Ummagumma

The young, bright green leaves of one of our saw tooth oaks in the lower field against the bright April sky.  This accompaniment of blue and light green only occurs in April at Twin Oaks, which is one reason the month is so special to me. April is one of my favorite months of the year.  So many plants come to life.  It is the only time of year you can get spectacular blue skies and the bright green leaves freshly filling out along tree branches.  The number of flowers and shrubs that emerge in April is remarkable.   This year we had a lot of clear sunny days in between the normal spring rain.  Easter Sunday was the worst day weather-wise, with numerous tornadoes across the southeast.  A couple passed within 20 miles of Twin Oaks.  Again, we were lucky. Meanwhile, my property exploded with wonderful natural beauty met by a plethora of birds, squirrels and other little critters. In March and into early-April, wisteria proliferates in the trees.  After it bloomed this year, I

Yesterday, I flipped an article into my news magazine from Axios .  The article is so short I will quote all of it here: "An Italian-based artificial intelligence company is regularly analyzing social media posts about the coronavirus for their emotional content. "Why it matters: Classifying tens of thousands of posts by their emotional tone provides a snapshot of how people feel about the pandemic. Spoiler alert: not great! "How it works: Expert System specializes in semantics and natural language reading, a branch of AI involving computer systems that attempt to make sense of written language.   "In doing so, a computer can rapidly analyze vast amounts of the written word — like, for example, a day's worth of social media posts about the COVID-19 pandemic. "For the past few weeks, Expert System has been collecting English language social media posts each day that feature frequently used hashtags like #coronalockdown and #covid19. Its AI can extrac

Last year, George Will wrote an interesting and insightful book entitled Conservative Sensibility .  Unfortunately, Will's book has come out in a time when his brand of Conservatism is dying.  In its place we have Trumpism, a dangerous form of what I see as Regressive political thought.  Regressivism is now running rampant through American society and is mainly made up of uneducated, faith-based, and/or zero tolerant people who live in hope for the past, fear of the future and hate of the present.  That is what Will's sensible conservativism has malignantly morphed in to. I've called Trump a thug , and that is accurate.  I've called Trump a pathetic mind , and that is an accurate characterization.  Yesterday , I called Trump a idiotic liar, and that is spot on.  Once again, Trump's "bleach is a cure" comments are the single most shallow and stupid thing I've ever heard a politician utter in my 60+ year lifetime. The man is completely unfit to s

April 24. It took America 5 days to add another 10,000 COVID-19 deaths.  So, the death rate seems to be slowing somewhat compared with last week (down to about 2,000 per day from about 3,000 per day).  So far, the rate of new cases has not reached the original peak, which is what we want to see.  But there may be trouble ahead.  Several states are (in varying degrees) cautiously "reopening" parts of their economy starting today.   Georgia seems to be one of the more controversial ones.  The number of infections in Georgia are still rising .  But Governor Kemp does not think that matters.  For some reason he thinks if we just let social distancing ease a little bit then, apparently, the virus won't notice.  It seems a bit like saying if you open the door slowly enough the monster in the room won't completely maul you.  Makes sense, right? Uh, no.  Where is the virus going to go?  Everywhere.  So as people move around in greater numbers, more of them will beco