Values for the seventh generation

It’s the time of year when fawns and goslings and cygnets and sandhill crane colts are adulting, i.e., growing into their adulthood. It’s never been very clear to me how much of animal behavior is genetic and instinctive versus learned from adults of the species. If anyone has a recommended source on this topic, please leave a comment.

almost grown Canada geese goslings and adults

Photo by J. Harrington

I recently watched a video of our almost four year old (more than 3 1/2) granddaughter learning to lead and ride a pony that’s several orders of magnitude larger than she is. She looks comfortable and unfazed both in front of and on top of the pony. I think I was in my late teens or early twenties before I took riding lessons. I never did get really comfortable on a horse.

Part of today’s theme is prompted by an article I recently read on Slashdot: Should Kids Still Learn to Code in the Age of AI? The phrase that caught my attention is “... the idea that learning to program is the cornerstone of computational thinking and an important gateway to the problem-solving, critical thinking, and creative thinking skills necessary to thrive in today's digitally driven world.” It left me wondering what other gateways are there in today’s curricula to problem solving, critical thinking and creative thinking and where does humanism and characteristics that define humanity fit in?

Before I cane across the Slashdot trigger, I was considering getting my hands on a copy of The Blind Spot: Why Science Cannot Ignore Human Experience, although first I need to finish reading The Systems View of Life. I’m about 2/3rds of the way through at the moment. Recent events, compounded by a pandemic and four years under the rule of a wanna-be dictator, have made me concerned about the kind of future our Granddaughter and her cohorts will grow up in and if anyone can anticipate the kind of country she’ll have to live in when she is grown up. It seems to me that the seventh generation principle becomes more challenging to apply the greater the rate of change triggered by (mostly) human factors.

All of the preceding is a convoluted and long-winded way of expressing my view that we have become too short-sighted and focused on the cost of things rather than their value. For some years now I’ve tried to be guided by a speech of a former presidential candidate, Bobby Kennedy. Here’s an essential excerpt:

Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

These are the values I want to see expressed by any presidential candidate that wants my vote. These values are timeless.

For the Children

The rising hills, the slopes,
of statistics
lie before us.
the steep climb
of everything, going up,
up, as we all
go down.

In the next century
or the one beyond that,
they say,
are valleys, pastures,
we can meet there in peace
if we make it.

To climb these coming crests
one word to you, to
you and your children:

stay together
learn the flowers
go light

Gary Snyder
From: Turtle Island

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Grown old isn’t always grown up

Winter in Minnesota often makes me feel like a five or six year old stuck in the back seat of the family car on a too long drive to somewhere nice. I get testy and tease my fellow passengers, causing friction, while asking in a whiny voice “Are we there yet? When will we get there?”

maybe if I had a sled?

Photo by J. Harrington

The problem isn’t that I don’t know better, it’s that I find it quite difficult to do better. I’m bored! There’s nothing (fun) to do. If I go out to play, it’s too cold to have fun, especially with a runny, drippy nose. Is it April yet? When will we get there?

Fortunately, I have some toys to play with inside where it’s not as cold as outside. But, for example, there’s not enough room in the house to practice fly casting so when I get a rod, reel, and line cleaned up and ready to go there’s nought to do with it but put it away again. That’s irritating.

I fully realize that my complaints are petty and trivial in the context of the world’s problems. There’s food on our table, a roof over our heads, the heat makes the house almost comfortable. Now, try selling that to a bored six year old.

I’ve managed to grow old(er?) without growing up. That may make me like most Americans. We appear to have become more petulant and self-centered as individuals and a society as we’ve aged and prospered as a country. If you listen carefully, you’ll hear lots of “me, me, me, me ....” that isn’t a singer tuning up or practicing.

As an example, many in Congress are upset that POTUS notified Congress of the military strikes in Yemen but didn’t ask permission. Those are members of the same Congress that’s setting records for lack of accomplishment? Perhaps they should take a look at the US Constitution, Article 1, Section 8.

President Biden’s statement appears to me to be compatible with probable authorizations under several provisions of Section 8 and with historical precedent. If you want to delve into how messy this topic can get, try researching the “Gulf of Tonkin” resolution.

My point here is that I’ve previously expressed concern over Biden’s age but now must acknowledge that he has acquired maturity and experience as he’s aged. Unfortunately for the country, that’s more than I can say about any of his potential opponents in either (any) party.

The Wise King

By Kahlil Gibran

Once there ruled in the distant city of Wirani a king who was both
mighty and wise.  And he was feared for his might and loved for
his wisdom.
 
Now, in the heart of that city was a well, whose water was cool and
crystalline, from which all the inhabitants drank, even the king
and his courtiers; for there was no other well.
 
