Can Mankind destroy life on Earth?
A long quote from Michael Crichton - author of Jurassic Park -
“You think man can destroy the planet? What intoxicating vanity. Let me tell you about our planet. Earth is four-and-a-half-billion-years-old. There's been life on it for nearly that long, 3.8 billion years. Bacteria first; later the first multicellular life, then the first complex creatures in the sea, on the land. Then finally the great sweeping ages of animals, the amphibians, the dinosaurs, at last the mammals, each one enduring millions on millions of years, great dynasties of creatures rising, flourishing, dying away -- all this against a background of continuous and violent upheaval. Mountain ranges thrust up, eroded away, cometary impacts, volcano eruptions, oceans rising and falling, whole continents moving, an endless, constant, violent change, colliding, buckling to make mountains over millions of years. Earth has survived everything in its time. It will certainly survive us. If all the nuclear weapons in the world went off at once and all the plants, all the animals died and the earth was sizzling hot for a hundred thousand years, life would survive, somewhere: under the soil, frozen in Arctic ice. Sooner or later, when the planet was no longer inhospitable, life would spread again. The evolutionary process would begin again. It might take a few billion years for life to regain its present variety. Of course, it would be very different from what it is now, but the earth would survive our folly, only we would not. If the ozone layer gets thinner, ultraviolet radiation sears the earth, so what? Ultraviolet radiation is good for life. It's powerful energy. It promotes mutation, change. Many forms of life will thrive with more UV radiation. Many others will die out. Do you think this is the first time that's happened? Think about oxygen. Necessary for life now, but oxygen is actually a metabolic poison, a corrosive glass, like fluorine. When oxygen was first produced as a waste product by certain plant cells some three billion years ago, it created a crisis for all other life on earth. Those plants were polluting the environment, exhaling a lethal gas. Earth eventually had an atmosphere incompatible with life. Nevertheless, life on earth took care of itself. In the thinking of the human being a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago we didn't have cars, airplanes, computers or vaccines. It was a whole different world, but to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing. This planet lives and breathes on a much vaster scale. We can't imagine its slow and powerful rhythms, and we haven't got the humility to try. We've been residents here for the blink of an eye. If we're gone tomorrow, the earth will not miss us.”
How do we harm thee? Let me count the ways ....
Deforestation: http://inhabitat.com/google-launches-worlds-first-high-resolution-interactive-map-of-global-deforestation/
We are both cutting and planting forests, but the trend is negative - in other words we are every year losing more forest than we plant. How does this affect us? Forests are rich biomes - supporting plant and animal life. Under the canopy of the trees other smaller plants flourish, fertilized by the fallen leaves. Birds and a huge variety of mammals, reptiles and bugs (insects, arachnids and other small animals) as well as mosses, lichens, fungi and many others co-habitate in a lush world of interdependence. When we cut forests we lose those species.
The problem is complicated by the fact that much of the re-foresting is of a single species, instead of the multiple and competing types of trees found in most "natural" forest areas. A single species of tree cannot support a multiplicity of other species, and it is far more vulnerable to disease - a single tree disease can wipe out an entire forest, leaping from tree to tree with no intervening trees of different types unaffected by the disease to slow or stop its advance. We have not improved matters by instituting monoculture into our stewardship of the forests, we are setting up a huge games of teetering dominoes.
Extinction: http://www.poodwaddle.com/clocks/worldclock/ This is a very cool website which tracks all sorts of "progress", including the disappearance of species, aka extinction. The number represented here is the number of species that have gone extinct this calendar year. What most people fail to realize is that life is a complex web - a weaving of many strands of which humanity is only one. Every time a species goes extinct, one of the threads of this rich and marvelous tapestry is pulled out of the whole. How many strands can we lose before the whole fabric of our ecosystem begins to unravel on it's own? Frighteningly, we do not know the answer, but we proceed, in our ignorant power to destroy as if everything we do made no difference to the whole.
Desertification: http://www.maps.com/ref_map.aspx?pid=12874 Desertification is the advance of deserts - the consumption of fertile areas by shifting sands and blowing dust. It's not that there is no life in a desert, it's simply that the life that exists there is thin, fragile, and incapable of supporting many people. North Africa used to be the breadbasket of the Roman Empire - now it is an area of bleak sand and rock, larger than the continental United States, and advancing south at a frightening 43 kilometers per year along a front 1500 miles across.
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_fast_is_the_Sahara_desert_expanding_each_year#slide1
This is only 1 of several areas where the desert is slowly, inexorably, and at this point, unstoppably consuming the areas on which we depend for our food, wood, water and the rest.
Pollution: http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/nasa-earth-map-illuminates-where-pollution-kills-130928.htm This map shows areas where pollution contributes to human deaths. There are many kinds of pollution - air, water and ground pollution are familiar to most people. http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/encyclopedia/pollution/?ar_a=1 But there are other kinds - light pollution, from man-made light sources disturb plants and animals that depend on a period of darkness to survive. Noise pollution disturbs sleep and hibernation cycles, interrupting processes which depend on relative quiet. Noise pollution can also include systems like sonar, which confuse the migration of aquatic species., interfere with their communication with one another, and generally mess up the natural order of things.
A sampling of the other kinds of pollution - pesticides, oil spills and diffusion of petroleum by products, trash including heavy metals and plastics, which persist for tens of thousand of years, including our large and growing garbage continents [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Pacific_garbage_patch], smog, runoff, fertilizer, algal blooms which consume the oxygen dissolved in water and suffocate life forms which breathe, http://www.businessinsider.com/map-of-worldwide-marine-dead-zones-2013-6 agriculture which crowds out more diverse ecosystems and, well, you get the point. Our activities produce substances in large quantities which the world has a hard time processing and eliminating, and in the meantime, we wreck havoc on the existing life forms and ecologies.
Urbanization - as our cities continue to multiply and grow - they take the place of other uses of land. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm Cities are not entirely hostile to life-forms - humans live there in great numbers, along with our partners in urbanization - rats, cockroaches, dogs and cats. As cities grow, other types of landscapes retreat, and the life forms which occupied them die.
Anthropogenic global warming: Humans are not the only contributors to global warming - the earth has experienced cycles vast in duration where things get warmer, and then colder. But we certainly contribute to the current cycle http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/world/06/urbanisation/html/urbanisation.stm . Some species will adapt, some will leap ahead in a warmer earth, others will fail to adapt and perish. Since we still know very little about the effects of a warmer world on our fellow life forms, it is too early to say who will be the winners and who the losers in a warmer world. However, a warmer world with higher levels of carbon dioxide can be shown to have a present and continuing effect in a number of areas - the acidification of the ocean, which harms coral reefs and animals which have shells; a rise in sea level which will result in submergence of much of the current coastlines of the world and forcing the very large human populations resident there to seek other land on which to live. There is a great deal of speculation, argument and information available about these effects so I leave you to it with no further elaboration here.
