The Courage To Change

If you think you can’t change, then change the way you think. I heard that remark while listening to a eloquent speech on the UCTV station’s satellite feed given my Terrance Roberts at the University of California at San Diego. Who is Terrance Roberts? He was one of the nine black students who began attending classes at Little Rock’s Central High School back during the time of Arkansas’s school desegregation, mandated by Congress and acted upon by President Eisenhower. Back then, the nation‘s leaders had to call out the National Guard to maintain law and order.
This courageous man recounted what he went through to further his education in a section of the country that, at that time, was as racist as any in the world. Many times young Roberts was beaten by gangs of white students during those chaotic times and on several incidents he narrowly escaped with his life. There was plenty of hard times to go around. But he survived. And not only did he survive he managed to wring out a whole hosts of positive examples in the process that would serve him well throughout his life. Instead of being bitter, Roberts turned the incident around and looked at how, because of his small group’s gutsy act, racism gradually subsided in that part of the South.
Taking time off from his teaching duties at Antioch College, he went back to Little Rock recently and gave a series of presentations on his experiences during those troubling times. He told his audience how well-meaning white folks would approach him and try to prod him into admitting that those times were really not all that terrible. His response was, “Oh, yes they were. They were much more than terrible, but I didn’t let that destroy me. I wanted to attend a more affluent high school in order to get a better education that I literally was willing to give up my life. And yes, for me, those times were definitely terrifying. Don‘t kid yourself into thinking otherwise”
Terrance Roberts is only one of an untold mass of courageous individuals who spread truth wherever they go. They work in relative silence, helping their communities, raising their families, and doing what they can to make this a better world. They go so far as to be willing to die for something that benefits their ideals.
Hats off to Mr.Terrance Roberts and all the other honest citizens of this country. The truth will always set you free.

Cap Capitalism

The problem I have with capitalism stems from the fact that there is no balance factored into the system. Growth is encouraged, even insisted upon. Capitalism has no limits on growth.
One of the laws of thermodynamics states that at a certain point any system will eventually reach a condition where the input of energy exceeds the output and thus attains a state called, the law of diminishing returns. In short, it reaches a point where nothing is gained from any further input of energy.
My organic vegetable garden is a great example of what happens when growth has limits. One example I’ll use is my green pepper plants, but I could use any example in my garden. The seed I insert into the soil emerges and soon grows into a plant about two feet high. It doesn’t keep growing at that point, but rather it stops its growth and puts all its energy into producing blossoms. The blossoms then eventually bear fruit. Not so with capitalism. It has no systemic method necessary when the brakes of growth need to be applied. In other words, the typical capitalistic company is formed, it grows larger and larger, but instead of attaining a point where it concentrates on improving its core product, it keeps on growing at an unsustainable pace until it reflects the average American's midsection. Instead of stopping growth at some logical point, a company fixates upon growth at all costs, forgetting about quality and concentrating solely on quantity. The reason given for such insanity is that a company will say that they exist in a market place that encourages competition and they must survive and do whatever it takes at all costs. But the pepper plants in my garden refute that claim. They compete with other vegetables in the garden for space, water, and nutrients, yet they survive quite nicely. They don’t die because of competition. In fact, they thrive in spite of it.
Corporations in this country are spiraling out of control and the reason is the lack of equilibrium within the capitalistic system in a culture filled with greed. Corporations are allowed to grow way beyond a rational point, to where they become rusting monoliths, unable to respond to its customers, focused only on the needs of the stockholders, which by the way isn’t owned by the typical poor widow and her offspring.
It seems to me that a much better method would be at some point to limit growth by penalizing corporations until, like the pepper plant, they begin to bear fruit for the benefit of its customers. At the very least, putting a cap on capitalism might prevent corporations like Morgan Stanley (who lost more money last year than any year in its history) from rewarding its CEO by giving him 41 million dollars in compensation. Will the greed ever end?

Exxon Valdez

The Supreme Court will hear arguments that Exxon Mobil is not responsible for the oil spill that occurred off the coast of Alaska nineteen years ago. It is estimated that over 33,000 people in Alaska lost their livelihood when the oil spill happened. The only skill those folks had back then was how to catch fish. When those fish died, their only hope for any kind of future died with them. Some of the people committed suicide. After almost twenty years of delays, only 27,000 of those people are still alive. A sad commentary on corporate responsibility.
With their income lost the families had no recourse except to sue the huge oil monopoly. Exxon's battery of lawyers managed to slow down the entire judicial process for nineteen years. Now the time has arrived for recompense. Let's see if the Court is on the side of families or on the side of greedy corporations like Exxon. If they deny the fishermen their due, the Court has as much validity as a FEMA press conference.

