5/19/12 NEW BLOOMS, AND THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY

RHODODENDRONS ARE IN BLOOM...

APPLE ORCHARDS WILL BE IN FULL BLOOM THIS WEEKEND

LUPINES ARE BEGINNING TO BLOOM

Saturday, 8:00 AM.  70 degrees F, wind W, calm at present.  The sky is mostly blue and the barometer, although trending down, predicts the same.
        Rosebay Rhododendrons are hardy right along the lake shore, and they are blooming here and there in town.  The Lupines have begun to bloom and the roadsides will soon be resplendent with their blue, pink and white flowers.  The apple orchards will be pretty much in full bloom this weekend.
        Except for wrapping up some odds and ends, all the plants are delivered and the planting jobs are all done.    For reasons I will not go into nor dwell upon, I am not particularly happy with the way things went this spring.  I guess I am too much of a perfectionist about plants, people and things in general.  That means I am destined to be often dissatisfied.  Anyway, things always work out in spite of, or perhaps because of, my finicky standards.
        The neighborhood sign wars reached a new level of intensity today, the folks directly across the street putting up two anti-Walker signs.  I am now outnumbered on our corner by three to one.  I threatened to get another pro-Walker sign but  Joan says I should cool it, as the election, and the sign wars, will soon be over.
        I see where the ungrateful child who is the co-founder of Facebook and an instant billionaire has renounced his US citizenship and is moving to Singapore to escape U.S. income taxes and become a “citizen of the world.”  A bill has been introduced in the Senate to stop this kind of tax dodge and never allow such a tax dodger to return to this country.  I don’t  know if such a law, if passed, could be enforced against him as it would be obviously ex-post facto and therefore unconstitutional to apply it to him.  I have a better idea.
        I think we should rather emulate the Amish, and shun him. No American should ever communicate with him again, never mention his name.  Do I think our society would ever have that kind of unity and discipline? Nope. But I wonder if the youngster  ever read “The Man Without A Country,” by Edward Everett Hale.  I’d send him a copy, if I could remember his name.