2:00PM Water Cooler 12/27/2024 | naked capitalism

By Lambert Strether of Corrente.

Bird Song of the Day

Northern Mockingbird, Marin, California, United States. “This bird was languidly singing from an unseen location within an oak tree uphill from the first steep part of the fire road immediately above the end of San Andreas Drive. Mimicked birds include Steller’s Jay (0:12), Northern Flicker (0:16), European Starling (0:31) and American Robin (0:44).” This is yesterday’s bird song, which I accidentally deleted in a post-prandial haze.

* * *

In Case You Might Miss…

MAGA eviscerates the Tech Bros on immigration.
Mangione family investments in health care (not pretty).
New Covid charts.

* * *

Politics

“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles

* * *

Trump Assassination Attempts (Plural)

“Trial of man accused in Trump assassination attempt in Florida pushed back to September” [Associated Press]. “Ryan Routh’s trial will begin Sept. 8 instead of the previously scheduled Feb. 10, 2025 start date, U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon said in an order released on Monday…. Routh’s attorneys had asked the judge to delay the trial until no earlier than next December, saying they needed more time to review the evidence against him and decide whether to mount an insanity defense. Routh owned 17 cellphones and numerous other electronic devices, and there are hundreds of hours of police body camera and surveillance videos that have been provided to the defense, Routh’s attorneys argued during a hearing two weeks ago in Fort Pierce, Florida. In her order, Cannon said she wanted to err on the side of providing more time given the seriousness of the allegations, but that starting the trial no earlier than December would be an excessive amount. A September trial date didn’t amount to an ‘unreasonable delay,’ she said…. The judge said that any insanity defense or any request related to Routh’s mental competency must be made by early February. Any visit to the scene of the assassination attempt must be made by the end of February.”

Biden Administration

“A Reflective Biden Harbors Some Regrets as His Term Winds Down” [New York Times]. “Despite being described by his allies as in a pensive, sometimes angry, mood as the end of his term approaches, the president has not made himself available to answer many questions about his recent actions.” How often is “sometimes”? More: “Aside from joking about his wealth, Mr. Biden has openly stewed over one of Mr. Trump’s flashier — and apparently effective — stunts as president. During the same speech at Brookings, Mr. Biden said he had been “stupid” not to sign his name to Covid stimulus checks that were distributed to Americans early in his term. Mr. Trump emblazoned his signature on checks distributed after a relief bill was passed in the spring of 2020. Mr. Biden and his advisers learned a little something from Mr. Trump’s tendency to scrawl his name on things. By 2023, signs touting infrastructure projects “funded by President Joe Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law” began popping up around the country. But those had little political impact compared with a signed check.” • Bush the Younger signed his checks in the 2000s. Obama, in his miserably inadequate stimulus package, put up no signs, which gave rise to comment. Trump signed his checks. And only in 2023 does Biden’s name go up on signs. Slow learners, or what?

Trump Transition

It was an absolutely wild day on the Twitter today, as MAGA and the Tech Bros tangled on immigration (and (an Ozempic-addled?) Musk destroyed his reputation as a free speech advocate in the soace of a few hours). I can’t cover it all, but here are some of the highlights (and more with orts ands scraps:

DOGE personality Vivek Ramaswamy fired the opening gun:

One quick reaction:

Apparently Americans now have to outcompete people in the entire world for jobs inside America

— frog (@i_m_cattle) December 26, 2024

And a second:

Apparently Americans now have to outcompete people in the entire world for jobs inside America

— frog (@i_m_cattle) December 26, 2024

So, so close!

And a third:

Where would America be without Viveks coming in and defrauding shareholders of 2 billion dollars worth of fake dementia medicine pic.twitter.com/R8LjcK6qOh

— Spinachbrah 🥗 (@basedspinach) December 26, 2024

Hi Vivek [waves]!

And a fourth:

Elon Musk promised to pay $47 to swing state voters who signed his America PAC petition. They are still waiting for the payment. This is just the beginning. pic.twitter.com/5THpwIBmiF

— Ron Smith (@Ronxyz00) December 26, 2024

Hi Elon [waves]!

* * *

Noah Smith weighed in; I can’t bear to quote him, but include this screen shot to show the scale of the controversy, since this is only a fraction of the responses, and Smith was by no means the only combatant with a following:

* * *

“Elon Musk’s Critics Stripped of Verification Badge After Publicly Challenging Billionaire: ‘The Beginning Stages of Censorship’ [Mediaite]. “Several conservative critics of billionaire Trump surrogate Elon Musk were stripped of their verification badges on X after publicly challenging Musk’s stance on immigration. Trump ally Laura Loomer, New York Young Republican Club president Gavin Wax, InfoWars host Owen Shroyer, and the pro-Trump ConservativePAC were all stripped of their verification badges after criticizing Musk’s controversial remarks about American workers and foreign H-1B visa holders. ‘[Musk] has removed my blue check mark on X because I dared to question his support for H1B visas, the replacement of American tech workers by Indian immigrants, and I questioned his relationship with China,’ wrote Loomer in a post on Musk’s social network X, formerly known as Twitter.’” • Oopsie!

