The rains started up a few weeks ago, just as the grass was getting brown and crispy, and now we're getting pretty regular storms rolling through.  I found 3/4 of an inch in the rain gauge when I got back from work this evening.  

This is the first year since 2008 (when our hay was just being planted) that we haven't cut any hay.  It's nice not to have to worry;  there's always concern that the lack of rain is stunting growth, or that too much is keeping us out of overgrown fields, or that it's going to come down on fields already cut and drying.  

Our hay fields have reverted largely to grass and are in need of replanting now.  I'm not sure if it's worth it to replant them or not. There's a few thousand dollars in seed, lime, and potash required, not to mention the time spent prepping the soil, or the fact that it's always best to spread some manure on the fields before plowing to keep fertility up.  

If we make the investments that need to be made, I'll feel the need to make use of them, which means working ourselves and the horses in the heat, when the flies are at their worst and the risk of a runaway goes up.  Is it worth the effort?

For now we've decided that it isn't.  Taking the time for our first real vacation in over a decade means that I don't have the time to put up hay anyway.  Spending the money on hay (about $6k to see the three horses and 2.5 cows through the winter) is certainly easier on the back, but doesn't seem so easy on the pocketbook.  Then again, I'm not so sure that growing our own hay is a whole lot easier on the pocketbook once all the planting, equipment, risk of injury, and time costs are factored in.

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While our son Henry was out visiting family in Washington a couple weeks ago, their temperatures exceeded anything we've yet experienced in Michigan.  Places where a typical June high might be in the 70s broke 100 degrees, even hitting 110.  BC's town of Lytton (which we've been through) hit 121F, promptly caught fire and burned to the ground the next day.  

I read that walking along the beaches now, you can smell all the dead creatures rotting after being baked in the heat  Perhaps it's for the best that I remember walking the beaches while things were still very much alive. Despite this, people are happy to resume flying again, and questioned Henry's decision to take the train instead of flying like a normal person. As if I needed any more confirmation that we're never going to rise to the challenge of keeping a livable planet.  

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Many, if not most people, will reject any theory as ridiculous if the implications are too far from their lived experience, even when they know full well that history is full of such events. As such, I expect most people will discount what I'm about to suggest, and in all honesty, I hope they're right.  I know this will make people uncomfortable, but I'd much rather endure derision a few years from now than ask myself why I stayed silent.  I already have significant regrets for not speaking up sooner.

In Elie Wiesel's book about his experiences in being sent to a concentration camp where his family perished, he wrote about a man from his village who had been taken to such a camp and escaped, returning to his village to warn everyone of what the Germans were up to.  Nobody listened, and discounted him as a crazed fool.  Today we would refer to him as a conspiracy theorist, and point to fact checkers to debunk his claims as we step confidently into the "perfectly safe" cattle cars.

There is one terrifying glimmer of hope on the horizon when it comes to climate change.  It seems to me that someone may in fact be trying to save our species.  Considering that we've all demonstrated a collective ineptitude for the required behavioral change, I'm not sure I can blame them for resorting to the only possibility which remains -- that being a dramatic reduction in population.  Granted, with the feedback loops we've already set in motion, I don't expect that they'll be successful in saving our species this late in the game, but I suppose they can't be blamed for trying.  The super wealthy of our planet are nothing if not eternal optimists.

As the owners of controlling interests in industry, governments, media, and damn near everything else, there's nobody I can think of with better means or organization skills. Many of them are obsessively fascinated with extending their own lives through the use of technology, so have certainly realized that this won't be possible if they don't have a place to live when their birthday candles hit the triple digits.  Saving their own bacon certainly sounds to me like a good motivator.

Considering that their money almost invariably turns them into sociopaths (though most, like Gates, probably started that way) they're the perfect people to take the reins at this stage, to do the essential dirty work.  Perhaps this is what really broke the Gate's marriage?

My first inkling came as Dr. Pierre Kory's senate testimony in early December was censored, demonstrating beyond a doubt that those in power were not interested in public health, but in pushing the vaccines.  In fact, every single treatment before or since which has shown significant promise (HCQ, Ivermectin, Fluvoxamine, Prednisone, etc) has been poo-pooed or just plain censored.  Why is that?  I've heard numerous personal accounts of the efficacy of the first two, and have no reason to doubt any of them.   All of them, strangely, are well past their patent expirations, and are decidedly unprofitable.  

