With One Hand

With one hand we are given what the other hand takes away. This week in the United States of America, our Supreme Court has struck down two unjust laws that attempted to make second class citizens of our elders, our fathers and mothers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters, for their "sexual orientation". Great celebrations took place across our great land for this important step toward a more humane treatment of those all successful native tribes revere. Both DOMA (the Defense Of Marriage Act), which limited marriage to couples of two sexes and Proposition 8 were struck down. I am as happy as anyone would be knowing that our federal Government will not withhold rights guaranteed to some individuals from others simply because they love someone who happens to be of the same sex. It is ironic that one day earlier, the same nine justices negated the Voting Rights Act, which attempted to eliminate the disgraceful exclusion of minorities from voting.

In my state, over 400,000, mostly poor, black individuals, were recently shifted from one district to another to keep them from voting for a state senator for the next six years. As heinous as that sounds, it is the type of deceitful and unpatriotic approach that "conservatives" often take when they are allowed into office. Each time a census occurs, population trends require some shifting of district boundaries to keep the populations of each district about the same, however, if you can cut people out of the voting process legally, it seems, the mostly rich, mostly white, mostly men seem to feel that they have every right to do so. In the eyes of the Supreme Court, they are right. I continue to see, hear and feel the prejudice still alive across our country. Not only is it alive in our language, our policing practices, the courts and our schools, but it is dripping from open wounds reflected in comedy, political rhetoric and in the unilateral opinions expressed by most clergy. Now, even if this criminal, but legal, disenfranchisement were to be challenged, there would be no legal foundation for those seeking to put things right.

Sadly, it seems, both of these decisions were made by money, for money and of money, not the people. First, let me take on the issue of gays. Please, remember that my father only wed my mother to help mask his own attraction to men. I have nothing at all against anyone who is open and honest about who they are. I respect whatever people feel or believe, but the court may be wiser than any of us can fathom. they knew that there would be hell to pay if they did not give something at the same time they were taking away rights from the growing population of "minorities". For many years one of the "gay" slogans was 10%. "They" claimed to be 10% of the population. I don't want to debate that, I have not looked closely at the numbers. Just in the last week or so, we have seen the admission of the founder of Exodus International, a gay man himself who began the "deprogramming organization" which sought to reorient gays, motivated by religious doctrine, that the whole theory of changing sexual attraction is a farce. This organization dissolving this week was, in my opinion, more important than the Supreme Court case that upheld the rights of individuals to marry whomever they desire.

Many, who would be happier in the "gay" community have not yet come out to themselves. The number could conceivably be much higher than 10%. The court threw them a bone. My cynical side says that it may be because "they" are mostly white, mostly better educated and certainly more politically active than those whose rights were undermined this week. Their celebrations certainly captured more media attention than the protests against gutting the Voting Rights Act. The "mostly white" part is because many minority communities are still in the grips of religious doctrines imposed on them by their oppressors and culturally important norms that keep many gay individuals from open admission about their sexual preferences. Having friends that are homosexual in both the black and Hispanic communities, I have seen this first hand. The stereotypes and malingering distrust and hatred of gays in both communities seems as strong as it was amongst whites fifty or more years ago.

Rich white men know that they are already a minority. That is why they work so hard to keep their women voting the way they tell them to (that effectively doubles their vote). That is why they continue to seek ways to legally keep people away from the polls and incarcerate or call into question the legality of more and  more minorities. These power brokers know that as all other segments continue to increase, they will become an ever-shrinking piece of the pie. The writing is on the wall, but they keep calling it graffiti and whitewashing away the inevitable. It is disgusting that the Federal Government has effectively turned their backs on those who suffer at the hands of rich white men day in and day out, the poor, the elderly, the women of our great land, the blacks, the Hispanics, the Asians, the native people, the disenfranchised. As glad as I am that we are beginning to get some things right, when the other jack boot falls, it always seems to be on the neck of those who have been treated the worst. I truly hope that when our ancestors look back on this time in history they will say, "There were those who stood up for what is right." I also hope that they will see the evil and unjust procedures that are being used to foist what is wrong on those least able to defend themselves against it.

