Category: Community

yup.

It snowed here last year too. This pic is my kid’s snow angel from last time.

Houston braces for about 2 inches of snow

Preparations under way, and some in Houston area may even see half a foot of the white stuff

HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Dec. 4, 2009, 8:29AM

Airport travelers should call 281-230-7000 to check flight status. Travelers can also check www.fly2houston.com.

To report icy streets, call 311.

HOUSTON WEATHER INFO AND MORE

Complete forecast, radar and more

SNOW INFO

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School Zone: Updates on dismissals, closures

Snow talk: Chat with SciGuy at noon today

Vent or rejoice on Twitter

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Tips for garden care in the cold

Houston is on track today to break a record with the earliest snowfall ever recorded in the city’s history.

Forecasters are still hedging their bets, but say the most likely scenario is 1 to 2 inches of widespread snowfall beginning this afternoon. Some areas could get up to a half a foot.

With the slow demise of old media has also come the demise of niche media like websites which cater specifically to women’s studies and women’s interests.   Prompted by the demise of Double X, an offshoot of Slate, itself an off-shoot of the financial troubled Washington Post, one can tell  how both female-centric media and academic fields are usually the first to go in times of economic crisis, budget cutbacks, or higher education famine.  While part of me laments that such sites end up being placed first on the chopping board when revenues plummet, another part of me wonders if we are finally ready to rid ourselves of the need for specific media designed for identity group solidarity.   In another time where persecution was harsh and undeniably swift to those outside of the mainstream who dared tread into uncharted territory, I think we may be ready to draw up tentative plans for full unity.  

Last week I visited Philadelphia and the historic Arch Street Meeting House, a Quaker house of worship that prides itself as being the largest gathering in the world and the oldest still in use in the United States.   The main part of the building was separated into a larger worship space and a smaller one directly adjacent to it.   A faith committed resolutely to equality among all its members deliberately made accommodations to female attenders by giving them the option of using a women-only space during worship services.  There, ladies who would have otherwise felt constrained to speak from within their hearts and their convictions because of the close proximity of their husbands or out of fear of broaching social protocol could have a safe space of their own.  Within it they were allowed to verbalize that which they had every right to be express but too often kept inside themselves.   It need be noted, of course, that this arrangement no longer exists and that now the voices of women have been welcomed into larger fellowship.  I rejoice that progress has been made and hope it continues.

Last day of the long Holiday weekend…. I am feeling really blah, but I’m lurking and wandering around reading. I’m sure someone is cooking up some brilliant essay full of insights and observations and more, but I got nothin’.  Is it just me?  Yo.

So… Open Thread must be on holiday too. This can fill in as a sub? Meh. 🙂

I can’t give you anything but love, baby.

That’s the only thing I’ve plenty of, baby.

Dream a while. Scheme a while.

We’re sure to find

Happiness, and I guess

I can’t give you anything but love.

It doesn’t take much….. one of my former Florida friends posted a FB link to his flickr batch of Vizcaya photos.  sigh. I’ve got work to do!! If I had time, I’d write some dreamy wandering rambles, but… oh well.

Dream on. Open Thread.

This wonderful image is from a promotional website not my friend’s pic … but I love this photo of the Stone Barge at Vizcaya. I could sit there all day. You have to imagine the heat and the sea salt smells and sounds of seagulls. Drift away.

On a practical level, Vizcaya’s Stone Barge acts as a breakwater against tidal surges.

On an artistic level, the limestone sculpture extends the art and architecture of the main house and gardens beyond the shoreline and into the waters of Biscayne Bay.

Take this as a gift, this metaphor….  Run with it, if you like.

Which way do you read this? Are we … Strangler or Embracer?  

In Santa Elena, a small town near Monte Verde, is one of the coolest attractions in all of Costa Rica. The best part about this super secret adventure, its free. This “attraction” isn’t so much of an attraction as it is a dead tree.

Just outside of town, down a dirt road, is a small trail leading off into the forest. About 15 minutes down this trail is an extremely old tree that has been fully consumed by what is known as the Strangler Fig Parasite.

The Strangler Fig Parasite comes when an infected bird poops on top of a tree. The parasite then forms vines that grow down the tree to the trees root system. Once at the tree’s roots, the parasite takes over the tree’s root system and slowly kills off the tree. To make a long story short, the parasite eventually kills the tree, but the vines are left in it’s place. This leaves you with one very, Lord of the Rings looking, hollowed out tree.

