Imbolc Plans

Asa the Sun inexorably begins to return, there are important days to remember along the path. This week, for instance, average daily high temperatures began to rise. We are gaining several minutes of daylight every day or two and even casual observers are beginning to take notice. This Imbolc fire I will use to roast some more wood, beginning, once again the soil building cycle that has been going on in my life for decades. In pagan circles, this high holy day is when the masculine force of the sun begins the rite of fertilizing the womb of Maiden Earth, stirring within the "virgin" new life which will grow, blossom and set the fruits of abundance over the next several seasons.

My plans will be slightly disrupted by the vagaries of a calendar designed by someone else, but the window of time that I celebrate will have to accept the availability that the call of wage slavery demands. As with most events, there is a portal that opens, invites us to revel and that then slowly closes. The idea of anything remaining static according to the structures we design to help us keep track of the passage of time is vaguely silly if not wholly inaccurate. As a young boy and into my middle years, I frequently heard people discuss "Indian Time". Ironically, it seemed to be said slightly more often by native people, but when it was spoken by members of the dominant culture, it held nasty connotations. Laziness was implied, the affront to timeliness was inherent in the utterance and "primitive" or uncivilized aspects of this very real phenomena were paramount in the message behind the meaning of just being late.

For many years I thought that a more perfect world could be possible if we just allowed people to set their watches back whenever they felt that they needed "more time".  Honoring the fact that clockwork is designed to emulate our concept of time, rather than the opposite would go a long way toward freeing us from the strictures of colonialist oppression. The sad fact is that many of the lies we continue to tell ourselves are what tie our hands when we make any attempt to move toward a more civilized and humane cultural expression. If we were to ask one hundred people what single change would have the greatest effect on their health and happiness, it is hard to imagine more than a few saying that honoring the time that they wish to spend doing what they love would help make life better, but if we asked specifically about the value of not having a schedule, many would admit to feeling pressured by the clock frequently.

Who does not know someone who sets their clocks ahead, five, ten fifteen, even twenty minutes fast so they can get placed "on time". This has always seemed ironic because we describe buying on credit as buying on time as well. In our culture, we seem to have a propensity of ways to make bad things sound better than they really are and to worship concepts that were meant to be tools as if they are the ultimate goal that needs to be achieved. In resetting our internal clocks, tuning in to greater cyclic events, we often find that our relationship to time must certainly change.

It is true that when you are eager and motivated or committed to a cause, "Ten minutes early is five minutes late." but so many things in our lives seem unworthy of our eagerness and incapable of inspiring even any of the precursors to motivation. The essential quality of being present often requires living, not by the clock, but by the time signature of the heartbeat. Imbolc, for me, helps keep that drumbeat/heartbeat alive with the creative forces of the multiverse. It seems funny to know that "Groundhog Day" is actually a pagan holiday co-opted for a media event. As fervently as some might deny it, there is a distinct change taking place energetically. The ancient, and I believe more civilized, ancestors used to celebrate this time, not just for the fun of it, but to give back and entice the Sun in whatever ways they could fathom to return. Honoring the great gifts that come with the Sun's return was as normal and natural to our ancestors as the drawing of breath and the eventual death to which we must all, one day, succumb.

I am coming out of a week and a half of a very hectic and very heavy work, but the Light is returning. although we will inevitably have another six weeks of "winter", in my cosmology, this is the first rite of Spring. When I spark the festival fire, it will be in honor of the Sun, whose energy has been stored by wood. It will be to respect and enhance the fecund nature of Mother Earth. It will be to give back to the spirits of the "time" or season and reflect on how the crone passes and the maiden is born. The back of Winter has not yet been broken. In my neck of the woods, next week's temperatures are expected to prove that, but on balance, the grip of winter begins to relent and the quickening that comes with the change of seasons has begun.

Whether you make grain dolls, sun circles, or sweet cakes to remember the season, take whatever time you need to re-set your internal clock. Heck, even if you just tune in to watch Punxatawny Phil, remember the real reason for the season, Father Sun, Mother Earth and the triple goddess, Maiden Mother and Crone.

