let's Invent a Superstition!
In the spirit of the Washington City Paper's "Conspiracy Theory" feature (mentioned this morning at Chataway), and further inspired by one of &realityspeaks 's top posts...I would like to invent a new superstition. I think this one can be useful to all of us Bubblers because, whether there's anything to it or not, it will definitely improve the Bubbling experience.
Here's the superstition: "When the Internet keeps running slowly and/or going down, and/or the site you are using or visiting does, finding something worthwhile to do at the computer center will signal the Cybergremlins that they can't get to you, and motivate them to leave you alone."
Proof? I waited for a rainy day to come to the computer center. (When I got out of the car, the rain stopped. Now it's sunny and warm outside with a delectable cool breeze, and I wish I were at home.) Did e-mail. Did Chataway, during which the Internet blinked out for two minutes. Opened Bubblews...and the Internet immediately went down. The breeze was blowing, the air was tempting, and there I was, stuck at the computer center until 8 p.m. unless I felt inclined to walk thirty miles. So after refreshing the screen ten or fifteen times, but before saying unprintable words out loud, I remembered that I'm in a college library. And hadn't I seen Margaret Atwood's Maddadam in here? I walked over to the Literature shelf and found The Year of the Flood. Turned away from the computer, set the book on a table, took out some food, started eating and reading. The Internet immediately came back up and behaved itself and I've been reading and reacting to e-friends' Bubblews ever since.
Now I wonder if they'll let me take The Year of the Flood home? Cybergremlins? What's that?
Friday, January 17, 2014
Grandma Bonnie Peters Is Alive and Well
Rumors of Grandma Bonnie Peters' death have been greatly exaggerated. I couldn't reach her by phone and didn't get a reply from her by e-mail either, so I spent Thursday tracking her down in Kingsport. Some of her remarks appear here:
http://www.bubblews.com/news/2079900-interview-with-grandma-bonnie-peters
http://www.bubblews.com/news/2079900-interview-with-grandma-bonnie-peters
Monday, January 13, 2014
HR 56: Scuba Record Set by Gate City Man
Virginia House Resolution #56 is one of those pleasing bits of fluff that are almost always passed without debate, but I found it a fun read that made me smile, so perhaps you'll enjoy it too. (Every legislator does a few of these, every year...usually the achievements of the people formally commended are less entertaining than Jerry Hall's.) This is the text of the bill:
"HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 56
Offered January 8, 2014
Prefiled January 6, 2014
Commending Jerry Hall.
----------
Patron-- Kilgore
----------
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall, a native of Gate City in Scott County, broke the world
record for the longest scuba dive in open fresh water by remaining underwater at
South Holston Lake in Bristol, Tennessee, for 145 hours, 31 minutes, and 23
seconds; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall, a graduate of Gate City High School and a chemical operator for Eastman Chemical Company, had set two previous world records in the same category, once in 2002 and once in 2004; and
WHEREAS, for his 2013 attempt, Jerry Hall prepared physically and mentally for the challenging event that would also raise money for Speedway Children’s Charities; and
WHEREAS, on July 27, 2013, Jerry Hall went into the water at the Laurel Marina and Yacht Club, where a 12 x 12 underwater platform at a depth of approximately 25 feet became his home for the next six days and a weighted vest helped keep him underwater; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall kept busy during his underwater time, riding an underwater bike for exercise, playing checkers, watching DVDs on an underwater television, listening to music via an underwater speaker, helping people earn their diving certificates, and even eating and sleeping; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall enjoyed the skilled assistance of a volunteer crew of divers and land-based support personnel who helped him prepare for and plan the dive and switched out oxygen tanks, brought him food, and watched him while he slept; and
WHEREAS, on August 2, 2013, Jerry Hall emerged at the Laurel Marina and Yacht Club—several pounds lighter and with shriveled skin—having smashed his previous record; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall demonstrated great mental focus and determination as well as physical stamina throughout his underwater experience; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly hereby commend Jerry Hall on establishing a world record for the longest scuba dive in open fresh water; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Jerry Hall as an expression of the General Assembly’s congratulations and admiration for his remarkable achievement."
