My Last Post of the Year

This is especially amusing because a fellow that recently made himself known to me through the internet assured me the "even my calendar is based on the birth of Christ." The actual year, perhaps reflects the belief in a presumed pre-christian period and we do ostensibly "count" the years since his death, but both the actual names of days, which we seem to be much more facile with, the moons (moonths and months) and most ritual "dates"either bear the names of pagan deities or rites and festivals far, far older than the believers in Yahweh. I often talk of those who co-opt the work of others to mask their own complacency or laziness, but since this is the time of year for healing old rifts and patching up what is left of our own vessel for spirit, so that it might weather inevitable storms, I want to include even the complicit, the lazy and the feckless in the possibility for change. I want to write this post, instead, about how the other people, those who honor their own creators, separate and distinct from Yahweh god, have every right to claim their birthright.

Sure, our rites of Spring, our harvest fests, the solstices and equinoxes have been stolen nearly from the face of the Earth. I don't like it when X-tians play the, "My holy book is illegal in over 100 countries" game, or pretend to feel oppressed or that their beliefs are under threat. So, I will not play on the guilt of others by reminding everyone that native ways of virtually all cultures and tribes has been systematically wiped out by the colonizers and missionaries of the same lying god, you know the one, It was Yahweh himself that said that Adam and Eve would "surely die" if they ate of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Instead Adam lived to the ripe old age of 900. A white lie, perhaps and for Adam and Eve's own good I am sure, but a lie nonetheless seems to indicate that having proven himself a liar, that he might lie again. Just sayin'.

We all make mistakes, I am not even going to tell you that my life has been perfect. Don't think that I am being all high and mighty, no, I am humbly submitting my truth for the critique which it deserves. I always ask for comments but rarely find them. i often mention that I could use a bit of green love from my fans and readers, but too often the Paypal site that I link to sits idle, with the same balance. In three more posts, around the middle of January, (named after Janus) I will have 365 posts. Imagine, if you were to have available (which you will in just two weeks or so) one post a day to read for an entire year. What would that be worth? I frequently run a mental puzzle in my mind when considering a purchase. I divide the number by 365, to see if it is worth the expense over the course of a year. Say for instance, a particular item is worth a dime a day? If so, I would pay around $36.50 for it. Is it worth a dollar a day? Then, perhaps $365, etc. I do tend to buy quality, but I still try to amortize my investment over a single year. Depreciation schedules are for corporate outlaws.

I frequently call for revolutionary action, but as my devoted readers will remember, I always remain committed to peace. Those who would use our exploitation by the rich, the ecological catastrophe that passes for an economy, or the abject neglect of our young and old as an excuse to hurt others or destroy infrastructure are most often plants, sent by our overlords to make everyone look bad. Who wouldn't like to paint their opposition with the stench of "rabble". When I speak of revolution, it is most-often a revolution of thought. When we align our identities with a greater picture of what is real and important than the man foists upon us, it liberates us from his servitude. Each of the millions of tree seeds that we have planted has been both received with a blessing and distributed with one, as well as being placed in a niche habitat where it could be the happiest, because conditions were as close to ideal as we could find and also be in places where the benefits of new growth would be the most beneficial. This is revolutionary because most people think that all trees are good to plant everywhere, or that we as humans have the right to plant what we want where we want without regard for the trees themselves. I am not, and will never be that type or kind of landscaper. I plant trees for the forests they will help bring to fruition.

I preach the same sort of religion for the garden and the soil itself, building year on year what has most often been stripped away over the course of decades. I have posted several times this year about bio-char and the amazing benefits that it holds for the environment, but in turn it will help feed billions more people without opening up a single acre of new land. I have a great idea about how to assess what these posts are worth in a very real sense. How much is all the produce in your garden worth each year. My own garden is small, but produces over 365 pounds of food annually. In our local markets, most veggies go from just under a dollar per pound to several dollars per pound. That would mean that my produce has a value of between 300 and 1,000 dollars. If I doubled production, which is very possible by using bio-char, which I have written about extensively. The most important aspect of this material is that it provides homes for organisms that heal the soil and add nutrients to it. A single handful of bio-char has over fourteen acres of surface area. My production has more than doubled in the beds that I have inoculated with bio-char. Doubling production of my garden from between 300 to 1,000 dollars to between 600 and 2,000 dollars worth of produce per year would be a certain value added to my life, something I could "take to the bank" if you will (although I don't encourage anyone to have contact with the vast majority of banking institutions.) This is a good example of how even our colloquial sayings are designed to keep us in servitude and under the thumb of our exploiters.

Heck, even if you only grow a few tomatoes, your savings could be as much as sixty to a hundred dollars per summer on tomatoes alone. I know that many have an infatuation with making their New Year's Resolutions, but this year, let's try to pick things that will make the world the best place we can, healthy, safe and let's all call power and control on the carpet wherever we see it and stamp out the abject waste of time that it is, forever. Let us not tolerate another day of neglect and abuse. Next year, when I write my last post of the year, lets have the world that we received as a birthright from the endless generations of native earth worshipers and pagans that protected the planet and her creatures through centuries and aeons. Deep ecology is revolutionary. I am committing myself to the education of at least one person about the many ways that I have learned to stand up for all that is right and good with the planet and how to live at peace with the cycles of nature.

All this welcomes us to love and experience it. When we become one with all life, it inspires us, gives endless vitality and heals our wounds all for the cost of being taken seriously.

People, profit and the planet are equal players and must support any efforts toward sustainability.

Entropy Vortex

It is becoming painfully clear that there is a dynamic and influential cadre of people in the world that cannot help but destroy all order and sanity around themselves. They destroy infrastructure, or just build it so poorly that it self destructs. They find ways of passing their time that hinder their own progress as well as that of others and they have debilitating attachment to "the way things always were", but that imaginary concept in their own mind is so peculiar and provincial that even believing it ruins any chance of creative action or intelligent thought which is necessary if we are to meet an insurmountable wall of delusion that strangles all life from new approaches to the world around them. This orientation has crippled our understanding about elementary facts and seeks to undermine foundational ideas that could lead to positive change, public support for investing in quality rather than quantity and, in turn leads to myriad abuses of basic physics. The tragedy of the commons was terrible and debilitating when people grazed livestock on communal pastures, but in the modern world the costs are perhaps even more deadly for nature. Effects in our current milieu are just shifted further away in space and time. Instead of leading to eventual starvation and death of a community food supply, our entire culture lies in the balance.

A multimillion dollar upgrade is being undertaken along a section of highway near my home. Traffic has been slowed through the area for several years. One of the biggest overpasses that just recently got finished got run into by an oversize load and is now being dismantled so that it can be rebuilt. After less than a year, the edifice is junk. Even though many extra dollars got spent making the concrete and steel structure pretty, I guess, no one thought it prudent to label the height restriction that it imposed along one of the busiest traffic corridors in the state. Oddly enough, even when the height restrictions are clearly posted, as they used to be on the old overpasses, that were not as pretty, some folks disregard them or do not realize how tall the vehicle they are driving is. I have seen many damaged overpasses in the past, but a new one that has just been built seems particularly expensive to replace. The spiraling out of control that we experience daily seems to be one of the most serious and powerful forces working against change in our culture.

