The Nature of Nature...and other stuff

An article worth reading....if you are puzzled by the anti-intellectualism of Santorum

2012-03-01T17:42:00.002-05:00

"What really aggrieves right wing conservatives is that professors of "The Liberal Arts" actually teach the "liberal" arts and so promote a way of looking at the world in which "truth" is derived through research and reason rather than by mindless adherence to the ancient scribblings of some book.

The gripe that conservatives like Rick Santorum have against higher education, in short, is not that liberally-biased faculties are forcing their students to think like Democrats. Their real complaint is that college professors are teaching students to think for themselves."

This is an excerpt from an article on Salon.com by Alex Pareen. It is a very clear explanation of how the far right conservative element got to the point where having an education, learning to think, has become a liability.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/29/rick_santorum_liberal_penn_state_punished_me_for_being_conservative/

The Awareness of Nature...is not ours alone

2012-03-01T12:00:00.000-05:00

Well, I was back at Portland Head, which is also the location of Portland Head Light, a magnificent lighthouse that was built when George Washington was president. And, this time I had my Nikon spotting scope with me. This optic is tripod mounted and offers magnification from 15x to 45x. In other terms, it is up to 4.5 times as powerful as my binoculars and needs to be on a tripod because at the higher magnifications it would be just too shaky to be useful.

I set up the scope and was looking at a sizeable flock of Common Eiders that were working their way along the rocky outcropping that forms the shore of most of Maine, in fact. I glanced a bird in the small cove just below me and saw that it had a lot of white but was certainly not an Eider. So, I moved the scope and when I finally got on this duck, I saw a stunning creature. His eye was bright yellow, placed on a smashingly irridescent green head, with a large white spot on his cheek. I knew it was a Goldeneye, but without a birdbook in hand, I guessed it was a Barrow's Goldeneye, and didn't realize I was wrong until I got home and looked him up. It was indeed a Common Goldeneye.
But, despite a name that would lead one to believe this duck is like some kind of Mallard or the ubiquitous Black Ducks we have all over this region, this little duck is far from ordinary. He's another example of how amazingly Nature can design a creature. See the photo to know what I am saying; he's just a jewel with feathers and a truly golden pair of eyes.

When I come across another reminder of how Nature combines color, design and an overall package that works so perfectly, it often makes me wonder about the reason that Beauty is so consistent in the natural world. I have no idea that the birds and flowers, the clouds and waves, the light phenomena, and Nature in its entirety were created by chance. Nor do I sense that an anthropomorphized deity created all of this for our amusement or benefit in any way. Nature--all of it--has evolved over the millions of years since this planet was a hot roiling mass of elements careening through space, because it has self-selected the qualities that it needed to continue the process of 'becoming'. Each species--in whatever kingdom--has continually refined and evolved as it needed to in order to persist.

But, the real take-away from this scientific reality, is that Beauty is an integral part of the entire process. It's not here for us...most certainly not....although there have clearly been legions of humans who have erroneously assumed that Nature is only here for us to use and to amuse us. This is an unattractive artifact of the human ego, but it's been given a great assist along the way by the anthropocentric aspect of much religion too. A male Goldeneye--or name your species of bird--became the stunning creature who now represents his species as a way of attracting a mate. It needed to be ever more appealing in order for the species to propagate.

What this is telling us, is that birds, and a plethora of other species.....RECOGNIZE BEAUTY. A particular bird of paradise from Papua New Guinea--it could easily be argued--is perhaps the most over-the-top beautiful creature on the planet. When I saw such a bird on video, it almost took my breath away. And then this 'bird-brain' put on a mating display that had me totally and utterly GOB-SMACKED. And, it was indisputably all done to attract a female of his species.

So, what I am coming to here is this: we are not the only species on this planet that is aware. If a simple duck or warbler can recognize beauty and respond to it, whose to say it cannot also respond to other forms of beauty in its environment. We insist on holding ourselves up as so vastly superior, that we must be the focal point of all the natural world. Well, the times are sending us the contemporary version of the same message that has been coming for several millennia now: we are not doing a very good job of being the 'smartest and only self-aware' beings on Earth.

In fact, we pretty much suck at it. We are creating almost all of our own problems by means of our own arrogance, selfishness and stupidity. Perhaps it's time we backed-off a little on the idea that God put us in charge and gave us permission to fuck everything up if we wanted to. Doesn't that sound like a teenager who has burned down the house because he wanted to have a fire in the livingroom?

Meet the new Old Squaw, the Long-tailed Duck

2012-02-20T08:57:00.001-05:00

I have been a passionate, if not methodical, birdwatcher since childhood. This very likely is an inherited trait, because my father and his father before him have all been likewise fascinated by our feathered friends.

I recall my father with his arm and forefinger extended, excitedly whispering, "Look, an Indigo Bunting!", as if he'd just spotted an African lion in the New Jersey woods. My grandfather had a collection of birds' eggs so exquisite that it was given to a university after his passing in the early 80s. But, among all the vast variety of beautiful birds that are around us....ducks have always been special some how. If asked why that is true for me, I usually explain that they are rather the ne plus ultra of the bird world: they are among the strongest fliers (Blue-winged Teal can do 90 mph in level flight), they swim, they have an astonishing array of plumage designs.....and they 'QUACK', at least many of them do. The sound of a flock of ducks at rest is enough to make me smile: "...quack, quack, quaaaaack" like a bunch of seniors at a bingo game.

There are, however, a few ducks that I consider to be even more extraordinary than their peers. One is the Wood Duck, with plumage so stunning that it hardly seems possible that it's real. Another is the Harlequin, also an absolute masterpiece of duck-design. But, yesterday, I saw a small flock of a species that I have seen only twice in the previous 33 years: the Old Squaw. Apparently, however, some birders in positions of influence felt that name was too politically incorrect and offensive to persist, so the Old Squaw has been re-named the Long-tailed Duck. Okay, I get it. Birders are not the kind of people who want to offend others. Fine, but, I wish they were also a little more imaginative and creative. I mean, "Long-tailed", just doesn't sound like much, no big deal. And then you see the actual duck!! Designed in perfectly harmonious shades of grey and brown, with white and black accents....and with a jaunty curled-up tail of pin-feathers that looks like they belong on a British royal's hat. Surely, such a magnificent bird deserves a more august, more inspiring name than one that simply states the obvious. Maybe such beauty is just that which is beyond description....so, they just settled for gross under-statement.

I do not really care. But, I can tell you that when my binos took in the sight of eight of these stunning creatures bobbing gently just off the rocks of Portland Head, I felt a rush of joy that only the sheer power of Beauty, yes, with a capital 'B', can bring about.

And, here's a Harlequin...just so you can see for yourself what makes me stretch for superlative adjectives when I try to describe such amazing creatures.

My thanks to Kevin T. Karlson, who is one of the best duck photographers out there, in Cape May NJ.

Dear Anonymous.....

2012-02-18T08:06:00.004-05:00

This is addressed to the people who think they should be able to share their opinion as if it were a muffled voice, coming from behind a curtain. I am only rarely--as in once to date--willing to publish a comment that is being offered by a person who is either too scared or unwilling to assume responsibility for what they are saying.

I did post one such comment recently because the person wanted to share a resource that could be of value to readers.

For the most part, however, if you can't stand behind what you are saying, it probably isn't worth saying.

One such comment came just the other day, in the form of a rather pointed question: Are you saying that the hordes of people won't be coming out of the cities looking for what we have? That's a paraphrase, but the essence is accurate.

Answer: No. But, the question in response to this possibility is, how are we going to behave as a nation of people? If we are now working on mentally preparing ourselves to regard people who have been caught-up in a disaster as 'zombies', i.e. 'other', and are girding our loins to be able to shoot large numbers of them, thereby increasing the chances of our own survival...then we are a nation of people who have lost our way.

There is an alternative, but the people who are getting ready for the Great Zombie Invasion don't want to hear about it. Last summer in Vermont, as a result of the hurricane, turned tropical storm, that came up the east coast, entire towns were flooded and some were completely cut-off as bridges were destroyed. It was a dire situation. No, it wasn't Katrina, but, for the people caught up in it, it was every bit as serious. And, in their intrepid yankee way, Vermonters responded to it by pulling together. I saw one t-v interview with a woman who had lost absolutely everything. Her most notable comment was: "We're going to be okay because we have each other."

If indeed we are, at some point, going to have a situation in which very large numbers of people are put at risk, if we eventually do face a breakdown of the logistical supply system, and people are going to go hungry, we will be forced to decide WHO WE REALLY ARE. And, if the answer to that is that we're not much better than a pack of wild animals who are willing to kill our fellow Americans...all the while pretending that they are not really even human beings....then we are also going to be confronted with the realization that we're a far cry from being the nation of courageous, hard-working, inventive, NOBLE and compassionate people that we have been imagining we are all these generations.

We will be just one step this side of being inhuman ourselves...and, at this moment, I just am not at all sure that I would be willing to struggle to survive so that I can live in such a place. There was a time when I felt en-nobled by being an American. I was willing to die for this country and the ideals it represents, and I put my ass on the line to back that sentiment up: three years in the infantry.

Now, I am looking around and I am hearing the din of selfish people figuring out how to be selfish in ways that are positively nightmarish, not merely lacking in compassion or a willingness to sacrifice for others, but so utterly devoid of humanism that embracing becoming a human predator is now somehow justified.

Sooner or later.....we WILL BE TESTED. And, if this is our response, if survival depends on being the baddest s.o.b., with a willingness to kill anybody we feel threatened by, we will have become that which we have traditionally eschewed and rejected: a nation of hateful and selfish people who care only about our own well-being.

Sucks, if you ask me.

Big Oil's to die for profits......but, you're the one doing the dying

2012-02-08T10:59:00.006-05:00

If you click on the above title you will be taken to an article by Bill McKibben--originally posted on TomDispatch, now re-presented on Salon.com--that spells out in very accessible terms the roots of climate change denial and why Big Oil is funding it so lavishly.

The future bottom-line is so potentially vast for them and their businesses are already so amazingly profitable that they are willing to destroy life as we know it on this planet. This is not radical rhetoric; it's the simple truth. Greed is perhaps the most powerful of all human motivators, and people--much less countries and corporations--have always been willing to commit murder when the possibility of financial gain is sufficiently tempting.

In this case it is the promise of profits that are wildly beyond most peoples' ability to even conceive of how much money is at stake. At present the big oil companies are already posting record profits. They are awash in money and have a vision that this will become ever more vast as time passes and the demand for oil continues to grow, even as the overall supply fades. McKibben points out that Big Oil is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to support the notion that global climate change is just a hoax...brought about by such kings of sleaze as THE INTERNATIONAL SCIENCE COMMUNITY. Mountains of undeniable data have been acumulated proving beyond any doubt whatsoever that climate change is not merely real, but that if it continues unabated....it will be a disaster of stunning, unimaginable proportions. But, that is anathema to Big Oil's plans to reap untold trillions of dollars as we move into the future. It seems oddly surreal to me, that they are so devoted to this financial goal that they have voluntarily blinded themselves to the fact that they will not have a future anymore than the rest of us if the plan to pump gigatons of carbon into the atmosphere continues as planned.

PLEASE READ THE ARTICLE.

BTW: Rick Santorum is now emerging as the latest Republican with 'The Big Mo" behind him. He has bragged that he's wiser and more qualified to lead this country because, after all, he spotted the global climate change hoax before Romney or any of the others. Wow!

More on the zombie invasion...

2012-02-02T08:34:00.005-05:00

As if it weren't enough that a major ammo maker is producing Zombie-Max ammunition....America's most respected maker of rifle-scopes, Leupold, is now offering a new scope, made especially for killing the already dead, formerly humans who are headed your way.

This little cutie--listing for almost $700--is no toy either. It's festooned with appointments in zombie green and has a zombie brain on the inside of one of the scope caps and a zombie head on the other end. It seems that the industry is having a ball marketing zombie items, all the while knowing full well that it is deadly serious underneath all the joking about mythical comic figures. I have no doubt that the sly marketing types who sit around conference tables in companies like Leupold and Hornady think the whole business is just another way to sell more products to shooters.

I also know that the target audience (okay, you caught me....it's a really bad pun) knows exactly what the 'zombie invasion' is....and that pretend ammo, and toy rifles are not going to be sufficient to repel it. Click on the title above to see a short video on a company rep at an industry show introducing this product.

What's with all the Zombie stuff?

2012-01-25T11:40:00.004-05:00

In the last year or so, Zombies have come up again and again. There was a television series called "The Walking Dead", a self-defense gun show about them, coyly presented with care to give the viewer the impression of it being 'tongue in cheek', and there is even a group on the web calling itself 'The Zombie Squad'. Turns out, they actually offer training to municipal governments, i.e. police departments, and to institutions or other groups. Training for what, you say? For when the Zombies arrive.

But, Zombies are just cartoon monsters, right? They are the 'un-dead', the 'walking dead', the not quite human anymore dead people who stalk the land, looking for living souls to feast on. They move sluggishly, drag their feet, look and smell like rotting flesh, are, in fact, in a state of nearly complete decomposition.........right?

Not so much, it turns out. The photo included here is of ammunition made by Hornady, one of the most respected ammo manufacturers in the business. So, if Zombies are just imaginary creatures from the Black Lagoon...then why is this deadly serious company--who's advertising slogan is "Accurate, Deadly, Dependable"--making real, live ammunition for killing the 'un-dead'? It says right on the box: "This is not a toy." That's Hornady's way of telling you that zombies aren't really a joke after all.

As you begin looking around the greater gun community online, you can drop-in on forums where people are discussing the right kind of weapons to have for SHTF--uh, that is Survivalist or Prepper speak for "Shit Hits the Fan"--and you will begin to realize that there are a large number of people who are very sure that we're on the verge of a descent into social unrest. Well, actually, 'unrest' is way too insipid to describe what they are anticipating. 'Chaos', and 'Armageddon' are much closer to the image they see of our future.

On some level, given the way the news media--especially our dear friends over at 'Fair and Balanced' Fox--portray the state of our society, it is understandable that people would be fearful of a bad outcome. There are times when my wife and I have wondered if we will come through all the challenges we face intact. There is the ever degrading environment, and the projections of what global climate change could mean. Then there is 'peak oil' and the specter of oil becoming so expensive that it initiates a world-wide financial collapse. The punditry is, by and large, telling us that the world's economy is teetering on the precipice of an abyss, lacking only one small shove to send it into complete collapse. Then there is the ever-present possibility of more bad behavior by terrorists and even terrorist states...with WMDs, quite possibly. Add to that the growing stratification of wealth and economic opportunity...an historic precursor to violent revolution throughout modern history. It appears that most of the world's major religions cannot even avoid causing conflict and have become a major source of hatred and violence. Religion used to be seen as a source of good guidance, 'wisdom', compassion, orderly and right conduct....not any more.

So, yes, it's no wonder that so many people are fearful of what the future holds. But, this whole 'zombie thing' has become almost a pre-occupation,...and here's the thing...it is NOT ABOUT mythical monsters. It is about people coming out of the cities of this country looking for food and shelter. The SHTF scenario includes the idea that there will be virtually hordes of people who were stupid enough and uninformed to the point that they failed to anticipate social breakdown. These people will be desperate and they will want what we, the wisely prepared, have.

"SO YOU WILL NEED TO BE PREPARED TO KILL THEM" now becomes an acceptable viewpoint, even without openly acknowledging that this is what is being unofficially 'authorized'. And, people accepting this shift in moral convention, are gently guided towards the understanding that they will very likely have to do so in great numbers. It seems that the whole zombie concept has become an unacknowledged euphemism for 'other', for 'the enemy', for people who will drag you down too if you are not willing to kill them. Furthermore, if you are so stupid as to think that you can help them, you will become just like them....exactly in the same way that if a zombie salivates on you, bites you, or breaks your skin, you will become a zombie too. How helpful, then, to be able to see them as less than human. How convenient it is to be able to relegate these souls to the status of 'other'. It was exactly that shift in Germany that paved the way to the Holocaust. Jews became sub-human others....so much easier to accept a policy of extermination then.

"Prepper" is a term that you may have not heard. It is referring to the ever growing number of people who are devoting a great deal of their financial and physical energy to preparing for the big SHTF scenario. Many 'preppers' have formed rural communities, most not much bigger than a few families, and have purchased homes in the country that they have worked to 'harden' and to sustain them as society collapses around them. There is a new series on Nat Geo t-v in February called, "Doomsday Preppers". [ click on the title above to see a YouTube preview of the first part of this series.] If you make the time to watch it, I believe what I am saying here will sink in to the point of your sitting there mumbling to yourself, "Holy shit. These people are serious." You might even question their viewpoint and their sanity.

But, you will not question that they are out there, all across the land, and they are getting ready for the zombie attack that is inevitable in their eyes.

We Hold These Truths......

2011-11-19T08:30:00.002-05:00

ONE: A tiny fraction of our population owns and controls a vastly disproportionate amount of the total wealth in this country...and globally.

TWO: They have gained this wealth not by productive means, nor by making any beneficial contribution to our society, but by learning to 'game' the financial system through immoral means and strategies that have wrecked havoc on the world economy and inestimable pain on the population at large.

THREE: They are using their massive financial power to buy influence and to control the political balance in order to manipulate the democratic system for their own purposes, rendering it a sham democracy.

FOUR: Their concern for the welfare of the country and population at large is only that it be maintained in a passive state so that they can continue to plunder the wealth of the middle and working classes.

FIVE: The pain and suffering caused by loss of homes, loss of employment and loss of the means to thrive on all levels....is not their concern, DESPITE THE FACT THAT THEY HAVE CAUSED IT. Compassion is not a value they hold or respect, on any level. There is no evidence that they feel any responsibility--nor even a shred of regret-- for the economic devastation they have caused.

SIX: Fairness, any concept of what is 'just', and any idea that a society is only as developed as its most disadvantaged segments....are considerations only for the weak. The strong do not need to consider anything but their own ascendency. The weak are destined to suffer. This is the "...sucks to be you" doctrine.

SEVEN: The looter elite consider their ability to manipulate the financial system no different than their ability to control the political system. Both are the privilege of the strong and the powerful. Democracy is not an ideal, but simply a system by which the vast majority will be controlled and placated...so they can be productive and be taken advantage of.

EIGHT: By owning the means of controlling the political system, the looter elite also holds the means of directing power against their opponents. Not only do the politicians work for them, so too the police, even the military and a powerful propaganda machine, which assures their ability to continue looting and to put down all significant opposition...with violence when necessary.

NINE: The compensation of executives is vastly out of the range of normal compensation for executives around the rest of the world, sitting at approximately 450 to 1. In other words a CEO is being typically paid FOUR HUNDRED AND FIFTY TIMES AS MUCH AS ONE OF HIS EMPLOYEES. This is an historical anomaly and has no precedent in modern times.

If you do not believe that all of the above statements are true.....you have been manipulated too. Look around you; this is exactly what is happening, and the next time you hear a bought and paid for pundit or politician say that the 99% doesn't know what it is pissed-off about, or what it wants......come back and read this list.

A Penn State alumnus speaks

2011-11-10T16:17:00.003-05:00

When I got out of the army in 1967, I began matriculating at The Pennsylvania State University that fall. I was delighted. My family's males had attended Princeton for generations, and I knew that my father was disappointed that I would not even apply. Having grown-up in Princeton, the town, I was intimately familiar with the halls of ivy, had haunted the campus as a 'townie' as a kid on my bicycle, been to countless Tiger football games and lived in a house where orange and black were even the color scheme for a bathroom. (Seems like a recipe for hemorrhoids, in retrospect.)

So, when it came time to apply to schools I already knew that Princeton and its endemic elitism was not on the list. As it turned out, I applied only to one college and was accepted. When I arrived at the Schuylkill Haven branch campus, I was not at all overwhelmed by either the size of it or the demands of it in a social sense. In fact, it felt like a good fit; I felt as if I had come home and knew it was where I belonged. After three quarters, I transferred to the main campus in State College, and that was an easy transition too. I relished having a course catalog the size of a small city's phone book. And, after three years in the infantry, I was dedicated to the idea of taking courses I wanted to take because I was excited about them, instead of taking them because it would lead to a career field. I studied art, in one medium or another, for my entire undergraduate time. I ended-up majoring in philosophy...not because I was fascinated by the incoherent blather of dead Germans trying to explain life by looking at it through the ponderous power of their intellects, but because I met a professor who understood that I was in search of meaning in my own life. And, this, he well knew, would not come from traditional studies, but through widely varied investigations of people like Eric Fromm--a former stevedore turned philosopher--who were devoted to the idea that philosophy needed to be, above all else, RELEVANT.

Under the kind tutelage of Dr. Ernst Hans Freund--a professor emeritus on the verge of retirement, who had as a young man escaped Nazi Germany and the death camps, where he would have ended-up due to being a Quaker--I read whatever Dr. Freund suggested as a likely place to find answers, and I met with him in his office once a week and supported what I had written in response to the most recent readings. It was a higher education in the true sense of searching for meaning and had a depth that just sopping up intellectual arguments and regurgitating salient aspects of them on exams could never touch. All the years since those days of wonder and introspection I have remained deeply grateful to Dr. Freund...and to Penn State for having the wisdom to give this jewel of a man a place from which to shine.

So, when I read the headlines and subsequent press about the scandal that has now devastated the university I felt sad on a very personal level....sad that something precious has been sullied, sad that there are victims of despicable predations, sad that what once seemed like a bastion of learning, both moral and academic, has now been damaged so severely that it will likely take at least a generation to repair it...if that is even possible.

As an undergrad I photographed Penn State football from the sidelines. I watched Joe Paterno in action. It was 1968 and he was yet to become the iconic JoPa, but it was apparent that he was a skilled and caring coach. I felt great pride that his players would receive an education rather than be scooted through a 'phys ed' program that would leave them still semi-literate as has been so often the case at other ultra-competitive universities. Football is important at Penn State, but Joe Paterno never let it become so blown out of perspective that his players were merely being used....often used up.

Apparently, somewhere along the path between then and now, however, something changed. Footbball became God at PSU, and the welfare of a ten year-old child would be considered as less important than a 'reputation' to protect. How this happened and what the mechanisms were that encouraged this descent into turpitude will be much studied and dissected in the next few years. The university is already sending out e-mail to alums saying, essentially, don't worry, we'll bounce back.

But, I will never again look up at the diploma hanging on the wall a few feet from where I am writing this and have quite the same feeling of pride that I did until just a few days ago. Honor is dying in this country. It has a few bastions where it is holding on for dear life...but, it's critically endangered all the same. And, another one of those bastions of Honor just crashed and burned.

You can put the crystal goblet back together...but, it will always have cracks.

Herman doesn't get it.....

2011-11-07T15:55:00.003-05:00

Herman Caine is fed-up with the 'nit picky' media. He's sick and tired of being asked about this sexual harassment non-issue. Move on. Let's get 'back on message'. He's dismissive to reporters who dare to raise it once again. He's just plain sick of it. But, what he's not getting is that it isn't going to go away just because he's ready for it to.

The fact is, if you are running for the office of President of the United States, you need to demonstrate that you have a lack of character issues that might prove deleterious to your ability to govern. If you are unable to do this, people are going to look elsewhere. We've pretty much had it up to here with politicians who suddenly reveal that they are sleazeball pieces of crap. Did I put that too mildly? We're sick of idiots and assholes who think they should hold public office. And, I believe we are about to enter a new period of moving towards sending same back to wherever they came from. Without stating it in a position paper, that is one of the underlying messages of the Occupy Movement: time to stop letting self-interested and greedy business and political figures run the show. Time to 'upgrade'....because it's just not working for more and more people.

So, Herman, if you are listening, you need to stop pushing back at the media, answer all the questions until we are either satisfied that you have been wronged or that you are a sleazeball who hits on women in the workplace. Claiming that the media want to destroy you, that YOU are the victim here, that all the allegations are false, that you can't remember....none of that is going to serve any purpose in convincing the voters who might consider you as a candidate that you are worthy of the office. You need to man-up and do whatever you must to set the doubts to rest. Anything short of that is just playing dodge ball.

But, all of this is raising another even more critical issue: what kind of leader would you be? Your method of pushing away criticism, your desire to ignore your detractors, to deny responsibility....all point to a person of arrogance. Herman, you have a great big ego and you are pretty sure that you can use it to accomplish whatever you want. This may be mistaken for spirited truculence on the part of some neo-cons....those who cheer at the thought of people with no insurance dying, and jeer at an active duty soldier who is gay,....you know, the crowd in the Coliseum who roar when a lion tears a slave to pieces, those people....the idiots and nabobs who think we can motor off into the future as if nobody but ourselves exists, who believe that they have theirs, and it sucks to be you, the Ayn Rand crowd.

Meanwhile, back in the Human Race, we are getting really worried about where all of this is headed. The fact that you, Herman, are the leading GOP candidate in polls, despite your possible malfeasance in the past, despite your arrogant and dismissive attitude.......now that is troubling.

Timing is everything....

2011-10-19T09:31:00.005-04:00

I recently met a remarkable person for the second time. John Howe is a retired engineer who lives with his wife, Deb, on a back road not far from here. I first met him a few years ago because I was out wandering with a camera and the field above the Howe's farm affords a stunning view. But, this chance meeting occurred at a cocktail party (yes, we have those here in the backwoods of Maine) the evening before a wedding.

As John and I talked, it became clear that he has a deep interest in not merely the affairs of the world, but in tracking such things as climate change, population growth, peak oil, and he is also working on various projects involving zero impact living. It is readily apparent to all who know John that he's Mensa bright, especially so in the realm of the left hemisphere and in the use of math and logic to investigate solutions to problems. He retired to a simple rural life-style after getting patents on such things as the first metal-composite ski (the famous Head 360), and was in on the beginning of carbon-fiber tennis racquet development. Now he works on things like solar tractors and cars. He's developed a 'threshing machine' that a person can use to separate grains from chaff on an individual level...as opposed to the industrial approach of agri-business.

John's approach to most problems is pretty much what any engineer would do: he crunches the numbers in an attempt to define the problem in quantifiable terms. This allows the various aspects of it to be understood better in relation to all the other elements. And, John, having been mystified by such questions as: "Why are we motoring off into the future as if we'll never run out of oil?" has crunched the numbers revealing how fast our global population is growing, how fast we are increasing the demand for oil, how food production is evolving in relation to the demands that are now and will be placed on it. He's very good at concretizing a set of problems that most of us simply look at and shake our heads. By translating such overwhelming numbers into understandable form, he has arrived at some conclusions--I suppose 'hypotheses' would be a better term--that are alarming.

At one point in our conversation, he looked at me with a sense of resignation and said, "I used to think it didn't matter what would happen...because I would be dead." He's 76 now (but he runs UP mountains for the fun of it) "But, now I know that I will be here.....because, we're right on the tipping point." And he just looked at me.

I might have found his conclusion more alarming except for the fact that my intuition has been telling me the same thing in as many ways as I can hear it. Everywhere I look, everything I read or see on t-v, seems to be conveying the same message: all the elements are in place for a collision with reality. People who have hope that things will come around, just sort of shape-up and return to what we had.....are about to be slapped rudely with a reality check. Our society is on the verge of sweeping and dramatic changes.

What form they will take remains a matter of conjecture. But, there are so many different factors coming to full maturity and effect, that anybody looking at it all from a reasonably objective overview must now acknowledge at least a sense of dread about the future. I delivered a sermon this past Sunday to the local Unitarian church....a wonderful congregation who is adventurous enough that they've had me come back multiple times. The nature of my sermon was essentially the same as what I am saying here, with the added dimension that seeking to create an active community of souls who are preparing is just a very timely and good idea right now.

I had wondered how this message would be received. Would I be seen as a kind of 'Chicken Little' bringer of doom, as inappropriately alarmist on some level. As it turned out, these good people were not only in complete agreement with my message, some of them were way ahead of me. It is now readily apparent to people across the various elements of our society that something is beginning to happen and that we need to prepare ourselves, both mentally and physically. Community, in the sense of a group that depends on each other, dedicated to the principle that we're all in the same life-boat here....is going to be central and vitally important.

