I think it's time for a good old-fashioned brain-drain (though I think I'd prefer a brain-freeze because that would mean lots of mint chocolate chip ice cream, whose call from the freezer I am trying really hard to ignore at the moment).

I have a lot swirling around up there right now; while it might have something to do with the two cups of coffee, extra strong, I drank this afternoon, I think it also has to do with the fact that I am without my monthly planner. I didn't lose it, didn't burn it, didn't throw it away in a fit of revolt. It ran out and I have not replaced it.

I have become, in the last month, the person I vowed I would never become: the one who never writes down appointments and deadlines in one place, but rather writes them on the back of napkins and receipts or on chintzy little day minders I got for free with the purchase of five hallmark cards (which doesn't exactly make them free, I guess) and even on calendars I printed out myself.

So, that's the long winded explanation as to why I feel a little scattered these days (or at least the reason I'm telling myself). Among my scattered-ness:

1. Is it just me, or do Tiger Woods and his Caddy have EXACTLY the same set of teeth? (See quiz on side bar.)
2. Should I or should I not buy this smart spin. I've been agonizing for years.
3. When am I going to bite the bullet and learn to iron. Properly.
4. We must stain our deck. Enough is enough.
5. Do friends and family know how much I love them?
6. What am I going to fix for dinners this week?
7. Need to mail dad's father's day card before next year's father's day. (That's right, still not in the mail)
8. Schedule annual doc appointment
9. Find out when my hair appointment is, exactly

::

That's better.

::

Whenever Father's Day comes around, I can tell you exactly what my dad's response is to my on-cue, "Happy Father's Day, Dad"

Everyday is Father's Day.

And he means it.

But it's one of those inked-in reminder days. A reminder day to tell the men who are fathers to us, like fathers to us, fathers to our children, or like fathers to our children how much we appreciate who they are and the little and big things they do. Because no one can do "it" quite like they can: say nothing when nothing is all you need, say something when saying something is exactly what you need, take it in stride, take it on the chin, take in everything we mothers, wives, daughters, sisters have to give, good and bad, which can add up to quite a lot. And at times, might even contradict.

So thank you to all the men I love...the father to me, the father to my little love, the father to my big love.

::

One Small Step

Prayers in the morning, prayers in the night. Help me to live well and live with delight.

Splurge ahead

We're going on a date, we're going on a date, we're going on a date.
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Become One With the GameFrom the article:So what do original games get you?If you're Burger King, you get year-over-year double-digit sales growth, as well as a marketing program that has generated significant revenue. After launching three original Xbox games during the 2006 holiday season, the brand reportedly sold more than 3.5 million units in just eight weeks, at a price of $3.99 each with
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This should not be happening in the 21st century - especially in a first world country (from Washington Post - A child's death and a crisis for faith):

The recent death from untreated diabetes of an 11-year-old Wisconsin girl has invigorated opposition to obscure laws in many states that let parents rely on prayer, rather than medicine, to heal sick children.

Dale and Leilani Neumann of Weston, Wis., are facing charges of second-degree reckless homicide after their child, Madeline Kara Neumann, died on Easter after slipping into a coma. The death, likely preventable with insulin, has renewed calls for Wisconsin and dozens of other states to strike laws that protect parents who choose prayer alone in lieu of medical treatment.

The case also has frustrated the Church of Christ, Scientist, the main promoter of prayer as therapy, which says a few tragic cases have unfairly tarred a practice that can restore health. The Neumanns, a Christian couple who run a prayer group out of their coffee shop, are not Christian Scientists. The National Center for Health Statistics, a federal agency, estimated in 2004 that more than 2% of the population uses prayer rituals.

I hope their prayer group has started to look for more earth-bound solutions. But 2% of the US population still leaves 6 million people using prayer rituals for healing!

The recent deaths of children have spotlighted the little-known lobbying work of the Church of Christ, Scientist, a denomination with anywhere from 60,000 to a half-million members, according to various estimates. The group believes that health can be restored through a stronger connection with God -- in effect, willing the body to be healthy. The church is the largest that supports relying on prayer for healing, though other small sects do, as well. Of course, many religious denominations advocate prayer in conjunction with medical treatment.

The Christian Science church doesn't provide guidance on whether members may seek medical care, says Mr. Davis, the church spokesman. He says the church does not bar members from getting medical care, nor does it advise members when they should do so.

Church founder Mary Baker Eddy believed it was "fear that creates the image of disease and its consequent manifestation in the body." Spiritual practitioners, who are trained by the church to heal through prayer, get patients to think differently about their relationship with God, says Mr. Davis, who also is a spiritual practitioner. "It's an affirmation [of truth]," Mr. Davis says. "It's that understanding that restores harmony."

The church's Christian Science Journal prints monthly testimonies that prayer has wiped away prostate cancer, a breast lump, leukemia and other illnesses. Brian Talcott, a practitioner in Berkeley, Calif., says he has seen cases of glaucoma and cataracts disappear.

It would be easy to say that they are crazy and just walk away. But they have been successful in providing protection to parents who want to treat solely by using prayers.

Every state forbids child abuse and requires parents to provide health care. But in the 1970s and 1980s, many states added provisions offering legal protections to parents who used prayer treatment. Many of these statutes were passed after Congress in 1974 began offering money to bolster child-protection agencies. But there were strings. Federal health and welfare officials, pressed by Christian Scientists, made the funding contingent upon the requesting state legislating legal safeguards for those opting to treat with prayer.

In all, 45 states offer some legal accommodations in child-protection laws for parents who use spiritual healing, according to the Christian Science church. The laws vary widely, with some states protecting parents or guardians from felony abuse or murder prosecutions, while others exempt prayer practice only in misdemeanor cases, according to Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty Inc., a nonprofit group based in Sioux City, Iowa, that opposes such laws.

