When Hades brought Persephone to his home --
whether by seduction, or by force --
she ate from the seeds of a pomegranate from his garden
and by the rule of the Fates
she was his --
and, let us not forget, he was hers --
forever

the magic of food grown by one's own hand

And so now you know
why I just smiled
when you thanked me for cooking you dinner last night

through the humble leaves of kale and beets
through the acts of digging and planting and sprouting and weeding and
watering
through the heat of my stove

I've been re-reading T.H. White's The Once and Future King. I'd forgotten that White casts Merlyn as a vegetarian, though a conflicted one:

They were riding back from a day on the mountain, where they had been hunting grouse with the peregrines, and Merlyn had gone with them for the sake of the ride. He had become a vegetarian lately -- an opponent of blood-sports on principle -- although he had gone through most of them during his thoughtless youth -- and even now he secretly adored to watch the falcons for themselves. Their masterly circles, as they waited on -- mere specs in the sky -- and the bur-r-r with which they scythed on the grouse, and the way in which the wretched quarry, killed instantaneously, went end-over-tip into the heather -- these were a temptation to which he yielded in the uncomfortable knowledge that it was sin. He consoled himself by saying that the grouse were for the pot. But it was a shallow excuse, for he did not believe in eating meat either.

Later on, Sir Galahad is described by Sir Gawaine as "a vegetarian and teetotaler", though as Gawaine's assessment is that Galahad is a prick this isn't a compliment.

Haven't been a big fan of Scouting, not since I dropped out of the Cub Scouts...though as I've learned a bit about the history of Seton and the original Scouting movement, and it's possible connection to the Pagan revival, my opinion has improved.

But now that I've learned from WorldNetDaily that the Girl Scouts are

learning about stone labyrinths, world peace, global warming, yoga, avatars, smudging incense, Zen gardens and feminist, communist and lesbian role models.

...
In "Amaze: The Twists and Turns of Getting Along," girls from the sixth to the eighth grade will read a quote from Buddha and be encouraged to explore mazes and stone or dirt labyrinths – symbols rooted in pagan mythology and popular within the New Age movement as meditation tools.

They will be briefly introduced to Polish poet Anna Swir, known for her feminist and erotic poems, and Jane Addams, an ardent feminist and pacifist who received a Nobel Peace Prize.

The text features a quote from Harriet Woods, former president of the National Women's Political Caucus – a bipartisan group that endorses pro-abortion female candidates who run for public office.

To cope with bullying, girls as young as 11 are encouraged to "take a peace break," make a Zen garden, take martial arts, do yoga and visit a website to learn the sun salutation poses.

The book features a strong emphasis on feminism and world peace, concluding with the following message:

Life is a maze. Navigate its twists and turns and you'll find true friendships, meaningful relationships, and lots of confidence to boot. So, go ahead, enter the maze. The goal is peace – for you, your world, and the planet, too.

...

Many of the female role models mentioned are feminists, lesbians, existentialists, communists and Marxists.

All I can say is, go Girl Scouts!

From emacs-fu.blogspot.com:

Emacs-users like to stay in their own little world, even when interacting with the Others - and they are right of course. Why leave the comforts of your well-configured emacs for the inconveniences of yet another app? For example, when using twitter, I prefer to do that from within emacs. There are different ways and packages to do so. My favorite so far is twitter.el.

From The Daily Show. You'll cry, you'll laugh.

Coming to AMC this fall: a revamp of The Prisoner.

And to make it sweeter, full eps of the original mind-blowing series can be viewed on AMC's website.

Be seeing you.

The Zen Master held up a bell. "What is this?", she challenged the students. "If you say it is a bell, I will hit you thirty times, and if you say it is not a bell, I will hit you thirty times!"

One stood up and took the bell from her hand. He rang it -- ding-a-ling-a-ling! Ding-a-ling-a-ling! And he said: "When I was a boy, the snowball truck -- you might call them snow cones -- came through the neighborhood on hot summer days. The driver rang his bell like this. We would cry out to him and he would stop to give us shaved ice and flavored syrup, providing sweet and cool succor to those suffering in the heat. Truly he was a Bodhisattva, and this bell the herald of his presence."

The master took back the bell and, lightly, smacked the student on top of his head. "You talk too much," she said.

I'm now a twit. Follow me on Twitter if you like:
https://twitter.com/tom_swiss

Zelda's Inferno exercise: The Action of a Sentence. List a bunch of nouns, and a bunch of verbs associated with an occupation, then mix and match to make interesting lines

nouns: food, hair, love, prices, fire, butterflies, sky, roses, skin, chains

a thief: sneaks, opens, breaks, runs, hides, sells, convicted, steals, cuts, listens, fences, looks out, gets away, blows up, cons

Roses con the bees into spreading their pollen with their sweet-smelling lies.

The sky listened to his cries but did not reply.

Her hair snuck into my fingers, softly curling around them.

How crazy are the folks at Fox News? Very.

Recently on Fox News' morning show, "Fox and Friends", the hosts were discussing research done in Finland and Sweden that suggests that people who stay married are less likely to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. I would suggest, off-hand, that this might be because people showing early signs of Alzheimer's are more likely to get a divorce or have one forced on them, but I haven't read the study.

Anyway, host Brian Kilmeade questioned the results, saying, "We are -- we keep marrying other species and other ethnics and other... See, the problem is the Swedes have pure genes. Because they marry other Swedes .... Finns marry other Finns, so they have a pure society."