One night when all were asleep, a witch entered the city, and poured
seven drops of strange liquid into the well, and said, “From this
hour he who drinks this water shall become mad.”
 
Next morning all the inhabitants, save the king and his lord
chamberlain, drank from the well and became mad, even as the witch
had foretold.
 
And during that day the people in the narrow streets and in the
market places did naught but whisper to one another, “The king is
mad.  Our king and his lord chamberlain have lost their reason.
Surely we cannot be ruled by a mad king.  We must dethrone him.”
 
That evening the king ordered a golden goblet to be filled from the
well.  And when it was brought to him he drank deeply, and gave it
to his lord chamberlain to drink.
 
And there was great rejoicing in that distant city of Wirani,
because its king and its lord chamberlain had regained their reason.

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Enjoy turtle crossing season

An unexpected touch of autumn has arrived, or, perhaps, spring’s cooler temperatures have returned briefly. It’s a treat, but disconcerting to be enjoying mid-60’s plus a breeze. Summer returns tomorrow and hangs around for awhile. The brief duration of our cool spell will minimize the likelihood I’ll be overcome by a wave of ambition. Warmer temperatures enhance my justification for conserving my energy.

Perhaps it was just coincidence, or maybe insects anticipated the cooler interlude, because last night I caught and transported a cricket from the downstairs floor and this morning did the same with not one, not two, but three smallish spiders in the kitchen sink. Each was scooped into a clear plastic cup and deposited outside. (I don’t do that with ants or ticks, however.) Crickets are supposed to bring good luck and I hope spiders will spin webs that will capture mosquitos and deer flies.

slow down (for turtles)

Photo by J. Harrington

The lack of rain means the grass hasn’t been growing which means I haven’t been mowing. Maybe I’ll get around to doing something more than watering plants this week, maybe not. It’s really nice to not have a home owners’ association or city code fussing about the condition of our “lawn.” My ambition seems to be inversely proportional to my age. If I’m going to work up the energy to do much of anything, it’s going to be to go fishing.

There’s a number of stories in today’s Star Tribune about labor shortages, population growth, decline and shifts, vacant offices in the suburbs. I remember the days when Minnesota had an office of state planning that could provide a coherent overview of trends and discontinuities. Of course, I also remember when Minnesota was more liberal and forward-looking than it is these days. I’m still very disappointed that the DFL didn’t restore the citizen board to the Pollution Control Agency nor did our outdated mining laws get a hearing. Furthermore, the state seems committed to the increasingly misguided concept of perpetual growth. I wonder of any of our environmental organizations will take a lead in getting the state, or some large cities, to take a hard look at Doughnut Economics or something like the Donella Meadows’ Vermont New Economy program. Speaking as a recovering planner, I long ago learned that “more of the same never solved a problem.”

This Morning I Could Do/A Thousand Things

By Robert Hedin

I could fix the leaky pipe

Under the sink, or wander over

And bother Jerry who’s lost

In the bog of his crankcase.

I could drive the half-mile down

To the local mall and browse

Through the bright stables

Of mowers, or maybe catch

The power-walkers puffing away

On their last laps. I could clean

The garage, weed the garden,

Or get out the shears and

Prune the rose bushes back.

Yes, a thousand things

This beautiful April morning. 

But I’ve decided to just lie

Here in this old hammock,

Rocking like a lazy metronome,

And wait for the day lilies

To open. The sun is barely

Over the trees, and already

The sprinklers are out,

Raining their immaculate

Bands of light over the lawns.

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Where are we now?

Have you ever heard the saying “even a blind hog can find acorns once in a while?” That sort of describes much of my morning as I poked about the corners of the internet, although I take umbrage at comparisons involving me and the porcine aspects plus, my new glasses are a notable improvement over my prior prescription.

The web site of Hatch Magazine has an interesting article on Fly rods for beginner and intermediate anglers. On a good day I qualify as an “intermediate” so I was curious to see what the article claimed. For one thing, it recommends avoiding “fast action” rods unless you really know what you’re doing. That had me trying to remember if any of my graphite rods are classified as fast. Of course, I don’t remember but I was delighted to read, further on, regarding fast action rods, that: 

Rather than moth-balling those rods, the folks who own them should try going up a line size with their fly line. A couple of my favorite 5 weights are actually fast action 4 weights that I fish with a one-size-heavier line. It won’t work for every rod — some models are truly beyond redemption — but utilizing a heavier line can indeed help certain fast action rods perform far better on the water.

Years ago I picked up the practice of going a line weight heavier for several of my rods for entirely separate reasons. It’s encouraging to find one of your practices validated for more reasons than the one(s) that started it. I was interested in getting a decent but short cast with my trout rods since most of the rivers I fish aren’t very large. Maybe we’re talking about similar results using different words but I can confirm that the combination of a 4 weigh rod and a 5 weight line often works well for me. Now, if only I could find a better way to label the weights of my lines so I can keep track more easily as I swap reels from rod to rod.

