Tales from the Microbial Laboratory

Michele Bachmann and Bat Boy... related?

I'm kinda busy procrastinating all of the things that I need to do over the next few weeks - but I wanted to share this with you guys.  Regardless of your political affiliation - you've gotta admit this is hilarious.  It's from my friend over at 3Dsound. 

 

  Separated at birth? Michele Bachmann and Bat Boy

 

a frightening thought

First seen over at The Daily Dish, from ProfessorBainbridge.com:

I think it says something bad about our culture that people like the Hiltons and Kardashians can vault into celebrity status without having accomplished anything.

But I think it says something even worse about our culture that we are starting to pick our leaders this way. We face serious problems and a growing list of serious threats. We need leaders who are serious people. Not leaders who are famous for being famous.

Referring, of course, to the Palins and Scott Browns of the political world.  Frightening, don't you think?  Why are we doing this to ourselves?

My Name is Pam, and I Live in South Carolina

"Life is a game, boy. Life is a game that one plays according to the rules."

 

"Yes, sir. I know it is. I know it."

Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side where all the hot-shots are, then it's a game, all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on the other side, where there aren't any hot-shots, then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game.

From Catcher in the Rye

J.D. Salinger, January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010

~~~~~

I think that all of South Carolina needs to have one giant AA meeting, with all of us acknowledging that we are from the state and that we are all responsible for this embarrassment of leadership.  No matter who we voted for.  Stray animals, hiking the appalachian trail, and 'YOU LIE!" - and who can forget the horse incident(s)?  We need a 12-step program to rid this state of an addiction to idiocy.

The bottomline is that individuals in South Carolina in leadership positions don't really care if kids in this state receive an indecent education.  They don't care if families are struggling to have enough food for their children.  And they don't care about the unemployment statistics (we've even got California beat, but just by a bit), because...they just don't care.

It's all a game to them... 

~~~~~

As John Stewart says, 'Thank you South Carolina'.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Thank You, South Carolina - Andre Bauer
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care Crisis

(Might I add that being unemployed myself generates a very different view of the world?  What is the opposite of rose-colored glasses... perhaps a magnifying lens?) 

I'm including the video below just as a reminder to myself that all of us (aka me) who don't regularly speak up will be left with men like Andre Bauer in leadership positions.  Why isn't being this stupid illegal?

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Okay, just needed to acknowledge the insanity.

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Update, 11:33 pm:  Do not ask me why (yes, insanity I'm sure) but as I was reviewing proposals tonight I had the SC GOP debate on.  Yes - ANDRE BAUER.  Who basically said something like 'he bets most of the people in the audience agreed with what he said' when questioned about the 'don't feed the strays' thing.  Then Henry McMaster said something like 'I'll never apologize for South Carolina, we are a great state'.  Are these guys all INSANE?  Do they see the same stats that the rest of us see?  Are they paying attention to the public joke the state has become in the press?  One of the guys (can't remember who) said one thing he liked about Gov. Sanford was his 'transparency' - yeah, except for when he dropped out of sight for awhile, during a mad dash to Argentina.

Just need to vent.  Really tired of reviewing these proposals.  Not looking forward to a cold, rainy first part of the weekend.  Can I run away from home?  (Wait, I could take my home...and run away!  Now how convenient is that?). 

 

Governor Sanford hits the gardening world...

For those of you who don't receive the Plant Delights Nursery catalog (are you nuts????), well - here's the cover with our struggling Governor (on the left) - pecking away at his keyboard on the ePlantHarmony.com website (with his buds David Letterman, Tiger Woods, etc).

These covers are always hilarious (and once again South Carolina is in the news because of a 'little hike' on the appalachian trail).  Couldn't resist showing it here for all you non-gardener-types (freaks).

Stanley appears unimpressed.

Joe Wilson is NOT my South Carolina...

...I just have a minute, but I needed to say that - especially after someone forwarded me this article.  In fact, none of the guys mentioned in the article are MY South Carolina.  I think more South Carolinians right now need to stand up and say that so that we can drown out the other idiotic voices being heard.  What an embarrassment.

"The bill must not suck."

One of the best quotes that I've seen over the past few days was from this post written by Huffington Post's Bob Cesca: 

If they're going to name the final healthcare reform bill after Senator Kennedy, we ought to be demanding with voices as powerful and booming as the late senator's...

The bill must not suck.