Forgiveness

I heard an interesting definition of forgiveness today. I wanted to say a little more about it, but the words were so clear and concise, so full of truth, that I would feel wrong about elaborating further.
Forgiveness is being unwilling to allow yourself to have a shitty past.

ALL THAT MATTERS IS NOW!

Ram Dass used to say:"Be Here Now and it will all happen." To this truth, I bear witness. as his teacher told him, "Do not focus on the past, do not worry about the future, just be here now." I understand that for many, this feels nearly impossible, but the best things always come about through a process of concerted effort.

Blessed Be!

Dead @ Soldier Field

This summer, on July 3,4 & 5, the remaining members of the Grateful Dead and many of their followers and friends will be converging on Chicago. This is being billed as the last time they will be playing together and it is the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the band. The last concert they did was also at Soldier Field, that was twenty years ago. The capacity of this venue is something over 63,000 and I am sure that all three shows will sell out.

It is just a bit ironic that these same dates are when the Rainbow Family of Love and Light  have their national gathering which presents the dedicated Dead Head with a bit of a conundrum. If there is one thing that could possibly lure a Rainbow back to Babylon, especially when their largest annual family reunion takes place, (typically drawing over 60K people to the woods) it would be a Dead show. Likewise, the only thing that could possibly lure most Dead Heads away from a concert of this magnitude would be the National Gathering of the Rainbow Family of Light and Love. About the same time the Grateful Dead got their start, the Rainbows were having their first gatherings. Both events are a continuing testament to the ethos of the Sixties. "Tune in, turn on, drop out." I have written about this motto before and this is a good place to decipher those three simple admonitions.

Tune-in: The sixties were the beginning of the FM revolution, there was a relationship between clean sound (hi-fidelity) and the concept of truth. Cutting through the static was more than a watchword for the time, it was a physical reality for audiophiles as well as the general public. In the digital age, when we are happy to lose fidelity for quantity of data, it may seem odd, but technology often acts as a stimulus for changes in our thought process, decision making skills and our concept of the world around us. Tune-in had far more to do with getting a clear picture (including being sensitive to their vibes) of what others were saying, not just what the monied interests wanted you to think or know.
Turn on: For the ruling elites, it was easy enough to relegate this admonition to the waste bin of "drug use" and therefore paint all who advocated it as criminals (even though LSD, the mind expanding drug of choice, was still legal). What later became known as "Follow your bliss" was the true message. The theory is, and it has been proven millions of times over, that getting straight about your true spirit and following your heart rather than your head creates not only more happy people overall, but fires up their neurons, heals all sorts of illness and invigorates mindless automatons who only exist to serve the status quo. The revolution that is not being televised is the one that flows from the billions of subtle acts taking place by people inspired by peace love and understanding, not the acts of war mongers and people who devote their lives to fear and hate. (That revolution is being perpetrated upon our society by the major news networks 24/7) The uninformed continue to grasp at the straw given to them by the oligarchs. "It was about the drugs." they say, as if that could make it real. I am as turned on today as I was in the sixties and have not had LSD in over thirty years, nor do I want, or need it to remain turned on.
Drop out: Funny how this seems to be the most salient of all three. We are existing in a world (at least here in the good old U. S. of A.) where half the workforce has given up...just left the job market. Now we have cute, trite and easily disparaged code words for dropping out. Going "off the grid" for instance, connotes wacko apocalyptic survivalists, conspiracy theorists and libertarian, anti-government types. "Homeless" camps around our nation have gobbled up hundreds of thousands of our young people who find family and living arrangements "outside" traditional definitions and who live by their wits rather than by selling themselves as wage slaves. There are tens of millions of people who are living in the cash only society (sub-culture) and they have truly dropped out, no longer contributing to the coffers of government with payroll deductions and social security payments. Dropping out is taking place all around us, but the ruling elites have a host of code words to accuse, blame, and disparage those who have the courage and strength to take the road less traveled.

I live about 3 1/2 hours away from soldier field by car and have some space available for people who  want to come in from faraway locations to see the shows. I prefer to use mass transit when possible, but to get to Soldier Field from here, it would take about an extra hour to get there by mass-transit and would entail a 2 hour drive to Milwaukee to catch the closest train. Not driving to Chicago may actually be worth the extra effort, but that would be up to those coming in for the event.