And, just in case, if you were still thinking that this wackiness may not be that dangerous:

A 1998 study in the journal Pediatrics, by Rita Swan, president of Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty, and Seth Asser, a Rhode Island pediatrician, reported that 172 children died with no medical care because of religious reasons in the two decades after states began exempting faith healing. Of those, 140 children had a greater than 90% chance of survival if they had been treated medically, the researchers found. "Some of the religious defenses to felonies are a chilling betrayal of children," says Ms. Swan, a former Christian Scientist who lost a child to spinal meningitis in 1977 after initially relying on church practitioners before finally seeking medical help.

Read the full story here.
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[Information contained in this blog is my opinion after careful study and personal experiences. It is an expression of what's working for me today. Also, this is a blog which means the information is time sensitive. Prices may change and practices may change with new development and discovery.]

Hello from David & Sheri Burns at Long Lane Honey Bee Farms in Central Illinois. We've had a blast working our hives so far this year. The weather was cold and wet for so long, but finally it has warmed up and dried out.

This year there has been more swarms than what is typical. Here's a swarm I removed from a tree stump in Danville, Illinois. My father-in-law goes out many times a week retrieving swarms. I collected a swarm from a tree in Tilton, Illinois. It was the largest swarm I've ever collected. It's not the one in the picture.

For those of you collecting swarms you should consider purchasing one of our bee-vacs for easier removal. Also, a swarm might leave your hive once you catch them. So, be sure and try to put them on drawn comb and a frame of live brood if you have some. Also, keep the swarm closed off in their new hive for 24 hours so that they can settle into their new home.

Things have been pretty demanding since we are 100% into bees now. We had a great year selling packages of live bees and now we move into selling queens. As the season progresses, beekeepers will need to replace old queens or provide a queen to a hive that has, for one reason or another, lost their queen. Remember, that a hive dies quickly without a queen. We are having real good success in rearing queens and shipping them through the postal service. We prefer to ship our queens out Express mail, which only takes one to two days to arrive.

You could do the same thing! Some people have started their own queen rearing businesses and once you are established, this can be a very rewarding line of work. We ship our queens in a Tyvek envelop. That material is very durable and will not tear. We buy these at the local office store. We buy the larger size, 10 x 13 inch. Then, we punch a bunch of holes in the envelopes. While at the office store, we had them make us a red ink stamp that says, "LIVE BEES". Then, we use USPS CLICK-N-SHIP online (saves money over taking them to the post office) to print our labels.

I've worked with the post office so that I can get the best results in shipping queens. If they are placed in a priority mail container, the kind that are free, they can find their way into being handled by automation which is hard on bees. But the larger Tyvek envelop marked live bees express mail receives real good care. It does not take a lot of holes but some air is needed for the queen and her attendants.

Okay, before you ship queens you have to learn how to raise them, right. So in today's lesson I want to share my second lesson on queen rearing. Queen rearing is easier than it sounds, yet it can fail easier than you think. There are some very sensitive issues in raising queens and grafting is one of these. How well you graft determines the success of the queen's overall development.

TOOLS! There are many different grafting tools, some I have never tried. Probably the more common grafting tools are the ones that look something like a dentist's tool, but shaped differently on the end, like this one in the picture. Many folks make their own out of wooden tooth picks, plastic or metal. There are some very expensive, fancy tools that eject the graft from the spoon once placed in the cell. Others come equipped with a magnifying glass attached to the tool. Grafting does take exceptional eyesight, which very few of us have over the age of 40. So, some sort of reading glasses or magnifying glass along with a good light will be of much help.

A tool that has worked well for me is the Chinese grafting tool. It has a tongue that slips under the larvae and draws it out. Then there is a spring loaded plunger that helps push the graft off onto the bottom of the cell cup.

I'm pretty fast with this tool now, and sometimes speed is important, otherwise the royal jelly in the cell can dry out if you take too long grafting. These are inexpensive, around $5. It's hard to keep them clean, and the tool must be very clean when doing grafts. So, some people throw these away after they start looking too dirty.

So you have a tool, now what. I mentioned in my first lesson on queen rearing that you need to establish a starter hive. This can be a smaller 5 frame nuc box with lots of nurse bees, very young bees which you can shake off of a frame of larvae and sealed brood. Some suggest not putting any larvae or brood frames in the starter, just a frame of honey and pollen. Overcrowding this starter nuc is important. Get this starter hive prepared and ready so that when you do your grafting, you can quickly place it into your starter hive.

Now, with close up eye wear on, a good flash light and the grafting tool of your choice go and pick out a good frame to graft from. Remember, get the frame from the hive that has the characteristics that you want to keep. Usually it needs to have proved itself over a couple of years to be sure these are traits not just a fluke.

Remove the frame from the hive and brush the bees off. Try not to shake the frame in an attempt to remove the bees. Carry the frame into the area where your tools are ready, where you'll be doing your grafting.

Here we go!! I like to lay down a moist cloth beneath the frame I'm grafting from to increase the humidity, keeping the grafts moist. You must be careful to select the youngest larvae possible. Not a egg standing upright, but a larvae that has just started to lay in the base of the cell with the slightest curve. A full curve is too old. Notice in the picture that you are looking for a slightly curved larvae. It is best to scoop up the larvae from the opened end of the curve. And remember, you must place the larvae in the new cell on the same side it was on when you removed it so that the larvae will continue to breath from that side. You can click on the images to enlarge them.

I took this picture just for you, to help you know what you are trying to accomplish. Boy, the things I do for you:) Actually, until someone shows you what you are looking for, it is impossible to really achieve good grafts. Oh, and for those of you that have never seen what an egg looks like, where here you go!

Once you retrieve your graft, then place it into the cell cup. Repeat this until you have all your cell cups started. Then, take the frame (explain in the previous lesson) and place it into your starter hive, a queenless 5 frame nuc with nurse bees that a) would love to swarm if they had a queen, and b) would love to have a queen, and c) are young and can produce the needed start to your queen cells. However, I have found that I must remove the cells out of this starter hive after 24-36 hours. They just don't seem to have the royal jelly and proteins the queen cells need to seal the cells all the way by the 8th day.

