As every thinking person expected, our government's credit rating got dinged by Standard & Poor's. Moody's and Fitch, each of which has expressed formal pessimism about U.S. debt, now contemplate downgrades of their own.
What happens next? No one knows, and anyone who claims to know is guessing. These are uncharted waters, nationally and globally. Any honest analysis admits as much.
S&P, in explaining its rationale for the downgrade, judged the U.S.'s debt-to-GDP ratio to be unsustainable. It was the current political climate, however -- read, ineptitude and ideological inertia -- that caused the agency to pull the trigger.
It would've been reasonable to hope (if not predict), then, that the feuding factions -- Republicans and Democrats in Congress, as well as the Obama administration -- would start acting like Americans for a change. No such luck.
On the weekly talk shows yesterday, partisan finger-pointing ruled, with each side flaming the other. Republicans blamed Pres. Obama. (Natch.) Sen. John Kerry and others test-flew a new Democratic Party talking point, calling S&P's action the "Tea Party downgrade" -- which is idiotic, of course, but unfortunately it'll probably catch on.
Surrogates for the White House busied themselves pitching rocks at S&P, calling it "amateurish" (among other things). That prompted this reaction from Sen. John McCain on Meet the Press:
"On the S&P thing, don’t shoot the messenger. Is there anybody that believes that S&P is wrong in their assessment of the situation -- of the fiscal situation of this country?"
That's the truth, as succinct as it can be. And until
Nixon-Ford-Carter-Reagan-Bush-Clinton-Bush-Obama-
Congress-Bureaucracy Downgrade
fits easily on a bumper sticker, it'll have to do.
I spent ten years of my professional life in the corporate headquarters of two financial-services companies, the last four in the executive suite of a major player in the investment business, so I know something about the influence of agencies like S&P, Moody's, Fitch and Best.
I can say that in the private sector, a downgrade (or even a negative outlook) can suck the life out of a company. I also know that corporate instability -- the comings and goings of fund managers, for example -- can tip a ratings agency toward taking action. Finally, I can't recall a downgraded company that hasn't issued a press release saying that S&P (e.g.) is full of shit, abuses kittens, etc.
That's just the way it works.
After all that, the same question burns: So what's going to happen after this downgrade? The answer remains: We simply don't know. Common sense and convenient parallels, however, combine to offer us a few useful clues.
Interest rates are likely to rise for businesses and, consequently, for consumers. The recession is bound to deepen, and sharply. Depending on how bad things get, how long they stay that way and what cuts are announced in November, I envision civil unrest resembling what we've seen in the U.K. and Greece.
On the bright side, gas prices may come down -- maybe.
It's not the duty of citizens to save the nation's economy, but as much as possible, in my view, this is the time to renew our commitment to supporting domestic and local commerce. We should ignore the flailings of Wall Street and the wailings of its shills -- anyone who spews chestnuts like "historical performance" or exhorts us to "stay in the market" is a self-interested robot, not an expert and certainly not a friend.
And, of course, when Election Day rolls 'round, we must send incompetent incumbents packing.
Making wise choices now, deliberately, preparing for deteriorating economic and social conditions -- and I predict that they will deteriorate -- will give us the agility we'll need when the time comes to act in the interest of ourselves, our families and our communities.
Around 6pm today I emerged from the humble KintlaLake vegetable garden with our first two Roma tomatoes, six yellow pear tomatoes, more than a dozen carrots, ten long green hot peppers and another monster cucumber, this one found hiding among the carrot greens.
"Ignorance is behind the criticism of Sohail Mohammed. The folks who criticize my appointment of Sohail Mohammed are ignorant."
"Sharia law has nothing to do with this at all. It's crazy. It's crazy. The guy's an American citizen who has been an admitted lawyer to practice in the state of New Jersey, swearing an oath to uphold the laws of New Jersey, the constitution of the state of New Jersey, and the Constitution of the United States of America."
"This Sharia law business is crap. It's just crazy. And I'm tired of dealing with the crazies."