It seems that the shit storm that is preparing to fly is in a swirling chamber, like turds circling the drain. We frequently get glimpses of the other side of the vortex, but the vast majority of the jumble of activity that we brush up against constantly and swirl amongst is obscured by the most proximal or biggest perceived threats in out immediate vicinity. I frequently research and try to understand discreet problems or issues common to many, but spoken of by few. It is my belief that the answers to most of our problems lie in the same course of action. Whether it is the commodification of the water resource or the mushrooming cancer rate, the solutions are the same. I have worked as a Bradley Method Childbirth Educator, a teacher, sign painter, counselor, community educator, silk screen artist, shaman, tree planter, guide and stagehand, however none of those things defined me. I was first a student. Looking for information that may prove useful is my nature and this forum is where I polish the ideas that I have dug up after five decades of paying attention.

I have seen, and occasionally participated in a bit of self-destructive behavior. I'm not proud of it, but I do not regret it either. How else can someone learn about one of the most popular ways that people try to  escape the veil of tears that shrouds much of human experience. Rather than trying to be all gloom and doomy, I just want to state a fact. Especially at this time of year, when many infuse themselves with cookies and candies, give thanks and gifts, pig out on rich foods and make their resolutions, someone needs to be stating the obvious. Our species seems to be the only one on the planet that preoccupies itself with "holy books" and the question of why we are here. Personally, that is why I'm acutely aware of what other organisms tell me by their actions and states of being. Humans seem to have been trained to attempt to get something for nothing, even when they know that the best things in life cannot be extracted, they must be given away to exist at all. The shit that we all hold onto so desperately will always obscure anything that lies beyond it.

Perhaps it is not one bit odd that our culture is so enamored with Biblical "truth", religious thought, or fundamentalist ideals. Who would not want some guidance when the entire planet seems to be filled with threats and dangers, hopelessness and grief and dissolution and regret? The ego is so adept at creating defense mechanisms that we forget to question why. Many do not even realize when they are being part of the problem, it would sting too much and allow doubt to creep into their world view. Just in case you know people who believe in Yahweh god, urge them to get out their Bibles, check our Genesis and give it a close read. Not only will they6 see that the word Elohim is used to describe the gods. Yes, both male and female ones, who created the "other people". Outside the Garden of Eden, there was a whole and intact civilization completely apart from Adam and Eve. When this Yahweh god told Adam that he would surely die as a result of eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge, he outright lied. Adam lived to the ripe old age of 900 years. When even your God is a liar, it must make accepting the entire litany of lies that we are spoon fed the rest of our days just a little bit easier.

Perhaps a story about an interaction that I had with my father-in-law will help to illustrate my point. For nearly a decade we had a running argument about buying quality and investing in things that last. He claimed that without planned obsolescence, the economy would crash. The way he put it, if consumer goods lasted twice as long, businesses would fail because they would have nothing (technically half as much) to do. Sales, in the scenario that he envisioned would slowly fall off and at some point would not make further production lucrative. My argument was that if indeed we were able to flood the market with products that would last a lifetime, and demand fell off because of it, we could turn our creativity and productive capacity to other much-needed products. Our discussions along these lines came to a head one week when his car, a luxury one that he claimed to be extremely well-built, the microwave, refrigerator, vacume cleaner and humidifier all went bunk. During our discussions about this issue, I frequently spoke of planned obsolescence as a sort of reverse lottery, one which participants could only lose. After pointing out the fact that the week of break-downs was the result of consumer goods being designed to wear out and fail to work, he began to understand the value of buying quality rather than nearly always buying based on price.

It is funny how one can hold such strong opinions, but act contrary to them in some cases. His luxury car for instance was consciously purchased as a way to show off his wealth and status. Lots of people would see it and he wanted the peace of mind that can come from buying quality. He delighted in placing notes under my windshield wipers that looked as if a passerby thought my car was junk and needed to be towed away for scrap. He always wanted to buy new cars, or ones that were just a few years old, that would show off his success. Mine, on the other hand, were frequently over a decade old and both fuel efficient and rarely, if ever in the shop. My current vehicle is sporting a few rust spots, it would never be mistaken for a luxury car and has been scratched and dented by hundreds of trips to the wilderness. One night a thirty foot long piece of tree fell on the fender, dimpling it and the roof has been scratched by countless canoe scrapes, but it still gets fifty miles to the gallon (saving more than two thirds of the fuel bill per mile that Dad paid) and gets me where I need to go. If I had to show off, there would be many more cost-effective ways to do it. Of course, no car will last forever, but mine is over 260K and going strong. It also cost less than half of what each of Dad's last three did.

If we can learn to ask better questions, like what is right, what is best and what is good, we may find that we can see through the lies that have been foisted upon us by powerful economic interests, religious leaders and the educational system. I strongly believe that surviving the coming shit storm requires cutting through the swirling crap that surrounds us daily, caring for our selves and our loved-ones in ways that do not require mindless consumerism and getting tot he bottom oft he question, Does this make sense?

Long Night Moon Request

It is common for not-for-profit organizations to ask for funds at the end of the year. The organization the we feel most strongly about is the one we founded decades ago, ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. We are a local group that plants native trees, creates bio-char, teaches permaculture and gives tours that grapple with the issues surrounding making sustainability possible within the context of not only our daily lives , but across the ages. When we started, it took over six years to plant our first six thousand trees. The second six thousand trees took less than three years to plant and as of this coming summer, we will be averaging an annual rate of planting that is over one million tree seeds per year, plus seedlings and a few larger trees as well. We are tired of hearing about organizations that spend a tiny fraction of their funds on program and good works, so all of our labor, planning and administration are done as a labor of love, the ultimate donation to the cause. We only spend money on trees, dirt to plant them in and the few tools and materials that we need to plant and protect them.

As I have written about bio-char recently, let me just mention that our bio-char experiments and soil enhancement with the products of our work in this area are extremely promising. We are designing a retort big enough to be used as a bio-char oven that will use the biogas driven off the feedstock to heat our headquarters. The first time that I held a handful of this agricultural "black gold" and understood that I was holding enough carbon matrix that it had fourteen acres of surface area, ripe for in-habitation by billions of organisms, it truly transformed the way I saw my place in the ecosphere. Eco-Tours is devoted to bringing these sorts of transformational experiences to all of our guests, encouraging them to see solutions to global catastrophes that are evident all around us.

There is no end to the creativity and innovation that we have had along our way and as we develop, the next phase is promising to be as powerfully filled with change as our first decade. When we were just a group of friends, spending a thousand dollars per year, it was difficult to imagine reforesting even our first few acres, but we did that, year upon year, seedling by seedling, where now trees taller than houses stand. Typically, we mention, at this point,all the wonderful benefits of tree cover. In addition to fixing carbon, trees help to stabilize soil moisture, shading the surface of the planet from direct sun, slowing the drying winds and absorbing some of the snow melt before it runs off to the local streams and rivers. Beside ameliorating floods and drought, the vast majority of trees that we have planted provide food, cover, homes and raw materials for birds and mammals. People enjoy the aesthetic benefits that trees provide and a portion of the trees we have planted close to where people live, continue to provide protection from harsh winter winds and excessive summer heat, because of the shade that they cast.

Use our Paypal link to donate, or make a contribution by snail-mail at ECO-Tours of Wisconsin Inc. 1445 Porlier street Green Bay, Wisconsin 54301 If you would like to set up a recurring donation, or schedule a personalized ECO-Tour just for you or your group, please contact us directly (920)884-2224. Blessed Be and namaste'.

