Happy New Year!

For the new year, here is Professor Alan Charles Kors summarizing the entire human history in 60 seconds - hmm...this is the most efficient way of learning history. (On a longer timescale, Alan Charles Kors has done an excellent Teaching Company course titled, The Birth of the Modern Mind: The intellectual history of 17th and 18th centuries)

Here is the transcript of the 60 second lecture:

Human History

Alan Charles Kors

George H. Walker Endowed Term Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania

• First, tribes: tough life.
• The defaults beyond the intimate tribe were violence, aversion to difference, and slavery. Superstition: everywhere.
• Culture overcomes them partially.
• Rainfall agriculture, which allows loners.
• Irrigation agriculture, which favors community.
• Division of labor plus exchange in trade bring mutual cooperation, even outside the tribe.
• The impulse is always there, though: "Kill or enslave the outsider."
• Gradual science from Athens' compact with reason.
• Division of labor, trade, the mastery of knowledge, plus time brought surplus, sometimes a peaceful extended order and, rules diversely evolved and, the cooperation of strangers - always warring against the fierce defaults of tribalism, violence, and ignorance.
• No one who teaches you knows what will happen.
  
  
  A perfect way to start 2008!
  

I'm back! I wasn't planning to be computer-free while we traveled to visit family...but I filled my time with friends, family, and familiar places and it was great!

Now we're home, in time for the New Year, to put all of our goods and memories away for safe keeping and easy access.

::

The New Year provides us with a calendared opportunity to stop what isn't working and start what might. It's like a blank sheet of paper: it tastes, smells, feels, and sees like a fresh start. And who doesn't love a fresh start.

But the truth is that every day is a fresh start. (Every day!) And while I certainly spend the days leading up to and after the New Year reflecting on personal and professional accomplishments and planning for ones to come, I also spend time throughout the year (and on a smaller scale, throughout the day) to reflect on what's working and what's not-- within me and outside of me.

I'll share some of the little strategies I use (sometimes successfully, sometimes not) to do that and get things done in the New Year.

::

As on-going as my internal maintenance is, there is some external maintenance that only happens once a year that I (and by extension Pete) will be tending to in the coming days:

• Change the batteries in our fire detectors
• Defragment and clean out files on my computer
• Clean out hard copy files
• Organize my 2007 journal writings
• Update friends, family, and client addresses
• Create a file for the tax-related mail that will start to arrive

::

Finally...

Happy Birthday to our dear friend Duke. Call us if you're reading this. We don't have a new phone number!

and...

Happy, Healthy, Lovely New Year. Hope it's full of spectacular splashes and ordinary ones, with room for splurges short and tall.

::

Splurge of the Year

I would have to say that our splurge of the year was our vacations. We traveled to Garden City Beach in South Carolina with my family to run on the sand and swim in the early May ocean (brrr!) and then to Florida with Pete's family to visit a grandma and a grandpa, aunts and uncles, cousins and killer whales...



and to have breakfast with some good pals from Sesame Street.

Point of Inquiry has a new podcast with physicist Lawrence Krauss. The first half of the interview deals with politics, science, and science communication. The second half focuses on science & religion and Krauss talks about strategies in this debate and the benefits of having Richard Dawkins stirring the pot.

Here is the Point of Inquiry podcast: Lawrence Krauss - Seducing for Science

This is interesting but the study, most likely, would not have made it to Time magazine without Sam Harris. But this is good stuff:

Sam Harris is best known for his barn-burning 2004 attack on religion, The End of Faith, which spent 33 weeks on the New York Times best-seller List. The book's sequel, Letter to a Christian Nation also came out in editions totalling hundreds of thousands. Last Monday, however, the combative Californian produced a shorter (seven pages) and seemingly calmer publication that will be a hit if it reaches 10,000 readers: "Functional Neuroimaging of Belief, Disbelief and Uncertainty." It appears in the respected journal Annals of Neurology. And Harris, 40, claims it has little if any connection to his two popular books.

This paper is about how brain processes belief:

Harris and two co-authors ran 360 statements by 14 adult subjects whose brain activities were then scanned by functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) devices. It suggests that within the brain pan, at least, the distinction between objective and subjective is not so clear-cut. Although more complex assertions may get analyzed in so-called "higher" areas of the brain, all seem to get their final stamp of "belief" or disbelief in "primitive" locales traditionally associated with emotions or taste and odor. Even "2 + 2 = 4," on some level, is a question of taste. Thus, the statement "that just doesn't smell right to me" may be more literal than we thought.

Harris tested how the brain responded to assertions in seven categories: mathematical, geographic, semantic, factual, autobiographical, ethical and religious. All seven provided some useful data, but only the ones relating to math and ethics produced results clear enough to give a vivid picture of the way the simple and the complex, the subjective and the objective intertwine. Regardless of their content, statements that the subjects believed lit up the ventral medial prefrontal cortex (VMPC), a location in the brain best known for processing reward, emotion and taste. Equally "primitive" areas associated with taste, pain perception and disgust determined disbelief. "False propositions may actually disgust us," Harris writes.

And the planned follow-up study sounds fascinating:

But his next neurological enterprise may be another matter. He is planning an fMRI run that will concentrate specifically on religious faith, which Harris thinks he now knows how to plumb more deeply. He also plans to set up two different subject groups — the faithful and non-believers. "That way," among other things, he says, "you can ask, 'Do believers believe that Jesus was born of a virgin the same way that nonbelievers believe that Chevrolet makes cars and trucks?'" It may turn out that the brain treats religious faith as its own special category of belief unlike ethics and math.

Read the full Time magazine article here.

What insanity! This is one way to ensure more chaos in Pakistan. It is still way too early to say how things will go - but the choices are between terribly bad and very bad. Here are couple of articles related to Bhutto's assassination and some quick political commentaries:

About the Assassination: Bhutto Assassinated in Attack on Rally

Here three obituaries: Benazir Bhutto lived in the eye of the storm (NYT), Moderniser, moderate, martyr (Guardian), and from the BBC. Here is an interactive timeline.

Two quick articles analyzing the current situation: What next for Pakistan? (BBC) and A fresh blow for Pakistan (Fortune)

Lets hope for some stability.

Assalamualaikum W.B.T...

Setelah sekian lama, akhirnya aku sempat juga menerbitkan blogku sendiri. Mungkin kerana telah ramai rakan seperjuanganku yang menulis, menghantar nukilannya, menyuarakan idea mereka, untuk membangkit, menyedar dan membuka mata umat, maka aku turut ingin menyertai mereka. Namun setiap perbuatan perlu dimulai dengan niat yang benar. Niat yang tulus, suci dan murni. Niat yang satu, untuk mendapatkan keredhaan-Nya. Dialah Teman, Dialah Guru, Dialah Kekasih, Dialah Tuhan, Dialah segala-galanya..

