It’s been a messed up week and I am trying to not despair. The Supremes just keep going with the greatest hits. It’s now illegal to be homeless and sleep outdoors in Oregon City because sleeping outdoors when you have nowhere else to go is considered camping on public property. The Court also ruled that an obstruction law used to prosecute a January 6th insurrectionist can only be applied to physical records. This opens the way for hundreds of charges against insurrectionists to be tossed out and also severely limits prosecution of Trump, who the court has yet to rule on whether he has presidential immunity, but given how things are going I will not be terribly surprised if they say he cannot be prosecuted at all.

And, as if that was not enough, they overturned the 1984 Chevron case that ruled courts must defer to the expertise of federal agencies when considering legal challenges to a rule. Administrative law is about to become chaos. Why? Well, when the US government passes a law it doesn’t have all the details in it about how the law will be rolled out or enforced, that’s up to the various government agencies to figure out. So, for example, The Clean Air Act, which, among other things, allows the Environmental Protection Agency to set clean air standards for various air pollutants. The EPA uses science to figure out what those pollutants are and what are “acceptable” levels and then has the power to enforce the regulations if a company is found in violation. 

The Chevron case set the precedent that the agencies and their experts know more about what they doing than a judge, and so when a regulation is challenged on something like regulating industries that spew fine particulate matter into the air, the judge, instead of saying, “well I can breathe just fine and Factory B says it’s all ok, so this regulation is a burden to that factory and therefore goes too far and is not valid,” has to defer to the expertise of the EPA people with their knowledge and independent science of how air pollution works and what breathing in fine particulates from the offending factory is doing to the health of people.

We have 40 years of law that have now been undermined. 

Then I came across a Reuters news report about how the Pentagon ran a secret anti-vax campaign in the Philippines in order to undermine China in the depths of the COVID-19 pandemic. The United States was unhappy about China’s growing influence in the Philippines and their vaccines were coming from China. So the US military launched a huge anti-vax propaganda campaign. Of course it didn’t stop in the Philippines. As the pandemic spread, so did the anti-vax campaign, which reached as far as the Middle East. Granted, this began under the Trump presidency, but Biden didn’t put a stop to it until spring 2021, several months after he took office. As a result, COVID hit the Philippines hard. They had one of the worst vaccination rates in Southeast Asia, and by spring 2021, over 24,000 people had died. By October 2021, over 48,000 people were dead.

And let’s not even go into the “debate” between Trump and Biden Thursday night. Instead of Democrats saying, yeah, Biden had a crap debate and then hitting Trump hard on all the lies he spouted unchallenged, and oh yeah, convicted felon, they are wailing and wringing their hands and saying Biden should withdraw from the race. And then what? There is no one else ready to take his place. I’m not a fan of Biden, but even though he is old he is competent and knows how to have a good team of people around him. He is not planning on being a dictator even for day.

All this makes me want to scream. And cry. I feel completely helpless in the face of it. Meditation helps. And, of course, the garden. But these feel so small and pointless sometimes. I sign petitions, write letters, donate money, vote—always—and sometimes attend protests, but the needle for real change that benefits more than the billionaires and corporations barely moves.

I think this leads me more and more to care about state and local government. The federal government has become ineffective and unreachable unless you have a lot of money, but state legislators and council members live nearby and they are much more accessible. I send emails about various issues regularly and most of the time I get a response that isn’t canned. I also regularly make comments on state and city projects during the public open comment periods. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t. 

The neighborhood that wanted to buy a building from the city and turn it into an organic farm and community employment lab and event center got to buy the building after much pressure all around. The drive to add a 24/7 dedicated bus lane on a busy street through a popular business district when the road was re-done over the next 2 years only won a partial victory with a dedicated bus lane active only during certain times of the day. The push to reimagine a large section of freeway between downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul that cut through a historically black neighborhood when it was originally built is ongoing. Support is growing for removing the freeway completely, filling in the trench, and turning it into a multi-modal boulevard that accommodates cars at city street speeds, buses, bikes, maybe even light rail, has room for parks and housing and small businesses, but most of all, reconnects the neighborhoods that were torn apart.

Minnesota just passed a bill called the Packaging Waste and Cost Reduction Act. The costs of recycling are skyrocketing and rural communities are finding it almost impossible to pay for recycling programs even with grants from the state. This new legislation holds manufacturers of packaging waste responsible and will charge them fees based on the type and total weight of the waste produced. The fees will then be distributed across the state to pay for recycling programs and landfill costs. The Act also requires all packaging to be recyclable, reusable, or compostable by 2032. Companies that don’t comply will not be able to sell their products in Minnesota and could face fines up to $25,000 a day if they do. Wow! 

Last year the Minnesota legislature adopted a policy requiring utility providers in the state to use exclusively carbon-free electricity sources by 2040. The rule applies not only to what is produced in the state, but also the electricity that crosses state lines. The policy is currently in the public comment period and North Dakota, a big source of MN electricity and a state with a big coal and (mostly fracked) gas industry, is not pleased. They recently submitted a letter declaring MN’s policy illegal saying it violates the federal Commerce Clause as well as tries to regulate carbon emissions, a power that belongs to the Environmental Protection Agency (but since the Supremes have deeply cut into what the EPA can do to regulate carbon, it’s hard to say that anyone in the US has the right to regulate it, which is completely ridiculous). 