I beg everyone to confront these issues truthfully, honestly and compassionately. Only love can triumph over fear. The only thing we have to lose is our humanity. We will only lose that if we turn our backs on our fellow human beings.

 

Pandemonium

Pandemonium has been the rule for so long that many interested in culture have been unable to find routes to peace and security. It seems that our attention can be so easily commanded, that our elders are no longer in places of power, many among us do not have time to establish relationships with our youth and the large majority of us who are in our "working years" are exploited to the point that we just don't have time to care. Like a fish on a line, we may jerk a little from side to side, but we continue along a path controlled by some other entity. Simply turn on network news and you will be bombarded with enough mayhem and strife for a lifetime in a mere thirty minutes. The peace and security that can come over a people by turning off the television is currently unimaginable to many because the pandemonium that issues forth from these devices has misplaced our perspective into a realm that stifles change, overwhelms our ability to appropriately care and to do anything constructive about the heinous crimes perpetrated against us by those who profit from our exploitation.

I think of all my writing as a call to arms, not the kind for killing, but the kind for hugging, one another, our selves, loved ones, our neighbors and ultimately, even those who are hurting so badly inside that the only way they can feel good about themselves is by perpetrating hate crimes against us. The pandemonium that has ensued for decades is more about a deep withered soul that lies inside worldwide elites than the crimes of desperation or passion that we see on the news. Telling us a million stories about dysfunction is but a contrivance designed to make us feel better about our own difficult positions. Much like the iconic character,  Homer Simpson, these events are just a stand in for the real story. We do tend to feel better about our own difficulties when there are those on our radar who are worse off than ourselves. If even a tiny fraction of the good news that is available day in and day out made it to the airwaves, we might get more of a sense of hope. The power and control freaks could not risk that. It would throw their entire rationale into question.

We are living in an age that seems to be disrupted continuously, not by chance but by design. This is the divide and conquer approach played out on a mental and psychological level. When we think that we are at odds with Mother Nature, humankind generally or our neighbors, the possibility of rebellion seems impossible. Each new report is like another nail ion the coffin of activists, because we have too often become paralyzed by fear of the next big thing. Trust is the first victim of feeling that things are out of balance. When we see ever larger floods, record breaking wildfires, massive ecological dislocation, melting ice caps, retreating glaciers, unbearable strife and people in the streets protesting for freedoms that we have come to take for granted, it can feel like the planet is tearing itself apart. Little attention is paid to the billionaires that profit from the disruption, that continue to be subsidized to do the wrong things and who benefit at the expense of the rest of the planets population. Inhabiting a world that is scary inhibits any attempt to find solutions that we can all live with oligarchs know this and when they make decisions about the course of history, they want to know that they will continue to be able to do whatever they want with impunity. that is why they must continue to keep us overstimulated, fearful and out of the decision making process.

Our Search For True Self

I recently watched an interesting movie called Gunless. It called into question the notion of who we are, not just as individuals, but as human beings. Yesterday, I had a conversation that relates to this concept with my beautiful spouse Nancy. Her intellectual ability, moral support and compassionate insight have helped me find my way through a number of crises and her reflection again helped me to find clarity on an issue that can be difficult for many. It has been said that since pre-history we have asked ourselves some of the same questions. Who am I and why am I here? The answer is both easier than many can imagine and more complex than we can fathom. What many often forget is the simplest fact, just because our mind can create a concept certainly cannot make that concept real or true. If we were to inject meaning onto an apple for instance, we could transform it in our minds eye to be a fruit of the devil, of love, of witchy power or perhaps even a symbol of knowledge. Although many have heard the creation story that Christians believe, the fruit of the tree of knowledge was not an apple, but that is beyond the realm of our discussion here.

I keep coming back to a single thought on the matter. Perhaps it is because I revere nature. Perhaps it is because I have tried to study the world around me so closely. One thing that I never question is my own curiosity, so perhaps that is a good place to start. If I were to say that humans are infinitely curious, I could immediately set out a long list of dullards who lack that basic trait. In my own experience, I can find hundreds of occasions where force was used to reign in my curiosity and yet it never left me. The journeys of some people have been different, I know, but could some trauma, abuse or neglect have vanquished what springs eternally within me? Whatever process has eliminated curiosity in some of my fellow human beings may befuddle me, but that is just part of my search for true self. Being raised in a home with two women, perhaps my self is more in accord with relationships than some others. I get many of my outward cues about who I am from the world around me and most of my time is spent around other human beings, so it would seem normal to look to them to find out who I am.