Ya-Allah, aku hanyalah hambaMu yang lemah, hina, banyak berdosa, sering alpa, sentiasa mengharap belas ihsan dariMu. Kaubimbinglah aku ke jalan kebenaran, jalan yang lurus, jalan menuju syurgaMu. Kauampunilah aku atas segala kesilapanku. Aku sering melakukan dosa, bertaubat, lalu kembali melakukan dosa. Tetapi Ya-Allah, aku tidak akan pernah jemu untuk bertaubat, ya, ini tekadku, aku tidak akan sekali-kali jemu untuk bertaubat. Kekalkanlah azamku ini Ya-Allah..

Semoga apa yang bakal kunukilkan di sini akan mendapat ganjaran pahala, diredhai-Nya serta bermanfaat buat semua. Insya-Allah.

Three things on Christmas (in declining religious reverence):

In Israel, scientists have succeeded in writing a version of the Bible on a chip smaller than a pinhead. Now they are working on a machine to shrink people to a size where they can read this nano-Bible comfortably. Ok...so ignore the second sentence.

Its 300,000 words in Hebrew were inscribed on a silicon surface at the Haifa Institute of Technology. Scientists say the aim of the project is to increase young people's interest in nanoscience and nanotechnology.

The record for the smallest copy is held by a Bible measuring 2.8x3.4x1cm (1.1x1.3x0.4in), weighing 11.75g (0.4 ounces) and containing 1,514 pages.

The 0.5sq-mm (0.01sq-in) nano-Bible was written on a silicon surface covered with a thin layer of gold (20nanometres thick - 0.0002mm).

Full story here.

And now a story about a failure - failure of self-resurrection:

A three-day "miracle" drama in Chhattisgarh's industrial town of Raigarh ended on Monday afternoon after a Hindu priest, who had committed suicide promising to return to life within 72 hours of his death, was cremated.

Hundreds of people had laid siege around the body of 25-year-old Manoj Baghel, who ended his life on Saturday by consuming poison at a temple in Raigarh, about 200 km northeast of state capital, Raipur. Baghel had claimed that he would come back to life.

But he didn't come back. While there is a good chance he may get nominated for Darwin Awards, he gets full points for conviction. Full story here.

And talking about religious convictions, here is a two-hour conversation between the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse (also known as the New Atheists): Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, and Sam Harris. As usual they raise important points and address some of the criticism leveled against them, but their brush strokes remain too large (especially when dealing with Islam). Unfortunately, the video lacks some of the usual fire as they mostly agree with each other - but it is great that they talk about some of the objections people have raised against their approach.

The Four Horsemen - Hour 1


The Four Horsemen - Hour 2

New York Times has a nice Travel piece on the Galapagos Islands: Sailing Toward Paradise.

The Galápagos have served as a laboratory for life ever since they bubbled up above the ocean’s surface more than five million years ago. Today there are 13 main islands, and the newest are still being created by volcanic activity. The most recent eruption occurred in 2005. All species on the islands arrived through some extraordinary luck or toughness: seeds blown by the wind or carried in the stomachs of birds; small land tortoises that drifted for months on ocean currents, or on rafts of vegetation that blindly bumped up against the new land. Those that survived the harsh environment gave rise to an astonishing array of endemic species: marine iguanas, tool-using finches, giant tortoises that weigh almost 700 pounds. Life evolved in quiet isolation, unaffected by the outside world.

No longer a lonesome outpost of life untouched by humans, today the Galápagos are a laboratory of conservation, where humans’ fraught relationship with the natural world can be studied and, hopefully, repaired. In 1959, the centenary of the publication of Darwin’s “Origin of Species,” the Ecuadorean government declared the archipelago a national park. Today, 97 percent of the archipelago is preserved, along with 40,000 square miles of the surrounding ocean. Working with the Ecuadorean National Park Service, organizations like the Charles Darwin Foundation finance conservation programs, education and scientific research.

About tortoise hatchlings, conservation, and on Darwin:

I crouch down, watching as they slowly extend their long wrinkled necks to strip leaves from branches, their black eyes glimmering with awareness behind the dusty green-gray of their faces. It is an astonishing, unmediated view of the natural world, though I am certain I am anthropomorphizing when I detect a hint of both sadness and hope in their eyes. It is more likely a reflection of my own sadness at the damage we have done, and hope that humans can turn things around in time to save this unique corner of the world.

What I discovered in our crossing and exploration of the Galápagos is hard to pinpoint: as with any such travels the epiphanies come later. Darwin explored these islands for five weeks, out of a sea journey of five years. When he returned to England he never left again, and did not publish “The Origin of Species” for 23 more years. But there is a tantalizing moment in his journals from the Galápagos (later published as “The Voyage of the Beagle”) that indicates all he was on the cusp of understanding: “Both in space and time, we seem to be brought somewhat near to that great fact — that mystery of mysteries — the first appearance of life on earth.”

In an age of the disappearance of life on earth, I felt at least closer to understanding the significance of its diversity, and of its fragility.

Read the full article here (along with the slide show).

Wishing you peace, and magic, and never-ending hope. Merry Christmas.

It was big news that a prominent atheist and philosopher (or should I say an atheist philosopher?), Anthony Flew had found God after decades of not finding Her/Him/It. Then the story got a bit complicated. Here is a review of Anthony Flew's new book (or is it Anthony Flew's new book??), There is a God: How the world's most notorious atheist changed his mind:

Now, in a book written, according to its title page, “with” Roy Abraham Varghese — of whom more later — Flew tells the story of his “discovery of the divine.” This sounds like a victory for the faithful in the God wars: a welcome riposte to the atheist tomes of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Sam Harris. Although Flew is not “the world’s most notorious atheist,” as the subtitle of “There Is a God” claims, and never was, even in his native Britain, he ought to count as quite a catch. Now retired from the University of Reading in Berkshire (he has also taught at Oxford and in Scotland, Canada and the United States), he is the author of several cogent and elegant works of philosophy, including accomplished critiques of religion. In many public debates he has vigorously made the case for unbelief.

and lets see what's in this latest book:

But I doubt thoughtful believers will welcome this volume. Far from strengthening the case for the existence of God, it rather weakens the case for the existence of Antony Flew.

