Happy Birthday to Me!

What a special day for this author. I decided to take a day off from my own wage slavery, if only, to celebrate the number of the day, the 23rd. See, all of my life, the twenty-third of each month felt special to me. Many moons ago, a friend, who was worried about me and my immortal soul. Felt that it was dangerous for me to do so. I told them that all my life the twenty-third of every moon has been a special celebrated day to me. My birth-date being the 23rd (although of a different "month") and that, for me, remembering the twenty-third is important a dozen times a year.  Keeping that day special and leaning more toward caring for myself on those days than my normal preoccupation with caring for others has helped me keep perspective throughout the month. I have been working for the last three weeks and when I saw a monthly birth-date on my calendar, I made sure to keep it for R&R (Rest and Relaxation). Not only do I have this wonderful date to celebrate, recover from the heat and rest my hurting body, but today, I have surpassed a new milestone in my career as a blogger. Thirty thousand page views!

I write from time to time about my work as an educator. I have always prided myself in the fact that I study more often than I teach and I learn more than many just because I'm interested in such a wide range of ideas and subjects. Since I have doggedly tried to find tools and techniques for healing the rift between humankind and nature, I feel that I am well-suited to bring these ideas to the fore, critically examine messages that are supported by the media and to pragmatically assess the probability of success of various methods for creating a more sustainable society. In point of fact, I have found multiple corroborating facts that prove, beyond a shadow of a doubt that solutions to problems that I have been advocating for decades are under assault from the oligarchs. These ideas are not my own, they are shared by tens of thousands of individuals who have been paying attention and the costs are being paid by the vast, vast majority so that the infinitesimally small fraction of one percent can live larger than ever. They collect the benefits and we are forced cover the costs. If we can learn one thing, it is that one billion is one thousand millions. To wrap out heads around giant numbers, as the current oligarchy requires, we need to understand that each billion dollars is roughly equivalent to $3 for every man woman and child in the USA. The Olympics are billed as a peaceful way to bring the world together, but the Greeks invented sports to get people to stop talking about politics. That system is still in play today. I would like to use this "Moonthly" Birthday to remind us all of where we are today, some having never heard of such a thing and some having preconceived ideas about it. I only know what good it has done for me.

When I learned, in my twenties, that pagans (my friend who taught me this called them witches) celebrate their birth-date monthly, he seemed to be telling me this as a word of warning or that I may be putting myself in some sort of danger because divine retribution might just discipline me for my transgressions. I knew that my own lifestyle and process were more important than to be judged by any external force. I took it in stride and said, "Well, I have done it all my life, so perhaps I'm a witch." What I meant was that this way of life is what I do, regardless of who else does, or their reasons for doing it. The reasons that I do continue my own spiritual development are mostly important to me, however, my quest to be a better version of myself, more pure to my spirit and humble servant to the world around me, has increased my ability to more fully participate in and to bring even more substantial gifts to the give away. If this is difficult to understand, it is because we do not discuss the give-away nearly enough in our culture. some decry the term "Socialism" as a label to impart vehement hatred or fearful disgust with the idea itself.  Thinking of others is actually a healthy human trait and needs to be supported, not ridiculed. Yesterday, I was nearly killed on the highway. I was driving three people and we were within about five to eight feet of extreme hazard. In fact, I had to jerk the wheel so hard and fast to avoid a collision, that my arm hurt afterward. I am here to say that those who do not care about their fellow human beings, those who are willing to put the lives of others at risk, for whatever reason are the real danger in our society. I learned yesterday, and celebrate today the fact that I'm alive!

Just as we learn to turn lemons into lemonade, the life of a creative revolves around turning sow's ears into silk purses. A past tenant left these pieces of granite behind and the city now refuses to pick up waste rock and stone with our garbage. Rather than pay to haul them away and eventually put them in a landfill anyway, my wife decided to make beautiful mosaic art of them. As with all things, we attempt to do the best we can with what we have been given.

