Blogging about my reactions to the news

                 How many times a day do I shake my head, or sigh, or make a derisive sound (harrumph!) while reading the daily paper? I’ll refrain from adding those figures to my journal. But what follows are snippets of my notes as I read.

                Janet Carson’s beginning answer to a reader spawned this parody from The Sound of Music, “Black spots on roses. . .” Another reader sent in a photo—black and white—of a plant that looks and sounds a lot like what I’ve called “wild coleus.” Mrs. Carson calls it ‘wild perilla’ and tells the inquirer that it will spread. I can attest to that. It’s all over a section of the back, west property line near the shed. This year, the plants grew taller than I am at 5’2”. The seedpods are long and slender. Shallow-rooted, and purple, they are easy to pull up and add to the burn pile. Next year, I'll be more aware of the nuisance.  

                “. . . the vine that ate the South,” is, to A. Higgins, of the Washington Post via the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, kudzu. Quite an apt description, right?

                There goes my ATRS check—downward! Why? QualChoice is increasing rates from 9% to 25%!! And the drug insurance is going up from $17.70 this year to $41.10 in 2018. The good news, NOT? Social Security is rising by 2% at last count, about $25 per month.         

                 I didn’t know that Cain’s place of exile was "East of Eden in the land of Nod." The Super Quiz on “Lands” said so.

                In 1911, there was a town in Scott County named Oliver. The post office closed in 1932—this according to Hanley’s Postcard Past.

                Hmm. Praying around the flagpole is merely a protest, according to a reader from Cabot, in a recent letter-to-the-editor. “Jesus said not to pray in public,” he said.

                “Defiance can be a good thing,” says H. Long, in another letter-to-the-editor.

                A poetic phrase from a member of the press: “. . . the slow drip of sordid revelation.” Listen to all that assonance penned by John Brummett.

                Mexico has 32 states, MSM online tells me.

                Russell Baker, writing in William Zinsser’s Inventing the Truth, referred to the 1960s as “that slum of a decade.” (p.29) That’s the decade of my marriage and birth of three children. ‘Twasn’t a slum decade in my view, but my view was parochial; his was cosmopolitan.

                Odd, except to a word nerd: “Gunn fired her gun. . .” by S. Carroll, AD-G. Another: “stymieing,” from a news wire article. An odd form of the root word, but it IS a word.

                A second hmm: Imported marble from China is (supposedly) better and cheaper than Oklahoma-quarried marble. (In the news, AD-G)

                Finally, three quotes from David Brooks, one of my favorite writers, from the New York Times via the AD-G, in a recent column: “. . . Americans have always admired those who made themselves anew.” And, “[America is] not a fortress [but] a frontier.” Lastly, “Where there is division, there are fences.”

                Oh, there were things that made me smile, too, but that's another post.

Reading: Oh, the people you’ll meet and the stuff you will learn

An earlier stack of reading material: some finished, some not

 Lately, two of my blogger/ writer/ reader friends have posted photos on Facebook books they’d read, or were reading, during a given time—a month, say. Except for the one who was reading MY latest book, I didn’t bother to investigate their comments or reviews. I’ve also read where many writers interviewed by the New York Times Book Review read several books at a time.

            With all the books available here, I decided to read one chapter in each of five books during the late evenings before retiring. Since I don’t read in bed, I made a sitting place on the loveseat in front of a tall table lamp. A coffee table holds the books, plus a stack of newer ones to begin as I finish one of the five. All of the ones on deck are by friends.

My eldest child is a voracious reader. At first, he devoured Civil War books. Then he moved to other wars; heavy stuff.

One day, David Shribman, of the Post-Gazette, whose column runs in the Saline Courier, listed the latest and newest books about presidents of the past. I emailed Gordon the list and offered to give him two for Christmas. He chose William Henry Harrison, and Coolidge. I ordered them posthaste.

The Coolidge tome was T-H-I-C-K; I knew a little about him, but I’d never learned about President Harrison. It was T-H-I-N, so I decided to read it.

Oh, the likenesses of the 1840 presidential campaign compared with the one we just lived through: name-calling, protests, riots, fake news and all. Author Gail Collins will surely allow me to quote from her book the following two instances.

If tweeting were possible in 1840, Horace Greeley’s analysis of the Jacksonian Democrats would have sounded like this: “[Blarney [tweet] Before Election] “Dear People! Nobody but us can imagine how pure patriotic, shrewd and sagacious you are. You can’t be humbugged! You can’t be misled! . . . You are always right as a book and nobody can gum you. In short, you are O.K.” (218 characters-- it would have taken two tweets to say it all.)

 But after the American Whigs and 67-year-old William Henry Harrison beat the Democrats and foiled Martin Van Buren’s second term, Greeley’s “tweet” to his party members went like this: "[Blarney After Election] You miserable, despicable, know-nothing, good-for-nothing rascals. . . Led away by Log Cabin fooleries! Gummed by coonskins! . . . Dead drunk on hard cider! Senseless, beastly, contemptible wretches! Go to the devil!”

I wonder what President Trump might have tweeted if he’d lost to Mrs. Clinton.

The American Whig Party, not directly related to the British Whigs, originally formed in opposition to the policies of President Andrew Jackson and his Democratic Party. The Whigs supported the supremacy of the U.S. Congress over the Presidency and favored a program of modernization, banking, and economic protectionism to stimulate manufacturing. It appealed to entrepreneurs, planters, reformers and the emerging urban middle class, but had little appeal to farmers or unskilled workers. It included many active Protestants, and voiced a moralistic opposition to the Jacksonian Indian removal. Party founders chose the "Whig" name to echo the Whigs of the 18th century who fought for independence. (Wikipedia)

So much stuff I didn't know. Thank goodness for books. Oh, and I reviewed this book on Amazon.

The day the "girls" came for breakfast

The "girls" at an earlier breakfast

At six a. m. the alarm sounded—on a Saturday!! “No, no, no . . . I don’ wanna get up,” my retired—and tired—self whined.

“You gotta get up!” my logical, practical self answered. “Remember, you left cleaning the bathroom till this morning. Plus, sweeping the dining room and kitchen. GET UP!”

“Yes, Master Self. Move outta the way then.”

Nine o’clock was three hours away. Surely . . . Yes! By 8:30, I was sitting in the swing on the front porch reading the AD-G—all last-minute tasks accomplished.

Shirley brought a cheese-egg-artichoke casserole and a loaf of blueberry bread. Barbara brought monkey bread. Beverly and Shari brought a bowl of cut watermelon and cantaloupe. I provided the venue and the K-cup, Keurig coffees—decaf, regular, hazelnut and cappuccino. Six of us around the old pedestal table covered with a fall-leaf-motif, ivory cloth. At the table’s edge closest to the windows I’d placed a tall cut-glass vase with reddening (and green) sassafras leaves.

Seconds all around for the casserole and the fruit. I ate two slices of the blueberry bread, while others went for the monkey, pull-apart bread.

After a leisurely repast and visit, I suggested we move to the living room. Cleaning up the dishes meant leaving the plates and silver in a large bowl of soapy water. (Where they stayed till Sunday morning.)

Did I say leisurely? We six women friends and long-ago classmates sat away from the table (which we cannot do in a restaurant) in the “front” room until 11:30! Before breaking up, we were invited to Shirley’s in October and we called out our contributions to the meal.

I said to Barbara, who was the first to arrive, “Don’t let me do this again!” We laughed, but I’d do it in a heartbeat if it meant keeping the group together.

c 2017, PL dba lovepat press