Not just chicken eggs – and not even just ostrich eggs:
Comments
Open thread 1/28/22 — 43 Comments
On one of Neo’s least favorite topics, felony murder, the arsonist who burned a pawn shop in Minneapolis in May 2020, killing another protester who was trapped inside, has been sentenced to ten years on the charge. Compare that to the sentence of the third man, the one who stayed in the car, in south Georgia, when Ahmad Arbery was shot.
And, I’m guessing Twitter is losing customers. There are three Twitter accounts I read fairly often, for news links. First, they made it impossible to follow links. Then, they added a screen asking people to sign up before allowing views. This morning, they cut off views after the first three tweets or so. I’m still not signing up. I’ll read blogs instead, which is preferable anyhow.
Plus, Penzey’s spices sent out another offensive email, calling all Republicans racists. He’s done it before. This time, according to a story at WISN News, Milwaukee, he lost about 3% of his customers, and hasn’t gained enough new ones to make up the difference. Bigotry has a price.
A few months back I began buying brown chicken eggs, vs. the more abundant white chicken eggs.
So, I had to look up the difference.
The breed of chicken determines the color of the egg shell.
That’s pretty much it, folks.
Though, I will say, that on average, the brown egg shells are indeed harder to crack than white shelled eggs, and brown eggs, much more so than white shelled eggs, will have two yolks instead of one yolk.
Brown and white eggs are fine, but I prefer green eggs with ham.
Penzey’s Spice is a pet peeve of mine, but I doubt they’ll go under. They were a centerpiece of my family Christmas this year. My 91 yo mother gave my brother-in-law a gift certificate, and there was plenty of “Oooh, Penzey’s Spice! Look, a gift certificate from Penzey’s! I’ll really enjoy this!” etc. Their bile against people like her daughter didn’t bother my mother at all, and the excessive demonstration of delight by the fam was I’m sure to rub my nose in it.
Mr. Penzey is probably getting grants to development minority entrepreneurship or something.
And speaking of pet peeves, another one of mine is “affordable housing.” Despite losing 3% of its population last year, rents in DC are up something like 25%. Rents in my area in Florida are up 33%. All over the area, there are _massive_ new high density apartment buildings being raised, built out to the property line, often close to the highway. In fact often built on the sites formerly mobile home parks — genuinely affordable housing. They are hedge fund owned/leased, designed for government-guaranteed rent programs. They wreck any possibility of market force mitigation of prices. If you can’t afford it, get a subsidy. Too well off for the subsidy? Pay up until you are poor.
I’m pretty alarmed by the scale of it.
Yeah, Nancy B., I stopped buying from Penzey’s several years ago because of his ugly rants. I order online from The Spice House, which is owned by his sister and doesn’t do politics, or I go to the Savory Spice store not too far away. And in a pinch, McCormick sells an upscale spice line which isn’t bad at all.
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend with conservative writers (bloggers, journos, commenters, etc – not picking out any one person or site here…) very recently. After 5 years of most conservatives pointing out the lies, misdirection and propaganda of the US legacy media, many are now giving unquestioned deference to that same media in all matters Ukraine and the so-called “situation” there.
Nancy B: on housing. I mentioned this previously, but just before I left CT they passed a state level property tax to be used for “affordable multifamily housing”. They also determined the “correct” number of such units that needed to be in each town to mandate each town have such units. The new property tax is called the “mansion tax”. According to the state, a mansion is designated as having an assessed value of $300k. Guess how many houses in CT qualify? Mansions?, I don’t think so.
bifjamod: that’s too much of an intriguing statement just to leave us hanging. What do you mean? What’s the conservative position that seems wrong to you and what is the mainstream media position and most importantly – what’s your position.
white vs brown vs green eggs.
Those Dr Seuss books dealt with green eggs.
When my daughter was very young, I would read to her at bedtime, but I refused to read to her any book of Dr. Seuss.
For some reason, I found those books really irritating and just plain stupid.
She liked them, so she read them on her own, which was just fine.
I just refused.
I remember reading somewhere that the writer of the Dr. Seuss series not only did not have kids, but that he despised them.
True?
And speaking of pet peeves, another one of mine is “affordable housing.” Despite losing 3% of its population last year, rents in DC are up something like 25%. Rents in my area in Florida are up 33%. All over the area, there are _massive_ new high density apartment buildings being raised, built out to the property line, often close to the highway. In fact often built on the sites formerly mobile home parks — genuinely affordable housing. They are hedge fund owned/leased, designed for government-guaranteed rent programs. They wreck any possibility of market force mitigation of prices. If you can’t afford it, get a subsidy. Too well off for the subsidy? Pay up until you are poor.
