I have a bumper sticker that reminds everyone who likes to eat to thank a farmer, but maybe we need one that exhorts us to celebrate the pollinators that make it all possible. Farmers and gardeners depend on honeybees and other insects to move pollen from plant to plant so many of edibles we enjoy can produce food for us.
Personally, I think this Schroeder dude is a moron…what standard of “common sense” are we using here? The ‘socially acceptable’ common sense standard that we have all the water in the world to waste growing lawns that serve no purpose other than to look pretty?
In spite of the lone hold-out voter, at least this family has retained the right to use their property resourcefully…score one for liberty, eh?
via Real Farmacy – “The resident, Karl Tricamo, had been feuding with the city for months over the vegetable garden he had planted in front of his house in the 300 block of Louisa Avenue.
The city saw the garden as a blot on the landscape and issued Tricamo a citation demanding he uproot the corn, tomatoes, sorghum, peppers and other crops sprouting there and, instead, seed the yard for grass. The garden measures 35 feet by 25 feet.
With the help of an attorney from the Libertarian group Freedom Center of Missouri, Tricamo emerged victorious on Wednesday night when the city’s Board of Adjustment voted to throw out the citation against him.
“We felt vindicated,” said Tricamo, 29. “I had taken steps from day one that everything would be within ordinance. They just tried to throw everything at us and hoped something would stick.”
Tricamo’s attorney, Dave Roland, cast the issue as a blow against petty city tyranny.
“Gardening is part of the basis of human civilization,” Roland said. “Is it unusual to have a garden in your front yard? Yes. But the city had no right to demand he remove it.”
…Though the citation has been thrown out, the couple has grown weary of repeated interactions with City Hall and visits and drive-bys by code enforcement officers. Tricamo logged his dealings with City Hall and the garden in a blog, vegetableyarden.wordpress.com.”
Container Gardening with Flowers, Annuals, Perennials and Herbs (familysurvivalprotocol.com)
Indoor Vegetable Gardening (veggardening.wordpress.com)
4 Home Vegetable Garden Ideas (owfotografik.wordpress.com)
Urban Vegetable Garden for Small Spaces & Balconies (2012indyinfo.com)
The full article this is excerpted from is rather lengthy but it is very interesting (& disturbing)…and well worth the time spent reading it in full. Fair warning tho – there are some rather graphic images embedded into the original article that may not be suitable for all audiences. This was reported back in February originally…if I missed it, I am surely not the only one so I thought it was still worth sharing.
Photo: VLAD SOKHIN Rasta was accused of sorcery by people in her village after the death of a young man in 2003. She was set upon by a crowd at his funeral, beaten and strangled until she escaped. She lost her hand in the attack.
”ON FEBRUARY 7, Papua New Guineans woke to the headline “Burnt Alive!” and pictures of a large crowd, including school children, watching as flames engulfed the body of a young woman.
It happened in the busy, mercurial hub of Mount Hagen, smack in the heart of the country. A 20-year-old mother of two, Kepari Leniata, had been stripped, tortured, trussed, doused with petrol, thrown on a rubbish tip, covered with tyres and set alight.
The killing was reportedly carried out by relatives of a six-year-old boy who had just died in the local hospital. They seized a couple of women they suspected of causing the death, among them Leniata, and soon determined that she would be the scapegoat of their grief. Witnesses claimed the crowd blocked police officers and firefighters who tried to intervene.
The news provoked a statement of “deep concern” from the UN human rights office and international media coverage. PNG Prime Minister Peter O’Neill condemned the killing as a “despicable” and “barbaric” act. He said he had instructed police to use all available manpower to bring the killers to justice.
“It is reprehensible that women, the old, and the weak in our society, should be targeted for alleged sorcery or wrongs that they actually have nothing to do with,” said O’Neill. Similar sentiments resounded across PNG’s always animated social media scene, and included a push for a campaign to enlist Leniata’s name and legacy to rally momentum to address endemic, epidemic violence against women.
Leniata’s death and the anguish it provoked reprised a very similar scenario only two years ago, also on a rubbish tip in Mount Hagen, when an unidentified young woman — according to some reports, possibly as young as 16 — was tied at the stake and burned. But this time there were pictures. The horror of the act, and the passivity of the watching crowd, sent shockwaves across the country.
As the Post Courier’s Rheeney editorialised, the failure of witnesses to intervene, “to stop and condemn the murderers’ actions, points to a bigger danger of ordinary Papua New Guineans accepting this callous killing as normal and this methodology of dispensing justice as acceptable.”
