Cool Tuesday. Fall gardens. Political assholery.

The weather people have taken the rain out of the forecast till the weekend.  I should get some more done in the gardens.  I have decided to pick all of the remaining tomatoes (Amish paste and Super Sauce) and let them ripen on the kitchen counter.  Out on the patio they are ripening slowly and unevenly.  I plan to let the few small bullnose peppers ripen and take the seeds.  Otherwise I will have to order new next year.  The cypress vine, chocolate mint and grapefruit mint are history.  I pulled them over the weekend.  Next year I will put in other mint varieties to join my peppermint and spearmint.

Thanks, Kay.  We were disappointed but things like that happen.  We are considering other tours and, perhaps, some short week-end trips within the state and a couple of neighboring states.  I hear you about next year's mid-term elections.  But I don't see anyone to vote for.  If I vote, I will be voting against every damned Repthuglican I can.  The only exception will be our Republican mayor who is doing a good job at what he was elected to do.

I watched the Moyers & Company show which featured Wendell Berry and found Moyers' comments on our current political quagmire at the end right on target.  He reminisced about the time he worked for politicians in Washington and the changed attitude between those politicians and the present crop.  Then, he said, the different parties and factions fought hard and debated vigorously about issues and legislation but at the end they voted.  They then accepted the vote and moved on.  Those against the way the vote went might, if they had a case, try to bring the issue before the Supreme Court.  But, once the Court ruled, the matter was settled.  Key here is that the parties did what the public sent them to Washington to do--they governed.  They didn't engage in political sabotage or passive-aggressive delaying tactics.  For the past decade or so nothing is settled any more.  It seems to me that politicians used to have a healthy respect for the political processes and institutions--even when they didn't have control of those processes and institution or over the final outcome.  Now we have a significant group who don't respect the legitimacy of what they don't control or of outcomes with which they disagree.  Do we have democracy anymore.  I don't think so.

By the way, the entire episode is interesting.  If you want to take a look you can find it here.

I had a thought as I watched the news last night which featured a sound bite from the Stephanopolus interview with John Boehner on Sunday.  Boehner insisted that he didn't have the votes in the House to pass a "clean" continuing resolution or debt ceiling bill.  My first reaction was to ask if he meant that he really didn't have the votes or if he didn't have the Repthuglican votes to pass it without any help from Damnocrats.  That has been a widely debated issue as this article shows.  What really drives me bats is that Boehner is supposed to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives not just the Speaker of the Republicans in the House of Representatives.  And right now I don't think he is either in anything but name.