Building the Ark

It was a beautiful Memorial Day weekend in the north country, if you discount the actual Day itself.  As with each previous week in May, there was just enough rain to keep the heavier soils in the gardens just too wet to work.  I was able to plant most of the tomatoes peppers and eggplants, but the cool temperatures combined with the overall wetness will get them off to a challenging start.  The summer  and winter squashes have germinated in pots in the cold frames and will patiently wait (I hope) for warmer and drier weather.  The 10 day forecast is not very hopeful.  Most large growers of field corn gambled and worked their soils over the weekend and planted and here and there you can see rows of seedlings breaking the surface.  Pretty soon it will be now or never time for many crops. 

Memorial weekend follies

Aside from the fact we now have a president* who is actively undermining alliances which have endured since the end of WW2 and whose idea of military service was a stint at a military themed high school, it was a pretty good Memorial Day weekend.   I have no problem honoring those who perished and/or served in various wars since the American Revolution.   It is the policies which in many cases led to those wars I object to.   The men who died to preserve the United States in the Civil war or fought to  stop Hitler and Germany from dominating Europe and implementing the "final solution" were no more worthy or heroic than my generation's Viet-Nam veterans who gave their last full measure for a manufactured war of choice against national self determination.  The same for a later generation caught up in "Desert Storm" and "Iraqi Freedom" in the wake of Saddam Hussein's aggression and the national freakout after 9/11.  I still believe in the role of Congress under the constitution.  That body has the responsibility to initiate military action.  If that mandate had been respected the nation would have mourned and buried many fewer heroes than the multitudes we honored over the weekend.   Here's hoping none of my grandchildren will be called on to die for some megalomaniac's vision America's role in the world.

The Bad, the worse and the ugly

The republican party it would seem has devolved even further in the last few days.  To call it the "knuckle dragging" party would be an insult to actual knuckle draggers.   After assaulting a reporter for having the temerity to ask a question, the GOP candidate for congress in Montana doubled down by not only denying the charge, but implying that somehow the reporter's nose had assaulted his fist.  After winning the contest, he then apologized for body slamming the reporter.  Pathetic.  Meanwhile, doing his best imitation of the classic ugly American, our erstwhile president described Germany as "evil" because they sell millions of cars in the US.  This, after giving lukewarm praise to NATO and failing to commit to the all important Article 5 in the organization's charter which obliges all of the allies to defend any signatory if attacked.  How we will survive 3 more years of this is the big question now facing the country.

The hits keep coming

Literally, in the case of a republican candidate for congress in a special election in Montana.  Greg Gianforte was arrested last night after he alledgedly "body slammed" a reporter to the ground and started punching him after the reporter, Ben Jacobs of the Guardian asked him for a comment on the CBO score of the latest GOP health care monstrosity.  Unfortunately for Ginanforte, he did it in front of witnesses, so he will likely be prosecuted for assault.  Unfortunately for Montana, since most ballots have already been cast they will probably be represented by a convicted felon until the next special election.   Most liberal commenters are of the opinion this display of hostility to the media would have helped the republican in this age of Trump.  Ever since Cheeto Jesus exhorted the crowds at pre and post election rallies to vilify the press, we have been building toward the moment where actual assaults on working members of the press would be if not sanctioned, then at least implicitly favored by the more conservative elements of the GOP.   It remains to be seen if the conservative press will condemn this act.  If they do not and make excuses for Gianforte, we will have reached a tipping point where the first amendment to the constitution will be considered superfluous by a majority of one of our political parties.  On the other hand, a resounding defense of Jacobs by "Fox and Friends" would by a victory for freedom of the press.  I would counsel anyone reading this to not hold their breath waiting for that to happen.

Times of my life

On a sunny hot 24th of May in 1975, I was privileged to walk down a grass carpeted aisle and vow to love and honor the Divine Mrs. M until death do us part.  I have never regretted the choice for a nanosecond.   Despite the mid-70s  date, we were still children of the 60s, so we were married outdoors in the bride's family's backyard.  It was a gorgeous setting, but unfortunately, it was also the hottest May 24th on record, with the temperature reaching 94 degrees during the event.   Despite that, it was a lovely ceremony and I seriously doubt anyone who attended will ever forget how they sweated through it.   We have lived in many different places, laughed and cried and raised three lovely human beings.  Through it all, our love has endured and strengthened.  I hope to celebrate many more anniversaries with my best friend.   Happy Anniversary,dearest.

