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by CKR
Fear not! Phila is still alive and well, although not posting.
He sent me a link last night to some lovely photos. It took me a minute, but I recognized the location: a small waterfall between Toila and Ontika on the glint, the cliff at the Baltic Sea, in northeast Estonia. I've been there, but in a very different season. The first photo is from the link; the second, from my files.
Many thanks to Phila and to orang_m, the photographer!
by CKR
Once again, the urge to stay within the bureaucratic comfort zone has spent a lot of money for results that are nothing much.
Boeing, the builder of USA 193, that new-concept spy satellite that never functioned properly and was shot down last week, has now failed to deliver what it promised in the famous "virtual fence" along the US-Mexican border.
The Bush administration has scaled back plans to quickly build a "virtual fence" along the U.S.-Mexico border, delaying completion of the first phase of the project by at least three years and shifting away from a network of tower-mounted sensors and surveillance gear, federal officials said yesterday.That bureaucratic comfort zone is defined by the guys they've done business with before, the murmur of congressional desires for jobs in my district everpresent, and, occasionally, the hope of big bucks with a contractor in life after government. So Boeing it is, never mind that they've never built a satellite, never mind that they've never done border (or any other kind of) surveillance.
Over budget and behind schedule. That's not an element of the comfort zone. Too bad for the taxpayers.
[I'll question if we need that "virtual fence," too. But that's another post.]
by CKR
My friends have been grousing that none of the candidates are really talking about foreign policy, and that the media probably wouldn’t cover it if they did. I think I saw at least one op-ed to that effect over the weekend, too.
Among the reams of advice that Hillary Clinton is now receiving was the suggestion that she make a couple of serious and bold policy speeches before the next primaries. She scheduled a foreign policy speech for yesterday, February 25. I was wondering why it was in Washington rather than one of the upcoming primary states, but I guess that’s where foreign policy’s Very Serious People reside.
I checked the major news outlets over the day for the speech. It didn’t make the Washington Post, but it did reach the New York Times’s “The Caucus” blog and The News Hour. Here’s the text from Clinton’s website. Oddly, the video clip I saw on The News Hour didn’t track with the website text.
I’ve got several questions about that speech. I was expecting a bold statement of a new vision. President Bush has made that easy to do, having botched foreign policy in most dimensions. The possibilities are many: Demilitarize foreign policy. Move toward a world without nuclear weapons. A new vision for the Middle East.
I would have liked to hear an overarching theme and how that would change the United States’ approach to the rest of the world. That’s the best way to do foreign policy. The thousands of specific decisions them must flow from that.
On reading the text at Clinton’s website, I have to wonder who her speechwriters are and why she puts up with them. It’s titled “Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton's Remarks on Foreign Policy at George Washington University.” Informal remarks are often transcribed as they are spoken and cannot be expected to be as tightly constructed as a formal speech. But what I read beforehand indicated that this would be a major policy speech, not informal remarks. The inconsistency with The News Hour’s clip makes me wonder about this, but if there was a formal speech, I would expect it to be posted at Clinton’s website.
There was no overarching theme, nor much structure to the speech. It is incoherent, topics skipping loosely from paragraph to paragraph, and paragraphs whose sentences appear to have been chosen at random. I had hoped to pull the noteworthy points, as I did with the candidates’ articles in Foreign Affairs, but it’s not possible, and I am too tempted to pull some of the more egregious incoherencies. So read the speech and see what you think.
It was easy to review Clinton’s Foreign Affairs article. She had the bullet points down in logical order. I don’t understand why a major foreign policy speech couldn’t do that, even if it didn’t present an overarching vision.
Last night’s News Hour presented a contrast: Senators Joe Biden and Chuck Hagel reporting on their trip to Central Asia and Turkey. Biden and Hagel are clear and specific as to how they see the problems and possible solutions. I recommend it to Clinton’s speechwriters as a model.
By PHK
See "Favoritism in the Ranks Saga Continues at State" May 27, 2008 for update to this post.
Last week, I reviewed the results of the American Foreign Service Association’s fall 2007 survey of active duty Foreign Service employees for a talk I was giving here in Albuquerque, New Mexico. As I reread the survey’s summary of responses on AFSA’s website, it came even clearer to me than previously that the major issue affecting Foreign Service members was the perception – at least - of undue favoritism in the State Department that benefited far too few individuals. Such charges can be part and parcel of any organization – but when they are believed by so many people on the inside they need additional investigation to help separate fact from fiction. So I thought I’d dig around a little this past week to see whether or not the perception of favoritism at the State Department was real.
