I walk past these roses…

…just about every day, and for the past couple of weeks they've been begging me to take their picture. 

Finally, they got their way,

 

You can't make this stuff up

 Oh wait, I guess you can.

Vampire-human hybrid Rose and vampire royalty Lissa transcend palace politics and societal oppression through friendship…

[Describing a new series, Vampire Academy, streaming on Peacock.]

Next week is Banned Books Week

Book ban efforts surging in 2022, library association says

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Deborah Caldwell-Stone, director of the ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. “It’s both the number of challenges and the kinds of challenges. It used to be a parent had learned about a given book and had an issue with it. Now we see campaigns where organizations are compiling lists of books, without necessarily reading or even looking at them.”

Pick one. 

The old "dress for success" advice…

 …seems to have got this picture (from Getty Images via the New York Post) backward.

Quilting Bee

 

👀

Nothing to sniff at

What's That Smell? Obscure Words for Bad Odors

Outstink is not one of our most frequently searched-for words, for some reason.…

So how's that nuclear treaty talk coming along?

I've lost track.

Meanwhile, this from CISA:

Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Affiliated Cyber Actors Exploiting Vulnerabilities for Data Extortion and Disk Encryption for Ransom Operations

TRIGGER WARNING: It/s pretty technical.

Some people ("experts")…

 

…are saying the leaves around here are going to start showing autumn color by early next week and I'm telling you they are wicked wrong. This is as far along as we are right now and the leaves won't be showing much color before the end of month, and won't peak until at least a week after Columbus Day.

When the woman behind the counter calls you Hun…

 …you are officially way on the wrong side of the age curve.

On eating dessert first

Biden to host White House celebration of the Inflation Reduction Act

The broccoli can wait.

This could be dangerous

Fooling around with a new photo editing trick in iOS. I'll try to not get carried away. Entirely.

A curmudgeon before his time

 Back in the 1950's (do you know how long ago that was?) a mathematician, satirist, and songwriter named Tom Lehrer panned a musical ditty that began like this:

If you visit American city,
You will find it very pretty.
Just two things of which you must beware:
Don't drink the water and don't breathe the air.

Do you know how long ago that was?

Now here we are, bearing down on yet another Election Day and the punditocracy are screaming Fascists! Traitors! (and of course, Trump!); Immigrants! Criminals! (and, of course, Trump!)

When what we need is more people screaming Water! and Air!

(And, of course, Potholes!)

(Tom Lehrer wrote a lot of songs worth listening to, They're probably available on your favorite music service.)

September