"Asparagus inspires gentle thoughts." - Charles Lamb

Homegrown Asparagus becomes available in Pennsylvania from April through June. It is perfection in May. I love asparagus so much I am already salivating with anticipation. A list of pick-your-own farms in Eastern Pennsylvania can be found HERE. 

The photograph comes from Petr Kratochvil. 

Everyone has favorite ways to eat Asparagus. My Mother, the Polka Queen, made Creamed Asparagus on Toast. This recipe for Chinese Asparagus Salad is one of my favorites. 

Chinese Asparagus Salad

2 pounds fresh Asparagus

1/4 cup Soy Sauce

1/2 teaspoon Sugar

1/2 teaspoon Vinegar (Cider or White Wine are good)

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 teaspoons Sesame Oil

Some folks peel Asparagus and you can if you want to. I never do. I just snap it. Use a potato peeler if you are going to peel it. Wash the Asparagus well. Cut the spears diagonally across in 1 1/2 inch lengths. Cook the pieces of Asparagus for one minute in boiling water. Then drain and rinse under cold water to stop the cooking. Mix all the other ingredients (soy sauce, sugar, vinegar, salt and oil) together in a large bowl. Add Asparagus and toss. Enjoy.

TEXAS Raped This Woman. God Have Mercy. God say Be Calm. Galatians 6:7.

rape
early 14c., "booty, prey;" mid-14c., "forceful seizure, act of snatching by force; plundering, robbery, extortion," from Anglo-French rap, rape, and directly from Latin rapere "seize" (see rape (v.)). Meaning "act of abducting a woman or sexually violating her or both" is from early 15c. Late 13c. in Anglo-Latin (rapum).

Somebody suggested the Anti abortion Zealots do not want this to go SCOTUS. Why? It makes the logical consequences of the Abortion Stalker Law mighty obvious. Every single thing I predicted has come to pass. An innocent Woman was effectively stalked, kidnapped, raped and unjustly imprisoned by StateGov.

It is Gosnell City now in Texas. Dr. Kermit Gosnell murdered pre and post partum infants and called that legal abortion. He kept the corpses in his refrigerator. All possibility of compliance with law is eradicated in Texas. All regulation as to time and safety of procedure is gone. And the wombsniffers screaming LIFE have now created destruction.

If democratic voting will not preserve our civil rights now, and law also will not protect our Family or Women, we are left with no political choice but assassination. Hang Alito and Barrett and Roberts should do it up good. Forget chivvying me FBI, I am too old, crazy and crippled to carry it out. But others are not. It is not just Margery Taylor Greene calling for assassination now. I am a hippy peacenik Quaker GrandMother calling for assassination. I have Daughters. You just might have a another big fat problem uprising on your hands.

Bede's Beat - April 15 marks the 150th anniversary of the death of Abraham Lincoln in 1865

In 1942, Aaron Copland's mind was on the past and the present, because he was commissioned by André Kostelanetz write a piece about an "eminent American" for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra,

Copland -- like Kurt Weill, who was contemporaneously setting several of Walt Whitman Civil War poems to musical accompaniment -- turned to the figure of Lincoln as a means of explaining to his countrymen precisely what they were fighting for in battle against the Axis.

The result was The Lincoln Portrait a work written for full orchestra with narrator. Over the years, many famous actors and Americans have performed the Lincoln Portrait, including Henry Fonda (with Copland himself conducting), Gregory Peck, Charlton Heston, James Earl Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Marian Anderson, Katherine Hepburn, Esther Rolle, Vincent Price, Walter Cronkite, Carl Sandburg (in a performance that won a Grammy), Gore Vidal, Margaret Thatcher, Neil Armstrong, Julius "Dr. J" Erving and Adlai Stevenson.

Carl Sandburg with André Kostelanetz conducting the New York Philharmonic [winner of the 1959 Grammy for "Best Performance – Documentary Or Spoken Word (Other Than Comedy)"

Community Standard or Do Not Be a Dick

We have a good crowd of intelligent, funny, friendly commenters here who can and do really talk to each other. I treasure my commenters.

TROLLS BEWARE!

I am now banning IP addresses as well as screen names. You cannot come here and irritate, harass, lie about the facts, and trash and sneer at people. Go elsewhere for your kind of fun.

People can have a good clean fight here. Fighting can be educational and fun. Just do not be a dick. And use facts. And the most important rule of all is I am the Queen. Do not piss me off.

Internet Trolls Are Narcissists, Psychopaths, and Sadists
Trolls will lie, exaggerate, and offend to get a response.
https://www.psychologytoday.co...