I find it very sad and disturbing that the general masses have little-to-no interest in facing our “prison problem”…in spite of millions of Americans being incarcerated, folks on the outside still tend to assume that if you are in prison, you deserve everything you get. Sooner or later this problem child of ours is going to grow to such proportions that it will no longer be able to be ignored by anyone. Wakey-wakey folks…incarceration has nothing to do with rehabilitation and everything to do with allowing people to be sold and traded for profit. ~Reb
via Angola 3 News If given the attention it deserves, an important new book is certain to make significant contributions to the public discussions of US prison policy. The author, Shawn Griffith, was released last year from Florida’s prison system at the age of 41, after spending most of his life, almost 24 years, behind bars, including seven in solitary confinement. Facing the US PrisonProblem 2.3 Million Strong: An Ex-Con’s View of the Mistakes and the Solution was self-published just months after Griffith was released from what is the third largest state prison system in the US, after California and Texas.
This new book’s thoughtful analysis and chilling reflections on what author Shawn Griffith experienced while incarcerated is a remarkable illustration of why the US public must listen to the voices of current and former prisoners who have stories that only they can tell. Griffith writes that “by integrating my own personal experiences with statistics and examples from different corrections systems around the nation, I am attempting to discredit the general perception that the system is designed to enforce and protect justice for everyone. The U.S. criminal justice system is an economically and politically profitable enterprise for special interest groups in this country. The general taxpayer needs to understand how the abusive policies fostered by these groups worsen the U.S. prison problem and the debt crisis through wasted corrections expenditures.”
Florida’s state prisons are the book’s main focus because “the majority of prisoners are incarcerated in state institutions. As of 2010, the US incarcerated 1,404,053 prisoners in state correctional institutions. For that reason, and based on my own twenty years of experience… Florida serves as an especially relevant test case for the changes needed in the US correctional system for two reasons. First is the size of Florida’s prison population and some of the political causes of its growth… Second, Florida has enacted some of the toughest sentencing laws of any state, causing correctional budgets to soar while educational budgets have been cut repeatedly,” writes Griffith.
After reading about the many different ways prisoners are abused, the very notion that US prisons are designed to rehabilitate or improve public safety, can only be viewed as a sick joke. Griffith writes that “hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily. Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties. Substandard nutrition, indifference to serious medical needs, and policies that encourage laziness have also become common. These practices help to sustain rates of recidivism, which is defined as a return to prison within three years of release.”
“Indeed, the strongest factor in reducing the rate of criminal recidivism is education, especially higher education, the one correctional expenditure that federal and state politicians have slashed. This course must be reversed,’ writes Griffith, himself an example of the healing power of educational programs for prisoners. While incarcerated he began his long journey to full rehabilitation, gaining his GED and then taking over 40 accredited college correspondence courses with an emphasis on criminal justice, psychology, and marketing. He has a 3.5 GPA from Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. As a teacher in prison, he helped hundreds of inmates gain their GEDs.
Since his release in 2012, Griffith has lived in Sarasota, Florida where he founded Speak Out Publishing to publish other works of non-fiction that focus on tackling some of societies’ most pressing issues. Copies of Facing the US Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong can be purchased directly from Griffith, through his website:www.speakoutpublishing.com, by mail: Speak Out Publishing, LLC at P.O. Box 50484 Sarasota, Florida 34232, or by phone: 941-330-5979.
—Interview With Shawn Griffith—
Angola 3 News: You write that this book “isn’t just a commentary on correctional problems and solutions…it is also to share the human side of the story.” Based on your experience of spending almost 24 years in a Florida prison, what is the human side of this story?
Shawn Griffith: Sometimes I think people forget that prisoners and their families are people. The prisoners have committed crimes, but many of them come to prison with serious psychological issues, and they still have feelings like every person in this world. Most prisoners are not sociopaths, but instead human beings with more pain and trauma in their pasts than the average citizen. Committing crimes, for the most part, is a direct sign of their mental instability.
A good example was a murderer with the moniker, Arkansas. Arkansas was a real stand-up guy in prison. He was someone who kept his word, minded his own business, but had a violent father who instilled violent teachings into his head repeatedly during childhood. He would give a friend the shirt off of his back, but if you tried to harm him or get over on him, his training went into effect. He had some serious psychological issues that I saw him struggle with every day.
One day I walked into his cell and he had obviously been crying, although he tried to hide it. I asked him what was wrong, and he gave me the tough bravado treatment. But I have never given up easily, and after some coaxing, I learned that his mother was dying of cancer. Arkansas cleaned up his act immediately. He did everything by the book to get a hardship transfer closer to his dying mother, who was too sick to travel across the state of Florida.
