We’re now the National Lampoon of politics

It was many years ago (1973) that the National Lampoon used the famous demand on the cover. These days, it seems to me that both political parties are using a similar demand to get support from their base (how appropriate a term) and to use it as a fundraising tool, through fear of the opposition’s accession to power. Is it time to call these bluffs? Why don’t we, the voters and taxpayers, demand that political campaigns be publicly funded with spending caps for each type of position? We end up paying for it one way or another so let’s demand more and better transparency and accountability. Maybe in the process we can also kill Citizens’ United. That’s all for today. I’m still fed up from last night’s “debate.”

Politics

By William Meredith

Tonight Hazard’s father and stepmother are having

jazz for McGovern. In the old game-room

the old liberals listen as the quintet builds

crazy houses out of skin and brass, crumbling

the house of decorum, everybody likes that.

For decades they have paid for the refurbishing

of America and they have not got their money’s worth.

Now they listen, hopeful,

to the hard rock for McGovern.

The ceiling in this palace needs fixing,

the chalky blue paint is like an old heaven

but there are holes and flaking.

They had movies here when grandpa was solvent.

Hazard desires his wife, the way people

on the trains to the death camps were seized

by irrational lust. She is the youngest woman

in the room, he would like to be in bed

with her now, he would like to be president.

He has not been to his studio

in four days, he asks the bartender,

a college boy with a ponytail, for more gin.

He stands in the doorway. Forsythia and lilac

have overgrown the porch, there is the rich

smell of wood-rot. What twenty years will do

to untended shrubbery and America and Hazard.

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A touch of sanity?

Back in the days when I was in school learning Latin, dei in that language translated into “of god” in English. I suspect it’s coincidental that in contemporary society, DEI stands for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion. As I look at much of my email in-basket these days, I wonder if the basic concept would be substantially improved if it were broadened to include the urban / rural split. Here’s one example from the Rural Assembly:

Rural health disparities 

Access to quality healthcare is a fundamental right that every citizen deserves. However, individuals living in rural areas often face significant challenges in obtaining the healthcare they need. 

I doubt it would come as a surprise to anyone, urban or rural or any other demographic category, to be informed that our whole health system is broken and looking only at an urban / rural disparity could be counterproductive since it doesn’t encompass the whole system that requires changing. Similar observations could be made about our agricultural system, our education system, our economy, our government and especially, our tax system. WE ARE ALL IN THIS TOGETHER!!!! Those who have US at each other’s throats benefit by keeping US divided. To a great extent, we should paraphrase a key concept from a prior presidential election: “It’s the system, stupid!!”

time for the dawn of a new day?

Photo by J. Harrington

There’s another old saying we would be wise to remember, as expressed in Latin: Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat (literally: Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason). Popularly stated in English as “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.” That suggests we might want to tone down getting mad at each other to solve some of our common problems, like being taken to the cleaners by the top 1% and corporations who fail to pay their fair share of taxes.

Instead of trying to solve problems with the blunt instrument of law, perhaps we could try a combination of communication, cooperation, common sense, and shunning (boycott) or avoiding who and what we disagree with, instead of relying on judges, juries, lawyers, cops and politicians.

Do not be ashamed

by Wendell Berry

You will be walking some night
in the comfortable dark of your yard
and suddenly a great light will shine
round about you, and behind you
will be a wall you never saw before.
It will be clear to you suddenly
that you were about to escape,
and that you are guilty: you misread
the complex instructions, you are not
a member, you lost your card
or never had one. And you will know
that they have been there all along,
their eyes on your letters and books,
their hands in your pockets,
their ears wired to your bed.
Though you have done nothing shameful,
they will want you to be ashamed.
They will want you to kneel and weep
and say you should have been like them.
And once you say you are ashamed,
reading the page they hold out to you,
then such light as you have made
in your history will leave you.
They will no longer need to pursue you.
You will pursue them, begging forgiveness.
They will not forgive you.
There is no power against them.
It is only candor that is aloof from them,
only an inward clarity, unashamed,
that they cannot reach. Be ready.
When their light has picked you out
and their questions are asked, say to them:
"I am not ashamed." A sure horizon
will come around you. The heron will begin
his evening flight from the hilltop.

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Fly fishing for whirled peas?

