NO WAY

Years ago we had a little peekapoo named Candy. She was a sweet little dog. But she didn't much care for baths. She could put on quite a show. Looking sad, shivering a little. A real pathetic little doggie. Now our cockapoo Sam. I finally had to use the leash to get him into the bathroom. He KNEW what was coming and at every possible choice of direction he wanted to go the other direction. So I can totally understand where this cat is coimng from LOL

NO PLANET B

From the website An Inconvenient Truth. No matter what we do, the planet will survive. In time it will heal itself. Of course if we manage to fuck things up badly enough, neither we or any of our descendants will be around to see it. Part of me is almost glad that Carl Sagan isn't around to see that too many of us not only didn't listen, we're even more of a train wreck waiting to happen than we were in the nineties. On the other hand...he was beginning to sound pretty cranky by the time he wrote this book. 

“Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it 

everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, 

every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate 

of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, 

and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and 

coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and 

peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful 

child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt 

politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint 

and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust 

suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.”
― Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space

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PLAYING THE PERSECUTION CARD

From Benjamin Corey’s blog about so called persecution of Christians in this country. Ken Ham referenced an Atlanta Fire Chief who wrote a book condemning homosexuality etc. Up front  he has the right to write the book. He has the right to use it in his Bible study class. He didn’t have the right to bring copies of his self published tome to the fire house and try to distribute them to his subordinates. He didn’t lose his job because he was a Christian. He lost it, in part, because he was using his position to in effect intimidate those under him. This is the comment that set off my post.

"That firefighter has a duty to preach the Gospel of Christ. What he did was not wrong in any sense, him being fired is just another example of what a godless, pagan culture we live in .

Christians have been persecuted since Christ ascended to heaven. We will not stop being laughed at and mocked at until Christ returns."

Guess what. If you insist that the earth is only 6,000 years old; that the earth is the center of the universe and that the Bible is a science text book don’t be surprised if the most polite reactions are snickers behind the hands followed by quick exits and hysterical laughter from the other side of the door.  That’s not persecution. It’s pity. Especially for any kids you may be “home schooling.”

Now on to the subject at hand. He did not have duty to preach the gospel on the taxpayers dime in a public building supported with the taxes of every citizen of the city to his subordinates. He can preach all he wants, hire a hall, stand on a street corner, build his own church. Nobody is going to stop him. Probably won't even throw ripe tomatoes at him.

To those who cry persecution when what is really happening is that you are faced with equal treatment under the law.

I assume your pastor is still walking free. Still holding Bible study classes. Still prepping that sermon for next Sunday. He or she hasn't been arrested. Hasn't suddenly disappeared. Hasn't been gunned down in a local cane field. Didn't get run over by a tank after being gunned down. Hasn't been accused of being a "subversive" recently.

Anybody try to stop you from going to church last Sunday?  Any troops or cops blocking the entrance to the parking lot on that morning?  If you hold a Bible study at home are there any unmarked cars parked across the street watching who is coming and going and taking notes and pictures?  Any soldiers show up and turn your church into a barracks? Is the Bible in a translation of your choice still available at the local book store or on Amazon?  Can a Catholic lay church worker make a delivery of consecrated Hosts to a small rural church without fear of being searched and murdered by the local death squads? Ever see any graffiti on the walls near where you live that reads along the lines of “be a patriot, kill a priest?

 Has any congregation in this country ever been told at the end of funeral as mourners in Latin America attending a mass for murdered student activists were told,  “stay inside the cathedral because the troops are outside and there's nowhere to run?”

Forgive me, I don't remember off hand where this happened. I THINK it was Argentina but I’m not going to bet the farm on it. The priests and other celebrants proceeded to go outside and begin walking towards the soldiers. Miraculously (I guess miracles do happen sometimes) the soldiers fell back and kept falling back until enough space in front of the cathedral had been cleared so that those inside had a fighting chance of getting down an alley or a side street. All of these events happened in Central and South America during the Reagan and Bush I years. And worse.

Oh, and BTW can your church have a cross outside or on the roof without the government (China) telling you to take it down? Or worse bulldoze the whole building. Or arrest you for belonging to a congregation that isn’t sanctioned by the state? Give me a freakin' break.

