IT OFTEN DOES PAY

Sunday, Veterans Day, 9:00 AM.  52 degrees F, wind W, moderate at present but very strong earlier.  Everything is damp, with puddles everywhere, and the sky is overcast.  The barometer predicts more rain.
        Yesterday was a bummer weather-wise that canceled the seeding on the  Brownstone Trail.   That’s not so bad, we can probably find a warm dry day to do the job yet this year.  The advantage to seeding now is that the sown seed will cold-stratify naturally over the winter.  If it does not get sown I will mix it with sand and keep it in the shed during the winter and it will be sufficiently cold-stratified to sow next spring. 
        The seeds of most temperate climate plants need to spend a few months at seasonally cold winter temperatures in order to germinate properly.
        The following commentary is not meant to be political, it is rather a sad tale of the current state of our American mores, as told by two recent headlines:
        Headline number one; CIA CHIEF PETRAEUS RESIGNS OVER AFFAIR WITH HIS BIOGRAPHER. This is a tragic end to a stellar career for the first US general to be a successful commander in two wars since Douglas MacArthur (who was cashiered by President Truman).  There are a lot of aspects of this story that most readers will know or suspect and that I needn’t dwell on.
        Headline number two; LOCKHEED MARTIN CORP.  OUSTS NEW CHIEF, CHRISTOPHER KUBASIC, OVER IMPROPER RELATIONSHIP WITH SUBORDINATE.  Many blog readers may have missed this one. 
        Both these cases involve very powerful men at the height of their careers.  Both should have known better than to compromise their lives with tawdry behavior that could cost them their jobs, marriages, families and other close relationships.  Both were evidently guilty, and my guess is that it will turn out that both were seduced not just by  a woman but by their political or business enemies as well. The world, after all,  still has  its Mata Hari’s and its Quislings.  Too bad, but no excuses, please.
        Many, however, will excuse them both, saying that a high moral standard is old fashioned (ignore the military and industrial secrets), and cite the fact that former presidents and generals and business executives did far worse and were never punished.  That may be true, but it changes nothing.  Two larger-than-life men are essentially, at least for now, ruined.                 
        Sequel:  Christopher Kubasic will receive 3.5 million dollars as severance compensation.  Immorality, like crime, often does pay.