There are several school districts that have banned the Bible now because Karma. It isn't like that compilation of books is without obscene, violent, genocidal, disturbing content. The school district here has warned parents if they start going crazy on the book ban thing for the school libraries, they will ban Bibles from the buildings and grounds, punish kids for bringing them to school. The local Baptist church that produced the pastor who went bananas at the township library, got a little butt hurt about it. I just stood up and said, "Follow your own book. You reap what you sow." They piped down. It didn't occur to them that they could ever be on the receiving end of their own cattle prod. This is very frustrating because I am going to be totally honest here, when I was a child, this was not how the local Christian community, regardless of the denomination, acted. They were much more concerned with feeding people, clothing people, helping people, and being gracious and compassionate than they were about militantly forcing their beliefs on others. It is a heart breaking mess to see.

We had surfing last week on Lake Huron. It isn't as common, be we do have our occasional big wave days. The water is balmy warm over here and a bunch were out there on their boards. You'd have thought it was Malibu! 😂

It really is complex, so there aren't any quick fixes. I do think that one thing that needs to change is the concept of food at everything, snacking all the time. We used to hold regular, 4-H club meetings on Saturdays from 10 am - noon. We always let out at noon and we didn't have a single family who drove more than 20 minutes to the meeting. We were a science club so every meeting was an experiment/project, and we were busy the entire time. There was no need for food. None. Everyone was able to make it home by lunch time, and if their kids had been up and eaten breakfast early, they could have given them something before they arrived at the club meeting. Nope. Parents insisted there had to be food for the kids at the meetings. I refused to provide it so they all took turns bringing it, and it was ALWAYS junk food. One time I said I would take a turn, and brought grapes, tangerine slices, and carrot sticks. The beverage was water in a big pitcher and wax paper cups since those booze grade as well as little NOT decorated paper dessert size cake plates, again biodegradable. The parents were mortified that I didn't bring fun food. The kids ate it up. Some kids looked like they hadn't seen a piece of fruit in years! But I am sure that was not the case at all, it just was different from the usual chips, pretzels, and cookies so it seemed exciting probably. My husband says one of the benefits of working from home is that if he is snacky, he can grab the sunflower and pumpkin seeds I keep for him. At work, they keep a constant array of just junk and pastries, and everyone is constantly snacking throughout the day, none of it is healthy and it is so hard not to engage in it. At my last music/fine arts job, I had parents who thought I should have a snack break during the 1 hr, children's choir rehearsal. My head was imploding while I smiled sweetly and said that children can go one hour without eating, and that for singing purposes, we took water breaks, not food breaks. I also think that the ways in which foods are cooked and presented need to change. My sister was telling me that in the local school district near her (Southern France), they have actual chefs running the kitchens and the food is marvelous, Mediterranean style meals, and desserts are only served on the holidays. The lunch hour is a full hour with adults eating along with the children, lingering over the meal, talking and enjoying it slowly. Here, my local school district gives them half an hour, and they only get 10 minutes from the time they sit down with their tray to be done eating and outside. High schoolers eat in 20 minute shifts in a cafeteria not large enough to house the students so they stagger them, and boot anyone out without finishing if not done when the bell rings. It teaches them from a young age to wolf down their food which isn't good for digestion, and also means all the food has to be fast, easy to eat stuff. No one is going to serve elementary students chicken and vegetable stew with salads, fresh apples and pears that take a while to eat, and risotto when ten minutes is all they have, not to mention running the kitchen on a skeleton crew. So chicken nuggets, French fries, corn, and canned fruit cocktail it is. Our school district calls ketchup and pizza sauce "the serving of vegetables". I would rather they give the kids a peanut butter sandwich, string cheese, carrot sticks, and grapes...easy peasy...than " cook" for them. Chocolate milk and cookies. Everyday they always offer chocolate milk and cookies. Why can't they wait and just offer something fun and special at Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Valentine's? Why does this kind of sugar content have to always be available at school? At one point, breakfast for the kids eating two "meals" at school was a pop tart and chocolate milk! 😠 But yes. Complex. So many issues. Children raised in food desserts, nutritious food being more expensive and time not available for preparation or not having learned cooking skills to begin with, employers and schools not valuing meal time, the rush rush rush culture of our society, governmental policies that favor food company profits over community health, the list is long.

Agreed. We need a change in food culture in the states, not useless regulations.

My biggest issue is with the abuse of the library in Huntsville. His group reserved a room for twenty, and then announced they were bringing 300. The entire library doesn't have room for 300 much less a single room. It is massive fire code violation, and so when the library told them he would have to change venue because the fire Marshall said no way, he threatened to sue them and his organization claimed discrimination. Apparently hr and his snowflakes believe that they have the constitutional right to violate safety codes and put other people in danger.

Fellow Great Lakes Denizen here!.awesome sauce! We live very near Lake Huron.

