Our Language is Broken

At various times in my life, I was, or, maybe, I tried to call myself a conservative and other times I called myself a liberal. I've finally seen and heard enough to say conclusively that I have no idea why I wasted my time trying to understand which one of those things I am. I'll go a step further on this, dear anonymous reader, that what I have to say is the same for you, regardless of what you believe. Ready? Let's go…


The first thing we should realize is that our language must reflect what is real and what we feel instead of trying to make what is real and what we feel fit our language. So we need to start by at least allowing for the possibility that there isn't a magic line out there with the left hand side being liberal and the right hand side being conservative and people fall somewhere along on that line.

Ok, but let's start assuming that line exists. How do I know where I fall on that line? Principles? Let's try that. My principle is that we should protect life. Easy principle, right? So when I think we should protect life, that means that we should not kill people for crimes no matter how heinous. Neither should we celebrate abortion as a form of birth control. Rather, we should try to ensure no woman (or no family, really) finds itself in need of an abortion. But, of course, once someone is to the point of whether she should have an abortion or not, I have nothing to do with that decision. To me, that protects life. I like life. You could say I am certainly not Anti-Life and am thus Pro-Life. So my principle on the face falls to the conservative side of the line but the actual implementation of those principles look liberal. On that alone, I'll say the whole line idea is broken and there is no line.

What is there, then? Here again I need to interject an assumption: I assume we need government. I see government as, essentially, a union that all Americans are part of (taxes are dues???). It's the one entity that has no other goal than to look out for our well-being in every single aspect. Pharmaceutical companies look out for our well-being in the doctor's office, but what if the factories themselves pollute? Car companies look out for our well-being by allowing us to get up and move, but what if the cars aren't safe? Government looks at all aspects all the time and we elect experts from among us to do the looking out.

Ok, so the question again is since we don't have a line between liberal and conservative to judge how we vote for people, what do we have? I posit this: we vote based how folks will or won't do whatever it is they do. Using our most divisive topic again, one may vote for Candidate Smith because he protects life by expanding education and reach out so people have a better chance to never be in a position to consider an abortion. Candidate Jones protects life by working to make abortion itself illegal and some folks may vote for him for that reason. Here's another: Candidate Anderson protects health by taxing tobacco and limiting alcohol to people over 21 while Candidate McSmith (I'm bad at conjuring up common names…) protects health by making alcohol illegal (harkening back to the 18th amendment and the Volstead Act…those cursed goddamn things…).

It's clear, I think, that Candidates Smith, Jones, Anderson and McSmith all have good intentions. They all look to protect the lives and health of Americans. So how do we decide? Some people, I think, would look at strict prohibitions set down by the government as bad in some way. Either they're ineffective (the war on drugs is still raging), overly-costly (higher incarceration rates), or they are just not the sort of things government should be doing (it's the job of parents to push around their kids, after all). Others may think that government has no place in "education" practice and should only make distinct black-and-white laws. Regardless, people decide based on how the work gets done.

"But Mr. Blogger, nothing gets done in Washington, so why would we vote based on how work gets done?" Ah yes. Time to bring it all home.

Something unique has happened in 2012. Remember all of that talk a few weeks ago about "Party Platforms"? What those are supposed to be, as I understand it, is a nice, clear explanation of what political parties want to do and how they want to do it.

Here's the GOP Platform:
http://www.gop.com/2012-republican-platform_home/

And the Democratic Platform:
http://www.democrats.org/democratic-national-platform

So yes, we're left with to parties, but they're not polarized as Left or Right. They're different in the way they want to help America. Looking at it this way, I'm immediately hopeful that our political system is actually really, really good. See, if in 2016 America decides they like the party of Candidate Smith, they can vote for the entire party she's a part of because they all share the same methodology for solving issues, semi-regardless of what those issues are. If this happens, Candidate Smith may get the White House, and maybe the House of Representatives will be majority Smith's party (because every Rep is up for reelection every two years), but the Senate may not flip to that party because only one third of the Senate is voted on that year. This keeps progress moving but does hinder changing too much too fast so we don't spin out of control. If we really, really love Smith's party, then in 2018, America may re-elect all those House members and then add more Senators when the next third is up for election.

See? Platforms matter. I'm pulling the lever for Smith and Anderson.

Lament of Late Summer

The garden centers started shaking off the snow in February, putting out seeds, bags of special soils, and little biodegradable pots. It was serious in March. A week without dropping below 40F forced my hand into prepping the soil and putting some hardy plants in. By April, they were all in. Everything seemed slow to take off, but in May, volunteer tomato plants were popping up everywhere. Many were replanted into rows rounding out my number into 24. June and July was weeding, hoisting up heavy branches and tying them off, fighting off local groundhogs and watering during the long droughts. Those lasted into August, but the tomatoes started turning red nonetheless. Fresh tomato slices on bread toasted in oil was frequently on the table. Quickly, each week, sometimes twice, a bushel of tomatoes made its way into the kitchen to be blanched, peeled, cored, and cooked down to a very sweet base for spaghetti sauce or salsa. Then it was September. I pulled off another bushel one day and noticed that it was pretty easy to get them. All of the full, green growth that for so long dominated the yard was falling away limp and yellowing. There’s maybe another batch of sauce out there. Maybe not. I’ve run out of jars anyway.

