Just another open-thread comment about something I read. Except as metaphor, it has nothing to do with politics.
I live in a part of the country where people argue about whether mosquitoes are predators, parasites, or just plain evil. Dragonflies eat hundreds of mosquitoes every day, so they’re celebrated in a way that would make the state bird jealous.
The looming winter has forced me to meditate on fate and the summer’s bloody bites, so I was naturally drawn to an article entitled “Mosquito bite genes: are you a mosquito magnet?”.
Linda is one of the best singers of my lifetime, although I did not particularly like this performance.
Cornflour, despite my intense dislike of those evil things, they help feed the many birds I enjoy in these parts.
Taylor Swift started in country. She has segued through all sorts of infuences and become a mega pop star. No question about her talent and she is a good businesswoman as Kate says.
This was the first Swift song which caught my attention:
Kinda fun. I have no idea why the band members are dressed in furry costumes, but the breakup theme is a subgenre with Swift. Word is it’s about Jake Gyllenhaal.
Swift has gone woke pretty hard. This song ridiculing “anti-gay activists” sure annoyed me.
________________________________
You are somebody that we don’t know
But you’re comin’ at my friends like a missile
Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?
on the street at the parade
But you would rather be in the dark ages
Makin’ that sign must’ve taken all night.
But on a humorous, note the Principled conservatives of the Blue Balls caucus were reported in negotiations with the Democrats regarding the Republican speaker:
You don’t want to see how sausage is made? This is a “potted meat” process.
Thanks for the link, Cornflour. It must be genetic in my case. I don’t drink beer or eat bananas, and still they bite me.
Mike is part of the ravager caucus, they will steal everything under the son, Appropriations, someone said something about the Budget, being unimportant,
As I have mentioned before the R party in my county came apart last June. Such action was designed and managed by the John Birch society in the county. The end result was no meet-ups until this November when it is required by state law that they meet to choose a new President.
Last weekend the same thing happened in the county next to mine–same strategies exactly. They were following the successful (?) playbook used in my county. Soooo, what do we have here in a state where the R party just won for the first time in more than 20 years all three-house; senate, and governor last year?
Of course, since then every law passed in the last session has been put in front of liberal judges and failed. Now the party that got elected is going to go all out again over anti any abortion compromise, et.al. Where in the heck do you think that is going to go next year?
I just got an invite for a free meal for me and my DH. It’s a come and let’s meet up and see how you are going to help us win the next election free dinner!
BTW these were two out of the seven largest counties. In one of these counties last spring the R party had just started having a conversation about zoning laws. Right here in the most beautiful place on the continent, the Republicans (John Birch Society) will not tolerate any infringement on any individual’s God Given right to destroy the place or the view! –by Gosh–being free means you can build any dang thing you want to anywhere you can buy up the land. Yessiree, that’s what being free means. How do you think that’s gonna play next year?
Rogers probably got scorched over the weekend.
Kate – try using or a liquid bandage on bites. I remember using clear nail polish during camp. Shutting off access to air seems to help stop the itch for me.
Hmm…stop drinking beer to avoid mosquito bites. Cure seems worse than the disease.
Hah, Mike! My husband drinks the beer, I get the bites. Is this fair?
She could sing. My favorite Linda Ronstadt song is Rogaciano El Huapanguero, from the Canciones de Mi Padre Album, same as La Cigarra. It is also the only Linda Ronstadt album I purchased. It’s about the death of a singer.
Lyrics, leaving out the link:
La huasteca está de luto
Se murió su huapanguero
Ya no se oye aquel falsete
Que es el alma del trovero
Rogaciano se llamaba
Rogaciano el huapanguero
Y eran sones de la sierra
Las canciones del trovero
La Azucena y la Cecilia
Lloran, lloran sin consuelo
Malagueña Salerosa
Ya se fue su pregonero
El cañal está en su punto
Hoy comienza la molienda
El trapiche está de duelo
Y suspira en cada vuelta
Por los verdes cafetales
Más allá de aquel potrero
Hay quien dice que de noche
Se aparece el huapanguero
La Azucena y la Cecilia
Lloran, lloran sin consuelo
Malagueña Salerosa
Ya se fue su huapanguero
Translation:
La huasteca* is in mourning
Its huapanguero has died
You can no longer hear that falsetto
Which is the soul of the troubadour
Rogaciano he was called
Rogaciano the huapanguero*
And they were sones of the sierra
Mountains
The songs of the troubadours
Azucena and Cecilia
Are crying, crying inconsolably
Malagueña Salerosa*
Their bard has gone
The cane is ready
Today begins the milling
The sugar mill is in mourning
And sighs with each turn
In the green coffee plantations
Far beyond that pasture
There are those who say that in the
Nighttime
The huapanguero appears
Azucena and Cecilia
Are crying, crying inconsolably
Malagueña Salerosa*
Their bard has left
*huasteca: a region
Huapanguero: a singer of huapangos
This was pushed by eMusic back when eMusic was a thing. The only Swift song I know, and I like it. A bit of dobro, a bit of mandolin to give it some bluegrass cred, like Dolly was doing at the time.
