They understand we've been sold a bill of goods by the global warming folks. When are we going to wise up?

iTunes is currently playing: Prelude To The End Of The Game from the album Brand New Day by Sting.

According to NWI.COM (online version of The [Hammond] Times), Indiana has the second highest smoking rate in the country. It is difficult to believe that in this day and age, more than a quarter of adults in Hoosierville smoke. Even worse, the percentage has gone up in the last couple of years (unlike most other states, where fewer people are smoking).

What's up, Hoosiers? Do you all not get that smoking is bad for your health??

iTunes is currently playing: Save Yourself from the album Aces by Suzy Bogguss.

From the [Gary] Post-Tribune:

The fiancee of Gary's latest homicide victim said she asked him not to visit the Brunswick neighborhood where he was shot and killed Wednesday. Terry Flournoy Jr., 36, became the fifth person in six days to be killed in Gary when he failed to heed that warning. Witnesses said they heard several gunshots before Flournoy was found dead in a purple Pontiac Sunfire in the 700 block of Hovey Street. "People have been getting killed left and right over here," Mya Gauldin, ... said.

From GoogleMaps:

Yesterday was a beautiful day so we took a drive out to Lancaster (PA). We saw quite a few horse-drawn buggies, as the area is home to some Amish folks. I'm surprised there aren't more accidents, as the buggies travel right alongside the cars on Rt. 30.

Does this cow need to be milked or do they always look like that?

As we approached our house at the end of the day, we saw a couple of our local deer watching the cars go by. I never get tired of watching these guys.

Playing with a new lens for my Olympus E-520: a Rokinon 85mm 1.4.

iTunes is currently playing: Someone's In The Background from the album Hearts And Flowers by Joan Armatrading.

Occasionally I post an issue of Ted Kooser's American Life in Poetry column, when its featured poem particularly hits home with me. The following poem reminds me of the afternoon we spent whale watching with a group of folks who cruised Alaska with us on the Diamond Princess last May. We saw so many whales that afternoon! It was one of the highlights of our cruise, and it was wonderful to share the experience with so many others. If you have ever traveled in a group, the poem may touch a chord with you, too.

American Life in Poetry: Column 226

BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE, 2004-2006

Elizabeth Bishop, one of our greatest American poets, once wrote a long poem in which the sudden appearance of a moose on a highway creates a community among a group of strangers on a bus. Here Ronald Wallace, a Wisconsin poet, gives us a sighting with similar results.


Sustenance

Australia. Phillip Island. The Tasman Sea.
Dusk. The craggy coastline at low tide in fog.
Two thousand tourists milling in the stands
as one by one, and then in groups, the fairy penguins
mass up on the sand like so much sea wrack and
debris. And then, as on command, the improbable
parade begins: all day they've been out fishing
for their chicks, and now, somehow, they find them
squawking in their burrows in the dunes, one by one,
two by two, such comical solemnity, as wobbling by
they catch our eager eyes until we're squawking, too,
in English, French, and Japanese, Yiddish and Swahili,
like some happy wedding party brought to tears
by whatever in the ceremony repairs the rifts
between us. The rain stops. The fog lifts. Stars.
And we go home, less hungry, satisfied, to friends
and family, regurgitating all we've heard and seen.


American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. "Sustenance" from "For A Limited Time Only," by Ronald Wallace, (c) 2008. Used by permission of the University of Pittsburgh Press. The poem first appeared in "Poetry Northwest," Vol. 41, no. 4, 2001. Introduction copyright (c)2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006.

iTunes is currently playing: Universal Traveler from the album Talkie Walkie by Air.