News watchers- get your binoculars NOW...

Oh, my, my, my.  There's a really nice chunk of news going on, right this very second- and there's a free education also being offered to all serious citizens in the "reality" of how "news" reaches us.

The Washington Post, this morning, featured as its Front Page Top Headline- a story - and audio recording- apparently stemming from Bob Woodward (remember Watergate?  yeah; him.)  In the "Style" section.

The recording is of a very, very private conversation - in Afghanistan; in the office of General Petraeus.  You can hear them say "are your ears off?"  They weren't off.  It's a flat offer from Rupert Murdoch to "bankroll" a Presidential candidacy by Petraeus.  Run by the current head of Fox News.

Yep.  Read all about it.  Woodward's story here.  Also in "Style"; but a featured top headline.  For a few hours.

If you go to The Washington Post website right this minute- not one word of all this is in any headline- it's been removed.  At least- they haven't removed the links; but you have to search for them.

Are you hearing about it elsewhere?  Only if you search.  Yes, ABC and CBS have picked it up- but you won't find it on their headlines.

I think- tomorrow - you will.  But at the moment- someone is VERY very ticked off- and pressure has been brought to bear, to bury it.  For a while.  But this one is SO not going to go away.

Oh, so many questions.  Why is Fox News advising our top General?  Why are they asking him to write their headlines?  (They did.)  Why is Rupert Murdoch offering to "bankroll" our politicians?

Why is General Petraeus unaware that someone is making recordings of his conversations, in his office??  The guy who was most recently- the head of the CIA?

Oh, this one is going to be fun.  Take a look!  My guess is- they'll keep it wrapped up a little while; but not forever.  It's just way too much stinky fish.

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Update; Feb. 20, 2013.    Wow.  I guess even week old stinky fish can be wrapped up so tight it won't smell.  This story; as of now, has disappeared completely.  If you didn't pick up on it within that 3 day window- you're out of luck.  Right now; all the links still work.  Send them around so they can't totally disappear.  And learn- yes; your news is controlled.

No, the problem isn't "jobs".

Ok, yes it is; but not the way everybody in the world thinks it is.

Happy Labor Day! Or as I tend to twist it around here, just for the fun of the confused looks it brings, as well as a way of pointing out the pointlessness of it: "Happy Labrador!"

I desperately need to be out laboring, at the moment, which is what Labor Day is always about for us. Ok, we might barbecue something at the end of the day; but it's harvest time for tree crops, and urgentish.

However, what I have to say here has been fomenting and fermenting in the back of my brain for a long time; and it seems ready to come out. And this is Labor Day; and we're all very unhappy about the fact there are no jobs anywhere; and none in sight down the pike, regardless of politicians braying that they will create lots of new jobs for everyone, as soon as they are elected. By waving their wands about and shouting "expelyourllamas!"

Part of my hesitance in writing this post stems from my awareness that the world will certainly not hear me; my time and effort is likely to be largely wasted. A few of you may hear, though- and who knows; perhaps that will be of some benefit.

The world desperately needs to learn this- but won't, until much chaos and pain has come.

The world does not need "jobs". The world needs people to have "livelihoods".

There. That simple. And something completely not on anyone's radar.

Somehow in the process of industrialization, "we" all accepted the concept that capital would provide "work" - "jobs", in various money making factories or other enterprises, and "workers" would make their livings there- as essentially interchangeable cogs. Exactly as Charlie Chaplin portrayed it. The myth we bought was- become a cog, with no particular skills, but willing to work at whatever is put in front of you- and all the world will prosper; and- you'll be taken care of in your old age, when you can no longer work. On a large enough scale, even highly skilled workers have become only cogs- and perceived as such, even by themselves.

Well, it turns out Big Capital was Just Kidding! about taking care of us in our old age. Now that they own 95% of everything it is possible to own, they're saying "What? Are you filthy communists?? Of course you were always supposed to be providing for your own old age! Why would you expect us to actually pay into your pension funds (never mind that's what we promised you...)?" Some of the Banks now are transferring "toxic assets" - i.e., assets on the books at prices triple what anyone will ever pay again- into their pension funds- listing them at the fantasy value. And saying "what a good boy am I."

So here we are, millions of us; unemployed in Greenland; and essentially unemployable. A cog is a cog is a cog; and a cog in

The First World is much more expensive than a cog in the Third

World, these days. Following the Laws of Capital, and Quarterly

Reports, and Executive Bonuses, Capital has, of course, now

emigrated to the Third World- and is not coming back in any

foreseeable future. Being just a cog - in someone else's wheel - is

a death trap.