Maybe this is simply the sign of the times in these United States – the widening division between the haves and the have nots. Maybe it is the result of an excessively hierarchical system worsened by, in my view, an unnecessary division into two classes of professional US Foreign Service employees: the Senior Foreign Service and the regular services, a divided and unnecessarily divisive system that since it’s inception almost 30 years ago has over-compensated a few at the expense of too many. This is one reason why today the Foreign Service lacks enough qualified officers trained in Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Russian and other difficult languages.
Whatever the reason, the AFSA survey hit - with its very high response rate - a raw nerve among State Department higher ups and resulted in denials by several. Those who most vociferously objected to the survey’s veracity, of course, were a few of the very people who have also most benefited from the system the way it is.
Survey results mischaracterized in too much of the MSM
Meanwhile, the AFSA survey results were mischaracterized. misconstrued and often twisted in too much of the US main stream media. Although there were a very few exceptions, the vast majority of stories stressed the Iraq policy and forced assignments issue as the most important. Wrong. In reality, Iraq policy was not the major issue for respondents although, in fact, many disapproved. The top issues had primarily to do with problems of favoritism. Reporters, evidently, took too little time to read the three page AFSA survey including reviewing its graphs. Perhaps the reporting was so poor because most reporters failed to understand the Byzantine Foreign Service system. If that was the case, however, they could, and should, have asked.
Solvable inequities
From what I’ve discovered through my own research, albeit only the years 2006-8, the impressions recorded in the AFSA Survey were dead right on the perception of excessive favoritism. In fact, the survey results appear to have correctly identified two key issues that should demand the Department’s attention now, not later. Unlike the quagmire that is Iraq, these inequities can, and should, be easily resolved.
They are as follows:
Continue reading "Why the AFSA Survey Is Right: Favoritism Charge is Real" »
Democrats are trying to figure out whether Barak Obama, who has attracted so many independent votes in the primaries, will be able to garner the same support in the general elections. The Washington Post, for example, is running stories with titles like “Obama's Red-State Prospects Unclear; Democrat's Support May Have Limits” and “Could Obama Turn Red States Blue?” That being the case, it might be interesting for WhirledView readers to learn the current thinking of a New Mexico independent who voted for Hillary Clinton. Elizabeth Trickey is an attorney who practices in Santa Fe.
It’s Not Too Late to Vote for Hillary,
or Another Independent for McCain
By Elizabeth Trickey
The conservative pundits on TV have had that ‘cat that just swallowed a canary’ look lately…fat and happy. And why shouldn’t they be? It seems their plan has panned out. First they, and other conservative media representatives, spread the idea that Hillary had “too much baggage” to win. What was the baggage? Bill Clinton, arguably the most popular politician in both the 20th and 21st century. Then, in a Democratic field filled with legitimate, experienced candidates well tempered in the fire of the American political scene, they let it be known that their most feared candidate was Barack Obama.
Barack Obama? A guy with only a three year track record at the federal level, and before that as a state representative? The man known to have the most liberal voting record in the Senate. A man with a catchy slogan, “Yes We Can,” but no evidence of a plan for what that might be. In contrast, Hilary Clinton, has proven to be measured in her responses, extremely well-informed and statesmanlike. She’s in the middle of the road, like the rest of America, and she works well with her colleagues in the Senate. Even many upstate Republicans like her now. So to what can we attribute her latest losses? Perhaps to a media that likes Obama’s sound bites rather than her substance. Or one that fell for the conservatives’ line.
What has her biggest crime been to date? Not divorcing Bill? Could it be that staying married under very difficult circumstances might represent a strong mainstream Christian response, or even true love and forgiveness? Hmmm! Wouldn’t that appeal to the very conservatives so desperately courted by McCain, whose own marital past is a potential minefield of difficulties?
Hillary has been attacked with stated fears that her presidency would simply be a third term for Bill. Sure, a re-elected, successful Senator from New York, top of her class from Wellesley, Yale Law graduate when a very small percentage of that class were women would cede her presidency to her husband!