The book has five main parts: a preface and an appendix by Varghese; an intellectual autobiography and an account of his case for God, attributed to Flew; and another appendix, on the historical evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, by N. T. Wright, the Anglican bishop of Durham. Varghese is an Indian-born business consultant who founded the Institute for MetaScientific Research in Texas, and writes and edits books on the interplay between science, religion and philosophy. He helped organize the conference at which Flew announced his conversion and is the author of a book, “The Wonder of the World,” that Flew recommends. Varghese has also written “God-Sent: A History of the Accredited Apparitions of Mary,” which argues that more than 50 such apparitions cannot be explained away as hallucinations and that there is better evidence for them than there is for any ostensible U.F.O. sighting.

What?? More evidence than UFOs!!! Then these apparitions MUST be true. Oh sorry, I got a bit carried away by the mention of UFOs (and the coincidental connection between flying saucers and flew) ... Ok. Back to Anthony Flew:

Wondrous apparitions and the Sci Fi Channel are a long way from the Oxford of the late 1940s, where Flew cut his philosophical teeth. But throughout his career, he has, he says, been willing to follow an argument wherever it leads and to be open to new evidence. Although he does not yet follow Varghese into Marianism (or even Christianity), Flew now thinks “the world picture ... that has emerged from modern science” points to an “infinite Intelligence” that brought the universe into being. He believes the fact that nature obeys precise mathematical laws, the fact that life and mind have emerged from inanimate matter, and the fact that the universe exists at all are best explained by positing a God.

Ok...I may still buy it. But wait:

Oddly, Flew seems to have turned into an American as well as a believer. His intellectual autobiography is written in the language of an Englishman of his generation and class; yet when he starts to lay out his case for God, he uses Americanisms like “beverages,” “vacation” and “candy.” It is possible that Flew decided to make some passages easier on the ears of American readers or that an editor has made trivial emendations for him.

Hmm...the likelihood of an Oxford intellectual writing in an American style??? But what about the quality of his arguments?

But it is striking how much of Flew’s method of argument, too, has changed from that in his earlier works, and how similar it now is to the abysmal intellectual standards displayed in Varghese’s appendix. In fact, Flew told The New York Times Magazine last month that the book “is really Roy’s doing.”

Instead of trying to construct a coherent chain of reasoning in Flew’s own words, the authors present a case that often consists of an assemblage of reassuring sound bites excerpted from the writings of scientists, popularizers of science and philosophers. They show little sign of engaging with the ideas they sketchily report. And they don’t seem much bothered whether readers understand what they are trying to say: one crucial passage refers to a “C-inductive argument” for God, but doesn’t explain what a C-inductive argument is. The pattern of the reasoning is always the same: a phenomenon — be it life, consciousness or the order of nature — is said to be mysterious, and then it is boldly asserted that the only possible explanation for it is “an infinitely intelligent Mind.” It is never said how or why the existence of such a mind constitutes an explanation.

Ultimately, its not clear how much of it actually represents Flew's ideas:

It is unclear whether Flew has lost the desire to reason effectively or whether he no longer cares what is published in his name. Either way, it seems that this lost sheep remains rather lost.

Read the full review here. Also read an earlier article on Anthony Flew: The Turning of an Atheist.

An interesting article to read, taken with a grain of salt:World's Most Profitable Blog Post

Click on play to hear a sweet little "Merry Christmas" from a little sweet.

::

I might never have realized it unless I started to think about some of my favorite things at Christmas time, which then led me to think about some of Pete's favorite things, and, of course, Ava's.

What I realized was that many of the gifts that we selected for our family all had something in common: they were associated (directly or indirectly) with all of our favorite things. I know, it seems like that should be obvious. But I'm not sure that it often is.

I'm glad I made the realization, though, because it reinforced that (hopefully) most of what we do is somehow connected to people or passions that are important to us. It just took a little quiet time to recognize it.

So, in a few short lists, here are some of our favorite things. I hope it doesn't give anything away....

Ava's Favorite Things

1. Birds ("Tweet tweet")
2. Paper ("Draw picture?")
3. Crocs ("'em on?, as in, "Put them on?")
4. Walnuts (almonds, really, but she calls them walnuts)
5. Pictures (she'll look at pictures all day long)

Pete's Favorite Things (about Christmas)

1. Christmas Cookies
2. Nat King Cole
3. Bing Crosby
4. Emett Otter's Jugband Christmas
5. Christmas Trees

Maureen's Favorite Things (about Christmas)

1. Being with family
2. Christmas carols and hymns
3. The Yule Log
4. Lights on trees and in windows
5. Around-the-clock Christmas music on the radio
6. Mistletoe
7. Candles that smell like pine trees
8. Watching Ava watch the lights
9. Hearing Ava say, "Rudolph"
10. Hearing her say (when I ask her why we give gifts at Christmas) "Baby Jesus Born"
11. Pete singing "I'm Dreaming (of a White Christmas) and "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"

Two-days Til Christmas Splurge:

• Special coffee from our new coffee shop.
• Burl Ives Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer Movie
  

If you do, please send a "brief and focused" question addressed to Al-Zawahri, and he will respond ASAP. huh??
(and please be "brief and focused" ... you really don't want to upset this guy...)

From Faithworld at Reuters:

Al Qaeda’s second-in- command Ayman al-Zawahri will take questions from around the world next month in a video interview. This news got buried a bit in the reporting on his latest video but I asked our correspondent Firouz Sedarat in Dubai for some more information. He says this looks like the first time that Osama bin Laden’s right-hand man will go interactive like this.

As-Sahab, the Al Qaeda online media outlet that broadcasts these videos, has asked its viewers to send in “brief and focused” questions for the elusive Egyptian. “We urge the brothers overseeing the gathering of the questions to pass them on without any changes, be they pro or con, and As-Sahab will do its best to issue the answers by Sheikh Ayman al-Zawahri to these questions as soon as possible,” it said. It gave no further details about the format.

Ah...the wonderful world of internet. I guess soon we will start getting their messages via itunes for a buck a piece. It has also been suggested that Al-Zawahri is now getting his ideas from Presidential debates (after all there have been only 515 debates so far this season - though, we are still waiting for a Science Debate - but that is a different topic):

Zawahri himself didn’t mention any Q&A in the 97-minute video, so it’s not clear if he knows about the YouTube debates in his hideout. He talks about both religious and political issues in his videos, although his statements related to security issues usually grab the headlines. Among the religious issues in the latest video was an attack of Saudi King Abdullah for meeting Pope Benedict at the Vatican last month. In an unusually fast reaction, the Vatican responded by saying he seemed afraid of dialogue with other religions.

Also, please if you can, avoid unnecessary nudity in your youtube question.

Carl Sagan died on December 20th, 1996. So on his death anniversary, here are clips from his last interview (also see last year's posting, God and Carl Sagan).