Genetically modified organisms (GMOs): I would like to mention 3 threats of GMOs to our world - 1) loss of biodiversity, 2) unforeseen effects of incipient organisms; 3) economic control of species by the "owners" of the new plant and animal species. briefly then:
1) Biodiversity refers to the complexity of the web of life - roughly - the more diverse an ecology is the healthier it is in terms of resistance to disease, predation, natural or man-made catastrophes. GMO's go hand in hand with monoculture, and thus reduce biodiversity and threaten the robustness of living systems.
2) The world exists as a series of checks and balances - when one species grows too numerous, it's natural enemies also grow numerous and act as a brake on their proliferation. We are introducing species which do not exist in the natural world - and without producing their enemies as the goal is to increase the numbers and geographic extent of the new species in order to enjoy the traits and attributes of our creations more widely. But, we have no idea what the effect of these new life-forms will be on the natural world; there could (and will) be all sorts of effects we have not foreseen by promoting this imbalance. Furthermore, we have no track record of the effect of these GMO's on ourselves - we are only now starting to eat them and wash with them and wear them and so on, so we do not and cannot know if they will be beneficial or harmful to us. This is a gamble the corporations are willing to take and we are the guinea pigs in this giant experiment.
3) The companies which introduce GMO life forms own them, and have every motive to spread them in preference to existing, unpatentable species. They have shown a willingness to be very aggressive in pushing their pet species, and along with the fact that we have to buy them from these corporations, they are selling seeds that do not propagate annually, and advancing legal restrictions on the ability of farmers to keep a portion of crops that do produce fertile seeds. Taken together with the fact that they also sell novel fertilizers for these "frankenfoods", as well as making them pest resistant (killing off the life forms which feed on natural species), we are introducing a new game, with rules made by corporations and their pet politicians. Corporations are legal entities, but they are also immortal, have no feelings, and operate under a set of rules (short-term profits, long term control of markets, elimination of competition, legal responsibility to maximize shareholder value) which would be judged as insane if a human being behaved strictly according to those imperatives.
This is by no means an exhaustive study of the effects, intended as well as unintended we are having on our world. Ozone depletion, wars, resource depletion, over-fishing, loss of aquifers, the spread of radioactive materials, strip mining and other habitat loss, the list goes on and on, our effects seemingly advancing faster than we can even begin to realize, much less evaluate or mitigate.
You may ask, in the face of this litany of destruction, what can a person do? here are a few suggestions:
I. Take your money out of the bank and put it into a credit union. Big banks stand behind the whole corporate system; money is their food, starve them of their food and they will have less scope for their profit-motivated blind mischief.
II. Join or form, and shop at a member-owned Cooperative. Form all sorts of cooperatives to provide your necessities. When the organization gets too big, split it into two or more organizations. This means taking an active part in the provision and production of your own necessities.
III. Buy local, organic, heirloom foods. Shop whenever possible at small. locally owned businesses. Avoid large corporate-owned stores, restaurants, etc. Remember we are starving the heartless behemoths of their life-blood and encouraging "economic bio-diversity" when we support our small businesses.
IV. Start a garden and grow your own food. Be ready to use natural methods of pest control - ladybugs, praying mantises, marigolds to name just a few. Use only natural fertilizers - no man-made petroleum based products. Start a compost pile and reduce your contribution to landfills while keeping the nutrients in your own yard. get rid of as much of your lawn as possible and replace it with with a vegetable garden and plants that flower so we can keep the bees alive.
V. Get out of your car and walk, jog or ride a bicycle. If you can, get rid of your car altogether - save money and the planet at the same time. At the very least - always ask yourself - is this trip necessary?
VI. Stay informed and involved. Know who your representatives are - learn what they stand for. Always vote for the person who supports the most of what you believe - abandon party politics for the choices which will help save our lives and the richness of the Earth. Take the time to learn about local, regional, national and international topics under discussion - THEY ALL AFFECT YOU and your children and their children.
VII) Never ever think things are hopeless, the current situation got this way because most people withdraw from action thinking they cannot make a difference. That philosophy is wrong, and it is the thing the powerbrokers count on to continue having their way. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
Thanks for taking the time to read this and remember - the billions of people on earth are the single greatest force for change - we determine, collectively by the sum of our countless daily actions, the direction in which we are taking each other and our irreplaceable world.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Episode 14
NFTNIF Episode 14
Woke to a white world on the 16th – blindingly, glaringly white. Everything was white – distinctions erased by indiscriminate bleaching that fell from the sky. Along with washing out all colors, everything was softened, rounded, blurred. Old Man Winter is here – but will he stay this time? It turns out the answer is no – things started melting as soon as the sun got above the treetops.
And now it has been raining steadily if not very hard for two days. The rain falls and falls, chilly and unsympathetic, melting all the patches of snow that had been hiding in shade. All the sharpness has returned to the world, all the colors. Some colors are even more distinct now – the leaves that dot our lawn have turned darker, richer, almost purplish against the renewed green of the grass.
Our bedroom is in the basement, and the windows are set into wells. There are bubble-like shields over the window wells. Dustin pointed out that there are plants flourishing under the shields – our own little greenhouses. They all have leaves and appear quite healthy and happy – even though their counterparts exposed to the elements in the yard are all dead and brown. I am cheering them on – I hope they make it through the whole winter – it's nice to see them there and be reminded of the persistence of life given the right conditions for it.
There are almost as many dogs in this neighborhood as there were in Ocean Beach. However, the dogs here are much more territorial, aggressive, unfriendly. I think it's because we are about the only ones who walk anywhere – every one either drives or gets a ride, even for 2 blocks. There are two dogs on our corner – one of them a Cujo understudy. He lunges to the fence, wheezing and growling and barking. I have evolved a method of dealing with them, because it is SO annoying to have to walk past them barking and snapping and lunging against the fence. I walk on the far side of the street whenever I pass their house, and I never EVER look at them. After a few weeks of this, they have accepted the fact that my passage does not involve them – they don't bark at me anymore, sometimes don't even bother to get to their feet – unless I walk past with Dustin. Then it's right back to their bad, old ways – I think they sense his dislike of them, and he does not mimic my “I have nothing to do with you” behavior.
I have noticed that there are some sharp differences between living almost a mile high and living almost literally at sea level. Skin dries out and stays dry here – skin which never showed any such tendency living near the beach. Another difference -when I make CalRose rice, I have to add more water and cook it longer. More - it's much easier to get intestinal gas here than at sea level. Still more - exertion gets tiring a bit faster and takes a bit longer to recover from here than it did back in OB.
