(Update: No, a retraction in the comment section is not enough for this one. This post, as written, contained a big bad mistake. I want to leave it as written, as an act of humility; I owe readers a correction at the very beginning. The system I describe the Veterans Administration using, below, is the one that had worked for many veterans, including my father, in the twentieth century. Around the turn of the century the V.A. switched to the insurance-based system that is not serving younger veterans nearly so well. I should have researched that before blithely posting about the system I remembered. I apologize.)
Is Obamacare "a train wreck" for the U.S. economy? Absolutely. That's why the U.S. House of Representatives voted to repeal it.
So why did otherwise decent people support it? Well, I don't know about your U.S. Senators, and only one of mine was in the Senate at the time...I think people like Mark Warner supported Obamacare because:
(1) Social Security, SSI, Medicare, Medicaid, etc., use money paid into a federal fund by working people to provide pensions and medical care payments to retired people. When the system was set up, it worked reasonably well for people in both categories. As the proportion of retired to working people in America has increased, the system has become unsustainable. We need additional funding to secure the material comfort of older people...and a lot of us are moving into that "older" category.
(2) Obamacare was what was proposed, and people all up and down the Democratic Party, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, Mitt Romney, Harry Reid, as well as Nancy Pelosi, were prodding other Democrats to support Obamacare even if they saw problems with it: "We've got to pass it in order to know what's in it!" When an occasional Democrat, like Rick Boucher of blessed memory, tried to act on principle and straighten out Obamacare before s/he supported it, these Democrats tended to fall between the two stools--as Boucher did--and lose the next election.
(3) Because some people really and truly do see Obamacare as a way of "caring about" their poor old grandparents who "have to" take $200 worth of pills every day to survive. And although these people may be clueless about real health care, they really and truly do care about their grandparents. Many Democrats are in this category. Some people who read this web site may not have many opportunities to observe the behavior of Democrats; I can assure those people that caring, though uninformed, Democrats were burning up the phone lines. "It's not decent for Americans to allow our grandparents to suffer and die for lack of medical treatment, we have to find a way to fund whatever sort of care will keep them with us a little longer," etc. etc. etc. "Don't argue about the perfect way to do it, just vote for a national 'health care' plan now and fix it later...'cos I'm due to retire soon, too!!!"
There may in some cases have been other, less honorable reasons why some of our Senators supported Obamacare. If you know for certain what those reasons are, then replacing your Senator may be a high priority. But I'd like (once again) to ask Tea Partiers to think about the most obvious reasons why anybody ever voted for Obamacare. They are reasonable reasons. We can work with these reasons and people. We can convince them that there are better ways to secure the comfort of our senior citizens, and our future selves.
If you've been thinking that we need to leave all health/medical care decisions to the individual, you should be aware by now that you're in a minority. Most of us do have some elders who aren't wealthy; most of us want those elders to be as comfortable, at age ninety, as the ones who are wealthy. Most of us are even willing to pay taxes to support some sort of federal medical care fund, if that fund is set up in such a way that there's any chance at all that it might work.
How do we make a national medical care plan workable? First we cut out the unnecessary expense of the insurance system. Our national plan has to work on a pay-as-we-go basis, rather than being a gamble. We can pay only the actual costs of medical care, which do not include the expense of maintaining any insurance companies any individuals may privately choose to support.
My own preference would be to require all existing insurance companies to refund all money they had received, and criminalize any future insurance schemes...but this is America and I have no constitutional right to impose my religious beliefs on other people. Nor have the people, like Mitt Romney, who sincerely believe that everybody ought to buy into an insurance scheme.
However, to keep the cost of a national medical care plan low, we allow funds to be used only to pay for treatments that have actually helped a patient, and only if the patient has produced evidence that s/he can't pay for those treatments.
Another consideration for many people is privacy. Medical researchers would have an easier job if everybody's complete medical history were on record in a central database, where they could count exactly how many people who received a certain treatment for, say, head lice complained of, say, hair loss fifty years later. Other people, even some people who do medical research, think about this issue a bit longer and realize that we don't necessarily want everyone to be able to find out whether we've ever had head lice.
Nor do we want busybodies telling us what to do about them if we have. I grew up hearing that eating lots of whole-wheat bread was the key to regular digestion. Around age thirty I discovered that for me, personally, eating whole-wheat bread was the primary cause of my chronic irregular digestion. Now we're all watching Mayor Bloomberg's mock war with Coca-Cola, the big pretext for inflating the price of soda pop, and being told that soda pop causes obesity and tooth decay. I drink soda pop; I've never been obese, and although I have tooth fillings I got most of them while I was a child whose parents didn't let me drink soda pop. Because nobody knows all the answers to anybody else's personal health questions, the mere prospect of a national health care plan is encouraging some busybodies to try to demand that whole cities, or states or countries, become guinea pigs for their own pet theories. This we don't need.
So, to keep a national medical care plan from turning into a scheme to enable people to harass one another, we need to build in some privacy. We need to ensure that people who seek medical treatment have the option of paying cash to maintain their medical records under the name "Cash Customer."
A third consideration is that we need to know that a system is workable. In the United States, we have a small-scale model for a workable medical care system in the Veterans Administration. Any veteran, even an able-bodied veteran who served only a few years in peacetime, has been able to obtain medical care. The process of applying for funds to cover medical expenses is long and tedious enough to motivate reasonably healthy veterans to pay cash. If and when their expenses exceed their ability to pay, veterans may apply for V.A. funds to cover unpaid expenses or even reimburse them for payments they have made, but these applications are reviewed in the year after treatment has been provided. This system has been working for many years. In fact, as I remember from my father's retirement years and as Glenn Beck has discussed in Broke, doctors have had an automatic incentive to bill these cash-paying veterans at a lower rate--not just because the cash-paying veterans tend to command respect, personally, but also because processing payment directly from the patient costs the doctors less than dealing with insurance companies and their nine hundred and ninety-nine ways to get out of paying what they might reasonably be asked to pay.
A national medical care plan does not need to emulate the V.A. system in allocating funds based on length and conditions of service and rank upon discharge. A national medical care plan would probably be better off to prioritize funding in the same way emergency medical personnel prioritize patients' admission to hospitals--the most life-threatening cases first. However, the general idea of encouraging patients to pay cash if they can, then assessing the amount of funds that need to be disbursed and budgeting to cover only what was really necessary and helpful, is something any national medical care plan needs.
(Bonus: By calling it a medical care plan, we'd be taking a long step toward reminding people that they're responsible for managing their own health care plans--caring for their personal health by eating sensibly, going to bed on time, saying no to drugs, and so on.)
Will party spirit cause the Senate to block the House vote to repeal Obamacare? Not necessarily. Awareness of how unworkable Obamacare would be caused Democrats in the House to vote to repeal Obamacare. Senators have access to the same facts and figures that those House Democrats had. If anybody in Congress is still clinging to Obamacare, the reason is likely to be that those people don't know of a better way to operate a national medical care plan. If they read this article, that will no longer be the case.
There is still hope for a national medical care plan that won't destroy our national economy. Please keep your Senators aware of this hope as legislation to repeal Obamacare comes before the U.S. Senate.
Saturday, May 18, 2013
Friday, May 17, 2013
The World's Worst Tenants Illustrate Body Language
Back in the 1970s and 1980s, when "body language" was a hot topic, I sometimes felt that I was the only one who'd noticed: Not all bodies speak the same language.
On the principle of making a point easier for people to grasp by giving them a chuckle, I used to add that just mirroring the most obvious things you saw someone else's body doing, and assuming that the person meant by them what you thought you might mean by them, is like translating "Sic transit gloria mundi" as "Gloria was sick on the transit on Monday."
Over time I think enough people either recognized that different bodies have different languages, or were annoyed by other people's misinterpretations of their body language, that the whole topic of body language seems to have cooled off. Too bad. There are still useful things to be learned from observing body language, provided that we recognize the immensity and complexity of the subject.
My main body language problem used to go like this: Someone would shove something too close to my face. I'd back away so my astigmatic eyes could see what that thing was (if you move fast, it's possible to shove something into my hands before I can see whether it's a map or a book or, for all I know, a dinner plate). The other person would interpret my body language as some sort of rejection or withholding of attention, and would then start flapping and squawking and yelling and emoting in a frantic demand for immediate attention. By the time the person started flapping his or her hands and/or grabbing at me and/or yelling, I'd be able to see the object the person was trying to call to my attention, and even read what was printed on it...but by that time I would be more concerned with discouraging the person, since s/he was behaving in such an obnoxious way.
So many of the problems children have in this world come from the way we as a society treat children. Children outgrow many of their behavior problems as soon as they reach an age where no normal person does the things to which their undesirable behavior was a reaction. As an adult I need even more time to be able to read a piece of paper that's been thrust into my hands, but society now expects and allows me to stall politely for as much time as I need...
Fast-forward: Although I don't own a set, sometimes at friends' houses I watch television. A show that some people I know find entertaining is the Spike reality series about the "World's Worst Tenants." In some episodes the team who deliver complaints and eviction notices have seemed reasonably respectful of tenants and have even taken the tenants' side, but in one recent show I wondered whether there was a conscious intention of showing how those hired to deliver bad news can make their job more unpleasant than it should be.
In one hour, we watched the team confront (1) an ordinary eviction of a squatter who presented blatantly bogus cheques as evidence that he'd been paying rent, (2) what seemed to be an ordinary eviction until the renter got mad and destroyed the owner's car, (3) the foreign family participating in an unauthorized home exchange, (4) a Santeria group, (5) a taxi service that had sublet their building to an adult service, and (6) what were reported as illegal dogs but turned out to be human renters playing werewolves.
In each encounter, the tough-guy character, Todd, got louder and more belligerent. Maybe the idea was that thinking about the renter who'd destroyed the owner's car made him angry, and his week just went downhill from there. He spoke first to the next four groups of tenants, and in each house someone threatened him; someone pulled a knife, and one of the "werewolves" physically attacked him.
Of course this show is being reenacted for Spike, so each scene is supposed to be stripped down and speeded up, but I found myself disliking Tough Guy Todd as this informative (about landlord-tenant laws in California) and often funny show played on. Noticeably taller and heavier than anyone else on the show, Todd barged into houses and yards too fast, talked too fast and too loud, got too close and literally loomed up over people, interrupted, tried to hurry people through confrontations that seemed to be completely unexpected by them, and generally seemed to be turning a stressful job into a way to look for fights.
By the scene where the team realized that the tenant who wasn't making it easy for the landlord to display the property was operating an adult service in the building, I found myself rooting for the madam...now that's how you know you're watching the character with the legitimate job doing his job really badly.
Barking orders while people are trying to process what you've said may fit into some people's dominance fantasies. It does work well with dogs. It may even work with some humans; humans with extroversion have always reminded me of dogs. It does not work with humans who don't enjoy being bullied. It generates resistance, sometimes even violence.
When Todd approached the house where the exchange was taking place, a young man came to the door and summoned his parents. Todd barged inside while the older people came to meet him. As the young man tried to translate what he understood Todd to say for his parents' benefit, Todd seemed to fall into the really stupid mistake of imagining that everyone in the world can understand your version of English if you shout loudly enough. Instead of politely straightening out a misunderstanding, everyone was yelling and screaming.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Don't open your mouth until the other person has finished speaking. Listening provides information you need.
