Good Monday to you all.  Cool right now but we expect temps near 90 with possible thunderstorms--if the systems hold together long enough.  Some of my herbs need cutting so that is on the agenda.  I also want to get some the plots cultivated a bit and fertilized.  Sometime this week I want to get some strawberry plants split and replanted.  Peppers, hibiscus, tomatoes, and squash are budding.  I expect blossoms any time.

Well, I did get lemon thyme, sage, pineapple sage, bee balm cut and drying.  Also got everything fertilized and cultivated.  Surprise--my lemon squash are blooming.  I didn't think they were quiet ready.

Glad you enjoyed the links, Kay.  Lets see what I find today.

I found this shortly after I started traipsing through the 'net.  I have spent a much too large a part of my adult life in institutions of higher learning.  I have watched as the schools increased their fees to the point where a student who, like me, could once fund their programs with part time work during the school term and full time work during the summer could no longer work enough hours at any time to afford the tuition/fees/rent/books etc.  I have seen the schools reduce the number of grants and scholarships while steering their students into loans from which they often got a kickback from lending institutions.  What we have to remember is that colleges and universities (non-profit or for-profit, private or public) have become big businesses and the bottom line is the only consideration any more.  But we now have to judge education by the same standards we judge any other consumer good: its utility for us and our lives.  I remember being very disgusted by former Secretary of Education William Bennett who advised people to "kick the tires" on education.  Unfortunately, education has become a commodity on par with cars, refrigerators, computers.  We have to decide, as consumers, what we want "education" to  do for us, will it have the desired results, and is it worth mortgaging our futures of it.

Why anyone really thinks "austerity" is a good idea, maybe this story from U.K. will give them pause.  Let's call a spade a spade here.  Austerity really means pain for people who are already hurting while those who really cause the recession get off and prosper.

I find linguistic legerdemain fascinating.  In answer to the last question, I have a friend who referred to the chain as "Taco Hell."

I can definitely relate to these sentiments.  My past seems so distant and gets more distant every day.