Thin Air

The chairman of the Federal Reserve appeared on Capitol Hill today to answer vexing questions about the American economy. Ron Paul, the Republican presidential candidate from Texas asked Bernanke about inflation. It is Ron Paul’s contention that inflation is directly tied to the M3, which is our money supply, hence the more money America has in circulation, the cheaper the money becomes. Paul noted that our money supply was increasing yearly to a rate that is unsustainable. He cautioned that you can't create wealth out of thin air. Although Congressmen aren’t my favorite breed, I agree with Mr. Paul. Wouldn’t it be great if Americans could do what our government is doing and go down their basement (providing they have one) and start cranking out dollar bills on a printing press. That’s exactly what America’s elected leaders have been doing for years, ever since those same leaders allowed America to abandon the gold standard.
In the politician’s eyes there is no crisis. Rising national debt? Hey, no problem. Just crank out more money to pay the bill. Crashing housing market? No problem. Crank out more money so that the greedy crooks in the housing market don’t get blamed for what’s happened and they can continue to steal from the taxpayers. Don’t worry about Mr. and Mrs. Middle Class. They can take care of themselves. It’s long been Washington’s paradigm to take care of the filthy rich because that‘s who takes care of them. Never mind all the honest, hard-working Americans, that is not their concern. Only the next election matters and those weasels will do anything, anything, to win that race.
But now things are slowly starting to catch up with them. The entire American economy is beginning to crumble. Our insatiable spending habits are coming back to haunt us. There are signs everywhere of a financial catastrophe. It’s not only the housing market, but every other segment of the marketplace is beginning to whither. Three dollar gas will look like charity in the near future. Most of the world’s people spend about six bucks per gallon of gas. Now it’s our turn. Better not put off turning over the soil for that organic garden you‘ve been contemplating. And you might want to think about purchasing a reverse osmosis device for under the kitchen sink. Clean water will be increasing in value each year. Wars will be fought over it. Human Beings can live for weeks without food but only a few days without water. Hang onto your hats because I predict that in the next three years America will undergo a significant change in their style of living. And it won’t be in an upward spiral. It’s all our fault too.

Seeds Of Change

Two recent items in the media caught my attention. One of them dealt with Norway’s completion of a vault to store seeds. The vault is located in a frozen mountain just off the coast of this beautiful Nordic country. The crypt has been labeled The Doomsday Vault. The reasoning behind the plan is that when mankind reaches it’s final conclusion at least whoever is left will have something to plant and thus eat. (note: please read my poem, Something Special in my archives) It’s a shame that things have come to this. But we don’t really need for this scenario to play out, to wait for the end to come. By knitting together we can form a defense against the looming global environmental catastrophe. Many people around the globe are taking action by shrinking their lifestyle to a more local level. They realize that they can’t control the global governments but they can have some say on what occurs locally. Vegetable gardening, solar heating, recycling are becoming the norm in lots of cities. The environmental community has been preaching all along this dictum: Think globally, act locally. It’s finally starting to sink in. Here in our little community of Kalamazoo, lying almost exactly between the metropolises of Chicago to the west and Detroit to the east, things are gradually changing. Most of our buses in town now run of waste oil. All Kalamazoo students are assured of a free in-state college education when they graduate. Maybe they will develop a way to harness the power of lightning or some other valuable invention. Our local farmer’s market is thriving. Green articles in our local newspaper are now common. Much more needs to be done, but at least it is a start. Other communities around the world are beginning to become more aware of their responsibility for being caretakers of the earth, and not dominators. We have no right to declare that we have dominion over this earth because eventually we will leave this earth the way we entered, with nothing. We don’t own a damn thing.
The second item affirmed something I knew all along. My contention has always been that we are all connected. Human beings and everything else in the cosmos are inter-connected. From my many years working in the weather field, I came to realize this basic fact: If you tweak one portion of the web of life, all other portions move with it. You can never act wholly independent of anything else. Weather scientists have postulated the theory that a butterfly flapping its wings in, say, Butte, Montana can effectively cause a tornado in Topeka, Kansas. Interdependancy is absolute. With that knowledge in mind I wasn’t surprised when I read an article dealing with the movement of global dust. Here in America we receive pollutants, such as mercury, from China’s industrial expansion. The dust from China and other Asian countries rise into the atmosphere and troposphere and float around the globe, eventually landing on terrain that is far removed from its source. The dust usually contain bacteria, viruses, pollens, fungi spores, dried animal feces, chemicals, and pesticide residues. We here in America have been dumping our pollutants on the rest of the world’s population and now it is coming full circle. Officials in Los Angeles state that as much as one-third of their smog comes from Asia. In the first part of the twentieth century, on the average, China suffered a dust storm once every ten years. Each year the storms have increased in number. Now the citizens of China suffer ten dust storms each year. Most last for many days. It's gotten so bad that Beijing, the capitol, is expected to be covered in dust within ten years
Bottom line: There is always a repercussion for any action, no matter the source.

