Mayan Vengeance!
My inventions?
Obscure reference, but anyway... So there is this distressingly vocal cadre of Lucy Leftists who are just downright OCD about "pollinators"... Now, I get it, I mean, you don't get to be as... shall we say "well appointed" as I , without liking the delight that is, well, FOOD. And I'm also well aware that food comes from bees. Not just fruits and veg, there's a whole circle of life, food chain, what have you. And I also know that we are having trouble keeping honeybees alive. This is a fairly recent development, and I want you to put a pin in that, because it is going to come up later. So. Bees like flowers. I like to plant flowers. And flowering plants, such as tomatoes, and various other garden delights. It's a bit early for that, obviously, but yeah. And, I mean, when the trees flower, like pears and crabapples, or even maples (what do you think those little red things are that shit down all over the place and get stuck in your wiper blades, that's something for the bees to do their thing with. Lots of shit flowers. Now, I also live in the suburbs, and like many, I keep a nice lawn. I have absolutely nothing against violets, dandelions, clover, what have you, but I also want a well-kept lawn. Flowers go in the gardens, the lawn goes in the lawn, concrete is well edged, all of these boundaries, which create an appearance of order, and subsequently, neatness. Now, there's a difference between shaming someone, and them having shame. Let me explain this, and I brought this up with the unemployment thing... When everybody else around you has cut your grass, for example, and you look at your lawn and go, holy shit, I need to cut this like NOW, that's you feeling shame. And perhaps shame is even too strong a word, but for our purposes, that's what we're going with. But you get the point, right? Your neighbors did not cut their lawns with the intention of shaming you, they cut their lawns because they cut their lawns. Contrary to popular belief in this divided-ass world, not everything is done with some malicious intent. Spencer cuts his lawn on Tuesday, I believe. Not because I cut mine on Friday or Saturday, and he wants to make me feel like shit by making his look better a few days later, but because he is a landscaper by trade, and Tuesday is the day that he's around here with his rig. He is not shaming me. But if I look at my lawn and go damn, this could really use a cut when I am comparing the two, then I might just go ahead and cut it. Now, this is the second cut I've given the lawn, and if it was borderline last week, which it actually wasn't, it really took the cut well, this week was right out. But see, I gave it the weed and feed last week, and then there was rain (yes, I planned that), so it soaked into the roots, and I swear the lawn grew up an inch and got three shades darker overnight! A good amount of the block is in the same boat, for several, they're doing their first cut this weekend, and at this point, if you're the last house on the block that hasn't even looked at their grass yet, well, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb, and you're most likely going to get around to cutting it! So brass tacks, what is the end result of all of this? The entire street looks better. And that's important, particularly in the suburbs, because there is also an opposite dampening effect that can take place when someone just actively does not give a shit, and you look at it, and go, well if they don't care, why should I, and so on, and so on, and standards start to slide downhill. And understand that when that happens, it is extremely difficult to stop/reverse. Not impossible, but extremely difficult.
So. The concept of shame, as in, personal shame. When you look at something that is better than what you have, and you feel bad about it, so you do something about it to bring yourself up... And thats is the recurring theme here, we're talking about building up. Raising the bar. Because if we constantly lower the bar, well, we get what we get, and what we get ain't great. With me so far? Now, the other idea of shame is that of shaming, that an action IS deliberate, IS a machination specifically designed to put someone down. See that there? DOWN... Not raising up, but PUTTING DOWN. Bringing them to your level. You see that what they have is better, so instead of lifting yourself up to meet the standard, you gin up some social justice bullshit (at least, that's the modus operandi these days), and you tear them down. So you're BOTH down, and again, we just keep going down down down... There is a third option here, which much more closely relates to the first one, and I'll get to that in a minute. Now. Getting back to the vocal pollinator queens, these are people who are on facebook like EVERY DAY spouting their dogma. Don't clean up your yard yet (cut down old canes, rake leaves, etc.), because POLLINATORS are still sleeping. Don't mow your grass yet, because POLLINATORS are still sleeping. Don't plant anything that's not native, because POLLINATORS... You get the idea. Over. And over. And over. Monday: Hey, I know you think you should clean up your yard, but you're wrong, because POLLINATORS. Tuesday: Remember, even if you think you should clean up your yard, you shouldn't, because POLLINATORS. Wednesday: What kind of a fucking idiot would mow their lawn when the grass is tall, don't you realize POLLINATORS... You get the idea. Now, at this point, you're being obnoxious. Yes, pollinators, we get it. Maybe you've even cherrypicked