I’ve grumped enough about seemingly endless cloudy skies that it would be irresponsible of me to fail to mention today’s blue skies and sunshine, being brought to US by an impending bitter cold Arctic blast and snow storm starting tomorrow. At least for some of US, winter in the North Country is like being asked which eye we want the sharp stick in. It would be logical to ask why, if I’m so disgruntled, I don’t go back where I came from. Were I asked, I’d reply with a different question: Have you seen what the East Coast weather has been like the last few years? We’ve created a world in which almost everyone only gets to jump from a frying pan into a fire. Much the same also applies to politics.

could any of these lure you into fly fishing?

Photo by J. Harrington

Is it possible that hyperindividualism, plus neoliberal, global capitalism feeding consumer-driven economies may not be the healthiest combination for longevity of the species? I’m asking for a friend and their prospective descendants. One of the issues with all the choices available to many of US is that in lots of instances, we may be looking at distinctions without a difference, as my lawyer friends would say. Personally, I don’t feel like spending five or six minutes looking through toothpastes to find the version I want. Most days I find software updates provide counterproductive changes, especially since there’s rarely, if ever, a chance to turn them off. If you think I’m being too harsh, take a look at what AI (artificial intelligence) is doing to many sectors of the economies and to intellectual property.

Of course, the fact that I have more books than I can read, and more coffee than I can drink, and more clothes than I can wear, even on a really cold day, is a different set of issues, right? (cf. hyperindividualism) Once upon a time, our politics were supposed to lead to compromise or consensus. Remember something about “the greatest good for the greatest number?” Remember when cities and hinterlands recognized their interdependence? Remember what civility and tolerance were like? One of the things I like about fly fishing is that organizations and anglers who participate in it continue to acknowledge ethics and codes of conduct. Maybe we need to convince more and more folks to become fly fishers as a way to bring back some essential behaviors. What do you think?

My Heart Leaps Up

William Wordsworth
1770 – 1850

My heart leaps up when I behold 
   A rainbow in the sky:
So was it when my life began; 
So is it now I am a man; 
So be it when I shall grow old, 
   Or let me die!
The Child is father of the Man;
And I could wish my days to be
Bound each to each by natural piety.

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Do you harvest honorably?

In recognition of Indigenous Peoples’ Day, I want to share a resource I recently discovered. NYU, a few years back, chose Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass as their NYU Reads Book. One section of their online resources focuses on the Honorable Harvest. I hope you follow the link, explore, learn, and enjoy. It’s now about six weeks until Thanksgiving. We have much for which we should be thankful, plus much work to do to share, with honor, the blessings we have harvested.

Franklin Avenue, Minneapolis

Photo by J. Harrington

Once the World Was Perfect

By Joy Harjo

Once the world was perfect, and we were happy in that world.

Then we took it for granted.

Discontent began a small rumble in the earthly mind.

Then Doubt pushed through with its spiked head.

And once Doubt ruptured the web,

All manner of demon thoughts

Jumped through—

We destroyed the world we had been given

For inspiration, for life—

Each stone of jealousy, each stone

Of fear, greed, envy, and hatred, put out the light.

No one was without a stone in his or her hand.

There we were,

Right back where we had started.

We were bumping into each other

In the dark.

And now we had no place to live, since we didn't know

How to live with each other.

Then one of the stumbling ones took pity on another

And shared a blanket.

A spark of kindness made a light.

The light made an opening in the darkness.

Everyone worked together to make a ladder.

A Wind Clan person climbed out first into the next world,

And then the other clans, the children of those clans, their children,

And their children, all the way through time—

To now, into this morning light to you.

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Becoming native to a place

Tomorrow is Indigenous Peoples’ Day. If I’ve read my history correctly, settlement of the “New World” by European colonists was largely justified by the Doctrine of Discovery. Earlier this year, that doctrine was repudiated by the Vatican. A case of too little, too late, but better late than never.

American Indian Cultural Corridor, Minneapolis

Photo by J. Harrington

As the Democrats and Republicans battle for the soul of the US, it is a good time to realize or remember that many of the concepts in the US Constitution are indebted to and derived from the Iroquois Confederacy. In fact, these are times when we should refresh our knowledge of how the country came into existence. One way to do that is to read Heather Cox Richardson’s Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America.

