Lieberman's disingenuity

Joe Lieberman's fervent stance against the public option is driven by his cloaked prejudice against the poor and unfortunate, his innate and outdated puritanism, and his wish to keep Americans trapped in a hierarchy which the founders never intended, a hierarchy which serves commercialism, bankers and the military.

Thanksgiving and Christmas

Note to "Green Guide" -- For next Thanksgiving why not include information about non-turkey dinners? I know Thanksgiving has evolved into a significant family holiday but the underlying realities consist of a national slaughter of millions of turkeys and a national obsession with gluttony that is encouraged and applauded as part of "family values" and "the American way."

In the same way that Christmas exists primarily as a commercial observance of consumerism, Thanksgiving is a commercial observance of gluttony and denial of history.

Especially in light of the profound challenges our society faces now, why not encourage alternative ways, more questioning and aware, of looking at these customary holidays? Thank you.

Schwebel's Bakery Withdraws from Ringling Brothers

Schwebel's Bakery Company based in Youngtown Ohio has withdrawn its agreement to provide customers with discounted tickets to Ringling Brothers Circus after they began receiving messages about the circus's cruelty to animals, especially elephants. I have written a Thank You to the company for their compassionate, brave and enlightened change of mind.

Update on elephants - Ringling Bros

PETA asked for letters to Schwebel's Bakery which has offered discount tickets for the circus to its customers. I wrote: "I'm sure you at Schwebel's entered innocently into your arrangement with Ringling Brothers Circus. Please Hear the the voices that are now telling the truth about the circus's documented cruelty to elephants. Ask yourselves why the circus elephants wear such elaborate ornamented tapestry around their heads and necks -- it is to hide the wounds and scars from being beaten and jabbed with bull hooks. Of course the public relations campaigns about "The friendly circus" have been successful and have become a part of accepted myth in our society. But one of the good things about our society is that we can change when we learn a truth about cruelty that has been hidden from us."

News - Ringling Bros just had to cancel its scheduled appearances in Spain and parts of Germany because of new laws about animal cruelty.

Kill All The Rats?

A friend concerned about seeing rats in the parks of Boston at night asked if I knew about the poisoning policy. I replied that I know poison is put out with some frequency. My email discussion: "I think they have to strike a balance between having a dangerous amount of poison continuously present in public areas (danger to humans, children and pets) and putting out enough to try to control the rats. It is an extremely difficult problem because construction never stops in Boston and therefore displacement of mice and rats doesn't stop.

"A former commercial exterminator whom I happened to meet last week said he was called to Bay Village when the Big Dig got underway. There he found thousands of quite beautiful and sociable rats of a type no one seemingly had encountered before. Displaced by the massive dig, these creatures seemed to have rarely -- if ever -- encountered humans and went right up to them. He said they had reddish golden brown fur like cats and in general were sociable and sweet-tempered animals. Because of their lack of fear it was easy to kill them, he said. Nevertheless it was a massive effort -- perhaps even an extinction for that kind.

I am sympathetic with people who get upset upon seeing a mouse or a rat -- the typical "eek" scream -- although I am also aware that deeply-entrenched cultural repulsion is based on incorrect data fearfully impressed on them when they were children. It's a generational and favorite fallacy that rats caused the bubonic plague. Not so. The plague resulted from human-fecal-contaminated water in the streams. Perhaps it would bring a bit more equilibrium to society if humans who get very terrorized about the idea or the presence of rats could be re-educated.

Animals do live in the city and in the world with us. Trying to kill all the mice and rats in a city is a bit like trying to kill all the squirrels or pigeons or seagulls -- the desire to do so is perhaps understandable but there are deep, nuanced and little-understood consequences about declaring any area of the planet a "human only" zone.

When I see my friends or others scream in panic upon seeing a mouse or rat, I try to calm them down and then see if they possibly might be receptive to unlearning a cultural bias based on a prevalent misconception, probably so powerful because of fear of death. To see a rat and think "death" is no more fact-based than to see a pigeon and think "death."

Non-human animals are often judged as dirty, brutal, disease-carrying and worse. Could we once in a while give a few seconds of thought to the idea that those words -- with emphasis on disease-carrying -- could apply quite handily to "human" animals?

World Cup Football wants to sacrifice animals

The Federation Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) plans to sacrifice 10 animals to "bless" the world cup. I wrote them:

There are good reasons why modern humans do not copy the more brutish practices of our forebears. Do you realize how close "animal" sacrifice is to human sacrifice? In today's world humans can choose mortal sacrifice for themselves -- and even that is against the law in most countries. Who are you to decide to copy this atavistic and horrible custom by choosing "animals" to die? Shocking and ugly. This brings despair to those who are trying to evolve into the humans we have the capacity to be.

Why does Ringling put ornate cloaks on elephants?

Ringling Brothers Circus "dresses up" the elephants in ornate material that cloaks their shoulders to hide the scars and wounds from their workers and trainers stabbing and pulling the elephants with bull hooks that hurt them and tear into their flesh. This circus promotes an image of affection toward its owned animals but that is only in front of the money-spending public. If you'd like to know the reality stay outside the circus until after all the crowds have left. You'll hear the screams of the elephants being beaten.

