Never Admit Defeat
Nor a Mistake

I once had a boss who said you should never admit a mistake because it makes you look weak. Whaaat? How can you learn if you don't recognize (and admit) failure? Seems to me that denying your mistakes is the weakness. I didn't work with him for long. I like the line in Joni's "Woodstock", But you know life is for learning. Mistakes, failures, defeats are part of the process, part of life. They should be embraced so that you grow and improve. I guess you can imagine what brought this to mind...our ole buddy, Trumpolini. But this week I really want to focus on my learning path in the garden...mistakes and improvements. I wrote a comment this week about the systemic system we've created with our greed for profit. I used my agricultural education as an example. I was taught fertilizer rates, herbicide use, animal feeding, depreciation and profit...not permaculture nor ecological farming. I was offered a lucrative job as a farm chemical rep upon graduation, but I took a low paying research position instead. It took years for me to learn to garden without chemicals, plowing, and constant weeding....production for pleasure not profit.

Freeze Tag

This week brought our first freeze of the season. We fared better than most staying in the 20's when many dropped into the teens. We had the lettuce covered with two layers of row cover, so it lives on. We sometimes manage to keep it going all winter. The cabbage, broccoli, greens and such almost always over winter here. However, we sometimes get single digit temps which zap almost everything in the garden. It has been unusually dry this season after an unusually wet summer. The climate is obviously in flux, but we've been in a sweet spot...this year. The only choice is to take it day by day and adapt as well as possible. Same thing with our economic, political, and social future. The instability of those systems have been roiled by the COVID pandemic and how it falls out is anyone's guess, but from where I'm sitting it doesn't look good. Perhaps in crisis there is opportunity.

What headlines do you want to see repeated over and over again?

Winter Is Coming for the American working-class.

Giving Thanks

There is good and bad with most things. The myth of Thanksgiving which first nations peoples describe as a “National Day of Mourning” is the bad part. The better part of the holiday (IMO) springs from the intent to be thankful for the good we can find around us. Many studies indicate gratitude leads humans to be happier and healthier.

“Gratitude is good medicine,” says Robert A. Emmons, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at the University of California, Davis and author of The Little Book of Gratitude.
“Clinical trials indicate that the practice of gratitude can have dramatic and lasting effects in a person’s life. It can lower blood pressure and improve immune function. ... Grateful people engage in more exercise, have better dietary behaviors, are less likely to smoke and abuse alcohol and have higher rates of medication adherence.”

We're being controlled, threatened with a COVID club. It provides excellent cover for outright economic thievery (transferring unbelievable wealth upward), the demolition of the few decaying social services including the post office, the increasing corruption of our elections, and more corporate control, coups, and war. I can't help but be fascinated with the nature of this virus and its reverberating effects on our society. This pandemic has revealed US incompetence on so many levels. Perhaps the people are prepared to reset the system. All the protests suggest some awareness. I hope we will find our way to the garden...some have. But of course, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

The "Fake" Economy

Oil, War, and the Petrodollar

The corona virus has upset the global economy, now the old normal. It has provided a distraction that has allowed for the transfer of trillions of tax dollars to the largest most corrupt corporations. The Fed has cranked up the presses and is pumping out dollars at an unprecedented rate. Now many people say the US dollar (USD) isn't based on anything and is just paper. However, it is based on something, oil. Ever since we cut the deal with the Saudis in the early '70's all countries must buy their oil (and many other commodities) in USD. Last week oil went negative because there is such a glut and lack of storage. So in comes the Fed propping up oil prices with our tax dollars, also boosted by Trump's threat to shoot down Iranian gunboats. How do we get out of this mess? How about a war or two?