Along with that, if you haven’t yet, you probably will want to read Robin Wall Kimmerer’s Braiding Sweetgrass, in which she points out that

“For all of us, becoming indigenous to a place means living as if your children's future mattered, to take care of the land as if our lives, both material and spiritual, depended on it.”

― Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass 

Another way to honor and celebrate Indigenous Peoples’ Day is to

Remember

by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,
know each of the star’s stories.
Remember the moon, know who she is.
Remember the sun’s birth at dawn, that is the
strongest point of time. Remember sundown
and the giving away to night.
Remember your birth, how your mother struggled
to give you form and breath. You are evidence of
her life, and her mother’s, and hers.
Remember your father. He is your life, also.
Remember the earth whose skin you are:
red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth
brown earth, we are earth.
Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their
tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,
listen to them. They are alive poems.
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the
origin of this universe.
Remember you are all people and all people
are you.
Remember you are this universe and this
universe is you.
Remember all is in motion, is growing, is you.
Remember language comes from this.
Remember the dance language is, that life is.
Remember.

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What’s permitted? Where? When?

There are more and more articles being published about our National Park System being over-visited, although that’s not the term used. Much of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness use is permit based and the number of permits is being cut. As the human population increases and the global economy depends on perpetual, capitalistic, growth, we are encountering more and more resource conflicts. We are failing more and more to adequately and appropriately respond to those conflicts.

A different example, not based on wilderness or wild lands and waters is occurring right in the Twin Cities. No parking? St. Paul considers banning idle trucks from city streets. It all to often seems that the child care shortage needed to free women to participate in the labor force can’t or won’t be economically resolvable. An increasing shortage of doctors is making it more and more challenging to schedule an appointment within a single lifetime. Efforts to control costs are resulting in overworked, understaffed nursing units.

While all of this, and more, are going on, those on the radical right are feeding more and more mis- and disinformation and conspiracy theories onto social medial platforms that have just been held unaccountable by SCOTUS because ....

I seriously doubt we can institute enough permitting systems covering enough resources to resolve the growing number of conflicts. Or, that we would be willing to pay for enough police to enforce the permits and enough courts and jails to punish or rehabilitate miscreants, all while Congress sets a national example of acting like potential deadbeats and failing to put the country ahead of party political power. (Could some parents volunteer to teach Speaker McCarthy how to manage members with a case of the terrible twos?)

it’s a privilege and responsibility to cast these

Photo by J. Harrington

One of the country’s founding politicians, B. Franklin, was prescient by several hundred years when he noted “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” How might we again learn to hang together? We could go fly fishing and follow these rules [longer version here]:

• Fly anglers understand and obey laws and regulations associated with the fishery.
• Fly anglers believe fly fishing is a privilege and a responsibility.
• Fly anglers conserve fisheries by limiting their catch.
• Fly anglers do not judge fellow anglers and treat them as they would expect to be treated.
• Fly anglers respect the waters occupied by other anglers so that fish are not disturbed
• When fishing from a watercraft, fly anglers do not crowd other anglers or craft or unnecessarily disturb the water.
• Fly anglers respect other angling methods and promote this Code of Angling Ethics to all anglers.

If you prefer foraging to fishing, you could follow the guidance of an Honorable Harvest as described by Robin Wall Kimmerer:

The Honorable Harvest, a practice both ancient and urgent, applies to every exchange between people and the Earth. Its protocol is not written down, but if it were, it would look something like this:

Ask permission of the ones whose lives you seek. Abide by the answer.

Never take the first. Never take the last.

Harvest in a way that minimizes harm. 

Take only what you need and leave some for others.

Use everything that you take. 

Take only that which is given to you. 

Share it, as the Earth has shared with you. 

Be grateful. 

Reciprocate the gift.

Sustain the ones who sustain you, and the Earth will last forever. 

There are other examples of values that encourage ethical behavior, Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic comes to mind. As the younger generation attempts to educate us on better ways to use personal pronouns, perhaps they could include more lessons on dropping me and mine and more on using us and ours. We really only have one sand box we need to learn to play nice on it together.

Anatomy of a leap into the void

By Miroslav Holub

A.    Use of the lift

       going up

       is permitted, provided

B.    Use of the lift

       going down

       is not permitted, provided

C.    Use of the lift

       going up is

D.    Use of the lift

       going down is not

E.    Use of the lift

       going up

F.    Use of the lift

       going

G.    Use of the lift

H.    Is      Is not

I.    Use

J.    U--

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Truth or Dare?