Carl Sagan's last interview, part 1


Carl Sagan's last interview, part 2

Real Simple publishes a holiday tipping guide every year and every year I find it extremely helpful. Maybe you will too! (Although I'm still not sure how anyone can afford to pay a hairstylist the cost of what one visit costs around here! Yikes!)

Mid-week Splurge:

It's been a busy week full of unexpected meetings, report writing, toddler chasing, and traffic jamming. I have bills to pay, pots to scrub, gifts to wrap, favorite things to list, memories to record, and strategic planning to plan--but once I sign off here, I'm going to shut off the computer, turn on the Christmas lights, make some tea and do absolutely NOTHING for about 15 minutes. And I won't decide what to do after that fifteen minutes... until after that fifteen minutes.

A play about Darwin has recently premiered in New York and its getting good reviews (time for a Darwin biopic??). The play, Trumpery, starts with Darwin being pushed into publishing his Origin of Species for the fear of being scooped by Alfred Russell Wallace:

Given the furor he feared it would unleash, it is not surprising that Charles Darwin sat on his “great idea,” refusing to publish “The Origin of Species” until 1859, more than 20 years after he first devised the theory of evolution.

“If I finish the book, I’m a killer,” he said. “I murder God.”

At least that’s what Peter Parnell has Darwin say in his new play, “Trumpery,” which opened this month at the Atlantic Theater Company in New York.

In the play, as in real life, Darwin is moved to publish by Alfred Russel Wallace, a young man whom Parnell’s Darwin dismisses as “a nobody, a collector, a poor specimen hunter,” but who has independently come up with a theory just like the one Darwin has been chewing on for decades.

So in part the play hangs on scientific “priority:” who will publish first? As the action begins, Wallace, as in real life, has sent Darwin a paper describing his ideas, in hopes that Darwin will help make them known. (If, like many people, you know who Darwin is but not Wallace, you probably think you know how that comes out. Think again.)

But of course, the play is centered on the larger issue of science and faith:

Darwin’s Britain teemed with religiosity as diverse as evangelical Christian fervor and spiritualism, an idea whose adherents included Wallace and Darwin’s wife, Emma Wedgwood. Darwin knew he would be called heretical for challenging the Biblical idea of God as a one-time-only creator of an immutable natural order.

At first, he finds the idea literally sickening. But, as Mr. Parnell put it, Darwin is “both great enough and grandiose enough” to eventually conclude not just that he could do it, but that he ought to. And we all know how that came out.

I really like the way Darwin's actions are depicted in the play - "...that he ought to". Great!

So if you live near New York city, go and check out Trumpery. Read the full article here, and here is a review of the play. If you are interested in this phase of Darwin's life, check out Charles Darwin: The Power of Place, the second part of an excellent biography by Janet Browne.

As a beekeeper, you must understand several important factors regarding your queen. The queen is the most important bee in the entire colony. She lays the eggs. She determines the overall health and productivity of the colony. She even influences how hygienic her daughters are toward mites and disease. And though she may live four or five years, she will be at her best only for one to two years. After that, she needs replaced. Out of all the hives I have lost over the years, yearly requeening would have saved most of my hives.

The queen! You gotta love her. You know that when you go to bed at night, your queen is keeping order, giving directions and expanding your hive. She's in charge. You keep bees, but really the queen is the real bee keeper. The hive's success is kept under her watchful eye.
But here's another hard fact to face. Not all beekeepers replace their queens every year or two. Though requeening has so many positive benefits, it just takes time and it is expensive unless you raise your own queens. Therefore, many beekeepers don't bother, and yet they complain about how they didn't take off as much honey or how the hive has mites.

You should seriously consider requeening your hive once a year. You will have to determine where to buy your queen, from stock that you prefer. I don't like buying queens from others. Even though there are many impressive breeder queen suppliers, you just really never know the quality of your queen until she is released and goes to work in your hive.

I'll address queen stock in a moment, but for now, let's consider requeening a hive. Who? When? What? Where? and Why? These are questions surrounding requeening a hive. Beginners seem to be reluctant to requeen, because most beginners do not have the confidence yet to open a hive, maticulously search every frame until the queen is located, grab her in your hand, and put the hive back together quickly. But, it really isn't all that bad. Let me give you some tricks of the trade.

Simply put, here's how to requeen a hive. Find the old queen if the hive still has a queen, remove her and introduce the new queen. That's it. Sounds simple, and sometimes it is just that simple. However, more often than not, it takes a bit more work.

We've talked about why to requeen, not let's talk about when. September is often viewed as the best month to requeen because it allows your young queen time to become well established with her hive prior to winter. In fact, she may lay some good brood of winter bees. Winter bees live a month or two longer because they are not working much during their lifetime due to mainly riding out the winter in a cluster. And, when Spring arrives, a new queen will be ready to lay as the weather warms up. However, requeening in September is more difficult because during September there is not a heavy nectar flow and bees more readily accept a new queen during a heavy nectar flow.

I prefer September because it produces the most Spring benefits. However, it also carries with it the most liabilities. A liability might be that they bees will not accept her, and the weather may keep me from inspecting to insure she is accepted and laying well. Thus, there is a risk in removing an old laying queen for a new one, because the new one could be a dud, worse than the older one. No queen in September means no winter bees...you get the picture. It's worth the challenge, but it is a challenge.

HOW TO SPOT THE QUEEN
Use marked queens. A marked queen helps you spot her, and lets you know if she has been replaced. For those of you living in the deep south and southwest, where there are reports of Africanized bees a marked queen ensures you that your queen has not been replaced by an Africanized queen.