No, your nice shiny new Bachelors Degree In Whatever! does not entitle

you to cogship, anymore. Neither does your high school diploma, nor

your GED, nor the fact that you can get a certificate stating you are not

hemiplegic, paraplegic, or psychopathic.

What the world truly needs is a return to the model where people acquire

a "livelihood". Some kind of work, or skill- that creates something of

immediate value to the people around you; a way to "earn your keep" in

the community, for life. Actually, here on the farm, we really need a full

time "shepherd", and a full time "goose girl".

Not in style, yet; but soon, I think.

If you are trying to see a path forward, for yourself and your children-

look for a way to acquire a livelihood. Not a job.

Bittman and GMOs

Mark Bittman, the notorious NYT food columnist/writer, Luddite, elitist, and nauseating proponent of doing your homework and applying rigorous common sense, has been stirring the stew regarding whether we should be notified about the presence of Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) in our food, or not.

The stew is bubbling quite a bit, in response. (In case you can't tell, I admire him quite a lot.)

I have something to add to the stew, which is a little crude (and I don't have time to do a re-write) but which is to the point.

Below is an essay I zipped off in October 1999, as a heartfelt response to picking up a Future Farmers Of America newsletter, and finding that what was then being dubbed "biotech"; which includes GMOs, was being presented to high school kids as the certain, and bright, future.

It's a big topic. I'll let the conversation start here. This, incidentally, is my bit mentioned long ago in "once and future topics" on "where have all the mammoths gone?"

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Why Biotech Has No Clothes

I’ve noticed a highly disturbing trend recently; the Biotech mavens, pushers, junkies, and corporations have stolen a march on those few of us who would like a little calm discussion before completely destroying the bottle that once held the genie.

If you take a look at any publications aimed at our mainstream agricultural youth, you will find article after article stating that Biotech is our only hope to feed our growing world.

No discussions. Just the flat statement: there is no alternative. Occasionally an interviewee will have the grace to preface the statement with “I believe...” . But what always follows is: “ we simply have no alternative if we don't want people to starve to death.”

And the kids are receiving this wisdom from above quite cheerfully, even willingly passing it on, to those outside the farm community who couldn’t possibly understand the internal necessities and holy mission of the food system.

Population control? Don’t be ridiculous. And shut up about China, they’re still godless communists, and horrifying. Don’t try to tell me they’re just people, like us, struggling to deal with a near impossible problem.

Questions about who benefits from Biotech? Huh? Obviously, corporations would only do what is good for all of us. Why, just look at what wonderful things have already been done for dairy farmers! They’re so much better off now that Biotech has increased milk production; and the vets have so much more work to do, too.

What is happening now is in fact an echo of an earlier phase of human development.

I can hear precisely the same argument going on about 10,000 years ago.

“Our tribe is expanding! We will simply have to hunt more, and longer hours.”

“And with this new tool our hunters have developed, the wonderful Bow, so much more powerful than the quaint old spear-thrower, we can clearly feed all our people!!”

“Look, there’s that herd of mammoths we’ve never been able to harvest before!! After them!!”

Meanwhile, some moron in the background was mumbling “Gee, look at all the grass. And all the grass seed. Sure, a grass seed is smaller than a mammoth, but, there really is a lot of it. I bet we could eat grass seeds.”

Echoes come: “What an amazing, ludicrous idiot! We’ve always been mammoth hunters, and always will be! He’s just a damfool dreamer; no concept of hard reality. Besides, nobody would ever want to eat that stuff; we eat mammoths. Always have, always will. Period.”

Luckily for you and me, once that very last herd of mammoths was eaten, someone remembered this idiot.

We’re in the same place now. We’re about to run out of mammoths (soil and water), the women in the tribe are pregnant, and the mammoth hunters have a new tool. Soon our soil and water can be remembered in museums, right beside the mammoths. And the whole world can look like Iraq, the birthplace of agriculture.

Um, have you noticed that trees have seeds?

Gee.

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(Being polite and kind people, we will refrain here from pointing out that the wonderful bow, over the years, has killed vastly more men, women, and children, than it ever did mammoths. An excellent tool, the bow; very powerful. Alas that tools have no conscience of themselves; the sharp knife cuts anything; neither knowing nor caring what it cuts, or who is wielding it. So who is the conscience to be for the new Biotech bows? Giant multinational corporations? Ah, well, that’s all right, then! Thank goodness.)

