Broken Ceilings

After a four day marathon to humanize and celebrate her, Hillary Clinton accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for president.  Aside from a few Bernie or Busters, the convention crowd seemed ecstatic the party had finally broken the glass ceiling for women as presidential candidates.  Hillary's acceptance speech connected more with the assembled delegates than some of her campaign speeches have.   Despite her charisma deficit, I think even the staunchest Bernie supporters would have trouble finding anything wrong with her agenda.  Their only beef is if they can believe her agenda.  I really do think she is far more liberal than she is credited for.  My only concern is the military angle.  I hope she does not advocate jumping into every brushfire war around the world.  Aside from that I think it was a great end to a very strong convention. 

Midsummer gardening

It was warm in the garden last evening.   The heat of the day was gone, but lingering humidity made it feel like 90.  The rain from last Friday night and Saturday is gone from the top couple of inches of soil, so it was a weed killing night.  It is hard to stay ahead of unwanted vegetation at this point of the season.  Weeds are growing several inches per day with plenty of moisture and fertility.  What looked manageable a few days ago is now a daunting task.  Meanwhile,  succession plantings need to be made and transplanting also continues.  I'm sure the local raccoon population is eyeing the sweet corn as it will be ready in a week or so.  I stayed with the program until dark, which is coming more quickly now as we get farther from the summer solstice.  It remains light enough for weeding large plantings until 8:40, but we lose a minute or two every day.  That means a full day on Saturday and again on Sunday.   Fortunately, I was able to watch the prime of the Democratic convention between 9 and 11 p.m.  I am always amazed at President Obama's ability to inspire with his vision of an America we all hope we live in.   He contrasted his abiding optimism with the dark dystopia of Trumpworld in a way no one else could.   I hope he was doing more than preaching to the choir.

Presidential Dreams

After listening to Bill Clinton's speech at the convention last night followed by Hillary's video appearance, it occurred to me that in the not too distant future, it won't be a big deal to have a female president of these United States.  Hillary may have been discounting the cultural zeitgeist by telling the little girls whose parents let them stay up late to watch her nomination that she may be the first woman president, but one of them may be next.  I think it will happen again in my own lifetime.  Bill did a very nice job of humanizing Hillary, although it would take a tidal wave of oratory to wash away 30 plus years of republican mud and poo slinging at both he and his wife.  Even young democrats are suffering from Clinton fatigue or the after effects of derangement syndrome.  She may be damaged goods, but like the hero in a blockbuster summer movie, she takes the worst the villains can dish out and keeps getting back up for more.  There is no better role model for young girls today.

Conventional thoughts

Stayed up way past bedtime to watch Michelle Obama, Senator Warren and Bernie speak to convention delegates in Philly.  It was simultaneously uplifting and depressing.  Everyone cheered Michelle, who delivered a thoughtful inspiring speech.  She used the prospect of her daughters starting their careers and adult lives in a Clinton administration as a rallying cry for equality and inclusivity.  Warren and Sanders had a tough act to follow, especially as many Bernie supporters are not ready to give up their crusade.   As the media interviewed a selection of younger Bernie partisans after the speech you could feel the smolder.  For many it was their first exposure to electoral politics.  I probably would have felt the same way in 1972.  In that election, however, the left got its candidate in George McGovern, so I felt great about the system until Election Day.  Explaining how Bernie would probably go down if he had won the nomination will not win any points with Bernie Bros.  They need to go through however many stages of grief necessary to remember what this election is all about.  A protest vote for the Green Party is like a vote for Trump.  This needs to be forcefully hammered home by every Clinton surrogate, every day between now and November.  At least the convention got off to a reasonable start.  There is plenty of time to unite behind the nominee, assuming democrats can expand the tent to cover all of their supporters.

Gardening in a climate change world

Elevated temperatures and rainfall deficits seem to be the norm this year.  Many areas in the East are experiencing drought conditions and above normal temps so far.  In my own little corner of the world, it was so dry and hot on Friday evening I was afraid to harvest ahead for the Saturday morning Farmer's Market.  I usually bunch carrots and beets and wet them down in the evening and they are fine.  But the ground was so dry and it was above 80 degrees at sundown I decided to wait until morning.  Fortunately we got a thunderstorm which dropped a half inch of rain and cooled things off.  The cole crops like broccoli and cauliflower are suffering from the twin perils of high temps and increased flea beetle activity.  Late season lettuce plantings are also showing signs of tip burn.  Now the long  range forecast is for a warm, dry fall.  I think many gardeners will be wondering if the time and effort is worth their while.  The vagaries of weather are a constant concern, but the climate change driven drought and excessive heat are making the investment of time and money increasingly look like a bad bet.