When Todd approached one of the other houses (the team visited both the werewolves and the Santeria group twice), nobody answered the front door, so Todd barged on into the back yard. Not too surprisingly, somebody waved a serious-looking knife and yelled at him to get off the property.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Back off. If you're trying to communicate with people in a situation that could become hostile, be extremely respectful. Never get even close enough to shake hands until you've made sure that the other person is willing to shake hands with you.
And I'm not sure about the law in California, but in any place where I've lived as an adult, if you're (a) on someone's property, (b) unexpectedly, (c) yelling and acting angry, you're likely to be shot. In real life, even police officers aren't supposed to act the way Todd was acting.
No, the surprise was that, even in view of Todd's manners, several of the tenants seemed to hear him say "I'm working for the owner" and give him a chance to produce evidence that he was. In real life, people often fail to hear words that are spoken in a loud, aggressive manner. When people feel threatened, their attention shifts from listening to words to defending themselves. If Todd popped up in my yard, having some sort of legitimate business there--e.g. hand-delivering a message--but acting the way he was acting on TV, would I hear him explain his business? Of course not. I wouldn't even bother to tell him I was calling the police. I'd lock myself into the office and do it.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: If you can't be calm and peaceable when approaching someone you don't know well, fade back and let someone else talk. Even if you're notifying people that some distant acquaintance died without an heir and left them a fortune, they don't hear the words when you're yelling.
When people really understand even one other person's body language, the "psychic bond" between them will seem conspicuous and even supernatural. Most of us are doing well to identify a few of the common elements between our body language and those of other people. However, demographic factors can sometimes help us decode other people's body language.
One thing that was well portrayed on this TV show was that panicky body language doesn't indicate guilt so much as it indicates surprise. The house swappers, who weren't doing anything immoral and had no reason to think they were even doing something objectionable, panicked because they were suddenly confronted by a large angry man screaming in a foreign language. Who wouldn't? The madam, who had obviously researched local laws to find a place where what she was doing wouldn't get her straight into jail, didn't panic because she expected hostility and was prepared to deal with it.
One thing that's unlikely to be portrayed on this particular TV show was how the expectations people have, based on their social status, shape their body language. Even the werewolves were much more tolerant of Todd's bad manners, because they were renters, than anyone could reasonably expect property owners to be.
On the other hand children, who have no rights to speak of, would also be likely to react to a loud, bullying manner in a completely different way than the renters did. I remember, as a child, being told "Just ignore the pests and they will stop pestering you." For years I couldn't seem to convince pests that I was ignoring them, and then, it seems to me now, I suddenly got the hang of it and was able to lock down almost any reaction at all, becoming so motionless and expressionless that I could even intimidate a few timid people who hadn't been pestering me. I wonder whether that's what's going on when children who may have had learning or personal problems, but have seemed normal up to age ten or twelve, are suddenly mislabelled autistic. Whether these children see and hear as much as they ever did, but are really focussing on their success in not cooperating in what they perceive as bullying in any way. ("But these are adults..." Children feel bullied by adults too.)
Why do people use the counterproductive body language Todd was using? Because, in the first scene, it worked. The squatter, who had no rights and knew it, used the human equivalent of underdog body language in response to Todd's top-dog body language. Unfortunately, for the rest of the hour we watched the body language that had worked with the squatter failing to work with other people. Even more unfortunately, when we don't take time to think through our behavior choices, we behave like pigeons in a cage: If something works for us only one time out of ten, we'll wear ourselves out repeating the behavior in the hope that the next time will be one of the times when it works.
In real life, domineering over someone else may feel good; for some people it even seems to be addictive. The only trouble is that, for those who become addicted to loud, angry, aggressive communication, maintaining relationships where that kind of behavior is tolerated tends to demand a lot of violence and cruelty. On the TV show Todd and his wife seem to be satisfied with their relationship, but in real life men like Todd often feel that they can only enjoy the relationships they have with their wives or children...because those relationships are abusive. They have to act civil at work, so they compensate by falsely accusing and beating up some family member at home.
If I sent this complaint to Spike headquarters, no doubt the response would be, "It's supposed to appeal to young men only, so what are old aunts and grandparents like youall doing, even watching this show? You're supposed to hate it." Well, too bad...nobody who was watching this show hated it. Everyone who was watching it agreed that it was funny. But it was funny because it was unrealistic; in real life guys who act like Todd don't live to be as old as Todd looks. An addiction to angry, stressful communication and bullying relationships is part of a deadly physical disease.
In real life, guys who act like Todd--or want to--may appreciate the support of other men in learning more effective ways to communicate. Real police officers and FBI agents get this kind of training at work. If you don't want a career in law enforcement but do want to be able to maintain real control of a situation by not appearing to be a bully, here are two web sites maintained by mature men who may be able to help:
http://adrr.com/
http://www.angerbusters.com/
On the principle of making a point easier for people to grasp by giving them a chuckle, I used to add that just mirroring the most obvious things you saw someone else's body doing, and assuming that the person meant by them what you thought you might mean by them, is like translating "Sic transit gloria mundi" as "Gloria was sick on the transit on Monday."
Over time I think enough people either recognized that different bodies have different languages, or were annoyed by other people's misinterpretations of their body language, that the whole topic of body language seems to have cooled off. Too bad. There are still useful things to be learned from observing body language, provided that we recognize the immensity and complexity of the subject.
My main body language problem used to go like this: Someone would shove something too close to my face. I'd back away so my astigmatic eyes could see what that thing was (if you move fast, it's possible to shove something into my hands before I can see whether it's a map or a book or, for all I know, a dinner plate). The other person would interpret my body language as some sort of rejection or withholding of attention, and would then start flapping and squawking and yelling and emoting in a frantic demand for immediate attention. By the time the person started flapping his or her hands and/or grabbing at me and/or yelling, I'd be able to see the object the person was trying to call to my attention, and even read what was printed on it...but by that time I would be more concerned with discouraging the person, since s/he was behaving in such an obnoxious way.
So many of the problems children have in this world come from the way we as a society treat children. Children outgrow many of their behavior problems as soon as they reach an age where no normal person does the things to which their undesirable behavior was a reaction. As an adult I need even more time to be able to read a piece of paper that's been thrust into my hands, but society now expects and allows me to stall politely for as much time as I need...
Fast-forward: Although I don't own a set, sometimes at friends' houses I watch television. A show that some people I know find entertaining is the Spike reality series about the "World's Worst Tenants." In some episodes the team who deliver complaints and eviction notices have seemed reasonably respectful of tenants and have even taken the tenants' side, but in one recent show I wondered whether there was a conscious intention of showing how those hired to deliver bad news can make their job more unpleasant than it should be.
In one hour, we watched the team confront (1) an ordinary eviction of a squatter who presented blatantly bogus cheques as evidence that he'd been paying rent, (2) what seemed to be an ordinary eviction until the renter got mad and destroyed the owner's car, (3) the foreign family participating in an unauthorized home exchange, (4) a Santeria group, (5) a taxi service that had sublet their building to an adult service, and (6) what were reported as illegal dogs but turned out to be human renters playing werewolves.
In each encounter, the tough-guy character, Todd, got louder and more belligerent. Maybe the idea was that thinking about the renter who'd destroyed the owner's car made him angry, and his week just went downhill from there. He spoke first to the next four groups of tenants, and in each house someone threatened him; someone pulled a knife, and one of the "werewolves" physically attacked him.
Of course this show is being reenacted for Spike, so each scene is supposed to be stripped down and speeded up, but I found myself disliking Tough Guy Todd as this informative (about landlord-tenant laws in California) and often funny show played on. Noticeably taller and heavier than anyone else on the show, Todd barged into houses and yards too fast, talked too fast and too loud, got too close and literally loomed up over people, interrupted, tried to hurry people through confrontations that seemed to be completely unexpected by them, and generally seemed to be turning a stressful job into a way to look for fights.
By the scene where the team realized that the tenant who wasn't making it easy for the landlord to display the property was operating an adult service in the building, I found myself rooting for the madam...now that's how you know you're watching the character with the legitimate job doing his job really badly.
Barking orders while people are trying to process what you've said may fit into some people's dominance fantasies. It does work well with dogs. It may even work with some humans; humans with extroversion have always reminded me of dogs. It does not work with humans who don't enjoy being bullied. It generates resistance, sometimes even violence.
When Todd approached the house where the exchange was taking place, a young man came to the door and summoned his parents. Todd barged inside while the older people came to meet him. As the young man tried to translate what he understood Todd to say for his parents' benefit, Todd seemed to fall into the really stupid mistake of imagining that everyone in the world can understand your version of English if you shout loudly enough. Instead of politely straightening out a misunderstanding, everyone was yelling and screaming.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Don't open your mouth until the other person has finished speaking. Listening provides information you need.
When Todd approached one of the other houses (the team visited both the werewolves and the Santeria group twice), nobody answered the front door, so Todd barged on into the back yard. Not too surprisingly, somebody waved a serious-looking knife and yelled at him to get off the property.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: Back off. If you're trying to communicate with people in a situation that could become hostile, be extremely respectful. Never get even close enough to shake hands until you've made sure that the other person is willing to shake hands with you.
And I'm not sure about the law in California, but in any place where I've lived as an adult, if you're (a) on someone's property, (b) unexpectedly, (c) yelling and acting angry, you're likely to be shot. In real life, even police officers aren't supposed to act the way Todd was acting.
No, the surprise was that, even in view of Todd's manners, several of the tenants seemed to hear him say "I'm working for the owner" and give him a chance to produce evidence that he was. In real life, people often fail to hear words that are spoken in a loud, aggressive manner. When people feel threatened, their attention shifts from listening to words to defending themselves. If Todd popped up in my yard, having some sort of legitimate business there--e.g. hand-delivering a message--but acting the way he was acting on TV, would I hear him explain his business? Of course not. I wouldn't even bother to tell him I was calling the police. I'd lock myself into the office and do it.
Somebody really ought to tell guys like Todd: If you can't be calm and peaceable when approaching someone you don't know well, fade back and let someone else talk. Even if you're notifying people that some distant acquaintance died without an heir and left them a fortune, they don't hear the words when you're yelling.
When people really understand even one other person's body language, the "psychic bond" between them will seem conspicuous and even supernatural. Most of us are doing well to identify a few of the common elements between our body language and those of other people. However, demographic factors can sometimes help us decode other people's body language.
One thing that was well portrayed on this TV show was that panicky body language doesn't indicate guilt so much as it indicates surprise. The house swappers, who weren't doing anything immoral and had no reason to think they were even doing something objectionable, panicked because they were suddenly confronted by a large angry man screaming in a foreign language. Who wouldn't? The madam, who had obviously researched local laws to find a place where what she was doing wouldn't get her straight into jail, didn't panic because she expected hostility and was prepared to deal with it.
One thing that's unlikely to be portrayed on this particular TV show was how the expectations people have, based on their social status, shape their body language. Even the werewolves were much more tolerant of Todd's bad manners, because they were renters, than anyone could reasonably expect property owners to be.
