Amish: Dangerous Right-wing Radicals!!!

Lenawee County settled several lawsuits Wednesday against the county’s Amish community over their refusal to install septic systems due to their religious obligations.

If successful, the lawsuits (filed by Lenawee County) would have resulted in forcing the families to pay for the demolition of their own homes and place liens on their properties.

...Under the agreement, the Amish will still have to pay a one-time $350 variance fee on each parcel owned and a $75 annual variance renewal fee each year on each parcel; install a vault toilet with a 300-gallon tank on each parcel and pay the county’s $410 fee for a vault toilet and permit; and test the septage it spreads each time for agricultural purposes with pH strips and report the results to the county health department among other reporting and permit requirements.

Lenawee County would not allow it (outhouses), Mayor wrote, "even though county officials admitted under oath they had no evidence of anyone ever being harmed by these families’ adherence to religious practices that have been in place for generations. Those same officials acknowledged being aware that a much larger community of Amish with similar practices in Hillsdale County has been able to live there harmoniously for decades."

In 2019, Lenawee County simultaneously filed lawsuits against every Amish family in the county.  Source

Lenawee County, Michigan, population density 100 souls per square mile if you remove the county-seat. That is 6.4 acres-per-person or 277,248 square-feet per person or, if you speak Canadian, 26000 square-meters per person. If Lenawee county had the same population density of Chicago that 6.4 acres would have to absorb the waste from 120 people rather than a single person.

Getting the monkeys off my back

Today was a productive day.

I was able to transport a pile of "scrap" to our local recycler. Mrs ERJ was concerned that it was growing roots.

I installed a door-and-lock-set over at Sprites. It was not my best work but it was not my worst. She paid me with a jar of instant coffee. Yes, I know. I am a heathen for drinking the stuff.

I found and fixed a short in the cattle fence.

Mrs ERJ fiddled with our vehicle insurance and that will result in our saving significant amounts of money.

I caught a woodchuck in a 160 body-grip (sometimes improperly called a "Conibear") trap this morning. I walked by it while it was still wiggling so I could have harvested the critter for meat. But I didn't.

It was a very productive Monday!

Mentioned in passing

"Gowain": Gawain -derived from the Welch word for Hawk-, also known in many other forms and spellings, is a character in Arthurian legend...In the early Welsh texts, Gawain is portrayed as a formidable but courteous and compassionate warrior, fiercely loyal to his king and his family. He is known as a friend to young knights, a defender of the poor and the unfortunate, and as the "Maidens' Knight", a rescuer of women as well  -Wikipedia

Burned Toast (Fiction)

Smell is the most evocative of senses and the smell of burned toast was the only smell that could send Jana into a tail-spin. 

Long after the fact, everybody agreed that burnt toast was the first sign that her grandfather had embarked on a long, slow, inexorable downward slide.

Her grandfather, Vernon Judson, could have been a Senator or Judge or a millionaire if he had wanted to. People came to him from all over the county to get the benefit of his wisdom.

He would stand behind the counter of the old, small-town hardware store and dispense nails, screws, plumbing supplies and advice.

When a well-meaning customer suggested he run for office Jana's Pop-pop would clear his throat and intone “You can’t walk through a barn-yard without getting slop on your boots. And I ain’t about to track the kind of slop politicians wade through into Miss Millie’s house.”

Everybody had a very clear picture of what Vernon meant by “barnyard slop”.

According to Jana’s older aunts and uncles, that was Pop-pop in a nutshell, able to boil any situation into a pithy comment. Not just pithy, but brimming with wisdom and clearly pointing the way to the proper resolution.

Jana had not known him at the peak of his once towering intellect. Far from it. Her father had moved the family back to his home-town to assist in caring for the aging Vernon. Much of that burden fell to Jana, or at least it had seemed that way from the perspective of a 7th grade girl who was trying to make a place for herself in a new school.

