Pregnant Magpie.

Cravings.

Chocolates at this hour?
It must be the baby.
Babies don’t eat chocolates.
This one does… please!
But it’s raining!
Take my red umbrella.

See more red umbrellas at Magpie Tales.

Under the Gooseberry Bush.

The Kiss.


Softest brush,
barely felt.
warm, dry,
inviting.


Then again,
open, wet.
Hot, sweet,
a promise.




In response to Gooseberry Bush Poetry.

What are we eating?

First a little biology.
Plants take up CO2 through pores on the underside of leaves called stomates or stomata. Pic: Tomato leaf stomate.

When we spray systemic herbicides onto plants, that is where the poison enters and from there it flows throughout the plant, blocking a vital process and the plant dies.

Roundup remains in the plant until the plant dies when it is incorporated into soil. There, I am assured ‘it degrades and becomes harmless’. However, if the plant is not actively growing, Roundup lurks for months until there is a growth spurt and then it works. Roundup does not degrade while in the plant.

The next fact about Roundup is that it enters stomates of all plants so even in so called Roundup Ready plants, the poison permeates every cell in the plant and there the Roundup stays. Now this is the question I have asked and asked and have never received an answer.

‘Considering the above, is it true that plants like GM Canola that were bred to be immune to Roundup, hold Roundup in their cells where it remains right through to the dinner table?’

Roundup has revolutionised agriculture and is a must-have tool for non-till or low-till sustainable broadacre farming. But considering that we already ingest so many toxins from our polluted environment, is engineering edible plants to be ‘Roundup Ready’ taking GM one step too far?

Bluebell Books Short Story 8

Love in a wheat field.

My heart, my mind, my soul infuse
With sweetest love, my body use.
But ‘ere we lay
Here in the hay
Please help me find my effing shoes!

Prompt by Bluebell Books Short Story Slam.
(No time today to write a real story, maybe next time).

What next for Libya?

Watching.

No Ghadaffi

People free?

Democracy?

.... We shall see.


First published in Poetry 24.

Picture from Reuters.

Adam's limited options.

or 'Eve gives Adam a ribbing' in der Deutsche sprachen.

Ven Eef und der Adam vas yung,

Ven all of der trupples haf come,

He say....
"On leafe I am goink!”

But Eef say; I’m knowink

You'll come back ven your leaf iss up!”

Haf a look at der Gooseberry Garden for more hiths and myths.

Auntie Ella's Magpie

Auntie Ella.
I can hardly remember not having a car,
but I do remember Auntie Ella.
Looking back, I now wonder
what some of my dates must have thought.

Before leaving on a date
she always made me stand still and listen.
Then she would say:

“Be careful young man, and remember;
‘People in cars cause accidents.
Accidents in cars cause people’.”

It worked.
No accidents.
But there were some lovely close shaves!

Memories prompted by Magpie Tales.

Scientific experiment anyone can do at home.

Mr ten percent explores his human foibles.

It has been said we Humans use only ten percent of our brains. So what do we do we do with the rest? Being a Darwinist, I look for advantage in everything, so I had a good look at IXL and realised my lovely lady would never have attracted my ardour had she had a head the size of a Pomeranian.

So it is 90% padding. But in most of us, even that ten percent seems to work less well than almost every animal when it comes to interpreting natural evidence. I refer to the fact that some very powerful people mentioned in my last few posts lack the ability to critically analyse their own ideas before declaring them facts.

Tony Abbott asked recently why Carbon Dioxide, which is an odourless, colourless gas that mixes totally with the atmosphere and is therefore weightless could possibly be measured in tons! If you reacted by asking; “So?” maybe it is time to close this screen. To those still wondering, I pose this question:

Why would anyone exposed to the evidence all around us that Science is keeping planes in the air, holding up skyscrapers, replacing heart arteries, splicing genes from fish to wheat, you name it, but still assume their own random assumptions are the absolute truth based on no evidence except that they thought it up or maybe it is what some bloke said at the pub?

In the same basket, let’s place that deadly elation that occasionally floods a soldier’s brain that causes him/her to rush a machine gun emplacement armed with nothing but bare fists and temporary insanity. Why the same basket? Stay with me and keep that ten percent open.