On the other hand children, who have no rights to speak of, would also be likely to react to a loud, bullying manner in a completely different way than the renters did. I remember, as a child, being told "Just ignore the pests and they will stop pestering you." For years I couldn't seem to convince pests that I was ignoring them, and then, it seems to me now, I suddenly got the hang of it and was able to lock down almost any reaction at all, becoming so motionless and expressionless that I could even intimidate a few timid people who hadn't been pestering me. I wonder whether that's what's going on when children who may have had learning or personal problems, but have seemed normal up to age ten or twelve, are suddenly mislabelled autistic. Whether these children see and hear as much as they ever did, but are really focussing on their success in not cooperating in what they perceive as bullying in any way. ("But these are adults..." Children feel bullied by adults too.)
Why do people use the counterproductive body language Todd was using? Because, in the first scene, it worked. The squatter, who had no rights and knew it, used the human equivalent of underdog body language in response to Todd's top-dog body language. Unfortunately, for the rest of the hour we watched the body language that had worked with the squatter failing to work with other people. Even more unfortunately, when we don't take time to think through our behavior choices, we behave like pigeons in a cage: If something works for us only one time out of ten, we'll wear ourselves out repeating the behavior in the hope that the next time will be one of the times when it works.
In real life, domineering over someone else may feel good; for some people it even seems to be addictive. The only trouble is that, for those who become addicted to loud, angry, aggressive communication, maintaining relationships where that kind of behavior is tolerated tends to demand a lot of violence and cruelty. On the TV show Todd and his wife seem to be satisfied with their relationship, but in real life men like Todd often feel that they can only enjoy the relationships they have with their wives or children...because those relationships are abusive. They have to act civil at work, so they compensate by falsely accusing and beating up some family member at home.
If I sent this complaint to Spike headquarters, no doubt the response would be, "It's supposed to appeal to young men only, so what are old aunts and grandparents like youall doing, even watching this show? You're supposed to hate it." Well, too bad...nobody who was watching this show hated it. Everyone who was watching it agreed that it was funny. But it was funny because it was unrealistic; in real life guys who act like Todd don't live to be as old as Todd looks. An addiction to angry, stressful communication and bullying relationships is part of a deadly physical disease.
In real life, guys who act like Todd--or want to--may appreciate the support of other men in learning more effective ways to communicate. Real police officers and FBI agents get this kind of training at work. If you don't want a career in law enforcement but do want to be able to maintain real control of a situation by not appearing to be a bully, here are two web sites maintained by mature men who may be able to help:
http://adrr.com/
http://www.angerbusters.com/
Should Marines Hold Umbrellas?
There are plenty of legitimate complaints to be made about the current administration, but some of Liz Klimas' correspondents seem desperate...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/was-it-against-uniform-protocol-for-the-marine-to-hold-obamas-umbrella/
Should a U.S. Marine hold an umbrella over a President, a visiting dignitary, or any person who's not dressed for wet weather? What about holding a door for the person walking behind them? What about waiting at the red light, while in the car closest to the intersection, for someone with an obvious "mobility impairment" to hobble across the street? What about passing a pitcher of water or a saltshaker down the table? Duh. Marines are still human beings.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/17/was-it-against-uniform-protocol-for-the-marine-to-hold-obamas-umbrella/
Should a U.S. Marine hold an umbrella over a President, a visiting dignitary, or any person who's not dressed for wet weather? What about holding a door for the person walking behind them? What about waiting at the red light, while in the car closest to the intersection, for someone with an obvious "mobility impairment" to hobble across the street? What about passing a pitcher of water or a saltshaker down the table? Duh. Marines are still human beings.
Realtors Against "Smart Growth"
Although no members of this web site are realtors, some readers may be. Or you might want to add your favorite realtor to this network...
From Heather Gass:
" If you are a realtor please join this Facebook site and help get the real estate world aware of the dangers of Smart Growth and Agenda21!
From Heather Gass:
" If you are a realtor please join this Facebook site and help get the real estate world aware of the dangers of Smart Growth and Agenda21!
Heather Gass
telephone: (510)-220-0603
Better Homes and Gardens
430 San Ramon Valley Blvd
Danville, Ca 94526"
Phenology: Flower and Butterfly Pictures
I wanted to share some flower and butterfly images, and instead of waiting for somebody to send this web site exclusive digital pictures, I went to Morguefile and ganked a few pictures that look like the flowers and butterflies I saw on the way to the computer center this morning.
White clover has been blooming for several days...
...and today I saw the first red clover bloom...
These pictures, courtesy of www.morguefile.com, may be misleading about the size difference in these plants and their blooms. On the computer I'm using, the red clover and the smaller, more distant white clover blossoms look about life-size; the one that's too close to the camera, and looks blurry, looks magnified to me.
The Zebra Swallowtail who's been flitting about the Cat Sanctuary is still here; while some moths live only a day or a week after emerging from their cocoons, swallowtail butterflies live about six weeks...
The Morguefile user who posted this image, which could have been our Zebra sitting on the gravel road but isn't, identified it as "Strange Butterfly." Zebra Swallowtails are strange; they're the only North American representative of a tropical family called Kite Swallowtails. They're a little smaller than our other Swallowtails, and have different body shapes. They usually start out with equally long "tails" on each hind wing, but the function of the "tails" is to break off when grabbed by birds.
We also have our first generation of Tiger Swallowtails:
Either male or female Tigers can look like the picture above, but some females look like this:
Although the black-winged female gets some survival advantage from looking like other kinds of Swallowtails that taste bad to birds, the male can recognize her by size (she's as big as he is) and scent. If these two butterflies mate, their offspring will resemble one parent or the other. They do not, as folklore suggests, produce this distinctive (and smaller) species:
I grew up calling dark female Tigers "Black Swallowtails" and the smaller species "Royal Swallowtails," and believing that they were hybrids between Black and Tiger Swallowtails. This is erroneous. The smaller swallowtails with the bands of yellow spots are one of two Swallowtails found in Europe--the darker species--and are officially known as Black Swallowtails, although some female Tiger Swallowtails are blacker. Baby Black Swallowtails are also called Parsley Caterpillars because, although they naturally eat weeds, they enjoy parsley when they can get it. (Baby Tiger Swallowtails usually eat leaves found at the tops of tall trees; we seldom see them.)
At the Cat Sanctuary this year we've also seen Spring Azures...
...and this small, common species...
Today's the first time I've seen one of these sulphur butterflies this spring:
Finally, although I didn't look for anything similar on Morguefile...our yellow iris is in full bloom, and how it is blooming this year. As if the plants had resolved not to be outdone by the "giant iris" when and if it gets around to blooming, this year the yellow iris blooms, which are normally about two feet tall, are shooting up three and four feet tall. In a way it's alarming. I don't know whether it means the plant is thriving on this year's weather, or sending up one last bloom before it dies. All I know for sure is that I didn't have to bend over to sniff this morning's new iris blossom.
White clover has been blooming for several days...
...and today I saw the first red clover bloom...
These pictures, courtesy of www.morguefile.com, may be misleading about the size difference in these plants and their blooms. On the computer I'm using, the red clover and the smaller, more distant white clover blossoms look about life-size; the one that's too close to the camera, and looks blurry, looks magnified to me.
The Zebra Swallowtail who's been flitting about the Cat Sanctuary is still here; while some moths live only a day or a week after emerging from their cocoons, swallowtail butterflies live about six weeks...
The Morguefile user who posted this image, which could have been our Zebra sitting on the gravel road but isn't, identified it as "Strange Butterfly." Zebra Swallowtails are strange; they're the only North American representative of a tropical family called Kite Swallowtails. They're a little smaller than our other Swallowtails, and have different body shapes. They usually start out with equally long "tails" on each hind wing, but the function of the "tails" is to break off when grabbed by birds.
We also have our first generation of Tiger Swallowtails:
Either male or female Tigers can look like the picture above, but some females look like this:
Although the black-winged female gets some survival advantage from looking like other kinds of Swallowtails that taste bad to birds, the male can recognize her by size (she's as big as he is) and scent. If these two butterflies mate, their offspring will resemble one parent or the other. They do not, as folklore suggests, produce this distinctive (and smaller) species:
I grew up calling dark female Tigers "Black Swallowtails" and the smaller species "Royal Swallowtails," and believing that they were hybrids between Black and Tiger Swallowtails. This is erroneous. The smaller swallowtails with the bands of yellow spots are one of two Swallowtails found in Europe--the darker species--and are officially known as Black Swallowtails, although some female Tiger Swallowtails are blacker. Baby Black Swallowtails are also called Parsley Caterpillars because, although they naturally eat weeds, they enjoy parsley when they can get it. (Baby Tiger Swallowtails usually eat leaves found at the tops of tall trees; we seldom see them.)
At the Cat Sanctuary this year we've also seen Spring Azures...
...and this small, common species...
And Skippers. Here, below the dwarf iris blossom, is a Silver-Spotted Skipper, holding its wings straight up above its back as they often do. I suspect this photo was posed by a human. I've seen far more Silver-Spotted Skippers on garbage than on flowers.
Today's the first time I've seen one of these sulphur butterflies this spring:
Finally, although I didn't look for anything similar on Morguefile...our yellow iris is in full bloom, and how it is blooming this year. As if the plants had resolved not to be outdone by the "giant iris" when and if it gets around to blooming, this year the yellow iris blooms, which are normally about two feet tall, are shooting up three and four feet tall. In a way it's alarming. I don't know whether it means the plant is thriving on this year's weather, or sending up one last bloom before it dies. All I know for sure is that I didn't have to bend over to sniff this morning's new iris blossom.
Wednesday, May 15, 2013
A Serious Alternative to Obamacare
First the disclaimer: This is a theoretical plan. I don't have access to all the numbers that need to be crunched, and I'm not the ideal person to crunch them. I am a word nerd. Well, in cyberspace a math geek is never very far away. I hope math geeks, legal eagles, and political junkies will all do their thing with this proposed alternative to Obamacare.
Next a procedural suggestion: I'm typing this post, which isn't what I'd planned to post today, in response to a Blaze article: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/no-trust-how-does-the-irs-inquisition-impact-obamacare/. Blaze comments on this topic range from snarky to hostile. That's all very well for The Blaze but the people who need to be convinced that this alternative is viable are the ones who really want some sort of national medical care plan. Well, I think we should have something for elderly, disabled, and overwhelmingly disadvantaged people too; it's the idea of being forced to buy into the insurance racket that bothers me. I recommend that youall at least recognize that some Democrats are sincerely concerned about poor people...and that insurance companies are concerned about boosting their own profits at the expense of both doctors and patients.
Here's the basic plan:
1. Require all medical care providers to offer treatments to patients who pay the actual cost of treatment within a year from the time treatment is provided, in cash if possible, and on an anonymous basis if they pay in advance.
2. Allow medical care providers to collect private donations to maintain funds that partly subsidize treatments for people below a certain income level. (This should not be the main source of funding for medical care, but it might keep some smaller providers afloat during the time allowed for patients to pay their own medical bills.)
3. Allow a minimum of one year for patients to pay their own medical bills. Don't involve the federal government in tracking payments made within a year...the federal government shouldn't waste its funds on researching things some people prefer not to disclose.
4. After one year, allow patients who have tried to pay their medical bills, and not succeeded, to apply for federal (or state) medical funds. If patients' income has been much lower than it was before they needed treatment, these funds could even be allocated to compensate patients for payments they have made.
