Winter

Hawthorn Berries

Heavy Laden

Snow on the Nose

Squirrel Waiting on the Peanut Feeder

Titmouse and Female Junco

Tufted Titmouse

Where Did I Hide That Nut?

Autumn Images

Sumac

Hawthorn Berries

Backyard Pond

Squirrel in a Kousa Dogwood

Sarah Palin Progresses Her Political Ambition at the Expense of the English Language

PALIN: It would be my honor to assist and support our new president and the new administration, yes. And I speak for other Republicans, other Republican governors also, they being willing also to, again, seize this opportunity that we have to progress this nation together, a united front.

Thus spake Sarah Palin (pictured above in Kuwait in 2007 after she acquired her first honest-to-goodness U.S. Passport) in a recent interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. Sarah, please, PROGRESS IS AN INTRANSITIVE VERB! Please, please, please, just shut up and go back to Alaska!

Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Man

For some unknown reason, I have been thinking I should post this self portrait dated 12/28/99 (my flatbed scanner isn't big enough to get the date in the image). This drawing has been languishing in a sketchbook I bought back when I was reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I didn't get beyond this part of the book. Maybe some day I'll try it again.

Earliest Recorded Use of "Yada Yada Yada?"

The phrase "Yada Yada Yada" was popularized by an episode of the TV series Seinfeld in 1997, but several sources say it can be traced back to the comedian Lenny Bruce in the 1950s, and probably goes back to vaudeville days. This morning, with the iPod on shuffle, I heard "In the Shade of the Old Apple Tree" recorded on Decca by Louis Armstrong and the Mills Brothers in 1937. At 1:44 into the song, as Louis takes a solo, the Mills Brothers break in with "Yada Yada Yada." OK, it's just a nonsense filler, and not used as a substitute for a detailed description of something, as it was in the Seinfeld episode, but there it is.

The Lowly Burdock

Here's a picture taken this past summer in a patch of burdock at the edge of the woods behind our house. The deer are not interested in eating the plant, so it thrives. A tiny spider spun its web on one of the plants, casting its shadow on a leaf below.


And now the large leaves have fallen from the burdock, and the prickly seed pods are left.


For a very cool digital image of the microscopic structure of a burdock seed pod, check out Dennis Kunkel's Microscopic World.

Shakespeare and Me

Here is the latest installment of my sporadic series of visits to sites associated with dead authors. Past visits have included the home and grave of Edgar Lee Masters in Petersburg, Illinois, places where Allen Ginsberg lived in Greenwich Village and in San Francisco, Jack London's estate (now a state park) in California, Washington Square Park in San Francisco, where Jack Kerouac drank port, and where a probably equally inebriated Richard Brautigan posed with his wife for the cover of Trout Fishing in America.

Shakespeare's Birthplace, Stratford-on-Avon

Shakespeare's Burial Site, Trinity Church, Stratford-on-Avon

Old Will is planted under the floor in front of the candlestick to my left. The stone at the head of the grave reads:

GOOD FREND FOR IESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DVST ENCLOASED HEARE.
BLESTE BE YE MAN YT SPARES THES STONES,
AND CVRST BE HE YT MOVES MY BONES.

Pictures of England

Mary and I just returned from a trip to England with our friends, the McCreas. Rather than post more traditional holiday snapshots here, I present a few of my favorite pictures of the natural world and man's handiwork taken at various locations around England.

Bridge Over the Llangollen Canal

Dead Tree in the Marbury Churchyard

Closeup of the Other Side

Dead Tree and Blue Sky Along the Llangollen Canal

Butterfly Reading the Brochure

At the Butterfly Farm, Stratford-on-Avon

Owl Butterfly

Butterfly

Common Mormon

Butterfly

Shakespeare Monument

Stratford-on-Avon

Falstaff

Vines at Bibury

Gates at Thornbury Castle

Black Swan, Coln River, Bibury

Morning at Bibury

Arlington Row, Bibury

Arlington Row, Bibury

Spider's Web, Bibury

Shaggy Ink Cap Mushrooms, Copthorne

Lock at Copthorne

Cedar Staircase, Harlaxtan Manor, Grantham

Great Hall, Harlaxtan

All pictures were taken with a Canon PowerShot A560 Camera.

More on Palin and the Witch Hunter

Monday, Mary and I attended a speech and question and answer session, featuring Karl Rove, at the Mendel Center at Lake Michigan College. Among the many stomach-churning things Rove said, he referred to the "Palin-McCain" ticket. Much has been made of Gov. Palin also putting herself at the head of the ticket in one of her speeches. Was it a slip or intentional? In her case, I'm not sure, but I feel confident that this was an intentional piece of Democrat-baiting by Rove, the master manipulator. He wants to take the focus off McCain, and wants Obama and the Democrats to attack Palin, increasing support for the hockey mom. In fact, Rove wrote an article in the Sept. 11, 2008 Wall Street Journal pointing out the folly of Presidential candidates attacking the opponents' running mates--to wit, Michael Dukakis attacking Dan Quayle in 1988, and Adlai Stevenson attacking Richard Nixon in 1952. In case you've forgotten, neither one of those Democratic candidates did very well in the general election.

But what I really want to talk about is a video of Palin's anointing by witch hunter Rev. Thomas Muthee at the Wasilla Assembly of God Church in 2005. While he has his hand on Sarah Palin's shoulder, praying for her, he explicitly refers to "witchcraft" (at 8:38 into the video). OK, Obama may have had a nutty minister in the form of Jeremiah Wright, but I don't believe Obama ever voluntarily stood, palms upturned and head bowed, next to Wright while the pastor spouted his crazy rhetoric. That is what Sarah Palin is doing in the video. This is too much!

Maybe it's because two people named Corey were executed during the Salem witch trials, but I have no interest in having anybody associated with belief in witchcraft in a position of power in this country.

Palin Was an Awesome Sportscaster

Sarah Palin may not have a big fat resume like Barack Obama, but was Obama ever a sportscaster? Add this to the list of qualifications for working in the executive branch of the federal government. Here's the governor, appearing with her maiden name, Heath, in a clip from 1988.