Over the weekend, more and more dismal news stories started me wondering [again] how we ended up where we are after the “Woodstock Generation.” I searched online to see if anyone thought they had an answer to that question. Did everyone sell out? One interesting article from a few years ago, What Happened to the Woodstock Generation?, concludes:

Because although we have new issues and causes to fight for: global warming, starvation and poverty around the world, wars in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iraq, so many others, “the “clash of civilizations” between Islam and the West, getting universal health care in America (my own personal cause celebre)… we must “still keep up the fight.” Not give up “hope.” Not fall prey to the current diatribes of our political and religious leaders.

Woodstock lives! That’s what I say! Social justice. Peace, love, sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll forever!

What about you?

In the late sixties Sonny and Cher had a hit song titled The Beat Goes On. With only a slight modification, we have an answer to the question of what happened to the Woodstock, and every other, generation. It’s called evolution and aging, on and on, unless we make our home planet uninhabitable.

Woodstock

by Joni Mitchell

I came upon a child of God
He was walking along the road
And I asked him where are you going
And this he told me
I'm going on down to Yasgur's farm *
I'm going to join in a rock 'n' roll band
I'm going to camp out on the land
I'm going to try an' get my soul free 

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

Then can I walk beside you
I have come here to lose the smog
And I feel to be a cog in something turning
Well maybe it is just the time of year
Or maybe it's the time of man
I don't know who I am
But you know life is for learning

We are stardust
We are golden
And we've got to get ourselves
Back to the garden

By the time we got to Woodstock
We were half a million strong
And everywhere there was song and celebration
And I dreamed I saw the bombers
Riding shotgun in the sky
And they were turning into butterflies
Above our nation

We are stardust
Billion year old carbon
We are golden
Caught in the devil's bargain
And we've got to get ourselves
back to the garden

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Tomorrow is T Day!

At  the moment, I’m giving thanks that the snowblower started and ran and that I managed to change the oil in it without turning the garage into a (bigger) disaster. A cautionary note that I wish I had known about  years ago: some folks are selling stuff that’s not really well designed. My snowblower has two dipsticks but no drain pipe from the crankcase. One of the dipsticks is located right under the exhaust and muffler, presenting a wonderful opportunity to burn one’s hand if not very careful. I’m very grateful I bought other brands of snowblowers before the current one and won’t be foolish enough  to buy anything like it without  checking the details first. The manual doesn’t even list how much oil the crankcase holds. I’m grateful I could find that information on the internet.

some years November 23rd’s like this

Photo by J. Harrington

Things like the preceding make me grateful there are lots of capable folks working on helping design and create an economy that doesn’t depend on perpetual growth to be sustainable, because perpetual growth on a finite planet isn’t sustainable. I’m increasingly grateful that more and more of us are learning  that. There are no jobs on a dead planet.

I really enjoyed the Buffy Sainte-Marie documentary on PBS last night. Including some shots of Joni Mitchell was icing on the cake. I’m grateful to have lived at the same time as each of those wonderful artists and many others I’ve grown up with.

Yesterday the eye doctor gave me a relatively clean bill of health for an old fart (me, not the eye doctor), for which I’m grateful, although  the dilation eye drops hadn’t completely worn off by the time the B S-M documentary started so watching it was a little blurry at times. Today we’re enjoying another spell of blue skies, sunshine and above freezing temperatures. I have few doubts that, had I not checked out the snow blower today, T day would bring an Alberta clipper or an outright blizzard. Don’t bother to thank me, it was my (almost) pleasure.

America, I Sing Back

Allison Adelle Hedge Coke - 1958-

for Phil Young, my father, Robert Hedge Coke, Whitman, and Hughes

America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.
Sing back the moment you cherished breath.
Sing you home into yourself and back to reason.

Oh, before America began to sing, I sung her to sleep,
held her cradleboard, wept her into day.
My song gave her creation, prepared her delivery,
held her severed cord beautifully beaded.

My song helped her stand, held her hand for first steps,

nourished her very being, fed her, placed her three sisters strong.
My song comforted her as she battled my reason

broke my long held footing sure, as any child might do.

Lo, as she pushed herself away, forced me to remove myself,
as I cried this country, my song grew roses in each tear’s fall.

My blood veined rivers, painted pipestone quarries
circled canyons, while she made herself maiden fine.

Oh, but here I am, here I am, here, I remain high on each and every peak,
carefully rumbling her great underbelly, prepared to pour forth singing—

and sing again I will, as I have always done.

Never silenced unless in the company of strangers, singing

the stoic face, polite repose, polite, while dancing deep inside, polite
Mother of her world. Sister of myself.

