Uncategorized

  • Who's Next?  Don Rickles?

    I hope not.  At the moment, I'm furious at what's happening to Paula Deen.  I don't know which scandal mag dug it up, but apparently years ago she did or said something that was offensive to somebody or other, and now she's being kicked off The Food Network, forced to humble herself with lame apologies, and I'm pissed.

    This apparently started when a disgruntled former employee sued Deen for discrimination and some asshole lawyer asked her questions in a deposition that couldn't be answered honestly without admitting that at some time in the possibly distant past, she had uttered the N word.

    Who hasn't?

    I'm not the world's biggest Paula Deen fan, and I've already admitted that her apologies seem lame and repeated attempts to say publicly that she's sorry are only making matters worse.  But I don't like what she's going through.

    The term "politically incorrect" wasn't invented (in its modern sense) until 1970, at which time I was 30 years old.  So if I had to answer questions in a deposition, and I grew up in the south, I wonder how I'd fare.

    Here's my favorite definition of "politically incorrect."

    Saying whatever you god-damn wanna say, and expressing your opinions, and not giving a shit if a spineless minority deems it "offensive".

    I'm reminded of an interesting episode from CGP, the Scrabble mailing list I subscribe to.  Some idiot once smirkily asked, "Has anyone ever played [the N word] against a black person?"  All such terms are legal in tournament Scrabble.  So, stupid idiots that they are, subscribers gleefully smirked back with all their tales -- playing "FATSO" against an obese person or playing this or that against him or her.  You know what I mean.

    But I said it was an interesting episode.  And it was.  There was a black fellow I'll call X, who frequently used colorful language, including the F word and so forth and so forth, and some prudish little old lady scolded him for what the rest of us tolerated because, hell, it was just X being himself.

    But this scolding came AFTER a smirking player I'll call Y had spelled out the N word in one of his stories in response to the thread started by the original smirker who asked for stories.

    Well, X erupted with a tirade so offensive his posts had to be suspended by the list moderator.

    I was a little confused by the excessive anger that had caused the tirade, and I wrote X a letter asking him "Wha happened?"  And I said I knew all about the stupid stories repeating the N word and did that have anything to do with it?

    X answered me by saying, "You said 'the N word.'  What did Y say?"

    That was when I got it. 

    So big deal.  Paula Deen once spelled out the N word a million years ago.  Oh, I'm sure she's done worse than that, but I still think that the public relations nightmare she's living is undeserved.

    Too bad her multiple apologies have sounded so lame.

  • Phil's No Phailure

    There are three things in this life that are certain:  death, taxes, and the fact that Phil Mickelson will thrill you and then break your heart.

    It's annoying to hear so many sports reporters on the teevee knock Phil for failing to win the U.S. Open yesterday.  Yes, Phil admitted he screwed up a couple of wedge shots on the back nine, and was guilty of a couple of three-putts on the front nine, but on a tough course like Merion, mistakes have to happen.  Phil manned up and admitted he blew it, not wanting to make excuses, but I'LL SAY IT if he won't:  he made a succession of wonderful putts Saturday AND Sunday and deserved to have AT LEAST 40% of them go in the hole.  It was the golf gods that betrayed him.  He has nothing to be ashamed about.

    Kudos to the winner, Justin Rose, who richly deserved the trophy, and if Phil had had just a reasonable amount of fair results, Phil would have been the winner and Justin would have been an undeserving loser.  Justin's a great player and I'm happy for him.

  • 1 4 30 55 1,440,000

    I once told a Scrabble-playing friend of mine -- who was being scolded by a gentlelady at club that it was improper to look for rule technicalities to gain an advantage -- that Scrabble was more like golf than like such sports as pro football.  In golf, ethics and courtesy are paramount.  We call rules violations on ourselves.  So too in Scrabble.  Not in football, or basketball, or any of the other sports, where in order to win you're supposed to cheat and not get caught.

    With that as background, here's a wonderful column by Jim Litke of the Associated Press.  Whenever I see his byline on an article, I drop everything else in order to read it.  (I hope that link works.  It looked kind of funny when I clicked the insert button.)

    By the way, if you had three zeroes after each of the first four numbers in the title, you will get the size of the winner's paycheck at the U.S. Open at Merion Country Club.

    In other words, Olin Dutra won $1,000 in 1934.  Ben Hogan won $4,000 in 1950.  Lee Trevino won $30,000 in 1971.  David Graham won $55,000 in 1981.  This year's winner (I'm rooting for Phil Mickelson) will pocket $1,440,000.

    Ahem.  Scrabble, by the way, has not kept pace.  I won about 40 tournaments over my career, and except for three or four times, I barely covered expenses when I won.  And those times I did show a profit, I didn't make a lot of money.

    When I learned about inflation in school, I learned that it's supposed to take about 10 years for numbers to double.  Notice that that's approximately true for the 1934-1950 gap between Dutra and Hogan, and also for the 1971-1981 gap between Trevino and Graham.  The influence of Arnold Palmer and Jack Nicklaus and the great god television explains the major discrepancy between 1950 and 1971, and Tiger Woods and more television explains the explosion since 1981.

