THE RIGHTS OF THE REST OF CREATION

 

Salmon image from the Haida people of islands off British Columbia. Now the Columbia River tribes are a little further south than BC but I expect the images the tribes like the Umatillas aren't much different. 

"If this nation has a long way to go before all our people are truly created equally without regard to race, religion, or national origin, it has even farther to go before achieving anything that remotely resembles equal treatment for other creatures who called this land home before humans ever set foot upon it...while the species themselves... fish, fowl, game, and the habitat they live in-have given us unparalleled wealth, they live crippled in their ability to persist  and live in conditions of captive squalor...this enslavement and impoverishment of nature is no more tolerable or sensible than enslavement and impoverishment of other human beings...perhaps it is because we are the messengers that not only our sovereignty as Native governments but our right to identify with a deity and a history, or right to hold too a set of natural laws as practiced for thousands of years is under assault. Now more than ever, tribal people must hold onto their timeless and priceless customs and practices. Ted Strong in the introduction to All Our Relations by Winona LaDuke.

Mr. Strong is an activist with the Columbia River Tribes speaking for the rights of our non human neighbors, especially the salmon people.

WEAVE US A NEW WORLD

 

The Tewa prayer in the last entry led to this variation from me. Not sure who took the picture but the weaving is beautiful.

Only Child of the One who created us all,

We have brought to You the best we have.
Weave these threads together into a new world.
Use our hands to weave the white light of morning and the red light of evening.
Use our hearts to weave the blue of moonlight and the silver of rain.
Use our minds to weave the green of grass and the gray of mist.
Use our joy to weave the thunder of the sea and the whispers of the wind.
Weave throughout the threads of peace, justice, compassion and generosity.
Over all place the glowing rainbow of the promise and the sparkling stars.

Only Child of the Creator weave us a new world.

Inspired by a Tewa Pueblo prayer

MOTHER EARTH FATHER SKY

  

Ffound this lovely little prayer in a book called American Indian Healing Arts. A little change of pace here.

O our Mother the Earth,
O our Father the Sky,
Your children are we, and with tired backs
We bring you the gifts you love.

Then weave for us a garment of brightness.
May the warp be the white light of morning.
May the weft be the red light of evening.
May the fringes be the falling rain,
May the border be the standing rainbow.
Then weave for us a garment of brightness
That we may walk fittingly where grass is green,

O our Mother the Earth,
O our Father the Sky!

Which led to this variation from me.

Only Child of the One who created us all,

We have brought to You the best we have.
Weave these threads together into a new world.
Use our hands to weave the white light of morning and the red light of evening.
Use our hearts to weave the blue of moonlight and the silver of rain.
Use our minds to weave the green of grass and the gray of mist.
Use our joy to weave the thunder of the sea and the whispers of the wind.
Weave throughout the threads of peace, justice, compassion and generosity.
Over all place the glowing rainbow of the promise and the sparkling stars.

Only Child of the Creator weave us a new world.

Inspired by a Tewa Pueblo prayer

IF YOU THINK EDUCATION IS EXPENSIVE

 A blast from the past. Some of the names may have changed but the ignorance has bloomed like kudzu in a southern river. I believe we will prevail but it will be a long, hard slog. The original posting has been edited and added to.

A series of articles and their comments had me looking at this picture with more than the usual interest.

There's the "I don't have kids, or I've gotten my kids through school so why do I have to pay to teach other people's kids?" Well duh. If other folks kids don't have access to a decent education we all have to live with the results now don't we? And if you don't want to take out your own appendix I guess one of your kids better have gone to medical school, install your wiring or repair your leaky plumbling. 

And there's the relatively new, usually from fundamentalists, "I should be able to control what my kids learn," Upfront. There a great, private parochial schools in this country. Catholic and Protestant. And then there's the other guys. It's the other guys I'm concerned with here. 

With very little effort you too can echo someone like Senator Inhof from Oklahoma. There is no human caused climate change because "God is still up there." God or the goddess or whoever may have given the universe a divine boot in the ass in the beginning but when humans came along we carry the ability to work WITH Creation or toally fuck it up. And then there are those workbooks that show Adam, Eve and a dinosaur cheerfully coexisting in the Garden. Must have left the T Rexs on the other side of the fence.

Or you can find your school board discussing the inclusion of so called intelligent design or creation "science" in the curriculum of your local schools. All in the name of fairness of course.

