Mothers everywhere worry about their children.

Two Muslim mothers are sitting in a cafe chatting over a plate of tabouli and a pint of goat's milk.
The older of the two pulls a bag out of her purse and starts flipping through photos. They start reminiscing.
"This is my oldest son Mohammed. He would have been 24 years old now."
"Yes, I remember him as a baby," says the other mother cheerfully.
"He's a martyr now though," the mother confides.
"Oh, so sad dear," says the other.
"And this is my second son Khalid. He would have been 21."
"Oh, I remember him," says the other. "He had such curly hair when he was born."
"He's a martyr also," says the mother quietly.
"Oh, gracious me..." Says the other.
"And this is my third son. My baby. My beautiful Ahmed. He would have been 18," she whispers.
"Yes," says the friend. "I remember when he first started school."
"He's a martyr too," says the mother, with tears in her eyes.
"After a pause and a deep sigh, the second Muslim mother looks wistfully at the photographs and says...
"They blow up so fast these days, don't they?"

You know I love elephants. . . .

"One father is more than a hundred schoolmasters."
- 17th Century English Proverb

Teenage delinquents were killing their neighbors. A few years ago, the TV news program "60 Minutes" first reported on this story. But they weren't talking about humans; they were talking about elephants. It seems this story actually began about 20 years earlier in South Africa when an overabundance of elephants in a preserve forced ecologists to relocate elephants. It was difficult to relocate adult elephants, so most of the male elephants were killed and the young elephants and some of their mothers were relocated to another preserve.

Years later those fatherless and orphaned elephants developed into troubled teen-agers; teenagers that began harassing and killing other animals in the wildlife preserve - namely the scarce and prized white rhinos. In addition to killing rhinos, the juvenile elephants acted aggressively toward tourist vehicles. Eventually researchers had to kill five of the elephants because there is no reform school for animals. Or is there?

The park rangers began looking for role models. They brought in older bull elephants. The bigger, older elephants established a new hierarchy and provided much needed training and restraint for the young elephants. The lead field ecologist at the preserve compared the change to a group of teen-agers who have been acting up who are suddenly confronted by their fathers. After the big bull elephants arrived not a single rhino was killed and the younger elephants quickly fell into line.

A simple story. A simple truth. Societies, even elephant societies, need fathers.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY to all you great dads. (We need you old bull elephants!)

Traveling the back roads

Day 1 at Elephant's Feet


I was gone for a week and the garden seems to have doubled in size. Nothing like sunshine and water. Nice.
We took 600+ pictures. So this is just a tiny taste of vacation.
Especially tiny since it quit adding images.
Oh well. Have a nice day!

A letter to a friend

Irisita--
I don't know what the media are saying in California, but Arizona is a wonderful place to visit. Remember, one in three people in this state are Hispanic--do you think the police are going to be stopping every third person??
The bill that was just passed does not allow the police to stop anyone to check their immigration status. The police can ask for proof of status only after stopping someone who is breaking the law.
By the year 2050, Hispanics will be the majority here. In Rio Rico/Nogales they have been the majority forever. I think the non hispanic minority at the high school made up about 6%.

But the real issue is not ethnic, it's criminal--the Mexican cartel mafia, with its kidnappings and crime is operating in more than 200 U.S. cities. Arizona, with its proximity to Mexico, is one of those. Phoenix is second only to Mexico City for the number of kidnappings World Wide.
The “anti illegal immigrants” legislation that was just approved is related to these violent events, and it doesn't go into effect for another month. Our Attorney General talking about the kidnapping rate in Phoenix said today that for other than illegal aliens Phoenix is one of the safest cities in the world. The travesty is that the kidnappings are Mexican gangsters preying on Mexican illegals.
I'm kind of getting off target here, but the point is that Arizona is not anti-hispanic. Arizona is anti-criminal. The federal government needs to figure out a real policy on immigration. But right now, living on the border we see the downside of the drug trade daily--seven bodies were found in Nogales, Sonora again yesterday.

We wish it wasn't happening in Mexico.
We don't want it to happen here.
Sorry for the diatribe.