* * *

Meanwhile, Trump in 2016:

pic.twitter.com/W9k5qwMmoO

— 🏛 Aristophanes 🏛 (@Aristos_Revenge) December 26, 2024

And Trump in 2024:

Trump staying silent as the H-1B visa disagreements cause major rifts in MAGA world and wannabe MAGA world. pic.twitter.com/Ok9rE9O9WH

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) December 27, 2024

This shows, I would speculate, Trump sitting in the catbird seat, and very much aware of it, as Musk and Vivek both take themselves out of the running without Trump needing to lift a finger: Mush for co-Presidency today, Vivek for 2028 (and leaving intelligently silent Vance as the anointed, albeit very early favorite. Great photo, too, I love the painterliness).

Lambert with some hasty comments: The tech bros make a dishonest argument. They call for bringing in the best of the best from all over the world, to keep American competitive, and justify the H1B visa program on those grounds. The difficulty is that there is a visa program for the best of the best, and it’s not the H1B; it’s the O-1. The H1B is being used bring in thousands of (necessarily docile) codes, accountants, etc., with (it is asserted) a median wage of ~$70K. In short form, H1B is for labor arbitrage:

Lmfao fucking liar, is 70k a year in Austin top .1%? https://t.co/JuOczTXhNo pic.twitter.com/6UurWi46pC

— Alexander Augustine (@WurzelRoot) December 26, 2024

And more on labor arbitrage:

The reason top tech companies are hiring foreign workers over Americans is simply because they don’t want to pay higher wages. It’s as simple as that @VivekGRamaswamy.

Here’s the evidence: https://t.co/Urz40Ytszb pic.twitter.com/iI1xGwB0t9

— U.S. Tech Workers (@USTechWorkers) December 26, 2024

Fascinatintly, the MAGA types know this stuff cold — through “lived experience,” as we say, and are eviscerating the tech bros with pleasing efficiency. Reminds me of the blogosphere c. 2003 – 2006, with everybody jumping in. Very impressive, and just imagine if the so-called left were doing this to the Democrats. (Hilariously, some of the Tech Bro defenders are using Democrat loyalist lines like “Now is not the time!”). I find the whole controversy terrific, and just imagine! A serious argument about policy taking place in public! Merry Christmas.

Realignment and Legitimacy

“‘Didn’t Expect This Twist’: Mangione Family Business In The Spotlight After New Info Is Revealed” [Bored Panda]. Summarizing a TikTok video: “[Patriarch Nicholas Mangione] also founded Lorien Health Services, a nursing home at which his grandson, now behind bars, volunteered in 2014…. Taking to her TikTok page on Tuesday (December 10), social media content creator Tiffany Cianci further exposed where Mangione’s rumored wealth came from…. The Mangione family owns Lorien Health Services, a network of privately held nursing care facilities in Maryland, as well as the Turf Valley Golf Resort, used for events and networking with healthcare and pharmaceutical representatives, Cianci explained…. Public records revealed the facilities and resort are owned by the ten adult children of Nicholas and Mary Mangione, each holding a 10% stake, with Luigi Mangione’s father, Louis Mangione, identified as president of the development company for these properties…. American government ratings revealed low-quality conditions, with one facility receiving just two stars and 24 health demerits this year—well above the national average. Disturbingly, 83% of low-risk residents reportedly lose control of their bowels or bladder due to inadequate care, far exceeding the national average of 48%. Mangione, who volunteered at these facilities, allegedly expressed disdain for such systems in a manifesto found during his arrest.”

“Most Americans Blame Insurance Profits and Denials Alongside Killer in UHC CEO Death, Poll Finds” [Time]. “About 7 in 10 adults say that denials for health care coverage by insurance companies, or the profits made by health insurance companies, also bear at least “a moderate amount” of responsibility for Thompson’s death. Younger Americans are particularly likely to see the murder as the result of a confluence of forces rather than just one person’s action.” • Hmm.

