Class warfare, under God.

World-famous alternative parenting zine Raising Hell is currently taking a short break while some design changes are made. The bigger and better RHzine will be relaunched with a back-to-school issue in September. More details here. If you are interested in contributing or submitting stories about any aspects of raising kids – not necessarily from a parent’s point of view, please contact editor@rhzine.com. Keep in mind that personal experience, not expertise, is the focus at RHzine.

Personally, I’d be happy to see contributions from international parents, adoptive parents, aunts and uncles, etc etc.

Happy Indonesian National Day (tomorrow, the 17th) to all our Indonesian readers. For the non-Indonesian readers among you, go see Pat’s Guide to Useless Indonesian Phrases.

In brief, tributaries are receding, but there is a lag until the Danube starts going back down. Right now it seems to be still rising, at least near Tulln, near where I live. A road I normally take to work was under about 15 feet of water this evening, up from 2 feet this morning. The woods near the river, normally dry, are about 6-8 feet deep in fast flowing water. It’s like a second, muddy river flowing beside the Danube. Tulln remains dry, but some other towns closer to the woods are flooded.

The creek near my house, flowing fast yesterday, has nearly come to a halt: it went back down, but the Danube was so high it just flowed back up the creekbed, in reverse, until it reached this odd equilibrium close to the top of its banks.

Alpha saw a deer up to its armpits in the woods, struggling to get to higher ground, this morning.

This evening, we cleaned out closets and donated a Dobl

Fourteen ways of looking at a blackshirt.
by Umberto Eco

Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easier for us if there appeared on the world scene somebody saying, “I want to reopen Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares.” Life is not that simple.

[via uren.dagen.nachten]