"HOUSE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 56
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall, a graduate of Gate City High School and a chemical operator for Eastman Chemical Company, had set two previous world records in the same category, once in 2002 and once in 2004; and
WHEREAS, for his 2013 attempt, Jerry Hall prepared physically and mentally for the challenging event that would also raise money for Speedway Children’s Charities; and
WHEREAS, on July 27, 2013, Jerry Hall went into the water at the Laurel Marina and Yacht Club, where a 12 x 12 underwater platform at a depth of approximately 25 feet became his home for the next six days and a weighted vest helped keep him underwater; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall kept busy during his underwater time, riding an underwater bike for exercise, playing checkers, watching DVDs on an underwater television, listening to music via an underwater speaker, helping people earn their diving certificates, and even eating and sleeping; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall enjoyed the skilled assistance of a volunteer crew of divers and land-based support personnel who helped him prepare for and plan the dive and switched out oxygen tanks, brought him food, and watched him while he slept; and
WHEREAS, on August 2, 2013, Jerry Hall emerged at the Laurel Marina and Yacht Club—several pounds lighter and with shriveled skin—having smashed his previous record; and
WHEREAS, Jerry Hall demonstrated great mental focus and determination as well as physical stamina throughout his underwater experience; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED by the House of Delegates, the Senate concurring, That the General Assembly hereby commend Jerry Hall on establishing a world record for the longest scuba dive in open fresh water; and, be it
RESOLVED FURTHER, That the Clerk of the House of Delegates prepare a copy of this resolution for presentation to Jerry Hall as an expression of the General Assembly’s congratulations and admiration for his remarkable achievement."
Thursday, August 22, 2013
Unnecessary Eye Surgery Works for Irish Octogenarian
No, you've not missed anything. I hadn't posted anything here about Oogesti's eye surgery. (Oogesti, sometimes also known as Dusty's Human, is a Cat Sanctuary colleague in his late eighties.) Oogesti broke his "good" glasses in June, and although he was walking around and even driving more comfortably without glasses than with his second-best or third-best pair, the doctor balked at prescribing a new pair of glasses until Oogesti had cataracts removed.
I said, "Whaaat?" I said, "That doctor doesn't care whether people need an operation or not; he's just determined to collect the fee for doing one before Oogesti gets any older." I said, "Isn't that the same doctor who was supposed to have removed a cataract from my father's right eye, twenty years ago, only he gave Dad a kind of eye drops that tend not to work for a lot of people of Irish descent, and Dad's reaction consisted of sudden painful permanent glaucoma, and although he had cataracts that was the real reason why, for the last ten years of his life, Dad was blind."
I thought of a lot of things to say about this plan, but as long as there was hope that the operation might work I didn't think it would be edifying to publish these thoughts. Oogesti is some sort of distant relative on Dad's mother's side; blue eyes and cataracts run in that family. I was very concerned about his operation.
However Oogesti liked the idea of being able to get the "needs glasses" thing taken off his driver's license, so yesterday he had a cataract removed from one eye. And today, as I walked out to the computer center, I thought "Is it too soon to check on him yet," started to take out my cell phone, looked up, and saw Oogesti sitting on a stone by the side of the road. He wanted everyone to know that the surgery went well.
He still has to wear a protective eye patch at night and big black wrap-around sunglasses in the daytime, but he expects to be able to read again, and is planning to have the cataract removed from the other eye in a few weeks.
It's refreshing to know that a doctor who wasn't sued for malpractice has learned from his mistakes. It's refreshing to know that there are cataract treatments that work for people of Irish descent. And it's refreshing to know that I won't have to make room for Oogesti's animal friends just yet...and yes, I'm sure that, annoying though he can be, all of the people he's been annoying all these years are glad that Oogesti is still walking around.
I said, "Whaaat?" I said, "That doctor doesn't care whether people need an operation or not; he's just determined to collect the fee for doing one before Oogesti gets any older." I said, "Isn't that the same doctor who was supposed to have removed a cataract from my father's right eye, twenty years ago, only he gave Dad a kind of eye drops that tend not to work for a lot of people of Irish descent, and Dad's reaction consisted of sudden painful permanent glaucoma, and although he had cataracts that was the real reason why, for the last ten years of his life, Dad was blind."
I thought of a lot of things to say about this plan, but as long as there was hope that the operation might work I didn't think it would be edifying to publish these thoughts. Oogesti is some sort of distant relative on Dad's mother's side; blue eyes and cataracts run in that family. I was very concerned about his operation.
