Hey-I've wondered for many years what that plant was,and had never heard anyone refer to it....Here in my area,I've seen it many many times.It's always a very small plant,but definitly a bamboo!!I'm gonna go dig some of it this weekend!It appears to grow very slowly-and have never observed it growing in large stands.It is always growing in very small stands,rarely over 2,maybe 3 feet tall.Mark

Hello Violet Lovers: As President and Webmaster of The American Violet Society http://americanvioletsociety.org, I have been supporting the continued existence of our society's website, largely at my own expense, over the past several years. Not a big deal, as the site gets a free ride on my personally contracted web server. The site has been stale over the last couple of years, prior to Tom's efforts in providing the material for New Cultivars. That can be seen at the link below. We are in the need of self starting and finishing people, to take responsible positions in the society. I am competent as an organizer and organizational lead, but I am totally incompetent in almost any area of responsibility. In particular, I am not a treasurer nor do I consider myself an extensive violet expert, beyond some level of expertise in rudimentary taxonomy. As a result, we are currently in a situation, where even when we receive donations, we have no way to accept them or process them. We don't even have a bank account! Even more important than money, WE NEED NEW MATERIAL for the web site. That brings me to another issue. I have noticed that not only is The American Violet Society largely dormant, but that it appears that "the other society" The Violet Society at: http://www.sweetviolets.com/SWEETVIOLETS/index.html is in an even more comatose state. In particular, it appears that their entire, very valuable Violet Journal, is no longer on the web. That is very sad. Over the years, I have approached members of The Violet Society, to try to get them to collaborate and pool resources, to extend the reach of both societies, but alas, I was continually rebuffed. Now, upon discovering the loss of their journal, I have tried every email address listed in their remaining site, but received error messages back from all of them. If anyone knows how to contact any of their remaining administration, please let me know. For those of you wishing to contact me, the addresses shown elsewhere in this forum are all out of date, due to excessive pornographic spam. You can reach me at: presidentXXXXXXX@amerianvioletsociety.org where the Xs should be replaced with the letters of my family's name. Alternately, continue to exchange with Tom, as most of you "know" him already. I am hoping to hold another Violet Field Event in the spring of 2009. If we find enough interest. That's all for now. I will try to stay more in touch Sweet Violets To All Gary W. Sherwin, President, Webmaster The American Violet Society http://americanvioletsociety.org Here is a link that might be useful: New Viola Cultivars

>Hebrew lessons are also part of your religious instruction as children, aren't they? So the effort is made to educate the children to understand the worship, rather than adapting the liturgy because the congregation is not as educated as it once was. cc, I hadn't thought about that! Yes, from our youngest days we go to Sunday School to learn traditions and celebrations and Hebrew. At 8 or so, we start attending Hebrew School twice a week to really learn the prayers to be ready for our Bnai Mitzvahs. So yes, we learn it as a living language, and for those kids who were paying attention, there is meaning in those prayers However your second point made me laugh. Believe me, we see the same dumbing down trend in this religion. Even the Conservative synagogue I grew up in is changing the service to make it more understandable. And I guess they have to - esp with the number of interfaith marriages that are in the congregation. Many folks just don't know the religion. But it rankles me (and I'm not even an observant Jew!) Oh that reminds me - there is a new (relatively) type of Jewish service called Humanitarian Judaism. Sounds great - think of the Unitarian principles combined with the traditions of Judaism. Went to a few services, but was disturbed by their total lack of, well, tradition. Lots of changes are made to the prayers. Then we went to one of their monthly Shabbat dinners. As a newbie, I was invited to light the candles. I did so - in the age old way of waving my hands over the flame, and said the prayer in hebrew. Silence. They looked at me like I told them I had just converted. Ok. Last time I went there. Pity, because I really do like the prinicipals they believe in. Translations are a real bugaboo. I remember trying to read Beowulf in HS - the translation was horrible. Then a group was reading it a few years back, with the new translation, and what a difference! Same for the Testaments. If you think about it - first written in Aramaic, translated to Greek, then Latin, then English. Gack, no wonder there's going to be more than a few errors. Then when they try to dumb it all down, it loses its meaning, its poetry, its worth. BTW - did you ever play a translating game? Go to the Google translator, and put in a famous quote from a book (To be or not to be, It was the best of times, the worst of times etc) and chose any language. Then take that translation, put it in again and chose another language. Finaly, take that last translation and choose English again. Oh my. The results are hilarious, and have taught me to be extremely cautious of online translations as well as translations of books in general. It does matter which ones you choose.

@SEA SEA, please be sure to read my earlier post in this thread before purchasing, but Yes, P&G STILL hasn't washed out the Phosphates from Latin American Ariel. They've also updated their company statement, saying they are not done with Phosphates. https://www.houzz.com/discussions/6058114/best-overall-p-g-made-powder-detergent#n=77 If you ask me -- I think they are hard-pressed to formulate a new detergent, when their current solution works so well in the terrible water conditions found in Mexico, combined with the fact that a lot of households still hand-wash laundry. They did phase out Phosphates in ACE but it, doesn't clean anywhere as well now even with added enzymes, and apparently sales have fallen. Phosphates Phosphates are essential nutrients for plant growth and a healthy ecosystem, and are commonly found in fertilizers. While phosphate is naturally present in the environment, it can also be released in much smaller amounts from some cleaning products after their use. A series of product innovations now allow us to produce many effective, phosphate-free cleaning products without a compromise in cleaning performance. Therefore, we’ve removed phosphates from over 95% of our cleaning products already—and are working to eliminate the remaining 5% from our consumer products over the next few years. In the few instances we continue to use phosphates, we are in compliance with all applicable regulatory limits.