This "me", the one confirmed by reactions of others to the physical being that I put out into the world, that is not always my true self. For instance, society dictates that I wear clothing. My true self is not concerned with that convention. My family and friends know me as someone related, or who relates to them. My true self is not quite sure that either friends or family are even salient issues...let that sink in a bit. Who has not been guilty of defining themselves, at times, as the son of so-and-so or daughter of...? I, the true self that this particular organism has found, is related to all that is in ways that defy expression. Of course, my genetic make-up has been given to me for the most part by two individuals. On a very basic level I am the son of James Lee Saladino and Darlene Roseann Walker, but my genes have also been affected by the environment. My true self cannot be based on my progenitors any more than climate can be reliant on weather. What is thought of as us, our body is an effect, but as we all know, we humans are causal. My genetics do not make me create, I do this of my own accord.

You have seen this yourself, I am sure. The family-owned business that fails because the creative drive, the spark that grandfather had for whatever his business was may have been kindled within the father, but when the son inherits the company, it withers from lack of interest, or pure laziness. Who we are is far deeper than who sired us or whose womb we were carried in. Don't get me wrong, there is good research on parenting skills and child rearing that prove that much of how we turn out can be nurtured or squashed by the treatment of others, but even this cannot change who we truly are. This is like the artist, squeezing tubes of color to see how they look. We may have three purples in the box of paint, and even know which characteristics each one has, but if we do not uncap the tube, we cannot know the true color that lies within. Parents, mentors and friends, if we are lucky, massage the tubes, hold us as if we might be the one and affirm our "purpleness". They may "see" in us potential. They may help us to fit in in appropriate or inappropriate ways, but only we can know who we really are. When given the chance, only we can express that uniqueness by giving as directly as possible of our true self, not the perception.

When Nancy and I discussed this yesterday, it was in relation to a tree. It is a statuesque sugar maple that rises up out of the backyard. It was one of the first several generations of trees that were in our backyard nursery. Thousands of individual trees have spent a brief portion of their lives there, but this one got established, more out of neglect than intention. The plastic landscaping pot that held it has since been exploded away into shards. The tree wastes no time imagining what it could be, what it might be, who it wants to become. No, the energy it has expresses itself twenty-four hours per day, seven days per week, 365 days per year. The pot, which I would need a knife and some serious intention to cut poses no hindrance to the tree roots. Where I am awkwardly wrestling with the expression of true self, the tree knows to just do it. The point is that we are not what we think we are. The mind is only capable of putting labels on the outside of our "tubes". We have the power to be the artists of ourselves, uncapping the true nature of who we are and flowing through the masterpieces that have yet to be created.

Along the path to realizing my own true self, I have felt unimaginable love, agape love for all that is. I am, at once, the infinite love of Creator and the stardust from which I have been created. I am a resonant wave touching billions of human relations, many more billions of four legged creatures and hundreds of trillions of microorganisms. In my wake, I try to leave things better than when I found them and in my heart of hearts I know that without any one of my fellow crew members of Starship Earth, I would be slightly diminished. I cannot force anyone down the path that has led to my own insight or realization. I can however offer tools and techniques that worked for me. I am available for private consultation, just drop a line and we can "talk".  

28.6 Million Viewers Watched Splashdown

I remember being young when it happened. To watch the moon landing, in 1969, we had to go to a bar. Grandpa, who was in control of the television at his house (where we lived at the time) was absolutely sure that the grainy images were proof that the whole thing was being acted out in the desert somewhere. Surely, if there were a plot to hide something like that going on in plain sight out beyond the reach of civilization, there were still, in his mind, places you could go to be sure that no one would find you out. It was incomprehensible to him that to "get there" took days and that you had to aim where the planet would be so far,far away. The supposed distance surely, in his mind, could not be nearly as far as they said and the speeds alone that were quoted would surely kill a human being, he could look right up and see the sphere, hovering overhead. That alone was real to him. The whole thing about phases of the moon too seemed to evade his consciousness, or at least he didn't care to pay it any mind. Although he knew that his wife always planted "according to the Moon", he could not have told you when the next full one would happen without a calendar.

