Odd sods

A recently inaugurated blog from a Medialens favourite, The Ether by Mr Ire, has gotten off to a flying start. Much more Brazilian colour, politics and ethics are hoped for. The post on Infant Mortality is stuffed with useful statistics and comparisons. Anthony, posting comments at Lenin's Tomb ['Dead Babies'] also comes up with the goods, evidence-wise.

On the subject of blogs, I'm seriously considering starting one for Sau, whose excellent newsfeed gets disseminated and diluted across different places, mostly in comments boxes. And it's a waste. I'm thinking if I do the donkeywork of setting up a password and email, I might be able to coach him to use it, and save me flitting from place to place to find out what's happening with Sgrena's car or Michael Ruppert's speaking tour.

And on the subject of speaking tours, the film 'Yes Men' appears locally next week, with intro and discussion by one of the eponymous men, Michael Bonnano. I'll be a gay dutchman if that's his real name. Banana? Bon-nano? Ban-no-no? Bonobo? Ha!

New AL Kennedy article in the Grauniad today, so coldly vicious I fear for her while in awe of her craft, weaving her election despair from a weft of Dr Who with a woof of Wolfowitz.

A botanically-minded friend brought from Germany a much-appreciated gift that I'd never heard of before- a Rose of Jericho plant. This came as a dry brown fibrous tennis ball which has unfurled on contact with a shallow bowl of water into a green, ferny rosette.



Anastatica hierochuntica is a Syrian desert plant that in some sources is characterised as a seed spreader while in it's parched state, free of the ground and rolling, using a tumbleweed-type adaptation. In others, the seed is said to be spread when the dry plant-ball is moistened and resurrects, the fronds loosening attached seeds as they rehydrate and straighten. Another member of the Cruciferae plant, just like the radish, cabbage, wallflower etc.

Anyway, I adore it, and am observing it for seed-shedding (although these are said to be teeny-tiny). Also need to know how chlorosis (the re-greening of the plant) is accomplished. Was the green chlorophyll always there, but in a de-magnesiumised state*, or does the plant have to grow chloroplasts all over again? Does it have starch stores somewhere to fuel this? In its dormant state, is it alive or dead?

*Chloroplasts use magnesium as their oxygen-binding metallic ions, while haemoglobin uses iron.