Saffron

 "There is no success like failure and failure is no success at all"

                                                                                Bob Dylan

The job of a bureaucrat is to take the laws and rules of government and implement them and put them into practice. A recent survey of some of the richest people in the world had this to say about Bureaucracy:

 "bureaucracy saps initiative, inhibits risk taking, and crushes creativity. It’s a tax on human achievement"

It's interesting to note that bueauracracy is more than just a hard word to spell. It is the system on which our government is built. Mountains of paperwork keep rows and rows of workers employed often in flourescent bathed, basement cubicles in thought suppressing brownish/beige color tones.  It's a system that self perpetuates like the mythical Ouroboros eating it's own tail. Some people flourish in this land of stacks of papers, statutes and legal interpretations. I tend to find it is the crusher of creativity and innovation. 

 I was listening to a recent radio piece on the transfer of power to the Taliban government in Afghanistan and it's effects on the Saffron production which has been an agricultural staple in the region for eons. The government instability, threats to women that work in the industry, violence and general chaos that came with the government transfer left the farmers with no market to sell the harvest, even if they were able to get it out of the fields. The Taliban, while chaotic, and obviously unpopular still very much rule through a bureaucratic system, where religious laws, taboos and oppressive systems are imposed via violence. Many of the farmers who were growing the worlds most expensive spice are thought to be likely to turn back to opium poppy's to make a living. 

Saffron Group Crocus cartwrightianus
In the Rock Garden at illahe

The tale of two different governments listed above is a statement of failure. One is failing to represent the people, oppressing certain people groups and ruling through violence. The other system in which we operate is one that has become an unmovable monster, like Jabba the Hut, or the poor mother in What's Eating Gilbert Grape. The latter fails to react to changes in the climate, the socio economic patterns of it's inhabitants and is generally failing to represent the greatest whole of society which supports its existence. 

A fantastic specimen of C. thomasii blooming in the front driveway border

Do we need buearacracy? I suppose at some level we do. I have always found the libertarians to come across as unbelievably insane to think that system without government could work in a civilized society. The thought that the common person will care for any other common person who cannot care for themselves is simply not the case. Walk around any downtown Metropolitan area and look at the homeless situation to realize that Libertarian lack of rules and orders, laws and safety nets would only excacerbate the already out of control situation in which the weakest members of society are left behind. 

No, we need some government in our lives. But we need to change it so that it can adapt and react with the times. Even down at the lowest local level most government cannot react to the changes that Global Climate Change, Global Pandemics and Global Billionaire Monopolies have created that are affecting the day to day lives of those who operate at the middle of the Ourobous, those that are not the head nor the tail, those that simply keep existng to try to make it while they slip closer to the tail and the head continues to swallow up those at the very end of the line. Government buearucrats continue to move like a sloth running from a wildfire, adaptive management is a word that is thrown around, but the evolution of the system of governing has moved at a pace slower than Darwin could have imagined with those finches. The time for change was 20, 40, 100 years ago, any bureaucratic slowing of the process by which we may avoid burning to death on this simmering tinder keg of a planet is pushing the entire planet closer to the end. 

A few crocus left blooming now as the dampness of Octobers grey sky's has saturated the farm at illahe. Next up is a comparison of some of the fun little oxalis i've been collecting for a bit now. 

Oh and Happy Halloween! 
While it was strange to not have the kiddo around for our legendary autumn festival
The friends and family showed up to carve the occasion into orange gourds.

Cheers, 

Mark