The disreputable Mr. Sailer refers to it as ‘awardable housing’, the contrivance of apartments with concessionary rents which can be distributed to people connected to Democratic pols.
True?
Verifiable he was childless. The rest, not so much.
Rant Alert!
Ok American English speakers…it’s pronunciation time!
Emu…that big ol’ flightless bird resident of Australia is NOT pronounced ee-moo.
It is ee-myou.
And all you Aussies out there…in fairness…please stop pronouncing the Spanish word uno…as you-know.
That is all. Time for more coffee.
On safari once in Tanzania we came upon an ostrich nest. The mother-to-be had been killed by a lion, so we put the eggs in the LandRover to take back to camp. the trackers cooked several and I had a little. Kind of greasy, and not to my taste. Three of them (drilled on the ends and emptied like Easter eggs) are sitting on the sideboard across the room right now. Topics of conversation whenever new guests visit.
You get the impression that the Venn diagram which has one set marked “BEd, MEd” and one set marked ‘sick-o jerks’ is showing more and more intersecting area?
F –
Do you tell visitors that the eggs are gifts from InGen Corporation, and originally had velociraptor embryos?
😛
White eggs in New York. Brown eggs in New England. They also sell white eggs in New England, but they are less popular and significantly cheaper than the brown ones. It’s all about tradition, apparently.
I have a friend who raises chickens and likes to buy chickens that lay colored eggs. He has some variety that lays green eggs.
That taste of all of these seems to be the same.
John Tyler:
I found Green Eggs and Ham somewhat annoying to read because of the constant repetition. But kids seem to love it. I wasn’t keen on The Cat In the Hat, either.
On the other hand, I enjoyed reading Hop on Pop. And two Dr. Seuss books I love are Horton Hatches the Egg and Happy Birthday to You. Not sure whether you’re familiar with either of those last two.
Oh…we grow our own eggs.
We have had 4 (not the same 4) Isa Brown chooks for more than a decade. They’re great fun and not too much trouble. When they get past laying they get handed over to a farmer we know. The idea is he doesn’t mind a few extra birds on his place…I suspect he uses them organically ?
Also..mostly brown eggs.
I don’t remember reading Dr. Seuss to my sons, though I’m sure I did, but I do remember reading “To Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street” when I was a kid. My father insisted it was about my uncle Ed who could take a 20 minute walk around the block and then talk about it for an hour and a half.
@huxley: Since you expressed curiosity, and suggested yesterday that I post one of my poems in an open thread, here’s one–clearly not timeless, and clearly not for everyone. I don’t have this one slated for the upcoming collection; it’s for inclusion in a separate chapbook on similar themes. Thanks for your interest.
CHOPPERS
Señor el Presidente, leader
of an unnamed republic,
had the whitest of white teeth, starched white
cuffs and a spume of white tufts
bubbling up from hair plugs suggestive
of the Bellagio Fountains
at rest between scheduled eruptions.
He’d purged his predecessor
under cover of an election,
then crocodile-blubbered through
the alleged insurrection. But, oh!
Those choppers! Alabastrine,
like the capital itself before
the new regime wrapped it up
in black concertina wire, before
the helicopters and troops
in woodland-pattern camo took up
their watch on the treeless streets.
All hailed the Presidential dental
offensive, its sheer wattage
bioengineered in a cottage
industry of plastering
veneer over rot and corruption.
Yet if el Presidente’s
white-hot smile blinded his chamberlains,
it failed to fire up the coal
dust bowl, where a mere headlamp could show
the people how the wind blew.
And they knew. The regime’s flotilla
stuck close to shore, steering clear
of the amber waves, but in the sticks
the proles heard those party boats
party to beat the Titanic band,
they felt the slice of Black Hawk
blades, a quick shiv in the ribs
as el Presidente beamed away,
letting fly his radiant
ordnance over the land of the free.
Om: not only Xi but Biden as well.
“When Joe Biden was elected president, [Tony] Blinken [became] the U.S. secretary of state. Tony Blinken, when he served as an advisor to Vice President Biden, reportedly played a central role in denying asylum to a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official who was hoping to defect. Wang Lijun was the “highest ranking Chinese official to ever offer to defect to the United States.” In early February 2012, after being recently fired from his senior post in the Public Security Bureau, Wang snuck into the U.S. consulate in Chengdu dressed in women’s clothing. For thirty hours, Wang met with U.S. officials and offered to share everything that he knew—a clear intelligence boon. But Blinken reportedly halted the defection on fears that it would embarrass China on the eve of meetings with the Obama administration. Wang was forced to leave the consulate and face his fate with Beijing authorities—a fifteen-year sentence in prison. Blinken has claimed that he had no involvement in the Wang case.”
— Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win by Peter Schweizer
Theodore “Ted” Geisel was the man behind Dr. Seuss. Seuss was his mother’s, maiden name.
I am an admirer of his work and consequently know a fair amount about him. As someone pointed out, he never had children with either of his wives, but I’ve never heard that he disliked them. Based on some of his writings he had a good understanding of how children thought and devoted a portion of his life to making art they would appreciate, at their own level.
He was nearly 50 before he wrote his first children’s book and had a long, interesting career prior in advertising and illustration. I find his “adult” stuff interesting and clever. (No, not “adult” in an XXX meaning, but illustrations and ads aimed at a grown-up audience. Although he did so some adult-themed illustrations.)
Before I go on further I’ll point out the one, major negative I struggle with, since he was brought up in this thread in a negative light. He left his wife and she then killed herself. (I don’t recall if they divorced first, or if he had an affair while married. I think I remember the other woman was the wife or a couple that Geisel and his first wife had been friends with.) His first wife helped a lot on the early children’s books. Of course one never knows the intricacies of another human relationship, especially one as complex and intimate as a spousal relationship, but I have a hard time reconciling the Ted Geisel I know through his work with how things ended for his first wife.
Geisel attended Dartmouth and did cartoons for their student humor magazine. He was a product of the “jazz age,” and my guess is he really got a kick out of the Marx Brothers and other ’20s humorists. There is an obvious fascination with foreign cultures and lands that comes through in much of his work. His family was upper middle class (upper class?). I think his grandfather opened a dry goods type store when he came over from Germany and that’s how the family made their money. He worked on Madison Avenue and during WWII helped make animated films for the military in the war effort. Eventually he and his first wife moved to La Jolla, California and he really enjoyed life there. You can see the influence on his landscape drawings, especially trees. He had a very well-rounded sense of humor, was literate and erudite.
Along with his advertising and other work I am a fan of many of his children’s books. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is one of my favorites. I also like “If I Ran the Zoo” and “If I Ran the Circus.” If you pay attention to Old Man Sneelock in those stories it’s a very intelligent look into how children problem solve as they work through imaginary plans. The thing I suppose I find most unique about his work is his wordplay matches his surrealistic illustration style. He does amazing, crazy, beautiful things with his drawings and somehow creates a verbal style that mirrors it with the written word.
When one thinks about it, it’s a great thing to introduce children to as they learn to read. Learning to read can be intimidating, scary. Young children work to sound words out with fear of not getting it right. But throwing nonsense words and beasts and lands into children’s books shows teaches them to have fun with words right off the bat, and to not fear them. He really makes reading fun. The pictures are so wonderful children want to learn to read so they can turn the page and see the next one.
True genius.
I should add that Ted Geisel wrote books under pseudonyms other than “Dr. Seuss.” Theo. Le Sieg was one such pseudonym (Theodore with “Geisel” spelled backwards.) he used on a book, “Ten Apples up on Top.” When I was young, and babysat, I found that one was often popular, as it was with my own children.
MollyG,
That’s wonderful! Thanks for sharing. I dare you to submit that to the publication that hired you as Editor 🙂 ! They’d probably institute a purge in HR to see how someone like you had slipped through the cracks.
Rufus: “No, not ‘adult’ in an XXX meaning”
When I was a kid I thought adult bookstores had books on philosophy and history and engineering and other serious subjects. I thought they didn’t want kids around to ruin the intellectual atmosphere.
@ Rufus T. Firefly: Thanks! Actually, they did not hire me. They wanted to, but I removed myself from consideration.
Per Rufus, Theodore Geisel did a few other things, too:
This post was brought to you by the Letter Y and the difference it can make.
Eva Marie,
I thought the same thing about adult bookstores.
MollyG: that’s a great poem. Do you sell your chapbooks on Amazon?
@ Eva Marie: Thanks for your kind words. Regarding Amazon, TBD. This particular chapbook is still in development/revision.
The upcoming collection will be a more conventional-looking paperback. I can leave a note here when it’s available–probably by the end of April, according to the (very small) press that is the publisher. Thanks for inquiring.
MollyG:
Yes, thanks for posting your poem! It adds a new dimension to your regular comments. I can tell you’re a serious writer and poet.
Back in the 2000s, when I was still part of the poetry community, I read a fair amount of the anti-Bush/anti-Iraq War poetry that came out. The poet, Sam Hamill, launched the “Poets Against War” movement and his prominent contribution I enclose below as a comparison with your poem:
________________________________
State of the Union, 2003
I have not been to Jerusalem,
but Shirley talks about the bombs.