~Farewell, Senator Kennedy~

Just for the record...

...I did NOT vote for him.

~~~~~

But there is good news is all of this!!!  Stephen Colbert has declared himself the new Governor of South Carolina!!!!  (I have Janet, The Queen of Seaford, to thank for alerting me to this change in governance).

~~~~~

We should have let him run before.

 

~South Carolina quote of the day~

As some of you may have heard, South Carolina's Governor Mark Sanford is MIA.  This quote, from over at Jeff Tompkins blog, sums up this unusual situation quite beautifully:

Meanwhile, with the Governor nowhere to be found, and no one running the state, residents of South Carolina report "no discernible difference."

(Hmmm...looks like they may have found him).

A Morning in Mid-June (in Zone 8b)

~Rosa moschata~

~~~~~

I'm late for May Dreams Gardens Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day - late for tedious and boring and problematic reasons - but I'm pulling out the old 'late is better than never' excuse, which - in most cases - works, right?

Regardless...as I was wandering the garden this morning, taking photographs of blooms in the early morning before the heat of the day became too oppressive - even in the early morning my camera lens fogged up as soon as I removed the lens cap.  Yes, it is summer.

The roses are blooming.

But as I took these images, I was thinking about a place far away - where courageous individuals were gathering to protest injustice.  A place where women were joining in, at great risk.

~~~~~

 

~Mermaid~

~~~~~

With my camera, I moved on to the hydrangeas, knowing that crowds were still gathering in Iran.  I've not gotten on the Twitter bandwagon - but last night after listening to a piece about the use of Twitter in Iran on NPR (cell phones still seem to rule) - and today being glued to The Daily Dish (which included numerous Twitter posts) - the protests in Iran became closer to me, 140 characters each, brief insights into a chaotic day.  I couldn't help but think today that each 'tweet' is like a piece of data, randomized points on a graph that has yet to be filled in.  We don't know what the end will be - but what a beginning!

~~~~~

Tweeting Tehran.

~~~~~

~Hydrangea arborescens 'Annabelle'~ 

~~~~~

'Annabelle' came from my Mother's Virginia garden - and it is just outside my front fence.  It is growing and it is happy and it is a simply spectacular hydrangea.  I laughed tonight when I realized that I hadn't thought of the connection between Annabelle the Hydrangea and Annabelle the Pointer.

~~~~~

Green Thumbnails.

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It was hot today in the garden - and as the Pointer Sisters slept in the air-conditioning, someone (according to The Daily Dish - with the disclaimer that tweets were not confirmed - and posted in green) wrote:

 Helicopters did not spray boiling water. It was a type of ACID, similar to what Mojahedeen used in '78-'82.
 

~~~~~

 

~fading blossoms of Hydrangea macrophylla 'Endless Summer' behind clumps of northern sea oats, Chasmanthium latifolium~

~~~~~

WHOLE city is shaking with very loud screams from rooftops. Their loud voices calling only for God is filled with fear, hatred, and hope.

~~~~~

 

~coneflower~

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eyewitness: young protester killed with bullet through the head on Navab street

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~pineapple lily, Eucomis 'Sparkling Burgundy'~

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Zhila Baniyaghoob's (woman activist) home has been raided

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~bronze fennel, Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum'~

~~~~~

The bronze fennel is just starting to bloom - it's over six feet tall, and is patiently waiting to be consumed by the black swallowtail caterpillars.  Sometimes I wonder if it knows this, if when it blooms it also knows that soon it's leaves will be stripped free of it's foliage.   

~~~~~

From President Obama's statement on Iran today:

Martin Luther King once said - "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice." I believe that. The international community believes that. And right now, we are bearing witness to the Iranian peoples’ belief in that truth, and we will continue to bear witness.

~~~~~

 

~from my Mother's garden (and now in my own), Hibiscus moscheutos~

~~~~~

I've never been a fan of the huge, saucer-sized flower of this perennial hibiscus - but anything from my Mother's garden is now welcomed with open arms in my own garden.  Today I stopped and looked closely at the pattern of the veins on the flowers - realizing that they resemble the wings of a butterfly.

~~~~~

From the NYTimes - a piece by Richard Cohen: 

I also know that Iran’s women stand in the vanguard. For days now, I’ve seen them urging less courageous men on. I’ve seen them get beaten and return to the fray. “Why are you sitting there?” one shouted at a couple of men perched on the sidewalk on Saturday. “Get up! Get up!”

The role of Iranian women in these protests is interesting - and their own personal fight has been intensifying for years.  To see them standup in this way is beyond words.  Their fight is everyone's fight.  It's my fight.  (read the comments on the linked posts - it shows how important a fight this is for them). 

