Not another dime

Disgusting. There is simply no other word for it.

My letter to the Susan G Komen Foundation.

“I am disgusted by your craven act of defunding Planned Parenthood under the guise of the organization being “under investigation” when it is clear you have caved in to those who think womens’ bodies should be under the control of someone other than themselves. Breast cancer runs on my mother’s side: my grandmother died of breast cancer that spread to other parts of her body. Several of my aunts have battled the disease.

I have always supported the Komen foundation, either through direct donations, support for those doing the Race (and don’t get me started on your nonsensical watchdog tactics on “for the cure”), or through my company’s sponsorship of a site dedicated to generating donations to your organization (I am the owner).

No more.

Since you have decided that some of the most vulnerable members of our society are no longer worth the screenings and services that comprise more than 90% of Planned Parenthood’s services, I have decided that you are no longer worth one cent of my time or money.”

From now on, I’ll be donating directly to Planned Parenthood. I will not give to SGK, nor will I sponsor any walks for anyone (sorry).

Worthy lawsuits

I’m not a huge fan of overly-litigious people or corporations. That’s why I was quite happy to see this suit last year from a wide group against Monsanto. Monsanto, of course, has “security” people that roam around, getting in the faces of farmers when they suspect their GMO crap has “been utilized” by those farmers, when in fact, it is Monsanto doing the trespassing. Most farmers wind up settling – and being bound by gag orders – because they simply do not have the money to fight. This battle, though, is well worth it, and it boggles the mind that anyone would agree with Monsanto’s arguments that the farmers are infringing when Monsanto’s seed invades their fields. It will take a couple of years to get this done, but hopefully more sensible minds will prevail and people can tell Monsanto to get stuffed when they come knocking.

Random things

Looking forward to the (short) series Doomsday Preppers coming up on National Geographic. They had a standalone episode last year, with one guy repeating the same long phrase about coronal ejections over and over – but he and his wife did build a tilapia tank out of their pool and used that waste to fertilize crops in a very nice setup. I’ve been reading the comments on some sites about the new series – in the clips for which I could swear I saw the Dervaes clan briefly, so that part will be muted out or forwarded on the DVR if that’s the case, since they annoy me – and I have to say that some of the fringe dwellers on those sites are absolutely batshit insane.  Between the people with grandiose conspiracy theories about how the military is gearing up to take over at least one major city and the armchair commandos blathering about OPSEC, it can be amusing when it isn’t a bit scary. I watch this sort of show for the same reason I watch things like Hoarders: morbid fascination.

I’ve also been watching some bee-related documentaries and working up some reviews of those, including the single most annoying line out of all of them.

Mount Mulch is being taken down, slowly but surely. The back garden area has two walkway areas to mulch to be complete before I move along to the herb garden and berries up front. I figure Tuesday to finish the paths and begin on the other stuff. Wednesday is yet another trip to the dentist, so Thursday will be the day to pick things back up again. Instead of banging/jarring my head around working outside after the dentist, I’ll be starting the wine (riesling!) that we’re going to make here. Fun stuff.

 

More bad PR lessons

Much like the Dervaes clan and their ill-advised foray into attempting to trademark common phrases, The National Wildlife Federation decided it would be a grand idea to partner with Scott’s. The fallout has been rather spectacular and outrage is spreading – if you’ll pardon the term – like wildfire. Scott’s make a variety of chemicals for gardens and lawns, and is also the distributor for Monsanto’s RoundUp. To top things off, Scott’s was just assessed fines totaling $4.5 million (US) for knowingly selling tainted birdseed and for falsifying EPA pesticide registration numbers. The very rich irony here is the statement from NWF about how part of their reasoning behind the partnership with Scott’s is to address the “alarming decline” in songbird populations.

Massive fail.

Idiot day

Some days, you simply cannot escape the idiocy in the world. Overnight, someone at the NOC did something incredibly stupid (and for which I still do not have an adequate explanation). Today, someone told me that our interpretation of his explanation was “out of whack” – except that he never explained anything in particular, despite questions phrased in multiple ways to him so we could try to figure out just what the hell he was trying to do. Someone else wanted to know our price on something, even though we tracked her visit to our pricing page, where things are clearly outlined.  Since I didn’t get to bed until after 5 this morning, then got back up just after 8, not a good day for the old balance of the mood.

The bees are coming

Not exactly Paul Revere warning of the British arrival, but exciting in its own way: we received a confirmed ship date for our bees of mid-May. On the same day we received that notice, we received seeds I’d ordered specifically for the bees. Serendipity. I plan to have have nectar-producing plants going full blast by the time they get here and we get them settled into their homes so they will immediately be able to get to work building out their comb so the queen can start laying (of course, we will be feeding them for a bit when they first arrive, too, to help things along).

It’s going to be like counting down the days the Christmas around here.

Routine

I’ve been working on Mt. Mulch in the rear garden. Mt. Mulch is the truck full of mulch that we had someone deposit on the grounds in order to mulch in the paths in the various gardens and around the trees. The first load, which was up front, I had some help to finish off from family. This time, it’s only me hacking away at it. It’s good exercise, really, but it takes a toll on your traps, from squeezing together armfuls of it to toss into the wheelbarrow. Why pick it up by hand? Have you ever tried using a shovel on a big pile of mulch? That’s a one way ticket to exhaustion and sore everything (and lots of cursing). It’s faster to do it by hand. The only downside is that while the top of the pile is dry, it’s wet under that layer, making it a chore to carve out a chunk to move to the barrow.

Goal: six barrows a day loaded, dumped, and spread, in order to get the back garden finished. That’s about the limit my morning shake gives me in terms of calories/energy, but it works out well since I can generally get one eight foot long section mulched at about an inch per barrow load- which in turn gives me one full row done on the long side of the garden. It’s a lot of mulch, but I only have four rows left, plus the large non-row area where there is currently nothing but which I’m considering for containers. I should be able to finish the mulching of the back area this week and then move on to the berries on the easterly fenceline to get those done.

After the daily loads, it was dog shaving time, something I did in bare feet on the front porch instead of getting dog hair in my boots and socks. They’re so cute with their cuts, but I suspect they were pooped after the excitement/stress of it all.

Tomorrow: more mulching. More flats to go under the lights. More something else. There’s always something else.