Politics

When I was a stoned hippie in my youth I thought the Kingdom of God could be recreated on earth. In fact I followed a silly Hindu guru in service to that idea for many years. But eventually you see that it's just another schpiel no matter how good it sounds. Politics is the art of settling for second best since the Kingdom of God is not attainable on earth.

As everyone knows - life on earth is a dream.

Row, row, row your boat
gently down the stream;
merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily;
life is but a dream.

This world's just a reflection of the incomprehensible beauty of its Creator.

For in and out,
above, about, below;
'tis nothing but a shadow show;
played in a box whose candle is the sun
around which we phantom figures come and go.


Just quickly - I feel I need to add here why I am not an atheist. Most of my fellow bloggers are either evangelical Christians or devout Catholics but four of my fellow bloggers are atheists and I understand their position because I once was an atheist. I'm not religious but I do know that I didn't create myself or this world. Yes, the universe may have come from a Big Bang but what caused the Big Bang? And why was there a Big Bang?

So, maybe Darwin's theory of the evolution is fairly plausible but that only explains the evolution of species. It does not explain the existence of the medium in which life could form. It does not explain why this third rock from the sun seems to be unique in the known universe in that is is home to living, breathing creatures.

Science may explain how this earth and this universe came into being but it does not explain why. I don't even want to know the answer to the question "why?" I sort of know it anyway. For me, the answer to it is: "Enjoy it." I didn't create this world or myself so all I can do is enjoy it and stand in awe of it, mouth agape in gratitude.

And science does not explain the beauty of this creation. If this world is just an accident; a result of random events, then why is it so beautiful? Why isn't it just a blob with ugly amoebae running around. That's life but it sure isn't beauty. No, science does not explain the beauty. Science does not explain the "sweet mystery of life."

Meanwhile back at the ranch (where God does not reign completely but seems to put in an unexpected appearance occassionally despite the silliness of His creatures) it's politics as usual all the way down to the chickens with their merciless pecking order and vicious cock-fights. At the human level I prefer to think of politics as a power struggle tempered with merciful rules. Even fowl have rules but they don't have mercy.

An all-out power struggle is war. Politics is war with a smiling face and a merciful heart. Being human means being kind and forgiving. If someone slaps your cheek, turn the other cheek. Of course it's different if someone tries to kill or harm you; then you kill or maim them ASAP because they have forgotten kindness and mercy and are like mad dogs needing to be put out of their misery. It's a kindness.

But politics among civilized people is more like a sport; usually more like baseball than a blood-sport such as boxing or hunting. Practical politics is about compromising up to and no further than the point where your comfort is being sacrificed to another's selfishness. If someone pushes, you stand your ground. If they push again, you give them a rude shove back. If they don't get your message by then, that means they are selfish bullies and there is only one way to deal with bullies. Smash them till they beg for mercy and then keep a wary eye on them till they know how to behave. If they don't behave, you give them "time-out" - preferably locked up in jail or prison. If they are real psychos, put them down like mad dogs.

I've known quite a few "mad dogs" in my lifetime but, thank God, I have never intimately known any real psychos. I've read enough about them to know that I don't want to know them. In San Francisco I did meet quite a few who bordered on being psychos but, in the past 30 years or so, I've known mostly boring bourgeois pharmacists, doctors, nurses, realtors, accountants, bankers, businessmen and lawyers. Actually I've known an inordinate number of lawyers some of whom broadened my mind and many of whom were so narrow-minded that I felt claustrophobic in their company.

Most politicians (at least in the USA) are lawyers. It makes sense because politics is all about the art of push and shove till a compromise is reached. Many of the boring middle-class people whom I've known have been "liberals" or at least Democrats. I can't stand their socialist fantasies but I know they have the same basic values as I do. They aren't my enemies because they aren't cutting off the branch on which we are all sitting - freedom and democracy.

But some of my fellow citizens are trying to cut off that branch. There are a few extremist reactionary fascistic types who hate freedom but most of the freedom-haters I've known have been leftist extremists. When I lived in San Francisco, I even once re-registered as a Democrat just so I could vote in the primary to make sure that the far-left loon who was running against my Rep, Tom Lantos, didn't get in. Yep, I voted for a Democrat because he was the lesser of two evils.