I am also offering, for the "coasties" who may be coming in, to host ECO-tours, shamanic journeys and educational seminars during the three weeks prior to the concerts. Please let me know
ASAP if you are planning to attend. All are welcome.

The Art of Living

When I began writing this blog, I could not fathom why such a powerful medium was being squandered by so many, sharing baby pictures, documenting minutia and broadcasting idiosyncrasies. Now I have degenerated to posting photos of my own "baby", the char that I know has the power to change the world for the better. Perhaps, when the person looking down into the cradle sees their own child, miracle that they are, they see the potential that exists in them the same way I see it in the char. I gave my obligatory twenty years to raising the best children I knew how, but their baby pictures almost never got shared around and certainly were never as important as this picture. It is not that I'm not proud of my children, quite the opposite is true, but the important thing that my children were and have become is difficult to capture in images. Char is the opposite, the potential it holds is plainly visible and understandable on the "face" of it. When one looks closely at the structure of a particle of char, it is plain to see it as a condo for microscopic organisms. I only have had a handful of chances to inoculate a few hundred thousand people with ideas, but in a handful of char, with it's fourteen acres of surface area, I have the potential to encourage billions of organisms to thrive and by their very existence, they change the world.

Now, after many years of writing, I have begun to get the feeling that it is not the fault of the medium, that the ratio of ideas to baby pictures and inspired ideas to activities of over-scheduled soccer moms is so high. This is who we have become as a people. The self seems to be more highly valued than the community in which we live. I am beginning to realize that, the resulting messages lack meaning not because of some sinister plot or  device, but because so many forget that their interpretation of the world around us is their own. When a proud parent wants to share baby photos in person, the viewer rarely says, "That's one ugly baby." or "It doesn't look like you, or your husband." Although that might be exactly what they are thinking. If we look critically at the medium of blog as just an electronic scrapbook, perhaps a fair amount of self-infatuated minutia can be forgiven. Heck if it truly lasts forever, think of the trove of data some future anthropologist might uncover.

I remember being exposed to vine charcoal when I was a child. I could plainly see what it was. Children are imaginative that way. It was just grape vine, burned without air. We used it in art class to render images on paper, but when I held it in my hand, there was far more to it than that. I could understand completely that the charring that it had gone through somehow transformed it. There were few things as dirty and the material had the amazing properties of being almost as clingy as oil, yet would break and turn to dust with just a tiny bit of pressure. The ancients used the char as do modern "primitive" peoples across the planet, but we are pushing harder and harder all the time on the natural world and degrading the habitat that supports tribal people across the globe. The grapes that my family tried to import to this continent died because of microscopic organisms, invisible to the naked eye. Now, just four generations later, I can share advanced microscopy of material that they would not have given a second thought. The times have changed so greatly in just four generations that we have not only solved the problem that plagued European grape varieties, but advanced viticulture worldwide because of what we have learned about invisible organisms that had plagued our ancestors.

Instead of having to import vine charcoal from Europe, where the masters used it to make their marks, we could make it here, with grapes descended from the Old Country but adapted to have resistance to the pathogens that have lived here, perhaps for tens of thousands of years. I would like to go back to the baby pictures for a moment. It is hard to understand that, when we are proud of something or infatuated with it, even on occasions when we have just discovered it, not everyone will be as excited about it as we are. I could tell you that my daughter, realized that many of her bad decisions came from inner feelings that are best described as a lack of self worth. She turned that difficult realization into a career. She now takes amazing photographs that validate and revere her subjects in ways that show them that they are worth the best, not just what they can settle for. She has confronted her demons and that, in turn, led her to become a more fully functioning human being. Her livelihood as a photographer was nourished in the crucibel of darkness, spawned by the heat of creation and blossoms forth from the womb of creation. Each of her photographs is the result of love and compassion, intellect and sensitivity. She does not impose her sensibilities upon her work, but rather facilitates the development of something new and greater than herself with each image she captures.

