Ahh! Friday.

Well, it is Friday--although it doesn't mean as much as it did when I was working and looking forward to the days I wouldn't be working.  As time has passed the old markers of the week, or month, or year have faded in importance.  There isn't much difference between the days of the week when we can schedule our work as we need rather than to fit into external work schedules.  We don't have to pack laundry, housecleaning, shopping, or whatever, onto two days.  The holidays that played so much of a part really don't anymore.  Christmas?  The commercial aspects grate on me now.  Gift giving?  Well, we were turned off when we realized how competitive our relatives are--constantly looking to see how much (in dollar values) they got versus how much another got.  I had given hand made gifts for a couple of years but stopped when I realized how little they meant to the recipients.  I guess they couldn't appreciate what they couldn't put a firm dollar value on.  Thanksgiving?  Hasn't that been lost somewhere between the buying frenzies of Halloween and Christmas?  I could say much the same for most of the holidays.

What means more to me now are the seasonal changes.  Seed starting in late winter.  Prepping the containers in early spring and setting out the plants in mid spring.  Harvesting in the fall.  Cleaning up in the late fall.  And evaluating the season in the winter while planning for the next season.  That is a lot more satisfying than the commercial cycle of the year with its constant exhortations to worship frequently at the cash register.

I agree, Kay.  The "new" stuff, more often than not, is neither really new nor fun.  I find my self trying to ignore the so-called news.  All it does is raise my blood pressure and push me into swearing a blue streak.

This, however, is very interesting.  I have remarked before that, though polls reveal a deep discontent among voters with congress as a whole, most voters were willing to "throw the bums out" except their own bums.  Evidently that may be changing with this poll.  Sixty percent of respondents said "throw the bums out--including ours."

I am absolutely amazed by how little it takes to encourage enthusiasm on the stock markets and, the media they own.  The Repthuglicans offer a six week extension of the debt limit on the promise of discussions on the budget and the Dow goes up by 300+ points and the news anchors piss themselves in giddy delight.  The government is still shut down and we get to go through this brinksmanship just before the holiday commercial season.  Oh, how the retailers will love that.  What we really need is a budget--a real budget not a continuing resolution--honestly negotiated and voted on.  And maybe a return to the Gephardt rule which required that all spending bills that automatically raised the debt limit to ensure they are paid for--one way or another.

Every once in a while the situation in Afghanistan comes to the fore in the media.  The stalled negotiations with the Karzai government over the conditions governing the U.S. military presence in the country.  I think the U.S. ought to use the zero option and get all troops out.  We wouldn't have to worry about the restrictions the Afghan government wants to impose and will negate any open ended security promises.  We have spend I don't know how many trillions of dollars on George Bush's war and lost more people (our own people) than we lost during 9/11 itself.  What a piss poor return on investment!!