Time to hunker down. Fall is here.

Labor Day Is Upon Us

Another summer gone.  Here's the tally thus far:
- enough tomatoes to bury a small car under
- along with a lot of peppers, made two batches of salsa and froze gallons of tomato juice (to be canned later)
- one camping trip only
- constant travel...

...this leads me to the following...

I'm updating the blog a little to include short tales from various global excursions.  I still anticipate making countless mistakes, so the name will stay the same.  I'm also now on twitter @FlintyScott.

All the best.  Be safe this holiday (to those in the US that know what I'm talking about...)

Samson

One reason for my absence from these pages is my dog, Samson.  In the end of July 2011, at a local Humane Society, I found this trainwreck of a beagle.  His tongue always hung out of his mouth because he didn't have a singe tooth to hold it in with.  One of his ears was mangled from being chewed on and he had a gigantic hernia on his butt cheek.  The thing was, his teeth didn't fall out.  They were all pulled out.  He as been used to teach little puppies how to dog fight.  He was made defensless and left to die.

He didn't, though.  Somehow that beagle got loose and found his way to the shelter.  He had been there for awhile when we found him.  It took me no time decide that old boy couldn't die in a shelter and we took him home immediately. 

There's a million small stories that describe what took him from being a human-shy dog to the beagle that often slept with his head on the pillow next to me - every one a classic.  But those days are over.  As I sit here in Mumbai, India for work, my girlfriend took Samson in for emergency surgery for a bleeding turmor.  He fought through the surgery, but gave in to heart fauilure in the end.

Samson, it's the wonderful animals like you that help make our human lives a little more bearable.  Once we got you away from your old life, everyone that ever met you loved you, loved to pet you, laugh at your tongue, and go "awwww" when they saw your old bright eyes.  I'm not sure if people deserve a heaven, but I know you do, my friend.  I'll never forget you.

Most likely, nobody reads this anymore...

...since i've been such a terrible host. But just in case, here's a new publication of mine in Controlled Environments Magazine:
http://www.cemag.us/article/pharma-facility-quality-audits-primer-design-teams

Days Get Away From You

Gentle readers, I’ve been neglectful of reflection recently. But not without cause. It seems that every day, some new reason to worry crops up. Since the fateful Dry Run, a few North African regimes have fallen. Also, the price of oil has continued to climb and the Nation’s debt outlook has been downgraded. Yes, it seems that these are certainly terrifying times. But there are simple solutions.

In Pennsylvania, as I’m sure there are in a lot of places, there is an Energy Coop. I get 100% of my electricity from renewable sources. It’s also cheaper than the main power company’s coal, oil and nuclear sourced power. There’s step one.

And today, on this glorious Sunday, I finally got my first rotation of crops into the soil. I’m three weeks off from when I was planning, but I feel that I’ll still get two good harvests out of the garden this year.

What else? Well, everything else is the same for the rest. Gloomy outlooks in all facets of Western Culture has everyone scared. Me too. But we can do something about it. If you were to look back through my communiqués, you’d see that there is a line where I state that in my industry, it takes twice the amount of power to run one small biosafety cabinet as it does to power two typical American homes. There - RIGHT THERE!! - is what we can do about it. On this day where we are told that He rose from the grave, let us keep our way of life out of the grave. I know it seems that it seems that we have no money, but that is because we are told that we have no money. A little from all of us can take us first off of foreign oil and then completely off of fossil fuels. That’s all we have to do. Homes, companies, and all can run from sun, wind and other renewable power. We can do it.

I sincerely think that to be true.

HST Day

In a sense - er, - in most senses, it is wrong to celebrate a suicide. But one must die sometime, right? And to die - to follow this terribly silly logic to the end - one must first be born. We see nothing wrong with celebrating birthdays, do we? So there are two inevitable things for any “person”, lest taxes. Why not celebrate death? Do so no matter how it comes, right?

So back to it. One year ago today, at the outskirts of Philadelphia that is the Suburban Farm, we had snow that would rival the great State of Michigan in her grandest hour. I built a snow pyre to Hunter that day. Today, as miserably muddy as this day is, I couldn’t. I built a small fire instead. It was comprised of some branches that fell from the recent winds and the top layer of leaves from the compost pile (not composted, or course). The chickens all bowed in homage.

The police and the fire department both showed. Seems a fire after dusk is against the law…

Dear reader… Did you ever