HI –
First, an announcement: Doug Harter has updated the Xanth Character Database through #46 Six Crystal Princesses now coming on sale. That’s the one where two children set out to rescue six princesses locked into timeless crystals by a dragon. They know about it because Princess Ida was there for an indefinite time, but escaped, and now her children are setting things right. Things complicated, as for some reason they tend to in Xanth, and they wind up creating a new country, the Queendom of Thanx, which is sort of Xanth spelled backwards. Feminists should like this one.
MaryLee and I remain on the tree farm, still hiding from the pandemic. For our two year and two month anniversary – don’t hassle us about counting days; my first marriage lasted over 63 years, and while I’m not certain my second will last as long, I’m tracking it, and so is she; neither of us have experienced a second marriage before, and it’s challenging territory, as you may discover when you get into yours – we watched the DVD movie Ghost in the Shell. This is one of a trio on a disc I got from the $5 bin at Walmart, over five hours total, I being a sucker for bargains. The other two are Aeon Flux and The Island. We may have seen them before, but will watch them again, they being our kind of junk. Stay tuned. This one features Scarlett Johansson in a 2017 film. I’m not much for the names of actors, being mostly concerned with the story, being a storyteller myself. You didn’t know? Oh, you’re a critic! What’s a mean lout like you doing in a place like this, surrounded by my loyal fans? But back to the movie. This is set in a future hi-tech world where technology enhances people who need it. The protagonist, Major, was rescued from death by getting her whole body replaced, only her brain being natural, and even that is compromised by memory problems. It’s a good body, nice to look at, especially the nude scenes, yet strong and fast enough to wipe out packs of aggressive gunmen. Much of the movie seems to consist of repeated slam bang action in semi-darkness; that may be what contemporary movie makers think is a story. In my day, in the other century, we knew better. Ah, well; if I should ever get input on the actual making of a movie I will make sure the story is there, providing viewers a novel experience. Who knows, they might even like it. Regardless, Major discovers that her memory is not to be trusted; she wasn’t rescued, she was taken, as she was a good prospect for profitable activity. So her quest becomes knowledge of herself. We did enjoy it, despite its limitations. As I said, our kind of junk.
And the weather. JeJune normally starts what I call the local monsoon season, with much of our rain falling in the four month summer season, JeJune through SapTimber. Last year we got almost 15 inches in JeJune. But the locale evidently didn’t get the word this year. We got a scant 3 inches in JeJune, then on the second of Jewel-Lye a storm brought two inches in one hour, a deluge. Yes, I’m running late; the column should have been put up in the site already. You might think that at my age I’d have way too much time on my hands; no, I’m chronically pressed for time. I’m living that saying “The hurrieder I go, the behinder I get.”
Perhaps the main news event of the past month is that the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. That means that the individual states can now pass laws restricting or forbidding abortion, and Republican governed states are eagerly getting to it, and the hell with the majority preference. My take is perhaps unique: I don’t like abortions, as I regard them as killing novice babies who have committed no crimes against anyone, truly innocent. If there is guilt, it is that of their parents, who shouldn’t have generated them if they didn’t want them. But I also feel that it should be the mother’s choice. Accidents do happen, contraceptives don’t work, and some techniques are unreliable. The one method approved by the Catholic Church is rhythm, having sex only when the cycle is wrong so she won’t get pregnant. The bitter joke there is, what do you call a woman who uses the rhythm method? A mother. Sometimes a woman conceives by rape or incest and shouldn’t have to bear a baby she had no choice about conceiving. Sometimes losses can’t be helped. My wife Carol and I lost three babies before we got two we could keep; her uterus was divided by a septum that left only about half of it for a baby, and when the growing babies ran out of room, they were expelled. Technically these were abortions, and that’s the root of my dislike. But if any of those miscarriages had occurred in a state that forbade abortions, could we have been imprisoned for losing babies we desperately wanted to keep? Each case is individual, and needs to be judged that way, not by an impersonal law that bans common sense. To me if you don’t want a baby, practice contraception. The fact that most abortion banners also seem to want to ban contraception is a red flag to me. Is it sex itself they are trying to punish as a sin? Because I understand that most abortions