Irony Or Hypocracy?

I try my best not to be censorious when posting to my blog, but sometimes I just can't help it. Take this item for example. Maryland State's Attorney Davis R. Ruark, who once prosecuted Olympic swimming star Michael Phelps for driving drunk, was arrested this weekend for the same offense. I guess whatever goes around comes around.

Stagflation And Happiness

For the first time in more than twenty years I heard the word - stagflation - mentioned on various financial channels. Stagflation means a stagnant economy coupled with inflation. A two-headed monster for sure. If this is true, how did we get into this situation again? Shouldn’t we learn from our mistakes? We should, but we never do, and we have nobody to blame but ourselves.
Let me clue you in on something I deem important. I’ve been thinking about this concept for quite some time. It’s my humble opinion that the concept of gain doesn’t exist because for every supposed gain there is always an offsetting loss. The medical profession is learning this the hard way. The pills that are supposed to cure a patient of an ailment end up causing the patient to fall victim to another malady, often far worse than the original ailment. And so it goes, as Vonnegut used to say.
As for our economy, it is, in reality, zero based. By that I mean the entire system is merely an exchange. Nothing else. The tree we cut down today is the tree we won’t have tomorrow. The mountaintop we blow up today is the one we will want tomorrow.
To give you an example of what I‘m talking about, I’ll use something that is dear to my heart. Gardening. I have been gardening for forty years. Over that span my garden has taught me many things. While performing the physical part of gardening, such as weeding and watering, I’ve had plenty of time to dwell on what is taking place before my eyes. For one thing, my garden doesn’t produce crops unless I place a seed in the ground and care for it until harvest. That fact is: I can only take out what I’m willing to put in. Makes sense, doesn’t it. A dynamic balance is the key to my gardening efforts and it is the key to contentment. But it seems the big honchos on Wall Street don’t believe this. They want to get something for nothing. Without sowing seeds, those clowns expect to harvest a bounty. That isn’t the way it works, folks. And believe me, those people are smart enough to know better. But they are so used to taking shortcuts and thinking they have something to gain by cheating that they miss the obvious, that there is no gain without an offsetting loss. First it was the savings and loan fiasco and the Keating Five. Then Michael Millken made junk bonds appear to seep gold. Another fairy tale appeared when an obscure energy company called Enron, made other corporations drool with envy at how much money they were raking in. Of course Lay, Skilling, Fastow, and the other crooks eventually had to admit their scam. Notice a pattern here? Every time the stock market has risen in the last twenty years a scam of epic proportions has been behind the escalation. What we’ve been calling an increase of wealth is an allusion. All we’ve done is squander the last of our country’s resources. American seem to be enraptured with a culture that esteems graft and corruption, whose heroes are less than noble. Is it because of our nation’s violent history? And if you doubt we have a violent filled past you need to read a few more recent history books. The People’s History of America by Howard Zinn is a good place to start your enlightenment.
America is far down the list when it comes to happiness. We have been programmed to always calculate our happiness based on money. The more money we have, the more happiness. But I keep reading magazine article after magazine article that begs the question, “Why are Americans so angry? Why aren’t we happy?” Maybe it’s because we’ve based our thinking on the wrong paradigm. Money doesn’t equal happiness.
What country is the happiest? It’s Denmark, followed by Malta, Switzerland, Iceland, and Ireland. What makes the citizens of those countries happy? Their citizens neither have extreme wealth nor extreme poverty. Ahh…A Dynamic Balance! Get it? That’s how to by happy. Create a dynamic balance in your life and let fools strive to be materially wealthy. If you are fortunate to enjoy the love that comes from being part of a family, you have all the wealth you will ever need. Trust me on that.