(New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, responding to critics of his appointing Sohail Mohammed, a Muslim, to the state Supreme Court -- and by leaving no doubt what he thinks of Islamophobic nutjobs, probably sabotaging any shot he has at the GOP nomination for President)
Scout was thrilled when I rolled out of bed today at 4am. My wife, well, not so much -- ordinarily she doesn't get up 'til 5am.
By that time I was on the road, headed for our county airport to shoot a hot-air balloon launch. It'd been quite a while, maybe 15 years, since I'd photographed balloons, and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy it.
Bright colors and early-morning light make for a rewarding shoot, for sure, but it's the people I've missed. They're always so accommodating, so warm, so real -- and that makes it fun. I really need to do this more often.
The Dow pitched headlong off a cliff at the open this morning. It kept tumbling all day long, ending just off session lows -- down 512.76 (4.31%). It's being reported as the worst day for the index "since the financial crisis of 2008."
I find that characterization laughable -- and if you have a lick of sense, so do you. I'd argue that the "financial crisis" began long before 2008, and it's beyond dispute that it hasn't abated, much less ended.
That the Dow clawed its way back from 6,500 to 12,800 is all but irrelevant -- the stock market is just one component of an economy that shows no signs of a sustainable recovery.
For evidence, look no further than today's other economic news. The national unemployment rate is 9.2%, and last week 400,000 Americans filed for first-time jobless benefits. Nearly 15% of Americans -- 46 million of us -- used food stamps in May. Virtually every meaningful indicator -- consumer confidence, retail, manufacturing, housing -- continues to head in the wrong direction.
Today's stock-market plunge, say the talking heads, might signal another recession or, perhaps, a double-dip recession.
Pull-eeze. Another recession?
If there's a bright side to the recent harangue over debt and deficits, it's that it formally introduced the elephant in the room. It gave every American the chance to see that our government's profligate spending has pushed us to the brink of national bankruptcy.
In the same way, the last time the Dow went precipitously south it exposed the markets as nothing but casinos of capital, driven more by collusion than by commerce. Either we got that message or we didn't.
If we learned our lessons well, right now we're pushing back from the table -- if we hadn't already.
As promised in Part I, I have some observations about the back-and-forth over raising the federal debt ceiling.
After much mud-wrestling, Washington hatched a deal. The House bought the scheme on Monday; it cleared the Senate and President Obama signed it yesterday. Spending gets cut by a reported $917 billion (over ten years), while the debt ceiling goes up by a like amount (immediately).
A "super-committee" will decide by Thanksgiving what else to cut, to the tune of $1.5 trillion (over ten years), and if Congress doesn't salute by Christmas, that'll trigger mandatory cuts across the board (minus sacred cows). Either way, the debt ceiling will get bumped up by (you guessed it) another $1.5 trillion (immediately).
It doesn't take an economist to see that a deal isn't the same thing as a solution. By averting default now, our elected officials embraced the certainty of our nation's complete economic collapse.
Think about it -- the U.S. government borrows 41 cents of every dollar that it spends, and it just got the ok to borrow even more.
Let's look at a few facts. The national debt is over $14.3 trillion and climbing every second. The interest alone is approaching half-a-trillion dollars a year.
Each American household's share of the debt exceeds $125,000. Every American child born today begins life with a debt of $46,000.
Last year, the ratio of the national debt to our gross domestic product was a disturbing 93%. Because the U.S. economy is contracting (projected to fall behind China within five years) and the debt is certain to grow, this year our government will owe more than our nation produces.
And Washington acts as if it can sustain this madness.
Tea Party-backed Republicans, in a fit of redemption, pressed for passage of a Cut, Cap and Balance Act -- the right idea, in my opinion -- but such a sensible approach was bound to die in the Senate. Now, for some reason, the GOP seems buoyed by cutting a deal that's all cuts and no revenue, boasting that they "changed the conversation."
That's unfiltered bullshit, of course -- there's nothing to celebrate. A moral victory, even if there was one, won't get the job done.
I fear for my country.
I've been sending a photo like that one to Mrs. KintlaLake almost every morning these days. By the time it shows up in her e-mailbox she's been at work for an hour or two, and she looks forward to my sharing what I've discovered in the garden that day.
Today's bounty: four cucumbers, bringing the harvest (so far) to nearly four dozen; and 24 carrots, some quite tiny but all sweet as sugar.
