How To Begin Again?

We are saddled with the fallout of generations before us. Our addictions, proclivities, habits and associations have all been laid down like so many miles of asphalt and concrete. What we inherited has both a positive aspect and many negative ones as well. The building that had been done in the past often utilized dangerous materials like lead, asbestos, fiberglass and phenolic compounds. The appliances and ways that we utilized energy were inefficient and wasteful, so the cost of living is somewhat fixed by the inherited housing stock, energy systems and designs of ages past. As much as this infrastructure liberates us from having to "reinvent the wheel", we are tied to supporting less than optimal systems for meeting our basic needs. Even our definitions of what falls into categories of wants and needs has been corrupted by the generations who have made their way before us.

It is only within the past couple generations that the myth of needing a college education to "get ahead" in this world have come about. We are currently pushing the envelope of human value and worth, so how could academia ever hope to keep apace with the rapid changes that have been unleashed in the past fifty or hundred years? When I was getting my college education, I was told repeatedly, "What was right in the past will surely be wrong in the future, so do what is wrong because at least there will be a chance that it will become right in the future." The fiction that we all have to live with is that the more things change, the more they remain the same. Who has not heard this excuse for inaction? Who has not been admonished for sticking their neck out for something they truly believe in their heart of hearts? The myth of economic recover needing to be fueled by war is one of the most insidious lies that we have been told. It was trumped up by the oligarchs to keep their pet business interests flush. Bombs, bullets and weapons of all types do enrich the people who make them, but their purpose is to impoverish and wipe out the fortunes of those whom they are used against. Rebuilding a city destroyed on a whim cannot improve economic conditions no matter how desperately one might wish to think it will.

Today, the news was touting the fact that one of the founders of facebook, Mark Zuckerberg is worth so much money that if it were looked at as a salary that he would have earned since his birth, he would have made $125,000 every single hour! Why should it take me five years or more to earn that amount? We cannot fathom amounts of money so vast that they control how we think, what passes for "news", what we have advertized to us and which diplomats will have what to say. My twenty or so thousand readers have mostly remained silent, but for them I seek to point to a new direction in which actual needs supersede the expediency of the 1%.

What human beings actually need is hard work to provide, but the people doing the work of providing food, water, safe shelter and enough heat that we don't freeze in winter is often thankless and the money paid to farmers, home builders and those who keep the water running is often a pittance of what we pay information brokers, their staff, or the people who run the entertainment industry. Why is this? Well, to be absolutely truthful about it, because we let the market dictate what is important to  us. To take back our right to clean water, unspoiled air and healthy food, we need to send the oligarchs packing. Let as few pennies as possible flow to them and see how they make their way without picking our pockets.

We may not be able to phase out the old way thinking as fast as we might hope to, but without making the attempt, failure is inevitable. If you forget to select items from the marketplace with this in mind from time to time, don't beat yourself up about it, just make a mental note of it and try again next time. I went to lunch yesterday at a really good Mexican restaurant. when it came time to order drinks, one at our table got a Coca-cola. The charge for that cup of non-nutritive, high fructose corn syrup was nearly half of what the fellows lunch cost. $2.25 for the soda pop, the good and nutrient dense food cost $5.50. I'm sure that we all make choices from time to time that enrich the 1% without our realizing it, but for change to occur, we must stand together and do what we can to liberate ourselves from the grasp for what has worked to our disadvantage in the past. Creating a new way is always difficult and it can be fraught with danger, but if we are to survive, we may need every person to stand and deliver in the face of terrible odds.

A bit like changing horses in the middle of the stream, we need to be aware of exactly where we are at every moment. We need to be acutely aware of what is going on around us and also realize that the crossroads at which we stand can be a place where we either meet and make a pact with the devil or a place where we make an important decision about where we want to ultimately end up.