are sought by married women, so it’s not sex outside marriage at fault. As has been pointed out elsewhere, abortions won’t stop, they will merely be driven underground, with unsafe methods, so women will die. We saw it when they tried to ban alcohol, and it became a thriving criminal business. More than half are done via pills, which are much easier to conceal than clinics; will they start inspecting all mail orders to catch that? What about women traveling to other states where abortions are legal; will all women have to suffer intimate examinations to be sure they’re not pregnant, and have to cancel vacations if they are, regardless of their intentions? More ominously, I see this as an early round in a “conservative” agenda out to destroy democracy in America in favor of a rightist dictatorship. Right now we are seeing how it is with Russia’s leftist dictatorship, where the people are lied to and restricted and punished if they try to protest. Different system, same raw deal. A NEW SCIENTIST editorial says that the US maternal mortality rate is the highest of any wealthy nation; this will increase that. Already in America they are orienting on same-sex marriage, not liking gays. I fear that all too soon they will come after Jews, and Blacks, and Hispanics, and other minorities, and the disabled, and of course liberals. A letter in the local newspaper by Nancy Tomaselli says “The Supreme Court now speaks of reviewing access to contraception, same sex marriage and marriage intimacy. We have legislators and jurists curiously fixed an sexual issues.” She concludes “How long before they begin executing witches?” How long, indeed. Will they censor free speech after they abolish the First Amendment as unconstitutional? There’s not much limit to what a stacked court will do. You think I’m exaggerating? If you want to gamble, wait and see, trusting that it won’t be too late when they come for you. The Hightower Lowdown has an issue on it, saying “They have brought the corrupt money, fraud, banality, trickery, dishonesty, and rabid partisanship of modern campaigning all the way to the Supreme Court.” I think this needs to be stopped before they succeed in eliminating any fair popular vote. They are already all too far advanced in that. So yes, I do feel that the Supreme Court has been corrupted, and that democracy itself is at stake. I’m a naturalized citizen; I chose this country, believing in its principles. I’d hate to see them subverted. One answer is to increase the size of the court to twelve jurors, the new ones caring about freedom and honor. The political spoilers need to be voted out while it is still possible to vote and have it count. The next election may signal whether individual liberty will survive in America. An item in THE WEEK for June 17, 2022, is titled “2024: the GOP plan to nullify election results.” That pretty well covers it.
I received a copy of the 10th Anniversary Issue of BERKSHIRE Magazine. I looked up the word and learned it’s a county in England. But the ads were for Vermont, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts. So I looked again, and learned the Berkshires are low hills in western Massachusetts, south of Vermont’s Green Mountains. I saw incidentally that New Hampshire has White Mountains, and Maine has Blue Mountains. Colorful New England country. It’s an elegant slick issue, evidently promotional for the region as a tourist destination. There are some interesting items. On page 64 there’s a picture of a sculpture of a blue face with a naked figure painted below the left eye, the eye itself becoming the head of the figure. That’s the kind of thing you can see in their art gallery. There’s also hot air ballooning there. Also moving metal art. Also, if the pictures really are typical of the region, pretty girls scattered around. I admit to being impressed. Maybe we’ll visit, if the pandemic ever ends.
Periodically I have to clip back intruding foliage along our three quarter mile drive. This bothers me, because I feel for plants as I do for animals and people, and don’t like to harm them. They are not trying to bother anyone. They are just trying to find a little light in the forest where the drive lets it in. What is their reward? Getting cut out. Innocence punished, like abortion. For example, beautyberry, which forms purple berries. When cut, the stem emits a sweet fragrance, the smell of its blood, as it were. Damn, I feel guilty! I leave what I can, especially the magnolia trees and sabal palmettos, the state tree of Florida. MaryLee and I were married beside one of those. But we do need to keep the drive clear. The storm brought down a neighboring tree whose topmost foliage blocked our drive; I did what I could with hand clippers so we could squeeze by, as we had grocery shopping to do, and next day brought a small hand saw to lop off the main part. MaryLee likes to take pictures on her phone, which she will probably put up somewhere, so fans who like to watch geezers wrestling with foliage will have another treat. She sees me as a lumberjack; please don’t disabuse her too harshly.