Most European nations have outlawed the use of captive animals in circuses. It's far past time for America to do the same. A new sensibility about cruelty to animals has been evolving in our society for some time. More immoral than outright abuse is the disguised abuse that this circus has practiced throughout its history. This wealthy corporation is so afraid of being "found out" that it sent infiltrators into animal groups to learn their plans.

I was disappointed to learn that AAA of Southern New England is promoting Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Please let AAA become one of the enlightened associations that wakes up and stands against abuse and torture of these intelligent, family oriented, and deeply emotional "animals" with whom we share this planet.

Recent video footage documents Ringling employees as they struck elephants who are forced to perform confusing and physically demanding tricks for a moment of "entertainment." These highly intelligent animals spend the majority of their lives in chains or tiny cages and are denied the fulfillment of every basic instinct.

Please. I know you went into this with good intentions. But please, please see the reality and stop supporting Ringling Brothers. Thank you.

Massachusetts approves unlimited bobcat hunting

Email to officials: Allowing unlimited bobcat hunting is archaic, atavistic and inhumane. Humanity is now in a transition moving beyond the idea of wholesale massacres of "animals" who share the planet with us. American consultants travel the underdeveloped world to try to persuade local peoples not to conduct wholesale massacres of local animals. In addition to the indisputable network-of-life argument used by environmentalists we try to persuade these peoples that they are blocking the way to potentially lucrative tourism. Why should Massachusetts, generally thought to be a state of more enlightened ideals, set such an example of animal massacre, not only for our young people but for the rest of the country and the world? Please reconsider. Thank you.

Department of Agriculture asks for comments

The Department wants to review what conditions should be used for designation of the label "natural." My email:

Any society or nation is judged ultimately on the treatment of its lowest-ranking creatures. Just because certain beings are labeled as "food animals" --- not through any moral or philosophical truth but because of custom and commerce -- does not mean there are no limits on cruelty and deprivation. Please reconsider the guidelines of treatment for livestock and poultry. Apart from moral considerations there is also the still unknown degree of risk to humans associated with eating mal-treated, tortured, diseased and injured "food animals." Thank you for considering the possibility of changing outdated and inhumane thinking.

For Obama re wolf massacre

President Barack Obama October 16 2009
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington D.C 20500

Dear President Obama,

In many parts of the world our power as a nation is connected to a perception of us as killers, a perception that some of our policies re-enforce. When does the time come to step up the essential morality in stead of the high-flown language?

Have you thought about what it actually means that we conduct and encourage wholesale massacre of the “animals” that live on our American lands? First, consider the other man-decided deaths. Conducting war with its unthinkable killing is an activity that humanity in its most enlightened thinking has moved beyond. The question is in the air: Why stay in that primitive past?

Almost more horrible is the ongoing decision to kill those who have no voice: the “animals” who are our co-inhabitants in America and on the earth. American representatives work in many parts of the world to encourage local peoples to stop killing local “animals” because such short-sightedness blocks their opportunity for tourism, one of the most effective forms of infusing money into their economies.

We, including you -- President Obama -- speak continually of our high ideals and our humanity. How can you reconcile these ideals with allowing Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to sit motionless during the murders of an entire wolf pack in one of our revered places, Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies? What was the wolves’ undoing? They ate a sheep. What is the cost of a sheep compared to killing an entire pack which had become known throughout our country and the world? One of the pack’s mothers was radio-collared. The wolf cubs have been left to die.

The transition time of humanity’s life on the planet is not arriving or coming in a distant future. It is here. Will we live in the transition or cement our feet into the unknowing past? How do we measure the interests of emperor-rich ranchers with those of our disastrously dwindling fellow creatures? According to a god or to mysteries the planet exists as a living organism with its own life, necessities and essential patterns. Wiser ones talk about the tipping point for the planet and therefore for humanity. Why would we think the killing of fellow “animal” inhabitants does not figure into the question?

In as much as we must eventually use means other than killing to figure out how to exist with our fellow human beings, why would it not be the same thinking for “animals”? Why is all land on the globe owned by humans or human-sourced entities?

Does anyone think the planet can exist denuded of “animals” except for those imprisoned in zoos and laboratories for our entertainment and experimentation?

Is it the destiny of humanity to kill all life because the human mind can not do other than consider “animals” as a momentary or permanent obstacle to human power and aspiration?

Please.

The Nobel for President Obama

For the New York Times comment column: "The Nobel Committee showed uncommon thoughtfulness in this entirely appropriate award. President Obama has displayed a consistent vision for change in the U.S. and in the world, a vision for a more enlightened civilization. The proof of that vision -- unfortunately -- lies in the rabid opposition expressed by the right wing, corporate and otherwise. He is an embattled president. In encouraging and supporting him the Nobel group has aligned strongly with ideals for a kinder and wiser future for all of humanity."

Letter to Eddie Bauer: Dear Eddie Bauer -- I have warm feelings and considerable respect for your brand and was interested to read about its history. The announcement said:
"Eddie Bauer launches its Heritage Collection in a tribute to Eddie's passion for the outdoors and the sportsman tradition." More advanced clothing and accessories are introduced to make the outdoorsmen -- including "hunters" -- comfortable and safe.