This artful play and susceptibility to spirit is an inherent part of my activities as Char Czar. Perhaps when new mothers look intot he crib or bassinett, they see the "blank slate" that the young creature looking back at them holds. Perhaps they are overwhelmed at being loved so deeply. In some cases, I have seen, the new mothers have never been loved unconditionally before and I imagine that as being quite moving. However, I still don't need to see pictures of  them. I would much rather discuss how we
can solve the distribution problems that starve the majority of the babies who have to live on this planet while we feed others sugar and fat instead of breast milk. I would rather discuss how to double the agricultural output of each and every acre under cultivation and turn the tide on desertification around the globe while fixing carbon in soils. The artful play I desire is more about learning to hit a moving target than inspecting a static image of a recently born individual. I could pin my hopes and dreams on their future success, but I would rahter get tot he business of changing the world in qualitative ways that will allow them to make a decent living when they have their chance at raising the next generation.

I am not immune to the proud parent phenomenon, in fact, there are a couple photos of my children included somewhere in this blog, but it is not by any stretch the focus of my writing. My pride is not because I can procreate, but what my children have done with their lives that makes me so proud and it is hard to fit that into an image or even a single story. The lives that we touch can be changed for good even without us being aware of it. The story of char is more compelling to me than I can say. I have made hundreds of gallons of beer and wine, and given most of it away. If you include the bread I used to bake, I'm sure that I have encouraged hundreds of billions of organisms to thrive. One of my favorite t-shirts says: Yeast Lord. Vintners, brewers and bakers everywhere will understand, but many forget that we are only confronted with one choice in this life. Love or hate. We either encourage life or destroy it, there can be no other option. I am proud of my children, not because they are mini-mes, but because they have taken what I could give and transformed it into more than I could have hoped for and that is not yet able to be captured by pictures. Just like I have done for them, I give my char and my readers all that I have to give ,but what happens after that is what I'm most proud of. Now, go forth and express yourself!

Volatility In The Markets

I have written occasionally about the markets, Wall Street, global finance and trade, but usually it is more from the point of view of a casual but very interested bystander. I do not live and die by the market, but I do understand it and know my way around in the realm of "investment". As is typical, I want to practice full disclosure. I do own a paltry amount of stocks and bonds, as part of two union retirement plans. To date, I have earned enough money, that has gone into these funds, to support myself in the style that I have become accustomed (one step "above" poverty) for about four moons after I stop working. In Green Bay, school crossing guards are organized as teamsters and working for a few years as a a crossing guard for about four hours per day during the school year, netted me about two thousand dollars that went into the Wisconsin Retirement System, a state-run retirement fund. This money is invested in ways that I have no control over. My work as a union stagehand has netted me slightly more, but it has taken over ten years to amass a similar amount of money in my retirement account with them. Several years ago, I got to have some say in which funds I wanted to "invest" in, but the choices I could make through that retirement account are severely limited as well.

I have followed "the markets" for over twenty years, and have not limited myself to casual  understanding or cursory knowledge of what goes on there. This is one of the reasons that I have chosen to write this at this time. About a year ago, in a well buried story that most people overlooked, was a tidbit of truth that everyone should be aware of before getting talked into "investing" in the markets. The biggest investment firms have spent billions on hardware and software to see trades before they are even done and cut in line ahead of any market changes that are taking place. Many, who have been paying attention, have seen some of the terrible fallout from credit default swaps, derivatives markets and some of the technically legal but immoral actions associated with Wall Street. Yet, one of the most heinous and insidious changes in the markets recently has gone by, right under our noses in the not too distant past. This is having a massive effect on markets that, as of yet, has not been researched, understood or even hinted at by most analysts. what is worse is that it is not even mentioned in regulations because no one thought that milliseconds, or even nanoseconds could matter, but they do.