So I grew up in Detroit, and everyone knew that everyone had a gun. Then I moved to Ann Arbor, where things were different, and it has not been until I moved to Idaho Falls (well, Ammon) that I again lived in a community bristling with guns. This was forcibly brought to my attention the other day as I was standing in line at Speedy Mart. The lady in front of me was panting, puffing and her face was a deep shade of red. She told the poor cashier (who could not get away because she was working) “I am so mad at my Dad for hiding my gun, because it meant I didn't have it in my car today. He's always hiding it from me!”
“What happened?” asked the cashier, quickly ringing up the items the red-faced lady had selected.
“Some guy cut me off on the road, and I reached under my seat for the gun, and it wasn't there!” The cashier and I exchange a swift, significant glance, then red-face continues; “He is really lucky my dad hides my gun because it pissed me off so bad!” (Remember she is still flushed and breathing hard...)
“”I yelled and shook my fist at him but he just drove off. I noticed as he turned that he was a really old man.”
My mouth has a life of its own sometimes, wild and free so I cautiously ventured a remark - “Maybe he didn't see you?”
“He would have noticed if I had my gun with me!”
“Then you are spared a lifetime of regret for shooting an elderly man trying to get home” I say, thinking this will calm her down. Don't I ever get tired of being wrong?
“I wouldn't have regretted it but he would have.”
Happily, she did not even bother to turn around and look at my face, and boy am I glad I don't drive here yet, at least until I have a gun of my own so I could at least return fire if I ever run into her again.
In the absence of a job, I have settled into the role of house-husband. I beguile the tedium of my days with laundry, cooking, dishes, and some light cleaning. I pack Dustin's meals for work, tidy everything up, and wonder how billions of women across thousands of years have managed this without going stark raving mad. It's only been a couple months for me and there are no messy irrational children to clean up after and tote to games and meetings and malls. Luckily I love cooking, otherwise I would feel like I was a sideways version of the I Love Lucy Show where Fred and Ricky make an avalanche of rice and Lucy and Ethel get jobs in the candy factory. Everyone makes a comical hash of the gender role reversal. I'm sure a real house-keeper of whichever sex would find fault with my house-keeping; I don't dust, rarely vacuum and wash up only when the level of dirt becomes evident to me through my field of vision, which is centered at about arms length. Once we have a mop and bucket I will establish a regular schedule for mopping; right now it's all done by bath towels after I am done with them at the finish of my shower. Also luckily, I live with D and Glenn, neither of whom is particularly a Felix Unger clean freak. Glenn does suffer spasms of diligence which lead him to clean up too – but these seem to be getting more infrequent as he relaxes into the pastoral atmosphere of Ammon.
Our friend JM is coming to visit tomorrow – we have been counting down the weeks, then days and now hours. Can hardly wait to have him visit!!!!
Well that ends this episode of NFTNIF – stay tuned!
Woke to a white world on the 16th – blindingly, glaringly white. Everything was white – distinctions erased by indiscriminate bleaching that fell from the sky. Along with washing out all colors, everything was softened, rounded, blurred. Old Man Winter is here – but will he stay this time? It turns out the answer is no – things started melting as soon as the sun got above the treetops.
And now it has been raining steadily if not very hard for two days. The rain falls and falls, chilly and unsympathetic, melting all the patches of snow that had been hiding in shade. All the sharpness has returned to the world, all the colors. Some colors are even more distinct now – the leaves that dot our lawn have turned darker, richer, almost purplish against the renewed green of the grass.
Our bedroom is in the basement, and the windows are set into wells. There are bubble-like shields over the window wells. Dustin pointed out that there are plants flourishing under the shields – our own little greenhouses. They all have leaves and appear quite healthy and happy – even though their counterparts exposed to the elements in the yard are all dead and brown. I am cheering them on – I hope they make it through the whole winter – it's nice to see them there and be reminded of the persistence of life given the right conditions for it.
There are almost as many dogs in this neighborhood as there were in Ocean Beach. However, the dogs here are much more territorial, aggressive, unfriendly. I think it's because we are about the only ones who walk anywhere – every one either drives or gets a ride, even for 2 blocks. There are two dogs on our corner – one of them a Cujo understudy. He lunges to the fence, wheezing and growling and barking. I have evolved a method of dealing with them, because it is SO annoying to have to walk past them barking and snapping and lunging against the fence. I walk on the far side of the street whenever I pass their house, and I never EVER look at them. After a few weeks of this, they have accepted the fact that my passage does not involve them – they don't bark at me anymore, sometimes don't even bother to get to their feet – unless I walk past with Dustin. Then it's right back to their bad, old ways – I think they sense his dislike of them, and he does not mimic my “I have nothing to do with you” behavior.
I have noticed that there are some sharp differences between living almost a mile high and living almost literally at sea level. Skin dries out and stays dry here – skin which never showed any such tendency living near the beach. Another difference -when I make CalRose rice, I have to add more water and cook it longer. More - it's much easier to get intestinal gas here than at sea level. Still more - exertion gets tiring a bit faster and takes a bit longer to recover from here than it did back in OB.
So I grew up in Detroit, and everyone knew that everyone had a gun. Then I moved to Ann Arbor, where things were different, and it has not been until I moved to Idaho Falls (well, Ammon) that I again lived in a community bristling with guns. This was forcibly brought to my attention the other day as I was standing in line at Speedy Mart. The lady in front of me was panting, puffing and her face was a deep shade of red. She told the poor cashier (who could not get away because she was working) “I am so mad at my Dad for hiding my gun, because it meant I didn't have it in my car today. He's always hiding it from me!”
“What happened?” asked the cashier, quickly ringing up the items the red-faced lady had selected.
“Some guy cut me off on the road, and I reached under my seat for the gun, and it wasn't there!” The cashier and I exchange a swift, significant glance, then red-face continues; “He is really lucky my dad hides my gun because it pissed me off so bad!” (Remember she is still flushed and breathing hard...)
“”I yelled and shook my fist at him but he just drove off. I noticed as he turned that he was a really old man.”
My mouth has a life of its own sometimes, wild and free so I cautiously ventured a remark - “Maybe he didn't see you?”
“He would have noticed if I had my gun with me!”
“Then you are spared a lifetime of regret for shooting an elderly man trying to get home” I say, thinking this will calm her down. Don't I ever get tired of being wrong?
“I wouldn't have regretted it but he would have.”
Happily, she did not even bother to turn around and look at my face, and boy am I glad I don't drive here yet, at least until I have a gun of my own so I could at least return fire if I ever run into her again.