Congratulations, Mike

Our eldest son, Michael, finished his first marathon last weekend. Not bad for a forty-year-old. He had trained for months and crossed the finish line in good shape. I meant it when I told him he should be proud of himself for setting a goal and then attaining it. Too many of us Americans talk a good game, but when it comes to performing we‘d rather sit in front of an X-Box and fantasize. A good friend of mine once noted that plenty of people are fakers and not bakers. Talk is cheap, as I always say. Talk AFTER you accomplish something worthwhile, not before. Whether you plan to run a marathon, put in a vegetable garden, volunteer to help the needy, or learn a new language. Do it! And don’t give up. JUST DO IT!

Losing Our Balance

Arthur Godfrey had a popular radio talk show back in the late fifties. Occasionally he would chat with environmentalists who warned listeners of over-fishing and a buildup of toxins in the world’s oceans. The scientists were quickly labeled as lunatics and summarily dismissed. After all, how could something so vast as an ocean become polluted? In those days everyone knew that the solution to pollution was dilution. Help yourself, poor all the crap you want into the sea. It can take it.
News that the Amazonian rain forest was being destroyed ruffled our collective consciousness but, hey, that was a continent away. We continued to deny all the scientific data, even from the most astute and lauded scientists.
But then slowly warning signs emerged and a conception crept in that perhaps America should have listened and learned something valuable from those lunatics. Species began disappearing. A protected species act was eventually passed in Congress. But all that was forgotten as political assassinations, race riots, and an unpopular war dominated the nightly news. Energy prices spiked in the early 1970s setting off a futile search for alternative energy supplies. Inflation, along with the national debt, rose dramatically. America was a nation that had severe monetary troubles. To allay people‘s fears that the sky was falling, President Nixon took the country off the gold standard and allowed the dollar to float. America, in effect, had no backing for its currency - only the government’s promise to repay any debts incurred.
In order to make it look like American’s were still wealthy, that we had nothing to worry about, President Reagan tripled spending, increasing the national debt. Corporations, along with technology, emerged to the forefront of the American political landscape. The Supreme Court went so far as to proclaim corporations had all the rights as everyone else in the land because they have attained the position of “personhood.” The technology sector promised us a wonderful, carefree future, declaring that a new world order was emerging, one that would replace the old way of doing business. Basic accounting principles were rewritten as a frenetic search for new wealth emerged. The dictum that all wealth comes from the earth was replaced by a vision that wealth can be created out of something so simple as thin air, all we had to do was "believe." The dot com implosion ended that whimsical philosophy.
Throughout all the cultural changes and challenges, one thing remained. Reality. It insisted that for all America had gained there was a price to pay. The pollution of the fifties continued to increase until dire warnings emerged that greenhouse gases were becoming so capacious in the atmosphere that they could eventually kill us. If things didn't change, mankind might choke on its own consumption of worldly goods.
Americans initially became upset at that realization, until they woke up to the fact that they were the ones most responsible for this increase in the buildup of atmospheric carbon. Americans comprise only five percent of the world’s population but consume twenty-five percent of the earth’s resources. A gluttonous share of the world’s affluence.
What was the government’s reaction? War! That would solve all America’s problems by forgetting our old troubles and simply create a new perspective. But it didn’t work this time. It only made things worse. We tried to compromise the political and environmental situations by recently promising to join the world community in making the world less polluted. But now it’s beyond compromise. We have passed the point of mitigation where cutting back on carbon emissions will heal the planet’s atmosphere. The world’s temperature will rise about 3 ½ degrees no matter what we do. The earth will undergo a vast change that will see oceans rise, drought increase, resources, including our precious water supply, become scarcer. Adaptation is our only recourse. Other nations are heeding the call. In America, our infrastructure needs to be shored up or replaced. Current farming practices that now rape the land of its vitality by squeezing every ounce of nutrition out of the soil will need to be discontinued. The air we breathe, that contributes to lung cancer and other diseases, must be scrubbed clean. Water can't continue to be used as merely a Wall Street commodity. Waste must be discontinued.
Unfortunately, the assets needed for the job no longer exist in our coffers. As I stated before, all wealth comes from the earth and America has used all up it’s natural resources. The cupboard is bare, folks. We have foolishly spent our wealth and saved almost nothing. The world won’t look to America for answers in the future. We have squandered our vision for that future on crooked politicians, criminal-minded corporations, an apathetic public that rewards ballplayers above teachers, and a hypocritical mindset that punishes rather than encourages people that are different than the perceived norm, forgetting that nature thrives on diversity.
So what’s the bottom line? Do we have any options left? Sure we do! But they don’t include the current system of government. We need to create an environment where the local people rule their locality. Where farmer’s markets thrive, eco-villages are constructed, and solar becomes the model form of energy. Where a transparent government is common. Where human beings and their needs are far more important than the corporation. Where our families mean more than the stuff we own. Where education is paramount and kindness is an epidemic. It’s not too late to save the planet or our culture. Do whatever you are able to do and please don’t wait. Recycle goods and refuse to feed the current system. Things will change. The earth and it’s inhabitants are just too valuable a resource to waste.