Linda Ronstadt was a first cousin first removed of Roque Dalton, the Salvadorean poet cum revolutionary who was executed in a power struggle in 1975.(Given that Roque was not the only Salvadorean leftist leader killed in a power struggle- Ana Melida Montes and Salvador Cayetano Carpio also come to mind- it shows that the Salvadorean military wasn’t the only collection of thugs in that country.)
Roque Dalton was the illegitimate son of Winnall Dalton (1894-1967). Winnall Dalton was a brother of Maria Guadalupe Dalton Ronstadt (1882-1974). Maria Guadalupe Dalton Ronstadt was Linda Ronstadt’s paternal grandmother.
Ditto what Kate said.
I find spraying isopropyl alcohol on my skin keeps them away and also if I do happen to get bitten (because caught unprepared) spraying same on the bite ends the itch.
Cornflour: I don’t know if this is pro-mosquito propaganda, but apparently they’re pollinators https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-purpose-do-mosquitoes-serve/
The first thing about avoiding mosquito bites is population control.
Here is my mosquito suppression team in action.
Linda’s singing at the end of “Blue Bayou” gives me goosebumps every time.
Saw her perform at the LA Forum in 1979 when she was in her ‘punk’ phase.
@ Chases Eagles – the swallow video was very nice!
We had plenty of mosquitoes in Wyoming this summer, although still not as many or as vicious as the ones we lived / co-existed with on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The town down the road was internationally renowned for its mosquito festival, although not for anything else. Ad for 2024. https://www.mosquitofestival.com/
We also had plenty of swallows and other avian forces to keep the insect population down. I was disappointed to see that our ubiquitous seagulls (yes, they come that far in-land) were not on any of these lists. They specialized instead on raiding unprotected sack lunches in the trekkers’ handcarts.
There are a two things which, in particular, attract UFOs—Oceans and other deep bodies of water, and Nuclear Weapons
In recent years, and based many sightings of UFOs hovering over, entering, and exiting our oceans and other large bodies of water, all over the world, the term underwater submerged object or USO was coined, and is now a category of unidentified object which ARRO, for instance, is tasked with investigating.
When you think about it, if some form of intelligent alien life wanted to have hard to detect and secure bases here on Earth, what better place than to place them in our oceans, deep rivers, and lakes.
After all, 70% of the Earth is covered with water, and it has been estimated that only somewhere around 9% of our oceans have actually been explored.
Moreover, our oceans provide much more stable environments—constant temperature and pressure, etc.–than bases on land—which are subject to wide variances in wind, temperature, and weather—would provide.
Although no government data has yet been released, such USOs have apparently been tracked by Navy underwater surveillance systems, and by some of our submarines.
Then, there are the almost innumerable reports of UFOs hovering over nuclear weapons launch sites, storage facilities, research labs, nuclear power plants, and nuclear powered ships.
(Dr. Stephen Greer has a theory that when we explode nuclear weapons, we not only release all of the various particles and energies which we know of, but we also release pulses of another type of energy which we are not aware of, and that this energy–which can travel tremendous distances–can be sensed by more advanced entities.)
It is believed that when we started to test nuclear weapons, dropped two of them on Japan, and, then, the U.S., China, and Russia went on to conduct thousands of nuclear tests, we attracted the attention of UFOs and whoever or whatever is operating them, and that they are trying to send us a signal by their intense interest.
Funnily enough at the very time, in the summer of 1950, when atomic bomb physicist Enrico Fermi was famously wondering “where is everybody?” i.e. where are the Aliens? reports which were later extracted from the government via FOIA requests told of UFOs hovering over the labs at Los Alamos in 1948 and later (I assume that Fermi,Teller and the others were not told this information.).
Awe sweet Linda. It seemed like she was always barefoot and in short, shorts whenever I saw her. Love this performance of canciones from a stellar LP. One of the great female voices of her/our generation.
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But I’ve been told on Twitter that Taylor Swift is the greatest of all time.
Cornhead, who is this Taylor Swift?
I understand Taylor Swift is a smart businesswoman, but if I were challenged to identify anything she’s sung, I couldn’t do it.
With the new performers, the voice is not the major part of the performance.
