The Nature of Things

A brief note to those of my readers who have been kind enough to notice my absence: My husband had what the doctors have termed a "mild" heart attack - a wake-up call. Friday night, actually early Saturday morning, we ended up at the emergency room. Bob was admitted to the hospital. Tests were run and the problem was located. Early Monday morning the cardiologist set about doing repairs and fixes. Bob is healing quickly. In fact, today he is quite chipper. We hope he will be released no later than tomorrow or next day. Once I get him back home, I'll be back here giving you my opinions and reporting on the world around me. Thanks for your concern and please continue to send Bob your positive thoughts as he recovers.

No post today because of a family emergency. I hope to be back at the keyboard in a few days. Keep watching this space!

It's all about maintaining proper balance...

El Nino has struck hard in many places this winter and the area of Mexico where Monarch butterflies overwinter has been devastated by the effects of winter storms. This is tragic news for the people who live in these regions, but it has been a real disaster for the Monarch . Unprecedented rainfall from late January through the first week of February led to flooding and landslides that resulted in the loss of many lives and in the near destruction of the towns of Angangueo and Ocampo, the two municipalities that serve as base for tourists who visit the Monarch colonies at Sierra Chincua and El Rosario. The community of El Rosario was also hit with a major landslide that buried more than a dozen residents and destroyed much infrastructure in the region. The consequences of this disaster will be felt by the residents of this area for years to come. But it wasn't only people who were affected. The Monarch colonies were strongly impacted by the unprecedented rainfall. The final estima...

In The Times today, Timothy Egan had an opinion piece in which he branded the Republican Party the "party of the hissy fit." It seems to be a particularly apt sobriquet. This is the party in which the most recent presidential candidate has said that he's through cooperating(!). He will not be cooperating or participating in the legislative process for the rest of the year. I'm not really clear how this is supposed to be different from what's been happening over the last year. It's a bit like a kid who loses in a playground game threatening to pick up his marbles and go home. Then we have the spectacle of Republican state attorneys general around the country rushing to file suit challenging the constitutionality of the new Health Care Reform law. I admit I am not a constitutional expert, but I would estimate that their chances of prevailing in such a suit stand at about the same as a snowball's chance in hell. But that doesn't bother this party of ...

Who doesn't love Jane Austen? Well, actually, there probably are some curmudgeonly people who don't, but it is a truth universally acknowledged among those who read that to know her is to love her. One can sink into one of her novels and completely lose oneself in the morals, mores, and manners of late eighteenth century England. It was a time when roles in society, particularly women's roles in society, were strictly defined and limited, and social intercourse was tightly choreographed, not unlike the country dances that were so popular in the period. There has been a surge in the popularity of Jane in the past 10 to 15 years, spurred on by some truly wonderful film versions of her books and by successful books written in homage to Jane or in her style. I just finished reading one of those "homage" books. It was The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler. I had actually seen the movie based on this book, but evidentally it didn't make too big an impr...

Did you hear the latest about Ann Coulter ? It seems that she was scheduled to give speeches in a series of Canadian universities, but when some of the students at those schools heard about it, they decided to exercise their right of free speech and peacefully (It's the Canadian way.) protest her coming to their schools. Apparently, thousands of the students joined in the protest. They did not want this noted purveyor of hate speech on their campus. Now, Coulter is a bold proponent of free speech, so you would think that she would rejoice in the Canadian students exercising their rights. You would be wrong. It seems she is only a proponent of HER freedom to speech, but not if she feels threatened in any way. Apparently, she did feel threatened by the peaceful Canadian students because now she has canceled her speeches rather than face them. Of course, Coulter and her ilk were never long on physical courage. It is why you will almost never find any of them serving in any mil...