What if both examples enhanced the survival of the tribe?
What if we evolved to mindlessly accept the belief system of our tribe so we would follow the direction of our leaders in times of crisis and so not hesitate to sacrifice ourselves to enhance the survival of many? Making sense?
Any general will tell you that the purpose of boot camp is to render a soldier mindless so he/she will obey any order without question. Imagine what would happen if the order “Charge! “ was met by an incredulous “You've got to be kidding!"

Scientific training changes that for most of us. I say most because there are scientists who fail to critically examine assumptions they hold on issues outside their area of expertise, which they should know is very naughty indeed. Unfortunately, such pronouncements give succour to the Bachmanns and Abbotts of the world who declare Climate Change is a conspiracy or Intelligent Design is science and quote as their source, ‘hundreds of scientists’.

So, why do apologists get away with basically misrepresenting the evidence? We can all think, we all have access to the information but, my friends, we lack one simple process. We can’t seem to ask the one simple question that would boost us to the next level of intellectual honesty. We can’t say ‘WHAT IF I AM WRONG!?”

So my challenge is to try it.
Put the ego aside, take any firmly held belief, ask yourself the question, look for contrary evidence and see where it takes you.
It never fails to surprise me.

Cute dog pic borrowed from the net.

Surprise Magpie.

Oops!

Oh darling! My lover, so clever, so sweet!
You’ve painted the room! My joy is complete!
But wait! Silly man,
My lovely divan…
It’s ruined! You left off the paint splatter sheet!

Explanation of the picture provided by Tess of the Willowvilles.

The Huns are coming!

“Climate Change is here!” does not compare to your classic “The Huns are coming!” as a generator of adrenalin.  So although it presents a more dire threat than whatever wiped out the dinosaurs, It is all happening too slowly for that. But once here, and it is here, unlike the Huns, it will never go away.

Now consider this. Both Snowbrush and Helen in comments on my post on political vitriol, mentioned Michelle Bachmann. I looked her up and discovered a right wing Republican, who among other things has more faith in her intuition than science while at the same time admitting she is not a ‘deep thinker’. She believes Intelligent Design is science, we should scrap the minimum wage and universal healthcare (those two go so well together, don’t you think?), feels threatened by taxes, abortion, gays and Muslims. She wants to control what happens in the bedroom but not what happens in the workplace or contribute to national health. If we could see into her mind, we would probably see the elephant in the room that Obama represents but I will not speculate. The public record is radical enough.

Then, did you hear (British PM) David Cameron, in his best Churchillian, threatening; ‘We will track you down… we will punish you”? Of course rioting and looting are mindless, frightening and criminal. Perpetrators should be arrested and tried but Cameron has exacerbated the problem by further dividing the US and THEM of British society, making the task of addressing the reasons unnecessarily difficult.

Here, Tony Abbott is determined to destroy Climate Change initiatives, and like Michelle Bachmann, is against any initiative that will cost the very wealthy anything. Their rhetoric is creating a division between the political left and right not seen since the Great Depression. Then consider where that led… Radical communism on one side and Radical Capitalism on the other, with Nazism in between. Radicalism happens when we feel stressed.

I did say feel stressed, because I believe Climate Change and the Global Economy can be fixed.  Hope energises people to make sacrifices and feel good about their contribution. But we are allowing political opportunists to scare us into radicalism again.

What happens next is classic tribalism. Both those problems are global, complex and require intelligent solutions. But that ain’t what’s happening folks. We are doing what we have always done. We are turning to ‘strong’ leaders who promise they will wipe out the Huns if we make them Chief.

But where are the Huns? Don’t worry, our Leaders will identify them for us. Hitler identified them as Jews. Milosevic identified them as Muslims. Marx identified them as Capitalists, Hoover identified them as Communists. Ayotollah Khomeini identified them as anything Western. But none will say “Climate Change” because they instinctively know it is not on our evolved list of adrenal triggers for many.

With Europe threatening to collapse, our energies and wealth being dissipated by ‘wars on terror’ and so many shrill voices with finger pointing, it seems we have evolved little since Chimps started raiding neighbouring colonies to kill and eat their babies.

Whatever happened to politicians who debated using facts, listened with respect, negotiated and voted from a shared wish to benefit all the people? I feel they are there but moderate voices rarely create headlines so we rarely hear them.