However Oogesti liked the idea of being able to get the "needs glasses" thing taken off his driver's license, so yesterday he had a cataract removed from one eye. And today, as I walked out to the computer center, I thought "Is it too soon to check on him yet," started to take out my cell phone, looked up, and saw Oogesti sitting on a stone by the side of the road. He wanted everyone to know that the surgery went well.
He still has to wear a protective eye patch at night and big black wrap-around sunglasses in the daytime, but he expects to be able to read again, and is planning to have the cataract removed from the other eye in a few weeks.
It's refreshing to know that a doctor who wasn't sued for malpractice has learned from his mistakes. It's refreshing to know that there are cataract treatments that work for people of Irish descent. And it's refreshing to know that I won't have to make room for Oogesti's animal friends just yet...and yes, I'm sure that, annoying though he can be, all of the people he's been annoying all these years are glad that Oogesti is still walking around.
Wednesday, August 21, 2013
Kids Show Moves While Returning Phone
These kids earn full points for honesty: they tried to return the lost cell phone right away. But they just had to use the video feature on the phone to show the owner, and thus the world, that in addition to being nice, honest kids they're also skilled skateboarders. Liz Klimas has the heartwarming story, and cool video, here:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/21/how-a-lost-phone-and-a-group-of-skateboarders-ended-up-showing-that-kindness-still-exists-in-this-world/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/08/21/how-a-lost-phone-and-a-group-of-skateboarders-ended-up-showing-that-kindness-still-exists-in-this-world/
Monday, July 29, 2013
Don't Rob a Gun Store with a Bat
Gentle Readers, I'm sure none of you needed to be told not to rob any kind of store! This "Least Competent Criminals" story goes out to our real-world friends who work in gun stores, on the police force, as security guards, etc. Oh well...I'm sure anybody who works in any high-security, tightly regulated business anywhere can use a chuckle.
http://www.mediaite.com/online/dont-bring-a-bat-to-a-gun-store-mans-robbery-attempt-fails-miserably/
http://www.mediaite.com/online/dont-bring-a-bat-to-a-gun-store-mans-robbery-attempt-fails-miserably/
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Defunding Obamacare in the Senate
Fellow Americans (I'll post something for foreign readers next, I promise), what exactly do you hate most about Obamacare? The fascist power grab of it? The power it gives to insurance corporations to keep raising the cost of medical care at will until everyone else is bankrupt and/or dead? The way it takes away benefits on which people who really are disabled and poverty-stricken have been depending for years, perhaps all their lives? The improbability that, if Obamacare goes into effect, we'll ever get a sensible system set up for meeting the actual costs of the medical care people really need and can't pay for themselves?
Personally I find it hard to pick just one, but if any Democrats are reading this post, I'd like to ask youall to focus on the last one. This web site is not asking Congress to stop paying for Grandma's diabetic supplies or Junior's physical therapy. We never have asked that. We never will. We don't want that; we want the diabetic supplies and the physical therapy and suchlike to remain available to poor people. We suspect that a sensible plan, like the one that's worked for the Veterans Administration, could be funded without raising existing tax rates by a penny, but we would rather pay higher taxes to support a sensible plan than pay penny one into any insurance gambling racket.
So we're delighted to report that the House of Representatives has voted to defund and thus block Obamacare. Legislation to this effect was not expected to succeed, but it's moving into the Senate, and the Tea Party Patriots group want to make sure you know which U.S. Senators to thank and which ones to lean on...Republican Senators, that is. They've written off the Democrats (I don't; see below). Here is their summary of the Republican Senators and their positions:
"Obamacare is coming apart at the seams and our final chance to stop it is fast approaching. Starting in 2014, major parts of the law will be implemented that will be difficult to undo.
Recently, Senator Mike Lee from Utah issued a letter (text below) urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to defund Obamacare in light of the President's decision to lift the employer mandate burden for big businesses while keeping it in place for individuals like you and me.
The following is a list of the Republicans in the Senate. Fifteen of them have signed on to Senator Lee's Letter. The rest of them have not. Yet all of them have either voted against Obamacare or have publicly opposed the law. We are asking you to call the Republicans in the Senate today. Thank those who have signed on to Senator Lee's letter for their bold stance against Obamacare. To those who have not signed on to Senator Lee's letter, we need to encourage them to do so and ask them why they have not done so yet. The bottom line is, voting to fund Obamacare is voting to own it.