Terrorism and what to do about it

By now, unless you are living under a rock somewhere you have heard about the terrorist attack in Manchester in the U.K.  It was an Ariana Grande concert, so the victims; 22 killed and more than 60 wounded were mostly young girls.  The British authorities are treating this as a terror attack as it almost surely is.  The usual messages of sympathy and solidarity poured in from national leaders around the world.  The difference between the response of the British people and what would probably be the case if a similar attack occurred on American soil is stark.  The Brits are not obsessing about the possibility it was a Muslim terrorist.  They can't afford to since the area around Manchester is packed with Muslims.   As an NPR commenter put it, the US can still debate excluding Muslims because they are still a tiny minority in this country.  This is not the case in most European countries.   Trying to stigmatize Islam is not a viable policy alternative for them.  In this case and many others, we need to understand the reasons behind the decisions to commit these heinous acts.  To be honest, the policies of western democracies toward Muslim majority countries since WW1 and even before are mostly to blame and they haven't changed.  Until these underlying causes are addressed, more innocents will pay the price in venues like Manchester.

Making Sure

Jesus said the "poor will always be with you"  and it looks like tRump and the republicans in congress want to at least corroborate at least this one statement from the founder of the religion they supposedly honor.  Thanks to the villains thieves and scoundrels surrounding the Donald, the budget the administration is set to release tomorrow envisions a $1.7 trillion cut in social safety net programs over the next ten years.  These cuts would help pave the way for up to $5 trillion dollars in tax cuts, mostly for the wealthy.   It's funny how each republican government advocates tax cuts for the 1% in the face of overwhelming evidence they do very little to stimulate the economy.   Of course if a poor carpenter of color began preaching the gospels today he would be dismissed as a communist and prosecuted in the court of public opinion.  The other interesting contrast is how republicans howl about the deficit when a democrat is president, but will hardly peep about a budget buster when a republican is the chief executive.  Praise the Lord!

Deja Vu all over again

While not hoping for rain, the showers last night were welcome for the plantings I was able to put in over the weekend.  It's still cool, so although the first planting of corn went in on Saturday I think good germination will be a fluke.  The soil is still wet and cool for the most part.  The tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants will spend another week in the cozy confines of my coldframes.  Meanwhile, I was able to spread compost and lay the black plastic on their beds in hopes of milder weather.  Planting and transplanting lettuce and cole crops continues, but will start to back up if the rainy forecast for the coming weekend holds.  The only seedlings happy with the weather are weeds, particularly lambsquarters and galinsoga. 

Adventures in Gardening

In a display of outlandish optimism, I continue to plant in the garden, despite the long range forecast.  Most of my garden is composed of heavy clay soil which in a dry year gives many advantages, but in the present conditions is a handicap.  Ever since the ground thawed in early April it has remained cool and rainy.   This has prevented the majority of the garden from drying properly.  Several days of warm windy weather have helped, but the forecast for next week is for the cold and rain to return.  As I run out of dry areas to plant I face the very real possibility of having to abandon seedlings in the cold frames and miss the early plantings of warm weather crops like squash and corn.  This situation occurred several years ago and I had to wait until July to plant many crops.  Fortunately a long mild fall helped that year.  I guess we'll continue on for the moment.  I call it "Adventures in Gardening"...

