Life's rich pageant

I love the cover art of my new Palmer-Hughes Accordion Course books. New is a relative term, of course; they're copyright 1952.

What the illustrations suggest is that to learn accordion is to mature sexually and begin dating. But then, you already knew that.

Why I voted for Hillary Clinton

Among other reasons: Of the two major candidates in the Democratic primary, she was the only cynic who made no bones about her cynicism.

Liquid death

Every summer the black ants come. And every summer we exterminate them with an unnervingly effective product called Terro. You squirt a drop onto a piece of cardboard. The ants, heedless to everything else around them, feed for a few days. Then: no more ants.

We first used the product in summer 2002, when memories of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were still fresh. That made Terro's trademark all the more unnerving.

At first we squirted Terro onto pieces of the box the product came in, as directed. But the box is long gone. This year I cut out squares from a mailing sent by the Spring Green, Wis. Shakespeare troupe American Players Theatre.

Good word

"There's a better life."

-- Dolly Parton, "9 to 5"

Why I love Charlie Rose

Charlie Rose, June 3, 2008: "But as a young man, I mean, this is a young man who somehow, how much of it, I'll ask the question this way."