Thursday, September 9, 2010

Good Morning, All. We continue our cool, dry weather--at least for now. By the weekend we may get some of the remaining rain from Hermine which has been drenching Texas for the last couple of days. How much is always a question with these systems. It all depends on how the system gets directed. The rain would be welcome because I wouldn't have to water the gardens for a couple of days but, with the cooler weather, the plants need less anyway.

I found this article on HuffingtonPost this morning. Evidently Fidel Castro has come to the conclusion (which his brother, Raul, has been saying for a little while now) that their economic system doesn't work for them anymore. I can imagine that the old cold warriors are raising a shout of joy. But my thought: Ours doesn't work for us anymore either. His assessment came in response to a reporter's question of whether Cuban style communism was worth exporting. I would ask the same of our capitalist system. But no one seems to have gone that far.

We heard on the news this morning that Toy 'R' Us is opening a slew of temporary stores to get a jump on the Holiday sales season. Our first reaction was 'Damn, it isn't even Halloween yet." MSNBC also carried the story here. One bright note in this--there will be, maybe, 10k new temporary jobs and the seasonal hiring may take off earlier than usual. I noticed last week that some stores are already putting out their Halloween merchandise. Maybe we should convert all of our holidays that haven't yet succumbed to commercialization to 'sales holidays' and be done with it.

I have been wondering what to say about the 'Pastor' and his plan to burn copies of the Koran down in Florida. Then I found that Helen at Margaret and Helen has said almost everything I was thinking and did so better than I could. Let me say that I am an equal opportunity skeptic. The idiot child pastor has decided he has to combat a 1400 year old lie while I say that we should tolerate that lie and his own 2000 year old lie as well. I find a lot of good in both religions (and others as well) but I think it is a damned shame what people have done with that good which is why I am a skeptic.

Robert Brady has a humorous post at Pure Land Mountain on the problems of dealing with insect pests in the garden. I had an infestation of Colorado Potato Beetles this spring that turned some of the leaves of my ichiban eggplants to lace before I finally got them under control. I don't go quite as far as Bob does. I turned to the pyrethrin insecticide from my local garden shop. pyrethrin is derived from chrysanthemums, breaks down quickly without a nasty residue, and rinses off easily. Also, after my experience with processing cayenne peppers for drying in the dehydrator and Mom's with getting poblanos ready to stuff and cook, I want nothing to do with a hot pepper spray. We were hacking for a week.

1 comment:

Looking to the Stars said...

I read about Castro and some of the things he said. I agree with you, neither system has worked. All of us are in trouble.

I am always shocked when they start the holiday selling so far in advance but like you, the jobs it generates is good.

I would like that Pastor to sit down and shut up. I read that the government told him not to do this because it would cause harm to our troops. The last thing I heard is that he has put off doing it for awhile. don't know if that's true. You echo my belief in relgion also :)

take care :)