RealityPivots

This post’s title and first paragraphs are from a draft from a year ago. Unfortunately I continue with what I see as new evidence.

We get the leaders and the government we deserve.
It was hard to dislike the public persona of President Reagan. Obama too is a charmer — basically another movie star.
I had hopes that his work as a community organizer was a foundational part of his character. I hoped an insight he writes about in his first book — a need to establish roots — was part of a larger ability to examine society and opt for fundamental changes. It is not something however that you can talk about on the campaign trail.
Now I see him as the guy elected president by the fraternity at college to give the illusion of modernity.
I thought his trip a few months ago by helicopter to New York for a night out on the town with Michele was a terrible gaffe as an image. Now when I see a picture of him on a golf course I flinch.
Sending more troops to Afghanistan is so depressing, so lacking in gravitas.
My analogue for our situation as a world empire is the southern slave states before the Civil War — similar traits of pride, greed, self righteousness, lack of empathy and the impossibility of letting go power. A real community organizer would recognize that sending more troops is not going to win the affections of the community of Afghans.

I’ve got nothing against Obama. In some ways I think the family relationships he models are as positive as any decisions he can make. However, he is the only national symbol of political leadership we have.
Two of his recent statements about the Gulf oil leak have me sighing. A few days ago he opined that the important thing was to clean up the oil spill, not to worry about how much oil was leaking. That second part seemed to evidence his tin ear and lack of fundamental clarity about the situation. This was a little before it became apparent that the leak was far larger than had been reported. If his efforts for the first month had not been geared to investigate the extent of the problem then all his talk about government response and effort was just spin.
Lately a commentator has pointed out that when he said he was disappointed that such a fine company as BP had not been giving accurate information about the leak he was neglecting the fact that BP had been cited for a startling number of dangerous workplace infractions.
He really is naive — a terrible attribute for a president in time of crisis.
He has described himself as pragmatic and optimistic. That can be interpreted in different ways but for him it seems to mean that you have to hope for the best while recognizing that you can’t really change anything fundamentally. That might be right. We are a world wide empire and that has inevitable consequences.
I have a much darker vision of life with one foot in the concept of the “banality of evil”. The other day at some dinner Obama made a joke about drone aircraft. How terrible to think that our habit of raining destruction on civilians by ‘mistake’ from Predator aircraft gliding silently through the sky can become a joke.
Evidently the administration is working to dilute the provisions of the financial reform bill — the “savvy businessmen” in the huge banks are ultimately trusted.
I find the fundamental mechanism of the health care reform — forcing people to buy insurance from private companies — to be noxious.
I can’t think of any ways that Obama is holding up a vision of the future that is inspiring in particulars and makes me want to work together with my fellow citizens. He is an optimistic, pragmatic, part of the corporate oligarchy.

I like this method of sprouting seeds. I put each individual seed in its little block of dirt and promise it a warm, moist home. Germination rate is obvious and I can identify each sprout’s characteristics. When they sprout I can pack another layer of mud around them and squeeze the dirt into a round ball with a flattened bottom.

From Soil Block and Pond

From Soil Block and Pond

Beans, brussel sprouts, bak choi, and fennel are producing well, basil is mediocre and none of the broccoli mix or asparagus are coming up.
The lettuce mix that malingered over the winter is doing great outside — enough for salad already.

From lettuce

I like the patterns wee creatures make inside cedar bark.

From Pond

I peeled logs for an edging along the new hole I’m digging.

From Pond

Last year I picked up a plastic swimming pool left at the side of the road with a “free” sign. I cut off the top which left a really tough bottom and that part doesn’t seem to leak.

From Pond

I was surprised to find a spot on the property where I could dig deeper than a foot. I went back and dug it deeper — about two feet — and put in some gold fish.

From Soil Block and Pond

Yesterday in the afternoon I saw a raccoon come out for a drink. I hope the netting is protecting the fish.

Some unguided part of my brain is still working on philosophy. I usually have a catch phrase running through my head that summarizes my current take on reality. My latest is “Everything is sticky.” It popped into my mind lately and I like it.
It seems to be my very physically oriented take on a Buddhist metaphor — the Net of Jewels — which has been percolating in me for many years. I seem to have remembered the gist and translated it.
Wikipedia:

Indra’s net (also called Indra’s jewels or Indra’s pearls) is a metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of emptiness,[2] dependent origination,[3] and interpenetration[4] in Buddhist philosophy. The metaphor of Indra’s net was developed by the Mahayana Buddhist school in the 3rd century scriptures of the Avatamsaka Sutra, and later by the Chinese Huayan school between the 6th and 8th century.[2]

Buddhist concepts of interpenetration hold that all phenomena are intimately connected; for the Huayan school, Indra’s net symbolizes a universe where infinitely repeated mutual relations exist between all members of the universe.[5] This idea is communicated in the image of the interconnectedness of the universe as seen in the net of the Vedic god Indra, whose net hangs over his palace on Mount Meru, the axis mundi of Vedic cosmology and Vedic mythology. Indra’s net has a multifaceted jewel at each vertex, and each jewel is reflected in all of the other jewels:[6]

I’ve been spending most of my days in the Basilicum. It’s warm and light so I’ve been wearing shorts, t-shirt and flip flops. It’s wonderful but every once in a while I thrust my wizened muzzle out in astonishment and ask, what is that big warm thing in the sky? The walls are 75% glass, but the roof is one third plexiglass — four 4foot by 5foot panels that came off a fishing boat — and that makes a huge difference.

From Soil Block

I’ve been preparing seeds for planting. I’m experimenting with a Soil Block method. I encase the seed in a soil mix of potting soil and peat moss and squeeze by hand to produce a compressed block that encapsulates and stands up to gentle watering.

From Soil Block

I’ve potted seeds of three different Basils, asparagus, 3 beans, 2 Brussels Sprouts, broccoli mix, etc.

I’ve been renovating the Solarium greenhouse. I put a floor over the half that had been ground soil. I sat and played chess there yesterday afternoon. While much of the property was in shade and cool in the late afternoon, our western exposure kept us warm.
I’m putting up shelves to hold planting trays and I’m going to specialize in growing Basil this year. It seemed like an easy crop last year. I like pesto and I’d like to try making it.

The Latin word basilica (derived from Greek, Basiliké Stoà, Royal Stoa, the tribunal chamber of a king), was originally used to describe a Roman public building, usually located in the forum of a Roman town. Public basilicas begin to appear in Hellenistic cities in the 2nd century BC.

Thus, the Solarium now contains The Basilicum:

From Basilicum