So, after 24 hours in the starter hive, I moved them to my big hive. It is a regular hive, consisting of two deeps, lots of good brood in various stages, honey and pollen. I place the queen in the bottom deep and place a queen excluder on top of that deep. Then, I pull out a frame with bees all over it (and put them in a starter hive if needed) and place my queen cells in this hive in place of the frame I removed. This hive is large enough to care and finish off the 30+ queen cells. Now, on day 10, after the cells are good and sealed, I moved them into my incubator.

As you can see this is about as good as I am right now grafting. The empty cups are bad grafts that didn't take. The extra bit of comb is...an extra bit of comb the bees just built on the frame near the cups. I don't know why and it doesn't mean anything. Maybe they were bored on a rainy day.

You don't have to have an incubator. You can leave them in the hive. However, if one queen hatches, she will go through and kill all the other queen cells that have not hatched. So if you want them to develop fully in one hive, you will have to find a way to seal off or cage the cells. I'll explain of this in a future lesson. But for now, let me tell you how I do it.

I place the queen cells in my incubator that is VERY accurate. It has a digital thermometer and I've set it to 93.9 degrees. Be careful to handle your queen cells carefully, never tilt them from their vertical position. They must be kept at 93 degrees or the queen will die.

Keeping track of days is essential. You can be off a day or two because you may not know the exact age of the larvae you grafted, so play it safe. Be watching on day 15, because queens hatch on day 16 after the egg is laid.

When the queen emerges, I collect her, put a plug of my candy in her cage and place her in a queenless nuc, which some call a mating nuc. I use a 5 frame nuc rather than the smaller ones simply because I like all my equipment to be interchangeable. She will need some time to mate, usually a week, but sometimes longer if the weather is not right. Once she has been laying good for 2-3 weeks, then she is ready for sale. I've read that if she can lay for 21 days in her nuc, then she will be a better queen. This requires a lot more on our part, to have our yard flooded with 5 frame nuc boxes full of virgin queens. They actually have been mating and starting to lay a lot faster than I thought they would.

When I ship my queens, I mark them, if requested, and then I must add a few young bees to attend to the queen while being shipped. The queen does not like to feed herself, so the young bees will tend to her while being shipped. I choose the youngest workers I can find. I found a great way to do this, because checking the bees' flying license for their age is too time consuming. (Just kidding). When I see a young bee with its head stuck in a cell, then I know it is young, cleaning cells. Bees do different jobs as they age. And with their heads stuck in a cell their wings are straight up saying, "Grab me!". I do, I grab their wings and put them head first into the opening of the queen cage. I add 4-5 then I add the sugar plug.

I make my own sugar plugs. Too dry and it becomes hard and the queens can't get out. Too wet, and it will melt in warm weather and the queen could die along with her helpers. I take a thick sugar syrup which is just dissolved sugar in water, and mix it with powered sugar and I usually knead it until it becomes like dough. Then I keep it in the refrigerator and pinch off what I need. When using wooden cells I like to use the wax paper that comes with the wax sheets to cover the top of the sugar to keep it from drying out so fast.

Finally, the mated queen is ready to bless someone with a hive that needs a queen! Your work has been rewarding and you can rest at night knowing that somewhere, you queen will be saving a hive, producing honey and bringing someone a lot of enjoyment!

I'll finish up my queen rearing lesson next time, so if I left out something or you have questions, email me at david@honeybeesonline.com and I'll answer these in the next lesson.

That's it for today, and if you need a queen, give us a call and we'll be glad to send you one, but do remember you may have to wait as they are selling faster than I can produce them right now.

Remember to BEE-have yourself!
David & Sheri Burns

Long Lane Honey Bee Farms

http://www.honeybeesonline.com/

217-427-2678 (9-5 Central Time)

FAX 217-427-2678

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Here is an unusual example of science and religion interaction (if you side-step sexism for a moment): New York Times has a story about Muslim women in Europe opting for hymenoplasty, a surgery for the restoration of hymen to give them an illusion of virginity. Ok..so this is about science coming to rescue women from a religious/cultural tradition (or at least to help them beat the system).

The operation in the private clinic off the Champs-Élysées involved one semicircular cut, 10 dissolving stitches and a discounted fee of $2,900.

But for the patient, a 23-year-old French student of Moroccan descent from Montpellier, the 30-minute procedure represented the key to a new life: the illusion of virginity.

Like an increasing number of Muslim women in Europe, she had a hymenoplasty, a restoration of her hymen, the vaginal membrane that normally breaks in the first act of intercourse.

“In my culture, not to be a virgin is to be dirt,” said the student, perched on a hospital bed as she awaited surgery on Thursday. “Right now, virginity is more important to me than life.”

As Europe’s Muslim population grows, many young Muslim women are caught between the freedoms that European society affords and the deep-rooted traditions of their parents’ and grandparents’ generations.

Gynecologists say that in the past few years, more Muslim women are seeking certificates of virginity to provide proof to others. That in turn has created a demand among cosmetic surgeons for hymen replacements, which, if done properly, they say, will not be detected and will produce tell-tale vaginal bleeding on the wedding night. The service is widely advertised on the Internet; medical tourism packages are available to countries like Tunisia where it is less expensive.

While the subject is serious (and for some, it also has serious consequences), it is now the theme of a new Italian comedy:

But hymen repair is talked about so much that it is the subject of a film comedy that opens in Italy this week. “Women’s Hearts,” as the film’s title is translated in English, tells the story of a Moroccan-born woman living in Italy who goes to Casablanca for the operation.

One character jokes that she wants to bring her odometer count back down to “zero.”

Ok..this line is funny - but then the director of the film goes on to say this:

“We realized that what we thought was a sporadic practice was actually pretty common,” said Davide Sordella, the film’s director. “These women can live in Italy, adopt our mentality and wear jeans. But in the moments that matter, they don’t always have the strength to go against their culture.”

But this is complicated. First of all, he should stop using "our" here. Cultural interactions are complex, especially when one is referring to second generation immigrants (or even for first generation - I've been in the US now for some bazillion years, with 1 bazillion=19 years). I'm not defending this sexist custom, but there can be many different reasons (individual circumstances, one's own nature, the particular peculiarities of the culture one is coming from, etc) why one may choose not to challenge one's own culture of origin. And of course, vice versa - you also have your rebels without a cause. So then the opposition to the procedure can potentially cause more problems:

The French College of Gynecologists and Obstetricians opposes the procedure on moral, cultural and health grounds.

