The disappearing middle

A point I previously hadn't realized:

From 2001 to 2007, California's information industries increased their output by 21 percent, but lost 6.9 percent of their jobs. In addition, the jobs these high-tech industries tend to create directly are high-wage jobs that require advanced degrees, while the jobs they create indirectly are low-wage service-sector jobs at homes, restaurants, offices, and hospitals. So, by their nature, they exacerbate the segmentation of California's economy.

From The New Republic.

While I know full well about how our productivity is rising faster then output which means a reduction in jobs, the second part of that which is the divergence between high and low paying jobs being created by, in part, the elimination of that middle tier of workers is something I hadn't seen so clearly stated before.

Jindal's health care talking points

Not that I necessarily agree with all of them, just wanted to save this link somewhere:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/04/AR2009100402003.html?sub=AR

Tonite's the second fire of the year!

Had a small fire on Sunday. Another small fire tonight (October 1).

Should be down around 40 overnight.

Cool

Chasse, pêche, nature et traditions

That's the name of a minor French political party -- Hunting, Fishing, Nature, and Traditions.

Thought that was a cool name.

Interesting statement

Like the progressivism of the 1900s, but unlike the labor movement and agrarian populism, the progressivism of the 2000s is a movement of haves motivated by pity for the have-littles and have-nots, rather than a movement of have-littles and have-nots motivated by self-interest. And because they are, or believe themselves to be, motivated by philanthropy, the progressive haves are less interested in the economic struggles of the have-littles of the broad working class than in rescuing a far smaller number of have-nots from dire poverty.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/08/25/labor/index.html

Just how bad was the garden this year?

September 9th.

Just ate my first ripe tomato -- a cherry one at that.

Dinner at least is grilled garden fresh taters :)

Sayings...

Well dip my testicles in sweet cream and squat me in a kitchen full of kittens!

http://www.arboristsite.com/showthread.php?t=108213

Thank God I'm a Country Boy...

Had to take Monday off from work to fix my rear brakes, parts fell off when I went to rotate my tires on Sunday evening, so I made my annual trip to Wi Li Kit for an ice cream.

Wi Li Kit can be described by the single word, decadent. If you've never had it, you don't have a proper perspective for understanding the term, "best ice cream you've ever had."

While I sat at a picnic table, ice cream dripping down the cone hot off the waffle maker, the sweet, earthy aroma drifted from the dairy barn across the street and blended with the smell of the freshly cut hay bales sitting in a wagon next to the stand -- just the perfect bouqet to complement the raspberry choclate chip ice cream!

Summer nights

Out driving at 8:45 after putting in a load of laundry at the laundromat.

Warm, muggy. Heat lightning in the distance. Windows down in the truck, rear slider open.

Going down a country road, corn fields on either side.

Frogs and insects at the height of their evening symphony.

Life doesn't get much better.

I bought a roto tiller

Swore I never, ever would. I'd either borrow or rent.

But I did. After this year, when I my time was severely limited between the bad weather and having the flu in May, and my energy to turn the garden by hand was reduced from the flu, I decided I should have one.

I need a better photo -- that was taken the night it came home from Craig's List.

I'll probably use it to cultivate during the year, too (cultivation is running it shallowly to kill weeds, as opposed to tillage which disturbs the soil much more deeply).

It's a Troy Bilt Junior with a Tecumseh H35 Engine.
Spark Plugs: Champion J8C, gap 0.030
Air Filter: Tecumseh 30727
Oil: 30 or 5w30

Tecumseh Basic Troubleshooting & Service Guide (or my archive copy).

Here's a cool, old piece of Troy Bilt propoganda found while searching for a manual:
http://www.brentchalmers.com/Literature/TroyBiltGreatGardensMagazine.pdf

A beautiful day.

Sunday started off with a phone call to a Craigslist ad I had seen Saturday night, and then a nice drive to Ashford for this:
It's a Stihl MS 360. It's newer then my 039, a smidge more powerful, lighter weight, and professional instead homeowner quality. This will be my new primary saw, with the 039 as the backup. I'll probably alternate them quite a bit, and the 360 can handle a 24" bar that I need to easily buck up the occasional larger tree. It's always good to have two saws, especially when felling trees -- last thing you want is to have a tree weakened and your saw break, leaving a very dangerous snag that could fall wildly in a strong wind.

Drove home through Boston Hollow, had a long visit with my mom, came home and grilled pork chops for lunch. I had quite a bit of eye strain, so I wasn't up to doing work for the non-profit, so I went for a long Sunday drive down to Beach Pond and around Sterling & Foster.

