*sneezing*

Excuse me.

:-)

581c have tornados, if they have similar atmosphere conditions? Heavy damage and about 10 deaths in Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras (Black Rocks)--across the Rio Grande from each other--last night. Red Cross is on scene and search and rescue operations are still under way. High school shelter set up by Red Cross in town for travelers whose flights were diverted last night from DFW.

Glad you're OK, LindaLoo.

At this very moment the occupants of Gliese 581c are all getting that creepy feeling you get when someone is watching you.

If you want to see really scary alien life forms, they should visit my oldest child's bedroom, specifically the hamper.

And we won't even get into the sock-eating aliens with the portal to Calibi-Yau space through my laundry chute.

bc

Repost from previous boodle:

But is it a Class M planet? Beam down a red shirt team to investigate.

The best planets are named after noble gases: Krypton, Xenon, Argon, Rayon, Akron, etc.

And of course the Planet Skyron in the Andromeda Galaxy...

:-)

Funny you should mention ADM. It seems that our ethanol fad is raising the cost of food as feed corn is being diverted to industrial production:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/24/AR2007042401498.html

And for a more detailed exegesis on why corn is a false prophet:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/23/AR2007032301625.html

Skyron. Out-geeked again. This is a tough room.

It was a heckuva storm. Unusual to have a damaging tornado this far south--Eagle Pass is 150 miles to our southwest. Jarrel's Cat 5 was an exception, but it was north of Austin near Round Rock.

There is nature-schmutzig and people-schmutzig. Major national food chains, such as Applebee's, would only be the tip of the iceberg. Notice the changes here locally in the last several decades in our air quality:

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA042207.04B.hardberger_green.326ab04.html

Several years ago, Phil Hardberger the pilot used to fly his plane over San Antonio and marvel at the 30-mile clear visibility. On Saturday, Phil Hardberger the mayor blamed increasing air pollution for cutting that distance to about 5 miles now.

"As a personal pilot, I have seen this with my own eyes -- how our air has gotten dirtier and dirtier. ... You really don't know how bad it is till you're up there and look down and you see this yellow cloud," he said. "It's what we used to associate with Los Angeles."

To show he's serious about climate protection, Hardberger on Saturday became the 465th mayor in the country to sign a document committing him to work to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions in San Antonio. Known as the U.S. Mayors Climate Protection Agreement, it also urges Congress to pass legislation setting meaningful timelines and limits on emissions.

Is your mayor on the Cool Mayors list?

http://www.coolmayors.org/common/11061/default.cfm?clientID=11061

Don't forget the planet Dacron. I hear they've got some killer sportswear there.

Tornado coverage (our headliner this morning):

http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/metro/stories/MYSA042507.bordertornadofatal.en.821e445.html

A family of four, including a 3-year-old, were among the twister's casualties after their doublewide mobile home was sent crashing into the Rosita Valley Elementary School, Aranda said. The whispers around the command center, passed from rescuer to rescuer, was that the four family members were found embracing each other inside their mobile home's bath tub.

A fifth victim was found by relatives and transported to authorities. There were no details on the sixth victim.

"There were a lot of power lines that were open and there were trucks with people bloody all over," said Billy Perez, 31, an Eagle Pass resident who came to help at the scene. "People were rescuing people all over the place."

Dang you, TBG. Your subliminal mind control just made me order from Amazon the Dacron 1964 High School Yearbook.

I don't mind pollen, and my tolerance for weeds is fairly high. It's poison ivy that torments me. Rare is the year when I have not received at least a mild rash from stealth vines that invade my yard and manage to vanish among the general herbaceous population.

Sure, people may point and laugh at the man doing yard work in a burka, but endless baths in colloidal oatmeal are no way to celebrate the arrival of Spring.

yello... that Dacron Republican-Democrat Sunday paper was a hoot, too.

The first time I saw that yearbook, I didn't catch on that it was a parody until I got to the microscopic pictures of the Freshman class.

RDP;

What about saving time and doing yard work in colloidal oatmeal?

BTW, Joel, this kit is a brilliant example of humorous juxtaposition. Few people could manage to combine weeds with extra-solar planets in such a clever way. And I like to think we in the boodle can take some credit for stimulating your creativity. I can just imagine you scrolling through the boodle, looking at the diverse comments, and thinking to yourself, "that could work."

Scottynuke - the thought has crossed my mind. I'm thinking of one of those Dune-style hydration suits. Unfortunatelty, given my plumbing skills, I would probably spring a leak and trickle porridge all over the yard.

We're in the yard-as-weeds and flower-beds-in-the-throes-of-secondary-succesion category of property owners on our block. One side of the yard is this unique semi-arid region beneath the willow oak canopy that supports only the best adapted weeds and occasional patches of grass. As such, I take the children out onto the porch during torrential rains to let them observe erosion on a massive scale, and have to regularly dig out the front sidewalk (flagstones, well actually pieces of old sidewalk that were placed in the floor to appear as flagstones). We have some lovely areas of poison ivy. If we Napalmed the entire yard as Joel suggests, it would forever settle the questions among our neighbors about our collective family mental state.

RD, I had a boyfriend once that suffered horribly all his life from any faint, glimmering, peripheral presence of poison ivy. His stories of the places the rash could go just from a roadside quick-stop were hilarious, but frightening. Once I moved to the country, I discovered that I'm somewhat resistant to it, as long as I wash in cold water the minute I feel the burn-itch starting. Since I tend to be allergic to everything else on earth, this was an interesting exception, but my doc told me it was probably due to my fondness for cashews (same allergen, ingested = resistance). My tendency to eat wildflowers and add native honey to my morning tea appears to have exempted me from pollen allergies as well, for which I'm deeply grateful!

(the extreme sensitivity to smoke and air pollution remains, and that's enough to keep me sneezing on sunny days, even where I live now)

SCC: eat wildflowers IN SALADS

(although my neighbors are used to just about anything from me by now)

An important grammar alert message:

As noted, today is Administrative Professionals Day®. Please note that the word "Professionals" does NOT, repeat NOT, have an apostrophe after it. Placement of an apostrophe in this aforesaid position shall hereby constitute a direct violation of the terms and conditions set forth by the owners and assigns of the hereby aforesaid Administrative Professionals Day®, who are in fact the International Association of Administrative Professionals (IAAP), it heirs, assigns and duly appointed and/or elected officials thereof.

Please note further that aforesaid Administrative Professionals Day®, formerly known (as late as 1998) as "Secretaries Day" back in the dark, dark days of yesteryear when secretaries roamed the earth in small bands of shopper/gatherers, is a registered trademark, with registration number 2,475,334 (serial number 75/898930). Is one required to use that friggin' trademark registration symbol? one might ask. No, one is NOT.

Be it further noted that Administrative Professionals Day falls this year in the middle of Administrative Professionals Week, a celebratory period of recognition and festivity that also does not contain an apostrophe. Said week falls upon the last full week of April every year. Those who have failed to realize, appreciate, and further celebrate the arrival of Administrative Professionals Week last Sunday--or, in a worst-case scenario, Monday morning, being the usual start of "return to work"--may face potential liability for failure to so recognize the nature of this important secular holiday. You know who you are.

This concludes today's important grammar alert. Had this been a real grammaer emergency, all personnel would have been directed to the nearest shelter.

I think Joel is using the metaphor that if you jump in front of an angry mob and wave a baton that makes you a band leader. By mentioning weeds in the kit, most of the previous boodle becomes post-facto on-topic in a rather Tralfamadorean way.

I don't have a yard, so I don't have to sweat the outdoor schmutz. But the indoor agglutination is going to one day crowd me out of my apartment. I see it for what it is, my eventual undoing, and I can't be bothered...Interesting word, bothered. Does it come from "both?"

You know I'm jet-lagged when I'm posting this early. Just wanted to let you all know I'm back home. Had a great time with TBG, Scottynuke and pj last Fri night - wish we could have spent more time together. As pj said, we never even got a chance to talk about music! Have a lot of back-boodling to do, and news to catch up on.