The Other People

I recently received a Pathfinder press publication. "The Other People." The title and cover looked as if it could have been any other tract, most recently seen being shared by folks on a mission. I'm not sure what your part of the world is like, but in my neighborhood there are between six and ten people each year who go door-to-door trying to convert people to their way of thinking about religion. My own personal gods and goddesses do not need anyone to "believe" in them and I would certainly never attempt to convert people to a specific way of thinking about them. Within the past few moons, I saw an excellent representation about the way religious beliefs are foisted upon native populations and I will try to do it justice. A missionary priest and a native American were the subject of the meme, but it could be any two people who represent religious authority and the unconverted. The native person asked, "Let me see if I have this straight, before I knew about your God, I was like the animals and was guaranteed a place with Creator, in heaven?"
The priest replied, "Yes."
Then the native person thought about it for a moment and asked, "Why did you tell me?"
This has to be the best way of understanding what religions, of all types do to us. A friend, who was a builder, once told me that he moved to Wisconsin because our building permits are prescriptive, not descriptive. It explains what is required as far as strength and functionality, but leaves specific methods and materials that must be used to get to that standard up to the builder. This is the way I feel about religion and I, for one, am extremely tired of being told that one flavor of religion is better than another.

In the pamphlet, available through Pathfinder Press Publications, the concept of pagan beliefs is actually explained in terms that Bible-thumpers would understand. The salient point in my understanding of the document is that in the biblical text, the term Elohim is used in Genesis, which refers to gods (the plural form). This post is  bit out of character for me, as regular readers might notice, but allowing ourselves to go beyond our own limitations in thought, ideation and belief is essential to developing a more whole understanding of the landscape, the territory and in the redrawing of mental maps that help us to function day in and day out.
Those who feel the need to base their world-view on the plagiarized text of what we now call the Bible might broaden their ideas about their "God" if they understood that he was just one of many...the Bible says so itself. In Genesis, no matter what was said later, the other people, created by other gods and goddesses existed concurrently with the garden of Eden and these other people bred with those made by the God that gets virtually all of the attention of Christians in modern times.

I would like to spread the information in this pamphlet world-wide. It is essential to getting the missionaries to understand that what they are trying to foist upon the masses is tainted with an insidious kind of prejudice. If you would like samples and a bulk price list for the publication, send three dollars to Pathfinder Press Publications Box 57 Index, WA 98256 USA. Their telephone number is (360) 793-1945. Keep in mind that the whole act of missionaries is to spread their version of "the word" and to convert (thereby "saving" as many souls and I certainly would not encourage anyone acting in that way. To my own sensibilities, this is extremely distasteful. Although, when someone attempts to change your mind about your core beliefs, it can be very helpful  liberating to tell them, in ways that they have a possibility of understanding that your beliefs are different, valid and based on the truth as you see it.

A recent pair of missionary women came to my door just a week or two before I heard of this particular pamphlet and one of the women actually laughed when I said that our home is pagan. I certainly do not begrudge her whatever she chooses to believe in, as long as it victimizes no one, hurts no one or causes no harm to either herself or the environment she lives within, but I do not condone or abide this blatant assault on what I believe either. Her God may be fiction, or at least part of a plagiarized pantheon and mine are also based on hearsay and stories that she may not have heard yet. I grant everyone the right top believe whatever fiction they choose, but we do not get to choose our truth. To gain the respect of one another, we must first learn to respect our own selves, my gods and goddesses have helped me to do that. My beliefs are not contingent on sharing them with others and I do not seek to convert a single person to my way of thinking. I, and many of the other people have a long intact relationship with our many and varied deities. Perhaps just reading this tract will help some to start a process of learning about our truths, our understandings and our beliefs. It is time to let those who would "convert" us know that we have an intact pantheon that serves us well.

Whether your "thing" is along the lines of Earth, Air, Fire, Water and Spirit, or if it includes place, the planet and the creatures who share their wisdom with us abundantly, I have no question that it will allow you access to the infinite. If you choose to liberate your mind through contemplation, reading the Koans of Zen, or the proverbs, I have no preference. What I cannot abide is people telling me that my own belief system relegates me to an eternity in "hell". My life is extremely full, infinitely happier than if I feared life without a "Lord and Master" or concerned myself with saving the souls of others, especially if a;ll I had ever been told about them had been lies. I have been told by those who "believe" in the "word of god", as it appears in the Bible all kinds of horrible things about my life and character. None of which, by the way, were true. The lechery and larceny, fear and hate that supposedly lie within my heart are simple not there. Who would know better than I? Presumably, at least from my perspective, what I have seen in my own experience have been a lot of fearful people walking around believing that they are inherently evil or under the influence of a malevolent force that they call "the devil" and that the only way to drive "his" spirit out is with the light of a "lord". In the world view of the other people, there is no devil. Although darkness is an actual fact of nature, it is not as much a person as a state of being.

I don't speak for all the other people, but in my own world view, we have a choice each and every moment to life either in the abundance of the gods, reveling in their gifts, or to focus on fear, hate and isolation brought on by denying native values that are based on a living pantheon, family, friends, the environment and all the creatures and forces which we interact with on a moment by moment basis. I have felt the energy fields surrounding folks of many different beliefs. I just say that on the whole, I prefer the other people.

Hope

Indulge me. Will you? Yeah, I may be repeating myself, but this time of year, the veil went thin and many spirits walked both ways across it. Pandora, when she opened her box, unleashed all manner of woes, malevolence and ills, but inexorably, crouched, beleaguered and harassed, trying to hide out in the deepest corner of the box, hope needed to be coaxed into the world as well. It is well to remember the least among us, especially at this time of year. It seems that the focus of our attention normally flows to the great thinkers, the great doers and the most powerful forces amongst us. One need only look to all the tabloids about rock and movie stars, political leaders and the gods of sport to see this in practice. Yet, as we enter the dark times, it is well to remember the little guys and gals, the weak and dislocated. For many of us, we have been trained to look away, or past those we deem to be less than, or undeserving of even our attention, but remembering the story of hope, crouched in the deepest recesses of Pandora's box can go a long way to restoring our humanity.

Another tale that relates to this time of year is that of Persephone. Each year, Persephone must retreat into the Earth and consort with the Lord of the underworld before her eventual rebirth in Spring. I always have included eating some pomegranates in my fall rites. Even before I knew her story, I knew that these exquisite fruits held more than tasty goodness. Later, I found reason to love them because of the stories that include them. Not only do they represent a link, between our world and the underworld, they are integral to our physical and psychic health. With the thinning of the veil and long cold nights, we must re-orient ourselves to a changed reality. Research confirms that when we spend more time indoors and consequently rub shoulders and touch more surfaces that others are touching as well, the need for anti-oxidants and immune support increases as well. This tasty food has been dubbed one of the super-foods and now, in the developed world, it is getting hard to swing a cat without hitting something with Pomegranate in it. The "galleries" of tightly packed seed containing morsels are always defined at the edges by a thin veil, much like the history of our ancestors. Each layer we peel away reveal more deliciousness, but also, as we eat the seeds, we are spelling the demise of possibility.

In our lives, we make thousands of decisions each day. The suffix of this word is shared by incision, excision, precision and derision. Each one is part of the same sort of process. Cleaving the world into two parts, what can be, or better still, what remains and what is cut away. Worthy or unworthy, diseased or healthy, right or wrong. Each and every decision eliminates the possibility of any other choice being made. Literally cutting it off. This is true down to the very smallest level, or most minute detail of our lives. Whether we set out with a left foot or a right foot, for example, determines our stride and once initiated, there is no taking back that initial choice. What we choose to attend to and what we choose to ignore is one of these decision points and for many of us, we try not to take on too many new ideas lest we become un-moored from the safe harbor that we have decided to live our lives within. Some have gone so far as to heave their tired old hulls up into dry dock and are convinced that, or feel safer when they decide that, the world around them is unchanging, harsh and full of greed and deception, making them safer on land. I write for those who have heard the calling of the sea, those who know in their bones that the fair weather sailor misses more than half the fun, those who are willing to suspend both judgement and choice long enough to let things unfold, appreciating new possibility and who have the discipline to reserve the knife that cleaves for times when it truly matters.

Our entire apparatus is designed for decision-making, however, we forget that it is just that, a tool. The best mechanics or carpenters have perhaps a hundred tools at their disposal, but if they use them all, all the time, they are not very good tradespeople. If they only use their favorite three, again, they will not be very adept at their craft. The best technicians know that for each discreet part of the process, a different tool may be required, and that to have the discipline to leave the unnecessary tools in their box is part of doing a great job, rather than just a good one. If we preoccupy ourselves with good and bad, light and dark, right and wrong, sweet and sour, salty and bitter, happy and sad, etc. We may overlook the fact that the ocean of life around us is breathing. The seas though tumultuous are calling to us and that our true calling lies beyond all of these discreet definitions and even beyond the data that we are collecting about what is real and what is not.

Hope nearly perished under the fury within Pandora's box, but we can all be extremely thankful that she took the time to coax it out and nurture it into the world. Some things take time. I don't want to overlook the fact that on occasion, when we are out there, experiencing the tumult, making a split second decision is often necessary, like falling off the wind before we luff into irons or sheeting in just before a puff, weighing anchor before it gets too shallow or letting a line run rather than holding firm, causing the boat to capsize. split second decisions are essential in cases like these but in many of our lives, reserving judgement and waiting to lop off possibility can be an important first step that leads us along a more profound path. My greatest hope is that we can all take a half step, or perhaps a few steps, see our actual position with a clearer perspective and re-evaluate some of the choices we are making, as individuals, as a collective and as a society.

When the veil thins, we can cross it in both directions, almost without noticing the boundary that is firmly in place for the rest of the year. This year, being no different than any other, I have lost a few good friends, a few loved ones who have crossed over to the other side. What I have not lost is the wisdom that they shared with me. One day, I will join them, but for now I will stay behind and try to help others make sense of the world, learn to see more clearly what is at stake and reserve judgement long enough to know that whatever decisions I make will have the power to outlive me. With awareness, discipline and courage I hope to make the best decisions possible for the generations that come after me. It has been a mere six weeks or so since the Day of the Dead. The next six weeks or so will be a slow closing of the portal to the other world. It is well to remember all the good things that we have received from our ancestors, to spend as much time as possible with the ones we love and to set our sails to new winds that are blowing across the planet. Time is short, but our guides are strong. We are built for sailing, but even in calm, we are designed to float.

Elizabeth Warren

If the Democrats hope to retain the White House, to ever have a chance at regaining control of the House of Representatives, or to keep their majority in the Senate, backing this woman up, not tearing her down is the only way forward. She has the audacity to speak truth in the halls of government that have become tragically accustomed to lies. She speaks plainly about issues that the public has been led to believe are convoluted and she is intelligent enough to know that her job is to represent real people, not their corporate overlords. She is a ray of hope and a laser beam of light in an otherwise dark and brutal political realm that, in our country, is desperately trying to remain out of sight and off the radar. If we are to "save" democracy and make the rest of the world "safe" for it as well, we must first come to terms with the fact that the current system has strangled the life out of basic tenets that we claim to believe in.

To get to know a person, it helps to know a bit about their history.

Vilifying the presenter of rock solid evidence of corruption has become par for the course in American politics. As if we were afraid to have anyone tell us that the emperor wears no clothes, we turn a blind eye to the shenanigans that take place on Capitol Hill and the beneficiaries of our ignorance prefer to be left alone to do so. Liz has called out the folks who exhibit bad behavior, identified the forces that are crushing democracy and made eloquent pleas for the removal of "special protections" for the corporate criminals that fund the majority of campaigns these days. If the inherent power (people power) that the Democrats wielded in the past is to have a hope of returning to Washington D. C. and sweeping the nation, it will be under the leadership of progressive voices that seek to change both the power structure of national politics and in the state capitol buildings across our nation. This has the power to redefine the relationships between the makers and takers across our nation.

Most often we hear the fallacious use of these two terms, so for the sake of truth I will repeat myself on this critical issue. The makers are those who get dirty, input the data, serve customers, come to work on time every day, create things, maintain the machinery of business and industry and provide their lives to the workplace as tools for the takers to make their fortunes. The makers have been the victims of trickle down economics, the "moral majority", the elites behind ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and all of the "free trade" agreements that have been devised so far. Ms. Warren has educated herself about the dangers of allowing the takers to keep us in servitude for their own benefit.

In my state, we are on the cusp of voting out our most hideous Governor in decades, perhaps ever, but the replacement who is being touted thus far is another suspect in the corporate boondoggle. Her corporate ties are with a company who led the state down the road to outsourcing as much labor as possible to create the greatest wealth for those who made economic decisions based on their own well being only. Exporting thousands of jobs to China may have helped her amass millions, but that cannot offset the damage done to the job prospects for people in this area. I can empathize, truly, if someone told me that I could either make ten dollars on a bicycle or a hundred, I would prefer to get the hundred, but for me, the social, political and ecological costs of displacing workers in my neighborhood, extracting my wealth from the suffering of my neighbors and relying on the subsidization of energy, transportation and figuring in my fair share of the brown cloud that hangs over China could not be obscured by money.

Perhaps there is a bit of logic in the idea that a "self-made" millionaire will not be as beholden to the uberwealthy as a struggling middle class fool (like we have in office now), however I for one am unwilling to take that chance. The best indicator of future behavior is past practice and no matter how good the wealth makes people look when they are on display, the ugly side is rarely captured by the cameras. Taking millions out of a company that welds metal into bicycles while simultaneously paying pennies per hour for someone half way around the globe to do your dirty work is becoming offensive to more and more people. I posit that the majority, when informed about the truth, the stakes of the political game and the depth of our exploitation by the billionaires will come down of the side of the Elizabeth Warrens of the world and if we are to turn the ship of state away from the looming iceberg that we are steaming top speed toward, it will take hundreds, perhaps thousands of people like her to speak truth to power. simultaneously and with one voice.

Confronting Ignorance

It often seem a daunting task to grapple with the ignorance that has seemingly been bred into our race by our slave masters. Frequently, we forget that the wealth of our masters is unimaginable. Yesterday, President Obama called the wealth divide the most important issue confronting our world today. The news presented this just once, but the White House dog tipping over a guest at the tree trimming party there was shown repeatedly. Not the climate change issue, not the woefully lacking educational system, not the unbalancing of our food system, the poisoning of our food, water, soil and air, not even the income disparity between the ultra-wealthy and the rest of us. We have devolved to the point that a cute puppy incident outranks the most threatening and critical problem confronting the world today.