I have no god, but have seen the children praying
for it to stop. They pray to different gods.
The news is all old news again, repeated
like a bad habit, cheap tobacco, the social lie.
The children have seen so much death
that death means nothing to them now.
They wait in line for bread.
They wait in line for water.
Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness.
We’ve seen them a thousand times.
Soon the President will speak.
He will have something to say about bombs
and freedom and our way of life.
I will turn the tv off. I always do.
Because I can’t bear to look
at the monuments in his eyes.
–Sam Hamill
________________________________
Clearly Sam Hamill does not like George Bush, but the poem is maddening for how deeply Hamill is into his own head and his own projections.
When matched against current realities in the Middle East, the poem falls apart. The bombs heard in Jerusalem are not the American bombs the poet laments in the final verse. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian children are waiting in line for bread and water (for the most part) and it is mindreading, on par with Gen. Westmoreland’s claim that the Vietnamese don’t feel pain the way we do, that Hamill should presume to tell us that death means nothing for these children.
As for his certainty that the children are praying for the bombs to stop, he is mistaken here as well. Palestinian children are taught to rejoice at the bombings and aspire to becoming suicide bombers themselves.
Hamill seems to be willfully ignorant of the complex realities he appears to address. He hasn’t been to Jerusalem nor will he even listen to what Bush has to say before accusing the President of lies. Hamill doesn’t have to. By consulting his prejudices and his imagination, he already knows the truth.
While MollyG’s poem similarly condemns a sitting President, she brings far more craft and interesting images to the enterprise than Hamill and she talks about she knows rather than imagines. She doesn’t look away. She looks her Devil in the eye.
huxley, not only that, but MollyG rhymes, too!
Another thing about Seuss/Geisel,
He was very protective of his work and rarely permitted it to be used outside of his books. However, after he died his second wife cashed in. Big time. My guess is he rolled over in his grave regarding the Jim Carrey and Michael Myers movies.
MollyG,
I’m not big on poetry but I liked your poem! ?
MollyG,
Sorry, the ? was meant to be a smiley. I will try again: 🙂
@ Neo > “And two Dr. Seuss books I love are Horton Hatches the Egg and Happy Birthday to You.”
Over the course of raising five kids, I pretty much memorized all of the Seuss canon, and these were two of the favorites. For one of my volunteer stints at school, I would dress up, bring props and costumes, and have the kids “act out” the parts as I read Horton.
And we all went home happy, one hundred percent.
And while I sympathize with those adults who don’t care for the repetition in The Cat and other books: they weren’t written for you! The kids like to hear the same words repeated often, either in the same phrases or in different contexts, as an aid in deciphering meaning, and, for those just learning to read, the reinforcement of letters and sound is important.
@ huxley > “While MollyG’s poem similarly condemns a sitting President, she brings far more craft and interesting images to the enterprise than Hamill and she talks about [what] she knows rather than imagines. She doesn’t look away. She looks her Devil in the eye.”
@ Philip > “not only that, but MollyG rhymes, too!”
And scans better as well.
Please drop some more poems in from time to time, as the mood strikes.
@ bifjamod > “After 5 years of most conservatives pointing out the lies, misdirection and propaganda of the US legacy media, many are now giving unquestioned deference to that same media in all matters Ukraine and the so-called “situation” there.”
Gell-Mann amnesia in action.
I like this particular post because of his corollary to the well-known Effect.
G-M formulated the theory in his own work, but Crichton popularized it.
Author Michael Crichton coined the term and named it after his physicist friend, Murray Gell-Mann. First, here’s Crichton’s quote explaining the effect:
“Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect is as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray’s case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward — reversing cause and effect. I call these the “wet streets cause rain” stories. Paper’s full of them.
In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story, and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about Palestine than the baloney you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know.”
– Michael Crichton
I would also like to see your answers to Eva Marie’s questions, as we are always up for a debate here at Neo’s salon.
In the meantime, there is much good information and analysis on Ukraine, and now Kazakhstan, at J. E. Dyer’s blog.
@ om in re the tfiglobalnews link
That was an interesting story about the Chinese defector, and a fascinating news site.
I read quite a few of their stories.
Do you know anything about their reporting reliability?
Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who” is popular with youth groups that do pro-life work, because, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”
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On one of Neo’s least favorite topics, felony murder, the arsonist who burned a pawn shop in Minneapolis in May 2020, killing another protester who was trapped inside, has been sentenced to ten years on the charge. Compare that to the sentence of the third man, the one who stayed in the car, in south Georgia, when Ahmad Arbery was shot.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2022/01/felony-murder-in-a-good-cause-fox-news-edition.php
And, I’m guessing Twitter is losing customers. There are three Twitter accounts I read fairly often, for news links. First, they made it impossible to follow links. Then, they added a screen asking people to sign up before allowing views. This morning, they cut off views after the first three tweets or so. I’m still not signing up. I’ll read blogs instead, which is preferable anyhow.