a single study from a quasi-reputable source to back up your findings, but still, it's the broken record thing. Like, do you have ANYTHING else to contribute to the conversation? No? Then fucking MOVE ON. And touching on the whole cited source thing, I mean, please... I've done college writing, and one of the things that blew my mind was how relatively easy it actually is; find "peer reviewed" sources which say what you want to say (which you can do either through your college's library resources, or Google Scholar), cut and paste with the appropriate citations, and then just write your paper around them. Fill in the blanks. All you are doing is inserting the chin wag to tie the harvested ideas together; in a five page paper, you've most likely only actually written a page, MAYBE two... But you see, my statement is intentionally very telling; find a source that says what you want to say, backs up the idea that you came up with... I can find an academically respectable, peer-reviewed source that says that the holocaust was a terrible thing. I can find a source with the same credentials that says it never happened. Hell, I can probably find a source, again, just as academically verifiable, that comes to the conclusion that the Jews had it coming! It's that bad! You can find academic sources to back up your point on ANYTHING, so all you have to do is cherry-pick the ones that agree with your point of view on the matter. So no, strangely enough, I have somehow become a little jaded on the idea that the words of my allegedly "learned elders" have any kind of intrinsic authority whatsoever, let alone are somehow infalliable. But back to pollinators. You have an opinion. OK, fine. You back it up with "science". Meh, not really interested, but then, I wasn't particularly interested to begin with. You start passive-aggressively shaming people like me for the way they garden and keep their lawn... Umm, what? Like, who the hell are you? Violets come up in lawns, but are mistaken to be a weed, and are often sprayed with weed killer... More like LIFE killer, because it leaves nothing alive! And then the subsequent comments; I know, for what, a LAWN?!? (laughing emoji)... So, I just did a spray of weed and feed; granular last week, liquid this week. Here's a pro tip; although granular markets itself as a weed and feed for broadleaf weeds, it doesn't really do all that well... If you read the directions, the lawn has to be moist so the granules stick to the leaves, and that will kill the weeds, it's like there has to be this perfect storm of scenarios... Granular is great FOOD; it sits on the surface of the soil, and soaks in to the roots. Liquid is a great WEED KILLER. It also makes a nice food, but its weed killing abilities are so much better, because it wets the leaves and soaks in. Most weed killers are foliar; they soak in through the leaf of the plant.
So... "Life killer"? No, Besides the fact that I appropriately fertilize and maintain, and again, some pro tips for you... So you've done a granular fertilization, you're inevitably going to have some on the pavement. Now, besides stormwater runoff and all that, this is MONEY that you have spent. You're not going to fertilize the concrete, that's going to do no good for you whatsoever. You can sweep it up and sprinkle it on the lawn, or depending on your level of lawn maintenance, just integrate it. So... I mow, then I weedwhip, then I edge, then I blow. Mower gets the bulk of the cutting, like 95% plus. Weedwhip takes care of the rest, easy to see, it's still tall... Edging, well, that's pretty self-explanatory. All areas where pavement of any kind meets the lawn, and that includes the brick paver walkway in the back, and the curbline at the street. And finally, blow. To get all the grass from the mow and trim, all the dirt from the edge, any debris in the gutterline (usually a bit of dirt, grass, maybe some maple flower buds), and blow it BACK ONTO THE LAWN. Not out into the street. So, are you with me so far? Add the weed and feed application after the edge. Before the blow. So we're blowing from the pavement, back onto the grass, the clippings, the dirt, and the fertilizer... Aha! Liquid, well, that's an easier application, just make sure you're pointing the hose in the right direction, and you're just looking to thoroughly and evenly soak the greenery. And if it gets on the leaves of desirious plants, just spray them off with water. That's the benefit of doing it this time of year; there's not yet much in the way of leafy plants going. And see, that's a bit part of this; it's not like I am spreading and spraying EVERY WEEK. You don't have to do that. A maintained lawn maintains itself; the best defense against lawn weeds is a healthy lawn. Weeds are killed off now, lawn is fed, grass gets thick and lush, weeds don't have a chance to establish themselves. Pretty basic and common sense. But getting back to the initial comment, it's not like I'm going out there and spraying gallons of poison; I don't see violets and dandelions and start hosing down the lawn with a mixture of acid, radioactive waste, molten lead, and dioxin! So no, it's not "life killer"... There was another one that was looking at the three or four-step system that most lawn companies recommend; weed and feed with crabgrass pre-emergent and broadleaf, weed and feed, and then weed and feed and broadleaf. And that's usually like an April-May, July-August, September-October rotation... "Herbicide, fertilizer, herbicide, fertilizer, herbicide, fertilizer, ALL