The wage gap between the ultra wealthy and the rest of us is the biggest threat to civil society. This message is finally gaining traction, partly because of the occupy movement, partly because of the worldwide unrest that it is fomenting. Today, we are having a series of strikes against fast food restaurants (sic) where purveyors of corporate non-food products are cleaning up, while simultaneously making us the sickest nation on earth, using wage slaves in the most exploitative fashion. More and more information is surfacing about the true costs of these fast-food and Wal-mart type stores that results from their low-wage leadership. The people working at these places are making such low wages that they still qualify for welfare payments. These "benefits" cost us all. Still, three of the wealthiest people in our country are the beneficiaries of the Wal-mart empire. Calling these folks slave masters is actually a misnomer, because actual slave owners had a vested interest in keeping their property healthy, sheltered and well-fed enough to be useful.

There are millions of people who are content to listen to the rhetoric of our slave masters. Billions of dollars each year flow into the lies they want us to believe. If we begin to understand the stranglehold on the economy that these people wield, or their infatuation with destroying the environment, how their spare change gets funneled into think tanks that produce official looking reports saying the exact opposite. We have proof positive that the behavior of oil barons has killed off a giant patch of the Gulf of Mexico, they can afford to pull just the right strings to get further research stopped, creating an exclusion zone for research vessels. If we don't look, it has never been proven that problems go away, but like a giant game of peek-a-boo, they use the media to tell the public that there is no problem, keep the truth from leaking out and fund their own "research" that implies their benevolence. If we could only get the industry to keep their oil from leaking out, as effectively as they can contain the truth, we would be okay. Time and time again actions prove that we are dealing with people without a conscience, but when their suits are more expensive than those of the elected representatives that they deal with routinely, it is no curiosity who the millionaires are trying to emulate. In the general population, millionaires are less than five percent of the population. In Congress, they are fifty percent. Long gone are the days that a senate seat or any position of power cost under one million dollars to secure. Even in remote and poverty stricken areas, there are billionaire dollars just itching to flow into filling the seats of power by buying the representatives of that district.

This week I had a long back and forth with a person who claimed, amongst other things, that our calendar was somehow based on Jesus' life. I suppose that the fact that it is called the Julian calendar confused him, but in fact, the Emperor Julius Cesare was indeed a pagan. How these lies are spawned will always remain a mystery, but it seems that the inherent state of human beings is to go along, even when they are being lied to, led down a primrose path and enslaved by those who would have them do their bidding for them. I choose a different route. My neighbor has both a t-shirt and a cover for his Bible that states that the "book within", the Bible is illegal in 160 countries. I asked him for a document that would support that claim and for over two years, I have waited in vain for a response. This is the same guy who told me definitively that his children were not, would never and should not be accused of throwing stones from along side my house into the street. I made sure to confront him and his children in the light of day, just as they were getting ready to go to church. In his son's defense, the child copped to the offense and for that I give him credit. The telling of lies is a learned behavior and so must be the believing in them. Finding and telling the truth liberated not only our souls, but frees us from exploitation as well.

Calling people out on their false beliefs and calling into question the lies that they have been fed is critical in our struggle toward a more humane and equitable culture. Whether we devolve into a planet of serfs, abusing one another whilst the wealthy play us like a fiddle, or we grow up and wrest power from those who care not one whit about us or our quality of life will determine whether or not our species survives. The time has come to make up our minds based on sound facts and share our research with others, not allowing others to feed us convenient lies, leaving us to rely on what others have been paid to tell us. I have been trained as an educator and had to walk away from my passion, because the training that I received was more about the three step process of: Telling the students what you were going to teach them; teach them; then, tell them what you taught them, and less about teaching them how to think for themselves. These two processes are at odds with one another. The first trains mindless automatons who will learn whatever lies you seek to teach them. This method is great for creating factory workers and wage slaves.  The second method, the one I choose,  trains people to develop a mind of their own and to value facts based on who is telling them to you, to seek out and find corroborating information or learn to deal with the fact that sometimes there is good reason that you are being lied to. developing the skills to know the difference. What the educational system fails miserably at is helping children and young adults to take the necessary steps of confronting ignorance, presenting evidence, being helpful to those who do not understand, being compassionate with them and demanding in a caring way,  that the truth be told, understood and integrated. If we are to have hope for the future, we must all begin to learn these important steps, not just so we can confront ignorance, but so that we can tear down the lies that we are being told that seek to keep us from rebellion.

JFK Fifty Years Since Passing (SOS form Texas)

It is sad to say that fifty years hence, many of the same conditions exist that JFK was committed to setting right. He wanted us to be a leader in the world, on the side of liberty and freedom. He wanted us to use our great might to achieve things that could barely be imagined and to further the ideals of science and humanity beyond the limits of thinking at the time. Using the Peace Corps to reach out a hand to the developing world, turning our police powers to weeding our graft and corruption in our own country and reigning in the military industrial complex were all part of the visionary beliefs and ideals of this one man. The vast majority of people in the United States of America believed in the same things, in the idea that we could be a leader amongst other countries around the globe and that something about us uniquely suited us to be the living example for others to emulate.

As we are seeing during the Presidency of Barack Obama, one man and his beliefs can never be enough to change our nation in any substantive way, especially if his intent is to make the country better. It seems that when one man wants to liberate capital and allow more and more of it to flow into the hands of the few, great strides can be made when one man has the bully pulpit, but when the same office is held by someone who wants to do the right thing, it becomes much more difficult to make progress in any real way. Whether or not the majority are with him, the one percent have just enough agents pleading their case to assure inaction. The withering of democracy has been planned and executed by a select group of people for decades. Now the fruits of this ancient political system have been collected by the richest and most powerful for so long that they have become addicted to their wealth and drunk with the power and prestige of it.

There may be no way to silence the conspiracy theorists, but that is not my intention here. What I would like to convey is the plausible possibility that sheer ineptness, laziness and stupidity often lead to far greater problems than could ever be maliciously planned. The last week or two has been spent rehashing the single bullet and the single shooter theory of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy but for myself I would prefer that we commemorate his life rather than his death. In the fashion of our current political climate and world view, the end is often more important than the process. JFK was perhaps wrongly portrayed as a figure of action. Even though he was sickly and somewhat frail, the images that were captured of him relayed a youthful vigor and as we have seen in other areas, what we believe is often more important than what is real. The worldwide love affair that people had with this President is in evidence on this fifty year anniversary, but what we loved could not be killed. He told us straight out that we could achieve greatness, but that we were responsible for that greatness. "Ask not what your country can do for you, rather ask what you can do for your country." still holds the power to transform our lives and those of the people living in the rest of the world, but aside from the current commander in chief, there are few who would be willing to utter those fateful syllables.

It would be tidy if we could point to organized crime, the Russian government or Castro as the puppet masters behind Lee Harvey Oswald's attack, but we cannot. It would be clearly resolved if we could link Jack Ruby, Oswald's killer, to someone who would have benefited from silencing Oswald or the President but we cannot. In the global depression that followed the assassination, we would have grasped at any straw to give the tragedy meaning. Some things just don't make sense. As we looked back this week, there seemed to be no meaning other than that we all felt a bit of our humanity die that day. The real meaning of Kennedy's life was what went unrealized. He was, perhaps, one of the most conservative Democrats to ever hold the office of President, but that gave him much greater respect amongst the party that was out of power. In those days, there was far less intransigence and ideological fervor in the halls of Washington politics. The representatives and senators, of his time, were brought up on a steady diet of compromise and statesmanship. today, an intellectual humanitarian would be shouted down and branded "socialist" (as if that meant they were unamerican). If JFK had been allowed to fulfill his term in office, many of our current problems may not have come to pass. Many of the changes that we desperately need and are still waiting to take place may have been dealt with in a more timely fashion and the terms of debate could have been forever changed.