In the absence of a job, I have settled into the role of house-husband. I beguile the tedium of my days with laundry, cooking, dishes, and some light cleaning. I pack Dustin's meals for work, tidy everything up, and wonder how billions of women across thousands of years have managed this without going stark raving mad. It's only been a couple months for me and there are no messy irrational children to clean up after and tote to games and meetings and malls. Luckily I love cooking, otherwise I would feel like I was a sideways version of the I Love Lucy Show where Fred and Ricky make an avalanche of rice and Lucy and Ethel get jobs in the candy factory. Everyone makes a comical hash of the gender role reversal. I'm sure a real house-keeper of whichever sex would find fault with my house-keeping; I don't dust, rarely vacuum and wash up only when the level of dirt becomes evident to me through my field of vision, which is centered at about arms length. Once we have a mop and bucket I will establish a regular schedule for mopping; right now it's all done by bath towels after I am done with them at the finish of my shower. Also luckily, I live with D and Glenn, neither of whom is particularly a Felix Unger clean freak. Glenn does suffer spasms of diligence which lead him to clean up too – but these seem to be getting more infrequent as he relaxes into the pastoral atmosphere of Ammon.
Our friend JM is coming to visit tomorrow – we have been counting down the weeks, then days and now hours. Can hardly wait to have him visit!!!!
Well that ends this episode of NFTNIF – stay tuned!
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
NFTNIF - Supplemental
NFTNIF Supplemental - Wake-Up Call.
How many people here own their house - and how many have a mortgage, or live in a rental? How many people own their cars, and how many have a car payment, and trade in the car for a new one with it's fresh and probably larger car payment? How many grow their own food, make their own clothing, and how many have to shop for them every week or season? How many of us, if we lost or left our jobs, would be on the street, bereft, hungry, penniless, or have to depend on a government program which is under continuous attack, or the charity and kindness of family, friends and strangers, a church or social organization? Why is it that we buy food from companies that refuse to tell us what that food contains, and this is allowed to go on? Why is it that we hemorrhage our national treasure on wars that resolve nothing, save no one, kill our young men and women and the people of distant lands, expend resources and consume ingenuity, crowding out education, repairs to our bridges, roads, and other vital infrastructure? How can we placidly continue to rape and ravage the earth, seas and sky, displacing the nature we view with such pleasure on pictures, TV and on brief vacations?
How have we become so removed from perception of our common humanity that we can easily hate and despise and destroy people who we have never met? Why is it that we can continue to channel ever-slenderer resources toward researching more ingenious and impersonal methods for murder and war, while neglecting and forgetting research and work on the things that enhance and enrich life? How can we not notice that those inventions are INEVITABLY turned against us to ensure our continued compliance with the world-destroying system that espouses them?
Why is it that if the government ordered all men to begin wearing purple dresses, there would be a revolution overnight, but when we are dragged into war we go so willingly and give our children so open-handedly to the meat grinder?
Why is it that we fall reflexively back on resentment and prejudice to justify our collective inhumanity? Why do we continue to insist on dealing with things in ways that have proven not work? Why do we permit our government to place its colossal foot upon us and lean ever more heavily upon and meekly pay for the privilege of having our liberty shredded in exchange for security that never arrives? Why do we pay lip service to those who have died for freedom and then meekly surrender it at the first opportunity? Why are we so proud of ignorance and intolerance?
How can people believe in God and completely ignore everything we are told He wants us to do? Take care of the poor, the sick, the children - yet complain every time someone suggests that we have to spend money or time or attention to do so?
I am not aware of any country which has ever refused a war.
I see us following, inexplicably, the foul road to annihilation every other empire in history has ever trod.
How can we be so involved in our gladiatorial contests, our little self-serving feelings of superiority, our gadgets and disastrous distractions and be unwilling to spend an hour a day keeping ourselves informed on the workings of our government? A nation built by immigrants has become utterly hostile to immigration. A country based on freedom seems to long for the firm hand of any tyrant which promises safety from a world stimulated to hostility against us by our own policies.
How can we blindly ignore the brutal suppression of choice and self-determination forced upon our mothers and daughters and sisters? How can we wink at the dehumanization and even murder of women everywhere including in our own beloved country? Honor killings, wife-beatings, exhaustion through repeated child-bearing, but contraceptives are evil? Why is it permitted that women be bullied, cowed, murdered and manipulated by a few men who laugh at us from behind their pillared and walled compounds? How did we get to the point that we no longer believe our children will have a better life than we do - but most people would violently attack anyone who suggests a different course than the road to poverty and servility we are so obviously embarked upon?
Why do we meekly acquiesce or actually aggressively enable the theft of our national and global resources, the singling out of small groups, one by one who are stripped of the right to vote, or eat, or even live?
Facing up to the situation in which we find ourselves is terribly hard - but ignoring it will be harder still.
Why do we so easily swallow lies when a modicum of education would expose the lie for what it is - a cynical program to keep us divided and content with a pittance?
We developed drones for warfare abroad, because this impersonal method of warfare spares our lives, and soon those drones will be everywhere in our own skies.
Everywhere you look, peoples who are as alike as two flowers growing in the same field are turned implacably against each other, while the owners of munitions factories take profits from both sides, impartially, caring nothing for anything, no country, no ideal, no religion except profits, continuous and ever-increasing?
How can people think our government is Marxist or socialist when Wall Street is fatter than ever - the great recession wiped out trillions of dollars of wealth for retirees, workers, small investors, but there is more wealth than ever now - and int he hands of fewer and fewer people?
Haliburton can lie, and steal and kill and undermine the governments of countries our people are dying to establish - wars are started based on lies and we turn away and tune into our favorite shows.
Why would people adore the hand that strikes them but reject their own children for trying to realize their own natures?
Why are we content to play games and refuse to do something to change the world for the better?
We consume poison and thank our poisoners, we watch our share of the country's wealth vanish and snarl savagely at those who try to warn us, we cling to the idea that we are different and better, yet refuse to take a responsible portion of our governance, content to let the thieves run everything. We lost control over our own money long ago with the establishment of the Federal reserve, and now another chunk of our sovereignty is being negotiated away in the Trans Pacific Partnership and not 10 of my HUNDREDS of FB friends bothered to learn anything about it.
We squabble with persons of different ethnic backgrounds, religion, party or skin color, while the people who care for nothing except having more of everything stoke the fires and keep us divided and proud of our divisions.
America can never be defeated by a foreign enemy, it will be betrayed from within by those who care nothing for country - only their own wealth and privileges while stripping us of all of both.
We are so busy determining what is good for each other we have lost sight of our own self interests. Why should anyone care what I smoke, or have sex with, or read or believe or who I marry.
The Romans at least had bread and circuses, we are busy denying each other the bread while we throng the circuses.
Our real masters could not be more pleased with us - we are doing their work for them and paying for the privilege, paying with our liberty, our small wealth, our very lives.
If you care about your own children, your neighbors or even YOURSELF, I beg you to wake up and look at what is happening, put aside meaningless differences and demand that we move toward a more sustainable and equitable world - I fear we re in the last hours of mankind as a rational species.