Opening Our Resort

It is funny how occasionally, the things that we need the most are right before our eyes. It is even more interesting that the experiences leading us to that place and time do not allow us to see them. When I learned that dandelions are good for the liver, I had been living under a toxic cloud for nearly a decade. It did not change the healing properties of the plant that I was unaware, but it did change the way I lived amongst the environment forever. I have studied herbal healing and medicinal plants for decades, but I am still learning specific attributes that are important in members of the plant kingdom that I have either not paid close attention to, forgotten, just never needed, or did not know that I, or people I have helped could benefit from before. Research into most fields often reveal that the more we learn, the more there is to learn. Perhaps it should not be surprising then, that the answers we seek are often right before our eyes. One of the quirks of our perception is that we are blind to most of what surrounds us. In my Theories of Aesthetic Perception  class, one of the points that is important is that we are constantly sorting, sifting and winnowing the reality that we confront, as much for self-preservation as anything. There is no way to take in the totality of experience, so we dump 99.9% of what our senses provide to us in the dust bin of ignorance. We cling desperately to the things we deem important and the rest is just chaff, left wherever it has fallen.

We, my wife Nancy and I, purchased a rental property across the street from our home a decade ago. It is currently being transformed. We are remodeling and furnishing the two apartments, making space for an Air B&B. Our experiences have allowed us to envision the B&B concept with a few valuable twists. One place that we like to stay calls itself a B no B, a bit more like a motel for people who can make their own breakfast or find their own way in the world. Those who want to keep to themselves, or who have special dietary needs, find that this sort of place is perfect. As hosts, we can be across the street and out of guest's hair during their stay. However, if our desired, we can provide many extras as needed or by request. We offer those who stay with us ECO-Tours, equipment rentals and guide services. Even if all that is desired is a campfire to sit around in the evening, we can arrange for that as well. In the past, our perceptions were limited by prior experiences, but now we are looking more closely at what exists right across the street from where we live.

Perhaps the history of the place, or our own experiences limited what we could see as possible there, but that is not unusual. The constraints on what we can see are never visible, until they are shattered. We purchased the property with one thing in the forefront of our minds, it sounds funny now, but the people living there were terrible neighbors and we wanted them to be gone. We had the eviction notice drawn up ahead of time so that after closing on the property, we could deliver it immediately. It may be the first time in history that a person getting evicted was happy to have to leave. The woman who was renting there actually hugged me for kicking her out!

Of the three adults who had signed the lease, only one remained. This older lady told me that the other two were in prison. The families of those two, plus a friend of the older woman had decided to make that place the home base of their activities and a permanent place to crash or drop off their children whenever they needed a break from them or were in town. I guess that officially, it wasn't considered a child care center, because most of the children were related, but to the neighbors, seeing six to ten children running around at any one time made us wonder. This was not, however the problem. What was bad were the dozen police calls to the property every few moons. Waking up in the middle of the night to one hassle or another and having to hear the ugly details of lives out of balance was too much for Nancy and I to bear.

The details of owning a rental property were far from our minds when we bought the place. The thought of gaining peace of mind pushed out all other perceptions, so we bought it. Since then, there has only been one long-term tenant in the lower and perhaps half a dozen renters upstairs. One by one, each of the neighbors has gone out of the way to thank us for buying the property and for that we feel pretty happy, but our perceptions being limited had led us to only see the place in a certain way. Within the past couple years we started hearing about home share programs, couch surfing websites and air B&B. Some of our friends and family have traveled using these online resources and had a great time of it, many staying in other folks spare bedrooms or coming and going from entire homes left vacant by their owners. Then, we found out that one of our friends opens her home to guests nearby and we had a few long talks with her about what she was doing through Air B&B. She loves it and by reading her reviews on the website, her guests do too!

We are currently working feverishly to ready the upper apartment for our first guest, who will be arriving in the coming week. Onsite we already have dozens of edible landscape plants at least the same number of healing herbs and garden beds that are managed with an eye toward permaculture and sustainability. We are adjacent to over 160 acres that will never be developed and directly across the street from the property is the East River which is a great place to canoe. There is also a walking trail/parkway along the river bank for recreation. As many things in nature show, great things often grow from tiny beginnings. ECO-Tours has organically grown from a group of three into a network of folks who can plant hundreds of trees in a single day. There is no reason to believe that our modest beginnings with space for four guests could grow into a Summer Camp/Resort that can accommodate hundreds of ECO-Tourists. The greatest oaks start from a single acorn.