Many parents do not care what their kids are losing educationally just so long as their fascist perspective is the only "valid" viewpoint in any book, play, poem, their kid encounters. It is very disturbing.

Thanks! I haven't worked with them before so I wasn't sure what to expect.

Bingo. Our closest public library has a book on basic human reproduction, cartoon drawings, cartoonish, fact based descriptions of sex, and seriously, nothing more than medical information about just human reproduction...the kind of thing you would expect to get from an OBGYN explaining the nuts and bolts to a child or teen. It is in the juvenile section which is labeled as ages 11-14. We made it into the news as far as 100 miles away because a pastor in the area went to a library meeting, raised cain about that book, called the librarians and volunteers depraved jezebels and pedophiles, then started a recall petition to get them thrown out. One book, the contents of which this pastor and his supporters are lying about epically. One totally appropriate medical book in an age appropriate section that he doesn't want his hyper sheltered kids to see. His rhetoric and name calling is just getting worse and worse. That said, the recall petition was thrown out by a judge. So for the moment, a brief reprieve. I have no great wisdom to share about how to combat this other than to speak up and loudly where you can, do not mince words, call a spade a spade just to do it respectfully and without a tone of malice or anger so there is some chance the words will be heard. Beyond that I cannot do a damn thing for the most part at the national level. The head librarian at the township library told me she thinks they will eventually be forced to discontinue all their children's programs including the Lego club, and become an 18+ admittance only facility where they will keep a children and youth section in case parents want to come check out books for their children, but children will not be allowed inside the building without a parent or guardian so they can't be accused of grooming kids. Then she figures not long after that, the township will simply defund the library. She retires in December and the two other paid librarians/media/educational programming persons have said they will probably quit because they are so discouraged. I am always amazed that the "don't infringe on my parental rights folks" freedom beaters seem to be the most zealous about controlling everyone else's parenting choices. Rules for thee but not for me. If I could afford it, I would buy a copy of Fahrenheit 457 for every household in this township. I am not rich enough manage that.

Halftime Hope, squirrels are absolutely dreadful, destructive horrible beasts whose existence, along with that of ground hogs, makes me question the very existence of the mere possibility of a benevolent deity! How the heck is anyone supposed to feed their family with those heathen rodents around?

Will adding calcium to the soil stop the blossom rot?

My sons bought me this book for my birthday in April. It has been such a HUGE help. I have been making notes in the margins, and then putting post it notes on different pages listing other thoughts, varieties I tried, things I would do differently. I have also taped some charts into the back which show things like, "How many green bean plants do I need to grow for a family of four to eat fresh vs. how many for freezing or canning for winter?" Maybe one of my adult kids will be interested in gardening someday, and if I am gone, they can at least benefit from the trial and error I experienced. My daughter desperately wants a similar resource for northern Alabama. But I don't know if anyone has written one. This particular book is written by an avid Michigan farmer and gardener.

I just blanched and froze my first gallon bag of Amish paste tomatoes. They blanched is easily, and were just perfect fruits inside. I was giddy! I have enough jalapeno, red chilis, and green bell pepper to make salsa. I just need to buy onion since I did not plant those. Should I wear gloves for taking the seeds out of the chili peppers? I have never worked with them before. The cucumbers are still going crazy. I have 15 this week, and will be selling some to the specialty meat market near here. I was there picking up some brats, and somehow a bunch of in line got to talking about gardens. The owner overheard me say I was overwhelmed with cukes, and she said she needed nine cukes tomorrow for some salads they are making to sell, and if I could provide them, she would be happy to pay me more than the supermarkets are getting because they want local grown, vine ripened, not imported because the flavor isn't as good. Ya'll, I am so proud of myself! These are my grown from seeds, transplants by my very own hand, and they are so prolific! I will also still have cucumbers to share with neighbors and to donate to the food pantry. I am not sure I am prouder of anything in my whole life, and that is saying so much because I was pretty damn impressed soothe myself when I mastered the Rachmaninoff 2nd piano concerto in college!!! If it was not raining, I would be out picking green beans. I already served fresh green beans last Monday to my family. DD, SIL, and Dgs are up from Bama visiting - we all went to a wedding yesterday, one that I provided the ceremony music for - and having enough green beans to feed my little clan at a meal, that I grew, was also a new and satisfying sensation. Grape tomatoes are headed to the dehydrator, and we have eaten almost all of our carrots. The pea plants have finally given up. They really were not supposed to survive the heat of summer, but I have the a beautiful canopy of sticks and foliage to grow on - which meant hunting for the peas because they were hidden - and I think the shade during the heat really helped them last. Scallions are still growing. Celery is maturing, but to me, the stalks do not look big enough yet so I think it will be September before they are ready. I also need to harvest basil again and start harvesting oregano for the dehydrator. I have been making post it notes containing my thoughts about the varieties I grew this year, and my plans for next year. I just found out that honorary daughter #1, who got married last night, has taken up gardening in her urban yard and wants a gardening book like mine. I am going to have my sons run to their bookstore to see if there is another, and then copy all of my post it notes and insert them, give it to her for Christmas with some sort of cool gardening thing like a beautiful basket for carrying her produce from the harden to the house, or a wide brim hat with a ribbon on it, very "Mary Jane Farm" style, something like that.