After repeated attempts to get transferred, he gave up in total despair. His mother was the only person he had in this world. He turned his anger inward and sliced his wrists deeply. This got him transferred to the prison by his mom, since it had an Intensive Psychological Unit for suicidal inmates. This is the human aspect to which I refer. Neither Arkansas nor his poor mother should have had to deal with that in the only, heartless manner available.
Society should understand that 95% of prisoners will one day become their neighbors. Worsening people’s emotional trauma in this manner does nothing to increase these prisoners’ chances of becoming a productive, empathic citizen and neighbor. People should take an active part in reconsidering policies that ignore the human aspect of the story.
“Mary, Mary, quite contrary,
How does your garden grow?
With silver bells, and cockle shells,
And pretty maids all in a row…”
Okay, maybe my garden doesn’t have silver bells and cockle shells or pretty maids in a row but what it lacks in decoration, it makes up for in plants and sprouts! For starting out as such a sorry looking little patch of sandy dirt, it is actually coming along quite nicely…so far everything we’ve planted is sprouting and growing so if all goes well, we should end up harvesting 2 kinds of beans, 2 squash varieties, cherry tomatoes, tomatillos, bell peppers, chile peppers, spinach and watermelons…gotta have desert, right?
Sunflowers (for privacy from the nosy neighbor over the wall!), birdseed, purple tomatillos and tomatoes are growing quite happily.
The little stands that aren’t very clear in the photo above are new butterfly feeder dishes we set out over the weekend. The idea is to place a smaller bowl or plate inside of a larger one, put water in the bottom dish (to keep ants away) and then overly-ripe fruit in the top dish for flutterbyes to feed on. So far we’ve had a couple of flutterbyes flutter around it with interest so I am curious to see how many might actually come feed from them.
A close up of the Flutterbye Feeder. I plan on painting the pole & sprucing it up, of course!
The smaller shaded front garden area isn’t growing in quite the stalks and leaves as the bigger backyard garden but we are still pleased to have two solid rows of flowers, fruits and veggies lining the walkway.
The pomegranate bush is recovering from being transplanted..YaY!
I’d hoped to get a few more things in the ground this weekend but high winds and a fresh tattoo down my arm made being outside not-so-great. Oh well…it’s hard to feel disappointed when there are already so many plants coming up and so much yummy-ness to look forward to!
Many, many thanks to ajaytao2010 for passing along this lovely award!
If you are not already a follower, drop by for an incredible dose of uplifting beauty!
You only need one to start a forest!
Planting is easy: if you receive this award, simply pass it on to another blogger who inspires you through the beauty of their words/images as well as any blog which brings joyful awareness to nature and our connection to each other.
I happily pass this lovely little seed along to:
“Historically, research has been conducted to link the 11 year cycle of the sun to changes in human behavior and society. The most famous research was been done by professor A.L. Tchijevsky, a Russian scientist, who presented a paper to the American Meteorological Society at Philadelphia in the late 19th century. He prepared a study of the history of mass human movement compared to the solar cycle, beginning with the division of the Solar cycle into four parts: 1) Minimum sunspot activity; 2) increasing sunspot activity; 3) maximum sunspot activity; 4) Decreasing sunspot activity.
He then divided up the agitation of mass human movements into five phases:
1) provoking influence of leaders upon masses
2) the “exciting” effect of emphasized ideas upon the masses
3) the velocity of incitability due to the presence of a single psychic center
4) the extensive areas covered by mass movements
5) Integration and individualization of the masses
By these comparisons he constructed an “Index of Mass Human Excitability” covering each year from 500 B.C. to 1922 A.D. He investigated the histories of 72 countries in that period, noting signs of human unrest such as wars, revolutions, riots, expeditions and migrations, plus the number of humans involved. Tchijevsky found that fully 80% of the most significant events occurred during the years of maximum sunspot activity. He maintained that the “exciting” period may be explained by an acute change in the nervous and psychic character of humanity, which takes place at sunspot maxima.
Tchijevsky discovered that the solar minimum is the lag period when repression is tolerated by the masses, as if they lacked the vital energy to make the needed changes. He found that during the sunspot maximum, the movement of humans is also at its peak. Tchijevsky’s study is the foundation of sunspot theory on human behavior, and as Harlan True Stetson, in his book Sunspots and Their Effects, stated, “Until, however, someone can arrive at a more convincing excitability quotient for mass movements than professor Tchijevsky appears yet to have done, scientists will be reluctant to subscribe to all the conclusions which he sets forth.” Stetson did acknowledge that the mechanism by which ultraviolet radiation is absorbed was still a puzzle biologists had to solve.
Many animals can sense the Earth’s magnetic field, so why not people, asks Oleg Shumilov of the Institute of North Industrial Ecology Problems in Russia.