Like many of my fellow citizens, I've spent a lot of time recently tracking the progress (or lack thereof) of debt-ceiling discussions -- more about that in Part II. First, I want to hit a few other topics.
Foreshadowing
The U.S. has more than its share of white, Christian, right-wing nutjobs who prefer that anyone who doesn't profess the same xenophobia be exterminated. So when I heard that a likewise-addled Norwegian murdered 78 innocents on July 22, I didn't wonder if such a massacre could happen here -- I pondered how soon it will happen here.
Hot as a pumpkin patch
I'm not handling the heat well this summer. The last time I felt this way was in mid-September, when a day of pickin' punkins kicked my aging, out-of-shape ass.
Truth is, I've become way too accustomed to air conditioning. And strangely enough, the fix for my heat-intolerance is to spend more time working outside. That's easier said than done, considering, but I'm working on it.
Our garden grows...and grows...and grows...
The aforementioned bounty of cucumbers is taking over our small garden plot, threatening to take over my life. Now three tomato plants are trying my patience -- and I was warned.
A while back, my neighbor told me of a spring morning many years ago, when she witnessed our home's previous owner, standing on a stepladder in his garden, setting ten-foot stakes. When asked why, he replied politely that this was especially fertile soil, insisting that the absurdly tall stakes were quite necessary to support his tomatoes.
Later that summer, according to my neighbor, the optimistic old gardener was proven right.
This season's tomatoes are following the same path skyward, today nearly eight feet tall, so heavy with fruit that they're pulling their cages from the ground. I've supplemented the leaning wire enclosures with six-foot bamboo stakes and string. I'm not sure that'll be enough.
I'm also having a love-hate relationship with some "volunteer" vines -- gourds or pumpkins, I think -- which sprouted from seeds that survived composting. I've pulled hundreds of seedlings from our raised beds since May, choosing to leave a few that came up outside the fence. Now, despite my pruning, they cover a hundred square feet of lawn.
Fertile soil, indeed. We haven't used a speck of chemical herbicide, pesticide or fertilizer, by the way -- nothing but hand-weeding and home-cooked compost.
Sneak peek
I'm dropping a placeholder here for the next installment of my Urban Resources series.
If there's one resource that most of us take for granted and mismanage horribly, it's water. I've become particularly aware of it this summer, partly through gardening and partly because every month I have to pay the village for what I use. I've been exploring ways to conserve, extend and even harvest water -- stay tuned.
After the circus leaves town
A couple of flatbed trucks rumbled up the street late yesterday afternoon, carrying rolls of canvas and aluminum poles -- the last remnants of our village's annual festival.
For four days we'd been treated to heavy traffic on the street and sidewalk in front of our house. The sounds of live music, some great and some absolutely awful, drifted over our yard from the big concert stage. There were carnival rides and games-of-chance, fair food and a beer garden, a classic-car show and, naturally, a parade.
No fireworks this year, though. Budget cuts, don'tcha know.
We made the three-minute walk to the festival grounds on Wednesday evening, again on Saturday afternoon for a funnel-cake fix, and finally on Saturday night for the traditional closing concert -- a performance by a gray-haired pop star that festival organizers can get cheap.
It may be a weenie little festival, but this is home. We like it fine.
...I checked the weather conditions, as registered at a reporting station adjacent to a state DOT garage several miles away.
Dig that crazy "heat index" and hydrate, hydrate, hydrate...
(As I type this, the outdoor temperature here in our village is 95°F. Coupled with 64% relative humidity and a dew point of 81°F, the "feels like" temp -- that new-fangled "heat index" popular with TV meteorologists -- is a brain-broiling 117°F, and we haven't yet seen the hottest part of the day. Time to focus on something cooler.)
In last Saturday's post, I waxed righteous about re-using a vintage Ball canning jar. I've put up three more quarts of pickles since then, each in a jar left behind by our home's previous owner. I've also done a bit of sleuthing about their pedigrees.
That clear Kerr Self-Sealing Wide Mouth jar (above) arguably is the least interesting of the four. It offers no clues as to its age but, judging by the other jars we found, it probably was made in the 1960s in Sand Springs, Oklahoma.
