Cooling off

As if to answer yesterday's whiny post regarding hot weather, today is predicted to be 20 degrees cooler and with a little rain last night the latest changes should prove to be restorative to the garden.  More precipitation is predicted for next week, but as with most of the weather this season it will probably be too little and too late.   This is the toughest stretch in the gardening season as we simultaneously try to keep up with weeds, watering, insects, harvest and planting.  The planting part is actually ending now.  I put the last lettuce transplants in last night and need only make one or two more spinach plantings and I will be done with that aspect.  The weeds however continue to bedevil me.   Perhaps I'll be able to catch up this weekend.

It's hot out there

It's feeling more like early July than late August here in the North Country.  With the temperatures topping 90 degrees yesterday and predicted to do so again today, those of us without air conditioning are eagerly awaiting some relief.   The worst part of this heat wave is the high minimum temperatures overnight.  It was 72 degrees this morning at 6 a.m.  Historically, that should be close to the high and low to mid 50s would be our low temperature.  For anyone with cool weather crops in the ground this climate regime is a nightmare.   Meanwhile, the hot weather veg is maturing more quickly than anticipated.  That means a likely early end to corn and tomatoes and the lack of replacement with spinach, kale and other cool weather crops.  If this is the future, I'm going to be looking for a used DeLorean.

Losing our democracy

Paul Krugman's column in today's NYT compares recent anti-democratic measures in Congress and several states with the descent of Poland and Hungary into fascist one party rule.  Krugman opines the GOP would do the same thing as the Law and Justice party in Poland and Fidelz in Hungary have already done in the way of suppression of freedom of the press and competing political parties.  Fortunately for us, we have a dim-witted Thug in Chief who probably can't pull off the necessary political maneuvers to dismantle what is left of our democracy.  The republicans in congress are hard at work trying to remain in power so they can continue to cover for tRump's corrupt administration, but he continues to sabotage their efforts.  The latest example being his refusal until called out by the American Legion to salute John McCain's service to the country.   If this latest episode has not convinced at least some of his dead end supporters to open their eyes, Krugman's lament for our democracy may not be far fetched.

Praise and burial

Let it be said.  John McCain was an American hero.   Five years a prisoner in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" he stayed behind when offered an early exit because he would not desert fellow prisoners to exploit his family connections.  He also served his country in Congress for over 30 years and ran for president twice.   However, for the most part it was as a partisan republican who participated in the GOP's willful destruction of customs and norms in our democracy.  That he was perceived as a "Maverick" because he deviated occasionally from his party's assault on democracy shows what a lockstep endeavor it has become.   Perhaps his most endearing quality to democrats was his opposition to The Donald, although the current *president is just the latest manifestation of his party's descent to authoritarianism.  So, yes, it is proper to mourn John McCain, but his sainthood is vastly overblown by a credulous media who succumbed to his charm and constant media pandering.

So much winning

If you are a tRump supporter, you must be getting tired of all the winning.   Certainly the people close to Cheeto Jesus must be tired, as they keep flipping to tell Robert Mueller everything they know.   The latest casualty, David Pecker of National Enquirer fame was granted immunity in exchange for spilling his guts.  It's hard to know where to start with this latest revelation.  Meanwhile, on Morning Joe, Spiro Agnew's lawyer advised the *president to resign!  Personally, I hope tRump hangs around until 2020, crippled by a  Democratic Congress and gets massacred in the presidential election along with all the craven members of the GOP who have enabled this travesty of an administration to exist in the first place.

Two Americas

The latest revelations regarding our *president are reflected in a disturbing dichotomy of belief between democrats and independents on one hand and trumpist republicans on the other.  In the face of guilty pleas by Michael Cohen and the conviction of Paul Manafort on numerous corruption charges, progressives are hair on fire and warning of a looming constitutional crisis.  On the other hand, republicans like Orrin Hatch and Lindsay Graham who voted to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about an affair with a White House intern say they are embarrassed by the latest revelation of criminal intent by tRump, but so what.   We are increasingly becoming separate tribes in this nation.  I seriously wonder what will have to happen to unite us.