“We had a revolution in France to win equality; we had a sexual revolution in 1968 when women fought for contraception and abortion,” said Dr. Jacques Lansac, the group’s leader. “Attaching so much importance to the hymen is regression, submission to the intolerance of the past.”

Yes, true. But don't penalize women, who for whatever reason, want to keep the illusion of this tradition. And here are two complex situations:

But the stories of the women who have had the surgery convey the complexity and raw emotion behind their decisions.

One Muslim born in Macedonia said she opted for the operation to avoid being punished by her father after an eight-year relationship with her boyfriend.

“I was afraid that my father would take me to a doctor and see whether I was still a virgin,” said the woman, 32, who owns a small business and lives on her own in Frankfurt. “He told me, ‘I will forgive everything but not if you have thrown dirt on my honor.’ I wasn’t afraid he would kill me, but I was sure he would have beaten me.”

In other cases, the woman and her partner decide for her to have the operation. A 26-year-old French woman of Moroccan descent said she lost her virginity four years ago when she fell in love with the man she now plans to marry. But she and her fiancé decided to share the cost of her $3,400 operation in Paris.

She said his conservative extended family in Morocco was requiring that a gynecologist — and family friend — there examine her for proof of virginity before the wedding.

“It doesn’t matter for my fiancé that I am not a virgin — but it would pose a huge problem for his family,” she said. “They know that you can pour blood on the sheets on the wedding night, so I have to have better proof.”

Again, of course, it's terrible the way these women are being treated - and of course this is really sexist, as only women have to prove their chastity. Lets oppose the custom. But is it a good idea to deny women the opportunity for hymenoplasty? On the flip side, you can also argue that its great that they will be able to fool the people who cling to this sexist custom. In any case, in all likelihood, their kids will not have to face the same issues.

Read the full story here.
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Yes, this is Bill Maher on the toast. And below is the trailer for his documentary Religulous, which looks hilarious (and yes, its by the director of Borat). In fact, it looks like a funnier version of Dawkin's The Root of all Evil?. (hat tip from richarddawkins.net)


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If you fly on Pakistan's national carrier (Pakistan International Airlines), you will hear a recording of the recitation of a Qur'anic verse before every take off (its the same verse each time). Furthermore, usually no urdu or english translation is provided - thus, for most people, it becomes a formula to be recited without the necessity of knowing its meaning. So I found this short piece in the recent New Yorker quite amusing: Mysteries of Flight.

Here, the author is talking about his uncle, who was also the mudir (headmaster) of his madrassa in Kumsai, Ghana. This segment also highlights the love-hate relationship of Muslims with the West, especially when it comes to modern science:

He often expressed admiration for Western achievements in science and technology, but he was also fond of insisting that none of the advances made by the West had ever outsmarted death. One day, I heard my uncle tell the assistant mudir that his lack of faith in the West arose from the simple fact that the white man couldn’t make electricity shock-free. In my uncle’s view, something that gives light, energy, and even life should not also harm or kill. This perceived failure alone was enough to cast doubt in Uncle’s mind over the entirety of Western civilization.

My uncle’s skepticism, as irrational as it was logical and theological, was founded on the belief that Western science could never attain perfection; perfection could be achieved solely by the one and only Allah. And yet Uncle Ustaz did believe that the West had come close to perfection in the field of aviation. He marvelled at the fact that something as heavy as a jet plane, with all its cargo, could stay in the air for such a long time. When I was about eleven, Uncle started disseminating a theory that went like this: airplanes are able to take off from the ground and remain in the firmament only because aviation engineers worldwide recite a special prayer verse from the Koran before each plane departs. In 1982, Uncle Ustaz took a trip to Nigeria, and, when he returned, he claimed to have seen something that proved his theory: an aviation engineer, “a white man he was,” placed a hand on one of the plane’s tires and read aloud from a small Koran just as the plane was preparing for takeoff. Soon, the story of the Koran-reciting aviation engineer became an article of faith in my city’s Muslim community; it had finally been shown that the white man was powerless without the aid of Almighty Allah.

Read the full article here.
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This is shameful and absolutely appalling! Twenty three students, 15 females and 8 males have been expelled from a government-run medical college in Pakistan - because they belong to the Ahmadi sect of Islam. More on it at All Things Pakistan:

The Ahmadi students were “accused” of preaching their religious beliefs. The principal was pressured into expelling the entire Ahmadi student body by a mob of protesters belonging to Islami Jamiat e Talaba. The mob circled the Principal’s office and demanded the expulsions. The same day, a mob of about 300 college students also barged into Ahmadi students’ rooms, beat them and threw their luggage out of their rooms.

What makes this incident especially troubling is the fact that the decision to expel Ahmadi students was taken by a government-run medical school, under full knowledge of the relevant Punjab ministries.

Ahmadi's are treated horribly in Pakistan (here is a detailed analysis of their persecution). They are constitutionally declared "non-Muslims" - in fact, it is considered a crime if they call their place of worship (which is a mosque) a "mosque" or if they utter religious phrases from the Qur'an.The renewal of my Pakistani passport is an ordeal - as one of the main requirements on the passport form is to attest that Ahmadi's are not Muslims and that their founder is an imposter prophet. Oh you don't believe me? Just download the passport renewal form and check out the bottom of second page. To the credit of the government, they are employing these obscene discriminations in the 21st century - daring the sensibilities of every reasonable person on the planet.

Here is more about student expulsion from the Daily Times: (PMC is Punjab Medical College)

Preaching against Ahmadis: Sadr Anjuman Ahmadiyya Pakistan Rabwah spokesman Saleemuddin alleged that the PMC hostel boarders and wardens launched a campaign against female Ahmadi students last month.

He alleged that some of the boarders brought four of the Ahmadi students out of their rooms in the midnight of June 4, and locked them in another room, where they were beaten up. He alleged that local cleric Allama Junaid, invited to the college mosque to give a sermon on the same night, instigated students against Ahmadis.