The quaint-looking Mom's Mason jar was made in nearby Columbus by Home Products. a division of Ohio Container, in the mid-1970s.
This blue Atlas Strong Shoulder Mason was made in Wheeling, West Virginia by Hazel-Atlas, which ceased production in 1964. I suspect that this jar may date to the 1940s or 1950s -- but that wouldn't make it the oldest jar rescued from our basement shelf.
Nope, that distinction (so far) belongs to the blue Ball Perfect Mason mentioned on Saturday. Its markings testify that it was made between 1923 and 1933.
These vintage canning jars aren't just worth keeping -- they're damned well worth using.
One of the five raised beds in our vegetable garden hosts a tomato plant, two sweet basil plants, two hot pepper plants, four cucumber vines and a spearmint plant -- all in just 25 square feet.
To say that it's a prolific patch would be an understatement. The tomato has passed the six-foot mark and is loaded with fruit. The basils are nearly three feet tall and lush. Everything is healthy and producing, especially the cucumbers. Witness this example, picked early this morning after I'd finished the day's watering.
The vital statistics: length 9.5 inches, girth 8 inches. I don't know what this backyard monster weighs, but I found it under a particularly dense section of canopy. Ready late last week, probably, it managed to elude me for several days, and thus it grew.
Again, it came from a 25-square-foot bed.
There are so many solutions to the problem of limited space -- intensive gardening and container gardening, to name two -- that there's really no good reason (including stoopid city ordinances) not to practice sustenance-gardening skills. With a little planning, good soil preparation and regular watering, it can be done almost anywhere.
Mrs. KintlaLake and I, together nearly six years now, are fortunate to share many interests. Our individual approaches to life are by no means identical, but we complement each other well.
When choosing a folding knife for everyday carry, each of us favors a mid-size Benchmade -- me a 556 Mini Griptilian, she a 585 Mini Barrage. Both are solid, relatively affordable and American-made. In terms of quality, utility and durability, neither gives ground to knives costing two or three times more.
My wife prefers the Mini Barrage's spring-assist -- convenient, sure, but in her male-dominated workplace, every time she snaps the 585 to open a box or cut a wire, she gains a smidgen of cred.
I'm content with my less-flashy (yet easily flickable) Mini Griptilian.
The missus and I also differ on how (and how often) we maintain our knives. I strop mine on a pant leg after each use and on a leather belt at the end of each day. She, ignoring my example, tends to work hers until it's hopelessly dull.
This morning I found her Mini Barrage on her dresser, the blade gummed-up with packing-tape residue, unable to even draw-cut paper. I could've taken advantage of Benchmade's LifeSharp℠ warranty service, but instead I spent an hour with sandpaper, stropping compound and bare leather, coaxing the edge back to respectability.
When I presented the result to my wife, she got a stern (but kind-hearted) lecture -- and I got a hug.
When we moved into these digs last year, our discoveries included a basement shelf lined with empty glass jars -- three dozen vintage Ball, Kerr and Atlas canning jars, hinting that the previous occupant was typical of her generation.
This afternoon I put up the season's first refrigerator pickles. And although I have plenty of my own jars, I went down to the basement and cast my eyes over the old ones, ultimately choosing a quart-size Ball "Perfect Mason" in blue glass.
It seemed fitting.
We're carrying on a tradition of preserving food grown on this modest patch of land, using a vessel first employed perhaps four decades ago.
If I have to explain why that feels just right, you wouldn't understand.
I'll get right to the point: Congress should not raise the debt ceiling. All opposing arguments are grounded in short-sighted self-interest.
Our inability to live within our means is sabotaging our nation's future. The consequences of failing to raise the debt ceiling, according to credible economists with no ideological axe to grind, would be catastrophic. No Congress and no President wants to be remembered for initiating a catastrophe, so our elected officials are dithering around the edges of the matter.
The only thing they're accomplishing is postponing the inevitable. Increasing the federal government's borrowing limit beyond the currently unfathomable $14.3 trillion only prevents a problem from becoming a crisis -- and to save our country, we need a crisis.
In other words, bring on the catastrophe.
