We have an update: the bees, it turns out, were not what we thought. (Just like in X-Files). Turns out the photo sent by my realtor--the one in the post below--was NOT a photo of their hive. Yesterday the realtor showed me where on our tree he'd seen the "hive"--towards the front, facing the house. When I showed him the actual hive--which is in the back of the tree, away from the house--he was confused.
So what had he photographed? A swarm. Bees living in the hive had outgrown the space and decided to emigrate. When this happens, they first assemble in a pack. That's what he had seen--a group of departing, colonist bees getting their marching orders. Sitting on the docks, waiting for their outbound ocean liners, so to speak.
But now they're gone. The hive is massively reduced, and there are no bees visible from the house. So all is well, at least bee-wise, with our home.
* * *
I spent the last day and a half finding and haggling with the tile guy cum painter who we're using to spiff up our home before next week's showing. First, I bargained his initial quote down by 20%. Then I felt bad that I was making him do a big job (four days of work) for too small an amount. So I told him I'd give him back 10% of the fee at the end of the job, assuming it was done well. Not exactly the most ruthless of negotiators, am I.
 |
| Bink lobbying to leave the beehive alone. "Can't we all just get along?" |
* * *
I've just finished Grand Expectations, part of the Oxford History of the US. It covers the period from the death of FDR to the resignation of Nixon. Nixon was a terrible terrible person. That's my 5 second précis. Even worse than I knew. There's really almost nothing good you can say about him--even the much-ballyhooed 'opening up to China' was mostly a sham. I'm going to write some more about that soon. Also surprised by how little impressed I came away by JFK. The more I learn about him, the more hollow and inadequate he seems. All charisma and good lucks, but very little real acumen. They were ruthless, those Kennedys. Not a very inspiring bunch.
Reading now a truly unusual book: Nightmare Alley by Thomas Love Peacock. I'll try to talk about that too. But now, the painter has arrived. He is about to start power-cleaning the outside of the house. Thank God the wife took The Bink to be boarded. If he'd had to stay indoors all day while men worked on the exterior of our house he would have lost his fuzzy little mind.
11 comments:
I feel that instead of listening to contemporary pop music as part of a preparation strategy for Jeopardy, you should instead finish your novel.
This comment is a non sequitur.
It is also a procrastination strategy against finishing my own novel.
So now this comment is a meta non sequitur.
Also - Will's website is very confusing.
As is Will himself.
Nixon kind of was. There is a great HBO documentary on Nixon on YouTube rhat features a lot of the recordings from the White House. A nasty man. But I do think you should give some credit.
Did a bit for the environment (EPA, Clean Air Act, Endangered Species Act), Detente was the right direction, opening China and easing tensions with the Soviets. Sure, there's Watergate and bombing Cambodia and indirectly bringing on the Kehmer Rouge (sp?) Genocide, but haven't you made some mistakes too?
There's a good review in the recent NYRB of some recent Nixon bios. Among the fact they've turned up, recently, is that Nixon deliberately sabotaged LBJ's attempts to make peace in Vietnam at the end of his presidency. Nixon wanted himself to be the one who made peace--not LBJ. Then, of course, he waited four years, almost, to take the same offer form Ho Chi Minh that he could have gotten in 68. The blood of millions of people is on his hands.
Too easy to paint Nixon as the bogeyman. Of course he bears some responsibility for some terrible things that unfolded. But many of those deaths would not have occurred if Diem and his successors hadn't misruled South Vietnam so badly, if the Vietcong hadn't launched Tet, if LBJ hadn't started the massive bombing of North Vietnam (Rolling Thunder). Richard Nixon didn't commit genocide in Cambodia, Pol Pot did. Ho Chi Minh bears some responsibility for the carnage as well. And Nixon was not so powerful that if the Johnson administration and the North Vietnamese really wanted peace, that Nixon alone could stop them.
Disagree with 80% of that. It's easy to paint Nixon as bogeyman because he was. I'll send you the link to recent reviews of new autobiographies. Also would suggest that the vaunted 'opening up' of China was almost purely symbolic and effected little to no real change. EPA, detente were the same.
For the delectation of all who wish to defend Nixon:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/04/21/disaster-of-richard-nixon/
I disagree with 77% of that. You have to take the long view. Opening China at the time was mostly symbolic. Our relations today with China are more than symbolic. And it took some first symbolic steps. Nixon took those steps. Prior to Nixon, the U.S. government claimed that the Chinese government resided in Taiwan. Detente was also not an immediate success. But Nixon was the first president since World War II who showed that there was an alternate way with the Soviets other than escalation. Nixon's environmental initiatives were the first significant acknowledgement at that level that environmental concerns were priority since Teddy Roosevelt. I would be interested in those links.
As a history teacher it's your job to make your students consider both sides of Nixon's legacy. I appreciate that. But I think there's a revisionist spirit in American Historical studies that too often wishes to take on a contrary, minority position for the mere reason that it's in the minority. Sometimes the conventional view is wrong: sometimes received wisdom is foolishness. But the conventional view about Nixon is not wrong. He was our worst president and did untold harm not only to the American people but to the office itself.
LBJ d8d as much damage as Nixon. Vietnam was mostly him. The Credibility Gap that emerged was as much due to the Johnson administration's lies about Vietnam as Nixon's actions. His Great Society and Vietnam spending brought an end to the postwar prosperity and brought on the stagflation of the 70's. And Buchanan is the worst president. Hard to top standing by and taking no action as half of the country secedes.
Post a Comment