I am blessed with life, with friends, with love and the intellectual capacity to figure out and understand that the growing number of people who want to hurt others, lash out because they have been hurt themselves and who only think of themselves, presenting hazard to the rest of us are the real obstacle to peace and true security. If I had not elected to take today off work, you may never have heard (or read) these words. I may have never had the time to consider what importance there might be in sharing this information. I certainly don't want everyone to be like me, or practice this moonthly ritual, but I think it is important to hear the experience of one person who has tried it. Each of us brings our story to the table and more times than not, there are selfless elements that reveal humanity, The vast majority of us are not deceitful, conniving, self-serving creatures fueled by passionate greed and hate. Those who stray toward anti-humanitarian behavior, most often have been abused and neglected in their formative years. If I could get one gift for each of my moonthly birthdays, it would be restorative justice everywhere and prosecution of the corporate welfare whores and tax fraudsters. A friend once called them corporadoes, from the well-recognized term desperadoes, but these corporate "entities" are as desperate as thieves on the lam.

Today, I watched a bit of the Tour de France, Much street cred to the intrepid soul who painted "FREXIT" on the roadway. We are one! Liberty, Equality, Fraternity! Stand against "austerity measures", they are the fallout of the victimization that world banks have been holding over the heads of the people for far too long. I continue to celebrate the Universe is unfolding as it should.

News Blackout

I decided to take a break from news for just one moon. A friend, speaking about something completely unrelated, mentioned how easily she seems to be "thrown off balance". I took that as an important message. In my own life, I have been feeling a bit out of balance over the past few weeks. I had a general feeling that it was because of adrenaline overdose. The more I thought about it, the more I was able to see how damaging the relationship between watching the "news" and my general physical state has become. Even though I know that the oligarch-owned media will go to the ends of the Earth to find tragedy and mayhem. It still has the ability to get me a good dose of adrenaline. Like many, my visual cortex is directly linked to my adrenal gland. When I see a mountainside burning, a bus crashed into a river, or police arriving in military vehicles taking up defensive positions with weapons drawn, I can't help but have a fight or flight response.

Since there is nowhere to run and the vast distances between the action on the screen and my life makes it impossible for me to "fight", my own equilibrium has been thrown off more than even I can know. Although it is difficult for someone who likes to keep their finger on the pulse of public discourse, and "news" is often a big part of that; since turning off the network news and scrolling past the majority of posts on facebook, I have been surprised at how little I have had to hear about tragedy and mayhem. It is as if the night sky has become clearer, my vision is much more acute and my relationships have been enhanced. Instead of being tempted to respond to messages that in no way have any bearing on me or my loved ones, it has given me extra energy to discuss things that really matter.

This would normally be seen as possibly detrimental to a blogger that prides himself in staying up to date on the issues of the day, unless you were a blogger that would rather talk about solutions, enacting them in daily life, committed to positive actions and armed with fifty-five years of paying attention to way of healing our toxic relationship with one another, the planet and the creatures we share Starship Earth with. If there were a salve that could heal the damage of adrenaline overdose, I would slather myself in it, but to my knowledge, there is none, so I will try to eliminate the source of that toxicity as well. By refusing to be drawn into the web of lies and deceit, fueled by the fear and hate mongers, I am striking out into new territory which lends even more credence to my understanding that the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave is more properly seen as WE THE PEOPLE than a bunch of victims. True, the oligarchs have been winning the class war for fifty years, but there was a time before that when they were brought to heel (as The Hil is fond of saying about young black men.) When we look critically at the tax rates in the U.S. of A. we are not, nor will we ever be the highest taxed people on Earth. We are certainly not at greater risk than past generations and there is no vast conspiracy to turn everyone into amoral drones, willing to carry out any level of assault for our corporate overlords.  Facts fly in the face of the "truth" that is being peddled by the uberwealthy snake oil salesmen.