My sister and I walked our legs off at the National Mall seeing the monuments, etc. We checked out the Tidal Basin, but no cherry blossoms left - some nice pink and white dogwoods, though, and some gorgeous plantings outside the Hirshorn Museum. We ate at the Museum of the American Indian - thanks for the tip, Wilbrod! - really good, and they have nice seating areas with really comfortable leather chairs (not in the cafeteria). We also managed to negotiate the Metro system with a lot of help from the transit folks and nice people - whoever wrote the instructions could use a good editor! Or maybe it's self-explanatory to people who are used to mass transit - which would not be my sister and me.

I was worried about weather delays flying back yesterday, but despite the awful rain and nearly snow(!) in Denver, I made it back to Seattle on schedule. And may I compliment you on the weather in DC last weekend - it was fabulous. Thank you.

sevenswans - I could tell such stories. But mercifully will not.

It was much worse when I moved out here in 1987. Not only was I more susceptible to the stuff, but I was also terribly ignorant about the evils of vines with three leaves.

Being raised in the Pacific Northwest all I had to worry about while growing up were nettles, which give you an immediate sting and are quickly dealt with by a judicious application of baking powder. Next to Poison Ivy, they are kinda cute.

Anyway, in 1991 I ended up with a rash so bad they had to give me steroids. Since then I have been very careful. The burka bit is only a slight exaggeration. Sure, wearing head-to-toe clothing when mowing is uncomfortable but compared to oozing rashes, heat stroke seems like a good deal.

In Portland, Oregon, it's popular to flatten steep yards by building retaining walls of pieces of broken-up sidewalk. The pieces are in good supply because the city government is utterly obsessed with sidewalk repair.

You could tell the snotty neighborhoods by the lack of sidewalk retaining walls. Only real stone would do.

Of course we'd turn Gliese 581c into a forest of exotic, invasive boxwoods that grow phenomenally in the absence of any natural enemies, with probably some pigeons or mynah birds, too.

Isn't a pollen-colored greenish-yellow fashionable right now?

I usually get evil glances whenever I suggest that nobody will ever admit to being a secretary until the Administrative Professionals Day® lunch menu is being passed around.

oops, sorry, I just posted what I saw on my calendar. won't happen again.

RDP, I feel your pain, or at least I used to. Growin up I would get poison ivy every summer. I didn't even have to go into the woods, I would just catch it on the wind. Calamine did nothing for me except make my hands pink. I discovered in my teens the best thing for me is to put my hands under really cold running water for about a minute, gently dry by softly patting with a paper towel, and then applying vaseline itensive care moisturizung lotion. Avoid anything that dries the skin.

I might note for you lexicographers that my use of the spelling of "grammaer" comes from the old Gaelic, and reflects both the duality and dichotomous nature of the unusual ending of the word we now know as "grammar" when one might expect "grammer" instead. Since I fully intended this whimsical Gaelic pun, I have not SCCed this item, because of course said "mistake" was completely intentional, and had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that my fingers were covered with potato chip grease at the moment I typed it.

RD, that's exactly how it goes. "That could work." When I hear a humorous comment I think: "Possible material." Even an epiphany is now just blog fodder. A beautiful sunset: "That could work."

Has someone already pointed out that Hot Jupiter wouldn't be such a bad boodle handle?

Schmutz. What a great word. I was compelled to look up the definition. Transmlates to Am. Eng. dirt, sim to dreck. I was told by my friends in Syracuse that dreck translated to the vernacular of excrement. For thar reason, they wouldn't fo to Jreck (pronounced dreck) subs for a sandwich

The elephant in the room:

When does Administrative Professionals (No Apostrophes, Dammit!) Day fall on the planet Gliese 581c?

". . . with a complicated explanation of a medical phenomena that most coroners have never heard of or believe to be true, . . "

Doesn't the Post use "phenomenon" for the singular? The brain story's engrossing, if creepy, anyway.

I intend to make "Hot Jupiter!" my all-purpose exclamation of choice as well as my expletive du jour, as in "Hot Jupiter, that's a mighty fine Mohito!" and "Hot Jupiter, look at all that pollen on my truck!"

I have Two Words for Gilese 581 c:

Pleasure Planet.

That could be a good name for it, once the developers get hold of the place. Or New Hedonism. Or New Cancun.

After all, the entire planet will be bathed in red light... except when the sun goes down (that should be a heck of a sunset).

bc

This column was fantastic, I laughed my (very sore from kickboxing) butt off through every line. Joel's mind is amazing. (Wild like those weeds!)

Hot Jupiter, Mudge, I hadn't even had a chance to use Lisa deMoraes' preferred all-purpose exclamation of choice/expletive du jour"Haley Scarnato!" yet!

Keeping up with langwidge is hard. It is a phenomena that tries my patiences.

Sorry, mudge, "Hot Jupiter" sounds like the sort of exclamation only found in Heinlein juveniles. It's usually followed by bad dialog like "Stupid groundhogs have no idea what it's like having to work out here in The Belt. Boy, I can't wait until my application to go to Gliese 581c comes through."

The "Hot" part of Hot Jupiter is a nice adjective, but "Jupiter" implies a lot of characteristics not all that attractive (ie inordinately large, gassy etc).

I think we should just fire a rocket at Gliese 581c loaded with dandelion seeds and get it over with. Our role as a species is clearly to spread dandelions as far and wide as possible.

A planet where everywhere is a red light district. Interesting.

Hey, weren't the "Overlords" in Clarke's "Childhood's End" from a planet with a red sun?

Maybe we ought to think this whole business through once more.

If we keep making fun of it, it might become known as "Planet of the Japes."

I concur, byoolina: langwich phenomenons are hard to keep up with.

bc, I believe I have opined before that I don't like how they name planets. Your (snort-worthy) notion of "Pleasure Planet" has caused me to think perhaps we should in fact let real estate developers name new planetary discoveries. In the case at hand, we might have "The Planets at Gliese Meadows." Or maybe a themed series of names, such as "Gliese's Run," "Gliese's Mews," "Gliesemere," and "Tanglegliese." (OK, I realize I've been married to a real estate agent waaaaaayyy too long for my own good.)

Lunging off-topic: I just got an interesting email from my college roommate, a book recommendation that might be an alternative or a supplement to "I am Charlotte Simmons" for prospective college students and their parents.

===============
MY FRESHMAN YEAR
by Rebekah Nathan

FROM THE BOOK JACKET: After fifteen years of teaching anthropology at a large university, Rebekah Nathan had become baffled by her own students. Their strange behavior--eating meals at their desks, not completing reading assignments, remaining silent through class discussions--made her feel as if she were dealing with a completely foreign culture. So Nathan decided to do what anthropologists do when confused by a different culture: Go live with them. She enrolled as a freshman, moved into the dorm, ate in the dining hall, and took a full load of courses.

=======
Sounds interesting to me...

Please resume your interplanetary gardening ruminations...

That was the motivation behind the name "Greenland", following the developers' foolhardy decision to accurately name "Iceland"

Random factoid: The irritant in Poison Ivy is an oil called urushiol, which is also the Japanese word for lacquer. In olden times, the Japanese are said to have coated valuable items with urushiol to deter thieves. Some allege this is the origin of the term "being caught red-handed."

Gliese Pointe
Gliese Parke
Shoppes at Gliese Polo Grounds
The Lakes of Gliese [i.e. retention ponds]

Actually, few people know that a "Hot Jupiter" is a delightful mixture of Rum, Cranberry Juice, and Habanero Peppers.

Look, I said few people know this.

SoC,
Kurt Vonnegut had a similar concept in his contribution to "Again, Dangerous Visions". Alas, the story title is unboodleable without resorting to euphemisms worthy of a Heinlein juvenile.

Amyone in the DC area who liked the weather last weekend can thank me. The wife, boy, and I flew in from Texas for a wedding and brought it with us. It was tough to fit in the suitcase, but I had a feeling that the TSA wouldn't allow me to bring it in my carry-on. The boy (under age two) performed exceptionally on both flights and only annoyed the guy in front of us with the kicking feet, instead of the whole plane with his vocal abilities.