republican jeopardy

The appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate Russian meddling in the 2016 elections and possible collusion between the Russians and the tRump campaign will allow some republicans to sleep easier for a few nights.  The pressure for them to act in the face of numerous dropped shoes was becoming unbearable.  The problem for republican elected officials is Cheeto Jesus remains popular with an ultra polarized party.  The average GOP voter today is less interested in responsible governance than sticking it to "libtards".  The Donald remains the ultimate insult to those of us who believe competence and sanity are minimal standards to apply to those who would be president of these united states.  Therefore, somewhere between 30 and 40% of the population and nearly 80% of republican voters have a favorable impression of the * president.  To vote for an investigation of said president would probably spark many primary challenges from the extreme right of the GOP in safe districts, although most republicans in the House are somewhat to the right of Attila the Hun.   Absolute opposition to all things Democratic is the only allegiance required of most representatives in these districts.  On the other hand, if they cave to the most demonstrably incompetent and inept administration ever, independents and democrats will likely tip the majority in the House to the dems in 2018 and limit the Senate gains the republicans would have made in a less scandal plagued environment.  I wish I could work up some sympathy for a party which has plotted its own demise for over 40 years. 

Time Bombs

Depending on who you listen to or what newspapers and blogs you read, either your hair is on fire after the latest bombshell was dropped by James Comey, or it's just another dose of #Fake News and there is nothing to see here.   Even some of the left leaning blogs can hardly believe the feral stupidity of our current ( but probably not for long) president.   As the NYT reported, Comey wrote at least one memo after meeting with tRump in January.  The memo states unequivocally the president asked the VP to leave the room and then, referring to the FBI investigation of recently fired NSA  director Michael Flynn, asked Comey to "let it go".   While that is not an open and shut case of obstruction of justice, it is certainly an attempt to influence an ongoing investigation.  tRump was certainly smart enough to get potential witnesses out of the room, but he obviously wasn't familiar with Comey's  habit of memorializing potentially explosive meetings with political superiors.   It would seem that even republicans, or at least those vulnerable to electoral fallout will have to respond to these revelations.  The smart money is on the supposition that Comey leaked one of the least damaging memos in his arsenal.  If  this doesn't result in the appointment of a special prosecutor, there will be more shoes dropping in D.C.  The GOP had better be issuing reinforced umbrellas this summer!

Trump's descent into the maelstrom

Add the handing of classified intelligence to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to the US to the growing list of actions which lend weight to speculation on the mental health of the president.  As he has shown time and again during the last 4 months, Trump is in over his head on almost every duty the occupant of the office of the presidency is expected to carry out.  From diagnosis of Narcissistic Personality Disorder to incipient dementia, amateur and professional psychologists have weighed in to warn us of the problems we face with a mentally deranged chief executive.  There may actually be some truth in these analyses.  However, I think I would go with the more prosaic explanation.  Imagine for a moment your eccentric 70 year old uncle with a billion dollars and an ego to match.  Now instead of listening to his tirades against liberalism during the course of Thanksgiving dinner and suggesting he have another helping of turkey, imagine him as the most powerful man in the world.  The idea terrifies me.   We have to live through another 3 1/2 years of this.

The banality of evil

As popularized by Hannah Arendt, the phrase the banality of evil refers to the actions of Adolph Eichmann, a facilitator of the Holocaust.  Although Eichmann was examined by several psychologists before his trial in Israel in the 50s, he was judged eminently sane.  Yet he was responsible for horrible crimes against humanity and couldn't help but brag about them, undermining what little defense he could mount against the charges.  It seemed he couldn't distinguish between garden variety crimes and the monstrous evil in which he participated with enthusiasm.  I bring this up as a partial explanation for Paul Ryan and his continued assault on health care in America.   The recently passed AHCA bill, while not a Holocaust level event will undoubtedly result in much death and suffering among the poor and lower middle class of this country.  His plans to privatize Medicare will result in similar increases in deaths among the elderly.  Meanwhile, Ryan appears to have a song in his heart and a grin on his face as he orchestrates these cruelties in the name of upper class tax cuts.   Neither Eichmann or Ryan seem especially intelligent.  I guess that quality is not necessary to foreclose the future of fellow citizens.   They were and are just ordinary men determined to trivialize evil intent.

Mother's Day thoughts

Although the weather belied the moment, yesterday was Mother's Day, and for those of us who celebrate the women who have birthed us and our descendants it was a beautiful day.  The Divine Mrs. M was in fine form and our beautiful daughters and their children made it a day to remember.  Amid the daily horrors of the political situation in this country it is sometimes easy to lose sight of what makes the daily grind worthwhile.   Celebrating motherhood may have become a Hallmark moment and the commercialization of the holiday is indeed deplorable, but the sentiment needs to be expressed.   Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers and daughters in my life.  I will try to celebrate you each day in the coming year!