Yay!!! We love our kayaks.

Big hugs, Melissa! Lots of love.

This is crazy cute!

Nothing with mice, nothing with reptiles except tortoises which I love. Nothing medical. I am literally the last human on earth anyone would want to have care for them. I turn green at the sight of needles though I can handle being poked myself. Nothing to with sewage. I have a strong gag reflex when it comes to that smell. I barely managed my own children's diapers.

I just want to say that I had a LOT of things on my 2023 bingo card, many things. I was trying to really think outside the box. I even had something similar to "marine biologists remove marine life and cool them in refrigerated tanks", and dang it all, yep, they are pulling coral out and putting in aquariums to preserve it. So ya know, I thought I was doing a pretty good job and anticipating the insanity that would befall us this year. But no where did I have " leprosy endemic to a state". Nope. I feel like a failure. I should have seen this coming. I will have to try harder for 2024.

What you are doing is amazing! We need first responders to be trained, and there is almost nothing out there available for them. I want to see your program go nationwide and be required for all first responders, every last one of them. LEOs desperately need ir, and I can only imagine how much it would help firefighters to know better how to interact with a traumatized, autistic person whom they must extricate. So I am super duper excited to see you taking this step, and in the process, I hope this means you get to do all the things with your kids while your health allows. Rah rah rah, Tiggy!!!👏👏👏👏👏❤❤❤🍾🍾🍾

That might be a better way to go. This way you could see to it that the money isn't going to be burned through unnecessarily, but not on the hook for anything the person does.

Here is the state statute about guardianship of an adult. http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(m0m2rw125kv33el44ypq0kvd))/mileg.aspx?page=GetObject&objectname=mcl-700-5314 It doesn't specifically outline the liability of the guardian should the mentally ill person cause an accident or commit a crime. The fact that it doesn't address this would be a cause for concern in my mind. The person who wants you to do this should pay for you to speak with an attorney who specializes in this area, probably someone with elder care, dependent adult care, guardianship issues. I suspect, as litigious as our society is, the guardian could absolutely be sued. Whether or not there is a basis for judgement against the guardian is another matter. When my father was mentally ill and violent, though I did not have guardianship of him, since my mom was injured, Mark and I were caring for him, our attorney told us there was some default liability that we could potentially experience but that he honestly thought local judges would throw out any lawsuit against us. I won't regale you with the details except to say he did some stuff, and I ended up spending many thousands of dollars defending myself against lawsuits because our income looked like a nice nest egg to go after from blood sucking, ambulance chasing lawyers, not to mention that he committed a crime during that time and the prosecutor tried to come after me for not physically putting myself in peril to stop him. No joke. The prosecutor ended up on the wrong end of a judge in the matter, but nor before $10,000 of our savings got used to defend myself from all this mess, and I have some pretty bad PTSD from the whole mess. So I am generally against people taking on this responsibility. I feel that it is best to let the courts appoint a state guardian, a person who works in this capacity and of course is absolved of personal responsibility for the actions of the mentally ill person.

I should probably do that. But man, it kills me to do thing like thin carrots and scallions after they germinate, taking off blossoms and small fruit might ruin my mental! 😁

I actually assume the opposite due to the rise of religious fascism. But even if it isn't, it is still not the way to go about changing violence culture for the better. In practicality, this just seems like a disaster that will.hopefully, quickly fall by the way side. I hate that these are the kinds of answers to which leaders flock. It is a way of saying, 'See? We are doing something" without actually doing anything.

Hard no. Just moving to another country and starting over!

Thank you. Spot on. This is NOT how gun culture will change. And for the record, I am not pro sports pep rally. It is another form of indoctrination "Sports is more important than education" and time spent on something that doesn't belong when kids still can't adequately read, write, and understand basic mathematics. Band concerts, choir concerts, are not during the school day, just the academic music classes themselves. Students who are not a part of these groups are not compelled to attend performances in the evenings. But the whole school is forced to attend the pep rally for sports. So that is another rant I have. I am against the pledge of allegiance as well especially with the addition of "under god. Again, a form of group think, and cult like instead of encouraging the growth of critical thinking among students. There was a 4H pledge thing when we were leaders, but we never learned it, and we never ever had it said at our meetings. The fact that it was passed by the council without discussion is pretty pathetic in my opinion, though obviously others do not see it so negatively.