h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

And that's enough history for tonight.

Hope your husband is OK, and keep us posted on things. Hope your family stays safe.

Like Bel about 60 posts back, I was worried about how it was affecting you and your family and came journal-hunting to give you a huge

I've lit a candle here - I hope things get better soon. I can't offer much other than s and kind thoughts, I'm afraid, but I hope they help a tiny amount.

Yes I would love holy cedar windfall as well as a rock, Wilma.

Leo - thank you - I am going to read that much more carefully later. I was up lst night reading about the 1948 events... For now we are getting ready to go out - the Youth Club leader sent an sms - we are all asked to attend a silent vigil at noon in parliament square. Lebanese flags only allowed - so that means there will be no party politics - so I am going and taking the children.

Rich, thank you , hmh I will have to have a look in the attic, I can't find them

Oh, and my husband was there in 1975, 1978, 1982. Born and raised and lived there throughout. He left for the first time in 1989. He is fine. So long as he talks about stuff, he will be fine - it is when he goes big, macho and silent on me that I worry..

What is it about men? They go all big and silent and macho just when they need to talk and release and be supported and loved.

Wilma, if you can't find rocks, don't worry about it unless it gives yo something else to think about other than the horrors being perpetrated in the Middle East and Afghanistan and now India.

Yesterday I floated on a small local river, and as we were enjoying the beauty around us and the peace of the water flowing, I observed a small bird flying across the river from one bank to the other. He was a prothonatory warbler, flashy yellow and black. When he got to the other side a little blue gray gnatcatcher flew angrily up out of the shrubbery there and addressed him in no uncertain terms telling him that this was his shrub and those were his bugs and the prothonotary warbler should go Somewhere Else Right Now. After a few skirmishing flights, the yellow bird did move up the bank a ways to where no one else was hunting. And all I could think was, even the tiny birds. . . but they at least came to a detente quickly, without a death involved.

Perhaps the whole earth is just a giant experiment in territoriality, and unless we learn to overcome that imperative we are doomed to fight and kill one another.

we didn't go. First of all, because it was yesterday and secondly, even if it were today, I found out who it was organised by... I would not have gone anyway. Turns out that words were exchanged yesterday...

I have both kids home today. Off to play at being mummy.

to all.

I'd like to know who thought it was a good idea to call a bird prothonotary.

Is it not a descriptive? I did not want to show my ignorance and ask what it meant..











While we are on the subject of peculiarities:

Meanwhile, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz said Monday that Israel aims at creating a buffer zone in south Lebanon, from where Hizbullah has been pounding Israel with rockets for the past six days. "One of the aims of the [military] operation is to establish a security area in Lebanon, without the presence of Israeli soldiers," Peretz said.
http://www.albawaba.com/en/news/200853
Hmm, they have turned down the UN offer of monitoring, who do they think is going to man this buffer zone? The Lebanese army

*goes to look at hmh's birds again*

Well, dad gum it, you are always asking questions that make me look stuff up. (harks back to reference librarian past life) I didn't know this before, but here you are:

Prothonotary: a chief clerk or official in certian courts of law. Any of the seven members of the college of prothonotaries apostolic charged chiefly with the registry of pontifical acts and canonization.

Prothonotary warbler: a wood warbler of the eastern U.S. having an orange-yellow head and underparts and bluish-gray wings (I would have said black) and tail [1780-90 Amer.; so called because its coloration resembles the robes tyraditionally worn by prothonotaries)

It doesn't say who named the little guy. I thought I was doing well to even remember its name at all. Now I have this vision of little cardinals dressed in yellow and black flying around the woods deciding who to canonize.

And how on earth would one pronounce it?

pro - THONE - uh - tor-ee or pro - tho- NOTE - a - ree

Around here we tend to use pronunciation no. 2 because it seems to have a better rhythm. Jeri and I really had to learn the right name because she has had a pair of them raising babies in the birdnest gourd 7 feet outside her kitchen window for three years. Couldn't just keep calling it that cute little yaller bird.

I'm listening...




I'll just drop this here in the corner for later:

http://edition.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/world/2006/07/14/lebanon.pm.interview.cnn

I just listened to the whole interview.

Does he really think that Bush loves peace?

Hmm, I thought he was talking sense until I got to the bit where he said Bush was sincere not much hope for Lebanon then...

Otherwise, I thought his talk and ideas were very good. But, obviously, he can't sit there and call Bush a saber-rattling imbecilic war-monger and hope for any help from that direction, no matter how true it might be.

good night, Wilma. Hope all you and yours are still safe and well.

So far so good - so long as the I can still call, I will stay sane...


This one is cute:

"The Iranian government warned Israel of "unimaginable losses" if it makes "the mistake of attacking Syria" and vowed that it was standing by the Syrian people."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74022
But, I guess Lebanon can fry in hell....

Ma Wilma - are you still going on holiday? They're evacuating all the British and US citizens, so will you be going over?