What the critters so generously leave behind


Supper

If I had ever really understood how much effort (and defeat) is involved in defending a garden, an orchard, and some chickens against all the hungry mouths that want to eat everything, I might never have had the heart to start. The hungry mouths come from everywhere — out of the woods, down from the sky, and up from the ground. Hawks and raccoons want to eat your chickens. Snakes want to eat your eggs. Squirrels and raccoons will raid the orchard and carry off peaches, apples, and figs just before you were going to pick them. Raccoons and rabbits and voles raid the garden. And we haven’t even started to talk about insects and blights. The abbey, to be sure, is in a worst-case situation — up against the woods in some very fine animal habitat.

No one understands your grief, of course, better than your local agricultural agents. I’ve written in the past about how important it is to befriend them. One of the abbey’s friends is a horticulturist whose help and advice during the past eight years have been invaluable. He’s a very busy guy, and you can’t get him to dinner very often. But this evening he’s coming to dinner, so this afternoon I got my shears and a sack and went out to see what the critters had left me for a home-grown supper.

The squirrels took every last one of the peaches from one of the trees, the tree that bore first. They’ll be after the other trees soon enough. They’ve already stolen some green apples as well. I see the trees shaking and go up to the orchard to ask the squirrels what the heck they think they’re doing. They just glance at me and go on chewing. If I shake a stick at them they’ll run back into the woods with a peach in their mouths. Every now and then I see a chicken peck a squirrel, because the chickens like the fallen peaches. Good work, chickens.

OK, then. I can make chutney from green apples, and maybe I can even get away with putting some unripe peaches in it. A nice red onion would do nicely in the chutney. So far, the snakes seem not to have found a way into Ken’s new chicken house, so there are plenty of eggs. That means omelets with a filling including onions, green tomatoes, day lily buds, and basil. I’m covered up with squash. The squash will get roasted on the grill. There was enough late lettuce for small salads. The first two cucumbers of the season were ready to pick. And there will be a loaf of fresh-baked sourdough bread.

So it promises to be a decent supper for a horticulturist (or a hobbit), though it’s not the sort of supper that can happen every day.

Ken, by the way, is in Alaska, again in a summer job with the Park Service as a backcountry ranger deep in grizzly bear territory where he’s assigned a shotgun. Maybe the squirrels aren’t so bad after all.

When I bring stuff in from the garden, I like to wash it immediately in cold water, wrap it in a muslin towel, and put it in the refrigerator to chill. The lettuce is in a vase of cold water. I’ll pick the lettuce leaves off the stalk right before they go into the salad. When stuff is fresh, a little extra care will keep it that way.


Soon to be chutney

Summer movies


Dunkirk

It’s a good summer if there is at least one summer movie that’s worth going to the theater for. There is one for sure this summer. That’s “Dunkirk,” to be released July 21.

We all know this history, but we never get tired of hearing the story retold. At the time, an alliance of six countries was struggling to hold the Nazis back — Britain, France, Belgium, Poland, the Netherlands, and Canada. In June 1940, in the Battle of France, these allies endured what Winston Churchill called a “colossal military disaster.” The British people assembled a fleet of every boat that was fit to cross the channel, about 800 boats in all, and rescued 338,226 soldiers who were in retreat and trapped in France.

We cannot remember this history without hearing the voice of Winston Churchill, who was surely one of the greatest wartime leaders and greatest orators in history. I rarely read military history, but I’m resolved to find and read a good book about Dunkirk before I go to see this film.

There are trailers here.

On June 4, 1940, Churchill gave a brilliant speech in the House of Commons to which we now give the title “We Shall Fight on the Beaches.” Here is link to the audio, which of course was recorded by the BBC. The full text of the speech is here.

Below is the last paragraph of this speech.

Winston Churchill, June 4, 1940

I have, myself, full confidence that if all do their duty, if nothing is neglected, and if the best arrangements are made, as they are being made, we shall prove ourselves once again able to defend our Island home, to ride out the storm of war, and to outlive the menace of tyranny, if necessary for years, if necessary alone. At any rate, that is what we are going to try to do. That is the resolve of His Majesty’s Government — every man of them. That is the will of Parliament and the nation. The British Empire and the French Republic, linked together in their cause and in their need, will defend to the death their native soil, aiding each other like good comrades to the utmost of their strength. Even though large tracts of Europe and many old and famous States have fallen or may fall into the grip of the Gestapo and all the odious apparatus of Nazi rule, we shall not flag or fail. We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God’s good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the old.