Use a frame holder. Back in my early days of beekeeping, I had trouble finding my queens, because I could carefully search a frame, put it back in the hive, pull out another frame and never find her. Why not? Because I missed seeing her, or as soon as I started pulling a frame out, she would jump onto a frame that I had just inspected and placed back into the hive. The trick? Use a frame holder. We sell these simple frame holders that slip onto the top of the hive body so you can hang inspected frames outside the frame until your inspection is complete, preventing the queen from jumping back onto an inspected frame.Learn to spot the queen by those around her.
Click on the picture to the left and see if you can spot the queen. The bees have formed a partial circle near her.
When looking at a frame full of bees, if you can't find the queen try looking over the entire frame and observe how the bees are behaving.
Two things signal a queen. First, she is often encircled by bees. Not always, but often enough that you should look for this circle of bees. Secondly, bees get out of her way. In addition to these two signals, I've even tracked her down by her occasional sound she sometimes makes. It's almost like a faint sound of a smoke detector only more rapid and with a slight buzz. This is called piping. It is most common when a queen is newly released and it not heard so much from mated, established queens unless there is a new queen being introduced in a hive that already has a queen and the two are politicking for followers.
Look for freshly laid eggs. Another trick that I use is to carefully examine the unsealed brood cells. I look for freshly laid eggs. Ah, then I know the queen was at that cell not too long ago. It's sort of a bread crumb trail. I rarely find queens on full combs of honey or pollen, but mainly only on opened cell comb, that's just right for laying eggs.
I Found Her And Want To Replace Her...Now What Do I Do?
Normally, a queen will not sting. Unlike the working bee, the queen does not lose her stinger but it is rare for her to sting the beekeeper. I've never been stung by a queen, even when holding them captive in my hand between bee yards. But it is possible.
Usually if you are removing a queen to requeen a hive you probably do not want to use that queen in a nuc or another hive. You are requeening her usually because she is too aged or substandard. Let me put it nicely. She's done. I’ll leave it to your creative thinking as to how you wish to end her life.
Timing is important. You need to have your replacement queen on hand before you kill the substandard queen. Once you remove the old queen, wait at least 24 hours before introducing the new queen. You may even wait up to 2 days. However, remember that your bees will know that they are queenless and will begin to resolve their problem by raising their own queen from a fertilized egg. This is one way to requeen a hive, just allow the bees to raise their own queen. In doing it this way, you have to wait three to four weeks before she will emerge, mate and begin laying. And remember that by raising your own queen she will have most of the characteristics of her mother. That may or may not be what you want.
So, after waiting a couple of days, you can now introduce your new queen. Before doing so, check the hive to be sure there are no queen cells. You can remove sealed queen cells and use them in other hives such as splits, nucs or queenless hives by gently pressing them into the comb of a queenless hive.
How Do I Introduce A New Queen?
There are many ways to introduce a queen. It boils down to two basic methods. Direct release and indirect release. Direct release is rarely a good idea as the bees will usually "ball" the queen and kill her. On rare occasions I have directly released queens into queenless hives successfully. Once I covered the queen with honey, and set her near the entrance. Bees will come out, clean the honey off the queen, and usually she will walk in once she is well groomed. Sometimes I have sprayed down the hive with sugar water with peppermint extract in the water. The smell seems to neutralize the bees from attacking the queen.

On the other hand, the indirect release method allows the bees a chance to get used to the queen before she is free to walk among them. However, prior to her release, she must be in the hive, but kept safely from the bees who may want to initially kill her.

Old time beekeepers used a method that is still very successful even today, though many people have either never heard of it, or don't use it. It's a queen cage made out of hardware cloth, shaped like a square, about 1/2 - 3/4 inch tall with the bottom missing. It is pressed down over sealed comb with the queen inside, holding the queen within the cage. Be sure that no other bees are in the cage, only the queen. This gives time for the queen to be accepted by the other bees.
What has almost replaced this method is that of indirectly releasing the queen in cage she was shipped it, the mailing cage. These shipping cages are the same that are included with packaged bees. However, some queen suppliers are using a combination of a mailing cage and a push it screen cage.
Click on the two videos below to see the cages in greater details.


When your queen arrives in her mailing cage, the cage will have a candy plug on one end. You will have to remove the cork to expose the candy plug. Now, take a very small nail or pin, and carefully poke a very small hole through the candy plug. Be careful not to make it too large. And when you poke it through, be careful not to injure the queen on the other side. This hole will encourage the bees to begin to eat their way through the candy. This usually takes a couple of days.

Place the cage between the frames. By placing the candy plug up, the queen can always climb up and out and the opening will never be blocked by her dead attendants. By the time the candy plug has been eaten through, the queen will have become accepted within the hive. It is very important to wait one week before opening your hive after installing the new queen.

In one week, inspect the hive to ensure the queen is out of her cage, alive and if you have drawn comb you can inspect to see if she is laying.

Now, let's go back to the old fashioned cage that is pressed into the comb over capped brood. I like it! It works well. Any emerging bees within the caged area immediately take to their new queen. Her pheromone has a chance to spread over comb and on to other near by bees. This is a good method to use in September to help the queen become accepted in the absence of a nectar flow.

We make and sell these cages. Our cages do come with a small opening where you can insert a mini marshmallow. This serves as a candy plug, giving time for the bees to accept the queen while they eat through the marshmallow.

How Do I Select New Queens And Where Do I Find Good Suppliers
Trial and error will lead you to a good queen provider, and the supplier may or may not be a well known and long established breeder. You may find that the best queens are raised by the beekeeper down the road who has 30 or 40 hives and is willing to sell you sealed queen cells. I have pursued the various ads boasting of a great queen only to find didn't live up to how she was advertised. However, there are some suppliers who go to great lengths to raise the best possible quality queens.
Personally, I am more successful in operating my hives with survivor stock queens, queens that I find in barns and trees, feral queens who have already demonstrated that they can survive cold winters, mites, disease and swarm very little. I keep track of the hives in my yards that continue to survive year after year and produce an above average amount of honey and from these hives I raise my own queens.
I use a new queen rearing system that allows me to never have to graft eggs with tools. This system works great and can produce hundreds of queens in several easy steps. We also sell these systems. They are expensive, but can pay for themselves after producing just 10 queens. It is worth the investment.
Which Race Of Queen Is Better?
There are many races of queens each claiming to have unique characteristics. Here's a few common ones:
Italian, Minnesota Hygienic, Cordovan, Caucasians, Carniolans, Russian, and Buckfast . We’ll look at the different characteristic of these queens in our next lessons.
Please keep in mind that the Spring beekeeping season is fast upon us. I will begin brief inspections and placing pollen patties in my hives in less than 60 days! I will place all my supers on my hives in 120 days. That means I must get everything ready and in order within the next 120 days. There’s lots for me and you to do to get all of our beekeeping equipment ready for Spring. Let’s not put that off.

Merry Christmas from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
David & Sheri Burns

Anticipating a snow storm that never came, I anchored down in the kitchen this weekend with an old cookbook and new ingredients. The result? Six different types of cookies, five of which I will never make again...

and that no one but "Claus" will probably ever taste.

That's right--the baking soda was too strong in some and the sugar too sweet in others (I know, I didn't think it was possible either).

But I didn't just end up with a mess. I ended up with a lot of laughs, money that didn't get spent somewhere else, and a very well-developed sense for knowing when sugar and water reach 280 degrees without using a thermometer.

HOWEVER, the gingerbread men were a big hit--in sight, taste, and swing. (Thanks to my friend Jenny and her mom who shared the recipe.)



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If you haven't done any baking yet this season but want to, it's not too late and you should definitely make some time for it. If I had baked with the intention of perfection, it probably would've been a miserable waste of time. But I baked with the intention of baking: cinching an apron around my waste, piping carols through the kitchen, and sprinkling flour everywhere it wasn't already.