I paged through another book during my impatient one minute waits for the WiFi to connect for the email. I liked Desmond Morris’s Body Watching, so I checked his Animal Watching. This, too, is fascinating. Again, I have to skim lightly through its immense detail, sampling what deserves much fuller treatment. He remarks in the introduction that the moving human body is large and obtrusive, but sit down quietly and after while you become invisible and nature resumes its interrupted activities. He manages to see a lot that way, and picked up related information. A typical locust swarm can contain 40 thousand million – that is, in American, 40 trillion – individuals. A record swarm was said to stretch for 2,000 miles. It caries the seeds of their own downfall, as a typical swarm devours 20,000 tons of vegetation every day. As, he remarks, do we humans. There is an optimal group size that we have exceeded so dramatically that we are well on the way to massive self destruction. “Like locust swarms, we will experience a vast population crash at some point, one that will drag us back to a more natural level.” Yes, I see and fear that. Chances are I’ll be dead of old age before it comes, but I hate to think that those who come later will suffer a pretty literal hell. The book goes through 34 chapters of aspects, starting with Why does the zebra have stripes? There are nine theories, but no single one is certain. Maybe some day there will come a tenth theory that truly explains it. Some creatures use protective armor, but these are not the smartest. “In general, armored animals are like rich people – insulated from the real hazards of life and therefore less ‘streetwise’ and opportunist.” Some have chemical defenses, like the tiny kakoi frogs of South America that carry in their skin glands a toxin so powerful that one gram of it could kill a hundred thousand average sized men. I’m glad I’m not into eating frogs! Some snakes are poisonous. There are 2,300 harmless species, and only 400 poisonous ones, but people tend to fear all snakes. Some jellyfish, too. I remember when my cousin Dotsy and I were standing ankle deep on a Florida beach, circa 1950, when a Portuguese Man-o’-War washed up and its stinging tail wrapped around our ankles. We tried to pull it away, but it just broke into pieces, stinging our hands and arms as well as our legs. Each sting was maybe half that of a bee sting, but there were hundreds of them. Ouch!
The book says there are about one and a half million different kinds of life forms on the planet today. It is copyrighted 1990, and I believe that many more have been found in the last three decades. It says 4,000 mammals, 9,000 birds, 6,000 reptiles, 3,000 amphibians, 20,000 fish, 80,000 mollusks (shellfish, octopuses, squids), 4,000 echinoderms (starfish, sea urchins), 923,000 arthropods (insects, spiders, scorpions, crustaceans), 9,000 coelenterates (jellyfish, sea-anemones, corals), and 66,000 lower forms (worms, microbes). That sort of puts us in our place. Over twice as many birds as mammals, and two hundred times as many bugs. I once read elsewhere that if you weighed all the animals on a scale, the bugs would outweigh everything else. And we haven’t even considered the plants. Eating varies, with hummingbirds needing to eat half their body weight in nectar every day. Should a man expend as much energy as a hummingbird, weight for weight, he would heat up to 750 degrees Fahrenheit, beyond the melting point of lead, and burst into flames. So how do hummingbirds make it through the night without eating? They go into a state of suspended animation, reducing their energy output to one twentieth that of normal sleeping. One disturbingly interesting thing about eating is the way the female praying mantis eats the head of the male as he copulates with her. That removes the inhibitory center, and he continues pumping sperm into her body while she feasts. I’m glad that human females have not caught on to that device. Some spiders entangle the female in silken threads, then mate with her while she can’t get at them. So it’s rape or death. Some animals use tools; man is not the only one. Some birds do it. Among fish one shoots down bugs with jets of water, so water is a tool. Fighting: animals seldom do it. Humans have become overcrowded, and make war, but animals generally are more peaceful. Birds bathe in water, but some bathe in dust or sand, which are just as good for plumage cleaning. The house sparrow uses both. The mating season brings courtship displays and songs by many animals. The song of a humpback whale can be heard for hundreds of miles on a good day. Mating can be difficult; the male lion’s penis is barbed, and injures the female. The shock to her body triggers ovulation so conception can take place. Nesting varies widely; weaver birds make huge communal nests that can measure as much as 20 by 13 by3 feet. That’s great for protection, but if a heavy rain soaks it it may crash to the ground like a bombed apartment building. Some orioles nest near wasp nests, where monkeys won’t raid them. Then there are the edible nests of the swiftlet, used to make bird’s nest soup. And the domed nest of the Cape penduline tit, with a fake entrance to fool predators. And termite nests, up to 20 feet high and 100 feet across, mostly underground, air conditioned, with up to ten million workers. And play – there’s a wonderful picture of a tiny lion cub biting the haunch of the daddy lion, who is dramatically roaring with pain. Finally, sleeping behavior. Sleep has been a human mystery throughout, so maybe the animals have a hint why it exists and seems necessary. One theory is that at the end of the day there is mental filing to be done. That’s my belief. But the animal kingdom does not necessarily agree. Different species sleep for different amounts of time: the sloth sleeps 20 hours a day, armadillos for 19, squirrels for 14, mice for 13, chimps and rabbits 10, guinea pigs and cows 7, horses 5 and giraffes 4. The highly active shrew does not sleep at all. If it is mental filing, humans should be the greatest sleepers of all. Instead we’re in the middle, with 7 or 8 hours a day. And what about dreaming? So far we don’t seem to have an answer. A current sleep theory is that it immobilizes creatures when it’s not safe to be out and around, thus contributing to their survival. I doubt that’s the whole story, but we’ll see. The animal kingdom is fabulous! So is this book; I recommend it.
