That would make for an EXCELLENT Democratic primary! Put all of them on an island and have contests in log rolling, standing and talking for hours, bug eating, etc., and whoever wins is the nominee.

Also, have 50% of the ad revenues go directly to the victor's campaign. I'd watch that.

 

Personally, I'd like to see Bernie walking around naked saying, "my pants were a tool of Capitalist oppression".

 

Ocasio-Cortes didn't think the last bizarre thing she said was sufficient, so she decided to quadruple down and say that planting cauliflower in NY gardens is "colonial", a.k.a. racist. She also uses that as a reason "people of color" don't use public gardens and thinks they would if they could plant Yucca plants instead. New Yorkers must be an aggressively provincial bunch if they refuse to let people plant yucca in public gardens. Most places let people pretty much plant what they want.

Pretty bizarre. Actually, IMO the reason people don't plant Yucca in NY City is that it would freeze in the winter and never yield a good crop. Yuccas like warm weather and dry soil, at least judging from the fact there natural habitat seems to be the Southwest of the country and Central America, not the cold and wet of the Northeast. Good luck getting a plant that generally grows in zone 8 or 9 to grow in zone 4 or 5!

As an aside, one time I read of a cold weather banana that was supposed to be able to withstand a Midwest winter. I was so happy that I bought one as a test, and in the summer the thing grew like crazy despite the claylike soil. I was so disappointed when it died the first winter. Some things can handle cold, and some can't.

As a comparison to yucca, cauliflower can tolerate up to zone 3, which should mean it grows well in zone 5, which is probably why New Yorkers plant it.

LOL, I don't really get the whole "colonial" bit. Is it that Cauliflower is white and is therefore being colonial by displacing the green yucca? Is that the problem? It's funny how this type of thing can be viewed in different ways. Another way you could look at it is that people who eat foods primarily grown in warm climate are the ones being colonial in taking over the habitat of people who eat cauliflower and bringing their yucca with them, and if they would leave zone 5 and go back to zone 8 there wouldn't be a cauliflower/yucca issue.

"
“What I love too is growing plants that are culturally familiar to the community. It’s so important,” she said as she filmed a community garden in the Bronx.

“So that’s really how you do it right. That is such a core component of the Green New Deal is having all of these projects make sense in a cultural context, and it’s an area that we get the most pushback on because people say, ‘Why do you need to do that? That’s too hard.’”

She went on to add that growing cauliflower in such gardens is a “colonial approach” and the reason communities of color oppose environmentalist movements.

“But when you really think about it -- when someone says that it’s ‘too hard’ to do a green space that grows Yucca instead of, I don’t know, cauliflower or something -- what you’re doing is you’re taking a colonial approach to environmentalism,” Ocasio-Cortez said.

“That is why a lot of communities of color get resistant to certain environmentalist movements because they come with the colonial lens on them.”"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/ocasio-cortez-growing-cauliflower-colonial

 

LOL, you're right, Cauliflower is an annual, so you wouldn't have to worry about it surviving the winter. Let's put it this way then, a yucca that likes to grow in hot, dry, sandy climates won't do well in New York, and a vegetable that likes frequent watering and cooler climates won't like the Yucca's natural environment. Not that you couldn't force them to live in each other's climate, but you'd have to work at it.

 

I wouldn't mind some college debt repayment for new graduates if the payments were limited to STEM graduates. We could use more tech people, and IMO shouldn't be sponsoring Ph.D.s in contemplative basketweaving.

 

So my next-day general impressions of the candidates after the first Democratic debate:

Warren: Smart but angry
Booker: That intense stare is too much. Plus, quit trying to sound like you are from the hood. You were more privileged than most people in the world.
Klobuchar: Most likely to be responsible in office, but too much of a control freak. Understandable with an alcoholic father, but...
deBlasio: Citizens are leaving NY at record rates. Your infrastructure is failing. You want to make the country like that?
Beto: You can speak Spanish. Good for you. Now try answering a question for once.
Castro: Not bad. See how he holds up. Took Beto to school.
Gabbard: I came away liking her. Seems tough enough. We'll see.
Inslee: Wants to make sure, really sure, you can kill your child
Delaney: Who?
Ryan: Who?

 

Not that I heard unless I missed that part. Beto started out in his opening question answering at least 50% of his response in Spanish, which might have been great for the Spanish speakers listening, but didn't do much for everyone else. Booker answered a later question in Spanish himself.

Beto is the one who really made an impression - IMO a BAD impression by leading off speaking a language that most people in the U.S. don't speak well enough to debate politics in.