Saturday, April 30, 2011

An Early Morning Trip to the Zoo

0 comments

Today is one of my favorite days of spring, the Zoo Atlanta Plant Sale. Every spring for the past four or five years, Mr. Man and I get up and out the door to be there at 8am. The plants are healthy, varied, and inexpensive.

We are working on some of the beds in the backyard and quickly filled up our wagon and several trays with Foxgloves, Hostas, Foamflowers, Peruvian lilies, and Coral Bells. We were home by 8:30am and quickly plotted out were each would go, and after breakfast I began digging.

Before
After: Foxgloves, Tiramisu Coral Bells, Caramel
Coral Bells & 'Dark Star' Foamflower

Before
After: Hosta 'June', Tiramisu Coral Bells, Caramel
Coral Bells & 'Dark Star' Foamflower


Sunday, April 24, 2011

Making Room for Tomatoes

0 comments

The front yard has begun its metamorphosis. Ligustrum and holly bushes have been removed and loropetalums transplanted; I love the purple color of this low maintenance shrub. I allow mine to grow freely as I find their natural growth pattern a better fit to the casual feel of my front garden, but it can pruned into a hedge for a more formal look.



Cypress, knockout roses, smoke tree & rosemary
The rosemary benefited from a much needed pruning, although it is hard to tell it’s still so big. The sky pencil holly—the only one of three to survive—has been moved to a pot on the steps and the knock-out roses have been transplanted to the side of the porch. I hated doing such a hard pruning as they were in beautiful bloom, but it’s necessary for a healthy comeback. They cypresses are gone as well and now all’s that’s left to do is amend the soil and plant tomatoes!

Transplanted knock-out roses
New space for tomatoes
Former location of Loropetalums
Truthfully, there are a couple of other things to move but only for aesthetics and balance, and that can wait until later this summer. We also planted lavender along the front walk and creeping time in the front beds.  If I’m successful in having a tree removed, there will be some hosta, ferns, and coral bells that will want to make their way to the back garden as well; making room for cucumber trellises.

Jamie and Michael fromt he co-op drove to Tennessee a couple weeks ago to a Mennonite farm to buy transplants and picked up a few heirloom variety tomato plants for me. I picked up a few more at Farmer D’s yesterday—Cherokee Purples and Brandy Wines—along with 10 bags for beautifully composted garden soil. All this rearranging gives me room for 10 tomato plants among the roses, herbs and flowers in the front yard. I can't wait.

The garden is a long way from where it was 13 years ago when we moved into this house…guess I’ll never really be done with it.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Where Did America's Money Go?

1 comments

Where did America’s money go? Let me just state right off the bat that it wasn’t to healthcare, education, children’s health insurance, Planned Parenthood, or any of the other so-called “entitlement” programs the GOP is raping and pillaging as part of their “stop spending” agenda.  America’s money has disappeared into the pockets of major corporations in the form of tax breaks, rebates and refunds.

Top Ten Worst Tax Evaders
from Senator Bernie Sanders
1) Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings. (Source: Exxon Mobil's 2009 shareholder report filed with the SEC here.)

2) Bank of America received a $1.9 billion tax refund from the IRS last year, although it made $4.4 billion in profits and received a bailout from the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department of nearly $1 trillion. (Source: Forbes.com here, ProPublica here and Treasury here.)

3) Over the past five years, while General Electric made $26 billion in profits in the United States, it received a $4.1 billion refund from the IRS. (Source: Citizens for Tax Justice here and The New York Times here. Note: despite rumors to the contrary, the Times has stood by its story.)

4) Chevron received a $19 million refund from the IRS last year after it made $10 billion in profits in 2009. (Source: See 2009 Chevron annual report here. Note 15 on page FS-46 of this report shows a U.S. federal income tax liability of $128 million, but that it was able to defer $147 million for a U.S. federal income tax liability of $-19 million)

5) Boeing, which received a $30 billion contract from the Pentagon to build 179 airborne tankers, got a $124 million refund from the IRS last year. . (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here and Citizens for Tax Justice here.)

6) Valero Energy, the 25th largest company in America with $68 billion in sales last year received a $157 million tax refund check from the IRS and, over the past three years, it received a $134 million tax break from the oil and gas manufacturing tax deduction. (Source: the company's 2009 annual report, pg. 112, here.)

7) Goldman Sachs in 2008 only paid 1.1 percent of its income in taxes even though it earned a profit of $2.3 billion and received an almost $800 billion from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury Department. (Source: Bloomberg News here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

8) Citigroup last year made more than $4 billion in profits but paid no federal income taxes. It received a $2.5 trillion bailout from the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury. (Source: Paul Buchheit, professor, DePaul University, here, ProPublica here, Treasury Department here.)

9) ConocoPhillips, the fifth largest oil company in the United States, made $16 billion in profits from 2006 through 2009, but received $451 million in tax breaks through the oil and gas manufacturing deduction. (Sources: Profits can be found here. The deduction can be found on the company's 2010 SEC 10-K report to shareholders on 2009 finances, pg. 127, here)

10) Over the past five years, Carnival Cruise Lines made more than $11 billion in profits, but its federal income tax rate during those years was just 1.1 percent. (Source: The New York Times here)

Now let’s imagine these tax evaders actually paid the current corporate tax rates, which according to Wikipedia are:

Taxable Income ($)
Tax Rate
0 to 50,00015%
50,000 to 75,00015%
75,000 to 100,000$13,750 + 34% Of the amount over 75,000
100,000 to 335,000$22,250 + 39% Of the amount over 100,000
335,000 to 10,000,000$113,900 + 34% Of the amount over 335,000
10,000,000 to 15,000,000$3,400,000 + 35% Of the amount over 10,000,000
15,000,000 to 18,333,333$5,150,000 + 38% Of the amount over 15,000,000
18,333,333 and up35%
           This rate structure produces a flat 34% tax rate on incomes from $335,000 to $10,000,000, gradually
           
increasing to a flat rate of 35% on incomes above $18,333,333.