Shumilov looked at activity in the Earth’s geomagnetic field from 1948 to 1997 and found that it grouped into three seasonal peaks every year: one from March to May, another in July and the last in October.
Surprisingly, he also found that the geomagnetism peaks matched up with peaks in the number of suicides in the northern Russian city of Kirovsk over the same period.
Shumilov acknowledges that a correlation like this does not necessarily mean there is a causal link, but he points out that there have been several other studies suggesting a link between human health and geomagnetism.” Full Article Available Here
“Bringing awareness to the issue of wrongful convictions and giving a voice to those that have been silenced. We are honored to have Terrell Johnson as our guest speaker, exonerated in October 2012 for a crime he did not commit. Other’s with cases of wrongful conviction will also be speaking on their loved ones wrongful conviction such as the supporters of Da’Ron Cox and Erica Johnson, wife of Dylan Ryan Johnson. PLEASE bring posters, fliers, anything to hand out to the attendee’s to bring more awareness to your loved ones case.”
Just a short video we took of two adorable antelope that were running and playing in the foothills during one of our trips back down from Cloud Camping…
They are very beautiful creatures and usually pretty friendly, curious and willing to come up close & check you out. These guys were as relaxed as can be which may have had something to do with it being the start of Elk season, eh? 
Whenever we can manage it, Steve & I take off and head to the high peaks of the Gila Wilderness. On really great trips, we can stay out for a week or more…on absolutely fantastic trips, we don’t see any other humans for the entire week…
I grew up in these mountains; I never missed a fishing or hunting trip…not because I was a fan of fishing or hunting – but because I was a fan of spending days on end out of doors with so many trees, flowers and rocks to get acquainted with. The terrain in these mountains is incredibly varied…from low lying desert dunes, foothills with barely enough scrub oak to pitch a tent under…all the way UP, UP, UP to the sky where you can dance across dew-covered meadows and quite literally, kiss the clouds that roll by.
This is a slice of heaven…this is where everything makes sense and where everything is exactly as it should be.
From the tallest trees…
To the tiniest drop of dew…
There is nothing but natural perfection & grace…even in death -
And no matter how long I stay, it is never enough. I am never ready to come back down from the clouds. I just want to snag a small patch of land, grab Steve (and the dogs & the hens, of course!) & run like hell until we are safe and snug and sound in a little dream place like this!
“A Carpenter’s Cabin”
“Just living is not enough,” said the butterfly, “one must have freedom, sunshine & a little flower…”
Gorgeous flutterbye hanging out on my Butterfly Bush
Snow Lake, Gila Wilderness, NM
It’s a lovely, overcast morning here…the kind of day that makes a person want to find a good book, grab a big cup of coffee and settle in for awhile. Of course, some nice background music would be icing on the cake and my morning browse through YouTube led me to some of the sweetest musical icing there is. Nothing fits mellow mood quite like the super-smooth jazz of the 1930′s…
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Despite their name, the “Harlem” Hamfats were a Chicago band in the 1930′s whose members came from various places; for example, the McCoy brothers hailed from Mississippi, Herb Morand, John Lindsay and Odell Rand were from New Orleans and Horace Malcolm and Freddy Flynn came from Chicago. Initially, they mainly provided backup music for jazz and blues singers, such as Johnny Temple, Rosetta Howard, and Frankie Jaxon for Decca Records, but when their first record “Oh Red” became a hit, it secured them a Decca contract for fifty titles.
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Rosetta Howard with The Harlem Hamfats, “If You’re a Viper”
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“Don’t you start no stuff and there won’t be no stuff…”
Recorded April 20, 1938
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If you enjoyed these tunes, you can find more stellar classics in ♫ The Jukebox ♫
Tonight I was bouncing around WordPress, trying to figure out how to get started on the article I’ve wanted to write about building a casket for my father (a rather awkward subject to just jump into) when I hit upon Papizilla’s post posing the question as to whether or not it is creepy for cemeteries to cold-call people in an effort to sell burial space and other ‘death products’.
*Ding ding ding ding* We have a lead-in!
As someone who has been up-close and personal with all aspects of death and burial, I don’t find much wrong with the idea of funeral homes/cemeteries selling their products, so to speak. There is no denying Death happens – and being unprepared doesn’t usually make anything any easier, no matter the situation. I think that the rules of death aren’t much different from the basic rules of life…there are very few times when it isn’t better to plan ahead and to always, always be as prepared as you possibly can. But what about homemade caskets? Is that a good idea…or is it so far out there that the very idea gives you the heebie-jeebies?