Those days were simple. Training, for nearly everyone amounted to: "Sit down, shut up and retain these facts. Always listen to the person in charge. We are the best nation on Earth, and Be willing to sacrifice everything for the good of all." It was considered a huge assault in the game of one-upsman-ship against the Communists to reach the Moon first, yet many thought it was just a propaganda ploy, envisioned and perpetrated by "the Jews" and Hollywood. As out of place as that sounds, just two generations ago it was real in my family. What I remember is that the audience at the local tap were split 50/50. My young mind chalked up an extra weighted vote cast by the owner who seemed better educated than the clientele and even at that barely kept the assessment half and half. I figured that if he had found a way to make his living off these guys' desire to have some time away from whatever life they were making for themselves, then he counted extra. My mom and I were two votes for an actual landing on the Moon, and although I have questioned it myself at times, if it all were not some ruse, I get that stark image of the Earth, on a starless background, floating in space and giving everything from a crescent to that massive waxing gibbous phase as the orbiter looked back from the true edge of space.Earth from the Moon image can be found here.

The most awkward reality that one has to come to grips with is that twenty-six million was a lot of people back then. World population was roughly half what it is now. Since the Moon Landing, two generations have passed. I am the last generation that will have living memory of that event. Perhaps more than two thirds of the people who watched that fateful evening are dead, as painful as it sounds, it took nearly that long to get the photograph of earth from Space into every classroom in Wisconsin. It is terrible how little attention has been given to that one striking photograph. forever after that image was captured, we have been able to see with our own eyes that Earth is a glistening marble isolated amongst billions and billions of objects in space, separated by immense distances. Like a minute fishbowl, we are limited in quantity of air, water and energy that we receive from space. What we do with it will determine quality of life globally for aeons. Beyond the Native American concept of seven generations are many, many more whose choices will be limited or expanded by our choices today.

Economic Terrorism

Wal-mart continues to claim to be the "low price leader", but we often forget what that has meant for small businesses across our nation and the impacts that has had on world trade policy. True terrorist events are meant to exact a toll of fear. The mayhem and carnage that we all see outwardly are not the true intent behind the acts. What the perpetrators seek is constant fear, continual dis-ease and costly re-action to the random events. This, in fact, is what many businesses do day in and day out around the planet. Unlike Henry ford, who believed that it was his responsibility to pay his employees enough that they could afford to buy his product, the Wal-marts of the world, Aldi Markets, Best Buy, and nearly all the big box stores have the complete opposite approach. One of the largest costs for business has been labor, at least since the advent of labor unions. Whether one believes it or not, there is a war between those who have capital and those who do not.

This is an age where the wealthiest among us are nearly invisible. On the street, we see the 99%, going about the business of "making their living". What we do not see is the massive flow of wealth upward. The oligarchs live is sequestered compounds, far from the terror that they perpetrate on the rest of society. The only reason most people have for shopping at these sorts of places is because they are fearful of not being able to make ends meet. I have heard the same tired argument from both educated and uneducated folks, extremely poor, moderately poor and borderline middle class people, even from people who should know better. They say, "As soon as I make enough money to afford it, I will stop shopping there." Meanwhile all the local mom and pop shops are closing and there will be no alternative if and when their ship comes in. Where most terrorists face a marginalized existence and abject poverty, greatly limiting their resources, economic terror is funded by the very people who it attacks.

Let me start with a related story about wealth generally. Years ago, I met a man from New Zealand. He came to our country to make his fortune. Many places around the globe have the Lazerwash car washes, he was the lead designer and his team designed them. He amassed enough wealth that when he put his dollars in the bank, the difference between what they earned from his money (interest they made on loans backed by those dollars) and the money they paid him as interest (about half the rate that they charged borrowers) amounted to roughly the same amount as the bank manager's annual salary. Needless to say, this gave him quite a bit of clout down at the bank. I only mention this because it relates directly to leverage. Because this guy had more money than he knew what to do with, the bank nearly fell over itself trying to make him happy, lest they lose his business (dollars). If a person really needs the money, banks don't like to work with them, but if they really don't need the money, it seems that they fall all over themselves trying to offer competitive rates, sweeten the pot and make it easier for these high end customers.

