A little perspective...

We have a little internal conflict these days in the Little House; Spice is deeply engaged by, and involved in, the US presidential election bustle; and I am not.

I freely admit that when I was her age, I was all tangled up by it.  But, having seen many presidential elections come and go (the first one I remember was Eisenhower...) - I find it all a great deal less exciting these days.

Is it important?  Well, sure.

But- it may help you relax if you can come to truly understand - that what you see going on in the public media is a performance; not government.  And the performances you see have little to do with what will actually happen after the elections.

So; really; you might as well relax a bit; and enjoy the chorus lines.  Because that's what they are; well rehearsed, singing and dancing scripts written by professionals who are not on stage, and yes, occasionally one trips and stumbles on stage, so we can all go "oooo!"

And, there are the old troupers, and the ingénues.

In amongst all the frenzied kerfuffing (neologism alert) about last nights Biden-Ryan tango, what came to my mind most prominently was Biden's better grasp of old, old advice, long available.

What matters is the emotions engendered, long after the dance; all the "logic" invoked will have been long since lost when voters step into their booths.  Was this person strong, or weak; is what will be remembered.

And in that vein of thought, what I dredged out of my ancient neuro archives was this patter song from a very old Danny Kaye movie; The Inspector General.

For those not familiar- Danny is playing an ignorant, illiterate, sub-peasant; who suddenly finds the people in this village believe him to be the Inspector General sent to root out corruption.  Admitting he is not, will likely get him hanged.  So- this is his pondering how to - fool everyone.

Which- is what politicians do, you know.

Enjoy the song; I love it dearly.  And the wisdom it contains is vastly larger than you might think at first.


As usual; if the Blogger player is cranky; go straight to YouTube for it.  Be patient!  It's a long clip, a bit uneven, but with very tasty bits.

Enjoy!!

Might as well.

One of my favorite lines of all times:  "Up off your knees!!  STOP LICKING MY BOOTS!"

:-)

That and the end of the song; "Give 'em the Fist! Give 'em the Wrist! Give 'em the ....  "  oh, my.  He slipped one past the censors there, the rascal!  The original audiences had to be gasping.

Another maple dance.

Once again, conditions were not quite right this year for the amazing phenomenon I came to think was "normal"; 20 years ago.

We were watching; and were rewarded for that.  But the majority of the big compound leaves, walnuts, butternuts, hickories, and ash- were stripped off the trees by 30 mph winds in the two days before the frost.  So once again, we had a modest version, performed mostly by our sugar maples, with a few turns from the wild black cherries.

Attempts to take video have so far failed to capture anything vaguely resembling the experience; now I'd rather just see; watch.  But the end results can give you some idea:

Oh, hurray!  Blogger seems to have decided that this time it will let you click on the pic, and you can see it in its original, much bigger, format.  So far!  The photo, incidentally, is completely natural- I didn't touch or rearrange a single leaf.

It made quite a carpet, all lying flat as they fell in the calm.  Another change- this year our sugar maples had more red in their colors than I ever remember seeing; usually ours give us yellows, only.  Why?  You can find lots of educated answers- but keep in mind the educated guessers all thought our colors would be poor this year, because of the long drought and heat- but in fact the colors have been unusually bright.

Gone now, of course; they curl as they dry in the sun; fade and tumble when the wind comes up.

Lovely, while it lasts.

Keep your eyes open...

Hi folks-

As always- I'm sorry I've not been writing more often; and will try to do better.   : - )

Mostly it's the crazy weather; which makes for crazy work schedules, all out of whack.  And the confusion levels; which are globally in the upper stratosphere, on any topic.  And harvest.  Etc.

But- I wanted to remind older readers about the autumn phenomenon I first wrote about in 2007; and point out- this may be the year for you to see it.  Locally; I think our trees and leaves are poised for something like this to happen - and in the next few days.  The leaves this year are keeping me enthralled; we've got more red in our sugar maples than I've ever seen, in 30+ years; and- all the experts missed predicting all this color, which tickles me. (I'm way more expert than those guys- I learned to not even try predicting, years ago.)   : - )

The original post is here; give it a read- then, get your morning coffee ready, and keep your eyes open.  And- let me know what you see.

It's Official.

The scientific world is, finally, actually saying right out loud: "Global 'warming' is here; now; faster and worse than we thought."  James Hansen, the most visible of the mainstream scientists who have been willing to stake their careers on plain speaking, is speaking plainly again today in The Washington Post.  So; that's headline news, right?  Top feature?  Nah, you have to go dig on the Opinion page; and of course, they provide "balanced coverage", with a counter-opinion; from the Editor (idiotors) of the Post.

For those who've been reading this blog for a while; you'll remember I tried to point this out in 2007; scientific "best practices" will cause systemic underestimates for this problem.  And that's a really big problem.

If you've been dithering about changing your life to adapt; I think it's time to stop dithering.

And again.

We're very slow learners, us civilized folks.  Here we are, with another mass shooter orgy; it will go on for weeks now.

If you have the stomach, take a look at my post from 2007; Screaming Headlines.  Nothing has changed, if anything, the media have had practice now and crank out the trash faster.

I maintain now exactly what I said then: THE reason these shootings happen is; the instant celebrity, the media orgasm frenzy, the "smug-shot" photograph the killer knows will be repeated on every front page and news outlet for weeks.

