Losing Our Sense Of Service

Community thought in the United States has shifted over the course of the last two generations. There is no grand unifying theme. There is no call to help elevate humanity. There is no spectacular urging that moves us beyond self-interest.

Worse than there being no calling for us to serve, there has been a conscious shift to the elevation of the individual.

It is cloaked in myriad forms. It is called personal responsibility; discussed as a means of improving self confidence; and defended a individual liberty.

All of these modes of thought glorify an individual and set him/her above society. This creeping and increasingly pervasive narcissism is fundamentally at odds with a society's ability to grow.

We seem to lose sight of our neighbors as we focus on ourselves rather than the collective. It has been about, "What can my country do for me"?

Where do we begin the Herculean task of reversing the trend to hyper-individualism?

In the garden - May 19

The recent thunderstorms have really helped the garden. We went with the expectation of seeing everything enjoying the warm, wet weather. We were not disappointed. In fact, we were surprised by the amount of plants that were ready to harvest.

We harvested our first garlic ever; some of the onions; a few "Sunburst" tomatoes; and some herbs. We have lots of tomatoes, blackberries, cucumbers, peppers, and beans that are growing well.

We then planted some pumpkins (Sweet Pie); long beans; and chamomile.

Here's hoping the weather stays friendly and we'll harvest all summer.

In the garden - May 12

With most of the two 10' x 20' beds planted, this weekend was primarily about maintenance. That means everything from beans, blackberries, and cucumbers to onions, peppers, potatoes, tomatoes, and watermelon received a healthy dose of compost tea.

We removed the plastic from the cages surrounding the tomatoes that were planted on March 17. All of the plants seem to be doing well. The two wild tomatoes from Hunt County, Texas and the additional two tomato plants we recently added to the bed are all lagging behind. 

The onions of every variety are starting to flower. So it shouldn't be long before we're harvesting in earnest. 

Next weekend, we'll probably till some of the marigolds into the earth--in an effort to control nematodes--and then plant the long beans, squash, and pumpkins. 

In the garden - April 7

Today we planted two varieties of cucumbers: homemade pickle and picklebush. The former will climb whole the latter should be an actual bush.

We also planted some bush beans. They're purple when mature, and turn green when cooked.

The tomatoes that we planted on March 17 are doing very well in their cages. We have Viva Italia, Black Plum, Amish Paste, Sungold, and another variety whose name I forget.

We're learning that we need to be more meticulous about the selection of companion plants. So we added dill and marigolds to the cucumber area, and planted beans around the blackberries to add Nitrogen to the soil.

Innovation is overhyped

Among the many words that are overwrought in business and shoved into public discourse far too often, innovation is an egregious example. If you look closely at your business, there are three things that you will observe:

1) You're not as innovative as you think you are.

2) Your company is not as innovative as you think it is.

3) You are producing a commodity. You should stop trying to convince yourself otherwise, and embrace whatever it is that you do better than your competitors. And then prune away all the nonsense that prevents you from improving it daily.

Yes, in the meanest sense of the definition, innovation may be part of your processes because you can claim a newness to what you're doing. Yet that is likely a dubious claim. Whatever is new in your business, is only a factor of difference from what your competitors are doing. Such a factor is likely to be a few percentage points on a scale, and certainly not a significant one.

It's not significant because you've studied your competitors, benchmarked against the leader in your category, carefully considered the industry best practices, and convinced yourself that you're creating processes for successful innovation. When you do all of these things, you assure yourself of creating a commodity. Just as you do when you spend precious resources on studying your clients/customers/buyers via focus groups.

If you are truly innovative, however, congratulations on creating something truly unique. Now, prepare yourself for your competitors to catch you.

Gardening Is More Than Gardening

It's been a while since I've posted here, and it's mostly because I've been chasing a train of thought in my free time. It's a runaway train that hasn't wanted to be caught and may take a long time to board and explore.
In a nutshell, however, the idea is simple:
Our lives, our families and our work are a garden. We must tend them all with care.

Though simple, this idea is also huge. It spins on it's head a lot of the vocabulary, processes and structures that have been put in place to define and capture our lives. In many ways we live in a proto-industrial age. We've not split from the 19th Century sweatshops and assembly lines. We've simply sped it all up.

Look at public schools. Students are shuttled from one class to the next, one subject to the next, down the assembly line of educational stimuli. And they're tested at thousands of stops. Yet, everyone seems to agree that they're not being taught well (especially in Texas from what I see and read). 

Yet no one questions the process as a whole. They merely question the output.

We must rethink it all.

We must realize that gardening is more than gardening.

Fall Feast

Today is a good day for braised brisket with cranberries, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, and salad from the garden.

The Holidays Are Here

Tonight we're walking to Main Street Gardens for the beginning of the Christmas festivities. There will be lots of activities, including a visit from Santa.
Not having to worry about parking is a definite perk of living nearby.
For a complete schedule, check the Downtown Dallas website.
http://downtowndallas.org/dallas_city_lights_2012/

The Zingers Are Dead. Long Live The Zingers.

I grew up on Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Donettes, Wonder bread, and a host of other bits of baked goodness. Sadly, today it all may be coming to an end with the news that Hostess is seeking to liquidate the company.
We never gave TheKiddo™ many of these treats (and certainly no where near the number I was consuming at her age). So she won't miss them if they're gone forever. I will.
Honestly, it's the Zingers I'll miss most. From the days of the Peanuts characters on the Dolly Madison boxes until the chocolatey goodness I had just today, they always made me smile.

Review: Aladin "Cool Kid. Hot Lunch."

TheKiddo™ likes to pack warm food for her lunches some days. Lately, we've been using a new bowl and she loves it. It's keeping her food nice and warm until it's time for lunch. Plus, we haven't had any spills.
If you pack food you want to keep warm, get some of these.

Plenty vs. Poverty

Random thoughts keep running through my mind. They cross and part and intersect again. And at each intersection there is one overriding question, "What will the world be like when TheKiddo™ becomes an adult"?

I worry that it will continue to be a world under the sway of those who measure success by dollar signs. A world that measures success by how much one person can own.

And that is the fundamental problem, at least in the U.S. Yet it is a problem we refuse to face seriously. Because to face it, is to shake the foundations of power and success (at least as such things are currently defined).

Success is ownership. It has been that way since the founding of the nation when only free, male, landowners had a say in the way government was run, or could even be members of the government. What made it success was that you could be free, vote, and determine your own destiny.

Over the course of time, some of those barriers have come down. And others, such as slavery, have been nearly eradicated. Yet the basis of success and power has remained—ownership.

Ownership as success inserts an Oligarchy over any other form of government. Because the government becomes corrupted by those who have the ownership that those within the government crave for themselves—so they too can become obviously successful.

Sometimes the corruption is overt. Sometimes the corruption is subtle. Always the corruption remains. As long as there is ownership—and therefore power—to be earned and used.

Make no mistake, those who have the most ownership don't want to give it up. They hide trillions of dollars from their governments in order to keep them. They aren't interested in using their wealth to keep war, famine, pestilence and death at bay—except perhaps for themselves. Their interest is in retaining their wealth, expanding their ownership, and having more control. And with that control, they amass more wealth to continue the cycle.

The nations of this world could benefit from those trillions that are hidden. In fact, the dollars that are hidden are more than most nations ever produce.

Sadly, taking the money from them and redistributing it solves nothing. It would merely change the players but not the game.

So if these gluttons of wealth are determined to keep their monies, and if shuffling it to someone else would merely change the names/faces of the gluttons, there isn't a solution that is readily apparent. Until you look at the entire problem from a different point of view.

Stripping ownership of its power is the key to changing the rules.