Politicians do not lie!

You may find this hard to believe but the above is not true!
We all had our doubts about WMDs now there is documented evidence that those nasty Republicans are harnessing Weapons of Mouse Destruction. Susan McCarthy has a blog about mice or more correctly the absence of mice that nails the political process. Being a zoologist I guess she is very familiar with the lower forms of life and their slimy habits.
Susan's projection of how mice might spend $30m is fun and the San Francisco Chronicle gives space for Congresswoman Jackie Speier(Democrat California) to add a measure of perspective about the process and the worthy burghers of San Francisco.

You do have to watch those mice though. Wee sleekit cowerin' timorous beasties they may be but turn your back in a recession and they have got their bewiskered noses in the trough.

Libraries.

Some people think libraries are the biz.
I have been known to comment on them myself. We could be wrong! We will certainly not expect the changes to libraries that the iDog will bring.

If I haven't mentioned it before the iDog is a mobile/broadband phone that is under development by Buddhist Pizza Industries. It doubles as a text and A/V processing unit which comfortably uses electronic paper to display books, periodicals, and newspapers (remember them?) at any ambient light level. It can of course project, via a wireless link, onto an iWall (do I have to explain everything?) I thought the incorporation of the audio switch to enable the text to be read by the iDog in a range of voices from Juliet Stevenson to John Humphries (desending order) was a nice touch.

I can just see one of my nieces explaining to her grandchildren, wide mouthed in disbelief, about libraries and books.

Your uncle was a jolly old soul and in his later years he used to borrow a lot of books from the library. Yes, Kirsten, you remember seeing on VID all those books behind the glass wall in the British Library, well there was a library in the village next to where your uncle lived. He would look up the library catalogue on his computer, you don't need to know what one of those is dear, and order the book that he wanted to read. The library would send him an email, it's like a long text dear, to say he could collect the book, read it and return it for another reader in three weeks. He could have it for longer than three weeks if no one else wanted to borrow it. Yes, Jan, I think he was a veeery slow reader......

Who knows what will happen to books, journalism, publishing, copyright, etc....
What will that do to libraries? What will that do to us?

Magnanimous!

Let's just keep a sense of perspective here.

Yeeees!

Sorry, now where were we?
I must say Mary looks very well and Prince Willie, not sure what he was doing there. Mind you from the look on his face I'm not sure he does either.

Who are you calling a pansy?

There are lots of green shoots and buds in the garden. There are flowers planted by the previous owners and those planted by the Head Gardener (HG) who rules our vast estate with a rod of blackthorn. It is a joy and now that we have both shaken off our colds, maybe the same one generously shared, we can even appreciate the experience with our noses. HG has placed two pots of welcoming pansys by the front door. They have survived the late winter and now bask in the spring sun, don't we all!

The cold has seriously affected my appreciation of wine. Heavens to Betsy I hear our readers cry as one person! In support of the local playing field we had a cheese and wine tasting. I felt obliged to go. The wine was supplied by Shami Gill, an independent supplier from a local village. It was an interesting evening. All but one of the five wines we tasted had no nose for me, sadly. However, they all contributed to an increasing sense of conviviality and enjoyment as the evening flowed, very strange that. We rolled home knowing we had made a positive and selfless contribution to the wellbeing of the pueblo!

Municipal Socialism

There are many reasons for being a member of a credit union or two.
One of the more obscure is the chance to roam around locations at unfamiliar times at near zero temperatures waiting for the venue of the AGM to open. Not having the resources of RBS behind us we hire a room in the library by the hour. There were some chuckles when the meeting agreed unanimously that the Treasurer should be paid an honorarium of £500 for the work carried out voluntarily each year. Some wag at the back was heard to say:-

Shouldn't that be five hundred thousand with a pension thrown in!

While I was waiting for the meeting and stand up comedy routine to start I took this snap.
Not quite up to Bolton or Manchester standards but a suitable reminder of civic vision. A bit like a well fed county solicitor with an expanding waistline and an increasingly vague but avuncular demeanor.

Watering The Hummers

Not what you think.
Susan McCarthy's blog paints a sparkling word picture. It would be quite a sight to see.
Love the title, I have felt like that on many an occasion!

In the meantime link to a picture:- a picture.

It was one of those books, I'm sorry!

Have managed to raise my nose from the grindstone to read a few chapters of

Palestinian walks, notes on a vanishing landscape by Raja Shehadeh.

Very interesting.

Boy we think we have got problems. You spend your life building a cast iron case against the illegal annexation of your land by the Israeli State and its head banging extremists. Land which most of the world regards as little better than a rock strewn rubbish dump but which you recognise as the gentle soul of your nation and wham, bahm, thank you man the PLO have sold you down the crapper!

So it goes!

And then today I read

good gracious!

Science and Priorities

So Nancy and Caroline agree on throwing money at science.
Hmm... I might have considered this before
It's a bit like throwing shoes at failed Presidents. You can appreciate the sentiment but question the aim. I seem to remember, in this country, a certain Mr Wislon muttering about the white heat of the pound in your pocket. I think we have missed the trick here. Money thrown at science does not equal material progress. We need science to achieve intellectual, economic and humanitarian objectives. Science of itself will not:-
- reduce the number of human beings dying painfully and needlessly for want of the wherewithal to live sustainable, productive, and fulfilling lives;
- protect us against the destruction of the environment;
- protect us against the excesses of corrupt and totalitarian governments;
all of which come pretty high on my list.

One person's space programme is another country's supply of malaria nets for a generation.

I'm off to consult with the Stakhanovites of the Suffolk Couty Libraries to see if we can obtain this tome. It may offer a way to shape priorities internationally!
Thanks to John Naughton for the link.
-

The theory and practice of everyday resistance

My Mum would have approved, she was a great believer in communality and cleanliness!

Louisa Waugh's blog is certainly a different view for the blind.