{"id":1269,"date":"2010-05-05T07:32:35","date_gmt":"2010-05-05T14:32:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/?p=1269"},"modified":"2010-05-05T07:32:35","modified_gmt":"2010-05-05T14:32:35","slug":"wednesday-miscellany","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/wednesday-miscellany\/","title":{"rendered":"Wednesday miscellany"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sorry for not blogging the last few days. Last-Chance Gulch had company from far away and we were busy doing wild-n-crazy things. I intended to blog about the visit and our flamboyant visitor. But as I considered what to write, I realized that our activities &#8212; while harmless &#8212; were nearly all illegal, immoral, or fattening. Or at least some of the above. <\/p>\n<p>Now that I&#8217;m recuperated, I may take time and use my better judgment before writing up any of our scandalously fun behavior. Or not.<\/p>\n<p>In the meantime, I&#8217;ve been collecting. And some of what I&#8217;ve gathered goes beyond the usual newsbits. To wit:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2010\/05\/04\/opinion\/04iht-edcohen.html\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Banality of Good.&#8221;<\/a> The message of this speechlessly great op-ed is one we should all engrave on our hearts as we watch freedom fail around us. No matter how small, there is <i>always<\/i> something we personally can do. And man, I have simply <i>got<\/i> to read <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B002OFVO1I?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=livifree07-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B002OFVO1I\" target=\"_blank\"><i>Every Man Dies Alone<\/i><\/a> (Kindle edition) and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/B003GC8H9K?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=livifree07-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=9325&#038;creativeASIN=B003GC8H9K\" target=\"_blank\">(paperback edition)<\/a>, the new\/old novel that set the editorial writer on the path of his thoughts.\n<li>Because I have a friend who worries &#8230; <a href=\"http:\/\/well.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/04\/30\/the-talents-of-a-middle-aged-brain\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;The Talents of a Middle-Aged Brain.&#8221;<\/a> They&#8217;re greater than we think they are &#8212; despite those pesky moments when you can&#8217;t find your car keys.\n<li>Via the ever-informative <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rationalreview.com\/news\" target=\"_blank\">Rational Review News<\/a> &#8230; how one man <a href=\"http:\/\/libertyunbound.com\/article.php?id=511\" target=\"_blank\">improved paradise<\/a>. With guppies.\n<li>Why <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/var\/ezflow_site\/storage\/images\/media\/images\/cartoon-images\/2010\/04\/cartoon100429\/7800598-1-eng-US\/cartoon100429_full_600.jpg\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Hawking was right<\/a> (though not in the way he imagined). Tip o&#8217; hat to P.T. and more from P.T. on the infamous &#8220;believe-us-it-really-isn&#8217;t-bigoted&#8221; legislation: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.azcentral.com\/arizonarepublic\/news\/articles\/2010\/05\/05\/20100505nba-phoenix-suns-los-suns-jerseys.html\" target=\"_blank\">Los Suns.<\/a> Not sure what I think of that. Seems silly to politicize sports, yet the solidarity is admirable and the comments by players and management well thought-out.\n<li>One of the less-bad federal legislators talks about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.csmonitor.com\/Commentary\/Opinion\/2010\/0504\/US-fiscal-time-bomb-is-about-to-explode.-Here-s-how-to-defuse-it.\" target=\"_blank\">how to diffuse our fiscal time bomb<\/a>. Nothing new to us, perhaps. But it&#8217;s good to see this kind of message making it into the respectable <i>Christian Science Monitor<\/i>.\n<li>Does anybody have any personal experience with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.smartypig.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Smarty Pig<\/a>, the goal-oriented online savings site? I&#8217;ve heard good things about it, and it pays a relatively high rate of interest for small deposits (<i>relatively<\/i> high; all savings rates are abysmal these days). Overall, looks like a good idea. Now tell about it if you know more, please.\n<\/ul>\n<p>Finally, I need to say thanks for the wonderful, warm comments people left in last Friday&#8217;s posting, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.backwoodshome.com\/blogs\/ClaireWolfe\/2010\/04\/30\/nadia-the-noble\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nadia the Noble<\/a>. I&#8217;m always surprised and moved to get such comments on something as simple as a dog drawing. Several old acquaintances showed up to comment and several I need to reply to (either in the comments section or by email). I&#8217;ll be working on that. Today or tomorrow, for sure. But after getting this far, I&#8217;m realizing I might not be quite as recuperated as I thought.<\/p>\n<p>But damn, did we have fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m sorry for not blogging the last few days. Last-Chance Gulch had company from far away and we were busy doing wild-n-crazy things. I intended to blog about the visit and our flamboyant visitor. But as I considered what to write, I realized that our activities &#8212; while harmless &#8212; were nearly all illegal, immoral, or fattening. Or at least some of the above. Now that I&#8217;m recuperated, I may take time and use my better judgment before writing up any of our scandalously fun behavior. Or not. In the meantime, I&#8217;ve been collecting. And some of what I&#8217;ve gathered&#8230;<\/p>\n<div class=\"more-link-wrapper\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/2010\/05\/05\/wednesday-miscellany\/\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Wednesday miscellany<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11,18,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books-and-movies","category-government","category-mind-and-spirit","category-miscellaneous","ratio-natural","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clairewolfe.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}