Statistica recently released a chart that details the over 50% drop in reported violent crime over the past twenty-five years; from over 750 reported crimes per 100,000 population back in the early '90s to about 360 per 100,000 today. We are indeed safer today than we were 25 years ago. I agree that we have more threats to our freedoms and have had more freedoms taken away than at any time in our history over that 25 years, but you would think that making more things illegal would have created more violent crime, not less. as people become desperate, ugly things tend to happen, but do not be to quick to decide what is going on. There have been many changes in the world over the most recent generation. Many have decided to get educated outside the schoolrooms of this great nation. virtually everyone is getting to understand the growing deception that has been going on in our newsrooms, on our university campuses, and in board rooms around the globe. Children are being taught moral values by parents who care about the future of our nation and with more wanted children, as well as fewer unplanned or problem pregnancies, we are standing on the threshold of the baby boomers babies coming into their own age. These young adults have seen where their parents have failed. Most of them don't have time for the news either.

Part of what led me to turn off the "news" is a meme that found me on my facebook feed. It said, Remember when our parents used to say, (for me it was a generation removed already, my grandparents used to say to me) "I'll give you something to cry about." What if they really meant that they would poison our rivers and aquifers, destabilize the climate and contaminate both the land and air with chemical and nuclear waste? granted, that is probably not what they meant, but it is what we let them get away with so far. We are at a crossroads, we can let the "news" play us and weave a web of lies for us to grapple with, or we can stop letting them get away with defining our age for us. The wealthy always get to write their own history, but we ultimately will have to write their epitaph if we are to move on. I am making a concerted effort to only take in information from my friends, or on occasion listen to stories they tell about what has been happening to their friends, family and/or loved ones. The world still comes to me, but when I feel the need to fight or flee, at least the battles are in my own backyard, where I can be the most effective anyway.

This is a screen shot of the graph and because I am using it for educational purposes, I feel that just telling folks that it is from statistica is enough attribution. Anyone who tells you that we are less secure than we were two decades ago is lying.

Heat and Humidity

When I was born in Springfield, Illinois, the heat and humidity were just part of Summer. I hated going down there after my parents got divorced, for no other reason than the ridiculously high humidity and the sweltering days. Now, the climate has shifted north and we are in the hot zone. Yesterday, it felt like I was a guppy, breathing water. It was supposedly the third highest humidity ever recorded here with dew points above eighty degrees. It made me feel sick. I had to force myself to eat something for lunch and other than a few cheese curds and a couple cucumbers, nothing else even sounded good. The combination of high heat and humidity make it difficult to cool a body down and for many, exhaustion ensues. I am much happier when the temperature is fifty or below. My theory is that you can always put on more clothes if you need them, but even if I had been naked yesterday, I would have felt overheated.

What was most striking about the weather yesterday was that it just seemed to make me angry. It did not help that I was working under the conditions dictated by someone who had no idea how to get the job done easily or with any sort of common sense, but that is just a small part of the picture. The work was over an hour away by car and although the traffic was light, it still seemed way too far to drive for the amount of money I would be making. Add to this the horrible first-day traffic snarl that occurs in and around EAA and their annual Air Venture Fly -in. We had to drive over ten miles to get my carpool riders in and another ten miles to get out and back in after lunch break. Added to this, the work should have been done in less than half the time, but because of stupid decisions made along the way by "the boss", we had to spend even more time and effort doing things twice and then three times in some cases.

Hiring professionals is usually done when you need skilled workers, but this guy seemed to think we were just glorified temp workers with no skills or experience. In my case, and in the case of at least one of my fellow workers, our individual experience was quite possibly greater than his entire life span. Now, before you let that sink all the way in, I must add that we were both nearly double his age, we both grew up in the theater and we both tend to work smarter, not harder. All the heavy shit (about two tons of cable and wire) were on wheels when he arrived. The first order of business, as he said was to unload all of the copper out of the boxes and onto the floor, taking the wheels out of the picture for the rest of the day. Indeed, he did have a detailed drawing of where every pre-labeled end was supposed to be placed on the several sticks of truss... (which filled a room as large as an airport hangar) We should have placed each coil near the middle of the run, pulled half off in the direction of where it was supposed to end up, flipped the coil and run the rest out toward the source of power, but that would have made sense.