He alleged that the boarders, with the consent of hostel wardens, forced 15 students – 11 girls and five boys –to leave the hostels at 4am on June 4. He alleged that on June 5, a mob of 300 college students had barged into Ahmadi students’ rooms, beat them and threw their luggage out of their rooms. He alleged that the boarders also stole valuables of Ahmadi students. He said that the PMC principal had also ordered the Ahmadi students to return home till the matter cooled down.

He said that the principal had also formed a disciplinary committee to probe into the matter, which, the spokesman alleged, gave its verdict to boot out 23 students without investigating the case. “The committee claimed to have rusticated the student under Rule iii, Clause-V, of the college prospectus,” he said.

Shameful.
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An example of a simple site idea that gets a fair amount of traffic:'Tank on Empty' is a gas, gas... gasp: Tales from beyond E"Google Analytics says I've had about 600,000 page views and over 110,000 visits since it started," he says. "My server, on the other hand, would disagree -- it's transferred closer to 3 million page views."
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Generally, I'm a "color inside the lines" (or run inside the lines) kind of gal. I wait patiently in church parking lots; I don't cut lines at the deli; I don't attempt to return impulse kitchen gadgets without the receipt; I wear matching socks unless I unknowingly mismatched.

But on occasion, I'm known to break a rule or two. Like eating breakfast for dinner and dessert before dinner. (Pretty wild, I know).

And I'm about to break another one. Like believing that summer doesn't start until June 21, which happens to be summer solstice and which also happens to be my husband's birthday.

Friends, solstice or not, summer is here (or maybe it's hell, but we'll pray it's just summer-come-early) and there is no denying it.

And in honor of its early arrival, please enjoy the tastiest cheat sheet I have yet to find. No more arguments with the big guy about which meat gets grilled on low, which on high, which for a long time, which for a short time. It's all right there.

Ahhhh.

::

Ava told me today that she didn't want to "go for a nap." Instead, she told me, "I just want to play. With my toys. Downstairs. Wanna come too, mommy?"

You bet I do darlin'. But you can also bet that if someone wanted to come over right now and shut the blinds, turn on the fan, read me stories about Sheep Out to Eat and sing me songs, I'd wanna do that, too.

::

Ran a great race on Saturday. It was H.O.T. (in case you can't tell by the duh look on my face) but I survived, inspired by all those survivors. And so didn't my dear dad.



::

One Small Step

Today I'm going to read my book for 15 minutes and not think once (okay, maybe just once) about the housework that needs to be done, the work that is on deadline, the stories that need to be written. Instead, I'm just going to go and read my book because we agree (don't we?) that it's summertime and reading is what you're supposed to do when it's summertime.

Splurge-smoothie

It's time again for my favorite tasty treat. You can get the recipe in my splurge section here.
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An Indian business school names monkey god - Hanuman - as the chairman. Am I missing something here? I know for some Jesus is sometimes a co-pilot - but not many people will fly if Jesus was the only pilot. But this business school is going all out:

He's a revered Hindu monkey god. And now, he's the chairman of an Indian business school.

Hanuman, the popular god known for his strength and valor, has been named official chairman of the recently opened Sardar Bhagat Singh College of Technology and Management in northern India, a school official said Saturday.

The position comes with an incense-filled office, a desk and a laptop computer. Four chairs will be placed facing the empty seat reserved for the chairman and all visitors must enter the office barefoot, said Vivek Kangdi, the school's vice chairman.

I hope Hanuman changes the password on the new laptop after logging on for the first time - very crucial...otherwise anybody will be able to hack into his computer and get vital information about the world. Here is the vice chairman of the school:

"When we were looking for a chairman for our institution, we scanned many big names in the field of technology and management. Ultimately, we settled for Lord Hanuman, as none was bigger than him," Kangdi said.

Hanuman is one of the most popular gods in the crowded pantheon of Hindu deities. His most famous feat, as described in the Hindu epic the Ramayana, was leading a monkey army to fight the demon King Ravana and rescue a kidnapped princess.

The Sardar Bhagat Singh College in Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, awards bachelor's degrees in engineering and management. The school opened last year.

At least there won't be much debate over the separation of religion and state at this school.

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Strong NYT editorial against the new creationism strategy (here is an earlier post on that):

The Texas State Board of Education is again considering a science curriculum that teaches the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution, setting an example that several other states are likely to follow. This is code for teaching creationism.

It has the advantage of sounding more balanced than teaching “intelligent design,” which the courts have consistently banned from science classrooms. It has the disadvantage of being nonsense.

The chairman of the Texas board, a dentist named Don McLeroy, advocates the “strengths and weaknesses” approach, as does a near majority of the board. The system accommodates what Dr. McLeroy calls two systems of science, creationist and “naturalist.”

Actually, its great that he calls the two systems creationist and naturalist. Unlike the Intelligent Design advocates, at least he is being honest by calling his view creationist. Of course, the idiocy remains all the same:

The trouble is, a creationist system of science is not science at all. It is faith. All science is “naturalist” to the extent that it tries to understand the laws of nature and the character of the universe on their own terms, without reference to a divine creator. Every student who hopes to understand the scientific reality of life will sooner or later need to accept the elegant truth of evolution as it has itself evolved since it was first postulated by Darwin. If the creationist view prevails in Texas, students interested in learning how science really works and what scientists really understand about life will first have to overcome the handicap of their own education.

Scientists are always probing the strengths and weakness of their hypotheses. That is the very nature of the enterprise. But evolution is no longer a hypothesis. It is a theory rigorously supported by abundant evidence. The weaknesses that creationists hope to teach as a way of refuting evolution are themselves antiquated, long since filed away as solved. The religious faith underlying creationism has a place, in church and social studies courses. Science belongs in science classrooms.