That's it. That's all. If you like it, please supply the budgetary details; I know this plan will cost much less than Obamacare, but I leave it to the math people to demonstrate how much, worst-case or best-case.
Next a procedural suggestion: I'm typing this post, which isn't what I'd planned to post today, in response to a Blaze article: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/15/no-trust-how-does-the-irs-inquisition-impact-obamacare/. Blaze comments on this topic range from snarky to hostile. That's all very well for The Blaze but the people who need to be convinced that this alternative is viable are the ones who really want some sort of national medical care plan. Well, I think we should have something for elderly, disabled, and overwhelmingly disadvantaged people too; it's the idea of being forced to buy into the insurance racket that bothers me. I recommend that youall at least recognize that some Democrats are sincerely concerned about poor people...and that insurance companies are concerned about boosting their own profits at the expense of both doctors and patients.
Here's the basic plan:
1. Require all medical care providers to offer treatments to patients who pay the actual cost of treatment within a year from the time treatment is provided, in cash if possible, and on an anonymous basis if they pay in advance.
2. Allow medical care providers to collect private donations to maintain funds that partly subsidize treatments for people below a certain income level. (This should not be the main source of funding for medical care, but it might keep some smaller providers afloat during the time allowed for patients to pay their own medical bills.)
3. Allow a minimum of one year for patients to pay their own medical bills. Don't involve the federal government in tracking payments made within a year...the federal government shouldn't waste its funds on researching things some people prefer not to disclose.
4. After one year, allow patients who have tried to pay their medical bills, and not succeeded, to apply for federal (or state) medical funds. If patients' income has been much lower than it was before they needed treatment, these funds could even be allocated to compensate patients for payments they have made.
That's it. That's all. If you like it, please supply the budgetary details; I know this plan will cost much less than Obamacare, but I leave it to the math people to demonstrate how much, worst-case or best-case.
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Why Some People No Longer Rescue Treed Cats
Even if a cat is scared of being stuck in a tree, sometimes being approached by a stranger scares the cat more, and it climbs beyond human reach...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/nypd-officer-gets-stuck-in-tree-while-trying-to-rescue-a-cat/
Happened to me once, while I lived in the city. I got about forty feet up, the cat moved fifty feet up, and the fire department had only a forty-foot ladder, and the firemen were bigger than I was and obviously couldn't have climbed higher even if that had been their policy. So we used a different strategy. One person climbed about thirty feet up holding a tuna sandwich, and the other aimed the garden hose at the cat, to help her remember how to climb down trees. She remembered, all right, and she decided she liked people who shared their tuna sandwiches, and that was how my group house acquired our Patchy Cat.
Of course, a truly feral cat might have stayed in the tree until it fell out and was injured...you never can tell.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/14/nypd-officer-gets-stuck-in-tree-while-trying-to-rescue-a-cat/
Happened to me once, while I lived in the city. I got about forty feet up, the cat moved fifty feet up, and the fire department had only a forty-foot ladder, and the firemen were bigger than I was and obviously couldn't have climbed higher even if that had been their policy. So we used a different strategy. One person climbed about thirty feet up holding a tuna sandwich, and the other aimed the garden hose at the cat, to help her remember how to climb down trees. She remembered, all right, and she decided she liked people who shared their tuna sandwiches, and that was how my group house acquired our Patchy Cat.
Of course, a truly feral cat might have stayed in the tree until it fell out and was injured...you never can tell.
IRS Story > Benghazi Story?
The Washington Post's Chris Cillizza thinks Republicans think the IRS's "targeting" some Tea Parties (the ones who tried to register their political activity group budgets as charities) is a "bigger story" than the Benghazi murder hearings:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/14/republican-math-irs-benghazi/
Me? Duh...some days I actually write for this site, some days I merely edit it...I think both of them are big commercial-media stories youall will be reading elsewhere. I'm always underwhelmed when a blogger shares just the fragment s/he feels ethically free to gank from a news story I've already read, so I expect that you would be, too, and try to avoid posting such. I prefer to receive links to the AP, Reuters, Post, Times, Guardian, etc., stories, with your comments, especially if you have something to add (could be a similar situation from another time or place, something you've read, etc., as well as a petition or opinion). When I've posted something about a Big Story that's already getting plenty of coverage elsewhere, it's been something that a correspondent has to add to what the Post has already reported.
(Every time I take a Yougov poll they ask how many newspapers the Cat Sanctuary subscribes to. We don't subscribe to any. We help friends recycle their old newsprint as cat box liners, wood stove lighters, mulch for the orchard, and t.p. for the Sun-Mar toilet, and so we regularly get the Kingsport Times-News, Virginia Star, Kingsport Daily News, and sometimes the Bristol Herald-Courier, usually within a week of the date of publication, which is about as well as the computer center can do with the Washington Post. Newsmax and Post updates come in my e-mail, along with The Blaze, and of course I can look up Reuters, the New York Times, and other newspapers online if necessary.)
But now I'm curious. Do youall think the question of whether the IRS showed political bias is "bigger" or "smaller" than the Benghazi murder hearings? Do you think these two news stories can be compared in terms of size? Why or why not?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2013/05/14/republican-math-irs-benghazi/
Me? Duh...some days I actually write for this site, some days I merely edit it...I think both of them are big commercial-media stories youall will be reading elsewhere. I'm always underwhelmed when a blogger shares just the fragment s/he feels ethically free to gank from a news story I've already read, so I expect that you would be, too, and try to avoid posting such. I prefer to receive links to the AP, Reuters, Post, Times, Guardian, etc., stories, with your comments, especially if you have something to add (could be a similar situation from another time or place, something you've read, etc., as well as a petition or opinion). When I've posted something about a Big Story that's already getting plenty of coverage elsewhere, it's been something that a correspondent has to add to what the Post has already reported.
(Every time I take a Yougov poll they ask how many newspapers the Cat Sanctuary subscribes to. We don't subscribe to any. We help friends recycle their old newsprint as cat box liners, wood stove lighters, mulch for the orchard, and t.p. for the Sun-Mar toilet, and so we regularly get the Kingsport Times-News, Virginia Star, Kingsport Daily News, and sometimes the Bristol Herald-Courier, usually within a week of the date of publication, which is about as well as the computer center can do with the Washington Post. Newsmax and Post updates come in my e-mail, along with The Blaze, and of course I can look up Reuters, the New York Times, and other newspapers online if necessary.)
But now I'm curious. Do youall think the question of whether the IRS showed political bias is "bigger" or "smaller" than the Benghazi murder hearings? Do you think these two news stories can be compared in terms of size? Why or why not?
Labels!
Yessss! Starting today, this web site will be adding Labels to make it easier for readers to find the contributions of their favorite writers and photographers. Looking for Grandma Bonnie Peters' recipes (or testimonies, as those arrive)? You won't have to scroll through all the political stuff to find them. Looking for more political contributions? You'll be able to find Karen Bracken's, Patricia Evans', Bill Carrico's, Morgan Griffith's, or anyone else's press releases if they're here. More interested in the science and phenology? You can search for "phenology" (mostly my observations) or for links supplied by Steve Milloy, Juniper Russo, or whomever...
It took me a while to figure out how to add labels to batches of old contributions, but now I know (it's easy) and will be labelling batches as fast as I can sort out which posts contain material from or linked to other contributors, as distinct from mere passing mentions of them.
For those who are new to the system...when you open the whole blog at priscillaking.blogspot.com, scroll down past the greeting, and read the latest post, you'll find a line or two of "Labels." Labels are provided by Blogspot and are there to help readers track the topics that interest them. Clicking on a Label should open a page containing only the posts linked to that Label, so you can read down through all the phenology, all the gluten-free recipes, everything about Agenda 21, etc.
It took me a while to figure out how to add labels to batches of old contributions, but now I know (it's easy) and will be labelling batches as fast as I can sort out which posts contain material from or linked to other contributors, as distinct from mere passing mentions of them.
For those who are new to the system...when you open the whole blog at priscillaking.blogspot.com, scroll down past the greeting, and read the latest post, you'll find a line or two of "Labels." Labels are provided by Blogspot and are there to help readers track the topics that interest them. Clicking on a Label should open a page containing only the posts linked to that Label, so you can read down through all the phenology, all the gluten-free recipes, everything about Agenda 21, etc.
Monday, May 13, 2013
Petition to Repeal Obamacare
The following petition doesn't say what I'd prefer for it to say. It says nothing about my sincere desire to maintain a safety-net fund for recovering the actual cost of the actual care of people who can't pay for treatment that has helped them...without allowing the insurance industry to get in the way and inflate the cost of medical care. Nevertheless, as the web site says, if a petition is similar to what you want, it's more effective to sign an existing petition than it is to add a new one. So, if you hate Obamacare, please click here:
http://wh.gov/JNdg
For new readers: The sort of national medical care plan I want is based on a system that's worked for the U.S. Veterans Administration for years. After seeing a doctor and/or receiving treatment, a patient pays what s/he can, then submits documentation of payments and remaining balance to the V.A. to request financial aid (and, in some cases, compensation for payments that the patient already made but the system can afford to cover). Since payments aren't being made by insurance companies, there's no sense on the part of either patients or medical care providers that they're spending the money of far-away corporations that nobody likes very much, thus no incentive to inflate the costs of medical care. Instead, there's an incentive to keep the costs as low as possible, because if total costs exceed anticipated costs, everyone will be out of money for another year while the V.A. recalculates next year's budget. Money spent from the fund is not allowed to exceed the actual need, and although the fund covers minimal administrative expenses, nobody has a chance to profiteer on the system.
Or you can look at it this way, since blogs are supposed to be personal and informal: I don't want to pay somebody in an insurance office to drive a luxury car with the profit s/he is making on failing to take care of my mother, if and when Mother actually becomes retired and/or disabled (she's only seventy-eight). I want any money used to pay for Mother's medical care actually to take care of Mother. But I do want an opportunity to do the decent thing and ensure that Mother can get whatever treatment she may need; I want The Nephews to have an opportunity to do as much for me some day.
http://wh.gov/JNdg
For new readers: The sort of national medical care plan I want is based on a system that's worked for the U.S. Veterans Administration for years. After seeing a doctor and/or receiving treatment, a patient pays what s/he can, then submits documentation of payments and remaining balance to the V.A. to request financial aid (and, in some cases, compensation for payments that the patient already made but the system can afford to cover). Since payments aren't being made by insurance companies, there's no sense on the part of either patients or medical care providers that they're spending the money of far-away corporations that nobody likes very much, thus no incentive to inflate the costs of medical care. Instead, there's an incentive to keep the costs as low as possible, because if total costs exceed anticipated costs, everyone will be out of money for another year while the V.A. recalculates next year's budget. Money spent from the fund is not allowed to exceed the actual need, and although the fund covers minimal administrative expenses, nobody has a chance to profiteer on the system.
Or you can look at it this way, since blogs are supposed to be personal and informal: I don't want to pay somebody in an insurance office to drive a luxury car with the profit s/he is making on failing to take care of my mother, if and when Mother actually becomes retired and/or disabled (she's only seventy-eight). I want any money used to pay for Mother's medical care actually to take care of Mother. But I do want an opportunity to do the decent thing and ensure that Mother can get whatever treatment she may need; I want The Nephews to have an opportunity to do as much for me some day.