* * *

“Will the jury let Luigi Mangione get away with murder?” [The Hill]. “Featured centrally in the criminal defense lawyer’s toolbox is a determination to find the most effective method of prying open the deepest thoughts of jurors, particularly the elusive nullifier — those jurors whose most intimate views motivate them to work to acquit a trial defendant regardless of the facts, even in the face of strong evidence of guilt. Of course, it is the prosecutor’s duty to exclude them. My heresy notwithstanding, it is indeed the defense lawyer’s righteous obligation to identify those nullifiers and try to seat them. ” And: “And prosecutors here are not without fault in providing would-be nullifiers with grist for the mill. They share some responsibility for the spike in public sentiment for Mangione by charging terrorism and raising the offense level to Murder 1 in one jurisdiction, threatening a possible death penalty in another jurisdiction, and participating in a food fight over who takes him to trial first. The piling on, the escorts with body armor and rifles, the perp walking and the overcharging intensify his folk-hero standing and add fuel to a potential nullification fire that is already burning bright.”

“Insanity Defense Is Luigi Mangione’s Only Option: Attorney” [Newsweek]. “Greg Germain, an attorney with over 30 years of experience, said that he doesn’t believe it will be a case of jury nullification, in which a jury acquits the accused out of sympathy for them or their cause. Germain, who teaches law at Syracuse University in New York, said that, given the weight of evidence, insanity is likely the only defense that will work. “It’s hard for me to imagine jury nullification. People may not like their health insurance companies, but I don’t think they will condone murdering insurance executives in the street,” [Germain] said. ‘The only possible defense I could imagine is insanity, which is very hard to establish in a planned case like this,’ he said.”

* * *

“Nordstrom, Maison Margiela Latest Brands Caught Up in Public’s Fascination With Luigi Mangione” [Women’s Wear Daily]. “Levi’s, Peak Design, Tommy Hilfiger and Monopoly were previously referenced in news stories and social media posts about the [Mangione] case, with Peak Design’s CEO Peter Dering facing social media backlash and threats after he informed The New York Times that he had contacted the New York Police Department’s tip line. Dering got involved with the case after several people had texted him that the shooter appeared to be wearing a Peak Design backpack in surveillance images. ‘What we see with Mangione is he has quickly become a folk hero and a fashion folk hero. It’s almost like the movie ‘The Joker,’ where people dressed like him,’ Diana Rickard, a criminal justice professor at the City University of New York, previously told WWD about Mangione’s online popularity.” • So if you want to serve on the jury, don’t wear the sweater….

“Letters to the Editor: Enough with the constant media coverage of Luigi Mangione” [Los Angeles Times]. “Enough of repeatedly seeing Mangione’s smugly defiant image on TV news and in newspaper photos. Same goes for any pre-trial publicity of his skewed ideological conceits. Let criminal proceedings take their course. Once Mangione has been tried, ample pertinent evidence will be available for the public to cast judgment on him.”

“Bets on CEO Murder Suspect’s Fate Test Rules on Event Contracts” [Bloomberg]. “Contracts offered by Kalshi Inc., a New York-based exchange, allow retail traders to put money on the outcome of nearly anything. Kalshi listed wagers on Dec. 11 related to Thompson’s death that included whether the suspect, Luigi Mangione, would be extradited to New York from Pennsylvania, whether he acted alone and whether he’ll be convicted or plead guilty. Two days later, trading suddenly halted, with Kalshi telling customers it made the decision ‘after receiving notice from our regulators,’ according to messages reviewed by Bloomberg News. The Commodity Futures Trading Commission and Kalshi declined to comment. The CFTC, which regulates Kalshi, bans futures trading linked to crimes including assassination, terrorism and war if the agency decides the so-called events contracts are against the public interest.”

Syndemics

“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison

* * *

Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).

Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!

Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).

Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).

Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).

Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, thump, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).

Stay safe out there!

Transmission: Covid

Happy anniversary:

It has been five years. https://t.co/l8AEcpoBIi

— Adam Wong (@Engineer_Wong) December 27, 2024

* * *

Lambert here: The chart I find really weird is New York. It’s not really flat; what we see is a very gradual increase. I don’t know how to give an account for that. Note that New York State as a whole is up:

I can’t give an account for this either. (I track New York City because of its status as an international hub for air travel, and its history.)

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater

This week[1] CDC December 16

Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC December 21

★ Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC December 21

Hospitalization

★New York[5] New York State, data December 24:

★ National [6] CDC December 26:

Positivity

National[7] Walgreens December 23:

Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic December 14:

Travelers Data

★ Positivity[9] CDC December 9:
★ Variants[10] CDC December 9

Deaths

Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 20:

Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 20:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) Seeing more red and more orange, but nothing new at major hubs.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) XEC takes over. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) A little uptick.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Slow and small but steady increase.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Leveling out.