Genetically Modified Organisms

I knew that I would eventually get around to writing about GMO's. In my opinion they are the enemy of nature. These man-made seeds are patented and sterility is engineered into the DNA molecule so that the plants can't reproduce. Pollen from these Frankenstein seeds drift all over the globe and threaten to wipe out generations of seed saving efforts. The seed that germinates from these horrible things do not reproduce true to their kind. Not only that but this type of genetic engineering causes a weakness in the celular structure of plants, thus inviting pathogenic invasions.
America seems to increasingly breed these kinds of enterprises, where the only thing that matters is the bottom line. What about nutrition? What about taste? Shouldn't that be a prime consideration?
I plant a garden each year so that I have a choice about what I eat and where my food comes from. I want to taste a tomato and not a cardboard facsimile. If you are thinking about planting a garden yourself, Google GMO's. I swear that the information will make you take some sort of action.
There is one bright note. France has just announced that it is banning the use of GMO's on it's soil. That's a start. That's where change happens. In little bits and pieces. Hats off to the French. Way to go!
How do we stop something so dispicable as GMO's from occurring again and again? One way is to examine how you are investing your disposible income. If these global agricultural corporations lack a steady stream of investment income they will eventually dry up and blow away like their genetically modified seed. That's one way to stop them. Another is to vote for courageous men and women who will stand up to these corporations. Money is their god. Money keeps them in business. Where is your money being invested? Check it out...today.

Groundhog Day

I came across a rather interesting article in our city’s newspaper. What caught my eye was the title of the piece. It read: Celebrate Groundhog’s Day by changing your wiper blades. In the first place, what kind of nut celebrates groundhog day? Do they rush out and purchase some party hats to go with the booze? Do you think America really needs another reason to get blitzed? Isn’t the Super Bowl enough? And what does Groundhog Day have to do with wiper blades? Should something click in the average person’s mind that would connect the two items? If that were the case, they’d also remember to clean the attic on Memorial Day? Or write a short story on Thanksgiving? The fact is, when I think of wiper blades I never think of groundhogs. But then I don’t need another reason to celebrate. Every day on this earth should be cause for celebration, groundhogs or not.

An Ocean of Air

On the average, I read two books each week. I’ve been doing that for over forty years. Fiction, non-fiction, it doesn’t matter. I just love to read and, like most human beings, I’m innately curious. I especially love a good mystery.
Every now and then I come across a book that insist I turn the page. It forces me to read ‘till my eyes close in the wee hours. An Ocean of Air is just such a book. I couldn’t put it down. Although it’s non-fiction, each chapter contains a mystery. For example: Who first discovered that the air we breath contained oxygen? How much does the air in Carnegie Hall weigh? Who unveiled the mystery of our trade winds? These are a few of the secrets revealed in Gabrielle Walker’s captivating book. Ironically, each person that is ultimately responsible for uncovering life’s mysteries is more unique than the subject matter. Ever hear of William Ferrel? Ms. Walker thinks he’s America’s greatest scientist and, after reading her work, I’d have to agree.
I guess the real reason I loved the book was the fact that it proved once again that life is dynamically balanced. Oxygen, which keeps us alive, is also the cause of our demise. Oxygen releases free radicals that eventually wear our bodies down and age us. Ms. Walker states this much better than I. …the lesson of oxygen shows that many things that are exhilarating have their own attendant dangers: making discoveries, making enemies, challenging the authorities, falling in love. Indeed, everything about our minds, our strong bodies, our different sexes, for the power of movement itself, we have to accept the inevitability of old age and death. The oxygen in each breath you take brings you everything that’s worth living for, but it will ultimately make you pay with your life,. Within its chemistry lies the very heart of the human condition.
And this passage: Carbon dioxide is the crucial source of all our food and without it we would freeze because it traps sunlight from returning to outer space. But it has a downside. Like oxygen, carbon dioxide has the potential to deliver too much of what otherwise would be a very good thing. The hero that protects us is also a villain that threatens us with a potentially deadly menace: global warming.
That’s what this blog is all about: the dynamic balance of life. Thanks Gabrielle for sharing your fantastic mind.