So, you might want to look around your own locale for others who are also concerned, if not alarmed, and begin taking steps to organize an intelligent and compassionate response to what is looming on the horizon. Google: "Transition Communities" or "Transition Handbook" and see what is going on with that concept. Wiki has a section on it and it seems to be a much more enlightened response than all the people who are becoming so-called 'Preppers'. Survivalists have been around for decades; most of them are isolationists who have heavily armed themselves and are prepared to kill YOU....or anybody who interferes with their feeling that what is coming is going to be the great winnowing of the 'fittest', which in their minds translates into the most willing to commit violence.

'Community' is the key.

Feedback cycles...and why we need to know about them

2011-09-19T08:35:00.003-04:00

In various scientific areas of investigation researchers have long known that sometimes a chemical or even a mechanical interaction will accelerate rapidly of its own accord. Most often, this is the result of some element of the process becoming energized by an action or interaction within the process itself. Hence the term, 'feedback'. For instance, let's say a machine has a problem with harmonic vibration. This can happen in high-intensity engines with many parts moving at furious speeds in relationship to each other. So, a very high rpm shaft develops a vibration that has a harmonic aspect to it, and it sets up vibrations at other levels in addition to the simple one that is the source of the problem. And, as this process develops the secondary and tertiary vibrations begin to cause a break-down in the tolerances of the bearings and pretty soon the machine is vibrating so badly that it will likely tear itself apart if it isn't shut-down. It's the old, 'one thing leads to another.....and another' thing at work.

With regard to climate change and the phenomenon of global warming--still regarded as a myth and conspiracy by the likes of Michele Bachmann and Ric Perry--scientists have discovered a number or elements in the overall process that have feedback potential. A good example is that of changes brought about by the shrinking of the polar ice in the arctic. Instead of a white sheet of ice--which reflects the heat of the sun very well, thereby preserving the cold temps of the ocean beneath it--as the ice retreats, it is replaced by dark green sea water and that accepts and absorbs the energy from the sun much more readily......so the warming of that region speeds up accordingly. Voila! A feedback cycle.

Another example--a more powerful one which is much less predictable--is that of methyl hydrates, frozen methane gas. It exists in vast deposits, both on the ocean floor, and in the tundra regions of the arctic north. As the ocean continues to get warmer, and as the perma-frost in the tundra melts, incalculable amounts of methane are being released. But, despite not being able to clearly monitor or calculate how much is becoming gaseous methane and escaping into the earth's atmosphere, scientists do know--beyond any doubt--that the amount is very great, and that methane is a 'hot-house' gas with even more ability to warm the atmosphere than carbon-dioxide. This has the potential to become a runaway feedback cycle and completely invalidate all the scientific calculations about the speed with which global warming is happening. It's not magic, but the results could seem magical in terms of how surprisingly fast the entire process could become. (Click on the title of this piece to read an article on this phenomenon.)

There are other feedback cycles in this process. Years ago it came to my attention that the vast majority of photosynthesis is performed NOT by the plants of our planet, but by blue-green algae in the oceans. The forests and jungles perform only about 25% of what is required for the maintenance of life on Earth. So, if the blue-green algae in our oceans stop producing oxygen...and up-taking carbon-dioxide....to put it scientifically....we are SO screwed. If the oceans continue to get warmer, some scientists think this is exactly what might happen. But, not to worry, they're clearly making all this up just so they'll have jobs, in the non-existent future.

I hope that you find all of this not merely 'scary'. That would accomplish NOTHING. What I really am hoping you will do is throw the weight of your opinion and your energy behind the fact that we need to stop lolly-gagging and insist on action across the board to do the only sensible thing intelligent beings should do......CHANGE WHAT WE HAVE BEEN DOING TO CAUSE OUR OWN DEMISE.

So who's savage now......?

2011-09-15T12:57:00.006-04:00

In the decades before Native Americans were subjugated, by means of the self-assigned authority of the white man's laws relegating them to reservations--and with the sickening power of our culture, including alcohol, and psychological desolation--we condescendingly referred to the members of this proud warrior culture as 'savages'. We treated them according to the European tradition of treating all indigenous people....like illiterate children who didn't know what was good for themselves, much less how 'civilized' people should live. When I was in Utah and Arizona last spring, my son and I saw once again constant reminders of how the vast majority of Native
Americans still suffer. We probably could have subjugated them and destroyed their culture without firing a shot, just by giving them all the alcohol they wanted. It is heart-breaking to see the results of our history with them.

But, now a new kind of 'savage' is stalking the American landscape. And, far from being a noble being with deep connections to the natural world, this 'new savage' is a true beast. He and she are inclined to dominate with power--political power at this point--but, the single most salient quality that sets them apart....is an astonishing lack of compassion for any other beings, animal or human. They cheered raucously the other night when Ric Perry's accomplishment as the governor of Texas was mentioned. He now holds the esteemed position of being the governor on whose watch more people have been put to death than any other in American history. And, the tea bagger crowd loves this.

When Wolf Blitzer asked Ron Paul if people who do not have health insurance should be allowed to die, a savage in the audience shouted his approval. Others cheered as well. If one is a student of human history, i.e.,did more than just squeak by a U.S. history class in high school, and has some overall sense of how the human race has evolved, it soon becomes clear that we are only able to avoid sinking to our lowest impulses when we cultivate the idea that COMPASSION is as important as life itself. When we forget to pay attention to this we have our little moments, don't we? Things like the Holocaust happen. Ouch! Didn't mean to do that....just kinda forgot there for a few years what makes us 'human'.

So, here we are at another pivotal moment in our history. We are on the verge of making some very critical decisions about how we will behave towards our fellow human-beings, indeed our fellow Americans....and we are pulling back from the notion that what separates us from the beasts of the forest is ONLY our ability to feel compassion, to empathize, to care about others in a meaningful way. Looking out across the land, and even the entire planet, one now sees a clear tendency to isolate in social groupings, to defend a viewpoint that discounts the needs and the vitality of others. Perhaps this is the ultimate outgrowth of a culture where the worship of material goods and possessions has supplanted a more spiritual outlook. But, even religions that were intended to become a source of guidance in this process of being human and to make us better at it....are being co-opted and used to isolate and attack 'other'. Regardless of the vehicle or the excuse we use, we are identifying our own needs as paramount, and we will not merely allow violence, but are increasingly willing to commit it--in a variety of ways--on those we perceive as a threat to meeting our own needs.

So, it might just be that we have now come to the point where we have morphed ourselves into the kinds of beings that we looked down on so condescendingly for so many generations.

The heretofore 'civilized' human being has now become the savage. It should be noted, however, that even when we declared ourselves to be civilized we were not acting in a civil manner towards most other sentient beings. Since our Cro Magnon ancestors were thumping each other over the head with clubs and sticking animals (okay, yes, each other too) with spears, we have learned a phenomenal amount about how to invent and create 'things' that serve our needs....and foremost among our inventions: WEAPONS. An early hominid could scarcely have dreamed of the weapons we now take for granted. Hell, a soldier in the Civil War could not have imagined that only a couple of generations into the future we'd be able to incinerate a city with a single bomb, delivered by a missile traveling many times the speed of sound. We are living the stuff of science-fiction...only a few decades ago.

So, who is the real savage now?

Of course, there is a percentage of the population that will desperately cling to the idea that being a true Human Being means you possess a quality referred to by mystics for millennia as 'Heart', and that it is via this aspect of our being that we are able to feel compassion for all other beings...and not just human ones either. It may well be this decreasing number (relative to the number of savages who are on the increase) of souls among us that becomes our last life-line to our humanity.

But, as of now, the savage beast in us is advancing to the fore. When I contemplate why this is happening...despite all the lessons of our past....I have to believe that this is just one more episode of our needing to learn lessons that have apparently not sunk in. We apparently need one more turn on the anvil, in a state of red-hot malleability, to shape us in a way that we can once again remember that our only purpose in living has been all along and remains....to become Human Beings.

I keep looking....for an optimist.

2011-09-14T12:11:00.003-04:00

Over the last year or so, I have consciously spent time talking with people about what they think is in store for America, and the planet. I have tried to make an effort to not sway these conversations in any particular direction, but rather to listen and find out what people think, feel, sense is happening now, and what it might lead to. There have been many such conversations. And, in every single case what I have found is a uniform sense of dread, of fearful foreboding that the train is speeding down the tracks towards a fiery wreck.

Again, I have not tried to insert my own opinions, nor sway anybody else's opinion. I considered this quest as a kind of impromptu research and I remain genuinely interested in hearing how people from a wide variety of socio-economic backgrounds are perceiving our present predicament....and it is that. With 14 million Americans unemployed, many of them long-term and without hope of finding a job, housing stagnated, mortgages continuing to be foreclosed at an alarming rate, the stock-market (where so many have their futures invested) with a permanent case of the jitters, slamming wildly up and down on seeming whims.....Americans are collectively holding their breaths and waiting to see what this political season brings.

The media have made sure we know how abysmal Barack Obama's approval ratings are--at 44%--but, they seem to slide over the fact that the approval ratings for the entire legislative branch hover somewhere near or in the single digits. Congress is acting like a bunch of adolescent brats, each with his or her personal agenda, and unwilling to compromise, despite the suffering it imposes on Americans at large. The Tea Party has legitimized itself by getting into league with CNN now....and yet they apparently make up only approximately 18% of the population. But, because they are so loud and obnoxious in their presence, one might think they were the majority. Far from it.

So, here's the bottom-line: I am still looking for a single intelligent person who is expressing a solidly grounded optimistic view of where all this is leading. I have not been able to find such a person for over a year now. At a pre-wedding gathering a month ago, I met a remarkable person. John Howe is a retired engineer who held patents on exotic sports equipment and made enough to retire to a hill-side farm here in Maine thirty years ago. (click on the title bar to visit his site and see what he is all about) In his mid-seventies, John is a mensa bright soul, and his strength has always been his left-brained ability to quantify problems, leading to, of course, a sound engineering solution. Well, he's been crunching the numbers for some years now on the amount of oil, rate of population increase, rate of development in India, China, etc. He has spent considerable energy gathering and quantifying all the factors that are in play with regard to how we will be conducting our lives as we proceed into the future. And, he looked at me, at one point in our conversation, and said, "I used to think none of it mattered because I wouldn't be here anyway. But, now I know I will because we're right on the 'tipping point'."

Think about it. What he's saying is that by our own actions, with our stultifying unwillingness to address even problems that we know are potentially going to cause our own extinction....we have managed to accelerate the speed of that train as it hurtles down the tracks.

And, the GOP candidate who leads in the polls today.....says that climate change, global warming, is not scientifically proven. The person who is quite possibly going to be the dominant 'decider' in our near future.....thinks it is all 'made up' by some ill-intended scientists who just want to make a big deal out of it.

He also gleamed his great big ol' Texas smile when the crowd of Tea Baggers at the CNN-Tea Party debate the other night, roared its approval of his unprecedented execution rate as governor.

Yesssuh.....we be in a heap o' trouble. One big ol' steamin' HEAP.

What we really lost that day......

2011-09-13T10:55:00.006-04:00

Chris Hedges is a journalist who writes a column for the webzine Truthdig. If you click on the above title you can read a column he wrote on 9/11/11. I have read NOTHING else that comes as close to expressing how I feel about that terrible day ten years ago....and the ensuing events of the last decade.

In the aftermath of the violence, we were a nation in mourning, and we were also seething over the heinous assault on innocents in our midst. The result of that collective anger, indeed outrage, was a national resolve to somehow 'get even' with the bastards who did this to us. As a result we signed-on for two wars and countless other acts of violence on our own behalf.....none of which really landed a body-blow on the actual terrorist organization that conceived and carried out the attacks of 9/11. Not until we finally caught up with Bin Laden himself did we really effect anything constituting 'justice'.

Read the article if you are willing. I do not believe there is a sound argument against what Chris Hedges is saying.

Time to really pay attention.......

2011-09-01T10:58:00.002-04:00

While Ric Perry has now established a firm lead in the polls of Republican and Republican leaning voters, it has been a matter of days since he once again voiced his opinion that 'global warming' is a matter of conjecture and a conspiracy engendered by the left as a way of pushing their agenda, especially with regard to environmental policy.

He just said, echoing Michele Bachmann as he did so, that if he was elected president one of his first actions would be to abolish the EPA, i.e. the agency that stands between corporate America and the health of our air, water, resources. He, and Bachmann, would toss all that to the wind, and let the big companies do whatever they need to do to make all the money they want. And, following typical conservative logic, when they are happy with huge profits, we'll all benefit. There will be jobs for every person who wants one, mortgages will get paid, retirements will be secure once again, and we will all sail happily into the sunset.

And, I still cannot get over the fact that any middle-class or working class American believes this is true. The facts of our present situation prove that it simply is The Big Lie in action. Corporations are making windfall profits, paying fewer taxes than they have in generations...and sitting on trillions in capital....and STILL NOT HIRING. The fact is, they have down-sized, streamlined and cut costs so heavily that they now know they can be wildly profitable in their new configuration.....so exactly what is their motivation for hiring more workers?

There is none.

So, let's take a look at what every single one of the GOP candidates is proposing: a new playing field. It will allow corporations to pollute, plunder, destroy and generally run rough-shod over the environment. Amazingly, tea-baggers and 'foxies' all think this would be just fine. Really? Rampant pollution, fewer measures to abate global warming, fracking, drilling, stripping....all just fine. Good God!!!! What do they think we will drink when our wells are polluted by frackers? What will we breathe when our air is loaded with the residues of coal-fired power plants (which it already is.....but could get much worse)? How will we survive when global warming becomes so virulent that it interdicts ocean currents that are the only thing standing between us and a new ice age?

The scope of this idiocy is so stunning that it remains almost incomprehensible. Click on the title above and see today's stunner about how fast the Greenland ice cap is melting. One of the scientists reported that on seeing the scope of the melting he was 'gob-smacked', simply incredulous.

So, we are seriously considering putting any one of the goddamn idiots on the GOP ticket in a position where they could have the authority to give big industry the green light to pull back all the controls on their desire to pollute in order to raise profits from merely windfall levels to astronomical levels.

This is the 'Looter Elite' in action folks. This is how they function, with absolutely no regard for anything but making their profits as vast as possible...and with no sense of responsibility for the long-term impact on all of us.

If I was reading of these events and possibilities in a novel, I would be snorting my disbelief and muttering about how inept the writer was, because nobody could be expected to believe such a stupid story-line. But, WE'RE LIVING IT.

It's real. And, that has to qualify as the greatest horror movie of all time.

Off and runnin'.....here we go.

2011-08-22T15:47:00.003-04:00

Suddenly, it feels like fall. When I stand on the lawn looking up at the sparkling stars; there is just that feeling that the halcyon days of summer are behind us. Eeegads! Where did it go?

So, as summer fades into fall, we are now approaching a season in which the political rhetoric is going to really heat-up. The field of GOP candidates is still lacking the presence of Sarah Palin, but, as one reporter stated so clearly: you don't go on a vacation with your autograph and the constitution in huge graphics on the side of a bus....unless you're running. I believe that her Narcissistic Personality Disorder will demand that she toss her hat in the ring. Unfortunately, that will not reduce nor even soften the 'crazy quotient' in the race. What we have, as a group, is already so nutso that having dear Sarah in the mix will almost not be noticeable. Her 'fingernails on the blackboard' voice that makes me cringe when I hear its dulcet tones, so dripping with sarcasm, will be, however. Hey, I have to practice my sarcasm too; how else will I survive the upcoming political season?

I would have nominated Michele Bachmann as the nut-ball flag-bearer, but, I dunno, Rick Perry is giving her a good run for her money. She lies at least once a day and then acts indignant when the press points out that she has. She seems to think that lies should be acceptable; after all, it IS politics, right? He, on the other hand, opens his mouth and makes himself look radically stupid at least that often. Perry thinks global warming is a conspiracy....really? Can he still be a birther? I think that category of idiocy is still available, and as long as he's going to toss science out the back-door, he might as well sign-on in that ward too. How 'bout being a 'truther'? I am certain there's still a few padded cells available on that floor of the asylum too. I mean, why go half-way? If you really want to be the King of the Nut-jobs, do it up right.

It feels like Bachmann will self-destruct when she actually encounters mainstream American voters. She may like swimming in the red-state waters of baptismal sorts ...but, when the waters get just a bit bluer, and the crowds at her rallys aren't all squeezing Bibles as they gaze upon her heavenly visage...she's going to seem way too far-out there to get elected. At least, I am fervently hoping that is the case....especially because I start to tremble and shake like an aspen leaf when I strain to imagine what it would feel like to have her sitting where Barack Obama is right now.

For his part, I try to imagine the after hours conversations that the Obamas have. They are both smart and they believed that he was elected with a mandate for change. I also believe that both people are well-tinged with idealism, and that it must have taken a beating in the last couple of years. The steady parade of monkey-wrenching idiots who have blocked his attempts to make good on his campaign promises--for the most part, eh--could not really have been anticipated, at least not to the degree of hostility and intransigence that the Tea Baggers have demonstrated. He's born their attacks and stupefying arguments with great dignity and perhaps a little too much forbearance. In fact, I believe I have a lot of company when I find myself wishing that he would get a little more--okay maybe a LOT MORE--feisty and nail the idiots when they so richly deserve it.

The monstrous hypocrisy and copious duplicity practiced by his opposition has been a shameful mark on American politics. The GOP hacks who are intent on protecting the wealth of corporations and the very affluent, are so utterly transparent in their self-interest, that it has become no trick at all for Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert to make a mockery of them nightly.

But, hang on to your hats, folks. I have a sense that things are going to get really obnoxious in the campaign ahead. Whether or not Barack can stay above the fray is going to be interesting, but I also sense that both he and Michelle have already accepted that they have been confronted with a set of circumstances that will make his re-election a long shot.....unless, the independent voters of America take a good hard look at the alternative. Getting rid of Barack Obama and replacing him with a Rick Perry, or--God forbid....please God forbid it--a Michele Bachmann, may not seem like a course of action that will help our ship of state go anyplace but ON THE ROCKS.

Really America, please wake-up in time.

Congress for sale to the highest bidders???.....you betcha.

2011-07-29T14:53:00.004-04:00

By now, you know and I know that the men and women who are responsible for running our country are a bunch of self-serving, self-advancing political hacks. Our system of governance is so dysfunctional that it cannot get out of its own way...and there are some very clear and obvious reasons why this should be so.

First and foremost: they do not go to Washington as 'public servants' but rather as political aspirants who almost universally will stay there as long as they can manage to get re-elected. This means, of course, that they must accumulate huge campaign chests of money and begin waging the campaign for their own re-election as soon as they have been re-elected each time. In other words, they are not ever NOT RUNNING for their office, and this means that catering to affluent constituents and even non-constituent entities becomes the critical key to staying in office. As time passes the lobbyists..and the interests they lobby for....inexorably come to the point where they have bought a legislator, lock, stock and barrel, as the expression goes. They 'donate' so much money at every opportunity that it becomes well-nigh impossible for the legislator to refuse to do their bidding.

What this means is that Congress has slowly evolved into a body of bought and paid for minions who are obligated to do the bidding of corporations and even whole industries...whether or not that is in the best interest of the American people at large and their constituents at home. What we are seeing at present is proof of this. All the Republicans--almost without exception--have opted to protect rich Americans and wildly profitable companies against having to pay even a reasonable share of revenue. When you have a billionaire, Warren Buffet, standing in front of national media and telling us that he pays far less taxes than his office manager does....and that he KNOWS this is unfair and simply wrong.....what more do you need to know?

So, the Republicans are bent on reducing spending by putting the greatest burden of massive cuts on the backs of the middle-class and the working class....and at the same time, protecting the wealthy from paying even a percentage equal to what rich Americans paid in the past. They have drawn a line in the sand and are defending it as if it was the most critical issue of our times, with the same desperate zeal that a small infantry unit would make a last stand against an onrushing hoard of enemy.

If you haven't asked yourself why this is such a make or break issue for them.....now is the time to do so. And, I will just bet that you get the same answer I do: the rich corporate and individual interests are their employers, in a very real manner of speaking.

The Looter Elite is now calling the shots very skillfully using the Tea Baggers and issues such as the sanctity of 'Free Enterprise' in much the same way that the Confederacy got simple farm boys to go off to war to protect the interests of rich slave-owners. They sold them the bill-of-goods that it was really about 'states' rights', when the truth was that it was about preserving an economy that depended heavily on rich people being able to enslave black people. And, that is not a fact that I have manufactured for my own convenience in the same vein that talking heads on Fox do all the time.

Time to WAKE UP, America!!!! Our own legislators no longer represent us in the manner that we expect them to. They work for those who keep them in office with an endless river of cash.

And....................you can take that to the bank.

Ernest Callenbach at 82

2011-07-17T14:10:00.005-04:00

His novel "Ecotopia" was published in '72 and had an impact far beyond the borders of mere fiction writing. For a full description of its contents, click on the title above and see what has been posted on Wikipedia.

Recently, Callenback, now 82, sat down with Matt Sledge, a staff writer for Huffington Post and shared his present thinking on what has transpired over the last 41 years and what he believes is happening in our society. Here's a sampling: "Since I wrote Ecotopia, I have become less confident of humans' political ability to act on commonsense, shared values. Our era has become one of spectacular polarization, with folly multiplying on every hand. That is the way empires crumble: they are taken over by looter elites, who sooner or later cause collapse. But then new games become possible, and with luck Ecotopia might be among them."

Funny thing happens as one gets older: their ability to see clearly and to put it in context deepens, and I believe this is at the core of all actual WISDOM. In these times there are a host of posers, all pretending to have a handle on 'the truth' and self-anointing themselves as a source of what we should pay attention to. Most of these imposters--and there is a very long list of them with national audiences, the most glaring being Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, of course--are putting forward an agenda that is both self-serving and self-destructive were it to be applied to any great degree. When Callenbach uses the term, "looter elite", he is referring to all the pundits and their mentors who are loudly putting forward the philosophy that getting what you want is all that matters. This is the previously referred to view of Ayn Rand, et al. What really caught my attention, however, is Callenbach's almost casual mention--as if of course you already know this--of this being a definite cause of 'empires' crumbling.

If the aims and goals of the neo-conservative movement become the primary driving force in how this society conducts itself....it will be the beginning of a process of tearing itself apart at the seams. History has taught repeatedly that a society cannot become the vehicle and the means for a small ruling class to become fabulously wealthy and powerful, without also creating the means of its own destruction. Taking a look back at tsarist Russia, feudal Europe, earlier societies that depended on slavery and conquest...and on and on.....all gives us the exact same message. To allow the 'looter elite' who is currently gaining serious domination to simply pull the wool, even temporarily, over our eyes is to set the stage for 'The Great Crumbling", and God only knows what that will look like, but I am guessing that it will not be pleasant.

So, here we are at a crossroads, symbolized by the current deadlock in congress. The minions of the looters can have their way and dump off the pain of a contracting economy onto the backs of the middle-class and the working class....take away benefits earned and held as a sacred promise by those who really need them....protect the wealth of the upper crust, and the looter corporations who are seeing profitability on an unprecedented scale, and do all of this thinking that indeed, 'it sucks to be you'. And, we should not expect them to have the wisdom or insight born of greed that would allow them to know that they are working towards a calamity of unimaginable proportions.

Perhaps there is a broadly held intuitive sense that this is what we are doing. And, maybe this helps to explain the current fascination--indeed obsession--with the idea of an onrushing Armageddon, Gotterdamerung, Rapture, End Time, etc. A very large percentage of people I have spoken with, feel that a mega-disaster is coming. Some are almost counting on it to straighten up the mess we've created with the environment, the economy, class conflict, global conflict, religious insanity....just about every single aspect of life on planet earth in these times.

But, all of that not withstanding.....there is no time like the present to make a commitment in our own lives to hold onto our sense of moral rectitude, our compassion towards other less fortunate souls, and to act in ways that not only don't contribute, but fly in the face of all this.

As the old 'hippyism' said, "If not now, when? If not you, who?"

Alternatives? What alternatives.....?

2011-07-10T10:35:00.006-04:00

I don't think it would be fair of me to allude to the fact that there are indeed alternatives to spending one's life on the great rotary milking machine....and not specify what at least a few of them are.

Okay, I was a hippy. Sometimes, I was a member of the great unwashed, unless I could find a nice stream or a lake to dive into. There was a period when my 'extended family' even ate out of dumpsters. We discovered that a local Safeway tossed huge amounts of good food out with the 'bad' food that was merely outdated. If an egg broke in a flat of eggs, the whole flat went. Some kind soul realized that we were using these cast-offs and began putting them BESIDE the dumpster, instead of inside it. Hallelujiah.

We considered and even referred to ourselves as 'freaks', and we definitely knew that we were 'outsiders' in the culture from which we had emerged. In truth, we were ordinary young Americans who had each looked around at this society and found it lacking in many ways. We craved an alternative society where love and compassion were important, where kindness and freedom were accessible and revered. We thought of what we were doing with our lives as creating an alternative society within the greater one. Some have referred to those times as the era of the 'counter-culture', and I believe that is an apt descriptor of the motivation behind it. They were good times for those who didn't fall prey to the temptation to over-indulge in hedonism, drugs and laziness. Some of the hardest working people I have known were well-grounded and highly motivated HIPPIES. So, please do not succumb to the notion that it was all about being high and promiscuous.

During the rise of the Third Reich in Germany, there was also a counter-culture. It was made of young people who had basically the same reaction to a highly structured and regimented society that the hippies had. The were called Wandervogel--Wandering Birds--and these intrepid young Germans had their own traditions. They set out on the road, wandered as far from the Fatherland as the Far East, had their own songs, poems, bandanas and shirts, and conducted themselves in a way that drew as little negative attention as possible. They craved the freedom of the open road, and, in fact, this sub-culture pre-dated the Nazi era by at least a generation. The Germany that they returned to became a nightmare of conformity and I suspect that almost all of these young people ended up in the military, or the Hitler Youth, depending on their age as conformity became mandatory.

In the present economic and social climate in these United States, adopting an alternative life-style is doable, but it requires the same determination and ongoing effort that participating in either of the aforementioned alternatives did. A person, or a couple, or a group of like-minded souls can buy a piece of land and begin laying the foundation for living in a way that does not require being tethered to a job, a career or a mortgage and all the other indebtedness that comes with being 'middle-class'. Most people think doing this would mean living in a way that is so impoverished and deprived that they could never tolerate it. This impression is false, and it is the result of just not knowing what an increasing number of people are doing across the land.

Learning how to become self-sustaining is now associated with the term: 'off the grid', which means dropping out of the system we're all literally plugged into. To be 'comfortable'--for the vast majority of Americans--means that you have a full set of monthly obligations to: the power company, the mortgage company, the energy company, the insurance company, the auto finance company, and on and on. This amounts to a 'monthly nut' that anybody living this way has to 'crack'. If you can no longer meet your obligations....it all begins to fall apart and becomes a modern American nightmare, often ending in bankruptcy, even homelessness.

So, the question becomes: "Yes, but how do you escape this without living like a 17th century peasant?"

And, the answer is: "You avail yourself of the vast body of knowledge surrounding alternative dwellings"....even 'owner-built' dwellings that can be created for a song, compared to the turn-key homes that most feel are the only choice....and to which they immediately become indentured on signing a mortgage aggreement. My son's mother, built her own mountainside home in a year, using her own sweat, some help of friends and it was a comfortable and excellent dwelling. She is a Cornell graduate, with a masters in education and a law degree. But, she could have done this regardless of her formal education. She did it because she wanted a home that would not enslave her.

Becoming self-sustaining in all the ways that it is both possible and necessary is eminently DOABLE. But, not unless you start thinking outside the box.....the box that comes with a hefty monthly payment.

One of the greatest assets that any person or couple can have is that of friends. Finding people who feel similarly and who want to also 'escape', is vastly easier in these days of the internet than it used to be. The process of building a community of people who are willing to throw in together and depend on each other, is both a grand and difficult undertaking, but a source of making the whole process of becoming liberated ever so much more doable and sustainable.

So, when you ask: "What alternatives?" My response is that you need to begin shifting your focus away from what you CANNOT DO towards what is POSSIBLE,...and once you do that, the possibilities begin to emerge from the mist.