Ice Tsunami? (Definite Phenology Overload)
The cold front we got this weekend was, as so often, the edge of something really nasty. Liz Klimas has the video of how the storms created "ice tsunami" effects in Canada and Minnesota:
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-ice-tsunami-videos-out-of-canada-and-minnesota-are-pretty-incredible/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-ice-tsunami-videos-out-of-canada-and-minnesota-are-pretty-incredible/
Iris from Dave's Garden (Phenology Overload, or What?)
In the front yard at the Cat Sanctuary (where it doesn't get enough sun) there is a pale violet-blue Bearded Iris plant. It doesn't bloom every year, but when it does bloom it looks like this:
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/114752/?utm_source=nl_2013-05-13&utm_medium=email
It bloomed early last year, in time for the kitten Iris to be born almost literally under it; when people stop exclaiming about how the black patches on Iris's face remind them of her Great-Aunt Mogwai, they can see a vague resemblance to a fleur-de-lis pattern. Also, because it's so much taller than the "oldfashioned iris" plants, we call it the Giant Iris, and until she became ill in December Iris was much bigger than her siblings.
Whether it's the cultivar "Mother Mary" or something else, I don't know. It's a souvenir of one of Mother's long-gone geriatric patients. Maybe, at some time before I met her, the patient remembered where she bought the parent plant and what it was called.
Our Giant Iris plant has yet to send up a flower bud this year, but the "oldfashioned" yellow iris, which has been known to bloom in June and July, bloomed yesterday morning.
Anyway, this link to Dave's Garden may interest the readers who have kept coming back to this site for the posts about our irises, or irides.
http://davesgarden.com/guides/pf/go/114752/?utm_source=nl_2013-05-13&utm_medium=email
It bloomed early last year, in time for the kitten Iris to be born almost literally under it; when people stop exclaiming about how the black patches on Iris's face remind them of her Great-Aunt Mogwai, they can see a vague resemblance to a fleur-de-lis pattern. Also, because it's so much taller than the "oldfashioned iris" plants, we call it the Giant Iris, and until she became ill in December Iris was much bigger than her siblings.
Whether it's the cultivar "Mother Mary" or something else, I don't know. It's a souvenir of one of Mother's long-gone geriatric patients. Maybe, at some time before I met her, the patient remembered where she bought the parent plant and what it was called.
Our Giant Iris plant has yet to send up a flower bud this year, but the "oldfashioned" yellow iris, which has been known to bloom in June and July, bloomed yesterday morning.
Anyway, this link to Dave's Garden may interest the readers who have kept coming back to this site for the posts about our irises, or irides.
More Phenology: The Road to Wise
Once in a while I get the chance to ride up through Wise County, and today I had not only that opportunity but also the opportunity to visit three computer-enhanced libraries. In spring it's interesting to observe how altitude affects the phenology between Gate City, Big Stone Gap, and Wise or Norton.
Temperature: 69 degrees Fahrenheit in Gate City at 2 p.m.; 64 in Big Stone Gap at 5 p.m.; 60 in Wise at 5:30 p.m.
Trees: fully green in Gate City; dogwoods still in bloom in Big Stone Gap; leaves still new and yellow on the crest of the Cumberland Mountain above Wise.
Birds: nesting and feeding young in Gate City, but I saw a (male) cardinal, (male) robin, and blue jay close together, all facing each other in what looked like a boundary discussion, on the lawn of the library in Wise.
Temperature: 69 degrees Fahrenheit in Gate City at 2 p.m.; 64 in Big Stone Gap at 5 p.m.; 60 in Wise at 5:30 p.m.
Trees: fully green in Gate City; dogwoods still in bloom in Big Stone Gap; leaves still new and yellow on the crest of the Cumberland Mountain above Wise.
Birds: nesting and feeding young in Gate City, but I saw a (male) cardinal, (male) robin, and blue jay close together, all facing each other in what looked like a boundary discussion, on the lawn of the library in Wise.
Mark Fitzgibbons on the Right to Farm
From the Southern Virginia Tea Party:
"
Action Alert from Mark Fitzgibbons:
--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ "
"
Action Alert from Mark Fitzgibbons:
The “VIRGINIA SMALL FARM AND FOOD FREEDOM RESOLUTION” will be considered by the Republican Party Virginia Resolutions Committee at the 2013 Virginia Republican Convention that will take place May 17 – 18 in Richmond.
Please call and email your Republican District Chairman and email your District’s representative on the Resolution Committee listed below, and ask both to pass this important resolution to protect freedom so that it may be approved by the entire convention delegation. (Chairman Eric Herr of the 1st District has committed already, so no need to contact him.)
Also, email your message “I support the Virginia Small Farm and Food Freedom Resolution” to Resolutions@RPV.org.
We must get farm and food freedom right in the home state of Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, George Mason and other great farmer-Founders, or we won’t get it right anywhere in America!
A copy of this important resolution to protect freedom is below the contact information.
2nd District Gary Byler gbyler@garybyler.com 757-331-4400
Chairman
Resolution Jessica Abbott (no email available)
Committee
3rd District Chris Stearns Christopher.stearns@me.com 757-513-8232
Chairman
Resolution Lori Carlson loricarlson@remax.net
Committee
4th District Jack Wilson jack@jackwilsonplc.com 804-796-6813
Chairman
Resolution Judi Lynch (no email available)
Committee
5th District Senator Bill Stanley William.Stanley@birdandstanley.com
Chairman 540-721-6028
Resolution Jim White nelsoncountygop@gmail.com
Committee
6th District Wendell Walker wendellwalker2@yahoo.com 434-944 4008
Chairman
Resolution Georgia Alvis-Long (no email available)
Committee
7th District Linwood Cobb gophenrico@aol.com 804-346-2096
Chairman
Resolution Kristi Way (no email available)
Committee
8th District Mike Ginsberg va8gopchairman@hotmail.com 703-850 5017
Committee
Resolution Evan Draim evandraim13@sssas.org
Committee
9th District Jack Morgan itmatterswithjack@yahoo.com 276-724-6283
Chairman
Resolution Adam Tolbert atolbert@smythgop.org
Committee
10th District John Whitbeck Jwhitbeck@whitbecklegal.com 703-777-1795
Chairman
Resolution Mark Berg berg@comcast.net
Committee
11th District Terry Wear terry@terrywear.org 703 569-0084
Chairman
Resolution Mike Giere mike4chairman11th@gmail.com
Committee
VIRGINIA SMALL FARM AND FOOD FREEDOM RESOLUTION
WHEREAS, farmers, farms and farming have historically played a vital role in the economy, traditions, culture, art and literature of Virginia, and are entitled to protection under the supreme American law guaranteeing certain unalienable rights such as life, liberty and pursuit of happiness; and
WHEREAS, each farmer has the right to determine in his or her own estimation what best constitutes farming, farm life and the best uses of their farm land, and farmers have the right to just remuneration for their labor, capital, ingenuity, services and products so long as they respect their neighbors’ rights; and
WHEREAS, farm life may constitute more than just production agriculture, and farmers have the right of commerce, the right to the pursuit of happiness, the right of quiet enjoyment of their land, the right of peaceable assembly on their private property, the right to exercise religious freedom on their private property, and other rights reserved to all people by America’s supreme law; and
WHEREAS, Virginians deserve access to wholesome and locally produced foods, and small farmers should be able to supply these products without burdensome government regulations; and
WHEREAS, government may not restrict the rights of farmers or their guests from the community, or categorize farmers, farming or farmland in any way that diminishes their freedoms, based simply on the fact that they engage in commerce; and
WHEREAS, government must not use laws or the color of law, regulations, zoning ordinances or the dictates of permits to violate or trespass on the rights of farmers and their guests, and farmers are entitled to fair, reasonable and full remedies from government agencies or subdivisions that violate or trespass on their rights.
Therefore, be it resolved that the Republican Party of Virginia supports repeal of state laws and local ordinances inconsistent with this Resolution;
Be it further resolved that the Republican Party calls upon the General Assembly and the Governor to advance legislation in the 2014 Session of the General Assembly to make the Code of Virginia consistent with the provisions of this Resolution;
And be it further resolved that the Virginia Republican Party immediately publish this Resolution and disseminate it to the Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia, members of the State Central Committee, and to the Republican members of the Virginia General Assembly, and post it to the RPV website in a publicly accessible area, with a link to that page on the home page.
--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ "
Morgan Griffith on the Benghazi Hearings
From Congressman Griffith's E-Newsletter:
"Scandals in Washington
Benghazi
As part of the House’s continuing efforts to determine what took place before, during, and after the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently held a hearing featuring three whistleblowers, including Gregory Hicks, the second-highest diplomat in Libya at the time of the attack.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the panel’s Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, traveled to Libya as part of the congressional investigation into what took place. He said that no Democrat chose to go with him, but that the State Department sent a “minder” to keep tabs on him. Mr. Hicks testified that he was “instructed” by State Department attorneys not to cooperate with Rep. Chaffetz, and to keep Rep. Chaffetz from personally interviewing people on the ground in Libya.
Rep. Chaffetz ultimately was able to interview people, but his “minder” from the State Department – who lacked the proper security clearance to participate in the classified briefing – was excluded. Because of that, Mr. Hicks testified that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, called him, and in a tone that was unhappy, demanded a report on Rep. Chaffetz’s visit.
That the State Department appears to have been working to obstruct a Member of Congress from discovering the truth is appalling.
Another of the witnesses was Eric Nordstrom, the former regional security officer in Libya. Mr. Nordstrom said that he wanted to get the truth out. “What happened prior to, during, and after the attack matters,” he said in his opening remarks. “It matters to me personally and to my colleagues at State. It matters to the American people and it matters to the friends and families” of those killed in the attack.
He’s right – the truth matters.
Unfortunately getting to the truth has been difficult. The Obama administration originally began blaming a video for inciting the attack. “The YouTube video was a non event in Libya,” Mr. Hicks testified. He later said “The video was not an instigator of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrations related to the video anywhere in Libya. The only event that transpired was the attack on our consulate on the night of Sept. 11.”
ABC News obtained documents making clear that State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland requested that references to al-Qaeda and prior warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi be removed from a memo on the attacks. Ms. Nuland emailed that the description “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up on the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.” That memo, stripped of some very important information, is what the Ambassador to Libya, Susan Rice, used in her Sunday Show appearances in which she only blamed the YouTube video.
Mr. Hicks testified that Ambassador Rice didn’t consult officials in Libya to verify the information in the memo before those appearances, and I haven’t seen anything indicating that she actually knew the full story. If I were Ambassador Rice, I would be asking questions to find out if I had been set up by others in the Administration.
Everyone makes mistakes. But as I tell my children, if you make a mistake, don’t lie about it. It only makes it worse. Very serious mistakes were made, which led to the murder of four Americans. But even worse, there was a cover-up about it as well – a concerted effort to conceal the truth. Some have argued these untruths were intended to protect the President during an election, and then-Secretary Clinton for future elections.
Motivation doesn’t matter. We cannot tolerate being knowingly and willfully misled by the Administration. I don’t care if it is a Republican, Democrat, or Independent President. The truth doesn’t have a political party. The American people deserve to know the truth. We must continue seeking that truth, and determine who authorized or acquiesced in the cover-up.