Closer to home in the garden where I do have more influence, I’m picking the shelling peas. They are big and sweet and ever so delicious. When pea season comes around I am always reminded of a story a favorite uncle told me when I was 13. 

My mom, sister and I were visiting my Uncle Blackie and Aunt Margaret on their small farm in Broken Bow, Oklahoma. Uncle Blackie loved to tell stories. During dinner one evening when there was a bowl of mashed potatoes and a bowl of peas on the table he told a story of once having a young man visiting (I don’t remember the particulars of this young man). There were potatoes and peas on the dinner table and Aunt Margaret asked the young man whether he wanted seconds of anything. The young man replied, “I could eat every potato and pea in the dish.” 

My Aunt and Uncle immediately burst out laughing and the young man turned scarlet when he realized the inadvertent pun. I’m fairly sure my Uncle made a comment that embarrassed the young man even more, but I sadly no longer remember and both my Uncle and Aunt have been dead many years so I cannot ask about it. Still, I love that every pea season I think of this story and my Aunt and Uncle who were good people I miss immensely.

In the ongoing gardener and zucchini versus squirrel saga, the gardener and zucchini have won, at least for now. Last week I planted Black Beauty Zucchini and Yellow Crookneck for a final desperate attempt at summer squash, but this time beneath cages. They have already sprouted, four zucchini and four crooknecks. Yay! Outside of the cages there were two sprouts that had come up after I did a mad replant and now there are two more. So I have four additional unprotected squashes that the squirrels have not bothered at all. I find myself suddenly with more squash plants than I bargained for. One or two might end up being pulled because the ones under the cages are kind of too close together. But we’ll wait and see.

I want to feel smugly victorious, however, I am a bit concerned. You see, the squash battle was most likely only with one particular squirrel who we affectionately dubbed “Wanker.” Wanker is the one who sat there eating radishes while I yelled at them. Wanker is the one who kept climbing our screen door. But last week we looked out to see Wanker hunched up on the deck looking ill. They were sort of retching or maybe coughing, obviously in distress. There was no foaming at the mouth or anything, but Wanker was not well. Eventually they left.

The next day Wanker was back on the deck. No more retching, but they looked like they were struggling. They were hunched up, eyes half open, almost swaying like they were going to faint. We speculated that Wanker had eaten something they should not have. In spite of how annoying they are, I did not wish the poor squirrel to suffer or die. I hoped they hadn’t eaten anything poisonous and would get better. But we haven’t seen them for days and I can’t help but feel sad about that because I suspect Wanker might be dead. I’m hoping I’m wrong and they make a really annoying reappearance soon and maybe dig up one of those unprotected squashes.

Reading

• Book: The Climate Change Resilient Vegetable Garden by Kim Stoddart. I mentioned last week or maybe the week before, hearing her talk on a podcast. I borrowed her book from the library and it’s really good. She tried to write it for gardeners of varying experience, but leans heavily towards new gardeners. Still, she has lots of great ideas and advice for those of us who have already been trying to make their vegetable gardens climate change resilient. 
• Book: Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee. This is an anti-capitalist novel about debt and work and begins with surprising snark and sarcastic humor. But oh friends, it takes a turn and gets very dark and nothing is funny anymore. Jonathan Abernathy is deep in debt from student loans and inherited debt from his parents. He is offered a job as a dream auditor and is suddenly making enough money in conjunction with another job, to just get by. Corporations can hire the “Archives” to audit their employees’ dreams without permission, in order to improve productivity. Abernathy arrives in a dream, figures out what is causing the unhappiness and notifies his supervising officer who them shows up in the dream to suck up the offending bits. Not a happy sort of read, but a good one nonetheless.
• Article: William Hartung, An AI Hell on Earth? Because today’s post hasn’t been depressing enough already, Tom Dispatch has an essay by Hartung about the AI weapons the tech industry is pushing the military to adopt. War using AI and not humans to make decisions. Gee, anyone who has watched any scifi movie will know this is a very bad idea.

Quote

“‘Like I said, just showing the new guy the ropes.’ She says this in the manner of professional women everywhere who often need their neutral statements to double as daggers.”

“In committing to his job and the mistreatment of those below him, Jonathan Abernathy starts to believe he is good at things. Which, in turn, as perverse as it may sound, makes him respect himself. People (strangers) start to like him too.”

~Both quotes from Jonathan Abernathy You Are Kind by Molly McGhee.

Listening

• Podcast: Scene on Radio: Capitalism. John Biewen has started a new season and this time it’s on capitalism. I’ve only listened to the season introduction so far, but like all his other seasons on topics like the patriarchy, whiteness, and democracy, this season promises to be just as well researched and thoughtful. 

Watching

• Documentary: Frida (2024). A beautiful film that uses Frida’s own words and the words of friends as the narrative. It employs photographs, film, and gorgeous animations of Frida’s art as visuals to tell the life of an amazing woman and artist. I was fortunate several years ago to see an exhibition of her work and it brought me to tears.

James’s Kitchen Wizardry

James made a delicious stir fry from home sprouted mung beans, purple snap peas, onion, peanuts, and tempeh. It all looks so brown but it was ever so tasty. Today was a sunny day and he used the sun oven to make chocolate chip cookie bars.