Came home and pulled in by the garden to check it. First, having drunk a large ice coffee while driving I had to pee...really...bad. So I did. As I'm zipping up, I look up and see a deer 50' in front of me with an annoyed, "Why are you peeing on my lawn?" look. Well she did as deer do, and jumped away once I made eye contact. Jumped all of 50 more feet, and from 100' away continued browsing while I checked the garden. Less respect then Rodney Dangerfield. Hunting season can not arrive too soon.

My garden which is a disaster this year due to flu, weather, and critters and I'm mostly planning for next year. Harvested about 5# of summer squash, which will be about it for the year...wow, 361# harvested last year. And to think I had wanted to donate 400# to the food pantry alone.

After that I brought the PC I reloaded Windows on back to Henry for his grandkids to bang away on, made some spaghetti for dinner (and pork-n-spaghetti lunches), did laundry, and had some ice cream.

Life is good. Best day I've had in a long time.

Woodstove Log Sizes...

Looking for a new, more efficient woodstove.

I want one that can take 22" logs since I usually cut about 20" for myself. ("Standard" trade size firewood is 16" -- which makes exactly three rows deep on a 4'x4'x8' cord of wood)

Vermont Castings Encore: 20"
Vigilant: 18"
Resolute Acclaim: 16"
Intrepid II: 16"
Defiant: 24"
Dutchwest Small: 16"
Dutchwest Large: 22"
Dutchwest XL: 25"

Jotul 3CB: 18"
F400 Castine: 20"
F500 Oslo: 22"
F600 Firelight: 24"

Didn't have the midas touch today...

Only 28% savings off list...$66.55 list, $47.65 I paid. Cupboards are getting kind of full though...

Yeah, Ok...so sometimes I enjoy making a game of it...

Went to Big Y to use the coupon from last week.

$81.71 - $1.00 coupon - $27.35 in "use your card" specials - $7 off $50 coupon = $46.36 ... 43% savings which is pretty darn good :) I know I could do better...that included a $12 steak that wasn't on discount but should be good for three meals.

Figure a "portion" of meat is supposed to be about 4 ozs before cooking, 1-3/4# Sirloin will yield about 7 servings. I know I'll eat it in about three sittings...once hot and two left overs. The chicken was 1-1/2 pounds, or six portions, and I know the same size chicken package I bought last week made four meals for me.

Today was a good day.

Got up at 5:30. Set "Take a Chance on Me" by ABBA on my Blackberry as the alarm...upbeat and annoying as all hell, so pretty much perfect for an alarm.

At work at 8:05, so I'm getting closer to my 8am goal. Had lunch with Frank, the recruiter who got me this job. Out of the office at 4:30.

Gorgeous, dry, sunny day finally. Far too many cloudy days this month, you'd think it was Seattle, not June in New England. Home at 6, fed the dogs, worked out in the garden for an hour, mowed the lawn for a half hour, through some chicken tenderloins on the grill.

Had a nice grilled chicken salad for dinner. I'll use the rest of the chicken for lunch this week, figuring a salad tomorrow, maybe a sandwich later. Had a $7 off of $50 coupon for Big Y...bought $50.26 before the coupon on Sunday -- I swear I wasn't using a calculator!

Did some work for PCF tonite. It was a good, full, satisfying day.

Garden Update

-- Planted some pole beans last weekend to replace the deer eaten peas.
-- Planted some yellow squash & zuccinis last weekend.

This weekend:

-- Hilled potatoes
-- Planted green (bush) beans
-- Planted cucumbers
-- Planted a six pack of Celebrity tomatoes + Cauliflower I bought at the co-op.
-- My transplants are looking pretty peaked after I tried to harden them last week, I'm gonna try and get them in this week which looks like a lot of overcast/showery days.
-- Beans & Squash from last week are up. Spritzed the beans and cauliflower with deer & rabbit repellent.

Still behind were I should be, but hopefully by this coming weekend corn and the rest will be in. Should've rototilled...shoveling to open up planting rows is sucking up too much time. I forgot to take pics for the blog :(

Started seeing Red Lily Beetle larvae on the tiger lillies, so they got spritzed with Sevin liquid.

I wrote that off the top of my head?

Reply in my local paper...not the greatest piece of writing by a long shot, but I thought pretty decent for a single draft, single stream of conciousness:

>Mason is noted in the history books for slaughtering hundreds of Pequots when he raided their
>villages.

And your point would be?

Native civilizations, across the Americas, were engaged in slavery, violence, and genocide before European settlement. Mason exploited an existing war between tribes that had been going on before settlement to English advantage.

European exploration and settlement brought three major things.

