Good morning, everyone. Well, we are well into our heat wave. The weather people have 90s posted for this entire week. That is what we had over the weekend and we basically shut everything up. We did our weekly shopping early this morning--as soon as we finished our coffee. I opened the patio door and shut it immediately. The thermometer registered 80 and the humidity was suffocating. I did relent and let Kuma out but even he didn't want to stay outside. I got everything well watered but I have to keep a close eye on the plants. The plants in the north east containers started to wilt yesterday afternoon in spite of the watering I did in the morning. I may have to plan on watering some of these beds twice a day. So far the tomatoes aren't showing the signs of heat stress as they did last year.

We are celebrating in spite of the heat. Our favorite summer farmer's market has opened. We will start making it part of our weekly marketing routine.

I have been watching the unfolding soap opera of the News of the World scandal. I notice that the news media are concentrating on the phone tapping aspect but are virtually ignoring other aspects that, to my mind, are more important. First, the corruption of the law enforcement agencies. The resignations and arrests because of the alleged bribery among Scotland Yard and the London Metropolitan Police officials have received a passing mentioned. But none focus on what it means for a society when a rogue company has enough money and power to corrupt law enforcement. Second, there was a bare mention of the allegation that Murdock's company was powerful enough to corrupt the political process. He owns enough of the largest British news outlets that he could seriously damage the careers of any politician who did something he didn't like. The phone hacking is serious and it is highly illegal but the matter of how Murdock's reporters got away with their criminal activities for so long is even more important. And I don't for a moment think News of the World is the only part of the Murdock empire involved.