Billions have been spent on equipment that "jumps" orders, both buy and sell orders. My understanding is that it is only by a factor of a couple nanoseconds, but knowing which way every stock is headed is just enough to reap benefit from every single transaction. Time really is money and now there are technologies in place and working that allow the wealthiest trading companies to insert their orders ahead of trades made by everyone else. Now that electronic trade volume far exceeds that done in person and the actual people making in person orders or offers eventually fall back into the realm of action, ultimately, on an electronic playing field, this means that all trades occur in the realm of data, transmitted electronically. At first, it seemed that the biggest trading houses were spending wildly on being able to jump orders for what seemed like a few pennies here or there, but the territory that we are in now makes the investment seem quite prudent. As with all things motivated by greed, there are two ways to make more money faster. Insider trading, which is almost like creating a "hot", "new" product that has the ability to become a growth item and if margins remain constant, pushing greater volume. What we are seeing on Wall Street today is directly attributable to these perturbations of the marketplace.

The desperation, reflected in rising volumes, is not explainable by any other rationale. We have always been appeased by the term "free market", but there has not been such a thing for many generations. When the first environmental law was enacted, making it illegal to cut any of the King's oaks in England, the market for wood was no longer free. This in turn had a cascading effect that spread into other markets, like metals and other woods. When taxes were first levied on people to support government, markets were no longer free. In the U.S.A., the precursor to the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) USDA (U.S. Department of Agriculture) was given the task of testing agricultural, food and medicinal products for purity in 1906. Many, who do not understand history, point to that time as the beginning of the end for free markets in this country. Before that time, if I wanted to sell "snake oil", pills for bed wetting or sleeping tonic, all I had to do is buy some bottles and pour any concoction I deemed worthy into them and I could, then sell them at any price the market would support. That was technically a free market. However, the Wild West attitude toward the marketplace was killing too many people and stealing people blind as the carnage mounted.

Today, electronically jumping buy and sell orders is creating a death of many cuts for those willing to put their money down on Wall Street investments. The same technology is being used in commodities markets, and to some extent in metals markets as well. The techniques and devices that are being used are autonomous, meaning that no human effort or activity is required to actuate them. The slowness of our nervous system compared to the speed of the technology makes any action by humans useless in these actions.

Seeing as I am fond of picking on one specific stock this week, Schlumberger, I will use them as an example. Anyone interested in the revolution which is not being televised should look into this company.  Schlumberger (pronounced slumber-jay), the largest oil field services company in the world, trade as SLB on the NYSE and are sitting at about $80 per share. Had you been holding them yesterday, you would have made nearly five dollars per share. Over 6% in one day. The news driving this relatively sudden jump is that (of their 120,000 employees worldwide) they will be laying off nine thousand people and cutting capital expenditures by 25% this year alone. Why would a multi-national corporate welfare whore such as this be worth more as oil is in free fall? How can the entire sector be contracting but companies serving the sector be increasing in value? Well, let us dissect this a bit. Remember the two ways to fulfill the greed motivation, increased margins or greater volume. Spending less and laying off people typically means that a company is having tough times, or trying to make themselves look better in bad conditions. In a rational world, this would reduce the value of their company. However, especially in a troubled market, dollars get shifted into what has worked in the past and even more dollars are looking for "good deals". When the first purchase order for SLB came across the internet, it kicked off a string of interactions that had nothing to do with reality. The computers jumped in to buy and because of the volume, the price continued to rise which in turn influenced more people to trust that it was a good idea to buy and that in turn kicked the electronic purchasing into a higher gear and the market was perturbed as volume increased and limited availability drove up the price. on the news of the rise, it got the attention of even more and even more desperate people, who were again beaten into the market by computers when they placed their orders.

As you can see, it is a bit like a merry go round and each trade adds momentum. It will continue in this way until the first person changes their order from "buy" to "sell". The computerized equipment will jump that sale and increase both the volume of shares traded and increase the rate of decline in the price per share. Somewhat like the movie "Office space", where the main characters found a way to harvest all the half pennies that were floating around in the stock market, these are microscopic thefts based on something akin to insider trading. If you can know with certainty that the markets are going to move, and which individual stocks are moving which ways, you only have to make a fraction of a cent on each transaction. Multiply those earnings by millions of transactions each day, and you will do remarkably well. People are far too slow to drive this sort of volatility. This is just one more way that the wealthiest classes are taking whatever they want. The only way to keep from being robbed by the greedy is to stay as far away from their territory as possible. Invest in what you know, what you love and what you want to see more of.

