12/04/11 IN THE CLOUDS

WINTRY WEATHER

RED OAK IN WINTER

CRAFT FAIR AT THE PAVILION

RUNNING THE GAUNTLET

THINK  SQUIRREL

Sunday, 8:30 Am.  35 degrees, Wind NW, calm to very light.  The sky is overcast and we have 2.5” of new snow to shovel.  The barometer is trending upward.  It is a rather wintry day.
    The pavilion was the venue for a large craft show yesterday, and I was amazed at the amount of exhibitors and attendees.  Of course one had to run a gauntlet of Recall Walker petitioners at the entrance.  But if Wisconsin doesn’t keep moving in the direction of reducing its taxes and its debt and providing real jobs for its people, we will all be whittling geegaws and doodads in the winter to sell to each other.  And maybe in the summer the more athletic among us can swim out to the tour boats and dive for coins.
    Political comment: all the hype about high-tech industries and jobs bringing us out of the current economic malaise and high unemployment is just that, hype.  Case in point: South Carolina is a new hot spot for computer firms providing “cloud computing” (don’t ask me any more about it than that).  As I understand it, a building three times the size of a football field stuffed with computers will employee about fifty people, I am guessing mostly custodial and security workers.  Long term property tax breaks have been given to these concerns, without much of a local payback.  The locals sure didn’t build the computers and probably will not maintain them.  I hope the equipment is American made but I wouldn’t hold my breath. 
    When the government isn’t actively destroying traditional private sector jobs that average citizens have the ability to do (mining, oil and gas , manufacturing, construction, pipelines) it ignores them.  Our leaders seem truly to have their heads as well as their computing in the clouds most of the time.