Solution to US defense budget reduction

     US Defense Secretary, Leon Panetta, is mightily concerned about the impact of budget cutting on military spending.  He warned last week:  "It's a ship without sailors. It's a brigade without bullets. It's an air wing without enough trained pilots..." A partial transcript of an interview with Secretary Panetta and radio broadcast is available at NPR.
     Seems to me that one solution might be to sell some of the Pentagon's ships and planes and and to reduce the number of brigades.  Certainly we must still have a few allies in NATO or elsewhere around the globe who might be interested in purchasing some of our military hardware, particularly if they knew the US would no longer be the world's policeman.  Wouldn't it be nice to attack our deficit by turning some of our long-term ongoing expenses into revenues?  And if perchance we can't sell all of that military gear to other nations, we could melt it down and turn it into plowshares, for people to use on their Victory Gardens.  Idealistic? I certainly do hope so!
     While I'm being idealistic, it would be great to see a change in focus for The School of Americas aka The Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation.  It currently serves as a US Army training school that teaches soldiers and military personnel from Latin American countries in subjects like counter-insurgency, military intelligence and counter-narcotics operations.  Wouldn't it be beautiful to see their mission redirected to peaceful conflict resolution through negotiation? Members of the US Congress should all be required to attend such a course.

Food shortages and vegetable gardens

I read with concern an article in today's StarTribune "Land O'Lakes makes case for more food".  It seems food scarcity and a corresponding rise in food prices have moved 44 million people in developing nations into poverty since June.

While most of us can't seemingly do much about the rise in the world's population or global climate change that is impacting farmers ability to keep up with demand, there are some things we might consider. Here in the US Victory Gardens were popular during World Wars I & II, in order to ease pressure on food production.  Why not encourage this once again?  First Lady Michele Obama is setting a great example by growing a vegetable garden at the White House.  Seems we  have lots of grass growing in yards around this country that would be great  for vegetables.  It is depressing to think the long journey most of the vegetables we purchase at the store have taken to get to our homes.

I was excited about getting a jump on the late growing season here in Minnesota by making a cold frame.  Just after I constructed the cold frame yesterday morning, entirely out of reused materials, the large glass pane of the shower door broke.  This occurred after the screws holding down the door's handle gave way.  I will likely be in the market for some Plexiglas to fix this problem.

We're also well underway planning a garden at our church with a local 4-H group.  I'm responsible for leading up the garden fence construction.