I left California before Schwarzenegger ran for governor but I would have voted for him eventhough I disagree with many of his positions. And I will vote for Ron Saxton to be governor of Oregon eventhough I don't completely trust him and I know that we will have to keep a wary eye on him lest he betray our values as he has a tendency to be too compromising. In the end, I know Schwarzenegger and Saxton share my basic values.

The Kingdom of God will never be created on earth by humans. Not even a Republican paradise will be. So, I'll settle for second best. That's politics. I don't mind compromising with decent people but bullies better watch out.

Carnivores of Robin's Wood

Update: Once again Max has set me straight about something. I guessed that opossums were brought west to zoos and then escaped and naturalized here but Max pointed out to me that they were in fact brought west as food.

Since I started doing profiles of our Oregon mammals last week, I've found that I should probably stick to using their scientific names just as I do with flowers because the common names for them may be different in other areas.

The biggest carnivorous mammal in Robin's Wood is the black bear, ursus americanus. Of course it is not only an Oregon mammal and lives all over the USA wherever there are forests or swamps. The only areas where it does not live are the grassy plains and deserts. Also it is not always black and is often dark brown. The black bear is more of a scavenger than a hunter although it will sometimes kill and eat small animals who are slow or helpless like fawns but it eats anything and loves garbage.

For the past couple of years we have had three or four bears roaming in the forest going from one farm to another raiding garbage cans and livestock-feed barrels. We did not have a problem with these bears because we do not have an outdoor garbage can - I take my garbage down to the RV park. Whenever someone's garbage cans were raided, they would then secure them with chains and locks so last fall the bears started breaking branches off peoples' fruit trees to get to the fruit.

This summer there have been no reports of these bears and I figure some of my neighbors got fed up and killed them. I'm not sure what happened because I don't know all my neighbors. (This will be my fourth winter here and I have still not met all my neighbors because the farms are so spread out through the forest.)

Bears usually run away from humans but the sows can be dangerous when they have cubs to protect. It is not wise to approach cubs even if they are so damn cute. It is also not wise to climb a tree to get away from an enraged bear. They can climb better and faster and are much bigger. A full-grown male can raise itself up to almost 6 feet and weigh nearly six hundred pounds.

Here are some pics of the black bear. (The pics of the other critters are posted elsewhere and can be seen by clicking on Pic at the end of each profile.)






































































































The mountain lion, puma concolor, or cougar used to range all the way from Canada to Patagonia but has been exterminated nearly everywhere except in the mountainous areas of the West. There are a few left in the Everglades and northern Maine. In California their range is being intruded upon by growing suburbs and quite a few joggers and hikers have been killed (and eaten.)

In my neck of the woods, there is still so much undisturbed forest for them to live in that they seldom come anywhere near humans but there are also large tracts of forest right in the heart of the nearest town and a cougar was seen in a park abutting a lake a few years ago. Out here in the boonies, its all forest with only a few farmhouses here and there and the folks from whom we bought this farm saw two cougars in the forest behind the house the year before we moved here. (They were the first people to build a house on this land and only lived here for two years before we bought it. The land was logged about 30 years ago and then remained undisturbed until a few years ago.)

At first we used to blithely wander into the forest unarmed but eventually realized that it was best to carry a gun when leaving the relative safety of the two acres which is cleared around the house. Unarmed humans are no match for a cougar. They can grow to 9 feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh nearly 200 pounds and, pound for pound, are a lot stronger than us. Pic.

The bobcat, lynx rufus, is much smaller than the cougar - usually about 3 or 4 feet from nose to tail-tip and weighing up to 30 pounds - but, if you have ever been attacked by a house cat weighing only 5 or 6 pounds, then you know that a 30 pound wild cat could kill you if it wanted to. There's a saying that, if house cats were the size of dogs, they would be illegal because they are so dangerous. Well the bobcat is the size of a dog.

Bobcats are a bigger problem for livestock here than cougars. Nearly every farm here has chickens and bobcats can kill chickens as easily as house cats can kill mice. Well, bobcats also kill house cats and small dogs. Last year our nearest neighbors' chickens were decimated by a couple of bobcats who snuck in through a gap between the roof and the wall of the chicken coop. Pic.

