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| Shelled Blackeyed Peas |
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| I love Eastern European-inspired food. |
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| Rocky was being a Very Good Boy! |
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| A bushel in 30 minutes, you say? |
Although the city sweltered under unusually high temperatures, exacerbated by power outages caused by a series of severe thunderstorms, the Titan of Industry sat in the library of his penthouse high atop Paco Tower, sipping occasionally from a glass of ice-cold lemonade in the cool air of a building having its own electrical system, the nature of which was something of a popular mystery in the neighborhood.
[snip]
A cautious man - who, though he sometimes came very near to what one might call the “frontier” of the letter of the law, never quite seemed to find himself indisputably south of the border (so to speak) – J.P. [the Titan of Industry] was going through the document with a fine-toothed comb.
[snip]
J.P.’s happy dabbling in the many and varied uses of conditional verbs – which, as he was always quick to point out to budding financiers, makes all the difference between coining money and stamping license plates – was interrupted by three quick raps on the library door, followed by a pause and a knock, then two more quick raps, ending with a final pause and knock (a signal which experts in international Morse code will recognize as the dollar sign).
“Enter, Spurgeon.”
The pocket doors opened to reveal J.P.’s gentleman’s personal gentleman. With his unique bearing of what can best be described as magisterial deference, Spurgeon approached his employer.
“Begging your pardon, sir, but the itinerant painter you hired, Mr. Smith, has indicated that he will need another twenty gallons of paint for the living room.”
[snip]
“He has only half finished a single room, sir, and, to be brutally frank, I find his brushwork to be decidedly amateurish. On top of that, the larder seems to have been afflicted with what I believe retail executives refer to as ‘shrinkage’”.
[snip]
Spurgeon turned to J.P. and said, “Forgive the liberty, sir,” then turned to face [Smith], drawing himself up to his full, and very intimidating, height, before uttering the following broadside.
“Hierarchy and subordination, [Mr. Smith], are the natural elements of any society. In the one in which I am privileged to live, these relationships take shape through the actions of free men acting in accordance with their own interest. ...
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| Impossible, for a plain yellow pumpkin to become a golden carriage. Impossible, for a plain country bumpkin and a prince to join in Marriage, And four white mice will never be four white horses! Such fol-der-ol and fid-dle-dy dee of course, is--- Impossible! But the world is full of zanies and fools Who don't believe in sensible rules And won't believe what sensible people say. And because these daft and dewey-eyed dopes keep building up impossible Hopes, Impossible things are happening every day. (Cinderella) Impossible! (Godmother) Impossible! (Cinderella) Impossible! (Godmother) Impossible! (Cinderella) Impossible! (Godmother) Impossible! (Both) Impossible! |
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| And pigs can fly! |
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| Delicious! |
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| Independence Day supper-- if you passed the quiz! |
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| A classic Southern dish |
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| Rat-tailed radishes |
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| Clockwise, from the top: Slaw. Chips. Hot Dogs. Plates & Forks. Buns. |
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| The basil I picked yesterday. And yes, I put it in the guest bath. Where else would I put so much basil? |
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| Cuscuta sp. |
Several years ago, an 81-year-old woman with a raised patch of dry skin on her arm visited Mississippi dermatologist John Abide, M.D.
Although the lesion looked only slightly abnormal, a series of lab tests revealed that it was a symptom of leprosy.
"I thought, 'Leprosy, are you kidding me?'" says Abide, whose practice is in Greenville. His surprise was understandable.
Each year only about 150 people in the U.S. are infected with leprosy, a bacterial disease that can lead to nerve damage and disfigurement. In most cases, people are infected after being exposed to saliva from an infected person, usually while traveling to parts of the world, such as Africa and Asia, where the disease is more prevalent.
But Abide's patient didn't fit this description.
A new study in the New England Journal of Medicine may provide an explanation for her case: armadillos. The leathery shelled mammals, which can be found in 10 states throughout the Southeastern U.S., are the only animals besides humans known to carry leprosy.
There have been several anecdotal reports of leprosy in humans who have handled, killed or eaten armadillos, or who may have been indirectly exposed by gardening in soil where the animals burrow, as was the case for Abide's patient.
