Category Archives: Carolina & the World

The Invasion of the Invasives Is Here (Right In My Back Yard)

Washington Post

Scientists warn invasive pests are taking a staggering toll on society

The authors of a major new U.N.-backed report say invasive species are costing the world more than $423 billion a year

By Dino Grandoni
 — September 4, 2023

Invasive pests are wreaking havoc across the planet, destroying crops, disseminating pathogens, depleting fish people rely on for food and driving native plants and animals toward extinction, according to a major report backed by the United Nations.


[COMMENT: Also from a report in my tiny back yard in Durham NC. . . .]

Continue reading The Invasion of the Invasives Is Here (Right In My Back Yard)

After the Sudden Storm: Minding the Light Again!

About 10:30 Wednesday night, I was ready to pack it in: tired and frazzled from a day spent largely looking for chargers to recharge chargers for phone & Ipad, and then charging the devices while circling in the Fair Wendy’s air-conditioned EV., and buying drippy bags of ice from a darkened but open vape shop for the room temperature fridge/freezer.

I turned off the MSNBC audio feed my phone still had and was starting the push up out of the recliner when — voilá!

Continue reading After the Sudden Storm: Minding the Light Again!

”All God’s Critters Got a Place In the Choir”–But Sometimes They have to Make (or Change) It

”All God’s Critters Got a Place In the Choir.”

And being in the choir is work.

I’m not much for singing gospel songs; but Bill Staines, who wrote this one, was more of a folkie, and his tune, “All God’s Critters” is more folk than (Lord help us) “praise” music. But whatever the genre, I’m more interested in its theology, because I agree with it.

All God’s critters got a place in the choir,
Some sing low, some sing higher,
Some sing out loud on the telephone wire.
And some just clap their hands, or paws,
or anything they got now . . . . Continue reading ”All God’s Critters Got a Place In the Choir”–But Sometimes They have to Make (or Change) It

Gwynne Dyer: The Northern Irish “Troubles” Are Over. Will they Stay Over?

[NOTE: I once seriously considered retiring in Ireland. It was 2010 and, closing in on 70, I wondered if there were any peaceable options to the ongoing mess and mass shootings in the USA.

Initially, Ireland seemed to be several positives: ancestral ties (O’Brien was my mother’s maiden name); a similar language; a reported friendliness to writers;  Quakers had been there for 300+ years; and after a decade of intensive peace work amid seemingly endless stupid wars, the fact that Ireland was neutral, not even in NATO, sounded good to me. Continue reading Gwynne Dyer: The Northern Irish “Troubles” Are Over. Will they Stay Over?

Powerful Quote of The Week: the American Future Is In the South

[Sectarian NOTE: The author here does not mention (and why should she?) that the South, especially North Carolina, has been very important in the history of my own small tribe, the Quakers. I didn’t know or expect this when I came here 21 years ago, so far from the self-identified and self-important “centers” of the sect in Philadelphia, Richmond (Indiana) and Newberg (Oregon).  But once here, I learned it was so (as I learned much more that was important yet unexpected). That continuing learning has been the subject of many posts here, and as way opens, likely many more.]

Why I Keep My Eyes — and My Mind — on the South (Excerpts)

Opinion Columnist

Tressie McMillan Cottom
Tressie McMillan Cottom

While the world was watching the former president surrender to authorities in a New York City courthouse last week, I was watching Nashville and Raleigh. I live in North Carolina, and these two seats of government and capital cities in bordering southern states have been roiled with political unrest in the shadow of the Donald Trump Show.

Continue reading Powerful Quote of The Week: the American Future Is In the South