For Jana, those years had been so horrible and so traumatic that she had blacked them out of her mind. She had entered seventh grade at the small, rural school as an athletic girl with boobs that were a full six months (eons in the minds of 7th graders) ahead of her peers. She had set the local male contingent on fire because...wait for it...she was from CALIFORNIA. This was at a time when songs by the Beach-Boys dominated the Top-40.

Her teacher parked her in the epicenter of the "mean-girls" (pinched nose Lisa and horse-face Diane) who wasted no time in "putting her in her place". They instinctively smelled out her vulnerability to relentless ridicule of old Vernon. Nearly every day was filled with snide, back-stabbing gossip of old Vernon walking about town with with his fly gaping open or his leaving the old Ford running while he ambled into the diner.

The vicious girls took unholy joy in demolishing Jana on a daily basis. Frequent repetition made the ridicule and humiliation something of an institution, a monument to petty vindictiveness. Lisa and Diane learned to  love the rush of inflicting pain. The stories morphed from unzipped flies to pants first wetted and then a few years later, soiled in public.

Jana retreated into her books, her studies and deep, deep sadness. She approached every school-day with stomach-churning dread. But she soldiered on, just like her father who worked a factory job in a town 55 miles away. Just like her mother negotiating the tightly-knit, insular society of the small town. Day-after-day. Week-after-week. Year-after-year.

Vernon’s decline took years. He passed away during her sophomore year of college.

Jana did not attend the funeral. She had no desire to ever set foot in that small town again.

The Vernon she had first known had told stories that were entertaining for their zany tangents. And yes, he burned the toast. Then he regressed to repeating stories that he was sure he had never shared and Miss Millie removed the toaster from the kitchen. Then it was the same story every day.

Jana learned much later that dementia patients are like drunks. Some are happy. Most are sad. Some are angry and violent.

Vernon slid through all three of those types. In the end he was consumed by paranoia and was sure that people were moving his precious things around to confuse him. He was sure that they had stolen his Seiko watch and his ruby class ring, items that Jana’s father had locked in the safe so Vernon would not lose or destroy them.

Vernon raged that combination of the safe had been changed. That was the last big blow-out before Jana went off to college. Pop-pop Vernon ineffectually swatting at her father with his cane and cursing him...Pop-pop Vernon, former elder of his church cursing like a sailor. Her father ducked the feeble blows and did his best to appear contrite and fearful...and failed.

Afterward, Jana asked her dad “Why did you change the combination? You had to know it would make him mad!”

Her father sadly shook his head. “The combination is the same that it has always been. It is Pop-pop’s birthday 11-23-17.”

Throughout the years leading to her final memories of her Pop-pop, she heard that it all started with Pop-pop burning his morning toast. He had pushed down the plunger and then got distracted. Turning around, he saw the bread was not pushed down and he would pushed it down again...and again...and again...until Miss Millie, who was drinking tea in the sun-room smelled the smoke and went to investigate.

Burnt toast was the first solid clue anybody had that Vernon was losing his mind.

The second time it happened, Miss Millie, her grandmother, took Pop-pop to the family doctor. Dementia was diagnosed. The prognosis was grim. “Progressive”. “Untreatable”. “Get help.” “Make memories”.

Jana was not around when her father passed away. Jana had her career, a very demanding and all-consuming career. She also had a pathological aversion to sick people. Sadly, her father also experienced dementia late in his battle with peripheral artery disease. In rare moments of introspection, Jana realized that she had chosen her career to armor herself against the kinds of commitments that her father had foisted upon her.

She had been unable to stay for the visitation. She attended, but suddenly became sick to her stomach when one of the care-givers started to tell a story about how her father would burn food...including toast. “And how can anybody burn toast???”

So the burned toast that was patiently waiting in the toaster was rife with violent currents beneath the surface; dark, roiling currents and jagged rocks.

Every excruciating psychic puncture-wound from Junior High and High School flooded her consciousness. Every heartbreaking step-down in Pop-pops mental capability and the concurrent decay of his body. It was overwhelming.

Looking back, Jana realized that Gowain, her husband, had been more absent-minded lately. She had told him things that minutes later he would have no recollection of.

