White Ghost

This morning we woke up to a real treat. Several years ago we bought a white night-blooming water lily. It bloomed the first year, and maybe the second and that’s it. We haven’t seen it for at least 4 years, and were not even sure it survived.
Three summers ago we moved the entire pond, plants, fish and all. All the potted water lilies and a few rogues (just growing in the muck in the bottom of the pond) came with us. Most have bloomed including some pink, blue and yellow day bloomers and a very bright pink (yes, even I can see the color) night bloomer. But no white flowers in evidence.
Then, this morning, there it was. Radiantly white, and big, too. What a treat. The photo doesn’t really do it justice, but rather than go to the web for someone else’s picture, I thought, “What the hell, just use your own”. So I did. Enjoy.

Good News for Today

This morning I look in the usual places for hints of good news and not surprisingly found some. Note this headline form the Melbourne (Australia) Morning Sun: “A COMPUTER engineer died after tying himself naked to a tree with a cord wrapped around his penis, an inquest heard.” (1) The guy got drunk, made himself a pair of plastic rope handcuffs, tied a piece of cord around his willy, got naked, tied himself to a tree in what has been described as a “bondage game with the tree”, and the TREE WON.
This is all the proof anyone needs that Natural Selection is still at work, cleaning out the gene pool. I suppose the good news here is that someone as (try not to be too judgmental Woody), what the hell, moronic as that is no longer around to influence others. He may have done good works as well, but we will never know it.
As for other good news, a few items of interest:surveys indicate people still participate in Reality Shows and actually believe that they are real; more contestants line up for beauty contests and the stock market is wavering but not yet collapsing.
All but buried in the foreign and domestic news, including the conservative outlets, is some really good news: the troop drawdown in Iraq is on track to be completed in the next 12 months, going from 160k to 50k.
The gulf oil well that spilled an estimated 200 million gallons (range is 93 million to 400 million) as of today has been killed. And the really good news is that more than 75% or the oil has disappeared! WOW! GONE! So we only have to worry about 50 million gallons. Man, am I relieved.
Image: Jacopo de' Barbari (Print made by); The three prisoners: www.britishmuseum.org/.../AN00443582_001_l.jpg
1. Source: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/lifestyle/the-other-side/man-dies-after-bondage-game-with-tree-fails/story-e6frfhk6-1225903503810

Interview with a Whiner

Ann Rice dumps the Catholic church because she “discovered” that it is homophobic and trying to influence “secular” policy. What a gigantic surprise! She started her writing career as an atheist, then later converted back to her childhood religion. Why do that? Who knows what lurks in the hearts and souls of lapsed Catholics? I know my mother gave up the Church when she was about 10 and spent the rest of her life feeling guilty even though she was a faithful Episcopal. The Catholic indoctrination burns a very deep hole in the soul. Rice is keeping her belief in God, and in the idea the God knows and sees all, but can’t abide the fraud of the Church in the “holier than thou” department. Or any other Christian church for that matter.
Well duh. I guess the astonishing levels of deceit and crime within the church over abuse of young members by clergy wasn’t a problem. I guess the refusal to ordain gay priests wasn’t a problem or the relegating woman to second class (or even third class) citizens wasn’t a problem. She said there was no “straw” that caused the break, just an accumulation of distasteful things. So she came to her senses, partially.
I remember when her first vampire novel came out and thinking what a whiner the handsome blonde rock star vampire was. Lestat was his name and whining was his game. Sounds to me like our Ann is getting a bit whiney.
I have said it before and I say it again: Religions should keep their beliefs to themselves and out of the lives of those that don’t think like they do. It is bad enough trying to cope with the world as it is without having to worry about which of the hundreds of religions are dangerous, or stupidly ignorant of just plain silly. Keep religions in the churches, mosques and temples, and out of the faces of the rest of us. And don’t forget, the Constitution guarantees it.
Image: http://www.starpulse.com/news/index.php/2009/07/01/why_modern_vampires_well_suck
NPR interview with Ann Rice: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128930526

The Air

I was listening to the original cast album of Hair the other day and when the song “Air” played I thought “Hmm. not much has changed has it?” But on reflection it has. Greatly.

