Sprung

The beauty of today pulled me out from work at a reasonable hour (out by five…). That, coupled with the genius invention of Ben Franklin that is Daylight Savings gave me many hours out in the garden. I turned everything over using the old canal wrench (shovel) the entire length of the 2010 Garden. The chickens were the happiest by far. The population of Evil Worms has been decimated, along with all of the not-so-evil worms and those that were in line for the Nobel Prize. The shifty worms found their way out of harm’s way, as expected.

Tom Petty is the Greatest Rock Star Ever

I have nothing else to say.

The Springtime Cometh

If one lives as a pessimist, you could look at the fine weather outside this weekend and say, "yes, but this may be the last spring that the earth welcomes us and does not shake us off like so many fleas because we've hurt her with global warming and pollution." That may be true, but on this first beautiful weekend of the year, anyone that thinks like that should keep their damn mouth shut and let the rest of us enjoy life for a few days.

I am four days past the anniversary of moving into this suburban farm. And just yesterday, I passed the one year anniversary of building the chicken coop. This was not the anniversary by date. This is more like one of those Incan passing-of-time anniversaries where the third moon after the solstice sort of anniversaries. I built the chicken coop on the day of the 2009 Philly Craft Beer Fest. The 2010 version of this wonderful community outing took place yesterday and it is by the passing of that yearly landmark that I say the coop is one year old. It was celebrated by moving the ladies out of the greenhouse (which is mine again) and into the great outdoors. It was also celebrated by attending the Craft Beer Fest.

Long story short regarding the Beer Fest, I bought an AmeriKilt. I am wearing it right now. I highly recommend that every man buys one.
Also, the first tomato seeds are started in the greenhouse. They were a very thoughtful gift from a friend that recently traveled to Ithaca, NY. I couldn't stop at simply starting some seeds, so the garden has been tilled for the first time this year. All of the straw, compost, and chicken poo has been rolled in a bit. Maybe four more rounds of this and we'll be ready to plant!

Until next time.

And we say it again

The fact that it is snowing like coke at an Aerosmith concert doesn’t mean that global warming isn’t real. Indeed, huge extremes in weather patterns – both hot and cold – are indicative of global destabilization of air masses. It isn’t even funny to say things like “looks like Al Gore was wrong.” Well, it would be funny if Bill Clinton said it. Or Bill Murray. Everything he says is funny. But outside of that, not funny.

Or any old Italian-American man. It would be funny just because of the accent. “Looks-a like…”. Classic.

But to the point: this is serious.

What is Broken?

This is question we should have addressed a long time ago. Broken is a very important thing to understand. And very tricky. Broken is more than a physical state of something. See, before Man, nothing was broken. Everything was as it should be. It might have been busted, or different than before, or all messed up, but it wasn’t broken until Man was there to deem it so.

Let me apologize for using the chauvinistic “Man” here. Nevermind. I’m not apologizing at all. I’m just recognizing that I’m doing it. It’s a useful enough term. Human, person… very cumbersome. And I don’t think that Man is chauvinistic anyway. But I’ve been wrong before. Give me a better word and I’ll use it.

Anyway, broken is a philosophical state. Things can still be busted, of course. I can bust my bicycle. That means, though, that I just throw it away and buy a new one. Then again, I can render my bicycle broken, then, I can try to fix it. And that is the difference.

Anything that can be broken can be fixed. Fixing it, though, never restores the exact same thing to a state where we could be convinced that it was never broken in the first place. It has changed. It had more effort put into it. It fills the same functional role, probably, but it does so in a little different way.

Let’s get right to the heart of it. The Republicans are right when they say that healthcare is broken. And it can be fixed. The same is true for everything. Everything, depending on how you look at it, is broken. It all needs fixing. Fixing is how we improve things. And everything can be better. So why not?

The Curse of Information

I know that I’m not the only one saying this, but one more outlet won’t hurt, just in case. First, let me be clear, that I am in no way saying that we should ignore facts when making decisions. Maybe an example would help: if I was to experience an earthquake, I would run into a doorjamb, which is on the face of things, the most safe place. But if, to get to that doorjamb, I had to run 100 feet through a glass-domed room when, alternately, I could just walk outside, that tiny fact would sway me to turn around and go into the yard. That one is clear. Now, what if we had something difficult, like balancing the national budget…what then? If we were to take a page out of the popular Washington publication “How to Stop All Progress”, we would shout, “what about the local municipality that can’t afford to lose ten thousand dollars of funding for jails” or “why are we budgeting extra money for snow removal for NYC but not for my district in Miami” or something else like that. In short, we’d answer with questions and offer no solutions.

And this is the curse of information. We can always run another simulation on snowfall and we can always trend early release from jail numbers one more time until the next election cycle comes around. This is why health reform isn’t inevitable anymore. Nothing is. We can stalemate until the end of days. That end of days will be hastened by our inactivity, of course, but so what?

Wait. So what? Well that isn’t very palatable, is it? How is it that our elected government can let that come to pass? Simply, because we let them. And we let them do it by our inability to stand behind something for more than a few weeks tops. Without saying that Pres. Obama should enact all of the change he promised or not, at least he had a plan! And we, as a Nation, totally abandoned him because we got nervous and wanted the numbers to be run again.

I don’t believe people could actually have let this happened in America. Sure unemployment is high, but almost everyone has had a job at least once. And for that reason, I know that all of those people must have at least an inkling that organizations require us to move forward once in awhile just to keep it alive. Could a business survive if it was run like the U.S. Government? And I’m not just talking about deficits. I’m talking about having a plan. Or at least having a set of principles that we try to balance this Nation on top of.

I wouldn’t mind if the U.S. lost its vaulted position atop the world scene if we did so doing the right thing. And if we did the right thing, I sincerely doubt we would fall in the eyes of the world. Indeed, it is our inactivity itself that threatens our democracy.

I wish I knew what to say next.

Losing the War of Gonzo Language

Sticks and stones will break my bones, but words will doom me forever. Yes, it isn’t just semantics, as the colloquialism flows. Take this: in 2008, the Republicans were the party of big spending. That last clause doesn’t mean anything. Why? Well, because the words mean nothing. What is a Republican? One that believes in small government, of course. But that doesn’t mean anything either. When you define yourself, you beliefs, or the size of your member on relative terms, you’re really saying that all you want out of life is to differ in some way from someone else. And I call you a jellyfish. Or a dead possum. Or a Republican. Or one of any Congresspersons, for that matter.

See, everyone can make themselves look better than someone else for a little while. This is why guys bring acrostic guitars to parties in college. You will, without doubt, get laid that night. But what happens at breakfast?

What I’m getting at is this: words matter. But few believe that we have to define them anymore. They have a “feel” to them that matters. Big Government is bad. Spending is bad. But reality has a bitter edge that keeps folks from sleeping at night. So a pregnant illegal immigrant will get a doctor’s full attention to give a child a chance at life. But Christ! Give her health insurance before that moment makes you a socialist swine that gives and gives until our Beautiful Nation is bankrupt! Silly.

But let’s be fair. I’m not out to destroy Republicans here. I couldn’t, since they don’t exist. It isn’t their words only that are meaningless. So are those of the Democrats. I say that because they were swept into power and did little. They did some very great things, but their failures are greater. Where do we go?

We go here. Define what matters. If you use a relevant term, you should lose. Know what you believe and fight for it. Only then will we be able to be a creative nation yet again. Because right now, all the media talks about is sex-hungry golfers and war. Neither of those things will make a better mousetrap.