Gowain had always lived in his head. That is a hazard for anybody who enjoys reading Shakespeare’s plays and paints water colors. But Jana had always loved him passionately. Gowain was movie-star handsome but completely oblivious to the fact. He spoke in calm and measured tones that only enhanced the weight of the thought that he put into what he was going to say, thought he invested before even opening up his mouth.

Jana was deeply conflicted. She just COULDN’T spend the final decade of her life watching another man she loved disintegrate before her eyes. She just COULDN'T!

She had found love late-in-life and thrown herself into it 100%. She was SO vulnerable. She knew she was too weak to live through the pain one more time.

And yet it was Gowain. Gowain who had healed her when she was most battered and bruised. Gowain who had always given her kind words and rescued her from recurring funks. Gowain who was the center of her life, her metronome, her heartbeat.

Jana remembered a prayer. “God, give me the strength to get through today. And if that is not possible, then give me the strength to get through the next hour. Failing that, give me the strength I need to live through this moment.” 

The tension tore every fiber of her being. Pain that she had thought safely buried in the past ripped through her.

“Gowain! You burned your toast!” Jana called down the hallway to the bedroom where Gowain was dressing in his putter-about-the-yard clothes.

“I don’t think so, dear. Is it white-bread or whole-wheat?” Gowain asked.

Jana looked. “Its white-bread. Why would you ask such a stupid question. We never buy whole-wheat bread.”

Jana’s tone seem shrill and strained, even to herself.

“No, dear. I started buying whole-wheat this last month because Doctor Kermudge said I need the fiber. If the burned toast is white-bread, it is undoubtedly yours” Gowain said with infinite kindness.

Jana looked at the loaf of bread next to the toaster. It was clearly white bread. Jana stared at the toast as if it were a venomous snake coiled around her ankle. It WAS white-bread...and now she remembered undoing the twist-tie on the wrapper and dropping two slices of bread into the toaster.

Gowain padded into the kitchen. "Is there a problem?" he asked in his kind and gentle way...

Gold

"Write something every day" they said.

The ERJ position on Gold

The attributes of money are:

• A durable store of purchasing power
• Infinite and linear divisibility
• Scalable
  
• Compact and transportable
  
• Universally accepted at "par value"

As yet, the single, perfect form of money has not been found. Every form has some impediment.

Every form of fiat money seems doomed to dilution and rapid loss of durable-store-of-buying-power at some point.

Diamonds are not linearly divisible. Cutting a one-carat diamond in two halves reduces the aggregate value by 90%. Cutting a race-horse in half decreases its value even more.

Collectables rapidly lose value when the supply is expanded.

Silver weighs 3 pounds for every thousand dollars and that adds up.

Precious metals and gems are easy to counterfeit and assaying value adds time and cost to transactions.

A major issue with gold is that it is not scalable to a level that will sustain world trade. There is just not enough gold and far too much trade.

The work around is to increase gold's "velocity" or how quickly it can change hands. A small amount of currency can lubricate a large amount of commerce as long as it is not buried in a hole and forgotten. That is a perspective that is never preached from the pulpit when the readings are about the stewards who invest their five and three talent grub-stakes and the one steward who buried his single talent.

In a low-trust world, every bar of gold must be assayed for purity to ascertain its value. That takes time. If paper money is issued based on (reputed) gold assets to increase the velocity, then it is still just a promise printed on a scrap of paper and it is vulnerable to the same dilution that will occur to fiat money. A "virtual" claim on a bar of gold is even more vulnerable to vaporizing.

Promises

The ultimate currency is our value as a human as demonstrated by our history of keeping promises. If we keep our word, then our word is our bond. If we have a history of not keeping our word, then we are poorer men.

If we surround ourselves with people who keep their word then we can navigate through life less fearful of icebergs. If our life is decorated with liars and cheats and scoundrels then having gold might be a temporary thing.

Gresham's Law

"Bad currency drives out good currency" 

When a country debauches their currency, people with hard assets, including strong currency, move them out of the country to avoid confiscation.

