Wednesday--

My get-up-and-go went AWOL soon after we finished our grocery shopping yesterday.  I got nothing done I had intended to do.  I hope to do better today.

This Politico piece is interesting for those who find language and word use fascinating.  The current frontrunner for Langenscheidt's jugenwort (youth word of the year) is "merkeln."  Yes, it does derive from Angela Merkel's name and it isn't flattering.

The  Contrary Farmer has an interesting post on the use of tiles to drain farm fields that are too wet too long to ensure planting can be done on time.  The increasing use of tiles have coincided with increasing problems with runoff washing out country and city roads, with faster flowing streams carrying a lot more debris and with increasing levels of nitrates in city water.  Unfortunately, humans wear blinders all the time.  They see only their problem and its solution not the problems their solution might cause somewhere else to someone else.  And by the time those new problems are recognize people have too much invested in the original solution to give it up easily.  Every technology is like that--it causes as many problems, or more, than it solves.

Ronni Bennett at Time Goes By has a provocative piece today that I am still digesting.  A 75-year-old British nurse traveled to Switzerland where assisted suicide is legal and ended her life.  Ronni included excerpts from the article carried in the British media in which she set out her reasons.  I don't find any of them compelling but, since I am not her, I can't really criticize her decision.  I can't walk as far or as fast as I once did but it isn't important to me.  I can't stand for long periods of time but I don't really need to so it isn't a big loss.  I don't miss being in the labor market.  Most of the jobs I had were never all that interesting and I don't want to go back into them.   I do work but my work is entirely for my self and I don't give a damn that I don't get money for it.  I have long said that I don't hate my life so much that I take any action to end it and I don't love it so much that I would do absolutely anything to prolong it.  That may change in the future but for now I will take what joy and pleasure I find and go on with it.

I really like this assessment of the Republican field of candidates.  Distinctions without differences.