The simple explanation is that the emergency use authorization of any medication legally requires that there be no other effective treatments.  So it's not unreasonable to think that the pharmaceutical corporations are simply acting to protect their investments in the vaccines (much of it taxpayer funded), by denying the existence of effective treatments.  That would certainly be consistent with the state of regulatory capture of the FDA and CDC we've seen in recent decades, or the way these same companies have been willing to jack the price of essential medications like insulin to the point that people regularly die for going without.  

Though covid-19 itself doesn't appear to be particularly lethal (granted, I still don't want it!), the vaccines created to fight it may very well be.  Deaths recorded on the VAERS system just passed 9,000.  Considering that Harvard's study of the VAERS system found about a 1% reporting rate, it would not be unreasonable to think that the 9,000 reported deaths are potentially representative of 900,000 actual deaths -- thus surpassing the 607,000 attributed to covid, though the covid numbers are also quite suspect.   A number of California counties recently reviewed their covid death numbers and found them to be greatly inflated.  I see nothing to suggest that these are isolated cases.

Beyond the immediate effects of the covid vaccines, there are a number of other concerns.  One FOIA request to the Japanese government obtained tissue deposition study results, showing that the vaccines had a particularly high affinity for ovarian tissue (which may have the greatest ultimate effect if it results in infertility).  Former Pfizer VP Michael Yeadon warned of similar concerns, as has microbiologist Sucharit Bhakdi.  There have also been numerous reports of miscarriages shortly after receiving the vaccines.  Irish biochemist Dolores Cahill has stated plainly that most younger vaccine recipients will not survive the decade, or even a couple years for older recipients.

Other studies have shown that the spike protein itself (which your body manufactures after receiving the vaccine) is responsible for damage to endothelial cells (which line your circulatory system), as well as triggering blood clots (and no, it's not just the Astra Zeneca vaccine -- they all do this).    

The spike proteins have also been demonstrated to open the critical blood-brain barrier, both for themselves and any other pathogen which might happen to be in the neighborhood.  There are numerous accounts of strokes shortly after receiving the vaccine, and "brain fog", which is likely a result of numerous small clots -- much as what happens with covid itself.

Luc Montagnier, the nobel prize winning virologist who isolated HIV has expressed concern that the proteins in the vaccines are very similar to prions, and could ultimately develop into a prion like disease (think mad-cow or chronic wasting disease) over the course of a couple years.  We really don't know just yet.  I see that even his own Wiki page has been updated to label him as a crank despite his undeniable expertise and accomplishments.  The censorship these days is really becoming complete.

Going down the rabbithole even further, I see now that the president of three nations -- Magufuli of Tanzania, Moise of Haiti, and Nkurunziza of Burundi -- all of whom rejected the covid narrative and associated vaccines, have now died or been killed -- after which, their replacements in each nation begged for vaccines asap.  Interesting coincidence, I suppose.  

Yet another interesting coincidence...  A year ago, anyone reporting on the Wuhan Institute of Virology's bat-virus gain of function research was being censored and labeled a crazy conspiracy theorist.  

Then, about a month ago, that all changed.   Someone ran an analysis using artificial intelligence on the mysterious "vaping disease" that killed a number of people in the summer of 2019 near Fort Detrick, MD.  Fort Detrick also worked with gain of function on bat coronaviruses, among other bio-weapons.  

The AI diagnostic software apparently didn't have a functional political sensitivity algorithm, because it said "That's COVID!" when presented with the vaping disease symptoms.   I think it was no more than a few days after this event that it became legal to discuss the Wuhan lab leak theory.  Fascinating... both because Ft. Detrick was shut down because of (by their own documents) bio leaks averaging once every three days, and also because this mysterious disease completely disappeared despite the continued popularity of vaping.  

In 2013, mRNA vaccines were tested for the original SARS virus.  Like today's vaccines, they produced a decent immune response.  As the study progressed, however, the participants developed antibody-dependent-enhancement, whereupon their immune responses to further viral challenges became overly responsive, killing some of them with cytokine storms if my memory serves.  This problem has plagued all attempts at coronavirus vaccines thus far.   Was it suddenly resolved?   I've heard of no explanations as to how that might've been done.  Perhaps someone with a different idea of what a vaccine should accomplish viewed this as a feature, rather than a bug.

