This is What Happens When You Have a Melting Pot

The Stew Gets Darker!

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You Can Help Hummingbirds by . . .

Making Your Backyard a Hummingbird Restaurant

The life of a hummingbird consists of a relentless search for food. In areas settled by humans, the flowers that hummingbirds have evolved to hunt down and suck dry often disappear.

The good news is that the lost natural food sources can be easily replaced by planting the right plants and providing sugar water* in hummingbird feeders.

Including Some Good Hummingbird Plants in Your Landscape

	Bee Balm Monarda didyma This perennial blooms in midsummer and grows about three feet tall. There are many varieties of colors and sizes available at nurseries. The variety Jakob Kline is resistant to powdery mildew.
	Cardinal Flower Lobelia cardinalis A red spike of flowers arises from the basal leaves of this perennial in late summer. This plant tolerates some shade and prefers a moist soil.
	Trumpet Creeper Campsis radicans A tall, vigorous vine, the large flowers are very attractive to hummingbirds. The pictured variety has yellow flowers but most often they have red flowers.
	Coral Honeysuckle Lonicera sempervirens This well-behaved vine flowers profusely in April and May and then sporadically throughout the summer. With the return of cooler weather in the fall, it flowers heavily again. The pictured variety has yellow flowers but they are usually pinkish-red.
	Columbine Aquilegia canadensis This perennial blooms from April to June and grows about one foot high. It tolerates some shade and likes to grow amid rocks.

*Making Safe Hummingbird Food

Hummingbird Nectar Recipe

1. Mix 1 part sugar with 4 parts water and bring to a boil to kill any bacteria or mold present.
2. Cool and fill feeder.
3. Extra sugar water may be stored in a refrigerator.
4. Red dye should not be added.

Be Environmentally Responsible. Save Water.

You don't have to understand Portuguese to understand this message from a Brazilian nonprofit environmental group about saving water by . . .
well, watch the video.

(If you MUST know what the kids are saying, here's the translation: "Pee in the shower! We want everyone to do it! Men! Women! Children! Brazilians! Or not! Nobles! Commoners! Musicians! Sports stars! People half-human, half-monster. Twilight creatures! Brazilian legends. Greek legends. Good people. Not so good people. Art geniuses. Science geniuses Circus performers. Lovers! People from other planets! Movie stars!")

Apparently King Kong doesn't have to restrict his environmental activism to the shower!

Made in America

Made in America

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Playing For Change

If we can sing in harmony, we can live in harmony!



Since April when I first experienced Playing For Change (PFC), I've been trying to figure out how to share the love with you here on my blog. This little "Gydget" gives you access to some of my favorite videos. I would recommend "Stand by Me," "One Love," "War/No More Trouble," "Don't Worry," and "Chanda Mama." If you like what you hear -- and I can't imagine you won't -- I encourage you to support the concept and the artists by buying the CD/DVD "Songs Around The World."

What's Your NPR Name?

I'm Martia SanCarlos thanks to Liana and Eric, who seem to have invented this game. . . .

"Eric and I recently discovered a shared fascination with the slew of impossibly named NPR hosts we listen to every day: Renee Montagne, Steve Inskeep, Corey Flintoff, Korva Coleman, Kai Ryssdal, Dina Temple-Raston.In fact, we’ve often wondered what it would be like to be one of them. A Nina Totenberg or a Renita Jablonski. A David Kestenbaum or a Lakshmi Singh. Even (on our most ambitious days) a Cherry Glaser or a Sylvia Poggioli.

So finally, after years of Fresh Air sign-off ambitions, we came up with a system for creating our own NPR Names. Here’s how it works: You take your middle initial and insert it somewhere into your first name. Then you add on the smallest foreign town you’ve ever visited.

So I’m Liarna Kassel. And Eric is Jeric Bath. I even have a new nickname for my little brother in Dylsan Rosarita."