If you took the time to read this- thank you - if not - good luck.
For some ideas on how to create a sustainable and equitable society - watch
www.thrivemovement.com
How many people here own their house - and how many have a mortgage, or live in a rental? How many people own their cars, and how many have a car payment, and trade in the car for a new one with it's fresh and probably larger car payment? How many grow their own food, make their own clothing, and how many have to shop for them every week or season? How many of us, if we lost or left our jobs, would be on the street, bereft, hungry, penniless, or have to depend on a government program which is under continuous attack, or the charity and kindness of family, friends and strangers, a church or social organization? Why is it that we buy food from companies that refuse to tell us what that food contains, and this is allowed to go on? Why is it that we hemorrhage our national treasure on wars that resolve nothing, save no one, kill our young men and women and the people of distant lands, expend resources and consume ingenuity, crowding out education, repairs to our bridges, roads, and other vital infrastructure? How can we placidly continue to rape and ravage the earth, seas and sky, displacing the nature we view with such pleasure on pictures, TV and on brief vacations?
How have we become so removed from perception of our common humanity that we can easily hate and despise and destroy people who we have never met? Why is it that we can continue to channel ever-slenderer resources toward researching more ingenious and impersonal methods for murder and war, while neglecting and forgetting research and work on the things that enhance and enrich life? How can we not notice that those inventions are INEVITABLY turned against us to ensure our continued compliance with the world-destroying system that espouses them?
Why is it that if the government ordered all men to begin wearing purple dresses, there would be a revolution overnight, but when we are dragged into war we go so willingly and give our children so open-handedly to the meat grinder?
Why is it that we fall reflexively back on resentment and prejudice to justify our collective inhumanity? Why do we continue to insist on dealing with things in ways that have proven not work? Why do we permit our government to place its colossal foot upon us and lean ever more heavily upon and meekly pay for the privilege of having our liberty shredded in exchange for security that never arrives? Why do we pay lip service to those who have died for freedom and then meekly surrender it at the first opportunity? Why are we so proud of ignorance and intolerance?
How can people believe in God and completely ignore everything we are told He wants us to do? Take care of the poor, the sick, the children - yet complain every time someone suggests that we have to spend money or time or attention to do so?
I am not aware of any country which has ever refused a war.
I see us following, inexplicably, the foul road to annihilation every other empire in history has ever trod.
How can we be so involved in our gladiatorial contests, our little self-serving feelings of superiority, our gadgets and disastrous distractions and be unwilling to spend an hour a day keeping ourselves informed on the workings of our government? A nation built by immigrants has become utterly hostile to immigration. A country based on freedom seems to long for the firm hand of any tyrant which promises safety from a world stimulated to hostility against us by our own policies.
How can we blindly ignore the brutal suppression of choice and self-determination forced upon our mothers and daughters and sisters? How can we wink at the dehumanization and even murder of women everywhere including in our own beloved country? Honor killings, wife-beatings, exhaustion through repeated child-bearing, but contraceptives are evil? Why is it permitted that women be bullied, cowed, murdered and manipulated by a few men who laugh at us from behind their pillared and walled compounds? How did we get to the point that we no longer believe our children will have a better life than we do - but most people would violently attack anyone who suggests a different course than the road to poverty and servility we are so obviously embarked upon?
Why do we meekly acquiesce or actually aggressively enable the theft of our national and global resources, the singling out of small groups, one by one who are stripped of the right to vote, or eat, or even live?
Facing up to the situation in which we find ourselves is terribly hard - but ignoring it will be harder still.
Why do we so easily swallow lies when a modicum of education would expose the lie for what it is - a cynical program to keep us divided and content with a pittance?
We developed drones for warfare abroad, because this impersonal method of warfare spares our lives, and soon those drones will be everywhere in our own skies.
Everywhere you look, peoples who are as alike as two flowers growing in the same field are turned implacably against each other, while the owners of munitions factories take profits from both sides, impartially, caring nothing for anything, no country, no ideal, no religion except profits, continuous and ever-increasing?
How can people think our government is Marxist or socialist when Wall Street is fatter than ever - the great recession wiped out trillions of dollars of wealth for retirees, workers, small investors, but there is more wealth than ever now - and int he hands of fewer and fewer people?
Haliburton can lie, and steal and kill and undermine the governments of countries our people are dying to establish - wars are started based on lies and we turn away and tune into our favorite shows.
Why would people adore the hand that strikes them but reject their own children for trying to realize their own natures?
Why are we content to play games and refuse to do something to change the world for the better?
We consume poison and thank our poisoners, we watch our share of the country's wealth vanish and snarl savagely at those who try to warn us, we cling to the idea that we are different and better, yet refuse to take a responsible portion of our governance, content to let the thieves run everything. We lost control over our own money long ago with the establishment of the Federal reserve, and now another chunk of our sovereignty is being negotiated away in the Trans Pacific Partnership and not 10 of my HUNDREDS of FB friends bothered to learn anything about it.
We squabble with persons of different ethnic backgrounds, religion, party or skin color, while the people who care for nothing except having more of everything stoke the fires and keep us divided and proud of our divisions.
America can never be defeated by a foreign enemy, it will be betrayed from within by those who care nothing for country - only their own wealth and privileges while stripping us of all of both.
We are so busy determining what is good for each other we have lost sight of our own self interests. Why should anyone care what I smoke, or have sex with, or read or believe or who I marry.
The Romans at least had bread and circuses, we are busy denying each other the bread while we throng the circuses.
Our real masters could not be more pleased with us - we are doing their work for them and paying for the privilege, paying with our liberty, our small wealth, our very lives.
If you care about your own children, your neighbors or even YOURSELF, I beg you to wake up and look at what is happening, put aside meaningless differences and demand that we move toward a more sustainable and equitable world - I fear we re in the last hours of mankind as a rational species.
If you took the time to read this- thank you - if not - good luck.
For some ideas on how to create a sustainable and equitable society - watch
www.thrivemovement.com
Monday, November 11, 2013
NFTNIF - Episode 13 - Halloween Edition
We attended a Halloween bash at The Knotty Pine, in Victor Idaho – our first trip out of Idaho Falls since our arrival. Dustin contrived an ambitious costume – “Papi Smurf “– blue skin and proud Smurf hat, finishing with a comfortable and slightly comic pair of pants from Thailand. I am using the occasion as an excuse to wear my magnificent velvet cloak – midnight black and post-sunset purple – totally reversible, with handsome frogs to catch it at the throat and a full hood even a Jedi would envy. My ensemble also comprises leather pants, leather vest and a truly splendid shirt from India. The cloak is courtesy of the laudable skills of Mrs. Karen Youel, and the shirt was a gift from Christopher Singh. The shirt actually excited the most profound admiration of the others at the party, and since I was garbed as a vampire everyone insisted that the shirt came from Transylvania although I insisted that it was from India no one paid any attention to that.