420

This will be my four hundred-twentieth post. I think it appropriate to look both back and along the timeline. Realize that we have eclipsed time by circumnavigating our reality. This may be the unified field that Einstein proposed, a matrix, if you will, of beliefs shaping reality as much as looking into the physics of our universe have proven happens already. There are certain interactions on the sub atomic level that only occur when we are looking for them. Why not envision a multiverse of these occurrences taking place amongst infinite numbers of beings, each having a single thought or expectation? I know this is heavy, but perhaps I could approach things from another angle.

Five years ago this month, I set myself down in front of the keyboard to share an intimate look into my reality, hopefully share something that could be reciprocal, a love affair with words that could potentially reach every soul on the planet. In the digi-world time and space have been eclipsed by a new reality. A reader, so inclined, could read all five years of my love-missals in a week. If I did not love everyone, I could never sustain this level of commitment, nor would I spend the time I do sharing my reality with you. sometimes, time is required to digest, but even at one post a day, it could take a year and a half to read through this blog. I recently inherited a book called 365 Ways To Save The Earth. It was twenty dollars. I have written every post to be a guidebook to healing not only your physical form, the planet and your mental and emotional self as well, but ultimately your soul. It is the job of the shaman to heal the fabric of being that we can never shake off or separate completely from. We are caught in a neural net of understanding and experience. If there are holes where your sould needs to be, my writing attempts to be a salve. If nothing else, a touchstone and respite from your own travels. I will always be 'here".

Take my name...something simple right? I knew my name as a child to be Tony, like Tony Tiger, the animated character whose image graced cereal boxes. Later, I grew to learn that there were people who would guess that the name meant that I was a boy, that they would associate me with their ideas about being Italian and as I grew, I not only met others with that name, but started to understand that my version was unusual because "real" Catholic Italians were named Anthony, but just called "Tony", for short. All of these aspects were real and present before I became aware of them. The reality of the future is being born of experiences in the now, but what we are finding is that more and more of what we 'discover" has been alive through the ages in shamanistic and native cultural life. These things, no matter how much we logically dissect them can never become alive in our culture until we adopt their practice, heart and rhythm.

I have had repeated messages about Jazz players and the extreme paucity of amazing young players. it is because we "teach" them all about what they are doing and instill them with formulae of old approaches so they can hone skills that have become known, familiar and deemed desirable. The true masters go beyond into a realm of BE-ing the music, throwing all manner of convention to the wind, then wafting and writhing within the smoke trails created by the dissolution of form to spirit. The same transformation takes place in all effective shamanistic practice.

Let me explore the surname, Saladino. It too is part of my name. Little Saladin, has led me through amazing territory in and of itself. Learning about Sicily, and the many occupiers who traipsed through. Beginning to understand the culture and lives of those who lived upon that vast rock in the middle of the Mediterranean was the start of the creation of a whole world, complete with a viable pantheon of ghosts and spirits. The stark reality of the concept of oppressor. In my studies, I found that my kin are from the middle of the high country of the island. Pretty much as far as you can get from the coast where raiders frequently came ashore.Yet somehow my family had come from Saladin, theinvader who made his way to the center of the island in their time. Honored as I am to have his name, it is funny what I have been able to uncover in my research.

Saladin showed up during feudal times, where the deck was stacked much like it is today. The ultra wealthy had virtually all of the wealth, land fortune and privilege, they also had a small number of administrators, associates and friends who divided up whatever seemed inconvenient to the 1%, then there was a vast underclass, barely above livestock, who did the lion's share of the making of things. Anyway, Saladin would inevitably find a hovel full of poorly dresses peasants and he would ask, something along the lines of "...I'm trying to decide whether or not to sack this town...How much do you pay in tribute? how long will it take for the King's men to get here?" then after letting those questions sink in, he would offer to take half what the king did and defend them if they ever needed it. We was truly a socialist. Lord and Lady both know that there is no need for a wealthy class.