April 1, 2009

Click and Clack to Head Up GM Revival

Board appoints radio show hosts in surprise move

Story Highlights

• Hosts of popular NPR Car Talk radio broadcast put in charge of automaker


• Former critics now tasked with turnaround effort



• Excess GM inventory headed to Cuba


• Brothers unveil effort to end Cuban embargo

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (CNN) -- In a surprise move, the GM Board of Directors has appointed two radio talk show hosts to head up the company's emergency restructuring. The new GM Product Czars are Tom and Ray Magliozzi, also known as "Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers," who host NPR's Car Talk radio show. Former GM fans from the 1950s and 1960s, they since went on to become harsh GM critics in recent decades.

"We know it's easy to criticize, so we think it's time we try walking a mile — back to a repair shop — in their shoes," says older brother, 72-year-old, Tom Magliozzi, with his trademark guffaw, as a General Motors PR executive cringes nearby.

The brothers acknowledge that the task of reinvigorating GM is a difficult one, but they also say they are uniquely qualified. "Having done our radio show every week for 23 years now," says Ray Magliozzi, 59, "we know what it's like to be selling something no one wants. We've done this before."

What may have convinced GM's Board of Directors to turn to the Magliozzi brothers is their bold plan for reviving the manufacturing giant. "Cuba," said Tom Magliozzi, his teeth clenched around a fat, smoldering Romeo y Julietta, while GM PR folks ponder whether to enforce the company-wide no-smoking policy.

"We've got an enormous number of GM cars we can't sell, right? And who needs an enormous number of GM cars? Cuba! Their GM cars are from, like, the 1950s!"

"In contrast, the cars we have sitting on dealership lots now are all 2007s, 2008s, and 2009s," adds Ray, "and they have all their original parts! The Cubans are gonna love these things."

"Plus, " says Tom, "they get 10% better mileage than those 1959 Bel Airs!"

The Magliozzi Brothers' plans are based on a Cuban population estimated at 11.5 million in 2008. After they negotiate the end to the US economic embargo (which they say they will handle personally), they figure that pent-up demand in Cuba will instantly translate into sales of more than half a million cars per year, of which the Magliozzi brothers anticipate GM will capture 95%. "That's not chopped liver," says Tom.

Asked how they can be so certain that GM will dominate the Cuban market in 2009, Ray explains, "These people have been cut off from the rest of the world for the last 60 years. They never heard of Ralph Nader, the Vega, the Aztek, the bean counters of the '80s, or the Cavalier. They've never even heard of Toyota! As far as they're concerned, GM still leads the world. We're gonna sell cars there like it was 1959!"

Part of the brothers' plan for GM also includes a concomitant increase in parts sales. "We're going to be supplying replacement parts for every one of those new Cuban cars. Right now, every Tom, Dick and Carlos is making his own parts in the basement, but you think he's going to make an electronic ignition module for an '08 Malibu out of a Coke can? I don't think so."

"Well, if he does, he's going to be our new supplier!" adds Tom, laughing.

In order for any of this to work, however, the Magliozzi brothers have to make good on their plan to break the longstanding US economic embargo of the Caribbean island nation. Trade is not currently permitted. "Not a problem," says Ray. "My brother is often mistaken for Fidel Castro. He's going to go and sit down with President Obama, introduce himself as Fidel, and work the whole thing out."

Tom interrupts, "Right. I'm just going to say, 'Listen, this whole communist thing... dumb idea. Sorry about that. How'd you guys like a nice Hyatt on the Malecon?'"

"And then Tom's going to go to Cuba," says Ray, "and show Fidel a brochure for an '09 Cadillac CTS. Dark Red. Premium Package. Air-Conditioned Seats. Trust me. We can make this work."

"We have a lot in common with Fidel," says Tom, "cigars... baseball..."

"...and they both like to store food in their beards," adds Ray.

"We may have to pull a few tail fins out of the design closet," says Tom, "but Cuba is going to lead GM back to the top."