(We will also quietly refrain from pointing out that the “world will starve” statement is a lie, and a myth, used very effectively to make people feel guilty about arguing. The world has a tremendous surplus of food, and will for a long time to come. So much we burn tons of food to fuel our cars; so we can drive to the lake, to play on our jetskis. People do starve; but not because the world has no food for them; they starve for political reasons, and because of a lack of timely compassion. The World is NOT hungry; the World is mean.)

(In fact, while Biotekkies proudly state that they will be able to increase production of crop x by as much as 5%! (gosh) the fact is that in the 3rd World, sometimes 30-40% of each year’s crop production is WASTED. Lost. It rots, after harvest. Due to inadequate storage facilities and systems. Yes, it really is that much; almost never less than 20%. Unfortunately, there is no real money to be made by helping developing nations build appropriate transportation and storage. Nor scientific careers and reputations.)

Really Great Britain points the way...

It's the panacea Wisconsin has been pining for. Really Great Britain has come up with THE answer to unemployment, and the budget crisis.

It's an answer Charles Dickens would have applauded. It corroborates so thoroughly his many observations of human nature.

No money to pay for cops? Obviously, then- you should enlist people willing to work, as police- for free. (oh, and, town clerks, postal workers, whatever...)

Ok, actually, the "volunteers" do have some incentive to show up for work. The way they have this rigged, if you want to work as a paid police person someday - then :

"Cash-strapped Scotland Yard, for instance, has instituted a policy mandating that most recruits spend a minimum of one year on the job for free..."

The mind boggles. Really really boggles.

Never mind the obvious fact that "cash strapped Scotland Yard" could have its budget entirely restored by the confiscation of ONE hedge fund manager's annual "bonus"... ("Look, Basil, I've got the little monkeys chanting 'No new taxes! No new taxes!' You've really got to help me look through Machiavelli and see what else we can find!")

I wonders, I does - just how much do you suppose you'd have to bribe an unpaid cop, to look the other way for a few moments?

And I wonders, too - who is going to pay the hospital (or burial) costs, when one of these unpaid volunteers gets themselves hurt in the line of "duty"?

And how dutiful do you think they'll be, on a nasty windy cold night?

And how likely to reach for the gasoline, when after volunteering for "at least a year" - they don't get the real job, after all?

Really Great, Britain.

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Tiny minor update: Minnesota, home of politics as gallows humor, has just provided us with a good specific example of what happens to un-employed wanna-be law officers.

Render unto Timex...

We've been having fun here with our "land hurricane"; and the lowest barometric pressure ever recorded, either in the USA, or at least the Midwest, depending on your source. We didn't get the absolute worst of it, but it has been work to get through it; tarps ripped off, ripped up, a tree or two down on a road or two, smoke in the house from more atmospheric turbulence than our chimney can handle.

Coulda been worse. Actually, I've seen worse winds here, just not so heavy so long. We've been averaging 30 mph, with bursts up to 55 for three days; but any good summer thunderstorm can have short duration winds up over 70, and I've seen 90 mph. But only for 10 minutes or so.

In the middle of it all, we got to drive to our doctor town for me to have an "upper endoscopy"; the doctors going fishing for anything down my upper gastro-esophageal system that's out of whack and could explain some of my whining. (Can't remember any of it, which means they did a good job; and the bottom line was "nothing obvious" but they did take a couple biopsy chunks to look at closer.) The car blew around on the road a bit, but again; coulda been worse.

When I came out of the anesthesia (this is how we do it in Minnesota),

I was not, surprisingly, gasping for air. Besides being droll and musical, our Midvestern anesthesiologists are very competent. So I woke up surprised.

It was all over and I didn't even remember falling asleep. (thanks for the video to my big brother, who has more time to cruise youtube...)

The next thing on the agenda was a little woozy shopping (with Spice along as unmedicated driver) for the necessities of life.

For me, the necessities include a working watch. I know; half of youse guys out there cheerfully do without one (and even brag about that, from time to time), but as I noted today over on Sharon's post about the relativity of time, I now need to know where I am in the day; how much is left to work with, etc. And no, you can't tell time from the sun in Minnesota in late fall/early winter; more than half the days are sunless.

And my sturdy, reliable, Timex Ironman Triathalon® (can't tell you how manly it makes me feel to wear one!) watch had recently done what they all have done; the watchband broke; long before the watch itself was near the end of its life.