Read the full editorial here. I think, we have now reached a stalemate in the fight over evolution and creationism/ID in schools. The creationists are not going to gain any new significant ground but they will keep scientists and educators busy by creating (ha ha) new code words for creationism, and advocating their inclusion in biology textbooks. I think fatigue will set in soon (if it hasn't already) and people will get tired hearing about another new code word for creationism. The Discovery Institute's "teach the controversy" strategy was new and novel few years ago and they managed to fool some people and generate sympathy regarding that. But now its old news and one can easily see through these new code-words. Unfortunately, valuable time still has to be spent countering this idiocy.

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"It’s a bit of a cross between an online scrapbook and a MySpace page."Totspot Teaches My Children About DataPortability
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Turkish government has jailed Dr.Harun Yahya, the man who challenged Evolution and had his work given for free, I suppose those Muslims who say “Beware of Harun Yahya” are probably happy. Here is the report:ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Turkish Islamic author Adnan Oktar was sentenced to three years in prison on Friday for creating an illegal organization for personal gain, state-run Anatolian news
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The creationism/evolution battles are getting a bit ridiculous. After failing to bring "scientific creationism" and "Intelligent Design" into science classrooms, we have a new candidate in Texas:

Now a battle looms in Texas over science textbooks that teach evolution, and the wrestle for control seizes on three words. None of them are “creationism” or “intelligent design” or even “creator.”

The words are “strengths and weaknesses.”

Starting this summer, the state education board will determine the curriculum for the next decade and decide whether the “strengths and weaknesses” of evolution should be taught. The benign-sounding phrase, some argue, is a reasonable effort at balance. But critics say it is a new strategy taking shape across the nation to undermine the teaching of evolution, a way for students to hear religious objections under the heading of scientific discourse.

Already, legislators in a half-dozen states — Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Michigan, Missouri and South Carolina — have tried to require that classrooms be open to “views about the scientific strengths and weaknesses of Darwinian theory,” according to a petition from the Discovery Institute, the Seattle-based strategic center of the intelligent design movement.

So the Whack-A-Creationism-Mole continues. Perhaps they should include "strengths and weaknesses" of every scientific theory included in the curriculum - that should keep the education board busy for a while...

And here is the origin of this phrase:

The “strengths and weaknesses” language was slipped into the curriculum standards in Texas to appease creationists when the State Board of Education first mandated the teaching of evolution in the late 1980s. It has had little effect because evolution skeptics have not had enough power on the education board to win the argument that textbooks do not adequately cover the weaknesses of evolution.

Yet even as courts steadily prohibited the outright teaching of creationism and intelligent design, creationists on the Texas board grew to a near majority. Seven of 15 members subscribe to the notion of intelligent design, and they have the blessings of Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican.

What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas: the state is one of the country’s biggest buyers of textbooks, and publishers are loath to produce different versions of the same material. The ideas that work their way into education here will surface in classrooms throughout the country.

Read the full depressing story here.
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On Saturday, we made our first trip to the zoo. As one father put it to his crying daughter, "You're at the zoo, watching elephants, a baby elephant, what more could you want?"

Our little one mostly loved it.

Except when it started thundering. Then she said, "That scares me."

Her daddy told her it was just baby elephant Sampson playing and falling down, or the monkeys swinging on the branches.

So when it thundered last night getting ready for bed, she said, "Uh oh, baby Sampson fell down"

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If I were the weather, and you punched in my zip code to see what I was going to be like today, this is what you'd see:



Partly cloudy with a few showers sprinkled in. Almost like those days when you think it could rain, but you can't tell for sure if it's going to rain, but if it is going to rain you wish it just would and get on with it already.

That is kind of how I feel today.

Someone just tell me what to do so I can get on with it already.

::

And feeling that way doesn't feel good because I can't think of one thing (that really matters, anyway) that is unsettled in my life. But I am thinking of the woman whom I have never met but whose story I read regularly on caringbridge.org; a woman who my friend Melissa does know; a woman who today is making funeral arrangements for her twelve-year-old son who just lost his life to a brain tumor.

It makes your heart break to think of it. But when you read about the strength she describes her son as having at the end, his faith and courage to let go of life on earth, his only concern being for those on earth left to live without him, you feel like you have no business letting your heart break. Instead, you feel like your only business is to make your heart as whole and as large and as spread out as you can--for all to see and have and know.

::

So I am sitting quiet today and paying close attention to every face my little one makes. I am playing extra hard with that little love who says, "Mama, come play with me?", and I am not thinking one bad thought about our broken air conditioning and the 90+ degree weather that is on its way.

I will let myself feel a little unsure today; but tomorrow, tomorrow, I'll feel sure.

::

One Small Step (but hopefully they're fast ones)


I love to run, as most of you know by now. Here's what I'm gearing up for this spring/summer:

Survivor Harbor 7
Baltimore 10-miler
Utica Boilermaker (my first and favorite race)

::

Splurge Spring

I've been hoarding all the watermelon at the grocery stores. I just can't get enough of this "it's definitely summertime" treat.
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Yes, the whole Galileo affair is a bit confusing. If you've had difficulty following all of the details, try this poetic route. Here is a fantastic (and very funny) Limerick about Galileo (thanks to Kate Wellspring for forwarding the poem).

Limerico di Galileo©
by Martin J. Murphy

While watching a cannonball's motion,
Galileo conceived of the notion
That natural laws,
Not a mystical Cause,
Ruled the physical world's locomotion.

Though its own view was mostly confused,
The Church was not greatly amused
With this flaunting of Deo
By old Galileo
And ordered it quickly defused.

So the Pope sent some priests who inquired
If it wouldn't be best he retired?
"Undoubtedly you know
What we did for Bruno;
Do you also wish to be fired?"

He asked an old Cardinal's opinion:
"Pray tell me, Your Grace, if you will then,
Does this mean what I think?
That henceforth I must shrink
From discussing my clever perception?"

Said Bellarmine, "No, it is not a ban;
If you want to keep teaching of course you can.
They merely have said
To take care where you tread
And smile when you say thing Copernican."

Unbeknownst to our venerable dissident
The records said something quite different.
When the Pope saw the note
The inquisitors wrote
He lost what remained of his temperament.

The message the Vatican sent
Was blunt in its stated intent
"Recant all this heresy
Quick or we' harass thee,
Now 'til your life has been spent."

