77 bar falls 30.01 1mph SW dew-point 50 Summer, pleasant
Waxing Crescent of the Thunder Moon
Sometimes coincidence says things that would have not occurred to me:
Larry Harmon, longtime Bozo the Clown, dead at 83.
Former Sen. Jesse Helms dies at age 86.
Mulch goes down today. Old leaves and grass clippings from last year stored in plastic bags. Straw baled on a farm. Organic matter that will blend into the soil, enrich it and give it better composition. Before it does that, it will suppress weeds and keep the soil beneath it cooler, helping plants fight the extremes of summer heat. An all purpose good deal, mulch.
A columnist referred to the 4th as the happiest of holidays. It has sparklers, band music, cookouts, fireworks and family gatherings. As for me, a solid northern European intellectually, I find it a sober holiday. Our government, at its least competent level in decades, has not made tiny, forgivable, do over mistakes; no, they have blundered on the world stage as well as the domestic. They have tanked the economy, made citizens suspicious of Washington, politicized the judiciary and made WC Fields and Mark Twain look like optimistic boosters. On the foreign affairs we have reversed and three upped Teddy Roosevelt. Now we speak loudly and shoulder nuclear RPG’s.
In light of this July 4th is, for me, a time to redouble my own efforts to bring down these clowns (apologies to Larry Harmon, mentioned earlier) and to change policy at the national, state and local levels. My own focus now is the natural world, the world that can go along on its own without human interference, if it does not have human interference, that is. In times past issues of war and peace, civil rights and economic justice were stage front in my political world. They remain critically important, but I choose to pass that torch to another generation of activists.
On a lighter note I look forward to charcoaled hamburgers, potato salad, corn on the cob and cold watermelon when Kate comes home. We also have a cache of sparklers to set out in the yard and light. Star spangledness will live on in our Andover backyard.