The coyote, canis latrans, is also a danger to livestock and often kill small sheep and goats. Coyotes can grow to 4 and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh over 40 pounds - the size of the smaller of our two border collies. (The bigger collie weighs over 60 pounds.) Fortunately they are afraid of dogs and only attack docile livestock - and they love chickens. Pic.

We only have one kind of fox here, the gray fox, urocyon cinereoargenteus, although there are red foxes, vulpes vulpes, only a few miles north and east of us. They can grow to 3 and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip but they have very long fluffy tails and seldom weigh more than twelve pounds. The gray fox is also a chicken killer. It's the only carnivore that I have seen here during the day. Pic.

The fisher, martes pennanti, is seldom seen anywhere else except in the Umpquah and Siskiyou Mountains to the east and south of us so I should probably not include it as a "carnivore of Robin's Wood." They are extremely reclusive and few people have seen them here. Fishers are about the same size as gray foxes - up to four feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighing about 12 pounds. Pic.

The American marten, martes americana, or pine marten has adapted to life among humans and is also a danger to small livestock. They will even kill small chickens although they seldom weigh more than three pounds and are only about two feet long from nose to tail-tip. Mostly they are egg-stealers. Pic.

The short-tailed weasel, mustela erminea, is known as the stoat in Europe during summer when it has a brown coat and an ermine in winter when it has a white coat. It feeds mostly on rodents in the forest. Eventhough this little weasel can grow up to a foot long from nose to tail-tip, it only weighs about 3 ounces. Pic.

The long-tailed weasel, mustela frenata, is also long and skinny growing up to one and a half foot long from nose to tail-tip but weighing only about 14 ounces. This weasel also has a white winter coat and, like its smaller cousin, feeds mostly on rodents in the forest but can also kill rabbits much bigger than itself. Weasels don't attack chickens but they can be egg-stealers. Pic.

The American mink, mustela vison, is our largest weasel. It is nearly always found only near rivers and lakes. It grows to over 2 feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 3 pounds. Fortunately this weasel is not usually a danger to livestock because it seldom approaches human dwellings. Pic.

The river otter, lontra canadensis, grows up to four feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 20 pounds. Like its cousin, the mink, it is seldom found anywhere else except near rivers and lakes and is therefore not a threat to livestock. They eat mostly frogs and crawdads. Pic.

The ringtail, bassariscus astutus, is found locally only in the Umpquah and Siskiyou Mountains east and south of us and down into Mexico. They can grow up to two and a half feet long but their tails are long and fluffy so they seldom weigh more than two and a half pounds. Oldtimers call this critter the "miners' cat" supposedly because the goldminers of California and Oregon used to keep them to kill rats in their camps. Pic.

The raccoon, procyon lotor, of course is found all over the US except the desert Southwest. I had never seen a raccoon until I moved to the USA. My first encounter with raccoons was when I came to California in 1978. I was too poor to rent an apartment while I was living in LA so I pitched a tent in a campground near Malibu and lived there while I worked and saved money.

One night just as I was about to go to sleep in my tent I heard these weird chattering noises outside and the sound of feet pattering around my tent. The next day I told the hippie guy who had a tent next to mine about it. He told me that the campground was built on a sacred Indian burial ground and those were the spirits of angry Indians trying to scare me away. I didn't really believe him but I had never heard such eerie noises in my life so I wasn't sure.

A few years later, when I had a groundfloor apartment in San Francisco, I heard the same noises one night and went outside to check it out. That was the first time I saw raccoons but not the last as San Francisco has a huge raccoon population which scavenge out of garbage cans and steal dog food. Raccoons can grow up to three feet long from nose to tail-tip and weigh 30 pounds. They can and do attack chickens and are the worst egg-stealers. Pic.

The striped skunk, mephitis mephitis, is also a notorious egg-stealer. After deer, opossums, raccoons and porcupines, they are the most common roadkill around here and I love getting a whiff of skunk musk through the car window as I pass a squashed one. Yes, I know I'm weird. I would not like to get a full blast of skunk musk but I really like the smell of it in small whiffs. I don't know which is worse: our dogs attacking porcupines and getting snouts full of quills or attacking skunks and getting sprayed. Once you've pulled the porcupine quills out with pliers, they're gone but the skunk stink seems to last for weeks. The striped skunk grows to two and a half feet long from nose to tail-tip and weighs up to 9 pounds. Pic.