When I landed in Marin County CA, fresh out of grad school, head stuck in the mainstream American paradigm, I was convinced that life consisted of a series of roadblocks that one had to overcome, defeat or somehow learn to accept. The de facto matriarch of the extended family that adopted me was a remarkable woman named Donna. One evening as we sat around, I was grousing about wanting to travel but not having any money. She looked at me and shook her head. "You dumb ass. All you have to do is stand up and walk out of that door and you are travelling." I looked askance. She continued, "Just do it and figure out the details as you go." She was speaking with credibility because not long before I met her, she had spent several years travelling all the way around the planet. She'd been a cocktail waitress in Hawaii, and one day she got fed up, tossed her apron to the bartender, said, "See ya." And, she took off for she knew not where....with a young child.

A month later, I landed in Paris.....with $40 in my pocket. And, I stayed in Europe for the next five months, had the adventure of a lifetime.

You can only escape your limitations if you are willing to set them aside.

This much I have learned. Btw: That is a picture of Donna at the beginning of this piece.

The Coming Divide.....

2011-07-07T17:31:00.004-04:00

Several times in the last few months Ayn Rand has been brought to my attention. The first time was because Congressman Paul Ryan has been said to require his staffers to read Rand's writings, which largely boil down to either Atlas Shrugged, or Fountainhead, the two novels for which she has become known. You recall that Ryan is the one who wants to solve the deficit problem by dismantling Medicare and Social Security, right?

Rand developed a pseudo-philosophy called Objectivism, and it was essentially an argument that the purpose of life is to make yourself happy, to get what you want, what you can, and remember that compassion for those less fortunate is a form of illness, stupidity, and just plain...well....it's for suckers. I refer to her philosophical efforts as 'pseudo' because the entire academic philosophy community recognized her as one who was not a serious philosopher, but as a person who just wanted to legitimize her personal viewpoint. Believing that self-interest is cool and altruism is foolish, doesn't make you a serious philosopher on any legitimate level, it just makes you a coy person who wants to have what you want and not feel guilty. My wife summed up Rand's philosophical argument very succinctly: "It sucks to be you."

So, in a society where self-interest has come into its own, where putting integrity and honor aside in favor of playing the acquisition game has become the avowed goal of people who hide behind the august sounding label of 'entrepreneur', it just makes sense that some of the self-anointed purveyors of wisdom would seek ways to justify acting in what most of us recognize as selfish and even predatory ways. The World War II generation knew with great clarity--for the most part--that being a selfish person who eschews and uses the less fortunate is not a qualification for being a decent person. In fact, most of that generation--having lived through the Great Depression and having fought to save the world from fascism and the murder or enslavement of millions--knew without having to philosophize about it, that being a decent Human Being is more important than merely getting what you desire...especially when you do so at the expense of others.

We are headed down the road to a Great Divide: those on one side have adopted Ayn Rand's attitude and will stop at nothing to get what they feel they are entitled to have. Those on the other side will be the modern equivalent of a proletariat. They work to keep a roof over theirs an their family's heads, food on the table and they hope for a reasonably happy life as they go about this task...a task that for many is becoming a dire struggle.

The people on the Rand side largely regard these others as 'useable', there for the exploiting and suitable to build their personal dreams on the backs and the sweat of the less fortunate. It has been this way for a very long time. Once it was outright slavery, then a feudal system of exploitation, now it is a much more refined system in which those who seek it can become a part of this 'ruling class' and have the means and the channels through which to use them....to hold the reins of power. The rich are getting not just richer; they are becoming an elite class of power brokers and money barons who now call the shots in government. They essentially have the wherewithal to buy political power, to de facto own the mechanism of governance, and to thereby ascend to levels of power and wealth that allow them to not merely be pleased with themselves, but to RUN THE ENTIRE SOCIETY, as they please.

And, unless you are one of them....that is not good news for you. The aphids of the middle-class will be kept under control by making sure that they have enough desire to own STUFF, and that they can borrow the means to do so. By keeping us scrambling for what we need and for what we believe will make us happy....the power elite has us eating out of their hands. Whether it be the desire/need for a home, a nice vehicle...or several, all the electro and petro toys we could ever imagine and never need but come to DESIRE.....we are on their treadmill and it looks very much like the big rotary turntable milking machines that large commercial dairies have. We need medical care...no matter the price....we must have higher educations....now becoming a source of massive indebtedness for so many. We must have all the glittering toys that we are bombarded with from the ever larger glowing screens that comprise so much of our lives now.

The grand irony in all of this is that we're so busy scrambling for what we think we need, for what will somehow--though we have no real evidence of this--make us HAPPY....that we haven't got the time or energy to resist what all of this is doing to us. One clue might be the fact that the number of prescriptions for anti-depressants has now soared over 100 million per year....with a rapidly growing percentage of them being written for CHILDREN. If you look at it all from a distant mountain-top, with a sense of how it all works, you begin to see that this system of economic and social domination is now at a very high level of smooth-running perfection.

We are doing just exactly what we're expected to do: work hard, conform to what is expected and, indeed, demanded of us. And, the people who are using us, who understand that it 'sucks to be us', are getting so good at making us believe that we're somehow 'free', and that if we just do what they want we'll also be happy, that we can no longer even see what is really happening to what was once dreamt of as a near-utopian society.

If you do see what is happening, and it doesn't sit well with you...chances are you just haven't got the right prescription for an anti-depressive drug. Maybe things would seem better if you just asked your doc to put you on something different.

Or you can admit that you do see what is happening and that you don't like it, that you, in fact, do not accept it as inevitable.

And.....then you can begin to ask yourself what the alternatives are.

BTW: when Ayn Rand died, her funeral was sparsely attended...but some caring soul had the presence of mind to order up a large funerary flower arrangement, in the shape of a DOLLAR SIGN. What a legacy, eh?

The Fine Art of Irony

2011-07-05T15:50:00.004-04:00

Every once in a while, something appears in the media that is so over-the-top, that it seems it must have been written by a tongue-in-cheek dark humorist. My favorite has been Kurt Vonnegut Jr, who was responsible for such dark insights as: "The only acceptable form of suicide in this society is Pall Malls." And, yes, that is what he smoked, and I am sure contributed to his death in some measure.

But, just a few days ago, I read an astonishing nugget of irony (click on the title above to read the newspaper story). A large group of motocyclists were staging a 'protest' ride, to, of course, protest the mandatory helmet law in New York state. There were about 550 of them, and I would suppose that more than 90 or 95% were riding Harleys...most of them making that lovely--to some--staccato 'potato, potato' noise that they so love, and which is seemingly somehow exempt from noise laws in communities across the country.
So, as this defiant motorcade proceeded through the town of Onondaga NY, a rider, Philip Contos, from Parish NY, had to brake hard...no explanation why, but from experience I will guess that he suddenly saw that he was going faster than the rider in front of him. So, he grabbed a handful of front brake...and his '83 Harley snapped sideways and tossed poor Philip over the handlebars. This could happen to anybody who rides, regardless of how many years they've ridden, and how good they are. But, on this day, poor Philip landed on his head, and suffered a head trauma. He was transported to a local hospital where he was declared dead. The police issued a report stating flatly that had he been wearing a helmet, he would have very likely survived.

Now, I am not making light of this man's death. I am sure that he will be missed and that it is a tragedy on multiple levels. But, the irony in this instance is so humongous, so inestimably VAST...that it should not go un-noticed or ignored.

I have ridden motorcycles since I was in my teens. A rough guesstimate of miles passed under me would be somewhere around 300K. I also live in a state that steadfastly refuses to mandate helmets for motorcyclists.....despite the fact that there is a detailed and undeniable body of proof that helmets do save lives, lessen the severity of injuries and are just a damn good idea. Every time this issue is brought back to the Maine legislature for consideration, all the heavy-metal Harley types turn out in their most troglodific outfits and threaten mayhem if such a law is put on the books. Okay, I get it. It is a choice.

What I don't get is that so many younger riders, just getting started in the sport, follow the macho example of these bare-headed riders and venture forth into the dangerous environment of steel, concrete, asphalt, and sundry unforgiving objects....without a clue that even a seemingly 'gentle' tap on the noggin will render them cabbage-like sacks of flesh. The lucky ones are killed, never know the joys of spending decades being fed from a tube, having a ventilator forcing air into their lungs.

It seems, on balance, one more example of the dumbing of America in its final stages of completion. And, this poor fellow in upstate New York has just become a symbol of how utterly unforgiving and wildly ironic life can be.......especially when you approach it with your brains in the seat of your pants.

After owning 16 motorcycles, riding more than a quarter million miles, I can state with absolute certainty that I would have been killed AT LEAST three times, possibly four, and I might have been paralyzed another two. I still ride..sometimes faster than I should. And, I wear one of the best helmets money can buy.

But, apparently, in America today, we have perfected the idea that Truth is what we want it to be....not what it factually is. And, we put greater store in showing off our defiant machismo, than we do in the value of human life. So, what else is new, right?

And....what is NOT art.

2011-06-27T14:32:00.003-04:00

As synchronicity would have it, a friend sent me a link to a piece on Fox News about a new art form.....or not. You'll have to decide that for yourself. It is worth a laugh, if not a tsk, tsk.

Of course you will be familiar with actor James Franco. His movie about the hiker who cut-off his arm with a dull pocket-knife was a grand success last year. Franco has also dabbled in other areas of creative endeavor, and his latest one is quite interesting. Click on the above title and read the linked article.

Franco and some cohorts, have apparently discovered a new level of sophistication in making art: i.e. you actually ask the collector, client, buyer....uh, okay sucker, to pay for something imaginary, and then you give them a tag or label telling them what they bought.....or actually DIDN'T buy. I think.

I mean, it's just a little confusing to me. If you are selling them 'nothing' but their own imaginary thoughts....did you sell them 'something' or 'nothing', because if you sold them nothing and they paid you good money--over $11K so far--exactly what took place here?

During an interview with FOX--those elite sophisticates and connoisseurs of all things nice, eh--Franco was careful to point out: "We're sincere. This isn't a scam". Which is probably the first thing that any good scam artist would want you to believe.

I just sold you some nothing.....now, pay up, or else. Seems to me that they should be willing to accept payment in imaginary dollars.

Sheesh.

What is art....Part MCVII....or whatever.

2011-06-27T14:14:00.002-04:00

If you click on the above title line, you will be whisked off to an article that appeared in the London Daily Mail.

It seems some English journalists wanted to find out what you and I, the art viewing and museum going public want to spend our time looking at in a museum. In order to write this article they spent time sitting in galleries in The Tate Britain, a world-class London museum, and they clocked how much time visitors spent on a variety of different works, in a very broad spectrum of genres. I won't blather on because you'd be much better off just reading the article. Seems we don't show much interest in the 'body parts and dead animal' school of modern art....or the 'field of dots that look like wrapping paper' school.....or the "....here I am sitting in a chair in the desert" genre of photography....or pretty much any of that crap, in fact.

It should come as no great revelation that we want to look at art that moves us emotionally, touches our humanity, enriches our sense of beauty, has a little poignancy, maybe a sense of the poetic....and is just plain accessible without a masters in the history of art.

Bat-shit crazy...doesn't begin to describe Michelle Bachmann

2011-06-23T13:43:00.002-04:00

Do yourself a favor and click on the above title line, and reat Matt Taibbi's piece on Bachmann in Rolling Stone magazine.

But......don't laugh.

Just read it, you'll see why.

Bantering with terms like "Mass Extinction"

2011-06-22T09:16:00.002-04:00

"If the current actions contributing to a multifaceted degradation of the world's oceans aren't curbed, a mass extinction unlike anything human history has ever seen is coming, an expert panel of scientists warns in an alarming new report." This is the opening paragraph in the story on Huffington Post that is linked to the title above.

Here is some more of that story:

"The scientific panel concluded that degeneration in the oceans is happening much faster than has been predicted, and that the combination of factors currently distressing the marine environment is contributing to the precise conditions that have been associated with all major extinctions in the Earth's history.
According to the report, three major factors have been present in the handful of mass extinctions that have occurred in the past: an increase of both hypoxia (low oxygen) and anoxia (lack of oxygen that creates "dead zones") in the oceans, warming and acidification. The panel warns that the combination of these factors will inevitably cause a mass marine extinction if swift action isn't taken to improve conditions."

So, I sit here and wonder how much more dire things have to get....before we wake-up. If I open up a news-site and read that a large asteroid has been detected on a collision course with Earth, due to arrive a year from now, will my day go on as previously planned? Maybe I will just short-out and act as if nothing new has come up. Or maybe I will just snicker that those idiots with the big telescopes are full of crap. What do they know? I have too many plans, hopes, dreams for the future to get sucked-in by all this 'Chicken Little" nonsense, anyway. I mean, you could spend all of your waking life worrying about one thing or another and what would it accomplish in the end, right? So, to hell with all those doomsayers; I plan to just continue on with my life as if nothing is happening.

And, if you just nodded your assent to the above line of thinking....then you are fiddling while Rome is burning. Here is something that is an indisputable fact: IF THE OCEANS DIE....SO DO WE. The oceans of this planet are the source of life. The vast majority of photosynthesis takes place...not in forests, but in the oceans. It is the tiny little blue-green algae who carry the bulk of the responsibility for absorbing carbon-dioxide and off-gassing oxygen. If that process is stopped, or even if it is significantly diminished.....life as we know it will be unable to continue. This is the WATER PLANET, dear friends. It took some billions of years for it to evolve into a stable mechanism, as delicately balanced as a jeweled watch movement, providing all that is necessary for life to flourish.

And now we are actively destroying that balance. What I find so utterly agonizing, even worse than merely being stupid....we are doing this intentionally and denying it as we do so. All the truly conservative candidates that want to run for Big Kahuna--to become The Decider--deny that Global Warming is either real, or man-made. They want to believe that it is a conspiracy, cooked up by people like Al Gore to serve their own greedy purposes. What we are doing to our host planet is indeed VERY INCONVENIENT....but, that is all it is to these people.

So, if you read this article and note the reminder that we must act and act effectively and with great determination...you will also possibly say to yourself: "Yeah, what are the chances of that?"

In listening to the public discourse on the subject of our own mass extinction becoming ever more likely...one must hear the denial, the hopelessness, the inability to comprehend that we're really looking at the end of life as it presently exists....and still find a way to keep hoping that somehow, some way, some time...we will reach the critical mass referred to as 'the tipping point' by Malcom Gladwell. This is the point at which one might say, 'an idea's time has come'. But, if that doesn't happen we, and our children and our grandchildren will be forced to witness what is already being referred to by some scientists as the Sixth Great Extinction.....our own, and the first one to be brought about by one of the species that will be extinguished.

What you need to know about Michelle Bachmann....

2011-06-17T22:41:00.002-04:00

Just in case you are skeptical about my last post, here is an article on The Daily Beast that you might want to read: (Please click on the above title line).

What I find most alarming is her reaction to being approached by two women who wanted to talk about gay marriage. She actually tried to set them up for being charged with attacking her physically.

This tells me that she has a basic underlying willingness to lie, to trample on the rights of other individuals in order to protect her own agenda.

I will not back away from my clear opinion that Michelle Bachmann is potentially a very dangerous person if she ever comes into a political position that would give her power.

And, as much as I would like to be proven wrong, I have a sense of dread about what Bachmann intends to do with the office she is seeking.

And, dear friends, she is GAINING MOMENTUM.

Here She Comes......

2011-06-14T09:41:00.001-04:00

Well, you had to know it would happen. Michelle Bachmann used the Republican debate in New Hampshire last night to inform the nation that she has filed the papers declaring her candidacy for president. David Gregory, a senior NBC political corespondent, said this morning that he had never actually seen anybody manipulate the media so cleverly in this way. She knew that doing this would almost guarantee her the spotlight in this news cycle, despite all the other candidates trying their best to stand out from the 'crowd', and it worked just as she had planned.

When Bachmann emerged on the national political scene, my initial reaction, along with many others, was that she was a joke. She said things that were so astonishingly stupid, made such outlandish statments--like that we should require a 'loyalty test' for members of congress--that it was impossible to take her seriously. We also had another woman who was saying and doing things that would preclude thinking of her as an intelligent and sane adult: Sarah. So, it was easy to imagine that Bachmann was just another Palin, but possibly even dumber.

Now, hold on, just one cotton-pickin' minute, there, fellah. Lately, Bachmann has been reminding people that she has been a 'tax attorney'. She's been quite aware of her image and is taking steps to improve it. She also knows that her audience is the far Christian right....the so-called 'Evangelicals', and she plays to their sensibilities in clarion tones that resonate with them, big time. It seems apparent that she is improving her technique as she goes, and suddenly the congresswoman from Minnesota, who was regarded as a slower and nuttier second to Palin until just recently, is sitting on a stage in Manchester New Hampshire with a small group of politicians who are considered the only serious possible contenders for the Republican nomination. And, Sarah Palin was not there. Whoa!!!! Wha' happened?

I can tell you this: Michelle Bachmann is NOT the stupid bufoon and Christian pedant that we so blithely dismissed. She is smart, determined, sly, manipulative and--hold on--one of the most dangerous figures to emerge onto the American political stage in generations. She is the personification of Sinclair Lewis's archetypal fascist figure who, on arrival among us, will be: "....wrapped in the flag and carrying the Bible".

She sees the world through a lens that filters everything into categories: Christian, not-Christian, Patriotic, not so much, for me, agin' me. And, should she ever gain real political power, the means to enact policies and directives that conform with her world-view, it's going to be a dark day in American history.

She will be inclined to persecute her perceived enemies in any way that she can. She will move this country in subtle and not so subtle ways towards being even more Christo-centric than it ever has been. Tolerance and acceptance are weaknesses in the world she inhabits. If you are not on her side, you will be 'the enemy'. Left unimpeded, she would create the Christian equivalent of an Islamic Republic. Luckily, she is not running for dictator, and there are built-in balances and constraints....which, I predict now, she will try to dismantle if we face another crisis on the order of 9-11.

A decade ago I wrote a novel, "Above and Beyond" much of it set in Nazi Germany in the 30s and 40s. It followed the lives of a young couple in southern Bavaria. The young woman, Gabriele, knew from the outset who Hitler was, and when she tried to explain how she knew this, she ultimately resorted to, "I can see it in his eyes, Hans. It is right there."

And, that is how I feel about Michelle Bachmann. I HOPE I am wrong....but, I don't believe I am.

Ah, the Contrasts....

2011-06-01T14:37:00.000-04:00

If you are a regular follower here, you already know that almost every morning of the week, four seasons round, I am forced to walk in the Maine woods. Emma, and Holly, two 8 year-old golden retrievers, insist that I do this. Should I attempt to ignore them, they come to wherever I am and stare at the side of my head. It soon becomes unbearable, a feeling of laser-vision from big brown eyes that bore into me....until I finally relent and put my jacket on, or pick-up a walking-stick and head out the door. It is more a ritual than merely a routine. And, if you love dogs, you know that having a predictable rhythm in their day is very important to them.

So, come rain or shine, snow or mosquitoes, there we are treading lightly on trails that intersect a large-ish block of un-trammeled northern forest. The woods have a rhythm too. It has more to do with their seasonal cycles than the weather on a given day, but it is utterly predictable and very enjoyable as it progresses through the year. We are now in the period when spring has begun to morph into summer....not really there yet, but now more the latter than the former, to be sure. The delicate yellow-greens of new leaves have started to become darker and more towards the 'iron' greens of high summer, but the leaves are still soft to the touch.

Flowers are in their second stage now, the trillium is gone-by, and there is a plethora of tiny star-shaped flowers, mosses are burgeoning, and this year the ferns are blasting off for the moon. Perhaps the wet and cool spring set them up for such growth, but I passed some today that are shoulder high and still growing. The bug season, has, of course, taken-off too. Depending on the time of day, how humid and warm it is, the black flies and the mosquitoes are at bumper crop levels this year. The streams are running well, which is great for the black flies, since they lay their eggs on rocks in running water...and there are large pools of standing water in the depths of the woods, which is a natural paradise for the muzzies.

Fortunately, I just found an article on DEET that indicated it is not the chemical disaster that most of us have felt it was. Research has proven that it is actually much more benign than I would have guessed. So, now I can apply it as I have all along...and just not feel as self-destructive and guilty as I did. Good for me, bad for the hungry insects who need my blood. Boo hoo.

As I was walking today, it occurred to me how eminently 'sane' nature is. Not only is it beautiful and pure in its intent to simply get on with its process of living and constantly becoming...but it all just seems to make sense. I listened to a veritable cacophony of song-birds, all of them trilling, warbling, and tweeting with obvious intent. And, while we might imagine they do it because it sounds nice, the truth is I was hearing a battle for breeding territories. All the "Hey, here I am," and the "This acre is mine," calls are according to a firm and ancient ritualized understanding of how they will propagate and who will do what and where they'll do it. I was hearing not just the thrushes melodic calls; I was hearing their entire history as a species speaking to me through their DNA. A bird of a particular species has an indistinguishable call from every other bird of that species. Otherwise the whole system of recognition and establishing breeding and nesting territories would break down. We crave being unique individuals....while they are drawn to be simply a perfect example of what they are. I love it.

I was going to contrast this green world of perfection with the folly that goes on beyond it...out here in the not so real world. But, it doesn't feel like I want to do that anymore. Somehow it would be wrong to mention the parade of clowns who are now posturing for an opportunity to lead us. It doesn't matter that the entire shootin' match is getting progressively weirder. I want the taste of perfection that awaits me each morning to maintain some of its separation from all of this. I almost don't think I could climb into my car at the edge of the woods, and drive straight to Wal-Mart...without having an experience that would approach some kind of mental crisis. And, it is hard to accept that I spend almost all of my waking reality in the weird world, and not the one where absolutely everything is perfect and makes complete sense.

Go figure, eh.

Sell my clothes, I'm goin' to heaven.....

2011-05-24T12:36:00.000-04:00

Every once in a while, my wife uses the above expression. It usually happens when she has just taken a bite of an extra yummy dessert, or a sip of an unusually fine wine. I don't know where she got it, but I suspect it dates back to her childhood years on Martha's Vinyard. It does seem to have a kind of 'New England-ish' ring to it.

But, when Abby says this nobody jumps up to gather up her clothes and put them in the garage in preparation for a forthcoming garage sale. It's just a joke. So, it really boogles my mind to hear that apparently a number of people cashed in their retirements, spent their life-savings, otherwise 'sold their clothes'....all because this old fart with a radio program said the end of the world was coming as of last Saturday. The report I saw said that these people are now very pissed-off that they did all that.....only to have the anointed hour come and go without incident. The wizened--if not wise--old preacher now says he made a mistake in his calculations; the end will actually happen in OCTOBER. Ah, no wonder we waited for nothing.

I am beyond being simply amazed that people can be this obtuse. They actually threw away their entire futures just because this elderly fool said something hugely unlikely was going to happen. Did they not know that this is like a hobby among far-right Christians? People have predicted the 'end of the world' countless times. They have gone to the mountaintop....and sat there waiting. But, nothing has EVER come to pass....not ever, not once, has there been a single event that would give any of these inane, hair-brained predictions the merest shred of credibility. So, I am struggling to understand what kind of a glitch in a person's mind would cause them to think, "Ah-ha, this time it's for real."

I actually think that anybody who is willing to 'cut off their nose' in this fashion DESERVES what comes out of it. Stupidity on such a monumental level should have consequences. We see it in other situations: a person steps in front of a bus without looking....and they die. A person lets a stranger into their house because he says his car broke down....and they get attacked. Life is a rhythm of actions taken...and consequences that result. It is NOT an act of faith to do something potentially disastrous all the while depending on an outcome that is so unlikely. This is the realization that if you jump off the high-rise, and expect someone to reach out and hand you a parachute on the way down.....you are going to go SPLAT. Testing your idea of God in this fashion is almost always going to end badly.

Maybe I should be more sympathetic. These people were, after all, acting out of trust; they were practicing their faith as they understood it. But, they were also acting against all common sense. They were acting in complete denial of what any right-minded person would say was a given. Sure, life as we know it might have ended. I think the old parable about Chicken Little has some basis in human nature. But, acting as these people did and then being angry because the most highly unlikely scenario in human history didn't happen right on cue......now that is just plain STUPID.

I have a feeling that we may be nearing the bottom of the 'stupidity scale', that the 'dumbing of America' is nearly complete. By God, I sure hope so.

Just in case we had any doubts......

2011-04-28T15:49:00.000-04:00

Okay,okay.....I didn't really want to get back to The Donald any time soon. But, he was in our neck of the woods yesterday, and his statement at the airport was just too tempting. He made his grand entrance in his sleek, dark helicopter, with his name emblazoned on the side in huge letters....Jon Stewart said, "...just in case he loses it"...and it was both astonishing and very revealing, not just for the self-congratulatory and egotistic b.s. that we've come to expect from him....but, for its clear indications of who Donald Trump really is.

You may recall a posting here a while back, in which I laid out the nature of NPD, i.e., Narcissistic Personality Disorder. In case you missed it, here are some of the widely recognized symptoms associated with this condition:

Believing that you're better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Trouble keeping healthy relationships
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional

Having read these, I believe you might recognize that MOST of them easily apply to Trump. It's too easy to simply dismiss him as a buffoon. Nah. He's ever so much more than that. He's actually so marinated in his self-image and self-adulation that he is potentially dangerous. He has already bluntly stated that we should be, "....getting something in return", for our willingness to engage in our military operations.

Some of us have, perhaps naively, assumed that the United States has been fighting in order to combat Islamic terrorism, to restore order and at least some semblance of democracy in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. Our best intention is not and has never been to 'profit' from these situations; it has been to get rid of despotic regimes and to hand the people of these countries back a society that is hopefully one in which people can live without fear of a government that terrorizes them, kills them at will and forces them to live in misery. I do recognize that we have become mired in both of these situations...but, at least we have been willing to operate from a higher principle than, "What's in it for us?" If you ask front-line military personnel from either campaign why they are there, the almost ubiquitous answer one receives is something akin to: "We're here to help these people." And, they have been willing to make sometimes terrible sacrifices to do that.

But Trump doesn't see the world through the same lens that most Americans do. He sees it all as a kind of Monopoly board game in which the one who accrues the most capital is not merely the 'winner' but is now the dominant power and is always willing to use that power to increase one's own wealth. He has already stated, in so many words, that we should be getting Libya's oil if we are going to make a sacrifice to help them rid themselves of their own narcissist, good ol' Muhamar El Nutjob.

It boggles the mind to suppose what a man like Donald Trump would do if he actually were to hold a position of any actual power. This guy makes people like poor Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann look like the junior varsity of NPDs. They may be self-deluded and far out there, but Trump has massive resources and the ruthlessness to use them in any way that he can get traction. His incessant use of the 'birther' non-issue is proof of that. Now he's off and running on whether or not the President should have gotten into Harvard. His NPD almost guarantees that he'll stop at nothing to have his way.

And, more and more, it is becoming apparent that he will indeed throw his hat in the ring, attempt to battle his way through the GOP minefield and become president of these United States. This is the stuff of a Kurt Vonnegut Jr. novel, folks.

It is going to be an interesting time over the next months. If we fall asleep at the wheel and allow someone of his ilk to suddenly emerge as our leader....it will be just exactly what we deserve.

I am praying that common sense will prevail.

Well, spring is at least trying.....

2011-04-27T14:04:00.002-04:00

Finally, our goldens are running out of places to take their elaborate 'snow baths' when we go in the woods each morning. It has seemed to take forever this year for the snow to melt, and now the woods are in a kind of limbo, between the dead of winter, and exploding with life. There is a kind of almost sullen feeling to them.

But, it is getting warmer each day, with brief exceptions, and I heard 'peepers' for the first time the other day...so, I know that any day now the grand transition from greys, tans, browns and evergreen shades of green, to the fresh and even brilliant greens of spring is going to happen. And, when it does, it will happen in a rush. The mosses will perk up, become a much more emerald shade of green. Little shoots will push up through the soggy mass of dead leaves, elbowing aside any and all impediments....and then the flowers will appear almost everywhere you look. The Trillium will be among the first, but there will be a virtual carpet of tiny blue and yellow blossoms in many places. It feels good.

Of late, I have not wanted to write on this blog. In the absence of being inspired by my love of the woods and all that lives therein, I have felt beset by events and people in the 'un-real' world around us. When I realized that my last several posts were all about people I consider to be among the lowest of the low...it just seemed too negative.

