Modern Iconoclasty

I read in a libertarian-minded article recently (how's that for proper citational format?) that the modern iconoclast (don't worry, I looked it up too) is the person saying "don't worry, be happy". What was meant was that the norm of media fearmongering and consequential 24/7 hype over the latest developments in inconsequential world regions has incited an opposition of people bent on optimism. How great is it that all we must do to be rebellious is not worry, that to fulfil a desire to be different we must only be contently pacified? I like it.

I'm going to initiate a retaliatory war against the wannabe terrified world. I'm going to tell people not to worry so much about the fate of other countries or our own country, about our health or our driving. When I'm burning at the stake I'll look into their fear-addled eyes and start singing the peaceful regge; "don't worry, be happy now..."

Tax the rich!

Just noticed something which may be quite a revelation. 

When people say a tax should be levied, they're never the ones who are affected. "The RICH should be taxed more" or "CORPORATIONS should be taxed more" or "IMPORTS should be taxed more. People always reveal what they know about themselves by indicating the opposite in others who should be taxed. So, a person is poor if they believe the rich should be taxed. If a rich person calls for higher taxes on the rich, he's revealing his own financial weakness. If anyone wants higher taxes and has the money to pay for them, let him simply write an unprompted check to the treasury and encourage others to do so.

Iranian vs. American government

This article suggests a strategy for liberating Iran. It doesn't suggest military use, coercion, or any form of force at all, but promotes the exploitation of a flaw in the Iranian government's governing: their lack of quality education. Through opening our borders to Iranian college students, we would (1) drain the country of talented students, (2) install into the country pro-America Iranians (assuming the international students enjoyed their stay here) and (3) reveal to these students just how repressive their government is by juxtaposing it with ours (assuming our govt appears less oppressive, that is).

This would help Iran by (hopefully) instilling a love of liberty in the younger generation, which would eventually lead to the government there being less oppressive for Iranians. Americans would benefit from the increase in tuition payments from these new students and from an eventual peace with Iran. American Government, least importantly, would benefit from the eventual decrease of Iranian hostility toward America.

Once again, our government stepping out of an issue could benefit everyone now involved!

Somehow, the US government, having started with the noble cause of being left alone, unmolested by a colonizing world power, has become what it once abhorred. How much better it could be for both Iran and America if both were left to their business and both respected the other's ground. How much better it could be if that most peacemaking enterprise, free and unrestricted trade, were applied instead of sanctions.

Some thoughts

In a recent conversation with an older member of society I was informed of the sad death of map navigation in the wake of widespread GPS usage. At the time I agreed that losing the ability to read maps and navigate with them was a bad precedent, but I have now convinced myself otherwise. Learning to use a more sophisticated (yet easier to operate) technology to accomplish the same tasks we've always performed with an adequate technology is great. Even forgetting the old methods of navigation isn't necessarily bad. After all, who but the odd enthusiast enjoys navigating using sextants and compasses? These are obsolete not because they don't work, but because it takes more effort and thought to use them. They were never used by anywhere near the percentage of the US population that now uses GPS. And, instead of clogging our time with the discrete minutia of celestial or street-map utilization we can use it to actually go where we are going. GPS frees up our time by taking little of it, frees up our mind by demanding near none of it, and empowers more of us to travel wherever we wish by enabling our safe navigation of unfamiliar territory.

The old ways are not the best ways, if they were they'd be the current ways. The most effective and efficient are, without doubt, the most popular. Nostalgia, whether for the topographic maps of yesteryear or for the flint tools of the stone age is misguided and not thought out. Let knowledge die! The knowledge that it truly useful is always used and will only be forgotten when obsolete.

The Highly Annoyed Gardener Presents

Plants Deer Don't Eat

• Astilbe
• Pulmonaria
• Huechera
• Dicentra
• Aruncus
• Asarum
• Podophyllum
• Ligularia
• Thymus
• Yucca

Things Deer DO Eat:

• Lead, if thrust in their faces fast enough
• Salt-licks laced with Cyanide, Poison Hemlock, 1080, or any other good mammalian poison
• Your wildlife-loving soul

Bean Sprouts

A tour of Quansett Nurseries in Massachusetts this past weekend left me wondering about the possibilities of an agar or reusable nutrient gel medium for use in "sprout" production. Here goes.

The current method of edible sprout production at Quansett Nurseries uses a peat/perlite mix for germination. This is inefficient and - to use a much-hated buzzword - unsustainable. They either don't reuse the medium and therefore have a high initial cost and produce a large amount of waste medium constantly, or they do reuse it, adding the cost of steaming the medium to remove possible pathogens to their bill. Also, the medium does wear out through repeated uses. Depending on how much they spend on growing medium by initially buying it and repeatedly steaming it, research into an alternative medium especially for sprout production may be worthwhile.

I don't pretend to know the industry of sprouting as well as they do, but perhaps my fresh perspective has seen something they have not.

That said, here's the revolutionary plan: Grow in a soluble gel! An agar medium, a starch solution, whatever works and is reusable. My plan as of the moment is to sprout in something akin to the mixture used in tissue culture, without the Plant Growth Regulators. A pan would be filled with the stuff, seeds would be germinated on it, and the whole sprout (not just the shoot, but also the root) would be harvested by dissolving the medium. There is the question of the seed husks, but this would only matter on certain seeds which have large, inedible husks.

An issue that could arise would be the lack of oxygen to the roots of the seedling. To get a seed to germinate and grow fast, a good amount of oxygen needs to be available to the roots. The gel could be "fluffed" with oxygen as it is setting, resulting in a bubbly, solid mixture.

The beauty of this plan is in the harvest - getting the roots increases sprout bulk and value, recycling growing medium saves money and reduces waste.

Any thoughts?

To Propagandize or not to Propagandize

That is the question.

Say, for a minute, that the cares of the world have taken seed in my affections. How can I, without violating my conscience, further my political, economic, and philosophical goals? Is it not evil to persuade through half-truths, is it not worse to give my cause the best defense possible?

Two truths I can know for certain, three I can rely on:

• Propaganda can work in the short term.
• Propaganda eventually becomes history. 
• Propagandists, when found out, are despised. 

But who would want to join the ranks of bias? This would make the mechanism of furthering a cause no less repugnant to a critical thinker than a biased cable news show. But not all who would hear the message would understand the bias, in fact most wouldn't. One can be so crafty with words as to fool the masses, but one can't fool everyone all the time. It's really the critical thinkers one wants as allies, not those who believe whatever they're told.

I know my course; I must not be ashamed of my actions first and foremost. I cannot tell a half-truth in support of my cause, I must be truthful to myself, my reason, and my human matrix. It would be far worse to convince a bunch of halfwits and convert the majority to a cause than to remain honest and earnest, gaining the alliance of the few who would fully understand it.