From a paid advertisement in The Daily Oklahoman:
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Boy Scouts of America, Civil Rights, Eagle Scout, Ethics, History, Human Rights, Parents, Patriotism, Politics, Rampant stupidity | Tagged: Civil Rights, Gay Rights, Hate Agenda, Hate Speech, Oklahoma, Politics, Sally Kern | 
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Posted by Ed Darrell
Not perfect — there is a brown spot on it; but beautiful, surpassingly rare, a creature of the serendipity of nature, it is a natural dogwood blossom in Dallas County, Texas:
What we came to see – the magical dogwood blossoms.
On April 5 Kathryn and I joined David Hurt and a jovial band of hikers for a trip into Dogwood Canyon in Cedar Hill, Texas. The physical formation of Cedar Hill upon which the city of the same name and several others stand, is one of the highest spots between the Mississippi River and the Rocky Mountains. It is an outcropping of chalk, a formation known as the Austin Chalk, that runs from Austin, north nearly to the Oklahoma border.
This rock formation creates a clear physical marker of the boundary between East and West. Dallas is east of the line, Fort Worth, Gateway to the Old West, is 30 miles farther west. On this outcropping is married the plains of the west with the oaks and forests of the east. Within a few miles of the line, the botanical landscape changes, cowboy prairie lands one way, forest lands the other.
On the chalk itself, the soil is thin and alkaline. The alkalinity is a function of the chemical composition of the chalk underneath it.
Dogwoods love the forests of East Texas with their acidic soils. Early spring produces fireworks-like bursts of white dogwood blossoms in the understory of East Texas forests. Dogwoods die out well east of Dallas as the soil changes acidity; driving from Dallas one can count on 30 to 60 miles before finding a dogwood.
Except in Dogwood Canyon. There, where entrepreneur David Hurt originally planned to build a family hideout and getaway, he found a stand of dogwoods defying botanists and the Department of Agriculture’s plant zone maps, blooming furiously in thin alkaline soil atop the Austin Chalk.
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8 Comments | Biology, Botany, Environmental protection, Geography - Physical, Geography - Political, geology, Science, Texas, Texas history, Travel, trees | Tagged: Audubon Society, Botany, Dogwood Canyon, Environmental protection, geography, Science, Texas, Travel | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
Odds are high that readers of any blog are too young to remember. Heck, I’d forgotten about it until Matthew Tabor reminded me.
April 25, 1976: Rick Monday, center fielder for the Chicago Cubs, saved the U.S. flag.
Get the story from Tabor’s blog. He offers credits to HotAir.com.
Major League Baseball was kind enough to preserve the story, which you may watch below.
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14 Comments | Citizenship, Flag etiquette, Good Deeds, Heroes, History, History images, History video sources, Patriotism, Video and film | Tagged: Baseball, Flag Burning, History, Patriotism, Rick Monday, US Flag | Permalink
Posted by Ed Darrell
You are currently browsing the Millard Fillmore's Bathtub blog archives for the day Tuesday, April 29th, 2008.
Ed Darrell on Texas's Colorado River
Come on in, the water's fine. Come often: Cleanliness is next to godliness.
Millard Fillmore's Bathtub 