The wedding was between a Korean bride and Korean groom, so naturally we were the only white people in the room. I thought this was interesting until my sister pointed out that the bride (who was my wife's maid of honor) was the only non-white person at our wedding. Nothing like a taste of my own medicine, so to speak. We had a great time and ate mounds of Korean BBQ at the rehearsal dinner. The high point of the wedding ceremony was when the groom's uncle gave his gift to the couple, which was a song. They did not know what song he would sing, which made it kind of funny when he got up and launched into a Korean/English rendition of "Home on the Range." The younger people tried not to laugh as the older folks nodded their heads with approval, as if saying, "Ahhh, yes, 'Home on the Range,' how appropriate."

Is this a tradition of which I am not aware?

I've got to go be a terribly serious grown up this afternoon.

Wish me luck.

Incidentally, Yoki, I am so overwhelmed and verklempt at your wonderful use of the word "echt" yesterday that I have been nearly speechless. But a belated "well done!" is in order.

SCC: "byoolina": sheesh. Now I feel like I've become my own Russian wife.

"Planet of the Japes" has to be the pun of the day.

This kit is delightful. I like the melding of the pointy (which I don't really understand) with the round (which I do), particularly the very domestic roundness of "undermanaged surfaces" which describes every surface in my house (thanks to three large dogs).

They've got to find a less negative moniker for Red Dwarves before attempting to colonize Gliese 581c. What kind of low self-esteem individual would attempt a 20 light-years trip to become part of a red dwarf system, even if you name it Gliese581 Abbeye?
What about a right-sized warm-lighted star?

I'm lucky enough not to react to poison ivy but an ignorant neighbour ( she's from from a region devoid of the pest actually) drove a ride-on lawnmower through a thick patch. She ended in the ER, of course.

I've made quite a bit of experiment in eradication of PI. If you apply a drop of round-up on a valuable plant it dies. Poison Ivy needs three drenching over two years.

I mean, how many times do you run into "an echt focaccia" in a single lifetime? My admiration knows no bounds.

I'll have some crabcake recipes for you by and by.

I thought Risa already had a trademark on "the pleasure planet". It took over the intergalactic love hotel business when Wrigley's Planet had to close after that unfortunate incident involving the carnivorous STD.

Actually, "Hot Jupiter" wouldn't be a bad name for an interstellar destination in the Pleasure Planet (TM) chain of Resorts.

It would have to be located in the atmosphere of a gas giant; a floating city like Stratos or Bespin. [if you know what those are (yellojkt, I'm looking at you, sir), hopefully you've moved out of your mother's basement. I did.]

Actually, an oasis in a hot place... I'm thinking Las Vegas! Maybe we could convince Vegas to move, like James Blish's "Cities in Flight." [Lord, my dork flag is really flying today, isn't it?]

bc

Howdy from the Planet of Weeds. Thanks for the picture yesterday of chickweed, as well as the link to all the other pictures. I didn't realize I've been pulling handsful (handfuls?) of chickweed without surcease in spring and summer for the last 14 years. By the way, my family calls wood sorrel sheepshower, and it is very tasty. I too am annoyingly, uncontrollably allergic to poison ivy; colloidal baths merely make life possible. I go right for the steroids now, as any slight exposure ensures that lesions will pop up randomly for days afterwards. The dermatologist says I can probably just breathe it in.

I suspect Gliese 581c has been watching us for years. Why not? I say, let us send them a rocket fleet of poison ivy. See what they're made of. If they survive, I might well concede their superiority and surrender.

Another idea for naming Gliese 581 c, a welcome place bathed in a red light:

"Roxanne"

bc

PS If I just set off a tune cootie for you, I will say this: You're welcome.

Why thank you, 'Mudge. I'm tremulous with delight.

Oh, bill everything, for years when the Boy asks what's for dinner I've said, "Mice."

Geeze, bc. I'm writing a proposal, and here you go planting The Police in my head.

FYI, "dreck" is Yiddish, and does in fact mean the S-word, dung, filth, etc.

"Surcease." Well, we can tell who's the lawyer around here. (But Hot Jupiter, I like it.)

When the young ladies were little girls, if I answered "tadpoles in pond scum" I was sure to get a giggle which lit up the day.

Planet of Weeds.

Hmm. I imagine we need to send some Glaucoma Test Pilots up there to investigate.

"Let's *light* this candle!"

Of course, they're likely to forget the directions to get back. And they'll probably need to take a lot of extra food; brownie mix, Tim Hortons, Twinkies, White Castle burgers, etc.

bc

OK, back to the nightmare that is a six-firm proposal.

If RD has to be terribly grown-up today, I wish him well.

RD, I really really really want the Boodle to explore the question you posed at the end of the last kit, but only when you are available to participate. You going to be on-line later (say, after 6:00 pm EDT)?

I don't suppose the planets around a Red Dwarf should be named "Herve," "Villechaize" and "Mini-Me."

No, I thought not.

bc- And chips, lots and lots of chips.

kbertocci, I listened to an interview with Rebekah Nathan on NPR. She had some really funny, interesting anecdotes about her time as a freshman. What a great way to get a different perspective.

I would add that the late Bob Denver was one of the early GTPs to leave the solar system entirely. After all, how do you account for the "Far Out Space Nuts" documentaries?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0072499/

Granted, this was filmed before there was such a thing as the Discovery Channel.

bc

Thanks, 'Mudge. I was pretty sure that was the case. I was extracting a thirty something year old memory.

Recent article on allergies from the NYT (photo of me included) for those beyond antihistamines and decongestants:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/20/health/20alle.html?

In Europe, 60 percent of asthma patients are tested for allergies, compared with only 5 percent to 10 percent in this country. A lack of diagnosis may contribute to the worsening of symptoms in children -- the so-called allergy march.

It begins with eczema in infants and toddlers, and progresses to respiratory problems and asthma in preschoolers and beyond. Half of babies who have eczema in the first two years of life [as was my case] will develop asthma in childhood, said Dr. Thomas A. E. Platts-Mills, president of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology.

In skin testing, a practitioner makes rows of pricks on a patient's back or forearm so allergen-containing extracts can seep into the skin. If the antibody IgE is bound to the immune system's mast cells in the skin, the patient will get an itchy, hivelike wheal surrounded by redness. The size of the wheal and the diameter of the redness help determine if the patient is allergic.

"The makers of Prozac have launched their first ever antidepressant for dogs, a once-a-day chewable tablet flavoured with beef."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article1705299.ece
*sigh*
Reminds me of the time I saw a gaggle of Somali women laughing their heads off in a supermarket; they had found the dog food section. The concept of pet food was absurdly funny to them.

Bob Denver's dead?

Don't forget that when the real estate developers name a subdivision (do they still call them that?) something like Woodland Meadows, it usually means they've torn down all the trees to create that meadow.

I personally like the classy name "Gliese Five Eighty One"

SD - remember the old SNL phony ads for Puppy Uppers and Doggy Downers?

Reality catches up to satire...

I love the smell of corn gluten in the morning. Smells like victory.

Fellow brothers and sisters of the hydrant, unite to save our health and sanity! California has an evil bill on the table that would force mandatory sterilization of innocent puppies...

http://saveourdogs.net/documents/CCIPosition.jpg

In addition, CCI found that dogs snipped too young tend to be more anxious, fearful, and antisocial. Interrupting male dog growth by neutering mid-way tends to cause uneven skeletal growth.

While I'm quite happy to be free of the hormone wagon myself, 'tis better to have lusted and lost, than never to have lusted at all. People would never dream of snipping themselves to solve all their social problems, but when it comes to humping ONE leg, it's "hello, vet!"

Thankfully, I got the snip late enough for me to have that bounce in my step needed for service dog work.

Regarding planets-- I'm still upset they removed Pluto as a planet. Next they'll be classifying Sirius as "just a ball of gas that's not actually a star."

Like Yoki, I'm loving this combination of round and pointy. It hits the spot so well after a work-induced exile from the Boodle.