It's raining shoes

The proverbial shoes are dropping fast as our *president gets closer and closer to a reckoning with his nemesis, Robert Mueller.   Cheeto Jesus spent last night at a rally in West Virginia among people who probably wouldn't care if he declared himself Emperor, but fortunately this dead ender segment of America will be shrinking in the months ahead as more and more people associated with what is fast becoming the most corrupt administration in our history begin to pay the price for their crimes.  Within minutes of each other, Paul Manafort was found guilty of bank fraud and seven other counts detailing his corrupt search for money after his connection with a criminal Ukrainian president ended.  This was followed closely by Michael Cohen, tRump's longtime "fixer" and a member of the inner circle at tRump Tower pleaded guilty to making payments to two women who claimed sexual relationships with the 45th president in the runup to the 2016 election, among other crimes.  Cohen directly implicated that the Donald instructed him to make the payments.  Coming in the wake of the Access Hollywood tapes which featured tRump bragging about grabbing women "by the pussy", the revelation affairs with a porn star and a playboy playmate would have no doubt sealed Hillary's victory.  Instead, Russian ratf*king of her e-mails and James Comey's meddling caused an abrupt drop in her polling numbers in the week before the election.  What these latest revelations mean as the midterm elections approach is a further erosion in support of our tinpot dictator as the less credulous of his supporters confront the avalanche of misdeeds by his cronies.  Break out the popcorn!

New takes on "Truthiness"

Although the term "truthy" was coined by Steven Colbert to describe the Shrub's administration and its tortured relationship with facts, it certainly fits tRump and his henchmen.  Cheeto Jesus has gone W one better however.   Bush the younger may have bent the truth to serve his policy ends.  The Donald lies for the sake of lying.   As Paul Krugman points out in his column today in the NYT, the GOP has been laying the foundations for this Orwellian assault on facts for a very long time.  Rudy Giuliani's assertion that "truth isn't truth" is just the latest manifestation of this war.  Up is down, black is white, truth is lies, ignorance is strength.  This is the reality Faux News and right wing talk radio are priming their audiences to live with.  Somewhere, Demosthenes weeps.

Weekend Update

The weather was reasonably cooperative with gardening endeavors over the past weekend.  A good rain on Friday night was followed by clearing on Saturday and Sunday.  Still planting spinach and transplanting lettuce, bok choy and Chinese nappa cabbage.  It looks like the clay based organic spray didn't work to control the swede midge in my late broccoli plantings.  According to some gastronomes the leaves are tasty, so maybe I'll be eating broccoli leaves.  Harvested the last of the late onion crop amid 6 foot weeds.   It was like playing hide and seek.   The last plantings of basil, cilantro and dill are up, so that should free up time as the season wears on.  The tomatoes are finally ripening, so the tomato sauce making time is upon us.  I'll be trading in my hoe for a spoon!

Stormy Weather

The title of this particular post could be political or meteorological.  I'm going with the weather, which has become increasingly erratic this year and promises to become even more unpredictable.  Western New York suffered through a very dry early summer and is now being inundated with record rainfall.  Farmers watched their crops wither and then drown.  Throughout the corn belt it was either far to dry or too wet for optimal crop growth.  Western wildfires cast a pall of smoke over areas that were otherwise unaffected.  I don't recall such wild swings in the weather when I was growing up on a farm on Long Island.   Amid the "Stormy" political intrigues in D.C. this year, we risk losing sight of the problems which will get exponentially worse in years to come if we delay action to reduce carbon emissions.  Our grandchildren will not thank us for this dereliction of duty.

RIP Aretha

As all too many blogs, news reports and commenters will note today, Aretha Franklin passed away today.   An omnipresent performer in the 60s and 70s, the "Queen of Soul" gave voice to a generation with such hits as Respect and Chain of Fools.  Oddly, my favorite was her rendition of a Carole King composition, You make me feel like a Natural Woman.  The song doesn't jibe with the aforementioned anthems of independent and proud women, but she sells the wistful daydreams as perhaps the ultimate respect women are due from the men who love them.   RIP Aretha, we may never see her combination of talent and soul again.

The walls continue their closure

As the political junkies among us wait for the jury to begin deliberations in the Manafort case, we are constantly bombarded with the message the walls are closing in on our panicked president* who is becoming increasingly irrational.  I'm not so sure about either proclamation.  We have been comforted by the seeming inevitability of the scales of justice coming down on tRump's head, but in reality, there is probably no smoking gun showing our fearless leader actually responding to Putin's commands, unless Omarosa was in the room at the time (Lordy, I hope there are tapes).  As far as his irrationality, it doesn't seem markedly different than his time on the campaign trail, and certainly his fans probably find his spittle flecked tirades even more attractive with the whiff of insanity mixed in.  I have a feeling we'll be hearing about those stubbornly slow closing walls in 2020.

