Yards of work

When I first came out to work, the resident bunny ran out from under this chair and streaked across the yard. I have yet to catch a good photo of the bunny. But I continue to try.

While school was in session, I didn't have time to do things properly, including yard work. We've had so little rain that it almost doesn't matter that the leaves still cover the ground and the grass remains uncut. (Except for a small patch of weeds, the ground cover has barely grown.)

So today I MUST do the worst of it, since I'm leaving town for three and a half weeks the day after tomorrow.

Under normal circumstances it wouldn't be possible to do this kind of work in the middle of the day on May 20. According to weather.com, it's 81 degrees, but it's the insanely low humidity -- 46% -- that makes yard work in mid-day not only possible, but pleasant. I would be enjoying it but for the knowledge that this is not normal and suggests something scary about our climate.

Karl Rove Revokes Sheryl Crow's Citizenship

Or something like that.

Karl Rove's debate with singer Sheryl Crow and producer Laurie David about global warming heated the atmosphere at a black-tie Washington dinner.

On the eve of Earth Day, Crow and "Inconvenient Truth" producer David walked over to the presidential adviser's table at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner Saturday night at the Washington Hilton.

Their differences on global warming quickly bubbled over, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

"I am floored by what I just experienced with Karl Rove," David said later. "I went over to him and said, I urge you to take a new look at global warming. He went zero to 100 with me. ... I've never had anyone be so rude."

Rove said: "She came over to insult me and she succeeded."

As the debate intensified, Crow tried to calm things down but was drawn into the debate with Rove instead.

"You work for me," she told Rove, according to the Post column "The Reliable Source."

"No," was his response. "I work for the American people."

Heather Lylis, a spokeswoman for Crow and David's global warming tour, said Sunday that Crow's response for Rove was: "Yes, and I'm an American citizen."

It's not news that this administration has a hard time with the concept (one I learned in grade school) that government officials work for us and not the other way around (and that would be all of us, not just those who agree with them). But hey, don't go messin' with Sheryl Crow.

Sheryl Crow and Laurie David at said dinner. You know what Rove looks like.

Earth Day 2007

We only have the one planet. Without it, what happens with Don Imus, or on American Idol, or even in Iraq is rather irrelevant.

Let's get our priorities straight. Let's take care of the earth.

Earth Day 2007.

When I'm Wrong, I'm Wrong, or, Gov. Crist, Are You Sure You're a Republican?

First Charlie says he wants to get rid of paperless voting machines, potentially restoring confidence in the integrity of Florida's voting process to skeptics like me.

Then Charlie says he's going to restore the voting rights of felons who have fully "paid their debt" to society.

Now, at a RALLY AGAINST GLOBAL WARMING (my poor abused mind is still trying to wrap itself around that one), Charlie announces that he has legal staff looking at the possibility of a posthumous pardon for Jim Morrison, who was appealing his conviction in Florida for indecent exposure at the time of his death.

Gov. Charlie Crist said he was seriously considering pardoning music icon Jim Morrison's 1970 indecent exposure and profanity convictions stemming from a Miami concert the year before.

"He died when he was 27. That's really a kid, when you think about it, and obviously he was having some challenges," Crist said Monday, after attending a rally against global warming with rock star Sheryl Crow. "There's some dispute about how solid the case was."

Morrison's arrest generated a lot of attention at the time and is still a part of the Morrison legend. He was drunk at the concert and police said he exposed himself, which Morrison denied.

Doors keyboardist Ray Manzarek said Tuesday that he never saw Morrison expose himself and none of the more than 100 photos entered into evidence showed Morrison's genitals.

"He taunted the audience. 'I'm going to show you! I'm going to show it to you!' Then he took his shirt off, held it in front of him like a bullfighter's cape, wiggled it around as if there was something going on behind it," Manzarek said.

Morrison appealed the convictions, but was found dead in a Paris bathtub before it could be heard.

"Trying to clear his name and then he dies. If you have a heart pounding in your chest, that has to tug at you a little bit. It should," Crist said. "To have that much talent and to have it sucked out, even if there was some self-involvement ... that's very sad and very tragic."

Crist is the man who ran to the other end of the state during the last moments of the gubernatorial campaign to avoid being seen with George W. Bush, which now no longer looks so much like a political stunt as it does a metaphor for his political worldview.

Salon reports that Crist has a 73% approval rating in Florida. Me? I'm leaning against the wall in the corner, arms crossed, watching with interest to see what Charlie will do next.

Rock and roll, Charlie. Rock and roll.

4-20 edit: I discovered tonight that a friend attended the Crow concert and heard Crist speak. She reported he is indeed passionate about doing something about global climate change.