Last year my dad called up and wanted to know if Steve and I would consider doing a job for him. More specifically, he wanted to know if we would custom build a casket for his burial…but make it one that he can use as a bookshelf…you know…until he needs the casket. He’s had some medical scares lately that naturally have him concerned…and of course we’re all aware that he isn’t as young as he used to be but even still, the request did catch me a bit off guard. It isn’t every day that someone close to me calls up in the most casual of manners and requests a multipurpose coffin…so yes, I was surprised & possibly speechless for a few minutes.
But…once the initial WTF?! shock wore off, it didn’t take much for us to see and appreciate the practicality of what he had in mind. In these tight economic times, the less money spent on burying the dead the better it can be for many families like mine. Instead of spending anywhere from $750-$1,000 for a plain wooden casket, we could custom build one for $125 in materials. Now or later, that is a HUGE savings so it was hard not to see his logic all the way around. The request may have been somewhat out of left field but there is no denying the fact that it made sense – and so we agreed to do it.
On a day that will be wrought with sadness, I will have the distracting comfort of looking at the casket my hands helped create & knowing we did something that made an old man very, very happy and proud.
I’ll admit, it wasn’t the most “fun” of projects to work on - but - there is something kind of special and cool in knowing that we built the box that will carry Dad off into eternity. It’s an honorable act to perform for someone you love, I think.
I’m really curious though…how many people think what we did was creepy or gruesome? Practical? Is this something you would do if a loved one asked you to? Would you ask a family member to build your casket…or, for the real do-it-yourself preppers, would you go so far as to make your own casket?
The harsh reality is that Lady Death will come calling for us all sooner or later…am I wrong in thinking it might be better to stand and greet her with acceptance & grace rather than cower and run away from her absolute embrace?
Dia de los Muertos festival, Mesilla, NM
Related articles:
Cemetery Questions (therantingpapizilla.wordpress.com)
Austin Environmental News: Can the “Green” Movement Go Too Far? (dirtyworkservices.wordpress.com)
I ONLY LAY IN MY CASKET WHEN I DO MY MEDITATIONS- Charly Boy (coolminjinblog.wordpress.com)
Green Burial on A Good Goodbye Radio (thefamilyplot.wordpress.com)
My favorite childhood author was, without doubt, Shel Silverstein.
I still have a copy of “The Giving Tree” my dad gave me for my 8th birthday; small miracle it has survived my gypsy lifestyle and into adulthood with me. Once there was a tree…and she loved a little boy…
I lost my copy of “Where The Sidewalk Ends” but still know many of the poems by heart in spite of not having read them in decades.
Ickle Me, Pickle Me & Tickle Me Too…Went for a ride in a flying shoe..hang on, stay in, I hope we do..!!
And I loved Sara Cynthia Sylvia Stout who would not take the garbage out – and believe me, I started taking the garbage out lest I be smooshed under a tower of trash!
The poem about Jimmy Jet & His TV Set caused me to not watch television for months after I read. it – I didn’t want a plug-in tail!
My dad had an old 45 of The Unicorn that I played until there were no grooves left in the vinyl!
Oh if only those silly Unicorns had come in out of the rain..!!
As an adult, his writings still remain at the top of my favorites list although not for the same reasons.
“Uncle Shelby’s ABZ Book” is a work of pure genius…
But it is NOT a book recommended for children under the age of 18!
E is for egg.
See the egg.
The egg is full of slimey gooey white stuff and icky yellow stuff.
Do you like to eat eggs?
E is also for Ernie.
Ernie is the genie who lives in the ceiling.
Ernie loves eggs.
Take a nice fresh egg and throw it as high as you can and yell
“Catch, Ernie! Catch the egg!”
And Ernie will reach down and catch the egg.
Postscript – My dad loved to tell my cousins and neighborhood playmates all about the Egg Monster (actually he had it confused and told us it was a tomato monster for several years) — it should be no surprise that we received more than one irate phone call from mothers threatening to never let their kids play at our house again after Uncle Mel’d served them Green Whiskey (GatorAid) and then sent them home convinced that any food thrown at the ceiling would be caught by the monster…
The freedom movement lost one helluva warrior when Hardy Macia succumbed to Hodgkin’s Lymphoma today at the very young age of 43…
I never had the honor of meeting Hardy in person, but worked with him through most of Gov. Johnson’s presidential campaign. He was truly an inspiration and always led by example…
Hardy braving the cold to spread the message of freedom.
A fighter literally until his last breath, Hardy taped this video pleading for medical marijuana legalization just last week. Even with a collapsed lung, Hardy’s voice was persuasive and powerful…
Farewell, Hardy…your beautiful, fighting presence will be missed by everyone you touched & inspired.