While I can understand why the company categorizes the "hunter" consumer with those who climb mountains, hike and pursue similar activities, I am asking you to think anew about the place humanity now occupies in evolutionary time -- in regard to "hunting." Our relationship to nature is in the process of transition from the idea of "conquering, eliminating, exploiting, and killing" to one of conservation and care. "Hunting" already has evolved far beyond its role in human history. Only in a few tribal areas is it necessary for survival. Consider the scene of a relatively affluent human outfitting himself/herself with technically superior clothing, luxury tents, and war-derived weapons, infra-red, radar and other such equipment. The human transports himself in supreme comfort to a remote area where he establishes himself in the same luxury he enjoys in his condo or house. With his perfect clothing and deadly equipment he goes out to "hunt" mammals, often baiting them with food. This is not "hunting." This is technological conscious killing for -- what reason?

The illusion that he aligns with his ancestor? Even an ancestor of 100 years ago would be astounded and would question why he considers this bravery.

He must kill or his family will starve? Only in a few tribal areas. The man who buys equipment from companies like Eddie Bauer consumes 99.999999 per cent of his animal flesh from plastic-wrapped supermarket trays.

It makes you feel more like a man to kill something walking in the woods or approaching carefully scented bait food? This atavistic idea is analogous to killing as a blood lust sensation practiced in the Coliseum. One difference from the Coliseum: this killing is practiced in secret -- no one observes you in the woods except those you intend to kill. No public knows about it except through your own personally controlled stories.
What am I asking Eddie Bauer to do? During the planetary transition to care and conservation -- which has to happen for survival -- could you at least put up some signs that discuss "hunting" in an expanded more dimensional light? Open up a discussion on your web site? Print some pamphlets to promote photographic hunting instead of killing?

Thank you -- China Altman

Cheney: I can lie for war. You cannot investigate abuse.

In recent news Cheney agressively attacked the Obama administration’s decision to investigate the abuse of prisoners held by the C.I.A. He said the investigation should not happen because it was intensely partisan and politicized.
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Ahem, Mr Cheney when you and your autocratic government decided to lie in order to bring about a fraudulent war of destruction in Iraq, you appear convinced that these partisan and politicized actions were correct since they were directed by you and your cronies. As co-president it was okay for you to politize an invasion/mass destruction. On the other hand looking into illegal and horrible abuse of prisoners during the fraudulent war is, according to you, "bad" politicizing by the new legally elected government.

From his actions we see Cheney is having an extremely hard time giving up his position as the most powerful vice president in American history. He evidently was a co-president or a puppet master. The degree to which he behaves as if he were still in charge can be correlated by the degree to which he thinks he can still cloak his official actions. He illustrates the imperialism he practiced: How can you lesser ones look at what "I" -- mighty and righteous -- did? Does he want to keep his actions covered to keep his mind's view of his power intact? Can it be he knows his fellow citizens will not look favorably upon his secret practices? Can it be a crisis of his "conscience?" Is he trying to come to terms with mortality? Hard to imagine that, especially since this supremely pragmatic power-obsessed man has now amassed one of the great towering fortunes through the part played by his Haliburton Company in the war he contrived and the adjunct financial deals like Guantanamo, awarded outright -- with no bidding -- to Haliburton.

Can it be that Cheney keeps trying to control the "facts" because he fears conviction and time behind bars? Probably not. Due to the nature of our politics the too-bad thing is that his constant whinging, scolding and threatening will keep him safe just as his vast ill-begotten fortune will keep his descendants safe for hundreds of years. Meanwhile in America soldier graves increase. Growing steadily in number are other parts of his political legacy: desperately injured solders, the homeless and the abandoned poor. Iraqi people struggle with the destruction of their country and the massacre of their people, the thousands of injured survivors, the kind of horrors that can be healed -- if ever -- by time measured in centuries.

Why no news follow-up on Michael Vick?

I wrote the following to the investigative news desk of the New York Times:
"The Philadelphia Eagles are paying Michael Vick astronomical amounts; on TV he said in perfected public relations-mode that he "cried" in prison. Why no follow-up by the Times on his activities in regard to animals and to animal groups? Has he received counseling to deal with his years of participating in dog-killing? Do psychiatric specialists think 18 months of incarceration can have changed his basic mind-set about treatment of animals? He still refers to what he did euphemistically as having been in a wrong culture, as if the culture of dog-fighting were the criminal and not himself. He has not referred in simple language to his own torturing, beating dogs to death, and rejoicing in the money it brought him. The truth is found in what a person does and is seen to do. If he were remorseful he would seek counseling and reach out to animal protection groups. He has not done this. I appeal to your newspaper not to ignore reporting on his life outside football and not to treat the Vick matter as if it were distant, remedied and "not-news."

Killing of animals for spectacle and money has not ended. Vick has made no significant statements about it, nor has he demonstrated an inclination to spend any of the time and energy of his life in personal counter-balancing or acts (not words) of remorse. He is in a position of extraordinary power to make a difference as a role model and spokesman. Important work awaits him if he were willing to spend time representing a different view to help American society turn away from the idea of organized secret killing as an acceptable business. Thank you.

