I have two tulips in my garden

The tulips are what is left of my efforts 15 years ago to make something out of my otherwise wild garden, and I have to reiterate it's beautiful to all the living things around. I hear woodpeckers in the morning indicating that there is life in that telephone pole. I see squirrels, black ones--they are descendants of the ones Leland Stanford Jr. imported from Europe over a hundred years ago. My garden is left to itself much of the time. There are so many more birds than 15 years ago. They all can find food there. The hummingbirds can still find nectar in the red fuchsias that are seeming to bloom year-round. They even try to suck from the red camellias. No offense to the owner of that plastic lawn down the street. But what worms can live there under that fake green carpet? What chemicals are evaporating from it? The birds are going to avoid that place very soon.

My thoughts go to the shooter in Germany. When will that nonsense end. What caused him to shoot? Was it his plastic garden or was it his psychiatric treatment with chemicals he didn't need? I keep coming back to mercury.

How it is with the long noses

There is something called the Truth Movement (Ball State University) afoot. It strikes me as a very interesting development. The interest in the truth got me to thinking about persons with long noses.

Now the first thing to know is that Pinocchio lied first and then his nose grew longer and longer. I think with certain people the idea that lying comes first and the nose grows longer as a result has become muddled. There seems to be a growing number of folks who think that first the nose grows and that that physical sign then allows us to detect the lie.

It goes like this: Look at him/her: The nose is long; he/she must be lying. Could it be that the need to see the physical evidence first--in this case the long nose--has started to deceive us and has made us into patsies who can only detect a lie when there is a physical sign? I don't think so.

I believe that assessing the truth comes from knowledge. It comes from having the curiosity to detect what's logical and the need to know what's right simply because we have the logic and the facts firmly on our sides.

How it is with he long noses

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