“Welcome! sulphur dioxide

Hello! carbon monoxide

The air, the air

Is everywhere

Breath deep,

while you sleep

Breath deep” (1)

The song was talking about the choking pollution facing cities across the country and globe. The air was so thick you could see it. (Kind of like Bejing today). Full of particulates and acid forming radicals. When the Clean Air Act was passed in 1963 and amended in 1970 and 1990 the intent was to clean up the air and make it breathable and less toxic. It worked like a charm, and although many cities still have a brown haze of reacted hydrocarbons and other crap, the air on balance is much cleaner. But the unseen gasses in the air are now the focus of much worry. Methane, carbon dioxide and others promote the “greenhouse effect” .Many conservatives deny is real but the science is there in Spades. This effect is named after the warming that you experience in a greenhouse. Sunlight comes in through the glass, the wavelength gets longer and then can’t get back out through the glass. The result is the desired heating of the air. Same thing in the global atmosphere.
The upshot is that you can breathe with more confidence in many places where just 40 years ago breathing was dangerous. But you can’t depend on the future climate to be hospitable because the air is now polluted in a different way. There is a battle in congress right now to give the EPA the legal authority to regulate greenhouse gasses as it does with the other pollutants. For: people that believe the science and don’t want the world to go down the toilet. Against: industries that pollute massively and influence ignorant or greedy people into thinking the science is bad or nonexistent. Very Dangerous Game.

1. Music and Lyrics: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_(musical)
Hear “Air” here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OC0WqMcTv0&feature=related
Image: chinadigitaltimes.net/china/beijing-environment

Karma or Coincidence?

So, I’m walking down the olive oil isle at Harvey’s and my cell phone rings. I answer and before I can say anything beside “hello” I hear “this is (Beth) Willis, your lawyer”. I said “who?” She said a bit louder and sounding annoyed “Your LAYWER”. I said I didn’t have a lawyer and she had the wrong number. She apologized and we parted amicably.
I got into the truck when it hit me. I had a student years ago named Beth Willis. I wonder if that was she? I looked up the number on the cell phone and called back. No answer but I heard her name on the answering device and it wasn’t “Beth”. I explained why I called back and apologized. A couple of hours later she called me and said “I have a daughter named Beth.” Shorten the story: Wrong Beth; we spent 45 minutes talking about politics, legal stuff and karma. She is retired and does some work for the State and has volunteered to help me with a quest I am about to begin. More on that in a later essay.
For now, I offer this tale as another example of the strange connections that may or may not exist in life. What a trip!!! Life, I mean.
Image: www.chopra.com/laws/karma

Still Gonna Die

What albums would you want if you were marooned in space? No, not a dumb FB game. The top picks for me are “Deep Breakfast” by Ray Lynch and Creedence Clearwater Revival “20 Greatest Hits”. The first is a quiet movement through space and time, all synthesized. While the second rocks all the way through.
I just finished listening to the Creedence album as the insulators finished blowing my porch and garage. Great timing. I didn’t miss a beat. While Fogerty was warning about a “Bad Moon Rising” I was making a marinade with Porter, garlic, pepper, mustard, thyme, basil, salt and a bit of canola oil. Into this will shortly go 2 lovely pork tenderloins, later to be grilled to a pink perfection on the Weber. “Bad Moon Rising” always has given me a bit of a chill, and the message is even more poignant today. There is indeed a bad moon on the rise.
So a good counterpoint to the warning “Don’t go out tonight” is a lovely pork tenderloin tonight. And you know something? Check the lyrics for “Still Gonna Die” on the Old Dogs album. Here is a sample:

“But remember that for all your pain and gain

Eventually the story ends the same...

You can quit smokin', but you're still gonna die.

Cut out cokin', but you're still gonna die.

Eliminate everything fatty or fried,

And you get real healthy, but you're still gonna die.

Stop drinkin' booze, you're still gonna die.

Stay away from cooze, you're still gonna die.