Raul Illargi has done a fantastic job of compiling covid related news each day on his website, "The Automatic earth", for any who have an interest in diving down the rabbit hole with me. Those who can handle the hard core may want to check out the podcasts at The Last American Vagabond, whose interview of Robert Malone (the inventor of MRNA vaccine technology) is excellent.   For the most level headed and mainstream analysis, I highly recommend Bret Weinstein's Dark Horse Podcast, particularly his extensive interview of Robert Malone and Steve Kirsch.

I'm going to put my special tin hat on now, and step outside to see if there are any black helicopters hovering over our house.  Or maybe UFOs...

Motivation

I haven't had a whole lot to say lately, in large part because there are few things about which I've got any great deal of confidence nowadays.  On the one issue where I do still have an (unfortunately) high level of confidence, the window of opportunity for positive change has passed such that it seems unproductive to try and educate anyone. Talking about climate change anymore feels like striking up a conversation on electric chairs and nooses with a death-row inmate.  It seems better to let everyone maintain a state of blissful ignorance for as long as they can, as the ultimate outcome will be no different.

I spent a lot of money on hay to feed our small Jersey herd yesterday, as our own hay production last year was horrible due to the drought and the fact that our hayfields are overdue for replanting.  Paid about 30% more than ever before.  This was a reminder that our modest herd is not self-sustainable from our own acreage, at least not without a steady stream of purchased inputs (lime, potash, alfalfa seed, etc).  We don't currently need the milk, and in fact I only milk about once a week now as I let the calf take all she wants.  Rachel and Henry have stopped drinking milk, and I'm probably allergic to it (chances are it's one of the triggers for my eosinophillic esophagitis, which makes it difficult to swallow food at times).  

So keeping cows at the moment doesn't seem particularly smart, especially when the costs amortized over the milk we consume probably put it close to $30 a gallon.  A Simpson's reference comes to mind here.

On the other hand, we would likely be able to feed one or two cows for a while (we currently have 3 cows and a young bull) if things really go south -- and that milk would instantly become a whole lot more valuable to ourselves as well as our neighbors.  Ditto for the manure to keep gardens producing well.  

Such Chicken-Little thoughts get tiring after a while though, as does forking out a never ending supply of hay and the resulting manure.  Then there's the never ending hoof-trimming and occasional veterinary issues, and the fact that on-farm butchers have all disappeared, or that it's no longer possible to schedule with any of the few remaining butchers (whom I'd have to deliver a live animal to, which is not always easy) with less than a year's notice now.

Another lesson from yesterday's hay purchase came from one of the farmers I bought it from.  He was missing an arm. I presumed either a wartime injury or perhaps a farm related accident had cost him his limb, but it turns out that neither was the cause.  He simply wore out his shoulder putting up so much hay over so many years that his arm ceased to remain attached, and his doctors suggested complete removal.  

It's not that all farm work is drudgery -- far from it, in fact.  I still love working with cows as well as the horses, and I also miss our old flock of sheep.  It's just that all of this work, when added on to the requirement of a full-time job makes it nearly impossible to do other things that I would  enjoy even more. Farms simply don't mesh well with a recreation filled life of canoeing, sailing, skiing, hunting, climbing, or a myriad of other things that I once enjoyed at every opportunity.

Granted, contemplating a life without the need for hard physical labor is a luxury afforded to only the last few generations in most families.  My great grandparents, farming in southern Illinois exclusively with mules up through the early 50s, had no such option. In some ways it seems dishonorable for me to even consider it. At other times, I feel like the little piggy who built the brick house, looking longingly at the carefree lifestyle of his brother in the straw house and wondering if talk of the big-bad-wolf was just a bunch of nonsense.  

Is there a big-bad wolf?  Is he coming anytime soon? The lesson to be gleaned from the fable of the Three Little Pigs hinges upon this vital bit of information.  The brick house, as it turns out, is NOT always better.

Well now, this ought to really fix our election process.

 https://news.microsoft.com/on-the-issues/2020/03/27/what-is-electionguard/

More food for thought from GHW Bush's HUD secretary

 https://www.bitchute.com/video/CEJS0YX8wm4P/

If you haven't yet lost faith in our government, here's a good reason

If you truly believe that our fully purchased government and media are anything more than the enforcement and propaganda department for large corporate interests who view us as sheep to be fleeced (or in this case slaughtered, because it's more profitable), here's a bit of evidence to shake your belief.