This is our last chance to stop this train wreck from wreaking havoc on our economy and our health care system. Please call them today!
Have Signed on to Senator Lee's Letter: (Thank these Senators)
Have Not Signed on to Senator Lee's Letter: (Encourage these Senators)
Personally, I'm not so sure that we need to write off the Democrats either. The word "Democrat" does not inherently mean either "lacking intelligence" or "lacking good will"; we had good Democrats in Congress who opposed Obamacare, if only on the grounds that nobody had actually read the full text of the proposal. Democrats do, by definition, support the general idea of a national plan to subsidize medical care for poor people; they've supported that at least since the Kennedy Administration, but they're not necessarily stupid enough to think that forcing everybody to support increasingly expensive gambling rip-offs is the way to implement the plan they want. If you are a Democrat or are on speaking terms with Democrats in the Senate, your role in derailing the "train wreck" of Obamacare and building a workable alternative plan will be vital. Liberal Republicans like Senators McCain and Graham, and conservative Democrats like Senator Mark Warner, have a wonderful opportunity here to take charge of constructing a bipartisan health care plan that can actually work. And this web site says the sooner the better.
Btw...does anyone out there want to thank the Tea Party Patriots for compiling this list? Write, call, or click:
Tea Party Patriots
1025 Rose Creek Drive
Ste 620-322
Woodstock, GA 30189
Support: 404-593-0877
http://www.tppsupport.org
Personally I find it hard to pick just one, but if any Democrats are reading this post, I'd like to ask youall to focus on the last one. This web site is not asking Congress to stop paying for Grandma's diabetic supplies or Junior's physical therapy. We never have asked that. We never will. We don't want that; we want the diabetic supplies and the physical therapy and suchlike to remain available to poor people. We suspect that a sensible plan, like the one that's worked for the Veterans Administration, could be funded without raising existing tax rates by a penny, but we would rather pay higher taxes to support a sensible plan than pay penny one into any insurance gambling racket.
So we're delighted to report that the House of Representatives has voted to defund and thus block Obamacare. Legislation to this effect was not expected to succeed, but it's moving into the Senate, and the Tea Party Patriots group want to make sure you know which U.S. Senators to thank and which ones to lean on...Republican Senators, that is. They've written off the Democrats (I don't; see below). Here is their summary of the Republican Senators and their positions:
"Obamacare is coming apart at the seams and our final chance to stop it is fast approaching. Starting in 2014, major parts of the law will be implemented that will be difficult to undo.
Recently, Senator Mike Lee from Utah issued a letter (text below) urging Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to defund Obamacare in light of the President's decision to lift the employer mandate burden for big businesses while keeping it in place for individuals like you and me.
The following is a list of the Republicans in the Senate. Fifteen of them have signed on to Senator Lee's Letter. The rest of them have not. Yet all of them have either voted against Obamacare or have publicly opposed the law. We are asking you to call the Republicans in the Senate today. Thank those who have signed on to Senator Lee's letter for their bold stance against Obamacare. To those who have not signed on to Senator Lee's letter, we need to encourage them to do so and ask them why they have not done so yet. The bottom line is, voting to fund Obamacare is voting to own it.
This is our last chance to stop this train wreck from wreaking havoc on our economy and our health care system. Please call them today!
