Don't forget - today is National Alzheimer's Day.

I'm not sure why this pic struck me. Maybe it's the clever photo-shopping. But it also seems like it's one of those that should get a caption. Hmmm

This one is just clever.

Gordon Brown is the current Prime Minister of England. He's a Scot (that's good) and like most Scots has been described as dour. I've known that word for a long time, even used it on occasion. Maybe that's because I'm a Scot and have been described as dour, a word that means serious, stern and harsh. Not exactly the life of the party.
I've always pronounced the word dour like "dow-er," rhyming with hour. But over the last couple of weeks I've heard the word used on TV and pronounced "dur," rhyming with fur, or maybe with just a hint of "o" in there, close to "do-er." That sent me to Dictionary.com and, sure enough, "dur" is correct. Learning I've been saying it wrong all these years has me feeling dour.

Maybe you remember that months ago I mentioned here the story of a young non-practicing Mormon who put out a calendar titled "Men on a Mission." It featured young Mormon males who had just returned from their 2-year mission trip. But what made the calendar noteworthy, at least for the suits in Salt Lake City, was that these young men were shirtless (and buff like me).
The calendar's creator, Chad Hardy, was summoned to Salt Lake City to meet with those suits. I never heard how that went. But today's news story infroms us that Chad, who graduated from Brigham Young University last August has had his diploma pulled by the school. The Mormon Church has excommunicated him because a) he wasn't paying his tithe to the church, and b) he put out a calendar of Mormons without shirts. Hardy was told that he can get his diploma back if and when he's reinstated to the Mormon Church.
If one of the markers of a cult is authoritarian control over its members I think we've got an answer about the Mormons. But I'm wondering how they can legally yank his diploma. A student enters into an agreement with a college or university as spelled out in the catalog: complete the req'd coursework with satisfactory grades and we give you a diploma. Unless there was something in the student handbook about calendars, how can they do this?

In the "criminally stupid" department, a guy here crashed his motorcycle today. His injuries aren't serious, but those of his passenger - his seven-year old son - are. Grrrrr.

I heard on the news tonight that the average household is carrying $8,300 in credit card debt.
Yikes!! How do they sleep?

I often don't, at least not well, and we don't have credit card debt. Sometimes, like last night, I get up and sit in my chair for an hour or two. Surf the internet, watch cable, read....
Now that the nights have cooled off we open everything up by 7:00 p.m. or so and leave it that way until the next day's temps are higher outside than inside. Which is how I came to be in my chair at 2:00 a.m. and listening to a rabbit losing a battle with a coyote very near our back slider. The rabbit did not go gentle into that good night. If you've ever heard a rabbit scream you know it's loud and blood-curdling. And this coyote took his time.
Who would you be pulling for if you were listening to that struggle? On the one hand it's hard not to pull for the rabbit fighting for its life. But hey, that coyote is doing the same thing; no bunny no dinner, no dinner no coyote. Never mind the coyote pups back in the den.
Perhaps it's my dour Scottish nature but I empathize with the coyote. And I think it's because they're more appealing on a gut level. They don't eat my plants, they're cool looking animals, they are shy, always retreating from humans and, speaking anthropomorphically (!), they display personality. Rabbits, on the other hand, fall under the classification "varmit." They are the reason I have a chicken wire garden.
Nature is harsh, isn't it. Winners and losers. But eventually everything loses. That coyote will fall pray to its natural predator or, more likely, an old lady's Buick.
What lives dies.
Goes for people, too.
You ready?