Perhaps the weather was only a small part of how angry it got me, but after struggling all day to make things work, get them finished and looking pretty, the last step of the day was equally grim. We had practiced exemplary cable management and could have gotten the last step done in about twenty minutes, but he told us that we needed to stretch out the coils and recoil them before they were sent to the dimmer racks, from which power flowed. Another ton of cable being pulled out and back nearly 100 feet was the last thing we wanted to do late in the day, but he was the boss. This leads me to the main point of my Heat and Humidity rant. The entire climate change issue is the result of letting ignorant people lacking all common sense make important decisions for the rest of us.

Since 1984 I have had the experiences of riding my bicycle around all five Great Lakes to spread the word about how to live a more enriching life, a more rewarding, full and passionate life, while using less resources and conserving the natural wonder and beauty of our planet at the same time. Back then, some called it voluntary simplicity or self-sufficiency, I called it living better for less; today, we call it sustainability.

The self-centered oligarchs just see what they want, nothing else matters. however many of us need to be maimed, killed or thrown to the curb it is of little consequence as long as the wealthiest among us continue to get their way. I used to love working with the company that I worked for yesterday, they were a big corporate player, but their middle level managers respected the stagehands union enough to let us get work done without very much interference. When this guy told us to do the opposite of what made sense, or what was smart, we should have said "No.", or at least "If you want that done, you will have to do it yourself." Instead, we resigned ourselves to doing more than double the work for the same pay and welcomed our difficult row to hoe.  The heat and humidity had taken their toll on our reasoning skills, but there was no reason to abandon our experience and skills fo rthe sake of a guy who had no clue.

We continue to break records for heat and humidity across the nation. For those of you who still think climate change is a myth, check out a few sources of information. The human species has forever changed climate, we have tools at our disposal that can change the course of our destructive actions, but we lack the will to make better choices. We have the power to stand up, with one voice, and say, "No!" all we lack seems to be the will. climatechangepsychology at blogspot is a good place to start.

Whom Do We Serve? (part two)

Years ago, my sister came up with the idea of a bumper sticker that would say just those four words. I wish that I had begun printing them then. Some ideas are so valuable that they need to be put into public consciousness and action immediately. The very act of asking this question brings far more to the table than many are willing to bring up, think about and share with others. These are the sorts of questions that are [pure gold in the realm of human evolution. If we refuse to think about these concepts, then we must be willing to relinquish the very freedoms that our founding fathers worked so hard to secure. The servitude that I am  bound to is due to my "business" with Wells Fargo Bank. Their recent re-finance of our debt will "save" two hundred dollars per month, but the time cost of that relief means that I will be paying Wells Fargo Bank an extra 10 thousand dollars, nearly half a year of the salary I collect for doing my job. I was so naive when the banks got their bailout after crashing the economy, I thought the gravy train was a one time thing. Sorry! The bank bail out continues and their freight is being paid by the few who were doing everything possible to stay afloat on the world-wide economic collapse that followed. In essence I was one of their "best customers". I have never been late on a single payment and whatever I had to do to meet my obligations, I did. It is a lasting sting, like an un-scratchable  itch, that I voluntarily entered into a social contract, I would domicile within the city limits of Green Bay, Wisconsin, serve my community, commit to a long-term relationship with neighbors, etc. I am but one of about 100 thousand people who are willing to live under the coal dust that blows through our neighborhoods, in an area where the fish can't be eaten safely, alongside petroleum tank farms and pipelines, coal piles and fly ash, we are actually paying the very real costs of all the toxic compounds in our environment, while faraway billionaires reap the benefits of our out-dated fossil energy system.