In facing the dread inquisition,
Few men could defend their position;
So it shouldn't surprise
When we are apprised
Of old Galileo's decision.

"Explaining celestial motion
Needs more than just faith and devotion.
But to save my poor head
I'll recant what I've said
(Though I'll secretly keep to my notion)".

So our friend the illustrious Florentine
Spent his last years in Vatican quarantine,
Locked up in his home
By the prelates of Rome
For being a cosmical libertine.

The Church caused a major imbroglio
By correcting Copernicus' folio
Yet it couldn't discern
The abuse it would earn
In forbidding the whole Dialogo?

By killing Sidereus Nuncius
For the news that their views were defunctus,
The renaissance ended
And darkness descended
Upon the Dominican dunces.

In spite of the Vatican's dissuasion
Galileo still rose to the occasion.
Though once deemed heretical,
He proved more prophetical
Than those of a clerical persuasion.

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Gives you an easy way to sketch out a UI or a screen shot for a web site:Download a Stencil KitMore importantly it points out how easy it is to do sketching like this. You can simply cut and past from web sites that you like to create a sketch of wat your UI might look like.
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I finally visited the New York Botanical Garden and saw Darwin's Garden exhibit (see an earlier post on it). It is fantastic! The exhibit really highlights Darwin's patience and his attention to details. One easily forgets how much of his work was centered around plants - especially on plants with rapid movements. Of course, Venus flytraps and some other carnivorous plants are in the exhibit. However, I really liked Mimosa Pudica (yes, you can touch its leaves in the exhibit - and see it respond to touch. Ok...so I found it quite entertaining...). If you live in New York city or are planning on visiting there, do check out Darwin's Garden. It's there through June 15th.

On a related note, here is a nice article about Darwin's book, The Voyage of the Beagle:

Its language is that of a young man intoxicated by the tropics ("To a person fond of natural history, such a day as this brings with it a deeper pleasure than he can ever hope to experience again") and careless of the risks ("Upon landing I found that I was to a certain degree a prisoner . . . a traveller has no protection beside his fire-arms"). The youthful Darwin was a master of unadorned English. He took with him more than geology textbooks: "Milton's Paradise Lost had been my chief favourite, and in my excursions during the voyage of the Beagle, when I could take only a single small volume, I always chose Milton."

On learning about evolution from culinary experiences:

Knowledge was mightily advanced on the expedition, but quite how it influenced his thinking is often misinterpreted. Darwin spent only five weeks of the five-year adventure in the Galapagos, with just half that time on visits to islands. He scarcely noticed the finches and lumped their corpses together into a jumbled mass. In fact, the local tortoises were more important. On the island of James he "lived entirely on tortoise meat . . . the young tortoises make excellent soup." In those lumbering creatures, Darwin saw, without realizing it at the time, his first hint of evolution, for animals from James were subtly distinct from those on Indefatigable and Albemarle nearby. In a rare conjunction of taxonomy with gastronomy, he noted that the James specimens were "rounder, blacker, and had a better taste when cooked" -- which at the time seemed little more than a curiosity but was in fact his introduction to the biology of change.

And again, here again it shows his focus away from large animals:

Much of his work was not on animals but on rocks; and in a few short weeks in the Andes (and a few days on the tiny island of Cocos-Keeling) he worked out how coral atolls were the product of small creatures that labor to stay near the surface while their basalt foundations sink beneath. The idea was dismissed as absurd until the drills of the military during the H-bomb tests on Bikini revealed the hidden foundations predicted a century before.

The Beagle book was the first step to our understanding why the world is how it is. Its last few pages have a strikingly modern resonance, for they predict what our native planet may soon become. A few months before returning home, the ship dropped anchor at St. Helena, in the South Atlantic, one of the most isolated islands in the world. Darwin was delighted by the place: Its volcanic mountain rose "like a huge black castle from the ocean." He admired the "English, or rather Welsh, character of the scenery" and noted to his surprise that the vegetation, too, was decidedly British, with gorse, blackberries, willows and other imports. On his first day, Darwin found the dead shells of nine species of "land-shells of a very peculiar form" (one of few mentions of snails in his entire writings) and noted that specimens collected from one location "differ as a marked variety" from others picked up a few miles away -- another hint of evolution. All apart from one were extinct and had been replaced by the common brown snail of English -- and American -- gardens.

Read the full article here.
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[This is a blog and the information contained within each entry is time sensitive, meaning prices are subject to change and information, due to new discovery, can change as well.]
Okay, I really do intend on completing the lesson on the observation hive, but it will be delayed a few more weeks while I test and retrieve some vital information. And we are building a store which will house our large observation hive, so I want to wait until we have that up and operational to include in the lesson.
We have been EXTREMELY busy filling orders and building hives. It has been so good to have heard back from so many of our customers who are thoroughly enjoying keeping bees.