You can cut out coffee and never get high,

But you're still gonna, still gonna, still gonna die. "

So screw the moon and the Mayan calendar. As I have often said, LIVE!! (knowing full well that you still gonna die.) Hear the song here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdEoputkE98

Image: (Lynch)quietmusic.wordpress.com/
Image: (Creedence) sodahead.com
Image: (Old Dogs) http://www.amazon.com/Old-Dogs etc.

Horse****!!

Ha. Not what you think. Horse meat is a commodity getting attention these days because many pet horses are being sold at auctions that owners think are for pets to go to new owners, but actually go to the slaughterhouse. Estimates range in the neighborhood of one hundred thousand a year, with most going to Mexico, Canada or Europe. In these places the horses are killed and butchered for human or pet food. They are not treated kindly.
So who is to blame for this? Indiscriminate pet breeders “Oh, let’s have our mare have a baby so we can have a colt to raise honey.” is commonly heard around pet horse owners. Then the feed and vet bill goes up and “bingo” the horse gets auctioned. And race horse breeders contribute to the problem by breeding and selecting for the best runners and trashing the rest.
The whole thing turns on two things: Any animal raised to be a pet will get really traumatized if treated like a food animal. Horses included. They get easily terrified and being loaded in trucks with prods, trucked thousands of miles, unloaded in chutes and killed is at best awful and at worst unspeakably cruel. The second is the unwillingness of Americans to view horses as food animals. Most of the rest of the world is quite happy serving horse meat as a normal part of the diet. Yummy. What could be better than a nice juicy horse tenderloin, lightly grilled to a warm pink and served with a good Cabernet? See? You think that is a sick thing even to suggest. But face it folks. Horses are animals like cattle and have a lot of meat on them. Why not eat them? If the raising and slaughter of horses was regulated, humane treatment would be more likely, and a growing number of horse lovers (for meat, not riding) would add to a new commerce. Then all you southerners that have a pet horse or two could actually have a reason for keeping the nags. And make a few dollars as well.
The killing floors of horse slaughter plants are awful places, but outlawing horse slaughter in America won’t solve the problem in Mexico or Canada or France. Regulating the trade makes more sense to me. The other issue is what to do with the 100’s of thousands of horses bred every year, if the meat trade is cut off? Every day starving horses are dumped at humane shelters throughout the country. To get killed and either buried or burned. They die more quietly, but after months or years of abuse. If all the rednecks that breed horses and all the racehorse owners that breed horses could be convinced to back off, that would be a good start to actually solving the problem. The other is to let McDonald’s server “Trigger Burgers”.
Image: http://www.looking-glass.co.uk/news/library2004/2004-6-greek-strays-photos.htm

Gay Marriage and Wearing the Burqa

I keep asking the same question: How will “gay” marriage: A. ruin all the “non-gay” marriages; B. pose a danger to our children who will be taught in school that it is OK to be gay; C. destroy the very foundations of our way of life? These and other claims have been used for years to make the case against gay marriage seem important to the vast number of people in this country that just don’t see the problem.
I didn’t run out and get a divorce or start beating my wife when 5 states passed gay marriage laws. But, you say, I am prejudiced because my family includes generations of gay (and lesbian) members. Baloney. I could still be a homophobe. But I’m not because I never bought into the bible-thumping pastors that rail against the “ungodly” queers among us; these same-sex perverts that stalk and pounce on witless children. What a load of garbage. It is clear that gayness is a birthright not a choice, and that other than sexual identify gays have the same percentage of issues that normals have. Sure there are pedophile gay men. But there are 10 or more times more straight men that are pedophiles. Do you think that the arrests you hear about every day for “kiddy porn” are gay men? Not no, but HELL NO. Most convicted pedophiles are heterosexuals. So get real.
The angst over the marriage of gays is a bible-based issue that has no merit what so ever. And besides, why should State and Federal laws uphold biblical nonsense. How would you Christians like it if Moslems asked (and got) that the States and Feds passed a law requiring ALL women to wear a headscarf or the burqa (1)? Not very much I would guess. So why should we all be expected to live by the bible? This isn’t after all a theocracy. Why should non-Christians care at all what it says in the bible? And why should Christians feel the need to get their religious ideas made into laws that we all have to follow? Remember Separation of Church and State? The founding fathers, those same DEISTS (not Christians) that specifically forbid state sponsored religion. Because it is DANGEROUS. Read about the Spanish Inquisition some time. That was a state sponsored religion. Or the beheading of women in Saudi Arabia. Another theocracy. They are scary people. So get real.
No, the reasons seem clear: Blatant homophobia and scape goating. And with other signs in the air a feeling that the Nation is slowly moving towards fascism. Now I am going to get biblical on you: God help us all.

