Daily Archives: June 28, 2010

Family, GeekWorld, Politics

Night Time, Summer in the Exurbs

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Summer                            Waning Strawberry Moon

Night.  A couple of nights ago I went down the driveway to the mailbox.  As I came back up, I looked up as I often do and saw an object scooting from SSE to NNW.  At first I thought it was a plane.  Without my glasses distance observing for me turns into a game of analyzing tantalizing bits of information rather than direct scrutiny.  As it came overhead though, I could see what I thought were lights were blurs owed to my faulty peepers.  No, it was a satellite.  It was bright and moving fast.

At heavens-above.com I tried to look it up, but the tables for satellite passes only look forward, not backward.  I don’t know what it was, but I know it was man-made.  Whether it was a communications satellite of the International Space Station, it’s still something up there because humans put it there.  An amazing and still almost science fiction notion to this boy of the 1950’s.  I remember Sputnik.  Well.

Kate’s a day away from her surgery.  The vicodin she has to take now makes her dull, “stupid” as she puts it.  She doesn’t like that feeling and looks forward to the time post-op when she can return to her NSAID.

Obama.  As a political leftist, I find things wrong with Obama’s record.  He supported off-shore drilling, he’s ramped up the war in Afghanistan and he’s accepted weakened regulatory legislation and weakened health-care legislation.   The Gulf oil disaster and McChrystal give an air of chaos to his administration, though neither one is his fault.  Here’s my prediction.  A year from now Obama will look very good in all the areas in which he looks very bad right now.  Her’s pulling troops out of Iraq as promised.  The economy will improve.  The public will get clear about the Obama administration’s role in the Gulf oil disaster to his credit and his firing of McChrystal will be seen as what it is, a necessary assertion of civilian authority.

He’s working as a politician, not an ideologue, a necessary ambit if he  wishes to govern, which he does.  Bush was a right wing ideologue and no matter how charming or gritty he appeared it was clear his decision making was in thrall to the neo-con view of the world.  Ideology puts blinkers on the best of us and Obama seems to govern without ideology, though he’s clearly a left-liberal.  Kudo’s to him.

Bees, Dogs, Garden

Pictures

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Summer                                                 Waning Strawberry Moon

The scientific theory I like best is that the rings of Saturn are composed entirely of lost airline luggage.
– Mark Russell

You can go a long way with a smile. You can go a lot farther with a smile and a gun.
– Al Capone

I didn’t know there was another theory about Saturn’s rings.

That Al, what a kidder.

06-27-10_beekeeperastronautBeekeeper as Backyard Astronaut

06-27-10_smokerReady to add the third hive box to the package colony

06-27-10_package-colonyAfter the addition

06-27-10_inthehoneyhouseSupplies

06-27-10_hiloHilo

Garden, Weather +Climate

Weed

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Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

Nice weather for weeding so I took the opportunity and finally got into the second and third tiers of our back perennial garden.  Out go the raspberry canes.  Out go the stinging nettles.  Out go the dogwood suckers.  Out go the switch grass and and other weedy plants.  In stays the poison ivy (one small plant) because I kill them.  Out goes the slumped daffodil stems.  I’m not finished, but it already looks a hell of a lot better.

Kate planted marigolds this morning in the kitchen garden and in long narrow window boxes.  This all nourished by last nights meal from the garden and the currant jam this morning.

Paul Douglas had a big happy sun on the forecast for today, but so far all I’ve seen is  clouds.  I’m glad.  It kept the air cool enough for a good session outside.

Aging, Art and Culture, World History

A Way of Keeping Aging in Perspective

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Summer                                      Waning Strawberry Moon

A week ago last Thursday I got my ticket in Roseville.  I want to pay it, but the damn thing still hasn’t shown up on line.   This is past ten days (usual maximum time for a ticket to get into the system).  Is this another revenue builder?  I get frustrated, forget about it and get picked up later for a bigger buck item?  I’m tempted to say yes, but that accords a degree of intentionality to our courts system that I doubt exists.  So I’ll wait.

“We Americans are the best informed people on earth as to the events of the last twenty-four hours; we are the not the best informed as the events of the last sixty centuries.”- Will Durant

Though I can’t say why I have had an abiding interest since junior high–yes, that’s what we called it back then–in the ancient past.  Anthropology/archaeology scratched that itch in college and even much of the work I did in seminary had ancient history as a living part of the discipline:  biblical studies, greek, hebrew, (full disclaimer:  I had the short course in both), early church history, even some of constructive theology.

Art history allows occasional forays into the arts of the ancients.  The bronze collection of the Shang and Zhou dynasties at the Institute is wonderful as is our small collection of Greek, Roman, Cycladian, Near Eastern and even Paleolithic art.  I’ve read with great interest many classics, in part because they give a picture of ancient cultures that it’s not possible to get any other way.

The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, in spite of its provenance in the late 14th century, is about the much earlier Han dynasty and its demise around 220 a.d.  Celtic early history is seen through either the eyes of the Romans, the Catholic Church or the British, so it has filters put on by its detractors, yet the ancient Celts shine through anyhow.  Of course there’s the Odyssey, the Iliad and for me, as you know by now, Ovid’s Metamorphosis.

I loved the history of Egypt lectures from the teaching company as I did the history of China and the history of Rome.  You’d think with all this that I’d have some idea of what went on, but I don’t have much of a gestalt yet, not even after all this time.  My gestalt about the West has better form than mine of, say, China or India or Japan, but still, it’s pretty weak.