If we banned such coverage- the shootings will stop.  I guarantee you.  Did we have these events before the media potential was realized?  Sure.  Once every 20 years.  Crazy persons exist.  Now- it's twice a year, and accelerating; and so far, not one major media outlet (The New York Times?  Washington Post?) has taken the high road, and announced the will not make a celebrity of the murderer.  Not one.

So what can you do?  There is something.  Don't watch.

And- tell the medium involved you're doing it.  Here's what I do:

When the Smug Shot shows up on my screen; I immediately go to the bottom, where there's a "Contact Us!" link.  I contact them.  I tell them; having seen their murderous coverage, I have turned it off; and will not visit their website for the next 3 days.  Actually- yeah, they lose revenue, when you don't click.  You can make up a standard message, and just paste it in, repeatedly.  Here's mine:


"You have chosen to make a murderer a celebrity.  I choose to not read your lethal coverage.  The media frenzy is unquestionably THE CAUSE of these massacres.

"I am normally a serious reader of your news; but now I have closed your site; and will not return for 3 days; I will take my traffic elsewhere.

"Stop this mindless snuff porn you are pushing.  Look in the mirror.  You are complicit."


If that gives one media employee a sick stomach- it's worth it.  Copy that (or improve it) if you wish.

I'll check back in in 3 days; if their coverage is still "America's Favorite Home Murderers!"- I'm out of there, 3 more days.  Cover the event, cover the survivors?  Sure- a little; then respect their sorrow.  Publicize NOTHING about the killer; not their name, photo, story- make them become a non-person.

Tell them.  And put this post up on your Facebook site.

The media have shown they have the spines of jellyfish- we don't have to follow them or participate.

There is other stuff to do, and read, in the world.

Maybe if the survivors, and parents of the dead- made this their crusade, someone would listen?

A New Effect Of Global Warming...

Yeah, yeah, climate change, what the hey.  This comes under the category of Global Weirding, a phrase I first heard at least 15 years ago, but which has recently started to gain steam.  Or my own choice to describe where we are; Climate Collapse.

We just went through this new effect, one I have not seen really described elsewhere.  We're among the many suffering from the drought here, so we're amazingly sensitive to the hope of rain.

This got my hopes up-

And yeah, we're kind of in the middle of all that.  But?

SQUAT FOR RAIN - out of all that lovely dark green radar (usually heavy) and yellow-orange (usually toad-strangler downpour).  Seriously, the deck is barely damp.

What we have here is an Insincere Thunderstorm.  

Or perhaps, for the poetically and vulgarly inclined: a Pissant Thunderstorm.

'Cause that's how much water we got; about as much as an ant could piss.

(actually, it's still dark as hell, and I'm hoping if I insult it enough, it'll eventually RAIN on us...)

Actually, later- no, it never did.  So-

Or.  Dunderstorm.

Ok, or, just Understorm.

Yet another horror awaiting us all as the climate goes over the edge.  Big promises- but it was only teasing.  The grass - is outraged, I assure you; and my neighbors who were hoping this would save their corn may be opening their arteries as we speak.

And I would like to talk to the radar people.   What's up with this!!???  Seriously- I sweat more water than this big blockbuster official "Severe Thunderstorm Warning" produced.

sigh.  Back to sweating.

:-/

You guys should, like, vote.  I'm currently liking Dunderstorm, myself.  Noisy, but totally incompetent.

100,000 March In Tokyo...

And you didn't hear about it at all.  My 100,000 is between two estimates.  There's a video at the link; much larger than their usual, with photos of the huge crowd in Tokyo- in 37° heat.  Someone (of you) should grab it, and repost to YouTube, before it vanishes.  From NHK:


Anti-nuclear rally held in Tokyo

"Tens of thousands of people have staged one of the biggest anti-nuclear rallies in Tokyo since the Fukushima accident in March, last year.

"Labor union activists joined members of the public in the main protest rally at Yoyogi Park on Monday. Many of them responded to calls on the social network Twitter and the Internet.

"Nobel prize-winning author Kenzaburo Oe was among public figures who called on people to take to the streets.

"The rally came after a reactor at the Ohi nuclear power plant in Fukui Prefecture, central Japan, was brought back online. It began operating at full capacity earlier this month.

"Oe said the government's move to push forward the re-starting of idled reactors despite wide public opposition is an insult to the people. He added that people must defeat this move.

"Organizers say 170, 000 people took part in the rally, while police estimate the number at 75,000.  The crowd then marched on to the streets to protest the restart of the reactor and show their opposition to nuclear power.

"A woman took part with her son, who is in elementary school. She said she wants the government to scrap nuclear plants immediately for the safety of her child.  A man in his 70s said he joined the rally because the government won't listen to the people. He added that he cannot accept its decision to restart the reactor.

"Jul. 16, 2012 - Updated 15:55 UTC (00:55 JST)"
--------------------------------------------

And you thought the world could not change?  This is an astonishing change for Japan; before Fukushima, anti-nuclear protests typically garnered numbers of under 100 protesters, year after year.  Granted- it took massive disaster.  But look at the people in the video.  I have to say- I see some hope in their faces.  They're not going away, or giving up.  I hope.