It is a luxury to believe in the conspiracy theories, to think that those who felt most threatened by him and his administration would save themselves the hassle of dealing with issues that would reign in their power. Alas, it is a hard sell in terms of the availability of data, confessions, detailed lines of evidence and logical tie-ins that make sense. What matters most is where we go from here. In spite of the fact that we lost one of our greatest leaders, we are indeed a people, a nation and we had formerly been a nation of consequence. Rather than just a collection of banksters and billionaires who crash the world economy for their benefit, we are also a nation of compassionate individuals who have been lied to and misguided for decades. What we do know is that we are pretty much in free fall relative to the rest of the world. for one thing, China, France, Spain, Germany, Italy and Japan have made investments in high speed rail while we languish without it. another area in which we are failing is our educational and intellectual prowess. The very quality of our children is being degraded, their curiosity and adaptability, their entire love for learning is being stripped away and it is in evidence by the fact that more and more countries out perform us. The economic interests of the few have strangled our recovery as other parts of the world have begun to rebuild their economic interests in a more equitable way. The nation that JFK would have helped build is still possible, but without a charismatic leader at the helm and a cooperative stance being taken by congress, no change is possible.

A favorite saying that has come from the progressives over the years is that if the people lead, our leaders will eventually follow. What we need most is to get over our fears and begin acting like the planet and one another mattered. The greatest legacy that we are struggling with today is the killing off of our leaders when we were still able to envision what we wanted our nation to become. has had a difficult timeWhen JFK went to Texas, there were those who were committed to being the best, in spite of the clamor of well-funded interests that were destroying our nation for their profit margin.  SOS form Texas  has had a difficult time staying true to their ideals, but they survive because their morals and ethics align with the belief that there are things worth standing up for, reasons to be proud of doing the right thing and it is with happy heart that I offer this link to their organic cotton clothing line. i don't include this information to be another rude SOB, trying to get your money on this Black Friday shopping day, but rather as a friend of the air, the water and the entire biosphere. These folks offer a way forward no matter how difficult the path. When our world begins to crash down around us, as it did after JFK's demise, it is well to remember that we are not left to fight on our own. There is a massive cadre of people around the planet who are attempting to set things right. I honor that light within you! Blessed Be.

Changing Time

When I used to write songs, changing time was as simple as introducing a new time signature. When we had babies, it was as simple as making sure that there were enough cloth diapers clean and on hand, warming a washcloth and doing the ages old deed. If we remained diligent and aware, for the most part, it took a few minutes tops. When it comes time to get ready for a night on the town, as most men know, it only involves throwing on a new shirt, or perhaps changing pants and shirt if it was a particularly work-filled day. In the time it takes to blink, or eat a sandwich, life can change forever. Not just the mood, purpose or attitude we have toward it, but the whole of our existence. Just ask those who recently went through the destruction of the more and more frequent natural disasters. As fast as our world can be ripped asunder, it can rise up, out of an ash cloud and head for the stars. Changes are coming, but without our paying attention, and responding appropriately, we may miss the chance to make those changes with grace.



It has been a long time coming, but the new time signature of our lives will either take place with us all becoming fully aware, simultaneously, or with great dislocation and strife. We are the ultimate decision-makers that will have make up our minds about whether this will be a smooth transition or a more wrenching one. Like a tight group of players, we can make the change simultaneously and with fluidity, or we can clash, each making our own way through a fog of dissonance.


Some may not realize what just is taking place. With luck the majority will. If we can manage to jump time with awareness and grace, it will sound like a chord change accomplished by consummate musicians, if it happens the other way, the traumatic crash and painful dislocation will be heard around the planet. I have written about the coming of the age of Aquarius a time or two, but this is actually a date certain that is still about 150 years away. Like the full moon, which appears to last a few days, the dawning of this new age, which lasts 2600 years or so may take a few hundred years to"dawn". The flower children or Rainbows may have been the first wave, but as so often happens, what they actually were was quite different than what the powerful told us. Many of us (the current change agents) feel like aliens amongst human-kind, but for good reason. We are the first of several generations that will be needed to make the shift to the age of the water bearers.

A groundswell is taking place at this time. Native people from around the world are standing up to demand an end to their oppression and the violent extractions of "resources" that is and has been taking place. In my day, I found it better to speak of the resource base in terms of gifts. The gods and goddesses have smiled on us, in infinite and varied ways. Like finding a salt lick in the forest, each element and mineral has areas that hold concentrations of potential wealth or sustenance and in some cases profitability, but the way we often approach resource use is to believe that they (the resources/gifts) are solely placed in the landscape for our use. Native beliefs recognize the fact that the value of most resources are far more than their commercial value under a scheme of exploitation. The frackers are rushing headlong down the path of diminishing returns and will eventually deplete resources that they have yet to consider. Nothing will ever grow on their gravel pads and the areas around them will be affected for centuries, perhaps millennea. The same is being done by diamond miners, gold seekers, foresters, most agricultural corporations and those who extract and exploit every gift that has been bestowed upon us, attempting to convert it to wealth, power and prestige.

In the time it takes to read this sentence, the parameters that we once had assumed can be changed to include a new perspective. Again, if we all change together, we will be able to do it harmoniously. Failing that, there will be mass dislocation, strife and discord. In the future, we will have to honor the sanctity of the food shed, our trophic level, other beings we share the planet with, the cycle of water, of nutrients, of toxic chemicals in the environment and the energy cycles inherent in all life. If we continue to tell one another that wealth and greed are our inalienable rights, we will remain out of step with the planet and continue to defend the untenable position of extraction and oppression that has torn the ecological fabric of life on Earth asunder.

If We Had Only Been Paying Attention

The past thirty years have been a whirlwind of attacks by a very small group of people on the modern world as  a whole. If we look into the places we get most of our information from, the sources are, and have been, concentrating in nearly unfathomable ways.In the U.S. of A. over five hundred news services employed tens of thousands of reporters just two decades ago, many with foreign branches and each had a unique editorial slant or perspective on world events. Now, we are down to just three sources encapsulating 99% of all the news we get. Gone are many of the inquiring minds that used to find news in the making or researching topics of interest to us all. About the time that the religious right, compassionate conservatism and the proponents of trickle down economics took hold of our collective imagination, the rate of concentration of power in our media took hold as well. Never mind the fact that none of these ideas were based on truth, forget that they were ideas foisted upon our consciousness by power hungry individuals who were bent on amassing ever greater wealth, power and prestige. What has stolen the day has been a litany of lies and half-truths that would have been questioned and researched by an intact fourth estate.

These minority voices told us that teachers were overpaid, that condoms created teen pregnancy and that the road to ruin was paved with dollars spent on anti-poverty programs. These same powerful interests told the American public that government needed to be run like a business and that we are the most over-taxed people on the planet. They told us that through more testing, we could teach our children more effectively and that a one-size-fits-all approach top education would be adequate and cost effective. What the media neglected to tell us was that these ideas were created by their sole beneficiaries, the uber-wealthy. Creating a race of unquestioning automatons has been the dream of those winning the class war for decades and they seem to be getting their way in a very real sense.