France-Nigeria

collectively, we are all broken, just a bit more by the news, Whether it is the 2,000 in Nigeria or the 34 in France, we have lost some of our brethren this week. The same feelings of love for our children and hope for the future were alive and well in these people just a week ago, yet today their hearts are still, their eyes got milky and they began to rot. The living of life they did, the love and appreciation others felt for them will be no more, just a memory. The creative talents, interests and ideas will go away forever, no longer pursued. It is with heart felt empathy for the great loss humanity sustained this week that I say. Attacks on one attack us all.

Whatever abuse and neglect the perpetrators have suffered, we must heal their tortured souls. There needs to be a place where true rehabilitation can occur before people start thinking that taking life has any positive elements. No one "deserves" to die, no matter what you may think of them. I routinely say out loud that I believe Jesus was a myth, just like Tom Sawyer and Paul Bunyan. I have criticized Popes as being responsible for giving shelter and employment to pedophiles. I frequently deny all claims of power given to male deities on the basis of how badly men have screwed everything up. I openly mock and caricature many individuals and groups, not because I want them to die, but because I have something funny to relate and the people onstage in my stories are characters, nothing more.

The terrible thing about all fundamentalist religions is that they restrict the education of their young, and allowing religious leaders to determine the narrative of their sacred texts. Uneducated people will believe whatever their shamen tell them and this breeds an interpretation that keeps them in charge and all others subservient to the "wise men". Ah, there's that misogyny again. It is easier to see the need for "radicalization" when you understand the context. There are millions of people worldwide who are feeling disenfranchised, put upon and unjustly suffering at the hands of the oligarchs. Some tiny percentage will allow themselves to be told what to think about that and how to react to capitalism, U.S. militarism and the threats we all see going on in our homeland. A few agents provocateur or with a loud mouth to shoot off in the name of violence and religion and a tiny percentage feel compelled to follow. After all, the knowledgeable people who claim to "know" the religion can justify the most heinous of behaviors.

Religion gives cover to the lawless amongst us and it is time to tell the truth about the vile impact it is having on humanity, our worldwide culture has been rent asunder by these fundamentalist, groups. The twisted nature of some allow them to justify all manner of horror because it is their "God-given right" this alone should tell us that they are delusional. The Earth Religions are on the rise because we know intuitively that a system ruled by women would be much, much saner, equitable and compassionate. That is why the glass ceiling exists for women, the rich, mostly white old men would feel threatened if peace broke out amongst nations or is things were made to suddenly make sense.

I am so glad to have billions of people learn of Charlie Hedbo, hundreds of millions see the work that those people had done, and to further the building of worldwide sentiment against those who would do this sort of thing.

Obligation

My readers understand the question of motive. Often, why we act as we do is far more important than what we actually do. It has been understood in every age that unjust laws are made to be broken, committing a crime to stop a larger crime from being committed is a proven tenet of law. We have historic accounts that some laws are made to be broken. I cannot disagree with any of these because I have been brought up in a culture with far too many laws and many have either ceased to be needed or are so willfully disregarded that they have no power to improve or protect our quality of life in any real sense. There are laws on the books in Madison, Wisconsin, our state capital, that make it a crime to tie your horse up to a parking meter. Most cities require you to clean up horse "apples" that fall onto roads or sidewalks, but for some reason the mounted police are not required to do so. Similarly, pickpockets are not allowed to ply their trade, but when a business imposes additional fees or raises their prices without warning, or recourse, they are protected. Some of us are obliged to follow the rules, while others are forgiven, or at least given another chance, for the same exact actions.

The obligation that may be required of some is waived for others and expectations frequently depend on such arbitrary factors as your skin color, family status, sexuality, size, sex and most insidiously, for me, one's economic status. These make-believe obligations created and perpetrated by human beings upon one another pale in comparison to what I wish to write about in this post. I have always understood that there are obligations that are far more important than those imposed by law or social expectation. Some claim that their "moral code" and indeed the privileges that flow from having it, place them in good stead with Creator. I have found many prohibitions and/or edicts and admonitions regarding behavior, made by holy texts, are denied or ignored willfully by the very same people who want to quote said books chapter and verse. The human mind is malleable and making a rigid system of laws only assures that some people will operate outside the law. What we do and how we go about it will always be a function of personal choice, (although there are serious scientists who claim that free will is a myth) however, we are often obliged to behave in ways that are sanctioned by laws, or at least in ways that do not run afoul of the law.

