The water feature

I can be a little obsessive sometimes. The latest object of my obsession is what gardening books refer to as the “water feature.” It is not enough, apparently, that I spend the summer in a house on the river. I need a fountain too.

In the course of writing an article on how to make your own tabletop fountain, I discovered my yen for the zen of water flowing from small pipes into larger receptacles. Spare me the Freudian interpretations, Reader. Let’s not go there.

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Eliminationism

I learned a new word this week.

On July 27, as you probably know already, a Unitarian Universalist congregation in Knoxville was attacked by a gunman, who shot several members of the congregation, killing two. Later developments revealed that Jim David Atkisson, who carried out the assault, harbored strong resentment of what he called “the Liberal movement”—and his reading material included books by right-wing commentators including Sean Hannity, Michael Savage and Bill O’Reilly.

While plowing through the voluminous commentary that this event unleashed, I learned my new word: “eliminationism.”

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