The following are headlines from the on-line editions of today’s newspapers. The first one makes an assertion. The rest, although not written as such, in my opinion validate that assertion. My question is, what, if anything, are we going to do in response? I’m leaning toward joining the Luddite-Anarchist party myself but there may be an even better option. Read on!

FROM The Guardian

• ‘America is broken’: FBI criticized for mass-shooting survival video
• New Mexico shooting: at least three dead and multiple wounded
• Mormon church has $100bn ‘clandestine hedge fund’, says whistleblower
• ‘Impossible to hold him accountable’: DeSantis signs laws to ease 2024 run
• US supreme court pursuing rightwing agenda via ‘shadow docket’, book says

FROM The Star-Tribune

• Twin Cities metro roads have become far more dangerous since the pandemic began 
• Lawmakers pulling together exemption for Mayo Clinic in Minnesota nurse staffing bill
• Man receives 103-year sentence for killing 4 in St. Paul, hiding bodies in Wisconsin field
• Minneapolis police respond to fights at DFL convention
• Windom pork plant was losing $6M a month, bankruptcy files reveal

Now, your mileage may vary, but I’m hard pressed to find enough positive stories to balance the ones listed above. I could simply ignore the news and social media but that doesn’t mean the negative events aren’t happening. Perhaps America isn’t yet broken, but we’ve certainly lost our way and can’t even agree on which direction’s home. Then again, would we recognize home these days if we were there?

is this apple tree broken?

Photo by J. Harrington

There is one way to find that answer. I recently finished reading Rob Hopkins' From What Is to What If. If you share the kind of concerns implicit in today’s posting, see if you can get your hands on a copy and read it. It may suggest the best ways we have available of being the kind of ancestors our descendants will bless rather than curse.

Now What

Solmaz Sharif

And so I sat at a tall table
in an Ohio hotel,
eating delivery:
cheese bread

with garlic butter, only it was
not butter, but partially
hydrogenated soy
bean oil

and regular soybean oil and it
came in a little tub like
creamer that’s also not
dairy.

America in 2019
means a poem will have to
contain dairy that is,
in fact,

not dairy. On Instagram: a man
has bought a ten foot by four
foot photo of a bridge
he lives

beside, bridge he can see just outside
his window, window which serves
as a ten foot by four
foot frame.

My materialist mind, I can’t
shake it. Within a perfect
little tub of garlic
butter,

a relief of workers, of sickles,
fields of soy. We were tanners
pushed to the edge of the
city

once, by the stench, the bubble of vats
of flesh and loosening skin,
back when the city pulled,
leather

bucket by leather bucket, its own
water from wells. Then we worked
the cafeterias
at the

petroleum offices of the
British. Then, revolution—

Simple.

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Lies, damned lies, and statistics

Even here in the North Country we’re reaching a time of year when the sun’s rays, pouring through a window, bring a little warmth. It’s still a long time until we’ll be complaining about heat, humidity and mosquitos, but we’re on our way toward warmer, not colder, days, with, undoubtedly, some exceptions.

hoarfrost or rime ice?

Photo by J. Harrington

Looking through my pictures taken in Februarys past, next month more than others is a time to watch for hoarfrost. As more days get above freezing, moisture is released into the atmosphere. Nights, and especially early mornings, still drop below freezing, triggering formation of hoarfrost or rime ice.

Even a cantankerous curmudgeon like me admits that scenes like the one above are pretty, but no where nearly as pretty [to me] as bud burst. Some folks like to go out and play in the snow and on the ice. Just ask the John Beargrease mushers. Those of us who much prefer casting a fly to open, flowing water would no more think it appropriate to make skiing or dog-sledding or ice skating illegal than we would try to ban winter (although climate weirding is working on that). Unfortunately, too many of US elect those who would control what the rest of US read, feel, believe and tolerate. An opinion piece in today’s Star Tribune (Lying liars and their constitutional right to keep on lying) makes a case that our behaviors are controlled by what’s legal, not what’s right.

Lies provoke outrage, for sure. But unless actual physical or financial harm can be proven, Americans will simply have to live with all these lying liars and the lies they tell.