So what are we seeing here? Perhaps a vast right wing conspiracy to manipulate the Democrats into running what, after the disastrous Bush Administration, is the only Democrat that could lose? Or is it just more evidence of the glass ceiling which prevents women from leaving the pink collar world for the boardrooms? It's said that this election isn’t about gender or race, to which I have to say, “Oh, yeah?” African-Americans are choosing Obama at a rate of something like 80%- 85% range. And who else? White men. And the last group, one that pains me most, is young women. Those too young to know that they will grow up to hit the same ceiling when their turn comes unless they get behind the one candidate with an unimpeachable record, the experience and maturity to lead our great nation in these troubled times. The one that can truly make this nation work for the majority. Now that would be change!
I have no doubt that Hillary Clinton’s presidency would look out for all Americans equally, but her election would change things for women exponentially. Obama’s campaign has proven that race is no longer the obstacle it once was, and that gender remains the greater political problem. In fact, with his highly privileged background as a former Harvard Law Review editor, I view him as indistinguishable from some equally inexperienced white guy. He’s not ready. The Republicans know it, and they will attack him with everything Clinton’s campaign has left unsaid.
The last time we sent a Democrat president to Washington with a proud claim to being a Beltway outsider, Jimmy Carter was nearly ridden out of town on a rail after a one-term, largely ineffective administration.
So where does this leave me? If Hillary is not the Democratic candidate, I’ll be just another independent for McCain. Like me, he’s moderate, so moderate in fact that his name was bruited about as a good candidate for the DEMOCRATIC Vice-Presidency in the last election. Obviously, he plays well with others and would work well with both parties in Congress. Yes, his stance on the war troubles me, but I know he didn’t take it for political gain. It was considered political suicide when he announced it, before the surge in Iraq started to work. His forthright support for campaign finance reform, business reforms and the like make him entirely attractive, and trustworthy. The contrast with Obama could not be clearer. We know who John McCain is, as we do Hillary Clinton.
A choice between McCain and Clinton would be a fight among equals, with the choice coming down to real issues like their plans for Iraq. A choice between McCain and Obama will be a choice between a polished political statesman, and a neophyte. But, it’s not too late, fellow Independents and Democrats. We can make the right choice, an electable candidate who deserves the credit for what she’s done, not blame for her husband’s conduct. Yes we can. Get behind her, and we can make real changes for America.
by CKR
My creativity is lagging. It could be campaign overload, or a series of difficult interactions, or the recent unsettled weather, or the beginnings of my head fogging up with reactions to juniper pollen.
There is something that has been bothering me lately that isn’t politics in some form, so let’s see if I can write about it. The February 8 Science magazine carried a research report about a chemical reaction selectively driven by lasers.
Back in the 1970s, as lasers became more available and as research proceeded into how chemical reactions might be harnessed to produce lasers, it seemed an intriguing prospect to excite a particular chemical bond with laser radiation, which would incline that bond, of all bonds in a molecule, to react chemically in a particular way.
Chemical bonds vibrate at characteristic frequencies, those frequencies being high enough that they are expressed as infrared light. Many lasers operated in the infrared range, so it seemed that one might match up the laser with a particular bond vibration.
And it worked, to a point. You could match the laser to the bond vibration, and the molecule absorbed the energy. But that energy was quickly distributed through all the bonds in a molecule, not just the bond that absorbed the energy. So the molecule as a whole was more ready to react, but not in particularly selective ways. You might just as well heat the thing on a Bunsen burner.
My contribution to the discussion was to suggest that having reactants available in the mixture could help to provide a differential effect; the energized bond would be able to react with other molecules just a bit more quickly, so you would get a bit more of the desired product than you might otherwise. I also decided to look at higher-frequency electronic transitions and had some success there, but that’s another story.
But differential effects were of little interest to most of the scientists looking at the issue. Zap the molecule and make it do our bidding! All or nothing. And, indeed, it might be hard to verify my approach. Differential effects, unless they are very large, require large numbers of experiments to show up. Nonetheless, many industrial processes are based on differential effects, and no industrial chemical synthesis provides a 100% yield.
By Patricia Lee Sharpe
Many Americans seem to assume that Cubans will at some point totally repudiate Fidel Castro.
I doubt if that will happen, especially while he is alive, and probably not when he dies, even if Cuba’s long and heavily repressed dissidents come to power.
Why?
An article I found in the Jamaica Gleaner provides the answer. The title of the article is “History Will Absolve Castro.” Lamenting the fact that Cuba, unlike Jamaica, ensures that all citizens are literate and also provides medical care for everyone,* the writer points out that Cuba “sent troops to get rid of South Africa’s apartheid army from Angola.” Doctors were also dispatched to Africa, the article notes with approbation.
