Saturday, July 1, 2023

Thursday, June 29, 2023

The Fight of Our Lives

 

 
I was back at my library yesterday when I spotted these books on the bottom shelf reserved for recent publications. Even though I'm already deeply engrossed in another book, Howard Blum's In the Enemy's House, I nevertheless also picked up Mendel's The Fight of Our Lives: My Time with Zelenskyy, Ukraine's Battle for Democracy, and What It Means for the World. So many books! So little time!

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Reconstruction

 

"The Capitol at Williamsburg, Virginia housed both Houses of the Virginia General Assembly, the Council of State and the House of Burgesses of the Colony of Virginia from 1705, when the capital was relocated there from Jamestown, until 1780, when the capital was relocated to Richmond. Two capitol buildings served the colony on the same site: the first from 1705 until its destruction by fire in 1747; the second from 1753 to 1780.

The earlier capitol was reconstructed in the early 1930s as part of the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg. The reconstruction has thus lasted longer than the combined total of both original capitol buildings" -- Wikipedia

Tuesday, June 27, 2023

Chaste Tree



The chaste tree  "is a plant native of the Mediterranean region. It is one of the few temperate-zone species of Vitex, which is on the whole a genus of tropical and subtropical flowering plants.Theophrastus mentioned the shrub several times, as agnos (άγνος) in Enquiry into Plants. It has been long believed to be an anaphrodisiac – leading to its name as 'chaste tree' – but its effectiveness for such action remains unproven." - Wikipedia