Good thoughts from an interesting writer. This was a quick read and full of head-nodding moments.

The hero of Bradbury’s novel [Fahrenheit 451] is a municipal worker whose job is burning books.
While on the subject of burning books, I want to congratulate librarians, not famous for their physical strength, their powerful political connections or great wealth, who, all over the country, have staunchly resisted anti-democratic bullies who have tried to remove certain books from their shelves, and destroy records rather than have to reveal to thought police the names of persons who have checked out those titles.
So the American I loved still exists, if not in the White House, the Supreme Court, the Senate, the House of Representative, or the media. The America I loved still exists at the front desks of our public libraries.
And still on the subject of books: our daily news sources, newspapers and TV, are now so craven, so unvigilant on behalf of the American people, so uninformative, that only in books do we learn what’s really going on.
I will cite an example: House of Bush, House of Saud by Craig Unger, published in early 2004, that humiliating, shameful, blood-soaked year.

and then there's this:

I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. …He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”
So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, “If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Beeswax. For me to play with and maybe make candles with.

When Steve, my beekeeping neighbor, took away my hive (sob) I vowed that I wouldn't give up all the beekeeping activities I had planned. Candle making was one of those activities, so I asked Steve if I could have the wax leftovers from his honey harvesting. Here they (it?) are (is?). What you see are one nice clean piece of cappings and a whole lot of wax mixed with bee parts, honey, and propolis. I'm going to follow the advice found in the book Plan Bee by Susan Brackney. I'll stuff bits of this into old pantyhose, put the stuffed pantyhose into a pot of water, heat the water until the wax rises to the top, wait for it to cool, and then lift off a disk of pure wax. That's the theory at least. Then I'll slowly melt that wax and pour it into candle molds that I bought back in the days when I dreamed of being a real beekeeper. Before I learned that I'm a wus about the whole thing.

Butternut squash: I always thought they were used mostly for decoration and nobody ever ate them. Wrong.

A neighbor gave me some butternut squash and since everyone keeps saying that the yellow-orange vegetables are so full of vitamins and antioxidants I decided to look for a recipe. And I found a very easy one that was a hit in this house.

The hardest part is peeling the squash. Takes a good scraper and some muscle. And you gotta watch your fingers carefully.

--Peel one squash.
--Scoop out the seeds, etc, and chop into small cubes.
--Melt butter gently in a cast-iron skillet -- 2 or 3 tablespoons.
--Whisk in several tablespoons of freshly chopped thyme or dried thyme and stir for minute to mix.
--Toss in squash cubes and stir until they're covered with the butter-thyme mixture.
--Add salt and pepper to taste.
--Raise the heat a bit and spread the squash into a single layer, more or less.
--Cook for a few minutes until the squash is browned on one side.
--Flip squash over to brown the other side, more or less. Cook for a few minutes.
--Stir once more, cover skillet, and cook about 10 minutes or until squash is cooked through.


Low in calories, very high in vitamin A, high in fiber. And I guess you could use a healthier substitute for the butter but why? I can give up a lot of things but butter isn't one of them.

Fly like a bird (Cain), sink like a stone (Perry).

It's hard to see but the rapidly falling dark blue line is Rick Perry; the rapidly rising red line is Herman (Herb, to Sarah Palin) Cain. Sink Perry, sink!

You've probably seen it a lot by now but just in case you haven't...The Onion, from today.

Original here.

Guest worker visas, anyone?

"Alabama's strict new immigration law was touted as a job creation bill, a way to force illegal workers out of jobs and open them up for legal residents. Early indications are the plan is backfiring.

"The law is driving away many construction workers, roofers and field hands who do backbreaking jobs Americans generally won't. So far, few legal residents have stepped in to fill any of the vacancies, creating an absence that will surely deal a blow to the state's economy and could slow the rebuilding of Tuscaloosa and other tornado-damaged cities."

From here.


"Georgia's new immigration law is scaring migrant workers away and costing south Georgia farmers big bucks.

"Experts say the labor shortage could shrink Georgia's economy by nearly $400-million.

"Many farmers say that Georgia's new immigration enforcement law is putting their crops at risk. they are asking the federal government to make it easier for foreign workers to get guest worker visas."

From here.

It's October and finally my dahlias are waking up.

So so silly.

Every year the Gonzo Scientist blog, associated with Science magazine, sponsors a dance video contest. Entrants must do an interpretive dance that is supposed to communicate their PhD topic. This year one of the entries is by a biology researcher doing his dissertation on robbing behavior in honeybees.

Guarding and Robbing Behavior in Social Insects from Michael Smith on Vimeo.

The story of my cantaloupe.

I never plant cantaloupes or watermelons or any kind of squash because (a) they take up way, way too much gardening real estate, and (b) one or two will come up anyway, probably from the compost I use in my garden. This lope grew UP a fennel plant; that's the only support it had while it grew all summer. I finally picked it a few days ago and sliced it open. Voila! A perfect looking little baby cantaloupe. But alas it had absolutely positively no taste at all. So, I guess you get what you pay for.

Meanwhile, you've got to see the adorable little squash table that Kitt's husband built for one of her pumpkins. Here's what it looked like from the very start.

Itty bitty froglette. He's sitting on a pachysandra leaf so you can see how tiny he is. A peeper maybe?

The big guy in the bottom picture lives in my little pond along with a bunch of his brothers and sisters. They seem huge now, especially compared to the guy in the top picture, who is about as long as the end of my pinky finger--wider than my finger but no longer. On the brown frog, see the nipple-like thing below his eye? It's his ear. I think people would look cool with ears like that.

A friend passed this along to me.