Oh man, this is funny, and so very clever . . .

The larger point, though, is really quite scary.

Livescribe Smartpen

Oooooh, I want it . . . .

. . . and I've been coveting my friend's Nokia internet tablet, too.

Russian troops in Georgia

oh shit. i hope my friend doing work in georgia is going to be okay.

Prisons, Torture, and Mental Health

For those of you in Michigan, there will be a rally and teach-in on Wednesday, August, 6, in Lansing, in commemoration of the 2-year anniversary of the death of Timothy Joe Souders. For those of you who are not familiar with this story, Liz Spikol gave a clear and poignant picture of the story on her blog a couple years ago.

The emphasis of the upcoming march on Lansing is prison torture, and the deeply problematic continuing practices of prisoner segregation, restraint, and water withholding. These are very important issues, but Timothy's case also highlights the obvious need for improved attention to health care, especially mental health care, both in the United States at large and specifically in the justice system. I encourage you also to explore the information at Mental Health America, which promotes the advancement of mental health policy and education in our country, and will facilitate your active involvement as a concerned citizen.

Today, I taught about the history of European colonialism in Africa to two African-American freshman athletes, taught about the nature of Athabaskan, American, and Nepali notions of reciprocity through a discussion of Velma Wallis's book Two Old Women with a group of Korean and Korean-American eleven- and twelve-year-olds, and searched the archives of a Pakistani newspaper for urban development articles in the early 1950s.

I got completely drenched in the rain cycling back and forth on my way to tutoring, and managed to get through the course by changing into my "Consent is Sexy" t-shirt I happened to have hiding in my pickup truck, which looks, without question, like there is a hobo living in it. Luckily I also had my wonderful kelly-green University of Bemidji hooded sweatshirt to wear over it so I didn't scandalize the poor kids.

Riding back home along Huron River Drive tonight, under the cool, green canopy of trees, I saw two pairs of deer and a muskrat or river otter (I was going too fast to tell for sure).

I had a simple supper of tomato soup, lush salad with walnuts, blue cheese, dried cherries and balsamic vinegarette on baby greens, and rotisserie Amish chicken, and then amused myself while reading my email afterwards with the knowledge that 9/10 of the secret anti-aging foods Martha Stewart recommends are things I eat nearly daily.

There's no doubt that this life, however crazy it is, is a full one.

Animal sightings around the house

I never did share this photograph of a little friend I saw beside my door one day in June. I hardly would have noticed him if he hadn't rustled the leaves as he was making his way through. I think I scared him half to death trying to capture him on film.

Planting, Ranting

So, I've done a bunch of work in my garden that I can't wait to tell you about, even though the photos won't really do it justice until tomorrow. I was feeling headachey this afternoon and didn't feel like sleeping yet, so I went to the garden to work instead. I spent hours out there!

This first one, though blurry, gives the nicest sense of the color of the new plants, lovely bright native plants I found by the roadside and transplanted to this spot across the way, which up until yesterday was a mess of buckthorn plantain (Plantago lanceolata), crabgrass and other weeds.

Now, though, it's got butterfly weed, wild phlox (I think that's what that pink one is), black-eyed susan, echinacea (in the back toward the top, not blooming yet), lilies (some orange variety), and a variety of succulents I haven't identified. I also planted seeds for lupines and from some kind of deep bluish/purplish flowering plant Umlud and I came upon on a walk in one of the Ann Arbor parks, in the area between the echinacea and the other plants. We'll see what the mystery plant is eventually if the seeds take. Perhaps Caryopteris? I do love a good mystery.

I've been painstakingly transplanting the lilies from farther back on the garden plot, beneath a lilac tree, in an area so overrun with mosquitoes, it's impossible to be back there to enjoy them. They're not happy with the transition at this point, but I think I'll have beautiful blooms next year, once they've had a chance to settle into their new locale.

The succulents have been growing down my neighbor's rock garden on the other side, and creeping into the bed beneath, so I'm transplanting them from there and from where it's taking over chunks of the lawn. There are three different kinds, apart from the purslane (more on that below!)

I also planted morning glory along the chain-link fence a few days ago, along with sweet-pea. If I have my way, the whole place will be exploding with blooms pretty soon, and the exposed metal fence will be a distant memory. I already see the morning glory rising out of the earth and spreading its leaves like little green angel wings. Tomorrow I'll get some more shots of them, and the amazingly quickly growing zucchini plants, and the sweet-peas that are starting to pop up on the other side of the garden.

Below, with the terrible lighting of my camera flash, you can see the pattern of the rock garden with succulents that I've started, dangerously into the territory of the 40-foot area zoned for our subdivision's road, but probably safe unless two cars meet on our gravel road and are in too much of a hurry to take care. There's a margin of at least a couple feet between where the actually used road ends and the little rocks & plants start. But, folks around here in the country have a tendency to drive onto the edge of the lawn without a great deal of concern, when there's not room for the two SUVs on the small gravel roads. One of the oddities of this part of the country. Anyhoo, below, that's what I've got on the side.

And below, this is what I've done in the upper area, leading toward the chain-link fence.

Unfortunately that little wooden retaining wall is coming apart; I'll have to mention that to my landlords and see if they want to do anything about it. It's not holding back a lot of soil, so they may not be too concerned.

And, I've been doing a lot of thinking about weeds and weeding. So I wrote a dogmatic little piece tonight.