The spotted skunk, spilogale gracilis, is found only on the West Coast from southwest BC to Mexico. It is called "gracilis" because of the graceful little dance that it does when it is agitated. Unlike the striped skunk which turns its body into a U shape to spray, the spotted skunk stands on its fore-paws and flips its tail over its head and lets fly with its spray seemingly standing on its head. It's almost worth getting sprayed just to see this comical act. It's much smaller than the striped skunk and seldom grows longer than two feet from nose to tail-tip and weighs only two pounds. Pic.

The opossum, didelphis virginiana, is originally from the eastern states. I'm not sure how it arrived here but I'm guessing it escaped from zoos and it is now found all along the West Coast from BC to California. Possums make up the bulk of our roadkill apparently because they are rather slow moving and love to scavenge on other roadkill. We also find lots of dead half-eaten young possums all over our land - victims of our cats. I find them fascinating because they are our only marsupial and are unlike any other critter here. They are mostly insectivores but will eat anything including rodents and birds - and they'll steal eggs too. Possums grow up to two and half feet from nose totail-tip and weigh about three pounds. Pic.

Looking back on what I wrote, I realize that our chickens are probably so vicious because they have so many predators. It's not a safe cozy life for chickens out here in the boonies.

The Grand Old Party

I became a Republican on the same day that I became a citizen in 1989 and got a letter of congratulations from Ronald Reagan. Then Bush Sr got in and, since then, I have listened to Republicans complaining that the GOP is going to the dogs and is no longer conservative.

They seem forget that the GOP has not always been the "conservative" party. Lincoln and Teddy R. certainly could not be called conservatives. Eisenhower? Maybe - but he did send troops into the South to enforce desegregation. Nixon loved big government. Bush Sr raised taxes. Only Reagan tried to bring the GOP back to the limited-government Lockean liberalism of the Founders which we nowadays call "conservatism." And our current Bush is not really a conservative. He's more like a big government British Tory than a Reaganite libertarian.

I'm a Republican before being a conservative because of the GOP's history; because it has tried to walk in the row that was hoed by the Founders unlike the Democrats who have a history of undiluted opportunism and hypocrisy. The GOP might not be the "conservative" party but at least it has tried to live up to the hopes of the Founders and it is still the party of American patriots.

I know that the GOP will never be the party of my favorite Republican, Barry Goldwater, without whom we would not have had Reagan or the "Contract with America" or any of the libertarian influences on the GOP which we have come to call "conservatism."

I'm not fond of all the different groups who have taken shelter in the GOP Big Tent over the years. I'm wary of the neocons who came from a socialist background and still like big government. I don't like the theocons like Pat Robertson and I don't trust the paleocons like Pat Buchanan.

The Foley scandal, the recent discovery that the GOP leadership is cynical and disrespectful of the Christian Right and conservatives' disappointment with the GOP-controlled big-spending Congress may drive away those who first came to the GOP through Goldwater and Reagan (especially those in the South) but I also know that there are plenty of patriotic libertarian-minded independents and swing voters who may come into the GOP Big Tent the moment a leader steps forward whose vision comes from the wisdom of our Founders.

The GOP may not be perfect but it is still the party of patriots and Lockean liberals/libertarians who could never subscribe to the Democrats' lack of patriotism and determination to turn the USA into a copy of socialist Europe. And the third parties such as the Constitution, Conservative and Libertarian Parties are full of kooks who have no common-sense or pragmatism.

So, I'll vote Republican as I always do and then I'll hold my political representatives' feet to the fire of the American Revolution which is still ongoing; an unfinished experiment in freedom and individual sovereignty. As long as the Declaration, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are in print, there is hope for the human race because of the eternal truths that they embody.

Marine mammals of Oregon

I have a stack of books on my bedside table which I read through slowly over months. I have recently finished reading one of these books, "Mammals of Washington and Oregon," and I have decided to post about our critters this winter since there are no more flowers till spring.

The pics related to this post are uploaded elsewhere but, if you click on the links marked Pic, a new window will open with a pic of the critter. Or you can click here and a new window with all the pics will open.

The largest mammal in Oregon (okay - off the coast of Oregon) is the humpback whale which can grow up to 60 feet long and weigh 50 tons. They are not really an "Oregon mammal" because they are found in all the oceans of the world. Pic.