THESE CHEMICALS, ALL THIS POISON"... I love how that's always the narrative; the amount of POISON that we are spreading into our environment, like again, I'm watering the lawn with heavy metals and motor oil, whilst fogging with a couple gallons of DDT every time I see a butterfly or bee. People, get over yourself... What does one feed a lawn with? Nitrogen, and potash, which is a source of potassium. You see a fertilizer that says, for example, 12-0-5, this is a standard NPK; Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium... Nearly all lawn fertilizers for the last 20 years will be 0 in the middle; phosphorus was removed because, quite frankly, it worked too well; the runoff into the storm systems and lakes essentially fertilized the water, and caused massive algae blooms. Again, we covered this before, we don't fertilize our driveway and street, and we most certainly do NOT rinse them off with a hose! Fertilize responsibly. So. Back to this POISON... Nitrogen. You may have heard of it; 78% of the air you're breathing is made up of it. Yep, that's a deadly poison for sure... Potassium's the shit you get from eating bananas. You know, the stuff your body uses to regulate your heart rhythm and keep your muscles from cramping? If you can find something with a bit of iron to it, like a Milorganite or what have you, great, that'll give it a nice deep green color... That's right, IRON, that deadly poison that's in our blood... Now understand this, anything is toxic in certain amounts. I'm not sitting here espousing the health benefits of sitting down to a nice bowl of Scott's TurfBuilder for breakfast, yeah? But this kind of takes me back to something I learned while teaching a class at Boy Scout day camp... Hell, maybe it was cub scouts; I don't remember. Anyway. It was at Civic Center Park, it was on top of the little hill, and I couldn't honestly tell you what the class was about, probably nature or ecology or something, but the guy said, everything comes from nature. Name something that is not natural... And you get the answers, oh PLASTIC, that's not natural... Really? Comes from oil, came from dead animals, animals are natural... Cars. Made from metal, comes out of the ground, natural... To wit, the point was, everything comes from nature; we don't just create matter out of thin air, ergo, everything is natural. So when you're sitting there eating an "all natural" diet, may I remind you that plutonium and weed killer are both equally "natural".
I'm a little fired up about this, but i hope it becomes clear. So. We've established that the concept of shame helps you to come up to another level, and the cumulative effect is that everybody builds up. We've established that the concept of shaming has an opposite dampening effect. So these people are actively lawn-shaming. And why? Do they not have lawns? Well, they do, but for the sake of POLLINATORS, we should be doing BEE LAWNS, which are full of clover and timothy and dandelions and whatnot. Or native planted wildflower gardens in the lawn. Now, from like a code enforcement standpoint and whatnot, unfortunately, there is a VERY thin line between a wildflower garden, and a bed of tall weeds. It's all about the maintenance. There's one thing to be said for grass; you have a standard. Your grass is a foot tall, you need to mow it. It's different when it looks like an unkempt lawn, but it's actually bitter vetch, and is, in fact, a "garden"... And I really wonder about some of the authenticity of this... Take one of the guys I work with; names changed to protect the low-standard person... Will is one of those people, and I've written about him before, who just skates by with the lowest amount of effort... I mean, barely grooms, car barely works, does the least amount imaginable around the house to keep code off his ass, and nothing more... The man's priorities are more than a little bit sketchy. And he was telling me one time about how his neighbor was bitching about his grass being so tall, and he told him that he was participating in an MSU study or some bullshit about tall grass and oxygen production, and it's like, no you weren't, you're just a lazy fuck who doesn't want to cut his grass... That's like this 'bee lawn' thing to me... Oh, I'm cultivating a BEE LAWN, no, you're just too fucking lazy to properly maintain your shit. But even more to the point, if you want a lawn full of clover and violets, good for you. Do I think it's going to look like hell in a suburban area, yes, I do... But there is no law saying that you have to weed and feed, no law against dandelions, you can really do you, so long as it's maintained. Keep your patch of weeds under six inches, and you're good to go. Here's what it boils down to, live and let live... The third option... I mow my lawn and you feel shame and mow yours, that's option 1. You don't want to mow your lawn so you shame me for keeping mine up, that's option two. You see me mowing my lawn, it doesn't affect you in the slightest, you feel no shame, and you do you, THAT IS OPTION THREE. I don't shame you into making your shit better, at least by my standards, because I don't really care. I do me, you do you. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT?!? That's the way it's supposed to be, I mean, the first option, the idea of shame, that's good, because it does serve to make things better, but there is also a third option here... But that doesn't work with the narrative that you want, which is that everyone is supposed to be on board with you and what you're doing... For some reason, I don't even get that shit, but whatever. So, you want to have clover and dandelions instead of grass, bee balm and pothippie nutsedge instead of petunias and rosebushes, I'm like fine, whatever... But I want grass instead of weeds, and certain nice flowers instead of "native plants", and I am somehow responsible for the death of bees, butterflies, fireflies, and backyard birds. Now, remember that point at the beginning? Colony collapse disorder is what is killing off bees. And WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING IT. It's recent. Much more recent than pesticide use, in fact, we have continued to pull shit off the market that we have learned had deleterous effects, so there's no clear link there. A lot of scientists think it might be cellular phone signals, and holy shit if that's the case, you mean I can't sit there with 5G speeds and virtue-signal on facebook anymore? Fuck that shit! The point is, as with most things, it's not like we just started up the industrial revolution around the same time all the bees started dying, this is a problem that is recent, and one that has manifested as we have continued to make things cleaner, less toxic, and greener... So where is this attempt to lawn-shame coming from, if not the fact that you resent the fact that you're the crappiest looking house on the block, so you want everyone else to drop their standards, and you've attached a bit of legitimacy to it in the form of science, and save the trees, bees, whales, and snails? Maybe it's something deeper, more insidious, like you love having this social media voice because you've got nothing else going for you... Like, what do you do for a living, oh, I'm in media design (translation: I make TikTok videos and facebook posts).
It's coming on midnight; I think I am going to retire, and pick this one up in the morning.
Obscure reference, but anyway... So there is this distressingly vocal cadre of Lucy Leftists who are just downright OCD about "pollinators"... Now, I get it, I mean, you don't get to be as... shall we say "well appointed" as I , without liking the delight that is, well, FOOD. And I'm also well aware that food comes from bees. Not just fruits and veg, there's a whole circle of life, food chain, what have you. And I also know that we are having trouble keeping honeybees alive. This is a fairly recent development, and I want you to put a pin in that, because it is going to come up later. So. Bees like flowers. I like to plant flowers. And flowering plants, such as tomatoes, and various other garden delights. It's a bit early for that, obviously, but yeah. And, I mean, when the trees flower, like pears and crabapples, or even maples (what do you think those little red things are that shit down all over the place and get stuck in your wiper blades, that's something for the bees to do their thing with. Lots of shit flowers. Now, I also live in the suburbs, and like many, I keep a nice lawn. I have absolutely nothing against violets, dandelions, clover, what have you, but I also want a well-kept lawn. Flowers go in the gardens, the lawn goes in the lawn, concrete is well edged, all of these boundaries, which create an appearance of order, and subsequently, neatness. Now, there's a difference between shaming someone, and them having shame. Let me explain this, and I brought this up with the unemployment thing... When everybody else around you has cut your grass, for example, and you look at your lawn and go, holy shit, I need to cut this like NOW, that's you feeling shame. And perhaps shame is even too strong a word, but for our purposes, that's what we're going with. But you get the point, right? Your neighbors did not cut their lawns with the intention of shaming you, they cut their lawns because they cut their lawns. Contrary to popular belief in this divided-ass world, not everything is done with some malicious intent. Spencer cuts his lawn on Tuesday, I believe. Not because I cut mine on Friday or Saturday, and he wants to make me feel like shit by making his look better a few days later, but because he is a landscaper by trade, and Tuesday is the day that he's around here with his rig. He is not shaming me. But if I look at my lawn and go damn, this could really use a cut when I am comparing the two, then I might just go ahead and cut it. Now, this is the second cut I've given the lawn, and if it was borderline last week, which it actually wasn't, it really took the cut well, this week was right out. But see, I gave it the weed and feed last week, and then there was rain (yes, I planned that), so it soaked into the roots, and I swear the lawn grew up an inch and got three shades darker overnight! A good amount of the block is in the same boat, for several, they're doing their first cut this weekend, and at this point, if you're the last house on the block that hasn't even looked at their grass yet, well, it's going to stick out like a sore thumb, and you're most likely going to get around to cutting it! So brass tacks, what is the end result of all of this? The entire street looks better. And that's important, particularly in the suburbs, because there is also an opposite dampening effect that can take place when someone just actively does not give a shit, and you look at it, and go, well if they don't care, why should I, and so on, and so on, and standards start to slide downhill. And understand that when that happens, it is extremely difficult to stop/reverse. Not impossible, but extremely difficult.