And, add back all those undeserved rebates and refunds…

Corporation
Taxable Income/Profit ($)
Tax ($)
Rebate/Refund ($)
Total ($)
Exxon Mobil19,000,000,0006,650,000,000156,000,0006,806,000,000
Bank of America4,400,000,0001,540,000,0001,900,000,0003,440,000,000
General Electric26,000,000,0009,100,000,0004,100,000,00013,200,000,000
Chevron10,000,000,0003,500,000,00010,000,0003,510,000,000
Boeing*750,000,000262,500,000124,000,000 386,500,000
Valero Energy*1,700,000,000595,000,000157,000,000 + 134,000,000886,000,000
Goldman Sachs2,300,000,000 805,000,000805,000,000
Citigroup4,000,000,000 1,400,000,0001,400,000,000
CononcoPhillips16,000,000,000 5,600,000,000451,000,0006,051,000,000
Carnival Cruise Lines11,000,000,000 6,650,000,0003,850,000,000
Total40,334,500,000
*this is a little hard because I’m not sure what the taxable income would be on Boeing’s $30 Billion and Valero’s $68 Billion, so I’m calculating 25% of each of those numbers as profit.

That’s over 40 Billion dollars!! $40 Billion!!

This figure doesn’t even include repayment on the $800 Billion the Federal Reserve and U.S. Treasury gave to Goldman Sachs, the $2.5 Trillion they gave to Citigroup or the nearly $1 Trillion they gave to Bank of America. If these companies paid just 1% interest on those loans we’d be adding another $8 Billion, $25 Billion and $1 Billion respectively, bringing the total to more than $74 Billion toward paying down our national debt. So, why we are cutting much needed funding from the elderly and the poor while these corporations and their shareholders make money hand over fist and don’t pay their fair share?

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Journey Ahead

0 comments

Mr. Man and I had a great time at the GAWL Charity Auction, which was held at Art Space International, an artist community (maybe one day I too will be able to afford studio space outside the home) and event space located on Huff Road.

Georgia Clay
Georgia Clay didn’t sell, but I didn’t take it too personally; there were lots of beautiful paintings that didn’t.  I talked with a young woman later in the evening who told me she loved the piece but couldn’t afford it, so that gave me some comfort. 

It was great to walk around and view the work of so many talented artists—I felt honored just to have one of my pieces included.  And we bid on (so much fun!) and purchased an absolutely stunning piece by Georgia artist Victoria Jackson.

Journey Ahead

Friday, April 15, 2011

No Dreams, No Hope

0 comments

How does a Corporatist country maintain control over the people they exploit?
  • They take away their education; $35 Billion cut from Pell Grants over the next 10 years
  • They take away their homes; $605 Million cut from Public Housing
  • They take away their protection; $296 Million cut from local law enforcement funding
  • They take away their access to healthcare; $600 Million cut from community health centers and $3.5 Billion cut from children’s health insurance
  • They take away their ability to feed their families; $500 Million cut from Women, Infant and Children funding
  • They take away their mobility; $1 Billion cut from public transportation
No education, no jobs, no housing...
No food, no healthcare, no protection..
No dreams, no hope...

This doesn’t sound like my country: the proud, just America of my childhood, the America of possibilities of my parents and grandparents, but sadly, it is.


Monday, April 11, 2011

Jethro

1 comments

Jethro
I’m finding much to inspire me during my days at Wolfscratch Farm, especially the roosters. They are beautiful creatures with all their plumage and strutting around. This is Jethro (a Black Ameraucana) who, when the sun shines on him, has a teal sheen to his feathers.  He guards over several hens and is stunning to look at.  I took a little liberty with the colors; the painting looks much better in person, I couldn’t quite get the lighting right.  One of these days I have to invest in some good lights.

http://www.kellyenzor.com/

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Whose Idea Was This Anyway?

0 comments


In preparation for a (hopefully) final spring frost we built hoop houses over the raised beds today at Wolfscratch; where tender lettuces are planted, and arugula and spinach are just beginning to sprout. It was really windy and it took us some time to wrangle the large pieces of plastic into place.  We tried a couple different methods of securing the plastic—we didn’t want to use stakes which would mean punching holes in the lightweight plastic and risk tearing. The first idea was to roll the extra plastic along the sides of the beds around bamboo, which was then to be secured with u-shaped garden stakes. Unfortunately, the first piece of plastic didn’t really have much extra, so we wound up using large pieces of cut wood. This worked well, and we managed to get a few beds done before deciding to give the bamboo another try.

Between the three of us we were able to get a pretty tight roll around the bamboo, but unfortunately the ground was soggy from all the rain and the stakes couldn’t get a strong hold.  We needed bigger stakes, which, luckily, Jamie happened to have on hand.  Then came the idea to use old hose in place of the bamboo as it is smaller and can be more easily staked.  A good idea in theory.  We got two beds done before we realized that the hose was a little too flexible and made getting a tight roll impossible.  These were the only ones to come undone during a good gust of wind.  By this time we were tired of doing and redoing, so we supported the hose with the wood we were using in the beginning.  Oh well, trial and error right?