Toward Ecosophy

Been a while since I was here

Looks to be a blue sky day, cooler this AM, but that happens when the sky is clear.  Barometer steady at 30.2 in/Hg and the temp is currently 42℉.

 I think that folks' problems boil down to the mistaken notion that their opinion matters to history and the fate of the world.  Sorry folks, but it appears to me that just doesn’t seem to be the case.

I think that bloggers, like your humble correspondent, think that their opinion about things are good and right.  We are sorely mistaken.

I have been listening to an Audible Book about the aftermath of the supposed civilization crash back in the 12th century BC.  Most of it is the usual self-righteous pablum by a tenured professor of “Classics and Anthropology”, but a phrase stuck in my head as it played as I was going to sleep (Nothing puts me to sleep faster that listening to a humanities professor drone on).

He basically said (and I am paraphrasing here) that most people didn’t notice that the civilization was collapsing.  They were just living their lives and trying to get by.  But the history of collapse was written by folks who had it good and when the party stopped, they wrote about how they had to stop living large and get by on less.

The folks who had it good took the time to complain about how everything was shit because their toys were taken from them.  The peasants just dealt like they always had.

Such is collapse.  The PMC is writing history right now.

High thin clouds today.  Temp is in the 50’s and the Barometer is up a touch at 30.3 in/Hg.  Laundry day so lots of little walks and chorin’. 

 I am starting to appreciate the idea of taking two days off every week.  The knees thank me now for the weekends and even though I try to keep moving, I let myself off the hook for the required 5,000+ steps and just take what life gives me while I am doing chores.

Laundry for me is a good thing. Usually I spend too long delaying my walks to the laundry room (500± steps for each load) so that I get steps in while doing chores.  I am figuring around 3,000 steps for completing a basic chore.

So I am going to be spending the bulk of the morning doing laundry, then I will brew a batch of beer in the afternoon.  I will weigh everything out while waiting for loads of laundry to complete, it isn’t multitasking, it is just efficient serial tasks.

No matter how hard you try, the colors in the sun don’t quite come through.

High clouds today.  Everything else is pretty steady, temp at 52℉ and the barometer is up a little to 30.2 in/Hg.  I am guess that it will clear up, but who knows for sure.

 I suppose that we are looking at a pretty bad way to deal with the problems that the government/economy/industrial civilization centered here in the US is dealing with.  Trumpster is doing something that has never been tried for the past century. He is trying to deal with the fact that we are effectively broke and things aren’t ever going to be the same.

But there is really no way that he could do anything without pissing half of the country off.  The whole idea is that the government is spending money that they don’t have, the congress depends on this money spending to buy votes and the organizations that get them re-elected.

Now, I think that Trump is just going to plain fail.  I actually think that his so-called “policies” will make the inevitable decline we are facing steeper than if we just continued blithely down the path that we were on.  I am wondering if it isn’t just a different path to the same point that we would have arrived at if we had just stuck with the “consensus” that preceded him?

The cold times are coming.  Just try to analyze (guess?) the best strategy and build yourself some backups.  I don’t think that regardless of who is in charge or the path taken, there isn’t any uphill left.  

Near the pond

Spring is still sprung.  A little cooler than yesterday, currently at 44℉ with the barometer steady at 30.1 in/Hg.  No wind again.  I am getting my walks in and overall I am pretty content.

I think that the angst and anger directed toward Washington is “to be expected” and “unsurprising”.  Now, you mighty think that this is an attack on the Trumpster, but my feelings toward that poor fool are those related  to sadness and overreach.  

As a country, we spend more than we make.  Our biggest export is probably the US dollar ($) and it is doing remarkably well as an export.  We spend quite a bit of money on weapons that only seem to work when they are used to beat up on people who can’t defend themselves.  

The way that I see it, the closest historical analogy to our current situation is post-WWI Britain.  They fought a war that essentially crippled them and for purposes that make no sense in hindsight.  They got creamed during the great depression and went to war in WWII and consistently got their asses handed to them by the German second team.  With them, we managed enough of a sideshow to allow the Soviet Union to make the greater bulk of the heroic sacrifices (which, by the way,  thought was an excellent plan).

What this brings to mind is the Suez Crisis of 1956.  France and Britain, even though they had gotten their asses handed to them less than a decade before, thought that they could go with the Israeli’s and the French to invade Egypt and take back control of the canal.  

I wonder what will be the final outcome of the current foofooraw over the Panama Canal?  Mostly we are the big dog of the Western Hemisphere.  I personally think that control of Greenland and control of Central America through Panama would be in our long term interests. 

I am not saying military conquest.  That would get us nowhere.  But we need to bind them to us economically.  I am not at all certain how to do this, I am going to ponder it.  Even if I come up with a decent idea, It will take decades to come to pass.

I tend to read too much about the empires growing and collapsing.  I think that the Byzantine (New Roman) empire is a great example.  You don’t need to end up with the base you started with.  Constantinople lost the Anatolian Heartland and then switched over to the Illyrian.  

The ramshackle US empire needs a trim.  The Panama canal is important.  I just can’t figure out how to make certain that it stays in our corner of the ring. 

Smells good too!!

Another beautiful day.  7:00 AM and 51℉ with low humidity (<60% is low in these parts) and barometer around 30 in/Hg.   

 I am thinking about this year's “garden”.  Last year was not a glowing success.  I did get some peppers and a couple of tomatoes, but the yield was completely unacceptable.  

I have four of those spiffy cloth like planter pots.  I am thinking that two will be for peppers again, then two for “big” tomatoes.  Then I have two of the hanging “cloth” pots that will be for cherry tomatoes. 

I am pondering buying a 3x1 foot “pot” (cloth of course) for herbs.  Basil and cilantro are easy.  Or maybe radishes and lettuce.  

Decision by Sunday.