There are endless stories about how the Wal-marts of the world do business. It has become an undeniable fact that they are the biggest single supplier of organic milk in the world. They turn to the organic milk producers and say, if you want to sell, this is what we will pay and when the suppliers get desperate enough, they will make whatever sacrifices they have to to get the contract, hoping top make up the difference on volume. There has been a slow and wrenching transformation of the American marketplace and I am sure that this is true around the world. In the fifties and sixties, American made meant something. It meant that things were built well, the workers were paid well and the heavy industry that supported the manufacturing was robust and, for the most part, unregulated. Sadly this led to gross waste, fraud and abuse of the very term American made. We have stooped so low now, that even a product wholly assembled in another country can be called American made if a single change has been made to it here.

Briggs and Straton and Tecumseh are two relatively well-known American manufacturers of small engines. When Wal-mart came to them (at nearly the same time) and said, "We want you to be the sole manufacturer for our line of lawn mowers." Some would say that they were shopping around. This makes sense in the business world because if there is profit just lying around capitalist principles say it is "good business" to capture it. I get that. Where these sorts of companies get ugly is the very next step. I'm not sure how it went down at Tecumseh, but at Briggs they asked how many engines do you need? The number that really got them excited was what seemed unimaginable. Of course, if you could land a giant fish like this, not only would you be able to expand, sell all the excess inventory and pay off outstanding debt, but this contract could send you to Easy street, right? Wrong, the other foot had not yet dropped. Part of negotiations is agreeing on price. It seemed that the giant corporation needed a twenty dollar per unit price break, or they would go to their competitor. Instead of giving people what they can make a living on, the rationale is always the same. "You will make it up on the back end." By increasing volume, you can afford to give a portion of your profit margin away, TO US!

Supplier after supplier has had to face the squeeze of these big box retailers. Exploitation and playing out this same power and control scenario tens of thousands of times has allowed the corporados to amass a giant war chest. In the end, they can always use the hole card of procuring products from places like China, where most of their cheap crap comes from anyway. The method is the same no matter who you talk to. When I was a child, you could walk to any one of a dozen bicycle shops around town and when you bought a bike, tire or a tube, half the price went into the pocket of a local guy, who would spend it at a local bank or grocery store. Each time half the money would go to the local guy who again would recycle it through the local economy. Many of the manufacturers and businesses had other local ties as well, founded perhaps on convenience, but ultimately helping the community to thrive. The biggest retailers today have us convinced that their hundred dollar bikes will make it possible for us to live the good life for less. Now, I have to walk five miles to get an inner tube or tire, how is that making my life better? All those small bike shop owners who went out of business, their lives got worse. The fear of paying too much leads many to patronize the merchants of death, of strife and of economic collapse, not because they actually have to, but because they know no other way to feel good about their stagnant wages and the crippling effects of laws and regulations specifically designed to destroy unions.

The same people who bring you "lowest prices, guaranteed" also know that the vast majority of their customer base will never shop around. I have learned dozens of reasons to detest these sorts of places but first among them is the inhumanity of their approach to labor. Not only do they exploit their own people, forcing them into poverty and giving them just enough to keep them coming back, but they exploit their suppliers, local governments and customers through every sort of deception you can imagine. Every single time they open their cash register or swipe a debit card a micro blast takes place across the land killing the hope of recovery wiping out the possibility of living a life without the fear of poverty. There are ecological reasons to detest these corporate overlords, there are economic reasons to stop them in their tracks and there are humanitarian reasons to end the age of bigger is better. Just try negotiating with these folks. They know that they hold all the cards and if they cannot subject you to their forms of slavery, and they are many, they will not deal with you at all. To those who say, "When I make enough money, I'll stop shopping there." I say, by the time that happens all the local businesses will be out of business. The thirty bike shops that used to exist in our town provided jobs, training and customers for other products and services, the three that are left are only hanging on because some people still care about quality and service.

