I have to wonder if the long-running British post office scandal (in which small-town postmaster franchisees were personally bankrupted and prosecuted and jailed in a government cover-up of a faulty IT system) may have made the British a bit more sensitive to bureaucratic abuses than they used to be, and therefore receptive to this kind of storytelling and advocacy.
The semi-fictional 4-part British drama, Mr. Bates vs. the Post office, which aired in the US on Masterpiece, was memorable. It tells the story of years of frustration and outrage before eventual vindication. After the drama aired, Parliament quickly passed reform legislation.
Katie grew up poor on a farm (for years they lived in a 550 sq. ft. mobile home on the farm; no shade). She does not romanticize about it whatsoever. When we inherited a bit of the old farm (she and her sister now own 110+ acres), I told her it was a shame it was 3 hours away; if it was closer we could farm it. She looked at me and stated "the pharmacy sells a medicine for that"...🙄
A month ago I got a letter from our postmaster ordering me to move my mailbox. When we bought the house, 5 homes all had their mailbox in one spot. No reason given. Our neighbor who retired from the post office investigated, and we don't have to move it. Apparently the postal carrier gets paid by the stop, so if we move, the carrier earns more.
That may be why the post office loses money: incentives to slow down service, not increase it.
Our postal system tries to make me tell my unit number to the whole world, even though the number is not needed for putting the mail in one of six mailboxes in the vestibule. My name is right there. Only utilities have a legit need to know the unit. For the sake of my personal security and privacy, I would rather the unit number not be publicized or appear on every piece of mail sent to me by anyone. (I even destroy return-address labels sent to me by charities if they include the unit number.) I bet if they tried to drag me off to jail, I'd eventually win my class-action case.
At Walmart, I bought Epsom salts for Vlad to soak his feet. On the front of the 8 lb. package, it says "Saline Laxative". Seriously. Are there actually, in 2025 in a first-world country, people who are buying 8 lb. bags of Epsom salts to use as a laxative?
Does the package make it clear that one should not bury one's foot in the garden bed? Some people might get confused. (I have ample experience in the area of customer confusion to know that it is rampant.)
I originally (mis)understood you to mean that was mentioned along with other uses…which would still be odd for an eight-pound package.
I somehow suspect it has to do with labeling restrictions on “health-related” products, since Epsom salts are not “technically” recommended as a healthy soaking substance—not proven to FDA standards and requirements. This is something I learned only recently…
Who knows the mysteries of Walmart product labelling. I didn't know it was a fertilizer. Seems like you'd want to test your soil before using it. You might not need fertilizer. It is commonly believed that added fertilizer is always helpful, but that's not accurate.
I read that, it was pretty good. Although, with each paragraph, I was making mental notes of why that could never happen today, not the least of which was the incredibly dangerous and unhealthy working environment.
I remember my uncle telling me they insulated the bulkheads with asbestos. The asbestos was volume loaded/dumped into the bays where the workers were already standing, and then the workers would stuff the asbestos into the bulkheads with their bare hands...and of course no respirators or PPE of any type.
One of my wife's uncles worked at John Mansville's asbestos factoryin Mansville NJ. He said in the 30s and 40s, the asbestos mineral, was like a fog inside. He lived into his late 60s before asbestosis killed him.
When the hazard and harm are just not discovered or known, that's just acceptable as what can be done? And, it was in a era, where it wasn't even looked to or investigated.
But when known, their is a moral, and now legal duty to disclose.
Cover ups were the thing unfortunately for decades:
Mansville knew about asbestosis in the 1930s
Dupont knew about PFOAs in the 60s and experimented on female workers
Big tobacco knew about lung cancer likely in the 1930s. Surgeon General announcement in 1950s.
Phthalates causing cancer, Endocrine disruption, BPA since the 1990s.
The newest thing, microplastics has got to me as I was in the industry (not commodities like bags etc) for decades
I liked the summary of the show. Now, I don't have to watch it and can get back to reading "Slumberland"...which is a really funny novel, the first non-fiction I've read in a long while.
It made me think of the farmer's in China, who are financially downtrodden but absolutely no one gives them any sheet whatsoever because it's wired into the culture that farmers are the backbone of the whole place. Farmers here load up the flat bed and drive right into the middle of busy intersections and park at the curb and sell direct to people. In America, that would get nipped in the bud in about 11 seconds, but here, everyone maneuvers around them as best they can without even so much as a suggestion or disapproving glance that they're causing traffic disruption because hey, they're poor and just trying to make a couple yuan like everyone else.
Thanks. Along with Adam Tooze article this morning (below), absorbing these possibilities that most of us never think about... is going to require more coffee. I learned quite a bit from the Peuyo article.
