Last week, David Broder opined that if Obama wants to sail to reelection he only need start a war. That’s real political strategy there, people, never mind dealing with serious problems in the US; the trick is to incite an irrational fear and hatred in the American people. Get ‘em all riled up for some vicarious killing and they’ll follow you anywhere. Some call it the “Bush doctrine.” Oh, hey, now don’t get Mr. Broder wrong: “I am not suggesting, of course, that the president incite a war to get reelected. But the nation will rally around Obama because Iran is the greatest threat to the world in the young century. If he can confront this threat and contain Iran’s nuclear ambitions, he will have made the world safer and may be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history.”

Lindsay Graham agrees, to a point, and he too would just love to see Barack Hussein Obama be regarded as one of the most successful presidents in history. Of course he would, loyal opposition and all that. So to that end, Sen. Graham took the opportunity afforded by his trip to Ottawa to outline his favored, possible future for the US in regards to Iran.

The oft suggested “surgical strike” on Iranian nuclear facilities is not enough in Graham’s mind. “Instead of a surgical strike on their nuclear infrastructure, I think we’re to the point now that you have to really neuter the regime’s ability to wage war against us and our allies. And that’s a different military scenario. It’s not a ground invasion but it certainly destroys the ability of the regime to strike back.”

Come on, Senator Graham, why not a full ground invasion. What are you afraid of? Losing…again? I’ll bet that if all the great warrior-chiefs populating the hallways of the Hart Office Building saddled up their steeds and went off to fight for the glory of the United States, mom, apple pie and Christendom those dirty Persians would beg for mercy…and neo-liberal economics and goofy interpretations of the Bible.

What the President really thinks about Iran is still a mystery. He talks a soothing, diplomatic talk but his minions make warlike suggestions too. So far, he’s sacrificed most of what he promised to do on the altar of bipartisanship. Maybe he’s willing to sacrifice Iran on that altar too.

The catch is one that Graham is either ignoring or too dim-witted to see. There is no way that air strikes alone will “really neuter the regime’s ability to wage war.” They will degrade it significantly, but not to the point where Iran could not seriously foul up oil shipments through the Persian Gulf. They certainly wouldn’t be able to stop Iran from doing what it can to foul American plans in Iraq and Afghanistan. Whether broad air strikes would push Hezbollah towards fighting Israel is questionable, but given that Graham is being backed by Israeli politicians chomping at the bit to have the IDF get its ass kicked again you never know. And i’m sure that Graham has contemplated the long-term repercussions of quite possibly uniting Sunni and Shia Muslims against the United States. Just like he’s thought long and hard about how Russia and China would respond to an attack. It’s not like we need the Chinese to loan us the money to do it, or like we need the Russians for supplying the war in Afghanistan.

Ah, never mind…he might well have. After all, what we really need is a full-blown clash of religious civilizations if we ever expect Jesus to come back.

One thing is clear: the pressure for military action against Iran will grow over the course of the next two years. Perhaps Obama will resist it, but that probably doesn’t even matter. Like Clinton set the stage for Bush’s bungling into Iraq, we’ll be bombing Iran at some point in the near future. Don’t be surprised, it’s what all failing empires do. We have to lash out. What else do we have left?

We need a hell of a lot more than a rally to restore sanity.

Have we really sunk to the level of curb stomping people over politics? I guess we have, since it’s not like that was an isolated incident. I get that politics has always been dirty and that it’s often violent. I’m by no means a pacifist, and i recognize that there are political issues worth violence. (Violence being a fairly broad word; it’s not just curb stomping and death threats.) But we’re not seeing those. We’re seeing one half of the equation running on fear of the other half gaining power. The other half is running for elected office on an anti-government platform, without a hint of irony i might add, and we all know that those candidates will become happily corrupted by the same forces of “big government” they pretend to hate, just as soon as they get sworn in…in many cases it’s already happened.

We take the bullshit seriously and bullshit the serious stuff.

So far as i know, this nation was founded on Enlightenment ideals by men who deified reason. Of course that was their first big mistake. Humans are plenty capable of reason, but that doesn’t make them creatures of it. The majority of people are not rational in the majority of instances. Unfortunately, our political system requires just what we aren’t in order to function properly. More unfortunate yet, those who propose to lead us know all too well that we’re not rational. That’s how they lead us into costly, pointless and unwinnable wars. That’s how they keep us at each others’ throats for their own benefit. At this point it’s probably all they’ve got. So irrational fear, hatred, hope and blind allegiance is our electoral fare.

I’m tired of choosing between incompetent with a sprinkle of nefarious and nefarious with a sprinkle of incompetence. I’m just fucking tired of it. I’m tired of hearing that the working class is voting against its own best interest from a group of people who have proven themselves completely unconcerned with defending said class. I’m tired of listening to people accuse neoliberals of Socialism and knowing that the accuser probably can’t define Socialism in his own words. I don’t have any more patience for people who cry freedom and let loose the dogs of government tyranny. I’m just fucking tired of it.