In these times, apparently, it is the hour of the idiots to take the stage. The Trumps, Bachmanns, Palins (though I am thankful that she is quickly fading from any serious role in the public arena) and all the other clowns out there, are here for a reason. As Farid Zakaria mentioned on his own blog, the birther stuff is simply and undeniably "coded racism", and he asked: would it be out there if Barack Obama was white and named Jim Smith? The answer to that--for anybody with a brain--is NO. The Donald has now stooped to questioning if Barack Obama should have gotten into Harvard. Of course, the fact that the President graduated Magnum Cum Laude and was head of the Harvard Law Review...well, we'll just ignore that.

So, I am coming into a place of accepting that we are living in a time when Greed--yes, with a capital 'G'--is coming into the fore. Congress is doing the bidding of Big Money, siding with those who would plunder Americans for all their worth. The cast of characters that the GOP is looking at for the 2012 presidential race, is so loaded with people who want to push this agenda that it will be almost impossible for them to single out a rational candidate who actually puts the well-being of Americans--other than the rich--first.

So, be it. Let it all unfold however it will. Those of us who clearly see what is happening to our country will turn out once again, and we will vote for the man who has disappointed us on so many levels, but is still a country mile better than the hairballs who will oppose him.

My father was a life-long horticulturist. His special interest was in growing roses, really stunning ones. One day when I was perhaps 8 or 9, he called me over to a rose-bed and said, "Look at this." He turned over a leaf on one of his prize rosebushes and it was covered with very pale small insects. "Those are aphids." I was a little puzzled because I knew he wasn't just showing me some bugs. He went on:" They live on these leaves and produce a nectar, and the ants 'farm' them. They come around and actually 'milk' the aphids, and make sure that they are going to keep producing...so the ants can take it from them." I do not actually have enough clarity of hindsight to know if Dad was knowingly teaching me a life lesson, or not. But, he was very clear about the fact that the ants used the aphids for their own well-being and great benefit. I didn't get the impression that he thought this was pretty clever and 'hooray' for the ants. He was simply observing that the aphids were kind of like cows. This stuck with me all these years. And, only recently have I become aware that this is how 'Big Money' views and uses the middle-class. We produce, and increasingly, we are being milked of what we do produce. Whether it is the amazingly userious profits of the pharmaceutical, credit, energy or medical and insurance industries...or simply the fact that the current business ethic has now fully morphed from: "a good product at a fair price", into "squeeze 'em for all their worth".

Everywhere you look you will find companies that are becoming very creative in how they strip you of your money. Example: we bought a sub-compact Honda Fit. We wanted a basic mode of transportation with as few bells and whistles as possible. We just don't give a damn about all the gewgaws on a car. As it turns out, this little buggy comes--no choice--with a very clever system called TPMS, i.e. Tire Pressure Management System. The assumption is that you are too stupid to make sure your car has enough air in the tires....so they make sure a little light goes on on the dashboard to tell you that. Well, it so happens that the sensors for each wheel cost over a HUNDRED BUCKS, and if you want to get rid of them the little light will always be on....and one person told me his mechanic wouldn't pass his car's inspection if it was. So, just one more of the myriad ways in which a company now has you on the hook for something you DIDN'T EVEN WANT.

This is us being the aphids, folks. The corporate 'ants' are milking us and we're almost utterly passive in the face of it. Most people would ask, "What choice do we have?" And, I will answer that in some detail in a subsequent posting.

Seriously?? ......The DONALD?? ......for President???????

2011-04-13T09:37:00.001-04:00

When it was announced that McCain had picked Sarah Palin for his running mate....I was thunderstruck. I absolutely could not follow his reasoning, and when I did try to do that, it simply made no sense. As it turned out, of course, his sense of what Americans could stomach was indeed deeply flawed. A large number of people who might have otherwise voted Republican simply could not accept the reality that such a dim-witted, whack-job would be literally, "...a heart beat" from sitting in the Oval Office. And, so I suppose we should be thankful that McCain proved himself to be such a lousy judge of us.

But, when I read yesterday that the most recent poll of Republican potential candidates had Donald Trump tied for first place with Mike Huckabee.....I think I just about fried some transistors in my brain. Phrases like, "You have to be kidding....", "Naw, say it ain't so, "...none of them suffice to express my disbelief and especially my consternation. You see, somehow I have managed to cling to the notion that a person who sits in a position of such influence and power should also be a person of character, which is why I was so pleased that Barack Obama was apparently more than just another Harvard lawyer. It turns out, he's a Grand Compromiser who is in danger of selling the very people who were so overjoyed that he was elected....down the river. He may well become a one term president because the people who were his 'base' in '08 are now watching in disbelief as he repeatedly draws lines in the sand and backs-up as the Tea Baggers and the other minions of greed step over each line. Pretty soon he will be standing on the banks of the Potomac with nothing else to give away.

But, in the case of 'The Donald', we are confronted with a persona that has seemingly forever been synonymous with GREED, with vanity, arrogance, a truly ridiculous comb-over, and has acted like a petulant bad-boy with rotten manners. In short, if you look in the dictionary under 'bombastic', you find a picture of Trump. He is already showing how much of a whacko he is by insisting on fiddling the tune that all the 'birthers' want to dance to. So, Trump is stomping his foot, rasping out this scratchy tune and the idiots are all doing a crazy dance around the campfire. He has been taped saying, "When I am president nobody will laugh at the United States anymore"...or something very close to that. Exactly what he means by that is anybody's guess...but, I would suggest that he means that under his wise leadership we will re-assume our rightful role as the planet's ONLY SUPERPOWER. Really? Is this who we want to be going forward. Wouldn't it better if we were seen as a source of strength and kindness to the world community? And, by 'strength' I mean appropriate support not just purely military might. We have that in spades and I believe the rest of the world is becoming just a bit leery of it, and even resentful and afraid. So, yeah, Donald, let's make sure those other countries all know that we're the baddest mofo out here on planet earth.

Puhleeeze!!!!! We can deal with our foes as necessary. We don't need a bully with a bad comb-over in the White House shaking his fist and sneering. What we need to become, and could easily become is a beacon of compassion to our friends and allies, and a reluctant user of this Big Stick that we have already been using with some abandon in the last decade. For us to regain our self-image as 'the guys in the white hats', we need to remain calm, act with wise and restrained yet appropriate force, and identify ourselves as a member of a worldwide community of nations. This blue-green ball floating through space is now in fact a neighborhood of sorts....and there is no place for a bully. So, why would we elect one?

Tower to Charlie Sheen.........Pull up!!!

2011-04-03T16:53:00.001-04:00

I haven't been able to back-track to the source of that comment in the title, but it struck me as perfectly reflective of Charlie Sheen's present situation. He was shouted down by his audience in Detroit last night, many of whom demanded their money back. Others just walked out on him. The title of his travelling road show is "Violent Torpedo of Truth....Losing is not an Option". But, apparently he is indeed losing IT.....what? His freaking mind.

Have you noticed that we have a tendency to stare at car accidents when we are driving by...when common sense and even common decency indicates that it would be both better for us, and more respectful to the victims if we looked away. But, no, we gawk...almost unanimously. Perhaps we're just having a 'better him than me' kind of moment, or perhaps pathos is just so dramatic that we cannot resist scooping up an eyeful. But, in any case, we rarely resist looking. And, it feels like that is what we're doing as Charlie Sheen is spinning wildly out of control, headed for the wall.

A few years ago, the winner of the Daytona 500 crossed the finish line......upside down, backwards and ON FIRE. At the time, I thought to myself that nobody will ever top that for sheer drama....and it scored off the scale on my 'irony' scale as well.......because he was driving the Jack Daniels car. But, Charlie Sheen is not a car; he's a human being. His arrogance, gall, conceit, anger, truculence...all push us towards just watching as he goes down in flames. Maybe we even give in to the temptation to say--quietly under our breath, perhaps--"Well, he's brought this on himself." And, of course, this is true. But, as I listen to his over-the-top pronouncements, his wildly egotistical rants.....I am hearing the words and seeing the face of someone who really is losing his sanity. It may be hard to find a sympathetic place to view him from...but, we are watching a person whose mind is throwing itself against the bars of the cage that imprisons it. He has become ever more dramatic as the whole scenario unfolds...and rather than attribute it to his long-term addiction to alcohol and apparently drugs as well, I am sensing that those are merely exacerbatory, not causal.

This is a person who has met with sensational success in his professional life. He has been put on a pedestal by fans, and I am sure by the sycophants who surround him and make a handsome profit off of his career as well. Like Tiger Woods, in a very real sense--if you listen to what he's telling us--he has come to see himself as a demigod. His ego has become so monstrously inflated and hugely powerful that it will neither be subdued nor denied. So, he is on a wild ride....on the back of one bad-ass big lion. And, I personally am beginning to feel that I don't want to be looking when he hits the ground.

Just a thought.....

Buyers' Remorse.......over a Governor.

2011-04-02T15:28:00.002-04:00

My home state of Maine has been in the national media a lot lately. But, if you are also a Mainer, or have noticed these news tidbits, you will know that it is not for any reason that Maine's citizens are proud of. In fact, it has become an almost ubiquitous feeling of embarrassment here. In last fall's elections, the Tea Baggers pushed hard for their candidate, and the Dems and Indies split their votes between two other candidates, with the result being that we elected Paul LePage for governor.

Unfortunately, a governor is not something you can take to customer service and return for a full refund. If it were, we'd have done that by now. It turns out that LePage is not merely a far right conservative, he's also somewhat of, uh, well, er, uh....okay, I am going to put it in terms that even he could understand: he's an asshole. I am just calling a spade a spade here...or rather a sphincter a sphincter.

During the gubernatorial campaign LePage told a group of fishermen, who were complaining over federal regulation of their fisheries, that he'd tell the president to, "...go to hell." And decent Mainers turned red all across the land. But, that was just the beginning. After taking office LePage was asked why he refused to acknowledge the NAACP around the upcoming celebration of MLK Day. He told the reporter that the, "....NAACP can kiss my butt."

When questioned as to whether he agreed that the suspect chemical Bisphenol A should be removed from drink containers, LePage--in his cute and whimsical way--retorted, "...so what if women grow little beards?" At every opportunity LePage has labelled those who disagree with him, in his infinite wisdom, as 'idiots' or some other term that clearly evinces his inability to engage in a civil discourse about the issues facing our state. He is crude and he is a bully whenever he has a chance to be.

The latest flap to be reported across America, has been his order to take down a multi-panel mural in the state Department of Labor offices that depicts the history of the labor movement in Maine. It is actually a very well painted and pleasing visual telling of what working people have gone through in order to earn rights and respect. Maine is a working class state, historically speaking. It's bedrock has always been those who sailed out of her harbors to harvest fish and lobsters, or worked in the forests to harvest timber. Maine has a long-standing history of mill towns that sat astride rivers in order to use their motive power to turn the engines of industry. Lewiston and Auburn, Biddeford, Saco, Rumford, Jay, Thomaston...and more...were all towns that grew up around mills that were operated by generations of textile workers, shoemakers and papermakers. The shipbuilders at Bath Iron Works built more navy destroyers during WWII than existed in the entire Imperial Japanese Navy.

It is no exaggeration to state plainly that working men and women built Maine...and they also endured the predations of corporations who would keep them poor and have them work in unsafe conditions unless the workers had organized. It is the same all across America. One can look at the history of just about any industry and find that the owners and the bosses have never paid any more than they absolutely could get away with. And working conditions were most often abominable until workers and the government insisted that they be made safer. It is still dangerous to work in a paper mill and I personally know of people who have been trampled asunder by 'the company', tossed aside like so much trash when they were injured on the job.

This is not conjecture; it is simply how managers have behaved. Paul LePage has been one of those managers. He ran for governor on the premise that if he could make the chain of discount stores he managed, Mardens, profitable, then he could do the same thing for the fiscal affairs of Maine. But, what he brought to the highest office in the state with him, is a profound disrespect for anybody who disagrees with him, or who questions his actions. He doesn't dismiss his opponents with any modicum of politeness, he does so with terms of profound disrespect, and evinces a boorish arrogance as he does so.

Paul LePage, simply put, is an ongoing embarrassment to the great state of Maine......and, by any reasonable criteria..... he's just a great big nasty old ASSHOLE. Had to say it again. Wish I could say it to his face.

And, the Times They are a Changin'.......

2011-03-19T10:08:00.002-04:00

In his closing remarks the other night, Cenk Uygur--the liberal host on MSNBC--went into a lengthy monologue on the idea that the Japanese people are "Heroes of Humanity". I watched and was amazed as he listed their many courageous and noble attributes in response to the tsunami/quake and nuclear disaster. Yes, there have been many stories that support this viewpoint. Yes, it has been a terrible blow for them, on so many levels. Yes, I feel their pain as they struggle to recover and to even find the bodies of almost 10,000 missing souls.

A person would have to have a heart of stone to not be touched by some of the anecdotes that are coming out of northern Japan. But, before I buy into Uygur's bestowal of the lofty title of 'Heroes of Humanity', I have to pause. These are citizens of the same country that wanted to build a highway over the Andes in order to loot the Amazon basin of its last tropical hardwood lumber, the same folks who paint 'RESEARCH' on the side of a multi-million dollar new factory ship designed to process whale meat harvested by a fleet of killer ships...one of which tried to kill members of the Sea Shepherd Society by running down their vessel.

The Japanese treated their prisoners of war so badly in WWII that almost one third of them died (while approximately 1% of those held by the Nazis died, for comparison). Japanese soldiers committed endless mayhem on the Chinese population--including the infamous Rape of Nanking, footage of which is almost impossible to see without feeling ill--and the Koreans, and the Filipinos were also the recipients of savage brutality at the hands of Japanese troops, slaughtered wholesale for no other reason than various Japanese commanders wanted it so. None of these crimes against humanity were ever apologized for after the war. To the Japanese, it was as if they never happened. Throughout history, Japan has demonstrated a tendency towards viciousness and brutality, on a level that has equals only among such figures as Ghengis Khan, Ivan the Terrible, Adolph Hitler and Joseph Stalin. One only needs to study Samurai Japan to see what a truly violent society was like. What we have in this country at present doesn't even begin to approach what life was like in Japan during those centuries. A peasant could have his head lopped-off by a passing Samurai for simply being perceived as not having bowed low enough to the ground.

Their complete disdain for the environment and all species with which they interact was made crystal clear in the recent award-winning documentary, 'The Cove'. If you have not seen this heart-rending film, do so, but with the caveat that it will leave you almost certainly enraged that any human beings could be so cruel and callous. Yes, it so happens that I--and a whole lot of other people--love dolphins beyond all reason. I have had enough personal experience of them to know that they deserve to be treated with respect and kindness, that they are creatures who we may well one day realize are actually superior to humans in a variety of ways. At the very least, we should not regard them as swimming lumps of meat, there for the harvesting as we wish.

So, Cenk, let's back down on the wildly admiring rhetoric and pause to remember that most things have multiple aspects and that nothing occurs in a vacuum. What has happened in Japan is sad beyond measure, but it is also tinged with a feeling of reaping what one has sown. And, that is perhaps the biggest lesson that we can take away from this entire situation: what goes around really does come around.

Ghost Dogs of the Navajo

2011-03-10T14:03:00.005-05:00

Shortly before Christmas my son, Sam--now a veteran and about to graduate from the University of Maine with a degree in mechanical engineering--said to me that he wanted to break our giving pattern and that he was giving me a trip to the southwest. He is an avid photographer and has a very fine eye, along with a longstanding love of 'red rock' country. So, last week we flew to Las Vegas, rented a car, and headed out into the wilds of southern Utah.

Towards the end of our week of rambling around some of the most magnificent scenery on the planet, we found ourselves in Tuba City AZ, after a day of being at the Grand Canyon. At a gas station near our motel about five dogs were laying in the pool of light by the gas pumps. We had also encountered such dogs in Kayenta, near Monument Valley, and we knew that they are on their own. At our first such encounter--in the parking lot of a 'Mickey D's' in Kayenta--Sam saw a dog and wondered aloud who he belonged to. It soon became clear that this dog--and many others like him-- belonged to no one and was working the restaurant parking-lot for hand-outs.

In Monument Valley, as we drove the circuitous dirt road around the gigantic mesas, we met a small pair of yellow dogs, who were also on their own. But, these dogs were a little different. Their fur was very coarse, like that of some terrier breeds, and their faces were fox/dingo like, very pointy with keen slanted eyes. They sized up each passer-by, approached as indicated, and were also making a living off of hand-outs, but as we observed them it became apparent that they were truly 'wild'. When we were pulling out, they raced up over a small rise, apparently headed back towards their den. My sense is that they were part of a fully adapted feral population of such dogs. They are so well acclimated that they can survive larger predators, and severe winters out there, although I can't imagine it's easy.

In our days on the Navajo Nation's lands we saw many people who are struggling to get by. We drove past one fellow who was hunkered down on the edge of a cattle guard, twenty yards from the roadway....five miles from town...with his head propped in his hands......just sitting there. The sight of him gave me an instant pang of sadness. He looked so beaten down, so lost, so depressed....and he became a symbol in my mind for all the other people we saw who also seemed to be living with a dark cloud over them. Sam and I had long discussions about this apparent state of affairs; we asked what our role as a society was in this. We had to wonder whose responsibility it is that life apparently sucks so badly for so many people. Neither of us could escape the feeling that beyond a certain point this is something that is self-propagating....but that nobody can really force victim-hood on a person or people who does not somehow submit to it. Yes, of course, it has inertia, an undeniable momentum that propels a young Navajo man or woman in that direction. But, it was also seemingly clear to us, as outside observers, that massive government well-fare--in a myriad readily apparent forms--has a severe downside to it, perhaps even inflicting as much damage as it does good. It made me wonder if anybody has really studied the long-term effects of the existing programs. And, it was also strikingly self-evident that ALCOHOL continues to play a central role in empowering the slide towards helplessness and depression for far too many Native Americans.

Sam attended Ft. Lewis College his freshman year, in Durango Colorado. He went there because he loves that area, and Ft. Lewis was a dominant competitor in mountain-bike NCAA racing. Ft. Lewis is part of the Colorado state university system, and it is also a 'land grant' school that is charged with accepting all Native American applicants. So, a steady stream of them show up for freshman year...and the vast majority of them find the freedom and the opportunity to party are just too tempting...and drop out after a semester or two. Colorado is offering these kids a college degree for free...and most of them just go and party, then drop-out. Why?

The motel we stayed at in Tuba City belongs to the Navajo Nation. It was the lousiest one we found by a huge margin, and 50% more expensive. The 'heat' was a milk-house heater that you were expected to plug into a wall-socket and was so noisy that we went without it. The entire establishment was beset by an atmosphere of, "...hey, we really just don't give a shit"...and even the parking-lot was so full of big potholes that it looked like the surface of the moon.

In the end, however, it was the invisible, un-cared for, struggling mutts of the Navajo territory that showed some real resilience, perseverance, toughness and a desire to live. But, then, I know this about dogs. They are always willing to take life as it comes, work with what is at hand, deal with adversity in a way that is both courageous and dignified....and muddle on through. It felt like far too many of the Navajo people have still not yet learned this very basic, yet critical skill-set, from the very creatures that wander in their midst.

The Monster from the Black Lagoon...

2011-02-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

Well, here we go again....on a dizzying cable-car ride up the mountain of gas prices. Libya gets dicey....the per barrel price starts getting revved-up...and we're off and running. But, have you noticed that Libya provides only less than 2% of the world's oil, and most of her oil fields are being protected by the Libyan military, which has already defected from the control of apparent lunatic Muammar al-Gaddafi? And, despite the fact that none of that oil comes to the U.S. it is still all the excuse needed to fuel a speculative frenzy...the only losers of which are US. Nevermind that the barrels that are being 'sold' at higher daily prices will not reach the refineries and eventually our gas pumps for months....the rule is: "Rabbit up...Tortoise down." It must be a considerable source of delight to the oil companies that the gas already sitting in the tanks of refineries and gas-stations all over the country shoots up in value instantly as it keeps pace with the per-barrel price on the world markets.

The big question that is lurking in the back of most peoples' minds--well, not Charlie Sheen's maybe--is how far will it go this time? Where will it finally stabilize? And, on which one of these periodic run-ups will it just keep right on going? The talking heads are saying that $4/gal. is a given by summer....just in time to fleece all the vacationers, eh....and, depending on how the wildly unstable political balance in the Middle-East shakes down...or sheikhs down?....we might see the oil supply shrink well below world demand. If the worst fears of radical Islamic proliferation are realized in the region, withholding oil is a wonderful way for them to make us 'feel the pain' of Jihad. In fact, it could easily be the longest and most powerful lever they have to use against us, the 'infidels'.

So, what did we learn the last time around on this little merry-go-round? When gas blew past the $4/gal. mark in '08, people did finally decide to drive a lot less, and the sales of gas-guzzlers plummeted.....briefly. But, the oil industry may have realized that they had reached the point of diminishing returns in which more expensive gas was not going to make them as much profit as slightly less expensive product would....if they couldn't sell it at the same volume levels. So, I am guessing they were feeling their way to a price range at which people would still buy and drive gas-guzzlers, go on driving vacations, basically ignore the pain, and carry on as usual. That would be a kind of 'sweet spot' pricing for them. I have a feeling that the pharmaceutical companies set their prices in a similar fashion, looking for the point above which people will go without....but, because many simply cannot, and because it is insurance companies who pick-up the tab in many cases.....passing it along to their insurees eventually, of course--- they can be more aggressive in setting that breaking point of 'pain vs. profit'. I don't believe for a minute that any question of 'doing the right thing' or a sense of conscience plays a role in either industry. Nah.

If this delicate balancing act, however, is upset and spins out of control on one of these forays....all bets are off. Try to imagine how the U.S. and the world's economy--they are essentially one and the same at this point--would function if oil just keeps on spiraling upwards towards utterly exotic prices. Some projections estimate that prices north of $400/bbl. are possible in such an eventuality. Much has been written about the concept of 'peak oil'. Many experts on the petroleum industry believe that we have already passed the point beyond which world-wide production will never again be fully sufficient to meet the ever growing demands. The inevitable result of this is that oil and all attendant products--fuels, fertilizers, plastics, chemicals of all kinds...essentially, the weight-bearing pillars of our entire lifestyle--will just continue to go up in price as supply falls ever shorter of meeting the balooning demand. There is nothing but a train-wreck at the end of these tracks...but, although we--at least most of us--know this, we just keep right on hanging out the window of the locomotive, squinting into the wind and steaming on down the line.

Some imagine that science will come up with ingenious solutions, miraculous advances in the energy field that will yank our fat from the fire just in the nick of time. Ah, yes, TECHNOLOGY will save us all. Seriously? Do you really believe that fanciful thought is worth hanging your hat on? Hell, the whizz-bang scientists can't even figure out what to do with nuclear waste...and they have been working on it for about a half-century. So, what IS the answer then? Well, there are a host of people out there with alternative scenarios that they have been working on and making them into realistic, achievable and even appealing ways of living. All of them involve accepting the fact that life with oil that is exotically dear will not closely resemble the life of Reilly that we have been so completely addicted to and taking for granted. NOTE: this does not mean that such alternatives involve either draconian austerity, or are odious in their day to day ambiance. They are just not the energy saturated and luxury dependent life-style of today. There IS another way of living; most just cannot or will not allow themselves to imagine that it could become critically necessary.....or that this could happen in a painfully short period of time. The less time there is to adapt to such a dramatic scenario the more likely it would be that the process would be a painful and chaotic one.

If you look at this society through a wide-angle lens, taking the long view, from the vantage-point of the Fool on the Hill, human nature seems to be saying that we'll keep right on hurtling down those polished steel rails, like Casey Jones....until we actually see the headlight of the train we're going to hit. In the ballad of Casey Jones, he remained at the controls of his locomotive, trying to stop the train in time....while his brakeman, Webb, jumped. Neither alternative seems all that appealing really. It would be a lot less painful to just pull onto a siding. But, for that to happen, there would have to be a massive epiphany, dwarfing even the one that swept communism out of Russia in 1989....and, as I look around me these days, what I see is a society that is so steeped in selfishness, self-interest on every level....that--try as I might--I just cannot seem to imagine that happening.

I hope I am wrong. But, when we finally see that other headlight....it will be way too late.

Why is Beauty so hard to define?

2011-02-16T14:11:00.000-05:00

On dictionary.com Beauty is formally defined as: "the quality present in a thing or person that gives intense pleasure or deep satisfaction to the mind, whether arising from sensory manifestations (as shape, color, sound, etc.), a meaningful design or pattern, or something else (as a personality in which high spiritual qualities are manifest)."

Wait just a cotton-pickin' minute. That tells me NOTHING. It says there is this 'quality', and it tells me how people tend to respond to it, and goes on to give me some broad-brush hints as to the vehicles that seem to transmit beauty....but, really, it says not a peep about what this apparently mysterious 'quality' is. If you google 'true beauty' you get thousands of hits telling you everything from where to get your hair done....not much use to those of us who don't have any....to some vague allusions to properties of the soul and 'inner beauty'. Nobody seems willing to take a stab at nailing down this ubiquitous yet ill-defined 'je ne sais quoi'.

Perhaps that is the result of living in a basically secular culture that isolates all the qualities we perceive as being 'spiritual' into a separate compartment and generally lumps them together under the umbrella of 'religion'. But, for those of us who feel moved by Spirit, and yet do not feel drawn by any particular religion....Beauty--yes, with a capital 'B'-- is one of the only experiences in our lives that seems to be promising something more than just daily living as a chore, fraught with demands, laden with mundanity and boredom. It also doesn't help that we live in a material-centric culture in which beauty--with a small 'b'--has been hijacked to sell, uh, well, damn near everything....hardly can think of a product or service that it has NOT been used to hawk. The boundaries of good taste, any sense of respect or propriety need not apply. If putting a glossy woman in sexy clothes together with fill in the blank, can sell it, then so be it.

We live our entire lives so thoroughly marinated in a shallow hologram of beauty, that the real deal seems like some distant and hazy dream. Every so often, most, but not all people, have a pure experience of Beauty, and it touches them to their core, if they allow it to do so. Such an experience can even be so powerful as to be a life-changing moment for a person. But, most of us are so bombarded with sleek, sleazy, and plastic representations of beauty that we have become numb....too numb perhaps to recognize the value and Truth of the real quality when it does appear, often only fleetingly.

Genuine Beauty (I hesitate to use the expression 'True Beauty', lest it sound too much like 'the impressive clergyman' in Princess Bride, "....Twoo Wov") is not only 'real', and hidden in plain sight, it also has a deeper meaning that it carries. For the mystic, it is palpable proof of a Divine Being, a Higher Power, the Beloved, a Creator, the One. Beauty has an almost astonishing ability to by-pass the discursive mind....aka 'the chatterbox', or 'yadda, yadda'....which carries on an incessant and inane discussion of our perceived reality. This 'crazy monkey' aspect of our being--referred to by some mystics as 'mind-mesh'--is full of judgment, opinions as to acceptability or subjective quality, and is almost never content to simply observe and accept 'what is'. It pretty much steps all over everything we experience....and the results are grossly more problematic than they are beneficial.

Beauty--in a normal person--goes straight to the Heart and carries a powerful emotional impact as it does so. This is an instantaneous recognition and acceptance that needs no processing ....KAPOW!!!! It happens just that fast, and with enough power to bring tears to our eyes and an expansive feeling to our chest. The 'why' and the 'wherefore' of this process will NEVER be understood by science....simply because it is not something that the intellect has the tools to understand. Beauty lies in the province of the awakened Heart....not the intellect. For the same reason that western hard science still doesn't fully accept things like homeopathy, accupuncture, the placebo effect, and pranha, chi, ki or the entire idea of a Life Force...it will not and cannot accept that Beauty is a form of energy. And it most certainly will never accept that this energy has its origins in The Force.

Perhaps you've noted that I have thus far avoided using the 'G-word'. Ayuh. That is because the term 'God' has been so twisted, purloined, misapplied and generally loaded down with religious baggage, that it no longer carries a universally understood meaning. People who follow different religious paths have this tendency to make it their own, and, sadly, to feel that while they have an avenue leading directly to God, most others do not, and are even condemned forever because they just can't accept the only 'right' path.....their own, of course. Most of the problems that humanity is struggling with in these times stem from this form of myopia.

