A Pair of Prii

My car has a twin that also lives at my office building. Mine is on the left; it is the dirtier, more dented, beat-up looking car.

There's a third Prius whose driver works at my building. That one is that nice blue color. It doesn't rank as a twin. I think of it as my car's brother from another mother.

And there is an older cousin, a Honda Insight, that parks nearby.

I think the four of us should get a special parking area.

Outsiders, Indeed

I had a chuckle this morning when I read a story on the Washington Post web site about a group of modern-day "Minutemen" patrolling the US-Canada border in northern Vermont.

The article -- On Patrol in Vt., Minutemen Are the Outsiders (registration required, I'm afraid) -- details the story of a group of folks from Massachusetts who have taken to watching the northern border in the same way that a group of what appear to be vigilantes has begun "guarding" the US-Mexico border in Arizona.

It was amusing to read that they are not sure exactly where the border is, that they have at least once mistakenly wandered into Canada, and that they were reduced to sitting in lawn chairs and watching a field.

What struck me most, though, is how they are missing the fact that the real citizen guards on the northern border are the people who live on that border. Families and friendships in that region straddle the border. The local folks may at times treat the border as their own private passageway, but they also make sure that it is only locals who may pass.

We spend time in northern Vermont each year. I've gotten to know a few farmers and landowners on the border. They have ways of moving things across the border but they also know who and what should move across the border. If anyone not in the community tries to get across, they'll sound the alarm. They know how to contact the federal authorities. And there is no other group that knows the whole of that border as well as the people who live there.

I understand, of course, that the "Minutemen" are just trying to make a point about what they see as a failure of the federal government to secure the borders. But they are insulting the people who live there and who already take their stewardship of their border very seriously. And, to me, the Minutemen look silly.

Three Pumpkins

Three Pumpkins
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

Colleen's, mine, and Christina's. What you'll see at our house this evening.

Karl Rover

Karl Rover
Originally uploaded by mmahaffie.

Rehoboth Beach, Off Season

Christina is playing with the Youth Bell Choir at Epworth United Methodist Church, in Rehoboth Beach. As a result, I have about 45 minutes of free time in Rehoboth each Thursday evening and have started collecting off-season, beach at evening photos.

Your Chance to Vote for One of Our Own

Congratulations to Carl Giffels, of Rehoboth Beach, who is one of the finalists for the October 17 edition of the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest (Contest #23). Voting is open now.

Contest #23 features two butterflies on a branch, talking. One is a traditional monarch-type butterfly. The other has wings inspired by Mondrian.

Mr. Giffels' caption is

It's not traditional, but I find it attracts a more mature type of female.

I'm jealous. I've entered a caption in almost every contest. I haven't made the finals yet.

We Won't See Much More of This for a Few Months

This is the tree in our side yard last Sunday at about noon. The leaves were just starting to turn. Now, with a northeast storm and the remains of a hurricane converging off the coast of the Delmarva peninsula, we've had just about enough wind and rain to strip many of these leaves away. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't think we'll see much fall foliage on this one this year.

In the spring, this tree will put out a multitude of purple buds along its branches for the space of a week or so. It is briefly glorious.

I have no idea what this tree is called in polite society. We call it the purple tree and we are rather fond of it.

Update: Progress at Woods of Mahaffie

I was pleased to see a comment today from the Realtor developing the Kansas neighborhood I posted about back in March, the Woods of Mahaffie. This is the new development bearing my family name that is going up in Olathe, Kansas, where my geat-great-grandparents ran an Inn and Stagecoach Shop that is now a county historic site.

The Realtor took exception to the characterization of the plot map as "kinda cookie-cutter." That was the reaction of some of my land use planner colleagues.

The comment led me back to the Woods of Mahaffie web site where I was pleased to see that roads are in place, models have been put in, and lots are starting to sell. The plot map has been prettied-up and there are now pictures of the neighborhood's progress. Scroll down for the pictures and be sure to click the link for the larger format plot map.

It's not really that bad-looking a neighborhood. It looks like it ties into the developments around it and would be a walkable part of the community.

I joked in March about getting my family to buy up the lots. I still think at least one of us should invest. I was rather tempted by Lot 16.

I guess I'd need to do the due diligence and find out what the market in Olathe looks like, long-term, before investing. I doubt we'd be able to get the girls to agree to a move out to Kansas, but maybe Karen and I could retire there. I doubt they have hurricanes, northeast storms, or other coastal flooding threats.

Wisdom From Tom Starnes

Tom Starnes is a retired United Methodist Minister who lives in Rehoboth Beach and attends the Church that Karen attends. He served briefly as an interim minister there and occasionally returns to the pulpit on a fill-in basis. I know him mostly from fellowship golf outings, social occasions, and as a minister whose sermon style and substance Karen respects.

Tom is also a member of the News Journal newspaper's Community Advisory Board. He had a "Community View" column in this morning's paper, Aging brings realization that truth often straddles the line, that caught my eye and confirms Karen's opinion.

Tom starts with the biblical story in which a judgmental crowd is dispersed by Jesus with the admonition, "let he who is without sin cast the first stone." It's certainly a story we've heard before, whether we are Christians or not. Tom focuses, though, on a detail that is not a part of our collective awareness. He quotes the disciple John: "They went away, one by one, beginning with the eldest."

Tom's point is that as we get older, we become more aware of our own faults and more aware that the world is not a place of black and white, pure good and evil, or perfectly clear situations. There are shadings.

Age does this -- to most of us, anyway. It opens us up to new truths and experiences, making us less judgmental and less sure of some of our cherished opinions.

In a few short paragraphs, Tom Starnes applies this wisdom to a gentle admonition of the President over the nomination of Harriet Miers. He applies it to the question of gay rights. He uses it to warn us to soften our cherished opinions with a pinch of self-doubt.

This, I think, is the nugget:

...for most of us, as the years pile up we come to understand that more often than not, truth isn't out there at either extreme. It's generally found somewhere in the middle.

I keep thinking of this as I read the varied opinions and counter-opinions of blog writers in Delaware and around the world. So many of us are so tightly tied to what we think that we fail to test, to probe, to question our certainties.

The truth is often in the middle. If we continue to use only language that precludes the existence of a middle, we may never speak it.

Art in Motion

An artist named ChiaNi, who posts some of her work on Flickr, has been working on a series called Mona Lisa step by step.

It is based on her recreation of the Mona Lisa, using her own face. ChiaNi paints on a digital canvas, combining digital photos and mouse-strokes in PhotoShop.

She most often creates self-portraits in a variety of styles.

I recommend having a look at the slideshow version of her Mona Lisa series. Set the timing to 1 or 2 seconds. It's rather cool.