October 8

 Well, here we are at the end of the first week of October. Our overnight temps dipped into the high 30s. Areas west of us got their first frost or freeze. None of the remaining plants on the patio had any problem. We had to go out yesterday and saw, maybe, a dozen flocks of geese heading to wherever they will feed before going further south. I unhooked the hose last week and tried to coil it up. I say "tried" because it is so heavy and stiff. I had tried the flexible hoses about five years ago and was disappointed because none lasted more than one season. One survived into the second summer and then burst. However, I am now five years older and figure that the cost is about the same as one of the more showy plants I get each year--so I think I will give them a try again. I haven't figured out what I want to put in. I will try to resist the temptation to put peppers and tomatoes in. I got a few of each out of the two plants, one each of peppers and tomatoes, but not enough to devote limited space to. Several customers at the dairy reported that their tomato yield was disappointing both in quantity and quality. We suffered through high temperatures from late June through most of August just when the plants should be setting fruit. Neither likes temperatures above 90F for that. And when the air temperature gets that high the temperature on the patio is 110+. And once the patio temp gets higher than 85F about all outside is water the plant before I am driven inside.

The politics are still crazy. Every once in a while some talking head says on air what I have said here. When Hershel Walker was put forward as a senatorial candidate in Georgia I said the power-that-be in the party once called Republican simply wanted a black face with some name recognition and numerous flaws to counter a black pastor who had already won the seat once. Somehow the hypocrisy of a  man with four kids, none of whom he is helping to raise, with four different women one of whom claims with documents to support that he urged her to have abortions and who now claims to be anti-abortion with no exceptions. The Former Guy smeared the Republican Senate Minority Leader and his wife using what some of his more unhinged followers might think was a license to kill and anti-Chinese  words but no one on that side of the aisle (including the Minority Leader himself) called him out. The politicos of both parties are now at home campaigning and the Republicans are continuing the hypocrisy by touting the benefits their areas will get from legislation they voted against. I wish I could say I am optimistic about things changing but I am not.

The news commentators, for the last few days, have spent a lot of time dissecting Putins threat to use "all" his options, including tactical nukes, in his "special military operation." He has ensured he can claim an existential threat to Russia with his ersatz referendum in the occupied areas of Ukraine and his subsequent annexation of Ukrainian territory--an annexation even his allies aren't recognizing. Most of the analysts have repeatedly gnawed the "will-he-or-won't-he" bone usually coming down on the side of he won't because there isn't any evident advantage to Putin to carry out the threat. I hope those guys are right. However, this is a prime example of the MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) doctrine. It works if and only if both sides are singing from the same hymnal. Thirty years ago I wondered what would happen if one side or the other was operating on assumptions the other couldn't fathom. What if one side figured that in any such exchange of doomsday weapons they would win if they had more survivors than their enemy. Or if one side said "F##k it. Kill 'em all (or as many as we can) and let God (or Allah, or Whoever) sort 'em out while we are welcomed into heaven, or paradise." Or if a leader thinks his position is so precarious that he has to go to a grand and utterly necessary gesture.

Hurricane Ian has handed us and the people in Florida a hell of a clean up and reconstruction. The death toll is around 135 as of this morning second to the Katrina total 12 years ago. I have heard at least 1 property insurance company has folded and more might. But after every one of these storms the remaining companies either pull out or hike their rates to previously unheard of levels. De Santis called it a 500 year flood event but it is at least the third such event in the U.S. this year. For much of the last week the unspoken assumption was that they would rebuild though someone toward the end asked if they should given the increased likelihood of more such storms in the near future.

One of the bloggers I read wrote e the "quiet quit" phenomenon in which younger workers decide that the ethos of doing whatever their employer wants whenever it is demanded, of doing some tasks off books, and sacrificing family/friends whatever is no longer worth it. I have read accounts of similar attitudes in European countries and the author of the blog reminded his readers of the Japanese phenomena of "hikkikomori" and "arubaito" the later of which I wasn't aware. Both reject the normal expectation that people will work hard for the promised rewards of a "good life" in the future. Many are realizing that the "good life" is always just out of reach and most won't ever get even close to it. The Chinese government is dealing with a similar phenomenon in the "lying back" and "let it rot" movements. During my lifetime the world of work has gone from "working hard to make a living," to "working hard to barely scrape by", to "working yourself to death to not make a living at all." And through it all the blame has been placed on the individual not on the society/economy. Many individuals are recognizing the con and not playing the game any longer.