Wilder than fiction

It's a pity Gene Wilder has taken his schtick to another place.  The master of neurotic comedy and star of the comedies I loved most in my teens and early 20s would have been the perfect film interpreter of the election we are now witnessing.  He would have been the perfect actor to play Donald Trump.  The totally un-selfaware  Trump would have been child's play for Wilder, whose various characters had some or all of The Donald's traits.  He would have had difficulty with Trump's woman hating and intolerance, but his character in The Producers was even able to make Hitler a "sympathetic" figure.  "Springtime for Trump"  has a certain ring to it.

Size matters

As the media outlets look for something other than Trumpster Fires to cover, they are hightlighting some of the other parties and ideologies competing for Americans' votes this November.  The Libertarians are among those mentioned and their peculiar brand of freedom has never particularly appealed to me.  In a small agrarian nation with limited technology and infrastructure, their brand of small government and personal freedom is seductive.  However, we live in a technology driven country of over 300 million people who need and demand services only a government can provide.  The argument private companies can run prisons, build roads and supervise government programs usually falls flat as the grifters look to steal as much taxpayer money as possible, or as in the state of Kansas the small government experiment run by Governor Brownback winds up with residents screaming about underfunded schools and funding deficits.  Of course for some libertarians that is a feature, not a bug.  Corporate governance with maximum personal freedom as defined by said corporations is the ultimate goal.  The idea that government is made  up of individuals like us, striving to do the best job of providing services to other citizens is something foreign to these abstract thinkers.  Meanwhile, 40 years of republican propaganda decrying government as the problem, not the solution has convinced many of the millennial generation to reject government.  I don't know what will happen, but in a world of mega crises, a small government is not up to the task of keeping its citizens safe from corporate, environmental and foreign threats. 

Both Sides Now

As Trump's campaign continues its implosion, the media continues to hammer Clinton for supposed influence peddling for contributions to the Clinton Foundation.  Of course, as Clinton's income taxes show neither she nor Bill Clinton derive any income from the Foundation which is universally praised for its good works around the world.  There seems to be precious little smoke and no fire, so why does the media continue to flog this story line?  Without it, they would have to cover the fiasco of The Donald's campaign without a counter narrative of discord in Hillary's.  Meanwhile, Trump gets a pass on releasing his income tax returns with the corresponding scrutiny such a revelation would entail.  This continuing coverage highlighting Clinton's supposed missteps is the sine qua non of "Both sides do it" journalism and punditry.  It will only get worse.

Turning right

The media is now abuzz with the content of Hillary's speech regarding the "alt right".  Until now, the mainstream has tip-toed around the white supremacist ties to Trump's campaign.  Now, Clinton has called it out and they can't avoid it.  Rachel Maddow traced the connection between Rober Mercer, a hedge fund billionaire and Breitbart.  This connection led recently to the appointment of Breitbart editor Steve Bannon and Mercer's political operative Kellyanne Conway to campaign CEO and campaign  manager respectively of the Donald's flailing attempt at the presidency.  Breitbart's association with hate groups is well known and Clinton is not going to let anyone forget it.  Blacks, Latinos and Jews who support Trump will know his biggest supporters consider them sub human.   I don't think this issue will go away between now and the election.  It's not as if this will distract from the policy disagreements between the candidates.  Trump has no policy position he won't change every ten minutes.   Clinton can continue to make her case to the people, but she will also include a heavy dose of information about the slimeballs and hatemongers who power the latest and saddest iteration of the GOP.  It's going to get ugly.

As per usual

As the rising sun heralds the day, Clinton Derangement Syndrome, aka the Clinton Rules highlights the stretch run to the election.  As posited in this blog recently, the urge to make this election the horse race the media loves has led some news outlets, specifically the AP to run stories with headlines calculated to bring Hillary's poll numbers back to within shouting distance of Trump's.  In a thinly veiled attempt to connect Clinton's actions as Secretary of State with benefits accruing to the Clinton Foundation, the AP tied itself in knots and couldn't find anything more than Hillary trying to help a Nobel Prize winner who also donated to her eponymous foundation.  However, they had to admit she would have attempted to help him even if he had never donated a penny!   NPR as usual covered the story and embellished  it somewhat, but also had to reluctantly admit it was another case of all smoke no fire.  Then of course concluding that the smoke had to mean something, didn't it.  This is what passes for journalism in 2016,

Settling in for the long run

With 77 days to go until Election Day, the republican and democratic parties' narratives have fallen into place.   Trump's strategy is to continue to throw anything from Hillary's health to her connections with the Clinton Foundation at the proverbial wall and see if anything sticks.  So far it seems nothing but the ridiculous e-mail controversy is gaining traction.  For her part, Clinton continues to pound Trump as unserious and unqualified, especially when it comes to the nuclear codes.  As with her core supporters, Trump's base wouldn't care if he was a proven axe murderer.  The pool of persuadable voters at this point is pitifully small, so, barring a paradigm shifting event like a major terrorist attack on American soil it looks like the republic will be saved by a Clinton presidency.  The scary thing is how many people can actually admit they support an insult comedian for the most powerful office on earth.