Have Signed on to Senator Lee's Letter: (Thank these Senators)
Marco Rubio, FL: (202) 224-3041
Chuck Grassley, IA: (202) 224-3744
James Risch, ID: (202) 224-2752
Mark Kirk, IL: (202) 224-2854
Rand Paul, KY: (202) 224-4343
David Vitter, LA: (202) 224-4623
Roger Wicker, MS: (202) 224-6253
Deb Fischer, NE: (202) 224-6551
Jeff Chiesa, NJ: (202) 224-3224
Jim Inhofe, OK: (202) 224-4721
John Thune, SD: (202) 224-2321
John Cornyn, TX: (202) 224-2934
Ted Cruz, TX: (202) 224-5922
Mike Lee, UT: (202) 224-5444
Mike Enzi, WY: (202) 224-3424
Have Not Signed on to Senator Lee's Letter: (Encourage these Senators)
Lisa Murkowski, AK: (202) 224-6665
Jeff Sessions, AL: (202) 224-4124
Richard Shelby, AL: (202) 224-5744
John Boozman, AR: (202) 224-4843
Jeff Flake, AZ: (202) 224-4521
John McCain, AZ: (202) 224-2235
Saxby Chambliss, GA: (202) 224-3521
Johnny Isakson, GA: (202) 224-3643
Mike Crapo, ID: (202) 224-6142
Dan Coats, IN: (202) 224-5623
Jerry Moran, KS: (202) 224-6521
Pat Roberts, KS: (202) 224-4774
Mitch McConnell, KY: (202) 224-2541
Susan Collins, ME: (202) 224-2523
Roy Blunt, MO: (202) 224-5721
Thad Cochran, MS: (202) 224-5054
Richard Burr, NC: (202) 224-3154
John Hoeven, ND: (202) 224-2551
Mike Johanns, NE: (202) 224-4224
Kelly Ayotte, NH: (202) 224-3324
Dean Heller, NV: (202) 224-6244
Rob Portman, OH: (202) 224-3353
Tom Coburn, OK: (202) 224-5754
Pat Toomey, PA: (202) 224-4254
Lindsey Graham, SC: (202) 224-5972
Tim Scott, SC: (202) 224-6121
Lamar Alexander, TN: (202) 224-4944
Bob Corker, TN: (202) 224-3344
Orrin Hatch, UT: (202) 224-5251
Ron Johnson, WI: (202) 224-5323
John Barrasso, WY: (202) 224-6441
We may not always agree with our elected officials, but it is important to thank them when they do the right thing. Likewise, it is important for us to encourage those who need help doing the right thing.
In Liberty,
Tea Party Patriots Support Team
In Liberty,
Tea Party Patriots Support Team
Text of Senator Lee's Letter:
Dear Leader Reid:
We view the Obama Administration’s recent decision to delay Obamacare's employer mandate and eligibility verification for the individual exchanges as further proof the law is a failure that will inevitably hurt businesses, American families, and the economy.
In light of this admission, we believe the only way to avert disaster is to fully repeal Obamacare and start over with a more sensible, practical approach to reforming our healthcare system.
However, if Democrats will not agree with Republicans that Obamacare must be repealed, perhaps they can at least agree with the president that the law cannot be implemented as written. If the administration will not enforce the law as written, then the American people should not be forced to fund it.
This is a matter not only of fiscal prudence, but of fundamental fairness as well. The president cannot seriously expect to waive Obamacare’s onerous mandates on large businesses, while simultaneously forcing individuals and families to pay to implement an individual mandate the public has opposed since before the law was even passed.
For these reasons, we will not support any continuing resolution or appropriations legislation that funds further implementation or enforcement of Obamacare.
Sincerely,
Sens. Lee, Rubio, Cruz, Cornyn, Risch, Paul, Inhofe, Vitter, Wicker, Kirk, Thune, Chiesa, Enzi, Fischer, and Grassley."
Personally, I'm not so sure that we need to write off the Democrats either. The word "Democrat" does not inherently mean either "lacking intelligence" or "lacking good will"; we had good Democrats in Congress who opposed Obamacare, if only on the grounds that nobody had actually read the full text of the proposal. Democrats do, by definition, support the general idea of a national plan to subsidize medical care for poor people; they've supported that at least since the Kennedy Administration, but they're not necessarily stupid enough to think that forcing everybody to support increasingly expensive gambling rip-offs is the way to implement the plan they want. If you are a Democrat or are on speaking terms with Democrats in the Senate, your role in derailing the "train wreck" of Obamacare and building a workable alternative plan will be vital. Liberal Republicans like Senators McCain and Graham, and conservative Democrats like Senator Mark Warner, have a wonderful opportunity here to take charge of constructing a bipartisan health care plan that can actually work. And this web site says the sooner the better.
Btw...does anyone out there want to thank the Tea Party Patriots for compiling this list? Write, call, or click:
Tea Party Patriots
1025 Rose Creek Drive
Ste 620-322
Woodstock, GA 30189
Support: 404-593-0877
http://www.tppsupport.org
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