"THEY CAME FIRST for the Communists,and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

THEN THEY CAME for the trade unionists,and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

THEN THEY CAME for the Jews,and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

THEN THEY CAME for me and by that time no one was left to speak up." (2)

1. and Image:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijab
2, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came...

A Sad, Beautiful and Lost Old Lady

I noticed a very old woman struggling to push a cart from Publix. Two younger women were close behind trying to talk to her. She hadn’t checked out her few items, just put them in the cart and headed out. I figured the younger women knew her and were helping.
On the way out I noticed the older woman was sitting in a motorized shopping cart by the pharmacy, and the two younger women and a Publix employee talking to her. They were trying to find out who she was and where she lived. She looked utterly defeated, just kept shaking her head and mumbling “don’t know. Don’t know.”
There are several lessons here for all of us. Most importantly keep your eyes open for confused older people. There are more of them than ever, and Alzheimer’s along with strokes are becoming more common every day. Another very important thing to do is to be sure older people have some identification with the at all times. A bracelet or necklace with a name and phone number would be ideal.
How did the old Dear get to Publix? Drive? Heaven forbid. But she did get there somehow.
We can all hope this never happens to us or our loved ones, but you know it will, to someone. These older Americans have taken care of the rest of us for decades, and it is our turn to keep on the lookout for them. And if you think “why should I bother with someone I don’t even know?” the answer is because you are presumable human, and endowed with humanity. If that isn’t enough try this: You will feel better if you help someone. Go ahead. Be selfish. Lend a hand when needed. You never know if the next stroke will be yours, and as you fall you think “Please, somebody help me.” Payback time has just arrived.
Image: e-revista.com.pt/industria/b2b/files/2010/02/...

Who says I Don’t Believe in Miracles?

Drains: Love/Hate
You gotta love drains. They carry away much of the refuse of the world, and in your house they swallow the contents of the toilet, the bathroom sink, the dishwasher, the kitchen sink and the washing machine. Not to forget the tub and shower water. I love them for their utility.
Long ago I gave up “hate” as a way of thinking of people and things. Takes too much energy to hate anyone or anything, and in the end it cannot make things better. And, it can make you sick. You hate, your blood pressure goes up. That can lead to stroke or heart attack. If you are going to have one of those, better in the arms of a lover at the precise moment of unendurable bliss. Not good for the lover, but what a way to go!
But I leave one thing on the hate list. Not on the functional end but on the assembly end. Drains are one of the most vexatious devices known to mankind. The go together fairly easily, and then they leak. They come apart easily, get looked at, go together, and then they leak. They come apart AGAIN, get thoroughly looked at and smeared with waterproof putty, go together, and then they LEAK!!!
Judas Priest!!!(See earlier essay called “The F-Bomb” for a discussion of this particular stand in). By now stroke is just around the corner and no lover in sight. Mantra: calm, calm, calm, calm. Deep breath. It works. Take apart; look at it in minute detail for any signs of imperfection (none noted); smear with waterproof putty, WD-40 between the nut and gasket so it tightens easier; assemble carefully; deep breath; fill bowl with water; lift stopper. Dry. No leak. Once again the miracle of WD-40.
On to the toilet and the tub drain. Deep breath. Calm. Calm. Calm. Calm.
(PS on hate list: crown molding is right there next to drains.)
Image: woodstock-georgia.olx.com/water-pipe-leak-fro...