Worse, i already know how it ends.

But i’ll go vote. It’s my duty. First i need to run through the voter’s guide one more time, because while it really doesn’t matter which asshole heads off to Washington, who wins a seat on the school board or the city commission does. I’ll leave you with a quote from Jefferson i stumbled across recently, even though it only proves that he was a silly optimist and wrong.

And let us reflect that, having banished from our land that religious intolerance under which mankind long bled and suffered, we have yet gained little if we countenance a political intolerance as despotic, as wicked, and capable of as bitter and bloody persecutions. . . .

Every difference of opinion is not a difference of principle . . . If there be any among us who would wish to dissolve this Union or to change its republican form, let them stand undisturbed as monuments of the safety with which error of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.”

~First inaugural address, March 4,1801

This last one though, this last bin Laden tape takes the cake.

For the first time in a bin Laden proclamation, he signaled out France. Osama has a special message for you cheese-eating surrender monkeys*, if you don’t get out of Afghanistan, he’s coming for you. It’s strange because it coincides pretty much perfectly with France’s announcement that its 3,500 troops will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.

It makes sense to pick off coalition members individually at this point. NATO set a tentative withdrawal date, western nations are trimming fat from budgets, and popular sentiment is broadly against military involvement in Afghanistan. Canada and the Netherlands have already announced that they’ll be getting out of the game. France looks like the easiest target to threaten so that they leave and produce a propaganda moment too. Still, the timing is such that one has to wonder if bin Laden has intelligence assets within the French government so as to be privy to the decision.

I have a hard time believing that Mr. bin Laden has those capabilities. On the other hand, i assume that the uppermost echelons of Dick Cheney do have access to that kind of information. Weird, isn’t it?

Sure, Dick Cheney wants France to stay in Afghanistan while Osama is on record as wanting France out of Afghanistan…but doesn’t it sound just like how Dick Cheney would go about convincing France to stay? So while Osama can claim some sort of propaganda victory with this tape and French announcement, Dick Cheney gets his own “I told you so” moment. Anyone wanna place a bet on a terrorist attack linked to Al Qaeda in France even after the French withdrawal?

Don’t get me wrong…i’m not leveling the accusation that Osama bin Laden is part of Dick Cheney or even that he’s on Dick Cheney’s payroll. I just find it odd that they seem to share so many goals and interests. So in these troubling times, i sometimes comfort myself by imagining them finding each other on the internet and falling in love. Maybe if they took long, hand-holding walks on the beach together they’d have less time for fucking up the world.

*It’s just a Simpsons reference. The people of France have been showing Americans what courage and being willing to fight for republican ideals actually looks like. Too bad America ignores it.

h/t to George Kenney

You probably think that pragmatism means looking for ways to remedy situations within realistic constraints.

For example, it’s hard to take on the DoD. Even Ike wasn’t willing to do it directly. Instead, he pointed out that such a large nation needed an interstate highway system on which to move men and material in the event of war; highways became a matter of national security, and money destined for the maw of the pentagon ended up creating jobs and connecting a nation.*

So you might think that a pragmatic president today, facing a lot of tut-tutting about a deficit that stems mostly from spending 60% of discretionary income on “defense”…that’s seen its defense budget double in less than a decade and is currently losing two wars…might look to Ike for inspiration. He might argue that dependence on foreign oil and the pollution from burning all that oil is a great, national security concern. (why, the pentagon has even said that itself) He then might shift money from “defense” to renewable energy research, efficiency upgrades, etc.

Well you’re wrong. The pragmatic president tosses a few nickels and dimes** at the real national security concern, ramps up one of the wars and goes all covert cowboy on countries for reasons flimsier than the two wars.

I told you that you don’t understand what “pragmatism” means. It now means the same thing as “careerist” and “opportunist”. A good apparatchik knows that success comes from pleasing the nomenklatura and not making waves.

Now that we understand the real meaning of pragmatism it all makes a great deal more sense, doesn’t it?

I’m sure Mr. Gibbs disagrees with me. I just don’t understand what it’s like to govern. Which is true, but at least i’m not dumb enough to buy into the GOP propaganda meme that the US is a center-right nation. It only looks that way because anything to the left of the Right doesn’t have representation. Mr. Gibbs made it clear that his boss isn’t going to be changing that.

We’ll just have to accept that we’re carrying on with the imperial project, national security socialism and neoliberal economics. Even if they aren’t practical. Even if they’re detrimental…perhaps terminally. None of that matters, because pragmatism is no longer the art of the possible. It’s now the art of trying to rhetorically shape reality to fit ideology.