Help for me, but not for thee

It was with a mild jolt of schadenfreude  I listened to the Nice Polite Republicans on NPR skewer a republican congressman and make him wriggle as they compared the GOP reaction to Superstorm Sandy with his call for federal intervention in deep red Louisiana.  The hypocrisy was palpable as this particular congresscritter allowed as how he personally would have supported the money for Jersey and New York and how he couldn't figure the opposition to handing federal money to liberal northeastern states.  It is even more ironic when you realize New York and New Jersey contribute far more per capita to the federal budget than any state controlled by the GOP.  Personally, I hope Congress acts promptly to relieve the suffering of the residents in the Baton Rouge area.  I also, somewhat in vain, hope our government addresses the underlying reasons for these weather events.  It's the climate, stupid. 

Steamy and wet

It was that kind of weekend on the NCR.  Relentless heat and humidity made the natives restless.  The Divine Mrs. M has had enough of summer.  Unfortunately for her despite today's respite it looks like the hot weather will be back this week.  We got about .7 inch of rain Sunday evening which finally broke the heat and ended the harvest and plant cycle for me.  I brought in the onion crop and replanted the empty beds with spinach.  I also transplanted another round of lettuce on Saturday and rescued the strawberry beds from a galinsoga invasion.  I have a couple of more rounds of transplants waiting to go out, but I'm not sure there will be a market for late October lettuce in Plattsburgh!  Such is the mid-late summer gardener's plight.

The real thing

I watched some real Olympics last night for the first time since the Rio games began.  Of course, the lead story on most of the rest of the news was the pathetic behavior of a few US swimmers who claimed, falsely they were mugged by police.  This cast a pall over what has so far been an exemplary games.  The older I get, the less patience I have for the commercialism of the entire Olympics industry.  From it's inception in ancient Greece it was seen as an opportunity to put aside the disputes of the city states for a specified period of time and engage in a peaceful competition which would allow citizens of potentially warring states to get to know one another.  The modern version started the same way, but has since devolved into an imperial competition which has at various times showcased capitalism, facism and communism.  As budgets have ballooned grotesquely over the years, cities and even nations have staggered under the debt associated with hosting the games.  I wish we could go back to a simpler, economically frugal games without the associated commercialism, but I doubt that will happen.

Gardening Olympics

We are down to the semi-finals in the gardening Olympics here on the NCR.  August is one of the most productive months in the garden as well as requiring the most work.  Harvesting, weeding, seeding, transplanting and pest control are all important now.  I have fallen behind in the weeding department and that has snowballed as harvested areas are now overtaken by weeds, which complicates the replanting of some areas.  Increased rainfall is also making transplanting and seeding a tougher process and the rain is also interfering with spraying for cabbage worms and flea beetles.  Fortunately, there are only about two more weeks of hectic activity before harvesting becomes the focus.  My favorite months in the gardening calendar, Sept. and Oct. are coming up.  Long range predictions are for a warm, mild, and fairly dry fall.  I hope the weathermen got this prediction right.

Rainy relief

We have been alternating sweltering heat and occasional downpours for a couple of weeks now and it is stimulating all the late crops in the area.  Unfortunately, it also causes tipburn in lettuce and romaine and accentuates any problems other crops are experiencing.  It also causes a weed bonanza for those of us who don't use herbicides.  The galinsoga and pigweed go from seedlings to vegetable killing monsters in a few weeks.  Beds I assumed would be safe to stop weeding are now threatened by the aforementioned killers.  I have resorted to topping them in some beds of onions to at least arrest their growth so I can harvest the onions.  It's going to be a long couple of weeks until we get to September, when the weeds tend to slow down. 

Maddening Media

Now that the latest polls have pretty much cemented the narrative of a Clinton win, barring a terrorist attack on American soil between now and the election, what are the talking heads going to bloviate about for the next 2 1/2 months?   It would be nice if they focused attention on downballot races around the US.  Maybe inject some sanity into areas where the locals elect tea party stalwarts like Steve King and Louis Gomphert.   Of course paying attention to folks like these would expose the modern GOP as the party of cranks, racists and outright lunatics.  In order to maintain the "both sides do it" story, the MSM would have to find equally unbalanced kooks in the Democratic party.  Unfortunately for them, most of the certifiably crazy on the left have migrated to the Green Party which is stuck at about 2% favorable.  Even the Dr. Jill Stein's of the country at least pretend to sanity.  My guess is the first poll which shows any life to the insult comedian's campaign will be seized on as evidence of the big turnaround.  Until the next outrageous statement from the Donald drops him underwater again.  The injustice of it all!