Joel, you are so right about the pollen! I could see my footprints in it after walking up the driveway to get my mail.

sevenswans, I must have found my fondness for cashews after my poison ivy allergy was firmly cemented. It seems not to be retroactive, because I break out at the mere whiff of the stuff. I convinced my doctor to give me a prescription for the "good stuff" steroid cream; the over-the-counter stuff won't touch it.

jack, the word "schmutz" seems to perfectly describe the stuff that The Wonder Dog's nose leaves on my car windows.

martooni, congrats on the bids being accepted. Just think, some day you may be so busy that you can do the ultimate contractor's trick: bid high. It weeds out much of the excess work, and makes the rest very worth your while. I believe it's on page 5 of The Northern Virginia Contractor's Manual.

greenwithenvy, for your bare, shady, deer-infested area, have you tried liriope? It grows anywhere, and while I can't vouch for deer, the abundant rabbit population in my area give it a two thumbs down.

Suddenly I can't the name 'Caroline Nonnenmacher Bündchen' out of my head... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Gisele_Bundchen3.jpg

Byoolin, "puppy prozac" has been in use for at least 12 years.

My old dog was on a type of tranquilizer to deal with her acute separation anxiety and panic disorder. It developed when she was 8 and then really worsened by age 9.

It's a common thing to use with dogs who have anxiety and fear aggression in conjunction to training and behavior management.

I'm not completely convinced that delaying snipping would solve the need for prozac, but Wilbrodog is making a persuasive, if rather markist, argument on that score.

The worst poison ivy experience I ever had was the result of a neighbor burning the stuff in his back yard. Rashes all over my face, neck, arms, hands and legs. One day at school my teacher was so freaked out by my appearance she sent me to the nurse who sent for my mom and I got a day off. Even though I actually felt just a little itchy, I wasn't about to say no to a free day off...

Speaking as an administrative professional...that sounds so lame, pompous even. Seriously, the only time I note my postion as administrative anything is when I have to sign government documents. I am quite happy to call myself a secretary if need be, but I really am more of a person who does stuff.

In large offices, staffed by many people, its easy to have a nice tidy job description and title, but in small businesses, you just do whatever ends up on your desk. Since my job description is to do stuff, I think I am most correctly a support stuffer.

... Office Goddess? Fi-Lars and Penates?

For myself, I would rather see pediatric neutering than none. The evil of a possible slight (and according to the rigourous studies I've actively sought out in peer-reviewed veterinary journals, unproven) disruption in some dogs' growth patterns is far outweighed by the benefits both personal and social, to my mind.

Reputable breeders of purebreds can neuter pet-quality dogs before releasing them to owners, reducing the unauthorized breeding of those on limited registration. The irresponable owners of all breeds, pure and x, who let fertile dogs wander, are headed off at the pass. The number of sheltered animals goes down no matter which way you look at it. Animals neutered early have an exponentially lowered risk of prostate cancer, mammery cancer and pyrometria. And there is a definite influence on behaviour. The behaviour is not, to my mind, a real problem for experienced owners, but it isn't experienced, committed owners who fill shelters with rejected dogs who mark in the house or chatter their teeth at females, or who become territorial (or just plain too big for their britches).

I support regulated pediatric neutering.

Happy Stuff Doers Day

(note the lack of an apostrophe)

Even though I'm a manager, and have an administrative professional who works with me, I'm also support staff (since only lawyers practicing law aren't, around here), and also an administrative professional. I much prefer "person who does stuff" to any of the above. Thanks dr!

Raysmom: Spooge is a better descriptor of dog stuff on the car windows. My danes are prolific in this context. The worst ones are the spiral-hip-to-knee blasts after meal time and a trip to the water bucket.

Whenever my bosses give me stuff to do I simply right a program to do it for me, then it's back to boodling...

As a matter of fact I have a program doing stuff right now...

Um,SCC right=>write...

AAAGGHH,that SCC is for the 1:30 post, not the 1:33 post...I guess I should go for a walk, and stop boodle hogging...

Boodling is stuff. See its a really tough job I do, especially since that whole petard event has ended.

Jack spooge is going to be my word of the day, describes the lower portion of all the windows in our house.

I am preparing for the yellow layers of pollen, as I look out I can see all the tree just about ready to burst into leave/flower simulatneously, due to the late spring, this will not be good for allergy sufferers.

Incidentally, kudos as well to Ivansmom for "surcease". So archaic, with a completely superfluous syllable.

I love it.

Interestingly, "surcease" is also superfluous in Latin, with "cease" also meaning "stop" or "refrain". The word "surcease" was introduced to Roman Britain by the notoriously ill-disciplined XXII Legion (Nautica). Surcease's contemporary version (but opposite in meaning) is "for sure". Tacitus noted that it was common for the Romanized Britons that had been in contact with the XXII to request a stop to something by invoking the XXII's demand, "surcease, dudere".

They say the bees are missing. No, really, and with a straight face. Maybe they've gone to 581C? Scientists have said that they can't fly, or couldn't, when they were around. Yeah, they can't fly, and they can't overcome gravity. I think the missing bees might explain the pollen, but I'm not sure. The folks on 581c are probably thinking about coming here, if they are not on the way. They'll run into the swarm of bees. That will slow them down.

It's good to know that farming is the, uh, root of the problem. McCain should go to Iowa and say that. People would say "Wow, he tells it like it is!" as the Senator disappears into the swarm of people.

I'm just back from Iraq, and I can't believe the same set of people are still taking 92% of the space on this blogue. Tenure is important in life, so this must be a sign of success.

It is because we are rogs.

you mean, "...same set of people IS still taking..."

is a rog a rogue, she said?

melvin/a!Welcome back!*scrunching up to take up less space*

Yes. If a blog is a blogue, then a rogue must be a rog.

May the rest of us be introduced to melvin/a?

melvin/a!

Were you briefing the press in Iraq as well? Welcome back!

Welcome back, melvin/a. My neighbor who has been in Iraq since January is due back next month just in time to start mowing his yard again. Time flies.

Floating cities are cool in a Jetsons sort of way, but Ringworlds or Dyson Spheres are where the real action is.

Speaking of leaving the basement, is StorytellerTim or SciTim going to make Balticon again this year? Niven and Pournelle are the Guests of Honor so come dressed as Kzin if you feel like it.

Un blogue is a blog. I'm thinking of buying a dogue de Bordeaux (think Hooch). They must be good at finding good claret lost in the wood.
Jack, do you know that Great Danes' official name in French is Dogue allemand (German Mastiff)? Makes more sense for that dog that has more to do wit der Fatherland than wit the kingdom of Denmark. Le Dogue sounds more classy too.

Ah, if I go to Balticon, I'm going as Lucifer's Hammer.

bc

yello: re: Dewey, Cheatham, and Howe: Your post made me think of a Car Talk installment from long ago. We had just committed troops to the confliict in Bosnia, abnd the Tappet Bros. made the point that none of the names of cities and towns in the area had vowel sounds. Classic stuff. I was laughing so hard that it make tears come to my eyes.

Eagle Pass, Texas tornado--3 on the EF Scale (Enhanced Fujita).

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/ef-scale.html

http://www.spc.noaa.gov/efscale/

I'm thinking of changing my name to "Enhanced Fujita."

Yoki, I don't supprot it in all cases. This law would make it nearly impossible for anybody but a registered breeder to KEEP a unspayed or unneutered dog. I know there are issues, but when it comes to working dogs, what can you do?

There is no way on earth you can claim a 4 month old puppy is going to be a working dog, because you don't know. Pure and simple.

Wilbrodog was unneutered until 9 months old, and it definitely had an impact on his skeletal growth (and his personality.)

It's not "unproven".

12 years ago, shelters would release underage animals on a spay-neuter contract-- the animal had to be spayed and neutered by 6 months old, first heat or first neuter.