    By the way, I feel bad about leaving Olin Dutra's name out of what I wrote yesterday (see below).  I'd never heard of him before yesterday, but he did win more than 20 professional tournaments, including two majors.

    And Bobby Jones did win an important tournament at Merion, but it wasn't the U.S. Open.  It was the U.S. Amateur, the final leg of the old "Grand Slam" than Jones won in 1930.

    **********

    And now, it's time to eat a little breakfast, take my meds, check my blood pressure (we're in the process of getting ready to adjust my medication; long story; but I'm fine, don't worry) and watch golf all day.

    Go, Phil!

    **********

    Yesterday, I wrote:

     

    The U.S. Open

    If I were David Graham, that great Australian gentleman who won the last U.S. Open golf championship played at Merion Country Club in 1981, I'd be pissed off at the NBC announcer who, seconds before Tiger Woods teed off at THIS year's championship at Merion, waxed enthusiastic about the past champions here:  "Jones, Hogan, Trevino, Nicklaus."

    What crap!  Nicklaus didn't win, he was second to Lee Trevino in 1971.

    But I understand the mistake.  Because seconds before the announcer's gaffe, I was thinking, "Jones, Hogan, Trevino, Graham.  Hmm, Graham doesn't quite belong in that bunch."

    But jeez!  I didn't leave Graham out and think "Nicklaus."  C'mon!

    I mean, Graham did win the tournament, and he did win 38 tournaments over the course of his professional career, including a PGA championship to go with his U.S. Open trophy.  He wasn't chopped liver and he sure as hell didn't deserve to be left out completely in those remarks that opened the telecast of this year's third round.

    Anyway, there's a long way to go between now and tomorrow and just about anyone can win.  Currently, Phil Mickelson is tied for the lead at one under par with Billy Horschel and John Senden.  At even par are Justin Rose and Steve Stricker and Luke Donald.  Those last three are among the best players to have never won a major.

    Lurking are such stalwarts as Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy, Hunter Mahan, Charl Schwartzel, and Ernie Els.

     

    ##############################

     

    And Now, a tribute to an old Xanga friend:

    I won't name her, and I just hope she's still alive, but I can't find anyone who knew her who's still active so I don't know whom to ask.  Here is something she posted nearly five years ago:

    **************************************************

    Thursday, 14 August 2008

    (Note: I love all my friends who've stepped into the fray this past week. You are gems. This isn't written about you. This is written about those people who suck off my drama and who I wouldn't have darken my doorstep in the 'good days'. Now it's all about them. Again.)

    Okay, here's a list of things that bug me (and by extension ALL cancer patients, because I speak on behalf of them, doncha know):

    Things Not To Do:

    If we say we don't need another meal cooked for us -- we don't. The freezer is stocked, the dog has put on 8 kilos and you cook like shit anyway. We appreciate the gesture, know you want to help -- but fuck off with your crap lasagna.

    Under no circumstances, are you 'coming over on Friday to clean my house'. WTF? I am sorry if my personal hygiene offends you, or that you can see dust bunnies on my bathroom floor -- but tough tits. This family cleans its own house, maybe badly, but I am actually quite offended that you think this helps me. All this does is make me feel inadequate. So again with the fuck off.

    When you ask if I am alright, and I say 'okay', then that's the end of the conversation. I don't necessarily want to spill my guts each and every time we talk -- about mortality, what it's like to have the Big C, and (use Big Sad Voice here) How. I. Am. Coping. Unless you have a pipeline to the future, shut up and smile and accept my lie when I choose to tell it.

    Don't call just to talk. Most of the time I am trying to sleep. And furthermore, long-winded weepy messages on the answering machine WAKE ME UP and make me wish you had cancer not me. So there.

    On the above topic, don't get your knickers in a knot because (gasp) you called 3 days ago and I haven't returned your call. Maybe I am recovering from all the fucking telephone calls. Maybe I am puking. Maybe I am sleeping. Whatever. I still like you. Or will, unless you make an unreturned phone call an issue.

    This What To Do:

    Leave food (if you insist) outside my door and then text me or my hub to tell me it's there. Don't come in for a cup of tea. Really, don't. You didn't come in before I was sick, why would you want to now? My energy lasts 10 minutes, but my impulses last longer and must be overridden.

    If you DO come in. Leave soon. Don't make me ask you. It's embarrassing and rude and feels ungrateful.

    Tell me you will take my kids to and from school, or for a bit without me asking. It's really hard to feel like I can't look after them, and I worry. They also demand a lot of emotion from me lately, and I get worn out. Don't wait for me to ask -- just tell me when you'll return them.

    Email me. I can answer email when I choose and in the middle of the night, it's a good friend.

    Hug me. Cancer isn't contagious. I need the bodily contact to remind myself that.

    ***************************

    All of her old posts are still up, and (sigh) I guess they'll vanish into the ether on July 15.  Contact me if you'd like to know who she is.

