Bonfire of the Weeds

After a few days of rain, heat, sunshine and more rain, our established plants are being pushed and shoved and molested by some cowardly and evil bastard weeds who show up only when conditions suit them. Like any authoritarian regime, I manufacture some animosity toward the weeds to justify their wholesale and violent destruction.

Meanwhile the Iranian government has ordered international journalists to stay in their offices and not cover the election story. Government goons are shutting down web sites, email and twitter, and they are seizing satellite dishes from roof tops to prevent international news from entering the country. This morning eight employees of the British embassy in Tehran were arrested. Yesterday a government official claimed that the CIA was actually responsible for the death of Neda, the now-famous woman who was shot and killed during the demonstrations.

So now my brain phone is ringing and ringing, and I know who it is: the president, wanting my advice again. Unfortunately, I'm so busy with stuff right now... And these weeds have got me so short-tempered that I'm afraid my advice would not carry a very useful measure of constraint. It's easy to play God in the back yard, harder to keep things in perspective.

I remember in high school someone came up with the idea of having a pep rally in the parking lot and building a big bonfire. The original plan was to dress up a dummy as a player for the opposing team and toss the dummy into the fire, but at the last minute our principal thought that such a thing might be ill-advised, considering we were a Catholic school and centuries out of practice. Even without the ritual sacrifice, the fire reached high into the night sky, feeding the heavens with chants of death for the poor suckers down the road. Where did that come from?

Here's my orchid in full bloom--a bit of a disappointment, color-wise, but I can't exactly say why. If you click on the picture you will get a larger version, and you can see a smiley face right in the middle, a crazed cartoon bee holding a bucket to collect the corpses of unsuspecting insects.

The next installment of Hopelessly Devoted comes from Japan. Future note to self (if I am reading this in 20 or 30 years): People didn't always love Americans, but they loved the music.