Excerpts, Concord Patch – “Hardy Macia, who spent one of his last breaths requesting that Gov. Maggie Hassan approve a medicinal marijuana proposal for New Hampshire with a homegrown provision, passed away earlier today, according to friends and family.
Macia, who had Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, was stricken with the disease last summer while he was running for the 2nd Congressional District and assisting former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson’s run for president.
Previously, he was a Board of Selectman in Grand Isle, VT, and ran for governor there in 2004, before moving to New Hampshire as part of the Free State Project. He also attempted to run for state representative in New Hampshire in 2010. In his congressional race, he received 4.4 percent of the vote, or about 15,000 votes…”
“…Friends and family members began posting notes to his Facebook site around 5 p.m. on May 13,when the news began to be shared that he succumbed to the lymphoma.
Former state Rep. Seth Cohn, R-Canterbury, a colleague and friend, called him an inspiration and a role model for others, who spent his life “working for liberty, right up to the end,” earlier today.
“Despite a cancer diagnosis, he continued that run for Congress, hoping to wake a few more people up to the cause of freedom,” Cohn stated. “Even in his last days, he took action from, a hospital bed, confronting NH Governor Maggie Hassan to do the right thing and focus on people over politics. I’m honored to have been his neighbor, his friend, and a fellow activist alongside him. May his torch of liberty shine brightly in the heavens, a role model to inspire others onward toward freedom.”
Sep 24, 2012 - Hardy Macia runs into Zombies at the New Hampshire State House…
Related Content - Macia makes plea for relaxed medical marijuana rules (wmur.com) Hardy Macia, Libertarian activist and candidate, releases viral video calling for legal home growing of medical marijuana (txwclp.org) Cancer patient pleads for medical marijuana rules (wcvb.com) Stossel On The Free State Project: Moving To New Hampshire For Liberty (libertycrier.com)
By Louise Raw in Britain:
Deeds, not words
Friday 10 May 2013
"Tall and slender, with red hair. Her illusive, whimsical green eyes and thin, half-smiling mouth bore often the mocking expression of the Mona Lisa."
This is Emily Wilding Davison as described by Sylvia Pankhurst, the "socialist one" in the Pankhurst line-up.
She and Davison, who died under the king's horse a century ago next month, were sisters-in-arms during…
Lucille Bogan (April 1, 1897 – August 10, 1948)
Lucille was an American blues singer, among the first to be recorded. She also recorded under the pseudonym Bessie Jackson. The music critic and sexologist Ernest Borneman stated that Bogan, along with Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, was in “the big three of the blues”.
***Warning: Parental Advisory***
She first recorded vaudeville songs for Okeh Records in New York in 1923, with pianist Henry Callens. Later that year she recorded “Pawn Shop Blues” in Atlanta, Georgia, which was the first time a black blues singer had been recorded outside New York or Chicago. In 1927 she began recording for Paramount Records in Grafton, Wisconsin, where she recorded her first big success, “Sweet Petunia”, which was covered by Blind Blake. She also recorded for Brunswick Records, backed by Tampa Red and Cow Cow Davenport.
By 1930 her recordings had begun to concentrate on drinking and sex, with songs such as “Sloppy Drunk Blues” (covered by Leroy Carr and others) and “Tricks Ain’t Walkin’ No More” (later recorded by Memphis Minnie). She also recorded the original version of “Black Angel Blues“, which (as “Sweet Little Angel”) was covered by B.B. King and many others. Trained in the rowdier juke joints of the 1920s, many of Bogan’s songs, most of which she wrote herself, have thinly-veiled humorous sexual references. The theme of prostitution, in particular, featured prominently in several of her recordings.
In 1933 she returned to New York, and, apparently to conceal her identity, began recording as Bessie Jackson for the Banner (ARC) label. She was usually accompanied on piano by Walter Roland, with whom she recorded over 100 songs between 1933 and 1935, including some of her biggest commercial successes including “Seaboard Blues”, “Troubled Mind”, and “Superstitious Blues” Continue Reading —->
Some people say that diamonds are a girl’s best friend but I strongly disagree with that claim. Aside from the nastiness that surrounds the diamond industry, I seriously don’t get the big attraction for ice-cold, sharp, near colorless chunks of…glassy-stuff. I like jewelry okay but my idea of fancy is a new amethyst choker or maybe a cool piece of rose quartz for my medicine bag. So…when gift-giving occasions roll around, Steve gets off easier than any man I know…a cool rock, nice tree stump or funky piece of driftwood will make me giddier than any ordinary polished-up chunk o’ coal ever could! And I gotta say that Steve outdid himself on my gift this year with this super-awesome, one-of-a-kind…Birthday Board!