Health Insurance

It seems to me that the richest country in the history of the world should make sure that every citizen should have access to at least a minimum suite of services which will keep him or her healthy and productive.  Preventive care, maternity benefits, paid leave to care for children and parents would seem to be no-brainers in the 21st century.  Yet, many of our elected officials persist in a Victorian mindset which equates poverty with laziness.  These sanctimonious purveyors of misery seem to believe that being poor is a disease in an of itself, instead of a symptom of societal sociopathy.  Of course, it's all right for people like Paul Ryan to use social security survivor benefits when his father died, but he would now like to deny such comforts to the "undeserving" poor who truly need them.  For a nation which professes to believe and act on the teachings of Christ, we are doing a piss poor job of implementing  His dictums.   The passage of the AHCA  is a monstrous perversion of our beliefs for the purpose of providing the wealthy with a giant tax cut.  Somewhere, Jesus is weeping.

Curiouser and Curiouser

Depending on the orientation of the social media you consume, the Comey firing is treated on a range between hair on fire constitutional crisis to nothing to see here, time to move on.  I would find it somewhat hilarious if the damage to democracy was not so apparent.  My own opinion is to agree with many on the left we need a special prosecutor with subpoena authority to get to the bottom of the Trump-Russia connection.  I think we also need a 9/11 type commission to examine the Russian hacking of the 2016 election and recommend ways to combat what has become Vladimir Putin's signature method of warfare against western democracy.  In the meantime, Cheeto Jesus and his administration will continue to alternately entertain and horrify those of us who believed democracy in the US was a shining example to the world.

Shades of Watergate?

I know everyone else who follows politics in even a cursory way is buzzing about the firing of James Comey as FBI director.  The common and not very convincing analogy being employed is the famous "Saturday Night Massacre" of Watergate fame.  For those of you who did not live through it, President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox as he was closing in on Nixon's complicity in the Watergate coverup.  This occurred after Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than  carry out Cox's firing.   The investigation of Watergate was much further down the road than Comey's investigation of Trump's ties to Russia. The congress was controlled by Democrats in Nixon's time, so there was no cover to be had by his administration and within a few months, he was gone.  Trump, on the other hand, has a republican controlled congress which is prepared to do nothing unless presented with evidence which would implicate them in a coverup if they did not act on it.  The wheels will continue to turn and the FBI investigation will eventually be completed.  I doubt Trump thought this through and either his closest advisors also did not or were afraid to tell him firing Comey was likely to increase public pressure for the investigation to intensify.   They all badly underestimated the blowback.   I doubt there is any appetite for an impeachment of the president, even if the Russia investigation reveals collusion between tRump's campaign and the Russians.  However, the continued drumbeat of bad news will severely limit the amount of damage the GOP can do in the next couple of years.  I hope...

One district at a time

Our local congresscritter, Elise Stefanik, slithered  into the Mountain Lake PBS station in Plattsburgh several hours early so she wouldn't have to confront an angry crowd waiting for her to explain her vote for the AHCA.  She did have to face a lottery chosen live audience of about a hundred people who were able to ask her about her position on health care and why she voted for what turns out to be a giant tax cut for the rich and a big middle finger for the poor.  Did I mention that far more people in the 21st congressional district are poor than rich?   Anyway, Stefanik was heckled often by the mostly polite crowd.  But she couldn't help reminding the people who attended that Cheeto Jesus won the district by 11 points and while she didn't rub it in, she also won going away in a three person race where the democratic candidate split the vote with the Working Family party candidate.  Basically, she was saying, "I'm the candidate in a safely republican district who can do whatever I want and there is little or nothing you can do about it".  I hope the progressives in the district can make her eat those imagined words in 2018, but it will take more than hope to do it.  Stefanik is probably not a batshit crazy republican, like so many in the house, but she is going along with an agenda which hurts a majority of her constituents in favor of a tiny minority with money.  As a friend and long time republican recently said, "I want to vote republican, but I don't know how I can keep doing it".   Many more sane members of the GOP need to think about their party's position and act responsibly.  The rest of us can help by reminding them how far the party has gone down a rabbithole of racism, misogyny and ignorance.