*Sure, Ike should have laid rail lines instead of highways, but that’s not the point.
**I realize it’s the “most money ever”, but that doesn’t mean that it’s nearly enough, does it?

I’m profoundly happy with the decision to double dig plots and not till what became rows. Close planting has kept weeds to a minimum in the plots and unplanted areas have been easy to keep clear by simply scraping a square-tipped digging spade across the ground. I’ve spent very little time dealing with weeds and it doesn’t show.

Things are moving along…

The corn has been something of a failure. It got infested with what appear to be some sort of aphid and i dealt with the issue a little late. I’ll be happy with a half dozen ears at this point.

The poor potatoes not only got flooded out because i’m a brilliant idiot, but then had to fight slugs. I’ll probably be able to dig some out, but not a whole lot.

Slugs have been the big issue this year. I’ve been pretty consistent with bait, but nature’s been pretty consistent with rain too. I lost the tops on just about a whole row of booming yellow bush beans in full production. I’ve gotten quite a bit from them, and they’re bouncing back now. Maybe i’ll get another full flush.

Something (i assume slugs) at the leaves, but not the stems, on a hill of cukes ready to explode, but it continued to produce and has bounced back. One hill has struggled for reasons unknown. The other, from seed, is just now starting to fruit heavily.

Peppers are monstrous, producing and, if the weather holds, will have had a great year.

Onions are probably ready for pulling, but they aren’t hurting anyone where they are.

Broccoli all headed nicely and i’ve got a third crop of side shoots that will probably love the week or so of cooler weather we’re told to expect. Cauliflower is ready to head and it all looks happy and healthy.

Acorn squash keeps dropping fruit. I suspect a pollination issue because the plant is otherwise very healthy and vigorous. Yellow zucchini is producing, but losing some fruit to end rotting. I should have put it in a drier spot of the garden.

Eggplant took a while, but it’s an impressive sight now. Full of ripening fruit, some of which is ready to pick and much more is on the way.

Carrots aren’t ready.

Tomatoes, well, look the fuck out if they get enough time to ripen everything. Grapes and Romas are ripening now. Everything else is loaded with fruit and ready. Some fungus issues, but that’s to be expected with the wetness and the garden not getting hard sun until almost noon. I started hacking them back two weeks ago and i’ll probably have to do it again.

All in all, not a bad year so far…especially given how little energy went into it at the start.

Robin and i bought a house this spring. For financial (i.e. Socialist) reasons the process felt somewhat rushed, and there wasn’t a whole lot for us to choose from. That being said, we ended up buying the first house that struck our fancy, and it suited our wants pretty much perfectly.

It’s big enough while still feeling cozy. The latter probably being the result of its age. (built 1938 from what the papers say, but an old neighbor swears it was here in the 20′s) It’s filled with proper carpentry, the square edges worn gently by years. This old house is one thing…a lot of work, but we got out of the shitty part. The previous owners only occupied the place for about a year and a half. I estimate that they spent all of it working their asses off and sinking every spare dime into the place. So we got the character with new wiring, plumbing, insulation, windows, kitchen and bathroom. I coulda done all that; i even like doing that stuff. I’m thankfully that i don’t have to do it.

We stayed in town. We’re still close to The Lake. It ain’t the student ghetto (close, but no closer than the public housing so we’re just keepin it real). And the best part is that i got a yard. A huge, sun-filled, blank slate of a yard.

Blank slate as in, “My god has this piece of land been utterly neglected…if not abused…for at least two decades.” And the moral of the story is: be careful what you wish for. Still, i’m up to the challenge. I’ve got 50 x 150 to play with and the house takes up less than 1000 of those square feet. It sits forward on the lot. Between it and the black locust tree in the front we have a smallish, shaded front yard. The back screams “urban homesteading”.

I’ll just be continuing the tradition that lapsed when the brothers who were the previous owners once removed got too old to keep the place up. If i understand the neighborhood stories right (and this seems to be a rather famous house in the hood), the lumber for the house was cut about 10 miles away and milled in the back yard. It ended up holding a workshop for the Old Man who was the resident master carpenter. It also held a chicken coop. And a rabbit hutch. And a gazebo. And a worm farm. And great big wild grape vines that had ascended to at least 20 feet up into the neighbor’s maple. And by the end, piles of junk that were stacked nearly to the top of the privacy fence between our lot and the northern neighbors. The southern neighbor (we’re separated by an empty lot) says that she nearly didn’t buy her house because of the tar paper shack and piles of junk in my back yard.

Piles of junk is also fitting. Rumor has it that when the swamp that used to be here was filled in, a lot of it came from a hospital that was torn down. Considering the brown field that Dow left not far away, i’m good with the assorted building materials of a hospital that must have been already old in the 20′s.