I don't say that lightly. If the debt ceiling isn't raised within the next few weeks, American commerce will spasm and change quickly and, to be blunt about it, things will absolutely suck for the foreseeable future. Life, as this generation has known it, will end.
That, of course, would be a good thing.
This country is worth saving but its government is broken -- we must tear it down to build it up again. We'll decide what We, the People, truly need from a smaller government and what we're willing to pay for it. We'll learn what we can (and should) do for ourselves.
But for now, right now, we must contact our elected officials and demand that they vote against raising the debt ceiling.
Ok, so it's been a while. I've been busy.
Well, that's not quite accurate. Although there's been lots happening around the KintlaLake household, more than once over the last six weeks I made a conscious decision to walk past my computer in favor of doing something productive. Often I went two or three days without logging on.
A much-anticipated visit from out-of-town family over the July 4th weekend never materialized, but we spent the months of May and June throwing ourselves into getting our place ready -- light fixtures to landscaping, painting interior walls to preparing the tiny guest room. It was all-consuming and ultimately, visitors or not, rewarding.
When it comes to greenery, my wife is in charge of ornamentals. I manage the edibles, and my carefully tended vegetable garden has started to offer its bounty.
This morning's "harvest" was eight cucumbers, a pepper and a bowl of peas. That does it for our first crop of peas; likewise, the early-summer radishes are in. Carrots will be next to mature, I think.
My plum-tomato plants have grown to over five feet tall and the "garden salsa" peppers -- I swear, I thought they were jalapeños -- are producing nicely. The habanero plants, as usual, are making me cranky, but I remain optimistic about a late-summer harvest. All of our herbs are ridiculously healthy, save one dill plant lost to parsley worms. And after picking cukes today, I counted fifty more blossoms.
Either I need to come up with more cucumber recipes, or we're gonna have enough refrigerator pickles to last us 'til next Christmas.
A week ago we celebrated Independence Day, perhaps my favorite holiday. As is my custom, I began this Fourth of July by reading the Declaration of Independence -- aloud, alone -- to remind myself of my great good fortune to have been born an American. Later my family and I, along with a half-dozen friends, set up folding chairs along the curb in front of our house for the village parade.
For us, this parade is much more than a procession. We take the opportunity to shout our gratitude to each and every firefighter, law-enforcement officer and military veteran who passes by. Last Monday we stepped into the street to shake hands with the county sheriff, and we personally thanked our state senator for sponsoring pro-Second Amendment legislation recently signed into law by Ohio's governor.
Afterward the group returned to the patio for a cookout -- pot luck, good eats -- and as darkness fell we carted our chairs to the edge of our back yard to enjoy the traditional fireworks display.
Unlike thousands of revelers who pack the village's festival grounds for the show, we have a front-row seat. See, the shells launch from the city park behind our house, so we pull our chairs right up to the line of yellow police tape marking the edge of the safety zone and watch the fireworks explode almost directly over our heads.
I mean, it's like having our very own personal show.
When this year's display was over -- it was absolutely spectacular, by the way -- we cheered, brushed ash from our hair and, smiling out loud, walked back to the house. We love our humble home, but we love it most on Independence Day.
So all's well here. And after an unannounced hiatus, KintlaLake Blog is back. Stay tuned.
IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of
the thirteen united States of America
When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected, whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these united Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. — And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.
Our pound puppy, seen here in her Memorial Day getup, gets more awesome every day. She hasn't turned out to be the "substantial" girl we thought she'd be, but we've decided that's just fine with us.
"His integrity was one of the great myths of college football." (Sports Illustrated)
Jim Tressel did the right thing yesterday morning, resigning as Ohio State's head football coach. The news dominated beer-fueled conversations at Memorial Day cookouts throughout Buckeye Nation, no doubt, but Mrs. KintlaLake and I virtually ignored the subject and concentrated on our third straight day of yard work.
We weren't engaged in denial, mind you, simply overwhelmed with disappointment.
Regular readers know well my passion for OSU football -- I've referred to it as "the longest continuous thread in the fabric of my life." Now, ten years into what seemed to be a return to glory, the program is mired in shame.