The grey whale, which grows to 45-50 feet long and can weigh up to 36 tons, is found only in the northern Pacific mostly along the west coast of North America where they migrate up and down between northern Alaska and Baja California. Pic.

Orcas are also not a specifically "Oregon mammal" and occur in all the oceans. They can grow to 30 feet long and weigh 10 tons. Pic.

The Pacific white-sided dolphin is found only in the northern Pacific. They can grow up to 8 feet long and weigh 300 lbs. They are considered a deep-water species but recently have been coming closer to shore. Pic.

Dall's porpoise grows to only about 6 feet long but can weigh over 300 lbs because of its plump orca-like body. They are found only in the northern Pacific, ranging from Baja California north to Alaska and across the Bering Sea into Siberian and Japanese waters. Pic.

Harbor seals can grow up to over 6 feet long and weigh nearly 400 lbs. They live all along the Pacific coast from Alaska to California but are also found in all parts of the northern oceans. Pic.

Northern elephant seals can travel as far north as British Columbia when not in breeding season. They breed mostly in central and southern California. There is a large colony just south of San Francisco at Ano Nuevo. There is a huge difference between the sizes of males and females. Males can grow up to 16 feet long and weigh over 2 tons. Females grow to about 10 feet long and seldom weigh more than one ton. Pic.

Northern fur seals range from California to Alaska and over to Siberia and Japan. There is a also a big difference between the sizes of males and females. Males can grow up to 7 feet long and weigh 500 lbs. Females grow to about 4 feet long and seldom weigh more than a hundred lbs. Pic.

Like the fur seal, Steller's or northern sea-lions are found from southern California up to Alaska and over to Siberia and Japan. Again there is a marked difference in size between males and females. Males grow to about 10 feet long and weigh up to one ton. Females are usually about 6 feet long and weigh around 600 lbs. Pic.

California sea-lions range from Mexico to Vancouver Island. They breed further south but we have them here from August through April. When they are gathered in a crowd on off-shore rocks, their barking can be heard for miles. Again the males are larger than the females. Males average 7 feet long and weigh about 700 lbs. Females are about 5 feet long and weigh only 200 lbs. Pic.

Sea otters live in scattered populations from southern California to the Aleutian Islands. I have only ever seen them in Monterey Bay south of San Francisco. They can grow to between 3 and 5 feet long (including tail) and weigh from 50 to 100 lbs.

I won't include the northern river otter in this post because it is not a marine mammal. I'll cover it when I do a post about the land mammals of Oregon. Actually I'll break that up into several posts because there are too many for one post. I will also be doing a post just about the critters of Robin's Wood ranging all the way from chipmunks to cougars.

Here are a few pics of the sea otter. (I was tempted to post dozens of pics of this playful creature.)

Six Feet Under Finale

Spoiler alert: If you are a "Six Feet Under" fan and have not seen the finale, then don't watch this.

I started watching "Six Feet Under" years ago but, as I don't get Showtime here in the boonies, I had to wait for the last couple of seasons to come out on DVD. Recently I watched the final season.

"Six Feet Under" is the story of the Fisher family who run a funeral home in LA. The family is dysfunctional to the nth degree and all of the characters are irritatingly neurotic and often despicable but also very realistic. I knew people like this in California. The writing was seldom predictable and it was the most unusual series I have ever seen. For instance - the dead re-appear and have conversations with the living throughout the show.

Each episode opens with the death of the funeral home's next customer - often in bizarre accidents. Yes, the show made death seem comical but also showed that it is simply part of everyday life. This season finale clip is about the youngest member of the Fisher family, Claire, leaving home to drive to New York. As she drives, she reminisces about her family. Then it changes to show how each family member grows old and dies. It was one of the most beautiful things that I have ever seen on TV.

I found a YouTube clip of this on another blog (a moonbat blog that I will not name or link to.) It was a lousy redo of the original so I hunted for the original. Here it is.

Some fowl language

There are no more flowers till Spring so here are a few chick pics.

The latest from RW-CNN*

* RW-CNN = Robin's Wood Chicken News Network.