A House Divided Against Itself...Cannot Stand

My father used to say that wherever he traveled around the world, "Poverty looks the same everywhere." This may be true, however, I have come to learn that affluence does as well. The compounds and gated communities that hold the wealthiest oligarchs may be red granite, white marble or made from acres of brick, their styles might reflect ultra modern sensibilities or Victorian "high style", but they are essentially the same in many other respects. The help is coming from faraway. Whatever minorities exemplify the lowest classes are doing the yard work and they are segregated and sequestered into the far flung reaches of either the tops of the highest buildings or the most remote regions so that they do not have to look at the poverty they thrive upon. I have seen the same thing in every country I have visited. Wealth detests mixing with common folks.

I was struck by this fact many, many years ago. Wealth buys comfort and in the minds of the wealthy, they should not be required to even look upon the poor and middle classes. We make them feel uncomfortable. I really must say overtly that these are not flaws of the people, but human behavior built up over the years by subtle phrases and non-verbal communication. The aversion of the eyes, the writing off of those"less fortunate", the desire to enjoy ones wealth all combine into a complex mix of fear and desire, hatred and distraction. The ultimate end to this training is to "know" that poverty represents a threat to full enjoyment of the wealth that has been made off the backs of others. Even trust babies, who never have to work a day in their lives think that they deserve their opulent and cushy lifestyles. The last thing the oligarchs want is to have to be part of a community that includes "those people".

The running mouths of idiots "prove" that, "When those people were allowed into our community, crime went up, housing prices dropped and it changed our town forever." Even the poor seem bent on segregation, if they could just afford to get into that little better neighborhood, they think, things might change for them. In fact, some of the best neighborhoods I have lived in were a mix of colors, income levels and as a result were many miles from the enclaves that shelter the wealthiest among us. Wealth breeds power and by sidling up near one another, they can be assured that their children will play with the right kind of people. They can be assured that the vast majority of the poor will not be able to afford to drive out to their mansion and that if ever one does, they will be conspicuous because they just don't "belong" there.

Here's the thing, if you live along a golf course, you know how much the greens fees are. If the golf course is a private affair, you know what the dues are to belong to the country club. The best way to assure that no schleps will walk past your house is to make sure the course is expensive. This came fully into my consciousness yesterday as I looked for properties. Blank land on which to carve out a homestead has always been a desire of mine. I would like to build using the tricks of the trade that I have learned that will allow me to make what a friend lovingly referred to as a zero-net-energy home, one that has no utility bill. Heated by the sun, cooled naturally by strategically positioned trees and close enough to town to walk everywhere. Anyway, I was looking for properties. Around the five acre (2 Hectare) size, it was plain to see which properties were amongst the wealthy and which were left for everyone else. Sitting within several miles of one another were parcels as low-priced as twenty acres (8 ha) for fifty thousand dollars and all the way down to five acres (2ha) for $400K. Several sad facts conspire when you have the money. Being at the end of a cul de sac means no one will come down the road, except to your place. When you get "far enough" off the beaten track, if you see anyone, you can be assured that they do not belong there and if you pay enough for your place, you should be able to expect absolute privacy, your own personal view and no one can tell you what you can do with that place.

On the other hand, when you look at the affordable places, you may have to look across the street at the county highway garage, or a landfill.The neighbors may have some cars that they intended to work on jacked up in their yard and their pets, if they have them, are assured to bark at inconvenient times and come snooping around, unless you have a good sturdy fence. It is funny on one level,because if you don't laugh about it, you will cry. What passes for inconvenience for the wealthy is just daily life for those of us who cannot afford our private piece of heaven. The vast majority of the planets population must put up with the actions, the habits the sounds and frequently the smells of their neighbors.

Instead of a great human family, we have a broken system that allows the oligarchs to sequester themselves into regions that are homogenous. When they "go slummin'" it is by choice, not necessity. They use a variety of tools and techniques to keep the "rif-raff" out. Lot size, square footage of permissible structures and restrictive covenants are just a few. In the United States of America, it is hard to feel united, because the rich and powerful deny our existence routinely. We seem to have the only culture in which the poor and middle classes self-chastise themselves for not being wealthy. For some reason, I think it is mathematical illiteracy, everyone loves to be infatuated with the idea of winning the lottery. We all wish for our day in the sun, but as the days play out, we are always faced with the umbrella of wealth held over our heads.

