Good day to you all on a nice sunny Saturday.  It may not last--they say we might get light snow (a trace to a couple tenths of an inch) followed by light freezing rain later.  Unfortunately, it won't be enough to break our very dry conditions.  The Drought Monitor still has us in moderate drought.  I haven't checked the gardens in a while.  The last couple of light snows have left a layer of crusty, icy snow on them.  Because the patio area is in deep shade from autumn equinox to spring equinox so it doesn't get warm enough to melt it all.  Even though we are going to have temps in the high 30s and low 40s (F) over the next week.

Glad you stopped by, Lois.  Most of the stories I saw about alternative currencies didn't involve changing U.S. currency.  There isn't (as far as I know) any efforts to change that.  Most of the alternate media of exchange are local.  See this Wikipedia listing of various local communities that have or have had local currencies.  You can follow the links to read about the specific communities.  Often the communities established the local currencies to facilitate barter in areas that had a serious economic downturn just as the Greek communities have done.  However, several states are also looking at or already have established their own currencies, often convertible to gold and silver (which the U.S. paper dollar isn't and hasn't been since the 1970s), because of concerns over the actions of the Federal Reserve and the U.S. debt.  See this CNN article from last February for more info.  It is an interesting topic and doesn't usually make it into the mainstream media.

Actually, Gerda Lerner was the mother of Women's History.  We forget that not all that very long ago most historians were white men who wrote history assuming that the history they experienced reflected the experiences of everyone.  Not many make that assumption any more.  The Women's Movement, the Civil Rights Movement, etc., changed that.  Everyone may experience the big events of the time but the experiences differ and since the late 1960s and early 1970s  historians have had to recognize that fact--some more willingly than others.

I followed the economic news on the retail sales season just concluded with a feeling of skeptical disbelief.  All of the pundits enthused about the vigorous Christmas season and how it would show how nicely the economy was recovering.  Well, I wondered about that and this article shows why.  Some sectors of the economy are recovering but it isn't my sector.  And, since there is a lot more of my kind of people in this country than there is of those doing well, I would say the recovery is somewhat illusory.