Willing to kill but not to care?

Question I submitted for President Obama's National Health Care Forum Thursday August 20: "Why do you think Americans were so willing to bankrupt our country for a war based on lies in Iraq and now are so vociferous in opposing even the idea of basic health care for each other, their fellow Americans?"

Idaho plans largest wolf massacre since the 1930s

On August 10 2009 the Idaho Department of Fish and Game announced it will begin next Monday to sell an estimated 70,000 permits to hunt and kill wolves in Idaho, season beginning in 14 days. That’s 70 guns for each wolf parent and pup in the state.

It could be the worst wolf massacre in the Lower 48 United States since the 1930s.
Last year a federal judge ruled to stop wolf killing in Wyoming and secured a reprieve for wolves in the Northern Rockies.

I wrote to Governor C.L. "Butch" Otter:

" I was impressed with your governor's statement about Idaho and our country holding precious American values. Question: What message does it send to the children of your state and of the nation -- as well as to the other nations of the world -- to promote a state-sponsored massacre of wolves through provisions for 70 licensed guns for every single wolf in Idaho? Would you be willing to consider that the time has arrived for husbandry instead of massacre in regard to wildlife? American diplomats and representatives continually campaign to convince "developing" countries to consider wildlife as a resource, as part of the natural world that -- apart from ethical concerns -- can bring enormous tourism income. Thank you."

Office of the Governor | P.O. Box 83720 | Boise, Idaho 83720 | 208-334-2100

Governor Otter: "My goal as your Governor is to empower Idaho to be all that America was meant to be..."

End of life for Befriended Koala Sam

Following modified from AP Writer Tanalee Smith, Aug 6 09.
ADELAIDE, Australia – Sam the koala, who became globally-known when photographed drinking water from a firefighter's bottle during Australia’s devastating wild fires, had to be released from life after a veterinarian found multiple painful and inoperable cysts. She had been recuperating in a shelter since the February fires.
As fires raged, Sam was gingerly making her way on scorched paws past a fire patrol north of Melbourne when volunteer firefighter David Tree spotted her.He was photographed holding a bottle of water to her lips, an image that resonated around the world.
Tree was in tears last Thursday as he spoke to reporters about Sam's death.
"It means something to everyone," he said. "The focus was never meant to be ... on a firefighter. It's simply about our wildlife and just how precious it is."
The 4-year-old koala had developed the cysts associated with stress-related urogenital chlamydiosis, affecting more than 50 percent of Australia's koalas. Thousands die every year. During surgery Sam’s disease was found to be so advanced it was inoperable. "It was so severe that there was no possible way to be able to manage her pain," an official said.
Deborah Tabart, CEO of the Australian Koala Foundation, said she was saddened by Sam's death but noted that thousands of other koalas die every year of the disease and are not lamented nor cared for by the government.
"Sam's just the tip of the iceberg," Tabart said. "… Our koalas are in serious trouble across the country."
Sam was found in early February, when record temperatures, high winds and forests dried by years of drought set off infernos that swept a vast area of Victoria state, killing more than 170 people and destroying thousands of homes.
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Of course the human loss is tragic but the loss of "other" life -- as usual was not recorded.

Think of all the koalas with this stress-related disease. I don't know how we can bear to keep on creating a world of horror and nightmare for the animals who are our co-creatures on the globe. Our cruelty as we carpet the world with commercialism in the name of "progress" seems the prevailing characteristic of our species. I wish those who are awake enough to see it could stand on top of the towers in the world -- virtual and otherwise -- and scream "Stop" in voices so numerous they would go into outer space -- with the dear but almost hopeless dream that they could go into the inner spaces of global humanity.

Why do we automatically have the idea that it's alright to imprison the non-humans, to take away their places, to wear their skins, to torture and kill them by uncountable millions?

Letter to Time re Aug 2 "report"

Time's piece by Jeninne Lee-St.John on urban animal raising --- the "Gee Whiz" factor was prevalent, along with ditzi excitement about what MUST be a new trend spotted first by your magazine. Encouraging urban dwellers to raise and kill chickens, rabbits, goats and other animals in their apartments smacks of a kind of idiocy and noxious atavism. So their children can learn about real life? Take them on field trips or show films about slaughter houses. Raising chickens tied with diapers among the Ralph Lauren designer furniture illustrates a skewed mentality turning desperately toward a pathological simulacrum of "natural life." If they want to connect to what remains of the "natural world" there are other pathways. The reality of food-animal "life" and death in the American world is a short poop-filled total imprisonment with torture (cutting off bills and toes etc) ending in a horrible fear-filled death. It adds another layer to the horror for the urban trend-afflicted to "domesticate" the process in apartments.