I don't keep current in areas of contemporary music or comedy. But both music and comedy of the 1960s and 1970s is to me, so far superior to today, it's like a bonfire to a match
'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Especially with literature, I am SO grateful there exists a never ending library of exceptional things to read. Of course there are good writers today, I guess. I don't know a reliable way to find them though.
My favorite Mitchener book is Tales of the South Pacific. I went to buy an audio version - not to be found. There is "Return to Paradise", "a second look at the South Pacific", but I can find nothing of the original.
My favorite above all is "Poland". Especially the vignette with/about Chopin and Liszt. I actually looked up the noted pieces to hear. We loved our Poland trip!
I enjoyed reading this, will have to get Hubs to watch it. His family grew up farming the land his grandfather bought in west TN nearly 200 years ago. With the help of his 8 boys 😵💫 they survived many trials. When the land was parceled out after his death, some stuck with it some didn’t. My father-in-law is now in his last days in hospice care in a home he built on that land 50 years ago, barely 50 yards from where he was born 90 years ago. Now they face having to sell it off to help pay for end of life care for him and his wheelchair bound wife. He’s not dying a wealthy farmer but he’s dying a rich man in many ways.
If you’re not a current or recent Amazon Prime subscriber, you can use a free trial to binge-watch the series—assuming they leave it in their current catalog for the time being.
It's still in the catalog. He's added a few more seasons (with more on the way). His latest venture is a nearby 100+ year-old pub that he purchased with the intent of serving food produced on his farm. His efforts to do so will either be the focus of the next series or a spin-off.
I forgot to mention that there is at least one owlet in the great horned owl nest across the street. It’s been pretty interesting to watch. The male owl is perched up on another tree overlooking the nest. Meanwhile, crows are constantly after him, trying to get him to leave the area. It’s not working! I haven’t seen the owlet. My neighbor has a better view of the nest from her house and sent me a photo. It’s so cute.
Yesterday, on a modest hike nearby, we flushed what I think was a dusky grouse. I wish I was better at bird identification, but not enough to work very hard at it.
Good morning. 57 now, but it may break 70 today, and no more rain (for awhile at least).
The mothership is covering the negotiations in Congress over Trump’s “big beautiful bill” — the budget/tax reconciliation bill. The FP is headlining a barnstorming tour featuring Old Left and New Left — Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Farming is a hard life. My dad was a dairy farmer for many years but eventually took a factory job. He considered himself a farmer all his life, though.
“Clarkson’s Farm” is a delight. Off to Iowa today to meet up with my daughters/grandbabies at my parent’s house. They’re on a great-grandparents tour through Iowa.
My NextDoor feed has an item in its give-away section, FREE HONEY BEES showing a swarm around someone's chimney. There's also a FREE HOMELESS CATS AND DOGS, perhaps county animal control trying to generate some clicks.
Good morning. It's 54 and clear right now, but supposed to cloud up later and deliver a high of 71. We'll see. D has a riding lesson this afternoon, but Vlad wants me to go with him to the podiatrist, so I'll have to delegate to Fang. He probably sits in the car instead of with the chickens.
Sometimes in winter on an elevated train platform, I see pigeons standing around with their feathers all puffed up so they appear almost twice as fat as usual. It's their version of a down coat. If you don't know what a down coat is, ask me. ;)
Braking news: 😬
Black smoke billowing from Snoop Dogg's car means a new pope was not elected.
Not that Snoop Dogg is complaining, of course.
I have to wonder if the long-running British post office scandal (in which small-town postmaster franchisees were personally bankrupted and prosecuted and jailed in a government cover-up of a faulty IT system) may have made the British a bit more sensitive to bureaucratic abuses than they used to be, and therefore receptive to this kind of storytelling and advocacy.
Excellent point.
The semi-fictional 4-part British drama, Mr. Bates vs. the Post office, which aired in the US on Masterpiece, was memorable. It tells the story of years of frustration and outrage before eventual vindication. After the drama aired, Parliament quickly passed reform legislation.
I remember when that was on, although I didn't watch it.
Katie grew up poor on a farm (for years they lived in a 550 sq. ft. mobile home on the farm; no shade). She does not romanticize about it whatsoever. When we inherited a bit of the old farm (she and her sister now own 110+ acres), I told her it was a shame it was 3 hours away; if it was closer we could farm it. She looked at me and stated "the pharmacy sells a medicine for that"...🙄
A month ago I got a letter from our postmaster ordering me to move my mailbox. When we bought the house, 5 homes all had their mailbox in one spot. No reason given. Our neighbor who retired from the post office investigated, and we don't have to move it. Apparently the postal carrier gets paid by the stop, so if we move, the carrier earns more.
That may be why the post office loses money: incentives to slow down service, not increase it.
