September 15

Really cool this morning but a welcome change from the heat. I haven't had a productive day so far. Only spent half an hour on the tablecloth on the embroider frame. I switched to a small crochet doily but realized near the last row that I had made a serious mistake on the second row and had to unravel it back to the beginning. The rest of the day won't be much more productive because we are waiting for a call from the auto shop that the car is done and ready for us to pick up. It went in yesterday primarily to fix a problem with the turn signals but they found a problem with the sway bars.

Reading today:

    Rusty Guinn at Epsilon Theory: The Projection Racket (part 1). How people lose their freedoms and we are well along the way.

    Treehugger: I Have Seen the Restaurant of the Future, and It Scares Me. I haven't been in a Burger King or McDonalds in 13 years (since I last had a job). We stopped going to the KFC about the same time and haven't visited a Steak 'n' Shake in at least five years--not even for their shakes. Depending on what happens with the economy and covid we may not even go to a sit down restaurant. We haven't been to one of them since January.

Mattea Kramer at TomDispatch: Isolation and Opioids During the Pandemic. Some months ago the Guardian had an article about "shit-life syndrome" and the upswing in both addiction and suicide. I looks like life has become shittier for many on the bottom. The last sentences are depressing.

September 16

We picked up the car just before 11am yesterday and it is running well. I didn't do much else. I got into Susan Wittig Albert's Death Come Quickly and then finished it this morning. I then went out and cleaned out the old 5 gal buckets that I wanted to get rid of. I am culling my gardens a bit and they are both the oldest buckets (showing the most wear and tear) and the last of the bottom draining buckets. All the others I out the drain holes in the sides. I had to cut the root mass for both the peppermint and the yarrow to pull the plants. I managed to save about two-thirds of the soil. But the process has me re-thinking my plans for what I will put in and where next spring. Both plants were finishing their second year in the garden and their roots went deep; The peppermint all the way to the bottom and the yarrow down about 8 inches. Right now I am going to catch up on all the stuff on the computer I didn't get to yesterday.

So, here is what I am reading today:

Phillip Baker at Naked Capitalism: The Rise of Ultra-Processed Foods and Why They're really bad for our health. We have been reading about ultra-processed foods for some time. About 15 years ago we eliminated as much of the processed foods as possible. That was well before the concerns about the ultra-processed foods rose. Almost everything we eat is made from scratch and what is commercially produced is as close to homemade as possible.

ProPublica: New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States. Saw this a little earlier today and found it again.

Emily Cadman at Bloomberg: Sydney's New Suburbs Are Too Hot for People to Live In. I have seen articles about areas of the Persian Gulf, coastal India and other places where the temperatures have reached deadly levels over the last several years. Just a week or two ago places in California reached new records of about 121F. Chicago has had 20+ days at or above 90 so far this year.