In today's lesson, I want to share about raising queens. I used to think raising queens was a monumental undertaking left to the more experienced beekeeper, commercial beekeepers or queen breeders. However, it is good for every beekeeper to know how to raise a queen, if in no other way, simply by placing a frame of eggs in a queenless hive and having them raise their own queen. That's queen rearing in the simplest way. Beekeepers need queens. They are in big demand and in short supply. There is a mystery that surrounds the queen, and most beekeepers are content never to handle her or monitor her performance. But the more we observe and know our queens, the better we are in control of the overall survivability of our colonies.
Also, by raising our own queens, we control much of the characteristics of our hives. Meaning, that we should choose to graft from the hive that has the overall most favorable characteristics such as:
1. Gentleness
2. Good brood pattern
3. Rapid spring build up
4. Resistance toward pests and disease
5. Minimal swarming
6. Good honey production
Once a good hive is selected, there are several ways to raise a queen. Some use a kit which makes gathering the eggs or larvae easy and requires no grafting. However, these kits can be somewhat restrictive in timing, whereas actual grafting of the young larvae provides much more flexibility.
Our operation has studied queen rearing for several years. In the last two years we have had more and more success understand queen rearing. To help us along, my wife and I have attended several workshops and conferences on queen rearing. At one of these conferences I had the pleasure to hear from Dr. Joe Latshaw of Latshaw Apiaries. www.latshawapiaries.com
Months after the conference I emailed Joe and I found him very helpful in answering some of my questions. Then, after talking with Joe on the phone, he offered to personally mentor my daughter, Karee, and me in queen rearing. So a couple of weeks ago my 14 year old son, Seth and my 17 year old daughter made our way to Ohio to meet with Joe. What a great day of education it was!
Joe's specialty is producing inseminated breeder queens. Commercial beekeepers purchase inseminated queens from Latshaw Apiaries and then raise their own queens from this queen because her genetics are more controlled through insemination. Joe is also the state coordinator for the Ohio State Beekeepers Association queen project which is called the Ohio Queen Project (OQP). It is a program designed to promote queen rearing through training and working with local beekeepers. In addition, the OQP is also a stock improvement program aimed at developing a regionally developed stock and then promote this stock through the production of locally produced open mated queens.
One more thing about Joe. He also invented and designed a very unique, flexible and easy to use, award winning insemination instrument which he sells.
I have a dream...of one day breeding a queen from Illinois (Midwest) survival stock which is more accustomed to the climate, conditions and pests in the upper US. I hope that all of my work and research that I am doing now will lead to that end, if not for others, at least for my own operation.
So, Joe took us out into his bee yards and explain the whole process of queen rearing. I've heard about the difficulties in grafting and so I started queen rearing using a particular system that requires no grafting. But after talking to Joe, he explained the benefits of grafting and I was sold.
Grafting means that you examine a frame of brood from your selected hive. Then you look for 1 or 2 day old larvae. This is an important step. Here's, my daughter Karee gaining experience in grafting very young larvae from a frame of brood. The younger the larvae, the better. I try to find the youngest larvae that has just barely started to curve on the bottom of the cell. They are harder to graft, but have a much more promising success rate. This is known as grafting, taking eggs or young larvae from a frame of brood and transferring it into the queen cell cups.

I took a shot a learning too and it really was not as difficult as I thought. I need lots more practice, but I'm looking forward to becoming a good grafter. It seems to be best to graft the youngest larvae possible.
I make my own queen cup bars and frames which is a slightly modified traditional deep frame.


As you can see, the horizontal cell bars are removable so that you can easily place them next to your frame when grafting and then place them back into the cell starter nuc. These dimensions are pretty standard. You want the bar to fit tightly so that it stays in place but still can be removed. The cell bars which old the cell cups have a small grooved cut into the middle to hold the cell cups. Finding the right size saw blade ensures a perfect fit.
I use a skill saw blade(1/8") thickness. The cups fit tight and have to be wedged into place the first couple of times.

Once the larvae are grafted into the cell cups and placed on the cell bar in the frame, the frame of grafted larvae are ready to be placed into a starter hive. Often, if the trip back to the starter hive is far, the larvae need to be kept in a humid box, to keep them from drying out. A cooler with a wet towel in the bottom is usually plenty of moisture. It is not extremely critical to keep the grafts real warm when they are at this young age.
In my case, the "cell starter" hive is a 5 frame queenless nuc. They have several frames of pollen and honey and a frame or two of young larvae which I retrieve from other hives.
It is very helpful if this starter hive is almost overcrowded. There has to be a lot of bees, packed in, well fed and lots of young nurse bees. They will build out the comb and feed royal jelly to your newly grafted cells. They do this because they know they need a queen, and you have given them the start of queen cells loaded with fertilized larvae and plenty of royal jelly.
Without a queen in this starter nuc, it will die, so I have to monitor their own brood, pollen, honey and growth, using resources from another hive.
So in summary, we chose a hive to graft from, then we graft 1-2 day old larvae into our queen cells and place them into a queenless hive with plenty of bees, pollen and honey. Now, you can leave the cells in the starter hive until they emerge or move them over to what is known as a "finishing hive" where the cells are drawn out fully and sealed.
Now, here's the challenge. You cannot let these queens hatch together. If you do, the first one out will meticulously kill all the other queens in their cells.
In our next lesson, I will discuss grafting tools and techniques, mating queens, saving queens (called banking), how to sell queens and how to ship queens.
Thanks for joining me today, and to contact us, feel free to use the information below. Remember, BEE-have yourself!

David & Sheri Burns
Long Lane Honey Bee Farms
217-427-2678
www.honeybeesonline.com
david@honeybeesonline.com

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Imam Aĥmed Riđā Khān al-Barelwī (1856–1921, sometimes transcribed as Ahmad Raza Khan) was a prominent Muslim Alim from Bareilly, a city in Northern India during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was a follower of Hanafi fiqh. Hanafi Fiqh (the school of Islamic Fiqh, founded by Abu Hanifah), was one of four schools that enjoyed massive and general scholarly acceptance. Imam Aĥmed
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Here is a clip from AAAS on the compatibility of science and religion - a perfect representation of Gould's non-overlapping magestaria (NOMA) (tip from Framing Science). Yes, when pushed this view gets into trouble (as Francis Collins in this clip talking about God answering personal prayers). But the question is, who is the audience? This video would work for those who are religious and science-friendly and may provide them with a justification for supporting (and doing) science. On the other hand, many would have good reasons to point out that NOMA can be a slippery slope - and that these boundaries are overstepped all the time. Thus, there may not be a single good approach to talking about science & religion. Different videos for different audiences.

Yesterday was my last day on Chincoteague Island. At breakfast at the hotel, I overheard a conversation about the movie Expelled. A guy, probably in his 70's, was talking to a younger couple (seemed like his son and his wife). He liked the movie and was now reading Michael Behe's new book. He was familiar with the fine-tuning argument (with explicit religious overtones) and also with the tenure case of Guillermo Gonzalez. However, what struck me was his interest and fascination with science. Too bad, he got suckered into ID-nonsense. But I was thinking, he would be the perfect audience for this AAAS video - well-educated, religious, and having a deep interest in science. Yes, NOMA has serious problems - but we should also not cede this demographic to ID.
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