So. The concept of shame, as in, personal shame. When you look at something that is better than what you have, and you feel bad about it, so you do something about it to bring yourself up... And thats is the recurring theme here, we're talking about building up. Raising the bar. Because if we constantly lower the bar, well, we get what we get, and what we get ain't great. With me so far? Now, the other idea of shame is that of shaming, that an action IS deliberate, IS a machination specifically designed to put someone down. See that there? DOWN... Not raising up, but PUTTING DOWN. Bringing them to your level. You see that what they have is better, so instead of lifting yourself up to meet the standard, you gin up some social justice bullshit (at least, that's the modus operandi these days), and you tear them down. So you're BOTH down, and again, we just keep going down down down... There is a third option here, which much more closely relates to the first one, and I'll get to that in a minute. Now. Getting back to the vocal pollinator queens, these are people who are on facebook like EVERY DAY spouting their dogma. Don't clean up your yard yet (cut down old canes, rake leaves, etc.), because POLLINATORS are still sleeping. Don't mow your grass yet, because POLLINATORS are still sleeping. Don't plant anything that's not native, because POLLINATORS... You get the idea. Over. And over. And over. Monday: Hey, I know you think you should clean up your yard, but you're wrong, because POLLINATORS. Tuesday: Remember, even if you think you should clean up your yard, you shouldn't, because POLLINATORS. Wednesday: What kind of a fucking idiot would mow their lawn when the grass is tall, don't you realize POLLINATORS... You get the idea. Now, at this point, you're being obnoxious. Yes, pollinators, we get it. Maybe you've even cherrypicked a single study from a quasi-reputable source to back up your findings, but still, it's the broken record thing. Like, do you have ANYTHING else to contribute to the conversation? No? Then fucking MOVE ON. And touching on the whole cited source thing, I mean, please... I've done college writing, and one of the things that blew my mind was how relatively easy it actually is; find "peer reviewed" sources which say what you want to say (which you can do either through your college's library resources, or Google Scholar), cut and paste with the appropriate citations, and then just write your paper around them. Fill in the blanks. All you are doing is inserting the chin wag to tie the harvested ideas together; in a five page paper, you've most likely only actually written a page, MAYBE two... But you see, my statement is intentionally very telling; find a source that says what you want to say, backs up the idea that you came up with... I can find an academically respectable, peer-reviewed source that says that the holocaust was a terrible thing. I can find a source with the same credentials that says it never happened. Hell, I can probably find a source, again, just as academically verifiable, that comes to the conclusion that the Jews had it coming! It's that bad! You can find academic sources to back up your point on ANYTHING, so all you have to do is cherry-pick the ones that agree with your point of view on the matter. So no, strangely enough, I have somehow become a little jaded on the idea that the words of my allegedly "learned elders" have any kind of intrinsic authority whatsoever, let alone are somehow infalliable. But back to pollinators. You have an opinion. OK, fine. You back it up with "science". Meh, not really interested, but then, I wasn't particularly interested to begin with. You start passive-aggressively shaming people like me for the way they garden and keep their lawn... Umm, what? Like, who the hell are you? Violets come up in lawns, but are mistaken to be a weed, and are often sprayed with weed killer... More like LIFE killer, because it leaves nothing alive! And then the subsequent comments; I know, for what, a LAWN?!? (laughing emoji)... So, I just did a spray of weed and feed; granular last week, liquid this week. Here's a pro tip; although granular markets itself as a weed and feed for broadleaf weeds, it doesn't really do all that well... If you read the directions, the lawn has to be moist so the granules stick to the leaves, and that will kill the weeds, it's like there has to be this perfect storm of scenarios... Granular is great FOOD; it sits on the surface of the soil, and soaks in to the roots. Liquid is a great WEED KILLER. It also makes a nice food, but its weed killing abilities are so much better, because it wets the leaves and soaks in. Most weed killers are foliar; they soak in through the leaf of the plant.