Here’s some icing for that cake. Has the Christian population of this country fallen by seventy five percent since say, 2003? This is happening in Iraq right now. In part, thanks to our “Crusade” and experiment in regime change. There were nearly a million Christians in Iraq when the war started. The number is closer to a quarter million and some of them are still there just because they haven’t had a chance to leave yet. There have been Christians in that part of the world since the beginning. Some of them still speak Aramaic. You know, the language Jesus is supposed to have spoken.

Frankly your claims are embarrassing. There are many places in many countries where Christians face real persecution ranging from being blocked from using the village well in India to being accused of apostasy from Islam even though you were raised a Christian by a Christian mother in Sudan. Please save the crocodile tears for the Hams and Corchorans and try to find a way to really help those who truly are in danger.

NEVER IN MY WILDEST DREAMS

Never in a million years did I think I'd ever be writing an entry like this. And I'd much rather be leafing through Wendell Berry's Sabbath poems, the book on Native American herbs and rituals, Thomas Merton, anything but this.

This is my comment and a response.

• 
  
• Me: It might just be a jobs bill. After all we can't have women who can afford it going outside the country for abortions. It'll be China in reverse. Checking every woman every month to see if she's pregnant or not. And then making sure she stays pregnant. Join the pregnancy police and keep those women in their place. Think I'm exaggerating? I sure as hell hope so.

  Like · Reply · 2 · 2 hrs
• 

  Stevie King Women are already being imprisoned for miscarriage. In America. Seriously. So maybe you aren't exaggerating as much as you'd like to be.

  Like · 2 hrs
• 

  Jackie Heaton I've seen the news stories. And nitwits, all men, who want to have every miscarriage investigated as a possible murder. Including a woman who fell down the stairs. She was actually arrested, I believe. Yeah, right I'm going to risk a broken neck on the off chance...I'm 65. I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be living in THIS America when I was in high school. This crap was what happened in those dystopian science fiction novels I still love.

I ran across another story recently. Woman was depressed, tried self medicating BEFORE she got pregnant. Went to the hospital to be checked out. Found out she was preggers and didn't know until the cops showed up that workers at the hospital had called them accusing her of child abuse. And she was arrested. If convicted (if the DA is dumb enough to run with this) she could be on a watch list for life. This is totally insane. 

I grew up in a logging town in Oregon. I got a good education in math and science and never looked back. I love science. The wonder of it. The, dare I say it, magic of it. I want to shout "your God is too small from the rooftops" when I run across the anti science nut jobs. And I'd be a hell of lot more impressed with their claims of being "pro life" if they really acted like it. Fracking, hill top removal mining, not knowing what's in the food we're eating, eagerness to go to war no matter what, still enough nukes to poison the earth for generations. I refuse to give up, but damn it how many times to we have to keep fighting the same battles?

My folks weren't Quakers by the time they hit the west coast; I was raised Methodist. But they still carried the idea of I'll mind my business and you mind yours. 

And how many cops would it take in this country to investigate every miscarriage, just to be sure along with ensuring that every pregnancy comes to term. Talk about an invasion of rights and privacy. But, it is the logical outcome of this scenario. As I said in my comment, when I was a lot younger I never dreamed I'd be living in THIS America. 

TEACH YOUR CHILDREN

In 1854 a leader of the Suwamish known as Seattle made a speech asking the Americans to respect the environment and the native peoples. At least several versions of the speech have been attributed to him. He spoke in his native language, which was translated into the trade language known as Chinook Jargon and then into English. Years later a version was released based on notes taken at the time.

This is a poetic version of the speech he is supposed to have given. It still reads very well.

Teach your children

what we have taught our children--

that the earth is our mother. 

Whatever befalls the earth

befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

If men spit upon the ground

they spit upon themselves.

This we know.

The earth does not belong to us;

we belong to the earth.

This we know.

All things are connected

like the blood that which unites one family.

All things are connected.

Whatever befalls the earth

befalls the sons and daughters of the earth.

We did not weave the web of life;

We are merely a strand in it.

Whatever we do to the web

We do to ourselves.

Chief Seattle from American Indian Healing Arts

MOTHER EARTH, FATHER SKY

O our Mother the Earth,
O our Father the Sky,
You children are we, and with our tired backs
We bring you the gifts you love.
Then weave for us a garment of brightness;
May the warp be the bright 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 the grass is green,
O our Mother the Earth,
O our Father the Sky.

Tewa Pueblo prayer.

