Jake Wertz

This whole yard was a lawn with a little grotto for a statue of Mary when we moved in four years ago. What would the mother of creation think of it now?

Eupatorium is centered in this photo. Does it come in some other color than purple or white? Cardinal flower is a nice idea, but I can’t see how the hot red would balance with these colors.

"Israel’s intent to destroy Palestinian life in Gaza now seems undeniable. At a minimum, Israel’s actions are having a genocidal impact on Palestinians in Gaza. Because this impact is foreseeable *** one can reasonably infer genocidal intent from Israel’s conduct in Gaza."

Yup, have those too - they’re wonderful but they’re also purple and gold!

Purple and gold! It’s all the color around Madison (and Chicago) from July through September, especially in the 19th century.

Purgold is a word I made up to describe the palette of mid-late summer native US prairie plants.
It comes from the mascot of Madison East High School in Madison, WI - the Purgolder, named for the school’s colors, and I’ve always suspected this was in relation to the native flora.

My perennial border tonight. I welcome suggestions for things that will bloom around this time next year that can complement the purgold

Trump invented a weird trick where you can skip step 2 so in step 3 you always win.

The Epstein-Trump child sex abuse partnership is a conspiracy akin to Obama Birtherism in that it has the capacity to captivate the public, and any charismatic fellow who wants to shout about it will find an audience. It also has the virtue of being true.

Dems don’t need a Steven Miller, we need a circa 2012-2015 Donald Trump - an outsider who can take on the rot and stupidity and disconnectedness of our own party’s leadership, hammer on a singular issue against the opposing party and navigate friendly media outlets to amplify that message.

They seem to have charted a middle course instead, making their concert as welcoming and available exclusively among the tech millionaire class as possible.

I think if you’re the last surviving members of the Grateful Dead and you’re doing a concert in Golden Gate Park, you have a duty to make it as freely welcome to all as possible. And if you cannot do that because you’ve adapted to the times in SF, you have to squeeze those tech bros for every penny

This website is still the primary external relations outlet for the Pope, among others.

Exquisite vibes in the backyard tonight

Old style, no?

Harrowing how many otherwise liberal U.S. Jews, as sampled from those I grew up with in the '70s and '80s, believe Israel is as they learned in temple. Have no idea how many there think like Nazis. Desperately want to believe that lies were not lies.

From the most watched in the Middle East:

At the Morton Arboretum’s annual “Destination Asia” festival. This is one sumo wrestler doing the splits and touching his forehead to the floor, while another sumo wrestler stands on his back. Thoroughly convincing demonstration of their athleticism.

Makes me wonder about their Gemini for Education contracts, that schools across the country have signed this year, which promise to protect student data.

Some of you never watched Jeopardy! or 60 Minutes and it shows.

The whole subscriber experience of the Soon-Shiong ownership of LA Times has been a betrayal, so this isn’t surprising.

I have found that happy marriage and parenthood are taboo in professional settings; if I began to express the joy they bring me, my unmarried childless colleagues would be unable to bear it. So we make humor about the misery of marriage/parenthood instead, and some morons believe that’s the reality.

Catholics also recently found out their leaders are an unrepentant pedophile protection ring, and they keep throwing hundred dollar bills into the collection plate, but they’re not booing. Baby steps.

An aerial view of what the Gaza City area looked like this week. Taken from a Jordanian military aircraft, by our colleague Heidi Levine.

Beautiful plant. I pair it with rudbeckia and liatris and swamp milkweed and goldenrod and nodding onion for a big native show of purple and gold that started mid-July and will carry on well into September

Median salary for a school superintendent with an EdD or PhD is nearly equivalent to median college president. www.aasa.org/docs/default...

Tiger swallowtail is back today. What a cool bug. 🌱🐛🦋

Looks like we made it

Yeah the White House is not a great building. I don’t think anyone in America actually thinks it is. It should have been reborn by Lincoln as a post-slavery, industrial age structure. But he was killed. Trump teams biggest problem here is not dreaming big enough. They should rebuild from ground up.