Henceforth I will be referring to the "R" word as the "H" word.

Drainfield

  Of the expressions available to the English Language, "Dumb as a Haddock," just like the word "Retard," is a fine example of how meanings drift over time. Here the better lesson is to accept that semantic drift, meaning changing over time, cannot and should not be prevented.

  "Dumb" as in deaf, dumb and blind, at one time reflected the idea of "Mute," unable to speak. This way the expression "dumb as a fish" meant as mute as a fish.

 A Haddock is a North Atlantic ocean fish in the Cod family. In parts of the British Islands, Dublin and South Wales for example, the word "cod," as in "he's a cod" or "it's a cod," means an unreliable, dastardly sort of person or deed, not to be trusted. A Haddock on the other hand can sometimes mean a purse, as in "I'll bet you a monkey to a Haddock!" A monkey being around five hundred guineas and a purse being not much more than a couple of shillings. 

  So here we are rushing to protect the skulduggery and underhanded maneuvering of those in the Sensitive Professions who moved to replace the splendidly expressive symbols of Moron, Idiot and Imbecile with a variation of the Latin retardare so as to poshify an employment opportunity when all along emanating from the State of Maine here in the United States is the wonderful muddle of the H word, as in "I heard the current Secretary of Defense is Dumb as a Haddock."

  Henceforth I will be joyously referring to the "R" word as the "H" word.

Raising the Children.

Ides of September Foxglove

  Strictly speaking the Ides of September would be the 13th of September. Mind you back when Ides of a month were a thing, instead of a poshnik making a Nancy-boy reference to Shakespeare's 19th Play, September would have been the seventh month of the Roman Year.

 nik of course is a Slavic suffix. And while there are some who might not believe me when I offer poshnik to a dictionary, you will find that the more formal definition of the word poshnik has so far been recorded thusly : "In internet culture, a poshnik refers to someone who is obsessed with luxury, high fashion, or acting overly upper-class."

  On the other hand a Gopnik, apparently, is a well-known slang term for lower-class, tie wearing street hoodlums found wandering around in one of the USA's major political parties. And we all know what a lipnik is.

 Oh yes, the internet of sixth formers, or sixth graders, as they broach the realities of meaning, like everyone else spend long useless years beating their heads against brick walls and whining like puppies, their hopeful little faces desperate for an expression that will impress the court.

Parasitic Arachnids.

Autumn Crocus (Winter Daffodil)

  The Tuesday of this week already looks bleak, as in hot. Without meaning to further gore the ox, I'll suggest it's a time of year when a simple mind as it patiently waits for the happy chance of a final curtain sees an opportunity to reflect favorably upon the bleak of a killing frost that might briefly retard the exuberance of arthropod populations, particularly the parasitic arachnids generally referred to as Ticks.

  In the simplicity of those olden days of right wing stone tablets, the book of Exodus set rules for when an ox injures or kills a person. It was a complicated and detailed list from the lips of a vengeful God. 

  The Innocent Ox scenario went this way : If your ox subjected an Israelite to a goring that resulted in the death of an Israelite, the ox was stoned to death and you were not allowed to eat the meat.

  The Dangerous Ox scenario went this way : If you knew your ox was prone to bad tempers and poor behavior and it gored someone to death, both you and your Ox were stoned to death. 

  My own view is this : If by chance you find death by stoning a particularly brutal and unnecessary sentence for any of God's creatures then, unlike The Lord, you've not been subjected to a season of tick bites.

 Don't be silly of course God approved of stoning as long as it was done outside the city or the camp and as long as one of the two witnesses to the offence threw the first stone. He once told Moses to stone a man to death for gathering sticks on the Sabbath, that's how serious narcissistic megalomaniacs can get when no one listens.

Wisdom hath builded her house with a Kalashnikov wearing Flip Flops.

White Snakeroot

  Where I live, Central Authority looks like a bunch of old white men with collars, ties and gray or grey suits - the weirder of them wear brown shoes - they all have a hard on for the culture of, if not the technology of the 18th Century and they are terrified of disobedient women, non-christians and socialism. 

  If you want to know why disobedient women, non-christians and socialism frighten them, you'll find the answer in loss of control, reduced power within the structures of a society that currently enable the wealthy property owner to keep a seat on the committee of the ruling class. Go ahead tremble!

  Stranger still, fifty years ago Central Authority looked and sounded the same, so please don't ask me to even think about assimilating. Back then of course it was also true that you can't buy courage or competence with money. 

  The title of TE Laurence's book The Seven Pillars of Wisdom comes from Proverbs : Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars. An observation Laurence made from his studies and passions for history of the Arabian Peninsular was an understanding of the kind of disciplines and developed wisdom required of a nomadic tribe surviving in the least forgiving parts of Arabia.

 It's a discipline and a wisdom, Laurence argued, that regularly takes Damascus and Baghdad but never keeps them.  The Fremen of Herbert's Dune ended when it rained. Arabia died when they drowned in oil.