The Goathead (Tribulus_terrestris)

Here is the ultimate goathead (or tackweed) blog post. From Wikipedia and featuring local photography, we have the goathead:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tribulus_terrestris

Wikipedia Entry: Goathead

Tribulus terrestris is a flowering plant in the family Zygophyllaceae, native to warm temperate and tropical regions of the Old World in southern Europe, southern Asia, throughout Africa, and in northern Australia. It can thrive even in desert climates and poor soil.

Here is a photo of the plant showing the characteristic leaf pattern and small yellow flower.

Like many weedy species, this plant has many common names. Puncture Vine, Caltrop, Yellow Vine, and Goathead are the most widely used; others include automobile-weed, bindy eye, bindii, bullhead, burnut, burra gokhroo, calthrops, cat's head, common dubbeltjie, devil's thorn, devil's weed, doublegee, dubbeltje, gokshura, ground bur-nut, isiHoho, land caltrop, Maltese cross, Mexican sandbur, puncture weed, rose, small caltrops, sticker, tackweed, and Texas sandbur (also T. micrococcus).

It is a taprooted herbaceous perennial plant that grows as a summer annual in colder climates. The stems radiate from the crown to a diameter of about 10 cm to over 1 m, often branching. They are usually prostrate, forming flat patches, though they may grow more upwards in shade or among taller plants. The leaves are pinnately compound with leaflets less than a quarter-inch long. The flowers are 4–10 mm wide, with five lemon-yellow petals (see above).


A week after each flower blooms, it is followed by a fruit that easily falls apart into four or five single-seeded nutlets. The nutlets or "seeds" are hard and bear two to three sharp spines, 10 mm long and 4–6 mm broad point-to-point. These nutlets strikingly resemble goats' or bulls' heads; the "horns" are sharp enough to puncture bicycle tires and to cause painful injury to bare feet.

Locally, the plants grow in vacant lots, along roadways, and on sidewalks. Here is a plant just down the street from our home in Kennewick, WA.

See how it grows in the crack between the asphalt of the parking lot and the sidewalk. It has a taproot, which means it has a long, single root that reaches way down into the ground and does not need a lot of room. It lies very flat to the ground and branches out with long runners.




The fruit or nutlets are quite fierce on these plants. Large and scary. The pictures here are of thorns that are still "green" and not hard enough to do any damage yet. But, they will dry out and then they will be able to stick into shoes, tires, etc.















Goathead Industry

Kennewick is known for Red Wine and Goatheads and both are quite important to the local economy. Goatheads are exported to various foreign governments for use as anti-personnel weapons. Long thought to have been native plants, they are actually invasive plants genetically engineered by the US Dept. of Homeland Security as our first line of defense against Canadian cyclists. We understand that one of the purposes of the Sea to Sea tour was to test out this system; fortunately it demonstrated that it does not work. In the fall goatheads are harvested laboriously by hand and turned into edible breakfast cereal. The sharp thorns are removed and the goathead "heart" is roasted and sold as Grapenuts Cereal.

Rep. Hastings needs to go

A recent letter to the editor hit the nail on the head. Rep. Hastings has to go! I refuse to use 'Doc' since that connotes wisdom, which he sadly lacks. For several reasons he needs to retire. One, he ran under self-expressed term limits, which he has quite forgotten. Two, he has twice voted against adherence to the Geneva Convention and for torture as a so-called tool against terrorism. Not only is that position morally indefensible, but also it runs counter to our American and Christian values. Three, one trillion dollars will be spent on an ill conceived war doing untold damage to our psyche and economy that will take years to repair, partly thanks to his votes. Every day that passes, Guantanamo Bay undermines our value system, holding people with no recourse (until mandated by the courts) to lawyers. What a message to send to the world! Will Rep. Hasting speak out against this? No, and with such votes and inaction Rep. Hastings undermines more of our American values. What a legacy; warrantless wiretapping, no Habeas Corpus, billions for Iraq but not for kids, and votes for torture. Way to go Rep. Hastings and please go soon.

Sea to Sea in Kennawack

What a great visit from the C2C cyclists in Kennewick (I know that some of them wanted Kennewick to rhyme with Chilliwack, as in Kenniwack) on Sunday. We worshipped with them, helped feed them lunch, drove them to places like laundromats and REI, and just hung out with them, too. We put on a skit for them using bikes and some decent humor. My great line about the "goathead theology" was lost when my mike was not working. Goatheads are the thorns in the tires (not the flesh although they will go there, too) that are causing havoc with the cyclists. I was going to tell them that they were invented by Bush and the Department of Homeland Security to prevent invasions from Canadian cyclists and that the gathering in Kennewick showed that it didn't work. Because there they were. All the way from Canada via Seattle.

By the way, goathead theology teaches that 'goatheads were not in the Garden of Eden but have "Total Depravity" written all over them' and that changing a flat tire is a bit like getting cleansed from a sin. Then the C2C devotional book had a very cool devotion on the wheel and the parts of the wheel and how they fit together to make the wheel work.