Forgotten victims

According to news reports of an investigation into sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests in Pennsylvania, more than a thousand victims suffered at the hands of 300 priests over a 50 year period.   Coming on the heels of other high profile stories about abuse in several other states, it is fair to ask if this is a general situation in the church.   To my knowledge, no abuse occurred in the parish I grew up in on Long Island, but relying on the observations of a child who grew up under the iron fisted discipline of the "Sisters of Mercy" is a stretch.  For all I know, one or more of my fellow students was preyed upon by the "Fathers" we all respected and feared.  What this means for the church is a quicker slide into scandal and ultimately irrelevance.   As the 70 and 80 year old attendees of daily and weekly Mass die off, are they being replaced.  I really don't know, not having attended a Sunday service in decades.  Many erstwhile catholics, including some in my family continue the rituals of baptism, communion and confirmation, but I sense the waning of religious enthusiasm.  Marx called religion "the opiate of the masses".  Unfortunately for religion, the masses now have real opiates if they wish to dispute the reality of their senses.  They don't need the intervention of a possibly pedophilic priest.

Slow motion train wreck

As we move ever so slowly toward the 2016 mid term elections, the steady drip of scandal after scandal leaks from the tRump administration.  While Omarosa is an admittedly not very sympathetic character, she is providing a view of the snake pit that is the current White House.  She was paid a salary of nearly 180,000/year for "outreach" to a black community she has derided over the years in service to a defacto white supremacist.  As her job approval cratered, she remained because she "said nice things" about her boss.   That seems to be the preferred route for those wishing to rise in Cheeto Jesus' administration.   By the time she has used her 15 minutes of fame, another scandal will take her place.  Meanwhile, the Meuller investigation continues to grind on despite tRump's spittle flecked bluster.    We all stare in horrified fascination as the train teeters on the edge of the abyss.  The question is not if, but when the wreck will happen and what will be the damage to out nation and its democratic heritage.

Memories

I heard an interesting program on NPR Saturday.  In the show, "Hidden Brain", it was posited that in experiments, false memories could be suggested and implanted in up to 25% of subjects, even if the suggestion was totally against the subject's lived experience.  Followed up by a program on Sunday; Radio Lab reported on more experiments with memory which posited that we constantly edit memories and indeed the only people with true recollections are amnesiacs who can't access and therefore edit said memories.   This suggests the reason so many republicans believe virtually anything tRump and his Faux News enablers say.  It would seem that the suggestible 25% of the population has self selected the republican party as their own.  Although this bodes ill for democracy, the scam artists who batten on this particular demographic are doing very well at the moment and should continue to do so at least in the short term.

Saying it Loud

As a teenager, I remember the slogan " Say it out loud, I'm black and I'm proud".  It was a little discomfiting to someone who spent his first 12 years in an all white bubble.  I had only seen black people as farm laborers who seemed polite but distant or the one black boy in my Catholic school 2nd grade class.  He was a subject of ridicule by the nun who ran our  class with an iron fist.  He didn't make it through the school year and left under mysterious (to a 2nd grader) circumstances.  It never occurred to me  until many years later the nuns at our school were probably racist.  So, now the shoe is on the other foot.  Laura Ingraham is barely disguising her dog whistle.  She might as well say it our loud, she's white and she's proud!  I would have to say it's a lot easier to say that in a country where you are still the majority and control all the levers of power than it was for the Black Panthers in 1970s America.  Ingraham needs to be reviled for the racist she is.

Swamp Creatures

Arguably tRumps favorite congresscritter, Chris Collins has never shied away from opportunities to parlay his position into money.  No wonder Cheeto Jesus loves him!  Unfortunately for Collins it would seem his love of money overcame his fear of the law.  He was indicted for insider trading, along with his son after he was caught on camera at a White House picnic frantically trying to reach his son to tell him to dump stock in a pharmaceutical company due to a failed drug trial.  As one of the wealthiest members of congress Collins probably felt he was above the law, especially with a DOJ stocked with tRump appointees.   It looks like some people in government haven't abandoned the rule of law.

Wins and losses

The Dems came tantalizingly close to an historic upset in Ohio, last night.   In a gerrymandered district which has reliably elected republicans since the mid 80s, Danny O'Connor trails in a race that is still too close to call.  but unless the absentee and provisional ballots break heavily in his direction, the republican will likely win, setting up a rematch in less than 3 months.  The Green Party ran a candidate who siphoned off more votes than the difference between the major party candidates and in effect cost the Democrat the election.  Having seen a similar dynamic play out in my own congressional district, I can only hope the GOP's feckless performance encourages the far right to start their version of the Greens.  That would level the playing field.  The Tea |Party needs to get more aggressive!