A stormy welcome

The family got together over the weekend to officially welcome new member Benjamin Robert Groleau.  Bennie Bob as he is fondly known was a lot more interested in the playground at the beach than he was greeting his admirers, but when you are two years old, your priorities are much easier to justify.  Unfortunately, a windy rainstorm intervened midway through the festivities so we had to adjourn to Casa Monzeglio where the Divine Mrs. M and yours truly welcomed the somewhat soggy partygoers and redeployed the food and libations.   As Bennie's mom Alicia remarked, it will be a memorable family function.  Of course, Sunday was a relentlessly beautiful day, but at least it made the drive home uneventful for those who braved the trip from Long Island. 

Making America Hate Again

I guess it's easy to do.   Tell the rubes the sky is falling, despite all the statistics and data which show that America is safer, healthier and in better shape financially than it was 8 years ago.  Count on the pundits to echo your analysis and the audience of mostly older white men to applaud every call for hatred and intolerance.  After a week of stunning incompetence, give a dark speech complaining about a dystopian society and brag you are the only one who can save us.  If I didn't know better, I would say the speech was given in Nuremburg, circa 1937.  I hope the Democrats are taking notes and will hopefully offer the diametric opposite of the hatefest produced by the short fingered insult comedian.

Fear and Loathing in Cleveland

Despite the low energy vibe on display in Cleveland, the speakers at the republican convention continued to spiral lower.  Mostly they told the delegates to be very afraid of Hillary, of Muslim terrorists, of minorities and basically everyone who is not white and middle aged or older.  The loathing part of the festivities was provided by tailgunner Ted Cruz.  He managed to convey his distaste for The Donald and get booed by the convention at the same time.  Way to go, Ted.  Tonight, Trump gets to try to unite the party with a feel good speech.  That might happen in the Twilight Zone, but in Cleveland in primetime with an audience of upwards of 30 million people, I doubt Trump will talk about anything but how great he is and how "yuuuge" his campaign will be and how everyone loves him (except the aforementioned tailgunner).  When the balloons finally drop, they will probably get the biggest applause of the week.

You can't make this up

The Nice Polite Republicans on NPR interviewed the black pastor who gave the distressingly partisan invocation to the Republican convention this morning.   He beseeched the Almighty to help the GOP defeat the "Liberal Democratic" party.  After explaining away the naked  "He is on our side" rhetoric, the South Carolinian proceeded to praise The Donald as someone who believes in the sanctity of marriage.  In fact he believes in it so much he has sanctified it three times!  The pastor also praised his "pro-life" stance without mentioning the numerous times Trump has advocated a woman's right to choose.   The Saturday Night Live comedy writers are probably writing this week's sketches as I write this, as soon as they stop laughing.

Signifying little

The republicans started their convention in Cleveland yesterday.   I was able to watch a few minutes here and there before nausea set in, but I did get an overall impression of the GOP as alternately the party of anger and hate for anyone not like them and love for white people in general.  How they think this is going to win the hearts and minds of an increasingly diverse society in future elections is beyond me, but they seem to be doubling down on a "whites only" policy.

Walking the knife edge

Three more police officers killed in Baton Rouge over the weekend has brought America to the edge of a metaphorical cliff.  What we choose to do next will be a judgment on the state of our democracy.  By now, many if not most police departments in the country are in the process of adopting a siege mentality of "us against them".  Of course for the past 50 years the original "to serve and protect" motto of the police has morphed to "defend and oppress", especially in inner city neighborhoods.  As the various wars on poverty, drugs, etc. failed, the mechanisms of law enforcement have increasingly been used to keep a lid on deep seated racism and economic oppression of poor blacks and whites.  The culmination of these policies has been the transformation of police departments into quasi military organizations with little connection to the communities they patrol.  The poorly justified killings of two black men in recent weeks and the empowering of the Black Lives Matter movement inspired the murder of police in Dallas and Baton Rouge.  If the nation reacts with more police violence against black men without a corresponding examination of the policies which have spawned the events we have witnessed we will be heading into darkness without a light.

