Sleeping Bees!

Found this wonderful blog --homeofthebudds--on my travels this a.m.  The post is "do bees sleep?"  Check out the amazing pictures.  One of the local blog readers said the bees are not asleep, they're drunk.  I dunno anything at all about bees sleeping out of the hive at night, but I really love this.  The local blogger who posted this on our town website said she finds sleeping bees in her flowers every morning!

Cities and states can't control handguns??

The SCOTUS live in wonderland, protected on all sides everywhere.  Let them move to a rough DC (and now, Chicago) neighborhood and ride the bus to work without their chauffeurs and bodyguards and retainers. Let 'em get held up at gunpoint a few times as they walk to the corner grocery. Let 'em wake up! If they're so concerned about the Constitution, how about working on separation of church and state?  


I pray that none of the poor suckers who think owning a handgun will protect themselves or their loved ones never shoot a loved one--or themselves--by accident.  The only reason to buy or own a gun like that is to kill someone.  I doubt if you're that nervous. I doubt if you really want to kill someone, so don't get a handgun.  Don't allow one in your house.  Don't hang around with people who need a handgun to feel brave.

Do yourself a favor....

read THIS!!

Gail Collins hit one out of the park today, and the comments, minus the usual nastiness from the right wingers, are wonderful.  What a great read to get us on our way today.....

HE DID IT!!!!

Master Sean Denson is now the proud owner of a degree (Hons) in Computer Science from Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK. Need I tell you that he has worked LONG and HARD for this, and at long last, it's in his hands!!! Congratulations, Sean!!! Nobody deserves it more than you. NOW I hope you and Laura will tie the knot!!!

(Note the classic academic's "What's that smell?" pose)

New Meme: Technology during Your Life Span at 10-year Intervals....

A Little Red Hen stopped by to see her cousin, Hen Pink, and commented about "thinking 10 years ahead at our age."  There are many ways to consider what one's life will be like ten years from now.  But that got me thinking about what life has been like in the past--especially vis-a-vis technology. My grandmother died at the turn of the previous century--1900. She was 43 years old and never saw a motor car or an airplane (I want to spell it aeroplane...ha) or a radio or a telephone or electricity or indoor plumbing (although in Germany, the family lived ABOVE the cows, so the cows, at least, could tinkle in the house). Not to mention TV, computers, WIFI, cell phones, video cams--you name it. It all came after she died.

So...anyway, here's technology in 10-year intervals as I experienced it over my life span PLUS one heretofore unknown bit of technology I predict will be part of everyday life 10 years in the future!

1st 10 years: automatic transition in cars or portable radio--meaning you could lift it off the ground.

2nd 10 years: television!  (yeah....i was a junior in high school when TV arrived in the Dwyer home in Fargo)

3rd 10 years: stereo or LP records or color TV

4th 10 years: computers! The computers at work were room-sized. My first computer-related job was proofreading data cards before they were inserted into the computer to be tallied.

5th 10 years: personal computers 

6th 10 years: cell phones or portable video cameras or lasers.

7th 10 years: cochlear implant or Kindle or Nook or iPad

8th 10 years (THE PREDICTION): houses and cars go solar--all of them--or gene repair (curing illnesses by tinkering with or replacing genes)

I'm leaving out a lot of things like automatic coffee makers and washers, electric clothes dryers, crockpots, nylon/orlon/polyester fabrics--things we didn't have when I was very small but are ubiquitous now. Cars have gotten swankier and fatter and hungrier, but there's not been a whole lot of change in their basic operation (burn fuel to go).

Make your own list...it's fun to think about these things. Find a way to share it with the rest of us.

MAW has her troubles...

Spring 2010....eventful, hot, rainy here.  I am trying to get back into drawing the cartoons that occupy my thoughts.  BUT, seeing as I am not a professional  cartoonist, I'm having troubles that only a rank amateur would have--and this apart

from the actual DRAWING.  

F'r instance, I have LOST the memory card for my all-in-one printer-fax-scanner.  Even if I wanted to scan something, where could it go? 

Thus, after drawing the cartoon, and not being able to scan it, I decided to take a picture of it with my cell phone and forward that to myself.  I doubt that any pro cartoonist has to resort to this kind of thing just to get something published.

But I am just a beginner at this.  Malcolm Gladwell in OUTLIERS states that to become really good at anything--drawing, skating, pitching baseball, whatever--requires no less than 10,000 hours of practice. That's about 10 years' worth if you practice 2-3 hours a day. I don't think I practice ANYTHING for 2-3 hours every single day, unless you count eating.  I'm VERY good at that.  

It seemed, also, that Blogger itself was going quietly nuts.  Things were no longer what they seemed to be even last month.  Wot???  I figured this out, though.  If I use Firefox, everything--how to add new blogs or a new photo (as in my Garden Watch)--is OK.  If I use Google Chrome, it's way strange.

