FIREWEED. PURPLE LOSTRIFE AND A "FREE" BREAKFAST

FIREWEED FLOWER PANICLE...

...ROADSIDE PLANTS

PURPLE LOSTRIFE

Thursday, 9:00 AM.  61 degrees F, wind WNW, calm at present.  The sky is overcast with no hint of sun.  The humidity is 80% and the barometer is up, at 30.01", but we may get some showers regardless.

   Fireweed, Epilobium angustifolium, in the evening primrose family (Onagraceae) is a boreal plant that typically occupies disturbed ground, such as after a fire, hence its common name.  It is also called willow-herb, and wicup.  It is often seen in large masses in fields and roadsides and can be very predominate in the landscape.  It is quite beautiful and blooms for a long time.  This year I am not seeing that much of it, I think because there is so much competition from other plants in this cool, wet year.

   A plant which might be confused with it, especially when growing in mass, is purple loostrife Lythrum salicaria,  an Asian garden escape, which has become a very damaging invasive plant in wet areas and outcompetes native cattails.  I am not seeing as much of this plant either, since a beetle which feeds specifically on this plant was introduced a few years ago is successfully reducing the overpopulation of this species.

   Our local public schools will have a federally funded program this year which offers a free breakfast to all children.  Now that sounds really nice and may be beneficial to the few children who are actually undernourished.  So it is hard to oppose it.  But I do. And here's why.
   This is another instance of delegating a traditional responsibility of a parent to the government.  After all, how difficult or expensive is it to see to it that a child gets a bowl of cereal with milk and a piece of toast  before school in the morning?

   The goal of every dictatorial regime throughout history (think Plato's Republic,  Sparta, Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, China, Cuba) all have had it as their goal to break the bond between parents and their  children so the youth  could be raised and indoctrinated by the state.  And don't forget Hillary's statement, "It takes a village [read government] to raise a child."

   We all know there is no free lunch; neither is there a free breakfast.  Every government handout has a price in taxes, loss of freedom or something else.  The state is the piper which must be paid. What does this regime want in return for a free breakfast?  I think it is our  children.