The Gleaner is far from blind to the deficiencies of Castro’s Cuba:
Yes, there have been negatives. Human rights as defined by us have a different meaning in their culture. Dissidents are regarded as enemies of the State and are locked up. They have nationalized almost all private businesses and seized property.....
However, the Gleaner speculates, “the experiences of the Cuban people might have been different” and possibly better, if US policy toward the Cuban revolution had been different.
The past, of course, cannot be changed, but it is constantly rewritten by subsequent generations. As American historians look back on the Castro era, they might consider placing more emphasis on the fact that Comrade Fidel’s revolution overthrew the corrupt and brutal Batista regime. The Batista interlude was hardly democratic and certainly did not protect human rights, and yet it was tolerated by American governments of the day.
If only for removing Batista, I believe, Fidel Castro will always be respected. His biography will certainly include the excesses of a hyper-controlled polity and the pathetic economic performance. But, in the end, Castro will be, at worst, the hero who went astray, the well-born populist who began by bringing benefits to the disenfranchised and then, having not entirely unjustifiably identified the US with the vicious ancien regime, fell under the fatal spell of the enemy’s enemy and a once widely shared romantic view of Communism. As always with that bit of idealism, it degenerated into totalitarianism.
Meanwhile, the Bush administration’s call for democracy in Cuba deserves nothing but a cynical raspberry when the same foreign policy apparatus is patently undermining the resurgence of democracy in Pakistan. The Bush administration is pleading for the election-legitimized new leaders of Pakistan to cozy up to the democracy-usurping Pervez Mussharaf, the ex-general who is clinging to his rigged-election occupancy of the presidency and by extension to his control over the judicial system that might otherwise oust him.
Finally, however long the post-Castro transition takes, whatever the role Fidel Castro plays in history, it might be wise for Washington to resign itself to the fact that there will be no return to a status quo ante in which the US dominates Cuba to the disadvantage of most Cubans. The world has changed greatly in the interim. Hugo Chavez may have overplayed his hand, but Brazil really is rising, and Chile is not likely to forget the American role in bringing General Pinochet to power. All in all, thanks partly to China’s endless appetite for resources of all kinds, Latin America as a whole is not the U.S. dependency it used to be.
Yet the Guardian is not so sure that Cuba will have achieved lasting freedom from domination by the US. Many Cubans do believe that Castro gave Cuba dignity by standing up to the US, which was relatively easy so long as the USSR remained a power to be reckoned with. Yet the US is big, Cuba is small and they are only 90 miles apart. Still, the Cubans themselves have changed. Castro's education (not all of it propaganda) has something to do with it. Even if the US tries to interfere in Cuban affairs, domination in cahoots with a small rich corrupt elite will not be as easy as it was before.
Meanwhile, it’s looking as if the transition to a truly post-Castro government is going to proceed slowly and smoothly, which is probably a good idea, since counter-revolutions can be as bloody as the revolutions they seek to undo. Even the The Economist, no lover of socialism, sees evolution ahead. That being the case, an early end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba would be a good idea for at least three reasons. It would be of immediate economic benefit to ordinary Cubans, who might think better of us as Cuba evolves. It would probably create a good impression on the ultimate leaders of post-Castro, non-communist Cuba. It would also earn us lots of brownie points elsewhere in Latin America, where our image could use more than a little polishing..
*As the The Economist points out, since the demise of massive aid from the USSR, the quality of social services has declined along with the rest of the economy.
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by CKR
While we were sleeping and the moon was totally eclipsed, the Navy hit satellite USA 193 with their first shot.
China is paying attention. The Guardian notes Chinese reaction.
"The United States, the world's top space power, has often accused other countries of vigorously developing military space technology, but faced with the Chinese-Russian proposal to restrict space armaments, it runs in fear from what it claimed to love," said the ruling Communist party's newspaper, the People's Daily.Nobody's quite sure that the fuel tank was hit, but even if it wasn't, it is now more exposed to the rigors of reentry, which may take care of its dangers to people on earth.Earlier this month, Russia and China proposed a treaty to ban weapons in space and the use or threat of force against satellites and other spacecraft. But Washington rejected the proposal as unworkable and said it favoured confidence-building efforts, US media reported.
The fragments should enter the atmosphere over the next 48 hours, which may make for some nice meteor-shower-watching, although it won't be here in New Mexico, where a gentle snow is sifting down from the clouds that obscured the eclipse onto the seeds I spread yesterday.