Success, mostly

Looking back on my Friday post, I believe I mostly stuck to my stated intentions.  The harvest was bountiful, despite a snafu which closed the main border crossing from Canada to the US on Friday afternoon.  I spent 2 hours waiting in line with Canadian vacationers while harried customs officers were forced to deal with overwhelming lines.  Got home before dark and was able to get some harvesting done.  Finished the remainder in the morning and got to the market.  Participated in a golf tournament during the afternoon despite the threat of rain and aside from a couple of hours of weeding on Sunday morning, I spent the balance of the day in the delightful company of the Divine Mrs. M.  All in all a very nice weekend, despite the heat and humidity.  I didn't think about politics until a friend from Vermont voiced most sane people's thoughts on the contest.  I truly think Donald Duck has more support in the Green Mountain State than the insult comedian.  Ah well, it is Monday, so time to ruminate on the election again....

Weekend respite

TGIF.  I'm going to try to avoid thinking about politics this weekend.  Another week of crazy courtesy of the GOP nominee is burning me out.  I can't imagine what his campaign staff is going through.  Cognitive dissonance doesn't explain it by half.  As one commenter said, it's like cleaning up after the elephants every day.  The scary thing is he continually doubles down on every idiotic claim.  This continues to excite his base, but effectively drives anyone with a brain in the opposite direction.   So instead of surrendering to the crazy, I hope to have enough good weather to harvest for the farmers' market tonight and tomorrow morning, get in a little golf and enjoy the company of the Divine Mrs. M until the dawn of another week on Monday.

He did it!

Less than 24 hours after asking if The Donald can top death threats against Hillary, he managed to do it by accusing the President and Mrs. Clinton of being the "co-founders of ISIS".  The really freaky thing about this is the media coverage.  Reporters are obviously shell shocked by the constant barrage of falsehoods and outright fantasy the GOP nominee traffics in.  They merely pass on the verbal vomit with little or no commentary.  This is a beggar's banquet for the pundit class.  Although even the staunchest "Both sides do it" commenters may be burned out by Labor Day.  The only democratic elected official who could match Trump would be Alan Grayson and even he might be overmatched.  However, as one snarky liberal site noted the media will soon become bored with the "Trump is toast" narrative and will start running stories about a comeback if the polls show a less than 10 point lead for Clinton.

Can he top this

It would seem impossible for The Donald to continue to one up himself, but he managed yet again to outrage the reasonable segment of America which can hear and understand the increasingly shrill dog whistles coming from the GOP candidate for President.  By insinuating "second amendment people" should do something if Hillary is elected and able to appoint Supreme court justices Trump once again crossed the line of acceptable political discourse.  Even if it was as some said a "joke", there are enough unhinged gun owners who have been fed a diet of Hillary hate for years by the republican side to make an assassination threat a wildly irresponsible thing to even contemplate.  The damage Trump is doing to the republic is ongoing and serious.  This election will go down as a textbook case of demagogy.  Despite the almost surety of a Clinton win in November, a significant number of people will actively dispute the legitimacy of the new President.  Even after the Supreme Court brought us the Shrub's presidency, most democrats accepted the "winner" despite the fact he lost the popular vote to Al Gore.  Hillary may well win in a popular vote and electoral college landslide and yet 20-30% of Americans will not accept her.  This is a blot on our democracy which will take generations to heal. 

Donald Trump's new economy

I guess if you make a million or more dollars per year, you've got a candidate  you can believe in.  The Donald outlined an economic plan which treats the 1% like the kings they surely think they are and offers a few crumbs to the rest of us.  The biggest bloc of Trump fans, whose median income is around $75,000/year get virtually nothing, but they don't love them some Donald because of his economic plans.  They are driven mostly by racism and nativism, which periodically take over major parties in America usually to their ultimate demise.  As one commenter noted, as policy, Trump's speech was a "hot mess", but as a red meat buffet for his fans it worked fine.  Meanwhile, the rats, now led by Maine's senior senator are weaseling their way out of the bilges of the good ship Donald. Most of these erstwhile conscience driven non endorsers know that a full throated denunciation of the party's nominee and a nod to Hillary would be political suicide, so instead they equivocate their way to the exits without making the logical decision their rhetoric would indicate.  Profiles in courage indeed.