Go do something beautiful!

www.flickr.com

Religion and politics

Siouxlander (J Schaap) had a great post today about the religious right and politics. I have been lately of the opinion that some of that group had sold their souls to the devil in return for Republican security. I was waiting for Dobson or someone of that ilk to come out with a response regarding torture and its use by our sweet old government. I waited in vain and finally got up the nerve to ask FotF about their position on torture. The wheels of that organization grind slowly but they do grind and eventually I got a response, although not at all what I was expecting. It turns out that my jaded view of FotF is nothing compared to the reality of it. I quote from their response below:

The issue you’ve raised is timely, important, and deserving of our careful attention. Unfortunately, it’s also extremely complex, difficult to resolve, and largely beyond the range of our expertise here at Focus. We believe that prisoners in U.S. custody deserve humane treatment -- this is, after all, a basic question of human rights. At the same time, however, we are not in a position to speak authoritatively about the Bush administration’s present policies or future intentions in this regard. We do know that, from the beginning of the global war on terror, the Pentagon has insisted that it treats all prisoners humanely. Yet, the debate is complicated by the fact that the struggle in which we currently are engaged is not a conventional war; for this reason, it’s unclear how the provisions of the Geneva Convention apply to detainees held in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. In the end, treatment of detainees must be rightly balanced with the security and safety of our citizenry.

If you follow this reasoning, you can see that they actually don't say much about torture being wrong and when I see all the weasel words like "unclear" and "balanced" I know that they are way off base on their thinking here. It sounds to me like you could justify the use of torture from this position. But, they go on to say that their real concerns have to do with what others might say or do to embarrass the US and the military. A twist that I did not expect. See for yourself:

Despite the uncertainties and ambiguities surrounding this discussion, we can tell you that Dr. Dobson and the Focus staff *do* have serious misgivings about the potentially destructive and demoralizing uses to which the reports of torture may be put by those who are less than supportive of our president and our troops in Iraq.

I have serious misgivings about this reply from a Christian organization to worry about what people might think, heaven forbid. How far the wise and mighty have fallen.

The Watcher

Hiking Mt. Rainier Wonderland Trail

The best part of the hike was the great weather we had. But, the park was smoky that week with fires inside and outside the park.

Christmas Tree Fire

Wow, what a cool (or hot) way to spend a winter afternoon with some matches and one minute of excitement. Take one dry tree, ignite, and back away.

Sunfair Relays

A few of the elite runners at Sunfair 2006.

A wonderful day in the sun in Yakima watching young runners whiz around a 3-mile course in amazing times. Teams from Canada, western Washington, Idaho, Montana, Oregon all come to run in these relays for cross-country. Set in Franklin Park in Yakima the course features 4 laps around the park which are all slightly different. Up and down. It was too warm for really good times but some sub-16 minutes for 3 miles were run.

The Watchman

This is the Watchman who sees all that goes on in the Tri-Cities and faithfully reports them to this web reporter.

Tri-City Traffic Woes Explained

After months of undercover effort I have news from our Tri-City transportation projects for those who are wondering, “What the heck is going on?” The recent article published in the Herald (September 25, 2006) failed to mention several root causes of the apparent slowdowns in the 240 Project and the Stevens Drive Project in North Richland.

First, the stalled Highway 240 Project is set to make good progress starting in October and November. The three workers assigned to this project are now all back from vacation. The big holdup was and still is, of course, the “Big Dig” under the roadway near the Yakima River. Unfortunately, this tunnel requires an inspection from Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts since there may be ceiling panels involved according to our confidential sources. Although these are smaller panels than appear in Boston’s Big Dig, nevertheless, they may let loose at any time if not securely fastened and Gov. Romney is the nation’s expert on this and his schedule is pretty tight. But, the good news is that by the end of October they should be able to resume work on the tunnel and they expect to complete it by April next year. Meanwhile the crew will keep busy driving the water truck up and down the new portion of freeway to help keep it clean. “You’d be surprised how dirty things get out here if you just let them lie around,” states one worker. “We will move the large paving machines from time to time to reduce the chance that they will be stolen. Plus, we plan to move that Porta-Potty one of these days so we can clean under it.”

The work at Stevens Drive in north Richland has been held up for more than a month waiting for lane painting and completion because the city of Richland lost the drawings for the new lane diagrams. The true story is that the City Hall cat, affectionately called “Old Bomber” for his unfortunate toilet habits, made off with the drawings and no one can locate them. The mayor feels that “any day now we will get Old Bomber to tell us where he hid them.” When asked about progress on Stevens Drive and George Washington Way the mayor confessed, “We only have 6 of the orange construction vests and so we can only send 6 workers out there each day. We wish we could do more but we can’t. You can’t work on the road crew without an orange vest.” The resulting traffic congestion doesn’t faze the mayor one bit. “As I said in my earlier article to the Herald, traffic congestion is a good thing, it signifies progress and growth. Without traffic delays and congestion Richland would be a dead city. People mistakenly think that congestion is bad and should be prevented or fixed somehow, but my position is that it is a good thing for our city. I’m in favor of it. Nothing stirs my blood more than looking at a section of highway or roadway and seeing in my mind where a new traffic light would just crimp down on that traffic flow and signify progress and growth. I love traffic lights. There’s nothing more exciting than seeing a new traffic light going up. My personal goal is that every intersection in Richland should have a traffic light. Just a few weeks ago at Stevens Drive we actually had 2 sets of signals in place. One old set and one newer set going up side by side. I used to go there after work just to relax and look at the new lights right there with the old lights. Its beautiful. Beautiful. In fact, right now the city is just about perfect. The barricade on Jadwin Avenue is up and running well, our entire stock of orange traffic cones is deployed, and our 6 vests are out there every day putting up new traffic lights. I can’t imagine how things could be better than they are now. Just can’t.”