What, indeed, in MAW's universe has not been strange this spring?

thanks, Whoopee

I'm dedicating this You-Tube-bearing post to Whoopee in thanks for her recent post on her two bee children (also for the one on Caligula).  It's not easy taking care of two lively small children, with the new baby weighing almost as much as most kids do when they're much older.

So here's a little entertainment for when all else palls....I look forward to future posts after you and Ian and the children have learned how to play the fiddle and the other instruments.  Here's "Diga diga diga" by the Luminescent Orchestrii...(yeah, that's how they spell it)

Everyone's on hiatus these days....

Many of my most faithful readers are taking a break from blogging for a few weeks this summer: Kay's Thinking Cap, Darlene's Hodgepodge--even bloggers I read all the time, though they probably don't read XE much--like Whoopee (though not officially--she's just sidelined while her woman's bits heal after the birth of Caligula the Destroyer, aka Oscar).

Well, I'm not on hiatus...I'm just doing lots of dreaming about what to create next and running out every few hours to see if anything's up in my various gardens.  So I decided, for sheer bloggy pleasure, to go back to drawing cartoons for a while.  I thought of a good one today, and as soon as I finish editing a loooong piece for a client, I'll get cracking on it.  Watch this space......

I want to confide in my readers about something, too.  My housemate took it upon herself to dig up a second 4'x4' garden plot in the back yard this afternoon, but instead of removing the dirt from the sod and then tossing the sod along the fence where it can regrow, she just stirred it back into the plot again--with copious water.  So now there is a gigantic mud pit out back filled with very healthy-looking grass turned upside down that'll take a day or two to dry out enough to plant something in it.  I have memories of our Victory Garden back in Fargo in the 1940s, when we'd harvest potatoes and radishes speared with grass roots if we didn't get rid of the grass well enough.  And reading gardening pamphlets from NDAC about how grass and other weeds consume the nutrients needed for the veggies.  So....while I'm very grateful for her strong back and the speed with which she dug up the second plot, I think she should remove the growing matter and also add some good potting soil for the top layer as I did for the first plot, but she insists that the grass will add organic matter to the garden.  The ground is so warm now that the seeds practically burst open after just a few hours in the ground.  I'm feeling very conflicted about this.  It's nice to inspire others to plant a garden even if they don't do it the way I think it should be done.  But on the other hand, what the hey difference does it make?  If she wants her own plot, she can buy the seeds and water them, too.  I confess to feeling very selfish about this garden space--even though it's not even my own lawn--and upset that I feel this way, goldammit to hell anyway!

Tomato tower

Well, today would be my mother's 113rd birthday if she were still walking among us. She'd be just a few years older than Mary McGowan. Anyway, it was a lovely day..."What is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days." Some poet wrote that...and if I weren't so lazy, I'd look it up. OK OK, I did...it was James Russell Lowell.


I saw a new bird today. Must be a warbler of some kind. Kind of like a white sparrow with a black cap (but not a black-capped chickadee). The bird songs here are practically symphonic. And I noticed that the trees by the metro tracks--the ones that have the beautiful white flowers in the spring--are locust trees. Nice to know.  Mom taught me by her example to pay attention to the beauty around me.  It was a gift that keeps on giving.


I planted a tomato tower in the back yard today. I'm taking bets on whether it actually will produce a tomato!

"Whacking the old folks...."

 One sour note back in January, when we were celebrating President Barack Obama's inauguration, was his quiet announcement that there would be NO cost of living adjustments for Social Security for two years.  Xtreme English complained a little bit at the time, but hardly anyone else made a peep--especially our favorite insurance peddlers, AARP.  The announcement landed on a soft cushion of indifference, possibly calculated.

Yesterday, the June 7, 2010 issue of Nation magazine arrived with THIS alarming lead paragraph:

In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink. 

The author, William Greider, goes on to discuss the commission, its purpose, and its membership, noting, "The people, once again, are kept in the dark." Greider's "excellent take on Social Security" also appears in an article by Trudy Lieberman in the May 25 issue of Columbia Journalism Review. 

Greider goes on, "What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case." 


Here's another paragraph in the Nation article (emphasis mine), about half way through the article:

Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda—the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus—$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s—unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.

Can us old folks do anything at all about this?  Can we at least get the President and his Commission to say what they're up to BEFORE the elections later this year?  Greider says, 

Citizens can win this fight if they mobilize smartly. We can do this by arousing public alarm  

right now, while members of Congress face a treacherous election and before Obama can 

work out his deal. Some liberal groups are discussing a "take the pledge" campaign that 

demands senators and representatives sign commitments to keep Hands Off Social Security 

Benefits. If politicians refuse to sign, put them on the target list for November. Barack 

Obama is standing on the third rail of politics—let's give him a warning jolt.