Well, here it is.  Monday yet again and now the middle of October.  We wondered yesterday where time goes.  It just seems to disappear into thin air.  I don't know how much I will find to comment on but we'll see.

I finally made a decision about the last of the herbs and will try to overwinter the lavender and one of the lemon balm.  That means I will have three tented containers: one with the blueberries, one with the lavender and lemon balm, and one with the roses, mums, and thyme.  We may get some more mums flowering from the new sprouts that have come up since they were transplanted into their present position.  All I have left to clean out are the impatiens in the flower box on the table and the container with the last of the lemon balm, basil, and some marigolds.  I got the greenhouse (sans cover for now) straightened up and most of what was there put in the shed.  The gardening is almost thoroughly done--except for the end of year assessment.

I noticed the news media (local and national) still have a problem understanding the Occupy Wall Street movement.  One of the local reporters asked one of the demonstrators, who had just said she lost her job that day, when they would end their demonstration and 'go back to their lives.'  My thought: it would be nice if she had a life to go back to.  But, in this society and economy, those who have lost their jobs have lost a large part of their lives and any means of funding what remains.

Herman Cain's incredibly callous and self-righteous statement this weekend telling those who were demonstrating that if they were out of work or poor to blame themselves and not business or the banks reminded me of a discussion a friend and I had about 15 years ago.  It was one of those intense 'meaning of life' as we both worked through seismic changes in our lives and covered everything that was wrong in our lives and the world.  We came to an interesting conclusion: neither of us liked either major political party.  We didn't like the Republicans because they tended to insist on individual responsibility for everything--even for events that the individual had no control over--while absolving society at large for any sins of commission or omission.   And we didn't like the Democrats because they tended to blame society for everything while absolving the individual.  Things haven't changed much.  However, I will say that when in doubt we should make the most charitable assessment.  After all, the Bible did say that of faith, hope, and charity the latter was the greatest.  I guess our Christianist Repthuglican idiots trying to convince us they should be President for got that part of the Bible.

This little article is more than somewhat misleading.  It asks how many taxpayers would be paying if the cap on the amount of earning subject to the withholding were lifted.  Not many, is the author's answer.  Problem--true not many more individuals would be paying.  However, we a talking about individuals who earn about 60% of the income.  That is a lot of money and that is the real crux of this issue.  Not the individuals because all individuals pay on their income up to $106K (if I remember rightly) so no one is really escaping the tax.  It is the lion's share of the income that is escaping the tax.  As my Dad always said: figures don't lie but liars figure.  And this article present's one big lie.

I am amused by the pundits who are shaking their heads because incomes and home prices seem to have slid--again.  The recession ended, they say, two years ago.  OMG are we facing a double or triple (in the case of housing) dip?!!?  I am amused because I have said since they announced the end of the recession that their mathematical model was screwing them up and didn't reflect reality.

Charles Hugh Smith at oftwominds has a nice entry in the 'reality vs illusion' file.  I noticed that almost the first story on the morning news was a report that Merkel and Sarkozy had a new plan to cure Europe's 'debt problem.'  Again, I thought, and was amazed that the stock market went up by better than 200 points from the open.  The European debt problem (sovereign and otherwise) is no more solved than our debt problems (also sovereign and otherwise) but we have a lot of people who obviously prefer the illusion to the reality.