The New Yorker and a cruel sheriff

The New Yorker published an 11-page piece in its July 20 issue on Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, known for torture and deaths that occur in his jails, and for the cruelty and humiliation he orders to be practiced on arrested persons, including those awaiting trial. My letter to the editor:

"Granted the New Yorker is characterized by its eclectic content, how can you justify devoting the better part of eleven pages to Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio who is characterized by indefensible acts of cruelty? If you meant to illustrate the horror and nightmare his practices have brought to thousands of our fellow citizens you could have done it in a more tightly edited piece. Given perhaps that was not your choice, did you mean to glorify him? Your magazine has not given such space to the like of presidents or notable figures in culture and the arts. Why join the mainstream media in its obsession with narcissistic and pathological figures?"

To City Council re horses

Please tell me detailed plans for the Boston police horses now that the division has been closed. Also, please tell me the names of the agency or persons who will monitor those plans, also the location(s) of the places the horses will be taken. I am concerned that, once the media coverage ebbs, they might be sold for carriage horses or to slaughter houses. The "use" of carriage horses amounts to prisoner labor without respite or care. Treatment of carriage horses in Boston needs to be carefully investigated by knowledgeable sources. If competently done such an investigation would lead to the end of their use on the streets of Boston. In most European capitols "use" of carriage horses has been banned. How prisoner animals are treated is a litmus test for civilization. Thank you,

Response to roof gardens piece

Heartening to see a news piece that encourages new business buildings to have plantable roofs. Imagine a time when many rooftops became gardens or meadows, especially on commercial and institutional buildings. The sprawling hospital complexes within most cities would be a good place to extend rooftop gardening to bring air-cleaning, relief, solace and perhaps even help in healing the stressed spirits of the ailing, their families and their medical professionals. We need to seek and welcome any thing we can do to increase the greenness of the earth we have assaulted so much with the environmental destruction labeled "progress."

Androcles writes to the Post & the Times

This to the Washington Post:


Ceci Connolly's piece on health care reform was a betrayal to those who are seriously considering this critical issue and also a betrayal to the ethics of journalism. The Post endorsed that betrayal by placing the piece so prominently. Health care is too important for subjective or biased reporting. Yelling, headline grabbing and skewed journalism betrays the public and makes it harder for our nation to grow into an adult state where honest discussion can flourish and re-enforce the ideal of citizen participation. Thank you.

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This to the New York Tms:

In her report on the Chicago police reunion Monica Davey wrote: "But for other retired officers, this was a chance at last to correct history, at least quietly, among one another..."

This sentence needed to have read something like: "at last to give their version of history..." or "at last to try to correct history according to their versions..." The declarative writing used in the Davey sentence assumes or even affirms that the officers have the ability or the right to "correct history." It's sloppy syntax which ends up giving a personal and questionable opinion. We may discuss, reflect, remember, insist. No single group or person can correct history. Where was the editor?

Michael Jackson

I can't stand to read the cacophony of commentary... so I'm not.
I'm weary of the formula. First we adore, then we mock and joke, then we weep, revise, backtrack and cavil when they die.

"Hunting" is not hunting

Aerial killing of wolves in Alaska is a kind of warfare. The word used to describe it is an affront. "Hunting" by sophisticated aircraft using assault weapons is not "hunting" -- it is massacre and mass murder. It bears no resemblance to a lone human who may kill an animal on the ground for food.

In some instances the consciousness of humanity has evolved beyond random mass killing and destruction of the "other" life on the earth. We need more realization that such destruction cannot occur without consequences for humanity and for all of life.

Is this kind of massacre what America really wants to give as an example to other nations, particularly in the "third" world where enlightened leaders and thinkers work to persuade "native" peoples to nurture wildlife as part of a program of economic development through eco-tourism?

At this point the "government" of Alaska encourages and rewards the massacre of wolves in any fashion. When will the citizens there realize that they do not have to blindly obey the government when it says "kill?" The wildlife of all the lands of America and the earth are our co-inhabitants of the globe. They are part of the sacred richness of the world along with all peoples and their descendants. Humankind is the apex predator species of the planet - yes. Yet it is not given to us to conduct large scale massacre of other species. No religious texts promote it. The principles of life and the web of life speak softly to say: No.

The vast organism which is earth itself has been illustrating the consequences of human destruction. Wolf murderers and those who support and encourage them are as out of step as would be Neanderthals who might appear among us.

Personal Style of Singer Susan Boyle Derided

About Susan Boyle I've seen, read and heard condescending remarks about her "frumpy" style.

What kinds of human beings are we in our various societies that we focus instantly with such harsh judgement on the appearance of this talented person? Beginning with the audience and the panel, all felt comfortable with mocking and laughing when she appeared on stage.

Consider what was seen: She was not young...she was well groomed, clean, neat, polite, spirited in a quirky way, wearing a dated "best" dress and no makeup except a bit of lipstick. If it is a given that such a condition brings mockery and condescension I suppose we may soon identify another group of people who are not a minority but a kind of majority: women not young, mushy in the middle, not fashionable. There are millions of them (us). If Susan Boyle sang in a church or a community center in that outfit no one would mock her. If she appears at Carnegie Hall -- even if she is not "made over" and poured into a sleek dress -- no one would condescend to her.

Imagine a Stanley Boyle in the same situation: outdated suit, barber-shop haircut, mushy in the middle, clean... and so on. I'm pretty sure he would be thought interesting, quirky, individualistic, his own man, a personality, an un-found star.