I occasionally wonder about issues of nature versus nurture, but never for long, it seems that trying to tease out any real detail would require ruining the fabric of our lives. Of my association with Saladin, I may be proud, but in my actions, I must decide how much other people's freedoms matter to me. I try to err on the side of liberation and many times I hear, sometimes many years after the fact..."your words back then moved me." or "I didn't believe it when you said," such and such, "but you were right." I don't mind hearing I guess, but I don't need that affirmation to thrive. What I say is based on a lifetime of paying excruciating attention to many subjects that make the average person's eyes glaze over. I want everyone to hear the truth at least once and I would be honored if it were me. Beyond mere knowledge lies a territory known as wisdom which is a bit of an art and terribly difficult to master. Those things I do not know I make clear as much as practicable. I guess there are plenty of things that I do not know that I don't know, but at least I'm honest when the new territory unfolds before me.

By Any Other Name

During the period of growing up, it seems, every culture has a variation on a game. When I was introduced to it, we called it, Smear the Queer. Whoever got the ball would be piled upon and ripped and torn at until they would forfeit the ball. Sometimes, people primed and ready to pounce would circle near the "pill of death", but ultimately, someone thinking they were fast enough and agile enough, or strong enough to fend off the initial attack, to grab it and run off , would swoop in. Occasionally the weaker among us would be goaded into grabbing it and both my wife and I had the wind knocked out of us playing this game. On her side of town, they called it, Kill the Bum.

By the time I heard of the game, I knew what queer was, so the name seemed relatively inappropriate, but I knew bums as well and neither name would have seemed acceptable to me, back then or now-a-days.

Interestingly enough, the brutality and vengeance that some players brought to the game made it distasteful at best for me and luckily, I only had to engage in the mayhem a few times. I remember some neighborhood kids lobbied the bullies who then changed the game to Kick the Can, which seemed to be a little safer, just to include me. It was, looking back on it true democracy ion action and it exhibited a culture of compassion that I did not understand until many years later. The fact that those young men stood up for my right to participate was appreciated, even though it took years to get the right words to say about it.

New Leaf

I'm from a town like many across the Midwest. Our metro area is over one million people, but we are spread along a sixty mile corridor about ten miles wide. The heart of our urban area is the Fox River, which flows North to Green Bay, a bay of Lake Michigan. The Fox has been called the hardest working river in the world and has nearly a dozen dams and associated power generating stations in just the last thirty miles of river. The closest dam to my house, when it was built, backed up enough water to cover a mile-long rapids at De Pere, just seven miles upstream from where I live. These million people or so are turning over a new leaf. Even some of the most staunch supporters of commerce, the ones who just a few years ago fought tooth and nail to be allowed to squander resources, destroy the water quality and amass fortunes at the expense of human health and environmental quality are coming to realize that their waste costs them money. Now that a few of the most powerful players in our economy are coming out of their energy/money induced psychosis, it is leading to more opportunities to speak about the devastating changes that have been unleashed on the air, water and soils of Northeast Wisconsin. We continue to spew toxic chemicals, but there has been a tiny blip in the data that points to the fact that in tough times, efficient use of resources becomes a hot topic.

One thing that is rarely covered in history classes is the fact that the largest number and highest percentage of passive solar homes ever built in our nation were in the years following the Great Depression. When times were tough, people wanted to spend the smallest amount of money on energy. When our economy is doing well, people just expect to make enough to offset their increasing use of resources. As incomes spiral down, running a tight ship becomes crucial.

