Once again this past Summer, AZ and I continued our experiments in container gardening.
This year, as in previous years, iteratively improved in success (despite the best efforts of some marauding squirrels...) Some flowers blossomed nicely, and a chili pepper plant provided a nice crop.
Hopeful for next year, we brought some of our results indoors to winter over. Aided by the replacement digital camera, some documentation of our experiments will be forthcoming. Today, a single chili pepper in the window.
So yesterday I took a political action I'd long desired but never received the proper oomph of motivation to do. I said something semi-publically about my distaste for a number of actions of our current political administration.
It caught me a bit unawares. I'm used to harrumphing each morning as I read the paper, taken aback by what I so often consider to be a backward, manipulative, or self-serving activity on the part of the larger political establishment (for the record, I think of myself as a left-leaning independent moderate on most issues). But it ends there, with the cats in silent agreement and AZ rolling her eyes but in agreement.
Then yesterday I read of the updated rules (.pdf, 155pg) proposal being bandied about by the US Forestry Service, a move which would decentralise the decision-making authority for forest management (potentially good) and reduce costs by eliminating the need for environmental impact studies at time of forest management decisions. The local forester, according to the Chief Operating Officer (yes, that is her title) has the information to make those decisions without general review.
It was just one of those things in the way they said it. I was moved at last to take fingers to keyboard and speak out my frustration in a Letter to the Editor. Not the most active of acts, perhaps. Perhaps just a whitman-esque barbaric yawp. But I had to do something to release some of my concern.
Now to read the 155 pages of proposed rules.
Incidentally, a review of Theodore Roosevelt's 1908 State of the Union speech is informative as to his initial views of the use of America's forests when he started creating the national parks system. Obviously the early industrial-post-industrial utility argument is there, but the deeper argument of stewardship and caution (hello, conservatives? caution? preservation?) as well.
Nothing should be permitted to stand in the way of the preservation of the forests, and it is criminal to permit individuals to purchase a little gain for themselves through the destruction of forests when this destruction is fatal to the well-being of the whole country in the future.
Thanks to Yahoo's weekly what's new mailings, I occassionally find some interesting stuff, though more often I wonder about how much Yahoo! is taking in for paid placements.
This week: Newsradio and the Comedic Art is worth following through, though it has a tremendously annoying pop-up (almost annoying enough to download the more current (and less memory hungry?) Mozilla build to combat...)
Also this week: your guide to start a furore.
Mike's been writing recently about how he is pleased (albeit sometimes for odd reasons) to come from Bloomington IN, where he and I met and started our long friendship.
It all but goes without saying that I feel the same way. You can hardly wander through Anne's or my logs without seeing the occasional reference to that fine southcentral Indiana city.
There's good resources available for Bloomington and the area for those of us who are, in a sense, Bton expats. The local newspaper, the Herald-Times has a decent, though sometimes frustrating, web presence. The student newspaper of Indiana University at Bloomington has an online Indiana Digital Student (which even includes an avantgo version for handheld users, quite handy!).
For what I think is a nice taste of the local culture, the work of Sarah Hoskinson Frommer (disclaimer, parent of a friend from -way- back) captures a nice rendition of what it is to grow up in a smallish college town, couched in the genre of mystery writing.
Today in reading the HoosierTimes, I came across reference to a new anthology of Bloomington Poets, which is another reason I love Bloomington. Not that I'm personally a big consumer of poetry, but that as a community Bloomington can consistently pull together such small projects for itself. It's a pity about some of the glitches in the web design (and I think the designer is one of those people you know in High School but don't remember clearly). The navigation shifts unexpectedly, and you have to look at the back cover GIF in order to find out who is represented on the anthology). But the book is something I look for next time I'm in town visiting.
Cited at Ben Hammersley's site (and see also his nifty work on RSS tracking) is this amazing HogafflaHage, which I hope means "Doo Wop" in Swedish. Click away on the horseheads for the joy.