As I've mentioned before, 42 bantam chicks were born this past Spring. Four of them were immediately beheaded and eaten by the nastiest hens in the flock who are worse than any of the Mohamedanazis. These fowl females don't wear laundry bags aka Abayas, Jilbabs, Caftans, Niqabs, Burkas and Hijabs and they don't stone infidels to death but they are just as bad.

Of the remaining 38 chicks, 25 were cockerels. Two of the cockerels turned out black and had to be segregated from the blond and redhead Nazi cockerels because the latter are racists and do not like black chickens. The remaining 23 cockerels were let go to wander as they please in the forests and meadows of Robin's Wood.

Have you ever heard 23 roosters all crow at the same time? At 4 am? Of course their voices haven't "broken" completely so their cock-a-doodle-dos sound more like eckle-eckle-eek or achoo-achoo-and-a-sneeze. Yes, they're as cute as can be and follow you around the yard like puppies. It's all cupboard love as all they are interested in is food - and fighting.

And they sure can fight. These bantams are game-cocks and bred for fighting. They grab each other by the combs or wings and drag each other around like transvestite whores fighting over johns outside a cheap motel; blood and feathers flying everywhere.

One morning last week, Chas called Andy and me to come look at a hawk perched in the fir tree next to the barnyard. As soon as the hawk realized that it had been spotted, it swooped from the tree into the forest - too quickly to see what kind of hawk it was. The cockerels were all screaming bloody murder and hiding under wheelbarrows and anything they could find. That night when Chas tucked the cockerels into their special little coop for the night, he noticed that there were only 22. The hawk must have gotten number 23.

Now, all of these little roosters were begat by Bertie Wooster, so they are named collectively, "The Bertie Juniors." Pic one is of the original Bertie who begat them all from ten different hens. Four of the Bertie Juniors were begat from the hen next to Bertie Wooster, who is now deceased. We don't know why she died. She just pined away over a few weeks and then kicked the bucket. Pic two is of me holding the first Bertie Junior. Then there are pics of the Berties en masse. Then there are three pics of me feeding the Berties and the last pic is of the Berties sitting on the steps to the veranda next to the grapevine.

"Someone to watch over me"

You get dealt a hand and then watch and wait a bit to see what else life's going to deal you. Then you throw away some cards and hang on to others until slowly a pattern emerges and you realize what kind of hand you've been dealt and soon you're beyond that point in the game where you could change course and decide to build another kind of hand and play another kind of game. What you were dealt with and what choices you have made up to that point of no return eventually lead to an inevitable conclusion that can't be changed.

After I wrote that, I realized that it had been said before and that that analogy had probably been better used in countless poems and country songs. I long ago realized that I could never think an original thought mostly because I'm too cautious and/or lazy and pleasure-loving. I'm very lucky to be as blessed with earthly happiness as I am because I did not do much to get it.

When I was a kid living in a small fishing village in South Africa, us kids looked forward to going to the movies that were shown in the local library every Saturday night. I loved getting there early eventhough my parents didn't have enough money to give me to buy popcorn and a "cool-drink" as we called soda-pop. While the other kids waited in line for popcorn and coke, I would pick my favorite seat and sit back and watch the people as they came in and sat down.....and listen to the music.

The guy who showed the movies only had one "78 rpm record" (how many even know what that was?) with only a couple of tunes on each side which he flipped over several times before the movie. It was a collection of orchestral versions of the popular tunes of the Forties. On one side was a tune which I later discovered had the words, "Take me to you heart again." (Those are some of the English words to "La vie en rose," the song made famous by Edith Piaf.) On the other side was a tune which I later found out had the words "Someone to watch over me."

That was always the last tune to play as the lights went down and the rattle of the projector started up and it's been the tune that has played deep in my soul throughout my life which is why I am not an atheist eventhough I am not religious. I know I didn't make this world and it didn't just happen by accident unless you think such beauty and wonder are just random occurrences. No, it seems to obvious to me that this universe was made to be enjoyed by a creature made in the image of a playful and loving creator.

Sex obsession with children

The Amish killer apparently had raped his toddler relatives when he was twelve and wanted to relive his sick sexual fantasies. Foley is obsessed with teenage boys and claims that he was sexually molested by a clergyman when he was 13. That Karr creep was obsessed with Jon Benet Ramsey. The list just goes on and on.