My dog was spayed at first heat. She never developed breast cancer. In India I saw many, many female dogs that had breast cancer, with tumors as big as basketballs, so I don't underestimate this reality, but I don't think the lower risk of spaying earlier vs later is worth it if the dog winds up dead of bone cancer instead (which is very common in golden retrievers-- the prime candidates in this study).

While there are many merits for the early spay-neuter, I don't think it's ethical or practical to make it uniformly compulsionary at such an early age given its health effects, and the fact that many people can and DO use other birth control measures such as doggy pants, confinement, and leashes.

CCI and other service dog organizations can do this kind of study because frankly, who else can afford to keep and raise thousands of dogs and just study the effects of spaying and neutering at different ages under rigorous, standardized training and working conditions?

The military and police already do NOT use altered dogs because they want their dogs to have full boldness for their job.

Service dogs, on the other hand, generally (not always) are altered before they work, because nobody wants their service dog out of commission to whelp puppies, nor to deal with the effects excess testesterone.

I believe search and rescue dogs either are altered or not, for similar reasons.

Right now, the success rate of a given puppy bred and raised specifically for service dog work is 50%-60%.

Every dog that fails to make it costs the organization over 2,000-10,000 in puppyraising costs alone. You can bet those organizations aren't lobbying against this bill just because they want their dogs to be "intact". That's real money.

If 10-100 additional puppies fail a year because of legislation restricting their ability to provide essential veterinary care for best emotional and mental health, you can bet they'll be suing the State of California for animal abuse.

Those are not puppy mills. It would make more sense to spend money to legislate and put puppy mills out of business than to penalize organizations that give their dogs the best start possible for a challenging life.

Enhanced Fujita? Is that something new on the Taco Bell menu?

Wilbrod, your arguments for service dogs make some sense, but you are coming at at from a very narrow band of particular experience. Out of all the dogs whelped in a year in, say, the US, how many are even candidates for service? Very very few. Of all the dogs whelped in a year, how many end up in shelters/euthanized? Many more, though I don't know the numbers on service candidates.

As I said, on the balance of probabilities the better policy is pediatric neutering, rather than none. I did not say that early spay/neuter was a panacea for every ill. And the sad truth is, people who take a pup on limited registration and then fail to neuter are many (most of them not puppy millers, but ignorant back-yard breeders whom no legislation or regulation aimed at puppy mills will reach).

Am I the only one getting nervous about all this wanton talk of neutering and spaying?

Well, even though we haven't been introduced, I will say hello to melvin/a. Hello. A friend of a friend is a friend, obviously.

I took our cat Fred to the vet to become gender neutral. Our vet is pretty country and I happened to get a glimpse of the write up for our cat: "remove balls", nothing more, nothing less.

Howdy and welcome back, melvin/a! I have no idea whether I count in the 92%, as I don't know whether I was here when you left. However, I'd like to think I do, because I'd sure like tenure in something. Does Boodle tenure come with a permanent salary, freedom from evaluation, and a lessened work load? That's okay, I'd take it for the symbolism alone.

We can add "gelding" to the discussion Mudge.
I assisted in the gelding of a pair of colts a few weeks back, let's just say I'm happy not to be a horse.

Ivansmom, I do believe you came on borad after. As did a handful of others. There are only three I can think of who have left, and a couple more who post less frequently than before. It is probably closer to 82%.hehe

There is nothing wanton about it. It is a very deliberate act, planned in advance and skillfully executed.

Vet charts are a hoot, aren't they? Yeoman's chart, each and every page, at the vet we've been with since 1993, is prominently notated, "FLK"

And sadly, Dr. Pat is correct.

Me, I'm staying away from the banding machine, even though I do have opposable thumbs.

Yikes.

bc

But ivansmom, isn't that what Boodling during the day is really all about? A lessened workload?

Hey, melvin/a! I must have started posting after you began your tour. Regardless, I'm sure that I speak for those acquiainted with you that you're back safely.

Hey Melvin/a! Good to have you back! Hope all is well in your corner of the world.

Yoki, it is the official sanction for the lessened workload that I crave.

Ah. Helps to be a contrary spirit who prefers the lack of institutional approval.

Back to my proposal, peeps. I do hope to discuss RD's question later.

dmd, Jack... better google the word "spooge" before you use it in polite company. It already has a certain specific connotation that might be, shall we say, *misinterpreted* if used in a sentence like "I spent the afternoon wiping spooge off the walls."

Melvin/a, glad you made it back!

exobiology -- appears casually in JAs post: Such a word. My first "professional" job ever was at an unnamed NASA facility in exobiology. I was hired to cut, with a fine embroidery scissors, peaks that came out of a gas chromatagraph. These peaks were then weighed on a scale for data analysis. Hand calculations ensued. Reputations made. Carl Sagan and the BBC stopped by the lab on a day I happened to NOT be in. But for a brief flash, we breathed in/out from a similar pool of ozygen molecules.

As it happens, I turned to to be pretty good at rewriting science geekle-speak into something sensible. And that is my entrance into technical writing and science communication.

--
I will study and back boodle for Yoki's challenge.

Okay smarties-pants, what do Germans call a Great Dane? Also, what do they call a German Shepherd?

I think those would be "dogs", SonofCarl.

In German, of course.

Hunden

Der Poopengeshpreadern.

Prinz, Komm Heer!

oh! sorry, WHAT not HOW.

Deutscher Dogge (GD)
Deutscher Schäferhund (GS)

Har har, Ivansmom. This is why giving everyone tenure was a bad idea.

My own research (thanks for nuttin'):

Great Dane is Deutsche Mastiff or Deutsche Dogge

German Shepherd is Schäferhund

sorry Soc, I was trying to be funny (I know, I shouldn't do that).

A German Shepherd in German is a Deutscher Schäferhund (literally, a "German shepherd's dog)

And a Great Dane is a Dänische Dogge (hahaha!)

I like Mudge's name.

Is that German for "Poop eaters?"

[I originally tried to use the fancy word for that, but Hal ate it]

bc

Dachshund is....wait a minute, I'll get it...oh, yeah. Dachshund. And a Schnauzer is a Schnauzer. A Minature Schnauzer might be a Kleinschnauzer. A Shar Pei is Ein Grosswrinklepusshund.

OK, I made that one up.

SoC is right on the Great Dane it's Deutsche Dogge not Deutscher. Why the heck?

http://www.fci.be/nomenclatures_detail.asp?lang=en&file=group2

I have lots of favorites in the German language.

baumwoll fernseher ausfahrt, oh the list just goes on and on.

Perhaps when RD gets back we can undo some of the adult behaviour by making ausfahrt and anfahrt jokes!

Means "poop spreaders."

I'm glad you like my name, bc; not many people seem to find "Mudge" very interesting. The eye of the beholder, I suppose.

YOKI -- I believe this is the study post/question of the evening, from RD.

Begin RDP:
Yoki - you touch upon a conundrum that has been bugging me a lot lately. How can we make statements about how others unlike ourselves think when, by definition, their thought processes are different than our own? This was triggered by the Cho video, but has lead to a more general question. How can we assert to understand the inner
thoughts of a fundamentalist, or a secular humanist, or a far-right conservative, or a far-left liberal, or the member of any of the other groups that comprise our world, unless we happen to be one ourselves?

Yet we all seem eager to do so.

Posted by: RD Padouk | April 25, 2007 09:25 AM " END RDP

---
Yoki, at first I thought you meant the post about the Krytonite discovery in Kanada, which RD was quick to bird-dog a citation for. So we discuss this in today in a series of a-sychronous posts or were you hoping for a digital meet-up?

And, I love it when you and Wilbrod talk dog shop.

No worries, Yoki, my counter-funniness apparently fell flat. Meine fliegen-komedie ist kersplunken.

Yoki
cotton, television, drive away?

My favorite Germanism is
Ohrwurm (rhymes with "door worm," where the "w" is pronounced like a "v")....which translates as a tune cootie.

In German I always struggle between saying the word that means puppies and the word that means chicken.....very bad to order puppies in a restaurant. Neutering chickens....does that happen?

That is the one, CP. Not the kryptonite one, because that would be pointy, rather than roundly philosophical/linguistical (which is where I plan to start my argument for the defence).