By framing every issue as a two-sided affair, eliciting vehement hatred from the extremes on both sides and narrowing the discussion to either pro or con, we are left with only an either or choice of polar opposites. Either we are labelled as socialists (which has supplanted the old term "communist" in public discourse) or patriots, even though the far right has produced far more domestic terrorists, secessionists, anarchists and advocates of sedition than the political left ever did. We are left thinking that if we are compassionate or thoughtful about any issue, we are being taken in by those who are part of the problem and that the nanny state only allows incompetence and irresponsibility to flourish. In practice, the majority of vehicle commercials tell us that more torque and power are necessary, that twenty miles per gallon is "best in class" and that ram tough is necessary to get through ever more mild winters. We are told that the stock market is the best way to make quick money, even though it is just a gambling house built on a massive confidence game, run by the ultra-wealthy.

The coming crash will make the one six years ago seem like a fight in the sandbox by comparison. The irony is that the folks who have the biggest share of the pie will be the best insulated from any downturn. Downsizing from a sixty million dollar yacht to a six million dollar one won't be nearly as difficult as waking up and finding that your entire life's work will not allow us to retire. We have always been wage slaves and as more and more of us comer to terms with what that really means, investing in business as usual becomes less and less appealing. My fifty mile per gallon vehicle has sat idle for over a month because I have found ways to carpool and not burn an ounce of diesel fuel, vehicle share when errands need to be run and get around in other ways. The sharing economy is growing exponentially as people realize that the consumer culture that many of us have come to desire leads only to a dead end of exploitation and oppression. How many bass boats are actually required? Rather than everyone owning their own, having a few rental boats at each good fishin' hole is more than enough. The avoided costs that accrue by not having to transport all those boats, buy the giant gas guzzling trucks, storage and maintainence fees, in just a few years, would offset any costs. But learning to live within new limits comes at the cost of a very steep learning curve.

Almost everything we have come to believe, accepted as true, based our choices and decisions upon, need to be questioned, researched and looked at in light of the fact that the true nanny state has been created by the winners of the class war, foisting lies upon us for generations. When I was in college, learning to be a teacher, the brightest students learned and understood that any test, no matter how well it is developed, can only teach us what we already know. By design, they are limited and cannot ever teach us anything. The act, science and art of teaching lies in being able to stretch an individual's imagination, spread information amongst more minds and allow individuals to grasp information is a variety of ways, so that the largest number of students will be able to integrate that information. Tests are a completely different animal, they attempt to get those individual minds to line up, snap to and regurgitate specific discreet elements in a specific order and fashion. This can never prove proficiency or evidence integration of ideas that lead the subjects to be able to think or comprehend anything. The true proof of good teachers has always been, and will remain, the spark of recognition that occurs when students learn. Nothing on paper can prove competence, diligence or the ability to integrate new information. Any test that claims to do these things is being sold on false pretenses.

There has been a systematic push toward "common core" in education for the very reasons stated above. Even the news programs are lying about how and why the guidelines for common core were developed and by whom, so that we will allow them to further degrade education, determining the future in ghastly and unimaginable ways. A good case in point is that when I went to school in different states, they taught biology in different grades, so that I got two years of chemistry when I was supposed to get one of biology and one of chemistry. That did not prevent me from learning to sequence DNA when I got to college. If anything it made me avoid exposure to certain hazardous chemicals like formaldeheyde in favor of other toxic chemicals that were present in the chem labs. I did have to learn about Jacob Mendel and genetics on my own, but that did not handicap me in my ability to function in society. The one thing I was grateful for is that the whole idea of eugenics, which might have enamored me when I was young, was not part of my world view until I began to make choices about spreading my own genetic information.

There has been a push recently toward confusing freedom with choice. Having twenty-five shampoos to choose from, all of which contain toxic and hazardous compounds is not freedom any more than having thirty models of cars or trucks to choose from. Being allowed to utilize our full potential, rather than being made into drones and worker bees for the making of profit for others has much more to do with freedom than the size of our big screen tee vees. In my lifetime, far more sacrifices have been made in the realm of personal freedom than in all the generations since the founding of the U. S. of A. Those deemed "too big to fail" have sucked up more and more corporate welfare and the little guys who are ground to pulp under the weight of the corporate welfare state have been demonized as "takers", while the wealth continues to concentrate into the hands of fewer and fewer individuals. A few of us have noticed these changes, but we have been effectively been relegated to the ranks of the "disgruntled employees", the impoverished, the class that we are told is the problem, not the result of one.This short video helps to understand the truth behind the pictures and pretty faces telling us that there is no such thing as class warfare.

Life Hacks

This is new terminology for something that has been around for ever. Several generations ago, people who were in the know just called it thrift. When I was coming up, I described it as living better for less. Pinching pennies, being stingy and home economics are other ways of getting to the same place.In any case, the results are the same. There is rapidly growing interest in forging a new society that is sustainable, or at least one which destroys less of the planet while meeting our actual needs. Some who are delving into this realm are motivated by different factors and there are a variety of terms that people use to describe the move toward becoming more self-reliant, self-sufficient or "green". This last term has always rubbed me the wrong way a bit, because it is more blatantly a code word than the others that there is an easy "fix" to very difficult problems. Those of us who have experience living lightly on the planet know that the self is an illusion. All of nature, and of course we are an integral part, are tied intimately to the whole in undeniable ways.

Life hacks often yield what seem to be conservation measures, unorthodox purposes for waste and/or additional uses for mundane items that have served their intended purposes already. I'm sure that some of the first paleolithic humans had mad skills in this regard. Those who were able to break from convention and find ways to survive were using life hacks before there were books, codified language or even instruments to write with. The first stick scribing in the soil conveying information was a sort of hack. In our daily lives today, we often forget that this is a part of who we are and not every want or need has to be met in traditional ways.

I remember the first time I saw a bar of soap, hung over a sink, inside an onion bag. This life hack allowed for several things to occur. First, it was right at hand, where it would be used. Second, it was hung in such a way that any excess moisture on the soap or bag could drip off and into the basin and because the whole affair was on a hook, dropping a slick bar of soap on the floor was an impossibility. It was clean and dry nearly all the time and preserved the bar for much longer amounts of time (and more hand washings) than a typical soap dish. I had discovered many years earlier that if you bought a large quantity of soap took it out of the box, and let it dry thoroughly before use, it would become harder and not disappear as quickly. The snot-like gel that would collect in the soap dish had always grossed me out and it seemed like a complete waste. The onion bag seemed to help preserve a very cheap, but vital, resource. The best thing about most of these techniques is that the intended purpose of the materials used seems to have little to do with the end use and yet, once the materials and techniques are paired in a new way, it seems that they were made for one another.

Something that has made the rounds on the internet is a cheap and fun technique for lighting. One of the age old problems with camping is that flashlights are mostly designed to produce a beam of light, this is great for task light, yet often what is needed is area light. Because headlamps are more and more cheap and available, more and more people are becoming aware of them, or in fact have purchased them for camping or other tasks, but if you put the headlamp on a gallon jug full of water, it refracts in every direction, making it a wonderful diffuse source of light. This helps reduce the risk of temporary night blindness that often occurs when a flashlight beam is inadvertently cast into ones eyes. This hack is so simple, yet so elegant it helps to exemplify the whole idea of what a hack is and why they are important.