Saving us from ourselves

As many people have pointed out, dealing with the catastrophic warming of Mother Earth by our insistence on extracting and burning every single hydrocarbon on the planet is a difficult proposition.  By our very nature, humans are in the main incapable of sacrificing long term to ameliorate something as difficult to quantify as climate change.  We go about our daily routine without seeing the insidious nature of the threat until it overwhelms us.   Climate scientists are unhelpful because of their professional reluctance to connect the dots between increased hurricane intensity, wildfires and other harbingers of the change.   Kevin Drum can only think of two instances in the last 100 years where we sacrificed to defeat an existential threat;  the ozone depletion and the Cold War.  As Drum points out, the banning of CFC's was a minor inconvenience and the Soviets were a concrete threat we could meet with a united front for over 50 years.  Climate change is not like the Cold War, but more like the ozone hole; something that can be overcome if the cost is not high.  If we can make renewable energy sources cheaper than fossil fuels, virtually no one will object to the change.  What Drum does not posit is the necessary leadership to build out the infrastructure and advertise the virtues of renewables.  We are desperately short in that regard.  Electing tRump as president* may be the single worst thing to happen to the environment since the industrial revolution.

Hot and wet

Starting the day on Saturday harvesting for the farmers' market was a hot and brutal slog.  Evidence of the hot, dry weather was everywhere, from reduced yields on some crops to the outright failure of others.  The heavier soils in most of the gardens have mitigated the drought stress, but only enough to keep the plants alive.  The forecast was for more of the same which made the sudden storm at 2 p.m. even more welcome.  We received .8" in about an hour.  Thanks to the fact most of my gardens are on level ground the rain had no choice but to percolate into the soil.  The result was a wholesale rejuvenation and an improved outlook for the rest of the season.  More rain is predicted for the week, but most of it will come in scattered thunderstorms which may or may not fall at Casa Monzeglio. Fortunately, the emergency is over for now.

Cognitive Dissonance

After listening to Morning Joe for a few minutes this morning I came away with the feeling our *president is on a long slow slide into dementia and we better get him out of office asap.  Then I read Paul Krugman's column decrying the use of the word "populist" to describe the orange desperado.  Krugman believes tRump is consciously implementing policies and appointing officials who are deliberately hurting his base, working class voters.  These voters, Krugman opines are the racist scum on the bottom of America's shoe and they support Cheeto Jesus because he gives them permission to fly their racist freak flag.  However, as polling data has shown, much of the GOP support tRump has enjoyed comes from a relatively well off slice of the party and among the elderly.  So, what is it;  do we have a demented commander in chief who is leading us willy nilly to annihilation or a crafty demagogue who is playing the racist Pied Piper to millions of otherwise rational 'Murcans.  I'm not sure which explanation is the correct one, but neither is in the best interest of our country.  The elections are 3 months away at this point and the sentient portion of the country needs to make its voice heard, before it is too late.

Stupidity, part infinity

At a rally in Tampa the other day, there were several MAGAots sporting shirts emblazoned with Qanon.   This is supposedly an individual or group who believes that tRump engineered the Mueller investigation to expose the "crimes" of Obama, Hillary and other top democrats.  Besides this bit of idiocy, Qanon believers also are convinced the US military convinced The Donald to run for the presidency to save the country from democratic perfidy.  So if you see one of your neighbors sporting a t-shirt with a big Q on it, you have two options;  stage an intervention, or turn and quickly run the other way. 

Endgames

As the walls move closer, tRump and Rudy Giuliani seem to be babbling more incoherently than ever.   Appealing to a shrinking base of true believers, they have gone from "no collusion" to "collusion is not a crime".  I guess the next stop is "no conspiracy".   It's only a short step from there to an impeachment trial.  Giuliani especially has spared no one from his creepy uncle persona in a non-stop blitz of incoherence on whatever network will invite him to perform.  Personally, I think most of the hosts are waiting for him to match some of his more over the top moments, such as comparing the tRump organization to a crime family.  It's a twofer.  He simultaneously pisses of liberals and excites the base.  What he and his boss are actually doing is unknowable, but it appears they are preparing for a fight to the finish with Robert Mueller and the truth.  I wouldn't make wagers as to who will win.