As we have seen repeated ad nauseum, when enough commoners move into a neighborhood, the wealthy move out, leaving for the next exclusive compound, where they don't have to be bothered with even looking at the rest of us. Keeping the real world at a distance seems to be the way oligarchs like it. Building a community would require finding out what the neighbors think and the rich and powerful just don't care.

Almost Like Stealing

There is an ecological imperative that demands that we shift course. We need to understand that the monied interests have sewn up all of the wage increases, exploited the public domain for their benefit and relied on unimaginable subsidization. On the backs of virtually all of the worlds population, the oligarchs hold not only virtually all of the cash, but the political discourse, the media outlets and the means of production. More often than not, what passes for value in the marketplace is a capricious virtual "product", devoid of inherent worth but representing potential worth. Like a roll of the dice, but with infinitely faceted spheres, we keep betteing ever-higher stakes on what has always worked in the past. Tonight, the news was that the second of two tornadoes that ravaged parts of Oklahoma was confirmed an F-5, making it the second within two weeks. To try to get perspective, there have only been three over the past fifty years. Earth, out of balance directly relates to how the money has flowed and the concessions we give to those who hold power and control of our energy strategy, "rules of the house" regarding finance and the "direction" of political discussions. Anything we can do to wrest our living from their waste is like getting ahead at their expense.

Throughput, as I have mentioned before is considered by most industrialists, financiers and moguls to be a matter of course. Single use and disposable everything, as well as rapidly changing styles account for a tremendous influx of cash for the cash flow of our nations. Even skimming a miniscule fraction of billions of items worldwide can generate billions, but there has been a push on for decades to infiltrate every area of the planet for exploitation by half a dozen multinational "groups" of products. We see some of their names on NASCAR jackets, we see them along the F-1 circuits and we consume at their behest, after all, every dollar we spend, part ends up in the hands of their most powerful execs.

When I find detritus from these corporate welfare whores, I consider it an obligation of sorts to turn it into something of use. Re-purposing items may not be enough, I understand that when the giant corporations fail, there will be good as new junk, ready to be liberated from their use. Far too often, "resources" once accounted for leak out of businesses grasp. I have, many times, mused at the things that just fall in the trash can, go missing or left out of place long enough, just walk off. Tons of steel fall off trucks each week across our great land. Waste is the cost of development. Using this waste effectively and redistributing the wealth that is thrown away by our overlords is beyond necessity, it is a strategy to stay alive, support Starship Earth and subvert those who would kill our life support system, Mother Earth. I have seen all manner of goods created in a driveway or basement, occasionally on a back stoop that utilized waste from our industrialized waste stream to fabricate wonderful tools, functional items, energy saving devices and fashionable furniture.

Where I seem to have fallen down on the job was in failing to have a documentary approach to my experiences. A friend, living along the highway had several sheets of two inch extruded polystyrene insulation blow into the neighborhood, which he harvested. That made an amazing table that looked like an over-sized millstone, but only weighed in at about twenty pounds. Another thing he was able to make out of the same foam insulation windfall was a NERD (Northern Exoposure Refrigeration Device). My own favorite was the discarded plastic containers that are making their way into uses as rain barrels. By cutting the top out and covering it with screen to keep skeeters from breeding in the water, we can reduce the expense and impact of watering our yards. I guarantee that this was not the intention of the folks manufacturing or utilizing these vessels for profit. In fact the very existence of the waste has been paid for by the oppressor and we need to transform those resources to provide a higher standard of living than they intend to allow us.

Unlike Road Warriors we are spirits of peace and love, only wanting ecological balance. When we bring our creativity and inventiveness to the home, yard and garden, the possibilities seem endless. In the old days, my grandfather set me on a path toward this by using cast off bits of pipe to make bird feeders. In my turn I have expanded the art to make tools and money by selling both scrap and items made from junk. Ultra-low cost always translates to massive profit. One item that recently came to my workshop is a fully functional rolling bucket and it came with a broken mop wringer which needed $.35 worth of bolts to fix. Retail value is over fifty dollars. Even giving it away to someone who needs it is worth more than thirty five cents! Take from the rich and make them eat their dollars. We will see who folds first.