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| Marinated shrimp. Corn in butter & garlic & whatever herbs I contributed. |
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| Interrupted by a stupid armadillo. We'll see where the buzzards are tomorrow. |
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| We could use some rain. |
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| UNSHELLED blackeyed peas |
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| Bar-b-qued pork ribs with Sam's special sauce, Alix's cucumbers and cilantro, Alix's watermelon with a yummy dressing, bourbon sweet potatoes. And then there was Chris' Apple Pie and Ice Cream! |
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| There were nine copies of the Declaration of Independence available for our guests to read, prompting Alix to ask, "How many copies of the Declaration of Independence do you have?" Enough for everyone. |
West of the truck stop at Fort Stockton, Texas, and all the way to El Paso, there is almost nothing but mashed-potato hills, scrub brush and the open road. The speed limit is pretty much whatever you want it to be, and Texas Rangers are few and far between. For a few hours, you can imagine what the first settlers felt upon encountering the vast, majestic emptiness that is west Texas and all from the safety of your steering wheel.
You feel free.
The Declaration of Independence used to be read aloud at public gathering every Fourth of July. Today, while all Americans have heard of it, all too few have read more than its second sentence. Yet the Declaration shows the natural rights foundation of the American Revolution, and provides important information about what makes a constitution or government legitimate. It also raises the question of how these fundamental rights are reconciled with the idea of “the consent of the governed” for which the Declaration is also famous.
When reading the Declaration, it is worth keeping in mind two very important facts. The Declaration constituted high treason against the Crown and every person who signed it would be executed as traitors should they be caught by the British. Second, the Declaration was considered to be a legal document by which the revolutionaries justified their actions, and explained why they were not truly traitors. It represented, as it were, a literal indictment of the Crown and Parliament, in the very same way that criminals are now publicly indicted for their alleged crimes by grand juries representing “the People.”
But to justify a revolution, it was not thought to be enough that officials of the government of England, the Parliament, or even the sovereign himself had violated the rights of the people. No government is perfect; all governments violate rights. This was well known. So the Americans had to allege more than mere violations of rights. They had to allege nothing short of a criminal conspiracy to violate their rights systematically. Hence, the famous reference to “a long train of abuses and usurpations” and the list that follows. In some cases, these specific complaints account for provisions eventually included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The assumption of natural rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence can be summed up by the following proposition: “first comes rights, then comes government.” According to this view: (1) the rights of individuals do not originate with any government, but preexist its formation; (2) The protection of these rights is the first duty of government; and (3) Even after government is formed, these rights provide a standard by which its performance is measured and, in extreme cases, its systemic failure to protect rights — or its systematice violation of rights — can justify its alteration or abolition; (4) At least some of these rights are so fundamental that they are “inalienable,” meaning they are so intimately connected to one’s nature as a human being that they cannot be transferred to another even if one consents to do so. This is powerful stuff.
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| You should be able to see two dragonflies and one hummingbird. |
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| Go ahead, click to make it bigger. |
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| Not the greatest photo... . |
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TAKE EXTRA PRECAUTIONS IF YOU WORK OR SPEND TIME OUTSIDE. WHEN POSSIBLE...RESCHEDULE STRENUOUS ACTIVITIES TO EARLY MORNING OR EVENING. KNOW THE SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS OF HEAT EXHAUSTION AND HEAT STROKE. WEAR LIGHT WEIGHT AND LOOSE FITTING CLOTHING WHEN POSSIBLE AND DRINK PLENTY OF WATER.
TO REDUCE RISK DURING OUTDOOR WORK THE OCCUPATIONAL SAFETY AND HEALTH ADMINISTRATION RECOMMENDS SCHEDULING FREQUENT REST BREAKS IN SHADED OR AIR CONDITIONED ENVIRONMENTS.
ANYONE OVERCOME BY HEAT SHOULD BE MOVED TO A COOL AND SHADED LOCATION.HEAT STROKE IS AN EMERGENCY - CALL 9 1 1.
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| which come from flowers like these-- |