Remy works to make Ms. Swift (apologies to Dean Jonathan) famous — “Look What You Made Me Do”: https://youtu.be/XEbZ34ghVxk?si=rls5tdKzi4qpP1_T
Just another open-thread comment about something I read. Except as metaphor, it has nothing to do with politics.
I live in a part of the country where people argue about whether mosquitoes are predators, parasites, or just plain evil. Dragonflies eat hundreds of mosquitoes every day, so they’re celebrated in a way that would make the state bird jealous.
The looming winter has forced me to meditate on fate and the summer’s bloody bites, so I was naturally drawn to an article entitled “Mosquito bite genes: are you a mosquito magnet?”.
If you’re curious, here’s a link:
https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/mosquito-bite-genes-are-you-a-mosquito-magnet/
Linda is one of the best singers of my lifetime, although I did not particularly like this performance.
Cornflour, despite my intense dislike of those evil things, they help feed the many birds I enjoy in these parts.
Taylor Swift started in country. She has segued through all sorts of infuences and become a mega pop star. No question about her talent and she is a good businesswoman as Kate says.
This was the first Swift song which caught my attention:
–Taylor Swift, “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA4iX5D9Z64
Kinda fun. I have no idea why the band members are dressed in furry costumes, but the breakup theme is a subgenre with Swift. Word is it’s about Jake Gyllenhaal.
Swift has gone woke pretty hard. This song ridiculing “anti-gay activists” sure annoyed me.
________________________________
You are somebody that we don’t know
But you’re comin’ at my friends like a missile
Why are you mad when you could be GLAAD?
on the street at the parade
But you would rather be in the dark ages
Makin’ that sign must’ve taken all night.
–Taylor Swift, “You Need To Calm Down”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dkk9gvTmCXY
And the horse she rode in on.
The immense awesomeness of the latest pop star/ influencer hasn’t changed in 50 years. People just want to be led.
in the end, what they really wanted was thought control after all
https://twitter.com/ShidelerK/status/1713895888324546839
Obama-Malley-Biden are pulling out all the stops to constrain Israel from victory, miguel. Nothing will be left to chance.
I always loved her cover of Warren Zevon’s Carmelita. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=O1Cqqgy_BDk&pp=ygUZbGluZGEgcm9uc3RhZHQgY2FybWVsaXRhIA%3D%3D
But on a humorous, note the Principled conservatives of the Blue Balls caucus were reported in negotiations with the Democrats regarding the Republican speaker:
https://redstate.com/terichristoph/2023/10/16/breaking-mike-rogers-ditches-the-dems-throws-support-behind-jim-jordan-n2165117
Who are the RINOs again?
You don’t want to see how sausage is made? This is a “potted meat” process.
Thanks for the link, Cornflour. It must be genetic in my case. I don’t drink beer or eat bananas, and still they bite me.
Mike is part of the ravager caucus, they will steal everything under the son, Appropriations, someone said something about the Budget, being unimportant,
As I have mentioned before the R party in my county came apart last June. Such action was designed and managed by the John Birch society in the county. The end result was no meet-ups until this November when it is required by state law that they meet to choose a new President.
Last weekend the same thing happened in the county next to mine–same strategies exactly. They were following the successful (?) playbook used in my county. Soooo, what do we have here in a state where the R party just won for the first time in more than 20 years all three-house; senate, and governor last year?
Of course, since then every law passed in the last session has been put in front of liberal judges and failed. Now the party that got elected is going to go all out again over anti any abortion compromise, et.al. Where in the heck do you think that is going to go next year?
I just got an invite for a free meal for me and my DH. It’s a come and let’s meet up and see how you are going to help us win the next election free dinner!
BTW these were two out of the seven largest counties. In one of these counties last spring the R party had just started having a conversation about zoning laws. Right here in the most beautiful place on the continent, the Republicans (John Birch Society) will not tolerate any infringement on any individual’s God Given right to destroy the place or the view! –by Gosh–being free means you can build any dang thing you want to anywhere you can buy up the land. Yessiree, that’s what being free means. How do you think that’s gonna play next year?
Rogers probably got scorched over the weekend.
Kate – try using or a liquid bandage on bites. I remember using clear nail polish during camp. Shutting off access to air seems to help stop the itch for me.
Hmm…stop drinking beer to avoid mosquito bites. Cure seems worse than the disease.
Hah, Mike! My husband drinks the beer, I get the bites. Is this fair?
She could sing. My favorite Linda Ronstadt song is Rogaciano El Huapanguero, from the Canciones de Mi Padre Album, same as La Cigarra. It is also the only Linda Ronstadt album I purchased. It’s about the death of a singer.
