LAWNS

In the 17th century the only people with lawns were the royals and aristocrats. They mowed with goats and sheep. Lawns slowly spread to the US suburbs as a status symbol. Now they are a symbol of leisure and prosperity. It is now a heavy burden for over 80% of homeowners.

Mowing, fertilizing and watering are constant tasks. An enormous industry has been created. More water is consumed for lawn care than farmers use to raise corn wheat, or any other agricultural product. Some experts estimate that over 1/3 of water from public sources goes toward landscaping. In some of the drier states, this may rise to 70%.

Environment: Lawns are damaging to the environment. Fertilizer and pesticide runoff pollute our steams and lakes. Gasoline mowers emit as much pollution as 11 automobiles. There now exists an anti lawn lobby.

I wonder what people did for their yards before the age of lawns.

MORE CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

My recent blog about Mexico reminded me that I lived through the latter part of the Mexican revolution. I was just a child during the Calles regime (l928/1934)

In 1929 or 31 my Dad was still flush from his successful stock market plays.Carl, Dean, Lee and I were bundled off to an upscale boys summer camp in Wisconsin. Soon after that the disastrous world depression caught up with us and Dad had to sell his beautiful plane. Somehow, his business , Mexican Trading Co. survived and later became prosperous again. But there were a few lean years. I was blissfully unaware of this until about 1936. However, my clothes were mostly ragged hand me downs. I also got a lousy little bike handed down to me. Lee, to my chagrin, got a new bike. He was a sullen, rebellious child and got many privileges like bribes.

Work for privileged kids was not available in Mexico. Newspapers were delivered by men on bicycles, trying to eke out a meagre living. Fortunately, beans, rice and tortillas were cheap and formed the backbone of the poor folks diet. Mexican agriculture was all but destroyed by president Lazaro Cardenas (1934/40) and his Ejido program. The haciendas were broken up and given to the peasants in the form of communities. The peasants had neither the knowledge or means to grow large crops. The great sugar industry virtually disappeared. Trainloads of corn and wheat from the US saved the country from starvation.

No wonder I was not aware of the situation. My family ate well even in these times.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I paid a visit to my urologist on June 9th. To my h0rror he prescribed what he laughingly called called a procedure, requiring another operation and a one night stay ( more like a nightmare) in my favorite hospital to be done the very next day.
Now I am recovering but feel weak and tottery. My progress is supervised by me. What a lousy idea. Every little symptom is alarming. I want to run screaming to my doctor almost every day. I am suspecting that Dr. Lim's procedure may have failed, I am in a terrible humor.
Good news : It has started to rain for the first time in about three months. Too late, alas, for our garden and lawn. Too late to save large areas of Texas from devastating forest fires. My fig tree is dropping all the little baby figs.
Brilliant red cardinals flit about in the gardens of our neighbors. All we have here is a few forlorn bishops.
It still seems that our elected officials are incapable of doing what must obviously be done for the welfare of the country. Mrs.Obama is not helping very much. She loves to travel along with groups of superfluous companions at enormous ex pence. Mr Obama is a very busy president. Between golfing, fund raising and reading peculiar speeches from his teleprompter there is little time left to attend to the real needs of the country.
Let us select governor Perry for our next president.

THE STORM THAT SWEPT MEXICO

NPB occasionally does good things and the program mentioned in the title was , for the most part, remarkable and factual.

This is the history of Mexico post Porfirio Diaz ( Long time dictator from 1890 to 1910 ). The great agrarian revolution that rocked the country through 1920 and beyond is shown with great photos and crude motion pictures of the events. The story is clearly explained in English and Spanish and for the first 2/3 , is factual and accurate. What a story !

After Pancho Villa , Zapata and other agrarian leaders were killed or marginalized, Plutarco Elias Calles more or less stabilized the government under what became the PRI ( Partido Revolucionario Institucional ) which stayed in absolute power for the next 50 years. He seized the land and churches of the Catholic Church. His intention was to destroy the church by such methods as murder and exile of all priests and nuns. He provoked the Cristeros revolt in Guadalajara which was quickly and brutally put down. This was not mentioned in the title program.

At the end of Calles term in office he appointed Lazaro Cardenas president and Cardenas soon turned against his sponsor and took complete control. He is remembered for the expropriation of the American and British oil fields. He made the labor unions powerful allies and with them, became extremely corrupt. One need not hesitate to say he was a communist.

Simply not mentioned in this program was the destruction of the church and the social machinations of Cardenas. Alas, it became a puff piece for the corrupt PRI.

If you can find this program, by all means watch it.

let us stretch your credulity

Your scribe always writes in longhand ( illegible cursive ) and checks it out hours later for corrections and improvements. Two blogs in the last two weeks did not live up to my standards of excellence. Hence the prolonged silence.

However, I have once again found a subject worthy of a blog. Looking ahead on my kitchen calendar I discovered yet another important date of which I was completely unaware. Please mark on your calendar the 28Th of June. Some one (I cannot imagine who does these things ) has designated that day as TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY. It's true. I swear it is.

This special day creates several problems for me and perhaps for some others. Where would I take my dog since I retired some years ago ? Also, I don't own a dog. Perhaps I could borrow one but where would I take him/her*? It is indeed a conundrum.


*Isn't that him/her or he/she repulsive? I put it in just to tease my readers.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP

I was bemused , shocked and disgusted to note that the week of May 15/21 is NATIONAL DOG BITE PREVENTION WEEK. I, of course, will do all I can to avoid being bitten during this time and I strongly recommend that you do the same.

However, I wonder what congressperson introduced this bill and why they did so. Much better would have been NATIONAL MOSQUITO BITE PREVENTION WEEK. Perhaps some officious legislator will come up with that next. Whoever it might be will certainly get my vote.

This sort of rubbish is more common than one might think. Our state legislators are not immune to stupidity. Every state seems to have a state flower and a state bird. I cannot imagine why. However, this at least does serve an important purpose. Where would our trivia games be without such nonsense.

IS OSAMA REALLY DEAD/

Why is it that so many questions arise when the Fed does anything ? Here are a few things I would like to know.





1) Did Pakistan know where Bin Laden was for the last 6 or 7 years?


2) Did Pakistan know we were coming to get him ?


3) Was the mission to kill or capture Bin Laden ? Did he resist or endanger the seals ?


4)What was the object of disposing of the body so quickly ? Why did they honor him with an honorable burial ? Was it really him that they dumped ?


5) What's with the photos ? Why not release them ?


6)What happened to the other men in the compound ? Should they not also have been captured for interrogation ? Should we not have interrogated the women also ?





These and so many other questions are about, casting doubt on the entire operation. Is Osama really dead or maybe being held in some secret place for further interrogation ?