If you only have chunks of time, then gingerbread cookies or sugar cookies are the perfect choice. You can make the dough in 20 minutes and then refrigerate it until you have another 60 minutes to cut and bake them.

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Ava has claimed her seat at our new kitchen table. Without saying a word, she bypassed her high chair yesterday and climbed right up onto this bench. We haven't gotten a booster seat yet, so we made do with the yellow pages.


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Splurge of the Season:

I splurged on this snow globe for lots of different reasons and don't regret a penny of it. Besides, if it goes on sale within 14 days (which it is likely to do) then I can bring in my receipt and get the sale price!

Intelligent Design (ID) proponents used to avoid directly invoking God as the Designer (though it was always presumed). Well not any more. In addition, it turns out the Designer is not just any God, but the Christian God. Here is Bill Dembski, one of the leading ID proponents, talking about his new book about Intelligent Design:

Does your research conclude that God is the Intelligent Designer?

I believe God created the world for a purpose. The Designer of intelligent design is, ultimately, the Christian God.

The focus of my writings is not to try to understand the Christian doctrine of creation; it’s to try to develop intelligent design as a scientific program.

There’s a big question within the intelligent design community: “How did the design get in there?” We’re very early in this game in terms of understanding the history of how the design got implemented. I think a lot of this is because evolutionary theory has so misled us that we have to rethink things from the ground up. That's where we are. There are lots and lots of questions that are now open to re-examination in light of this new paradigm.

So too bad if you have been suckered into ID, but you are not a Christian. Your God may be many things but is not the designer of this world.

Dembski is also raising an important research question: "How did the design get in there"? Hmmm..."(Christian) God did it...". Problem solved!

If you can stomach it, here is the full interview.

Hello from Long Lane Honey Bee Farms, and greetings from David & Sheri! This is the time of the year when our family celebrates the birth of Jesus, and enjoys time with relatives. Not to mention it's also the time of the year I eat too much homemade yummies! So Merry Christmas from our family to you.

Today, I thought I was going to talk about requeening a hive, but I want to answer some common questions surrounding the matter of how many hives to start with when keeping bees. I'll try and get to requeening next time. Before I share today's lesson, let me tell you a few other things. The kind of things friends chit-chat about when they first get together...

I haven't heard a peep out of my bees. In fact, their hives are all covered with snow. Take a look at the picture below of some of my hives. I took this picture Saturday. You can click on the picture to see a larger version. Isn't that pretty? I think you can right click on the picture and save it to your computer and make it your desktop background image!

You might be wondering about my entrances being glogged with snow. Normally, I would clear them after each snow. However, since I use screen bottom boards, I don't worry about ventilation through the entrance. But, I will need to clear it out before the next warm day when the bees will want to take a potty break.

I like it when it get's cold like this because it keeps my bees in a warm tight cluster, not eating much. If we have warm winters, they can get more active and eat more. I'm often guilty of taking off more honey than I should have, cutting the bees pretty close on winter reserves.


Now for today's lesson! How many hives should you start with?

When getting started in beekeeping, a common question is, "How many hives should I start with?"
Many people who are first starting out wonder if they can handle more than one hive. They rationalize that if beekeeping doesn't work out, then it is easier to get out of it with only one hive. Let me tell you what my opinion is on how many hives to begin beekeeping.
Keep in mind that colonies of honeybees can and do sometimes die out even after we do everything right. I call it a natural death.  If you have only one hive, and it goes wrong, then you don't have any hives left! With a few hives, two or more, you're always able to compare hives and keep going even though you might lose one along the way. Click here to see our two hive discount. I'm not ashamed to admit it that I've lost a few hives due to my own neglect or mismanagement. I'm just thankful I had a bunch of other hives to do it right with after I learned from my mistakes. This is why it is better to start with multiple hives than just one.

When people ask me how many should they start with, I usually tell them, "As many as you can afford". Many people who start with one or two usually call back and order more the next year. For those who truly enjoy beekeeping, they are always seeking ways to add more hives to their apiary. I realize that available space and time has to be considered. However, there is always a way to gain more places to place bees without having to buy land. Many farmers and land owners will gladly let you place your bees on their property for nothing more than a few jars of honey in return.
The average backyard hobbyist should always start with 2 or more. Why? With two hives, you can compare the hives to each other. Usually if both hives are acting the same way, it is a normal bee "thing". If one colony loses its queen, then you can place a frame of brood with 1-3 day old eggs from the other hive into your queenless hive and they will raise their own. And if one colony becomes weak, you can equalize the two hives by adding more bees to the weaker hive. With one hive these management practices are not possible.
Let me answer several questions that I am asked regarding the number of hives to begin with:

If I get more than one hive, will it require a lot of time?
How much time you dedicate to beekeeping is entirely up to you. The extemes are, you can do nothing more than install your package in the Spring and do nothing at all, to the other extreme of inspecting your hives every two weeks. A good management practice is to inspect you hives every two weeks. This should only take about 15 minutes per hive. So for two hives, that's only a hour a month. But, here's how it really works for a lot of folks just getting started in beekeeping. They love it so much, they are always in the hive, looking at it, pulling frames out and showing friends and realtives. I opened one hive 5 times in one day show interested people the inside of a hive. It does disrupt their activities, so it is best to limit your inspections to twice a month, but some new beekeepers can't stay out of the hive, because it is so much fun. And the distruption is worth the experience you get by opening up the hive. With the more hives you have, the more you can inspect different hives and enjoy your hobby more.
I once had a real nice motorcycle the kind you have to polished after every ride. I spent less time keeping 100 hives than keeping that motorcycle waxed! It really is manageable.

With several hives, will the bees from one hive be confused and not know which is their hive?Will the hives fight each other?
Bees keep to themselves pretty well. Each hive has a unique smell, to the bees, not to us. They will not bother other hives. As you can see by the snow picture above, I try to keep about 6-8 inches between my hives so that on windy days, they don't drift into the wrong box. Even if a few do, it is not a big deal.
Will they fight each other? No. They keep to their own business. In the fall, during a dearth of nectar, a very strong hive might try to rob a very weak hive. But through proper management this will not be an issue. Proper management means keeping hives equal and avoiding attracting bees to another hive by mishandling honey or honey supers in the weak hive. Don't work a weak hive for very long in late summer or early fall.