Terror and Freedom

Another terror attack in Nice, France has claimed more than 80 lives and dozens more wounded as a large truck plowed into a holiday crowd on Bastille Day.  Unfortunately, copycats have probably noted the effectiveness of this strategy.  Look for more such attempts in coming days and months.  The bigger question is what the democracies of the west will do as the body count grows and ISIS claims credit for the assaults.  The first thing to go will be tolerance of others among us.  Muslims and other brown skinned people will be the subject of attacks and racist outrage.  I would not want to be a truck driver with a foreign look.  Sikhs especially with their religious mandate to wear turbans will be targets in western countries.  After the 9/11 attacks, many were assaulted and even shot at while trying to make deliveries.  The next loss will be civil liberties as a panicked population agrees to surrender hard won guarantees for the illusion of safety.  A Trump presidency could be one of the horrors thrust upon us by continuing terror.  We are a lot closer to Orwell's 1984 than we were on the date he made famous with his story of "big brother" looking over everyone's shoulder.

The Hate and Fear candidate

It seems The Donald's strategy for this election (assuming the delegates at the convention don't stage a coup) is to woo the white vote at all costs and dismiss the rest of the electorate.  This certainly would have worked anytime in the 20th century, but even with Hillary's baggage, it seems doomed in 2016.  The latest gem from the Trump campaign had the candidate making up a call for a moment of silence for the Dallas cop killer.  Not even his campaign manager could come up with a shred of evidence that anyone said that.  For the 30% of white America willing to go down that road, Trump is their savior.  He is the man willing to call out the supposed privileges enjoyed by blacks, Hispanics, Asians women and virtually anyone who isn't a middle age or elderly white male.  As I have said all along, there aren't enough cranky old white men and women to elect a national candidate in the 21st century in the US.  All Trump's rhetoric and tactics will accomplish is to divide the country irretrievably into us and them.  For his constituency, the us is a dwindling number which will continue its resentful journey to irrelevance.  For progressive white voters and the majority of people of color it will be the dawn of a new era.  In the meantime, the next several months will be an excruciating hate fest.  Buckle up.

Filling in the garden

It's the middle of July and the garden is getting uncomfortably full.  The long duration crops like tomatoes, peppers, Brussels sprouts and corn will occupy their spaces until frost or freeze decimates them.  Beets, carrots, lettuce and the rest of the brassicas are emptying their spaces in the early garden, but the big empty spots where lots of transplants can go in a pinch are gone.  From now on, I'll have to plant into wherever I can find room.  This increases the amount of time and effort to plant, water and weed.  Fortunately, in a couple of more weeks we'll be down to lettuce and a few minor seedings of late crops like fennel and turnips.  In the meantime, I'll have to move around the gardens and keep planting for Sept. and Oct. harvests.  

Scandal du Jour and Clinton Derangement syndrome

The House Oversight Committee  is now demanding the FBI investigate if Hillary lied about knowingly sending or receiving classified e-mails on her private server while she was Secretary of State.   It seems that out of a total of 50,000 e-mails, there may have been 3 or 4 which had a C for classified embedded somewhere in the text.  As Kevin Drum at Mother Jones put it, this makes the Republican investigation of the Clinton's Christmas card list in 1998 look like a well considered act.  There seems to be no limit to republican outrage that they can't seem to get Hillary indicted for something/anything.  But meanwhile, the slow accretion of innuendo, association and actual slander continues to take its toll on her poll numbers.  While it seems the Clintons are the main targets of republican attacks, I think no matter who democrats nominated that nominee would face a barrage of spurious allegations.  To republicans, all democratic presidential candidates are illegitimate!

Eating more and doing less

The title of a new paper from two English professors is considerably less politically correct; Gluttony and Sloth explores the increasing obesity epidemic in the UK.  While they take on the usual suspects, including high calorie snack foods, sugary drinks and increasing consumption of restaurant and take out foods, they also posit the population is actually consuming less calories than previous generations.  This data from government surveys would seem counter intuitive, but the authors go on to survey the job descriptions of the majority of workers and come to the conclusion that as deindustrialization continues, more and more people are engaging in increasingly sedentary occupations.  So, even fewer calories are expended than consumed, hastening the weight gains documented by various studies.  Even as their parents slide into a life of sloth and gluttony, their children have already gotten there via video games and less participation in sports and demanding life activities.   While we make fun of elders who tell us they walked miles to and from school each day and performed physically demanding chores after school as part of a daily routine, it is undeniable they were and many are still in better shape than their descendants.  I don't know what the solution to this problem may be, but an active lifestyle certainly can't hurt.

