2024-09-14

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recurring posts

Philosophical Questions: Rights

People have expressed interest in deep topics, so this list focuses on philosophical questions.

What rights does every human have? Do those rights change based on age?

( Read more... )

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Creative Jam

The September

crowdfunding Creative Jam is now open with a theme of "Stars." Come give us prompts, or claim some for your own inspiration.

What I Have Written

"Constant Stars" s the freebie.

"The Four Fruits of Heaven"
One sun has four life-bearing planets, each with its own kind of people.
168 lines, Buy It Now = $84

From My Prompts

"Star Hunger" by

adore
Mel brings home a stray star.

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Katherine Rundell

Katherine Rundell is her generation’s J.R.R. Tolkien

LONDON — Dragons never go out of style; so naturally, one of them arcs across the cover of Katherine Rundell’s “Impossible Creatures,” wings unfurled for maximum glory. That seems to have done the trick: The novel, newly available in the States, was an instant bestseller when it came out in Britain last year. It would be easy to overlook the little guy at the bottom left of the illustration — a baby griffin named Gelifen. He is the last of his kind and the true heart of Rundell’s story, in which two kids, Mal and Christopher, must save a magic realm from environmental catastrophe. Griffins are “joy birds,” a scientist tells them. “Cornucopial life admirers.”

That also describes Rundell, a fellow at St. Catherine’s College at Oxford and the latest in that university’s celebrated tradition of scholar-fantasists — C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, Philip Pullman. She is a high-spirited evangelist for her various passions (in no particular order: children’s fiction, Renaissance literature and the natural world). Her first book for adults, “Why You Should Read Children’s Books, Even Though You Are So Old and Wise,” from 2019, was an essay-length retort to the colleagues who claimed that her talents were wasted on the genre. “I felt that that was so shortsighted, so ludicrous,” she said, when we met over the summer. “A really great children’s book can hook a child. It can put a fish hook through their imagination and root them in the world of books for the rest of their lives.”

It's important for children's books to have some interest for adults, because it is adults who typically buy them for children, and often read them to children.

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Birdfeeding

Today is sunny and hot. It rained off and on yesterday, not a lot, but enough to help. I miss the fall rains.

I haven't fed the birds yet.

I trimmed a patch of grass in the white garden, and poured a gallon of water over it in hopes of softening the ground.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I fed the birds. I've seen a small flock of house sparrows.

I put out water for the birds and watered a few plants.

Honeybees are mobbing the water stations.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I planted 2 'Immortality' white irises in the white garden at the end of the driveway.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I put mulch around the white irises.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I watered the white irises and the telephone pole garden.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I watered the patio plants, picnic table, and septic garden.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I watered the patch in the prairie garden.

EDIT 9/14/24 -- I did a bit of work around the patio.

I've seen a male and two female cardinals at the fly-through feeder.

Cicadas and crickets are singing.

As it is now dark, I am done for the night.