Plus, Penzey’s spices sent out another offensive email, calling all Republicans racists. He’s done it before. This time, according to a story at WISN News, Milwaukee, he lost about 3% of his customers, and hasn’t gained enough new ones to make up the difference. Bigotry has a price.
A few months back I began buying brown chicken eggs, vs. the more abundant white chicken eggs.
So, I had to look up the difference.
The breed of chicken determines the color of the egg shell.
That’s pretty much it, folks.
Though, I will say, that on average, the brown egg shells are indeed harder to crack than white shelled eggs, and brown eggs, much more so than white shelled eggs, will have two yolks instead of one yolk.
Brown and white eggs are fine, but I prefer green eggs with ham.
Penzey’s Spice is a pet peeve of mine, but I doubt they’ll go under. They were a centerpiece of my family Christmas this year. My 91 yo mother gave my brother-in-law a gift certificate, and there was plenty of “Oooh, Penzey’s Spice! Look, a gift certificate from Penzey’s! I’ll really enjoy this!” etc. Their bile against people like her daughter didn’t bother my mother at all, and the excessive demonstration of delight by the fam was I’m sure to rub my nose in it.
Mr. Penzey is probably getting grants to development minority entrepreneurship or something.
And speaking of pet peeves, another one of mine is “affordable housing.” Despite losing 3% of its population last year, rents in DC are up something like 25%. Rents in my area in Florida are up 33%. All over the area, there are _massive_ new high density apartment buildings being raised, built out to the property line, often close to the highway. In fact often built on the sites formerly mobile home parks — genuinely affordable housing. They are hedge fund owned/leased, designed for government-guaranteed rent programs. They wreck any possibility of market force mitigation of prices. If you can’t afford it, get a subsidy. Too well off for the subsidy? Pay up until you are poor.
I’m pretty alarmed by the scale of it.
Yeah, Nancy B., I stopped buying from Penzey’s several years ago because of his ugly rants. I order online from The Spice House, which is owned by his sister and doesn’t do politics, or I go to the Savory Spice store not too far away. And in a pinch, McCormick sells an upscale spice line which isn’t bad at all.
I’ve noticed a disturbing trend with conservative writers (bloggers, journos, commenters, etc – not picking out any one person or site here…) very recently. After 5 years of most conservatives pointing out the lies, misdirection and propaganda of the US legacy media, many are now giving unquestioned deference to that same media in all matters Ukraine and the so-called “situation” there.
Nancy B: on housing. I mentioned this previously, but just before I left CT they passed a state level property tax to be used for “affordable multifamily housing”. They also determined the “correct” number of such units that needed to be in each town to mandate each town have such units. The new property tax is called the “mansion tax”. According to the state, a mansion is designated as having an assessed value of $300k. Guess how many houses in CT qualify? Mansions?, I don’t think so.
bifjamod: that’s too much of an intriguing statement just to leave us hanging. What do you mean? What’s the conservative position that seems wrong to you and what is the mainstream media position and most importantly – what’s your position.
white vs brown vs green eggs.
Those Dr Seuss books dealt with green eggs.
When my daughter was very young, I would read to her at bedtime, but I refused to read to her any book of Dr. Seuss.
For some reason, I found those books really irritating and just plain stupid.
She liked them, so she read them on her own, which was just fine.
I just refused.
I remember reading somewhere that the writer of the Dr. Seuss series not only did not have kids, but that he despised them.
True?
And speaking of pet peeves, another one of mine is “affordable housing.” Despite losing 3% of its population last year, rents in DC are up something like 25%. Rents in my area in Florida are up 33%. All over the area, there are _massive_ new high density apartment buildings being raised, built out to the property line, often close to the highway. In fact often built on the sites formerly mobile home parks — genuinely affordable housing. They are hedge fund owned/leased, designed for government-guaranteed rent programs. They wreck any possibility of market force mitigation of prices. If you can’t afford it, get a subsidy. Too well off for the subsidy? Pay up until you are poor.
The disreputable Mr. Sailer refers to it as ‘awardable housing’, the contrivance of apartments with concessionary rents which can be distributed to people connected to Democratic pols.
True?
Verifiable he was childless. The rest, not so much.
Rant Alert!
Ok American English speakers…it’s pronunciation time!
Emu…that big ol’ flightless bird resident of Australia is NOT pronounced ee-moo.