CP, there is a reason that capons get so large and fatty and delicious.

Understood, Yoki. I just question the way the legislation is written to "exempt" dogs for breeding purposes. It's illogical, and I do not think it will have the result it is trying to get.

As for shelters-- dear Wilbrodog is indeed a shelter rescue. And I strongly suspect he was backyard-bred as well, not just because he's a mutt, but because he looks like he probably looked pure lab as a puppy.

I know of hundreds of shelter rescues who became nice service dogs, of course there are millions who didn't.

Many dogs that would be great working dogs do become "too much" for their owners around 6 months old-- and it's not always a spay or neuter issue either.

What I do think is that an awful lot of people have no clue what a dog needs to start with. Puppies grow up MUCH quicker than people realize, especially large breed puppies.

I don't buy the argument that spaying or neutering automatically makes a dog more likely to be kept as a pet. There are an awful lot of fixed dogs in the shelters nowadays.

The issue behind this law is unethical breeding, pure and simple. And I'm not convinced this law will stop people.

Rather, this draconian law makes backyard breeders all too likely NOT to seek vet care for their dogs whatsoever, for fear of having their breeding operation come under scrutiny. Already, most forgo vet care for whelping, which mean half or more of the puppies in a litter may die.

http://www.nationalpetservices.com/Backyarders.htm

This point concerns me greatly. Anybody who really cares about animal welfare should make it harder for backyard breeders to sell dogs without having invested in vet care for their stock, NOT to give incentives to refuse vet care for their dogs because of a mandatory spay n neuter law.

It could be made:

1) A crime for breeders to give shots or falsify records such shots given without a vet seeing the entire litter once. (Many buy those meds on the internet.)

2) To sell puppies of any age (especially under 8 weeks) without age-appropriate shots and veterinary records. Buyers who obtain such dogs can also be fined as well.

3) Public awareness. Many people now advertise puppies in the newspaper instead of in petshops. Those dogs may be puppymill dogs distributed through a broker, and put in "dummy" homes.

4) Encourage people to always insist on seeing the parents of such puppies before you buy.

5) Help people understand that the initial price of a dog is the least you'll spend on that dog for life. Don't bargain shop-- if you can't afford a good purebred, you can't afford the vet bills that will come from buying a poorly bred one.

6) More rigorous inspection and enforcement of all breeding establishments. Kennel licenses.

I have no problem with shelters spaying before adoption for any dogs. It's nice to have that built in the adoption fee.

I know I may be talking from a narrow base, but to me... if you give service dogs too many exemptions to the law, you encourage unethical people to pass their dogs off as service dogs.

This further undermines the anti-discrimination laws for the disabled because of what they use for their disability.

The last thing ANY service dog user needs is for backyard breeders to claim their dogs are all raised to be service dogs (because they managed to get a state exception on spurious claims, and this is "proof") and advertise those dogs as such to fools.

This is galling because SOME people do show and compete their purebred SDs and occasionally breed from them, especially if they have a relatively rare breed to start with.

Neutered chickens: capons. hummm.

Aha! Philosophy is round. Science is pointed. Now I know. Thanks, dear Yoki, my joy is complete.

Except I want a Martooni chair or two, and a villa in Limone, and world peace, and a Tesla, and the elimination of some invasive species.....

Almost. Ausfahrt and abfahrt are off-ramps and on-ramps (as in highway exits). The morning we arrived to begin living in Switzerland, my brothers and I were between the ages of 6 and 10, and had been up all night on the plane. We rolled around in the back seat of the new Citroen convulsed with sleep-deprivation giggles at being able to say 'fahrt' and get away with it.

SCC: anfahrt

Words of the day: spaying, neutering, gelding and caponizing.

Oh Yoki. Really. As for neutered fowl, before the NT shooting one myth about the meaning of the team name "Hokie" was that this meant a neutered turkey. Now, Hokie bears a markedly changed connotation...wonder if it will become a one-word stand-in as does Columbine.

In all my years around cattle and horses, I had no idea about chix and the tin-snip sessions. Come to think of, I know nothing about pigs, either. Rabbits: absolutely au naturel....but better to not talk of rabbits as a "crop" as delicate ears overhear...besides, I am glad to not need to eat rabbit anymore.

When I arrived in (West) Germany for the first time and traveled to my first duty station, the bus spent a few hours on the Autobahn. For a while, I was certain "Ausfahrt" must be the largest city in Germany.

:-)

In Swedish, it's "infart" and "utfart".

I just love the way we don't maintain high-mindedness for very long.

Just got back in and saw your comment byoolin, trust me when I am wiping spooge off the windows, spooge would be the most polite word I would utter - I try to remove myself from polite society while undertaking this task lest I corrupt those around me!

You all are busy this afternoon must catch up, welcome back melvin/a.

I was goinna start working on your crabcake recipes, Yoki, but with all this fahrting around I'm not sure its appropriate.

BTW, for you non-German sprechers, the root word in ausfahrt, etc., is "fahren," the German verb for "go" (as in, "When ya gotta fahren, ya gotta fahren").

There's never a Weingarten around when ya need one.

If there was spooge on the windows, I'd make the creator wipe it off himself. Don't they know about AIM?

jack, I think spooge better fits the unidentifiable stuff that sinks to the bottom of their water bowls.

The Wonder Dog does the shake-after-drinking thing, too. If either of us is in the trajectory, we're required to yell "I'm hit! I'm hit!" ala the Seinfeld-Keith Hernandez-Zapruder bit.

And let's not get into "fahrvergnuegen," 'Mudge.

:-)

Yoki - my afternoon went quite well. When I put on my grown-up clothing and suppress my sense of humor I can sometimes be very persuasive.

Just not around here.

Anyway, I rather hate to interrupt this silliness with my metaphysical tripe, but since I am powerless before you, here goes:

What I was asking is about the challenges we have dealing with people who interpret the world differently than do we. It seems to me that we tend to view such people in five different ways.

We view them as ignorant. (They haven't heard my position.)
We view them as stupid. (They can't process my position.)
We view them as unstable. (They simply aren't right in the head.)
We view them as duplicitous. (They have some secret agenda.)
We view them as evil. (They are corrupted by hate.)

My query is this. Is it possible for us to really accept that there are people who think differently that we do without assigning to them one of these traits?

Or, in other words, are we forced to believe that the only people who are truly educated, smart, stable, honest and kind are those that think just like us?

No indeed, Scotty.

SCC: Those who think, not those that think.

Please do not hurt me Mudge.

I have children.

Padouk, are you talking about teenagers? Or people in general?

RD, I'm going to give your question some thought.

But in the meantime, I'll just say that although we can't accurately judge folks by what they think, we can certainly judge them by what they do.

RD, I say yes, at least for myself, and anybody who has to live life between two cultures.

I'm kind of worried about your marriage as well. RD, how do you stay married if you think the opposite sex is:
Ignorant.
Stupid.
Unstable.
Duplicitous.
Evil.

Although I suspect Mudge has a lot to say on that score...

wilbrod - I'm missing your point. My wife and I agree on pretty much everything of substance. We don't have to face those challenges.

Except for vegetables, but that's more biological.

You wrong me most cruelly, Wilbrod. It is my own geneder that I generally regard as: Ignorant.
Stupid.
Unstable.
Duplicitous.
Evil.

While I don't claim to understand women all that often, I wouldn't ever apply those terms to them. (OK, maybe duplicitous in some cases. But that's all. And not gender-wide.)

Then I miss your point as well. This is what you asked:

"What I was asking is about the challenges we have dealing with people who interpret the world differently than do we."

Everybody interprets the world differently. Otherwise, having a conversation with other people might as well be talking to yourself.

The major challenge is to realize that your experience is not everybody's experience or cultural assumptions are the same, nor are their innate emotional reactions.

You can say "maybe they're stupid because they can't grasp my position"-- but it also goes both ways. You know, maybe you're the one who's stupid because you can't grasp their emotional position on this issue.

