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.