(Jackson Street) Books on 7th is around the corner and on the internet tubes. We strive to be your full-service new and used bookstore, emphasizing good literature, progressive politics, and, of course, books about baseball. Opened in Hoquiam October 1, 2010
I told you about Zebras in Montesano last year. Now I have new pics! Remember when we met the lovely Juia? and her miniture paramour! This is my desktop picture. Feel free to make it yours! Well, one thing and another, things being what they are... we have a baby! Ladies & Gentlemen: we have a Zee-Donk. Mother and child.
who will post first? Me or Idella? I challenged her and now I'm copying as fast as I can!Yeah, she might have a nice picket fence, and a stage that would make Garrison cry, but I have a ride! The Sit-n-Spin cube. Here's our pal Stormbear! Won't you send a book to a soldier? The Canadians are coming! Look out! Oh, wait. They want to explain Healthcare to us. Here's an intersection where you can snag a free pair of Rainbow Mittens or Ask Sarah a Question. Moody Loner will help you get your WoW on.
Okay, isn't that enough reasons to come to NetRoot Nations in Second Life? What are you waiting for? Jump in. The water's fine.
Stormy will tell you here and here. Mala jumps in today!
Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books, $18.95) This small, yet disturbing book is a delight to hold, with it's lovely boards and ribbon marker. The stories inside tell of Mother Nature's most poisonous creations. While most native cultures knew of a plant's deathly capabilities, it is often the new resident of a region or a tourist who run afowl of these killer plants.
The Jimsom Weed, D. stramonium, a member of the Datura family, was rampant on Jamestown Island. Initially attractive to the first colonists because it was not inhabited by hostile natives, it was also inhospitable to most crops or wild game and the brackish water was suitable only to mosquitos, not potable for drinking. It was over run by a lovely plant, and someone soon made the mistake of adding it to dinner. Those who ate it died of convulsions, delirium, and respiratory failure. Those who survived, did not forget this lesson and when British troops arrived 70 years later to quell the American's uprising, they were fed leaves which caused the same symptoms, but not death and allowed the colonists an advantage while the soldiers blew a feather up into the air to dart straws at, or sat naked in a corner like a monkey grinning and grimacing, while yet another fondly kissed and pawed his companions. The plant's nickname Jamestown Weed over the years became know as Jimson Weed and is found all over North America.
This isn't a completist volume, but rather captures fascinating stories of flora tragedy throughout history. Each plant is examined and its fatal history recounted. Botanical details are included in a sidebar. Each chapter ends with Meet the Relatives that often includes quite worthy cousins used in culinary or medical treatments.
The plants talked about are poisonous, invasive, illegal, carnivorous, opportunistic, explosive, flammable, psychedelic, phototoxic, asthma inducing or just plain intoxicating. There are plants who rely on other host plants or animals to work their wickedness.
Sometimes these traits can be used to advantage, as the Swedish engineer George de Mestral realized while picking Burdock out of his dogs fur. He later invented Velcro.
Even the afterword has no good news, as the once widely recommended Syrup of Ipecac, Psychotria ipecacucaunha, is no longer prescribed because while it can induce vomiting to purge other poisons, it can mask symptoms and make diagnosis more difficult. It has also been implicated in cases of Munchausen by Proxy and Bulimia such as Karen Carpenter's tragic diet.
Amy Stewart and her husband live in Eureka, CA and tends her own poison garden. They own and operate the antiquarian Eureka Books and signed copies of her books are available there. If you're going to be in New York before Sept. 6, you can view the Botanical Gardens own Wicked Plant Garden or see the lovely copper plate etchings that Briony Morrow-Cribbs created to illustrate the book. Briony herself gets a foot note, as she shares her name with a family of wicked plants, Bryonia which includes snakeweed and bastard turnip, and causes vomiting dizziness and respiratory failure. In the Northwest, B. alba is considered a kudzu, and Briony is represented by the Davidson Gallery in Seattle.
This Book Report is dedicated to No Blood for Hubris, herself a wicked gardener in her own right.
Wicked Plants is available at Jackson Street Books. Amy's blog, Dirt is the place to view and purchase her lovely oil paintings.
