Friday--

I got my second tray of 50 starter pots filled and watered.  I will check it later to see that the water has been absorbed and whether I should add more.  I plan to start the greens which don't like a warmer soil temp to sprout effectively.  So far I have seedlings of the tomatoes, Moldavian balm, bee balm, and savory.  The peppers and stevia are slower germinators and haven't made their appearance yet.  We have snow flurries and cold temps this morning but next week we should have more springlike temps.

Saw this this morning and could only say "Oh, crap-tastic!!"  I guess we should simply face the fact that we are all "assets" to be sold to the highest bidder when the need arises.

Saturday--

We had off and on snow yesterday--a gift of the lake effect.  But it was all very light and none of it is left as far as I can see which not much since it is still dark.  I think I saw the first of my peppers popping above the soil.  If the warm(er) temperatures actually show up next week I will start getting the patio swept clear of the winter debris and put the cover back on the mini-greenhouse.

Interesting summation of our current foreign policy and political mindset.  Not flattering.

For quite a while now I have thought that "social media" was anything but social.  In fact, it often seems incredibly antisocial.  After all how many of your "friends" on Facebook are really friends in any traditional sense of the word?  This article indicates that the phenomenon goes well beyond friends who aren't really friends with whom you have no real interaction.  Modern hermits??  To what purpose?  Early Christian hermits sought separation from a sinful world and spiritual growth in the wilderness.  I don't see anything of that in the modern variety.

Translation:  a lot more of us will be the invisible servants of the technological "shut-ins" detailed in the article above.  I read a piece some thirty years ago in which the author argued that purpose of technology was to render the process invisible.  You want light so you flip a switch and get light but the entire process which delivers the light to you is invisible.  If the modern hermits want food they call up one of the apps and prepared food magically appears at their door.  They don't even have to interact with the delivery person.  I thought at the time that wives were the ultimate technology.  Some of the more acerbic Feminists caught the same implications with their joke that wives were the devices men screwed on the bed which did all the work.  Notice that most of the "Alfreds" are female.  I wonder how much buying power these invisible servants will have in a world where money buys less and less and most of us have less and less of it.

I found this by way of the Archdruidess and tried to follow it up but found that four links on my Google search ended with a "database error" as did the one on her blog I tried to follow.  She doesn't know if it is true and neither do I but I do agree:  if true, karma has bit someone who deserves it right on his ass.  The question I have is why so many "database errors"?