This view of the back of our rental shows another project in process. First I had to build a frame for the sun shade, next we are going to mount it over the upper porch which gets searing hot. My original plan was to utilize the solar collector behind the sun screen as an awning for the second floor, but it is way too heavy to lift up there with just a handful of friends. The solar panel was built in 1974 and has been providing 1/3 of the heat for the building for nearly ten years. This one piece of equipment has allowed me to pass fossil fuel savings on to dozens of renters who just want to feel warm in the winter. Some don't care if the heat comes directly from the Sun or from fossil energy. Those who do, like me, really love it.

On the bumper of a car, it relates directly to the fossil fuel addiction that requires us to serve people who frack, explore and "drill baby drill"! Not to mention the toxic emissions from refineries, waste land that is created, or the boom/bust economic effects of the fossil fuel industry. I have to state plainly that I have a problem with the word industry. Industry in my mind creates, fossil fuel exploitation can only, by its very nature, destroy. The only sensible possible future will use electric vehicles that are solar rechargeable.

I serve humanity generally by my teaching about biochar. When soils become healthier, so do the people who feed on the products of that soil. I once thought that buying an old quarry would be the best way to do organic agriculture, because all the soil in your beds would have to be created, so you would know the source of your compost, so you could keep it relatively clean. My soils, here in town contain lead, from the years that we were first using the automobile. Even after the petroleum distillers knew that the lead was poisonous, they fought to keep lead in gasoline un-regulated for several generations. I have to be aware of how much parent soil I add to my compost pile and the quality of the soil before I add it to food/flower beds. I do not want to introduce lead into the places I grow food and as long as I have control over what soil goes where, I can be especially careful not to add contaminated soils to my beds. Generations to come will benefit because I take the time to heal the soil, build it and enrich the native creatures who call the soil home. Serving these creatures pays back dividends that are undeniable, but hard for some to fathom. When the soil is healthier, the air is fresher, as the soil gets healthier, it holds more water, moderating temperature changes. The cascading feedback loops that are created between the soil and the organisms who inhabit it, create waste products that are literally food for plants. Serving the bottom of the food chain influences the health of the higher organisms who live around them.

If I had a dollar from every one of my pageviews, I could purchase a twenty acre parcel and begin to restore virtually all of it! Serving the future is the only hope we have. Those who claim that it is "too late" are just looking for an excuse to not put our money where our mouths are. Whom do you serve?

First Week

I have been avoiding the news for the past week. I am working on only allowing myself to hear things first hand. Things that have happened to actual people I know, friends of theirs or regular folks like myself. My effort to run for Congress aside, I am pretty darned average. The wreck that I had become was not even apparent to me a week ago. The absurdity of the "news" struck me full force when I heard about a recent tragedy involving nearly 100 dead from this or that three times in my hour-long commute. Now, many may say that an hour commute is not "common" or "regular", but in my defense, I only have to take these faraway jobs occasionally. Frequently, I work closer tot home. My feelings about hearing about the tragic disruption of those hundred or so lives, their families, loved ones and friends, were so complex and meaningful to me, that those lives will not be lost in vain. I have always known that by repeating the nightly litany of traumas, it magnifies them, making the whole world look as if it is populated with the criminally accident prone, grotesque haters, vehement disruptors, vile lunatics, bent on hurting others, poisoning their waterways, selling off the groundwater, draining the lakes. Oh, and unsafe houses and weather.

My reaction of horror was, as most compassionate people would experience, one of wishing I could help. The adrenaline started pumping and I wanted to fight, or flee. Neither option was available to me. When I meet people who are the news, instead of watching "it", things work much, much better. First, literally billions of amazing and excellent things are taking place at any particular moment on our planet, 99.99% of which will never make the nightly news. Today, a friend from Louisville sent a video of children in their neighborhood who have been cutting lawns just to benefit the community. They only take donations of tools and equipment through Go Fund Me.