Everyone did a flip when her remarkable voice -- and her spirit -- resounded in that plastic over-produced television show. Is there a chance -- along with the surprise and pleasure she brought -- that we might all think for awhile of looking differently upon the often-deviating appearances of the people all around us? Not only them, but us -- so often talented, decent, honorable, worthwhile in ways we don't instantly see.

What can the city do in these times?

A candidate for mayor of Boston asked for suggestions. Androcles said:
One -- The salary of every department head, including that of the mayor, is cut across the board by 10%.
Two -- City cars for department heads are eliminated. They use taxis, the T or their private cars.
Three -- The T should be put into receivership, all the top echelon replaced. Among all entities connected to the city this is the most poorly run.
Four -- Two new city agencies are established, using professionals not political appointees. The first oversees and reports monthly on all budgets to the public, media and all city government entities. The second evaluates and rewards citizen volunteering in the city by giving percentage real estate cuts. If citizens own no real estate coupons for food are awarded.
Five -- Increase teachers salaries.
Six -- Stop all new construction for 3 years, evaluate whether to extend the moratorium. What about the outcry from construction companies? Put all available money into repairs, priorities to be determined by citizen use, safety and quality of life.

Consciousness

I’m having an argument with a book. It’s really with the author Peter Russell (degrees in physics, experimental psychology, computer science) who wrote From Science to God -- 129 pages, capacious type. This is the kind of thought-provoking book I like to read at breakfast.

As it’s propped in front of my plate I read a few paragraphs and then seize my ballpoint to write WRONG at this place or that. He will never know I do it. Over against his degrees I can only put one, though I’ve lived a lot of life and I love to tussle with things that are hard to understand. Reading this book is fun. It’s like hearing an end-of-term lecture by a congenial and brilliant teacher who was thinking “Oh well, let’s throw this out there.”

Russell struggles with the concept of consciousness, quoting widely from west and east in distance and from centuries in time. What is it? Where does it come from? For instance, part of what we think of as our consciousness tells us the grass is green. No.The idea of the color we label as “green” comes from properties of light and the electrical impulses transmitted from the eye to the brain…” the green we see is a quality created in consciousness.”

Does the tree falling in the forest make a sound if no one is there to hear? No, he happily says. Ah-ha. I seize my pen to make a huge question mark. He is speaking entirely from the vantage of whether a “human” hears it. In the human-less forest, even if there were no larger animals nearby it’s almost impossible that there would not be ants, bugs, birds, turtles -- all of whom can hear. You get the point.

So that persistent question could be more appropriately rewritten, I think, this way: Is it possible for a tree, falling or not, to be in a forest that has no other life whatsoever except the tree? My answer to my question: No. Not even after a global nuclear explosion can there be a forest and a falling tree that makes no sound. Back to the original question: does the tree falling in the forest make a sound? Of course it does. Though humans may not be there to hear it, the motion of its falling will still emit waves which are a physical action.

One of the problems we all have, including Professor Russell (whom I like quite a bit), is that we are limited by placing ourselves at the center of everything there is. We used to do that with our globe, the earth. Now we do it with ourselves.

I love finding out about words. So here we go with “hubris.” From the Greek, hubris is hard to translate into English because it refers both to excessive self-pride and “hamartia,”a term Greek tragedy adopted from archery (meaning literally to miss the mark) and transformed in “hubris” to mean missing the mark because of a lack of some important perception or insight due to one’s pride.

Full disclosure: I have as much hubris as the professor. I like to dream that some of us may get a greater distance from hubris. Evolutionarily it probably was absolutely necessary. But could it not be that we are outgrowing it? Let he/she who is without hubris think of a new way to live?

Hm m m m. If a human being were ever able to regard “what-there-is” without hubris, the person probably would be killed or considered mad.

Return to “consciousness” for a moment. Russell said “As far as this world is concerned, everything is structured in consciousness.” Ah. He is both assuming as an entity and anthropomorphizing “world!” The word world is peculiarly a construct of language. Since every living being probably has a different concept of it, how can it ever accumulate enough consistency to be a useful word?

But if the concept world could exist how could it have the human faculty of “concern?” I know, I know. Cut the writer some slack. But MY point, if I were clever enough to make it, is that the very language we humans use is so muddled with archaic, incorrect, whimsical, comical, ridiculous, ruinous and absurd sub-contexts and layers that it is almost impossible to write or say a “free” or clear sentence. Yet what wonderful fun to play with sentences! What can ever be as much fun as the impossible?

Our language is so much closer than we think to the glyphs or pictograms that seem so quaint to us. Every single word is -- or can be -- a story. And in my own particular world stories are the gold -- and perhaps the goal -- of life. (Elie Wiesel said “God made human beings because he loves stories.”)

Stories teach, enchant, mislead, tantalize, captivate, enrich, condescend, lie, amuse…and so on. Ah, stories.

Let’s make a leap. I know from knowing that stories do not belong just to humanity. As even science -- ah, science -- is beginning to know: consciousness also does not belong only to humanity.

So, what about a meta-consciousness? Is that god? Well, wait a minute. These words are a runaway chariot. So far we can only conceive of a god who looks exactly like us but bigger and maybe see-through, a panoply of gods that look like us, an “animal” god (coyote?), or an unknowable mystery. If there is meta-consciousness doen't it make sense that we will have to go beyond ancient and present concepts to even see in the distance a direction that would point toward it? As yet we cannot begin to perceive, see, recognize, analyze, feel, comprehend or define it. If somehow we get a glimmering I hope we know. I hope we won't be misled, as in the past, by hubris.

Which brings me to another human trait I love. In spite of all we continue to learn about evolution we tend to act as if our human brains are now finished, that they have arrived at some evolutionary apex. Ha. We never even speculate about the idea our brains may still be evolving. Of course the respective scales of human life and evolutionary time make it highly unlikely if not impossible for us to evaluate or analyze the ongoing or future evolution of the human brain. But couldn't we dream, speculate? Could we consider that maybe our brains are now at a random point in climbing a mountain we don’t know the size of, that we’ve never seen the top of, that we don’t know if it’s a mountain? Is there a chance we could entertain the idea that we may not know where we are? Can we consider what that means? Surely that would help us with hubris?

Of course, our culture and our stories tell us we have always been seeking to know more. While on the way we say again and again that we are there, like when we announced the molecule was absolutely the smallest thing. But is there a possibility we can start beyond -- far beyond -- the restriction of what we think we absolutely know?

A friend writes what she calls jukejoint haiku. Here’s one of my favorites:

Good news: there is a god.

Bad news: he is you.

There was no screaming

From a report on the Binghamton shooting: “As the shooting began '…some people hide in closets, some people under table — everywhere you can hide,' said Than Huynh, 45, a high school teacher from Vietnam who translated for some of the Vietnamese survivors when they were interviewed by the police after they fled.
There was no screaming, Huynh said. ‘They told me they tried to be quiet and run away.’ ”
----
It is affecting that the Vietnamese were silent. Even if some of them were too young to have experienced the Vietnam war, the survival tactic they used is part of Vietnamese culture and lore, maybe for generations into the future. Hiding and running, watching others being killed, watching villages and homes burn -- the terrible war brought and re-enforced this pattern for years that must have seemed as if they would never end. Who can be the counselor for an entire country suffering from Post Traumatic Shock Disorder? Here in the U.S. we finally have begun to treat some of the PTSD veterans, usually with medicines and therapy. How do you do that with a whole country?
Binghamton and the other shootings are shocking and sad to us. We keep looking at these as random events. Is there a possibility these events are symptoms of a culture, ours, that has reached a state of disease -- or, at least, intolerable un-ease?
We were mostly silent -- perhaps too afraid? -- while many of the elements of our government were stolen during the past eight years. Mostly silent too when our government started another war that brought death to hundreds of thousands. Some of us were frustrated and confused and some of us didn’t know anything about it when mainstream media declined to proportionately cover the largest planetary anti-war protest in the history of the world.

Emperor-minded men and large corporations have played fast and loose with us, demoting us to consumers and unrespected cogs, those who can be manipulated infinitely and at will.

Of course we shouldn’t open fire on one another. But who is looking, analytically and compassionately, at how much we are being hurt by where we are, where we have arrived after the last eight years.

The brilliant and engaging young strategist has moved into the White House. We are quick to criticize him about his budget while we were silent as plane loads of newly printed money went over the ocean every day since the Iran invasion began. We look to Obama with yearning and hope but I wonder if we have another and deeper fear now -- a fear that maybe no one, no matter how talented and honorable, can heal our society now. We are an impatient people -- other nations stress how young we are. We don’t adjust easily to a dilemma so large it has to be solved in years, not weeks and months. While catastrophe can bring out the best in us it seems in the dailiness of life as if the diagnosis hasn’t been adequately delivered. Or if it has we can't hear it. We're like the patient who denies the dreadful diagnosis, who weeps and pleads for the doctor to "fix it"so we can get on with our lives. Maybe if we can see and learn, even become one of those who helps analyze and gather information about our societal illness we can rally to the treatment plans, gather our patience and our decency for a long struggle. Beyond national concerns, maybe we'll see that, as the apex predator on the planet, it is not wise or safe to commit continual assaults upon the co-inhabitants, the lands and waters of earth, our only home.

Where are the culture doctors? The shamen for society? The acupuncturists for corporations? The healers who can help us, even if timidly, even if afraid, even if hurt, to walk into a new history?

They are probably us. We have a lot to learn. And a lot to do.

Sewing, Ancestors and Shame

Today as I was hand-sewing on a small but meaningful project I felt again as if my hands were echoing those of women back through time, not just my mother's and her mother's but women back through centuries, sitting near a window to get the best light. A particular feeling unique to hand-sewing comes over me: I am so glad to be from a line of sewing women. They seem to stay with me while I'm sewing. A long time ago in my life I kept it secret that I sewed. Why? I did a so-called man's work, journalism, and while I stubbornly remained a dignified -- even graceful -- female, focused, venturesome, secure in myself, there was a line drawn. If I mentioned I sewed or loved a cat the men competing with me at that time would see it as a fissure leading to the "real" me who was yearning -- they thought -- to find the right man and wear an apron.

