Hello, Everyone.  The weather people say we should have a line of thunderstorms move through here ahead of a cool front.  I don't know how much I will get done in the gardens today before the rain comes in.  I am not in a great hurry.  I pulled two of the tomatoes yesterday and will package up the stewed tomatoes I cooked up yesterday.  Things are definitely slowing down.  Last week one of the weather people teased his summer/heat loving colleagues by telling them that summer was over--solar summer that is.  Solar summer is that period when the most solar energy hits earth.

Ruth Marcus has a good opinion piece in the Washington Post this morning.  She specifically addresses the dueling slanders each side is leveling at the other.  However, it doesn't matter which issue one looks at the pattern is the same.  As Marcus puts it,

The laws of political gravity drag every debate from the lofty realm of ideas to the grungy plain of invective. The more complex and weighty the issue, the more it is at risk of being distilled — distorted — into a 30-second caricature.

That is why I watch the news now with the remote in hand and hit the mute button when the campaign 'news' comes on.  I am tired of the invective and the sound bits which take up time that could be devoted to a serious consideration of issues.  I am also tired of the 'he said, he said' nature of the campaign as though every outrageous statement has to be 'balanced' by an equally outrageous statement from the other side.  That is supposed to be 'fair and balanced'????