One of the facilities that I work in, the PAC in Appleton, Wisconsin, just had an energy audit of their facility done. For them, their income is relatively fixed. They have a certain number of seats to fill, they have over ten years of fund-raising under their belts and they know just how much alcohol their patrons consume, so those three things, along with ticket prices, determine their maximum income stream. The only way to get more out of the facility is to cut costs and increasing efficiency of energy use is now seen as an income "generator". Last night, you could feel the air conditioning shut off almost with the last note of the band that played. On the one hand, I am impressed that they are finally coming to understand the futility of throughput. On the other, I wonder why the best places to save energy (and money) seem to be overlooked. Turning up the thermostat in the summer and turning it down in winter are helpful, but only work at the margins and can only save by reducing short term spikes in energy use. The methods of saving that do the most good might save an even smaller percentage, but they work for you day in and day out, hour by hour, reducing waste and inefficiency. This is a bit like the story problem that often gets used in math class...Would you rather have a dime for every day of your entire life with 10% interest per year, or one thousand dollars right now?

The "interest" in the example above is the certain knowledge that every BTU that we wrest from the Earth will be more expensive than the ones we have dug up or drilled for in the past. The timeline in the story problem supposes that we will live at least another twenty years or so, but the outcome is sobering for those who understand how numbers work. However, there is one glaring difference between the story problem and the energy budget of our planet. With money, you could always print more. When we run out of fossilized carbon, there will be no more. What we need then are ways to wrest solar energy more effectively. Production of solar thermal seems to be the best approach to saving energy on space heating. Wind, which converts solar energy to motive force might be the best way to produce electricity and bio-gas from agricultural and forestry wastes might help as well, but barring the development of these sensible approaches to meeting energy needs, we are left with only conservation to reduce our dependence on fossil energy sources.

If we learn to mimic nature, changing our energy mix as well as how we conserve what we do have access to will both need to be part of our civilization in the future if we are to maintain quality of life without compromising the ability of the planet to support us. Replacing incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) can reduce consumption of energy by up to 75% Replacing them with LED bulbs can save up to 90%. Some have used the fact that CFL bulbs contain mercury as a reason to hate them, but the coal that is not burned through conservation has even more mercury in it than the bulbs, so the choice becomes, do you want your mercury to be spread widely over the planet where we all get dosed with it regularly, or do you want to have it inside glass tubes where it can be reclaimed and recycled? Human beings are not unlike nature. We are tenacious and seek to continue life in the face of daunting odds. Turning over a new leaf requires hope. One of the most hopeful things we can do is to share what we have learned with others. Barring that, the most hopeful thing to do is to plant a tree.

Ethics & Genetics

Throughout time, we have influenced the genetics of organisms that surround and inhabit us. We humans began cultivating crops, domesticating them if you will, about 12K years ago. Between nine and ten thousand years ago, wheat first became domesticated. Halfway around the world, between seven and ten thousand years ago, potatoes were first brought under cultivation. As were beans, selectively planted in modern day Nepal, about 9K years ago. Half as old again are rice and corn (about 4.5K years ago). For perspective, one thousand years earlier, ancient Sumer had reached it's zenith. Our relationship with food has been intimate since the first one of us kept a few seeds of something that they knew they liked, planted it where they knew they would be back to enjoy the following crop and we have been coexisting with foods we like in pretty much the same ways since the Neolithic era. There has been an ongoing interaction between humans and plants for even longer periods, but manipulation of genetics could not have been intentional before then.

The ethos, or belief system that informs seed saving is plant your very best seed, to give the plants the best chance at survival. A weak and damaged seed will frequently lead to a withering, sickly crop. As issues of survival became less pressing, greater care could be taken to protect the seed from drying out, being eaten by rodents, or unwanted growth during storage. All of these relationships required great interaction and effort on the part of humans, to help propagate and generate new breeds. Our time travels with plants have bred many of our most prized foods to be unable to perform in the wild. Without humans many of the crop species would be doomed. Indeed, in addition to whole species being dependent upon human interaction with the plants, many varieties are currently threatened by lack of interest in seed saving and genetic diversity. It is only within the last hundred years that we have been able to send seed vast distances and manipulate species so drastically as to make an entire field a virtual clone of just one genotype.