In desert country rain, rainbows and green grass would be very rare most of the year. But, the desert farmers were masters at using the available water to bring in their crops. They bred plants that could mature quickly with a minimum of water. They knew their land in a way that the modern world doesn't know. Probably should know if we want to survive. Too bad so many of their seeds have been lost while the snowbirds from the north still try to pretend they can have green lawns and water hungry shrubs. Just like they had in say, Minnesota.

HUMMINGBIRDS

What a picture in the mind.

I saw a hummingbird stand
in midair and scratch his cheek
vigorously with his left foot,
as he might have done perched
at ease upon a tree. "Wonderful!"
I said to myself. "I never dreamed
of such a thing before, and now
after seventy seven years
of watching, I have seen it!"

Wendell Berry 2011.

I watched a hummingbird dive bomb the sparrows next door as a crow would chase a hawk. That little bird, no bigger than the palm of my hand, was taking on birds bigger than he was . Way to go, little one. And then it came and dive bombed me and flew off. Chpp, chpp.

WHOOPIE!!!!!

I'm old enough to remember when the Ducks were a national joke and couldn't half fill Autzen Stadium so this is sweet.

And it's when you lose that you show whether you're a class act. Even the sportscasters were amazed when at least half of the Florida team headed straight for the locker room without doing the midfield fingers crossed behind your back "nice game" routine. there's something to be said for losing a game now and then at least you get some practice at knowing how to act.

Two of my nephews were minor players on the team but they both emphasized that the coaches taught them that you focused on the next play. When that play was done you worried about the next one. Tonight they played as if each play was the only play in the game. And by the beginning of the fourth quarter? Florida literally gave up. To be honest I've never seen anything like it. Even when the they were losing years ago and the defense was being outplayed six ways from Sunday they kept trying. They may have been out scored and outplayed but they never just...folded.

FINDING ROOM TO BE IN THE MAYBES

Another Wendell Berry Sabbath poem as we wind down the year. Look at the pluses and minuses and wonder.

At the end of a long time
the book keeper sits down with his book.
He enters all that he has learned
of suffering, grief and ugliness,
of cruelty, waste and loss,
stupidity, meanness, falsehood,
selfishness, loneliness, and greed.
He reckons all of these as a weight
he has no way of weighing.
He enters then all he has learned
of joy, goodness, beauty, love,
of generosity, grace and laughter,
good sense, honesty, compassion,
mercy and forgiveness.
And these also weigh an unweighable
weight that registers only
on his heart, He cannot at last
complete and close his book.
He cannot say of evil and good
which outweighs the other,
though he feels his time's rage
for quantification, and he would
like to know. He can only suppose
the things of goodness, the most
momentary, are in themselves
so whole, so bright as to redeem
the darkness and so trouble the world
though we set it all afire.
"Maybe" the book keeper says. "Maybe."
For all he knows that in a time
gone mad for certainty, "maybe"
gives time to live and move and be.

From This Day by Wendell Berry 2012.

RELEARNING OUR PLACE

Wendell Berry doesn't title most of his poems. I'm not sure what you'd call this only that as I was reading this out loud to mom I started to puddle up at about the point of there being a new world once we've been forced to come to our senses. Of every MBA graduate disappeared tomorrow who would really notice. But try and get along without the small farmers, mechanics, cooks and craftsmen. Good luck with that nightmare.

As if suddenly, little towns
where people once lived all
their lives in the same houses
now fill with strangers who
don't bother to speak or wave.
Life is a lonely business.
Gloss it how you will,
plaster it over with plastic
bullshit as you please,
ours has been a brutal
history, punishing without
regret whatever or whomever
belonged or threatened to belong,
in place, converting the land
to poverty and money any
way the quickest. Now
after the long invasion
of alien species, including
our own, in a time of endangered
species, including our own,
we face the hard way, no choice
but to do better. After the brief
cataclysm of "cheap"
oil and coal has long
passed, along with the global
economy, the global village,
the hoards who go everywhere
and live nowhere, after
the long relearning, the long
suffering, the homecoming
that must follow, maybe there
will be a new world
of native communities again:
plants, animals, humans,
soils, stones, stories,
songs, all belonging
to such small, once known
and forgotten, officially unknown
and exploited, beautiful places
such as this, where despite
all we have done wrong
the light of October
falls through the turning leaves.
The leaves die and fall,
making wealth in the ground,
making in the ground the
only real material wealth,
Ignoring our paltry dream
of omniscience merely human,
the knowing old land
has lighted the woodland's edges
with the last flowers of the year,
the tiny asters once known
here as end-of summer.

