Day 2 Day radishes

September 29/ Financial crisis what to do

“When the world wearies and society ceases to satisfy, there is always the garden.” Let me say I have been in the garden. Now I am inside, and I guess my next move is to take up baking. I keep listening to the radio and looking online hoping for a baby ray of something positive.

What am I going to do to outlast this mess? I am going to clean closets, I am going to cut my nails to the lowest possible point. I am going to write to Nancy Pelosi and tell her to get another face lift tomorrow  and while they are at it wire her jaw shut.  I need to cut something. I could do my January rose pruning today. I could slice up all my too small clothes. No wait, if I am poor then perhaps I can starve and be able to use them. Since the beginning of my life, I have been waiting for the next depression. Therefore tomorrow I am going to go out and buy new underwear so I will have enough for the duration. I do not want to be one of those women who have not kept their underwear up. First things first.

I am going to learn to like Spam. My husband already does. All those vegetables like turnips and kale could be my new best friends. (Actually I loved the turnips that I grew this year in my garden.)

I am going to take my axe to my congressman and saw off his feet at the ankles. Take that, you jerk, this is what you did with my husband’s retirement.

I am going to take many photos. When they come to repossess my new camera that my dead mother bought for me on credit, too bad, they will never find it buried in the sack of dried beans with which I have stocked my pantry.

Oh hell, I am just going to a nearby corner with my “will work for food” sign and pout. I joke, but if I can pull it together I am going to try to pray for my enemies. Wish me luck.

September 26/ Down and out

This is a picture for the last post. 

September 27/ Radish musings on Economics

I have made many attempts to write something in the last days and I can not write anything of universal interest. It just does not seem the thing to do to write more recipes. And I am not good at humorous economics. To keep my spirits up I have to be serious. After all, the name of this blog is Day 2 Day Radishes. Some days are crisis’s.

Fortunately I have not asked any daughter if I could write about Economics, so they didn’t say, no. I am back in the dark ages on economics. This is a ramble on my part.

This financial crisis that we are in is very unfortunate. But there is a lot of money to be made apparently for some, mostly those who already have a lot of money, to name names Warren Buffet or George Soros. I guess it is possible if the new bail-out goes through, even the government could make money. George Soros made his nine billlion by helping the Bank of England to fail. He is a supporter of Barak Obama. Warren Buffet is the second richest man in the United States with 44 billion dollars. Bill Gates is America’s richest man. Warren Buffet is going to give 85% of his fortune to Bill Gates community work. (I think we could now call Gates a community worker with his philanthropies.) That is if he, Warren does not help out the treasury department.

I think if these three guys got together and gave, not loaned or used their money, to help this crisis it would help us out a lot. The rich many times have stabilized markets. The Rothchilds for many years lived to bail out banks.

But the aforementioned men will not give their money away. There is no gift. No, they will use their money to buy out, for example, banks, or help credit institutions and they expect to make a profit on their investment. It is risky business and for that risk, profit is expected. There is no free lunch for us.

From what I understand, the government can bail out these financial intuitions also. They can print more money. The Germans did that in the last century  and they printed so much and was so worthless that it was used for fuel. Our government hopes to do the same thing, make a profit so that it may not have cost the taxpayers too much money. But I ask you, do you think you would see that profit money, or do you think it might buy some bridges to nowhere to fill some congressman’s pocket.  Come to think of it, that is hilarious. 

August 12 Olympic Harumph

My husband has been grumbling for years about all the Olympic events that should be eliminated. A strict Constitutionalist, he wants the Games to be like the days of old Greece, no professional athletes, no team sports, no equipment like boats, tennis racquets, or bicycles. Mr. Radish says soccer has already has the World Cup. Olympic soccer is chump change. In effect, the Olympic Games really mean track and field to him.

I have not asked him if he would eliminate women but in the meantime NoName and I are baiting him. Does that mean the athletes must wear togas to participate? Would he allow swimming, and if so, how would togas work in that situation? Would chariots be substituted for bicycles? Would burkhas be allowed?

I cannot stand track and field, especially the running events. To make running interesting, you have to put effort into knowing records and possibilities. A man trying to pole over a bar is one thing, but just going around, and round the stadium is entirely another. Although I will say, I can watch horses go round and round in a circle. Give me this other stuff: the beach blanket bingo volley ball girls, the men huffing and puffing up the hills on bicycles, the soccer games, the swimmers and divers.

August 11/ Olympics

How  beautiful was the Olympic Opening?   This event was the event of a life time for those there, and for me here at home.  I of course expected fireworks, but I had not expected such timing and individual beauty.  The fireworks went off at the most artistic angles and were so expressive of what was happening in the stadium. 

15,000 participants did their job with beauty, precision and unbelievable strength and agility.  The boxes that went up and down to form waves and undulations were addicting to watch.  To think of the young people squatting under the boxes moving up and down to create a pattern of waves was nothing short of monumental.  The smiles at the end were joyous.  The lighting of the flame was truly remarkable and one wonders how long the man had to train to be able to have the strength to go around the whole stadium running in air,  holding the flame, while on a wire.  Every show was consistently good.  Fortunate are the people who recorded this event for there is a lot to see. I did not know where to look as so much was happening.  Hopefully when the  China grandchildren get home from camp I will watch this again.