August weather

From stifling heat and humidity on Friday and Saturday to a refreshingly cool Monday morning with scattered thunderstorms throughout, it was a typical August weekend on the NCR.   We got nearly an inch of rain on Friday night, but it didn't break the humidity and made working in the garden like an extended day in a sauna.  I continued to transplant lettuce and made seedings of spinach and fall beets.  The flea beetles continue to attack the crucifers despite my best efforts to dislodge them and cabbage moths abound.  My electric fence is keeping the raccoons out of the corn patch so far, but we'll see if the little desperados suck it up for the corn, which is delicious, by the way.  Still waiting for tomatoes, but everything else is in.

Whistling past the graveyard

A new poll (NBC-Marist) shows Hillary thrashing the Donald by 15 points nationwide.  Of course it is early in the campaigns, but if the election were held today, Trump would be the Alf Landon of the 21st century.  You will notice Trump is not brandishing any of the latest polls, which uniformly show him losing.  Instead he is whining about a "rigged" election.  As if the nearly 9000 polling places around the nation are going to be simultaneously hacked and compromised by the Clinton machine!  as the President said in his press conference the whole idea is patently ridiculous.  If  the election hung in the balance and one precinct in Ohio would make the difference, I would bet on republican operatives to sabotage the results while their democratic counterparts looked on.  It has happened before.  This time, it would take an army of hackers to turn an epic rout into a Trump win.   Instead we will be treated to an increasingly unstable candidate reduced to whining about how the election will be stolen from him in an effort to massage his fragile ego.

Battling Pests

The mid-late summer garden is all about pests and diseases.  Critters, varying in size from flea beetles to cabbage worms to  moles and chipmunks to skunks, raccoons and deer are all ready to check out the 24 hour banquet table I have laid out for them.  Meanwhile, diseases like late blight, pythium rot and more are lying in wait for the cool nights and warm days to lay waste the tomatoes and basil I have labored over.  Of course the weeds are proliferating and with other duties they have been sorely neglected.  I spent an hour last night laying out an electric fence to protect my corn from the dastardly raccoon and skunk families  which show up the night before the corn is ready to pick and lay waste to each successive planting.  Not this year!  I hope. 

Weather or Not

With wall to wall media coverage of the presidential campaigns, it is easy to miss the steady drumbeat of weather news from around the world.  Floods in Europe, melting permafrost and wildfires in Siberia, drought and hellish temperatures in Australia are afterthoughts in most of the media.  The choice between a climate denier and someone who has at least acknowledged the science behind climate change is a huge one,  and the headlines should be highlighting these differences between republicans and democrats.  Instead, the pundits fixate on Trump's self destructive feud with gold star families and veteran's groups.  Maybe they are more self aware than I give them credit for and they feel focusing this kerfluffle will highlight the candidates' differences more than their policy prescriptions.  But I doubt it.  Meanwhile, we continue to go down a road with ample warning signs of the cliff's edge we are heading for.   I weep for my grandchildren and the world they will inherit.

Entertainment tonight!

Watching the pundits and news readers try to make sense of The Donald's campaign is much more entertaining than the usual TV fare in August.   Complaining the fire marshals wouldn't let too many people into his rallies, further insulting the Khan family on twitter and now lying about the NFL contacting him about presidential debates and televised football.  It's all in a Donald Trump day in the media.  As one overwhelmed host declared, Trump said at least 10 things in the last two weeks which would have trashed the campaigns of anyone else who ever ran for the presidency.  It is a measure of the desperate need for ratings that the major news organizations are not continually calling for him to resign from the race.   I realize that someone who supports the republican candidate is probably thinking the same thing about Hillary.  However, the mostly made up "scandals" she is accused of are the product of the same entertainment-industrial complex which values headlines above truth.  I believe if Jesus Christ was the Democrat's nominee, at least some on the evangelical right would be questioning His motives and policies and probably calling for crucifixion as punishment.

Another Weekend

Another crazy outburst from the Trump campaign.  While I concentrated on killing weeds, flea beetles and cabbage worms, The Donald proceeded to further alienate American Muslims with an attack on the parents of a soldier killed in Afghanistan.  The parents had been high profile speakers at the Democratic National Convention and had called out Trump as unfit to become president.  Instead of sympathizing with their grief and moving on, he chose to attack them and loosed a firestorm among his opponents.  It is an open question if he can do anything to alienate his core supporters who would presumably cheer if he suggested human sacrifice and entrail reading as key foreign policy suggestions.  Meanwhile, the garden is going through the mid summer transition to fall crops.  Planting late broccoli and kale as well as lettuce and beets.  The weed pressure is tremendous and I may have to resort to weed whacking isolated patches where I can't get the rototiller in without destroying other crops.  The late crops of corn, winter squash and tomatoes look good, but it is August and it is do or die for them.  Looks like a late August start for tomatoes.