Beauty, however, is a common language that is able to transcend all boundaries real and imposed. It speaks fluently to any person whose Heart is open to it...and the message is always the same: "This is the feeling of Love". It is so pleasing, so comforting, so consoling, that it serves as a call to embrace what is behind it. And, above any and all religions, that feeling, that calling is to become a person who seeks, supports and tries their best to foster Love in the world around them, in their dealings with others, in their approach to the planet we inhabit, in their tolerance for all other beings...of any species or kingdom.

This is the origin of the expression: "Beauty is Truth". And, whether it be an artist who eschews it because he or she cannot get down out of their intellect long enough to serve it....or a religious zealot who claims to serve a God who would have him/her kill all others who do not believe as they do.....any person who embraces the vices of isolation, elitism, exclusivity and false righteousness....is just flying in the face of the one single Truth that conveys its Essence in the blink of an eye...beyond all doubt, without any reservation: Beauty.

photo by: Samuel J. Sayen

Sun Setting on Family Farm

2011-02-03T13:31:00.000-05:00

This painting is only a slight exaggeration of the light that was falling on this farm. I took the reference photos in December, near the winter solstice, and the sun was just barely above the western horizon. Because of it's low angle in the sky, its rays were sweeping, raking, virtually streaming across this classic Maine farmstead, which is also the embodiement of: 'big house, little house, back house, barn", the continuous architecture that is so common here and evidence of Yankee pragmatism too.

An academic wrote a book on this style of architecture and posited that it was evidence of the brutal winters and farmers not wanting to go outside to get to the barn. But, he's from away, and I have lived here for more of my life than not, and my sense is that it represents the simple truth that when you need more space and want to add-on to existing structures, building three walls is cheaper and more efficient than building four. If it really was a matter of not wanting to go outside to get to the barn, you would see this style of farm all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, northern Michigan, the Dakotas and on out west. But, you do not.

There is a small and intentional irony in the title, of course. The sun really is setting on family farms all over the country. It has become so hard to make a living, competing with the giant agri-business operations, that most small farms have gone the way of the passenger pigeon. The vast majority of farms that I point my camera at, are no longer actively farming. One might say, "Well, if they cannot compete, that's just how it goes." And, I would respond, "We are losing much more than just small farming as a means of food production. We are watching an entire way of life disappear, and the bed-rock values that it embodies are disappearing in many parts of the country too."

People don't want to work that hard for a meager living. They want a degree and a job that pays a salary that allows them to accumulate the 'things' of a middle-class lifestyle. So be it. But, as I look around at our society, I cannot help wonder if the more difficult and less luxurious ways of yesteryear weren't something that was giving us a more honest and clear-eyed perspective on the true meaning of life. I see little evidence that those souls who have become surfeited with material 'stuff' are happier just because of this. In fact, I have met many, many people who have all anybody might wish for, and they are not happy....far from it. The people I meet who do seem to have discovered how to be deeply satisfied with their lives, seem almost unanimously to be those people who are unimpressed with ownership, and are committed to following a path of discovery and service.

That's just what I have been seeing for about the last fifty years, folks.

Why my Smart Phone.......Might not be.

2011-01-18T12:29:00.002-05:00

I am one of those souls who was dragged backwards, kicking and screaming, into the Digital Age. I steadfastly resisted digital photography, despite the urging of friends who insisted I was missing out. Of course, the fact that I had about $15K tied up in Nikon film cameras and lenses might have had something to do with that. But, today those cameras are nearly worthless, unless you like having high-tech paperweights or bookends.

As a matter of course it was inevitable that I did finally accept that the digital revolution--and it is that--was inevitable and now I wouldn't dream of using film again. I have become a great admirer of how accessible and how amazingly effective the symbiotic combination of a decent digital camera and Photoshop is. What was once the province of expensive custom labs and printers is now available to anyone who wants to make stunningly fine images.

When it came to cell-phones, I was also reluctant, but my dear wife insisted that the convenience and added security of having one of these little devices in your pocket far outweighed the cost and my underlying resistance to climbing on board any movement that creates dependency on big corporate America. So, I started out with a very basic little phone, eventually up-graded to a nicer one that could actually take half-decent pictures, and I was fine with it....although I do detest seeing people using them when they are also trying to convey a very large and shiney SUV through traffic. Stats show that they are driving about as well as someone who just loaded up on Margaritas.

Recently, it became obvious that Abby was becoming sort of a 'texting monster', her phone always close to hand and a steady stream of communications happening that involved hammering teensy keys and sending out messages to our kids, her friends and to whomever she wished. I did feel a little left out, and I feared that I was showing symptoms of 'old fartism', being a curmudgeon about this way of messaging. So, I finally let her know that I was interested.....and she was wise enough to get me down to our local cell-phone store before I could change my mind.

Well, the options and choices were pretty overwhelming. There are 'sliders', 'Blackberries', 'Androids', 'touch screens', 'qwerty' keypads...and on and on. But, I did manage to narrow it down and I was pleased to now be joining the rest of the family as a 'smart phone' user. I brought the device home, wrapped in a sharp, metallic red protective case--a must have for all savy users apparently--and I began sorting out how to use the many features. By and by I could stand out under the night sky and have the little glowing screen tell me the names of all the constellations....and even where the moon was, yes, at that moment. Anywhere I pointed the phone/computer, it indicated the horizon and showed me a map of the sky. It also can tell me where I am standing, within a very few meters, and keep me abreast of the weather, my bank accounts, and probably read my mind.....if I am willing to download the appropriate 'app'.

In fact, this little device could easily become the central focus of my entire life, hooking me up with all the social networking I could ever not want....keep me 'tweeting', facebooking, etc., etc. ad infinitum....or ad nauseum, depending on how you view it. I am not really sure what it CAN'T do...but, I am told that there are over EIGHTY-THREE THOUSAND apps available, most of them for free, so it isn't clear that there is much on that list...if anything. Holy Cow, Batman!!!

But, here's the thing: at what point do I begin to feel that I have a little MONSTER in my pocket? Apparently, this device can tell anybody who is clever enough to hack it, where I am, what I am doing on it, what I have said and typed, and give them access to all of my records and private life in its entirety. The wicked ones out there who are using the ever growing world of communication, global positioning, financial dealings and everything else are finding more and more clever ways to learn what they need to know about us. I am not even going to go into the idea that government intelligence agencies may be among the most active purloiners of information and data....but, I can tell you that there are now over 1200 private intelligence consulting contractors to the U.S. government...and I sincerely doubt if all of them are well regulated and tightly controlled, much less feeling constrained by any sense of what is 'right and wrong'.

After having this 'thing' for only a few days, I noticed that it didn't seem to hold a charge for very long, necessitating putting it on the charger every night. My old and ignorant cell-phone needed charging about once a week, if that. So, I began exploring on the web, and soon realized that this 'smart' phone is on all the time and was running about THIRTY apps, even ones that I do not use and have no desire to. They were just hovering in the background, waiting for me to discover them and become a fanatical user....of whatever. Thankfully, my brother-in-law, Jody--who is much more tech-savy than I--said, "Download 'App Killer' and shut them down. So, even as he sat across the dinner table from me, I did so. Of course, each time I check to see if these supposedly disabled apps are behaving, several or many of them have fired themselves back up and are again sucking my battery's vital juices out.

Whoever created and got in bed with the cell-phone's maker and provider doesn't give a damn if I want their app. They are going to be there regardless of whether or not I want whatever they are foisting on me. It doesn't take much imagination to suppose that there are aspects of this phone and the network that it is ALWAYS either searching for or connected to that I am not privy to. Internet monsters like Google are now collecting data on our spending habits, shopping preferences, communications....and who the hell knows what else.

I am beginning to wonder if the best use for this device is to lock it up in a lead-lined box for most of the time, and only take it out to use when I really need it. I do like texting; the phone aspect is no different that it was with my little 'dumb phone'....but, I am starting to feel that using a 'smart phone' is opening a window into my life that I don't really know about in any depth.

Is that really the 'smart' thing to do in these times? I have some doubt about that.

Oh, Sarah.....let me count the ways you are so unqualified.

2011-01-13T16:40:00.001-05:00

If you click on the header above it will take you to an article written by Paul Begala, and published on Huffington Post. He describes his reaction to the speech put online by Sarah at the same time that President Obama was in Arizona to give what turned out to be a very powerful and sensitive address at the memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims.

Previously, I have outlined the idea that Sarah Palin seems to have some clear symptoms of NPD, Narcissistic Personality Disorder. While I am not a qualified psychologist, I do--and so do you--have the ability to look up and study the list of symptoms that are commonly associated with this affliction. In my studied opinion, the Begala piece notes in Palin's response to the shooting......a very extensive list of those symptoms.

NPD is becoming more common, or perhaps we are simply more aware of it and recognize it more frequently now. But, it is not something that is poorly understood by the mental health profession. When a person persistently draws attention back to themselves....even when one might think that was oddly inappropriate...a red flag should pop up. Her vitriolic attacks on anybody whom she perceives as against her or in disagreement with her opinion in any given matter are also predictable by now, and this is another hallmark of a person who suffers from NPD. It is all about Sarah, in damn near any situation she is in.

On her 'reality' show, "Sarah Palin's Alaska", she invited Kate Gosselin and her eight now famous kids, to go out camping in the Alaskan bush. It happened to be--as it is so much of the time during part of the year--raining, cold and with lots of those pesky Alaskan mosquitoes, just for good measure. Well, this was not something that Kate Gosselin was really ready to tolerate; she was shivering, getting eaten alive by the bugs, and she let Sarah know that the entire situation SUCKED. Finally, she decided that she couldn't take any more and packed it in. Instead of showing concern for Gosselin, Palin made it all about how much she loved being out there, how she'd grown up this way, and that was what Alaskans did for fun. Once again, it was all about Palin.

In the preparations for going out camping, they went and took a course in how to protect themselves from the possibility of a brown bear coming into camp. This was essentially a familiarization with the loading and firing of a 12 gauge shotgun, though I did notice that Sarah declined to use any shotgun provided by the instructor....in favor of her own, which was, of course, equipped with a special recoil reducing stock. Again, Sarah put herself in the primary role, that of 'protector' of the group, and showed that she could handle the fairly stout recoil of such a gun...sort of (see above). It was also obvious to this life-time shooter that she was a complete novice at this. And this is despite all the hoopla about having grown up spending large amounts of time in the bush. Nah.

During the show on her now infamous caribou hunt, they went to a remote, fly-in camp above the Arctic Circle, and the woman running the camp, alone, was what Sarah has wanted us to believe she is: a real Alaskan outdoorswoman. In fact, this woman had been attacked by a brown bear, struggled back to camp and stitched up HER OWN SCALP....and then got another gun and went after the bear. Now, that is guts and persistence!!! I have no idea if Sarah realized that she appeared like a diva in comparison to this woman. I am surprised that she thought she would benefit from going hunting and looking so utterly amateurish (see previous post: "Diva with a Gun").

So, as dear Sarah prepares--in her own mind--to make the big decision about 2012, bear in mind who this woman really is. She, in so many ways, is giving us all the information we need to see the truth about her. The "blood libel' remark was just another piece of that. In so mis-using that antiquarian term--synonymous with Antisemitism and a perverse justification of persecution of the Jews--she gives us one more indication that she is just plain OFF THE WALL.

An Addendum.......

2011-01-12T11:36:00.000-05:00

After writing the previous entry in this blog, I read that Arizona is one of a very few states that has a law that enables any citizen to report someone who seems to have mental issues, seems unstable or otherwise a cause for concern--for them or the community--and the state is then required to assess that person and take appropriate action to get them the help they need, even to incarcerate them in a mental health facility if necessary.

HOWEVER....and this is huge, in the last year over 45% of the Arizonans who were receiving any kind of treatment or aid from the state's mental health agencies..........were dropped. Of course, Jan Brewer, the new conservative governor, and her legislators who all have decided that state budgets are out of control and must be slashed, have done this in the name of fiscal responsibility. And, while that is a real consideration, the trade-off would seem to be one of potentially severe and painful problems erupting in a society that has decided to deny help where it would clearly be needed and make a vast difference.

The fact remains: NOBODY who knew that Jared Loughner was acting weird and disturbingly took advantage of this law and brought him to the attention of state or city agencies that could have made a difference.

Until we start caring about each other in a way that seems impossibly remote right now, we can expect the increased isolation of troubled individuals to inflict greater and greater pain on ALL OF US. The "not my problem" attitude has become not only callous and cynical, but very painful to our society at large.

Into the Breech....one more time.

2011-01-11T09:14:00.000-05:00

Six Americans who died in Tucson last Saturday morning

Like most Americans, I was deeply saddened and even distraught when I heard the news of the shootings in Tucson. It felt like a heavy weight had just dropped on my chest, and as I found out more about the victims that feeling only got heavier. You have heard perhaps too much already as the media go into their usual feeding frenzy, digging up as many stories as possible. I am praying that Gabby Giffords does not merely survive, but that she recovers in a fashion that will leave the medical types scratching their heads at the fullness of her recovery.

So, what are we going to do to address the fact that this kind of scenario seems to be happening with such regularity? I don't have the stats--don't really want them--but it feels like this kind of darkness descends on our country at least two or three times a year. This time it is higher profile, because of the prominence of one of the victims, and the number of them. But, there are mass shootings with a handful of victims that pretty much circulate through the media with monotonous regularity...so much so that we almost don't notice them anymore. A disgruntled former employee returns to his (it is almost always a male) workplace and shoots a few people and then kills himself.....not news now, too common.

But, here's the thing: we are getting so inured to people who are disturbed, disgruntled, angry, fist-shaking and just plain out to lunch, that we have learned how to ignore them, for the most part. Yes, they make the people around them 'uncomfortable', and a few people are always interviewed who say, "I just knew this would happen someday." But, nothing, seemingly EVER, happens to interdict the final violent onslaught that so many people saw coming. Why?

Well, we had a fellow in our community who was one of these cases. He was hostile, unstable, implied that violence would come to those who offended him....and he had a 9mm. I spoke with our local sheriff, a long-time law enforcement professional, much liked and respected in the community, and he told me, with apologies, that there was nothing that could be done until this guy acted out his threats. As long as the threats were generalized and not specifically directed at an individual, and as long as this fellow didn't wave his pistol at someone........he was free to just continue making a whole community feel under threat.

He was also free--without having any record of felonious misconduct, or mental health issues on the books--to buy all the guns and ammo that he might want. Eventually, he moved away and a lot of folks breathed a big sigh of relief. So, my point is this, we are helpless to turn to law enforcement even when we perceive a real threat developing in our own community. This sicko in Tuscon gave lots and lots of signals that he was mentally disturbed in a way that was very threatening...and nobody could or would do a damn thing about it. Where this really sticks in my craw is that he also went into that sporting goods store and bought a Glock without showing up on the background check.

When somebody has put that many people on edge, and posted so much non-sensical blather on the web, been kicked out of a local college and told not to return without some mental health evaluation, it is my feeling that there needs to be some kind of a safety net.....for him, and for all of us. A case-worker from the Department of Public Safety should have the ability and the responsibility to receive complaints, and to look into them. If it is apparent that the individual in question is headed in a dire direction, there should be a follow-up that AT THE VERY LEAST, puts the person in a data-base where it would show up when they go to buy instruments of destruction. We don't let drunk drivers go until they kill someone....at least we TRY not to.....and we should not let a person who is showing all the signs of becoming dangerous just twist in the wind until something happens like last Saturday morning in Tucson.

And, putting in place a safety-net of this kind would not have to be a systematic, bureaucratic, heartless mechanism. It could actually be driven by compassion and intelligence...but, I do realize that these qualities are either fleeting or totally absent from most governmental agencies....so maybe I am asking for pie in the sky.

But, I DO NOT accept the idea that we all just wait around for the next massacre with our hands tied. Not good enough, my friends....not good enough.

The Bluebird....of happiness.

2010-12-28T14:04:00.000-05:00

"The Bluebird Theater" is my most recent painting, just finished. It is 24 x 36, oil on panel, and is a rendition of a scene that I photographed in Denver Colorado. The Bluebird is no longer a movie theater, in fact, but a venue where mostly up-and-coming bands and performers are on stage, seven nights a week.

For more than a year I had been casting about looking for the right theater to paint. I was primarily interested in the lights and lighting effects of a marquee at night, but I also like the feeling of a pool of light that attracts people who come to be entertained. The shadowy figures in this painting are kids who have come to see a couple of unknown--nationally, at least--rock bands. The movie title on the marquee is my own. "Paradise Lost" is the title of an epic poem by John Milton written in the 1660s. It addresses his despair in a lost revolution, but affirms his faith in humanity. Max Demian, is the name of a primary character in Hesse's novel, 'Demian'.

I just was not inclined to put the names of two rock bands on this classical marquee. But, for me, the real challenge and satisfaction of doing this painting is how the lights of the marquee needed to really seem to luminesce, and I am very fond of how the blue light coming from the neon 'Bluebird' is causing the entire top-half of the building to seem almost unreal, kind of ethereal and yet vibrant at the same time. I also found the way that the theater's lights reflect off of the painted lines in the street and the reflections on the car parked down the block to add visual interest. And, they were fun to paint.

Oligarchy of Greed....

2010-12-26T21:28:00.002-05:00

I had not paid attention to the term, "net neutrality" until I read the above linked piece. (click on the header) Al Franken is a highly literate and astute watchdog for individual rights. How ironic then that he should be representing the same state of Minnesota that Michelle Bachmann does. They are such absolute polar opposites that it almost boggles the mind.

But, thank God that Senator Franken is paying attention, because if the sneaky weasels who are about to attempt to pull off a quick one on us succeed, the internet will change fundamentally in its nature and its mission. Instead of being an open and free venue wherein small entrepreneurs and people who desire to share their opinions--like I do on this blog--have equal opportunity to do so, it will instead become a place where big money and corporate horsepower begin to have more status and much greater power to put their message in your face. The essential liberty that has characterized the internet--for better and for worse--will be on its way to extinction.

When you search for something--either information or a product, or an organization--you will be ushered to the site of the company who wants you to buy their service or product.....or, worst of all, to the site of the propaganda 'news' organization who wants to infuse your thinking with their own.

The internet is still a relative adolescent. It was almost inevitable that the forces of greed would find ways to manipulate the vast power of communication and the nearly infinite information reserves that the internet serves as a gateway for. By inserting themselves at the junctions of how information flows, these masters of manipulation will succeed in influencing not only what we buy, but what we know, what we even believe is going on in the world. Can you imagine any organization as politically biased and intellectually corrupt as Fox News having the power to determine what goes out over the world-wide-web? When the little guy is squeezed out because he or she can no longer show up in searches, due to an inability to pony-up the necessary fees or simply because their opinion is divergent, the fundamental nature of everything that the internet represents will be utterly and irrevocably destroyed.

Think about this. The internet is the greatest leveler of the playing field of democracy, of any form of communication that HAS EVER EXISTED. Anybody can gain access to it for free, and anybody can use it to communicate their message, however weird, wonderful, inane or ingenious. It is ALL IN THERE.

Letting this fall under the sway of people who are intent on dominating it for the purposes of political influence or simply the achievement of greedy goals.....is a form of social suicide. We would just have one more channel on the television is ultimately what it would mean......nothing that could ever serve to preserve and to develop intellectual, social and spiritual goals.

This would be just one more aspect of the Oligarchy of Greed that is already in ascendancy. God help us if we allow that to happen.

Diva with a gun.....

2010-12-06T16:26:00.003-05:00

I have spent a lifetime in the shooting sports. Starting at age 8 and all the way to the present day, I am, simply put, a Marksman, with pistol, shotgun and rifle. I have a long list of credentials in that regard and a bunch of trophies, but more than that I just love being outdoors and participating in the shooting sports in all their many forms.

I have been keeping up with the mini-series on TLC channel, "Sarah Palin's Alaska", and it is more, much more, revealing than I would guess she is aware. For example: here's what I saw when the great Sarah of Wasilla sallied forth on a caribou hunt: She wasn't either allowed, expected or willing to carry her own rifle. In fact, it wasn't hers at all, but one chosen by her father from his battery...picked for its lack of recoil, according to him. I would guess it was something like a .243 Winchester. Palin Sr. referred to it rather disdainfully as a 'varmint rifle'. Neither was she expected to load or operate the bolt-action on this rifle. It was the kind of thing you might see when a kid is hunting with a parent for the first time. But, apparently, Palin Sr. has been taking Sarah hunting since childhood....so, is that perhaps why he still treats her as if she were a ten-year old?

So, finally, a caribou presents itself on the second day of the hunt.....and the moment of truth is upon her. Sarah squints into the scope and squeezes off a shot. Nothing happens, the caribou stands there. So, her father reaches over and operates the bolt-action and Annie Oakley squeezes off a second shot......caribou stares in disbelief. She misses four times before it dawned on anybody that the rifle wasn't properly zeroed-in. The scope must have taken a knock during the travels to the camp....but any responsible and knowledgeable sports(wo)man knows that the first thing you do on arrival in camp, certainly before heading out, is to fire a few shots to verify the zero on your rifle. Nah, not the Palins.

Then her friend, Becker, hands her his rifle with the warning,"...Careful, this one kicks", and she finally shoots the by now bored caribou, who had apparently decided that its fate could only be fulfilled by being a victim of the storied huntress who had traveled so far to kill it.

The whole business was just silly. This woman--despite all her claims to outdoor expertise--violated a primary rule of hunting: be sure of your shot. By not knowing if the rifle was properly zeroed, she turned the whole thing into a Keystone Cops movie. When she got home and was showing off the meat and antlers to her family with great pride, her smallest daughter, Piper, was singularly unimpressed and when Sarah asked if she'd like to have the antlers on the wall in her bedroom, I believe I heard Piper observe that her mommy had shot a very small caribou.

If the goal of this mini-series is to impress all of us who love the outdoors that Sarah Palin is one of us, I've got some bad news for you, Mark Burnett. It ain't workin'.

Julien Assange has some issues........ Ya think?

2010-12-01T09:19:00.000-05:00

If someone dumped a print out of all the documents that Wikileaks just dumped into the world media channels in your garage, it would require a fork-lift to move them. I say 'garage' because I am doubtful there would be room in your office or home.

Jon Stewart put it in perspective in terms of what this mountain of material really reveals: not much, if anything. If Assange's motivation was to 'embarrass' us as a nation on the world stage, he has failed miserably. Here's the thing: he would have to go light years beyond just revealing some crass and candid statements made by our diplomatic corps if he wants to even come close to what we do on our own to make us look fat, stupid, greedy and 'ugly' in the eyes of the rest of the world. Anybody who spends time outside of the U.S. these days can tell you that the rosy view of Americans that persisted after WWII....is long gone. We have acted out of such obvious self-interest with such callous disregard for both the world community of nations and the environment, that we are now held almost universally in low regard. Hillary Clinton apologized to one of her secretary of state 'counterparts' from another country, only to be told, essentially, "Not a problem. You should hear what we say about YOU."

Chris Matthews, of Hardball on MSNBC, said, "But people are still trying to get into this country, right." Right, because they live in horrendous circumstances in places like Honduras and Mexico. I would be wading the river and climbing the fence too if I lived under those conditions. That doesn't change how the rest of especially the developed world sees us, warts and all. To this day, I wince when I am reminded that we refused to sign the Kyoto Accords. We were telling the world, straight-up, we're going to pollute all we want to, to hell with the environment. So, is it any wonder how we got here?

Much of what Assange is motivated by is a deep anger towards the United States. In one interview I saw it was impossible to not know that this is a seriously disturbed dude. His mannerisms, his tone....hell, just the look in his eyes when he spoke about why he wants to monkey wrench America....all were clear signals of his mental/emotional state.....and it made my skin crawl. He is now on the run, accused of committing rape and living a shadow-life as he flees from international law enforcement. He had better hope they find him before the CIA does.

But, my real point here is this: despite how deranged Assange may be, regardless of his burning desire to 'hurt' us....maybe it is just possible that he's done us a favor in essence, by holding up a mirror and saying, "Do you see how you look to the rest of us?"

So, maybe it is time we stopped looking in our own Magic Mirror and asking, "Mirror, mirror on the wall......", and stop discounting others' opinions and begin asking ourselves what we need to do to find our way back to being the good example and the beacon of freedom that we once were in the rest of the world's eyes.

Last Rays....

2010-11-30T14:48:00.000-05:00

As the sun approaches the winter solstice, its arc getting ever lower each day, the quality of light gets finer and finer. About two years ago I started carrying a pocket camera. Since my preferred mode of dress on a typical day is a pair of overalls over a flannel shirt, I have a perfect pocket on the bib in which a small camera is right at home. I started out with a Canon SD1100 IS, an 8 megapixel with all the necessary features to make grab-shot photos easy and of a quality that is very useful.

Somehow, on a recent trip to Colorado, that little camera and I parted ways. I hope whoever found it gets as much service out of it as I did. I replaced it with a Panasonic Lumix FH-20, which, at 14 mpxls and with an 8X optical zoom lens, is an even more capable camera. It almost doesn't matter what pocket camera you choose, there are very few bad ones out there in a market that is so competitive that incompetent products don't last very long and manufacturers know that their reputation is always on the line. The key is to have a camera WITH YOU at all times.

Below is a shot of a local farm, taken in the last few moments before the sun dove below the horizon. I was able to pull off the road, jump out and capture about six images before the sun was gone. For me, what is most enjoyable about this image and all pix of this type, is how radically the yellow-rose sunlight transforms the buildings. If you look at the various areas of them you will see colors ranging from a very warm, almost Naples Yellow Pale, to pinks, mauves and even distinctly violet shades where the shadows fall. The multiple surfaces all catch the light in unique ways and reflect colors differently. If I decide to use this image as a reference for a painting, the test will be to not over exaggerate the colors. They are already very saturated and to take them much further would run the risk of stepping across the line into garishness. Light as it naturally occurrs is almost always about as good as it gets.

This image could be made very easily by anybody with a camera. There is absolutely nothing about it that required any skill......other than the obvious one: SEEING THE LIGHT.

How Dogs Tamed US.....

2010-11-24T10:03:00.000-05:00

Last night I saw the first episode of "How Man Tamed the Wild" on Nat Geo t-v. Among the interesting segments was one that made me really sit-up and watch closely. It was about the 'Metrodogs' of Moscow. These are members of the approximately 35,000 feral dog population that roams Moscow without restraint. They are also smart enough to know that being friendly to the Muscovites is necessary if they want to live their lives unmolested, so they are actually quite sociable as they go about the tough job of making a living by their wits. The so-called 'Metrodogs', however, go a step further. They have learned how to use the extensive Moscow subway system, and it seems clear that they both get on and off trains at the stations of their choosing. In other words: THEY KNOW THE SUBWAY SYSTEM. One Russian who is researching these amazing mutts--who all look somewhat the same, btw, like a German Shepherd-Labrador cross--guessed that they know the various stations by their unique appearance, by scent......and because the announcer tells them the name as the train pulls in.

On hearing this I immediately had a mental image of this dog getting off his seat, stretching and yawning, "Well, that's my stop." written across his face as he makes his way toward the door.

There was plenty of footage of these dogs sharing the platforms with passengers of the two-legged variety, and there is even a bronze statue of a Metrodog on one station platform. Obviously, Muscovites like and admire these pooches for their independence and audacity. One passenger remarked that the dogs will go right between your legs to get where they want to go. And he was smiling as he said this.

Moscow dogs have formed packs in exactly the same way wolves and coyotes do....not to mention inner-city human juveniles too, of course. Their territories are precise and non-negotiable; any dog caught in a neighboring pack's territory is in for a very rough time of it. One such pup, trapped along a steep riverbank was calling for his pack-mates to come get him out of a jam.

Another very interesting tidbit was that researchers have discovered genetic differences in animals that are non-aggressive and those that remain aggressive. This, in fact, was the defining criteria for being 'tame' or wild: friendly or not. They have some idea that a few wolves with this 'tame' gene began to reach out to humans about 15,000 years ago, and that was the beginning of the endless adventure of dogs and humans working and living together.