During the march of the athletes when Yao Ming  the basketball player walked in with a little boy by his side waving two flags, my heart melted when his story of his climbing out of rubble after the earthquake then he went to save two friends, “Because it was the class leader, I was my job“. I thought to myself, how soon I have forgotten the earthquake.  We are stuffed  with news, but we must make space for the next news story.

Meanwhile back at home, my ten year old karate grandson was given permission to stay up as late as he wanted for the ceremony.   His mother fell asleep during the parade of the athletes but later when she awoke she found that  her son’s head was all wet and his shirt was off.  She asked him why.  He said, “ to stay a wake”,  he had been putting his head in a bowl of icewater periodically to keep himself awake.  “It worked", he told his mother.

July 25, on the ferry

Yesterday Mr. Radish went to have his eyes checked at his optometrist who is three hours, including a ferry ride, away. One might think there was an optometrist closer to home, and one might be right. But we took this as a holiday, and the weather was perfect. I love a ferry ride especially now that we ride them so seldom, and the weather is so very good. Coming back on the ferry I chose to stay on the car deck. We had been very lucky and we were the last car on the boat until the next ferry, which would be an hour away. Our car was positioned in a perfect place for deck standing.

On the car deck there were a couple of lovers smooching with their dog who looked on. And later a Hispanic man came up with his disposable camera. I asked him if he would like me to take his picture. Yes. We started talking, and he had one of the big semis on the boat. His English was difficult, and he understood much more than he spoke. I, disgustingly, started sign language and baby talk. I started asking about gasoline, how much he used, how much it cost. Two weeks ago he went round trip from San Diego to New York, and the gasoline bill was $8,600.00. On the west coast he gets 1,200 miles for $1,000.00. Of course in the cost of transportation of goods, that does not include the price of the truck or the wages, or fees.

I know that drilling will not cut the price of oil now, but it would be nice to not have our current problem in ten years.

July 23, Crying over water

In the State of Washington the water that falls in the form of rain upon your property belongs to the State.  So if you have a rain barrel you can use the water, but if you have five rain barrels, you might have to give water to the guy up the street.  Or maybe they can ship it to Southern California. 

May 20/ China news

NoName called yesterday. She is still in earthquake depression. The death toll keeps rising and there is speculation on everything. But the one that was mentioned was that somehow the Army was behind the earthquake. Well if so, their Army is right up there with George W. who arranged for Katrina.

On another front, NoName’s driver said that his mother gave money to the relief effort. This is huge. This is really the first time that the citizens have made contributions to works of charity. They have in the past assumed that the government was the only way that help could happen. That some private citizen could help was not even considered.

On the front more personal to my daughter. She went to my oldest grandson’s soccer tournament last weekend. My grandson is a very good soccer player for the sixth grade age group. He started in Brazil, and soccer playing was what was done at recess. Soccer is Brazil’s obsession along with beautiful women. He is not going to be a great soccer player because he does not want to spend all of his life after school playing soccer. None the less, he knows the game.

This weekend his team placed third in this particular Shanghai tournament. The first place team was like the Shanghai National Soccer Team. The boys go to a state boarding school and practice 7-8 hours a day. My grandson’s team did not know what hit them. They had no clue as to what was happening. So if you want to take out futures on World Soccer, NoName says to put your bets on China.

May 19/ Charitable relief

KimKommando.com is a great site for interesting sites of the day. I do subscribe to this. She has all kinds of interesting sites on all sorts of subjects, from government sites, science sites, photography, to a thousand other general topics. She has in the past talked about charitable giving sites. I personally am ready to give a donation for the relief effort in China. But I am picky as to where my money goes. For example, the Episcopal Church asked every one in our church to buy a mosquito net for Africa. People were to donate, and then the church would purchase nets at $12.00, and send them to those exposed to malaria in Africa. I bought our fair share and more. Later I find out that it is possible to buy these nets for $5.00. I do not know the whole story, maybe now the Episcopal Church is also buying nets for $5.00 a net. But I shake my head.

Back to the subject. If you search for charitable sites on Kim’s web site, there are interesting places for you to look at. But I for now am settling on

http://www.charitynavigator.org

. They rank charities and give their net worth, and administrative expenses. So if you want to give, and do not know where, check out this site.

For my daughter NoName in China, I post the following site. Kind of fun.

http://www.socialsecurity.gov/OACT/babynames/

May 15/ NoName in China

I talked to my daughter, NoName, last night in Shanghai.  She is very distressed about the earthquake and the feeling of helplessness to help.  The American woman are gathering supplies.  She said that even if you wanted to go to help, you could not get to the locations.    She especially aches for the one child families who have lost their child.  Many,  many children were killed.  As of yesterday she thought air drops were being made by helicopter to the people. 

She is particularly angry about the Press and how a political spin has been put on everything, from connecting this to Tibet and the Dali Lamas, to the only reason that people in China are making such an effort is to “show up” Burma.  In her words the people who write these stories are “agnostics”.  The Chinese people themselves are responding to help, and this is a  first in China for everyone to work as a whole. Separation by communism, or tribes, and language has been the norm.  This is a new and wonderful sign  from the people. 

NoName has written once about this on her blog and will write more when her emotions are more together.  But read her blog www.expatprincess.wordpress.com.