Little Buggers

Normal "honey bees" are easy to spot doing recon in the garden and yard. But there's a whole population of "bees" that almost qualify as no-see-ums. They act the same as honey bees—gathering and spreading pollen—but can almost be missed because of their size. I haven't taken time to look up their identity and determine their correct name, so I'll call them "bees." They are tiny buggers—about 1/4" to 3/8" in length. But definitely beautiful up close. I took these as they collected pollen off the Swiss chard plants that have gone to seed, the seed-buds of which are producing tiny flowers with pollen.

Here are the chard seed-flowers the bees visit (not the sharpest image):

And here's what the bees are collecting—yellow pollen:

From the underside:

In these next three photos, note the different markings on the backs of all three of these bees—all distinctly different patterns. Male/female? Different species? (I won't even mention the obvious beauty of those translucent wings.)

And the ubiquitous lizards are there, silent but deadly. I saw this one waiting patiently for a bee or other no-see-um to fly by. I saw him lunge a couple of times, but he didn't connect. But given his healthy look, he must get his fair share:

This big guy (girl?) is definitely a see-um size. I've started seeing him in my back yard early in the mornings of late. Since I don't use weed-control chemicals on the yard, I have a healthy buffet of great variety that he seems to enjoy. He lives in a large thicket behind my house. Here he seems to have selected a dandelion leaf: "Excellent choice, sir!"

The Calm of Reason

I am not a Catholic for many reasons, but I am a firm supporter of their fight to defend their right to religious conscience from the heavy hand of President Obama's Health and Human Services dictates. You can't help but be impressed with the calm and reason of this group of Michigan Catholic bishops who explain why 43 Catholic church and ministry organizations have filed suit against the HHS. These men are not speaking from a teleprompter but from the mind and heart. Something tells me that president Obama, in a dialogue with men like this, would not be able to defend his turf. If there are many reasons to critique the historical Catholic church, there are many as well to applaud their rigorous use of reason and their faith in revelation. (I would not want to be in a mind-wrestling contest with anyone whose name was followed by the initials "S.J."—or arm-wrestling, for that matter.) I can't help but believe that Obama will lose this challenge when it reaches the courts.

The Value of Years Spent Thinking

When each issue of Forbes magazine arrives, I always look to see if the "Thought Leaders: Current Events" column for that issue has been penned by the eminent British historian Paul Johnson. He is one of four international leader-scholars who alternate in writing the column.

Paul Johnson was born in 1928 and has authored more than 40 books. So he has had time, and has taken opportunity, to evaluate a lot in his lifetime. Schooled first as a Jesuit (i.e., conservative), he graduated from Oxford and became a left-leaning liberal in his early public years. Obviously, the fact that he writes for Forbes means he jettisoned his liberal views and returned to conservatism: "The Left had no answers," he said. Through the years, he has given his critics plenty to swipe at, both politically and personally. Given that there are no perfect observers of the world condition, I still value the 83-year-old perspective of one who has witnessed the perturbations of Western Civilization from both sides of the Atlantic from first a liberal, and now a conservative, point of view.

All that by way of introduction—to provide weight to the following words of his from his current Forbes column, "Thank God: An American Recovery." Concerning what he sees as a growing economic recovery in America . . .

President Obama can take no credit whatsoever for this. Nothing he's done has promoted growth, and his actions may even have held it back somewhat. Fortunately his presidency has been so weak, his hesitations so various and prolonged and his changes of mind so frequent that the White House's actual impact on the workings of the economy has been trifling. Had Mr. Obama been a stronger and more determined man, it's likely that, given his views, his interventions would have been destructive, and the U.S. economy would now be in dire distress. The inactivity—or impotence—of the White House is thus, for once, welcome.

And concerning the possibility of recovery in Europe . . .

The danger [in Europe] is that one of the EU's members will freely choose a government that then opts for a nondemocratic solution in bringing unemployment down sharply and rapidly. This is, of course, exactly what happened when Adolf Hitler came to power in the 1930s. Mass unemployment killed the [pre-Hitler] Weimar Republic, but Hitler's policies of public works and rearmament restored full employment to Germany, the only country in the 1930s where this happened.

How is that America elected a young man as president who couldn't possibly have a sufficient view of the grand sweep of history, either through intellectual study or simply the passing of years? I would vote for a Constitutional amendment that says U.S. presidents have to be at least 65 years of age, etc. etc. The Bible calls leaders "elders" for a reason.

When it comes to the "ten year rule" of domain mastery (Harvard's Howard Gardner in Creative Minds), Paul Johnson qualifies in spades. Our current president? He simply hasn't put in the years. And it shows.

Stratas of Grain

To mix with my oatmeal, I create this mix of buckwheat, colored quinoa, white quinoa, and amaranth, just to add a few more gains for nutritional variety. When it comes to meat, it's mostly white or red. But the variety of the raw plant world seems never-ending (and not nearly as painful).

Before mixing:

After mixing:

Stuff That Works: Brew Mug

My son David, he of the Grindcore House, introduced me to this brew mug that works well. The Grindcore House gets most of its tea offerings from premiumsteap.com, also the source for this mug.

The inner cup, for holding loose tea during steaping, is stainless steel with really tiny perforations that keep any tea debris from winding up the finished brew. (Pictured is a yerba mate blend, looking similar to what might come out of your lawnmower's catch-bag, but tasting decidedly better, I assume.)

Caution: don't drop the cup cover from more than a few inches. I accidentally did, and the ceramic lid split, albeit with a clean break. So a little Gorilla brand super-glue put 'er back together again.

The bag of yerba mate. I'm no expert on tea, and sampled this brew because vegan marathoner Brendan Frazier recommends it as part of his regimen as a mild pick-me-up. It seems to have less caffeine than regular green tea based on my unofficial buzz meter: