Concrete Things

In January of 1954, just a year before his death, Albert Einstein wrote the following letter to philosopher Erik Gutkind after reading his book, 'Choose Life: The Biblical Call to Revolt'. Apparently Einstein had only read the book due to repeated recommendation by their mutual friend Luitzen Egbertus Jan Brouwer. The letter was bought at auction in May 2008, for £170,000.
Princeton, 3. 1. 1954
Dear Mr Gutkind, Inspired by Brouwer’s repeated suggestion, I read a great deal in your book, and thank you very much for lending it to me ... With regard to the factual attitude to life and to the human community we have a great deal in common. Your personal ideal with its striving for freedom from ego-oriented desires, for making life beautiful and noble, with an emphasis on the purely human element ... unites us as having an “American Attitude.”
Still, without Brouwer’s suggestion I would never have gotten myself to engage intensively with your book because it is written in a language inaccessible to me. The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this. ... For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstition. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong ... have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything “chosen” about them.
In general I find it painful that you claim a privileged position and try to defend it by two walls of pride, an external one as a man and an internal one as a Jew. As a man you claim, so to speak, a dispensation from causality otherwise accepted, as a Jew of monotheism. But a limited causality is no longer a causality at all, as our wonderful Spinoza recognized with all incision...
Now that I have quite openly stated our differences in intellectual convictions it is still clear to me that we are quite close to each other in essential things, i.e. in our evaluation of human behavior ... I think that we would understand each other quite well if we talked about concrete things.
With friendly thanks and best wishes,Yours, A. Einstein

Happy Halloween

Several years back, I remember hearing that, Halloween had surpassed Easter for the second-most consumerist holiday. Winter Solstice (X-mas) remains firmly ensconced as the top holy day, but number two with a bullet is pretty good for this pagan fiesta. I have not heard much over the years from people who feel threatened by this, but the past few years have seen an even larger ramping up of Halloween decorating, costuming and high end paraphernalia associated with this time of year. Having walked and biked hundreds of miles over the past two moons, I can say confidently that the value of decorations for this harvest season seem to out strip previous years. There are so many more coffins, ghouls and ghosts, mummies, witches and spooks, so many more cauldrons and lighting effects, smoke machines and haunted houses that the Halloween spending could actually surpass Christmas spending. I am not going to make a guess at when, but it seems to me that many have been going all out this year to frighten and spook the neighborhood children.

It has been interesting to me to watch and listen to things that are being said both in the media and by individuals about their penchant for this holiday time. The Day of the Dead, which very nearly coincides with our Halloween is not coincidentally one of the most popular holidays for travel to Mexico. In addition to the ghoulish pageantry, the weather is nicer than we experience here in the Upper Midwest. Perhaps the ideas of honoring the dead and singing their praises will help in other areas of our culture. For instance, if we truly respected those who gave their lives for our nation, we would not let a handful of very rich men determine the course of history, if we took seriously the act of ancestor appreciation, we would not squander the efforts they had made to enrich the lives of others.

Over the course of the last moon, I have heard from several discreet individuals that "No one cares about you", but this holiday proves otherwise.

The lights and scary audio that people decorate with, the tableaus of hideousness are designed with others in mind. All this work and expense is not for our own enjoyment but to enrich the experience of others. These motivations could really stand to influence us throughout the year, perhaps not the giving of candy so much, but the industriousness that leads to a memorable experience for all. This is the beginning of the Native American storytelling season, perhaps we all need to take heart and participate more fully in the give back. Lord and Lady both know we sure do need it!

Waiting Truly Is The Hardest Part

I understand that when we are fed lies from birth to adulthood, it takes a while to begin to understand what constitutes truth, but with the burgeoning numbers o people who seem to be having their eyes opened wide, it is almost funny that the lie machine seems to be working nearly as well as ever. It has been over fifty years that the New Deal has been under attack. The time has come to unequivocally say that police are neither protecting or serving the petro-chemical giants by attacking and jailing protesters who wish to protect clean water for hundreds of thousands of downstream users.

