The new reality for agriculture

      Extreme drought followed by brief intervals of  heavy rain.   Hot summers followed by early frost.  Freezing winter weather and an early spring.   What is a gardener or farmer to do?

      This meditation on extremes was caused by a brief inspection of the garlic bed in my garden this past weekend.  Due to impending knee surgery in October, I  planted by 2021 garlic crop earlier than I ususally do and everything seemed to be fine.  We had a couple of good frosts in early October and the weather seemed to be settling down.  Unfortunately, Mother Nature, personified as climate change decided to go into a warm, dry November.   On the plus side, the late fall brassicas continued to thrive and will provide for the table into December.  The bad news is the garlic has poked green shoots above ground and now must withstand a North Country winter.

      

Thanksgivingness

      It was a slightly less crazy Thanksgiving than usual at Casa Monzeglio this year.   After cooking the traditional dinner and dividing into portions for some members of the family, the Divine Mrs. M and I sat down to a very quiet table.   The food was delicious as usual, but the cacophony of our usual celebration was missing.

      I have previously gone on at length about the hoary and false legends surrounding Americans' Thanksgiving.   I prefer the traditions most families have grown over the years.  It's about bringing us together under one roof to celebrate our familial bonds.   For a few brief hours, we are not Democrats or Republicans, conservatives or liberals, but family members who care for each other.

       That is what made our tiny celebration so bittersweet.   Oh, and the 2 hours of cleanup with no assistance from said family!  Such are the pleasures and pains of a pandemic year.   I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving.

Same as the old boss

      Despite the sprinkling of black and brown faces and several women as well, Joe Biden's initial cabinet and NSA picks are the wet dream of the centrist establishment.   An "enlightened" Shrub or his brother Jeb might have picked the same people if their administration started in A.D. 2020.   Instead of the crude battle cry of "America First", it will be America first among equals.  

     Of course, compared to what tRump probably would have offered, this is a dream team and most people exhaled with relief that there was a sense of normalcy in these choices.   I will agree most of these people will be approved by the Senate.   However, this is a pretty low bar, and I expect better of Biden when it comes to the powerful domestic posts he will soon roll out.  

Finally

         So, tRump's apparatchik in the GSA, Emily Murphy, grudgingly acknowledged Joe Biden's victory in the presidential election and released the funds and space that will allow the transition of power to begin.   Murphy's statement claimed she came to the conclusion that Biden won independently, but she soon found out what so many trumpanzees have discovered; that the president* will step all over his appointees whenever he can.  Within minutes of Murphy's  announcement, tRump released a statement taking credit for the decision to grant Biden the GSA's endorsement.

       The whole transition promises to be chaotic with  paper shredders in constant use and wrongdoing concealed until the previous team is out the door.   Biden's people will find a government in shambles and will have to rebuild virtually every department.   It's as if the Joker had been in charge of the government for the last four years...oh, wait!

Confessions of a Giants' fan

       I admit while not under duress that I have been a Giants fan since the mid 60s.   I was inspired by Andy Robustelli, Y.A. Tittle and the rest of a perennially competitive crew.   While they weren't the dynasty the Yankees were in baseball, they were scrappy, even when losing "the greatest game ever played" against the Baltimore Colts.

       I endured the many years of lousy football that followed and revived when the Parcells era began.   Another period of wandering in the football wilderness followed until Eli Manning captured lightning in a bottle twice against the mighty Patriots.  

      Now, long suffering fans are back in the doldrums once again.  I was resigned to competing with the Jets for the worst record in football, when lo and behold, the lowly Giants won 2 in a row and with a 3-7 record are competing for a division title.  I am reluctantly following Big Blue once again, although I am relatively sure they will find a way to disappoint me one more time.

On the line

        As Ben Franklin is supposed to have responded to a question about what kind of government the Founders had cobbled together; "A republic, if you can keep it", so it is time to ask what kind of government tRump supporters are looking for in the wake of Rudy Giuliani's bonkers press conference yesterday and subsequent actions by his boss.

