My Own Thoughts

David Orland at Boundless Webzine: The great thing about music, the really powerful thing, is that the very act of listening is to accept an invitation to moral sympathy. In this way, listening to a song is no different from reading a novel. In both cases, the audience, whether listener or reader, is invited to [...]

Well, I do. But Nancy Pelosi doesn’t. She was fussing about Donald Rumsfeld saying that those people wanting us to pull out of Iraq are like Hitler appeasers. And she said, “we have now been in Iraq longer than we were in Europe for World War II.” No. No, we haven’t. The war started, for [...]

is what All Things to All is talking about here. 30 days of not buying anything you don’t need. And that’s really need, not think you need. So groceries and gas to get to work are okay. Eating out probably isn’t. I am thinking about it.

Austin, TX has been having a drought. It’s one of those where you only get to water on certain days. And they ask you to get low flush toilets. But Live Science has an article that says the drought, which has brought Lake Travis down 16 feet below its August average, has unearthed an ancient [...]

Today at the library I found A Black Woman’s Civil War Memoirs: Reminiscences of My Life in Camp With the 33rd U.S. Colored Troops, Late 1st South Carolina Volunteers by Susie King Taylor. I read it today. It is well-written, easy to read, and gives a small glimpse into the life of a soldier’s wife [...]

Coming right after my last post, you might wonder if this is goth, too. But it’s not. The book is titled Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail. It is about the doctors who plied the waves on whalers from 1647 to 1840. Did you know that in May 1747 a whaler [...]

I have a few friends (four) who are goth. I like them and don’t even care that they are goth. I’ve never gotten why mainstream people are afraid of goths. Tattoos don’t bite anyone. Pink hair is hot. Black hair is great. Black clothes are easier to match… Then I talked to one of the [...]

Joanne Jacobs posted on an MSM discussion of a study of eighth graders which said that 8th grade boys do better with men teachers and 8th grade girls do better with women teachers. I wonder if that would apply to homeschooled boys and girls as well. I doubt it. Part of the problem appears to [...]

I enjoy light reading immensely. Usually, though, I only read it once. (Patricia Wrede’s dragon series being an exception.) Rough Medicine is both a light read, because it is exceedingly well written, and not, because it is filled with medical esoterica from the 1600s through the 1850s. Good stuff.

Sea onion sweetened with honey has been used as a diruetic and an expectorant. Homer wrote about it. And Dioscorides, a Greek army surgeon of the first century BC, also wrote about it. I, however, learned about it in Rough Medicine: Surgeons at Sea in the Age of Sail, a fascinating, well-written book I picked [...]

R got some good photos from the hearse wash for the Goth Swimsuit calendar. Six hot bathing beauties in high heels out with two hearses. We were in a pretty isolated place and we got several slow downs and turn arounds who wanted to watch.

The zombie shoot for the Goth Swimsuit calendar went well. Angela Ryan looks great.

My eldest has college starting again tomorrow. And my classes begin on Tuesday. I don’t know why I am so nervous, but I am. And, of course, tomorrow homeschooling starts up again after a three week hiatus.

This CNN article is not the one I was remembering the other day, but it does say that a virus causes animals to put on more fat when they are injected with it. It is apparently a virus that lots of overweight people have. I wonder how it works. Does it slow down your metabolism? [...]

I was talking to my husband the other day about this post from Microbiology Bytes. I must have gotten two different posts messed up, but this one says that a common brain parasite might change our culture. It acts differently depending on its host. Women become more intelligent, warm, outgoing, attentive to others, kindly, easy-going. [...]

Fox has the story. They had to convert to Islam. What does that say about the religion or the people of that religion? Nothing good.

Air marshals are safer now that the dress code, which required them to wear suits in a day and age when most people do not, has been dropped. Now they can dress like normal people and they will be less likely to stand out and thus be targeted. This is good for the air marshals. [...]

Russel Shaw at The Huffington Post says if there is a terrorist attack before the next elections it will be good for the Democrats and they need it because they would then be able to: “Block the next Supreme Court appointment, one which would surely result in the overturning of Roe and the death of [...]

Year 9 is brought to you by The Common Room.

Univ. Cal. has added a whopping set of historical documents to the net. They’ve also got lessons up. Those show bias, but they can be thought provoking for all of that. Use them to ask your kids to spot the bias. Thanks to Right on the Left Coast for the heads up.