Such an overreliance on legalities, rather than ethics, concedes the prospect of improved behaviors, because we will never be willing to support enough police and lawyers to enforce effectively all the laws that would be needed. Perhaps its time to consider widespread adoption of shunning and other forms of boycott as a means to enforce social norms. At a minimum, we could, and should, stop voting for known liars and avoid purchasing products and services from major polluters, including industrial agriculture firms. We can also avoid promoting disinformation and disinformers (liars) on social media. To paraphrase an old saying “If a liar lies in the forest and there’s no one listening, did a lie get told?” Think about it.

[Today’s title comes from a saying attributed to Mark Twain.]

Bakery of Lies

By Judith Askew

My favorite is the cream puff lie,

the kind inflated with hot air,

expanded to make an heroic-sized story.

 

Another is the cannoli, a long lie,

well-packed with nutty details,

lightly wrapped in flakey truth.

 

A macaroon isn't a little white lie,

but it's covered

with self-serving coconut.

 

The apple tart carries slices

of sour gossip, only

slightly sweetened with truth.

 

Then there's the napoleon,

an Iago lie of pernicious intent,

layer upon layer of dark deceit.

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Time for a different approach?

 I grew up reading Field & Stream, Outdoor Life, Sports Afield, and similar magazines. Some of my all-time favorite writing and writers arrived in those pages. Robert Ruark, The Old Man and the Boy, Gene Hill, Tailfeathers, Corey Ford, The Lower Forty, helped shape both my desires for outdoor adventures and the values by which I judged a successful day afield or a stream. There was, and still is, a great deal of wisdom and ethics embedded in that writing. Later, I became a lifetime subscriber to Gray’s Sporting Journal, which I still enjoy but preferred back in the days Ed Gray himself was in charge.

These days I’m really happy to see somewhat of a return to the kind of writing I grew up thriving on. The Bozeman Daily Chronicle has just [as of this writing] published an article on Connecting with conscience: Simms launches fishing movement centered on stewardship, responsibility. Trout Unlimited recently devoted an issue of TROUT magazine to the question of What are you really fishing for? Patagonia has a section of its web site devoted to fly-fishing and activism.

trout stream: a fine place to spend a July day

Photo by J. Harrington

It doesn’t matter if your preferred outdoor recreation is gardening, surfing, fishing, biking, hiking, hunting, boating, foraging, or .... We all depend on earth’s resources for food, shelter, recreation, clean air to breathe and water to drink. So will our descendants. I doubt that there will ever be enough laws and law enforcers to protect the resources on which we all depend. Take a look a how “well” we’re doing with the Clean Water Act goals.

As an alternative to depending on an insufficient legal framework, we could try being more reliant on an approach Aldo Leopold writes about in A Sand County Almanac, shaping a land ethic that has evolved “in the minds of a thinking community.” As we consider protecting resources, we must take account of another nonrenewable resource we often fail to value enough. This quote from Gene Hill may hit home.

Remember when time was cheap? The songs we sang about it told us that we had time on our hands, that time stood still, that tomorrow would be time enough. And now we find it was not. Suddenly times to come have become times past, and we must hoard it and spend it cautiously as the tag ends of a small inheritance . . . which is what it really was all along—except no one told us.

Hunting Manual

By Eleanor Wilner

The unicorn is an easy prey: its horn

in the maiden’s lap is an obvious

twist, a tamed figure—like the hawk

that once roamed free, but sits now, fat and hooded,

squawking on the hunter’s wrist. It’s easy

to catch what no longer captures

the mind, long since woven in,

a faded tapestry on a crumbling wall

made by the women who wore keys

at their waists and in their sleep came

hot dreams of wounded knights left bleeding

in their care, who would wake the next morning

groaning from the leftover lance in the groin,

look up into the round blond face beaming down

at them thinking "mine," and say: "angel."

Such beasts are easy to catch; their dreams

betray them. But the hard prey is the one

that won’t come bidden.

By these signs you will know it:

when you lift your lure

out of the water, the long plastic line

will be missing its end: the lure and the hook

will be gone, and the line will swing free

in the air, so light it will be without

bait or its cunning

sharp curl of silver. Or when you pull

your net from the stream, it will be eaten

as if by acid, its fine mesh sodden shreds.

Or when you go at dawn to check your traps,

their great metal jaws will be wrenched

open, the teeth blunt with rust

as if they had lain for years in the rain.

Or when the thunderstorm suddenly breaks

in the summer, next morning

the computer’s memory will be blank.