Seeing things in a new way can often eclipse the way we saw the world before and once a person starts seeing hacks, many needs can be met with nontraditional tools, techniques and methods.

A friend described a good one for custodians, props people and those who need to fill a bucket from a sink. If you have a sink that is too small to fit a container (like a large mop bucket) under, but you would like to fill it, grab a dustpan and use it to shunt the water beyond the edge of the sink, channeling the water over the edge and it will fall into the bucket. Most of the time, if you are sweeping and mopping floors, you will have a dustpan available so that it will be at hand and made useful for this less orthodox purpose.

If you ever need a camp stove, or an emergency heater, there are dozens of designs for rocket stoves, tin can stoves and improvised cook stoves online. These hacks often take a bit of labor to make, but the rewards of cooking in a controlled fashion with re-purposed waste products is rewarding in and of itself. I saw an actual camp stove for sale just the other day for $65, using an old tin can or two is cheap enough that spending a few minutes fashioning a stove out of them would be a relatively high paying job, just for the avoided cost savings, not to mention that most improvised stoves use readily available fuel rather than expensive refined stuff.

I have seen a pair of flattened two liter soda bottles and string used as flip flops, bread bag twist ties substituted for shoe laces, bread bags sandwiched between two layers of socks inside a pair of shoes replacing boots in winter and discarded, worn out tires used for replacement soles on shoes. All of these are life hacks that can save money, time, space or just for being useful while keeping "waste" out of landfills. One of the trademarks of life hacks is that the first time you see them, it is an aha moment. There is a momentary thrill that comes from sharing the realization that this is an excellent, simple solution to what could have been a difficult situation.

Pot smokers have had this down cold for decades, possibly because they have had to get creative in the face of discriminatory laws against their type of smoke, or perhaps it flows from the creativity that can come from breaking mental boundaries. I have seen all manner of smoking devices fashioned from things like soda cans, apples, toilet paper tubes, pens, you name it. A favorite of mine has been the partially broken green stick that can be used as a tiny clip for holding the "roach" when it becomes too hot to handle.

WARNING: This next hack is not recommended. It is only to be used in extreme or emergency situations. Once, many years ago, I was driving an old car and the windshield wipers failed. The hack I used when it rained was to attach two shoelaces to the wipers and pull them back and forth. Because the car was a big old American one, I had to have a passenger pull the wipers back from the passenger side, but if they had a good sense of rhythm, we managed quite well.

Having a common-sense approach, some creativity, using all five senses, paying attention and being willing to break a few boundaries are essential to life hacks. I have seen car doors, lighters and tables used as bottle openers. I have used many tools and objects in ways that they were never intended to be used and I have solved problems that seemed insurmountable to others with just a bit of rope and some cylindrical pieces of wood. Understanding that our entire environment holds a vast tool kit can be liberating and utilizing things in new ways can save money and often a trip to town for hardware or specialized tools.

I don't care if you call yourself a survivalist, a prepper, a homesteader, or "green", these methods are something that everyone can use to overcome the consumer culture that we have been born into. When we begin to require more than a single use for objects, we can find great satisfaction in owning less, buying less and having more fun with what we do possess.

Reading The Crawl

I am amazed at the news that never passes the lips of the newscasters, but that makes the crawl. I know it sounds odd, but whether there is a large breasted blonde or a handsome dark-haired man delivering the news, my eyes are often on the crawl. I cannot count the number of times that the words, scrolling across the bottom of the screen mimic the words coming from the mouths of the "talent". The really bizarre thing is that inexplicably, some of the best (or worst) news never rises to the level of spoken word. Somehow in the infinitely wise judgement of the producers, it is quite acceptable to let the small percentage of readers in on some of the greatest secrets ever kept, as long as those who are interested in the heavily make-uped, moveable reflective surfaces pay no attention to those persnickety letters racing across the footer.

Yesterday, I was reading along and caught a snippet that surely warrants a serious bit of coverage, but in a flash it was gone, never to come around again. This happened again today and it left me wondering what gives? How do these tiny bits of real information make it onscreen in the first place if they are nearly immediately removed from the feed?

Today, I saw that the American Psychiatric Association deemed therapies intended to "cure gayness" as malpractice. Not that I place much stock in psychiatrists, I certainly wouldn't want one raising any child of mine, but the fact that the leader of the largest religiously-based "reprogramming" organization in the world (Exodus International) has admitted that no amount of prayer can change our "god-given" sexuality should be enough to convince even the staunchest anti-gay lobby that they are flying in the face of reality. This was one of those interesting tidbits that never passed the lips of the good-looking newscasters. Perhaps this is an attempt to sanitize the news for those who would be made to feel uncomfortable if they had to change their worldview, perhaps it is an innocent oversight.

I frequently lobby for higher levels of truth being made available for public consumption and seeing this sort of thing in print, if only briefly, is a start. In this case, however, we need to integrate a more humane discussion of this subject into our schools, homes, churches and indeed our government. This week we are seeing a flap in the U.S. House of Representatives because a majority of our representatives there want to extend the same protections from workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or status that we have for many other groups, but the Speaker of the House, John Boehner, will not call for a vote. The Senate has already passed the legislation and the President is ready to sign it into law, but the one guy who has the power to let the people be heard is holding up the show, presumably because his "morality" dictates that it be easy to remain bigoted and full of hate for a segment of the population that have exactly the same rights as everyone else, but who have been ostracized, made fun of, and shut out of many of the benefits that he himself has enjoyed as a citizen of our country. The truth is hard to determine exactly, but actions speak far louder than words and further inaction on this issue speak volumes about the character of this single and solitary man. They say that absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The second and perhaps more terrifying blurb that came through, again only once, is that Saudi Arabia has sent millions to Pakistan for ramping up that country's nuclear weapons manufacturing capacity. Those who stay up on U.S. policies regarding nuclear proliferation know that our leaders are currently in a tizzy about Iran's supposed pursuit of weapons-grade uranium, but any country that seriously took on this challenge was able to do so within three years. Our representatives to congress and the last several administrations have been spouting this bullshit for decades. Recognizing that one cannot prove a negative, it seems counter-intuitive that a nation, hell bent on getting "the bomb" would release with great fanfare, a year or so ago, that they were finally able to create medical grade isotopes, which by the way, are much easier and far less costly to refine.

I can't tell you what to think and I certainly don't want to lead you down a primrose path to ruin like so many seem to be doing in the media, but I can tell you that reading the crawl can yield a bit more fullness to your understanding of issues. They may not give you the full story, but they definitely can spark a line of inquiry that lets us begin the process of discovery. The media used to have the self-imposed job of creating an informed public, but in my short half century, it has turned more and more into entertainment. In my humble opinion, this is for the good of only the oligarchs. I will continue to speak truth to power and I appreciate the fact that so many people worldwide take the time to read my posts. I continue to study and pay attention and hope that you all do the same. Great change often comes in a flash and when enough people hear and understand that the great imbalance in power that the world is being subjected to cannot be sustained without catastrophic results, perhaps we will step away from he escalating demise of the planet and her people for the enrichment of an elite that has never known want, never thirsted for anything but the finest quality everything and who have no qualms about grinding the rest of us to dust under their oppression.