"
"Scandals in Washington
Benghazi
As part of the House’s continuing efforts to determine what took place before, during, and after the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack on our diplomatic facility in Benghazi, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform recently held a hearing featuring three whistleblowers, including Gregory Hicks, the second-highest diplomat in Libya at the time of the attack.
Congressman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the panel’s Subcommittee on National Security, Homeland Defense, and Foreign Operations, traveled to Libya as part of the congressional investigation into what took place. He said that no Democrat chose to go with him, but that the State Department sent a “minder” to keep tabs on him. Mr. Hicks testified that he was “instructed” by State Department attorneys not to cooperate with Rep. Chaffetz, and to keep Rep. Chaffetz from personally interviewing people on the ground in Libya.
Rep. Chaffetz ultimately was able to interview people, but his “minder” from the State Department – who lacked the proper security clearance to participate in the classified briefing – was excluded. Because of that, Mr. Hicks testified that then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff, Cheryl Mills, called him, and in a tone that was unhappy, demanded a report on Rep. Chaffetz’s visit.
That the State Department appears to have been working to obstruct a Member of Congress from discovering the truth is appalling.
Another of the witnesses was Eric Nordstrom, the former regional security officer in Libya. Mr. Nordstrom said that he wanted to get the truth out. “What happened prior to, during, and after the attack matters,” he said in his opening remarks. “It matters to me personally and to my colleagues at State. It matters to the American people and it matters to the friends and families” of those killed in the attack.
He’s right – the truth matters.
Unfortunately getting to the truth has been difficult. The Obama administration originally began blaming a video for inciting the attack. “The YouTube video was a non event in Libya,” Mr. Hicks testified. He later said “The video was not an instigator of anything that was going on in Libya. We saw no demonstrations related to the video anywhere in Libya. The only event that transpired was the attack on our consulate on the night of Sept. 11.”
ABC News obtained documents making clear that State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland requested that references to al-Qaeda and prior warnings about terrorist threats in Benghazi be removed from a memo on the attacks. Ms. Nuland emailed that the description “could be abused by members (of Congress) to beat up on the State Department for not paying attention to warnings.” That memo, stripped of some very important information, is what the Ambassador to Libya, Susan Rice, used in her Sunday Show appearances in which she only blamed the YouTube video.
Mr. Hicks testified that Ambassador Rice didn’t consult officials in Libya to verify the information in the memo before those appearances, and I haven’t seen anything indicating that she actually knew the full story. If I were Ambassador Rice, I would be asking questions to find out if I had been set up by others in the Administration.
Everyone makes mistakes. But as I tell my children, if you make a mistake, don’t lie about it. It only makes it worse. Very serious mistakes were made, which led to the murder of four Americans. But even worse, there was a cover-up about it as well – a concerted effort to conceal the truth. Some have argued these untruths were intended to protect the President during an election, and then-Secretary Clinton for future elections.
Motivation doesn’t matter. We cannot tolerate being knowingly and willfully misled by the Administration. I don’t care if it is a Republican, Democrat, or Independent President. The truth doesn’t have a political party. The American people deserve to know the truth. We must continue seeking that truth, and determine who authorized or acquiesced in the cover-up.
"
Phenology: Gypsy Moth Caterpillars
(This is part two of a series that began here:
http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/04/phenology-eastern-tent-caterpillars.html. This article may be less of a gross-out to read, because although Morguefile had plenty of images of Gypsies, as of today, it had no pictures of gypsy moths.)
Malacosoma americanum and Lymantria dispar aren't easy to confuse when you actually look at them, but there are similarities. Both are dark, furry caterpillars that can get about as long as my little finger; both are active and hardy, waste lots of silk, and roam around making nuisances of themselves in spring; and both mature into short-lived, mid-sized, drab-colored moths just after the summer solstice. That's why, in 1869, Etienne Troubelot imported the Gypsy Moth, Lymantria dispar, into Massachusetts, hoping that it could be crossbred with Malacosoma americanum to produce a hardier kind of silkworm.
Short answer: it couldn't, although gene splicing may reopen the possibility. In Europe Lymantria dispar fits into an ecological niche where its population is well controlled by predators, and is not a major "destroyer" (although that's the translation of Lymantria). In North America, lacking predators, the population exploded and the species became a serious pest.
Frank Lutz wrote that "the best excuse that can be made for Professor Troubelot is that he did not know the gun was loaded." Paul Villard, taking a brighter view, wrote in Moths and How to Rear Them that bringing a few gyps indoors for science projects is an ideal way to find out whether rearing moths and butterflies is something you want to do: the animals are hard to kill, and nobody will miss them, anyway, whatever you do with them, as long as you don't release them. He recommended "just...pick[ing] a few thousand" to experiment on. Even P.E.T.A. are unlikely to complain.
In the suburban neighborhoods where I've encountered gypsy moth caterpillars, it was illegal to "harbor" the creatures, meaning that it was mandatory to kill them on sight. There's a valid reason for this: since they need predators, and in North America they lack predators, humans need to fill the ecological niche of predators on gypsy moths, even though we can't eat them.
So, how to recognize which caterpillars you're supposed to kill? Gyps usually hatch about the same time Eastern Tent Caterpillars stop eating and wander about. Since gyps do most of their "Gypsy-like" wandering about during the first two weeks of their lives, this means both species are most annoying to humans at the same time, typically in May. When you see them side by side, the most obvious difference will be size. The tent caterpillars have reached their full size and are four or five times as long as the gypsy moth hatchlings.
Here's a page with good clear photos of typical mature caterpillars, for comparison...
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7111.html
...but the problems with it are: (1) they don't mature at the same time; (2) most of the gyps we see are not mature; and (3) even mature gyps don't necessarily look like the typical female on this page. Male gyps pupate earlier than females, go through fewer skins, and are much smaller than females when they start turning into moths. And during the active part of their lives, they're all less than an inch long; new hatchlings are black with barely noticeable clumps of white hair, and the second and third skins are also black but show those distinct colored warts.
Dispar refers to the pronounced disparity between male and female gypsy moths, whose life cycles are so different that they seem like different species. Male caterpillars stop eating and pupate before they're much more than one inch long. Male moths are likewise a little more than half the size of the females, slimmer, darker, and more active. Female caterpillars reach almost twice the size males reach before they stop eating, but most of their extra bulk turns into eggs rather than muscle.
A web search for images of the young, small, light gyps people actually meet is disappointing. This informative page contains photos of hatchlings and slightly older caterpillars, in their second skins, bungee-jumping down on silk threads...
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/gypsymoth/gypsy.htm
...but where's a clear picture of the caterpillars themselves? Maybe they're just too familiar to the people who photographed those final-stage gyps to be interesting. Since I don't have a digital camera, all I can tell you is that they progress from looking like scraps of black yarn to gradually looking more colorful and more like the pictures shown on the Internet. The dots of color on the skin, around the identifying pairs of red and blue warts, can vary. Mature gyps can look gray, tan, brown, or greenish from a distance; on closer observation they're mottled, and the base color of the skin is still black. The caterpillars in a given area won't all hatch at once, and if you look carefully you might find specimens with the first, second, and third skins all in one place, as shown here:
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gypsymoth/photos.html
The ones that are more than an inch and a half long are female, and usually stay in the treetops, having grown too big to float around on strands of silk.
Although whacking any gyps you see with a stick may be required by local law, it's not the most efficient way to control the species. The most efficient way is to look for the egg clusters, which look like clumps of tan fur (as the eggs ooze out of Mama Moth most of her body hair adheres to the eggs), and burn those before the caterpillars hatch. Here's a serious infestation (if allowed to hatch, the caterpillars might defoliate the tree)...this legitimate link to a California government photo page is too long to fit into a Blogspot page...the tan-colored blobs are egg masses, the white blurs are female moths, and yes, the egg masses do seem to expand in the air and look bigger than the moth out of which they came; this effect is partly due to their being covered in fur, but so was Mama Moth.
After the caterpillars have hatched, squirting water on them can knock the smallest ones out of trees, but you still have to go and kill them. Burlap traps can effectively catch them, during the middle of the day, when they like to hide in snug shady spots for an afternoon nap: scroll down to Figure 14 on this page:
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/gypsymoth/gypsy.htm
...but, again, someone has to go out and kill the caterpillars every single day, and it's not a pleasant chore. (They don't "sting," technically, but their stiff hair can irritate most people's skin. The people who apparently Google "gypsy moth caterpillar sting" regularly don't seem to realize that half-inch lengths of human hair also irritate most people's skin.) This web site does not recommend poisoning the burlap. This web site does recommend wrapping bands of duct tape around a tree and painting them with glue, as discussed here...
http://www.gypsymothalert.com/control.html
Although it costs more than burlap, the position of this web site is that not having to handle gyps is worth the money; you can leave a sticky band on the tree until it fills up, burn it, and apply a fresh one.
Pupae are also variable; some caterpillars go to the trouble of spinning a cocoon, some don't. Adult moths are variable too; males can look tan or gray, females are bigger and paler but can look white, pale gray, or pale beige.
http://www.gypsy-moth.com/gypsy-moth-4.htm
Can the female moths fly? The answer seems to depend on genes. Some female gypsy moths seem to have no use of their wings, some can fly a few feet if disturbed, and some are seen flying about, but not very far.
By the time gypsy moths get their wings, they are old, tired animals. Males have reserved enough energy to fly about for a few days, looking for females, and may even have the strength to fly away after mating. Females usually mate with the first male they find (not very enthusiastically or imaginatively--barely spreading their wings), extrude the frothy egg mass that took up most of the space inside their bodies, and collapse, often within a yard or even a foot of their cocoons (or pupal shells).
As discussed further down the page at gypsymothalert.com, the male moths can be trapped using chemicals that smell like a female moth. A problem not discussed on this page, but often discussed by people who've bought the traps, is that humans have no way to tell whether they've got the scent on themselves--humans don't smell it--until they're mobbed by male moths. This phenomenon is often inaccurately described as being raped by moths. More accurately, the humans are being searched by moths, not that that's exactly fun either.
This web site does not recommend poisoning gypsy moths. The more you try to poison insects, the more predators you poison, and the more unwelcome insects you will have. A poisoned gyp could potentially harm a "bluejay, blackbird, catbird, black-capped chickadee, crow, grackle, red-winged blackbird, nuthatch, oriole, chipping sparrow, robin, tanager, vireo, [or] woodpecker" (list at gypsymothalert.com). Although these birds have not evolved much of a taste for gyps, each of them will eat enough other undesirable insects to make up for the inconvenience of humans having to do most of the predation necessary to control Lymantria dispar.
However, species-specific germ warfare can be tempting...until you think about the more lovable native species who are also likely to be infected.
http://www.livescience.com/15962-zombie-caterpillar-virus.html
Scroll down to see what baculovirus does to a harmless little baby monarch butterfly. Not something I'd want to have on my conscience, for sure. I don't feel personally responsible for the BT bacteria attack, meant to kill gyps, that caused so much unmistakable misery among tent caterpillars in Takoma Park when I lived there, but it wasn't a very pleasant season.
This web site recommends sticking with good oldfashioned predation. Do as much of it as possible in late summer, autumn, and winter, when (in most of North America) Lymantria dispar are easy to find and destroy in the form of egg clumps.