The Washington Post notes the failure of the satellite that occasioned these problems.
[John] Pike and others believe that the failed satellite was part of a controversial contract given in 1999 to Boeing, which had never built a spy satellite before, and ultimately the contract was taken from the company because of technological and financial problems.Like the software contract for the FBI database and so many other failures, a first-time try on the part of a defense contractor. But hey! It keeps them viable in case they ever have to provide something. We may wonder what penalties were imposed on Boeing, but I think we can guess: not much.
Amateur astronomers who track satellites identified the December 2006 launch as troubled from the start. They reported that the satellite never left its low orbit for the higher one it needed and that the orbit gradually became lower.It's good that there is some capability still left in the United States. Maybe they should get the next contract.
Op-ed by Bruce McDonald and Charles Ferguson in the Los Angeles Times
Update: Defense Department video here.
By PLS
In the news media, at least, the caucus system seems to have acquired the warm fuzzy cherished status of folk tradition, which, of course, may enshrine customs and attitudes both worthy and unworthy. Many enthusiasts see caucuses as a welcome expression of pure democracy. Others view caucuses as the apotheosis of neighborliness and community. I’m all for democracy and friendliness. (Apple pie anyone?) But as I watch the operation of the caucus route to nominating party presidential candidates, I find myself wondering if caucusing really is a good way to choose future leaders.
Unfortunately, since caucus procedures vary so greatly from state to state, the word as such is meaningless. Let me narrow down the focus here.
The Primary Type of Caucus
Some caucuses are virtually indistinguishable from an ordinary primary election. You go to a polling place. You mark a piece of paper or fiddle with a machine that may or may not leave a paper trail, thereby casting a secret (and correctly recorded, one hopes) ballot.
That’s how it worked on Super Tuesday in New Mexico, where the process (admittedly) was bollixed up by an incompetent Democratic party “volunteer” who still hasn’t had the grace to resign. There weren’t enough ballot papers! People went to the wrong voting place at the wrong time! It took nearly two weeks to validate and count some 17,000 irregular or provisional ballots, of which there were three sorts: those resulting from voters turning up at the wrong polling place, those cast on non-official bits of paper because proper ballots were in short supply and those resulting from inaccurate voting rolls. All of these snafus speak to the need for radically reforming the process of conducting elections in New Mexico—and to the extent that similar procedural problems have badly compromised the reliability of elections throughout the U.S. in recent years, it illustrates the need for major nation-spanning electoral reform. Maybe I’ll pursue this subject in another post.
Meanwhile, one thing went right with the Democratic caucuses in New Mexico: I was able to cast my vote in quiet communion with my own conscience. All the reading I had done, all the debates I had watched on TV, all the heated conversations I’d had with political friends and foes led me, finally, to that treasure of democracy, that great equalizer of all citizens and enemy of electoral intimidation known as the secret ballot.
The Face-to-Face Caucus
So what I want to talk about here are the caucuses that culminate, as in Iowa, by asking people to vote, not by secret ballot, but in front of a roomful of people who, singly or in strongly united enthusiastic groups, are working to influence the outcome in favor of one candidate or another.
Some see the expression of one’s preference in the open as something forthright and brave, as a celebration of one’s unflinching willingness to stand up publicly for one’s beliefs. Others celebrate the opportunity for good old fashioned horse-trading and good-natured blandishment, as supporters of one candidate try to pry away the supporters of another. These, I think, are sentimental and idealized versions of the process. Open voting wrongly assumes that all voters are equal in their ability to withstand or exercise persuasive powers.
Some People are Persuasive; Others Aren't
In fact, some people are aggressive, articulate and adroit at argument. Others are smart, well-informed and thoughtful, but shy or diffident. In the short run, the quiet types are toast. Their points may sink in and be persuasive in the long run. But during a caucus they will easily be overridden by those who are more personable or more skilled in public speaking. Ditto when it comes to the confident sorts and the self-doubting sorts. The latter, pressed to the wall in public, may feel obliged to side with a majority they don’t deeply agree with and may even fear. Finally, emotional arguments hit home more quickly than low key logical arguments, so instant open voting favors the former over the latter. Thus, anyone who can whip up a little excitement during a caucus is likely to have a disproportional impact on the voting.