It is ee-myou.
And all you Aussies out there…in fairness…please stop pronouncing the Spanish word uno…as you-know.
That is all. Time for more coffee.
On safari once in Tanzania we came upon an ostrich nest. The mother-to-be had been killed by a lion, so we put the eggs in the LandRover to take back to camp. the trackers cooked several and I had a little. Kind of greasy, and not to my taste. Three of them (drilled on the ends and emptied like Easter eggs) are sitting on the sideboard across the room right now. Topics of conversation whenever new guests visit.
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2022/01/28/parents-outraged-4th-5th-graders-asked-to-join-queer-club-without-their-consent/#disqus_thread
You get the impression that the Venn diagram which has one set marked “BEd, MEd” and one set marked ‘sick-o jerks’ is showing more and more intersecting area?
F –
Do you tell visitors that the eggs are gifts from InGen Corporation, and originally had velociraptor embryos?
😛
White eggs in New York. Brown eggs in New England. They also sell white eggs in New England, but they are less popular and significantly cheaper than the brown ones. It’s all about tradition, apparently.
I have a friend who raises chickens and likes to buy chickens that lay colored eggs. He has some variety that lays green eggs.
That taste of all of these seems to be the same.
John Tyler:
I found Green Eggs and Ham somewhat annoying to read because of the constant repetition. But kids seem to love it. I wasn’t keen on The Cat In the Hat, either.
On the other hand, I enjoyed reading Hop on Pop. And two Dr. Seuss books I love are Horton Hatches the Egg and Happy Birthday to You. Not sure whether you’re familiar with either of those last two.
Oh…we grow our own eggs.
We have had 4 (not the same 4) Isa Brown chooks for more than a decade. They’re great fun and not too much trouble. When they get past laying they get handed over to a farmer we know. The idea is he doesn’t mind a few extra birds on his place…I suspect he uses them organically ?
Also..mostly brown eggs.
I don’t remember reading Dr. Seuss to my sons, though I’m sure I did, but I do remember reading “To Think that I Saw It on Mulberry Street” when I was a kid. My father insisted it was about my uncle Ed who could take a 20 minute walk around the block and then talk about it for an hour and a half.
Z and Xi are not amused:
https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/01/27/top-chinese-scientist-working-in-hypersonic-program-flees-china-with-critical-secrets/
Defected to the US. What a looser! says Z?
@huxley: Since you expressed curiosity, and suggested yesterday that I post one of my poems in an open thread, here’s one–clearly not timeless, and clearly not for everyone. I don’t have this one slated for the upcoming collection; it’s for inclusion in a separate chapbook on similar themes. Thanks for your interest.
CHOPPERS
Señor el Presidente, leader
of an unnamed republic,
had the whitest of white teeth, starched white
cuffs and a spume of white tufts
bubbling up from hair plugs suggestive
of the Bellagio Fountains
at rest between scheduled eruptions.
He’d purged his predecessor
under cover of an election,
then crocodile-blubbered through
the alleged insurrection. But, oh!
Those choppers! Alabastrine,
like the capital itself before
the new regime wrapped it up
in black concertina wire, before
the helicopters and troops
in woodland-pattern camo took up
their watch on the treeless streets.
All hailed the Presidential dental
offensive, its sheer wattage
bioengineered in a cottage
industry of plastering
veneer over rot and corruption.
Yet if el Presidente’s
white-hot smile blinded his chamberlains,
it failed to fire up the coal
dust bowl, where a mere headlamp could show
the people how the wind blew.
And they knew. The regime’s flotilla
stuck close to shore, steering clear
of the amber waves, but in the sticks
the proles heard those party boats
party to beat the Titanic band,
they felt the slice of Black Hawk
blades, a quick shiv in the ribs
as el Presidente beamed away,
letting fly his radiant
ordnance over the land of the free.
Om: not only Xi but Biden as well.
“When Joe Biden was elected president, [Tony] Blinken [became] the U.S. secretary of state. Tony Blinken, when he served as an advisor to Vice President Biden, reportedly played a central role in denying asylum to a high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official who was hoping to defect. Wang Lijun was the “highest ranking Chinese official to ever offer to defect to the United States.” In early February 2012, after being recently fired from his senior post in the Public Security Bureau, Wang snuck into the U.S. consulate in Chengdu dressed in women’s clothing. For thirty hours, Wang met with U.S. officials and offered to share everything that he knew—a clear intelligence boon. But Blinken reportedly halted the defection on fears that it would embarrass China on the eve of meetings with the Obama administration. Wang was forced to leave the consulate and face his fate with Beijing authorities—a fifteen-year sentence in prison. Blinken has claimed that he had no involvement in the Wang case.”