Now maybe I was living on the moon most of my life but I just did not hear about any of this until after I moved to the USA 28 years ago. Sure there were horror stories like the Moors murders in England in the Sixties but I did not pay much attention to it as it seemed more about murder and I only found out years later that it had been about sex too. I had just never heard about all this sex obsession with children until I came to the USA.

It certainly never happened when I was a kid in South Africa. Maybe that was because nobody talked about it but I lived in a very small village most of my youth and there were no secrets. There were plenty of scandals usually about adultery or abortions but I never heard about adults molesting kids.

My parents weren't perfect. My father never hit me once but my mother was a bit nuts and very violent. I had to run away once when she tried to kill me. But none of my adult relatives or acquaintances ever tried to sexually molest me and none of the kids I knew had ever been molested.

Then I came to the USA and one of the first things that happened was that a neighbor's little boy of seven was abducted from the bus stop and never heard of again. Then another little kid disappeared only to turn up ten years later and tell a story about being held captive as a sex slave by an older man.

At first I thought that it was an "American thing" because I began to hear about things I had never dreamed were done. I met a few women who had been molested by their own fathers and the father of one of my closest friends had raped all of his daughters.

I started to think that maybe I had made a mistake to come to the USA because it seemed so evil. Then I began to wonder if it was happening in other countries and maybe it was just the times that we were living in. I thought that maybe it was because all sexual taboos had been thrown out in the Sixties.

And that may be the case because, as soon as apartheid was gotten rid of in South Africa 17 years ago, it became a lawless society and not only crime soared but so did sex with children until eventually South Africa became notorious as the second best place for pedophiles after Thailand. Tourists (especially from Japan and Germany) flocked to Cape Town to patronize special brothels that sprang up where little orphan "street kids" were kept for sex with adults.

I don't know for a fact if the general "liberalization" and lowering of standards in South Africa contributed to this but it sure seems that way. And maybe that's why it's so prevalent in the USA. The USA is freer (and socially wilder) than anywhere else in the world. Not even Europe has as many AIDS cases as we do. Europeans may be decadent but they are just not as wild as Americans.

Obviously I'm not a scientist and I haven't conducted any studies but it does seem that this obsession with having sex with children seems to go hand in hand with a lowering of moral standards: "anything goes;" "if it feels good, do it" and all the other nonsense that came out of the Sixties.

Of course it didn't help that the Pill freed women from the fear of pregnancy and those women who were irresponsible and immoral began to behave worse than male sexual predators. And, when woman began to be promiscous, it took the brakes off men's behavior too. But none of this is scientific facts just my hunch.

All I know is that it did not seem so bad when it was just adults who treated each other like dirt and used each other for selfish sexual gratification but once adults started using and abusing kids, it got out of hand. It's gotten to the point where I just don't want to hear about it anymore. I don't understand it. To me it's like saying you're attracted to pineapples. It's some sort of mental illness.

It may be time to start executing those adults who use kids for sex. Maybe if a few pedophiles were killed it would put the brakes on this insanity which just seems to get worse each day. I can't believe that socalled civilized adults can behave no better than the Arabs who rape their own sons. I'm just sick and tired of it.

That fool Foley

First an explanation about why I "have a horse in this race:"

As anyone who has read my blog before knows, I am a very different person than the one I used to be in my late teens and twenties in the Sixties. My involvement with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa introduced me to artsy-fartsy types; hippies, communists and homosexuals.

When I left South Africa, I moved to "swinging London" where I took Timothy Leary's advice and "turned on, tuned in and dropped out," lived in hippie communes, experimented with every drug that I could lay my hands on, flirted with the gay lifestyle, got myself a Hindu guru and was even (I kid you not) a vegetarian for 15 years. Yep, I was a flower child all right and eventually I moved to the flower-child capital of the world, San Francisco.

If you're going to San Francisco,
Be sure to wear some flowers in your hair.

I did - with bells on.

The trouble was that I never really fit in with the leftie crowd. I couldn't stand Marxism, realized that hippies were just basically as selfish as everyone else, found gays to be superficial, narcissistic and debauched and discovered that deep down I was pretty stuffy and old-fashioned.

In San Francisco I was still a devotee of the Hindu guru. Now, the reason that I still followed him was that he had shown me an alternative way to get high without drugs and sex and I felt that I had a duty to show others that they didn't have to destroy their lives with mind-altering poisons and promiscuity.