Wendell Berry 2008.And yeah, I'm still trying to find something to be upbeat about. Good luck with that.

WHO IS IN THE WAY?

Hope everyone had a great holiday, whatever holiday it was. Unfortunately my brain wouldn't stop working.

“When the “too many” of the country arrive in the city they are not called “too many.” They are called “unemployed” or “permanently unemployed. But what will happen when the economists ever perceive there are too many people in the cities? There appear to be two possibilities: either they will recognize their earlier diagnosis was a tragic error, or they will conclude that there are too many people in country and city both—and what future inhumanities will be justified by that  diagnosis?” Wendell Berry in What are People For?

Economists aren't the only ones who make these “decisions.” What kind of headlines came out of Brazil in the run up to the World Games? The slums being cleared out because the poor were in the way.

The eighties in Central America when poor farmers displaced when their landlords pushed them out to make room for cash crops protested and asked for land reform, wanted access to education and the right to organize they were called subversives. And out came the death squads. They weren't subversives, they were in the way.

Gang violence in Mexico and Central America. Is there more to it than America's appetite for drugs? Or is it our eyes closed, fingers in our ears, in the corner humming real loud as the poor and displaced from our trade policies find themselves between the gang's hammer and the border patrol anvil? Makes me wonder these days. 

Many women in third world countries are don’t appreciate being told that the only way for their countries to beat poverty is for them to limit THEIR families or be sterilized. They look at the lives they lead and they look at the lives WE lead. First world families use far more resources than third world families. And that ladies and gentlemen is the problem.

The world’s consumer dependent economies need those first world kids growing up, starting families and consuming their little hearts out. The third world kids? They are in the way. Most of them will never be able to consume at first world levels. If they’re farmers, fishermen; families that depend on subsistence farming or resource use they’re going to want to maintain that life. They’ll be in the way as pressures mount to move their countries to export crop economies.

As resources dwindle we’ll see more civil wars not less. As the citizens in the resource poor parts of countries like Nigeria and Iraq demand their share of the pie we’ll see more groups like ISIL or Boko Haram. They’ll claim it’s in the name of religion. They may even believe it but they aren’t telling the whole truth.

Well, so far we aren’t seeing death squads in this country. YET.

SHOW ME YOUR PAPERS

I promise I'll try to find something more upbeat for tomorrow. But, I'm not felling very upbeat right now.

For probably ninety nine percent of the time humans have been humans we’re lived on farms, small villages, or cities that had at most a few thousand people, Even if the farmers lived in town they went out every day to work their fields.

Even trades like spinning and weaving were done at home with a middle man picking up the finished product. Then we invented the internal combustion engine. (I’m simplifying I know) and you could put a factory anywhere. Concentration of machinery led to concentration of your workforce. Concentration of the workforce led to housing conditions in some city that you wouldn’t force on a dog, but they were “OK” for people.

After WWII there was a convergence of events that led to a significant depopulation of rural America. The interstate highway system bypassed the small towns. It is so weird to drive up I5 and know that state Highway 99 is only about a mile or so away in some sections going in the same direction. The push to treat farms like factories. “Get big or get out.” Somewhere along the line the mantra became “it’s inefficient to raise your own food, or have it raised close to where you live. Get a job and pay for what you used to be able to do for yourself.”

In the eighties Wendell Berry wrote an essay titled “What are People For?” It isn't very long and here's a piece of it.

“At the same time the cities have had to receive a great influx of people unprepared for the urban life and unable to cope with it. A friend of mine, a psychologist who has frequently worked with the juvenile courts of a large Midwestern city, has told me that a major occupation of the police force there is to keep the “permanently unemployable” confined to their own part of town. Such circumstances be good for the future of democracy and freedom. One wonders what the authors of our constitution would have thought of that category “permanently unemployable.”

“When the “too many” of the country arrive in the city they are not called “too many.” They are called “unemployed” or “permanently unemployed. But what will happen when the economists ever perceive there are too many people in the cities? There appear to be two possibilities: either they will recognize their earlier diagnosis was a tragic error, or they will conclude that there are too many people in country and city both—and what future inhumanities will be justified by that  diagnosis?”