In early December, the US Senate held a hearing, at which Dr Pierre Kory, a frontline Wisconsin doctor who has treated thousands of covid patients gave testimony with regards to ivermectin as both a prophylaxis and treatment for covid.  

Within it he notes the multitude of studies (most all performed in somewhat less corporate-beholden countries) that prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that ivermectin is a "miracle drug" (his words) against covid.  For instance, he cites an Argentine study where medical personnel were divided into two groups.  800 received ivermectin as a prophylaxis, and 400 received a placebo.  The placebo group was infected at a rate of 56%, whereas the ivermectin group developed no infections whatsoever.  

This doctor is not the only one touting this treatment.  Someone I trust and have followed for years (with a degree in pathology specializing in viral toxicology) has been saying the same thing for months now -- and had his youtube video censored for his efforts.  

What are we told in this country?  To wait for our chance to be guinea pigs for a vaccine which has gone through minimal trials with questionable results, and which harbors the potential for serious side effects such as the triggering of serious auto-immune disorders (the FDA, to their credit, finally announced that people with severe allergies should not take it).  

One former Pfizer exec -- who specialized in development of lung treatments -- has laid out his serious concerns for the vaccine, but you won't hear about him on TV in the US.  

If you venture to the New York Times website, and do a search for ivermectin within the last month, you'll find two smear pieces suggesting that Dr. Pierre Kory's testimony to the senate, the first with a title, "A Senate hearing promoted unproven drugs and dubious claims about the coronavirus".  If you actually review the testimony and the associated documentation, however, you'll quickly lose faith in the NYT if you hadn't already done so long ago.

Once you've seen the depths to which corporate entities will go to further their raison d'etre (which is most certainly not  to do good in the world), it's much easier to believe what many will still label as tin-foil-hat territory.  For me the tipping point was the book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" combined with conversations with a retired US Special forces coworker (retired after being shot 5 times).   He described to me how he was regularly involved in activities -- mostly in Central and South America -- which Americans were never told about.   His account meshed perfectly with Smedley Butler's famous letter, in which he states I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism"

The documentary "The Corporation", (watch it for free on Youtube) lays out the clinical definitions for diagnosis of a psychopath -- and then steps through each one and provides numerous examples of why publicly owned corporations fit the diagnosis to a T.  

My own experiences while employed at Zoetis -- a former division of Pfizer -- has also greatly altered my view of pharmaceutical corporations in particular.   One co-worker who had been with the company since it was Upjohn Pharmaceuticals described how one of the blood pressure medications they had developed -- minoxodil -- had a noted side effect of growing small amounts of light fuzzy hair where it was topically applied.  Upjohn thought nothing of it (the hair growth was not significant) and just noted it as a curiosity.  When Pfizer purchased the company, however, they viewed it as a potential goldmine, and began to market it as Rogaine, despite the fact that their claims for the drug's effectiveness were fraudulent..

While employed at Zoetis, the company email announced a series of employee informational seminars on "How to talk to friends and family about antibiotics in food".  Zoetis is the world's largest manufacturer of "medicinal feed additives" (i.e. sub-therapeutic antibiotics fed to livestock).  I signed up and attended the seminar, where a hired PR consultant from Ketchum and Associates played a few carefully prepared propaganda pieces.  They contained numerous falsehoods (which I knew because I raised cattle) about farming and the use of antibiotics, and completely avoided the central subject of antibiotic resistance -- which has been widely attributed to antibiotics in livestock feed.  

I raised my hand afterwards to point out these errors and omissions, though they didn't really have a response beyond, "that's a really tough situation" when I mentioned a friend's daughter nearly dying from a mrsa (antibiotic resistant staph) infection.  In retrospect, I think these "seminars" were likely intended to screen out people like myself who have a problem with corporate malfeasance.

So it's through this lens that I see what corporations are capable of.  Many will still cling to the comforting idea that no person in a corporation would stoop to such levels as deliberately killing for profits, but it's hard to see their suppression of the information on ivermectin as anything but.  According to NBC news, 77 thousand people died from covid in the US in December.  I would suggest that the vast majority of these deaths were entirely preventable, considering that the efficacy of ivermectin has been known for months now.