How close together can I place multiple hives?
I've had hives on pollination pallets which were only 3/4" a part from each other, 4 hives on a pallet. But I think 6 - 8 inches is a minimal. And if you have a bit more space, give them a foot or two. Don't place them too far a part or else you'll be walking too much to work them. I keep them close so I can go right down the line when I am working my hives. If you have more 4 or more, try to make a "U" shape bee yard, like a horseshoe shape apiary yard. This helps the bees identify their hive quickly and it provides a little wind break for landings and takeoffs.

Can too many hives in one area deplete the available nectar source?
I've heard people argue that too many hives in one area can cause a depletion in nectar in that area so that only the strong hives do well. That might be possible if you live in the middle of a desert with only a hand full of flowers within 12 miles.
Most of us live in areas where there is plenty of nectar sources. Bees are sharp when it comes to finding nectar. Just like we are sharp in finding food when we are hungry. You know where some good restraunts are and if you don't you know how to go out looking for that perfect steak house. Bees are even better than we are at finding food.
It is extremely important to remember that bees fly 2-3 miles out to gather nectar. I think some people think of bees as dogs, meaning that they think the bees will stay in their yard. Unless you have a huge yard, it aint' going to happen.
Now, let's say you live in town and you own a regular lot where beekeeping is permissible. Your bees will fly 2 to 3 miles around searching for nectar. One of my bee yards is located just on the edge of a city of 10,000 people. The bees fly straight up and out and late this summer they brought in a lot of alfalfa honey. They weren't getting this in town!
Within a 2 mile radious there are over 8,000 acres. A 3 mile radius includes over 12,000 acres of nectar to choose from! Wow!
Now, to better illustrate how much nectar is within a 3 mile radius, I've taken a satelite image of my home where I have about 30 hives. I have superimposed a circle that represents a 3 mile radius. Look at how much land that emcompasses.

Even though I'm about 4-5 miles away from some towns near me, it's only about 3 miles the way the bee flies. And if you notice near the top of the picture, there is a large river that runs through the 3 mile radius which means lots of river bottom flowers even in dry weather.

It just makes better practice to start with two or more hives. I started with one hive and through neglect it died off and since I had only one hive, I was out of beekeeping for several years.

Now don't let me discourage you if you can only start with one hive. You can start with one and do great! You can add more and more hives as the years go by. And, your one hive may never die. Instead, you might get many splits from your first hive. You just never know. But, your chances of success are increased by the more hives you have.

Thanks for dropping by and spending some time with me today, talking about beekeeping. It's lots of fun, isn't it! Feel free to email me some questions and I'll be happy to consider turning them into some future lessons! Together we're all learning so much!

Be sure to check out our website for all your bee hive needs at www.honeybeesonline.com

You can order directly from us, at 217-427-2678!

See ya next time and remember to BEE-Have yourself!

David & Sheri

Cleaning, baking, running to the store for overlooked ingredients, and delightful interruptions that sound like, "Mommy, hold her?" (translation: Mommy, hold me) have stolen from the bits of time I normally spend writing. I suspect that will be the case for at least the next week, so posting may be spotty.

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We had Ava's friends over Saturday morning to do some ornament-making activities. Pete and I had the arsenal of furniture and floor protector materials ready, but I should have known that Jacob's smart-thinking mommy Ilana would fine some non-mess materials to make a mess out of.



The little one's had a good time with it for a bit, but you can see, they had other things on their agenda.

Like eating.



And napping.



And ring around the rosy.



Deep conversations....



That were sometimes serious.



It was great fun and and one more thing to add to my list of favorite things (coming soon).

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Well, an overwhelming majority of poll respondents love gift cards. And to back them up, last week at Pete's office party, a $10 Target gift card was the hot item in the round robin gift exchange (you know, the one where you can't fall in love with anything you get because the next person will rip it out of your hands, even if you are only 20-months old!) If you are ever looking for an alternative, this article offers a few suggestions--but chances are, you can't go wrong with a gift card!

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New poll: Did you find the one gift that you just can't wait to give?

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Splurge of the day:

Everyone is still asleep and normally, I'd use this time on a Sunday morning to run, to work, or to clean. But instead, I'm going to spend it knitting. I've gotten back into it lately and am loving this book my mom-in-law picked up for me. It almost reads like a novel and I'd highly highly recommend it whether you're a novice knitter or an expert!

Shalom Auslander has a memoir out titled, Foreskin's Lament, and it is on my Christmas reading list (a perfect time to read it). He is very funny (he had an excellent article in January 2007 New Yorker and here is a link to his Fresh Air interview) and his memoir seems to be quite perceptive regarding mainstream religion. Here is an interview with him on Finding My Reigion (note that you can substitute Islam and Muslims for Judaism and Jews and the article will remain the same):

Here are couple of exchanges from the interview:

In the book you tell the old joke: "I believe in a personal God. Everything I do, he takes personally." Except you aren't joking, are you?

If only. And I don't think He'll be too pleased with you for interviewing me, either. As a child, I made the mistake of believing the people whose job it was to teach me, and what they taught me was a literal interpretation of the Old Testament: Sin too much and He floods the world, giggle once and you're barren. I was taught that He offered the Torah to the Israelites — while holding Mount Sinai over their heads. Bit of a hard sell tactic, that last one, but it's how I have felt regarding Him ever since I was a child — that there was something dark and terrifying over my head, and that anything short of total compliance would result in swift (and usually cruel) vengeance.

Often you're afraid God will punish you because of something you've done wrong. But then you do things that you are certain will piss him off. How do you explain that behavior?

It's probably the same instinct that makes us touch the hot plate the waiter warned us not to touch. I was testing my teachers, the truthfulness of what I had been taught. I was testing His boundaries — will He really kill me for eating a Slim Jim?

In some ways, I think I was simply emulating my forefathers. Today, of course, it is heresy to question the Lord, to argue, to bitch, to tell him to f- off. But the Biblical forefathers did — Abraham haggled with him, Jacob wrestled his angel, Moses even turned down the job of leading the Israelites out of Egypt. Do that today and Abraham's descendants might just cut your head off. Or give your book one star on Amazon.

And his fantastic comparison with a veal calf:

At one point in the book you compare yourself to a veal calf. Can you say a bit more about that?

At the time I was writing the book, my wife was giving vegetarianism a shot, and she was reading a lot of books about animal abuse in the food industry. I read some of them, and the more I read about the life of veal, the more I felt, "Hey, that's me." The being raised in a cage, the not being allowed to move. Every aspect of my life was under strict control and observation — how I ate, where I went, whether I washed my left hand before my right, even how I put on my pants. (Right foot first, please.)