  • A Blast From the Past

    June 13, 2005

    Not sure if all the comments are visible, but I think they are.  This is one of those incredible instances of Xanga-sharing and Xanga-supportiveness that I will miss, come July 15.

    That entry was about how I was denied the right to attend my father's funeral, back when I was 10 years old.

    Comments from:

    flaminredhead
    unbridled_science
    nannaruth
    knightingale
    transvestite_rabbit
    soonaquitter
    raguslil
    spinsky
    baldmike2004
    DawnsEarlyLight
    Daeshi
    PhuYuck
    Leonidas
    Annies_Snapshots
    LordPineapple
    sororitygirl
    Tooty
    MyKi_Whatzerface
    Fairyskisses77
    thenarrator
    jerjonji
    RSBlain
    mommachatter

    Where Are They Now?

    flaminredhead -- gone to FB, but Xanga blogs are up (last published here 2011)
    unbridled_science -- last published 2012; I do miss Robbie Caudle
    nannaruth -- last published 2010
    knightingale --last published 2012
    transvestite_rabbit -- still active
    soonaquitter -- last published 2012
    raguslil -- now known as Sojourner_here, who is still active
    spinsky -- no telling
    baldmike2004 -- still active
    DawnsEarlyLight -- last published 2011
    daeshi -- still active
    PhuYuck -- now known as tumbling_dice, last published 2011
    Leonidas -- still active
    Annies_Snapshots -- no telling
    LordPineapple -- deceased
    sororitygirl -- no telling, but at least she said goodbye, years ago
    Tooty -- deceased
    MyKi_Whatzerface -- no telling
    Fairyskisses77 -- last published 2012
    thenarrator -- blogspot (Xanga blogs still up)
    jerjonji -- still active
    RSBlain -- last published 2011
    mommachatter -- still active

  • Go HERE

    for my LiveJournal Blog

    ***********************

    Potpourri

    I'm not sure if anyone at all saw this long comment I made the other day -- elsewhere -- but it sums up much of my feelings about losing Xanga.  Here 'tis:

    *****************

    And I truly hope that Xanga survives, even though it's only a pale shadow of what it once was.  That pale shadow is still brighter and more vibrant than anything else I see on the Net.

    Xanga offers Community.  FB doesn't come close, and the other places don't even come close to FB.

     

    Xanga offers a filing system that again outstrips anything I've ever seen.  Doctors appointments, my list of medications, hyperlinks to favorite websites, handy lists of friends and subscribers, and I'm sure you know about my word lists.

     

    Xanga offers user-friendliness that is just as outstanding as its other qualities.

     

    The pictures, the Minis, the private messaging, the privacy and protected features -- OMG, the list goes on and on and on.

     

    Of course I haven't really tried the other sites, and it's possible there's someplace else that come close to being what I need and want, but I seriously doubt it.

     

    All of that said, I can't justify sending them any more money.  I've paid for lifetime premium for multiple sites (blip32962 is the other, and I'm willing to let go of the archives for that one, much as I poured into it) and I don't know whether www.xanga.com/uufvb is still seeable or not, but it's the site I established for our local UU congregation and while it's no longer active, it still holds a lot of memories.  And I spent money on that one, too. 

     

    And here's what I've been telling other favorite subscribers:

     

    I'll be at http://twoberry-bob.livejournal.com/ I'm pretty sure.  But darn, I hope that Xanga 2.0 survives somehow, because it's such an incredible FILING SYSTEM.  Not just my Scrabble word lists, but my doctors' appointments, hyperlinks to favorite websites, so many things.  And of course THE COMMUNITY we've built.

    ***************

    That was the end of the comment, containing the LiveJournal link that is so troublesome to me and everyone else.  Why I chose the damn underscore -- which shows up as a hyphen every time I try to type it as part of a link (maybe THIS:  twoberry_bob.livejournal.com) THIS is what it was supposed to look at, but stick an http: slash slash in front of it and all hell breaks loose -- I'll never know.

    I'll put up a hyperlink shortly.  MY LIVEJOURNAL BLOG

     

    Continuing on:

    Why Unconstitutional?

    As someone who is wholly behind the sentiments expressed by Thomas Friedman in his Wednesday, June 12, op-ed in the New York Times, to the effect that preventing another event similar to what happened on 9-11-01 trumps our need for "privacy," I present my take on the meaning of the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which reads:

    "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

    I'll present Friedman's op-ed, or at least a link to it, in a moment, but what I want to say about my take on the Fourth Amendment is simply that it means the government can't storm physically into your house and seize stuff or search for stuff without a warrant.  I don't see the word privacy anywhere in there, and I don't see even an implication of it.

    I'm sure I'll be told I'm wrong, but unless there's a Supreme Court ruling somewhere in our history that privacy is implied by the Fourth Amendment, it'll be hard to convince me.

    And here's the First Amendment:

    "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

    Again, I see nothing to prohibit the Government from reading our emails or tapping our phones.

    Oh, of course I understand why civil libertarians are up in arms over the present kerfuffle concerning the gathering of "metadata" such that there's a record somewhere of every phone call we've ever made and how long we talked and to whom we've talked.