I’d post pictures, but i’m a little short at the moment. Not much to see anyhow. There was a Box Alder in the center of the back yard, all the way to the back and a horribly diseased choke cherry on the north side of the back yard. The defining piece of the front was a spot in the center front where some weedy shrub had been growing and where the locust roots had surfaced and suckered. It amounted to a huge patch of crap, the only attention it getting was to get hacked back to the ground every once and a while (judging by the number of stumps). There were weeds, though the turf in the front is long-term salvageable. And there’s still random shit scattered just below the surface.

I (without a drawn plan of course) broke both yards into phases and prioritized. I also decided to put the most real effort into the front first. One because it could be tackled with greater ease and two because it’s like my ma says, “You want to feel, ‘Ah, i’m home,’ when you pull into the driveway.”

The phases are/were. 1: remove the prickly monstrosity in the middle of the yard and replace it. 2: put in a big shade perennial bed between the porch stairs and the NW corner of the house. 3: install a third island to the northern edge of the front yard. 4: build a stone on stone pathway along the north side of the house (Japanese garden trick for mimicking water feature) with lush shade plantings along either side. And phase 5 would be rehabilitating the lawn. That’s not a huge concern for me and it’s not worth doing until i remove most of it anyhow.

I’ll be chronicling these in a bit, but phase 1 is finished and phase 2 will be done by the end of the week. Phase 4 isn’t even on the docket for this year. Phase 3 is a maybe.

The back will be bigger work, but if the front is done i look forward to puttering back there over the long term. I really only have two goals for the back this year. First, to get at least the majority of the fruit trees and a selection of the small fruits in. Second, to get the raised beds for vegetables in, filled and at least one of them set up with a cold frame.

As it stands, i’m on schedule and under budget. So if all continues to go well, i’ll get more done in the back than i had deadlined for myself.

All this i’ll be posting as individually either as i’m doing it or after the fact.

So i chose to cut in and build a bed from the deck post that forms part of the “door” out from under the deck (i.e. it lines up with the basement door), curving to meet the bottom of the stairs down from the deck. I knew i’d put a bed there, but not when or what it would be planted with.

Linda’s hydrangea, i decided, would probably be happiest in that spot and it’s a nice place for something showy. It gets direct sun until 2:30/3:00 around midsummer before being heavily shaded by the house/deck.

So out with the “grass”. I turned the native stuff over to about a square spade’s depth and broke it up with a turning fork (the greatest garden tool evah). This of course also led to several archeological finds…i think i’ll start posting pictures for a series i’m tentatively titling, “Shit i dig out of my back yard”. I guess that i put in about 3+ cubic feet of peat moss and an unknown quantity of our municipal compost.

Note: I’m a huge fan of peat as an amendment, for volume and drainage. The latter is a local issue: lake, sand, etc. I’m also a huge fan of the municipal compost because it’s free and pretty nice. Mixed with peat it’s swell.

Hydrangea got front and center, and i set it off with two white (icicle) speedwells. I’ve already decided that deck posts will be vine supports, but i thought that the planned grapes wouldn’t be right with the Nikko. So i splurged and planted a climbing hydrangea. Now because i really don’t want it to be 30 ft tall and 8 wide it probably will be. I plan on training onto the handrail spindles, including on the stairs. I figure that the late white flowers will be pretty dramatic behind the Nikko. I’ll need to put in lattice work behind i think.

Pretty straight forward.

I know, sad hydrangea. Linda had dug it up Sunday, i took possession on Monday, and planted it on Tuesday…waiting to plant until after the bed was shaded. Lotta shock going on, but it didn’t look dangerous. I even rigged up a sheer window curtain as a sun/wind screen.

Wednesday it looked still in shock but good. After rain Wednesday evening it look really good on Thursday morning, standing pretty much upright. And then Thursday was in the mid-80′s, sunny and there was a steady 20 mph wind. I was also at work so no misting the hydrangea. Honestly, at 6pm on Thursday it looked dead. Nothing i could have done differently, but i was bummed.

It had not, however, crisped up at all so i let it sag and kept the foliage wet. Friday didn’t look any better. Neither did Saturday, and by Sunday i was resigned to having to cut back hard and start over (hopefully). Still, though, the leaves all felt live.

Then Sunday evening, as if it heard me thinking that it was probably time to do the cutting, it started to lift. Like knocked down boxer picking himself off the mat with an “I’m not done yet” attitude. I smiled deeply, because i’m pulling for it. Still looked nice after work today…just about bolt upright if the leaves are still a little droopy.

Tomorrow’s forecast says mid-70′s and maybe some rain, very light breeze. I’m thinking that my new-old hydrangea will be just fine, and i’m thankful that i A. didn’t have to cut it back and B. don’t have to tell Linda that i killed her shrub with sentimental value.