Two days ago, we had just finished brunch and pod meeting where, in a light-hearted manner, we brainstormed on the amazing new ventures we’re planning. One hour later, this! Gabby grabbed them in slow motion. YES! What does the dragonfly symbolize?
Video by yours truly. Feel free to subscribe to my Youtube channel for coming attractions! Originally posted at Green Acres Village: DRAGONFLY INFUSION!
This past Monday’s work day was a short one but a lot of mulching was accomplished on the corner of DeKist and Overhill. Ann got started early while many of us were still getting our shoes on! It was a humid August morning, though unusually cool.
Read more: Monday Work Party, August 12 [Photo set] — Green Acres Permaculture Village
Outdoor kitchen area before the work party
Outdoor kitchen after
After a month’s hiatus, we came back, and with a vengeance, showing off our new outdoor kitchen! Here it is, ready for our second August community dinner this Thursday, two days hence. Notice the cloth covers — over the dishes and silverware, which we can now leave outside, with folks cleaning their own dishes immediately
via Green Acres Village, August 8, second post: COMMUNITY DINNERS RECONVENE
More and more, our one to two hour Monday and Thursday morning work parties focus on accomplishing a single task, quickly and efficiently, with Charisse (Rebecca) in the lead, both deciding the project and directing the process.
More: Green Acres Village: Thursday, August 8, first of two posts: OUTDOOR KITCHEN WORK PARTY
Iran Sends Diplomatic Signals
Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Javad Zarif, respectively Iran’s president and foreign minister, both signaled last week that Tehran is open to new talks under certain conditions. On the U.S. side, Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did roughly the same. “We are not looking for regime change. We are not looking for that at all,” Trump said Tuesday. “We’ll see what happens. But a lot of progress has been made.”
Two days after those remarks, Politico reported that Trump had accepted Sen. Rand Paul’s proposal, advanced during a round of golf the previous weekend, to represent the White House in talks with Iranian officials. The Kentucky senator is noted for his vigorous opposition to military adventures — a position in keeping with the president’s ostensible views. It is not clear who Paul might meet, or where and when any such encounter could take place. But Trump’s decision to accept Paul as his emissary is a savvy move to circumvent the hawks among his foreign policy advisers, chief among them National Security Advisor John Bolton, who has in the past called for regime change in Iran.
Bolton, often (but not always) with Pompeo’s support, has pressed for a highly confrontational Iran policy since he joined the administration last year. It now emerges that he played a leading role in conjuring the Gibraltar incident out of thin air, effectively using Britain as an unwitting tool to advance his hyper-hawkish Iran agenda.
The marked drift toward diplomacy last week represents an important, potentially decisive setback for Bolton and the White House’s hawkish factions. Washington’s hawks sustained another blow Saturday, when The New York Times published the astonishing remarks of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s former fire-breathing, often objectionable president who preceded Hassan Rouhani. “He is a businessman and therefore he is capable of calculating cost-benefits and making a decision,” the hardline Ahmadinejad said of Trump in an hour-long telephone interview with the Times. “We say to him, let’s calculate the long-term cost-benefit of our two nations and not be shortsighted.”
Read more: PATRICK LAWRENCE: Brighter US-Iran Prospects – Consortiumnews