But, perhaps the most interesting research that has been done in this area is that of a Russian scientist, beginning in the 50s and still underway--he, btw, actually braved the firing squad under the Stalin regime to do it. Dimitri Belyaev found that some 60 generations into artificial selection for 'friendliness' that silver foxes began to actually change their appearance. They became multi-colored, developed a lighter bone structure, and they began to do something no wild fox does.....wag their tails as a sign of friendly intentions.

And, last but not least is a story from an island far out to sea off County Donnegal, Ireland: Tory Island. Up until he disappeared in 2008, there was a porpoise named Doogie who was the local 'harbor porpoise'. This is actually not a rare thing for a porpoise to become habituated in a particular harbor and to visit with the local fishermen and boaters. I have heard some amazing stories about such animals. But, one day in Tory harbor, a yellow lab named Ben saw Doogie out there and decided that he needed to meet him.....so he paddled out and began a friendship that went on for years. On a given day Ben would see Doogie and make his way out for a frolic in which Ben would swim in tight circles as Doogie swirled around him. Click on the header above to see a video of Ben and Doogie having a visit.

When I first became aware of this, my thought was: "What in the world went through Ben's head that he decided swimming out into a frigid, dark body of water to meet a very large and only partially visible creature?" Then I remembered: "Oh, that's right...HE'S A DOG!!"

Uh-oh, there he goes again.....

2010-11-19T18:00:00.002-05:00

In Tsarist Russia, sometime around the fin de siecle, an officer in the Tsar's secret police (Pyotr Ivanovich Rachovsky) fabricated something called, "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion." He just made them up, even plagiarized some of the content from a French literary work, "Dialog in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu" by Maurice Joly, a political satirist of the 1860s. These were supposedly secret protocols describing a plan by means of which the 'Elders' of the world Jewish community planned to take over the planet. These fake protocols might have faded quickly into the dustbin of history but for the fact that Henry Ford became aware of them and saw to it that they were widely distributed and published them in, "The International Jew". Apparently, dear ol' Henry was an anti-semite of some serious standing and ambition.

When Adolph Hitler came to power in 1933, he saw to it that Josef Goebbles et al, distributed the Protocols throughout the Third Reich. This was a part of the strategy I have previously written about here, called "The Big Lie", one of the tenets of which is to turn the tables on your perceived opponents, and make them to blame for, well, for EVERYTHING, of course. The crystalline clarity born of hindsight has shown that it was the Nazis themselves who were implementing the 'protocols', almost step-by-step, all the while using their existence to fuel the hell-fires of the Holocaust.

Now, slip forward in time to the present. We have a clown called Glenn Beck, or at least he poses as a clown, telling people, "Hey, what do I know?", "I'm just a fool", "Don't believe me," and yet he also let's fly phrases such as, "Hey, I couldn't say it here, if it weren't true." He's the kind of clown that would have all the kiddies at the birthday party crying and cowering under the furniture after the first few minutes. He relishes his role as a stoker of fear, a spreader of lies, a painter of dire pictures of the future. And, despite his disclaimers to the contrary, he is well aware that he commands the attention of a large audience, estimated to be in the range of 2.1 million people, though it should also be noted that his audience has shrunk by approximately 800,000 since the beginning of 2010.

Apparently there are over two million Americans who are sitting in front of televisions at 5:00 p.m. and sucking up the words this man spews out. His latest campaign is to reveal how George Soros, a self-made billionaire who survived the Holocaust in Hungary as a teenager, and now is somewhat of a media mogul, has been plotting to, "....take over the United States." With his now typical assemblage of props and chalk boards, Beck goes into far-flung elaborate explanations of how Soros is implementing his nefarious plan, using, of course, his media empire to great effect to do so.

This is the most blatant and callous use of the Big Lie strategy since the Nazis. Soros does give money to support various liberal causes and politicians. He has also been vigorously putting his support behind any group or government that fights communism, fascism or totalitarian forces wherever they occur. Soros has consistently put his money to work to fight against all those who would trample human rights...anywhere.

So, because he is fully qualified to fit Beck's definition of a "progressive", Beck's response has been to identify Soros as perhaps the most evil person on the planet, easily worse than weenies like Bin Laden because Soros is actually accomplishing something with his efforts. Beck, to the amazement of even some conservatives, has claimed that Soros was a collaborator with the Nazis at the age of 14, when the truth is that he was--at his father's request--sheltered by a Christian so that he wouldn't be hauled off to Auschwitz with the rest of his family. (aside: the man under whose care he stayed alive, took him along when he appraised confiscated Jewish properties, and for this Beck has said that Soros confiscated the properties himself.....a wild and ridiculous perversion of the truth, in typical Beck fashion) The amazingly hypocritical irony behind all of this is that Beck works for Rupert Murdoch, far and away the most powerful media mogul, and one who throws his vast wealth behind conservative causes however he might, via his own much vaster media empire. The cause Murdoch supports is that of the wealthy getting wealthier, empire building, amassing not merely money but unimaginable power as well. In fact, wealth is just a vehicle for wielding power and Murdoch is a master of using his 'fair and balanced' news network as a pure and simple propaganda machine.....not at all different, in tenor or substance, than what Goebbles did with the Propaganda Ministry of the Third Reich.

Beck lies without blinking. He makes up 'facts' out of whole cloth, and seems to feel wholly justified in so doing. He puts forth his own Big Lie so unashamedly and with such vigor that it is almost hard to take him seriously....but, apparently, over 2 million people do. I doubt that most of his listeners realize the extent to which he turns the facts and the truth upside down, and inside out.

In Nazi Germany, people became circumspect about the propaganda that they were bombarded with unceasingly. One of the primary instruments for this was a newspaper, "Der Volkischer Beobachter", "The Peoples' Observer". It was, pure and simple an organ for the Nazi regime to spin reality. Eventually, people widely understood this and the conventional wisdom became that if you really wanted to know what was going on with the war, or anything, you simply read the 'VB' and turned everything around 180 degrees.

I have actually tried this with all the sewage flowing from Beck's mind.....it actually works. Try it yourself, I think you will be amazed.

Down to the Bare Bones......again.

2010-11-16T10:21:00.001-05:00

Now that almost all the leaves have fallen, leaving only a smattering of bleached beech leaves that will still be there in the early spring, the landscape is fully revealed. It is a time of year that frustrates me as a photographer because everywhere I look I see the trunks and branches of the trees and shrubbery, and they make amazingly fine textured filigree designs. But, when I try to put a lens on them and bring those designs to a two-dimensional plane....they mostly fall flat. I have still--after four decades of trying--not figured out why this is so.

At one point in the 90s I even took-up large format photography, went out and bought a Toyo 4 x 5 field camera, and all the attendant accessories, but still was not satisfied with what I was able to capture. Perhaps I am just being a spoiled brat of a photographer....expecting something with the impact of more dramatic landscape images where, in actuality, what exists and calls out to me, is very quiet, subtle and much less accessible.

But, in the end, all images captured with a camera will fall short of capturing what was in front of you at the moment the photograph was made. I think that what appeals to me is the soft colors and gentle light, bathing a frothy landscape of weeds, brush and bare trees against a sky that forebodes the coming of winter.

This is an image of a marsh that I drive past on my way to Portland. And, it is telling me of the fleeting seasons. Click on it to see it larger.

Don't miss it........

2010-11-13T08:38:00.000-05:00

For reasons known best to himself, Mark Burnett, the creator of the Survivor series on CBS, has come up with another kind of reality series altogether. In fact, it may be a real stretch to use the term 'reality', because it is an 8 segment show on the life of Sarah Palin. You may have already seen the trailers for it: Sarah hiking up a mountain pass, in a boat near some tussling Grizzlies, driving an ATV, extolling the virtues of freedom in the great outdoors, etc.

Here is a link to an article about the series: http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2010/11/12/sarah_palins_alaska_follows_a_mama_grizzly_in_her_natural_habitat/?p1=Upbox_links

The first thought that crossed my mind when I saw the initial trailer for this series was that Sarah has found a way to 're-brand' herself. So, when I read the above article, all I could do was nod my head and acknowledge that she's now running for president. This series will portray her as an All-American, hockey mom, outdoor woman, in charge/take charge kind of person who is someone we can really identify with. Nevermind all that we have learned about her in the last two years since she stepped onto the national stage.....nah, none of that is what we should be paying attention to.

She is not the journalism major who couldn't tell Catie Couric the name of a single newspaper she reads. She is certainly not the person who has put her foot in her mouth more often than a spoon or fork. Just read the article and get a deeper insight into what is coming.

Twilight Cafe.....the painting.

2010-11-09T09:14:00.000-05:00

I seem to be making a habit of going back to places and images that I have already painted and looking at them in new or different ways. This painting is an example of that. I had the thought one day that it might be interesting to photograph on Congress Street, in Portland, just at dusk, when the day is fading and the city lights are coming on.....not yet dark, but no longer daylight either.

So, I put myself at my chosen spot about a half-hour before sunset, set up a tripod and camera and waited. As the light changed I made a steady record of it, but I knew that it was still too light, and I was still anticipating that there would come a moment when the interior light in the Starbucks across the street would seem balanced with the daylight outside its windows. Ultimately, I was there for nearly an hour before I saw what I had hoped for, and I shot a long series of images documenting the street-lights coming on--which they do gradually, btw--and the coming and going of patrons in the cafe.

One of the aspects of this scene that appeals to me--in any light--is how each window becomes a fleeting visual narrative about its ever so temporary occupant(s), and also conveys a sense of each person being isolated. The fact that many--even most--of the people are using wi-fi laptops to surf the web adds to that isolation. Each person seems lost in their own little world as the city goes on about its business around them. This also plays into a theme in my work that has been there since college: "a stranger in a strange land", after the Heinlein novel by that title, of course. I often see people as alien visitors in their immediate surroundings, travelers who are either actively or passively participating in an ongoing cosmic psycho-drama... here on the earth-plane.

So, here is "Twilight Cafe", a 22 x 30 oil painting on a Baltic birch panel. Thanks for looking. Recall that you can click on this image and see it 'full-size'.

And the Times They are a Changin'.....

2010-11-04T15:16:00.002-04:00

Well, here in Maine we have pretty much done the same thing that much of the country has done: gone to the polls with a snoot full of petulant anger. We have elected an ultra-conservative governor, Paul LePage, and a state legislature that is largely of a much further right persuasion than usual.

The new governor--you may have heard--is the fellow who said, "I'll tell Obama to go to hell." How nice to know that we will be artfully cooperating towards solving the financial and social problems that plague Maine, just like the rest of the country. I suppose we should feel lucky that we aren't represented by Rand Paul, who said in his acceptance speech that he intended to go to Washington and work on getting President Obama impeached....exactly for what--other than disagreeing with Paul--I am not sure.

The mood across the land is one of angry rejection of what the government has done to re-form health care, prevent another Great Depression and to impose some kind of restraints on the Wall St. wankers who caused this recession in the first place. Hmmmmmm....I suppose it would be good to let them just do what they want. After all, they're the 'experts', right? And, God knows the health insurance companies are paragons of kindness and consideration. Why would we want to reign them in? But, worst of all, we should have let the poo hit the Wall Street propeller and let those pesky banks and brokerages--not to mention two of the three largest auto-makers--just go down in flames. Then we could really re-build America from the ashes of a debacle that would have 'purified' the financial and business environment of any weaklings who were destined to be non-survivors in the rough and tumble business world anyway, right?

I must be missing something here. Instead of taking measures that either protect the working people from the predations of fast and fancy financial whizz-kids.....we are supposed to let them just do whatever they want, and celebrate the joys of 'free enterprise'. Is that the wish of the Tea Baggers? If it is, then I admit I am really bamboozled. Most of the folks I see holding up, "Don't Tread on Me" flags at Tea Party rallys, look like ordinary working people. Do they really think they are worse off because the government is going to prevent the predators in the pharmaceutical, energy, financial/credit industries from strip-mining the middle-class of its wealth?

Can they really not see that these industries are doing exactly that? We are like aphids on a rose bush, and the 'ants' keep us well-tended with what we think we want....entertainment galore, toys, and a life-style that was heretofore unimaginable to our great grandparents....and then they 'milk' us. Whether it be userous interest rates on the credit we all believe is vital to the maintenance of this life-style, or gouging us for the drugs and medical care we must have, bleeding us dry to heat our homes and drive our cars, it is all just a part of the Big Plan. That is the one where 1% of Americans acquires 23% of ALL THE WEALTH.

And, guess what, THEY ALREADY HAVE.

The biggest joke of all is that the Tea Baggers--clamoring for what they believe is the Freedom all Americans have guaranteed to them as their birthright--are acting as the pawns for the Amassers.....doing just exactly what the Big Money lords want them to do: make damn sure that the plundering will continue unabated, without any constraints imposed by the supposed boogeyman: our elected government. Apparently, from what I have been able to glean from their figureheads and vociferous idiots--like Glenn Beck, of course, and dear ol' Rush, Bill O. and--TADAAAH--Sarah Palin--we'd be ever so much 'freer' and happier if the government would just go away. Wha? Hey, no taxes sounds pretty good....but, at the cost of what?

Generations from now, doctoral theses will be written on how this came about, how the people were used against their own best interests to insure than the super-rich would become ever more so. These future economists and social anthropologists will shake their heads and wonder why we could not see what was happening.

In fact, I am doing that right now.

We live with an alien....

2010-10-27T09:03:00.002-04:00

She's seven now. And, since we first laid eyes on her I have had moments when I thought, "Jeezum, she looks just like Alf." You may recall the t-v series by that name, with a plucky alien who crashed his spaceship into a suburban garage and lived with a family at that address. It has always been just an inkling in the back of my mind, that we're harboring an alien too.

Part of the reason for this is that she does some pretty unusual things, like moving the furniture around when we're not watching....or sometimes even when we are. Then there's the fact that she seems to just 'know' stuff, like when it's 9:00 p.m. and time for her nightly cookie.....I mean, how does a golden retriever--without a watch, of course--know the time almost to the minute?

When we first got Emma--aka Boo, because she's so full of surprises--she just wanted to return to the mother-ship. She escaped from the fenced backyard FOUR times, each of them unique. Holly, our other golden, was the one who came to the door and let us know that Houdini had done it again. Finally, an animal communicator had a conversation with her and explained that she needed to stop taking off....and it stopped.

She is completely addicted to affection. Along with food, being scratched, petted and stroked is about all that she wants in life. Although she really gets in my face if the morning walk is late, or not happening for some reason....like the rain we're having this morning.

I have always believed--with good reason--that dogs are wise, and that they know stuff we cannot. I don't know if this means they're 'psychic', or if they are just really, REALLY sensitive and therefore tuned-in so well that they can tell when something will happen before it does. But, most assuredly they can. I have seen way too many instances of this to doubt it.

But, all of this being what it may....I was shocked when I photographed Boo up on a rock in the woods, with her sister, Binky, and saw this:

BTW: all photos in this blog are 'clikable' and you can see them at full size.

More fall images

2010-10-25T08:52:00.001-04:00

I was sorting through images that I have made this fall and thought that a few of them are worth sharing.

Going, going ......gone!!!!

2010-10-24T22:52:00.000-04:00

What's not to like about fall, especially if you live in a place where the leaves become such vivid and harmonious colors that they defy description? I look forward to it each year, never fail to notice the first tinge of color in some roadside maple, usually in the third week of August. And, I am an avid watcher and recorder of the accelerating slide into the beginning of October when the leaves are in full riot here in Maine. If I had the time and money to do it, I might start in northern New England and follow the color down through New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and into North Carolina. Anywhere there are great hardwoods becomes luminous and spectacular. I was in Colorado just a few days ago, and our daughter said, people there go up in the mountains to see the 'colors', and when a friend said she'd done so, she said, "You mean the color.". You see compared to New England, there is only ONE color in the Rockies, the yellow of the aspens...which really just seem to be fancified poplars that we call 'popples'. Talk to me of rock maple, ash, oak, white birch and beech trees....all of which also provide wood worthy of making heirlooms.

But, one of the things about the coming of fall that makes me a little wistful is the fact that it is so brief. A strong breeze comes up some afternoon, and the air is filled with flying leaves...and the riot is suddenly just a 'civil disturbance'. It's over....just that quickly. It fills me with a low-level sense of dread as I realize this moment is upon us. As it is now. I will go from walking in a green hall of trees, with only scattered dappling of sunlight, to a golden hall.....to walking under an open sky, with clouds wheeling overhead. I will stop leaving my sunglasses in the car, and soon I will be making decisions about whether or not to wear gaiters, and then snowshoes.

But, I suppose fall in New England wouldn't be so powerful if it were a season that hung around the way winter or summer does. Both of those 'destination' seasons are long enough to make me forget their opposite. Seriously, when it is high summer, I cannot for the life of me remember what walking in these same woods in deep snow is like. And, when I am doing just that, summer seems such a distant memory that it becomes almost unreal. But, fall--and to a lesser extent, spring--are so anticipated and so fleeting, that both of them carry this feeling of urgency, a desire to breathe them in, to see them in all their richness, to really FEEL them...because I know that any day now, it will be gone.

And, that is just the way it should be.

You may have noticed I've been gone......

2010-10-13T16:30:00.002-04:00

In fact, I haven't felt like writing on this blog for almost six weeks. I just began to feel that I was being soooo.....NEGATIVE. My Sufi teacher, Samuel Lewis, once opined that, "There's no positive value in negativity." He didn't say there is no value....just that there's no positive value.

Anybody who is paying attention already knows that these are trying times. And I don't feel that it's my task to add to the general atmosphere of negativity that is so pervasive. The other evening, Abby and I, along with a couple of friends, hauled out the good ol' I Ching. I wanted to ask, "What is going on with all the stupidity that is becoming such a rage?" I mean, everywhere you look another idiot has popped into the news. I am speaking now of people like Rand Paul, Sharon Angle, Christine O'Donnell....and, of course, we were already beset by such world-class wankers as Rush, Glenn, Sarah, Bill O.....the people who spend their time trying to convince us that our country has been stolen from us by the Obama gang...that we are going to hell in a kiddie-car, and we should be angry and fearful. Sharon Angle has even suggested that her followers take up arms--pursue a "Second Amendment solution:"--if they don't get their way. Eeeeeeeeeeha. What the fu*k is happening here?

After a while it all seems just too much. A few weeks back, Jon Stewart dwelt on the idea of, "...I give up." It was a suggestion that resonated with my wife and I. You can take just so much of the idiocracy in action before it begins to feel like, "What's the point?" If we're really so stupid--collectively speaking--that we're willing to believe our president is a: A foreigner, b: a Muslim, c: the Anti-Christ, intent on creating a socialist dictatorship, and d: our own government planned and executed 9-11....then we are beyond help, so giving up, in the manner of throwing up one's hands and just shrugging, is about all an intelligent and sober person can manage that makes sense of it all. By loosening one's grip on the hope that we--as a nation--will begin to act in an intelligent and compassionate fashion, one is just quite possibly able to know something other than the fear and anger that we are marinating in.

Enter the concept of karma. Not only do individual souls have a karmic path they must walk, but, likewise, nations do also. I have long thought of karma as a metaphor in which each soul has a burden of bundles. For some it might be a matched set of Gucci luggage....in alligator leather. Yet others may have only a hobo's 'bindle' on a stick. Most of us are carrying something in between these extremes, perhaps a carry-on, and a roller-bag that is pretty heavy but which we can drag along behind us as we navigate the airports or train stations of life. These containers have in them the sum total of our soul's experiences that remain unresolved. Anything that carries guilt, for instance, or resentment, or yearning, or loathing will be found somewhere in our baggage. And, we are doomed to drag it along until something happens--or we take action--to resolve it.

Of course, if we're unaware that a particular item--say, anger at someone who wronged you--even exists, it may reside with us for a very long time. It is in the bag marked with a barely noticeable skull on the tag....our Shadow-self. That is the bag that Robert Bly referred to as, "....the long burlap bag we drag behind us."

An example of national karma is glaringly obvious in Germany's relationship to the Holocaust. In the 65 years since WWII ended, it has been handled in a variety of ways by the German people. The generation on whose watch it happened decided--for the most part--to deny it. When Allied troops overran each German town or city, they were told, "It was the SS.", "It was those people in the next town.", "The Nazis did it; we didn';t know anything about it."...and on and on. One American reporter said that it was as if nobody either knew about it (despite the presence of a concentration camp right outside town, and the sickly, evil odor that emanated therefrom), or--God forbid--participated in it. My somewhat extensive reading on the subject, however, told me that any and all Germans knew beyond doubt that it was taking place. They just didn't WANT to know. Denial became like an escape hatch....way too easy to simply dive into. But, it didn't work in the long run. Denial doesn't resolve, it only delays.

As this national nightmare has been passed along from one generation to the next, the reaction has changed. Now, there are many younger Germans who are incensed at the denial and the claims of ignorance. They want it out in the glare of public consciousness where it can be first accepted and then dealt with in some manner that will allow the entire country to stop having to re-live it. They want to make 'friends' with the Dragon that has been belching fire and biting them from behind.

We Americans have karma too. Slavery, for starters, was a national shame and an acceptance of acts against fellow humans that still carries a fiery sting. Don't think so? Ask almost any black person how they feel about that part of our history. Then there comes our treatment of Native American peoples. I feel myself flush with shame when I see documentaries on the 'winning of the west'. We didn't 'win' it, we conquered it, and we murdered, or trampled asunder a proud people who had been there for untold generations living in harmony with nature, if not each other.

Now, it seems that we are approaching another national crossroads, one that will be pivotal in deciding who we are as a people. Some people are stepping forward to tell us, in loud and angry voices, that we need to start taking care of our own needs, that selfishness is the only way to do that, that self-sacrifice and service to others is out-dated and out-moded. The new wave of thinkers are justifying this approach to life by hauling out Ayn Rand and her philosophy of 'Objectivism'. In her novel, "Atlas Shrugged", she laid the foundation stones for the attitude that it is more than okay to want and to do what is necessary to get what you do want. Egoism is not a bad thing; it is simply the path of those who will become dominant and have what they desire. Woe be unto those who cannot summon the will or the means to act in an aggressive manner. They will become the 'have nots' and that is their lot in life.

Interestingly, when academic scholars of philosophy take a second look at Objectivism, what they find is not a philosophy of serious and durable substance, but the rant of a second-rate novelist who just wanted to say, "Hey, it's okay to be selfish." Rand herself was a mess as a person. Far from being a wise and thoughtful person, she was an obnoxious woman who discounted her detractors at any opportunity. At her funeral someone placed a six-foot floral arrangement in the shape of a dollar-sign near her casket. How fitting, then, for her to be singled-out as a prophetic influence on the new thinkers who embrace selfishness.

This tsunami of self-interest, in which there is little room for compassion, and no idea at all that integrity or Honor are important, is bearing down on us.....all of us. We are all being asked to take stock of ourselves and to make decisions about who we are, as individuals and as a nation of souls. If we take the path that is being espoused by such trenchant spokespeople as Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin, we are consciously adopting the view that our society will become ever more adversarial and competitive. If we decide that personal integrity, Truth (actual truth, not what we make-up), and a working, living concept of Honor are more important to us, then we will need to be prepared to stand-up to those who are now telling us to look the other way.

My intention is to keep on repeating--in every way possible--this same message. We are at a point in our history where people who stay silent and do look away, are as guilty as those who preach the ideas of selfishness, dispassionate acquisition, disregard for Human Values in the highest sense, and who want us to become like them.

I will not look away. I do not believe that what these apostles of Greed are preaching is an inevitability. I believe that we are in the process of resolving our karma as a nation of souls....and that we CAN turn towards the values that resonate in the Human Heart as Goodness, Compassion and Love.

The alternative is to live in Hell.

More Evidence that Honor is dying.....corporate style.

2010-09-02T13:58:00.000-04:00

I recently ran into computer problems. Well, join the club, right? My not so old H-P Pavillion started showing evidence that it had been infected with a virus. Now, this came as a complete surprise because I had a subscription to McAfee Anti-Virus Plus and the little window that pops-up when it is doing its thing, was showing all "OK"s, a bunch of green icons, all saying that things were hunky-dorey and I was fully protected.

But, when I began to see 'grey out' screens, unresponsive applications, and the speed slowed to a less than crawl, I just knew that all was not rosey in computer-land. So, I called Steve, my computer repair and recovery expert, and he said, "Sounds like you have a virus." So, he did his magic and a couple of days later, and $120 lighter, all is back to almost normal, which is to say there are some glitches, but it runs well enough to do what I ask of it....mostly. Steve warned me that it might have some corrupted files as a result of being infected and recovered.

In fact, it was not just 'a virus' it was a sizable list of them. Most of them were what is coyly referred to as 'malware', programs that are intended to get inside and simply wreak havoc with your computer. When I try to imagine who and why these are being created and sent out across the virtual universe....I picture some snot-nosed, pimple-faced kid in Bucharest, or Glenwood, who is chortling as he tells his hacker buddies how good he is at causing pains in lots of peoples' butts. I fervently wish these black-hearted weenies a life of unfulfilled fantasies and simmering pustules.

However, the real story here is not that there are such wankers out there. Nah, that's a given. There seems to be something about our society that creates the urge to act-out, and this seems a particularly effective and pain-free (cowardly) way to do that. The real story is that I was paying a major corporation to do one thing: to protect me from these idiots. And, for a mere $30 per year--automatically charged to my credit-card, like clockwork each March--they were sending me frequent updates, and telling me that my computer was being scanned in real-time by their program. And, every indication was that it was an effective means of fighting infections.

You might think that a billion dollar corporation whose very existence is predicated on offering a much needed and effective service...would want to make absolutely certain that IT WAS INDEED WORKING. But, apparently, you would be wrong if you labored under that impression. They are winging it, folks. And, your virtual life, i.e. identity, finances, private communications, and all the other aspects we have come to depend on the internet for.....is at risk.

Steve, the computer dude, told me that what I have gone through is not only common, but that I got off easily. If you really want actual protection, you need to not just subscribe to McAfee's service, you need to RE-PURCHASE the base program, and all of its possible upgrades EVERY OTHER YEAR, at least. In other words, just doing what most people believe is sufficient......IS NOT.

I'm quite sure that McAfee and Norton--both of which come as indigenous software in PCs and must be 'activated' at the end of a trial period--know that they are sitting on a GOLD MINE. I even spoke with one person who believes that these companies may 'encourage' hacking because it's good for their businesses. I can't go that far, but, let's just say that if all the hackers found some other way to annoy and destroy their businesses would cease to exist. It is definitely a symbiotic relationship between the companies and the weenies.

My response to all of this....was to uninstall McAfee, and install AVG Free, along with some other freeware that ferrets out threats and excises them effectively.....and is really doing it when it says it is.

Wrapped in the Bible.....

2010-08-30T15:26:00.001-04:00

Some months back, I mentioned here that Sinclair Lewis said, "If Fascism ever comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a Bible". Well, Glenn Beck has been wrapping himself in the flag, has done so ever since he emerged from the murky smog-bank of the far right. (Hey, they are the folks who just LOVE big business, right?) But, as he stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial last Saturday, he picked-up the Bible and revealed an evangelical side of himself that caught a lot of folks by surprise. He took great pains to align himself with the Evangelical right, and he has now become the spitting image of Lewis' Fascist Archetype.

Does anybody else find it somewhat astonishing that Beck, Palin, Bachmann et al , are always spouting off about getting our freedom back....and yet the agenda of their Tea Party ilk is inextricably bound into the same bundle of ideology with taking away freedom of choice, freedom from discrimination due to gender orientation, de facto racism and a host of lesser planks in their agenda. By picking up the Bible Beck is adopting what many people consider to be the Ultimate Authority on right and wrong. Nevermind that Christianity makes up only a minority percentage of the people on this planet (with approximately 2.2 billion adherents, Christianity is the largest religion, but makes up less than a third of humanity), nevermind that every soul is born with a CONSCIENCE as a part of their original software package.

No matter what any religion lays down as 'law' the fact is, there is a higher law than what is written, and it abides in the Heart of each human being. God never planned that we would have to consult a book--of any sort--to know what is against Life, Love, Harmony and Beauty. But, Glenn Beck and his cohorts have a plan of their own....and it includes telling you and me what we can do in our own lives according to how THEY interpret what is right. Never doubt it.