The vines of the parasite become very large and very strong, almost tree like. They are so strong in fact, that you can actually climb inside of the tree and use the vines as a “ladder” all the way to the top of the tree. After about 60+ feet of climbing inside the hollowed out tree, you come to a small opening where you can stick your head out and see right at the top of the forests canopy line.

source

Good morning, campers!

With all much due respect to Robyn’s now retired Morning Muse series, I may just have to fill the void here with a morning … something.  My mornings tend to be extremely hectic until I get the brats kids out the door, then it takes me a little while to unwind. I’ll make my cyber rounds but meanwhile, I’ll designate a little space for your random whine, rant, or pause….

here.

.

Perhaps some soothing music will help…

The Homesteader

http://www.currentargus.com/ca…

They don’t leave links open for long (you have to pay $2.95 per article) so I thought I should get this out now.

This is a freaky story. It’s a GOOD article, but I worry about this woman. And the Topix comments are really disturbing. There’s lots more. I’m trying to talk to these people (and some see it my way) about how wrong it is to be down in this lady. I’m inclined to think that Valerie Cranston (with whom I’m acquainted) shouldn’t have run this, but since she did, well now we go with it, right?

With a focus on veterans, and including a few interesting videos I’ve run across lately, and a few other items of note.

Yeah, okay, so the piece that ek posted the other day, Dont Ask, Don’t Give, kinda ticked me off. Not at ek for posting it, no. Just the whole idea of giving money to the DNC or any of those vermin annoys me. Like… ever. Not that I have any to give, and I never have, but if I did, I wouldn’t.

But if I did….

ha.

Captain Jack Sparrow: Me? I’m dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly. It’s the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they’re going to do something incredibly… stupid.

I liked digby today:

Wise man Chuck Todd said that Nancy Pelosi was pretty much a genius for allowing the abortion restrictions so she could get the bill passed. That seems to be the consensus. There just wasn’t any choice. And anyway, health care is a “woman issue” in the first place, so they really need to stop their bitching unless they want to lose health care altogether.

Both parties are cavalier about women voters. Of course, women only make up over half the electorate so it’s not like it’s important. And needless to say, within the Democratic coalition, which is a large majority pro-choice female and voted 56% for Obama, they are even less important. They know their function is to sacrifice their needs for the greater good of the Democratic family. Isn’t that how it works?

Bloodletting:



(Click on image for larger view)

The muses are ancient.  The inspirations for our stories were said to be born from them.  Muses of song and dance, or poetry and prose, of comedy and tragedy, of the inward and the outward.  In one version they are Calliope, Euterpe and Terpsichore, Erato and Clio, Thalia and Melpomene, Polyhymnia and Urania.

It has also been traditional to name a tenth muse.  Plato declared Sappho to be the tenth muse, the muse of women poets.  Others have been suggested throughout the centuries.  I don’t have a name for one, but I do think there should be a muse for the graphical arts.  And maybe there should be many more.

I know you have talent.  What sometimes is forgotten is that being practical is a talent.  I have a paucity for that sort of talent in many situations, though it turns out that I’m a pretty darn good cook.  🙂  

Let your talent bloom.  You can share it here.  Encourage others to let it bloom inside them as well.

Won’t you share your words or art, your sounds or visions, your thoughts scientific or philosophic, the comedy or tragedy of your days, the stories of doing and making?  And be excellent to one another!

Distillation is a technique of “squeezing” out the essence of a given material (or series of thoughts to one or a few abstractions) into a concentrated product.  The term is from the Latin, distillo, from the combining term de, meaning “down” and the noun stilla, a drop.  Thus, distilled water is literally a drop of water coming down something.  Taken to the extreme, distilled water literally means “a coming down drop of water that is water”.  That does not fit with the modern usage, but is illustrative.

Aristotle, with all of his faults, noted that seawater, boilt under cool sponges, would yield fresh water when the sponges were pressed.  Distillation was known in the ancient world, but not much used except for preparing “medical” remedies, most of them toxic, in a manner that I will describe to you later, in a more modern form.

Actually, the earth is a huge still, with the water cycle reproducing exactly, but on a massive scale, what goes on in an industrial or laboratory still.  Heating, evaporation, segregation of components, and condensation are all essential parts of distillation, and our planet does it well.  Without that process, the planet would not be recognizable.