Things will get worse from here, of course. The NCAA is expected to throw the book at Ohio State, probably involving scholarships and post-season play, maybe more. No matter who takes the Scarlet-and-Gray reins, the process of restoring luster to the Buckeyes will be long and excruciating.
I have a long view, both retrospectively and prospectively. I suspect that after the present dust clears -- which will take many years, to be sure -- Jim Tressel ultimately will be recognized more for his honor than for his failings.
Scoff if you like, but consider that there's a Woody Hayes Drive and a Woody Hayes Athletic Center -- both named for the irascible OSU football coach who was fired after he punched an opposing player. In Columbus, hell, anything is possible.
Wetter-than-usual weather has played hell with spring planting in this part of the country. Farmers haven't been able to get into sodden fields to till the earth, never mind sow their seeds. Yields will be down and prices are sure to rise, even if the first frost comes late.
I finally fenced our vegetable garden last weekend and (optimistically) began putting in our own "crops" late Sunday and Monday afternoon. First I set a variety of nursery-grown plants -- jalapeño and habanero peppers, Roma tomatoes, basil, Italian and curly parsley, oregano, dill, rosemary, cilantro, and chives. Next I sowed rows of peas, radishes, carrots and spinach from seed.
Last I planted several bushes -- raspberry, blackberry and blueberry -- in a new bed behind the garage, just a few steps from our vegetables-and-herbs plot. The soil in that area is wretched, pudding-like clay, and it took some serious work (plus quite a bit of "borrowing" from the vegetable garden) to make it usable.
Everything appears to be doing well so far. This morning I was greeted by radish seedlings, the first sprouts to break the surface.
Ours is a garden of favorites -- that is, we grow what we like. And while it's not a sustenance garden, per se, it allows us to hone our senses and practice the skills required for true sustenance gardening.
That's the big payoff.
We expect to double the size of our garden next year and experiment with other crops. Part of our garage will become a "hothouse" for starting saved and store-bought seeds well before the last frost.
That's a long way off, though. Right now, I think I'll go pick up a few cucumber plants and put 'em in later today.
Wellsboro', Tioga Co., Pa.,
May 23, 1884.
Mr. Editor: -- The long and bitter winter is past.
"H'it mos' killed me.
But it has gone down the back entry of time."
Summer has come. It always does. I have been here sixty-two years, and there has been a summer every year. Sometimes I thought it wouldn't, but it always did come. I have grown to have faith in it. My last and most beautiful canoe rests in the cool, dry cellar right under where I am writing. I spend about an hour daily sparking her. I lift her by her handsome stems, and whisper of the long summer outing we are to have on the prattling, rattling waters of the Tiadatton, and she quivers and squirms like a trout; or, is it my imagination?
Yes, summer has come, and the wood-thrush, the cat-bird, the oriole, the song-sparrow, the waltz-bird (the naturalists miss him), they are here. I said I would leave when the maples did. They are leaved, and I am left; but not for long. I shall go next week. Good-by, debts, duns, taxes, and deviltries. "Life is short, art is long." Just so. Nature is longer than either, or both, and a great sight better.
I rather think Outing has come to stay. I think it ought. I read indefatigably during the off-season, but never in the woods. And so, away for the woods!
Yours for Outing,
Nessmuk.
P.S. The same meaning wood-duck in the obsolete Narragansett tongue; more correctly wood-drake. See?
(From Outing, August 1884. To view it as it appeared in the magazine, click here or here.)
As every thinking person expected, our government's credit rating got dinged by Standard & Poor's. Moody's and Fitch, each of which has expressed formal pessimism about U.S. debt, now contemplate downgrades of their own.
I spent ten years of my professional life in the corporate headquarters of two financial-services companies, the last four in the executive suite of a major player in the investment business, so I know something about the influence of agencies like S&P, Moody's, Fitch and Best.
It's not the duty of citizens to save the nation's economy, but as much as possible, in my view, this is the time to renew our commitment to supporting domestic and local commerce. We should ignore the flailings of Wall Street and the wailings of its shills -- anyone who spews chestnuts like "historical performance" or exhorts us to "stay in the market" is a self-interested robot, not an expert and certainly not a friend.