Yes indeed, folks…you are looking at one of the coolest damned gifts ever! I have a board…a solid, aged, stunningly gorgeous piece of pine…and I can do whatever I can dream of with it. Oh me, oh my…decisions, decisions..! So many ideas…only one slab of wood!
One of the coolest things about the ‘birthday board’ is that it was found and pulled from a scrap wood bin at the local Habitat For Humanity ReStore. The price nearly broke the bank at a whoppin’ $1.50; I am a high-maintenance woman, lemme tell ya…not every man could afford to keep me in…old boards! I’ve got old rope, twine…probably some chain and hooks…partial cans of stain and sealer and who knows what all else stashed away so it’ll be a real kick to see what odds and ends can be salvaged from here, there & over there in order to make this tired old board into something interesting…
In the upper left corner is a hanging shelf made from a slab of wood I salvaged from the old Venice Beach Pier…
The next-best treasure find of the day, was this awesome little handmade mirror & shelf…
Oops, I’d already taken the mirror off the back before I snapped a pic but oh well, the general idea is here.
The mirror was held on with strapping tape and the wood is a little worn and beaten but with an afternoon’s worth of sanding and staining & TLC, this will look fresh and new. Instead of putting the original mirror back on, I’m going to insert a piece of rainbow-ish, iridescent plastic that Steve salvaged from another project. The color of the plastic changes with the lighting in the room and the background so I’m thinking that with a little candle in a glass holder, this is going to be a super-cool addition to…uhm…well, whatever wall I end up hanging it on! This shelf was another bank-breaking find with a price tag of $2.00. Seriously, even if I sink another $5 into repairing it, I’ve still wound up with a heck of a deal…not to mention, another project to tinker with and customize!
Not only did I get my very own Birthday board and funky mirror to remake, my stepdaughter rocked the ‘most thoughtful’ gift category this year by taking time to hunt down just the right style of basket and just the right shade of purple fabric to line it with for my new egg basket!
Other fun project updates: The chicken coop is now painted – (for free!) – thanks to a buddy that was kind enough to drop a whole bag of sign paints on my world last week. I used some yellow leftover from old jobs we’ve done and then had a HUGE bag of accent color paints to jazz it all up with. Wheeeeee! Colors, colors…everywhere!!! We were about to build some steps up to the nesting box when I got lucky (at ReStore again; my home away from home…) and found a little set of wooden steps for an outrageous price of $4. They were the perfect height and with a few quick splashes of paint, they were set in place and ready to go. Gotta love the times when the perfect item pops up at the perfect time just for – the perfect use! Yes, we could have made steps ourselves - but not for less than $4 worth of wood and now we can use our scrap for other projects and free up the time for…well, whatever comes next!
This afternoon we added more veggies to the garden. Along with the already happy sunflowers and purple tomatillos, we got several more cherry tomatoes & more spinach out; we set the Kentucky Wonder pole beans in place, got the mound done and the melons and squash in the ground…cayenne and bell peppers, lavender and more dill are all now in their ‘proper’ patches of earth..the sunflowers are growing inches a day already and the tomatillos we set out earlier are getting huge…What fun, what fun to help things grow! Flutterbyes and buzzybees are hanging around more and more which just tickles me pink…er, purple! A happy little lizard has claimed his spot on the west end of the garden, lady bugs should be here soon and hopefully one day soon we’ll have a garden worthy of entertaining the Mad Hatter in!
I’ll get photos soon and put together a better post about the garden progress later on this week. Ya know…after I get another project or two started…or finished…or both. Oh! And of course, I also still have a sweet piece of birthday ink in progress so please understand if scratching the tattoo itch takes priority and the sound of the needle calls me away…
♫ A very merry un-birthday to you all…! ♫
Have a wonderful, colorful and fun-filled week!
♫ Well so here I am at the end of the road
Where do I go from here?
I always figured it would be like this
Still nothing seems to be quite clear… ♫
Over the past few months I’ve become increasingly unhappy with, and unenthusiastic about, this little blog o’ mine. As with pretty much everything else I do in life, I started with no real plan or vision of what I wanted this blog to be; I just jumped in and built as I went…what a shock that I’m not happy with the result, eh?
Usually when I get to “the end” of an idea or project, I set it on fire and burn it to the ground – and I’ll admit that lately I’ve been sorely tempted to just light a match and watch ‘A MisBehaved Woman’ go up in smoke. I’m not a pyro but I do love the release that comes from the flame, the smoke & the purified ash that is left to blow away on the wind…leaving a space cleared for something new to grow. For whatever “unhappy” I have with the blog, I’ve not yet been able to light the match because somewhere here I still think there’s a foundation that might be worth salvaging instead of torching… so perhaps I just need to step back and decide how to best re-direct my energy into something more positive.