Lies, etc.

Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them was a seminal book by Al Franken published in 2003 in the aftermath of the blizzard of falsehoods spewed by the Bush administration in the run up to the Iraq War and the WMD fiasco.  The subtitle of the book, "A Fair and Balanced look at the Right"  earned a Faux News lawsuit which actually boosted book sales for Franken as he literally laughed the suit out of court.   The latest iteration of the GOP in Congress and the administration has taken the Franken premise to new heights.  Rather than fudge statistics or slant the news in a favorable way, Trump and his sycophants in Congress have told demonstrably untrue lies flagrantly and continuously.  They have basically overwhelmed the media's fact checkers and turned the news into a guessing game as to its veracity.  The authoritarian mindset of the republican base is prepared to accept anything said by the Trumpsters at face value.  Knowing this, frees administration and congressional spokesmen to make up their own version of facts and use the wingnut talking heads who regularly appear on mainstream media platforms to validate these fantasies.   I'm sure Senator Franken would love to do an update of his classic, but the footnotes would probably overwhelm the text.

Weird Weather

We seem to be about one month behind weatherwise in the north country this year.  So far this month, May has been mostly a replay of a typical April.  Nighttime temperatures have hovered in the 30s and low 40s.  Daytime highs in the 40s and 50s and abundant rainfall have slowed planting and harvest of perennials like asparagus to virtually nothing.   The soil remains cold and wet with snow showers predicted this evening.  The heavier clay soils in the back garden are saturated and there is standing water on some parts of the lawn.  According to one website, the northeast has become much more likely to have heavy downpours of rain rather than more equally distributed precipitation.  This increases stress on both well and poorly drained soils and the crops planted on them.   While small gardeners can plant raised beds, larger growers and commercial farms don't have that luxury and are increasingly at the mercy of more  and more capricious growing conditions unless they are willing to make massive investments in infrastructure such as plastic tunnels or the kind of drainage systems now employed by high tech golf clubs.  In any case, continued disruption of traditional weather conditions across the nation and the world will in the short run lead to higher prices for food and in the long run shortages of foodstuffs and the social unrest this will bring.  I wish I could say with any degree of confidence that our government was prepared to meet these challenges.  If sheer ignorance and mendacity were a substitute for good judgment and crisis management we would be well served by all the president's men. 

Trumpdon'tcare

Courtesy of the republican controlled House we now have the "I don't give a damn" replacement for the ACA.  Passed without any hearings or a CBO score, it has been estimated it will basically deliver us back to the regime before Obamacare.  Kinder and gentler it ain't.  Instead of committing us to cover as many people as possible, including the old, sick and poor, the republicans passed what is in reality a giant tax cut for the 1% and Cheeto Jesus proceeded to tell everyone he delivered on his promise for cheaper, better healthcare for everyone.  If there is a hell, the seventh, hottest circle is reserved for this travesty of a human being along with the 216 republicans who voted for the AHCA.  Trusting a Senate run by Mitch McConnel to correct even the most flagrant cruelties contained in this bill is like trusting Ted Bundy to babysit a co-ed pajama party.  America, this is the Congress you elected.  Cherish it...

Collective Payer health care

Unless a few republicans discover their inner humanity today, the GOP controlled House will vote on what is commonly known as Zombie Trumpcare.  Although not scored by the Congressional Budget Office and uniformly opposed by every organization composed of medical professionals, Paul Ryan, aka the zombie eyed granny starver from Wisconsin will try to ram this bill through so Cheeto Jesus can proclaim a legislative victory.  Trump seems not to know or care that this bill will disproportionally hurt the voters who propelled him to victory in November.  Of course, anyone who ever followed the career of The Donald knows he has zero empathy for anyone not named Trump.  The idiots who are looking for him to provide any sort of political cover for their votes on this cruel bill are in for the same disappointment as his voters.  In other words, it looks like we will all be paying for worse care and poorer outcomes.  Except for the real beneficiaries of Trumpcare, the .01% who will see their income taxes reduced.
Meanwhile, the scent of grass clippings floated over the grounds of Casa Monzeglio last night.  The annual ritual of mowing has begun.  From now until the latter part of October the roar of poorly muffled small gasoline engines will be part of the ritual of summer drudgery around here.  The weather for the next week at least features frequent showers and perfect grass growing temperatures.  I can hardly wait!