We have hit a wall on ethics. We cannot yet conceive what bombarding genes with other genes is really about, what it could lead to, or even adequately surmise what the effects of brand new organizations of genetic material might do the the rest of the relationships we have with our food. The technology has no track record in human/plant history. I fear that we will forget that often the "discoverer" of a phenomena or technology is one of the first to die from the damage done by their "miracle" discovery. I have every reason to believe that the first guy to fashion a knife had it taken from him and was immediately stabbed with it. In all seriousness, the inventor of ultrasound said that it should only be used in rare cases where information was needed about the health and safety of the mother or baby. The opposite of routine, which doctors do now like a "commercial" for your baby to show off. It is not contributing to scientific knowledge in any way, but can cost thousands, so hey. I have seen images to tissues exposed to ultrasound and all the cells get jiggled so violently that I declined offers of doing it to any of my children after seeing the footage. When the same authorities are saying so many things that do not add up, do we really want to follow them further down a gilded path to base, senseless and immoral behavior?

Take for example the issues around nukes. Hundreds of billions of dollars has been spent on creating nuclear fallout around the globe. Add to that the costs of many millions of acres of mines, milling facilities, waste tailings ponds, not to mention the storage of "hot" materials for unimaginable amounts of time. It seems as if there are those who are fully expecting our race to go extinct so why not just wreck everything. I will remain a stand for the exact opposite perspective. We are making change because we will no longer stand for the lies or the liars that tell them. The sanctity of the planet may be under attack, but I will not yield. I do not understand why this remains an issue. The vast majority just wants labeling, which I believe is nowhere near a strong enough policy, so it must just be the money fueling the arguments for GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) are not just like the way we have always manipulated genes of the plants and animals that we "domesticated". Patenting any life form, especially a totally new experimental one, that may only be an hour old, runs contrary to the unbroken ethical dilemma, how do I help make the world a better place?

How Do We?

It is time for us to give up the idea of John Wane westerns, where the broad arc of the vast desert seems to go on forever. We have hit the wall as it were in terms of finite Earth. Even including the atmosphere, the entire part capable of being inhabited is perhaps the thickness of an apple skin relative to the planet. The biosphere has been pushed past the curve in terms of sustainability, and noi matter how hard we pray, we cannot exempt our species from the fallout, literally, that comes with that new territory. I take issue with anyone who thinks that we can reduce the poison coming out of our collective tailpipes by simply praying. To tell the truth, the pantheon that speaks to me would not accept those prayers in any case. We are past mistakes, these are decisions.
I cannot discern myself from the species as a whole, I understand that we are one, almost what I would call an organism and for that, I experience much confusion and distaste for much of what passes through or gets integrated into our collective beings. I believe that without collective responses to the current situation, we will continue feeding the many hands that bite us. It is my own experiences of homelessness, of helplessness and of dissolution that I can speak with first-hand authority, we are truly our brother's and sister's keeper. There are perhaps billions of ways to dismantle the current crop of Mother Earth Raping, tax avoiding, election buying forces at work across the land, but each of us still, often in insidious ways, support their blatant picking of our pockets, sometimes with a smile.

I was told by the many million dollar budget establishment that I work most often but furthest from my home, that I would have to park in the city ramp at $2 each day, but for this I would receive no compensation. This is a tax, paid directly to the city for the right to work in their town, nothing more. How many others pay the same amount and for that the City can't seem to ever make a smooth, flat street. It is hard to take aim at those responsible for the management of our towns and cities, but through collective action, we can make a significant difference. I have heard recently from three well-respected sources, that virtually all government actions are complaint based, especially now that things are getting computerized, they often run so smoothly that agents don't even notice, unless there is a complaint. I'm going to start complaining about the pot-holes and when the salt piles up in intersections because the truck driver has to stop, but continues pouring out his load, I'm gonna complain. When the street sweeper goes by three times in one night and I have to sweep up what they missed, someone is getting a call.

