Flowering Flowers of Flowerdom

Burpee is the Devil.  They send me an email and I dutifully begin to put things on my wishlist, which, so far, consists of peppers that range in color from white to purple, a mix of hot peppers, string beans, blackeyed peas, cucumbers, cantaloupe, snow peas, pumpkins, tomatoes, catnip, coriander, basil, oregeno, sage, rosemary, thyme, sweet marjoram and the flowers… oh the flowers I would buy if wishes were horses and beggars would ride.

Morning glories, foxgloves for the bed shaded by the holly tree, lavender, French marigolds, blue-eyed daisies, painted daisies, old-fashioned dahlias, hollyhocks, galliardia, rudbeckia, multi-colored echinacea.

I want my yard to look like a cottage garden puked confetti on my lawn.  Right now, though.  I kind of want it to look like that right now.  It’s only the 6th of February, but already this winter seems eighty years long.  I will now pay for something to bloom in my yard.

Go About Your Day Like a Cowboy!

Is it too late to ask that we all try to imitate the folks in this photo today?  Just think of how much more fun your meeting would be if you could sit like that guy on the left?

A Homage to Roger Abramson

1.  You wonder how Kellogg’s can do something like this with a straight face.  You own Keebler and you make Frosted Flakes.  Who do you think is your largest adult non-kid-having customer base?

2.  Where are my crocuses?  Have I angered them?  Did I plant them wrong?  Is there still time for them to come up?

3.  I feel like I should say just a hair more about the Google peer review thing.  I cheered because some journal subscriptions cost $25,000 a year and when libraries have to pay that, it eats out of the rest of their acquisitions budget.  Or their budget budget, period.  That hits me where I live.  And I do think there’s something wrong with how long it can take for journals to come out, so I welcome the pressure on how scholarly journals are done, in that way.  But, let me direct your attention here, and here, and here.  And I will just say that, if there are scholars out there who think that they write fine and don’t need an editor, that the whole editorial process is just slowing them down from getting their work out there?  Well, buddy, you are wrong.

4.  I was having a discussion with some conservative over at Tiny Pasture’s yesterday and he was trying to tell me that Tennessee is staunchly pro-life and so I asked him what plans the Republicans had for lowering infant mortality rates and he accused me of suggesting that we need to raise taxes.  That still makes me laugh.  I love y’all, Conservatives, but that, to me, sums up the problem with where you are right now.  “I love the babies, except if it’s going to cost me money or require you to teach me and my kids how not to get pregnant.”

Yes, it seems that, even if we shared the common goal of reducing abortions, and even if we somehow got the anti-abortion crowd to agree that just making them illegal is not the answer, we would have to find a way to reduce abortions that didn’t involve spending money or giving people the knowledge they need to keep from getting pregnant.

That’s exactly why I don’t take their concerns all that seriously.  If it’s really important to save human life, you find the money for it and you put aside your own discomfort.  If you just want to bully sluts and irresponsible women (or, you know, rape victims and people stuck in horrible situations), you’re just never going to have me on your side about that.  Refusing to find the money tells me you’re not all that excited about anything other than the getting to make women feel shitty.

5.  I don’t have a 5!  I don’t have five things to say.  Except that I want to plant my flower garden today, right now.  I am so tired of all the brown everywhere.  When does spring start?