So... "Life killer"? No, Besides the fact that I appropriately fertilize and maintain, and again, some pro tips for you... So you've done a granular fertilization, you're inevitably going to have some on the pavement. Now, besides stormwater runoff and all that, this is MONEY that you have spent. You're not going to fertilize the concrete, that's going to do no good for you whatsoever. You can sweep it up and sprinkle it on the lawn, or depending on your level of lawn maintenance, just integrate it. So... I mow, then I weedwhip, then I edge, then I blow. Mower gets the bulk of the cutting, like 95% plus. Weedwhip takes care of the rest, easy to see, it's still tall... Edging, well, that's pretty self-explanatory. All areas where pavement of any kind meets the lawn, and that includes the brick paver walkway in the back, and the curbline at the street. And finally, blow. To get all the grass from the mow and trim, all the dirt from the edge, any debris in the gutterline (usually a bit of dirt, grass, maybe some maple flower buds), and blow it BACK ONTO THE LAWN. Not out into the street. So, are you with me so far? Add the weed and feed application after the edge. Before the blow. So we're blowing from the pavement, back onto the grass, the clippings, the dirt, and the fertilizer... Aha! Liquid, well, that's an easier application, just make sure you're pointing the hose in the right direction, and you're just looking to thoroughly and evenly soak the greenery. And if it gets on the leaves of desirious plants, just spray them off with water. That's the benefit of doing it this time of year; there's not yet much in the way of leafy plants going. And see, that's a bit part of this; it's not like I am spreading and spraying EVERY WEEK. You don't have to do that. A maintained lawn maintains itself; the best defense against lawn weeds is a healthy lawn. Weeds are killed off now, lawn is fed, grass gets thick and lush, weeds don't have a chance to establish themselves. Pretty basic and common sense. But getting back to the initial comment, it's not like I'm going out there and spraying gallons of poison; I don't see violets and dandelions and start hosing down the lawn with a mixture of acid, radioactive waste, molten lead, and dioxin! So no, it's not "life killer"... There was another one that was looking at the three or four-step system that most lawn companies recommend; weed and feed with crabgrass pre-emergent and broadleaf, weed and feed, and then weed and feed and broadleaf. And that's usually like an April-May, July-August, September-October rotation... "Herbicide, fertilizer, herbicide, fertilizer, herbicide, fertilizer, ALL THESE CHEMICALS, ALL THIS POISON"... I love how that's always the narrative; the amount of POISON that we are spreading into our environment, like again, I'm watering the lawn with heavy metals and motor oil, whilst fogging with a couple gallons of DDT every time I see a butterfly or bee. People, get over yourself... What does one feed a lawn with? Nitrogen, and potash, which is a source of potassium. You see a fertilizer that says, for example, 12-0-5, this is a standard NPK; Nitrogen-Phosphorus-Potassium... Nearly all lawn fertilizers for the last 20 years will be 0 in the middle; phosphorus was removed because, quite frankly, it worked too well; the runoff into the storm systems and lakes essentially fertilized the water, and caused massive algae blooms. Again, we covered this before, we don't fertilize our driveway and street, and we most certainly do NOT rinse them off with a hose! Fertilize responsibly. So. Back to this POISON... Nitrogen. You may have heard of it; 78% of the air you're breathing is made up of it. Yep, that's a deadly poison for sure... Potassium's the shit you get from eating bananas. You know, the stuff your body uses to regulate your heart rhythm and keep your muscles from cramping? If you can find something with a bit of iron to it, like a Milorganite or what have you, great, that'll give it a nice deep green color... That's right, IRON, that deadly poison that's in our blood... Now understand this, anything is toxic in certain amounts. I'm not sitting here espousing the health benefits of sitting down to a nice bowl of Scott's TurfBuilder for breakfast, yeah? But this kind of takes me back to something I learned while teaching a class at Boy Scout day camp... Hell, maybe it was cub scouts; I don't remember. Anyway. It was at Civic Center Park, it was on top of the little hill, and I couldn't honestly tell you what the class was about, probably nature or ecology or something, but the guy said, everything comes from nature. Name something that is not natural... And you get the answers, oh PLASTIC, that's not natural... Really? Comes from oil, came from dead animals, animals are natural... Cars. Made from metal, comes out of the ground, natural... To wit, the point was, everything comes from nature; we don't just create matter out of thin air, ergo, everything is natural. So when you're sitting there eating an "all natural" diet, may I remind you that plutonium and weed killer are both equally "natural".