The obstructionist forces that have been purchased and installed in Congress are not serving the public by dredging up old information that has no bearing on reality, but that continues to prove that "all politicians" are crooks. There is no way to defend the current major party Presidential candidates and the time has come to stand our ground against the oligarchs who would purchase even more seats in the government if we stand idly by and let them.

I seriously thought that the tide had changed more than thirty years ago...I'm still waiting on the changes that we knew were necessary then. I am providing this link to the Earth Charter

This document carries the weight of millions of human beings from around the planet who understand the nature of our problems, but who wish to focus on solutions. Peaceful loving people everywhere have come together, organized around sane goals to secure a livable planet for all of us. Please take the time to read, understand and share this important work. We must come together and stand for our birthright, the oligarchs are bent on stealing it from us and if we are to survive as a species, we cannot let them continue their assaults on and neglect of Mother Nature.

Much Needed Day Off

This is a funny way to start, but living as most of us do, as members of the precariot, (the growing class of people who are working precariously to make ends meet, without a safety net) the very idea of a day off seems odd. I am sure that I will be creating order of chaos, fixing the property that is my responsibility and making projects come closer to fruition, but the day is officially "off" from employment. In another ten days, my current job will end and with it, the money (income) will stop as well. A well-behaved and better trained worker might spend their day working on their resume', preparing meals for the next week of work, or strategizing about the next steps that will need to be taken to remain gainfully employed. Not me, the soil needs rehabilitating and my organizational systems need to be tweaked. The most relaxing thing for me to do is to make art, so part of the day will be devoted to that. The tenacity with which I cling to my lifestyle make possible a whole realm of activities which "normals" must forego, but along with that there are things that they get to do that I cannot, because of very real choices I have made.

Last evening is a perfect example. I saw an old friend, who lives nearby, while visiting with an out of town friend who is just around for the night. He was ready to go out to see some live music, but it was already an hour past bedtime and morning is important enough to me that I did not want to miss it. Going out to see rock and roll used to be one of my favorite things, now I would rather put the garden to bed. I still wish that musicians would play earlier in the evening, so that farmers and early risers could go to shows. In many larger cities, music starts early and they still find ways to fill the venues. Here, especially in the bar band world, playing from 10 to midnight or 10 to close is common. I'm seriously done for the day by then! If I were to go out and boogie 'til the wee hours, my most productive hours would pass with me sleeping.

Knowing full well that today I would have the freedom to sleep in if I wanted and that my various commitments could probably wait were not enough to sway me to the side of going out at ten at night. I have no doubt that it would have been fun, but to not sleep well, or get enough rest on a day off is, for me, the most sure way to either get sick or hate life when I go back to work. Better to err on the side of health, respecting the limits that my physical body imposes. Writing these messages, reaching out across the miles to share this with you is one of my favorite jobs. Encouraging others to think about how to optimize their time off and encouraging others to make hard choices that guarantee better outcomes is a passion of mine. Rather than filling my head with sports facts, I dwell in a reality that revolves around natural cycles, native critters and resources. Learning and teaching about them are far more important than watching "the game".

My most recent work, for money, has taken me to thousands of doors, working to get out the vote; through this work I have gotten to make contact with many, many hundreds of people. It is especially wonderful to get to meet people who I remember from my early days of canvassing (back in the Eighties). Knowing that they have been living out their lives in the same house for generations helps create a sense of continuity in our hectic and often estranged world. Our work-a-day world often undermines our sense that we are indeed part of a neighborhood, a cadre of friends, family and cohorts who are all part of a larger organism we call humanity. Going door to door and looking into homes across the region continues to teach me things about myself and the place I occupy within the world around me. Reaching out to encourage people to participate in our democracy has been a lovely way to remind myself about the fact that I exist as part of a social order and that I have power to make my own decisions about what place in the system I want to occupy.

I could use a few weeks of downtime to let it all sink in, but I'm sure I will be busy trying to make my way in the world again soon enough that I may never fully comprehend the importance of this most recent phase in my "employment history."

Too Important Not To Share!

Each of us must determine the level of corruption and inhumanity we want to accept in our leadership. I favor zero. This led me to Jill Stein and Bernie Sanders. I nearly quit college and moved to Burlington, VT when Bernie got elected Mayor there, because he was in diametric opposition to Reagan who was pushed in to power (by the uberwealthy) about the same time. To validate corruption and inhumanity by allowing your vote to succumb to it, that is treason. Our nation was founded to be better than that. Silence is complicity and if the two major parties are going to shirk their responsibility, offering only terrible candidates, we need to step off their ride and invite them to do things the way we want/need them to be done! Jill Stein has had my vote since the DNC "Convention".

There comes a time in each of our lives when we finally become convinced that we have to stand up for one another, not just our own needs, but the collective needs of humanity. The war machine has brought us four brutal attacks on our planet that have cost every single man, woman and child living in the U.S. of A. $30K, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the F-35 and next gen. nukes. Not to mention, millions dead, and some of the most secular, developed, and historic cities in those nations reduced to rubble, or third world status. The humanitarian costs of this interventionist approach has guaranteed generations of people who will seek justice and retribution against us.

Why are we so quick to encourage people to forgive and forget anyway? That is what abusers do. "See honey, I brought you these flowers, I'm going to change." Know that as we want the native people to forgive and forget 500 years of genocide and institutional racism, we continue to shoot them with rubber bullets and treat them as pariah on their own land. Know that the black folk, after having every assault, every abuse, every inhumanity visited upon them for generations, now they are continuing to be the fodder for the prison industrial complex, making vast sums for their "overlords". Sound familiar? This is no less slavery than having to be sold on an auction block, or being born as livestock. It seems that the oligarchs want us to forget all their assaults on us and our planet.

Think about this when you cast your vote.
Remember, Jill Stein is carrying the Green Party and virtually all of Bernie Sanders' ideas to the table! Namaste', Ubuntu and Peace Brothers and Sisters. In Solidarity, T.C. Saladino

The Founding Fathers

The Founding fathers never wanted the Congress to become multi millionaire puppets for the oligarchs. They never dreamed of Gerrymandering districts, unlimited campaign spending and people spending their entire lives in Congress. Because each and every one of these changes alone is enough to kill democracy. Each one, one the face of it is at least suspect, if not treasonous. The level of intervention in daily life they wanted Congress to exert was able to be completed in a few moons during the time between Harvest and Spring planting. The earliest citizens of our great nation saw government service as a benevolent activity that was supposed to benefit the people generally. As in many democratic socialist systems all public workers know that the citizens are their ultimate employers.

Turning in their graves is an understatement of how badly they would feel about what our nation has become.

As much as we can find about the intent these men had, they knew from the start that by allowing majority to rule, not only the super-minority of a wealthy class, but "ordinary men", there would be a more even playing field for candidates and a more broad spectrum of representation of ideas. The entire age suffered from a great infatuation with knowledge and the spreading of that knowledge as part of building a new society of men. We need to redouble our efforts to let the ruling class know that this is our democracy, not theirs to be fed to us, like babies eating their first peas, but as men who can take responsibility for dealing with truth,  who gnaw it off the skeletal remains of the lies we have been told, who devour truth like hungry wolves, peeling back long ribbons of the fleshy meat of truth and gulp it down with reverence, because that is what humans do.

Follow the money to reveal the house of lies.

Another View

Last night, I took a long, slow drive out to the north end of the island, the sacred ancestral home of the Annishinabe, to the beach where I have been singing, dancing, and praying for decades. Along the drive, a mama deer darted out into the road, and took a leap to get lost in the woods again. Deer = compassion.
When I arrived, the cold wind was reminding me, "take warm clothes!" I had already packed my winter coat, so I bundled up and made my way down the banks to the water's edge.
I remember what my First Nation's friends tell me: pray to be grateful, pray to be humbled before Creator, pray to be a servant of Mother Earth.
After weeping all day while watching the live stream, I stood on the shore of one of the last great bodies of fresh water in the world with two small prayer bundles I got during the mining fight in the Penokees. I could not help but be humbled. I thanked all of creation, and I thanked over and over the brave people who stood up yesterday against the US tyranny of people who will destroy us all. I prayed for all the peoples of the world standing up against US tyrants. I asked to be humbled before my friends and neighbors and for the strength to do the right thing.
Over the course of the mining fight, I met many of my Native American neighbors: Bad River and Red Cliff, LCO, Lac du Flambeau, Ho Chunk, St. Croix—so many descendants of the families who have been murdered, abused, abducted, sold into slavery, kicked off their land (some of which is my home now)—the awful things that have happened to my neighbors does not just go back generations, but it is alive and well today.
Since I was young, I was fascinated with the story of our First Nations. I read every book I could get my hands on. Over and over I re-read those books—Black Elk Speaks, Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee, Lame Deer—and they always ended the same: in tragedy for these amazing people and their masterful culture. Every time, I sobbed, as if, maybe this time the story would end differently. It never did.
Today, watching them take down the Standing Rock Sioux with guns, LRAD, concussion bombs, rubber bullets to the face, tear gas, I felt like I was living that ending all over again. How could it be that these people are once again being driven into despair, their grandparents' graves and sacred sites being torn up by Corporations while the jack booted law enforcement protect the tyrants? How can this be happening? Silly me. They know it can, is and does still happen in 2016. Standing Rock is just the veil being drawn back for all the rest of us people of privilege to see and experience like never before.
As much as I have educated myself on the First Nations history, yesterday I felt as if I knew something I never knew before.
The only way for me to respond is to vow never again to allow this to happen. While I cannot seem to stop our reign of terror in Syria, Iran, Iraq, I can stand up here at home. It is my bound duty to help undo the injustices that have come before. As a white person living on the land of the First Nations, it is the least any of us can do.
Go to Standing Rock. Get there. Now. If you can't, please, educate your friends and family on what is happening.
Donate to their legal defense fund.
Send them the supplies they ask for.
Call the White House, ND gov, media, senators, congresspeople, call over and over and over and do not stop until the pipeline is stopped.

Thank-you for this insight Barbara With

Trolling for Comments

We have entered a new realm in which people seem to be so desperate for human contact that even bad contact is good enough to keep away the pain and loneliness of their daily lives. Think of that the next time someone attacks you or tries to bait you into a response. The best way to deal with bullies is to ignore them or exert immediate public attention on their behaviors. If neither of those two things are possible or available, it is well to have a version of the evil eye to cast upon them.

WARNING: If your evil eye is not up to snuff, refer back to either the first or second approach.

Ready Or Not

The clock is ticking...In the old game of hide and seek, we had a specific amount of time to hide, perhaps when we were asked to count to one hundred, it would keep us there a minute or so, just enough time to find a closet to hide in, or to get situated under a bed. If we were lucky enough to be outside, perhaps climb a tree or wiggle under a pile of leaves. We had a variety of options really, but they were all based around getting further away from the seeker that other players and trying not to make too much noise tucking yourself away, out of sight. Looking for places that would be less likely to be searched figured into the calculation, but the overarching requirement was to be hidden by the time the counting stopped.

The countdown clock is set today for January 20, 2017. That is the day that we will be thrust into a new sort of game. There is already discussion about branding some people with various labels and in this current world, the ways to parse data will assure that some of us will be easier to spot than others. some will not be able to keep their heads down at all, or find curtains big enough to hide behind. There will be no tree trunks large enough to hide behind if you are, for instance, black, Hispanic or Muslim. There will be no hiding the fact that you are a scientist, or activist, community leader or outspoken on womyn's issues. Perhaps the rules of the game need to change.