[7] (Walgreens) Leveling out.

[8] (Cleveland) Continued upward trend since, well, Thanksgiving.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Leveling out.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Positivity is new, but variants have not yet been released.

[11] Deaths low, positivity leveling out.

[12] Deaths low, ED leveling out.

Stats Watch

There are no offical statistics of interest today.

* * *

Real Estate: “Boom in US retail real estate defies prediction of ecommerce apocalypse” [Financial Times]. “Vacancies at open-air shopping centres in the US have dropped to historically low levels, defying forecasts of a retail apocalypse caused by the rise of ecommerce. Landlords of complexes anchored by big-box chains, discount merchants and supermarkets have gained power to raise rents as leases expire. New construction has been stymied by higher interest rates and soaring building costs. Only 6.2 per cent of outdoor shopping centre space is currently available for rent, according to property data company CoStar, the lowest since it began tracking availability in 2006. The trend stands in contrast with enclosed shopping malls, where vacancies are rising.” • Hmm. Must be something about outdoor air….

Manufacturing: “Boeing’s space business could experience liftoff in 2025” [Quartz]. “The Motley Fool reports that there’s significant investor intrigue surrounding the company’s space program after its rough 2024…. The key to those efforts could be Boeing’s Vulcan rockets, which Amazon will be using for a number of space launches next year. Additionally, the company is anticipating an approval to run national security missions for the U.S. government. A brighter 2025 would mark a needed turnaround for Boeing. Some observers feared that Vulcan’s national security approval might be in danger after a rocket booster fell off during an October launch.” • Oh noes:

Manufacturing: “Boeing battles brain drain as engineers chase the allure of space” [Financial Times]. “Boeing is cutting jobs by 10 per cent across the company, and this month a second round of lay-offs brought the total of union-represented engineers leaving to 400. The blow to morale comes as engineers — freed from the ‘velvet handcuffs’ of long-term benefits — are contrasting Boeing’s turmoil with the allure of space companies staking out exciting goals. The average tenure of a Boeing engineer has fallen over the past decade from 16.4 years to 12.6 years, according to data from the union representing 12,000 Boeing engineers, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace. Tenure shortened in almost every age bracket, with employees in their 20s and 30s averaging fewer years, as well as those in their late 40s through 65. The risk of this ‘brain drain’, as analysts, recruiters and union officials have described it, is that it drags on current operations and could make it harder for Boeing to launch its next new plane. ‘All of this experience is gone,’ said Matt Kempf, SPEEA’s senior director for compensation and retirement. That raises concerns because ‘aerospace engineers aren’t made, they’re grown.’”

Tech: “Microsoft and OpenAI have a financial definition of AGI: Report” [TechCrunch]. “Microsoft and OpenAI have a very specific, internal definition of artificial general intelligence (AGI) based on the startup’s profits, according to a new report from The Information. And by this definition, OpenAI is many years away from reaching it. The two companies reportedly signed an agreement last year stating OpenAI has only achieved AGI when it develops AI systems that can generate at least $100 billion in profits. That’s far from the rigorous technical and philosophical definition of AGI many expect.” • So, the definition of AGI is how big the bezzle gets? Novel! Still, serious money. For those who understand the stakes–

Tech: “Parents of OpenAI Whistleblower Don’t Believe He Died By Suicide, Order Second Autopsy” [SFist]. “The parents have hired an attorney, Phil Kearney, and they have commissioned a second, independent autopsy.” • Hmm.

Shipping: A thread on ship-breaking with wonderful photos:

At the murky end of our supply chains lies this: The Chittagong breaking yards in Bangladesh, one of many places where old ships go to die.

But how is shipbreaking done, what are the consequences, and is there a better way?

A thread. pic.twitter.com/UopsnkAx7F

— Jordan Taylor (@Jordan_W_Taylor) December 27, 2024

We did some coverage on the Gadani shipbreaking disaster in Pakistan, back in the day.

* * *

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 33 Fear (previous close: 35 Fear) [CNN]. One week ago: 28 (Fear). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Dec 27 at 1:02:05 PM ET.