The reference to “the New World” is of course addressed to America. It was another year before the United States even sent military supplies. And it was not until almost two years later — December 7, 1941, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor — that the United States came into the war.

Long live the desktop!


Inside the new Mac Pro

In the land of nerds — Apple nerds, anyway — Apple’s obsession in recent years with iPhones, iPads, and the iOS operating system for small devices has been disturbing. Sure, nerds have iPhones and iPads and love them. But real computers are for getting work done. Apple was accused — rightly — of neglecting its iMac desktop line of computers and squandering the work of its engineers on consumer doodads designed for distraction and entertainment rather than for getting work done.

Even worse, for a while Apple was saying that it wanted to make its operating system for desktops — Mac OS — more like iOS. That was horrifying. iOS is creepy, really. Its “apps” have no standard user interface, which guarantees that most apps are quirky, gawky, silly-looking, unusable, and aimed at adolescent needs and tastes. Much worse, iOS devices take control away from the device’s owner in the interest of security. For security, that makes sense. But nerds don’t like being locked out of their own computer.

Last year, Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, tried to reassure the nerds that Apple wasn’t turning its back on serious computers. The reaction from nerds was skeptical: Harumph. So you say. Prove it.

Apple just proved it. The specifications of the new iMac Pro are breathtaking, way beyond what even the most optimistic desktop nerd might have hoped for. The iMac Pro is to be available in December. Prices start at $4,999. That may seem like a lot of money, but for people who use their computers to make money and who need all the desktop power they can get — for video work, for example — the iMac Pro actually is surprisingly cheap and easy to cost-justify.

Will I buy one? Absolutely not. I don’t need that much computing power on my desktop. But I do need a real computer on my desktop. It’s a certainty that the technical advances inside the iMac Pro will trickle down to the iMacs in the $2,000 range.

Best of all, the release of such a high-end workstation means that Apple can’t neglect its workstation operating system — Mac OS. I’m guessing that the new version of Mac OS that Apple will release in the fall will make up for some lost time. Sure, nerds want their iMacs to talk to their iPads. But we most definitely don’t want a desktop OS that is dumbed down and cartoonized and childproofed the way iOS is.

I’ve been using Macintoshes since 1986, more than thirty years. The drama of Apple’s evolution has been fascinating to watch. Apple just proved (I hope) that the company is not going to devolve into a company that only makes cool, expensive toys. They’re going to continue to make real computers and do superb engineering.

Now make us some cars, Apple! I won’t be able to afford one, but I can’t wait to see what kind of car you make.

Looking for economic indicators


From our pockets to theirs

Last year, we were transfixed by the horror of the 2016 election. So far this year, we can’t take our eyes off the train wreck of Trump in the White House. Most of us haven’t been paying much attention to the economy. It would be smart to take a look.

I am not an economist, nor was I ever any good at stock picking. But I did defend my retirement nest egg pretty well with thoughtful (and conservative) financial planning, by keeping an eye on economic cycles, and with a healthy respect for cash. I’m not offering any advice here. But I am suggesting that we mustn’t let the political pig circus distract us from economic cycles.

Though I said I wouldn’t offer any advice, one rule I honor is this: Pay no attention to anything on television, pay no attention to anything you come across on Facebook, and pay no attention to Republicans unless his name is Charles Schwab. Who, then, do we pay attention to? I look at the track records of economists. For example, Nouriel Roubini nailed the housing bubble and made accurate calls on the financial crisis that was the grand finale of the Bush-Cheney administration. Though Paul Krugman was slow in seeing the housing bubble, Krugman correctly predicted the long, slow schlog that is required for recovery from any banking and financial crisis, as bad debt and unwise debt gets slowly unwound. More than eight years after the banking and finance train wreck, interest rates are still low, as Krugman said they had to be. (While all that time Republicans kept predicting runaway inflation and the destruction of the dollar.)

What are Krugman and Roubini saying at present?

Krugman has had very little to say, actually, about the American economy, simply because the recovery was long, slow, and stayed on course during the Obama years. Krugman was more interested in Europe during the Obama years, actually, because it was in Europe where the proponents of austerity were proving yet again that austerity does not lead to prosperity but does lead to human misery. Krugman remains distracted by politics, but surely he will weigh in before long on current economic indicators — though Krugman has expressed concern that the Federal Reserve was keen on raising interest rates too soon.

As for Roubini, much of his research is now available to subscribers only. But in early May he did write an article expressing concern that markets are ignoring geopolitical dangers to global economic stability, including Russian aggression and North Korea. And if there is a calamity somewhere on the globe — as there almost certainly will be sooner or later — we can be certain that the current occupants of the White House will do everything wrong and make everything worse (unless you’re a billionaire or have fossil fuels to sell).

