… they will come.

Spring, UD‘s garden.

Leave it around and it just might kill your kid.

Bravo.

To be sure, they’ve got the weapons to deploy. But it seems increasingly important to call the Russians exactly what they are.

THE BIRD THAT WANTS TO NEST IN MY RAFTER

The bird that wants to nest in my rafter

Has birdlike clarity what it’s after:

The comforts of home.  Of course I agree

That water source, sight-line, privacy

All make for quite the nest.  The question though

(As I sweep off twigs and it returns

Tirelessly, with energy to burn)

Remains:  Which one of us will have to go?

… “perimeter walk,” when Les UDs walk the length and breadth of their property. This often coincides with sunset, but this evening was so beautiful that we took our walk early.

The main thing I wanted to say about this image is that you’ve GOT to imagine the sweet powerful aroma coming off those white viburnum flowers. It says here that the scent is a “sweet, rich, spicy vanilla,” which sounds about right. There’s something of chai tea to it.

But that was 2019. Little Oberlin’s endowment currently stands at $1.09 billion.

A few years ago, Oberlin College did a hell of a lot of damage to a local bakery – falsely accused it of racism, got tons of people to boycott it – and a jury’s decision that it pay the bakery $33 million in compensation doesn’t sit at all well with the school. But the decision has been upheld; the school’s only option at this point is to kick things up to the Ohio Supreme Court… or hey, maybe the US Supreme Court would like to air, for the nation and the world, a billion dollar school’s vicious attack on a local small business.

Let’s wait and see what Oberlin decides to do. Not paying will expose it to yet further penalties, one assumes; so it can’t do nothing forever. I’m figuring an Ohio court at any level will share the outrage of an Ohio jury in regard to the arrant vileness of Oberlin’s behavior. I doubt the Supreme Court would look at the case. And, you know, Oberlin has enough money in its endowment to pay what it owes.

It’d be nice if they concluded something humane and useful for themselves as a result of all of this, but that ain’t gonna happen. Mob rule will prevail.

*********

UD thanks David.

… group. There’s insider-trading-charges-evading-tho-no-one-knows-how-the-hell-he-pulled-THAT-off Steven Cohen; there’s all-round terrific guy Ron Perelman; most recently, there’s New York’s naughty Lieutenant Governor, just today arrested on big ol’ fraud charges.

It is UD‘s considered opinion that Brown is in some kind of obscure competition with Yeshiva University (Madoff, Merkin, and oh so many more) for grubbiest greediest grotesquest trustees.

New York City’s not like San Francisco – it doesn’t have a depraved political class willing to let the city die. It has a tough on crime mayor. But even the toughest mayor can’t do anything about current gun-soaked American life; and the pictures of people bleeding, this morning, on subway platforms … it’s something we’ll have to get used to.

… Biden and his party [need to] counter Republican demagoguery about anarchy in “Democratic cities.” By falsely smearing all Democrats as closet [police] defunders … Republicans hope to obscure their deep complicity in today’s violent crime wave. Conservative pro-gun absolutism is the reason that criminals, street gangs and aspiring mass shooters can get quick and easy access to guns. 

*************

UPDATE.

… at Quiet Waters Park, along Maryland’s South River. Site of today’s walk.

… takes off for her return trip to DC.

[Marat] Grachev was fined 100,000 rubles, more than $1,200, [for displaying an anti-war sign in his computer repair store]. A Moscow politician wrote about the case on social media, including Mr. Grachev’s bank details for anyone who wanted to help. Enough money to cover the fine arrived within two hours, Mr. Grachev said.

He received 250,000 rubles in total, he said, from about 250 separate donations, and he plans to donate the surplus to OVD-Info, which provided him with legal aid.

Archaeologists are just beginning to piece together, from this remarkable find, one of the most intriguing early American cultures.