News from Around the Hexagon

 

We've had rain in Hooverville, lots of it. The tornado siren went off one day but the tornado hit twenty miles down the road. Reports are that France, Austria, and England are cooler, too, although they had less rain – and no tornados. Now that would be news.

Mark Twain famously said that everyone complains about the weather but nobody does anything about it. Personally, your editor here feels that this doesn't mean Mr Twain would be against taking action on the climate change issue. I also recall something he said which would apply equally to today's media and to most of the government in Washington:

 

The trouble ain't that there is too many fools, but that the lightning ain't distributed right.

 

We'll let that be our Quote of the Day.

Mystery of the Day

Today's mystery is contributed by Superfrenchie, who lives in Reims. (That's in France, you Americans.) Although she is multilingual and very smart, like all of us in the Hooverville Writers' Hexagon, Superfrenchie is not a botanist. She would like to know if anybody knows what this plant is.

 If you know, please leave a comment below. We promise not to send you any emails.

Video of the Day

Today's video is courtesy of Tavaron da Quirm, who found this very combative European Stag Beetle in her garden not impossibly far from Wiener Neustadt in Austria. (That's Austria, not Australia: if they have a kangaroo, it's in the zoo. We will promote geographic literacy if it kills us.)

Anyway, he looks mad enough to take on the world. I'm sure he wouldn't appreciate us laughing at him.

Netflix Recommendation of the Week: 

Song Sung Blue

If you judge your music by the decibel level and your actors by how 'iconic' they are, go away and stop reading this now. If you understand why somebody might say that Neil Diamond is a good songwriter in the way that Cole Porter and George Gershwin were good songwriters, and if you remember that Hugh Jackman can do a lot more than play an excitable furry, then you might just find this movie a treat, as we did.

 It's a story that demonstrates that music can heal, that you don't have to be rich and famous to live fully, and that. . . well, RL is often way stranger than fiction. Please ignore the critics. They are paid to be jaded. Or else it suits their self-image. This is a moving (and true!) story – and the music is tuneful and well-performed. And if you've got Netflix it comes with the subscription, so enjoy.

CU2morrow, Dmitri Gheorgheni, Editor