       With absolutely no proof of voter fraud other than his fevered imagination, Giuliani as much as admitted there will be no more lawsuits filed in various states, because when asked by judges for proof, not a single lawyer was able to produce any.   The game now is to get republican controlled state legislatures to defy the will of their constituents and name tRump electors to compete with legally chosen Biden electors.   The strategy is to blow up the electoral college and get the  issue before the Supreme Court.  

     This is the last ditch strategy of a loser.  I hope republicans of good will repudiate it at every turn.  I'm holding my breath...

The Future belongs to...

        My granddaughter Hannah was extremely excited yesterday.   Her teacher told her mother that the little girl was scoring 100% in all the subjects covered in the first grade curriculum.  She even offered to send more complicated work home so Hannah could advance further during the school year.   On its face, this is a feel good story about the virtues of hard work.   However, the devil is in the details.

       Due to the pandemic and the risks going to in person schooling would pose to her various caregivers, primarily  her paternal grandparents, Hannah is being home schooled by Grandma Carol, a retired teacher herself.   Carol spends 3-4 hours a day in one on one instruction with Hannah who absorbs information like a sponge.   Her parents and other grandparents continue to encourage her when her orbit intersects ours.   I cannot imagine a more virtuous circle.  I also cannot imagine any but a small minority of her peers who are getting a better childhood education.   I am happy for Hannah, but a small part of me wonders what the other children in her class are doing during their days and nights away from school.

     Parents who don't have the ecosystem of my granddaughter or the ability to pay for the tutoring necessary to make a good pandemic education possible will have to settle for a lesser school experience for their children.  It's not fair and it's not right.   

Close to the Edge

      As November wears on, the media has inexorably latched on to the narrative that tRump obviously lost the election and has even lost the battle to frame the whole thing as stolen, but there seems to be little to do but wait for state certification of at least 270 electoral votes for Biden.   Instead of excoriating the Republican party for the anti-democratic force it has become, most media outlets report each illiberal action as if it existed with no connection to hundreds of other strikes against our democracy.

      Meanwhile, the inept wanna be autocrat remains in the White House, having abandoned any pretense at doing the job he was elected to do.   Instead of governing, he spends his time tweeting or golfing.   As long as Republicans allow this travesty to continue, they are just as complicit as tRump in this rending of the popular will.   

       Once again, we are trapped by the norms of a democracy which tRump cares not a fig.  Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are powerless until January 20, unless there is goodwill emanating from the Oval Office.  So we must wait for Covid relief as well as a functional executive branch.   

Covid vs. Climate Change

Over at the NYT, Paul Krugman says based on our failure to cope with the Corona 19 pandemic, he is increasingly pessimistic about our ability to handle the challenges posed by global climate change.  Even something as simple as mask wearing to slow the spread of the disease has been opposed by a vocal minority who argue the pandemic is a hoax, right up until they are intubated or moved to the morgue.

     One can see the same automatic response to climate change.   For the most part it cannot be felt until the hurricane or tornado rips apart lives.   Even then, the same Covid deniers will say climate change is a hoax also.   

      The nascent Biden administration is facing economic, social and political challenges already.   Throwing climate change front and center is probably a recipe for losing in the mid term elections and kicking the climate can down the road for another 10 years.  I hope this is not the way things go, but as Krugman says, it is hard to be optimistic about our will to fight climate change when we can't even admit the presence of a communicable disease in our midst.

Uncharted territory

        Like most Americans, my family had to deal with what is rapidly becoming the new normal.  Do we celebrate that most mundane of milestones, a birthday, or do we observe Covid 19 precautions and forget about it for the balance of the year.   In this particular case, the birthday in question was mine and the attraction was my eldest daughter's offer to cook a turkey dinner with all the trimmings, my favorite repast.