Question any of this on a comment thread and I can guarantee that there will be multiple accusations of Christian bashing. liberal intolerance and general you're not being nice to me comments.

And you know what? I've discovered that I AM intolerant. I'm intolerant of willful ignorance. I'm intolerant of public officials using their religious beliefs to set public policy on the environment,climate change, women's health issues or LGBT rights.  I'm intolerant of these same public officials citing petitions, research and statistics that have been discredited or are so loosely monitored that the signers may have changed their minds. Or are no longer among the living. Imagine being able to sign a petition about climate change and you don't have to have a degree in anything related to the problem.

Did a little research. The petition information claims almost ten thousand Ph.D's have signed. The US has nearly 3.250,000 Ph.D's, covering a dizzying range of disciplines. That works out to just over .002 percent. That's not two percent, it's a franction of one percent. And a fraction of those have a degree in anything to do with the climate or weather. 

I'm also intolerant of so called pregnancy crisis centers that have been caught out right lying to girls and women who turn to them for help. I really hope this isn't true but at least one center advised their supporters to volunteer to drive patients to their abortion appointments and then deliberately make them miss their appointments by driving someplace else. I guess it's ok to lie as long as you believe you have a good excuse.

I'm intolerant of the Gohmerts, Stockmans, Inhofs, Ryans, Cruzs, et al. playing politics with all of the above. Only now the names are  Boebart, Cawthorne and Greene.

And you know something? I'm not about to apologize. I will however be polite. Reasonably polite. Most of the time. If I feel like it. We can't say this often enough. You may have the right to keep yourself ignorant. You do not have the right to pass that ignorance on to your children or inflict it on the rest of us.

You know I don't really believe that YOU have the right to keep yourself ignorant but damned if I know how we can fix that problem. You can lead a person to kowledge but you can't make them think. 

JUST SOME THOUGHTS

 Zygote worshipper definition: Someone who goes to extraordinary lengths to make sure a fertilized egg implants. After that if the parents need decent jobs, decent food, clean water, clean air and a decent place to live? Too bad, you're on your own. You should have thought of that before you got pregnant. Couldn't get access to reliable birth control? That's your problem not mine. (Do I sound cranky? Damn straight.)

We could also borrow a page from the zygote worshippers and the gun nuts.You know the ones. They publish home addresses, make threatening phone calls, spit on people, get in their faces etc. Well, I don't think we need to go that far.

 Research the folks who regularly show up to demonstrate in front of Planned Parenthood clinics and abortion clinics. See if you can find out where they go to church then show up on the sidewalks in front of the churches before services. Hey, they're public space, freedom of speech and all that. Better bring industrial strength ear plugs because I'm sure howls of outrage will be deafening. I'm also willing to bet that the cops won't look the other way the way some departments have been accused of acting when zygote worshippers cross the line.

And if getting pregnant (no contraception, or almost no contraception( is God's will it's time to ban Viagra and Cialis. Because it must be God's will that you can't get it up anymore. 

SAYS IT ALL

 

THE GOOD SAMARITAN AND AFTER

 A blast from the past. I'm stll tapdansing on the line. And I will probably be tap dancing until I pass through the veil. 

It’s funny when I was writing this in my head it was only a few sentences long. And then it grew. And grew.

When I decided to keep at least one foot in the tradition I was raised in, I also realized that I was, honestly, pretty damned ignorant. Doesn't say much for all the years I spent in Sunday School. So, that’s where most of my of my reading has been going, lately. And frankly most of what I’ve been reading doesn’t lend itself to easy blogging.

Anyway, one of the places that reading has led me is here. Who is my neighbor and who deserves my help is a question being asked in every part of this country. And the answer in too many living rooms seems to be “nobody, I’m only responsible for myself, don’t ask me to pay extra taxes or offer any extra help to………because……..fill in the blasted blanks.

When Jesus answered the question of the man of law, “who is my neighbor?” he told story with remarkably few details. A certain man was traveling from Jerusalem to Jericho along a road known to be dangerous. The man is attacked, beaten, robbed, stripped and left by the side of the road. Of possible passersby, only three are named; a priest, a Levite and a Samaritan.