We always overestimate our own impartiality while seeing how biased other people are all too well.

I think RD's question is an interesting one, worthy of better discussion than it has provoked so far. And I plan to ponder it and formulate the first of my responses pretty soon.

(Shortly off to soccer, which is likely to be rained out, but showing up is 9/10 of life anyway.... but here is a penny to the discussion.)

RD -- what about the more pedestrian "I don't really understand that person's...
position
code
reasoning
beliefs
preferences
priorities
values
hang ups
pattern
behavoir.

The cat-bird seat of teaching allows me to eavesdrop on a number of people-types in a temporary intimacy. Wow. Lots of variation out there. However, despite these differences, I see so much that is human about us all, and held in common.

Do you mean to say that evaluating and comparing is part of being human?: when encountering difffence in people, we tend to 1) affirm the self as better or preferred and (perhaps simultaneously) 2) label the other as different, and therefore, not as good.

Wilbrod, I don't at all think that RD was saying that he thinks people that disagree with him are ignorant, stupid, evil, etc. And I think you know that too.

You use some literary/oratorical devices in your writing. RD does too.

Oh, I apologize for the wrong done to your reputation, Curmudgeon. We all know you're quite the ladies' man.

We'll forgive you for editing the "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstrous Regiment of Women"

After all, it was 500 years ago, and you did cut out the more fulsome rantings to make it printable. I hear John Knox wasn't thrilled with your editorial ax, but what writer is?

It's just a shame that you had to leave Scotland, but you got your comeuppance when, in a duplictous move, you sent a copy of it to the new Queen Elizabeth and made sure he was persona non grata in England.

Let me stress that I believe it is a human tendency to interpret those who think differently from as having at least *one* of those characteristics, not all. What I am asking is can this tendency *truly* be overcome?

Or are we stuck with it as a side-effect to being human.

Obviously I find it an open question or I wouldn't have asked it. Sometimes I think we can, sometimes I think we can't.

Sorry to bring out the proverb here, but this was often said in prairieland:

You don't know another person until you walk many miles in their mocasins.
--
Something else from teaching advanced composition AKA rhetoric, the art of persuasion: know your audience, by observation and inquiry...this often means that you should ask questions. We assume way to much about others, including thoughts, values, and motivations.

--
I look forward to reading more and sharing a recipe or two. I owe the boodle two or three Frogmore stew theme and variations.

Spanish bluebells have opened their sky-blue umbels; phlox is still carpeting the curb in pale lilace; lilac bushes up and down the street offering tresses and that heady scent; Columbine about to bloom --I predict a dusky blue or purple; Peonies budding out with ants at the ready to taste the sweet exuded juices; a few brave tulips sailor forth; clematis in a riot but no buds yet; old rose setting buds. I adore the new earth.

Yes, but what does he mean? I've never found anybody who didn't differ with me on various subjects.

I refuse to believe that there are people out there who agree so well on everything they can't imagine people differing on any subject.

Most likely, they are simply not in the habit of communicating on such subjects likely to arouse discord, or exposed to other cultures on a significant level.

I suspect it goes to culture shock, or a minor variant thereof, when a person, thinking some subjects are so universal they are not in dispute... does find that there are people who will dispute those things.

I think RD Padouk would really like "Cross-Cultural Communication" By Nikolas Dima. This will provide him some food for thought.

But I think RD was talking about deep knee-jerk reactions. His words he used reflect emotional distrust.

Yes, I doubt any human being completely matures beyond that emotional impulse to defend our beliefs and opinions by denying the other's point of view... or to overintellectualize everything to the point nothing seems black and white anymore, and feel even more estranged.

This is probably a flaw in our psyche. I think Emerson had it right, when he said "a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds."

Side-effect of humanity. It's a natural stage before you can get to full acceptance.

If people were doomed to be stuck rejecting unfamiliar ideas, attitudes, and opinions forever, we wouldn't have St. Paul from Saul, and St. Augustine.

So, I got a couple of praying mantis egg cases at my local hardware store. I'm going to wrap them in some netting with a fairly large mesh (to protect them from birds and squirrels till they hatch) and put them...somewhere - maybe in a rugosa rose and the big maple tree (which should have plenty of aphids for them). Any advice? It's not raining so I have to do this soon, before it is.

I'm amazed by what is blooming now versus a week ago. The crabapple trees on my street have burst into dark rose blooms, I have Dutch iris and a medium iris blooming, and the Chinese tree peonie flowers are opening up before my eyes.

I seem to be having trouble spelling after many days away - a thousand apologies.

Hi, melvin/a, kurosawaguy, a bea c. dmd, I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. BTW, I spotted Dadwannabe on Liz's Celebritology blog a week or 2 ago.

Last week, I walked out of my front door to face a sea of sunflower-sized dandelions, roughly 50 million of them, filling my front yard. I ventured out, listening to the hum of insects, and the screech of spider monkeys from the entire rainforest fauna that had apparently taken up residence in the dandelion high canopy, wondering how they had appeared and thrived so quickly. Had Home Depot been secretly dumping truckloads of fertilizer in my yard at night, in the hope of forcing me to buy a new lawnmower, or maybe a flamethrower?

After several false turns, I successfully found my car and drove away, pretending not to see my neighbors shaking their fists, or hear their shouted comments about "property values" and "city ordinances".

The next morning, I was both relieved and disturbed to see 50 million dandelion seed-puffs in my yard. I carefully avoided them, hardly daring to breathe, not wanting to do anything to contribute to their seed dispersal mechanism, and drove to work.

As it happened, I had to come home for lunch that day. Just four hours after leaving, I returned to find the yard devoid of dandelion puffs. They had been replaced by ... DANDELIONS! Millions of them, already 4 to 5 inches tall!

"Hot Jupiter!" I said, wondering how on Earth my dandelions could grow at a rate of 1 inch per hour.

But maybe that's the bad assumption--"on Earth". I wonder if we're not the only ones looking around, and the natives of Gliese 581c are not only aware of our existence, but have already arrived, spreading like the plague when their Stellar-Class-M-adapted metabolisms get the benefit of the warmth of our Class-G star.

CP, those are words of wisdom-- always study your audience whenever possible, but it is also challenging for a writer to do.

I thought RD was referring to broad classes of people, like Christian conservatives, or Muslim fundamentalists, or something. Someone who comes at the world from a different perspective, not just someone you disagree with. As you said, cross-cultural differences.

RD's conundrum:
"How can we make statements about how others unlike ourselves think when, by definition, their thought processes are different than our own? This was triggered by the Cho video, but has lead to a more general question. How can we assert to understand the inner thoughts of a fundamentalist, or a secular humanist, or a far-right conservative, or a far-left liberal, or the member of any of the other groups that comprise our world, unless we happen to be one ourselves?"

Finally coming up for air....

As to RD's question, I think it might stem from the fear of Other. Once you're not afraid, appreciation for difference follows.

SigO and I are about as different as they come. SigO = suit and tie world, ridiculously smart, law and order type, purple (more red than blue). Me = jean skirts, flip flops or uggs (depending on the season, MB FMPs for dress-up), blue with anarchist-tendencies.

When we are on different sides of an issue (when are we not?), I don't think he's any of those things. Just different.

Having said that, in personal arguments, SigO is generally either Ignorant or Duplicitous.

RD, I think the best thing IMHO, is to look for commonality where ever possible. It is difficult to understand how anyone one person thinks other than ourselves, we may have a good indication, particularly if we are close but many times we are just thinking what we think they are thinking.

It may be easier for me as although I hold strong opinions, I am fully aware that they may not always be the "correct opinion".

This topic also depends on whether you are looking at a single issue discrepancy or a wide range of differences, and also on the type of issue you disagree on. There are certain topics that if people held a viewpoint very different from mine I would have a hard time not thinking they were one of the discriptions you mentioned.