    But we've been discussing the conflict between civil liberties and security ever since 9-11 and I said then and I say now that I'd rather the Government knew every microfact about me than live through another terrorist attack.

    And now here's a link to Thomas Friedman (so you can see what he looks like) and here's the actual op-ed from Wednesday:

    Blowing a Whistle<NYT_BYLINE>

    By

    <NYT_TEXT>

    <NYT_CORRECTION_TOP>

    I’m glad I live in a country with people who are vigilant in defending civil liberties. But as I listen to the debate about the disclosure of two government programs designed to track suspected phone and e-mail contacts of terrorists, I do wonder if some of those who unequivocally defend this disclosure are behaving as if 9/11 never happened — that the only thing we have to fear is government intrusion in our lives, not the intrusion of those who gather in secret cells in Yemen, Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot how to topple our tallest buildings or bring down U.S. airliners with bombs planted inside underwear, tennis shoes or computer printers. 

    Yes, I worry about potential government abuse of privacy from a program designed to prevent another 9/11 — abuse that, so far, does not appear to have happened. But I worry even more about another 9/11. That is, I worry about something that’s already happened once — that was staggeringly costly — and that terrorists aspire to repeat.

     I worry about that even more, not because I don’t care about civil liberties, but because what I cherish most about America is our open society, and I believe that if there is one more 9/11 — or worse, an attack involving nuclear material — it could lead to the end of the open society as we know it. If there were another 9/11, I fear that 99 percent of Americans would tell their members of Congress: “Do whatever you need to do to, privacy be damned, just make sure this does not happen again.” That is what I fear most.

    That is why I’ll reluctantly, very reluctantly, trade off the government using data mining to look for suspicious patterns in phone numbers called and e-mail addresses — and then have to go to a judge to get a warrant to actually look at the content under guidelines set by Congress — to prevent a day where, out of fear, we give government a license to look at anyone, any e-mail, any phone call, anywhere, anytime.

    So I don’t believe that Edward Snowden, the leaker of all this secret material, is some heroic whistle-blower. No, I believe Snowden is someone who needed a whistle-blower. He needed someone to challenge him with the argument that we don’t live in a world any longer where our government can protect its citizens from real, not imagined, threats without using big data — where we still have an edge — under constant judicial review. It’s not ideal. But if one more 9/11-scale attack gets through, the cost to civil liberties will be so much greater.

    A hat tip to Andrew Sullivan for linking on his blog to an essay by David Simon, the creator of HBO’s “The Wire.”  For me, it cuts right to the core of the issue.

    “You would think that the government was listening in to the secrets of 200 million Americans from the reaction and the hyperbole being tossed about,” wrote Simon. “And you would think that rather than a legal court order, which is an inevitable consequence of legislation that we drafted and passed, something illegal had been discovered to the government’s shame. Nope. ... The only thing new here, from a legal standpoint, is the scale on which the F.B.I. and N.S.A. are apparently attempting to cull anti-terrorism leads from that data. ... I know it’s big and scary that the government wants a database of all phone calls. And it’s scary that they’re paying attention to the Internet. And it’s scary that your cellphones have GPS installed. ... The question is not should the resulting data exist. It does. ... The question is more fundamental: Is government accessing the data for the legitimate public safety needs of the society, or are they accessing it in ways that abuse individual liberties and violate personal privacy — and in a manner that is unsupervised. And to that, The Guardian and those who are wailing jeremiads about this pretend-discovery of U.S. big data collection are noticeably silent. We don’t know of any actual abuse.”

    We do need to be constantly on guard for abuses. But the fact is, added Simon, that for at least the last two presidencies “this kind of data collection has been a baseline logic of an American anti-terrorism effort that is effectively asked to find the needles before they are planted into haystacks, to prevent even such modest, grass-rooted conspiracies as the Boston Marathon bombing before they occur.”

    To be sure, secret programs, like the virtually unregulated drone attacks, can lead to real excesses that have to be checked. But here is what is also real, Simon concluded:

    “Those planes really did hit those buildings. And that bomb did indeed blow up at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. And we really are in a continuing, low-intensity, high-risk conflict with a diffuse, committed and ideologically motivated enemy. And, for a moment, just imagine how much bloviating would be wafting across our political spectrum if, in the wake of an incident of domestic terrorism, an American president and his administration had failed to take full advantage of the existing telephonic data to do what is possible to find those needles in the haystacks.”

    And, I’d add, not just bloviating. Imagine how many real restrictions to our beautiful open society we would tolerate if there were another attack on the scale of 9/11. Pardon me if I blow that whistle.

     

    And I wonder if I can say all that on LiveJournal or WordPress.  Probably, but I'm not sure.  (Lots of problems with creating hyperlinks, except on Xanga.)

    ******************

    6:20 a.m. edit:  Go HERE for Dr. Bramann's reviews and essays.  (I just love reading them.  Don't you?)

