April 28

 Here we are nearly at the end of April. We had a couple of very warm days last weekend with temperatures in the 70s and low 80s. Very above normal for this time of the year. I took advantage of the conditions to clean up and transplant my clumps of chives which survived for two winters outside without any real protection. I put them in individual pots and put the pots on the fence hangers. Neither of my mums survived though they looked promising before the freeze we had a couple of weeks ago. My valerian, bee balm, and chamomile are coming back strong despite the freeze. I think one of my rosemary plants is putting out new growth. I should probably cut back the growth to force the plant to put its efforts into lower growth for a more compact bush. I saw a carpet of seedlings just popping up in the container where Japanese indigo sprouted last year. I wondered then if the plants had seeded themselves from the year before and let those seedlings alone to see if the plants came up from the roots or from new seeds from the plants. The question is settled--they self-seeded. I plan to plant some seeds in the containers on the fence which get the most light and warm up the quickest. We'll see what comes up.

Tom Nichols has a nice rant on his Peacefields newsletter in the Atlantic: Pharmaceutical Ads Give Me Hives. I can agree totally. Here we have long complained about TV ads, including the ones from the drug companies. How often do the contraindications of those drugs (up to and including "death") sound worse than the symptoms described by the ad? But my hatred of the ads goes far beyond the drug pushers. I remember when an hour show was a full 50 minutes of program with only 10 minutes of commercials. Then we noticed that the show had shrunk to maybe 40-45 minutes. Now, I swear that we get 30 minutes of program in every hour, if we are lucky, while the rest of time we suffer through time companies have bought to try to sell us on products we don't want or need, or guilt us into giving to their favorite charity. (Don't misunderstand me--these charities are worthy causes but we have only a limited bit of money and give what we can to those we choose. I am annoyed by the constant demands for money.)

I have had an interesting thought over the last several months. There has been a strong strain of nostalgia in political affairs for while now. We saw it in the Brexit movement which was fundamentally wanted to go back to a time when Britain has full sovereignty over its affairs, especially immigration and economics. Number 45's pledge to "Make America Great Again" also was a nostalgic desire for an unspecified "Eden" from which we have fallen. Both Russia's Putin and China's Xi are also looking backwards to "better" days when they were prosperous and respected internationally. Reports say Putin admires Stalin and the "Great" Czars so presumably those are the eras to which he aspires to return Russia. Xi might be looking back to the time before the "Century of Humiliation" when China was the center of the world--in their minds if not in reality. Problem is that the pasts they are dreaming of were ever as "great" as they think.

Gizmodo had this item from a couple of days ago. I heard about India's heat wave earlier today on BBC. Expecting temperatures in the 40's C. Not good so early in the year that has already seen the warmest March in the 122 years they have been keeping records. The BBC reporter said that they haven't had rain for about two months during a period when they usually get heavy rains off the Arabian Sea and the heat may reduce the wheat harvest.

April 19

Sunny--well sort of, off and on--but chilly. At least we didn't get the rain that looked probable earlier when we went out to do our grocery shopping. We did all of it today which has left us pretty well done in.

I noticed that there was something of a celebratory mood in the news stories about the return of the Boston Marathon to its normal season with a whole lot of celebrity runners and the return of full 9-inning double headers in baseball. Same can be said for the cheers greeting the announcement that the mask mandates had been struck down in a court in Florida. The two-week extension the Federal government had announced was out the window. They aren't likely to appeal. Everyone is so ready for this pandemic to be over even if it isn't really. I found this piece from Politico Nightly which says pretty much that. The more I read what was coming out the more I thought it would 1) become endemic, 2) be more like a seasonal flu with some variation, 3) and we would simply have to live with it. I expect that we will see public health advertising urging people to get an annual (or semi-annual)vaccination just like we see for flu and other diseases. And I expect a similar percentage of our population (around 45%) will get their covid shot as those who get the flu shot. And only if it is still free.

This is an interesting announcement from our county Elections and Registration Commission by way of the Public Library. Now voters in our county can vote in any polling place in the county and not just in one single polling place. It doesn't make much difference to us since we live within walking distance of our polling place but I imagine it might for others.

April 18

Hope you all had a happy Easter. We had a pleasant dinner with my brother, his son and grandsons. We are always amazed about how those two boys are growing--grandpa is now the shortest member of the family and my grandnephews will soon be taller than their dad. The weather has been more early March than mid April. We woke to a thin layer of snow on the colder surfaces. It won't last long but it is still too cold to do much more than look at the post for signs of life which several are. I am still a month away from the earliest possible planting date but more likely a month and a half.

