Is anyone persuaded by being called a racist?  Or condescended to?  I mean, even most racists don't like to be called racist, and most stupid people don't like to be called stupid.

Or are all these pieces of intellectual dog-doo just supposed to be further fodder for the True Believers to lap up and circulate virally, in the hopes that there are white women out there weak-brained enough to go 'Oh no!  I had no idea I was racist!  I'll get right on that.'

Look, I couldn't care less about the Party personally. I left the Democrats twenty years ago when they told me that my activism in the Central America solidarity and South African anti-apartheid movements made me a security risk, and that I wouldn't be able to get clearance to be in some parade with Governor Dukakis. Yeah, seriously.

So his reason to "leave the party" is all good and noble, but anyone else ... racist.

I should also add that his statement is disingenuous. According to Wikipedia, Tim Wise was born in 1968.  That means that the first Presidential election he was eligible to vote in was 1988, the year Dukasis ran.

So his 20 year old self had all the sense in the world to leave a party, which he didn't really belong to, and allow Papa Bush to get elected.  But older white women couldn't have any better reason than racism?

And you wonder why women of color have, for so long, thought (by and large) that white so-called feminists were phony as hell? Sister please...

Where the hell does he come up with that? It would take me all day to dissect the pure and utter BS in that one sentence.

 Absolutely nothing wrong with loving it. Just ignore the stereotype and realize that at some point on some level every person alive with have some trait, or characteristic or like or ability that just happens to coincide with some stereotype or another.

Stand one half melon on the cut side on a cutting board.

Cut off the top of the melon - deep if you cut the blossom end, shallower if you cut the stem end.

Now start "peeling" the melon by slicing the rind off by cutting from top to bottom.  Adjust your cuts to leave nothing but a hemisphere of pure, sweet, juicy goodness.

Cut the melon into slices and then into cubes.  Enjoy!

I'm Irish and feel the same way when I drink a beer before noon.

Planted some verbena and a few other plants to try and add some color. I have wildflowers from the seeds I planted. But I'm having trouble discerning between them and the weeds...they aren't flowering yet ::sigh::

The high winds and showers have been tossing other seeds around. So I've got strange stuff coming up in my herb pots with the regular herbs.

Have decided to talk to the guy who does the neighbor's yard. He's trying to get a business started...and offered to help out with the weeding and the mulching.

I just started a new job a couple Mondays ago...so that's made it even worse.

In the front, the iris and the peonies are done, and the tansy is flowering in clouds of miniature daisies in all the beds where it self-seeded. I'll cut it back or pull it out after the blooms fade. The blue penstemon is in bloom, and has also seeded itself everywhere, including in the buffalo grass. The grass itself is in its third summer from seed and is filling in nicely - and I love that it's kind of blue-green and very fine, and it has to be watered and mown about one-quarter as much as KBG.

Asiatic lilies, Shasta daisies, columbine, Parker's yarrow, veronica, salvia, catnip, red pine-leaf penstemon, dianthus, centranthus, blanket flower, and geraniums are all in bloom - in orange, yellow, blue, red, pink, magenta and purple. It's a riot of blooms, a xeriscaped cottage garden. Day lilies, butterfly bush, coreopsis, globe thistle, kniphofia, torch lilies, coneflower and Joe Pye weed are all coming on strong for July. Unfortunately the picket fence I laboriously painted two springs ago is starting to peel and fade.:-(

This morning I hand-pulled weeds from the beds and grass in front, snipped the iris flower stalks and spread a thick layer of mulch. I'm slowly depleting the ten-yard pile of mulch I had delivered two years ago.

In back, almost everything in and around the pond is in full bloom - heucheras, centranthus, penstemon palmeri (one plant from two years ago has reseeded itself around in every shade from pure white through pale pink to lavender to purple), yellow pineleaf penstemon, salvia, columbine, geranium. The water mint is blooming pale blue, the moneywort bright yellow, and the water parsley white. I'm going to have to cut them back, they're about to obscure the waterfall. The waterlilies aren't budding yet, but the leaves are spreading - soon the white koi that is visibly engorged with eggs will spawn under the leaves and then I'll have baby fish.

The herb garden is ridiculously lush, with the tarragon flopping all over everything, and the lovage over six feet tall, dwarfing the bronze fennel. The chives are just about done blooming. Lavender is just about there.

The vegetables (tomatoes, collards, cukes, artichoke, corn, squash, beans) are getting off to a slow start because we've had an unusually cool spring. Today it's almost 90 so that should give them a boost.

The purple osteospermum are tracking the sun, the zinnias and moss rose are about to bloom for the first time, the feather reed grass is about three feet tall. My old cat Henry is sprawled out in the grassy shade like a tiger in a jungle. The Herbstonne redbeckia I snagged at the end of last summer from the bargain bin - root-bound, straggly, all but dead - have come back like gangbusters and are already two feet tall. By August they'll be over six feet tall and crowned with blooms.

I love summer. I love my garden. As much work as it is, there is nothing that gives me more pleasure.