Some relatively easy ways to remember the laws that are most important requires us to get back to basics. Most people will determine the big three to be "First, do no harm.", "Always clean up your mess" and "Treat others as you would like to be treated." Medical doctors have helped to popularize the first one, yet in my country, more people die each year from iatrogenic (doctor caused) disease and illness than die in automobile accidents. If I were to walk around my property, I would find many items that constitute other folks' mess and chances are that when I go forth into the world, I will find several people who will treat me in ways that they would detest if the same were done to them. If we truly were obliged to follow even these three relatively well-established rules, conditions world wide would be improved instantly.

Are we not obliged to understand the true state of affairs before we advocate policy? here are some numbers to give perspective. Gun deaths are one factor that almost always tip me off to how out of balance our lives have become. The U.S. has about ten gun deaths per year per hundred thousand people (that is 32 thousand individuals each year) and there are 88 privately-owned guns for every hundred people. Automobiles account for another category of death frequently attributable to either people thinking that their needs outweigh those of others, or that they are invincible. Violating the universal law of driving often results in death. What is this universal law? You may ask; it is that on the roadways, we all can "win" if we are all alive at the end of the day. Life out of balance makes many far too willing to drive fast and take chances. (This number represents 35 thousand loved-ones each year) Eventually, people we love are going to lose at that lottery. In my country, nearly fifty percent more people die behind the wheel as go by gun. To put all this violent death into perspective, a quick look at doctor caused death bears special attention. Seven to eight times as many people die because of doctor mistakes as we lose to guns each year. Estimates range between 70 and 80 deaths per hundred thousand. (fully 225,000 to 250,000 needless lives lost) Some other interesting facts about our most expensive medical system on the planet: COMPARED TO 13 OTHER "DEVELOPED" NATIONS, the U.S. ranks

• 13th (last) for low-birth-weight percentages
• 13th for neonatal mortality and infant mortality overall
• 11th for postneonatal mortality
• 13th for years of potential life lost (excluding external causes)
• 11th for life expectancy at 1 year for females, 12th for males
• 10th for life expectancy at 15 years for females, 12th for males
• 10th for life expectancy at 40 years for females, 9th for males
• 7th for life expectancy at 65 years for females, 7th for males
• 3rd for life expectancy at 80 years for females, 3rd for males
• 10th for age-adjusted mortality

The quarter million or so victims of doctor caused death only rate as the third highest killer of U.S. citizens. Even though it is four times the rate of car accident and gun death combined, more die from cancer and heart disease. cancer claims about 2.5 million and heart disease claims nearly 2 million more. The stress and tension of living in the "modern world", combined with our toxic environment certainly have their costs, but if you want to pile on as a single issue person, you have every right to pick on guns and autos. Every life is sacred and for my issues, I'm focusing on ones with the biggest impacts. If you want or need assistance understanding herbal healing, finding the right natural foods for you, just give me a ring. I am available for consultation on a sliding fee scale.

It would seem that we have some obligation to teaching and learning the truth about issues that we face daily, however this is not currently the case. Trumped up charges and hearsay seem to win the day more often than not in our current system. The media certainly feels no obligation to speak truthfully or plainly about the issues they "cover". When I studied journalism, we learned the maxim: Who, What, Where, When, Why and How. This went a long way to pre-editing our stories, making sure that the simple things were not overlooked. Now, it is possible to read, hear or see news that has two and sometimes three things from that list missing ,or omissions of the why portion because we are supposed to know already what to feel about the story. It gets even more terrible when you realize that some of those elements in the story are fiction. One of the great lies that are being told to gullible people now is that human-rights protesters that are rallying all around our nation are being paid to stand up for human rights. I'm not sure who benefits from the "Hands-up, Don't Shoot" rallies or the "I Can't Breathe" protests that are sweeping the nation, but this is not a follow the money issue. It is more of a follow the long trail of dead bodies leading to the local police department sort of issue. These are not Anti-police rallies, they are pro human rights rallies. Many "organizers" of these protests are being jailed, so if they were paying people to rally, a simple look into the finances of these "masterminds" would be enough to prove the allegations. However, that would take some time and actually make sense. Leveling the charge is enough to prove to the ignorant that they know enough already. Through millions of tiny assumptions we are led astray from facts that need to be considered if we are to make a path forward into a possible future.

