Blog, blog, blog

Last month with Bushco

That's how long it's been since the last post. Tensions of a potential war with Iran looming on the horizon even as death tolls mount in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it difficult for me to write, think, sleep - though not, sadly, to eat. Soon I will need to be levered in and out of the car, if this continues. It seems this administration has disgraces and scandals on a daily basis.

You can imagine what a joy it was to discover Juan Cole, who speaks so lucidly about what is going on in the Middle-East and U.S. foreign policy towards the region. Go read him, you certainly won't regret it. Here, his takedown of Christopher Hitchens:

http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html#comments

Elsewhere, RummytheDummy is heckled and brought to account:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12632127/from/RSS/

by one Ray McGovern, retired CIA analyst. Read it. It makes one so hopeful to think that the moment of reckoning is coming ever closer to these scofflaws, these crooks and liars.

While Richard Perle (part of the Neocon cabal of Rummy, Feith, Wolfowitz, Cheney, et al, who lied us into this war)gets his when angry veterans get their mitts on him, figuratively:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/perle

Nice camera work!

Be warned: You'll need to bleach your eyeballs and probly your brain as well, after seeing the Maryscott O'Connor Diaries version of The Rocky Horror Show starring Fat Karl and The Chimp in gold lame tighties:

http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=8510

eEEEEK!!

Meanwhile, back at the ranch

How time flies! And I wasn't even having fun.

Thank deity_of_choice for the occasional long weekend!

The garden's finally come to life. Sweet alyssum, wisteria, echium fastuosum, Mexican cosmos, Shasta daisies, California poppies, a burgundy-leaved plum, fuschia-flowering bougainvillea, lilac-flowered buddleias, and two more, one a rich reddish purple, and the other, my favourite, Black Knight which blooms a dark purplish, almost black. An oleander, white-flowered, and another, cherry-red, and at the very top, two tibouchina, Brazilian natives with vivid purple flowers. White calla and white iris, purple violet-scented iris and yellow iris (scentless, what a disappointment!), ceanothus, California lilac, with infinitesimally tiny flowers of, yes, bluish purple. Nigella damascena, love-in-a-mist, you can see why they call it that with those finely cut leaves surrounding blue, violet, and white flowers. Tiny forget-me-nots with their pale blue eyes, sharpened by the yellow center, scarlet flax and blue flax and calendula. Toadflax and oenothera, corn poppies and monkshood, mirabilis jalapa in pink, yellow, fuschia, orange, and white, scabiosa, budding but not yet blooming, and Mexican evening primrose. I'm done with weeding for the year. This is my year to enjoy the garden's beauty.

And the insect life! One red-winged fellow camped on my leg for a bit, waving scarlet antennae, then took off in a graceful, predatory, sweeping flight. The biggest bee I ever saw, yellow and black striped and very furry, the size of my thumb - so big, in fact, that I thought it was some other kind of insect - followed me around the garden as I watered. A mite inconvenient, since evening was approaching and I didn't want him (or her) to get wet. There are round spiders among the poppies, bright lemon yellow coins with pointy legs. Dragonflies and damsel flies in every imaginable shade, bright cobalt through silver-gray.

On the other end of the garden, the alyogyne huegelii, the purple-flowered and aptly (but incorrectly) named Santa Cruz hibiscus - is suffering mightily from an attack of scale. Lots of purple and blue in the garden, although I've had to cut most of the vinca back. At the very top of the hill there is Japanese honeysuckle, which, with any luck, will bless me with its apricot-jam-scented flowers this year.

Some beautiful glossy-leaved native with flowers that look startlingly like white roses is twined around and between the cherry-red-and-yellow lantana and the English lavender, halfway up the hill. I bought it at a plant sale years ago, and have quite forgotten its name.

And at the very bottom of the hill, feathery dill and naked ladies (amaryllis belladonna, going dormant right now), and arching over them, sweetly-scented, the pink dollars of Cecile Brunner climbing roses, which will be gone in a month, unless I water! Xeriscape or no, a garden is an unending labour of love. Like a jealous mistress, she wants you with her all the time, and makes you work like a dog for those precious moments of reward.

I'm sure everybody's heard about pesticide use and shrinking penii by now, but after being blown off for years for being daft about the issue, it thrills me no end to find some confirmation for my long-held belief that most pesticides are harmful to human and animal health. Common sense, innit? If it's going to kill one life-form, it's not going to bring glowing health to another life-form, even if the two are not closely related. Of course, the power structure in most countries is heavily weighted towards older male persons who have little or no interest in any issue that does not directly concern them, such as women's or children's health issues, or the wellbeing of animals and plants. So, to you, fellas, I dedicate the following link:

http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2006/04/29/1556379-sun.html

Long may it resonate with you. Now get off your worthless behinds and DO something about the misuse of pesticides, and I mean all around the world. For it is a small and a round and an interconnected world we live in, and what injures any of us injures all of us.

R-E-L-I-E-F

Music to amuse:

http://www.thefreedomtoast.com/index_blogads.asp?dothis=play&playthis=9

I have to admit, the opening lines of "When Johnny Comes Rolling Home Again (Iraq, Iraq!)" had a grim enjoyability. But I'm sick, and you knew that.

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