    May as well get the CROSSWORD BLOG up here, too. happy

     

  • The Vanishing
    Of the Bees

    As noted the other day, I took a look at the documentary linked above.

    Here's an article worth reading:

    Worldwide Honey Bee Collapse: A Lesson in Ecology

    By Rex Weyler

    We know what is killing the bees. Worldwide Bee Colony Collapse is not as big a mystery as the chemical companies claim. The systemic nature of the problem makes it complex, but not impenetrable. Scientists know that bees are dying from a variety of factors—pesticides, drought, habitat destruction, nutrition deficit, air pollution, global warming and so forth. The causes of collapse merge and synergize, but we know that humanity is the perpetrator, and that the two most prominent causes appear to be pesticides and habitat loss.

    Biologists have found over 150 different chemical residues in bee pollen, a deadly “pesticide cocktail” according to University of California apiculturist Eric Mussen. The chemical companies Bayer, Syngenta, BASF, Dow, DuPont and Monsanto shrug their shoulders at the systemic complexity, as if the mystery were too complicated. They advocate no change in pesticide policy. After all, selling poisons to the world’s farmers is profitable.

    Furthermore, wild bee habitat shrinks every year as industrial agribusiness converts grasslands and forest into monoculture farms, which are then contaminated with pesticides. To reverse the world bees decline, we need to fix our dysfunctional and destructive agricultural system.

    Bee Collapse

    Apis mellifera—the honey bee, native to Europe, Africa and Western Asia—is disappearing around the world. Signs of decline also appear now in the eastern honey bee, Apis cerana.

    This is no marginal species loss. Honey bees—wild and domestic—perform about 80 percent of all pollination worldwide. A single bee colony can pollinate 300 million flowers each day. Grains are primarily pollinated by the wind, but the best and healthiest food—fruits, nuts and vegetables—are pollinated by bees. Seventy out of the top 100 human food crops, which supply about 90 percent of the world’s nutrition, are pollinated by bees.

    Tonio Borg, European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, calculates that bees “contribute more than €22 billion ($30 billion U.S. dollars) annually to European agriculture.” Worldwide, bees pollinate human food valued at more than €265 billion ($350 billion). The bee collapse is a challenge to human enterprise on the scale of global warming, ocean acidification and nuclear war. Humans could not likely survive a total bee collapse.

    Worker bees (females) live several months. Colonies produce new worker bees continuously during the spring and summer, and then reproduction slows during the winter. Typically, a bee hive or colony will decline by five to 10 percent over the winter and replace those lost bees in the spring. In a bad year, a bee colony might lose 15-20 percent of its bees.

    In the U.S., where bee collapse first appeared, winter losses commonly reached 30-50 percent and in some cases more. In 2006, David Hackenberg, a bee keeper for 42 years, reported a 90 percent die-off among his 3,000 hives. U.S. National Agriculture Statistics show a honey bee decline from about 6 million hives in 1947 to 2.4 million hives in 2008, a 60 percent reduction.

    The number of working bee colonies per hectare provides a critical metric of crop health. In the U.S., among crops that require bee pollination, the number of bee colonies per hectare has declined by 90 percent since 1962. The bees cannot keep pace with the winter die-off rates and habitat loss.

    Europe Responds, U.S. Dithers

    In Europe, Asia and South America, the annual die-off lags behind the U.S. decline, but the trend is clear, and the response is more appropriate. In Europe, Rabobank reported that the annual European die-offs have reached 30-35 percent and that the colonies-per-hectare count is down 25 percent. In the 1980s, in Sichuan, China, pear orchard pesticides obliterated local bees, and farmers must now pollinate crops by hand with feather dusters.

    A European Food Safety Authority scientific report determined that three widely used pesticides—nicotine-based clothianidin, imidacloprid and thiametoxam—pose “high acute risks” for bees. These neonicotinoid pesticides—used in soils, on foliage and embedded in seeds—persist at the core of the toxic pesticide cocktail found in bee hives.

    A Greenpeace scientific report identifies seven priority bee-killer pesticides—including the three nicotine culprits—plus clorpyriphos, cypermethrin, deltamethrin and fipronil. The three neonicotinoids act on insect nervous systems. They accumulate in individual bees and within entire colonies, including the honey that bees feed to infant larvae. Bees that do not die outright, experience sub-lethal systemic effects, development defects, weakness and loss of orientation. The die-off leaves fewer bees and weaker bees, who must work harder to produce honey in depleted wild habitats. These conditions create the nightmare formula for bee colony collapse.

    Bayer makes and markets imidacloprid and clothianidin; Syngenta produces thiamethoxam. In 2009, the world market for these three toxins reached over $2 billion. Syngenta, Bayer, Dow, Monsanto and DuPont control nearly 100 percent of the world market for genetically engineered (GE) pesticides, plants and seeds.

    In 2012, a German court criminally charged Syngenta with perjury for concealing its own report showing that its genetically modified corn had killed livestock. In the U.S., the company paid out $105 million to settle a class-action lawsuit for contaminating the drinking water for more than 50 million citizens with its “gender-bending” herbicide Atrazine. Now, these corporate polluters are waging multi-million-euro campaigns to deny responsibility for bee colony collapse.