I spent just a few days in Austin (TOTALLY COOL CITY, Linda Loo!) and I came back to Weed Hegemony. At least six varieties of large-leafed (?) weeds took advantage of our last snowstorm to spread like a viral skin disorder. My wife won't allow me to use Roundup (oh, because I sometimes, you know, kill "good" plants, to) so I have to dig them all out. I sit in my office thinking about how they're taking advantage of the fact I'm at work, and they're spreading, always spreading.

Ha - Dooley, very good! I should go out and weed, but I hate when they laugh at me. Or when the very process of weeding just makes them stronger, spreads them further.

BTW, on vacation I read:
Slaughter-house Five and Cat's Cradle
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek (lots of praying mantis info)
Persuasion

All really good and recommended by the Boodle.

In the scientific realm, at least, my first thought is that a misunderstanding on the part of the audience is my fault, a failure of clarity or persuasiveness. My second thought, after I will have tried again, is to think that the audience is an idiot or a duplicitous villain. But I tried.

This is totally off topic, but I was just flipping through a spring garden flyer and noticed they now have remote control sprinklers - my day is made. Yes I am easily pleased.

I think RD was truly asking a question, not giving an answer.

I also think, considering the usual thoughtfulness that goes into RD's comments, that he was using the polite "we" instead of a more-general "people" when he posed his question.

But then again, I'm trying to interpret someone else's ideas and that just takes us back to the beginning of this conversation, doesn't it?

My head is starting to hurt. Maybe I should go fix dinner.

It wasn't named after lion's teeth just because of the funny leaves. That's one tenacious plant. I'd like to have hybrids of dandelions with some of my vegetables; you'd have to go home at lunch to pick the next crop.

Dooley, hopefully those Gliese 581Cees don't show up here. Coming from such a solar-deprived system, they'd probably spread like wildfire, overuse all our precious resources and end up causing catastrophic changes to our planet. The fools.

Hi! I missed a hilarious Boodling day, I see. Glad to meet you, Melvin/a. I'm also a relative newcomer.

So, after the euphoria of the past two days over my new job, reality strikes back with 52 essays (with pictures) and 82 chapter tests. Yes, Anita es mas alta que Carla, and Luis prefiere jugar al beisbol.

I never thought I'd see the word "spooge" used in anything related to the WAPO.

BTW, "cesped" is the correct word for lawn, an so is "prado" which is related to prairie. In Colombia we use "grama" and "pasto", the latter related to pasture in English. The regional slang in my home town is "manga" which is also the word for "sleeve". My parents have a house on a very small lot, with very little grass. Their friends tease them and say they live in a vest, because it has no sleeves. Not so funny in English, I guess.

Mostly, good point.

As for me, I'm RELATED to fundamentalists, so unfortunately I know their good points as well, and that tempers my willingness to take open issue with how they think about things.

It still doesn't mean I will let fundamentalists (as a bloc) mess up science education to filfull their need to affirm their faith at the expense of others's freedom to learn what they need to do solid science.

Yes, there's always a possiblity science right now is mistaken on various points.
But you don't prove that by NOT teaching people how to do scientific thinking and the modern-day evidence and why scientists understand the world how they do right now.

It does seem hard to bridge the chasm between non-scientific thinkers and scientific thinkers sometimes.

But I admit, I'm sure a lot of my friends who work in social work and other non-scientific fields probably feel the same way about my incomprehension of their fields.

I tried and tried to find a video of Sid Caesar speaking German to his valet so that I could post it in the German Section this afternoon. Finally found it on real audio, but I couldn't figure out how to post it. Urrgh! Maybe Omni or one of the other techies could.

BTW, you must read today's Garrison Keillor column.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-0704240607apr25,0,24044.column?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed

Glise 581c? Wrong, wrong, wrong! The correct thought apparently passed through yellojkt's mind but was not seized:

Constellation: Libra (Justice!)
Red sun
Heavy gravitational pull

It's Krypton, baby, and
Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's Superman!

Scientists have discovered Krypton. Which unfortunately exploded 19 years ago, (the light has not yet reached us) sending a small infant child to land on Earth. Not in Kansas. In Serbia. Go figure.

So head for Serbia, Joel, and pick up some of that rare white Kryptonite. That'll kill weeds, both Kryptonian and Earthly.

Maggie, that Keillor column was great.

I especially love the line that refers to GWB's basic theology, "If you ran a business on those principles, you'd be in big trouble. Just look at General Motors."

Forget about GM; you only have to look at the businesses George W Bush DID run.

RD, that is a very good question. Everything we take in is already filtered in a way. Our brain automatically filters a lot of things out before we can begin to think about it. We see what we want to see, what we expect to see rather than what is really there. Those filters grow around our personal experience and are a protective mechanism.

I think if we try we can get past that reaction. It might not be easy and it might not be something we can always do, but I have to believe that we can. I would like to believe that man is advancing in this way, that we can take the time to listen to others without judgement.

It's as easy to listen without judgement on big things as it is to simply accept our differences right here on the blog. My observations tell me that is NOT a piece of cake on the blog, so I have to believe that it's not going to be a peice of cake anywhere else either.

Maybe this is man's finest quest. The quest to accept difference even when we don't understand it. Maybe its the quest to view a people, a culture, a man as he stands without analysing which will be our finest hour.

On a lighter note, its been a very lovely day, and I fully expect the snow cover to be drastically reduced when I get home. I await dandelions, I long for dandelions. The first bloom means winter is really over in a way nothing else can. Each stinking bud thereafter is a weed.

I have often wondered if more dandelions and chickweed were eaten for dinner, would the total infestation lessen over time?

dr - I am leaning to what you suggest. We can, but it is really difficult, and probably one of the biggest challenges of human existence. For it seems to me that to truly accept the notion that some, (but not all) alternative interpretations of reality might be as valid as our own, we need to truly accept the possibility that our own cherished opinions and "self-evident" beliefs might just be totally wrong.

And that's a toughie to pull off.

'course I could be wrong.

spooge
/spooj/ Inexplicable or arcane code, or random and probably incorrect output from a computer program.

RD, I think there is another category of folk who are otherwise like me, but simply wrong on the issue at hand. Someday they will learn -- or won't, if it turns out to be an unimportant issue that doesn't actually arise, such as going to heaven or the alternative.

I worry most about people like GWB, who I suppose comes by his ideas in some manner, but once he has formed an opinion on a subject, apparently doesn't consider anything that happens afterwards -- forming an opinion closes that subject. What's the term for that?

God complex?

dogmatic?

"Everybody interprets the world differently. Otherwise, having a conversation with other people might as well be talking to yourself."

Wilbrod, I suspect a lot of people like talking to themselves in this limited sense, judging by the popularity of talk shows where the callers are screened to admit only true believers. A strategy to avoid cognitive dissonance.

Arrogant, intellectually bankrupt and disastrous for the nation?

Is that a term?

Oh, oh sorry. I was free associating at the mention of GWB.

Now THIS is news...

Mock Metal Group Spinal Tap to Reunite
By JAKE COYLE
The Associated Press
Wednesday, April 25, 2007; 8:25 AM

NEW YORK -- Spinal Tap is back, and this time the band wants to help save the world from global warming.

The mock heavy metal group immortalized in the 1984 mockumentary, "This is Spinal Tap," will reunite for a performance at Wembley Stadium in London as part of the Live Earth concerts scheduled worldwide for July 7...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/25/AR2007042500338.html?nav=hcmodule

I adore dandelions! Seeing the bright yellow spots on otherwise pristine lawns always makes me cheer them on, and I've been engaged in an ongoing effort to encourage them on my property after the first owner nearly eradicated them (by hand, so they say). I noticed that early bees are the happiest with them, though. Maybe we need more of them. Bigger. Everywhere!

I know, this proves I'm an alien species.
But not invasive. I swear.

(ok, well, I *did* move here from Texas, but that's not relevant)

"I await dandelions, I long for dandelions."

Faxing you a million dandelions, dr.

Okay, take GWB (please.) Is it possible to consider him a dreadful president who is profoundly mistaken about things and yet *not* consider him ignorant, stupid, unstable, duplicitous or evil?

That's the question. Whether we can really comprehend alternative world views with which we disagree *without* resorting to