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Thursday, July 23, 2009 - Red Rock, East Chatham NY

LD's kitchen and a peek aft into my study, July 19, 2009
LD's kitchen and a peek aft into my study, July 19, 2009

Today I started a project to reduce the weight and intrusiveness of the bed in my study

Today I shed quite a few pounds from this Lazy Daze' load and opened up my study area considerably. I didn't get good picture of the study but I think you can get a sense of how the bed intrudes into the study. A year or so back I replaced the old collapsing convertible sofa cushion with a twin mattress. This is a comfortable arrangement but is a bit large for the space and heavy to boot. Today I tossed it out along with the underlying sofa pullout mechanism that is designed to convert the sofa to a double bed. I salvaged the 4 inch foam from the overcab bed and added 4 inches of memory foam topper. I now have a comfortable 30 inch wide bed and a much larger study. Nice.

Night camp

On my property off Less Traveled Road - The Home Place, Red Rock, East Chatham NY

Disaster and the Failure of Authority

Disasters are almost by definition about the failure of authority, in part because the powers that be are supposed to protect us from them, in part also because the thousand dispersed needs of a disaster overwhelm even the best governments, and because the government version of governing often arrives at the point of a gun. But the authorities don't usually fail so spectacularly. Failure at this level requires sustained effort. The deepening of the divide between the haves and have nots, the stripping away of social services, the defunding of the infrastructure, mean that this disaster—not of weather but of policy—has been more or less what was intended to happen, if not so starkly in plain sight.

The Uses of Disaster Rebecca Solnit, Harpers.org, September 9, 2005

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