Gallery

Catching up on my reading:

Vanessa Bell:

Vanessa Bell’s painting from 1934 shows the artist Duncan Grant reading a book. They had moved into Charleston, Sussex in 1916 and made it the kind of English bohemian gathering place that inspires television dramas. pic.twitter.com/SHH58dlfyN

— Richard Morris (@ahistoryinart) December 25, 2024

Fairfield Porter:

‘Man Seated Near Lamp.’ (1953) Fairfield Porter was a painter and art critic and is best known for working against the grain, a figurative painter, during the heyday of 20thC American abstraction. Some of his work recalls the paintings of Milton Avery and John Marin. pic.twitter.com/wV7YyRnxs5

— Richard Morris (@ahistoryinart) August 24, 2024

Twitter search comes up big time:

Maid Reading in a Library, by Swiss painter Edouard John Mentha (1915). In private collection. pic.twitter.com/wI3vuox5Q2

— WikiVictorian (@wikivictorian) December 11, 2024

And for the Alma-Tadema stans, of whom we have at least one:

A Reading of Homer (detail) by Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1885) pic.twitter.com/gIYGGWRLLP

— Art or Other Things (@ArtorOtherThing) December 11, 2024

Food

This is America too:

anyway, remember that dude from Kentucky filming himself trying garlic naan and butter chicken for the the first time pic.twitter.com/0hrg9c6vTy

— Trung Phan (@TrungTPhan) December 27, 2024

Guillotine Watch

“Mark Zuckerberg denies building 5K-square-foot ‘Doomsday bunker’ under $270M Hawaii compound, saying it’s ‘like a basement’” [New York Post]. “Mark Zuckerberg dismissed reports that he is building a 5,000-square-foot ‘Doomsday bunker’ underneath a $270 million compound in Hawaii — insisting instead that it’s just a ‘little shelter.’ The 40-year-old tech tycoon was asked during a Dec. 19 interview with Bloomberg about rumors that he is constructing an underground facility beneath his 1,400-acre home on the island of Kauai, one of the most northern islands in the Northern Pacific archipelago. ‘No, I think [you think??] that’s just like a little shelter. It’s like a basement,’ Zuckerberg, the third wealthiest person in the world behind Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, told Bloomberg’s Emily Chang. Mark Zuckerberg in a blue shirt discussing life and tech during an interview at his Lake Tahoe retreat. Several wealthy individuals have been rumored to have constructed vast tunnels and underground networks in preparation for potential disaster, including PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, Tesla CEO Musk and disgraced rapper Kanye ‘Ye’ West. Zuckerberg, who as of Thursday boasted a net worth valued by Bloomberg Billionaires Index at $215 billion, has insisted that the aim of the ranch is to raise “world-class” cattle on beer and macadamia nuts in order to ‘create some of the highest quality beef in the world.’” • Nuttier than a fruitcake.

News of the Wired

“Batteries” [Hans Summers]. “All over the place on the internet, you can read about the classic school science project, sticking two dissimilar metals into a lemon and generating some small amount of power. Sometimes potatoes. You can even buy “kits” to do this in toystores. What seems to be generally lacking is any measurements on such batteries. How much power can they supply? And for how long? And what factors are involved to determine these parameters? Sure, you can power an LCD clock, until the lemon dries out. But they consume a miniscule current anyway. I found some websites which claimed that a single lemon will produce 0.5V and 1mA of current. They didn’t say how long for. Several lemons in series are supposedly enough to light an LED.” • Useful post-Jackpot?

* * *

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant) here. From AF:

AF writes: “My winter project right now is trying to improve the soil quality in the raised beds I built earlier this year. I had to use poor quality soil to keep costs down so I’ve taken inspiration from hugelkultur and permaculture to improve the soil. I started with a layer of small logs topped with crushed leaves and other yard debris. I used cheap organic raised bed mix with a middle layer of crushed egg shells and some more crushed leaves. Topped everything off with grass clippings and currently adding a final layer of crushed leaves. I can’t make compost on this property so I’m taking the rest of the crushed leaves and making leaf mold but I don’t think it will be ready for a couple years. It was probably a mistake to do 17″ tall beds but at least my arms are noticeably bigger!” My goodness, what a glorious setting! Can readers comment on the technique? I had good luck with hugelkultur and tomatoes, but it’s hard to have bad luck with tomatoes….

* * *

Readers: Water Cooler is a standalone entity not covered by the annual NC fundraiser. Material here is Lambert’s, and does not express the views of the Naked Capitalism site. If you see a link you especially like, or an item you wouldn’t see anywhere else, please do not hesitate to express your appreciation in tangible form. Remember, a tip jar is for tipping! Regular positive feedback both makes me feel good and lets me know I’m on the right track with coverage. When I get no donations for three or four days I get worried. More tangibly, a constant trickle of donations helps me with expenses, and I factor in that trickle when setting fundraising goals:

Here is the screen that will appear, which I have helpfully annotated:

If you hate PayPal, you can email me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, and I will give you directions on how to send a check. Thank you!

This entry was posted in Guest Post, Water Cooler on December 27, 2024 by Lambert Strether.

Post navigation

← Links 12/27/2024