The debauching government invariably passes laws to make it illegal to remove those assets (clearly indicating that they intend to confiscate them by theft or tax). That accelerates the flight of those assets.

But whither can hard assets flee once North America becomes unsafe?

To me, beyond a small amount of gold and silver (say between $500 and $20,000 nominal value) the question of gold-based currency is for the academics.

Granted, my views are biased by the technologies I am comfortable with. I see more value in vegetable seeds of varieties that have demonstrated ability to produce crops under a wide range of growing conditions, breeding lines of livestock that has demonstrated the same, iron, brass, dense metals with low melting temperatures, firewood, books...

And family, neighbors and friends who I can trust.

Tab clearing

 

Matthew W asked about the official roto-tiller of the ERJ blog.

It is a Troy-Bilt Colt FT (FT for Front-Tines). Purchased, to the best of my recollection, about 2012 after one of my kids somehow got gasoline in the oil of the old tiller and lunched the motor.

This tiller may not a perfect piece of equipment but a very solid performer, especially considering the price. They are available new with a price of about $650. I think I paid about $400 at the time when I bought it and I grumbled about the cost of things going up.

The engine was designed by Ryobi. It starts easily and has enough power. It is also economical with regard to fuel-consumption. The only issue I have had is that the sticker designating Choke/Run fell off.

The tilling width is nominally 24" but it can be reduced in increments of 6" by removing gangs of tiller-blades.

Would I change anything? Well, that is like asking if I am breathing.

I would use a collet-and-bolt or K-31 bolt to connect the tiller-gangs. They are a bugger to clear of tangled up vines, wire, baling twine and Che Guevara tee-shirts. It would speed the job immensely if I could remove the tine-gang by removing an end-bolt (which does not get buried) and then just pull off the junk.

I would make accommodations for lubricating the sealed chain drive; perhaps a bolt that could be removed and some diffy-lube added. A belt takes the power from the engine back to the pulley for the chain-drive.

The longevity of the chain-drive would probably be extended if the driven-pulley had a shorter off-set. That would bias the chain-drive to the engine and would result in three gangs to the right (from the driver's seat) and one gang of tiller blades to the left.

I would eliminate the fenders.

I would provide a valley to funnel the oil when changing the oil in the engine.

It would be nice if the rear wheels were pneumatic and more widely spaced...but that would add significant cost.

I might design an air-filter housing that could accommodate several different types of air-cleaner elements...supply chain snafus and all.

But that is about it.

The fenders are not very sturdy and take a beating. I don't know why they are there unless it is a Federal requirement to shield the tiller-blades.

The lower, horizontal sliding lever is the choke, clearly showing the sticker that is no long there. The upper lever is the throttle.

The fuel-tank is large enough to minimize stops to refuel. I think I fill the tank twice a season.

Kubota went to prison today

Unlike Slow-Joe in D.C., I am not ashamed to announce that my son steps up and does what needs to be done, even if it means going to prison.

Of course, my son works for a contractor who is WORKING at the prison, so that might be the difference. Kubota was installing mumble-mumble at the Gray-Bar Hotel in Carson City.

I got a chance to transport him. It was the first time I drove on Grange Road from I-96 north.

And while I am an unabashed cheerleader for Eaton County, Michigan; I must admit that the farms in eastern Ionia County make ours look shabby and ill-tended. EVERY farm on Grange Road within 5 miles of Westphalia, Michigan looked like it could be the centerfold on a 1950s, farm calendar.

On the way back, I had breakfast at Shiels Tavern in Hubbardston. My maternal Grandmother hailed from Hubbardston. The bar-keep and cook accepted me as family after I announced that fact. The omelet was more than I could eat and I paid the princely sum of $8.49. Toast was included at no extra cost.

Shiels claims to be Michigan's longest serving tavern under the same management. They have an entire wall dedicated to their liquor licenses dating back to 1936.

Other walls include vintage pictures of the Hubbardston Air Force (powered by MOPAR) and of students engaged in athletic events with arch-rivals.

