May 7

Hello, on this cool May morning day (I just noticed it is  a few minutes after noon so no longer morning. We had sun early and now clouds are moving in. I did get everything I wanted to do done in the gardens. The last plants, petunias, put into the tower pots and pulled the woad and sage. The sage had been trying to come back after the winter but the frost really set it back. I didn't intend to harvest any this year so I decided to pull it to make way for something else. The woad did very nicely but it is well past the optimum age if I wanted to try to dye with it. I don't and it isn't really a pretty blooming plant. Again I opened up space for something else. It is still a bit too cool to plant the seeds

May 8

Oh well, the day has started in a mixed mode. The plants already in the planters, including the tomatoes and peppers, did well even though the overnight temperatures fell just above freezing. In fact we had frost on the roofs. That was the good. The bad was finding a mistake on that table topper I have been crocheting and had to take out completely after a bit more than 40 rounds. This time I had to take out a full round because I missed a part of the pattern. I put it away for now.

Some time ago I noticed that our political system has been exhibiting some of the attributes of a religion. This is especially true of what used to be the Republican Party. Clinging to an orthodoxy is the more important that anything else. Right now the orthodox Republican position is that The Former Guy won and was cheated out of his rightful second term. That swindle was accomplished by wide spread voter fraud and our election systems need to be reformed. The Party has canonized The Former guy almost to the point of deification. Anyone who doesn't agree with the current orthodoxy is a heretic and The Party is purging those from positions of influence. There is no place for anyone saying anything that isn't what the Maralago Vatican approves. 

 May 9

Happy Mothers' Day. It is very wet outside with the rain providing rivers running down the curb sides of the streets. No work outside today.

As I noted above I have been watching the dissolution of the Republican Party. That process was evident at the nominating convention last year when they didn't put out a platform. Instead they simply pledged their fealty to The Former Guy and what ever he wanted. Normally, both parties would have competing blueprints for what they wanted to do with power should they win the election. They proposed no values, no ideas, and no programs.

May 10

I have been totally lazy for the last several days. I have been reading my e-mail but not wanting to post anything on it. So much in the news and in the e-mail seems so utterly repetitive it is hardly worth commenting on. Half the time I am thoroughly irritated by the commentary. Have you noticed how linguistically sloppy so many commentators are? Almost anything the Biden administration proposes is greeted with screens of "Socialism!!!" as though that were akin to child rape and murder. There is noting particularly socialist or communist about supporting child care or elder care so that women (and some men) can work in the wider economy. There is nothing particularly socialist about having a comprehensive and efficient health care system. Or about a broad education system. I haven't seen any proposal that would eliminate private ownership of any of the components. No one is saying that we have to have a government take over of hospitals or clinics or doctors' offices. The have had a long history of public education because once upon a time it was considered a benefit for our economy and society.

Continuing on that theme--how often are today's Republicans described as "conservative?" And yet ask yourselves what exactly they want to conserve? A society/economy where most people are kept barefoot, threadbare, and hungry? I hear that a number of businesses and business organizations want to end the expanded unemployment benefits arguing that they are too generous because all of us lazy untermenschen won't work for wages that don't keep body and soul together. It reminds me of apologists for slavery who insisted that their black slaves wouldn't work with out the lash being ever present and liberally used.