Now stop and think about what we’re seeing in the way minorities, especially African Americans are treated in some areas. And I’m not talking about the gray areas where somebody points a gun at a cop, is doing something that is a low level crime although it’s a big part of the problem. I’m talking about a kid checking the mail box in front of his own house, somebody jogging in a park, or a man who just happened to be an off duty NYPD cop coming out of a birthday party at an upscale night club.

He had a new car. He was wearing some relatively flashy jewelry, sweat pants and a T shirt. The details are a little hazy since he’s suing the city and his former department after being slammed into his own car and ending up on the ground in hand cuffs. And the list goes on..

Watch a few old WWII movies with scenes of cities occupied by say the German army. And compare those with how some of our fellow citizens are treated when they are perceived to be “out of place.” There’s an element of “show me your papers” in a lot of these incidents/

Of course there’s the mantra of “just do what you’re told.” That is not what this country was founded on. I least I didn’t believe it was until I read these comments and op ed pieces from retired cops. More fool me. I can’t help but wonder how THEY’D feel if they were stopped on the street for no reason that they could see or pulled over for the most minor of traffic violations? Probably howl like a scalded cat. 

THE LAW-IT DOESN'T WORK IF WE DON'T TRUST IT

The prosecutor in the Ferguson case has announced that some of the grand jury witnesses lied, presumably under oath. And that he has no plans to bring perjury charges against them. Words fail me. The law works not because we pass laws but because people believe the system works. Undermine that belief and you might as well pack up your marbles and go home before somebody steals them.

In the end that’s what drives me crazy about these draconian anti abortion laws passed at the state level. Almost before the laws are passed potential patients are trying to figure out a way to get around them. The blithering idiots who passed the laws know this is going to happen and frankly I don’t believe most of them care one way or another as long as they can throw some red meat to their fundagelical base. Again, laws are passed that target only part of the population with the wink wink that you can get around the law as long as you have the time and the money to do so. And if you don’t? Tough luck sister.

A few days ago a New Yorker with a long criminal record and a record of mental health problems walked up to an RMP and blew away two police officers. His demented reason. A protest against criminal cops. Ironically the man who was supposedly protesting racist white cops who can’t look past skin color couldn’t look past the uniforms. He brutally murdered two men who happened to be Asian and Hispanic American. And ignited a backlash against the protests against certain police tactics.

The head of the police union accuses critics of hating the police. Most of us do not hate the police. We do want to see officers who may be guilty of crossing the line to face a jury of their hopefully impartial and not to perplexed peers. And that isn’t happening. Again the law only works when people trust that it works for everyone. When they don’t riots is what we get, even though they often make the situation worse.

There are reports that at least some of the New York protesters were chanting. “What do we want. Dead police. When do we want them? Now!”

Really helpful guys. Really helpful. Martin Luther King must be spinning in his grave.

SOLSTICE

Several years ago my south of LA living aunt, uncle and one of my cousins came up for a visit that summer. It was getting late and Karen asked what time it was. When  I told her it was after nine she was surprised because it was still light. Apparently there's enough difference between LA and Springfield to be noticeable.

You have to wonder what our ancestors thought as they moved further north and realized how short the days were getting in winter. Yeah, the sun came back last year but what about this year? And it's no accident that for the Scandinavians hell wasn't fire it was ice. A frozen eternity.

Well, we didn't get frozen, we got drowned. Relatives on the coast south of Newport reported better than four inches on rain in twenty four hours yesterday. We got off with a measly half an inch. Here's to the shortest day of the year and the return of the sun.

A Winter Solstice Prayer

The dark shadow of space leans over us. . . . .
We are mindful that the darkness of greed, exploitation, and hatred
also lengthens its shadow over our small planet Earth.
As our ancestors feared death and evil and all the dark powers of winter,
we fear that the darkness of war, discrimination, and selfishness
may doom us and our planet to an eternal winter.
May we find hope in the lights we have kindled on this sacred night,
hope in one another and in all who form the web-work of peace and justice
that spans the world.
In the heart of every person on this Earth
burns the spark of luminous goodness;
in no heart is there total darkness.
May we who have celebrated this winter solstice,
by our lives and service, by our prayers and love,
call forth from one another the light and the love
that is hidden in every heart.
Amen.

Edward Hayes from Prayers for a Planetary Pilgrim