I receive catalogs galore, and some of them are interesting. Sometimes I buy; more often I just look. Here are some examples of my looks. A sign saying “Studies have shown women who carry a little extra weight live longer than men who mention it.” A T-shirt saying “I have sexdaily dyslexia.” Other tees saying “I haven’t lost my mind … half of it just wandered off and and the other half went looking for it.” “Yes I know they pick on you at school and call you names, but you still have to go. You’re the teacher!” “I can’t believe how old people my age are.” “Everyone is born right handed. Only the gifted overcome it.” My wife’s a lefty. “I told my wife to embrace her mistakes. She hugged me.”
I gained on another back magazine, The Progressive, April/May 2022. A senior care facility decided that one of their older occupants was getting too expensive to maintain, so they summarily evicted her with no advance notice, in effect tossing her out onto the street. But this time they pulled that stunt on the wrong person, because her son was the editor of The Progressive, Bill Lueders. Sometimes a wrongdoer stirs up a hornets’ nest with hornets the size of basketballs. The facility was found in violation and ordered to pay a fine of $1,500, an insulting token. Nevertheless, the facility is appealing the case. The magazine issue also has a page on other things of interest, like a proposed Oklahoma law that would let parents seek damages of $10,000 a day for every day that a book targeted for removal remains in a school library, plus attorney’ fees and court costs. This applies to any book that deals with the study of sex, sexual preferences, sexual activity, sexual perversion, classifications, identity or simply being of a sexual nature, that any parent objects to. In other words, he kisses her, and the stork delivers a baby, if that’s not too explicit. That’s the way it is in my fantasy Land of Xanth, and would you believe it, some readers do find it too graphic. Thou shalt not flash thy panties in Oklahoma. I’m glad I don’t live there any more. Another item tells how the director of the Florida Department of Health on Orange County, Florida, was suspended for urging his office employees to be vaccinated. When it comes to political idiocy, Florida is at the top of the totem. Another is how the collective wealth of US billionaires increased by 70 percent in the 18 months following the onset of the pandemic, to a total of $5 trillion. The world’s ten richest people now have six times as much as its poorest 3.1 billion people. Fortunately some of us are in between. And another magazine, FREE INQUIRY for June/July 2022, is mostly devoted to “Humanism and Wokism.” I, being from another century, am not up on Wokism. I thought a wok was a bowl-shaped plate for cooking Chinese food. It seems that to be currently with it you have to be wok. After reading about it, I am not sure I want to be wok. Not if it is being used to exclude folk who have their own opinions.
The Equedia Letter for June 5, 2022, tells how the big island off the tip of India, Sri Lanka (in my day it was Ceylon) lost its independence to China. They borrowed billions of dollars for “white elephant” projects that failed, and China seized their lands as collateral. Now they are slaves in their own country. “However you look at it, China’s predatory lending is a modern colonization of the Third World in pursuit of Xi’s imperialistic agenda. And it’s been going on for nearly a decade now.” It seems that the Bush family, the Bidens, and other members of the American elite made lucrative deals with China to make this happen. Mike Pence, as vice president, was the first to call out China on its “death trap diplomacy.” China figures to become, in due course, the world power. They are getting there. The issue for Juns 12, 2022, starts “Imagine borrowing and spending as much money as you want. And you never have to pay it back. In fact someone else pays it for you.” That’s essentially what America’s deficit spending is. America closed out 2021 just shy of $30 trillion in federal debt. It acquired more debt in the past ten years than in the previous 45 combined. As a share of GDP it’s the highest since WWII ended over 74 years ago. It eats up one seventh of all tax revenue. At this rate, interest payments on the 2051 federal debt will exceed the tax revenues by 46%. That’s just the official, on-the-books debt; it doesn’t include Medicare and Social Security. Add them in, and it’s over $100 trillion. So what are they doing about it? Stay tuned. I don’t completely trust Equedia, but these are things we need to think about.