One, and by far the most deadly and culture changing, was old world communicable diseases. These decimated native civilizations and opened up the temperate parts of the Americas for settlement by Europeans. Without these diseases wiping out the native population, we would look a lot more like Africa or India -- influenced by colonial powers, but without the wholesale replacement of native populations seen in North America to an almost total extent, and Central and South America to a lesser extent.

They brought with them better, more sophisticated systems of governance and the tools to support them -- i.e. the concept of 'state' instead of tribe, combined with technology like writing. Taken as a whole, this heritage of western civilization dating back to the Greek city states through Roman bureaucracy through to international commerce being conducted by contemporary Europe allowed them to out-organize the native populations.

And they brought superior technologies -- such as ocean-crossing ships, metal armor, and firearms.

There's nothing morally superior between the big picture of native civilizations or western civilizations. Both were prone to both individual and organized violence, to cruelty for entertainment, to slavery, to stealing from neighbors and seeking advantage over others. Both had the ability to demonstrate tremendous compassion and humanity. The Europeans simply were better organized, equipped, and unlike other parts of the globe disease cleared the way ahead of the Europeans so they could become the dominant inhabitants instead of just colonial rulers.

Came across this wonderful link tying together much of the Star Wars backstory

A New Sith, or Revenge of the Hope
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III

If we accept all the Star Wars films as the same canon, then a lot that happens in the original films has to be reinterpreted in the light of the prequels. As we now know, the rebel Alliance was founded by Yoda, Obi-Wan Kenobi and Bail Organa. What can readily be deduced is that their first recruit, who soon became their top field agent, was R2-D2.

Consider: at the end of RotS, Bail Organan orders 3PO's memory wiped but not R2's. He wouldn't make the distinction casually. Both droids know that Yoda and Obi-Wan are alive and are plotting sedition with the Senator from Alderaan. They know that Amidala survived long enough to have twins and could easily deduce where they went. However, R2 must make an impassioned speech to the effect that he is far more use to them with his mind intact: he has observed Palpatine and Anakin at close quarters for many years, knows much that is useful and is one of the galaxy's top experts at hacking into other people's systems. Also he can lie through his teeth with a straight face. Organa, in immediate need of espionage resources, agrees.

For the next 20 years, as far as 3PO knows, he is the property of Captain Antilles, doing protocol duties on a diplomatic transport. He is vaguely aware of the existence of the princess but doesn't know much about her. Wherever 3PO goes, being as loud and obvious as he always is, his unobtrusive little counterpart goes with him. 3PO is R2's front man. Wherever they land, R2 is passing messages between rebel sympathisers and sizing up governments as potential rebel recruits - both by personal contact and by hacking into their networks. He passes his recommendations on to Organa.

Yoda is out of the picture by this stage, using the Force-infused swamps of Dagobah to hide himself from Vader and the Emperor. Or something. He is meditating on the future and keeping in touch with Obi-Wan via the ghost of Qui-Gon Jin, which as comm systems go has the virtue of being untappable. Obi-Wan, on Tattoine, keeps in touch with Bail Organa and the other Rebel leaders by courier, of which more later.

As Star Wars opens, R2 is rushing the Death Star plans to the Rebellion. R2, not Leia. The plans are always in R2. What Leia puts into him in the early scene is only her own holographic message to Kenobi. Leia's own mission, as she says in the holographic message, is to pick up Obi-Wan and take him to Alderaan - or so she thinks. Actually, her father just wants her to meet Kenobi, which up to this point she never has. There's a reason for that.

Obi-Wan has spent the last 20 years in the Tattoine desert, keeping watch over Luke Skywalker and trying to decide on one of the three available options:
A) If Luke shows no significant access to the Force, then leave him alone in obscurity
B) If Luke shows real Force ability, then consider recruiting him as a Jedi. The rebellion needs Jedi. Now.
But, if Luke shows any signs of turning out like his father, then C) sneak into his house one fine night and chop his head off. With great regret but it'll save a lot of trouble later on.
Knowing this to be the case, Bail Organa (perhaps at the insistence of his wife) has found excuses not to send Leia to Ben for assessment of Jedi potential, largely for fear of option C.

To be fair to all concerned, Leia has shown no overt signs of a link to the Force. Luke on the other hand has. In his home-built hotrod aircraft, with no formal fighter pilot training and no decent instrumentation, Luke can regularly score centre-hits on 2-metre targets in complicated zero-altitude maneouvres. Until he attends the briefing on Yavin, Luke has no way of knowing that hardened combat pilots would consider that nearly impossible. To him it's easy. Obi-Wan, who saw Anakin's performance in the Pod Race, is nervous.

