I saw another one of those fancy cars today sporting a George W. Bush sticker on its bumper and a flag on its antenna. The elements had not been kind to the flag. In fact, it almost looked like somebody had snipped it neatly in half, diagonally. If Bush tried to wipe his ass with this particular flag, he'd get stuff on his fingers. He'd better stick with a flag that's been treated with proper etiquette. That's what he's all about, isn't it? - profaning and distorting things. He's already figuratively wiped his ass with the constitution. He's ultimately responsible for a lot of death overseas - and for fictitious reasons, to boot!

I'd like to send him an american flag made out of cleverly disguised stinging nettles.

I taught BioSITE tuesday. There were two new kids in my group, for a total of five. They got through the activities (making watershed maps...) without too much trouble. The Guadalupe river was turbid and trash was tangled amongst the aquatic foliage, no doubt dislodged from somewhere upstream as a result of the slight bit of rain we had earlier. It also looked like somebody had dumped some detergent somewhere. There was a line of suds floating past.
I took the kids on a "nature walk" (really a method of getting them to shut their mouths and use their ears) along the river, and at one point stopped and asked them what kind of wildlife they could expect to find along its banks.

"Squirrels?"
Yep.
"Oh look, there's a cat!"
So there is. What do you think he's looking for?
"Rats"
Probably
"Birds?"
That too.
"La Llorona?"
Probably not.

At the risk of making it less funny by explaining too much, the legend of La Llorona involves the ghost of a woman who went insane and killed her kids, doomed to wander disconsolately along the shore for ever more. Kids say the darndest things.

cds I listened to while being left alone by the law: Moonlight "Floe", Primordial "Storm Before Calm", Legend "Anthology", Tenhi "Vare", and Manilla Road "Spiral Castle"