I have been lazy and haven't read much today. However, I did find this piece by David Kaiser this morning and went over it twice. He says number of things that reflect similar ideas Andrew Bacevich expressed in a longer form in After the Apocalypse which I finished yesterday. Bacevich doesn't use Strauss and Howe's generational turnings framework but the notion that seismic shifts in the U.S. and the world are in progress and will continue for sometime. Kaiser, I think, defines his time periods too narrowly. The crises he refers to (Revolution/writing of the Constitution, Civil War, and Depression/WWII) are drawn too narrowly. The conditions that led to the new orders, or new balance, after each crisis had brewed for sometime, often decades, before the final crisis. Some historians I read talked about a time of chaos that covered WWI through the end of WWII. What we are experiencing has deep roots and won't be resolved easily. Bacevich is absolutely right in noting that the event's of his apocalypse (8/11, the economic meltdown of 2008/9, and the pandemic) are crises our current political thinking can't deal with effectively. Neither author is at all optimistic about where things are going or how they will be resolved.

April 15; April 16

 I wonder how far these "People" are willing to push this process. Are they willing to push arranged marriages, child marriages, "handmaids?" Two states have bills in various stages that lower the age of consent to marriage. Are they going to resurrect laws I read about in Louisiana as late as mid last century that allowed a husband to demand his wife's paycheck be turned over to him? Evidently they plan stealth laws that will subject the citizens of other states to their draconian, Gilead laws. Sad note that this country got rid of racially based slavery after the Civil War only to have a sexually based slavery introduced covertly today. Worse--women are less than fetuses--or perhaps even below sperm because as the song in Monty Python's Meaning of Life says "every sperm is sacred"--women, not so much.

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I didn't get back to this yesterday. 

I saw a snippet on the news this morning which claimed that Putin, in addition to warning the U.S. of dire consequences if we continued supplying the Ukrainians, is going to change the designation of his country's actions in Ukraine from a "Special Military Operation" to a "war". For Ukrainians it is pot-a-to/pot-ah-to but evidently the changes means Putin could tap a larger pool of manpower. I wonder what we, NATO, and the EU will do if he does.

CSU has put out its hurricane prediction for this year and thinks it will be somewhat busier than "normal." On tap: 19 named storms, 9 hurricanes, and 4 at a category 3 or better.

Just what we needed (not even)--an outbreak of hepatitis in U.S., U.K., Spain and Ireland has sickened children under the age of 6 (last I heard). Doctors have ruled out the usual hepatitis viruses (A through E) and are suspecting an adenovirus which is usually a respiratory virus.

Another nasty consequence of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict is a shortage of fertilizer so expect to pay more for veggies, anything made from grains, and don't forget eggs and meats from animals fed grains. 

April 14

 Half past April already and almost one third through this year. So far my thoughts last December about what 2022 would bring are pretty much on target. Covid seems to be moving from pandemic to endemic for most of us though the inhabitants of Shanghai might dispute that since they are still in a city wide lockdown. But most of the world, at least our part of the world, is trying to figure out how to live with Covid and its variants. The news this morning said that the Federal government has delayed, again, ending the mask mandate for air travel with the usual inclusion of the voices against that. We wore masks before we got our vaccinations and boosters when we were in places where we might encounter crowds which wasn't often or in the early days when most businesses required it per CDC requirements. Since the pandemic started, and for some time before, we noticed that some items in stores were in short supply. The pandemic and the "supply chain" issues didn't really surprise us. It wasn't too many years ago that the news carried stories about the shortages in parts affecting the auto industry during the floods in Thailand. We thought then that the off-shoring of our industrial capacities for the last several decades was short sighted but, as with so much else in this world, there was nothing we could do about it except observe.

The real surprise this year, and not a pleasant one, has been Russia's aggression against Ukraine and the strength of the Ukrainian resistance coupled with the total incompetence of the Russian military. I don't know where it will end. I hope it ends with Russia back inside its own borders in agony from a solid kick in their collective balls. Our media and political commentators never cease to amaze me. One recently remarked that Putin is violating all of the customary rules of war in its prosecution of its "military operation." They obviously haven't read much history. If they had they would know that Putin's behavior is not an aberration.

Speaking of supply chains this little piece of idiocy crossed my screen this morning. And the idiocy I am referring to is Governor Abbott's new "inspection" order not the truckers' response. But then Abbott has repeatedly proven that he isn't the brightest bulb out there, or the sharpest knife in the drawer, or is several sandwiches short of a picnic (or what ever euphemism you like for "dumb as a box of rocks"). This is another example.

Found this on The Bulwark. A couple of weeks ago a Russian warship demanded the surrender of a Ukrainian garrison on a small island and got this response:

Ukrainian 1: "Russian warship, go fuck yourself."

A new commemorative stamp released by the Ukrainian postal service Ukrposhta on Facebook.

I wonder if we can get a souvenir copy. By the way the ship in question was the "Moskva" the flag ship of the Russian Black Sea fleet which is being towed back to port disabled by what the Ukrainians claim was an anti-ship missile while the Russians say the ship was damaged by a fire of unknown origin which ignited ammo.

