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Photo Memory of the Week
Posted: 2024 May 11
Prose of the Week
"This is the way of providence: dandelions in abundance that give pleasure by their beauty and create fun for children who blow the seeds everywhere. I think it is a kind of proof of original sin that whenever we are given something in abundance, we are not grateful but instead invent some silly category to tarnish these gifts simply because they are common. We call them weeds: invasive species. . . . If dandelions were only found on obscure Pacific islands, people would book eco-tours to see them, and all the best magazines would contain sermons masquerading as articles on how global warming, overpopulation, warm houses, and free markets threaten endangered dandelions."Source: Being Perfect, by David Beresford; Gilbert Magazine, Volume 24, Number 3, Jan/Feb 2021
Posted: 2024 May 11
Poetry of the Week
The Dandelions
- Helen Gray ConeUpon a showery night and still,
Without a sound of warning,
A trooper band surprised the hill,
And held it in the morning.We were not waked by bugle-notes,
No cheer our dreams invaded,
And yet, at dawn, their yellow coats
On the green slopes paraded.We careless folk the deed forgot;
Till one day, idly walking,
We marked upon the self-same spot
A crowd of veterans talking.They shook their trembling heads and gray
With pride and noiseless laughter;
When, well-a-day! they blew away,
And ne'er were heard of after!Posted: 2024 May 11
Music of the Week
Tweet of the Week
Posted: 2024 May 11
I’m starting a support group for people who didn’t see the Northern Lights last night.
We are valid. Stop erasing our existence
Any joiners
This is our flag pic.twitter.com/sCIpt5rSNn
— Helen Nettleship (@Nettleshippy) May 11, 2024
Tag Archives: Attitudes
NIMBY
I’ve had it with sex. No, I mean it. There’s no point in trying to change my mind: I understand its benefits, all right. Continue reading
Black is the New Clear
Like Sally, I just want my tea the way I want it – oh, and the rest of society, too, while we’re at it. Clear, please. There is a short pause and then a disarmingly frank admission. I’m sorry. … Continue reading
Snip Snip
Pruning trees – the activity, the judgement required, the variables – is a metaphor for deciding where to put my own life energies: which branches to keep, and which will never amount to anything. This one will never come … Continue reading
Ribbons
A road trip from Phoenix to Las Vegas offers the opportunity to observe and appreciate the desert’s resilience, to think about Gordon Lightfoot’s music, and to consider the persistence of good and evil, respectively. Are we driving beside water? Straining … Continue reading
I Know Just How you Feel
Sometimes, life intervenes. I have no new blog this week. Instead, I offer an op-ed piece I had published after the Australia Summer Olympics, but not previously seen in this space. The players may have changed; the game, not so … Continue reading
Is It a Bird? Is It a Plane?
Wallowing in frustration with my bird-identification skills and despair at the complexity of things to learn, I am brought up short by the memory of good advice I gave to a then-young son (but have steadfastly refused to take, myself). … Continue reading
Bee-beep, Bee-beep, Bee-beep
Working in a rental unit’s kitchen (hard to claim “cooking”), my irritation with a different microwave’s timer beeps causes me to consider my own skills as a supervisor. Bee-beep. I look around as the timer sounds off. What was … Continue reading
Show Up, Keep Up, and Shut Up
It’s ironic that even as I feel that I know more and more, other people seem less and less interested in hearing about it. Maybe this is just one of the curses of aging, or maybe folks never did care that much. Continue reading
All It Takes
Lessons learned about management from watching flash mobs. The woman stands composedly in the half-empty space in the middle of the vaulted rotunda, long hair pulled back in a tidy braid. Her unhurried removal of her overcoat reveals a military … Continue reading