Cooling Off is Good
For all these reasons having to do with individual and social psychology, it seems to me, there’s something to be said for a cooling off period between the campaigning phase and the actual voting, which is precisely how it usually works with American elections. Partisan appeals are outlawed within a certain radius of any polling place. No spiels. No brochures. No signs. The thinking that provides for a political no-man’s land derives from a voter’s need to be free of both hard and soft sells as he or she approaches the ballot box or voting machine.
Voters need that mental space to consult with themselves, as citizens pure and simple. Not as friends. Not as neighbors. Not as people beholden in one way or another to others. Voters need to be alone and unpressured as they make a choice that can affect a community, a nation, a world. Voting is a very sober, somber responsibility whose exercise should not be confused with a social event.
It doesn’t matter if a shrinking violet has a hard time holding her own at a party, though one can sympathize with her unhappiness. When voting, however, the shy and easily intimidated need to be protected from the overwhelming peer pressure and the deep need for popularity that animate American society and cannot be eliminated from the highly interactive and socially charged caucus process.
Peer Pressure is Hard to Resist
We Americans like to think of ourselves as individualists. In actuality, the demand that we get along by going along in our society is enormous to the point of irresistiblility. Peer pressure in American society is downright dictatorial, and the desire to be popular leads all too often to social and intellectual slavishness. Thus, unanimity is the goal in many social settings, and the hold out is excoriated, even threatened. Such deeply ingrained attitudes cannot be checked at the door to the caucus hall, especially where caucusing groups are relatively small and involve people who know one another, which is to say the type of caucus which seems to be most admired. Intimidation comes in many subtle forms. It doesn’t require thugs and big money to corrupt an electoral process.
A Way Forward
Given all the opportunities for people to read and hear about candidates, to watch debates and to discuss politics endlessly in innumerable familial, social and public settings, it's hard to believe that a caucus is absolutely needed to provide what’s needed for an informed vote. However, allowing articulate highly committed people to strut their advocacy stuff is probably harmless, so long as the persuasion is followed by a scrupulously conducted secret balloting process. People will be able to hear what their neighbors think, but they will also be able to express their preferences without duress, pressure or intimidation—or of negative reactions after the caucus is over.
In a democracy, there is no substitute for a genuinely secret ballot. It should be guaranteed by law during the primary process as well as during general elections.
by CKR
It's been getting warmer, although not particularly pleasant. We've had wind most of the time it's been warmer. But the snow is melting, gone from most of my yard except the north-facing slopes.
I've been wanting to spread some more native flower and grass seeds. I have some that I bought at least two years ago, and seeds don't stay good forever. I also had some evening primrose seeds that I bought in a small envelope with a pretty picture on the front. Now is one of the best times for planting them. I've recently had official confirmation of what I've suspected: that cold and snow actually help their germination. So every time a storm has been predicted, I've thought, I should get out in the yard and spread the seeds.
But I didn't, until today. That's probably three storms I've missed.
It's cloudy but not too windy, the temperature in the 40s. Just right for spreading native seeds before a storm. I've been picky before and carefully mixed the seeds with soil, then raked the places where I was spreading them. Another advantage of now is that the soil is broken up from rain, snow and frost, lots of cracks and valleys that the seeds can fall into. I raked a couple of places, but mostly just strewed the seeds around: flowers here, grass there, some of both.
And the seed is gone.
Of course, getting out also lets me see what's happening. Yesterday it seemed to me that the cheatgrass near the house, in the not-yet-cleared flowerbeds, was getting a bit greener (first photo). It's just cheatgrass, but it is green. It reminds me that another chore I can undertake on these warmer days is to clear the dead stuff out of the flowerbeds. But spreading the seeds was the higher priority.
I also remembered this week that I planted quite a few bulbs last fall: daffodils, tulips, and a number of other things that seemed like a good idea at the time. None of them are coming up yet, and I don't recall where all of them are. Fortunately, I have no reason to dig in the flowerbeds yet.
I tend to forget what I've planted where, so I've become more conscientious about planting the tags as well as the plants. I was delighted to see this little bit of green (second photo). It's in a rocky place that dries out terribly; several plants haven't made it there. The next photo helps you to see the scale. There was another tiny plant, this one a mystery species, in the rock garden in back, very green, possibly a penstemon from seeds I strewed last year. Too difficult a slope, and I didn't have the camera.
This residence still looks closed for the winter. I think it belongs to the lizards rather than the rock squirrels.
Jon Entine: Abraham's Children: Race, Identity, and the DNA of the Chosen People
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