So it was quite a way into life during my 30s -- when I began making almost all the clothing I wore -- that I would say in reply to a compliment on a garment: I made it. I said it quietly. I let them have the astonishment and the emotion.

In childhood our mother made all the clothing we wore, even for us girls our little white cotton slips and all the shirts and pants for the boys. We yearned sometimes for store-bought clothing such as worn by children from another part of town. But even so we had the wit to know that the dresses she made were absolutely beautiful. One of the aunts said much later: Your mother had a fine hand for sewing. And so she did. And yes, some of our most beautiful dresses were made from feed sacks, which weren't marked with X's such as seen in hillbilly movies but were of a fine cotton broadcloth sprigged with flowers. She chose the feed sack -- as many women did then -- for its pattern. The decent companies had their name printed so it came out in the first washing, or put their names only on the tags.

If I were asked to choose from a roomful of designer garments and one of those dresses my mother made for me, it would be no choice. None remain because in that time, clothing had many uses. Sometimes our dresses wore out to beyond mending or we outgrew them. Then they were meant for other things, maybe as scraps so useful in sewing, or as part of a curtain, and eventually as rags.

My mother would not teach me how to sew clothing; she taught her two girls only embroidery. Because she wanted us to be women who did not "have" to sew. In my late 20s I bought a small sewing machine and a book entitled "How to Sew." As I studied it intently and began making starter garments, that's when the women came to me, my mother and the others. I found my hands doing things that it seemed came from a mystery, things not in the book. Often times in sewing I just "know."

The sewing women have always come to me when I am sewing. I reflect on how poor culture has been in denigrating these women, the unknown ones who sewed in cold basements for the royal families, the ones who sewed in hovels, the ones who put away their sewing baskets -- except for embroidery -- when they married "up," the ones who sewed for the women now gone "up," the women in millions of rooms with their favorite needle, or "needles" if they were lucky.

When I worked in the Kress's dime store after my high school days I was assigned for a brief time to the sewing counter, shaped like a long buttonhole with me in the middle. Once I became aware of a very small boy trying to get my attention although his head did not rise above the mahoghany counter. I leaned forward and over. "Can I buy a needle?" he said. I looked around for an adult who would be with him. No one near. In those days you could be absorbed in one part of the store and your children would be safe. Everyone automatically looked after them. Now the little boy held up three pennies, repeated his request and I began to understand. No doubt he had heard his mother ask herself many times, anxiously, "Now where is that needle."

I looked around to make sure no supervisors were near, chose a very good packet of needles, put them into a bag, carefully took his pennies, and counted them into the register. He said Thank You and walked away as if he held gold. When I got my small purse in the back at the end of shift I told the boss I had forgotten something and went back to put the missing amount into the register.

Few things have ever made me happier. From time to time, all my life, I think about that little boy.

How to allow comments

I cannot find out how to allow comments on my blog. Two hours of searching through "help" and the web. Perhaps I can find a teenager who will show me how to do it. If I figure it out I will let you know....

Then who knows

Reflecting, I think how -- when someone tells me a long story -- I say "You should write a book" as a (kind) attempt to shut them up. On my end I say various of these to my friends "Please do stop me if you've heard this one before.... I give you full permission to stop me if I begin to tell a story you've heard before....really, I would count it a kindness."

My good angel in my head says: "Yes, but you're a writer. Maybe you're a raconteur, remember how those people were sitting spellbound the other day." My dark-hearted angel says: "Yeah, sure, they were in a stupor of boredom."

As to this blog, it came about because I write a few letters almost every week, some to the editor, some to entities such as Change.org, some to companies. Then I email copies on to five or so of my good friends who say repeatedly something to the effect of "You should have a blog so more people can read what you think."

So o o o now that I have set up, with the instruction and guidance of my good friend Bill, this "play" blog I am a bit stymied. I know it's not publishing but still you send your little thought-children out into the world, maybe to be kicked and beat up by bullies.

I am pondering whether I need to have a theme or some kind of consistency. For instance I always write to companies, governments and entities about animals. I wrote to Armani last week:

"Armani's ideals have to do with beauty and enlightened design. How can such a vision exist without morality? How can you connect your company to the most brutal torture and killing of animals ever known in history? Please reconsider buying "fun" fur (skins of animals) for trimmings from countries such as China which practice unrelentingly cruelty in the trapping, keeping, and killing of "product" animals. Better, join other visionary companies and stop using animal skins (fur) altogether."

My most core passionate belief is that if we humans were to know and realize who "animals" are (it would require turning an evolutionary corner in our basic concepts) the entire human world and our planet would change in ways we cannot now imagine.

Yet in my mental ramblings I have other passions: stories, studying us, trying to be a cogent critic of government(s), everything about cats, the visual arts, architecture, fashion as sociology, evolution, physics, horticulture and so on.

What is my blog going to be about?

I'm working on my life story but it's tough going. I'm sure many of you are the same. When you tell your old stories, everyone says: please write a book.