In the days leading up to this 'rally', Beck denied that he chose either the location--the steps of the Lincoln Memoral, or the date--the anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a Dream" speech--and that all of that was just 'coincidence'. This tells me that he is either one helluva dumb-ass, with virtually no knowledge of American History...or he is a man who lies with a straight face and expects people to believe WHATEVER he says. Actually, I believe he is BOTH. But, I do not believe he is so stupid that he chose those two parameters for his 'coming out' speech as a leader of American Evangelical Christians....by 'Divine Providence'. And, by the way, his choice of words there is a little bit unsettling to me...simply because it is the exact wording that Adolph Hitler used to describe his ascendancy to the role of Fuerher, i.e. Germany's Savior.

In fact, there are way too many similarities between how Beck seems to see himself and how Hitler viewed himself for me to look away and pretend that they aren't there. At a time when the German economy was in collapse, people were out of work, the political system was in a shambles....this man of humble background and apparently even humbler intellect (have you tried to read Mein Kampf?) emerged to proclaim that Divine Providence had chosen him to lead Germany back to a place of Honor and prominence in the world, which was their rightful place among nations. Too late, the German people found out that what this really meant was to crush the rest of Europe and as much of the world as possible under the jackboot of Nazi rule...and the vast shame of being the perpetrators of the Holocaust.

So, as you watch his antics, and see his audience of followers swell, ask yourself where all of this is headed. Pay attention to it. Take it seriously. The lessons of history are harshest when you realize that you were warned and still remained passive.

Moon of the Shroom....

2010-08-18T09:19:00.001-04:00

Where we walk in the woods each morning there are TONS of mushrooms, and they really come into their own this time of year. Beginning in mid-August and through September, one can see easily over 20 varieties if they are looking as they walk. There is a couple I see there often, Pat and Mike...and their dog Max. Pat is an amateur mycologist who photographs fungi and knows all of their latin names. I am doubtful that I could ask her a question about mushrooms that would stump her.

Yesterday, I ran into them as we were headed in and they were headed out. I brought up the topic of mushrooms and Pat said it is shaping up to be a very good year for them. So, as I walked on, bearing this in mind, I scanned the forest floor for fungi of all sorts. Last year I came across a variety known as 'turkey tails', which seem to grow all during the warmer months and are very beautiful as they go about consuming dead branches and tree-trunks. Just the other day I happened on some fungi that were growing smack dab in the middle of the trail--telling me that they had basically sprung up overnight--and the cluster was exactly the color of 'cheese puffs'. I didn't feel inclined to give them the taste test, however. Pat told me that this variety is called the "lobster mushroom", and it IS edible depending on what and where it is growing. As she said this, I was mentally crossing it off my list of possible forest treats. But, it did look a lot like cheese puffs.

As I walked on one of our favorite trails, I saw a beautifully formed, large snow-white mushroom. "Snow white", being just my descriptor for them, not an allusion to Disney's character. There was a smallish capped shroom the other day that was British soldier red...and as it enlarged it became a warm, beautiful brown. I also came across some large flat-topped fungi that are dead ringers for pancakes....until you turn them over, of course. We need a little rain to 'plump up' the duff of the forest floor and sprout a new crop. My wife gave me several mushroom books last year, but I will not know as much as Pat does anytime soon.

Mostly, I just like seeing the amazing diversity of these living plant-forms that burst forth in a day, and then either get eaten by the critters, or simply dissipate a day or two later.

It's HOW MUCH?

2010-08-12T12:49:00.002-04:00

In my last post I mentioned that we put over 70 million tons of carbon dioxide into the earth's atmosphere.....EVERY DAY. I found myself wondering how to picture that. I mean, how big is a ton of carbon dioxide in its gaseous state? Well, it would actually occupy 556.2 cu. meters. Okay, how big is that?

556.2 cubic meters equals 727.5 cubic YARDS, and that is 19,642.5 cubic FEET. Okay, how big is that? To help myself visualize that I looked up the volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool. It is 648,000 gallons, and that equals 86, 625 cu. ft. That would mean that about 4.41 tons of gaseous carbon-dioxide would FILL AN OLYMPIC SWIMMING POOL.

Since we are emitting 70,000,000 tons of CO2 daily......we are putting approximately the volume of 16 MILLION Olympic pools into the air.......every single day. Since a regulation pool is 164.5' x 82' and has an area of approximately: 14,965 sq.ft. or 1662.8 sq. yds. simple arithmetic tells me that we are covering an area of over 116 BILLION sq. yards...to the depth of over 6 feet.....with gaseous carbon dioxide.

I still just cannot get my head around it. Okay, there are 4,840 square yards in an acre. Therefore each ton of CO2 (at 1662.8 sq. yards) covers a little over a third of an acre, i.e. .343 of an acre.

So, 70 million tons of CO2 covers about 24 million acres to a depth of six feet. I grew-up in New Jersey, and that state has only 5,586,560 acres, or 8,728 sq. mi. And so, we're releasing into the atmosphere a volume between four and five times the size of New Jersey (six feet deep) every day.

And, I STILL just cannot get my head around that......or the idea that there are some people out there who have the temerity and even the pure audacity to think we can make this massive and steady input of a 'greenhouse gas' into the climate of this not so huge planet we live on and that it will not have any effect.

It would be better to simply admit that a person who thinks this way is just hiding under a cloak of simplicity and ignorance....than to think that they are actually intelligent and simply refuse to accept the stark power of the Truth that is confronting us: WE NEED TO CHANGE WHAT WE ARE DOING TO THIS PLANET, OR BE PREPARED TO ACCEPT THAT WE ARE PLAYING A CENTRAL ROLE IN OUR OWN EXTINCTION.

Truth and Denial.......

2010-08-05T12:35:00.002-04:00

This is a response to a comment on the last entry here. I am not going to attack the person who took the time to share her opinion. I am glad she did. I hope that she will not take this as either an attack or an insult to her intelligence, but the fact is we are living in a world--as previously noted on this blog--where Truth (yes, with a capital 'T') is becoming progressively more ephemeral and endangered. And that is a problem.....for all of us.

In order for a society to be a society it must have communication among its constituents. If the members of it cannot speak to each other and hear each other, that society will eventually tear itself apart. There are many examples of this: China 1927, Russia 1917, Germany 1871, and again in 1933. Japan in the 1920s and a host of smaller countries, including many so-called Islamic Republics. What these times and places all have in common is that some people had ideas of how things should be, and others disagreed. An inability to communicate and rectify the divergent views of the citizens resulted in revolutions in which the stronger element simply took charge and in many cases imprisoned or simply eliminated those who disagreed with them.

In every case the opposing forces had to resort to armed subjugation or conflict instead of using the power of communication to find a solution that at least partially met all parties needs. When communication breaks down history tells us that armed conflict and tyranny almost always result. Mao Zedong himself said, "All power flows from the barrel of a gun." And, ultimately, he was right. But, it is never a painless or wholly satisfactory process or result.

So, when people start to say, "This is true because it is what I believe," or, "This is the Truth because I say it is," or worse yet, "This is the Truth, and if you don't agree, you don't belong here," trouble is here and things are about to get nasty. Truth is NOT a relative concept. Nothing is 'true' because you want it to be....no matter how badly. Truth in earth-bound affairs is based on a collection of FACTS, not opinions. Truth is almost always able to be established in concrete situations by gathering information about it.

For example: a murder case where there are multiple suspects, definitely a body and a crime that are a reality. Truth is this: someone was killed. It wasn't a suicide or an accident. Suspect A was in Siberia at the time--we have proof of this, so he didn't do it. Suspect B doesn't have an alibi, and does have plenty of motivation to have done it, but there's no immediately apparent forensic evidence to prove it. There are two other possible suspects. At this point, a very methodical investigation works on building a body of evidence, actual FACTS.....things that are physical proof of something. And, eventually, all the evidence seems to point to the Truth. A trial is held and the testimonies of witnesses and accused are considered, but the real proof of guilt lies mostly with THE FACTS.

Well, there has been a very long and painstaking investigation--which still continues--and there has been a vast mountain of evidence collected and analyzed. The Planet herself is the strongest witness...the 'victim' in this case. And, the jury is back, has been back for several years now. The verdict is overwhelmingly clear: the massive amounts of carbon-dioxide that we pump into the earth's atmosphere, i.e. 70 MILLION TONS EVERY DAY, are indeed causing a shift in the earth's climate. Scientists all over the globe know that this is TRUE. It is a scientifically established FACT.

So, people who still wish it weren't so, who still insist on claiming that all of the documented changes that are taking place are "....just cyclical and normal", are making the truth conform to their own viewpoint. They are denying and ignoring and obfuscating because they don't like the real TRUTH.

The problem with this is.......that it just causes clouds of indecision, a lack of determination, a distinct lack of willpower with regard to taking any measures necessary to steer the planet AWAY FROM DISASTER. People who think and act in this way are pushing the accelerator instead of leaning on the brakes.....and I submit that this is just about the worst thing a person can do if they really care about the future of not just their own kids and grandkids.....but the entire sphere of life that inhabits the planet Earth.

Do you really want to be playing at doing something so mindless and counter-productive when our future hangs in the balance?

Can't We All Just Get Along?

2010-08-04T12:51:00.005-04:00

Ah, the pleading refrain of Rodney King. You remember him: the fellow who was caught on video being beaten half-to death by LAPD, way back in '91. Hardly seems possible that almost twenty years have passed since he uttered his plea.

So, here we are at the end of the first decade of the 21st century and we seem to be back-sliding somehow. I read that Komosolskaya Pravda, a major newspaper in Russia, published an article blaming the record making heat-wave in Russia this summer on--get this--an American weather weapon. Yes, a super weapon of such capability that we can now control the weather in other parts of the world. And, of course, we would choose to do this--according to Pravda--because we're intent on short-stopping Russian economic growth.

When I read this I was stunned, not by the idea that such a weapon might exist--I would bet the ranch that it does not--but by the fact that major spokespeople in Russia would think that we would target them, if it did. Somehow, the mindset has become perverted to the point of needing to blame us for what is actually an outgrowth of global warming. That isn't mere conjecture on my part; numerous scientific sources are citing the anomalous heat of the summer of 2010 as such.

I was relieved to read that President Medvedev himself issued a statement to the effect that the Russian government knows this is climate-change related and that the U.S. is not responsible. This is actually a hopeful sign, because the Russians have not admitted that global warming was either real or caused by human activities prior to this point in time.

But, my initial reaction to the Pravda article was, "What is going on here? Are they watching Fox too?" It is just so far out there, so paranoid and conspiratorial to get from a rational look at the ever vaster volume of science that supports global warming.....to "The Ameircans are doing it with a secret super-weapon." Wha?

Of course, the irony in all of this is that, more than anybody else--although the Chinese are doing their level best to pollute as much as they possibly can--we ARE 'doing it'. But, we're just doing it the old, hard way, with massive energy consumption, ignoring most of what we could do to lessen our impact on the planet. Besides, what makes the Russians think that a country that watches Fox News and thinks it is real, could be smart enough to make a super weapon to manipulate the weather? If we could really do that....it is also likely that we could learn how to behave in a way that wasn't destroying our host planet.

And, I see no sign that we're there.....or even really headed there with any sense of urgency or responsibility.

Phyto Who? Say what?

2010-07-31T16:20:00.001-04:00

I happened across a brief article the other day, on I believe it was The Daily Beast. It wasn't even a feature piece, just an 'also ran', a kind of "...oh, by the way" article. It said that scientists have now proven to their own satisfaction that there is a major die-off of phytoplankton occurring in the world's oceans. With over 250,000 data points, stretching back over at least five decades, they believe that this began in the 1950s, but that it is accelerating in the present. They also believe--based on the data--that global warming is the primary cause for this.

They have noted periods of such die-offs in the past and have associated them with changes in ocean currents by La Nina, and the warming this brings to a belt of water near the equator in the Pacific Ocean. These pull-backs have also resulted in the starvation of species ranging up the food-chain, including the marine mammals and other pinnacle species at the top. Almost in passing, the article mentioned that phytoplankton are responsible for about 40% of the oxygen that plants put into our atmosphere, and, to that end, they are one of the primary sources of photosynthesis.

If this piece had appeared in the N.Y. Times, it might have been buried somewhere back in the sections, and on page 9 of that section. There was no attendant alarm, no sense of urgency even. It was just a tid-bit of news offered in the probable hope that readers might feel it interesting.

Hmmmmmmmm....... My reaction, on the other hand, was a little more like, "Holy CRAP!!!! It sounds like they're saying that one of the pillars that sustains a viable atmosphere on our planet is waning..... and (by extension) we're all going to DIE," which, of course, is true....I just wasn't planning that we'd slowly suffocate en masse.

But, hold on there, cowboy, maybe that is just a little too 'Chicken Little'. Maybe we'll get by just fine on less oxygen. Maybe some geniuses at MIT or Cal Tech have already worked out how we can survive the accelerating degradation of the atmosphere...and they figure it's all so routine that it isn't even newsworthy.

On the other hand, maybe this news is just so HUGE in its implications that nobody, as in not a soul, can really get their head around it and make the extrapolation of impending doom. Maybe it is just too far-reaching and too radical, and that makes it simply 'unreal'. But, if we were to really accept it and act accordingly, the changes in how we are conducting our lives would have to be so sweeping and dramatic that we cannot even imagine what life would be like.

I imagine that it is kind of like laying on the beach in Banda Aceh sunning yourself. Suddenly your companion says, "What the f**k is that?!" and you follow their pointing finger out to the horizon....and you see something. It's different, and it is real and it's big....very big. And, you just cannot comprehend that a wall of water 30 feet high is coming straight at you....so you sit and you stare. And, when it finally sinks in what is really happening........

It's simply too late.

Is that what we're doing here in the early years of the 21st century? By now, every intelligent adult--which, by definition means those who are not sticking their heads in the sand--knows that we have already visited, and continue to inflict, some terrible things on this planet, things that are beginning to have effects that we can now measure, but which will culminate in ways we can only hypothesize in the present....but are looking rather 'dark', to put it mildly. It is becoming increasingly clear that we are damaging our host planet to the point of eventual non-viability for life as we know it. And, the more we learn, it becomes apparent that my use of the word, 'eventual' may be rather optimistic.

The scientific community has been playing Chicken Little for so long now, that many of them have simply given up hope that anybody will listen, or believe that we really are in the early stages of the Sixth Great Extinction.

I watched a video of Farley Mowat--one of Canada's great gifts to the world, via his books--speaking with Paul Watson, the founder of the Sea Shepherd Society, while sitting in chairs on Farley's front lawn, overlooking the ocean. In mild tones, devoid of anger or alarm, they simply agreed with each other that we are watching the final acts of a species that is going to be the first ever to be responsible for its own extinction.

But, for reasons I seem unable to comprehend, I find that some part of me just refuses to let go, like a drowning sailor who lets his grasp on the life-raft loosen and peacefully drifts down into the depths. My grip on HOPE simply will not release. Maybe it is the last thing I have that keeps me wanting to be here each day, trying to be a Human Being, and to somehow, in some infinitesimally small way......to make a difference.

These images are: macro-photography of diatoms, a very common form of phytoplankton, and a 'bloom' of trillions of such organisms seen from space.

Follow on: Angela Bordeau

2010-07-28T12:57:00.000-04:00

I found a photograph of Angela Bordeau (whose roadside memorial I just wrote about) and I wanted to post it in order that you can get a sense of who the young woman was. It didn't feel right to have her remain just a name.

ANGELA MARIE BORDEAU, b. 2-12-1991, d. 6-15-2010

The Death of Honor.....in local government

2010-07-28T12:48:00.002-04:00

By now you must have heard or seen the news stories on a small town in California called Bell. While the 38,000 citizens of Bell were looking the other way, the local politicians were looting the town's coffers to the tune of millions of bucks. Seems the foxes were in charge of the chicken-coop and dining on gourmet chicken dishes.

The town manager, was getting a salary of $787,000, the police chief was near a half-million, and the members of the city council had all given themselves salaries in the $100K range....for their PART-TIME positions. They did this even as they were laying off city workers, and cutting back dramatically on city services. Apparently, they arranged all of this by giving themselves the right to not only set their own pay rates, but doing so in 'closed meetings'. When the story broke, the citizens of Bell were obviously outraged and now there is going to be some sort of reckoning. The state attorney general's office is looking into whether or not laws were broken and exactly how the thieves managed to do all this in defiance of the state regulations that specify maximum compensation rates for such positions.

At first glance, it appears they simply passed a resolution stating that they would not abide by state guidelines. Hey, now there's a capital idea: don't like a law, or a 'guideline', just make your own law saying that you don't intend to conform. I just cannot imagine how long they thought they could loot the city like this before it came out. But, it is a perfect example of how people are empowering themselves to ignore the common good, set aside whatever is in their way....and do exactly what they want to in order to serve personal desires. There is even a law in place in Bell that may require the city to pay an outrageous pension to the manager once they get rid of his sorry ass. I think they need a good law firm and should just not pay the a**hole. Put it all into the hands of a higher court system and show that these people were acting in bad faith, solely in their own interests, and sue the hell out of them for good measure.

When the city manager, a charming lout by the name of Rizzo (hmmmmm.... could he be related to Ratso Rizzo?) was confronted with the massive wrongdoing that has happened on his watch, he went into a lengthy dissertation on all the good things these kind people have done for the city: better lighting, nice parks, blah, blah, blah. Are you kidding me?

Maybe tarring and feathering scoundrels and running them out of town on a rail was set aside too soon.

Angela is Missed.....

2010-07-26T17:10:00.003-04:00

I went for a long(ish) motorcycle ride on this perfect summer day. I chose a loop that would take me up into Maine's 'outback', through the mountains and foothills where the towns are tiny and the people are sparse. I passed through Farmington--where the earmuff was invented--and the town of Strong, probably so named because you shouldn't bother trying to live there unless you are. If you live in a populous or even a semi-populous area, you may not be able to really picture just how far out in the boonies some of these little villages are. I passed a sign that said, "Danger Many Moose Collisions in this Area", and someone had spray-painted across the bottom: "490", just in case you really didn't get what they meant by "..many". Or maybe it was a person who just enjoys keeping score, and baseball seems so remote up there.

I was motoring along through a town called Carthage--'town' referring to a legal boundary more than any recognizable settlement. I mean, if someone said "Let's go downtown and get some groceries." You really wouldn't have a clue which way to go. T'ain't nuttin' dere. And, I came around a curve, down a shallow hill and saw a lot of pink. There was lots of pink paint on the pavement, and all kinds of it on the roadside and even in the woods. I slowed and then turned around, came back and parked the bike. I got out my camera and began recording the scene in front of me. It was both quite astonishing and very moving.

It was clear that I was looking at, indeed witnessing, a roadside memorial site. It was an assemblage of materials and items that were serving to record the pain of apparently a large number of people, all of whom knew a nineteen year-old woman named Angela Marie, who died on this spot about six weeks ago, on June 15th. I could see where a vehicle had left the road and torn up some trees, and I also know that such roadside 'shrines' are commonplace all over rural America. In some places I have been it is a more formalized practice, with a plain white cross marking the spot where a person or persons have died. In Carthage Maine, it was a vast and pink outpouring of emotion, with light-sticks festooned in the trees, beads, plastic flowers (they do last longer), a poem, a bare spot on the tree that her car hit where one was invited to leave a message for her by the presence of a Sharpie stuck in the bark....at the very spot where her vehicle struck. I have never witnessed such a passionate outpouring of pain and love as this spot was reflecting.

In the road, adjacent and partially on top of where a large pink heart had been painted, were copious burn-out marks, evidence of a kind of arcane ritual of squealing tires that actually did seem to fit in somehow with the entire rest of the scene. My assumption is that Angela was fairly passionate about the color pink.

When I had recorded the place, I put my helmet and gloves back on and slowly motored away from this spot. I didn't hear of her death at the time, but it was in the papers that Angela Bordeau, of Mexico, Maine, was in a single-vehicle accident, late at night, and was declared dead at the scene. Franklin County sheriff's deputies reported that speed played a role, the tires on her '03 Saab were all bald and she wasn't wearing her seat-belt. A part of me would like to know what was going on with Angela that night. The Willie Nelson song, "Angel Flyin' too Close to the Ground", comes to mind.

But, I do know that what I witnessed on that nondescript stretch of country road left an indelible impression and on some level I cannot really imagine a more effective means of demonstrating how painful it was--and is--for those who did know this young woman, to have her pass from this world too soon and so violently.

Rest in Peace Angela Marie

I Have Seen the Angel of Death.....and she drives a white Focus.

2010-07-22T16:46:00.001-04:00

Being far too jaded to actually RUN for exercise, I choose to ride a bike. I have a nice Trek hybrid--read: old fart's bike--and it has some useful accessories, like a wee computer that tells me when I am slacking off, a tiny bell so that I can warn pedestrians when I overtake them without giving them a heart attack. I also found a genuine AIR HORN. It consists of a clear-plastic soda bottle with a rubber cap, a hose up to a smallish horn on the handlebars and you fill it with a bike-pump. This sucker is not merely loud, it sounds kind of frantic, like "Holy Crap!" but higher pitched. I also wear a hi-viz lime t-shirt and have a rear-view mirror mounted on my helmet.

Despite all that about one and a half times a week, someone tries to kill me. Mostly, it is because they are just dim-witted, speaking on a cell phone, typically clueless and other sundry handicaps. If you ride a motorcycle--as I have for about 45 years--you come to know that most drivers are basically A) not very competent, and B) not very intelligent. I suppose you could argue that these go hand in hand....and, of course, they do. But, there are also very bright people who totally suck at driving a vehicle. And I've met some seriously 'slow' people who can do just fine when it comes to anything from a farm tractor to a semi. So, let's just say that there's some overlap, but the bottom-line is that MOST of the drivers on the open road are very limited in their understanding and their skill set when it comes to the act of driving.

Well, you combine this fact of life, with a psychological 'glitch' and you can end up like the woman who tried to kill me today. I was pedaling along, nearing the entrance to the hallowed site where we get to 'eat with the King', and as I approached the entrance, a white Ford Focus pulled alongside me. I saw her begin to brake, and I surmised immediately that she intended to turn in and have a visit with His Majesty. I just didn't quite get that she was willing to kill for a cheeseburger.

Because I knew her intent to turn was about to manifest, I put my thumb on the red horn-button. As she slowed to my speed and I realized that she didn't plan on waiting for me to move ahead of her, but intended to go for the goodies THROUGH ME....I laid on the horn. Trust me, there is no way you cannot be alarmed at the sound of this horn. It actually hurts my ears when I use it. Remember, I am also wearing the bright lime-yellow shirt that highway construction crews wear; I am lit up like a freakin' big, fat LED on wheels here.

And ........HERE SHE COMES, turning right into me. My choices are limited at this point: I can abandon the bike and dive onto the top of her car--an act I might have been capable of when I was in the infantry and loaded to the eyeballs (okay it wasn't the eyes that were loaded...I was just being coy) with testosterone....or I can brake heroically, and try to out-turn her as she dives in front of me. If I blow it, I will be under her wheels. Luckily, I did the latter and pulled it off.....but, I was shaking like a leaf afterwards.

Since I was headed into the parking lot now.....I pedaled up to where my nemesis had taken her place at the take-out feeding trough. She stared straight ahead, pretending I would go away if she didn't look at me. Her window was up and her door locked. Seems only prudent, eh. So, I loudly--recall I was a sergeant in the U.S. Army Infantry now--informed her that she had no right to cut me off like that. She waved her hand in a 'Whatever' kind of kiss-off. And so I cussed her roundly up and down and then rode back down the parking lot to resume my ride. It was one of those incidents I am not willing to let pass.

We live in the same small town. Sooner or later, I will see her tooling about in her wheeled, white weapon, and I will get her plate number and at that point I will file a complaint for 'driving to endanger'. I see stupid all the time on my bike....far too many times to count. But, this.....this was MALEVOLENT. And, we're not finished.

Of course, it's also possible that one of her fellow angels--like the cell-phone wielding Angel of Numbness--will take me out before I can follow through. I accept that as a risk of being out there on public byways.

Many Moons.....

2010-07-22T10:12:00.001-04:00

I was standing, staring up at the night sky one evening last week. Because we live out in relative boonies, the sky here is a beautiful, inky, blue-black velvet, and the stars seem impossibly crisp and bright. As I stared at the partial moon just above the trees, it occurred to me that I now believe I know why the Native American tribes had names for the various months that referred to something particular about that month.

We are now in the Moon of the Tiger lilly, a few weeks ago, we were in the Moon of Lupine. These are my names, not those of any particular indigenous culture. In June I saw an exceptional number of loons on lakes around here. I don't really think their population has exploded, just that I was in the right place at the right time. But, if I had the inclination to re-name June, I might choose the Moon of the Loon.

If I was feeling particularly churlish this month might get re-named, Moon of the Deer Fly. But, if I gave in to that single tiny impulse toward negativity, it might also lead to a slippery slope thereafter. February could easily slide from the Moon of Blowing Snow, to Moon of Snow-blowing, or even Moon of Most Suicides ....or, God help me, Moon of Time Shares. See what I mean? And it's all downhill from there. What's to stop me from veering off into social and political issues? December could become the Moon of Smoking Credit Cards. September--the gridiron ritual's return-- might become the Moon of Broken Heads. November could devolve into the Moon of Idiots Running.

No, it's better that I just keep it positive. Besides.....which month would qualify for Moon of Gushing Oil, when it has gone on for a full quarter of the year?

Oh, Sarah........puhleeze.

2010-07-21T09:10:00.000-04:00

Well, my favorite comedienne has done it again. She made up a word: 'refudiate'. And, actually, I think that is both a pretty cool word--a combining of 'repudiate' and 'refute', apparently--and that it's okay to be creative with language. But, two things about this little act of creativity just don't ring true. When the blogosphere and then the media at large jumped on this, she immediately defended it as if she'd done it on purpose. And, then she compared herself to none other than William Shakespeare.

Ouch!

Watching Sarah run is thrilling. She climbs into her ego like a sleek and shiny bobsled, pushes-off, never touches the brakes, hangs on and never looks back. But, here's the thing. This is the same vacuous person who told Katie Couric that she reads, "Oh, just everything I can get my hands on." It's the same person who thinks living in Alaska--which is, after all, 'near Russia'--constitutes some sort of expertise in foreign policy. It's also the same small-minded person who constantly snipes at people, name calls, uses far-out invective to character assassinate her enemies....keeps an 'enemies list', and on and on. She's off the snide scale and uses sarcasm like a blunt instrument, instead of the fine scalpel we've come to expect from the great masters of our language. Shakespeare himself was a master of the double-entendre, and he had a rapier for a pen when he chose. But, Sarah Palin is the kind of person who might attend an NHL hockey game and think she could get out there on the ice and skate with the big boys too. She certainly seems to think she can run in the big leagues of national and world politics....and then she does something like this.....again.

Oh, Sarah, we know you far too well to think that you even made-up the word 'refudiate' on purpose. Every time you open your mouth, it seems to re-confirm what we already know about you. You are a small-minded, vindictive, intellectually incurious, seeker of power, who thrives on bringing out the worst in your supporters and inventing it in your opponents.

Old Will would not be rolling in his grave over your grandiose self-comparison with him at all. He'd be laughing his ass off.

The Ultimate Art Form.........

2010-07-14T16:12:00.003-04:00

There is a vast spectrum of possibilities when it comes to making art. One could spend a lifetime just trying out all the various media, and some of them are unexpected. For instance, we don't ordinarily think of business as an art form, per se, but in its highest permutations it requires imagination and creativity of an extraordinary level, if it is going to prosper.

Then there is medicine. I once had a conversation with a doctor that went something like this: "You are both a scientist and an artist, traditionally speaking. I am asking you now for your opinion as a practitioner of the medical ARTS. I want to know what you feel in your gut." He brightened right up and told me that he didn't really believe I was having a heart-attack, and then segued right back to his scientific viewpoint and said, "But, we have to treat it as such, until we have completely ruled it out." What he declined to add was that he was obligated to cover his ass. (Turned out to be an esophageal spasm that was alleviated before an injection of an antispasmodic drug was even out of my arm. And, treatment was steered in that direction by a nurse who also had a gut feeling that it wasn't a cardio-event.)