We must be prepared to be thrust back in time, even further than Marty McFly was in Back to the Future, Perhaps twice as far. The crazies are currently out in force, emboldened by the rhetoric of The Donald. If what we are seeing already is any indication of things to come, not only will there be nowhere to hide, but multiple seekers as well. There are self-righteous vigilante types, who want to be judge, jury and executioner, there are simple racist bullies and scores of people who are silent, but tacitly approve of racial profiling and still believe that X-tian America was made solely by whites and for whites only. On the face of it, we know that this cannot be happening, however, it seems to be. At the exact moment in time that we need unity, there are forces at play that want to fracture our nation further. Wearing safety pins, we are about to find, will not be enough.

People on the short list for cabinet level appointments, or who will be occupying the highest posts in our land, include folks who have said that being gay can be "deprogrammed" out of you, or by just praying hard enough, a belief that has been proven to be fiction thousands of times over Some believe that there will be a "list" of Muslims and that somehow will make us all safer. The seriously believe that America is a X-tian nation, that womyn belong in the home, taking care of babies and getting supper ready instead of competing with men in the job market. People who detest abortion so vehemently and who feel that what other people do somehow reaches out across space and time to hurt them in their tiny lives. They believe that rapists need to have visitation with their offspring, that parents of babies who are born dead, or who have abortions must be required to hold funerals for them, and among some of the most important decision makers in our nation, we will have climate deniers who want to destroy planet Earth, privatize all water resources and deregulate the spreading of toxic compounds on the soils of our nation.

How and why they come looking for people and/or their methods may be as yet uncertain, but the one thing you can count on is that some of us will be labeled domestic terrorists, even if we have never advocated violence of any type. Some of us will be labeled subversive, even if we only seek truth and justice, some are already losing their jobs for speaking truth to power and some will be killed either for who they are perceived to be or what they supposedly believe in. Unlike the typical game of hide and seek, you don't just get to be the seeker for the next round, you may actually be sacrificed in the name of ethnic cleansing, "jobs", "Murica!" or some other xenophobic or misogynistic whim.

Kindly

Kind made into action, kindly, has been beyond perception in most human interaction since before our "civilization" until now. Being kind has been taken for granted for generations, taught mostly by grandmothers. The vast, vast majority of people we meet are kind, they care about the people around them and want them to be better off, if possible, after their parting than they were before. This is why a knot of mostly men gathers around any man with a new tool, why the "coffee clutch" got established. It is in the nature of humans to bond together in groups for mutual support. The act of being kind increases the resource base amongst groups at rates that far outstrip the costs, or we would have evolved as solitaries.

I feel the same about each and every reader of my writings. If there is some truth which I am able to elucidate, some string, or strand of reality that I can tease from the chaos of media induced frenzy, I am honored to provide you with those lucidities. Yes, spellcheck, I know that is not a redneckonized word, lucidity is fine, yes, I know, but these are not the things I was trying to talk about.

This transformative aspect of language, the ability of words to morph, is indeed another reflection on how kind the human species truly is. I give others the leeway to coin new phrases, or ram-shackle words together to create nuance and meaning that could not be contained by the sieve of prior wordsmithing (which is a word I hate, but less so with an "ing" on the end.) The relatively newly recognized art of mash-up has proven, by accentuating disparate elements having the ability to occupy the same space in our consciousness, that allowing latitude in creative endeavors is to be honored and respected, understood as a reflection of the fractile nature inherent in the elements of creation.

I try to make as many different micro-biomes around our yard as possible, each one is kind to different species, sometimes at different times of day, to assist the flourishing, all must feel stability and a comfortable sort of harmony.

