What Are Stabilimenta?

After I accidentally erased my old blog, I needed a new name.  I thought about writing on the web and remembered back in the 1980's (pre-Web) I walked out to my backyard in Richardson and saw this huge spider web (about two feet across) in the garden, and in it a beautiful yellow and black spider.

Each morning I went out to see what my "pet" spider had managed to secure during the night and wrap up for future meals.  I got so interested in the spider and the curious pattern in the center of her web that I actually--this was before Internet--got into my car and drove to the Richardson library and checked out an actual book on spiders of Texas.  There I learned the name of the spider:  Argiope aurentia, also called the orb spinner and the writing spider.
These are called the writing spiders because they decorate the center of their webs with patterns, like the zig zag in the picture.  No one knows for sure what the purpose of the decorations is.  It was thought at first that they stabilized the web, hence the name stabilimenta (plural).  However, that theory has not panned out.  I like the fact that the purpose of the decoration is a mystery. 

Possibly stabilimenta are messages.  Did you read Charlotte's Web when you were little?  Charlotte was a spider who saved the life of a pig named Wilbur by repeatedly writing messages in her web to the farmer who was about to slaughter the pig, messages like "Terrific pig!"   The story was about empathy and friendship.

 “Why did you do all this for me?”  Wilbur asks Charlotte.  “I don’t deserve it. I’ve never done anything for you.”“You have been my friend,” replied Charlotte. “That in itself is a tremendous thing. I wove my webs for you because I liked you. After all, what’s a life, anyway? We’re born, we live a little while, we die . . . By helping you, perhaps I was trying to lift up my life a trifle. Heaven knows anyone’s life can stand a little of that.”

Kids can learn a lot from good stories, reading them with parents if they are too young to do it on their own.  This may not be the most unified blog post, but I think it fits well with the point of the other post I wrote this morning.

Facebook: A Friendly Place?

Sunday, Dec. 5:  I'm not looking for these stories just because I am focusing on civility in my 1302, but these reports about incivility just keep popping up.   Here is today's offering from the front page of the New York Times. Some of you disagreed with my post about rudeness on the Boulevard.

OK, so maybe snowball throwers go a little too wild, and football fans get a pass for being rude to the other team, but Facebook is supposed to be about friendship, so why are so many kids using it to bully each other?  Who has an excuse for the kind of behavior? Why would someone send a text message to a girl whose leg is in a brace, mocking her disability?  Why would three boys forge another boy's identity on Facebook and make it appear that he was the one doing the bullying?  Why do kids take the time to be so  mean? 

This is my own little problem solution post because if you read the article, you will see that parents are a big part of the problem.  Some do not want to get involved because when they intervene to defend their kid, they can make the problem worse.  But I'm wondering where the parents are when the kids are three, four, five, and so on.  Those are the times when parents need to teach the lessons of the Golden Rule.  And the motto about walking in someone else's shoes.

Zeitoun (remember?) asked why Americans sometimes did not live up to their best selves.  I don't think we are naturally our best selves.  Being kind is something we have to learn--from parents, from religion, and from the culture--if the culture values that.  For some reason, the culture today, including the superficial friendliness of Facebook, does not value empathy.