There are a plethora of other surprising media. On the warrior path the term 'Martial Arts' is used, but most of us have no idea how artful it really is. At the very highest levels, it borders on miraculous. Laws such as that of gravity and time-space are seemingly broken and forces are brought into play that most of us believe are the sole province of comic books and fantasy movies. But, the trashy media didn't make it all up. Example: A top Japanese Aikido Master was visiting Ft. Devens, in Massachusetts. He was there at the request of one of his students--a very advanced American black-belt--and consented to put on a demonstration for a group of Special Forces soldiers who were in a program to test how the army could develop extraordinary skills in elite warriors. In a kendo duel--with bokan, wooden swords--the black-belt student tried to land blows on his master. He felt like his sword was bouncing off of an invisible inner-tube. Finally, he made one last attack, and the sword went through the invisible barrier....and he suddenly found himself wrapped from behind in his master's arms, with his own sword-tip at his throat. That is true and it is NOT magic. It is martial skill at the level of an art-form.....a transcendent one.

But, there is one medium that can be identified as the "Ultimate Art Form", and masters from all cultures, all disciplines and all times in human history would agree that this is indeed the highest form of art, beyond any argument or doubt. And, that highest of all artistic endeavors......is YOUR LIFE.

If you are willing to accept that each person has an opportunity placed before them at birth, despite all the challenges, the possible obstacles, and handicaps, using both the advantages of one's gifts, and the challenges of one's shortcomings, can allow a person to pursue life as a creative enterprise, one in which the goal is utterly simple and sane: to become wholly and profoundly HUMAN. It is absolutely NOT to become dominant, wealthy, skilled at any or all of the lesser media. Those can, in fact, become distractions and even impediments. But, they can also become vehicles for moving towards the goal of having an open mind and an open heart.....thereby becoming ultimately and excruciatingly human.

Every time we have a new event or experience in our lives, it becomes a part of the matrix that is US. We can use it, or be detained, even destroyed, by it. We can even use such terrible experiences as being in a Nazi concentration camp. I once met a living example of this: Rabbi Zalman Schachter, aka, the Purple Sox Rabbi. At an evening presentation in Berkeley, Zalman talked about this process of becoming human, and as he spoke, I could feel and even visually SEE the love emanating from him. Here in front of me was a fully realized Human Being. It was so obvious that this man had learned something that had transformed him. And, afterwards, I was introduced to him by a friend who knew him well.

And, there on his arm was a crudely tatooed number, beginning with 'A'...............for Auschwitz.

The Death of Honor......in relationships

2010-07-12T02:14:00.002-04:00

One of the pivotal qualities that renders a person worthy of the term 'Human Being' is the ability to manifest compassion. Without compassion a person becomes a mere hologram of a human being, capable of treating any and all other life-forms--not just other people, but animals too--as just something to be used, abused and tossed away when no longer needed.....like a Kleenex.

So, it came as a rude surprise to me that the Today Show, on Sunday, with Lester Holt, and his sidekick Jenna Wolfe, did a feature on a fellow who has started a website called "idump4u.com". This clever chap--Bradley something...couldn't find his name on his site, of course--has decided that there is a crying need for his willingness to contact a person's spouse, lover, partner etc. and tell them that they are being 'dumped'. He charges only $10 to dump your boy/girlfriend, $25 to break an engagement, and--WHOA!!!--$50 to tell a spouse that they are going to be divorced. He does this by calling the receiving party and telling them over the phone...via electronically disguised voice, that this is a 'dump', and he's happy to give the dumpee any comments that the dumper wishes to pass on. And, this genius entrepreneur reminds you that he's an assh*le, when you sign-up to dump someone....his point being don't mess with him. But, he also proudly proclaims, "We are therapy, humanity and comedy, all rolled into one."

Holy Cow, Batman!!

My initial reaction was, "This is a joke, right?" Oh, no. His whole demeanor during the interview with Jenna was that of a person who doesn't have a clue that this is seriously WEIRD, bordering on surreal. The notion that a person has some responsibility in the delicate personal matter of ending a relationship was not even on his radar, apparently.

So, I next found myself asking what this is saying about the attitudes of the people who hire him towards those they have been involved with....even married to. And, the answer is that we are now witnessing a level of self-interest, so utterly devoid of compassion, consideration, ANY sentiment resembling kindness or even etiquette...that we can just hire someone to say,"Hey, I'm done here. And, uh, oh, by the way F**K OFF!!" Wow! So, a soon to be former date, lover, partner, or spouse really does take on the same level of worthiness as a product for which we have no further use. "Yeah, had to sh*t-can her. So, I hired some dick on the web to do it."

Hey, it's kind of like having a virtual garbage-man who comes to haul off your relationship on Thursdays. And, dear friends, it is also another one of those ethical canaries in the coal-mine that I have been pointing to and saying, "It just keeled over. What do we do now?"

Happy Birthday, America

2010-07-05T11:25:00.002-04:00

I spent part of Sunday watching the made-for-tv series, "The Revolution" on the History Channel. It doesn't have the same dramatic quality as the HBO series of several years back that had Jeff Daniels playing George Washington, but it is full of good solid historical facts and some rather authentic appearing re-enactments.

But, what really struck me was just how precarious and incredibly difficult our struggle against tyranny was. We had already been in revolt for going on five years when 1780 arrived and that year saw defeat after defeat at the hands of British mercenaries and career professional military troops then considered to be the best in the world. 1780 came to be referred to as, "The Dark Time" it was so bad. American troops were frozen, starved, disease-plagued, un-paid--despite congressional promises to do so, of course--and they were asked to re-enlist despite what appeared to be a losing cause. And, the majority of them DID. Not only did they stay the course, they started winning battles, under the leadership of such inspired generals as Nathaenial Greene--a Quaker, by the way, who had set-aside his pacifist ideals because he knew that living under tyranny would be unacceptable. We developed the first effective guerrilla forces and met the red-coats on our own terms using camouflage, night, and superior backwoods marksmanship to whittle them down to size. And, in the end, we surmounted all the tremendous difficulties and the odds that were so stacked against us.

During the Revolution the British acted very much like the Japanese and the Nazis during WWII, in terms of how they treated the populace and the American prisoners they took. They helped to seal their own doom by acting so bestially and thereby motivating Americans who might have otherwise remained astride the fence that separated loyalists and rebels.

As I watched the story of how we became truly a free people, I also heard echoes of the people among us in the present who are trying to foment a revolutionary attitude. They are comparing President Obama to Hitler, telling us that we are in danger of becoming a 'socialist state' and that 'progressivism' is the new communism. Palin used the term, "....reload" to tell people how to approach political change. Limbaugh used the phrase, "....wipe them out," referring to how his listeners should go after Democrats who voted to improve health care. Beck constantly uses emotional invective to stir up fear and hatred. And, what makes me truly sad and angry is that there is apparently a large segment of our population who are more than willing to soak up this excrement and adopt it as their own political viewpoint.

It makes me feel that we have completely lost touch with what it was that made us so fiercely determined to be, not merely free, but to be compassionate and fair.....TO ALL PEOPLE. It is my sense that we're in danger of becoming a nation of self-interested, callous, and even VIOLENT people who just want to meet our own needs. To hell with anybody else; they can meet their own needs.

Am I wrong? We are rapidly becoming--already are in the eyes of most of the rest of the world--a nation of people who will do anything to serve our own desires and self-identified 'needs', which seem to be generally defined as having all the luxuries we can and simply to acquire 'stuff'. Gimme all that good stuff I see on t-v and I'll call it good.

Is that really who we are? I actually don't think so. But, there is a segment of us who is headed in that direction and who is making a helluva lot of noise that nobody--as in NOBODY--better get in their way, especially not some foreign, Muslim, black dude who thinks we should become less selfish, more caring, and apparently less rich.

Shaker Interior....again.

2010-06-29T15:00:00.000-04:00

This is a 36 inch square panel, and it is the third time I have painted this scene. The original reference slides were taken at the Shaker community, Sabbathday Lake--down the road from here--in 1985, and in 1988 I painted this interior for the first time. I knew I was missing the feeling that I wanted to capture; there was something about the light on the wall and the shadows that just didn't measure up. So, in 2006 I painted it again--see below--and once again, despite my very best efforts, something just didn't feel the way I wanted it to.

So, a few weeks ago, I decided to re-visit it and got out the sheet of slides and began to study them. I decided to do it larger, this time, and in a square format. I also knew that using transparent glazes on the shadowed portion of the wall and table was a mistake and that this time I would work with mostly opaque paints and scumbled layers. (aside: a 'scumble' is a layer that is loosely applied so that what is under it still shows through, but it is like a 'veil' instead of being like a transparent gel filter, which is how a 'glaze' layer behaves.) I also have learned a great deal about compensating for the shortcomings of photographic references. A piece of film, or a sensor, cannot see nearly as well as your eye can, so taking this into account is critical unless you are trying to emulate the vagaries of photography in your paintings.

Finally, I wanted the wall to be 'solid', to have a feeling that you could almost reach out and put your hand on it. I added the crack in the plaster, which I had omitted in the previous two paintings, but which was there in the actual wall. I realized that the crack anchors the wall and is a necessary part of the piece. So, make your own decision about whether or not you like the latest version better. I have already decided that I am going to paint this scene AGAIN, in about two or three years....so, I can see if I am really improving and learning as I go.

What will it take.....?

2010-06-25T08:14:00.000-04:00

Rant Warning: We have an intersection in our town that is apparently just a bit confusing. For out-of-towners, it is a challenge because there is NO stop-sign where they seem to want to find one....so they stop anyway. Well, that isn't so bad, but it is pretty frustrating when you are behind somebody who just decides to STOP.

But, the other day, as we were approaching this intersection--Market Square, is the name--a red Saab shot out of one of the places where there IS a stop-sign, completely out of synch with the flow of traffic, dangerously cutting off one car and seemingly oblivious to anything. As this idiot turned and drove past us, Abby said "Cell phone!!!", with a tone that said, "I knew it." The young blond driver of the Saab was deep in conversation and didn't even know that she'd almost caused an accident or cut through the square like a navy destroyer on a mission.

So, this is just the latest in a long string of observed incidents on my part, and Abby's. She wasn't surprised because it almost has become commonplace to see drivers do STUPID things in an unexpected fashion....and whereas you used to expect that somebody driving like that was drunk.....now it is a safe assumption that they are blabbing their god-damned head off to the little plastic device in their hand.

At this point, research has already shown that 'distracted' drivers--the formal term for this low level of performance--do about the same as drunks do. They are killing people and they are costing us billions in insurance and damages. Only 29 states have had the moral stones to make this foolhardy practice illegal...and I have some idea that the communications companies and their lobbyists might be able to tell why the others have failed their citizens by not stepping-up to do this.

So, my question stands......what will it finally take before this practice is both illegal and widely unacceptable to responsible people everywhere?

McChrystal......crazy like a fox

2010-06-24T11:21:00.003-04:00

In three years as an enlisted man in the U.S. Army, I met a handful of generals....and none of them were dummies. In fact, I would go so far as to say that anybody who becomes a general officer in the army has not merely military skills, but political ones as well. Getting all the way to FOUR stars is something very few career officers do; full generals are the rarest of the rare in the army at large. The commanders of major bases--like Ft. Benning and Ft. Dix--only have two stars and even brigadier generals (one star) are not all that common.

So, when a four-star runs his mouth to a reporter from a magazine like Rolling Stone, I have to believe that he's not as naive or stupid as Stanley McChrystal appears to have been at first glance. Did he know that the reporter was taking notes and that what was being said was 'on the record'? Without any doubt, YES! Did he know that what he was saying would come back to bite him in his butt? Hell, yes, he did.

So, what in the world was he thinking? It is my sense that ol' Stanley knows better than anybody that Afghanistan is a bottomless mess, that we are never going to just 'fix' the overwhelming endemic cultural and societal problems of that country...and he stood a very good chance of coming home as a defeated general, one whose policies and strategy had failed miserably. I believe that his time there finally made him realize exactly who we are dealing with. The Afghans are some of the gnarliest and toughest people on the planet. Living in a country that has more in common with the surface of the moon than it does arable land, and being a warrior society that has been run by warlords for many generations does NOT create a nation of mambie-pambies who toss in the towel when things get tough. Hell, things are ALWAYS tough in Afghanistan.

Some years ago, National Geographic ran an article on Afghanistan that was essentially taking a good look at who they are as a people. I was dumbstruck by the pictures of them 'playing' their version of polo. The 'ball' was a 90 lb. dead calf with its feet bound together, and the object of the game was to snatch it off the ground at a dead gallop, and ride like hell with it across your saddle, as your fellow 'players' flogged the snot out of you, and tried to grab it away. I don't actually recall if the game had 'goals' or a 'winner', but it was something so violent and so requiring of strength and unbelievable endurance that I do recall thinking to myself that these would be very bad people to have as opponents. The Russians learned this lesson, in spades. By any reasonable yardstick, the Viet Cong were tough and durable guerrilla fighters, worthy opponents deserving our respect. But, I must tell you that the Afghanis could give 'em a run for their money.

So, Stanley McChrystal perhaps realized that we're going to eventually pull out, having spent too many American lives, and too much treasure too. And, I will just bet you that he was looking for a way to save face.

Think about it. Generals hate being thought of as losers much more than being remembered as assh*les. Some of them seem to take actual pride in being the latter....but, they all want to be WINNERS.

An Island in the Night......

2010-06-17T12:08:00.001-04:00

For many people country living is a remote idea, literally. I have actually met people who regard it as being in some kind of painful exile and I've been asked more than once: "I mean, what the hell does a body do out there?" Seriously, they simply cannot imagine how country folks deal with the isolation and the lack of access to malls, theaters, restaurants...and all the amusements that are central to their lifestyle in suburbia or the city. My daughter once asked, "Why would anybody want to go to Maine?" But, then she thinks Disneyland is just one stop short of paradise, so that isn't too surprising.

I have--with a few brief exceptions--always lived out here. If I can't step outside at night and look up at a deep blue sky, with stars sparkling like diamonds, and take a leak out by my mailbox, I feel cloistered. I need the feeling of being closer to the natural world and further from the world of freeways, malls and orange-ish street-lights that make the sky look dimmer and the whole neighborhood glow in an unearthly way.

As anybody who lives in the country can tell you, the hub of the community is often a small, family-owned and run store, yes, just like the one pictured above. As we were driving past the Northeast Bay Market, in Penobscot, Maine, I glimpsed this scene and my foot automatically went for the brakes. I backed-up--without a problem due to the fact that there was not another car anywhere to be seen--and parked, then took a series of pictures with my wee pocket camera. And, on returning home, I couldn't wait to set the image to paint.

For me, this night-time scene is the quintessence of country living. The store is an island of light in an otherwise inky dark night and one person who saw the painting commented that they felt sure there was a smile and a 'howdy' waiting for anybody who walked in. And, I have no doubt they are right.

BTW: The plain white circle on the blue light over the pumps is actually what was there. I didn't genericize it, or change it at all. I almost titled the painting: "Full Moon Over Island", but I resisted.

Getting outside the box....

2010-06-14T17:56:00.000-04:00

I was talking with a longtime friend in Ohio this morning. Bruce is a retired agricultural seed salesman who has a broad streak of that mid-western pragmatism that has been the mainstay of farmers since a plow first broke soil. In fact, I doubt that a person could succeed as a farmer unless he or she was willing to deal with situations based on what is in front of them and what works. It isn't about 'theory' or 'knowledge' as much as it is about understanding the problem at hand and having a tendency to think creatively, regardless of conventional wisdom, or long-standing practices.

We got around to the BP mess in the gulf and his comment was, "They ought to turn some farmers loose on this; they'd come up with something that works." I thought about it and told him I agreed. We wondered aloud where all the stunning brain-power of MIT, Cal Tech, NASA, hundreds of other institutions and corporations is hiding. Here is an immense and terrible problem and peoples' lives are being ruined, a critical eco-system is being trashed.....and we are all waiting for one foreign corporation to come up with a solution.

Well, they have come up with a list of them....and not a single one has worked. My dear wife commented the other day: "It's like they are throwing stuff at a wall and hoping something will stick." (I think she did actually say 'stuff'....not 'sh*t. fwiw) So, yes, this is not a gimme kind of a problem, made immensely more complicated due to the fact that it is happening at 5000 feet, where the pressure and conditions make it much more challenging. I have no doubt that if it were happening at 300 or 500 feet that it would have been dealt with in a matter of days.

But, it is what it is, and that's where some creative thinking, and some down to earth pragmatism come in. Bruce and I both had the same idea: a heavy iron funnel, inverted and able to be dropped onto the pipe with enough force to 'slam fit' it to the opening. I could imagine putting a thick lining of un-vulcanized rubber in the funnel to act as a large and resilient gasket. Hey, it's just an idle idea, and I have a feeling that there are literally THOUSANDS of such ideas out there. But, I also am sensing that the egos of the engineers involved with solving this problem and the channels of communication are blocking any possibility that such a simple solution could make its way into use.

I do not think this is a situation where conventional practices will suffice. I believe that there is a creative and bold solution someplace outside of the apparently very limited box that the engineers are in. And, my God it is frustrating watching them dither about with stuff like 'top hats' and 'junk shots', making more excuses and telling us that it will be AUGUST before they can stop this disaster.

The Death of Honor........BP style.

2010-06-10T09:12:00.005-04:00

When British Petroleum CEO, Tony Hayward, said he wanted his life back....he wasn't joking. And, the odds are extremely good that he will get it back. Actually, he might get some sort of 'silver bullet' arrangement and be replaced by another person of his same arrogant ilk....but, I am going out on a limb here and making a prediction that when the leak has finally been plugged, and about two years of clean-up has been done....things will slowly, but inexorably return to 'business as usual'.

The clean-up after the Exxon Valdez incident was very high profile....initially. And then, very gradually over a period of the next couple of years, it tapered off. The multi-billion dollar judgment against Exxon was quietly reduced to about 500 million, and the clean-up finally whimpered to a close. PRINCE WILLIAM SOUND IS STILL NOT CLEAN, however. I saw a recent video clip in which the reporter was escorted along the shore and his interviewee used a small stick to pick up globs of black, tarry oil. There it still lies.

And, once all the furor is calmed, and people are given the least possible, wholly inadequate but 'reasonable' compensation for the loss of their livelihoods, and massive amounts of remorseful bulls**t have been applied to the terrible wounds of the gulf-coast environment and its wildlife........and the oil is no longer the star of every evening news broadcast....the Great Taper-off will begin. In nature, if a predator wants to conceal its movement--right out in the open, where the prey have a good view of it--it just moves veeery sloooowly, and pauses whenever it sees the prey look in its direction. It works like a champ. The lion, cheetah, or tiger becomes invisible. And, don't think for a minute that the publicists and executives at BP don't know how this works.

We should not mistake BP for a benign corporate enterprise that is merely working hard to make sure we can have all the gasoline we want. They are the ones who decided--with the tacit permission of the U.S. government--to pretend that they had all the bases covered in the case of a scenario like this disaster. They are the ones who decided that one Blow-out Preventor would be just fine, thank you. (aside: did you know that off-shore drilling in the North Sea, off of Europe, requires TWO of these devices.....apparently well aware that if one fails you are in an un-recoverable disaster situation?) They are the ones who have spent untold millions manipulating how we see them, via a long-standing t-v ad campaign that makes them look ever so progressive and just plain NICE people to deal with. And, in case you haven't noticed, they are now spending millions to shape public opinion of just how harshly they should be held responsible. At every possible opportunity, they are finding ways to insinuate that, "....there's a limit" to how accountable they should be. One BP spokesman managed to insert the idea that some of the dead and dying birds in the gulf may be dying from OTHER CAUSES. Are you sh*tting me?

So, here is my prediction boiled down: within two years of the time the leak is plugged, all of this will have simmered down to the occasional news story about how people in the gulf coast are surviving the destruction of their lives.....just like it did after Katrina. BP will be carrying on business as usual and 'cooler heads' will have found a way to let them mostly off the hook......after all: they are just hard-working entrepreneurs, trying their best to make sure our needs are met, right? And, if the Tea-Baggers march into Washington on a mandate from the people this fall, companies like BP will be in very good positions to conduct BUSINESS AS USUAL.

Who's there.......?

2010-06-04T03:47:00.004-04:00

Didn't get into the woods today until afternoon. It was raining all morning, but stopped long enough that we walked on silent, damp leaves in a forest dripping with raindrops and saturated in green. As we walked, the first thing that I heard was a gathering of crows, somewhere to the south, and not too far off, maybe a couple hundred yards. They were kicking up a real fuss and I guessed that they had spotted a hawk or owl and were doing their usual, "Hey, get outta my WORLD!!!!!", kind of histrionics. As a species, crows seem inclined to be noisy most of the time, but, when they discover what they consider to be a threat, the volume and frequency approaches 'cacophony'.

As we kept on walking, a few crows flew directly overhead, but didn't notice us beneath the canopy of beech and birch leaves. Just about two minutes later, as we turned down one of our favorite trails, I head the distinctive call of a Barred Owl. Birders like to describe it as: "Who! Who cooks for you? Who, who cooks for you all?" And, actually, that is a pretty good descriptor of the rhythm and the cadence of their call. But, the actual sound of it, the volume and tone, make the hair on the back of my neck stand-up. It has a deep and haunting quality that just says, "Welcome to MY woods. Who are you again?" I can imitate it well enough to fool one on occasion.

A couple of years ago, I heard one in the woods behind our home. So, what the hell, give it a shot, I thought. I was soon rewarded by the sight--without any audible noise attendant--of a very large, mottled bird landing in the lower branches of an ash tree, right on the edge of our yard. And, seconds later, it was joined by a second owl. I was awestruck. They sat there looking at me, and not making a sound. I had the temerity to 'hoot' again, and the closest owl took off and circled over the back yard and directly past me, landing in an oak not twenty yards away. He was curious. Who would have the nerve to call him out like that? He obviously knew I was there, despite my standing stock still. He just wanted a closer look at the fool who thought he could pretend to be one of his species.

Barred Owls are big, very big, only slightly smaller than the Great Horned Owl, and if one were sitting on your gloved hand--as I have experienced--he or she would be tall enough to look you in the eye. Of course, their owlish stare is a marvel in itself. They actually cannot roll their eyes, they have to move their head to aim where they are looking. This is thought to be because their eyeballs are so very large that articulating them would be tough...even for evolution. Their eyes--all owls--are low-light marvels, and their hearing is stunningly acute and directional. Even the feathers that form that peculiar 'owlish' moon of a face are performing a function in channeling sound so an owl can tell precisely what direction it came from. Their feathers have a very soft fringe on them....so an owl can glide down in complete silence as it swoops on its prey.

I walked down to my knife-shop one winter morning, some years back....I think I might even have had hair then...and there, on the new fallen snow, was a set of mouse tracks, hopping along: ba-deep, ba-deep, ba-deep...........and then, POOF!!! disappearing, into thin air. The explanation was also very clear: on the soft whiteness, a full foot away on either side, were the perfect impressions of the primary flight feathers of an owl. Wee mousie never heard it's doom approaching in the moonlight.

So, the next time you are outside at night, and you hear that distinctive hoot off in the distance, recall that there is one more of Mother Natures perfect and amazing creatures out there. The Barred Owl.

She's gone......ouch.

2010-06-01T10:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday, I walked up the trail towards the thrush's nest with some anticipation that she might be close to hatching the now FOUR eggs I had seen two days earlier. But, when I approached the nest all I found was a neat little assemblage of pine needles....... and no eggs or mother bird. I felt a strong pang of sadness, although I know that, yes, this is the way of Nature. Some make it and some don't. I am doubtful that the fact that she had chosen to build her nest next to the trail was the deciding factor. It is also very likely that the thrush herself is alright, and simply had to abandon the eggs because they were discovered. She may even start over in another location; birds often do if the first attempt isn't successful.

As I have shared many times here with you, the woods are full of critters who pray on other critters or are simply opportunists of the first order. I was reminded of this last evening as I watched television, and looked out the living-room window to see a very large raccoon walk casually across the street and pause under our neighbor's car before continuing his rounds.

>>>>>>>>>>>>*<<<<<<<<<<<<

On another note entirely: A writer rented the house next door to the Palin's in Wasilla and now he's being villified as a 'stalker' and all manner of evil-doer.....not by Sarah's rabid fans, but by Sarah herself on facebook. She is attacking him as if he posed a physical threat to her family, and I believe--from the Matt Lauer interview this morning--that this is far from being true. She immediately put an extension on the fence between the properties so that it is now 14 feet high, and then launched an attack on facebook so that this poor bugger is now the target of death threats.

None of this is of any import whatsoever.....except to the extent it tells us just a wee bit more about who Sarah really is. She is vindictive, not to mention paranoid, and has an apparent taste for inciting hatred and even threats of violence. And THIS is the front-runner for national audience....and even office....with the TeaBaggers. Holy Cow, Batman!!!! If she had any brains at all, she would connect with this writer, and work to gain his favor or at least to exert a positive influence on what he is going to write....because he IS going to write about her regardless of what she does. If you view the Lauer interview (click on the title above, if you want to see it) you don't come away from it with the impression that Joe McGinnis--a very successful best-selling author--is doing anything creepy or weird. He's just there......so the fact that his presence is setting Sarah off so badly is something I am viewing as a warning sign of aspects of her character and mind-set that we should all be very wary of. This is the kind of person who keeps an 'enemies list', and in the unthinkable eventuality of a situation where she would actually have some governmental power at her behest.....I will just bet you that she'd be one very dangerous person.

She could be just the one Sinclair Lewis referred to as: ".....wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible." You betcha.

The Rock Bound Coast of Maine

2010-05-25T11:27:00.002-04:00

For almost as long as I have lived here in western Maine, I have also made junkets over to the coast in order to enjoy the scenery and to photograph it. As I explored over the decades, I found myself drawn back time and again to one particular fishing village: Stonington. It lies on the outer end of Deer Isle and is a true fishing village with hardly a pleasure boat to be seen in the substantial harbor. There are, however, about a hundred lobster boats that ply the waters around Stonington and I enjoy being at harbor's edge at first light, when the engines are coughing to life and the waterfolk are beginning their day.

Here are some photos that I took this visit. I think you can see that this place is somewhat timeless in that these images could be from any of the last five or more decades. Some of these will become paintings, with changes, but, I also like them just as they are.

Ahhhhhh......there she is.

2010-05-24T09:48:00.000-04:00

This morning we passed the Swainson's Thrush's nest, as usual. The dogs rushed right on by, Emmy passing literally within 18 inches of it. And, as I approached I slowed, camera in hand, and took three pictures just after I had passed. She sat there motionless as I zoomed in on her, confident that she was safe.

But, I wanted you to see who laid those stunning turquoise eggs, and is now sitting on them with the patience of a monk in an abbey.

One of these mornings very soon, I will find that she has hatched them, and at that point I will use another trail for a few weeks. But, in the meantime, here she is in all her quiet and ever so subtle beauty.

You DO see her, right?

Well, here's some help for you.

I was wrong.....it was a Swainson's Thrush.

2010-05-20T15:14:00.000-04:00

Well, I have egg on my face, but, Abby would tell you that I often do....right after breakfast. Fact is, I was wrong in identifying the bird whose nest I saw as a Wood Thrush. This morning I approached the nest site from the downhill direction, which would allow me to get eyes on without getting too very close. I asked--okay, I demanded--that the dogs hang back as I crept forward.

As I squinted through the binoculars I could hardly make out the nest opening because a largish dead beech leaf had been pulled in front of it. Finally, I was able to make out a shiny little eye, and then the rest of her came into focus. She was greyer, with a hint of olive, not reddish as I had previously thought....but, my only glimpse of her had been fleeting.

I motioned the dogs past the nest, still clueless it was right there, and walked slowly past it myself. She was holding tight, not moving a feather, and damn-near invisible even from a distance of four feet. But, I could see her clearly enough to know that she was indeed a Swainson's Thrush.

It hardly matters, really. She is also jewel-like and perfect. Her call which you can access by clicking on the above title is very similar, but I did want to be absolutely correct.....lest I lead you astray, eh.

Here is an example of perfection for you.