Way to go Aberdeen. The world is laughing at you. Again. A few years back, there was controversy as to whether to City Council should attach the words "Come as you are" to the Welcome to Aberdeen sign. After obtaining a $125,000 grant, the old sign with a bullet hole was replaced.
Earlier this week, the local rag ran a piece which sparked more controversy, even though most folks were able to take the message in stride. Local, private citizens have been working for years to clean up the patch next to the bridge Cobain slept under in his early years, without any public funding and create a park and memorial in Cobain's hometown.
A few days ago, Toledo mom Hayley Rogers brought her 16-year-old son Kenneth Plandel and his friend Sia Stone, also 16, to the park. They were using a map in the back of Charles R.. Cross’ book “Cobain Unseen” to look at Cobain-related sites around the Harbor.
“It’s straight forward”
“The phrase doesn’t bother me,” Rogers said. “It’s straight forward and that’s what kids need to hear. And it’s true. Drugs are bad for you and that’s exactly what it will do to you. That’s what it did to Kurt. It’s not offensive to me. I don’t talk like that. I don’t use that word. But it doesn’t bother me to see that here because that was him.”
A sandblasting crew has added dashes to a Kurt Cobain quote on a memorial stone to censor its potentially offensive language after it sparked widespread controversy.
Aberdeen City Councilwoman Kathy Hoder said she took it upon herself to convince Kovach to censor the word after becoming fed up with the controversy.
“I’ll take all the blame,” she said this morning.
Now media sources around the world are mocking the town of Aberdeen for it's small-minded ignorance of its most famous local son. The paper's Editor, Dan Jackson has a good perspective on this, but cooler heads were not able to deter Holder from imposing her censorship on a piece of marble. She had the quote sand-blasted within 3 days of it's placement. I hope she will enjoy being known as the totalitarian art critic and former City Councilwoman.
Or, as Novoselic puts it, “The people who erected it want to convey the message that drug abuse is bad for you. And it’s the truth. … Using the F-word on a granite marker may be striking, but considering contemporary mores, it’s not challenging.”
It may not be challenging in the larger world, but in this small town it cannot be tolerated.
We have an exciting event coming up tonight. David Neiwert, founder and award-winning journalist and blogger at Orcinus and of late, at Crooks and Liars discusses his latest book The Eliminationists with Jesus' General, GenJC Christian. Eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination. Rich in historical and journalistic detail, the book offers a fine overview of the uglier strains in American politics. Order the book at Jackson Street Books. This event is a fund-raiser for the up-coming NetRoots in SL09. Join us to find out more. Here's a nice primer to get you started.
*UPDATE!* Here are some pics from earlier tonight at the Arena. Thanks to all attendees, it was a great discussion! Here's the audio.
Remember when we met the lovely Juia?
and her miniture paramour!
This is my desktop picture. Feel free to make it yours!
Well, one thing and another, things being what they are... we have a baby!
Ladies & Gentlemen: we have a Zee-Donk. 
Mother and child.
Yeah, she might have a nice picket fence, and a stage that would make Garrison cry, but I have a ride! The Sit-n-Spin cube.
Here's our pal Stormbear! Won't you send a book to a soldier?
The Canadians are coming! Look out!
Oh, wait. They want to explain Healthcare to us.
Here's an intersection where you can snag a free pair of Rainbow Mittens or Ask Sarah a Question.
Moody Loner will help you get your WoW on.
Wicked Plants: The Weed that Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart (Algonquin Books, $18.95) This small, yet disturbing book is a delight to hold, with it's lovely boards and ribbon marker. The stories inside tell of Mother Nature's most poisonous creations. While most native cultures knew of a plant's deathly capabilities, it is often the new resident of a region or a tourist who run afowl of these killer plants. 
We have an exciting event coming up tonight. David Neiwert, founder and award-winning journalist and blogger at Orcinus and of late, at Crooks and Liars discusses his latest book The Eliminationists with Jesus' General, GenJC Christian. Eliminationism: a politics and a culture that shuns dialogue and the democratic exchange of ideas in favor of the pursuit of outright elimination of the opposing side, either through suppression, exile, and ejection, or extermination. Rich in historical and journalistic detail, the book offers a fine overview of the uglier strains in American politics.
This is the projected model from Probcast.
But I think we've broken that already.
Not to worry: tomorrow will be worse.