Look then for the blank card, the sprung trap,

the net’s dissolve, the unburdened

line that swings free in the air.

There. By day, go empty-handed to the hunt

and come home the same way

in the dark.

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What’s your bottom line?

The market is once again going to hell. Monkeypox (or whatever less discriminatory name is bestowed upon it) continues to spread. Congress is holding hearings on a recent attempt to overthrow our government and install an autocrat(?), oligarch(?), dictator(?), what? The wind is strong enough to inhibit fly-fishing, or spraying the poison ivy. Although we were scheduled to have a tech work on our water softener today, it got rescheduled to late this month. This weekend and next week are forecast to be unseasonably hot. There are also lots of less important annoyances occurring. A multitude of explanations exist for why I join many others in a less than joyful mood these days.

Then again, the bright side is: we aren’t in a war zone like Ukraine or Palestine or...; we don’t own property along the Yellowstone River (a one-time fantasy). The township is very unlikely to harass us about a failure to mow. Father’s Day is coming up. I have a stack of new (to me) books to read. We have food, water and shelter for the foreseeable future. The family seems to be moderately to reasonably healthy at the moment. On a scale of zero to ten, ten being best, we’d rate our life a ... what? Compared to what or whom?

If you’ve been to a doctor in the past few years, it’s possible you were asked about how painful your “owie” was. Is it possible that more than one scale is needed? One mosquito bite is rarely painful, but the itch can be annoying. Are ten bites painful, or just ten times as annoying as one? At some point does annoyance cross over into pain?

an example of "stability, and beauty of the biotic community"

Photo by J. Harrington

Philosophers have been know to debate how many angels will fit on the head of a pin, thereby explaining the origin of the phrase “pin-headed philosopher.” The Catholic church has twisted a straightforward declarative sentence “Thou shalt not kill.” to accommodate “unless in a just war.” 

Are Liz Cheney and Mike Pence real heroes? Quite likely. Would I have predicted it? No, not in this lifetime. Today is Bloomsday. James Joyce’ masterpiece was not very popular when first published. What literature or scientific theories are unpopular today that may come to be considered classics in twenty five or fifty years?

I’m not making a case for alternate facts here. I’m pondering the multitude of belief systems against which facts can be judged. I’m taking a long-winded way to get back to part of Aldo Leopold’s Land Ethic. Leopold wrote: “Examine each question in terms of what is ethically and esthetically right, as well as what is economically expedient. A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.” Does even this wisdom help us determine if we are, or should be, satisfied or dissatisfied with where we are and the direction in which we’re traveling?

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice–
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do–
determined to save
the only life you could save.

–Mary Oliver

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It’s litter-ally the law!

In his incomparable A Sand County Almanac, Aldo Leopold introduces us to the concept of a land ethic. He writes:

“I have purposely presented the land ethic as a product of social evolution because nothing so important as an ethic is ever ‘written.’ Only the most superficial student of history will suppose that Moses ‘wrote’ the Decalogue; it evolved in the minds of a thinking community, and Moses wrote a tentative summary of it for a ‘seminar.” I say tentative because evolution never stops. The evolution of a land ethic is an intellectual as well as an emotional process.” 

Yesterday, we alluded to the idea that laws alone are insufficient to get US where we want and need to go. Here’s an example. Minnesota has a law against littering.

169.42 LITTERING; DROPPING OBJECT ON VEHICLE; MISDEMEANOR.

Subdivision 1. Objects on highway.

No person shall throw, deposit, place, or dump, or cause to be thrown, deposited, placed, or dumped upon any street or highway or upon any public or privately owned land adjacent thereto without the owner's consent any snow, ice, glass bottle, glass, nails, tacks, wire, cans, garbage, swill, papers, ashes, cigarette filters, debris from fireworks, refuse, carcass of any dead animal, offal, trash or rubbish or any other form of offensive matter, or any other substance likely to injure any person, animal, or vehicle upon any such street or highway. 

recycling and trash cans awaiting pickup

Photo by J. Harrington

On our township road, littering occurs regularly. From a few observations, it appears to me one of the most frequent offenders are the open top trash trucks that use hydraulic(?) arms to lift the trash can and dump it into the collection box. Since we don’t have organized collection, there are several trash days each week and on any given collection day the amount of roadside litter is noticeably increased because the trucks drive along with the open top open and litter blows out. I doubt the drivers ever even look in their mirrors and have yet to see one stop and collect their litter.

