May 14

Well, we went out on Thursday and visited a couple of our favorite garden centers. I got the petunias transplanted in the three-tier tower yesterday and one of the hibiscus. The hibiscus is already blooming. Today I got the two dahlias put in before I ran out of steam. I don't force things any more so the rest will get in as I get the in. I still have basil, sage, oregano, spearmint, peppermint, a miniature rose, two marigolds and a couple of other plants I forget the name of which I haven't grown before. I know I said I wouldn't put in roses again after the problem I had last year with the mosaic disease. However I like roses so I think, if necessary, I will treat them as annuals. It looks like the clouds are moving in so we might get the rain this morning's forecast promised.

The news is all about the baby formula shortage. Mothers are going bonkers (none of the fathers were interviewed) often going to multiple stores and coming up empty. Axios has a long article on the situation. We had a couple of offbeat observations on the problem. First--people, it seems to us, have become too dependent on being able to go to a store at any time and pick anything the need or want and have no idea of how to work around not being able to find it. Several years ago, before the pandemic, we often found it difficult to find some items we especially like or use frequently in  our usual stores. Our response was to check out other places that might carry them. And, just in case, I checked out how those items might be made at home. We also started carrying a couple of extras so we were less likely to run out. Second--people are overly dependent on expert opinion. I am old enough I was never fed formulas. When we lived in southern Illinois with my grandparents, Mom fed us raw cow's milk from the cows our grandparents raised. Experts today would be horrified and one this morning strongly recommended not feeding a baby cow's milk. I did a quick search and found several sites with recipes for using goats milk (liquid and powdered) and canned milk using additions we used to keep on hand at home. Nobody seems to ask what people did when they didn't have the modern convenience of powdered specially concocted formula for their babies.

Just saw this Crooks&Liars post which doesn't surprise me at all. Throughout the pandemic commercial interests wanted their workers on the jobs and their businesses open at all costs (to others). How often did we see the stories hailing the "essential" workers who were also the most underpaid and could least afford to be absent whatever the risk to themselves and their families and friends? Some employers did give a "hazard" pay bonus but rescinded it as quickly as possible. 

I saw a report that Justice Clarence Thomas insisted that the court shouldn't be "bullied" into making decisions that simply agree with popular sentiment. He also bemoaned how the respect accorded our institutions, including the Supreme Court, has eroded. However, I think his attitude is a patronizing one of telling all of us "shut up and sit down." I don't care much for patronizing men telling me what they think is best thereby short circuiting my decision making. I have always resented religious bigots who want to impose their religiously based standards on me and that resentment has only intensified in my old age. As so many commentators have remarked laws against abortion didn't abolish abortion and the new laws being passed in anticipation as well as the zombie laws still on the books won't either. The same way Prohibition didn't abolish alcohol but just drove it underground. As Ken Burns said in his miniseries, we became "a nation of scofflaws." As the last two years of COVID regulations and mandates showed that spirit is still alive and vigorous.