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Showing posts from April, 2018

A Bull Story

Some things have changed since I last posted about my dad's misadventures with his bull.  That bull was born on our family farm and has serviced cows on it for a number of years.  The bull was rather docile in its early life except for periods of breeding excitability, only occasionally causing problems with busting through fences.  Recently, however, the creature's rambunctiousness caused my dad to take more serious actions. The bull exhibited more spiritedness than usual over the past breeding season.  My dad's fences and his pens for capturing and loading cattle are not in as good repair as they used to be and they are certainly not designed to handle an huge animal that has started acting crazy at times.   It all started late last year when the bull kept getting into Reagan's adjacent property.  Dad reduced his total farming acreage by two-thirds in recent years, selling most of his land to Reagan about four years ago.  Reagan is one of the few "big time&q

Watching American Beauty

I recently re-watched American Beauty for what is likely the tenth time or so, though it has been several years since my last viewing.  The film is a truly rewarding with an outstanding screenplay, direction, a fantastic soundtrack, and high-caliber performances by everyone involved from the smallest supporting role up to the big named stars Kevin Spacey and Annette Bening . The film's style is a wonderful mix of drama and comedy.  Its subject matter is serious, even philosophical, but there is plenty of sarcasm and dead-pan humor to lighten the load and give the viewer a richly entertaining experience.  At bottom, American Beauty is a coming of age tale in two respects.  Most obviously, it is the awkward daughter, Jane, who discovers love for the first time and is drawn into a relationship that helps define her.  But also, both Lester (Spacey) and Caroline, his wife, (Benning) each find themselves moving along separate paths, Lester, particularly, changing his lifestyle and b

Sweet Shrub Redux

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Sweet Shrub in bloom. I blogged previously about the sweet shrub on my property.  Since then it has proliferated in the heart of my woods, covering about twice the space as before along a jagged ravine in the forest.  I watched the budding of the shrubs with great interest this year, visiting them every day in an afternoon or an evening.   Last Sunday came the first few blooms.  By mid-week you could smell that unique, sweet and citrus-like aroma - but faintly.  On Friday the weather was warmer and the blossoms exploded.  You could catch a whiff of the the fragrance hanging in the air as you approached them and stood among them.   I picked the best blooms I could find on Saturday and they refreshed my study with their presence the rest of the evening.  But they wilted during the night as it rained, washing away the thick yellow pollen and bringing a 25 degree drop in temperature from yesterday.  Checking the patch today I still found a lot of blooms but no scent of any ki

Meditations on the Vietnam War: Tet 1968

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In late 1967 President Lyndon Johnson summoned General Westmoreland to Washington to address a public relations issue.  Support for the war in Vietnam was beginning to seriously waiver.  The news media, academia, and some prominent religious leaders were turning against the war.  Student anti-war protests were growing and garnering more attention.  Johnson, concerned about re-election in 1968, needed the general to work the public sphere and put a positive spin on the progress in the war.  Westmoreland's message was essentially that the US was winning the war and it would be won within about two years. At the same time, Hanoi launched a series of attacks along the South Vietnam border with Cambodia and Laos in an attempt to draw US forces away from Saigon , Hue , and other population centers.  This was the first phase of a new North Vietnamese strategic plan.  As we have seen, after lengthy debate, the Politburo leaders felt that the time was right for a "national uprisin

The Full Moon Sets at Sunrise

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It's April Fools Day...and Easter Sunday .  While many of my neighbors were off to sunrise services, I was in my front yard catching the full moon set.  It was a cool but comfortable 42 degrees this morning.  There was a lot of song bird action in my woods to herald the day. It was still March last night, which means this is the second Blue Moon of 2018 .  For the first time since 1999, the month of February had no full moon at all.