I'm a little fired up about this, but i hope it becomes clear. So. We've established that the concept of shame helps you to come up to another level, and the cumulative effect is that everybody builds up. We've established that the concept of shaming has an opposite dampening effect. So these people are actively lawn-shaming. And why? Do they not have lawns? Well, they do, but for the sake of POLLINATORS, we should be doing BEE LAWNS, which are full of clover and timothy and dandelions and whatnot. Or native planted wildflower gardens in the lawn. Now, from like a code enforcement standpoint and whatnot, unfortunately, there is a VERY thin line between a wildflower garden, and a bed of tall weeds. It's all about the maintenance. There's one thing to be said for grass; you have a standard. Your grass is a foot tall, you need to mow it. It's different when it looks like an unkempt lawn, but it's actually bitter vetch, and is, in fact, a "garden"... And I really wonder about some of the authenticity of this... Take one of the guys I work with; names changed to protect the low-standard person... Will is one of those people, and I've written about him before, who just skates by with the lowest amount of effort... I mean, barely grooms, car barely works, does the least amount imaginable around the house to keep code off his ass, and nothing more... The man's priorities are more than a little bit sketchy. And he was telling me one time about how his neighbor was bitching about his grass being so tall, and he told him that he was participating in an MSU study or some bullshit about tall grass and oxygen production, and it's like, no you weren't, you're just a lazy fuck who doesn't want to cut his grass... That's like this 'bee lawn' thing to me... Oh, I'm cultivating a BEE LAWN, no, you're just too fucking lazy to properly maintain your shit. But even more to the point, if you want a lawn full of clover and violets, good for you. Do I think it's going to look like hell in a suburban area, yes, I do... But there is no law saying that you have to weed and feed, no law against dandelions, you can really do you, so long as it's maintained. Keep your patch of weeds under six inches, and you're good to go. Here's what it boils down to, live and let live... The third option... I mow my lawn and you feel shame and mow yours, that's option 1. You don't want to mow your lawn so you shame me for keeping mine up, that's option two. You see me mowing my lawn, it doesn't affect you in the slightest, you feel no shame, and you do you, THAT IS OPTION THREE. I don't shame you into making your shit better, at least by my standards, because I don't really care. I do me, you do you. WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH THAT?!? That's the way it's supposed to be, I mean, the first option, the idea of shame, that's good, because it does serve to make things better, but there is also a third option here... But that doesn't work with the narrative that you want, which is that everyone is supposed to be on board with you and what you're doing... For some reason, I don't even get that shit, but whatever. So, you want to have clover and dandelions instead of grass, bee balm and pothippie nutsedge instead of petunias and rosebushes, I'm like fine, whatever... But I want grass instead of weeds, and certain nice flowers instead of "native plants", and I am somehow responsible for the death of bees, butterflies, fireflies, and backyard birds. Now, remember that point at the beginning? Colony collapse disorder is what is killing off bees. And WE STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT IS CAUSING IT. It's recent. Much more recent than pesticide use, in fact, we have continued to pull shit off the market that we have learned had deleterous effects, so there's no clear link there. A lot of scientists think it might be cellular phone signals, and holy shit if that's the case, you mean I can't sit there with 5G speeds and virtue-signal on facebook anymore? Fuck that shit! The point is, as with most things, it's not like we just started up the industrial revolution around the same time all the bees started dying, this is a problem that is recent, and one that has manifested as we have continued to make things cleaner, less toxic, and greener... So where is this attempt to lawn-shame coming from, if not the fact that you resent the fact that you're the crappiest looking house on the block, so you want everyone else to drop their standards, and you've attached a bit of legitimacy to it in the form of science, and save the trees, bees, whales, and snails? Maybe it's something deeper, more insidious, like you love having this social media voice because you've got nothing else going for you... Like, what do you do for a living, oh, I'm in media design (translation: I make TikTok videos and facebook posts).
It's coming on midnight; I think I am going to retire, and pick this one up in the morning.