Our postal system tries to make me tell my unit number to the whole world, even though the number is not needed for putting the mail in one of six mailboxes in the vestibule. My name is right there. Only utilities have a legit need to know the unit. For the sake of my personal security and privacy, I would rather the unit number not be publicized or appear on every piece of mail sent to me by anyone. (I even destroy return-address labels sent to me by charities if they include the unit number.) I bet if they tried to drag me off to jail, I'd eventually win my class-action case.
Back from the bank and Walmart.
At Walmart, I bought Epsom salts for Vlad to soak his feet. On the front of the 8 lb. package, it says "Saline Laxative". Seriously. Are there actually, in 2025 in a first-world country, people who are buying 8 lb. bags of Epsom salts to use as a laxative?
I recently saw that it can be used as a fertilizer for your roses, too. So many purposes, so little time…
There are a number of recipes on the back for garden use, as well as soaking your feet, but the front says only "Saline Laxative."
Does the package make it clear that one should not bury one's foot in the garden bed? Some people might get confused. (I have ample experience in the area of customer confusion to know that it is rampant.)
I didn't read for that level of detail.
Hilarious! 😂
I originally (mis)understood you to mean that was mentioned along with other uses…which would still be odd for an eight-pound package.
I somehow suspect it has to do with labeling restrictions on “health-related” products, since Epsom salts are not “technically” recommended as a healthy soaking substance—not proven to FDA standards and requirements. This is something I learned only recently…
Who knows the mysteries of Walmart product labelling. I didn't know it was a fertilizer. Seems like you'd want to test your soil before using it. You might not need fertilizer. It is commonly believed that added fertilizer is always helpful, but that's not accurate.
When US industrialist and Federals worked to outbuilding the world in shipbuilding
https://open.substack.com/pub/constructionphysics/p/how-the-us-built-5000-ships-in-wwii
I read that, it was pretty good. Although, with each paragraph, I was making mental notes of why that could never happen today, not the least of which was the incredibly dangerous and unhealthy working environment.
I remember my uncle telling me they insulated the bulkheads with asbestos. The asbestos was volume loaded/dumped into the bays where the workers were already standing, and then the workers would stuff the asbestos into the bulkheads with their bare hands...and of course no respirators or PPE of any type.
One of my wife's uncles worked at John Mansville's asbestos factoryin Mansville NJ. He said in the 30s and 40s, the asbestos mineral, was like a fog inside. He lived into his late 60s before asbestosis killed him.
It’s about as hard to imagine as people working with lead (Pb) or mercury with their bare hands all day for years…
When the hazard and harm are just not discovered or known, that's just acceptable as what can be done? And, it was in a era, where it wasn't even looked to or investigated.
But when known, their is a moral, and now legal duty to disclose.
Cover ups were the thing unfortunately for decades:
Mansville knew about asbestosis in the 1930s
Dupont knew about PFOAs in the 60s and experimented on female workers
Big tobacco knew about lung cancer likely in the 1930s. Surgeon General announcement in 1950s.
Phthalates causing cancer, Endocrine disruption, BPA since the 1990s.
The newest thing, microplastics has got to me as I was in the industry (not commodities like bags etc) for decades
I liked the summary of the show. Now, I don't have to watch it and can get back to reading "Slumberland"...which is a really funny novel, the first non-fiction I've read in a long while.
It made me think of the farmer's in China, who are financially downtrodden but absolutely no one gives them any sheet whatsoever because it's wired into the culture that farmers are the backbone of the whole place. Farmers here load up the flat bed and drive right into the middle of busy intersections and park at the curb and sell direct to people. In America, that would get nipped in the bud in about 11 seconds, but here, everyone maneuvers around them as best they can without even so much as a suggestion or disapproving glance that they're causing traffic disruption because hey, they're poor and just trying to make a couple yuan like everyone else.
Another Thomas Pueyo cool article.
John Candy succeeds!! The 51st state of Canada!!
https://open.substack.com/pub/unchartedterritories/p/canada-vs-the-51st-state
Thanks. Along with Adam Tooze article this morning (below), absorbing these possibilities that most of us never think about... is going to require more coffee. I learned quite a bit from the Peuyo article.
https://substack.com/home/post/p-162976285?source=queue
I miss John Candy.
I don't keep current in areas of contemporary music or comedy. But both music and comedy of the 1960s and 1970s is to me, so far superior to today, it's like a bonfire to a match
Music, yes. Current pop music is not my thing. Comedy...I don't think there's a comedian that's ever lived that beats Chapelle.
'tis the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Especially with literature, I am SO grateful there exists a never ending library of exceptional things to read. Of course there are good writers today, I guess. I don't know a reliable way to find them though.
Hard to beat Clancy, Ludlum, Mitchner, Kellerman, Custer.