The "We're all in this togehter" fallacy

The Divine Mrs. M was curious when I started yelling at the television last night as a clip of a maudlin Jimmy Kimmel begged us to all get together and make sure health insurance is available for everyone.    The occasion was the surgery on his newborn sun to correct a heart condition.  I sympathize with him and wish his family the best health care possible.  However, he, and all the other "both siders" and "lets get together" celebrities and pundits need to apportion the praise and blame to the correct parties.  Democrats fought for generations to expand health care and the social safety net in general to as many people as possible.  Republicans have fought this expansion from the time of the New Deal until today.  As the Kabuki posturing in the House of Representatives plays out today, the only thing Paul Ryan, the zombie eyed granny starver from Wisconsin, wants is to pass a travesty of a bill which will deny health coverage to tens of millions of people and enact defacto "death panels" who will decide if children like Kimmel's son will receive life giving care or be denied due to pre-existing conditions.  So, please don't play the both sides do it game.   You only provide cover for those who would make this a less generous and caring nation.   That is why I was yelling at the TV.

Incompetence at the highest levels

As Rachel Maddow pointed out last night, the tRump administration is having trouble filling positions in many agencies.   This is not merely due to incompetence.  Besides the fact few in The Donald's immediate circle have much experience in government, they aren't connected with the people who know the people who can fill positions at the various departments.  After eight years of democratic government and eight previous under the disgraced Bush administration there is a pretty small pool of talent available.  Add to that problem the fact that many republicans would rather remain at their day jobs in the wingnut welfare programs run by the Koch brothers et. al. and you have a serious talent shortage which may leave some departments understaffed for the balance of Trump's first term.  What will happen when a crisis demands the expertise of some agency in charge of disaster planning?   I guess we'll find out the hard way.

May Day in the garden

Looks like the garden will be too wet to work for the next few days.  I spent the weekend putting in onion transplants, starting summer squash and cucumber seedlings and transplanting peppers and tomatoes.  So far I am not too far behind other years, but another week of wet weather will set things back.  The biggest fear is the weeds getting ahead of emerging seedlings.  Without dry weather to help kill them, cultivation will only move weeds around.  Once this happens you are better served by abandoning weed infested beds and starting new ones.  Unfortunately this only works if you have dry areas to plant.  So it becomes a choice of lesser evils, or no choice at all.  Meanwhile, the grass continues to grow and I haven't started a mower yet.  I'm not ready to issue a May Day just yet, but another week of wet weather may prompt that response.

Failure as success

In his column today in the NYT, Paul Krugman wonders why so many articles are being done on Trump voters and how they "stand by their man" in the face of relentless evidence he is an unprecedentedly unprepared and unqualified president.  I have heard some of the interviews with these benighted individuals, especially on NPR.  The interviewers are polite, but I sense they wonder what planet these voters believe we are presently inhabiting.  Trumpistas roundly denounce the media as portraying a false picture of the Orange Julius.  Despite the absence of any evidence, they feel he is making good on all his campaign promises even if the dastardly democrats are fighting like the whining babies they are!  However, as Krugman points out, The Shrub got the same sort of adulation early in his administration, albeit much of it coming with the lead up to the disastrous Iraq war.  What killed the Bush administration's credibility was the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the government's apparent feckless response.  The implosion of Wall St. and the Great Recession were further evidence that the republican party is incapable of governing.  In surveys toward the end of the Shrub's reign, most respondents claimed they voted for John Kerry in 2004.  It's a shame that is not so, as he would have made a great president.  Meanwhile, we wait for the first great test of tRump and his merry band of kleptocrats.  Will it be a domestic disaster, or some foreign crisis which allows the sheeple to see what the recent election has done to the governing apparatus of the greatest country in the world.  A prediction; it won't be pretty.