It's interesting to note that in Europe, where gypsy moths belong, they're not a major pest. In fact they went extinct in England for a while, and some naturalists tried to reestablish the species...
http://www.brc.ac.uk/gbnn_admin/index.php?q=node/153
...but the caterpillars aren't exactly lovable, and currently Londoners seem to be trying to render them extinct again.
http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=2034
http://priscillaking.blogspot.com/2013/04/phenology-eastern-tent-caterpillars.html. This article may be less of a gross-out to read, because although Morguefile had plenty of images of Gypsies, as of today, it had no pictures of gypsy moths.)
Malacosoma americanum and Lymantria dispar aren't easy to confuse when you actually look at them, but there are similarities. Both are dark, furry caterpillars that can get about as long as my little finger; both are active and hardy, waste lots of silk, and roam around making nuisances of themselves in spring; and both mature into short-lived, mid-sized, drab-colored moths just after the summer solstice. That's why, in 1869, Etienne Troubelot imported the Gypsy Moth, Lymantria dispar, into Massachusetts, hoping that it could be crossbred with Malacosoma americanum to produce a hardier kind of silkworm.
Short answer: it couldn't, although gene splicing may reopen the possibility. In Europe Lymantria dispar fits into an ecological niche where its population is well controlled by predators, and is not a major "destroyer" (although that's the translation of Lymantria). In North America, lacking predators, the population exploded and the species became a serious pest.
Frank Lutz wrote that "the best excuse that can be made for Professor Troubelot is that he did not know the gun was loaded." Paul Villard, taking a brighter view, wrote in Moths and How to Rear Them that bringing a few gyps indoors for science projects is an ideal way to find out whether rearing moths and butterflies is something you want to do: the animals are hard to kill, and nobody will miss them, anyway, whatever you do with them, as long as you don't release them. He recommended "just...pick[ing] a few thousand" to experiment on. Even P.E.T.A. are unlikely to complain.
In the suburban neighborhoods where I've encountered gypsy moth caterpillars, it was illegal to "harbor" the creatures, meaning that it was mandatory to kill them on sight. There's a valid reason for this: since they need predators, and in North America they lack predators, humans need to fill the ecological niche of predators on gypsy moths, even though we can't eat them.
So, how to recognize which caterpillars you're supposed to kill? Gyps usually hatch about the same time Eastern Tent Caterpillars stop eating and wander about. Since gyps do most of their "Gypsy-like" wandering about during the first two weeks of their lives, this means both species are most annoying to humans at the same time, typically in May. When you see them side by side, the most obvious difference will be size. The tent caterpillars have reached their full size and are four or five times as long as the gypsy moth hatchlings.
Here's a page with good clear photos of typical mature caterpillars, for comparison...
http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/7111.html
...but the problems with it are: (1) they don't mature at the same time; (2) most of the gyps we see are not mature; and (3) even mature gyps don't necessarily look like the typical female on this page. Male gyps pupate earlier than females, go through fewer skins, and are much smaller than females when they start turning into moths. And during the active part of their lives, they're all less than an inch long; new hatchlings are black with barely noticeable clumps of white hair, and the second and third skins are also black but show those distinct colored warts.
Dispar refers to the pronounced disparity between male and female gypsy moths, whose life cycles are so different that they seem like different species. Male caterpillars stop eating and pupate before they're much more than one inch long. Male moths are likewise a little more than half the size of the females, slimmer, darker, and more active. Female caterpillars reach almost twice the size males reach before they stop eating, but most of their extra bulk turns into eggs rather than muscle.
A web search for images of the young, small, light gyps people actually meet is disappointing. This informative page contains photos of hatchlings and slightly older caterpillars, in their second skins, bungee-jumping down on silk threads...
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/gypsymoth/gypsy.htm
...but where's a clear picture of the caterpillars themselves? Maybe they're just too familiar to the people who photographed those final-stage gyps to be interesting. Since I don't have a digital camera, all I can tell you is that they progress from looking like scraps of black yarn to gradually looking more colorful and more like the pictures shown on the Internet. The dots of color on the skin, around the identifying pairs of red and blue warts, can vary. Mature gyps can look gray, tan, brown, or greenish from a distance; on closer observation they're mottled, and the base color of the skin is still black. The caterpillars in a given area won't all hatch at once, and if you look carefully you might find specimens with the first, second, and third skins all in one place, as shown here:
http://urbanext.illinois.edu/gypsymoth/photos.html
The ones that are more than an inch and a half long are female, and usually stay in the treetops, having grown too big to float around on strands of silk.
Although whacking any gyps you see with a stick may be required by local law, it's not the most efficient way to control the species. The most efficient way is to look for the egg clusters, which look like clumps of tan fur (as the eggs ooze out of Mama Moth most of her body hair adheres to the eggs), and burn those before the caterpillars hatch. Here's a serious infestation (if allowed to hatch, the caterpillars might defoliate the tree)...this legitimate link to a California government photo page is too long to fit into a Blogspot page...the tan-colored blobs are egg masses, the white blurs are female moths, and yes, the egg masses do seem to expand in the air and look bigger than the moth out of which they came; this effect is partly due to their being covered in fur, but so was Mama Moth.
After the caterpillars have hatched, squirting water on them can knock the smallest ones out of trees, but you still have to go and kill them. Burlap traps can effectively catch them, during the middle of the day, when they like to hide in snug shady spots for an afternoon nap: scroll down to Figure 14 on this page:
http://www.na.fs.fed.us/spfo/pubs/fidls/gypsymoth/gypsy.htm
...but, again, someone has to go out and kill the caterpillars every single day, and it's not a pleasant chore. (They don't "sting," technically, but their stiff hair can irritate most people's skin. The people who apparently Google "gypsy moth caterpillar sting" regularly don't seem to realize that half-inch lengths of human hair also irritate most people's skin.) This web site does not recommend poisoning the burlap. This web site does recommend wrapping bands of duct tape around a tree and painting them with glue, as discussed here...
http://www.gypsymothalert.com/control.html
Although it costs more than burlap, the position of this web site is that not having to handle gyps is worth the money; you can leave a sticky band on the tree until it fills up, burn it, and apply a fresh one.
Pupae are also variable; some caterpillars go to the trouble of spinning a cocoon, some don't. Adult moths are variable too; males can look tan or gray, females are bigger and paler but can look white, pale gray, or pale beige.
http://www.gypsy-moth.com/gypsy-moth-4.htm
Can the female moths fly? The answer seems to depend on genes. Some female gypsy moths seem to have no use of their wings, some can fly a few feet if disturbed, and some are seen flying about, but not very far.
By the time gypsy moths get their wings, they are old, tired animals. Males have reserved enough energy to fly about for a few days, looking for females, and may even have the strength to fly away after mating. Females usually mate with the first male they find (not very enthusiastically or imaginatively--barely spreading their wings), extrude the frothy egg mass that took up most of the space inside their bodies, and collapse, often within a yard or even a foot of their cocoons (or pupal shells).
As discussed further down the page at gypsymothalert.com, the male moths can be trapped using chemicals that smell like a female moth. A problem not discussed on this page, but often discussed by people who've bought the traps, is that humans have no way to tell whether they've got the scent on themselves--humans don't smell it--until they're mobbed by male moths. This phenomenon is often inaccurately described as being raped by moths. More accurately, the humans are being searched by moths, not that that's exactly fun either.
This web site does not recommend poisoning gypsy moths. The more you try to poison insects, the more predators you poison, and the more unwelcome insects you will have. A poisoned gyp could potentially harm a "bluejay, blackbird, catbird, black-capped chickadee, crow, grackle, red-winged blackbird, nuthatch, oriole, chipping sparrow, robin, tanager, vireo, [or] woodpecker" (list at gypsymothalert.com). Although these birds have not evolved much of a taste for gyps, each of them will eat enough other undesirable insects to make up for the inconvenience of humans having to do most of the predation necessary to control Lymantria dispar.
However, species-specific germ warfare can be tempting...until you think about the more lovable native species who are also likely to be infected.
http://www.livescience.com/15962-zombie-caterpillar-virus.html
Scroll down to see what baculovirus does to a harmless little baby monarch butterfly. Not something I'd want to have on my conscience, for sure. I don't feel personally responsible for the BT bacteria attack, meant to kill gyps, that caused so much unmistakable misery among tent caterpillars in Takoma Park when I lived there, but it wasn't a very pleasant season.
This web site recommends sticking with good oldfashioned predation. Do as much of it as possible in late summer, autumn, and winter, when (in most of North America) Lymantria dispar are easy to find and destroy in the form of egg clumps.
It's interesting to note that in Europe, where gypsy moths belong, they're not a major pest. In fact they went extinct in England for a while, and some naturalists tried to reestablish the species...
http://www.brc.ac.uk/gbnn_admin/index.php?q=node/153
...but the caterpillars aren't exactly lovable, and currently Londoners seem to be trying to render them extinct again.
http://ukmoths.org.uk/show.php?bf=2034
Travelogue: St Andrews, Fife, Scotland
Thanks to Elizabeth Barrette for the link to these views of a harbor (or harbour) town in Scotland:
http://cmcmck.dreamwidth.org/297709.html
http://cmcmck.dreamwidth.org/297709.html
Insect Gross-Outs Update
Karen Bracken shares the link directly to the U.N.F.A.O. report on "standards" to allow insects to be marketed as food. They're serious:
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e.pdf
Here's what Liz Klimas and readers were chortling about, earlier this week:
Silkworms have to be boiled alive in their cocoons to separate the silk threads so they can be spun, so why not eat the pupal moths? (Liz Klimas and her source misidentified the creatures as larvae; eating the larvae, before they've spun their silk, would be counterproductive.)
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-uns-big-idea-to-reduce-pollution-and-fight-hunger-eat-insects/
Great idea if you're a chicken. If you're human, not so great. Insects, except for four species (now unidentifiable) "in the locust family," aren't kosher, and there are Christians, like this one, who believe that there's a good medical reason to avoid meat that can't be made kosher.
Are there insects that might have been added to the safe-to-eat list if the ancient Hebrews had known about them? Those mopane caterpillars that Africans traditionally ate only in the dry season when they were really hungry, but that have become a tourist attraction? Witchetty grubs in Australia? I don't know, and I don't want to find out.
Personally, I don't eat arthropods. Period. But if you eat shrimp and lobster (which aren't kosher either), I'm not sure what reason you would have not to eat smaller things that are built on the same general plan as shrimp and lobster.
http://www.fao.org/docrep/018/i3253e/i3253e.pdf
Here's what Liz Klimas and readers were chortling about, earlier this week:
Silkworms have to be boiled alive in their cocoons to separate the silk threads so they can be spun, so why not eat the pupal moths? (Liz Klimas and her source misidentified the creatures as larvae; eating the larvae, before they've spun their silk, would be counterproductive.)
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/13/the-uns-big-idea-to-reduce-pollution-and-fight-hunger-eat-insects/
Great idea if you're a chicken. If you're human, not so great. Insects, except for four species (now unidentifiable) "in the locust family," aren't kosher, and there are Christians, like this one, who believe that there's a good medical reason to avoid meat that can't be made kosher.