So, we have one example of a poorly enforced law that accomplishes little more than to convince folks to be scofflaws. Identifying additional examples isn’t all that hard. Alternatively, as we mentioned yesterday, there’s Elinor Ostrum’s principles for managing commons and the Leopold Foundation’s explanation:

Ethics direct all members of a community to treat one another with respect for the mutual benefit of all. A land ethic expands the definition of “community” to include not only humans, but all of the other parts of the Earth, as well: soils, waters, plants, and animals, or what Leopold called “the land.”

Thoughtlessness is but one form of disrespect for an area and those who live in it. Trash truck drivers may not be evil, but they certainly appear thoughtless. Littering may not be among the more critical problems we’re facing, but it does offer an example of how laws can be of little use in framing behavior, particularly the actions of those who remain unknown and unseen. Have any of you seen reference to ethics in our Common Core Curricula? All I see are standards for English and Math. No standards for how to be a good person or proper citizen? Think about that. In fact, as far as I can see, we have more requirements for getting a driver’s license or buying a firearm than for running for school board or local government.

the trash men

By Charles Bukowski

here they come

these guys

grey truck

radio playing

they are in a hurry

it’s quite exciting:

shirt open

bellies hanging out

they run out the trash bins

roll them out to the fork lift

and then the truck grinds it upward

with far too much sound . . .

they had to fill out application forms

to get these jobs

they are paying for homes and

drive late model cars

they get drunk on Saturday night

now in the Los Angeles sunshine

they run back and forth with their trash bins

all that trash goes somewhere

and they shout to each other

then they are all up in the truck

driving west toward the sea

none of them know

that I am alive

REX DISPOSAL CO.

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It’s all about US!

 I’ve been paying vague attention to the broadcasts of the January 6 hearings. Today’s testimony remined me of something I think too many of US have lost track of. I’ll quote here:

“Power tends to corrupt,” said Lord Acton, the 19th-century British historian. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.” His maxim has been vividly illustrated in psychological studies, notably the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, which was halted when one group of students arbitrarily assigned to serve as “prison guards” over another group began to abuse their wards. ...

“In sum, the study found, power doesn’t corrupt; it heightens pre-existing ethical tendencies. Which brings to mind another maxim, from Abraham Lincoln: “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” 

I’m deeply troubled but what the preceding implies about those who voted for Donald Trump and continue to vote for the likes of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz. Then again, when Bill Clinton, who brought US NAFTA and Welfare Reform, was the Democratic candidate, I probably voted for him, much to my later regret. Too much of our politics comes down to a dilemma akin to “Which eye do we want the sharp stick in?” My (our?) conundrum is enhanced when one looks at Britain and their parliamentary system and notes that they’re not doing much better. Brexit, anyone?

One of my pet theories is that we have become too dependent on politics and law. Lawyers are noted for their ability to split hairs and distort plain meaning. Politics is noted for causing hair pulling and obfuscating meaning. There are alternatives. One alternative has been proposed by Elinor Ostrum, who was the first woman to win the Nobel Prize for Economics.

Ostrom identified eight "design principles" of stable local common pool resource management:^[38][39]

1. Clearly defined the group boundaries (and effective exclusion of external un-entitled parties) and the contents of the common pool resource;
2. The appropriation and provision of common resources that are adapted to local conditions;
3. Collective-choice arrangements that allow most resource appropriators to participate in the decision-making process;
4. Effective monitoring by monitors who are part of or accountable to the appropriators;
5. A scale of graduated sanctions for resource appropriators who violate community rules;
6. Mechanisms of conflict resolution that are cheap and of easy access;
7. Self-determination of the community recognized by higher-level authorities; and
8. In the case of larger common-pool resources, organization in the form of multiple layers of nested enterprises, with small local CPRs at the base level.

I’d really like to see how we might arrange for one or several blue ribbon commissions to review our current systems of governance, not as theory but as practiced, against those design principles. I fear that failure to undertake such an activity, or something comparable, may leave US with little alternative but to become engaged an a wholesale replacement of our governments in a nonviolent or other process. We’re beyond the stage at which tinkering will work unless we’re determined to rearrange those proverbial deck chairs.

