It's a "good news, bad news" kind of day

Today's good news:

1. We hadn't planned to go fly fishing in the first place.
   (The "breezes" have been horrendous. Making a decent cast would have been impossible.)
2. Last night's power outage ended shortly after sunrise.
   (I think the thunderstorms and winds were bringing power lines and tree branches together. Remember Glen Campbell's great hit: Wichita Lineman?)

The bad news:

1. It doesn't seem possible to string together an extended spell of good weather.
2. Today's world doesn't seem to make any more sense than it did yesterday.

One day earlier this week we received no mail at all. Another, the total mail delivered was one catalog. This, historically, is not normal. Yesterday, the Dow Jones went up about 450 points. Today it went down about 800 points. Is the stock market going to reflect the volatility the social and political sectors have been demonstrating? We noticed today that, just as we had been getting used to the "new and improved" Blogger interface, it's been changed again. I think it's time to admit that the world in which I grew up and have lived for 99% of my adult life is no more and what will replace it is not yet clear because many of use have not yet chosen the values and principles upon which we choose to build our futures.

have we reached the end of our current road?

Photo by J. Harrington

What is clear, at least to me, is the absolute truth of a planning dictum I read years ago:

"More of the same never solved a problem."

We are consuming and otherwise destroying the very life support systems on which we and our descendants will depend, if we are to have a future. One of my favorite writers wrote that:

“Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.”

― Edward Abbey, The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West

It is also the ideology of how neoliberal capitalism is practiced.  Cancer can be driven into remission but the process isn't pleasant for the host. We have better options available to create a new economy, but may find the transition as traumatic as undergoing chemotherapy. The choice remains ours until we reach stage IV.

What Kind of Times Are These

By Adrienne Rich

There's a place between two stands of trees where the grass grows uphill

and the old revolutionary road breaks off into shadows

near a meeting-house abandoned by the persecuted

who disappeared into those shadows.

I've walked there picking mushrooms at the edge of dread, but don't be fooled

this isn't a Russian poem, this is not somewhere else but here,

our country moving closer to its own truth and dread,

its own ways of making people disappear.

I won't tell you where the place is, the dark mesh of the woods

meeting the unmarked strip of light—

ghost-ridden crossroads, leafmold paradise:

I know already who wants to buy it, sell it, make it disappear.

And I won't tell you where it is, so why do I tell you

anything? Because you still listen, because in times like these

to have you listen at all, it's necessary

to talk about trees.

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