One of the main things that is causing an itching sort of discomfort in my head is the realization that I am spreading fear…feeding the wrong Wolf, so to speak. I do not want fear & darkness to win out and yet those are the very energies I feed with many of my posts. Fear of police, the state, big brother, financial collapse, new technology…enough is enough. I’ve done nothing but swim in the darkness of the fear & underworld in one form or another for a decade now and I want to see the light again…I want to BE the light again.
♫…Well it’s been quite a while since I lifted my head
And I’m sure the light will hurt my eyes
I see the way that I been spendin’ my days
And reality has caught me by surprise
I was dreamin’ of tomorrow so I sacrificed today
And it sure was a grand waste of time
And despite all the truth that’s been thrown in my face
I just can’t get you out of my mind… ♫
The bottom line is that if people haven’t already figured out that we – the global society – are neck deep in a whirlpool of shit, then there is nothing more I can do, say or scream about that is likely to make a difference. I looked back over my files and noticed that my first online post warning of coming water shortages, droughts and fighting (wars) over water rights was almost 10 years ago…ditto the death penalty concerns of executing the innocent…and the dangers of private prisons…and the odd spraying activity in the sky over my head. I’m tired; I’m sinking while I tread water waiting for others to wake-up & catch-up…and my voice no longer roars the way it once did – I’m hoarse & raspy with only a half-hearted passion for what I do…and it’s just not good for me to keep doing what I do if my heart isn’t truly in it anymore.
♫…All the words have been spoken and the prophecy fulfilled
But I just can’t decide where to go
Yes, it’s been quite a day and I should go to sleep
But tomorrow I will wake up and I’ll know
That I’ve got to begin again
Though I don’t know how start… ♫
It’s summertime…it’s May, the best month of the whole year & I don’t want to miss it while I’m stuck to a screen or drowning in muckity-muck of the world. There is still a hell of a lot of beauty left on this rock and dammit, I’m sick of missing out on all of it! I turn 42 (wow, when did THAT happen???) tomorrow…’tis the season of retro-introspection and change. Re-birthing myself always happens in May…from leaving abusive partnerships to transforming into a Ducki to getting new ink added to the skinmap of my life…May is the month of all things new and so it will be here, now, with A MisBehaved Woman.
I really am not sure where this blog is going to go from here…it may well sit idle for awhile as I throw back some Mojitos, work on my garden and my tan – and try to figure it all out in this bouncy-trouncy brain of mine. Maybe the posts will just be more funky & random as I switch things up and see what direction I want to travel in next, I don’t know because I don’t have a clear vision just yet. No matter what, I’m heading towards the light for a change – both online & in the real world. I hope readers stick around for that change but I’ll more than understand ifn’s a few folks wander off…it’s all part of the beauty of the intrawebs…crossing paths, exchanging a few thoughts & ideas and then parting ways with no harm and no foul.
~ Wishing You All Peace, Blessings & The Beauty of New Beginnings ~
Rebecca
Interesting idea…not sure how environmentally safe it would or wouldn’t be, but it’s fascinating, either way.
The Daily Scan – “A group of synthetic biology do-it-yourself researchers want to develop and sell glow-in-the-dark plants that could be used as decoration or, in the case of trees, to light streets, Andrew Pollack writes in the New York Times.
The plan is to work out of the BioCurious hacker lab space in Silicon Valley to initially splice DNA from a luminous organism like a jellyfish or marine bacterium into an Arabidopsis mustard plant and to move on to other plants later.\
The partners, including San Francisco tech entrepreneur Antony Evans and Omri Amirav-Drory, who runs a firm called Genome Compiler, also hope that their project will inspire others to pursue independent biology engineering, Pollack writes.
To fund the effort, the partners have raised $250,000 from around 4,500 Kickstarter donors in around two weeks, the Times reports.
“We hope to have a plant which you can visibly see in the dark (like glow-in-the-dark paint), but don’t expect to replace your light bulbs with version 1.0,” according to the project’s Kickstarter page.
Not surprisingly, the plan has drawn concerned criticism from environmental groups, including Friends of the Earth and the ETC Group, who have asked Kickstarter to remove the project from its website and have asked the US Department of Agriculture to take some action, according to the Times.
The environmental groups said that the glowing mustard plant project will lead to the “widespread and uncontrolled release of bioengineered seeds and plants through the controversial and risky techniques of synthetic biology,” Pollack notes.
So far, Kickstarter has told the critics to talk to the project’s partners, and USDA has not responded to the letter, according to the Times.” Source
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