 In case you think I’m engaged in pure fantasy, I know of a couple of organizations and initiatives that allready exist and seem to be moving some parts of our world in a direction I believe necessary. One is the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance (IRMA) and its standard. The other is the ISEAL Alliance and their sustainability standards.

I don’t see any society ever being able or willing to pay for enough police to enforce good behavior defined only in law. And yet we have, it seems, been busy for decades replacing ethics with laws. I expect to return to this topic in the future so we’ll leave it here for now.

I Commit

By Matthew Zapruder

I commit to vote because

I'm pretty sure I grab

whatever I need from the world

and place it in my mind

which is getting incrementally

like the commons

undeniably more toxic and sad

yes I too walk around

considering my intractable problems

complaining it's too late

for more sonatas

everything is already too beautiful

music and anger won't save us

yet I commit to talking

earnestly with Sarah

about the school board

it will be night and we will be sitting

shoulder to shoulder 

at the old table we love

each holding a pencil

like grade school children left alone at last

then in the morning

before our son wakes

I commit to holding

this tiny bit of quicksilver

(quick in the sense of living

in its very molecular nature

it wants to usefully combine with yours)

in my palm and to walking

up to the blue mailbox

I pass most mornings

in that familiar silence

under those nameless little trees

when all things that surround me wait

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Whatever happened to ethics?

Tomorrow is stream trout opener in Minnesota, something rarely honored by a Minnesota governor fishing a stream. In fact, the “governor’s opener” is only for walleye, sauger and northerns. Panfish are open year round. Bass open later and at different dates in different parts of the state. THERE IS NO MINNESOTA FISHING OPENER.

The Governor’s Fishing Opener has been a tradition in Minnesota since 1948. The event was designed to promote the development of Minnesota’s $2.4 billion fishing industry, and in recent years, it has served as an iconic kick-off celebration for the summer tourism season. Prior to the pandemic, travel and tourism generated $16.6 billion in leisure and hospitality gross sales in Minnesota annually.

Personally, promoting tourism isn’t what fishing is all about as far as I’m concerned. In fact, today’s Star Tribune reports on fishing-related problems derived from the winter tourism fishing season in northern Minnesota.

Ice fishing trash problems persist on popular Minnesota waters

As the activity soars in popularity, discarding human waste adds to complexity of garbage problem on Red Lake and Lake of the Woods. 

trout stream, northern Minnesota

Photo by J. Harrington

Let’s return to tomorrow’s stream trout opener for a moment. Much of trout fishing is done as fly fishing. Some fly fishing organizations have published a code of ethics.  Fly Fishers International is one such organization. For those readers averse to following links, here’s a

Shortened version suitable to be carried by the angler: 

• Fly anglers understand and obey laws and regulations associated with the fishery.
• Fly anglers believe fly fishing is a privilege and a responsibility.
• Fly anglers conserve fisheries by limiting their catch.
• Fly anglers do not judge fellow anglers and treat them as they would expect to be treated.
• Fly anglers respect the waters occupied by other anglers so that fish are not disturbed
• When fishing from a watercraft, fly anglers do not crowd other anglers or craft or unnecessarily disturb the water.
• Fly anglers respect other angling methods and promote this Code of Angling Ethics to all anglers.

Although not limited to fly fishing, Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources promotes fishing ethics and stewardship, but not as much as tourism promotes the walleye opener. Then again, DNR doesn’t specifically mention not littering or leaving other trash behind as an element of ethics or stewardship. Wouldn’t it be great if the governor’s opener promoted ethics as much as it promotes tourism and commercialism? Isn’t that considered to be leadership?

The River.

By Raymond Carver

I waded, deepening, into the dark water.
Evening, and the push
and swirl of the river as it closed
around my legs and held on.
Young grilse broke water.
Parr darted one way, smolt another.
Gravel turned under my boots as I edged out.
Watched by the furious eyes of king salmon.
Their immense heads turned slowly,
eyes burning with fury, as they hung
in the deep current.
They were there. I fel them there,
and my skin prickled. But
there was something else.
I braced with the wind on my neck.
Felt the hair rise
as something touched my boot.
Grew afraid at what I couldn't see.
Then of everything that filled my eyes—
that other shore heavy with branches,
the dark lip of the mountain range behind.
And this river that had suddenly
grown black and swift.
I drew breath and cast anyway.
Prayed nothing would strike.

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