I was amused a few days ago to come across an article with the headline “Reclusive Millionaire Warns: ‘Get Out of Cash Now.'” From Googling I could see that the article showed up in lots of places that subscribe to cheap or free “news feeds.” These so-called news feeds help feed the swamp of fake news and scam bait that we all are exposed to. I’m not sure what the article was pushing — probably gold or someone’s stock picks. But it’s interesting that Charles Schwab — as honest and impartial a brokerage as I know of — is subtly suggesting that its customers consider increasing their holdings of cash. Charles Schwab himself actually is a Republican, but he’s a San Francisco Republican.

Schwab’s view would be consistent with standard Dow theory: When unemployment is low and when interest rates are rising, watch out for irrational exuberance in the stock market.

Again, a disclaimer: I’m not giving any financial advice here. I’m just saying that we musn’t let political turmoil distract us from the course of the economy.

Why I went back to Firefox

Unwanted video was the last straw. Few things are more irksome than going to a web site and having a grating and useless video start playing. It’s increasingly common. Unwanted video slows everything down. And if you’re on a cellular or satellite connection, unwanted video eats up your data faster than anything.

As far as I could determine, with Google Chrome there was no way to block aggressive video. There are a couple of Chrome plug-ins that are supposed to suppress unwanted video, but they didn’t work. I’m hardly the only person who despises unwanted video. In techie forums where this is discussed, the consensus seems to be that Google sided with the devil — advertisers and rude web sites — and gave the money people what they want at the expense of what we little people want. It’s Google after all. So it’s not surprising.

Part of the problem with unwanted video is not only stopping it from automatically playing, but also stopping it from being automatically “preloaded” and wasting data. A Firefox extension named “Disable HTML5 Autoplay,” though it is in an early version, seems to work. Using that extension with Firefox was the only way I’ve been able to block the extremely aggressive video that Huffington Post pushes at you.

You might ask why anyone would even go to Huffington Post anymore, now that it’s in a tailspin of click bait headlines and cheap content. The reason is that, though Huffington Post rarely anymore has anything fit to read, I do want to see how they’re playing the news. Huffington Post emphasizes leftwing anger items the same way Drudge Report emphasizes rightwing anger items. They’re useful as gauges of the propaganda du jour and what is being fed to the masses.

Firefox clearly is working hard to position itself as the anti-corporate, pro-privacy web browser. Chrome’s dominance will be hard to break, but I suspect that we will increasingly see some migration toward Firefox.

Anne of Green Gables

For the past five days, after the chickens have gone to bed, and after being whipsawed during the day by the news out of Washington, I have retreated to the television to watch an episode of “Anne With an E,” a new production of Anne of Green Gables produced by Canada’s CBC and available for streaming on Netflix.

There is something very distracting (in a good way) and therapeutic about such a simple story in such a grand setting. The series is, of course, based on the novels of Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874-1942). The first novel of the series was published in 1908. The setting is Prince Edward Island on Canada’s Atlantic coast. I have not read any of the novels and cannot compare the television production to the original story. But the consensus of other reviews seems to be that the CBC production is reasonably faithful to the books, though a touch darker. The story is a classic, of course. Anne of Green Gables has sold 50 million copies and has been translated into 20 languages.

Frankly the Anne character, though she is bright and charming (and splendidly acted) gets on one’s nerves a bit. No doubt her inner life, and the plots she stirs up, will become more interesting as she gets older. But the real star of the show, in my view, is the Marilla character, beautifully portrayed by Geraldine James.

As a period piece, the production is superb. It’s interesting just as a farm story, for anyone who is curious about how family farms used to work. They don’t attempt to show us a complete farm economy, but we do get some good pieces of it — milking cows, hay in the loft, putting up apples, and lots of baking. And what a treat it is when the buggy comes out, pulled by Belle, the sorrel mare. I doubt that many farm horses had a gait as elegant and videogenic as Belle’s, but it’s nice to watch.

I’m watching “Anne With an E” not because it’s the most brilliant story ever written but because of its atmosphere, its innocence, and the fun of being transported back to an idyllic rural culture that we have lost.

The perils of peaches

It’s year eight in the orchard, and this year I just might get my first bite of peach.