         We probably did everything wrong, celebrating piecemeal with everyone during the day, except for the family bartender who was obviously too exposed to the coronavirus to interact with her 69 year old father.  Meanwhile, I am continuing physical therapy for my newly operated knee replacement in an office with minimal social distancing and hands on P/T.   What is to be done?   I think we are in uncharted waters, and are very likely to be learning very dangerous lessons as the pandemic ravages our country and the national leadership is more likely to be found on a golf course than in the situation room.

Blah, blah, blah

      As the Divine Mrs. M has intuited, we have reached the stage of non-stop blathering by the cable news networks regarding the recent elections.   In the absence of the traditional transfer of power from the outgoing administration to Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, the networks have descended to Kremlinology to try to discern what is happening at the White House. 

      Hirings and firings are dissected when as most of us know, there is little active malice emanating from tRump's lair.  The nation's chief executive for the next 70 days is probably planning his next grift.  There is also golf to be played.   Concessions are unlikely, but co-operation with the incoming administration will happen as more and more Republicans suggest any other reaction is beyond the pale.

     Meanwhile, both liberal and conservative networks have 24 hours to fill...

Losing whatever scruples they ever had

       It is hard to say anything nice about the republican party in A.D. 2020.   If it ever had a soul, most of it was in hock to Ronald Reagan and his "government is the enemy" message.  The little that remained has now been sold to Donald tRump, a mountebank who makes Reagan look like a statesman.

       The election has been over for a week.  The networks called it for Joe Biden on Saturday.  Yet many elected Republican officials and a large percentage of party members refuse to believe the results.   Instead, there is a barrage of claims of a stolen election and encouragement to doubt the most fundamental ritual in a democracy, a free and fair election.  The stupidity of Republican claims is self evident.   If democrats were fixing the elections in 50 states, how did they allow Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham to be elected, along with many others GOP candidates? 

       Voters rebuked tRump and his policies (what policies?) after 4 nightmarish years.  However, the same voters seem willing to believe the party which enabled tRump is not responsible for him and so re- elected many of the sycophantic bootlickers who got us into this mess.   Now, instead of being able to enact their programs and let the voters judge their efficacy, congressional Democrats will face a salted earth opposition by Republicans who will decry "gridlock".   This will lead to a GOP win in the House in 2022 and Biden's opportunity to govern will have come to naught.   This is the Republican agenda and despite their president's bungling of the pandemic and the needless loss of more than 100,000 lives and counting, it looks like the party of Lincoln will get away with killing what is left of our democracy.   There is no hell hot enough...

Down the rabbithole

        Rabbits everywhere are probably tired of the metaphor we use to explain a ridiculous situation.   Sorry guys, but blame Lewis Carroll for the problem.   In the meantime, it seems one of the two political parties in the country is bound and determined to drag us down an increasingly chaotic course for as long as possible in an attempt to delegitimize a  lawfully conducted election.

     Aside from appeasing the president*'s wounded fee fees, the other harm this strategy does is to allow some people to feel Moscow Mitch and the Republican senate have every right to block any legislation on the part of the Biden administration to deal with the nation's problems.  Meanwhile, they can keep the base riled up and ready to vote in 2022.   Cynical and destructive you say.   That's your present Republican party and that is what it will do if allowed to.

A new day dawns

      It took a while and it was messy, but that is one of the enduring traits of a democracy.   Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have been elected the the presidency and vice presidency of the USA.   Propelled by a coalition of black, brown, yellow and whites, Biden overcame Trump and Republicans as well as an alarming number of white nationalists and cultists who cobbled together over 70 million  voters in opposition.

      While most Democrats and independents heaved a sigh of relief, the election was not as close as media made it appear.   This has encouraged Trump and some other dead enders to continue to challenge the results.    After a weekend of golf and twitter, Trump is threatening to go with more rallies in  disputed states.   

      Personally, I am more than ready to put this sordid chapter of American history behind me, but I think we all need to keep Trump and what he represents  in mind as the calendar rolls around to 2024.

More tired than Godot

        Still waiting for a definitive result from the last few states still counting every vote so Joe Biden can put bandage on the wounds inflicted on American democracy over the last 5 years.

