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100 Words Every High School Graduate Should Know

Large vocabularies grow and sprawl. The more words you know, the more specific concepts emerge. The tricky part is the concepts that emerge before there are words for them. They're like the notes between the keys on a piano.

Just because you know them doesn't mean you have to use them much. Hot dates may not result from popping a question like, "Ah, but do you know 'the ineluctable modality of the visible'?"

Afraid of what: Laura Mallory, above, argued and lost her suit to have Harry Potter books removed from Gwinnett County, Ga., libraries because they promote witchcraft.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Mallory acknowledges she hasn't read any of the six books in the "Harry Potter" series.

Ms. Mallory, children are powerless, ordered to do all sorts of things. Is it any wonder that fictional children with native extraordinary talents are so appealing? I remember "fairy tales" full of evil witches, friendly insects performing impossible tasks and Rapunzel's long hair, but nothing really empowering. "Harry" suggests the owl may invite you someday to join your real group, freeing you from the limits of a Muggle world that often doesn't seem too smart.

Comments on the story at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Blog reactions:

-- What Child Ever Wanted Easter Bunny Power

“They don’t want the Easter Bunny’s power,The children in our generation want Harry’s power, and they’re getting it.” part of the argument used by Laura Mallory of Gwinnett County Georgia, in her lawsuit to ban the Harry Potter series from public schools. The one series that encouraged the most kids to read is also the most challenged series according to the American Library Association. If there are witches out there one of them should turn Ms Mallory into a newt.

-- Witches used magic to control the brain of a Georgia Superior Court Judge, forcing him to support the Gwinnett County school board's decision last year to keep J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter books on school library bookshelves after a parent demanded that they be removed because they were violent "and promoted witchcraft." The witches nodded in agreement, high-fiving each other while riding brooms and sywriting "Surrender Dorothy" over the parent's yard.

-- If there really is a magic word, that word must be tolerance.

Meanwhile, the Gryffindor Gazette (I kid you not) runs the AP story and asks,

Can you imagine how embarrassed her kids are at this point? What a waste of time.

Watch Grandma cook forever: What's Cooking Grandma?

We want people across the world to record Granny cooking in her kitchen and upload it here.

What's Cooking Grandma? is a project to create a cookbook of the grandmothers of the world sharing their special recipes.

Instructions on how to make the videos.

Crossposted from the Projo Garden Blog: Updated: The Garden Blog List

Cabbage Pride

I started the Garden Blogs List years ago, part blog post, part bookmarks. Over the years I've kept adding to it as garden bloggers around the world found it and asked to be put on the list.

It's hopelessly retro now, one long, long html page. Nevertheless, it's the top Google result if you search for garden blogs. Kathleen Purdy at Cold Climate Gardening has a different list, nearly as long, so you can imagine how many undocumented garden blogs are out there.

Each gardener brings a unique voice and garden; they're all willing to document their efforts to nurture plant life for food or pleasure. Success may be one perfect cabbage after years of cabbage failure.

Over the years, I've turned down only a few -- they either weren't really garden bloggers or were garden link spammers (ads in search of inbound links). Every now and then I run a link checker on the list, but few of these garden blogs have died. We garden on, ever hoping it will all come together. Meanwhile, every new bloom, fruit or resurrection is an occasion to crow and celebrate.

I'm aware that the garden photos I take are largely of my successes. Later, there'll be photos of plants that are ungainly now, but will get their turn to look good enough to frame. I like it when these garden bloggers show us their diseased and bug-ridden plants, although that's rare. I'm thinking of starting a slideshow where you can show us Your Garden Failures.

I've added a few more blogs to the Garden Blogs List (more to come), including a prize-winning garden blog in the Netherlands.

Go drool.