— Red-Handed: How American Elites Get Rich Helping China Win by Peter Schweizer
Theodore “Ted” Geisel was the man behind Dr. Seuss. Seuss was his mother’s, maiden name.
I am an admirer of his work and consequently know a fair amount about him. As someone pointed out, he never had children with either of his wives, but I’ve never heard that he disliked them. Based on some of his writings he had a good understanding of how children thought and devoted a portion of his life to making art they would appreciate, at their own level.
He was nearly 50 before he wrote his first children’s book and had a long, interesting career prior in advertising and illustration. I find his “adult” stuff interesting and clever. (No, not “adult” in an XXX meaning, but illustrations and ads aimed at a grown-up audience. Although he did so some adult-themed illustrations.)
Before I go on further I’ll point out the one, major negative I struggle with, since he was brought up in this thread in a negative light. He left his wife and she then killed herself. (I don’t recall if they divorced first, or if he had an affair while married. I think I remember the other woman was the wife or a couple that Geisel and his first wife had been friends with.) His first wife helped a lot on the early children’s books. Of course one never knows the intricacies of another human relationship, especially one as complex and intimate as a spousal relationship, but I have a hard time reconciling the Ted Geisel I know through his work with how things ended for his first wife.
Geisel attended Dartmouth and did cartoons for their student humor magazine. He was a product of the “jazz age,” and my guess is he really got a kick out of the Marx Brothers and other ’20s humorists. There is an obvious fascination with foreign cultures and lands that comes through in much of his work. His family was upper middle class (upper class?). I think his grandfather opened a dry goods type store when he came over from Germany and that’s how the family made their money. He worked on Madison Avenue and during WWII helped make animated films for the military in the war effort. Eventually he and his first wife moved to La Jolla, California and he really enjoyed life there. You can see the influence on his landscape drawings, especially trees. He had a very well-rounded sense of humor, was literate and erudite.
Along with his advertising and other work I am a fan of many of his children’s books. “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” is one of my favorites. I also like “If I Ran the Zoo” and “If I Ran the Circus.” If you pay attention to Old Man Sneelock in those stories it’s a very intelligent look into how children problem solve as they work through imaginary plans. The thing I suppose I find most unique about his work is his wordplay matches his surrealistic illustration style. He does amazing, crazy, beautiful things with his drawings and somehow creates a verbal style that mirrors it with the written word.
When one thinks about it, it’s a great thing to introduce children to as they learn to read. Learning to read can be intimidating, scary. Young children work to sound words out with fear of not getting it right. But throwing nonsense words and beasts and lands into children’s books shows teaches them to have fun with words right off the bat, and to not fear them. He really makes reading fun. The pictures are so wonderful children want to learn to read so they can turn the page and see the next one.
True genius.
I should add that Ted Geisel wrote books under pseudonyms other than “Dr. Seuss.” Theo. Le Sieg was one such pseudonym (Theodore with “Geisel” spelled backwards.) he used on a book, “Ten Apples up on Top.” When I was young, and babysat, I found that one was often popular, as it was with my own children.
MollyG,
That’s wonderful! Thanks for sharing. I dare you to submit that to the publication that hired you as Editor 🙂 ! They’d probably institute a purge in HR to see how someone like you had slipped through the cracks.
Rufus: “No, not ‘adult’ in an XXX meaning”
When I was a kid I thought adult bookstores had books on philosophy and history and engineering and other serious subjects. I thought they didn’t want kids around to ruin the intellectual atmosphere.
@ Rufus T. Firefly: Thanks! Actually, they did not hire me. They wanted to, but I removed myself from consideration.
Per Rufus, Theodore Geisel did a few other things, too:
Your Job in Germany
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OUR5uvs9aw
Our Job in Japan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5kor4TorC3A
This post was brought to you by the Letter Y and the difference it can make.
Eva Marie,
I thought the same thing about adult bookstores.
MollyG: that’s a great poem. Do you sell your chapbooks on Amazon?
@ Eva Marie: Thanks for your kind words. Regarding Amazon, TBD. This particular chapbook is still in development/revision.
The upcoming collection will be a more conventional-looking paperback. I can leave a note here when it’s available–probably by the end of April, according to the (very small) press that is the publisher. Thanks for inquiring.
MollyG:
Yes, thanks for posting your poem! It adds a new dimension to your regular comments. I can tell you’re a serious writer and poet.