    In May, the European Commission responded, adopting a two-year ban on the three neonicotinoid pesticides. Scientists will use the two years to assess the recovery rate of the bees and a longer-term ban on these and other pesticides.

    Meanwhile, the U.S. dithers and supports the corporations that produce and market the deadly pesticides. In May, as European nations took action, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the neonicotinoid pesticides, in spite of a U.S. Department of Agriculture report warning about the dangers of the bee colony collapse.

    Also in May, President Obama, signed the now infamous “Monsanto Protection Act“—written by Monsanto lobbyists—that gives biotech companies immunity in federal U.S. courts from damages to people and the environment caused by their commercial compounds.

    Solutions Exist

    Common sense actions could restore and protect the world’s bees. Experienced bee keepers, apiculturists, farmers, the European Commission and the Greenpeace report, Bees in Decline have outlined these solutions:

    • Ban the seven most dangerous pesticides
    • Protect pollinator health by preserving wild habitat
    • Restore ecological agriculture

    Ecological farming is the over-arching new policy trend that will stabilize human food production, preserve wild habitats and protect the bees. The nation of Bhutan has led the world in adopting a 100 percent organic farming policy. Mexico has banned GE corn to protect its native corn varieties. In January, eight European countries banned GE crops, and Hungary has burned over a 1,000 acres of corn contaminated with GE varieties. In India, scientist Vandana Shiva and a network of small farmers have built an organic farming resistance to industrial agriculture over two decades.

    Ecological or organic farming, of course, is nothing new. It is the way most farming has been done throughout human history. Ecological farming resists insect damage by avoiding large monocultures and preserving ecosystem diversity. Ecological farming restores soil nutrients with natural composting systems, avoids soil loss from wind and water erosion, and avoids pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

    By restoring bee populations and healthier bees, ecological agriculture improves pollination, which in turn improves crop yields. Ecological farming takes advantage of the natural ecosystem services, water filtration, pollination, oxygen production and disease and pest control.

    Organic farmers have advocated better research and funding by industry, government, farmers and the public to develop organic farming techniques, improve food production and maintain ecological health. The revolution in farming would promote equitable diets around the world and support crops primarily for human consumption, avoiding crops for animal food and biofuels.

    Ecosystems

    The plight of the bees serves as a warning that we still may not quite understand ecology. Ecological farming is part of a larger paradigm shift in human awareness. The corporate denialists appear just like the Pope’s shrouded inquisitors in 1615, who refused to look through Galileo’s telescope to see the moons of Jupiter. Today’s denialists refuse to recognize that Earth’s systems operate within real limits. However, the state religion in this case is money, and the state religion won’t allow it. The denialists cling to the presumed right to consume, hoard, and obliterate Earth’s great bounty for private profits. But hoards of money won’t reverse extinction, restore lost soils or heal the world’s bee colonies.

    A great reckoning awaits humanity if we fail to awaken from our delusions. Earth’s delicately balanced systems can reach tipping points and collapse. Bees, for example, work within a limited range of marginal returns on the energy they exert to collect nutrition for their colonies. When winter bee deaths grow from 10 percent to 50 percent, the remaining bees are weakened by toxins, and the wild habitats shrink that thin, ecological margin of energy return can be squeezed to zero. Surviving bees expend more energy than they return in honey. More bees die, fewer reach maturity and entire colonies collapse. This crisis is a lesson in fundamental ecology.

    Rachel Carson warned of these systemic constraints 50 years ago. Ecologists and environmentalists have warned of limits ever since. Bee colony collapse now joins global warming, forest destruction and species extinctions among our most urgent ecological emergencies. Saving the world’s bees appears as one more necessary link in restoring Earth to ecological balance.

    This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/worldwide-honey-bee-collapse-lesson-ecology-1371046688. All rights are reserved.

  • It Hasn't Been Decided Yet,
    But

    OK, I've drastically revised the first paragraph because when I try to type http:// etc. the underscore shows up as a hyphen and I'm not sure why.  Here's a HYPERLINK for my live journal page.  That ought to work.  Someday, sometime, I might try typing http:// etc and hope it comes out right.  But for now, clicking on HYPERLINK ought to work.

    That's an underscore between twoberry and bob, by the way, not a hyphen.  I just don't like Facebook or WordPress (I do have a WP account under the name twoberry, but the user-friendliness that I need just isn't there, and I don't trust a Xanga move there to make things much better.  However, I haven't completely given up hope that Xanga 2.0 at WP will be bearable, usable, and worth staying.

    But as I said -- before I rewrote the first paragraph, I'm expecting my next regular blog will be at LiveJournal but even that's not as user-friendly as I hoped it would be.  But it's possible that Marsh or one of my other friends can talk me through the rough learning phase.

    Here's my first LJ post:

     

    Reassurance

    That's the title of the painting if you had just painted the scene where Dagmar was getting petted after I had been petting Max for a while.  Reassurance that I love her.  The other dogs, Fritz, YooHoo, and Margie, get their turns as well.

