I did a poor job of being clear, so will try one last time. What propelled my thoughts, and prompted my post, was the timing of these incidents coinciding with my young niece's struggle with grasping what boundaries are OK and what aren't. (She just turned 12, quotes are her words.) She hasn't ever been permitted to be exposed to just anything, as much as her parents can control anyway. But at her age kids hear, see, share & talk about things, especially on the heels of a wedding that's created a tremendous buzz. What matters is she's confused about behavior & boundaries, photos & boundaries, attention (good or bad) and boundaries. She knows it wasn't OK for her friend to send a pic text to a boy as a joke while wearing cami-top underwear & a neon wig at a birthday sleepover. A joke her friend did in a moment of 1 a.m. slumber party giddiness just after snapping pics of the family dog wearing his shaving cream beard. Sadly, my niece learned at a young age it's not OK for a grown man to collect photos of (at the time) 7-9 yr old children in group settings and then call them or stalk their public events. All she knows is he was a "creeper" who went to jail. She recently saw a "famous wedding". And she doesn't quite get why the important maid of honor Pippa Long Stockings (what they call her due to her unusual name) "got more famous on the internet" for things that would bring either punishment or bad ("creeper") attention in my niece's world. And there was her "She knows about creepers, right?" comment. :/ She just simply doesn't understand where the boundaries of OK behavior start/stop. And frankly I don't either. Because it just keeps coming down the pike in droves. From the 6th grader doing it for 'approval' or whatever motivates them to the sister of the future queen, it's everywhere. And it would be nice to see the trend sway from a little less raunchy toward a little more self-dignity. Hopefully it's a little clearer now where I was coming from. And if my thoughts and viewpoint result in me being viewed as a prude, not fully enlightened or unworldly, I have zero problem with that.

ColorMe, the systems have been funky lately. Interestingly enough, the movement of tectonic plates was embraced earliest by some very strange people of the Von Daniken ilk (but a decade earlier.) I read all those books and enjoyed them mainly because they gave me permission to think about things in a new way. Most of what I read I didn't believe or agree with, but for some reason the plate tectonics stuff held. So, by reading some incredibly stupid book probably about the hollow earth, I learned enough about plate tectonics to dazzle a geologist with my learning a decade or so later. Go figure. Of course I've also learned enough stuff that is dead wrong to cure anyone's bedazzlement. My vote for the worst non-ficion would be the biography Sara & Gerald, of her parents Sara and Gerald Murphy by daughter Honoria Donnelly. These two incredibly interesting and exciting characters (according to two biographies Living Well is the Best Revenge by Calvin Tomkins and Everyone Was So Young by Amanda Vail) gave birth to a daughter who made them sound dull as ditch water.

An interesting 'mid-summer' link which seems to show that it a recent American idea to so name 21st June. Re Stonehenge. Many many years ago, while still at College, I joined a group of friends, none of them constrained as I was, by College rules, to make an over-night trip down to Salisbury Plain. This was at the equinox on 23 June(?) so there was only one other person in the area. In those days the Stones were just fenced off with a length of barbed wire, which we climbed over, dragging the other visitor with us. He was a weird elderly man in a black cape and wide-brimmed hat; though at the time it didn't seem strange. As the sun wasn't shining and we were all very tired it was something of an anti-climax and we left the old fellow there while we drove off in search of breakfast. I spent the whole return journey worrying that my night away had been 'found out' by the authorities and I would be for the chop. They hadn't and I wasn't. Lots of recent work in the Salisbury Plain area has uncovered a series of wide pathways that led to/from linked monuments/henges, several miles apart taking in rivers and streams (water playing an important role in the religious beliefs of whoever these people were). No-one know their true purpose, how many people built them, how many hundreds even thousands of years it took or who these groups were. The words Celt/Druid are used way too easily and romantically. Some suggestions are now being put forward that these henges could have been used as a Winter solstice sign as on the shortest day the sun shines on certain marker stones . . .bringing hope for the returning warmth and light. And this is probably far more than you wanted to know. :-)

One of the above links had Spain and Italy as countries with the best health care. Both those countries have much higher death rates for coved then the US. And before you go all bry911 on me, that is data taken from when each country began having problems and then the same amount of days from that. I think it was 19 days. Just saying, not everything posted here is fact. First, the U.S. has the best emergent care in the world, largely because that is the only access to care that a significant portion of our population has. In fact, you are looking at the only benefit of a busted system as proof positive we are better. Few people die of dehydration on a fresh water lake, that isn't a testament to the general safety of freshwater lakes. Furthermore, Spain - deaths 4,019, recovered 7,015. - Italy deaths 7,503, recovered 9,362 - U.S. deaths 1,037, recovered 428... Now those numbers are largely meaningless as is comparing a virus on a timeline when countries have drastically different R-naughts. I assure you, your point on the efficacy of the U.S. healthcare system can be made when this is over, there is no need to jump the gun and do it today.