Why did the first two pass by? Kathleen Norris pointed out in an essay that the priest and the Levite were forbidden by the Law of Moses to have any contact with the dead. And they couldn’t tell for certain if the man was dead or alive without touching him and take the risk of becoming ritually unclean. Apparently the rituals to restore ritual purity were time consuming and possibly expensive. They might have been willing to face that cost for a fellow Jew, but they would have no may of knowing who they were dealing without breaking the law. Unconscious, stripped and wounded; the man could have been Greek, Syrian, Egyptian; heaven knows everybody seems to have passed through that part of the world at one time or another.

Maybe they were just in a hurry. And I can hear a few modern excuses running through their minds. Maybe it’s a trick or a trap. Darn fool, he should have known better than to travel this road by himself. He should have a least been carrying a weapon of some kind. Probably doesn’t belong here in the first place; there’s too many foreigners in the country anyway. It’s not my problem; I have enough troubles of my own to worry about. So, eyes averted, steps quickened, down the road they went. They may have felt bad about it. Who knows; they may have salved their consciences with “it’s a busy road; somebody else will be along before too long.” Although why they thought the possible somebody else would act differently……

Along comes the Samaritan. A member of a people who claimed to have been left behind when most of the population was forced out of the country by the Assyrians. They claimed to be Jews, but had their own ways and their own temple. They weren’t recognized by the Temple establishment in Jerusalem as Jews.

The rest of the story is familiar. The Samaritan cares for the stranger, puts him on his own animal, takes him to an inn and leaves money with the inn keeper with the promise that he’ll make up any differences when he comes back. Either the traveler was very convincing or the inn keeper knew him well enough to trust him for the balance.

Heck I haven't thought of this story in years. I flashed on it while reading a one star review of a favorite film, The Shoes of the Fisherman. Faced with a world brought to the brink of atomic war by famine in communist China the Pope places the wealth of the church as guaranty for aid. That’s not right, said the reviewer. The Chinese should have been forced to renounce communism first. The writer didn’t suggest that the Chinese be required to become Christians, but the implication,in all its Western arrogance, is there.

Honestly, when I first read the review I also imagined trying to explain the sudden population explosion to whoever runs the hereafter after the world explodes into a holocaust. Bad enough explaining the adults; but the children? But, it’s where you risk ending up when you insist that you have a private pipeline to God (whoever He or She is) and you know all the answers.

Anyway when I reread the review after watching the film again this weekend I remembered the parable. I seemed to remember that the story started with “a certain man” and several translations later I was faced with a simple fact. Jesus didn’t say who the man was or what he was doing on that road. Only that he needed help and that when the letter of the law conflicted with the spirit of the law, well get things cleaned up and sort out the details later.

It might be a trap. It might be a sham. You might get fooled. You might get hurt. Or you might just light a little candle to shine in the dark.

MOONSHOT

 

Shot by photographer Zach Cooley at the Arches National Park. The size of the figures inside the arh gives you some idea of the size of the rocks. Apparently he kept going back until everything fell into place and he got the shot he was looking for. One of the reasons I was always a very amateur photographer. There were a lot of places that I loved but I had to shoot what I found. I couldn't always keep coming to one place until got the shot I wanted. Thank heaven for the ones who can get the shots they want and share them with the rest of us. 

DEPORTEE

 

Woody Guthrie wrote a song about those rotten peaches and oranges in a creosote dump. And about the disposable people who picked the crops and shipped back over the border when the season was done. 

Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee

The crops are all in, and the peaches are rotten
The oranges are all packed in the creosote dumps
They're flying them back to the Mexican Border
To save all their money then wade back again

My father's own father, he waded that river
Others before him have done just the same
They died in the hills, and they died in the vallies
Some went to heaven without any name

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
All they will call you will be "Deportee"

Some of us are illegal, and others not wanted
Our work contracts out, and we have to move on
Six-hundred miles to the Mexican Border
They chase us like rustlers, like outlaws, like thieves

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane
And all they will call you will be "Deportee"

The sky-plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon
A fireball of thunder, it shook all the hills
Who are all these dear friends scattered like dry leaves?
The radio said they were just deportees

Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita (Adiós a mi Juan, adiós Rosalita)
Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María
You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane (No tendrá un nombre en aquel aeroplano)
All they will call you will be "Deportee" (Le van a poner "Deportee")

Adiós a mi Juan (Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye Rosalita)
Adiós Rosalita
Adiós mis amigos, Jesus and Maria (Adiós mi amigo, Jesus y María)
No tendrá ningún nombre en el aeroplano (You won't have a name when you ride the big airplane)
El nombre que le van a poner (All they will call you)
Va a ser
Deportee

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Woody Guthrie / Martin Hoffman

Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos) lyrics © Ludlow Music Inc.