    ******************

    That's it.  But before I dash off to work this morning, I'll add (to this Xanga entry, and maybe later to the LJ entry), a bit of knowledge I gleaned from my five years as a volunteer at the Humane Society.

    If you want a dog to adore you and behave obediently and affectionately and all that other good stuff, all you have to do is massage both ears simultaneously.  Two things are happening.  1.  It feels good to the dog.  And 2.  The dog understands that you are paying attention to him (or her) alone.  The dog loves that.

    Of course, I've got my own five dogs used to me so much that with two on my lap, I can massage the ears of two different dogs at the same time and they both are satisfied.  And with four dogs on my lap, I can go from one pair of dogs to the other pair of dogs back and forth, so that all four are satisfied.

    Fortunately, Yoo-Hoo is so old that she's content just to be in the same room with me.

  • Eliane Elias & Chet Baker

    As I was driving Sunday night to the Emerson Center for a showing of the documentary film, "The Vanishing of the Bees," I heard a brilliant a capella recording of "Blue Room" featuring the voice of Chet Baker, after which I hear Eliane Elias sing the same song on a recently released album purported to be a tribute to Baker.

    As you know, I like to share.

    Can you put up hyperlinks at wordpress?

    **********************************

    In other matters, I was struck by how much the following passage resembles what I'll call "the Xanga crisis":

    Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
    Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
    To the last syllable of recorded time;
    And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
    The way to dusty death. Out, out brief candle!
    Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
    That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
    And then is heard no more: it is a tale
    Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
    Signifying nothing.
    -- Macbeth, Act 5, Scene 5

  • Please Read
    See Friday Edit Below

    **********

    Here's the Way
    One Person
    Views Xanga

    But I sure as hell don't agree.  Yeah, the Xanga numbers may have been overwhelmingly teen-heavy, and angst-heavy, but I still remember the grown-ups, of which I am one.  And we're totally left out of the article linked in the headline.

    Much more, later.

    ******************

    I have a wordpress page now.   Damned if I know what to do with it.  Is there anybody out there that can find me?

    Used to be, you could google "twoberry" and go right to my Xanga page.  Now, though, some company has started up called "Two Berry" something or other and now I'm way down THAT first page, and if the wordpress page ever shows up on google, I'll be surprised.

    And more later.

    Friday Edit

    I'm in a sour mood this morning.  Despite getting tech help from "Rachel" at wordpress -- who helped me establish a "Gravatar" photo, and it does show up at random moments but never when I want it to -- and despite getting help from one of my Xanga buddies -- I'm very very very frustrated.

    HERE'S A PAGE.  Great, now I can show or hide my "widgets" if I want to.  If I knew how, that is.  And if I cared, that is.  What the hell is a widget anyway?

    All I want to do is what I already do so easily and comfortably on Xanga.  Blog when I want to.  Study a Scrabble word list when I want to.  Go to somebody's blog when I want to.  Make a comment when I want to.  Send a message when I want to.  And get comments and get messages -- not as many as I want and sure as hell not as many as I used to get, but thass OK.

    [SUDDEN THOUGHT, AT 6:40 a.m.]  Oh, yes, and NAVIGATE where I want to.  How awesome was it when they added the feature that you could move a post from one date to another, including backdating.  My extensive Scrabble word lists have been continuously organized that way, so that I can create, and revise, at will, and then FIND the damn things. 

    On a more pleasant note -- before I leave for work on my day off; is that an oxymoron or what? -- but I do have to work today; the hospital needs me -- where was I?  Oh, yeah, on a more pleasant note:

    Here are the observations of old friend momofjenmatt.  Enjoy!

    That Reminds Me

    In the Xanga Hall of Fame have to be (and I'll add to this list as the memories come back), in no particular order:

    momofjenmatt
    drakonskyr
    jsolberg
    sororitygirl
    ZSA_MD
    lionne
    thenarrator
    jerjonji
    seedsower
    baldmike2004
    LordPineapple

    (I just found this GREAT ENTRY of jerjonji's.  Go read.)

    ... what I would give for their archives!  Except for thenarrator, lionne and Zakiah (ZSA_MD), the first four sites above -- jsolberg is still active and Laura (momofjenmatt) just posted -- were or are heavy on humor.

    And then of course there was

    LordPineapple

    and his other personae.  A bunch of us kicked up some money to make him a lifetime member posthumously just so Terry Cuthbert could be read for the rest of our lifetimes.

    Xanga, I'm not sure you have the right to deprive us of what we paid for.

    But, on a positive note, thanks for enriching our lives all these years, Xanga.

    It was great while it lasted.

  • Dr. Jill Weber
    On the Kaitlyn Hunt Case

    Before I get to Dr. Weber's guest column in today's local newspaper, let me recount what happened when Barbara and I wore our two "Stop the Hate!  Free Kate!" t-shirts to the Cracker Barrel for lunch earlier today.

    Lots of dirty looks from virtually everyone who saw us.  This is the reddest, most homophobic county in Florida and the populace actually voted for George Romney last November!