Are there insects that might have been added to the safe-to-eat list if the ancient Hebrews had known about them? Those mopane caterpillars that Africans traditionally ate only in the dry season when they were really hungry, but that have become a tourist attraction? Witchetty grubs in Australia? I don't know, and I don't want to find out.
Personally, I don't eat arthropods. Period. But if you eat shrimp and lobster (which aren't kosher either), I'm not sure what reason you would have not to eat smaller things that are built on the same general plan as shrimp and lobster.
Phenology: Dog Ticks
It's been a cool spring here--daytime highs still just edging up into the sixties, most days--and insect activity has been low. The tent caterpillars I saw wandering around the Cat Sanctuary yesterday, one of them apparently contemplating the beauty of our first iris blossom, remind me that it's time to write the updated article about Gypsy Moths; some readers may be seeing gypsy moth hatchlings by now. I have seen some butterflies: Spring Azure, coppers, those little dark skippers, checkerspots, Tiger and Zebra Swallowtails; and some paper wasps, Polistes fuscatus and P. carolina, and one fly, and lots and lots of fungus gnats. This is the first year I've had gnats fly into my eyes and nose while walking along a paved road.
Flowers: paulownia, wisteria, some azaleas, rhododendrons, dandelions, buttercups, shepherdspurse, celandine. Locust trees, which haven't bloomed well in recent years, are blooming beautifully this year. Violets and vincas are almost over; clover is starting to bloom. Hepaticas, fleabane daisies, and regular (oxeye) daisies are blooming.
But some of you may need a warning about ticks. Tiny deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are the species usually blamed for transmitting Lyme Disease, but dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis) have been very active and abundant this year.
The way to avoid picking up diseases from tick bites is to be vigilant. Change clothes, bathe, and at least thoroughly comb your hair after you've been outdoors...the same precautions I use at the Cat Sanctuary to limit the amount of mold spores I track in from the woods also protect humans from tick bites.
Dog ticks attack cats and humans as eagerly as they do dogs...the difference is that cats and humans can usually find and kill the vermin before they bite us. The task is harder for long-haired cats. I personally prefer to clip long-haired cats' coats if they're outdoors in summer.
It's easier to remove a dying tick that is trying to move away than a tick that is actively biting into your or your pet's skin. There are several safe, painless ways to motivate a tick to move away, but none of them is 100% guaranteed--the tick may die before it can completely detach itself. Graybelle, whose human didn't want her coat clipped and who once needed help to remove a tick from her mouth, liked the idea of smothering a tick in olive oil. I've found it cheaper and equally efficient to dip the tick in alcohol...it's a good idea to disinfect the wound with alcohol anyway.
When most of us in Gate City, Virginia, first read about Lyme Disease, we read that it was found in New England. Some doctors haven't kept up with the news that this disease has spread. Last summer the Cat Sanctuary temporarily lost a volunteer to Lyme Disease, and a neighbor's four-year-old child nearly died because a doctor refused to believe that the child had Lyme Disease and prescribed the wrong sort of medicine. And who knows how many of our (majority demographic group) senior citizens may be suffering unnecessarily because the symptoms of Lyme Disease can be mistaken for a combination of a bad cold and senility.
Everybody knows what ticks look like and I doubt that anybody wants to look at pictures of them, but here's the Wikipedia page for dog ticks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermacentor_variabilis
Flowers: paulownia, wisteria, some azaleas, rhododendrons, dandelions, buttercups, shepherdspurse, celandine. Locust trees, which haven't bloomed well in recent years, are blooming beautifully this year. Violets and vincas are almost over; clover is starting to bloom. Hepaticas, fleabane daisies, and regular (oxeye) daisies are blooming.
But some of you may need a warning about ticks. Tiny deer ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are the species usually blamed for transmitting Lyme Disease, but dog ticks (Dermacentor variabilis) have been very active and abundant this year.
The way to avoid picking up diseases from tick bites is to be vigilant. Change clothes, bathe, and at least thoroughly comb your hair after you've been outdoors...the same precautions I use at the Cat Sanctuary to limit the amount of mold spores I track in from the woods also protect humans from tick bites.
Dog ticks attack cats and humans as eagerly as they do dogs...the difference is that cats and humans can usually find and kill the vermin before they bite us. The task is harder for long-haired cats. I personally prefer to clip long-haired cats' coats if they're outdoors in summer.
It's easier to remove a dying tick that is trying to move away than a tick that is actively biting into your or your pet's skin. There are several safe, painless ways to motivate a tick to move away, but none of them is 100% guaranteed--the tick may die before it can completely detach itself. Graybelle, whose human didn't want her coat clipped and who once needed help to remove a tick from her mouth, liked the idea of smothering a tick in olive oil. I've found it cheaper and equally efficient to dip the tick in alcohol...it's a good idea to disinfect the wound with alcohol anyway.
When most of us in Gate City, Virginia, first read about Lyme Disease, we read that it was found in New England. Some doctors haven't kept up with the news that this disease has spread. Last summer the Cat Sanctuary temporarily lost a volunteer to Lyme Disease, and a neighbor's four-year-old child nearly died because a doctor refused to believe that the child had Lyme Disease and prescribed the wrong sort of medicine. And who knows how many of our (majority demographic group) senior citizens may be suffering unnecessarily because the symptoms of Lyme Disease can be mistaken for a combination of a bad cold and senility.
Everybody knows what ticks look like and I doubt that anybody wants to look at pictures of them, but here's the Wikipedia page for dog ticks:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dermacentor_variabilis
Sunday, May 12, 2013
Bloomberg: The Cupcake
Well, I think Mike Opelka's report on the giant cake decorated with Mayor Bloomberg's likeness is funny...
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/11/36000-calorie-cupcake-has-nyc-mayor-bloomberg-frosted/
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/05/11/36000-calorie-cupcake-has-nyc-mayor-bloomberg-frosted/
Navy Seal Families News Conference
From Patricia Evans:
"Don't miss this historic news conference... Hear the testimony of Navy SEAL Team 6 families as they reveal the Obama Administrations culpability in death of their sons in the fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan following the successful raid on bin Laden's compound. All 38 servicemen on board lost their lives, including 17 members of SEAL Team 6. See the area's of inquiry listed below which warrants a Congressional investigation. This is a powerful and riveting briefing that included some of America's most significant military leaders. Please don't miss it!
ALL LEGISLATORS, Please don't miss Admiral "Ace" Lyons briefing on the Muslim Brotherhood in America here: http://youtu.be/rqtJrJ40Cio?t=1h19m ( Starts at 1:19:00 )
3. How and why middle-level military brass carries out too many ill-prepared missions to boost their standing with top-level military brass and the Commander-in-Chief in order that they can be promoted.
4. How the military restricts special operations servicemen and others from engaging in timely return fire when fired upon by the Taliban and other terrorist groups and interests, thus jeopardizing the servicemen’s lives.
5. How and why the denial of requested pre-assault fire may have contributed to the shoot down of the Navy SEAL Team VI helicopter and the death of these special operations servicemen.
6. How Afghani forces accompanying the Navy SEAL Team VI servicemen on the helicopter were not properly vetted and how they possibly disclosed classified information to the Taliban about the mission, resulting in the shoot down of the helicopter.
7. How military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” will be shown with a certified translation. Watch the video: http://youtu.be/G968rxOjiMs
"This press conference takes on special significance given that our government has over the last twelve years since September 11th committed brave American servicemen to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that, in large part as a result of politics, were poorly conceived of and implemented, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the maiming of tens of thousands of our brave heroes. To make matters even worse, America has effectively lost these wars," stated Larry Klayman, legal counsel for the families.
--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ"
"Don't miss this historic news conference... Hear the testimony of Navy SEAL Team 6 families as they reveal the Obama Administrations culpability in death of their sons in the fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan following the successful raid on bin Laden's compound. All 38 servicemen on board lost their lives, including 17 members of SEAL Team 6. See the area's of inquiry listed below which warrants a Congressional investigation. This is a powerful and riveting briefing that included some of America's most significant military leaders. Please don't miss it!
Whistleblowers - Navy SEAL Extortion 17 EXPOSED - Obama Failures
Hear the testimony here: http://youtu.be/rqtJrJ40Cio?t=1sALL LEGISLATORS, Please don't miss Admiral "Ace" Lyons briefing on the Muslim Brotherhood in America here: http://youtu.be/rqtJrJ40Cio?t=1h19m ( Starts at 1:19:00 )
(Washington, D.C.). Three families of Navy SEAL Team VI special forces servicemen, along with one family of an Army National Guardsman, will appear at a press conference on May 9, 2013, to disclose never before revealed information about how and why their sons along with 26 others died in a fatal helicopter crash in Afghanistan on August 6, 2011, just a few months after the successful raid on the compound of Osama Bin Laden that resulted in the master terrorist's death.
Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban.
The areas of inquiry at the press conference will include but not be limited to:
1. How President Obama and Vice President Biden, having disclosed on May 4, 2011, that Navy Seal Team VI carried out the successful raid on Bin Laden’s compound resulting in the master terrorist’s death, put a retaliatory target on the backs of the fallen heroes.
2. How and why high-level military officials sent these Navy SEAL Team VI heroes into battle without special operations aviation and proper air support.Accompanying the families of these dead Navy SEAL Team VI special operations servicemen will be retired military experts verifying their accounts of how and why the government is as much responsible for the deaths of their sons as is the Taliban.
The areas of inquiry at the press conference will include but not be limited to:
1. How President Obama and Vice President Biden, having disclosed on May 4, 2011, that Navy Seal Team VI carried out the successful raid on Bin Laden’s compound resulting in the master terrorist’s death, put a retaliatory target on the backs of the fallen heroes.
3. How and why middle-level military brass carries out too many ill-prepared missions to boost their standing with top-level military brass and the Commander-in-Chief in order that they can be promoted.
4. How the military restricts special operations servicemen and others from engaging in timely return fire when fired upon by the Taliban and other terrorist groups and interests, thus jeopardizing the servicemen’s lives.
5. How and why the denial of requested pre-assault fire may have contributed to the shoot down of the Navy SEAL Team VI helicopter and the death of these special operations servicemen.
6. How Afghani forces accompanying the Navy SEAL Team VI servicemen on the helicopter were not properly vetted and how they possibly disclosed classified information to the Taliban about the mission, resulting in the shoot down of the helicopter.
7. How military brass, while prohibiting any mention of a Judeo-Christian God, invited a Muslim cleric to the funeral for the fallen Navy SEAL Team VI heroes who disparaged in Arabic the memory of these servicemen by damning them as infidels to Allah. A video of the Muslim cleric’s “prayer” will be shown with a certified translation. Watch the video: http://youtu.be/G968rxOjiMs
"This press conference takes on special significance given that our government has over the last twelve years since September 11th committed brave American servicemen to wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that, in large part as a result of politics, were poorly conceived of and implemented, resulting in the deaths of thousands and the maiming of tens of thousands of our brave heroes. To make matters even worse, America has effectively lost these wars," stated Larry Klayman, legal counsel for the families.
--
"Educate and inform the whole mass of the people. They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty." - Thomas Jefferson Virginia Tea Party Patriots www.virginiateapartypatriots.com Danville Patriots http://danvillepatriots.com/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyqTlje8RxQ"
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