        This election has proven that tribalism has superseded patriotism as the number one driver in our politics.   Political polling has taken another hit, perhaps more devastating than it did in 2016.   Pollsters are obviously not catching the political zeitgeist as we sort ourselves into 2 very different tribes; one, the Democrats who for the most part have embraced a multicultural democracy and two, a Republican party which longs for a return to a rose colored 1950s America where everyone knew their place and white men stood at the apex of the patriarchy.   What happens next is up to all of us.

Still waiting

       We continue to wait for results in the presidential election.   The consensus is Biden still has a 90% chance of winning.  That is the equivalent of having a 10% chance an asteroid destroying the earth, but a 90% chance it will miss.

       Win or lose, as many on the left have said, the Democrats need to do a thorough soul searching regarding the meaning of the election.   Republicans have settled on the strategy of becoming the party of white grievance, much as racist Democrats in the south controlled national politics during the Jim Crow era.  Since whites will remain the dominant race in America through the middle of the century, they can effectively kill progressive reforms through legislative or judicial means for the forseeable future. 

      Democrats have chosen or have had thrust upon them the mantle of the "big tent" party.  With a small percentage of  college educated whites making up about 20% of the party and people of color with various ideologies making up the balance, it seems the party continues to misread the mood of the country.  Much of that is attributable to the right wing media distribution of "alternative facts" which have contributed to an alternative universe for those who want reassurance that we truly live in a 1950's bubble where white supremacy is unquestioned and "those people" know their place.

      The Dems undoubtedly have the right strategy in the long term.  However, as Keynes' said, "In the long term, we will all be dead".  We need something in the short term that will prevent President Tom Cotton from taking us to the apocalypse in 2024.

Are we broken

        I know, virtually anyone reading this blog will agree with 95% of what I believe regarding politics.  Most of us are liberal democrats of a certain age.   We mostly believe in progressive programs including racial and economic justice.   We also believe, somewhat naively it would appear, a majority of our fellow citizens feel the same way.  That seems to have been disproven across wide swaths of the country last night.

       Bidding to become the first impeached president to be re elected, Donald tRump played to another inside straight.   He won most of the former confederacy by appealing to the many racists who still worship the stars and bars.  He also appealed to the prejudices of the vast swath of rural America which retains outsize political power in states like the Dakotas and Missouri.   It was a pure politics of grievance campaign and as we roll into the day after election day this racist, misogynistic, ignorant buffoon is within a few votes in Pennsylvania of another 4 years of misrule.

      I don't know what to say, but to me it feels like the instant between when a plate drops and hits the floor.   Can we catch it before it breaks?  I surely hope so.

Today and tomorrow

       No matter what happens today, the sun will come up tomorrow and the day after.   We may not know who our next president will be until later this week, but whoever it is, we must continue the fight for equal rights, economic justice and progress.   It will be harder under the present administration, but it must continue.   

       However, first things first.   If you are reading this blog, you have probably voted already.  If you haven't, please do.   Join the rest of us in exercising our most basic right.

Homestretch

      Sorry about the lack of blogging for the last 10 days.   Having your knee replaced with plastic and titanium is not the most pleasant way to spend a day.   Feeling much better 10 days out, so on to more important subjects.

       In a normal world. Joe Biden would be measuring the Oval Office for new drapes.  Unfortunately we don't live in a "normal" world and an increasingly desperate tRump campaign is pulling out all the stops with incidents of voter intimidation are multiplying by the hour.   Many voters tomorrow will be voting literally under the guns of so called militia members in states like Michigan.   I think most of these ploys will be unsuccessful.   I'm doubting many of the so-called Proud Boys will be showing up in Detroit to intimidate voters.   They will be sticking to areas where there is an overwhelming white electorate.  

      The far more insidious and out in the open strategy for tRump is to wait until tomorrow night and as soon as he has a lead in enough states, he will declare victory and try to shut down vote counting.  This is the real threat to our democracy.   We will need republicans to stand up and rebuke the president*.