Best laid plans of mice and men

I thought I was going to be picking apples today.

However, I was deflected into prepping another chunk of the garden for the winter.

That entails shredding the vegetation with a mower and then either spraying with herbicide or tilling.

I think many of my readers have some measure for "...are we there yet?" with regard to things getting sporty.

One of my markers is "Do people continue to ignore free food?" 

I have memories from the late-1960s of being loaned out to neighbors at various times to glean fields for green-beans and cucumbers. Hey, maybe there was not a lot of green beans left (there were) but they were FREE!.

Walnuts, hickory nuts, dandelion greens, bluegills, bullheads: FREE!

Mrs Stornach from Church had extra tomatoes? You can bet that Mother ERJ had her little ducklings marching there to clean out her garden.

Upper-working-class, maybe lower-middle-class in the late 1960s and the adults burned their "leisure time" chasing free-food.

We are not there yet. Tell somebody that you have a surplus of ripe pears and they will suggest that they will allow you to leave a pre-picked bag of them on their porch

Mrs ERJ is encouraging me to get serious about the gardens. I think she is reading the tea-leaves and thinks we will have no shortage of people who will help us eat what we grow.

Isolation or Predatory Marketing?

Let me propose that much of what we "know" about accidental and intentional deaths of women is wrong.

An event on the remotest fringe of the ERJ family sent me down a rabbit-hole and this is where I ended up.

The picture nearly everybody has of the typical suicide is of an anxiety-ridden teen-aged girl. I propose that we should be visualizing an isolated woman in her late-30s.

Data enrichment

One problem with the data in studying "suicide" is that the data is distorted by the stigma around that cause of death. For instance, Catholics long taught that people who died by their own hand could not go to heaven. Another issue is that many life insurance policies have riders that nullify the policy if the cause-of-death is suicide. Then there is the pain-and-guilt that burdens the family. Consequently, medical examiners in many areas are loath to list suicide as the cause-of-death.

One work-around is to study deaths by intentional self-harm AND "accidental deaths" that align with common methods of suicides (i.e. falls, poisoning and so on). Partial justification for the methodology is that people experiencing depression and being overwhelmed have more accidents due to lack of cognitive energy or capacity to judge and avoid risks. Whether the accident was intentional or unintentional is less important than that many of them originate from the same base causes.

All data from the CDC Wonder site for the five years 2016-through-2020 inclusive, ages 10-through-64, women, causes of death non-transportation accidents and intentional self-harm.

While the 35-39 age group does not have the absolute highest death-rate it is a local maxima and the next maxima could be attributed to peak-menopause years.

Sifting by state:

Top ten states and bottom-ten states by death-rate in 35-to-39 year-old women due to accidental, non-transportion and self-harm deaths.

If you are a 37 year-old woman, you are FIVE-TIMES more likely to die due to a non-traffic accident or self-harm if you live in West Virginia than if you live in California.

Causes of death

Cause-of-death, cumulative. AP = Accidental Poisoning

It is worth noting that unless a suicide note is found, a poisoning death will by default be ruled accidental.

Given the huge, lop-sided death-rates and the heavy weighting toward narcotics and "unspecified", one would not be crazy to wonder if some of the differences were due to predatory, targeted marketing of drugs like OxyContin by Big Pharma. But that could never happen, could it?

And if it were due to predatory marketing by Big Pharma, then it really isn't an accidental death.

Yoga pants for character

There I was, standing in line at a Subway (sandwich) behind the Potterville, JV Cheer-leading team. The line moved slowly as each girl provided excruciatingly detailed an precise directions on how her sandwich must be constructed.

A random thought dropped into my head. Society would truly benefit if there were the equivalent of yoga-pants, but for personalities. All reasonably healthy women are physically attractive. The land-mines are between their ears.

I am a deep thinker, not a quick one.

It took me a few days of pondering before the realization struck me: Drunk-posting on social media at 2:00AM are the "yoga pants" for character.

If you can find no "drunk-posting", she is probably safe to get to know.