Good morning. Today is quartidi, the 4th of Ventôse, Year CCXXXI. We celebrate le troène, an evergreen shrub in the olive family that grows berries birds love.
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Privet is often used for hedges, as its remarkably hardy (it can be grown from a few simple cuttings), tolerant of shade, simple to shape, and species are naturalized on every continent but Antarctica. It also grows pretty flowers that transform into purple berries that birds adore. Sounds great, right? Well, one species – Chinese privet – has invaded the southeastern United States to such a degree that it's been called "worse than kudzu," and those berries and birds look pretty menacing when you realize they're poisonous to horses and dogs and the birds are spreading the invasive hedges seeds everywhere. This Southern Living article decrying the plant is the least-genteel thing I've ever read in Southern Living.
World War II was a time of remarkable efforts to do good and evil. These have been recounted many times. What fascinates me is the remarkable efforts we've forgotten, the ones that did neither good nor evil, just ... something.
For example, in the UK, the government asked everyone to tear up any iron railings less than 125 years old and send them in to be converted into munitions. The people responded with total abandon, sawing highly decorative iron railings at the stumps and sending tons and tons and tons of the stuff to London. What happened next is a complete mystery.