Once you find yourself able to accept that reality that people -- and especially corporations are not inherently good, you may also be able to understand more of what is going on with the push to get us all to take Pfizer's new mRNA vaccine for covid.  Here are some additional reasons for concern...

Dr Kary Mullis -- who invented the PCR test being used for covid testing, was adamant that it was unreliable when used at higher cycle counts, where he states you "could find anything" you wanted at the higher number of amplification cycles used in this test.  Had he not died mysteriously last August, he would have undoubtedly had a lot to say about the WHO recommending up to 45 cycles for covid testing.   He also had a lot to say about Dr. Fauci, with whom he was well acquainted and whom he considered a politician (and not a very bright one).  The interview in this video goes into some of the details (the comments on Fauci start around 3:30).  

We should also keep in mind that the PCR test -- which is what was used to demonstrate the efficacy of the new Pfizer vaccine is regularly used at 35-40 amplification cycles.  Court testimony, in the case of German tourists detained in Portugal for positive PCR test results, showed that at this number of cycles, the PCR test will give a 97% false positive rate.

Another interesting recent death (on December 8th) was that of Brandi Vaughan -- a former Merck sales rep.  She worked for Merck in the early 2000s, selling Vioxx which Merck had just developed.  Upon learning that Merck was well aware that it was killing people (with heart attacks) for at least a year before the FDA forced them to stop selling the drug, she quit the company.  Her own research lead her to start the organization, "Know the Risk" about the dangers of vaccines.  This video is of one of her speeches -- where she makes some very good points that I was not previously aware of.  One that I thought was particularly interesting, is the fact that European kids receive far fewer vaccines -- and the serious anaphylactic-reaction allergies to foods such as peanut butter -- which are rampant in the US to the point that many schools now *prohibit* peanut butter -- are virtually unknown in Europe.  

In this video, Brandi detailed exactly the intimidation tactics the pharmaceutical industry was using against her (her own account begins at 7:17).  People repeatedly broke into her home (using the master key code for her security system, which nobody else knew) and stole nothing, but left several messages to intimidate her, and also clearly bugged her home.  She knew she was undertaking serious risk, to the point that she felt compelled in what became her last facebook post to state that she *is not* suicidal and *is not* in poor health.  She "died" a week after making that post, at the age of 48.

Conspiracy theory?   Perhaps.   Do people conspire?   Do corporations?  Absolutely.  

Flux

The horses insist upon staying in the barn during the day, as the July heat and humidity put the horse and deerflies into overdrive. It was 80 degrees (this is the "cool" part of the day), with 80% humidity when I made it out the house this morning .  The cows stay in a dark corner of the barn as well, against the cooler stone foundation and away from the biting flies.  Evenings offer some relief, but the mosquitoes come out then.  They're less annoying to the animals than the big 1" long horseflies, apparently.

Our second cutting of hay should be ready, but was stunted by weeks of 90 degree heat, a lack of rain, and a good infestation of leaf-hoppers such that it hardly looks to be worth cutting.  Now we're getting some decent rain, but I can't cut it until the forecast clears up for a few days so it can dry.  I'm not looking forward to working the horses in this heat -- hopefully that will subside as well.

As is now an annual summer tradition, I'm again fantasizing about someplace cooler than SW Michigan.  This year it's the NE corner of Minnesota, up between the Boundary Waters Canoe Area and the north shore of Lake Superior.  There are lots of little cabins along the "Gunflint Trail" (Hwy 12) that runs from Grand Marais up to the boundary waters.  Looks like a neat area, at least so long as I ignore the many photos of people there wearing face-coverings to keep the clouds of mosquitoes and blackflies at bay.  I've always felt that it's much easier to deal with cold weather than it is with heat, but maybe living at -30 F would change my mind about that.  I do like the idea of snow sticking around for most of the winter and accumulating more than a few inches at a time.

I also like the idea of using a canoe for transporting things.  Unlike horses, there's no need to shoe or feed them, and I've never heard of a canoe freaking out and running off for any of the reasons that horses seem to find in abundance.  Better yet, they don't kick!

Now that I'm among the many covid-unemployed, it feels like we've done the right thing in remaining debt free and living where we can produce our own food and fuel.  Aside from summer, it's even a nice place weather-wise.