I continue to write Xanth #48 Three Novel Nymphs, trusting that it won’t be banned in Oklahoma, and it is 90,000 words along, with one chapter to go. The girls are now in the Galaxy Andromeda, getting ready to try to free the chained legendary princess, actually the Demoness of Change, Andromeda, before the monster devours her. The universe is shaking as the monster comes. Will they be able to save her before reality is either blown away or collapses into a nothing state? If you’re still around when it gets published, probably they succeeded. But don’t gamble on it; read the book to be sure.
And the clippings. Start with a newspaper cartoon labeled Airplanes 2022, showing a passenger liner knotted up like a pretzel by cancellations, saying “Good luck, suckers!” You thought you’d fly to a summer vacation? Items on the Uvalde, Texas, school massacre, where the cops stayed clear over an hour, giving the killer plenty of time to shoot ten year old children. They claimed the doors were locked. No, they could not be locked from the inside; the cops could have charged right in, but apparently were more concerned for their own hides than for the lives of the kids. Letter in the local newspaper, THE CITRUS CHRONICLE, by Thomas Mitchell of Inverness. The Washington Post says that the percentage of people who used a gun is similar to that of Americans who say they were abducted by aliens. That makes me wonder whether they would shoot the aliens, or wait an hour for the abduction to be complete. The letter continues to point out that a firearm is far more often used in a homicide than than self defense. In fact more are stolen each your than are used in self defense. More guns are used to assist in suicides than to protect families. Of all suicide attempts, 8.5 percent result in death. That rises to 90% when a gun is used. Since 2,000 the number of firearms made each year has nearly tripled. So what’s to be done about it? The mentally ill should be prevented from buying and owning guns. There should be universal background checks, closing the gun show loophole. Red flag laws need to be enacted. High capacity magazines were used in about half of the mass shootings, along with semi-automatic rifles. Guns are the top causes of young people’s deaths. And change the law so that victims can sue gun companies. More than70 percent of Americans agree with these changes, yet Republicans in Congress do nothing. The letter concludes “Enough is enough.” Amen. So far this year America has averaged 10 mass shootings of four or more people every week. One comment is that trying to end America’s “orgy of death” with the weak measures being discussed is akin to “trying to stop a rhinoceros with a flyswatter.” Other nations see us as allowing the massacre of children. A French editorial says “America is killing itself” and the Republican Party is ideologically complicit, being in thrall to the gun lobby. Elected officials representing 118 million citizens were able to defeat those chosen by 194 million. So it will continue.
The clippings continue. Item in NEW SCIENTIST 11 June 2022 says that an advanced computer goes public. The Borealis quantum computer is publicly available to anyone with an internet connection. That is, one that can beat conventional computers. I wonder whether it knows why there is something rather than nothing, enabling the universe to exist, when logic suggests it shouldn’t? Another article in the same issue by Tevy Kuch says that computer generated influencers look, sound, and post on social media like real humans. One is named Serah Reikka; another is Shadu. The Turing test is supposed to clarify whether a computer can fake a living person well enough to fool others. What about when your neighbor or your girlfriend turns out to be a robot? It will be really scary when you learn your mother is a robot. Another item says that some disease risks rise with your height. Being taller can increase your risk of heart palpitations, and of developing nerve damage and skin and bone infections. The taller you are, the higher the risk. When I graduated from ninth grade, I was the shortest member of my class, male and female, being exactly five feet tall. Later I grew another ten and a half inches, achieving average height, and now in old age I’ve lost an inch or two. Maybe that’s just as well. From the June 24 issue: “The Big Lie”, it seems is less of a literal belief for Trump supporters, and more a reflection of their belief that they are entitled to rule. They argue that only conservative white Christians should have the vote, so our present system is fraudulent. A 24 year old Indian woman is planning a three day gala wedding ceremony, minus a groom. Kshama Bindu will marry herself. She just wants to be a bride, not a wife. She’ll have a two week honeymoon. “I might fall in love with myself even more.” Also in that issue, the Jan. 6 committee lays out a damning case against Trump. I rather doubt he will make it back to the presidency; prison seems more likely. A Google engineer was put on leave after he claimed to have made a sentient machine. That is, conscious. I don’t know whether it really is, but I do believe that conscious machines are in the future. One of my novels, To Be A Woman, features a female robot made as a pleasure girl who achieves consciousness, then sues to be recognized as a person. The opposition hammers at her. “You will never conceive by your lover, you will never be pregnant, you will never birth a baby, you will never be a mother. You’re a machine!” She bursts into tears, sobbing “It’s true. It’s true. I’ll never be a mother!” She thinks she has lost her case, but actually she has won, because only a conscious, feeling person would react that way. The men of the jury are embarrassed; the women are reaching out to her in sympathy and understanding. One of a woman’s most cherished dreams is to be a mother. A cartoonist at the trial draws a two sided cartoon, with a parody of the opposition lawyer looking like a mechanical Frankenstein monster, labeled “Person,” because a corporation is a legal person. The other panel is labeled “Machine,” showing a comely young woman sobbing into her hands. How’s that for irony? Maybe in time this will play out for real.