I'm already sending far too much money away (even having driven a 50 Mpg vehicle for over ten years) to buy fuel to get back and forth to my job. It also comes with a long term legacy of pollution, the cost of which is borne by all of us for many, many years. That money never comes back to our community, but the poisons stay. We all lose on both sides of the deal. The only way to put an end to this is to stand together, help one another overcome as many obstacles as possible to staying home, ride-sharing, carpooling and other forms of transit. The only way that I can justify my own use is by staying home most of the time, or at least leaving my car in the driveway. I always feel like it is getting infinite mileage as long as it is sitting still. I have come close to converting it to run waste cooling oil a couple of times, but every conversion I have seen had pretty creepy mess associated with the storage system and it sacrificed much of the trunk as well. I use my VW Jetta for hauling too often to lose that precious space. Short of that I walk, ride bike or just stay home.

As an individual, I can make my home my biggest investment, put time in around here and take care of the property that the bank owns well enough that if and when I ever get it paid off, it is still worth something. Contributing to the community that surrounds me is fast starting to feel the same way. A realtor asked me what kind of shop I would want to open in a specific commercial space that we were looking at...I said, the best idea would be to canvas the neighborhood and ask what folks nearby wanted to be within walking distance. NONE OF IT is about us in the end after all, it is not about the us that we usually think of. The greed and deceit of the few contaminate our way of thinking and far too often the old adage, "Screw the other guy before he screws you." becomes the prevailing wisdom, that takes us away from both proven fact and sustainability.

If I can do one thing with my writing, I would like to be able to tie securely our humanity to ecological awareness, for without that, our spirits may flag as we look out into the destruction that humankind has unleashed on Mother Earth for over a century. Human beings are foremost compassionate, we delight in the delight of others. Some say our energies "feed off each other" and I have seen enough instances where Earth and her creatures did the same with me and others, that I cannot deny that the entire biosphere is our brother and sister hood. The poisoning of a tundra swan is as despicable as it would be to poison another human being. To write off vast areas as unrecoverable, to not even have a plan for cleaning up your mess before you start a project is stunning to me. In essense, what we tell the corporados is that none of their endeavors will ever require responsible behavior. Once culpability is "discovered" lengthy expensive litigation will be required, but the people with standing in any case will be too poor for the good lawyers and big time corporate lawyers are adept at burying a small legal team in paperwork. If a decision is ever reached, it has to travel up through the courts and that could take years, during those years, you can pretty much continue your discharges act like you care a little bit and if you do get slapped in the end, it will be just a small portion of your revenues. I say, we need not waste any more time. I could make a list of things I do not buy, but it would tax the ability to comprehend in short order. Instead let me focus on what I do buy. Enough fuel to get me to jobs on some (occasional) days I need to. Food that comes from as locally as I can find, very occasionally, a book. This is where it gets ugly, mortgage(death note), insurance, utilities, taxes, and probably eating out (at the most locally owned and operated places we can find).

I like to challenge myself daily to conserve a bit more water, or pick up trash in the park, or along the park/river-way that runs past our place, or to plant trees in "waste" areas. Anything to reclaim a bit of the heavy handed treatment that man has reigned down upon the place. In fact, one way that I hope to help in doing this is to purchase land for a sacred pagan shrine. It will have better protection than National Forest land and will be kept unassailed in perpetuity. With luck, and a bit of persistent prodding that will give an anchor upon which to build a movement to reduce and eliminate toxic air emissions at some point in the near future. Coming around to protecting all land, not just our sacred space, or perhaps because all spaces are (were) truly sacred, all places need to be protected from toxic air emissions. That means that we need better systems for moving people. Electric motors have the lowest emissions and the highest efficiency. Why are we still talking about this. If we "got off" oil tomorrow nothing is "owed" to the mega oil giants. Even their militias will be defunct if they cannot pay them. There are very few buggy whip manufacturers left either, but that is not something the public got up in arm over, neither will be the passing of big oil into the history books. Perhaps oil will still be needed, but refining, and the massive energy waste and contamination hazard that refineries represent will be lessened considerably if we just stop using petrochemical fuel. Believe me, the minute I find a way to bring in an income and stay home, I'm doing it!