I haven't kept up with contemporary sci-fi, but it's reported to be good still.
My favorite Mitchener book is Tales of the South Pacific. I went to buy an audio version - not to be found. There is "Return to Paradise", "a second look at the South Pacific", but I can find nothing of the original.
My favorite above all is "Poland". Especially the vignette with/about Chopin and Liszt. I actually looked up the noted pieces to hear. We loved our Poland trip!
Second favorite is "The Source".
https://www.bookseriesinorder.com/james-a-michener/
Brandon Sanderson.
He must be your very favorite, I have seen you mention him often...I have written him down, but I am so far behind on book reading...
I enjoyed reading this, will have to get Hubs to watch it. His family grew up farming the land his grandfather bought in west TN nearly 200 years ago. With the help of his 8 boys 😵💫 they survived many trials. When the land was parceled out after his death, some stuck with it some didn’t. My father-in-law is now in his last days in hospice care in a home he built on that land 50 years ago, barely 50 yards from where he was born 90 years ago. Now they face having to sell it off to help pay for end of life care for him and his wheelchair bound wife. He’s not dying a wealthy farmer but he’s dying a rich man in many ways.
If you’re not a current or recent Amazon Prime subscriber, you can use a free trial to binge-watch the series—assuming they leave it in their current catalog for the time being.
It's still in the catalog. He's added a few more seasons (with more on the way). His latest venture is a nearby 100+ year-old pub that he purchased with the intent of serving food produced on his farm. His efforts to do so will either be the focus of the next series or a spin-off.
I forgot to mention that there is at least one owlet in the great horned owl nest across the street. It’s been pretty interesting to watch. The male owl is perched up on another tree overlooking the nest. Meanwhile, crows are constantly after him, trying to get him to leave the area. It’s not working! I haven’t seen the owlet. My neighbor has a better view of the nest from her house and sent me a photo. It’s so cute.
Yesterday, on a modest hike nearby, we flushed what I think was a dusky grouse. I wish I was better at bird identification, but not enough to work very hard at it.
Good morning. 57 now, but it may break 70 today, and no more rain (for awhile at least).
The mothership is covering the negotiations in Congress over Trump’s “big beautiful bill” — the budget/tax reconciliation bill. The FP is headlining a barnstorming tour featuring Old Left and New Left — Bernie Sanders and AOC.
Farming is a hard life. My dad was a dairy farmer for many years but eventually took a factory job. He considered himself a farmer all his life, though.
“Clarkson’s Farm” is a delight. Off to Iowa today to meet up with my daughters/grandbabies at my parent’s house. They’re on a great-grandparents tour through Iowa.
Should I also have mentioned that Clarkson is the UK’s sexiest man alive—for the second time ‘round?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/jeremy-clarkson-named-uks-sexiest-32821886
Have fun in Iowa!
“Sexy” must be defined differently in the UK!
The movie "The Full Monty" made that clear.
You'd have to see who the other options were.
I think he's a hoot on TV, but maybe I would find him annoying in real life.
I hope you have a great trip!
I plan to go to Walmart and the bank.
My NextDoor feed has an item in its give-away section, FREE HONEY BEES showing a swarm around someone's chimney. There's also a FREE HOMELESS CATS AND DOGS, perhaps county animal control trying to generate some clicks.
Too bad you’re in NC. My wife’s nephew is a beekeeper in Louisiana. He could take care of those for your neighbor.
I have friends who are beekeepers. The swarm isn't nearby: the site said it's over 11 miles away.
Good morning. It's 54 and clear right now, but supposed to cloud up later and deliver a high of 71. We'll see. D has a riding lesson this afternoon, but Vlad wants me to go with him to the podiatrist, so I'll have to delegate to Fang. He probably sits in the car instead of with the chickens.
Morning. It’s 41 here with the sun peeking through. Supposedly approaching 70 today. A coat of feathers would probably provide some extra warmth.
It's not just the feathers: it's the air they hold among themselves.
Sometimes in winter on an elevated train platform, I see pigeons standing around with their feathers all puffed up so they appear almost twice as fat as usual. It's their version of a down coat. If you don't know what a down coat is, ask me. ;)
Which came first, the feathers or the air?...and do they actually hold the air "among themselves"? Sounds like the feathers are sentient beings.
Air, I believe.
I was trying to find humor in the mildly clumsy description of the insulating effect of trapped air. You're usually so succinct and direct.
At first, I was looking for some way to make "woke joke" about the feathers holding something among "themselves", but my humor chops didn't show up.
Some days we've got it, and other days we don't.
The Chickens?
The feathers. I knew that was awkward when I wrote it, but I'm not at my best today, composition-wise.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
Emily Dickinson
Indeed. My soul is full of chickens.