Lyrics, leaving out the link:
Early Swift:
https://youtu.be/GkD20ajVxnY?si=_ypRWnUwvJjkDz6_
This was pushed by eMusic back when eMusic was a thing. The only Swift song I know, and I like it. A bit of dobro, a bit of mandolin to give it some bluegrass cred, like Dolly was doing at the time.
Linda Ronstadt was a first cousin first removed of Roque Dalton, the Salvadorean poet cum revolutionary who was executed in a power struggle in 1975.(Given that Roque was not the only Salvadorean leftist leader killed in a power struggle- Ana Melida Montes and Salvador Cayetano Carpio also come to mind- it shows that the Salvadorean military wasn’t the only collection of thugs in that country.)
Roque Dalton was the illegitimate son of Winnall Dalton (1894-1967). Winnall Dalton was a brother of Maria Guadalupe Dalton Ronstadt (1882-1974). Maria Guadalupe Dalton Ronstadt was Linda Ronstadt’s paternal grandmother.
Ditto what Kate said.
I find spraying isopropyl alcohol on my skin keeps them away and also if I do happen to get bitten (because caught unprepared) spraying same on the bite ends the itch.
Cornflour: I don’t know if this is pro-mosquito propaganda, but apparently they’re pollinators https://blog.nwf.org/2020/09/what-purpose-do-mosquitoes-serve/
The first thing about avoiding mosquito bites is population control.
Here is my mosquito suppression team in action.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_hBVgjsPIGY
Linda’s singing at the end of “Blue Bayou” gives me goosebumps every time.
Saw her perform at the LA Forum in 1979 when she was in her ‘punk’ phase.
@ Chases Eagles – the swallow video was very nice!
We had plenty of mosquitoes in Wyoming this summer, although still not as many or as vicious as the ones we lived / co-existed with on the Texas Gulf Coast.
The town down the road was internationally renowned for its mosquito festival, although not for anything else. Ad for 2024.
https://www.mosquitofestival.com/
We also had plenty of swallows and other avian forces to keep the insect population down. I was disappointed to see that our ubiquitous seagulls (yes, they come that far in-land) were not on any of these lists. They specialized instead on raiding unprotected sack lunches in the trekkers’ handcarts.
Three links, even though they overlap, because I liked the pictures.
https://learnbirdwatching.com/birds-that-eat-mosquitoes/
https://www.birdnature.com/birds-that-eat-mosquitoes/
https://www.thayerbirding.com/birds-that-eat-mosquitoes/
RE: On UFOs, our Oceans, and Nuclear Weapons.
There are a two things which, in particular, attract UFOs—Oceans and other deep bodies of water, and Nuclear Weapons
In recent years, and based many sightings of UFOs hovering over, entering, and exiting our oceans and other large bodies of water, all over the world, the term underwater submerged object or USO was coined, and is now a category of unidentified object which ARRO, for instance, is tasked with investigating.
When you think about it, if some form of intelligent alien life wanted to have hard to detect and secure bases here on Earth, what better place than to place them in our oceans, deep rivers, and lakes.
After all, 70% of the Earth is covered with water, and it has been estimated that only somewhere around 9% of our oceans have actually been explored.
Moreover, our oceans provide much more stable environments—constant temperature and pressure, etc.–than bases on land—which are subject to wide variances in wind, temperature, and weather—would provide.
Although no government data has yet been released, such USOs have apparently been tracked by Navy underwater surveillance systems, and by some of our submarines.
Then, there are the almost innumerable reports of UFOs hovering over nuclear weapons launch sites, storage facilities, research labs, nuclear power plants, and nuclear powered ships.
(Dr. Stephen Greer has a theory that when we explode nuclear weapons, we not only release all of the various particles and energies which we know of, but we also release pulses of another type of energy which we are not aware of, and that this energy–which can travel tremendous distances–can be sensed by more advanced entities.)
It is believed that when we started to test nuclear weapons, dropped two of them on Japan, and, then, the U.S., China, and Russia went on to conduct thousands of nuclear tests, we attracted the attention of UFOs and whoever or whatever is operating them, and that they are trying to send us a signal by their intense interest.
Funnily enough at the very time, in the summer of 1950, when atomic bomb physicist Enrico Fermi was famously wondering “where is everybody?” i.e. where are the Aliens? reports which were later extracted from the government via FOIA requests told of UFOs hovering over the labs at Los Alamos in 1948 and later (I assume that Fermi,Teller and the others were not told this information.).
Awe sweet Linda. It seemed like she was always barefoot and in short, shorts whenever I saw her. Love this performance of canciones from a stellar LP. One of the great female voices of her/our generation.