Michelle and Casey, our hostesses with the mostestess went as an 80's slut and pirate respectively. Their many other friends sported a dazzling variety of costumes – but my favorite was the fellow who dressed as a brown trout – a horizontal costume measuring a good six feet from snout to talk fin that was a hazard to mobility all night long. Honorable mention went to the fisherman's hat festooned with hanging bats – a “bat mobile”.
The drive from IF to Victor was a study in silver and white -snow snow snow, fog and a landscape wide rime of silvery frost that gilded everything in sight. It was true culture shock for me – nothing like the wimpy dusting os snow we had earlier – this was snow in earnest, snow with a purpose, radical, aggressive snow that covered the road and the hills and the trees and everything in sight. I finally became acclimatized to snow on this journey – and not a moment too soon I believe.
We made a couple stops for refreshments, dined on enchiladas prepared by Michele, and then swept off along the frozen street the two blocks to the Knotty Pine, a charmingly bucolic lodge peopled by creatures out of fable and nightmare. Lyrics Born was supposed to come on at 10, but it was past midnight when they burst onto the stage and with a roar that didn't end pumped us all full of magical music and rap lyrics. They soon had everyone gyrating or at least shouting to be heard. Many people were amazed that I had left the “big city” of Idaho Falls to come to tiny Victor for Halloween – they all kept telling me how much more there was to do here in Idaho Falls!
Back at Michele's house, a disc jockey erected his set-up, and the party continued as folks returned in ones and twos to take up where Lyrics Born had left off. Somehow I found the strength to continue, and it was I who finally turned off the lights once everyone else had left or fallen asleep sometime after 5 a.m. In any case – a wonderful time was had by all and thanks to Michele and Casey for kindly hosting us and giving us a ride both ways.
Dustin and I are sleeping on a queen size (no sniggering) inflatable bed, courtesy of John C. And Adrienne in San Diego. The bed grumpily requires us to inflate it every day or endure a science experiment in the curvature of space time. I think inflatable beds should be a part of physics class – no one could miss the lesson of the attractive power of mass if they had to sleep on a partially deflated bed – primal forces impel any bodies toward one another as gravity forces objects to attract one another in the remainder of the universe outside our bedroom
Can ANYONE tell me why nurses schedules are so all over the place? Most employers (Proflowers temp workers to one side) create a schedule which allows their workers to know when they will work week after week, and build the rest of their schedules around a fixed worktime. Not so in the nursing profession – the scheduled times seem almost as random as if they were selected by a group of drunks throwing darts at a dartboard with 7 days and 24 hours on it. Does anyone know why this is so? I will be deeply grateful for an explanation if any of you have one.
My beard came within a whisker (haha) of being shaved off – the comforting warmth I expected it to impart is a laughable fraction of what I had hoped – it is shot through with silver that deeply wounds my reputation for not aging, and it conspires with my nose hairs to knit together and poke and tickle me everywhere it can reach. True, it affords me some protective coloration here in mountain country, but it partakes unnecessarily of my meals, and though I can ignore for for minutes at a time, it gathers moisture from my breathing in the cold, and is generally a pain in the face. However, D loves it and so I will let it grow until I resemble an old testament prophet, which, combined with my penetrating gaze, should fend off unwanted attention.
Ever since I was a kid, occupying the only bedroom on the first floor of our house, with the rest of my family upstairs behind a locked door at the top of the steps, I have learned to make my way through my living space in the dark. Our house here is no exception – at night I move like a shadow through the dark, my eyes straining vision from blackness. Once I have been in a place long enough I move by counting steps, which usually serves me well. I have only had one awful episode – when I lived in the house on Nixon Rd outside of Ann Arbor. A late night phone call failed to wake Mike Benz, and as I confidently moved through the dark house to his bedroom door I did not see the chair Mike had put in the middle of the room. I walked into it with full force and the pain in my shin was only equaled by that in my foot as, galvanized by sudden fury, I kicked the offending chair across the room – shouting (perhaps unnecessarily at that point) for Mike to wake up and take his phone call. Since that day, my childlike faith that I know where everything is has never returned, but I have not given up the habit of moving in the dark – I am simply more cautious about it. Does anyone else do this or does everyone else turn on lights? Let me know if you have a chance, gentle readers.
What would an episode of NFTNIF be these days without a recipe? So here is the recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese Gilday – developed especially for Family Dinners in a group of 5-6 people with 4 separate and disparate diets:
1 lb of your favorite macaroni (I prefer rotini for this recipe)
1 lb of cheddar
1 lb of Monterrey Jack
1 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
6-8 oz of plain yogurt
1 lb of mushrooms – minced
1 medium head of broccoli – peeled minced fine
1 medium to large onion, minced
6-8 garlic buds, minced
soy sauce, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese.
Saute minced onion until just carmelized, reserve oil and set onions aside to cool. Fry the broccoli in the onion oil until tender, add to onion to cool. Refresh the oil, add garlic, then fry the mushrooms, adding pepper, soy sauce, garlic and chili powder. Drain and add mushrooms to the other veggies.
Cook the macaroni, removing from the water with 2-3 minutes remaining until it would be fully cooked. Mix macaroni with the veggies, add the sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, yogurt and mix thoroughly. Grate the cheese and add the Monty jack and half the cheddar, stir thoroughly. Put the mixture in a baking pan of your choice (the shallower it is the more crunchy cheese you get along the bottom and sides), sprinkle the remaining cheddar on top and finish with the Parmesan. Cook at 400 for 30-40 minutes, remove, allow to cool and serve. NOTE: - you may get people becoming possessive over the crunchy sides and bottom – so be sure to serve equitably or risk violence. Enjoy!
Every Saturday, all over Idaho Falls and Ammon, my fellow citizens troop out and mow, rake and blow leaves until there is nothing left except pristine green lawns. Our house is the exception, although our neighbors periodically apply gentle and irresistible pressure on us, offering the loan of tools or actually performing the work themselves. I got into a discussion of this on FaceBook with some dear friends, and discovered the following:
On the origin of lawns – (From the Wikipedia) - “A lawn is an area of land planted with grasses or (rarely) other durable plants, which are maintained at a short height and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. Common characteristics of a lawn are that it is composed only of grass species, it is subject to weed and pest control, it is subject to practices aimed at maintaining its green color, and it is regularly mowed to ensure an acceptable length,[1] although these characteristics are not binding as a definition. In recreational contexts, the specialised names turf, pitch, field or green may be used, depending on the sport and the continent.
The term lawn, referring to a managed grass space, dates to no earlier than the 16th century. Tied to suburban expansion and the creation of the household aesthetic, the lawn is an important aspect of the interaction between the natural environment and the constructed urban and suburban space.”