April 7

 I finally changed the wreath on the door from the winter wreath to a more springlike wreath. I think I should put together a truly spring wreath sometime over this coming year. I did see a hopeful sign that the asiatic lilies survived--a new stalk sprouting. Those are on my list for adding more to the gardens. Maybe I will put in some other spring bulbs in the fall to, perhaps, bloom next spring. Some other plants are definitely coming back while others are not yet showing life. We are still a month and a half away from serious planting season. I got out on the patio and cleaned up a bit more of the leaves left over from last fall. I used them to mulch some of my planters.  I also trimmed the dead stalks from the chamomile, bee balm and valerian which are showing good signs of growth. With a bit more sun and warmth others might also resurrect. 

In the midst of news that swings drunkenly from the miserable displays of partisan spite in Washington, to the latest tragic spate of shootings in various places to the utterly horrific (if not exactly surprising) in Ukraine a few things are getting accomplished on the personal level. Just as the gardens are coming back to life, I have managed to finished three crocheted blankets, make significant progress on two more crocheted pieces, finished several embroidered pieces (a small table cloth, table topper, and pair of pillow cases.)

Tom Engelhardt, on his tomdispatch blog, posted a piece that reflects a good bit of my thinking lately. Wars have happened on the edges of our consciousness in black and brown lands far away. Only a small fraction of our population ever fought those wars because we ended the draft more than 40 years ago.

April 5

 It looks like we will see the first female black justice on the Supreme Court. It is about time and it is a damned shame she had to be subjected to the idiotic questioning from those wing nut alleged Republicans. They complain about how "woke" the Dems are but their "anti-woke" is actually worse. I don't know whether the actually believe the crap they are spewing or if they are cynically throwing it out to sooth the wing nut base. Either way it is pathetic.

The pictures and the accounts of what has been left behind in the areas of Ukraine the Russians have vacated are horrendous but not unexpected or or surprising. We have been trying to civilize war for, probably, as long as we have had war. We haven't succeeded. Back around 1618 a Holy Roman Emperor supposedly said he would rather rule a desert than a kingdom of Protestants. The city fathers of Prague resented the demands his representatives made that they enforce Catholicism and pitched them and their secretary out of a castle window onto a dung heap. They survived but the war that started lasted until 1648 and killed about 50% of the population. Looking at the results of Putin's war I wonder if he thought the modern counterpart to that Emperor so long ago.

This William Astore piece in tomdispatch says a lot I totally agree with. We are spending, and have spent for too long, too much money on the military. We have used the military instead of diplomacy. There has been a lot of talk over the last three weeks about how badly Putin (along with Europe and the U.S.) misjudged the Ukrainians. Given Astore's account of the discussions between four generals in the West Point history class he was teaching, we have badly misjudged Putin. It looks like the "circus tiger" can bite. 

Michael Klare also has a good piece from yesterday's tomdispatch. Reading this piece I thought of two scenes in The 13th Warrior.  In the first, ibn Fadlan and his Norse companions consider the sneaky opposition of a local prince and decide they need to provide an "example" and send out one of the smaller and older of their company to engineer a duel with a much larger and younger ally of their enemy. The younger man loses to the disgust of his patron leaving ibn Fadlan to question what the whole show was for, why the deception when his companion could have dispatched the fellow at will. The lesson: anyone can calculate strength and numbers. The prince had been doing so from the moment they had arrived. However, said prince would thereafter have to wonder about 'what he couldn't see and fear what he didn't know.' Both the U.S. and Putin have been in exactly that position. The second was when the companions consult and old, "mad" woman who tells their leader that "wars are won in the will. Perhaps you are fighting in the wrong field." Russia and the U.S. both have repeatedly failed to accurately gaged their opponents will to fight.

April 3

 Welcome to April. So far it has continued the pattern set in late March: rain (sometimes with snow mixed) and rollercoaster temperatures. We have also had some high winds. Checking my gardens I found one of my mum pots showing new growth and I hope it gets through to warmer weather. The other hasn't dared to peak yet so I have no idea if it survived. The bee balm, valerian, and one of the rosemary pots are all showing new growth. I still have two of the miniature roses to take out one of which isn't showing any sign of having survived. I had such problems with the mosaic disease that I won't keep roses unless I find a variety that is highly resistant. I still have a month and a half before any transplants can be put in. However, last year I waited until mid June because the weather was either too wet or too cold. We'll see what happens this year.

Found this item early today. We have thought that the growing demand by employers for applicants to have four year degrees was ridiculous. So many jobs could be done just as well by people who have the specific training or experience needed to do the job. There has been a vicious cycle for decades now. As the number of people graduating high school increased the demand for 4 year college degrees increased because the employers used that as a culling criterion then as the number of people with such degrees increased the demand for people with master's degrees grew as a way to narrow the field. The degrees weren't necessary for the jobs but employers found it easy to narrow down the applicants without having to think too critically about the process. The process has tragically excluded large numbers of good people and loaded a lot more with student loans as they tried to meet those requirements.

I have been reading a good deal lately about a "clash of civilizations" to use the term this article uses. Whether we talk about a "multipolar" or a "multi-civilizational" world we should expect a much more complex world and, considering the Russia-Ukraine situation, much more dangerous world. Here is another article on this topic which makes some interesting points but, on first read, also posits some ideas I think need reformulation among them the definition of "civilization."