Back in the 2000s, when I was still part of the poetry community, I read a fair amount of the anti-Bush/anti-Iraq War poetry that came out. The poet, Sam Hamill, launched the “Poets Against War” movement and his prominent contribution I enclose below as a comparison with your poem:
________________________________
State of the Union, 2003
I have not been to Jerusalem,
but Shirley talks about the bombs.
I have no god, but have seen the children praying
for it to stop. They pray to different gods.
The news is all old news again, repeated
like a bad habit, cheap tobacco, the social lie.
The children have seen so much death
that death means nothing to them now.
They wait in line for bread.
They wait in line for water.
Their eyes are black moons reflecting emptiness.
We’ve seen them a thousand times.
Soon the President will speak.
He will have something to say about bombs
and freedom and our way of life.
I will turn the tv off. I always do.
Because I can’t bear to look
at the monuments in his eyes.
–Sam Hamill
________________________________
Clearly Sam Hamill does not like George Bush, but the poem is maddening for how deeply Hamill is into his own head and his own projections.
When matched against current realities in the Middle East, the poem falls apart. The bombs heard in Jerusalem are not the American bombs the poet laments in the final verse. Neither Israeli nor Palestinian children are waiting in line for bread and water (for the most part) and it is mindreading, on par with Gen. Westmoreland’s claim that the Vietnamese don’t feel pain the way we do, that Hamill should presume to tell us that death means nothing for these children.
As for his certainty that the children are praying for the bombs to stop, he is mistaken here as well. Palestinian children are taught to rejoice at the bombings and aspire to becoming suicide bombers themselves.
Hamill seems to be willfully ignorant of the complex realities he appears to address. He hasn’t been to Jerusalem nor will he even listen to what Bush has to say before accusing the President of lies. Hamill doesn’t have to. By consulting his prejudices and his imagination, he already knows the truth.
While MollyG’s poem similarly condemns a sitting President, she brings far more craft and interesting images to the enterprise than Hamill and she talks about she knows rather than imagines. She doesn’t look away. She looks her Devil in the eye.
huxley, not only that, but MollyG rhymes, too!
Another thing about Seuss/Geisel,
He was very protective of his work and rarely permitted it to be used outside of his books. However, after he died his second wife cashed in. Big time. My guess is he rolled over in his grave regarding the Jim Carrey and Michael Myers movies.
MollyG,
I’m not big on poetry but I liked your poem! ?
MollyG,
Sorry, the ? was meant to be a smiley. I will try again: 🙂
@ Neo > “And two Dr. Seuss books I love are Horton Hatches the Egg and Happy Birthday to You.”
Over the course of raising five kids, I pretty much memorized all of the Seuss canon, and these were two of the favorites. For one of my volunteer stints at school, I would dress up, bring props and costumes, and have the kids “act out” the parts as I read Horton.
And we all went home happy, one hundred percent.
And while I sympathize with those adults who don’t care for the repetition in The Cat and other books: they weren’t written for you! The kids like to hear the same words repeated often, either in the same phrases or in different contexts, as an aid in deciphering meaning, and, for those just learning to read, the reinforcement of letters and sound is important.
@ huxley > “While MollyG’s poem similarly condemns a sitting President, she brings far more craft and interesting images to the enterprise than Hamill and she talks about [what] she knows rather than imagines. She doesn’t look away. She looks her Devil in the eye.”
@ Philip > “not only that, but MollyG rhymes, too!”
And scans better as well.
Please drop some more poems in from time to time, as the mood strikes.
@ bifjamod > “After 5 years of most conservatives pointing out the lies, misdirection and propaganda of the US legacy media, many are now giving unquestioned deference to that same media in all matters Ukraine and the so-called “situation” there.”
Gell-Mann amnesia in action.
I like this particular post because of his corollary to the well-known Effect.
G-M formulated the theory in his own work, but Crichton popularized it.
https://medium.com/@addictiondocMD/a-new-corollary-to-the-gell-mann-amnesia-effect-3578a37ed3e9
I would also like to see your answers to Eva Marie’s questions, as we are always up for a debate here at Neo’s salon.
In the meantime, there is much good information and analysis on Ukraine, and now Kazakhstan, at J. E. Dyer’s blog.
Most recently, not only the international situation, but the connections to US domestic politics, especially the Steele Dossier and all things Russiagate:
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/01/20/ukraine-election-legitimacy-and-trumps-big-day-of-validation/
https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2022/01/25/kazakhstan-weve-gotten-to-know-ye-a-little-better/
@ om in re the tfiglobalnews link
That was an interesting story about the Chinese defector, and a fascinating news site.
I read quite a few of their stories.
Do you know anything about their reporting reliability?
Seuss’ “Horton Hears a Who” is popular with youth groups that do pro-life work, because, “A person’s a person no matter how small.”