And, guess what? Just as always before (like 5 times, by now) - since I'd bought my Timex IT; the styling had changed, just a teensy, so that- nope, they don't actually have a replacement band available for that particular model... and the watch-girl (used to be the goose-girl, 300 years ago) doesn't really even know how to get this thing disattached...

The (mildly, given the state of the world) aggravating thing is that the watch itself is nicely designed, and has a long, reliable life. And the band always dies long before the watch.

Accident? Ha. We know better. It is, of course, a ploy to sell more watches, keep the profits rolling. I can hear the conversation in the Timex marketing meetings: "Ok, look, the damn engineering department has screwed us again; these bloody things run without a problem for 4-5 years! How the hell can we justify our bonuses if we're only selling one per customer in 5 years?? Here's how we can fix this disaster...)

It's a broad huge problem with our world, of course; the waste of resources, where there is no actual need for it, just greed for it.

But. I've come to be resigned to this kind of little irritation; it's an intractable problem, and not quite as urgent as some others (like all-time record breaking weather); and not a fight I really have the time to get into, anyway. Hélas.
.

So. I'm calling it The Timex Tax. Sure as death and. Inescapable. You pays your money, and you takes your chances.

But at least, now, no matter where I am on the farm, chopping water or hauling wood, I'll be sure to know how much longer I have to struggle onward, today. My Timex Tax is paid for another 2-3 years.

"Just let The Market work!"

I know, I owe you guys a guinea update. :-) Working on it. Meanwhile, I just made this comment over on Richard Black's BBC environment blog, and kind of liked the way it turned out - so, I'll repeat it here. This is part and parcel of the Sociopathic Business syndrome- the insistence that The Market will solve all problems - if only those nasty regulators will allow it to-

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A couple of years ago, I got a nice lesson in reality. My very ugly truck was stolen.

I'd bought the truck specifically as a farm-only vehicle; ugly but functional. Very ugly, rusty; but mechanically reliable, like a tractor. "Nobody in their right mind would steal it", was our firm belief, so it was left commonly in the field, in sight of the public road, where we were working. Everyone agreed- "nobody would ever steal that old piece of junk". We de-registered it; no license, since it never went off the farm.

Guess what? Some people- who were NOT in their right mind, but hopped on meth - stole it, and wrecked it. Actually causing us substantial loss; it was a tool we needed.

Now- I'm not considered a dumb person- but how did I forget that the world is teeming with people "not in their right mind"?

Humans are outstanding at simultaneously believing two different things- which they know are mutually exclusive; "incompossible", as they used to say. First world farmers, for example know that if they don't produce as much food as possible, "the world will starve"; and simultaneously know that overproduction of food is responsible for their low prices and constant dance with bankruptcy. So they support burning the food they grow, and get very huffy about it if you suggest that burning food is, um, questionable.

SR wrote:
"I think what a lot of people tend to forget is that if it weren't for market mechanisms and the *generally* efficient allocation of scarce resources thereof, we would still be floundering in something resembling a Dicken's novel."

The concept that "markets efficiently allocate resources" is another one of these beguiling fantasies. I'm delighted to see the "generally" added- perhaps a bit of reality is slipping in.

The illusion stems from an underlying and rarely stated part of the belief; which is that markets will, and do- operate "honestly".

All of history- and blatantly all of very recent history- agrees that markets NEVER operate honestly. Never. It just doesn't happen. Never has. The Code of Hammurabi contains death penalties for people who cheat in business.

Sure, there are plenty of plain honest business people who run beautifully honest operations (I'm one, in fact). And in case you hadn't noticed, they're the ones who wind up in the newspapers- for going bankrupt, after years of hard honest work. While the dishonest ones- wind up in the papers for mind-blowing bonuses; wrist-slap legal fines for their illegal operations; and the fact they resent being called dishonest.

It has always been that way. Yes, indeed, markets allocate resources fairly; and if my Aunt had wheels, she'd be a Ferrari.

Or we could always say, anyone in their right mind, will obviously conduct business honestly and fairly.

That'll work.

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What they teach, in the Business School Of Sociopathy- is that if you simply keep repeating the mantra of "The Market Will Solve All Problems" - a huge number of voters will believe it, forever. Which will then ensure that Regulations are kept to a minimum; and "business opportunities" are not abridged.

Which means- opportunities for theft, fraud, and piracy- will alway be available; thank goodness.

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That post on the BBC generated some following discussion; maybe worth looking at...