Much of Obi-Wan's behaviour in this film, and Yoda's in the next, can best be understood if they are frankly scared to death of what Luke might become. (Ben is also scared that he himself will make all the same mistakes he made with Anakin.)

Now, with the existence of the rebellion at stake, Bail Organa has finally told Leia to go see Obi-Wan and has sent her along with R2. The original plan would then be for Obi-Wan (with optional Luke and/or Leia in tow) to leave his exile and take the Death Star plans to Yavin, where they can be put to use. R2 (with Leia if Ben doesn't want to take her) would then carry on to Alderaan to maintain the cover story. The original plan does not survive contact with a large Imperial Star Destroyer.

R2 and 3PO bail out in an escape pod, landing in vaguely the right area of Tattoine, where R2's first priority is transport. He arranges to be captured by a group of Jawas and, once on board their transport, he makes a deal with them (possibly using emergency funds stored about his person) to take him where he wants to go. The Jawas refuse to go directly to Kenobi for fear of marauding Sandpeople but they agree to R2's second request : transport to the Skywalker farm. They even get to keep the purchase price if they can sell R2 and 3PO there. The Jawas shake on it and go through with the plan.

Seeing 3PO fail to recognise the farm where he worked for 10 years gives r2 a moment's amusement but, as soon as possible, he gets away and heads for Kenobi. Luke and 3PO follow, which may or may not have been part of the plan.

On first seeing R2, Obi-Wan has a twinkle in his eye and calls him "my little friend". Well, he is. However, when Luke wakes up and says that R2 claimed to be owned by an Obi-Wan Kenobi, he blandly says "I don't seem to remember ever owning a droid." Ben has in fact owned several but the remark is aimed at R2 and translates as "You keep quiet. I'm not about to tell him everything just yet." Obi-Wan thinks fast and tells Luke a version of his past that does not involve a father who became a dark lord of the Sith. He wants to examine Luke a lot more closely before he risks telling him the real truth.

Although the Death Star plans need to get to Yavin as soon as possible, Obi-Wan needs to make one more diversion first. If the Empire knows that Leia is a Rebel leader, then they also know about her father and the whole Organa family may need immediate evacuation. Fortunately, before coming to Tattoine, R2 had already arranged transport, which is waiting at Mos Eisley, under the command of the Rebellion's other chief field agent and espionage asset. Chewbacca.

20 years earlier, Chewbacca was second in command of the defence of his planet. He's there in the tactical conferences and there on the front lines and is a personal friend of Yoda's. When he needed reliable people to join the embryonic Alliance, who else would Yoda turn to but his old friend from Kashykk? Given his background, there is no way that Chewie would spend the crucial years of the rebellion as the second-in-command to (sorry Han) a low-level smuggler. Unless it's his cover. In fact, Chewie is a top-line spy and flies what is in many ways the Rebellion's best ship.

The Millenium Falcon may look like a beat-up old freighter but it can outrun any Imperial ship in normal space or hyperspace, hang in a firefight with a Star Destroyer or outmaneouvre a dozen top-of-the-line TIE fighters. It's a remarkable feat of engineering and must have cost a colossal fortune to build. How does Han come to own a ship like that? He only thinks he does, actually it's Chewie's. Half-way through RotS, we see the Falcon landing at the Senate building on Coruscant. If it's the same ship (which of course it is) then it was the personal transport of one of the senatorial delegations - a much more likely source to commission its design. That delegatino must have later joined the Rebellion and given it the use of the Falcon. In fact, if the delegation is the one from Kashykk, then the ship may have belonged to Chewbacca as early as RotS.

Han is Chewie's front man. It's much better, and safer for him, if he doesn't know what's really going on. Chewie used to work with Lando Calrissian in a similar way but Lando wanted to settle down, so Chewie arranged for him to lose the Falcon in a card game to Han Solo, an even better choice as partner. Han and Chewie's working method is pretty much what we see in the cantina scene: Chewie make the contacts and sets up the deals, then turns them over to Han who haggles over the price and gives the final yea or nay. This lets Chewie wander the seamy underside of the galaxy pretty much at will, making contacts, gathering and passing information with no-one was the wiser, especially not Han.

Chewie persuaded Han to do business with Jabba the Hutt so he could make regular runs to Tattoine, where Chewie could pass messages between Kenobi and Organa. When R2's urgent message came through only days before, the only way for Chewie to get back to Tattoine in time was to make the "mistake" that forced Han to dump his cargo to avoid capture. As a down side, this led to Solo's getting a death mark out on him from Jabba the Hutt. Chewie was a bit upset about the need for that but figured they weren't going to be dealing with Tattoine for much longer.