ENTITLEMENTS. STILL ENTITLED

 I'm being pulled in two directions. The American Civil War of the nineteenth century and the Latin American civil wars of the from the fifties up to the turn of the last century. Fallout we're still seing at our southern border. So, please bear with me. I'm likely to bounce back and forth depending what my brain can absorb. And I'm not quite as flexible as I used to be. Sorry.

I don't know the name of the commenter who posted this on a Huffington Post entry nearly a decade ago. It was originally aimed at Mitt Romney. The gap has only gotten worse, much much worse. 

Romney’s entitlements:                            
I am entitled to complain about the economy even when my stock price, my portfolio and my profits are at record levels.

I am entitled to a healthy and well-educated workforce, a modern and efficient transportation system and protection for my person and property, just as I am entitled to demonize the government workers who provide them.

I am entitled to complain bitterly about taxes that are always too high, even when they are at record lows.

I am entitled to have my earned income taxed as capital gains and my investment income taxed at the lowest rate anywhere in the world — or not at all.

I am entitled to inside information and favorable investment opportunities not available to ordinary investors. I am entitled to brag about my investment returns.

I am entitled to pass on my accumulated wealth tax-free to heirs, who in turn, are entitled to claim that they earned everything they have.

I am entitled to use unlimited amounts of my own or company funds to buy elections without disclosing such expenditures to shareholders or the public.

I am entitled to provide political support to radical, uncompromising politicians and then complain about how dysfunctional Washington has become.

I am entitled to publicly criticize the president and members of Congress, who are not entitled to criticize me.

I am entitled to fire any worker who tries to organize a union. I am entitled to break any existing union by moving, or threatening to move, operations to a union-hostile environment.

I am entitled to load companies up with debt in order to pay myself and investors big dividends — and then blame any bankruptcy on over-compensated workers.

I am entitled to contracts, subsidies, tax breaks, loans and even bailouts from government, even as I complain about job-killing government budget deficits.

I am entitled to take credit for all the jobs I create while ignoring any jobs I destroy,

I am entitled to claim credit for all the profits made during a booming economy while blaming losses or setbacks on adverse market or economic conditions.

I am entitled to deny knowledge or responsibility for any controversial decisions made after my departure from the company, even while profiting from such decisions if they enhance shareholder value.

I am entitled to all the rights and privileges of running an American company, but owe no loyalty to American workers or taxpayers.

 I am entitled.

I can think of a few current oligarchs who still claim that they created it all by themselves. If they mention their workers lately one complaint is that more than a few have discovered they can do their jobs almost as well from home courtesy of the internet, video conferencing. I'm betting they don't miss the office politics at all, wondering who was going to get stabbed in the back this or how much time would be wasted on whatever brihght idea that will improve morale and productivity the managers have grabbed onto like a leach with a new blood supply. 

STANDING ON THE BRINK

After South Carolina voted to secede from the Union this letter was sent to, and it was very specific. Quote from The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton.

 "to the People of the Slaveholding States of the United States," and it was somewhat more pointed. It recited that the government of the United States had become a despotism, said that the Constitution was but an experiment that had failed-—"the whole Constitution, by the constructions of the Northern people, has been absorbed by its preamble"—and came to a ringing peroration: "Citizens of the Slaveholding States of the United States! Circumstances beyond our control have placed us in the van of the great controversy between the Northern and Southern States. We would have preferred that other States should have assumed the position we now occupy. . . . You have loved the Union, in whose service your great statesmen have labored and your great soldiers have fought and conquered—not for the material benefits it conferred, but with the faith of a generous and devoted chivalry. You have long lingered in hope over the shattered remains of a broken Constitution. Compromise after compromise, formed by your concessions, has been trampled under foot by your Northern confederates. All fraternity of feeling between the North and the South is lost, or has been converted into hate; and we, of the South, are at last driven together by the stern destiny which controls the existence of nations. . . . All we demand of other peoples is to be left alone, to work out our own high destinies. United together, we must be the most independent as we are the most important of the nations of the world. United together, and we require no other instrument to conquer peace than our beneficent productions. United together and we must be a great, free and prosperous people, whose renown must spread through the civilized world, and pass down, we trust, to the remotest age. We ask you to join us in forming a Confederacy of Slaveholding States." 10 The statement was forthright and revealing, touched with simple eloquence, expressing deep determination. Yet somehow it was not quite the sort of manifesto which men compose when they know they are going to have to make desperate war. It was written in the light of the faith that King Cotton was irresistible, and it hinted strongly at the belief that no one would be insane enough to take up arms against a united band of cotton states visibly in earnest. Implicit in all that was said and done was the conviction that the rest of the South would follow where South Carolina led, provided the leadership was vigorous and unhesitating. "