Over fifty percent of black males (20-30 years old) in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin are serving jail time, "on paper" (serving probation or parole) or they are in prison, most for non-violent drug crimes. More on this in a minute. That means that the youth, especially black young people are living without fathers, brothers, uncles and mentors. A generation growing up with half of their male role models. What they have to base their ideas upon is the reality that they are surrounded by, I'm pretty sure that in their situation, you would not have to pay me to get me to put my life on the line for a chance to simply be heard. Now that rich white guys in suits have found ways to make tons of cash from legal pot, the competition has been taken out of the equation for them by stealing the liberty of millions of black men. The entrepreneurial folks who were relatively small-time dealers are put away for decades, but the exact same activity is now sanctioned because the ruling class has found a way to make sure that the profits flow to folks who look just like them. Wasps. (White Anglo Saxon Protestants)

My obligation is to point out these and other facts, sometimes to those who are uncomfortable hearing them. I feel obliged to tell my friends in Russia that the ongoing tensions in Ukraine, the annexation of Crimea and the shooting down of the airliner last summer are perfect examples of how the leadership of your nation flagrantly violates human rights of innocent human beings. Pussy Riot are heroes in my book, as are the Solidarity Singers who are still protesting at the Wisconsin State Capitol. Don't think that I am trying to make any other nation out to be without fault, on the contrary, our nation continues to jail blacks at disproportionate rates and the killings of ,mostly black, innocent people happen here routinely, that is why we protest. Believe me, we're not doing it for the money. I can point out that there have been waves of protests in Russia, but understanding that the police have different tools there than ours do here is an important first step to understanding some of the differences between protesters here and protesters there. Human rights violations know no political boundary, they are based on an old view that some of us are better than others and that the thugs all look, or act a certain way. The acts of detaining, charging, jailing or killing these freedom fighters, these people just trying to be heard, these sacred and innocent individuals who just want love, truth and justice to prevail; painting them with a broad brush of thugs is morally wrong and we are all obliged to stand up against these veiled threats and accusations.  Give Peace a Chance is not just a catchy phrase, whose time has come and gone, it is possibly the only thing that can stop our species from self-destruction.

What is beginning to become clear to everyone is that the oligarchs have hired the best security staff on the planet and outfitted them with weaponry capable of subduing even the largest crowds. Whatever means necessary are routinely utilized to terrorize our own people, whether the final result is that the young child or fetus is going to continue to be made ill by industrial emissions, or that the young mother will continue drinking nitrates from her well, the result is the same. It is an attack on those incapable of fighting back. We routinely see human rights violations, whether they are the result of directly being killed by police or their corporate overlords who may have mistakenly felt threatened or that an extra burden needs to be placed on the rape victim who has to travel to another state for an abortion. That the child who is deemed to be "in need of drugs" by their teachers is just as much a victim of terrorism as the child waved into adult court so the powers that be can revoke any sense of obligation to rehabilitate them. One is made to be afraid of themselves, the other is made to fear others. These protests that we see around the world are pro life, pro liberty, pro human rights. Those who put us against anything are only trying to blame the victims.

If we intend to improve conditions on the ground for our fellow human beings, we must all take a stand for truth, justice and democratic principles. Not capitalistic ideas, not communistic ideas, not even socialist approaches will work if we focus on them exclusively. What we need is a good dose of humanity. We need to evidence this new awareness through action, making better decisions in the future than we have in the past. We need bold new actions in every field of human endeavor. it needs to reflect an ethic, an idea, that human rights are non-negotiable. We are obliged to understand whom it is that we serve and to withdraw our support from those who would wantonly gun us down for standing up for the rights of others to live free and unmolested, even if that means standing up and speaking out against our own inhumane leaders.