Last year, the entire peach crop was wiped out by a late frost. This year, the three peach trees are loaded. One of the trees is weeks ahead of the other two trees and has dozens of already-red peaches. But each morning I notice that someone is knocking them down. It could be a squirrel, or it could be a raccoon that climbs the tree during the night. The animals are very wasteful. They knock down several peaches, take a bite from some of them, and leave the rest lying on the ground for the ants.

I’ve not yet picked any of the peaches off the tree because they’re still hard and need more time to ripen. But I do retrieve the peaches that have been knocked down and take them to the kitchen, hoping that they’ll ripen decently and that they’ll be fit to eat.

If these four peaches ripen properly, there will be peaches and cream.

Sophisticated propaganda vs. the plain old truth

I haven’t posted anything political for a while. Partly this is because the political drama has moved so fast and reversed so often that it has been a tough target. And partly it’s because the media and the American intelligentsia are finally getting things right.

For years, I felt like a voice in the wilderness. As a retired newspaperman, truth to me is sacred, and nothing makes me angrier than lies. And so for years I watched the media fall for the trap that right-wing propagandists had set for them. Journalists, including many of my old colleagues, fell for the notion that “objectivity” and “balance” required them to treat intentional deception as valid and reportable, with lies unchallenged. The clichéd way of saying it is, “Republicans, Democrats differ on whether earth is flat.” This journalistic “principle” held all through the Bush and Obama years. It enabled the sophisticated lies that enabled the Iraq war, and it enabled the right-wing strategy of paralyzing and demonizing President Obama (birtherism, etc.) and Hillary Clinton (Benghazi — boo!). The manipulation of the media (and therefore the manipulation of unsophisticated Americans by sophisticated propaganda) corrupted the 2016 election.

But finally an extremely unsophisticated and extremely stupid man named Donald Trump pushed things too far. Not only did the Washington Post and the New York Times enlarge their staffs (and their circulations), but also the truth suddenly mattered again, and lies could be exposed. It is a pure joy to watch this — our intelligence community supplying the truth, and our newspapers boldly printing the truth and calling lies what they are. This has been the blessing in disguise of the Trump era. The vile Republican Party and its propaganda machine overplayed its hand, and now the tables have turned.

As an amateur scholar of propaganda, another thing that greatly disturbed me over the years was Americans’ dangerous inability to recognize propaganda. Russian interference in the American election, and the injection of “fake news” into social media, is at last teaching most Americans an essential lesson about propaganda. Certainly there are still those who eat their propaganda for breakfast and relish it (they still think that Trump is their savior), but increasingly they don’t count. I am daring to hope that propaganda will never again be able to swing a national election in this country, which means that Republicans will never be able to win again. The simple truth is that Republicans cannot win elections without lying, and that Republicans have to lie about their political objectives to get support for their political products, products such as the Iraq war, or yet more tax cuts for the rich while cutting social services that their own voters depend on.

Yesterday, the Washington Post published a transcript of a secretly recorded conversation in which the Republican congressional leadership talked about Russian interference in American politics. They also talked about Russian propaganda:

Ryan and Rodgers are revealing here not only that they recognize propaganda, but also that they recognize sophisticated propaganda. We learned in the 2016 election that Republicans are entirely willing to go along even with subversive foreign propaganda if it suits their purposes and their power. It won them the 2016 presidential election. Now it has backfired on them. The Republican Party bent over for the Russians, tried to keep it secret, and then lied about it. Now they will pay.

The truth continues to dribble out, and we can’t take our eyes off the web sites of the New York Times and the Washington Post. When events like this are unfolding, I often go to right-wing propaganda sites such as the Drudge Report to see how they’re spinning it. As far as I can tell, at least today, the plain truth is overwhelming any attempts to respond with the usual right-wing spin and lies. For years it was the other way around, with right-wing lies spreading so thick and so fast that no one had the resources — even if they had the will — to shoot down all the lies. Right-wingers — for so long accustomed to overwhelming the rest of us with lies — are at last being overwhelmed by the truth.

Sophisticated propaganda is dangerous stuff. Since the rise of Fox News in 1997, sophisticated right-wing propaganda has dominated and corrupted American politics. Can we now dare to hope that, when Donald Trump goes down, he’ll take the era of right-wing propaganda and the Republican Party down with him?

I am daring to hope it.

UPDATE: This just in: Roger Ailes has died, just as I was finishing this post. What perfect timing. Ailes, as the evil genius behind Fox News, was more than anyone responsible for the propagandization of Americans and for bringing the American democracy to the brink of disaster. Not only did he make propagandization profitable, he also taught millions of Americans to prefer lies to truth. He prepared America for Trump and Putin. An era has truly ended.