Newspaper item titled “Scientifically proven ‘Fountain of Youth’” by Dr. Rushi Patel lists the secrets of a long life. Move naturally, but do keep moving. Have a sense of purpose. Learn to shed stress. Stop eating when your stomach is 80 percent full. Eat beans, soy and lentils; cut down on meat. Drink alcohol moderately. Belong to a faith based community. Put your family first. Belong to a social circle that supports healthy behavior. Okay, I follow most of these, except that as an agnostic I don’t belong to a faith based community. Unless you count the Humanists. I don’t see why belonging to a fantasy religion should lengthen my life, unless the illusion generates a better lifestyle. Covid, it seems we face a sixth wave, but most folk are in denial, preferring to believe that the pandemic is over. MaryLee and I know better. We stay mostly home, and always use masks when we leave the house. Covid is now linked to impotence and erectile dysfunction. I call that a f*cking shame. Virtual reality is prospering; now there is an answering machine that can reach a person inside such a reality, so he/she can communicate with the outside without departing the scene, as it were. Article by Caroline Williams in NEW SCIENTIST for 14 May, 2022, titled “Your second skin,” discusses the fascia, connective tissue that hold together muscles, organs, and other parts of the internal body. It has been largely ignored until recently, but it’s a sensory organ that may be the key to tackling chronic pain. It is, as it turns out, not at all an inert wrapping; it’s a body-wide network. We need to know more about it. Before it was the Catholics; now it’s the Southern Baptists with a sexual abuse cover-up. Evangelical leaders routinely silenced and disparaged victims, sometimes treating them with outright hostility. One victim called it “soul murder.” It is apparent that religion does not necessarily ennoble; it can be corrupt. Item in NEW SCIENTIST says that circular cities have more rain than square cities, and triangular cities have the least rain. I suspect it relates to the area enclosed by the boundaries; circular is the most efficient. Genetically modified bacteria learn to play tic-tac-toe. They trained them by punishing wrong moves with a dose of antibiotics. Ouch! I feel for those bacteria. A new book, Regenesis: feeding the World without devouring the planet, by George Monbiot, argues that farming is killing our planet. Human habitations cover 1 percent, crops cover 12 percent, animal grazing areas cover 28 percent, and only 15 percent is protected for nature. One solution is using bacteria to make protein. Vagina Obscura: An anatomical voyage, by Rachel E. Gross uncovers the sexism, misconceptions, and biases that have led to our fragmented understanding of the female reproductive system. It turns out that humans have a vaginal microbiome completely different from those of other animals. It may be that when humans settled down and started fermenting food, some of those bacteria got into the vagina and found it compatible. Exercising in the evening is more effective than exercising in the morning. Sigh, I’m a morning exerciser. An outfit called The Spinlaunch centrifuge may launch satellites into orbit in the future; it might change the future of space flight. The larva of the darkling beetle can feed on polystyrene. Maybe this will lead to a way to recycle Styrofoam. Cats may chew catnip in order to repel mosquitoes. That reminds me of a revelation in my novel in progress Three Novel Nymphs, where it turns out that Gorgonzola cheese has the same effect on gorgons that catnip does on cats. So if you should be stalked by a gorgon, divert it with some of that cheese. This is a public service announcement.
And yes, my mail-ordered hearing aids continue to work as reliably as the expensive ones. Except that the one for my right ear makes it hurt, being a bit thick for an ear reduced in size by surgery in 1992 to cut out cancer. I will survive.
Until when —