In my new reality, I am hearing dozens of great stories each day, things actual people have done and for the most part, they are kind, selfless and helpful things, again something the news does not want you to hear. If you got inspired, who knows what you might create! The scary and tragic have played their central roles long enough. Keeping the population alone and afraid, sequestered in their houses watching the outside world through the eyes of their tee vee has to end. We have given in to the terrorists the moment we forsake our own communities. There is a whole wide and on balance great world out there, let's go explore it together!

Fabrication 50

It is amazing to watch late night tee vee shows that still mention Bernie Sanders, and the crowd goes wild, then, when they mention The Hil, there is deafening silence. No one wants her, no one.

I'm sitting here listening to Gang of 4, Solid Gold. It truly is as salient as it was when it was released.  I'll give you a moment to pull it up, try listening to it as a soundtrack to these writings... It feels like driving in a car while your favorite album is on.

Fortunately, they woke thousands from their slumber. If you check them out on you tube, you will be truly amazed at how topical they are/were. The root causes that led to the establishment of the percariot (those precariously perched between the disappearing middle class and the below poverty reality that continuously stares us all down, all the time, were evident back then. The response to the trickle down theory, was the same as it had been when it was called the Divine Right of Kings, nothing but a big yawn from the chomping maw that devoured lifetimes of work and wealth accumulation as markets crashed. Now, we are having it renamed again as "austerity". 

The punks I knew were far ahead of the game there, we learned to live on nothing, not by choice, but out of desperation. We listened to New Order Fact 50 Movement, Gang of 4, Husker du, Fred Frith Joy Division, King Crimson and Snakefinger. We wore clothes we made from other folks cast offs. We found industrial waste and made it into art. 

The truth is that many of us retain the morality and fiber of our youth, yet we have wisened and clarified our positions so that we can communicate better with others. having a gun to your head, pushing you into wage slavery does that to people. The outrage being expressed in France, it Egypt, Great Britain, The U.S and other nations around the planet are based on unequal distribution of wealth and the attendant destabilized power structures that render democracy obsolete. 

The love affair the oligarchs have for The Hil are based solely on knowing that she is a kept woman. Nothing sexual about it, she owes them everything. The fabrications continue...

Why is it?

First let me apologize for using rhetorical questions. We all know the real reason...oligarchy. Perhaps the real question is why do we stand for it? The other day on the news, they were talking about The Donald and his speech at the Colorado Republican Convention and The Hillary at a similar event in San Francisco, they showed the "crowds" and I have to attest, I saw more people in Waupaca, Wisconsin (population 6069) during a snowstorm rallying for Bernie Sanders than the current "front runners" could get in the fourteenth and twenty-third largest cities in America. Denver has over 600K souls and San Fran boasts over 800K souls!

Disenfranchisement has become a commodity traded by world leaders. Party leaders have the audacity to compile lists of Congressional Districts with the estimated "price" that each one will "cost" to "secure". Being played has never felt quite so dirty and simultaneously been so utterly ignored. Who can even raise questions when the media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the military/industrial, banking/complex? The ruling class is bent on practicing class warfare against the 99%. Their ideas literally trump any feelings the public may have, after all they really would not like a system that had them pay their fair share or take any responsibility for their illegal behavior.

I write often about the supposed Divine Right of Kings, but to willfully destroy a planet and her people with no more thought than, they need us to lead them, I call Bullshit! No shred of decency, humility or compassion is evident in any of the macro scale decisions which the owners of our government have made. Needless to say, we have all watched them take a very blustery stance when it comes to micro management, removal of freedoms and denial of rights of the lives of nearly any minority group imaginable (except of course the .01%). Others have written at length about the focus by the political leaders and the media on who can use which bathroom when the Flint, Michigan water crimes needed to be in the news. So far, the media have nearly ignored the millions of people who face similar water supply crises across the nation.

The revolution is still not being televised, so at least give thanks that with an unlimited amount of effort, we can educate the masses a different way. When the first round of ecological crisis became front page news, teach-ins were used to combat ignorance, today we can use the digisphere. Please share my writing with friends, neighbors, co-workers, family and community. Each one teach one has even more importance today than it did in '68.