I had a job interview last week which seemed to go well, but haven't heard anything back on it yet.  I think the competition is pretty fierce these days.  I'm by no means convinced that the "normal" economy is ever going to return, but I've been thinking that for many years now while it's been sputtering along to my amazement.

Despite an initial failed planting and lots of deer damage, our one acre field of open-pollinated corn (Krugs 90-day) seems to be doing alright.  My two cultivations with the horses went very well, and with a couple passes of the hoe, the rows look pretty good now.   The deer (despite soaking the seeds briefly in kerosene -- an old practice that was apparently common in the days before commercial seed) and birds like to pull up the young shoots to pluck the seed off.  Lately, the deer have been breaking the stalks in half to eat the tender meristem, so I've been making evening visits to scare them off.  There are definitely parts of the field which are more or less failed, but the majority is now head-high and thick enough to keep the weeds at bay.

I find myself stuck (particularly on the really hot days) in a state of flux; not quite sure where I should be focusing my efforts, so I continue as I've been doing, working a bit until the heat becomes too much, at which point I find myself retreating indoors to sit with a popsicle and a laptop checking out cooler places to live.  Then when I get disgusted with myself for spending too much time online, I go back outside to tackle another project.  Rinse and repeat...

About face

A campfire lunch in our woods overlooking the muskrat pond.

After a dozen years of forking manure, weeding, putting up hay and firewood, squeezing teats, enduring mid-west heat and humidity, picking off lyme carrying ticks, killing cute animals, and having spooked horses run off to destroy yet another expensive piece of equipment... I was ready to give it a rest.

I was done waiting for Godot; peak oil, impending economic collapse... you name it.  Come what may, I was ready to again assume the simple life of dependency that the vast majority have chosen. I was ready to fall into the arms of industrial civilization, sell my remaining life for an inflated west-coast mortgage, and endure insane Washington traffic.

On the plus side, we would again be near the mountains and ocean, so Henry would get to experience the wilderness that was so important to me for most of my life. We could go backpacking, skiing, sailing, kayaking, crabbing... all good things. More fun, less work -- at least on weekends anyway.

We put the farm up for sale late last year, and found an Amish family who wanted to buy it -- complete with all equipment and much of the livestock.  A great situation for us, as we knew they appreciated what we've cobbled together, and also great because we didn't need to worry ourselves with selling off everything separately.  Nobody would be bulldozing the barns and building a McMansion.

With this in mind, in January we placed an offer on an old Lopez Island farm house -- imho the nicest of the ferry-serviced islands in the San Juan archipelago at the north end of Puget Sound. As it turns out, the home inspection did not go well. When the sellers refused to make any concessions, we walked. Just about that time covid-19 started to make a few headlines.

Still looking for homes, I began to wonder if moving might not be such a good idea anymore. As the coronavirus spread continued, it soon became readily apparent that it wasn't. Though we hadn't seen much of interest come on the housing market, a "good" house came up a few weeks ago, but I simply couldn't see making an offer on it. I feel better about that now, because it just sold for $65k above the asking price. Yes, the Puget Sound region is still going insane. I'm hoping that things may calm down a bit once this virus has taken its toll.  Prices here in Michigan will fall as well, but they don't have as much room to drop.

In the meantime, I'm awfully happy to be sitting where we are, on a farm where we can produce our own food, fuel, and hay. The current "lock-down" simply provides justification for all the things we've been doing for these many years.  Rachel and Henry are both home now that schools are closed, though I'm still working for the time being.  Michigan just announced lockdown yesterday, as the state reported 1300 cases. Being forced to "self-isolate" actually sounds pretty nice here.

As I suggested in February, I think there will be significant economic repercussions from the virus, well beyond the shortage of toilet paper and hand sanitizer. I've seen modeling which suggests that the virus will be problematic for another 18-24 months. As a perennial pessimist (or realist, as I like to think), I see the economic mayhem lasting well beyond that, but I have a fantastic record of being wildly wrong on a lot of things. On the other hand, just like a stopped clock, I'm bound to be right, eventually.

So the window of opportunity for living as if it's still the 20th century may be riding off into the sunset. Buying a house on credit, or loading our possessions on a semi to haul them 2500 miles across the country may very well be a thing of the past. If so, we're about as well situated as we could ask to be. If I'm wrong (yet again!) and "Saudi America" rides in to rescue us all from a return to civilizational sanity, I wouldn't mind sailing out to Patos Island one more time.