If you say so – I see lawns as a complete waste of time, energy, labor, nutrients, machinery and space that could be growing food. But at least now I know that the lawn is an archaism, demonstrating once more the power of social inertia, tradition, and unquestioning faith in the past to shape our lives today.
As for leaf blowers – (the following is abstracted from the FaceBook account of my beloved friend H.M.) - “Bill Nye the Science Guy just said leaf blowers pollute the environment more in just 30 minutes than your car manages in two months. Now I hate them more than I did before. He also said they go at 150 mph per hour (hurricane category 5 strength) and spray pollen, pet waste, pesticides, fungus, and soil all over the neighborhood. Now I hate them more than I did before. He suggested letting the leaves nourish the yard as compost (good suggestion Heather E Stockwell) or uh, using a rake. “
My question is – who thought it was a good idea to blow things off of your own property to somewhere else instead of raking like we used to in the good old days? Is this some vast conspiracy on the part of lazy groundskeepers, outdoor appliance manufacturers and the energy companies?
I plan to use Bill Nye as my authority when I refuse to let any more of our leaves be removed – they are good compost for the lawn (which I wish would die so I could plant something useful and edible). After viewing a video about the disappearance of the bees, we have determined to plant flowers and welcome bees to our yard as a haven without dogs where they may rest and feed in comfort.
A lot of people have been asking me how we are adjusting to Idaho Falls (actually Ammon). I have given the matter a lot of thought and here is my answer.
After a life of almost continuous company, from childhood until the day we left to drive up here, now that the novelty has worn off, I am a tiny bit lonely. My efforts to make friends before we got here have not panned out as rewardingly as it seemed at first, my telephone died an un-mourned death in the toilet and has not yet been replaced, distance and increasingly unfriendly weather combined with no car have left me more isolated than at any other time in my life. My bicycle has stubbornly refused to be repaired – I have had the rear tire fixed 3 times now and it goes flat with more enthusiasm than it ever stayed inflated. I have given up on it until Spring.
Our neighbors combine austere friendliness with studied neglect – never have lived in a less sociable environment. Of course since we are gay and unshriven sinners I can hardly blame them – we moved here they did not move next to us. The sense of isolation is compounded by the fact that we literally live on the edge of nothingness – a couple blocks from us begins the wind-swept plain leading to the snow crested hills which generate most of our weather. When we walk down he streets everyone waves, as they zoom by in their trucks and SUVs, but the wave may as well be a dismissal as a greeting for all the substance it carries. I spend more time on FaceBook.
Add to this the fact that I do not have a job (I seem to be unemployable here – my resume is too liberal – last job at an organic Cooperative??!!) my resources for adding friends are limited to websites until we have some transportation. Other than that, I still love our house, and solitude is conducive to writing – hence these NFTNIF. We are expecting a visitor over Thanksgiving and looking forward to that. Well, that's it for this 13th episode, tune in for the next installment!
We attended a Halloween bash at The Knotty Pine, in Victor Idaho – our first trip out of Idaho Falls since our arrival. Dustin contrived an ambitious costume – “Papi Smurf “– blue skin and proud Smurf hat, finishing with a comfortable and slightly comic pair of pants from Thailand. I am using the occasion as an excuse to wear my magnificent velvet cloak – midnight black and post-sunset purple – totally reversible, with handsome frogs to catch it at the throat and a full hood even a Jedi would envy. My ensemble also comprises leather pants, leather vest and a truly splendid shirt from India. The cloak is courtesy of the laudable skills of Mrs. Karen Youel, and the shirt was a gift from Christopher Singh. The shirt actually excited the most profound admiration of the others at the party, and since I was garbed as a vampire everyone insisted that the shirt came from Transylvania although I insisted that it was from India no one paid any attention to that.
Michelle and Casey, our hostesses with the mostestess went as an 80's slut and pirate respectively. Their many other friends sported a dazzling variety of costumes – but my favorite was the fellow who dressed as a brown trout – a horizontal costume measuring a good six feet from snout to talk fin that was a hazard to mobility all night long. Honorable mention went to the fisherman's hat festooned with hanging bats – a “bat mobile”.
The drive from IF to Victor was a study in silver and white -snow snow snow, fog and a landscape wide rime of silvery frost that gilded everything in sight. It was true culture shock for me – nothing like the wimpy dusting os snow we had earlier – this was snow in earnest, snow with a purpose, radical, aggressive snow that covered the road and the hills and the trees and everything in sight. I finally became acclimatized to snow on this journey – and not a moment too soon I believe.
We made a couple stops for refreshments, dined on enchiladas prepared by Michele, and then swept off along the frozen street the two blocks to the Knotty Pine, a charmingly bucolic lodge peopled by creatures out of fable and nightmare. Lyrics Born was supposed to come on at 10, but it was past midnight when they burst onto the stage and with a roar that didn't end pumped us all full of magical music and rap lyrics. They soon had everyone gyrating or at least shouting to be heard. Many people were amazed that I had left the “big city” of Idaho Falls to come to tiny Victor for Halloween – they all kept telling me how much more there was to do here in Idaho Falls!
Back at Michele's house, a disc jockey erected his set-up, and the party continued as folks returned in ones and twos to take up where Lyrics Born had left off. Somehow I found the strength to continue, and it was I who finally turned off the lights once everyone else had left or fallen asleep sometime after 5 a.m. In any case – a wonderful time was had by all and thanks to Michele and Casey for kindly hosting us and giving us a ride both ways.
Dustin and I are sleeping on a queen size (no sniggering) inflatable bed, courtesy of John C. And Adrienne in San Diego. The bed grumpily requires us to inflate it every day or endure a science experiment in the curvature of space time. I think inflatable beds should be a part of physics class – no one could miss the lesson of the attractive power of mass if they had to sleep on a partially deflated bed – primal forces impel any bodies toward one another as gravity forces objects to attract one another in the remainder of the universe outside our bedroom
Can ANYONE tell me why nurses schedules are so all over the place? Most employers (Proflowers temp workers to one side) create a schedule which allows their workers to know when they will work week after week, and build the rest of their schedules around a fixed worktime. Not so in the nursing profession – the scheduled times seem almost as random as if they were selected by a group of drunks throwing darts at a dartboard with 7 days and 24 hours on it. Does anyone know why this is so? I will be deeply grateful for an explanation if any of you have one.
My beard came within a whisker (haha) of being shaved off – the comforting warmth I expected it to impart is a laughable fraction of what I had hoped – it is shot through with silver that deeply wounds my reputation for not aging, and it conspires with my nose hairs to knit together and poke and tickle me everywhere it can reach. True, it affords me some protective coloration here in mountain country, but it partakes unnecessarily of my meals, and though I can ignore for for minutes at a time, it gathers moisture from my breathing in the cold, and is generally a pain in the face. However, D loves it and so I will let it grow until I resemble an old testament prophet, which, combined with my penetrating gaze, should fend off unwanted attention.