Notes on the weekend

Protests continued throughout the US over the weekend.  In cities around the country, people of all races gathered to protest the violence which all to often in the past has been taken for granted.  Meanwhile, it is starting to dawn on the NRA and its sycophants in state legislatures and the Congress that all these open carry laws are making it easier for blacks to obtain weapons for self defense and so called "stand your ground" laws may absolve people of color after shootings of whites if the former had fears for their safety.  That was not the way it was supposed to work. 
    Meanwhile, we received a welcome .8 inch of rain over the weekend, just when most of the garden was beginning to suffer, especially seedlings and transplants.  Hot weather early this week  will kick-start the heat lovers like cukes, peppers, zucchini and melons.  Showers later in the week will keep things from getting too dry again. 
    Finally, a birthday shout out to Hannah Rock who officially enters the "terrible twos" today.  Hannah's Nana, a.k.a the Divine Mrs. M will be dealing with the birthday girl today, hopefully to the edification of both parties.

Roosting chickens

The cold blooded murder of 5 police officers in Dallas yesterday following the apparent murder of black men at the hands of police in Louisiana and Minnesota is tragic.  It also highlights the proliferation of armed citizens and the response of police.  As usual, if you are a black man in America and you have a gun, police assume it is for illegal purposes and will use deadly force at the slightest provocation or as in the case of the man in St. Paul, no provocation at all.  This is the world bequeathed to us by the NRA and its enablers.  The murder of police by snipers in Dallas can be looked upon as a by product of frustration in the black community of failure to hold police accountable for numerous shootings and/or killings of black men and women by officers.  Unless and until society confronts the obvious racism involved in these confrontations it will be difficult to solve the problem.  Thanks to the NRA and firearm availability, the situation will get worse  before it gets better.

Musings on Independence Day

The Divine Mrs. M was lamenting last evening our offspring seem to take the July 4 celebration less seriously than they should.  Playing the Devil's Advocate, I opined as how our founding fathers were basically part of the 1% of their day and were certainly not fighting for freedom on behalf of the rest of the population.  Many were slave owners and four score and seven years later we fought a great Civil War costing over half a million lives.  Contrast that experience with Canada.  Our neighbor to the north stayed with Great Britain and reaped many benefits from the association, a bloodless independence not least among them.  Reflecting on that conversation with my better half, I realize I had not fully realized what the founders bequeathed to us.  Besides the political freedoms we take for granted, the culture they nourished made us the number one country for innovation as well as the leader in science.  Our children and grandchildren will grow up in a free society which still needs much improvement, but will allow them more freedoms than virtually any country on earth.  Score another one for Mrs. M.!

A July to remember

The garden is in the best shape I've seen in years.  The extended dry spell kept weeds under control and the underlying moisture allowed the early plantings to continue to grow.   Aside from a few failures to germinate, most plantings have emerged successfully and the recent rain, with more coming today should set things up for the coming warm weather.  Considering last year's swamp after 5 inches of rain in June, I'll probably have more production in August this year than last.  Of course the weather can change in a heartbeat, but at least July is starting on a high note.  The Presidential campaigns on the other hand are already under the low bar of previous contests.  Especially The Donald's run for the roses.  He is seemingly without anyone who can tone down the relentless racist, misogynistic rants which fire up his rallies, but leave most of the voters who are paying attention appalled that a major party could nominate someone so self evidently unprepared for the job.  The opposition researchers on the Democratic side are probably falling down laughing as the mainstream media does their job for them.  Trump University, now the precursor, the Trump Institute are showing the "Art of the Steal", the scams which Trump himself associated his name with.   Now, clips of him bragging about the jobs he created in Bangladesh at the expense of American workers will be running in campaign spots throughout the summer, giving the lie to his pledge to bring jobs back to this country.  It will certainly be a July to remember.