Q quarreling...Roses...Tomatoes

   Roses to you, in fact roses to all of us who have endured the horror show of 2020. Living through the pandemic has been demanding enough, but the political/cultural skirmishes have pushed us to new and uncomfortable places.

    Economic woes, as personal financial crises, concern over children's education and well being, and personal health worries have driven far too many in the nation to the brink.

    So, enjoy the roses from Lana and a diversion about tomatoes. The analysis piece of this post comes later. 

the crop report 

    Growing tomatoes is a big deal when you grow up in Indiana. 

     Bless her heart, my mom set out tomato plants every year but I am hard pressed to remember there ever being a bounty of the summer fruit. We ended up buying them from farmers and growers or were gifted them by neighbors who had more luck.

      Luck changed when Lana entered my life. Her mother was a master gardener, and it must be in the genes. Lana has lamented that living on a hill side on a ridge affords precious little flat ground. So she has taken to what I call the Frank Phillippi school of tomato growing.

        The crop is distributed in pots. My pal Frank amazed me decades ago when he was living in an apartment in Georgetown with a tiny balcony and a couple of sunny windows where he introduced his tomatoes in pots technique.

     A few years later when he owned a home in Alexandria, but with limited sunny garden space, he upped his game by putting the pots in wagons and moving them into the sun.

       People from Indiana will swear the best tomatoes and corn are their province. They are indeed joys of an Indiana summer, but we've found excellent corn and tomatoes here  in the California Republic.

     If you are a long time reader you will recall we've experimented with our tomato crops. We've sheltered them in visquine "huts," wrapped them in plastic, and have tried raised beds. This summer it's pots, in sunny and warm zones on the back hill and at the back of the house.

      I'm a devotee of the San Marzano and yellow varieties.

      Lana is not overly fond of tomatoes, except in cooking, but she put out a variety this year and they seem to be flourishing. She complains that she's not growing enough to "put them up" or can them as she did when she gardened Indiana's flat land.

      Another favorite is the cherry tomato. And again she's got a prolific pot. Next year though, she's got designs on a piece of the hillside where flowers may make way for a new tomato bed. "They need to be in the ground," she insists. That means some ground work, flattening, perhaps roto tilling and soil amending will be on the fall and winter do list. 

a mask-less confab

     Generations hence will find this time fraught with lunacy and perhaps inexplicable behavior. 
      In unpacking how we got to a Trump, they will learn he is the poster boy for a fractured culture where self indulgence   and entertainment challenged thoughtfulness and a common good. 
      There were some during the Spanish Influenza pandemic in 1918 who refused to wear masks. There were super spreader events even then. 
      Xenophobes, nationalists and white supremacists have always been with us, but usually marginalized by an intelligent society and a conscientious political code. 
       Science has had its doubters forever, but for most of our history the ignorant have lacked political power.
       Conspiracy theories probably began with the dawn of humankind. 
       What makes this time different is the ubiquitous hum of media, mass and social, and combined with the intellectual decline of the nation. It is exacerbated by the tectonics of media economics that has left us with fewer gate keepers, fact checkers, time tested aggregators, trusted delivery systems, and the rise of the importance of opinion. We forget everyone has one. The value of opinion was once commensurate with the quality of a life experience, training and education. Now blowhards make their living bloviating and sad, weak, easily led, ill informed people, challenged with thinking, allow others tell them what to think.
      And so we have Trump, and now Q. 
    

textures and shapes

     

battling Q's 

      I would not be surprised to learn that Steve Bannon is somehow a godfather to the Q silliness. It fit's his MO of cultivating fringe and marginalized and intelligence challenged demographics.
     He may have nothing to do with it. Maybe Bill Maher was not joking when a couple of years ago he admitted to being Q.
     I'm sorry, if you think there is a shred of credibility in any of the QAnon goofiness, you have just relinquished your privilege to speak about anything other than fairy tales, and cleaning out horse stables.

     a true Q?

      If you are interested in intrigue about the idea of the letter Q, then do a little reading about the Q source used in Biblical criticism and scholarship.
      For some 120 years scholars and theologians have discussed, debated and studied what is called the Q source-a compendium of statements and thoughts attributed to Jesus, the radical, reformist rabbi for whom Christianity owes its origins. Some hypothesize these thoughts of Christ were drawn from the faiths early oral tradition and thus explains how and why some of the Gospels are similar.
     The research, scholarship and debate is fascinating and endlessly more stimulating that thinking Donald Trump is the savior of the world, doing battle with pedophiles, the deep state and aliens. 
      I've been saying for almost 4 years, Trumpism is fascism, and authoritarianism. Some of you Trumpists and/or QAnon devotees may read this as Trump is the Anti-Christ. I'm not saying that. But believe it if it will help you come to your senses. 
     Jesus might get a kick out of that.

  

    Stay safe. Take care of each other.

    See you down the trail.

GETTING OUT

JUST DOING IT

    A couple of simple musings about the fortune of doing something, more specifically about being able to do it.

      I never got over looking out of windows.  From elementary school through my days in the corner office as a CEO, the great outdoors always called to me.  I would rather be out there instead of inside.  I regretted seeing beautiful days flow by while I was desk bound.

PLIMPTON DID IT

    Some of the appeal of George Plimpton's writing was his

ability to get out and get into things, a whole lineage of  fantasy life episodes. He called it Participatory Journalism.

      The new documentary PLIMPTON! will premierThursday evening at the AFI Discovery Channel Silverdocs Festival in Washington,  I hope it travels widely.

Here's the link.

     When president of the Writers Center I had a chance to spend a couple of days with Plimpton.  A long lunch led to an afternoon of great stories, anecdotes and the trigger like urge to launch into a new adventure.  That evening at a cocktail party, watching Plimpton fill rooms with charm, grace and wit was some of the best theatre I've seen.

      Part of my role was to introduce him at the main lecture of the weekend "Gathering of Writers."  As the weekend had progressed it became apparent part of my job was to "keep track" of George.  

       The Sunday afternoon keynote address time loomed and board members were frantic to find George.

       "He went that way, saying he wanted to take some air"

one of the lobby registrants told me pointing up the block.

       We were meeting in an historic building that anchored

an avenue of pubs, bars, bistros and restaurants.  I dashed off as the clock was ticking down to introduction time.

       I'd duck into a place, look over the room and ask the bartender or greeter, "Have you seen George Plimpton in here?"  

       "I've heard a lot of pick up lines," a man said from his bar stool in one of the pubs, "but nothing like that?"

       It did seem a crazed mission and I was probably starting  to get a bit nervous.

       It all ended well.  After several frantic minutes, it dawned on me where I might find him.

       It was in an old, worn tavern, that had been a favorite of newspaper employees, reporters and printers, for decades.

      There, back in the kitchen behind the bar with the cook sat George intently watching an old television.  

       "Oh.  Is it that time already?" He said as I came through the door.

       His Detroit Lions were playing.

       I understood his wanting to get out.  

DAY BOOK
GETTING OUT ON
A ROSY DAY

RAMBLING ROSE

AND LOCAL POPPY

See you down the trail