Ever since I was a kid, occupying the only bedroom on the first floor of our house, with the rest of my family upstairs behind a locked door at the top of the steps, I have learned to make my way through my living space in the dark. Our house here is no exception – at night I move like a shadow through the dark, my eyes straining vision from blackness. Once I have been in a place long enough I move by counting steps, which usually serves me well. I have only had one awful episode – when I lived in the house on Nixon Rd outside of Ann Arbor. A late night phone call failed to wake Mike Benz, and as I confidently moved through the dark house to his bedroom door I did not see the chair Mike had put in the middle of the room. I walked into it with full force and the pain in my shin was only equaled by that in my foot as, galvanized by sudden fury, I kicked the offending chair across the room – shouting (perhaps unnecessarily at that point) for Mike to wake up and take his phone call. Since that day, my childlike faith that I know where everything is has never returned, but I have not given up the habit of moving in the dark – I am simply more cautious about it. Does anyone else do this or does everyone else turn on lights? Let me know if you have a chance, gentle readers.
What would an episode of NFTNIF be these days without a recipe? So here is the recipe for Baked Macaroni and Cheese Gilday – developed especially for Family Dinners in a group of 5-6 people with 4 separate and disparate diets:
1 lb of your favorite macaroni (I prefer rotini for this recipe)
1 lb of cheddar
1 lb of Monterrey Jack
1 cup of sour cream
1 can of cream of mushroom soup
6-8 oz of plain yogurt
1 lb of mushrooms – minced
1 medium head of broccoli – peeled minced fine
1 medium to large onion, minced
6-8 garlic buds, minced
soy sauce, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese.
Saute minced onion until just carmelized, reserve oil and set onions aside to cool. Fry the broccoli in the onion oil until tender, add to onion to cool. Refresh the oil, add garlic, then fry the mushrooms, adding pepper, soy sauce, garlic and chili powder. Drain and add mushrooms to the other veggies.
Cook the macaroni, removing from the water with 2-3 minutes remaining until it would be fully cooked. Mix macaroni with the veggies, add the sour cream, cream of mushroom soup, yogurt and mix thoroughly. Grate the cheese and add the Monty jack and half the cheddar, stir thoroughly. Put the mixture in a baking pan of your choice (the shallower it is the more crunchy cheese you get along the bottom and sides), sprinkle the remaining cheddar on top and finish with the Parmesan. Cook at 400 for 30-40 minutes, remove, allow to cool and serve. NOTE: - you may get people becoming possessive over the crunchy sides and bottom – so be sure to serve equitably or risk violence. Enjoy!
Every Saturday, all over Idaho Falls and Ammon, my fellow citizens troop out and mow, rake and blow leaves until there is nothing left except pristine green lawns. Our house is the exception, although our neighbors periodically apply gentle and irresistible pressure on us, offering the loan of tools or actually performing the work themselves. I got into a discussion of this on FaceBook with some dear friends, and discovered the following:
On the origin of lawns – (From the Wikipedia) - “A lawn is an area of land planted with grasses or (rarely) other durable plants, which are maintained at a short height and used for aesthetic and recreational purposes. Common characteristics of a lawn are that it is composed only of grass species, it is subject to weed and pest control, it is subject to practices aimed at maintaining its green color, and it is regularly mowed to ensure an acceptable length,[1] although these characteristics are not binding as a definition. In recreational contexts, the specialised names turf, pitch, field or green may be used, depending on the sport and the continent.
The term lawn, referring to a managed grass space, dates to no earlier than the 16th century. Tied to suburban expansion and the creation of the household aesthetic, the lawn is an important aspect of the interaction between the natural environment and the constructed urban and suburban space.”
If you say so – I see lawns as a complete waste of time, energy, labor, nutrients, machinery and space that could be growing food. But at least now I know that the lawn is an archaism, demonstrating once more the power of social inertia, tradition, and unquestioning faith in the past to shape our lives today.
As for leaf blowers – (the following is abstracted from the FaceBook account of my beloved friend H.M.) - “Bill Nye the Science Guy just said leaf blowers pollute the environment more in just 30 minutes than your car manages in two months. Now I hate them more than I did before. He also said they go at 150 mph per hour (hurricane category 5 strength) and spray pollen, pet waste, pesticides, fungus, and soil all over the neighborhood. Now I hate them more than I did before. He suggested letting the leaves nourish the yard as compost (good suggestion Heather E Stockwell) or uh, using a rake. “
My question is – who thought it was a good idea to blow things off of your own property to somewhere else instead of raking like we used to in the good old days? Is this some vast conspiracy on the part of lazy groundskeepers, outdoor appliance manufacturers and the energy companies?
I plan to use Bill Nye as my authority when I refuse to let any more of our leaves be removed – they are good compost for the lawn (which I wish would die so I could plant something useful and edible). After viewing a video about the disappearance of the bees, we have determined to plant flowers and welcome bees to our yard as a haven without dogs where they may rest and feed in comfort.
A lot of people have been asking me how we are adjusting to Idaho Falls (actually Ammon). I have given the matter a lot of thought and here is my answer.
After a life of almost continuous company, from childhood until the day we left to drive up here, now that the novelty has worn off, I am a tiny bit lonely. My efforts to make friends before we got here have not panned out as rewardingly as it seemed at first, my telephone died an un-mourned death in the toilet and has not yet been replaced, distance and increasingly unfriendly weather combined with no car have left me more isolated than at any other time in my life. My bicycle has stubbornly refused to be repaired – I have had the rear tire fixed 3 times now and it goes flat with more enthusiasm than it ever stayed inflated. I have given up on it until Spring.
Our neighbors combine austere friendliness with studied neglect – never have lived in a less sociable environment. Of course since we are gay and unshriven sinners I can hardly blame them – we moved here they did not move next to us. The sense of isolation is compounded by the fact that we literally live on the edge of nothingness – a couple blocks from us begins the wind-swept plain leading to the snow crested hills which generate most of our weather. When we walk down he streets everyone waves, as they zoom by in their trucks and SUVs, but the wave may as well be a dismissal as a greeting for all the substance it carries. I spend more time on FaceBook.
Add to this the fact that I do not have a job (I seem to be unemployable here – my resume is too liberal – last job at an organic Cooperative??!!) my resources for adding friends are limited to websites until we have some transportation. Other than that, I still love our house, and solitude is conducive to writing – hence these NFTNIF. We are expecting a visitor over Thanksgiving and looking forward to that. Well, that's it for this 13th episode, tune in for the next installment!
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