~~~~~

 

~asian pear, Pyrus pyrifolia~

~~~~~ 

I know that these aren't blooms, but I must mention the fruits that are in my garden.  I have at least a dozen asian pears ripening - beautiful round and golden fruits.  Sometimes the squirrels get them before I do - I just accept that reality.  I'm hoping this year to get some for myself though.

~~~~~

We can all throw rocks. 

~~~~~

 

~Ficus carica 'Brown Turkey'~

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The figs usually start to ripen around the fourth of July - my tree is now quite large, and I get bowls and bowls of figs.  I even share them with the mockingbirds, who wait for them to ripen as anxiously as I do.

~~~~~

Tehran will not Sleep tonight!

~~~~~ 

~'Dorman Red' raspberry~

~~~~~

I wish that these raspberries tasted as good as they look - but unfortunately they do not.  They aren't terribly flavorful, it's almost as if they taste like textured water (could this be due to all of the rain we've had of late?).  I won't complain though - I mix them with my blueberries and the added color is nice. 

~~~~~

Take a look at this cartoon.

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~blueberries~

~~~~~

Again, from Roger Cohen's piece over at the NYTimes:

Later, we moved north, tentatively, watching the police lash out from time to time, reaching Victory Square where a pitched battle was in progress. Young men were breaking bricks and stones to a size for hurling. Crowds gathered on overpasses, filming and cheering the protesters. A car burst into flames. Back and forth the crowd surged, confronted by less-than-convincing police units.

I looked up through the smoke and saw a poster of the stern visage of Khomeini above the words, “Islam is the religion of freedom.”

Later, as night fell over the tumultuous capital, gunfire could be heard in the distance. And from rooftops across the city, the defiant sound of “Allah-u-Akbar” — “God is Great” — went up yet again, as it has every night since the fraudulent election. But on Saturday it seemed stronger. The same cry was heard in 1979, only for one form of absolutism to yield to another. Iran has waited long enough to be free.

~~~~~

 

~American persimmon, Diospyros virginiana~

~~~~~

I can't resist to include here, in it's entirety, the latest post (below in italics) from Andrew Sullivan over at The Daily Dish.  It refers to President Obama's statement today about Iran.  This afternoon I spoke with a friend who moved to Canada during the Bush Administration years, and we talked about how thrilled we still were that Obama was elected.  I still remember that day.  As Sullivan writes:  'What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy...'

Did you notice how many times he invoked the word "justice" in his message? That's the word that will resonate most deeply with the Iranian resistance. What a relief to have someone with this degree of restraint and prudence and empathy - refusing to be baited by Khamenei or the neocons, and yet taking an eloquent stand, as we all do, in defense of freedom and non-violence. The invocation of MLK was appropriate too. What on earth has this been but, in its essence, a protest for voting rights? Above all, the refusal to coopt their struggle for ours, because freedom is only ever won, and every democracy wil be different: this is an act of restraint that is also a statement of pure confidence in the power of a free people.

I share the confidence. I wrote a couple weeks back that something is happening in Iran. But it is not the only place where something is happening. The rejection of al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan; the ground-up election of Obama in America; and now the rising up of Iranians for freedom and civility with their neighbors: these are the green shoots of recovery from 9/11 and its wake. Empowered by new information technology, chastened by the apocalyptic conflicts of the last few years, determined to shift course away from civilizational warfare, the people of many countries are grasping for a new order and a new peace. It will not be easy; and it will not be short. But it is the only path worth taking.

And these Iranians are now leading the rest of us.

~~~~~

 

~holding bed~

There's an area in the garden - at the very end of a perennial border, that has become (quite unintentionally at first) a 'holding bed'.  Sandwiched in between the spring-flowering deciduous magnolia ('Jane') and a star magnolia are now tiger lilies and red bee balm (from my Mother's garden) and orange roadside lilies, mexican petunia, coneflower, salvia, pineapple lilies and more...all plants that will need to be relocated in the next year or two, as these magnolias take over this space.

~~~~~

The one quote that I've seen over and over again today is by John F. Kennedy:

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.

~~~~~

Happy Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day.