I'm rereading Bruce Catton's books on the Civil War or the War of Northern Aggression depending on which part of the country you hale from. By 1860 both sides had reached an impasse the size of the Grand Canyon. The north was willing, reluctantly, to tolerate slavery as long as it was contained to the South. The South would tolerate no interference. 

The letter makes it perfectly clear. Yes it was about so called states rights. The right to classify a whole group of unvilling immigrants and their children, referred to  by the way as persons in the constitution, as property. And since that "property" didn't always stay where it was supposed to the citizens of the rest of the country were expected to cooperate in the reocvery of that property. Both sides were using the same languge, the words anyway, even if they didn't mean the same things. 

THE RIGHTS OF A STATE TO

 From The Coming Fury by Bruce Catton. No question that by 1860 slaverry was at the forefront. Interesting states rights supported the protection of slavery but states rights didn't protect the rights of citizens of free states to oppose slavery. Seeing the same actions today. States limiting abortion have the right under states rights but the right of a free person to travel to another state that allows abortion? Hey, that sounds a lot like the Supreme Court's Dred Scot Decion. AKA a slave is a slave whether he or she is in a free state or a slave state. 

"On the day after the speaker election, Senator Jefferson Davis, of Mississippi, arose in the Senate to present a series of resolutions on the slavery question. These began by reasserting the state-sovereignty doctrines of John C. Calhoun, declared that it was the Senate's duty "to resist all attempts to discriminate either in relation to person or property" in the territories, and then flatly stated that there was no power anywhere to limit slavery in the territories. Congress could not do it; its solemn duty was to protect slavery there. Residents of a territory could not do it; they could outlaw slavery only when their territory was admitted to the Union as a state. Meanwhile, all acts of Northern individuals or states which interfered with the return of fugitive slaves were asserted to be "hostile in character, subversive of the Constitution and revolutionary in their effect." A little later, Davis modified the resolutions slightly, but the meaning remained unchanged. 9 In effect, he had presented a straight slave code as a principle for Senatorial adoption. That the Senate would actually adopt any such code was highly improbable, as Davis knew. The real target was the approaching convention of the Democratic party."

And the admission by Stephen Douglas thnt slavery could not survive without the support of the slave owner topedoed his chances of heading a united Democratric ticket in 1860.

A LIFETIME OF QUESTIONS

That will never be answered. From a post on my FB page. Original poster is Girl du Jour. She dud the heavy lifting. I'm just passing it along. Meanwhile the unaswered questions pile up. 

 Notes on Uvalde:

"The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.

She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.

Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know?

Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work? Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.

She will never experience having a cavity.

She will never experience having a cavity filled.

The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.

What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?

Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?

These are the things they don’t tell us.

Which of her friends did she see die before her?

Hannah?

Emily?

Both?

Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?

She just earned a Fire Safety patch.

What if it got ruined?

There are no patches for school shootings.

Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?

She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.

We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.

None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.

There will be no spelling test on Friday.

Because there is no one to give it.

And no one to take it.

These are the things I will never know:

I will never know at what age she would have started her period.

I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.

(Or if they would have come in crooked.)

I will never know who she spoke to last. Was it the teacher? Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.

Did she even scream?

She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.

She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.

“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so

Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”

Did the killer ever see Encanto?

Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?

What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?

Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?

If so, what flavor?

Cinnamon?

Wintergreen?

Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them? Or did he drive in silence?

Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?

Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?

These are the things I will never know.

There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.

Clothes I never need to fold again.

Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.

How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?

I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.

It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.

Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card. Should I cross it out?

That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.

The dog will live longer than she will.

The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.

What will the school do with her backpack?

It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.

A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.

A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.

A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.

Now there will be no more keychains to attach.

No more trophies.

Surely they can’t throw it out?

Would they throw them all out?

19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?

Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life?

These are the things someone else knows:

The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”

Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?

not my problem my kids are grown and out of school

Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat 

Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed

Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?

My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”

But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.

More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.

I beg the world:

Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows."

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