Last day of January

We have snow--a lot of snow. They say that we should have between 6 and 10 inches by the time the system moves out later, much later, today. I haven't seen any snow removal going on and don't intend to do any myself today.

David Kaiser has a good History Unfolding post this morning. Much of what he describes I saw through a long association with academia studying history. 

February 1--Ground Hog Day Eve

I spent most of the weekend getting a shopping bag of cloth strips into some kind of order and winding the strips onto some cores I saved from crochet thread I finished over the last few months. I cut them from old sheets a good long time ago and simply hadn't gotten around to using them. And reading of course. I have become so thoroughly disgusted with the politics and some of the crackpots on the Republican side I have cut back drastically on my news watching. What was that Shakespeare quote--Oh, yeah, "sound and fury signifying nothing." The politics of this nation has become increasingly unmoored from the reality I see in my worm's eye level and increasingly antagonistic and unproductive.

Today I will have to spend some time shoveling a path on the patio from the door to the fence gate. We got about 6-8 inches with drifts going to 2 feet. The wind did part of our clearing by blowing the snow off the car.

Right now I am reading what usually comes in on my e-mail including the latest Tomdispatch.com. Engelhardt is five years older than I am but much of what he describes is lived experience for me also and I have also noted both the trajectory and the tall pile of ironies. But I have another take on the history of the last century: human events have momentum and once the direction is set they will continue until something of equal magnitude causes a change in direction. The imperial presidency has been gaining momentum since the Great Depression when the Federal Government took on tasks that had been reserved for the states which couldn't meet the needs of the people. There is another concept that might be employed here also: diminished returns on investments. As the Federal government has grown in size and demands more of our economic output the returns people receive for that investment decline. And the situation is made worse because the wealthy and well connected people and corporations skim off most of the economic gains and the governmental outlays.

Happy Ground Hog Day--

After I cleared that path to the gate I didn't really feel much like doing much else--so I didn't do much else. We have light snow right now. Blast!!! We weren't supposed to get any more. We hope our landlords will get our parking areas cleared today. If so we can go shopping tomorrow. Actually the only stop we need to make is the dairy; everything else is in good shape for another couple of days. Usually we grumble about these heavy snowfalls but I realized that there is one upside to it. Most of my containers are under 3-4 feet of snow so they are well insulated. That should help the dianthus, roses, woad and madder.  And perhaps a couple of other plants that might be able to come back in the spring.

For some time now I have read posts trying to outline how we might end these "forever wars" that don't accomplish anything and costs a hell of a lot of money that could be better spent on things here at home. William Astore at Tomdispatch.com gives it another try this morning. I haven't seen any ability on the part of enough of the people in position to actually do something to think out of the box we have been in since the Soviet Union imploded. (Some might say since the Cold War began.) The same problem seems endemic in the Washington politicians generally--the inability to get beyond the group think that have dominated our political philosophies and programs is as pervasive as ever.