Under the guru's auspices, I started an outreach program to gays and hippies. That was how I met Chas and Andy, my fellow merry men at Robin's Wood. We have a standing joke between us and that is that I saved them from getting dragged into the hippie/gay lifestyle and they saved me from the Hindu guru, who turned out to be just a another greedy money-grabbing phony.

Anyway, I'll save the rest of that story for my "Confessions of a Teenage Flowerchild." The only reason that I mention it now is that I want to talk about Rep. Mark Foley (R-Fla) and I wanted to make it clear where I'm coming from.

Hardly any conservatives have addressed this issue. Well, let's face it: it's a hot potato. Even I thought for the past couple of days, "I won't touch it with a ten foot pole." I also haven't wanted to talk about it because of course the Democrats and leftie bloggers are all crowing and exalting at the fall of a Republican - "Oh goody, another Republican scandal!"

First let me say that, being a very partisan Republican, I am really PO'ed that we lost a sure seat to the Democrats because of this idiot. Second, let me add that, yes, I do judge Foley badly.

Let's get the pedophilia accusation out of the way. Foley is not a pedophile. Pedophiles prey on little kids of either gender. They are not interested in sex so much as power and control. Foley preyed on adolesecent boys just the way that the Catholic priests did.

People say to me that the Catholic child-molestation scandal was a pedophile scandal. No it wasn't. It was a homosexual scandal. I know. I was in a Catholic monastery just before the Sixties changed the Catholic church and gays started to become priests and I knew many Catholic priests in San Francisco who died of AIDS. How many priests molested girls? Hardly any. How many priests molested little boys? None. Most of them molested adolescent boys. They were homosexual and took advantage of their religious authority to satisfy their homosexual lusts. Like those priests, Foley is a homosexual not a pedophile.

Now, let's get this out of the way: I don't condemn gays as long as they keep what they do private. I'm not saying that they should lie and stay "in the closet" the way Foley did. It's just that no one really is interested in anyone else's private life. Foley was "in the closet" - except most of DC knew that he was queer. I don't know what possessed this idiot to do what he did. All I know is that what Foley did disgusts me even more than what Clinton did to Lewinsky. At least Lewinsky was an adult. I'm also angry that the GOP lost a sure seat because of this idiot. He's lucky I don't live in Florida because he'd have a busted nose and missing front teeth.

I'll probably have more to say on this subject. What do you think?

Dahlias

Note: I have uploaded 42 pictures of dahlias (out of the hundreds that I have collected over the years.) Six of them are on this page. The remaining 36 are on another page. If you want to see them click on this link and let them download while you read the rest of this post.

The dahlia is a native of Mexico. Although they were discovered by 16th century Spanish conquistadors, it was not until 200 years later that seeds and tubers were brought back to Madrid - as a food source. The Mexicans had used the tubers much the same way that we use potatoes nowadays. The tubers and seeds spread all over Europe but never became popular as potato substitutes. In 1770 it was named "Dahlia" in honor of the 18th century Swedish botanist, Anders Dahl, who was a pupil of Linnaeus, the father of modern botany.

Horticulturalists began to experiment with the flowers in the early 1800s. Double and triple blooms were developed but it was not until a box of dahlia tubers were sent from Mexico to Holland in 1872 that what we know as the modern dahlia was born. Only one tuber in the whole box survived but it turned out to be an unusual red "sport" with pointed instead of rounded petals. The Dutch interbred it with the hybrids that they had developed so far and the rest is history. The dahlia is now grown in gardens all over the world.

The dahlia is probably the most "artificial" of all garden flowers in that the flowers that we know today are nothing like the simply potato-like tuber that originated in Mexico. Horticulturalists have produced thousands of cultivars in every shape, size and color imaginable. The reason that dahlias can produce so many variations is because they are octoploids; that is they have eight sets of homologous chromosomes, whereas most plants have only two.

The first picture shows what the original dahlia species looks like. From this plain white flower came thousands of cultivars. The next five pictures give you some idea of the different shapes, sizes and colors. They are all large files and can be clicked to enlarge. The remaining 36 pics are on another page. If you haven't opened that page yet but are now curious to see them, click here.