The Willow Pine Cone Gall Midge
The time for noticing little things is spring. The branches are still bare enough to see the ants crawling up to the most unassuming flower buds. At least five types of bees are visiting the alien caterpillar-like flowers of the pussy willow. I don’t even know which species it is – maybe it’s the North American Grey Willow (Salix discolor), or the Northern European Goat Willow (Salix caprea). Standing on my driveway I began to notice that my pussy willow has strange pine cone-like structures at the ends of some branches. I think that a lot of people might think that a gall needs to be dealt with. In fact, if you look it up online, you’ll learn that these galls make up an important part of the diets of many native bird species, including the black-capped chickadee (Poecile atricapillus). Plus, they look cool – like pine cones, as the name implies. Like if pine trees could grow bright yellow sunflowers. Using chemicals, this innovative insect fools the tree into producing this structure as a home for its babies!!! The Willow Pine Cone Gall Midge. Genius, innovator, inventor. Food for birds.
I’m not too embarrassed to admit that I planted these pussy willows due to nostalgia, the most toxic impulse. My mother always had pussy willow branches in a vase at Easter. She would decorate them with some elegant decorations. Actually I can’t even remember what it looked like – yellow feathers maybe? But she was so organized, and she tossed them after Easter. I’m a mess. My pussy willows stay in the moldy vase for weeks after Easter. That’s how I discovered that those furry little buds turn into insane yellow flowers that look like caterpillars. And the pussy willow, being a willow, grows roots very easily. You could even say it is invasive. In fact, if you want to propagate some plant by taking cuttings, you can use a willow branch to encourage roots to form.
The pussy willow is a true marvel. It’s a beautiful plant that feeds many bees in the spring. With the help of the Willow Pine Cone Gall Midge, now I know it is also feeding birds.
CPC Leadership Race 2026
Jokers on the left of me, Parrots on the right
Polievre made a joke at the conservative leadership race:
“I love seeing so many conservatives in one place, but it must freak liberals out enough to enact the emergencies act!”
The joke doesn’t make sense, but it surely brings a feeling of camaraderie to those who supported the truckers who tormented residents of downtown Ottawa for a week in 2022, and subsequent other blockades of bridges and transit ways, because they didn’t feel the necessity of taking vaccines or wearing masks. Opponents of COVID protocols could not see the benefit of helping vulnerable populations. Or some kind of psychology, who knows.
Late night comedians are, as a rule, lefties. What trait makes progressives funnier? Is there a right wing version of Sarah Silverman out there? Try to imagine the right wing equivalent of her Ethiopian baby jewel joke in Jesus is Magic, or her illumination of competition culture’s incompatibility with compassion. She exposes the absurdity of hateful stereotypes by making people laugh at her acting out a caricature of somebody who holds those beliefs. Like the Colbert Report, it’s a calculated dance to frame hate speech in a petri dish and look at it through a lens of context.
What would a confrontational right wing comic talk about? Whose assumptions would they smartly challenge with in-your-face mockery? Or just *rump doing impressions of disabled people. It is likely just that, although they’re funny, right wing comedians have some profoundly hateful, deeply held beliefs. They aren’t as popular as mainstream comedians because it’s alienating when conservatives genuinely express their misguided hatred and misunderstanding. Right wing comedians will mock people in a way that masks hateful stereotypes with a laugh. They fail to understand the distinction between a victim of hate, joking about their experience and a privileged white person making light of racism. Or they do understand it.
I have a joke: What does Elon Musk think is funny? Empathy!
Did Hitler ever make jokes in his speeches?
The policy endorsement resolutions passed by the conservative party members parrot the words of MAGA. It’s a reflection of where the party stands on important national issues. One item they decided to integrate into their platform is to eliminate DEI (with 90% support), and I do wonder how their supporters will feel about this in Toronto and Vancouver and environs… They also would like to reverse the Canada-wide ban on “conversion therapy”. Which if you don’t know, is how you “cure” gay people back into “straightness”.
At a time when our country is trying to glom together enough patriotism to fend off invading forces, 70% of conservatives voted to eliminate the CBC. The one binding material of our vastly outspread population. Great idea. Just wipe out our main, nation-wide communication line and you will save our would-be invaders a lot of effort. There were other heinous policies centred around hate and violence. Inform yourself.
There are people in Canada who look at MAGA and ICE in Minnesota and think that would be nice to have here too. It will be hard for conservative politicians to continue to support CanaMAGA Alberta separatism when conservatives outside of Alberta tend to be nationalists to the point of discomfort.
Kintsugi
Producing art is the appropriate response to the relentless and exponential chaos of our era. I heard an artist speaking about Kintsugi and how this is how we move forward in our broken world. Art is the gold that repairs the cracks of life.
From Wikipedia:
“Kintsugi is the general concept of highlighting or emphasizing imperfections, visualizing mends and seams as an additive or an area to celebrate or focus on, rather than absence or missing pieces.
Modern artists and designers experiment with the technique as a means of analyzing the idea of loss, synthesis, and improvement through destruction and repair or rebirth.[15] Through an artistic lens, a Kintsugi object is permanently both evidence of crisis and cure.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kintsugi
Naoko Fukumaru:
Mormorsmor (Great Grandmother) 