    But what made our day was when one individual stopped by our table, saw that he'd noticed the shirts as we walked into the restaurant, and we told him what it was all about.  He was totally on our side, and it made our day.  Turned the whole restaurant experience from a negative one to a positive one.

    Here's Dr. Jill:

    Jill Weber: Hunt sex case offers lessons that can help teenagers, parents

    Good reasons why teens experiment; here's how parents can help them

    A Martin County native, Jill P. Weber, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Virginia and author of “Having Sex, Wanting Intimacy — Why Women Settle for One-Sided Relationships"

    Sunday, June 2, 2013

    Eighteen-year-old Kaitlyn Hunt’s decision to refuse the plea deal she was given should give all parents of children reason to pause. The deal would have freed the Sebastian teen from a prison sentence, but it would also mark her as a child abuser for life. That is harsh. Kaitlyn engaged in a consensual, sexual relationship with a female student. The student was 14 at the time of the incident, 15 today.

    Like so many teenagers before her, Kaitlyn had sexual contact with a younger peer. Now the two have lost all privacy and Kaitlyn faces two counts of lewd and lascivious battery, punishable by up to 15 years in prison each. Presumably both will be questioned by prosecutors in a trial about the specifics of their physical relationship.

    Most parents would not want this to happen to their teenager. Yet this case shows that it could.

    There is a special privilege extended to many teenagers. It is the privilege of messing up, heeding correction and trying again. This is not an option for Kaitlyn and her accuser. They face permanent, life-altering consequences.

    They were tasked with adjusting to the challenges of adolescent life. High school life means greater autonomy. They get permission to drive. They stay out later and begin making some of their own decisions. It is a trial period for parents, one last opportunity to correct poor judgment before their youngsters leave the nest.

    A requirement for learning maturity and growing into healthy adulthood is being allowed greater independence and freedom with decision making. The messy part of this necessity, however, is that teenagers also must grapple with understanding their sexual identity and making romantic choices. This often means they try out different partners, casually or in more committed ways. As they search for closeness and acceptance they also make mistakes.

    If adolescents feel they have found reciprocated love, even if only fleetingly so, they can be expected to pursue the relationship.

    Typically teenagers experiment and, if their passion is for a fellow student and if they do not feel they are someone’s prey, they rarely consciously think that a romantic encounter could also carry a felony conviction. Expecting a change of romantic behavior among teenagers based on fear of committing a felony would be wishful thinking. Sure a coast-to-coast campaign on par with efforts to prevent sexually transmitted diseases among teenagers might dissuade some from committing this felony. But the success of STD campaigns with teens offers little encouragement in this regard.

    The reality is it takes a tremendous amount of cognitive and emotional resources for most teens to merely focus on the developmental task at hand. In adolescence, this includes adapting to new social demands and forming an identity that reflects who they are and what they need in their most intimate relationships.

    When fear is transmitted teenagers shut down. They stop talking, exploring and working to sharpen their self-understanding, all of which jeopardizes this extremely important task of identity development.

    Becoming an adult is a process. Research tells us that the prefrontal cortex of the brain, the region that regulates thinking, behavior and helps with impulse control, continues to develop through age 21.

    Most teenagers do not have an adult ability to think through the long term consequences of their decisions and to control all of their impulses. This case is an opportunity to help them with this.

    What are parents to do?

    Start talking with children early, as young as 9 or 10, about romance, intimate feelings and how feelings can be so strong that they override thinking, even for adults. There are risks; outline them for your teen and talk about ways to let thinking prevail. Reassure them that it is OK to have intense feelings and to not fully act on them.

    Talk about the importance of working to not act on impulse, so they may fully think through their decisions. Demonstrate that they can talk with you simply by being interested in their perspective and by being nonjudgmental.

    Discuss real world examples of behaviors that work and don’t work. Unfortunately, the case of Kaitlyn Hunt may be one of those examples that help not only some teenagers, but also help those adults who set the rules that could send Kaitlyn to prison.

    A Martin County native, Jill P. Weber, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist in Virginia and author of “Having Sex, Wanting Intimacy — Why Women Settle for One-Sided Relationships.&#8221 Twitter: @DrJillWeber

    Twoberry here:  Oh, by the way, Martin County is the county two counties south of our own Indian River County, where Kaitlyn goes to school.

    One aspect of the case that Dr. Weber does not mention is that both sets of parents knew that the girls, who were both members of the school basketball team, first became intimate when their ages were 17 and 14.  The parents of the younger girl disapproved of the relationship, but NEVER MADE CONTACT with the parents of Kaitlyn.  They deliberately waited until Kaitlyn turned 18, then blew the whistle because technically no crime was committed until Kaitlyn's 18th birthday transpired.

    That aspect just sickens me.

    Kaitlyn's attorney has asked that the charges be dropped from a felony to a misdemeanor, so that Kaitlyn will not run the risk of being stamped for life as a result of youthful bad judgment.  So far, that request has been turned down and/or ignored.