En route to Alderaan, R2 and Chewie play stop-motion chess. This is the latest in a series of games they've played over the year in the back rooms of space stations and cantinas across the galaxy, but this is the first time they've done it in front of their respective straight men, so they put on a big show.

Then it all goes wrong again. Alderaan is gone and the Falcon is caught and brought aboard the Death Star. Only Han, Luke and 3PO don't know just how much trouble they're in but Obi-Wan has a plan and seems confident (but Jedi always do). Soon afterwards, R2 finds Leia in the detention cells and shouts that they have to rescue her, to which Chewie can only agree. If Vader learns he has a daughter, then they're all in deep trouble, so Chewie does his bit to persuade Han to go along with Luke's plan.

Then, on the verge of escape, Vader himself turns up only yards from both of his children, one of whom is leaking Force all over the place. Obi-Wan stages a distraction by letting himself die and go into the Force while the others escape. At this point, Chewie suddenly realises that he's been left in charge, not only of the Death Star Plans and the survival of the Rebellion but of the secret son and daughter of Darth Vader. With the Organas and Kenobi all dead, only Chewie, R2 and Yoda know who Luke and Leia are. And only Ob-Wan knew where Yoda has been hiding. Chewie is stressed out by the responsibility and R2 (who keeps making crude jokes about the whole affair) is being no help at all.

Chewie's first problem is what is happening between Luke and Leia. With a psychic link they can feel but don't understand, thrown together in a life-or-death escape, they are looking at each other with a sparky intensity that Chewie gradually recognises as Romantic Tension. He's no expert on human relationships but Chewie is fairly sure that that's Wrong, so he does the only thing he can under the circumstances - he throws Han at her. Han is at first not interested but after a while starts to warm to the idea with an intensity that gives Chewie new worries.

When they reach Yavin, Han decides to take the money and run and Chewie decides to go with him. Looked at in cold light, it's for the good of the Rebellion. Even if Yavin is destroyed, there'll be one agent who knows what's going on who can try and put something back together, but he doesn't feel good about it. When Han decides to turn around and join the attack, Chewie is all for it.

Han and Luke get medals but Chewie doesn't. Actually, Leia offers him one but Chewie turns it down. He got one of those things from Yoda about 20 years ago, but there's no way he can tell her that.

As the film ends, the three founders of the Rebellion are all gone. Bail Organa is dead, Yoda is out of contact and Obi-Wan's ghost can only talk to other Jedi. (So that would be Yoda then.) Thus, the field leadership of the rebellion has just been turned over to the daughter of Darth Vader. Chewie is really hoping that someone with an official rank greater than hers will get here real soon before he has to think really seriously about option C.

© Keith Martin 2005

100th Post!

I just noticed at random this will be my 100th post!

At any rate, check out this -- show choir! Which I never really heard of before (yes, I watched the pilot to Glee tonite) and just find really cool.









(The choir in the last two videos -- same performance in two parts -- a couple months later were 2009 National Grand Champions)

Yes, to my continued befuddlement, I am a fuh-laming heterosexual. Thankfully I don't expend even a modicum of effort normally, thereby keeping my self safely out of the metrosexual category. I have a former co-worker and friend who I meet for lunch occassionaly, and to her great amusement and my consternation she has realized I have a good eye for fashion which she makes me use at Dress Barn. Yesterday I managed to give meaningful advise on patterns, cuts, and how the weight of fabric hangs in a woman's clothing store, channeling some sort of cross between Clinton Kelley and Standford Blatch -- to the chagrin of the staff and most of the patrons. That I even know proper terminology to describe my opinions about clothes, someone just shoot me now, please?

Coal Black

Well, no garden pics as I had what I presume to be the swine flu over the weekend :(

Not the sickest I've been, but definitely no slouch and no simple 24 hour flu. Feeling mostly better now...but we're now in a rainy weather pattern again. Grrrr.

Did find one of the eleven banned Looney Tunes that is a hoot to watch -- I get some of the contemporary cultural references (like Rosebud), but there are other's I'm sure I don't even have a clue what I'm missing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIP4WY8FhUk

More TV

We'll return to garden photographs this weekend :)

But catching up on a week of today:

1) Watched the Office. According to another blogger, (on the rare occassion I do) I dance like a 12 year old boy.

2) Alan Alda as Jack Donaghey's flaming liberal father. Biting my hand I was laughing so hard.

3) Perhaps the best Bones ever. Brennan blurts out she'd like a baby, and want's Booth's sperm (in a very clinical manner, of course). And Booth's hallucinations seeing Stewie! Albeit predictably mushy at the end, tough contract negotiations folks?