No colony of bacteria, or viruses, fungi or microflagellates could ever be established without first finding a kind environment in which to find food, exchange gasses, find security and reproduce. After all, in these respects all living creatures are the same. That is how we define "living" in the most basic sense. This kindness is a quantum state that encourages optimization, not the sort that can be recorded with existing instrumentation nor quantified by administering an assay of questions, but of the heart, of the spirit and when fully realized, even a cellular functioning that exceeds our current state. Organisms respond to kindness by flourishing, a word I use, perhaps too frequently. The multi-variate benefits, operating on many levels increase the effectiveness (affection) between them. Much like on a macro extra-personal level, relationships prove that "many hands make light work", internally, when our body, mind and spirit are unified, the benefits can be exponential.

If ever, you are tempted to "fly off the hook" or "lose your composure, or temper",  "lash out" or "put down" someone, whatever their transgressions might be, take a moment or ten to be kind. Above all else, history has taught us that kindness can alleviate mountains of pain, heal acres of neglect and transform tectonic plates of abuse into fertile territory for healing.

Greens (yes the party) have always known this scientifically proven, healing modality. Being kind, above all else. The fact that so many cannot fathom it often makes those who understand feel like outsiders. The word is out though, peaceful loving people from around the globe are coming together using the internet. We are the majority and we will not have our planet stolen from us, raped and abused, for upon it we must make our way forward.

Short List

The top tier of problems we face with the current slate of Presidential candidates are misogyny, exhibited by both, being war mongers, exhibited by both and being out of touch with the common people of this nation, what we want and need, our desires, hopes and fears; again, exhibited by both.
These three things are perhaps the main reason for such dissatisfaction with the current state of electoral politics. Again, I say, if you want change, you have to vote for it. Jill Stein is my choice and although not everyone need agree with me, more people than you may expect do. If everyone who truly wanted change would vote for her, it would be won in a landslide!

I Am A Voter.

I have voted in all but one election since turning eighteen. The one I missed was when I was working a s a poll worker and forgot to send in my absentee ballot. In addition to making my wishes known at the ballot box, I frequently write my legislators about issues that concern me. I write to state and federal agencies and attend to occasional county board or city council meeting as well. Instead of listening objectively to the testimony and concerns that I voice, most "representatives" look at the ceiling, or their watch, probably making mental notes on how they are going to spend their summer holiday. The few who are paying marginal attention are specifically listening for key words that they can use to either shut me down, tune me out or paint my entire testimony as tainted with the same gawdawful disdain that they deem appropriate for anyone who ever questions the wisdom of the oligarchs.

I do not shy away from speaking about issues that concern many. Even when I am in the company of those who are frustrated and who have given up hope, I still try to express a more clear and precise view of what is really going on around us, ecologically, politically, economically and educationally. My main point is to remind folks that the media, as it is currently owned by the very same ultra-wealthy folks who receive the lion's share of government welfare, therefore, their opinions and "truths" reflect a certain ignorance. Like a child who has never had to pay rent or buy food, it is easy for them to see that all things come to them. They accept this unquestionably as the way it should be, or the natural order of things, etc. The real costs of things never seem to matter to those who get someone else to foot the bill.

There have been two times in my thirty six years of voting that I have picked a winner for President, however those two times were overshadowed by the extremely different outcomes that took place during the terms of office of those candidates than what they had said they would accomplish during their time in office. I admit that in one of those two times, I fell for the "lesser of two evils" argument. Only once did I actually believe that the candidate would stand up for the general public against the ultra-wealthy. Sadly, Congress is in the pocket of the well-heeled superminority. The 1% are without shame in their dictates and mandates that they saddle the rest of us with. Never mind the fact that they refuse to comply with any efforts to restrain them in their gluttony and avarice.

It is as revolutionary to say "I am a voter." as to say "I am a man." The vast majority of Americans are summarily ignored by the ultra-wealthy in favor of their own wants and "needs". The time has come to vote the buggers out, for good.