But in some ways, veal had it better than me. At least a veal wasn't put in the cage by its own mother. At least a veal isn't being told that some Great Big Cow in the Sky wants him in that cage, and if he leaves the cage, or even thinks about leaving it, then Sky Cow is going to come after him. At least everyone the veal knows is weeping for him. At least if the veal escaped, his family would be happy for him. At least if he escaped, his family wouldn't condemn him. At least if he escaped, he wouldn't be called a self-hating entree. Lucky veal.

And of course, I have to include the answer where he brings in Richard Dawkins (and in a very positive light):

You've now left Orthodox Judaism behind. But in the book you say that it isn't true that you aren't religious; really it's that you aren't observant. What's the distinction, as you see it?

Observance has to do with physical acts. Anyone can do those. I can light Sabbath candles, wear a yarmulke, fast on the Day of Atonement and never once think about God. I have known people who do just that. I, personally, am not observant. Being religious, I think, is being aware of God — thinking, struggling, wondering. In that regard, though he arrives at an atheistic conclusion, Richard Dawkins is religious — I'd bet he thinks about God at least as much as the Pope does. I might skip the candles, uncover my head and have a cheeseburger on the Day of Atonement, but I think about God non-stop. There is a small part of me that hopes that if there has to be a God, and if He has to watch what we're doing here on Earth, and if He must come to some conclusion about us when we die, I hope that awareness — even in the form of doubt or questioning — trumps rote observance any day.

Read the full interview here.

Science (Dec 7) has a short piece on Hassan Mashriqui, whose calculations helped save lives from the recent cyclone, Sidr.

Mashriqui studies how hurricanes blow water onto the shore and has adapted his model for Bangladesh. So on 13 November, just 2 days before Sidr made landfall, Mashriqui requested super-computer time to run the model, which predicted storm surges as high as 3.7 meters. "We had to act fast," he says.

This is a fantastic example of fast global communications directly saving lives (much higher success ratio than the usual prayers :) ):

Mashriqui e-mailed the results to an official at the Bangladesh Ministry of Food and Disaster Management whose son is an LSU student. Evacuations of low-lying areas were already under way, but the predictions helped the government target its preparations for relief efforts. "They could see in detail where the storm was coming and what the surge would be," he says.

The cyclone still claimed more than 4000 lives. Mashriqui hopes that Bangladeshi researchers will be able to run the model themselves the next time a cyclone threatens their country.

Great job!

Ellen still hasn't called, despite my daily entry to win her "12 Days of Christmas Giveaway." There's always tomorrow.

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I wanted to share a little organizational tip that my friend uses and I've always admired but haven't yet gotten around to doing. She created a database with all the addresses of her friends and family. In the database are fields to include their birthday, anniversary, whether or not they are a Christmas card recipient, and on and on.

Every January, she filters the database for each month of the year, prints it, and files it by month. So for example, if her brother has a birthday and an anniversary in September, two labels print out for him on September's sheet. (I think she even has the cards picked out and filed with the labels, but I'm not sure. And besides, that might be borderline disordered--and we certainly don't want to promote any more compulsive tendencies than most of us already possess).

This might just be the year I give that little trick a shot.

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Ava Francey pants is exerting independence every step of the way these days. Today, for instance, when we fetched my splurge (below) she let go of my hand and declared, "Up-a-stairs by self."

And up she went.

Splurge of the Day:

Large large large extra hot hot hot peppermint mint mint mocha.

The Baghdad museum was open for a few hours yesterday to some journalists and local politicians, and there are plans to open two of its 16 galleries soon. From The New York Times:

The museum still houses hulking centuries-old statues and intricately patterned stone panels, items too heavy for plunderers to haul off. Its most valued items, including pieces of Assyrian gold known as the Nimrud treasures, were saved because they had been sealed in crates and locked in a bank vault.

Yet on Tuesday, much of the museum’s collection remained out of sight. Many of the ancient heavy stone statues were covered in plastic. Dozens of glass display cases sat empty but for thick layers of dust. Workers were mixing epoxy in one gallery, the Assyrian Hall, where walls were lined with great stone bas-relief and little else. The 4,000 pieces that have so far been recovered remained in the museum’s underground vaults.

Ms. Eidan, who had recently said that two halls of the museum would reopen this month, said Tuesday that even if the museum was fully restored, she was not certain that the city was stable enough to ensure a safe reopening. She also lamented the illegal digging that continues at Baghdad’s 12,000 largely unguarded archaeological sites. According to Abdul Zahra al-Taliqani, a spokesman for the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Antiquities, thieves have stolen, and likely trafficked, 17,000 pieces from these sites so far.

The security issue is vital and not everybody is happy with its opening. From last week's Science:

But former director Donny George and other archaeologists oppose the reopening. "Opening any part of the museum is a dangerous move," says George. A U.S. officer in Baghdad recently told the American Forces Press Service that the military was eager to reopen the museum. "Can they really be sure that a suicide bomber does not go into the galleries?" asks Elizabeth Stone of Stony Brook University in New York state.

This is a tricky issue. Without opening the museum they will have trouble getting funds for restoration efforts, but opening it may be too much of a risk.

Christmas Carols have been playing throughout our house for two weeks now, almost non-stop. In fact, Ava noticed this morning when they weren't on, requesting: "My dreams, mommy? Red-nose?" Translation: I'll Be Home For Christmas (if only in my dreams) and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer...can we listen to them, please?

Mistletoes and bright red bows are shaping up around here, though sloppily. We're out a kitchen table right now, waiting for a new one to arrive--which leaves me without some critical "pile" space. I'm on pace to tidy up shopping and cards by Thursday (tomorrow!) so that on Saturday we can focus on having some "little friends" over to make ornaments and the following week to bake cookies!

On my list of things to take care of in and out of those events:

• Visit the local Red Cross for a blood donation
• Drop off some toys and clothes to the Salvation Army
• Hang some garland up the stairwell
• Wrap presents!
• Finish my knitting project
• Print out some of these to color with Ava
  
• Pick up some fabric for my sew-off with friend Jenny
• Mail packages to far away friends and family
• Wander around the quaint shops of Fells Point with husband and daughter
• Walk around magical 34th Street of Baltimore

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It's easy to feel overwhelmed and frantic in the days leading up to Christmas, "I haven't gotten enough" or, "I forgot to pick up something for...." But in those moments, try and resist the urge to react and instead, sit quietly and remember one thing or one person--past or present--that made this time of year so special for you. The frantic feeling will pass and the space in your mind and your heart will make room for other things special to come.

Splurge-away

We were talking about Christmas traditions with our favorite coffee shop friends, Howard and Monica. Monica asks her mom to make her Chex Mix every year for herChristmas present. It reminded me of how much I love my mom's Chex Mix (I can never get it quite right)--and so mom, if you're reading, that's what I'd like for Christmas, too.