When my song sings aloud again. When I call her back to cradle.
Call her to peer into waters, to behold herself in dark and light,

day and night, call her to sing along, call her to mature, to envision—

Then, she will make herself over. My song will make it so

When she grows far past her self-considered purpose,
I will sing her back, sing her back. I will sing. Oh, I will—I do.

America, I sing back. Sing back what sung you in.

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T minus 4 and counting

I read something the other day that severely disrupted my perspective on life and the world. At the moment I don’t recall where I read it so I can’t give credit, but the gist of the piece is that, if we lived in a perfect world, and we were perfect, there would be no room for growth, nothing would ever improve or change, because everything was perfect as it was. Since I acknowledge my mild tendency toward perfectionism (others who know me might  describe it differently) the reading left me quite taken aback. I had never thought  about a downside to “perfect,” although I have for some years admired Leonard Cohen’s lyrics in Anthem, especially:

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack a crack in everything

That's how the light gets in. 

A somewhat different perspective on our imperfect but wonderful world can be found in Robin Wall Kimmerer’s essay, The Serviceberry     An Economy of Abundance:

As Robin Wall Kimmerer harvests serviceberries alongside the birds, she considers the ethic of reciprocity that lies at the heart of the gift economy. How, she asks, can we learn from Indigenous wisdom and ecological systems to reimagine currencies of exchange?

For most of my life, I have found fishing to be close to a perfect hobby and way to pass time and enjoy nature. This helps explain why:

“The charm of fishing is that it is the pursuit of what is elusive but attainable,
a perpetual series of occasions for hope.” John Buchan

The examples above, and many others like them, make me grateful that there are those who are wiser and more creative than I, and are willing to share their thoughts and creations with us so we can improve our own imperfect lives. If you really want to feel humbled and put our troubles and imperfections in perspective, take a look at this recently made available interactive map of the universe. My limited and imperfect mind can’t even begin to grapple with the size and light of millions of galaxies.

Carrying Our Words

Ofelia Zepeda

We travel carrying our words.
We arrive at the ocean.
With our words we are able to speak
of the sounds of thunderous waves.
We speak of how majestic it is,
of the ocean power that gifts us songs.
We sing of our respect
and call it our relative.

 

Translated into English from O’odham by the poet.

 

’U’a g T-ñi’okı˘

T-ñi’okı˘ ’att ’an o ’u’akc o hihi
Am ka:ck wui dada.
S-ap ‘am o ’a: mo has ma:s g kiod.
mat ’am ’ed.a betank ’i-gei.
’Am o ’a: mo he’es ’i-ge’ej,
mo hascu wud.  i:da gewkdagaj
mac ’ab amjed.  behě g ñe’i.
Hemhoa s-ap ‘am o ’a: mac si has elid, mo d.  ’i:mig.

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Growing, growing, gone!

Here’s an issue I suspect the green growth, zero growth, and downsizing folks should spend some time considering. Is the entire local governance structure in the USA and other countries established to promote development rather than protect agriculture and natural resources [public policy claims to the contrary]? Reading much of the relevant Minnesota legislation, one might conclude so. There rarely, if ever, seems to be any consideration of the question of how much is enough?

We’re posting on this theme because this year, at the Lent Township annual meeting, sort of out of the blue, the question of a merger with a city with which there’s an existing Joint Powers agreement, was raised. The concern expressed was loss of control of the township’s future 20 or 30 years in the future because that city and another declined to enter into a “No Annexation” agreement.

There’s been a fairly recent, and very contentious, annexation/merger involving another nearby township and city. Here’s a link to an Office of Administrative Hearings “Finding of Fact etc.” All 43 pages of it.

In the Matter of the Petition of Chisago
City for Annexation of Unincorporated
Property in Wyoming Township (A-6996)

On a directly related matter, here’s a link to a 2012 Legislative Auditor’s report on the Consolidation of Local Governments. One of the key findings was:

In lieu of consolidation, collaboration and cooperative service arrangements and incremental boundary adjustments are preferred methods to reconfigure local government services. (pp. 31-34, 62, 64) 

developments are often named after what they’ve replaced

Photo by J. Harrington

In light of the way the current township government has provided no real background information on the pros and cons of a merger compared to other alternatives, we have substantial concerns about how well residents will be served by the committee that was authorized and appointed at the annual meeting to “explore” the proposed merger.

Minnesota’s legislation leaves too much discretion to local officials and does not require, in our opinion, sufficiently rigorous analysis and local referenda to provide informed consent by current residents on any reconfiguration of local government.

 If we still lived on a planet where being hell bent for growth and development at all costs was the appropriate strategy, our perspective might be different. We are now facing climate weirding, a sixth extinction, multiple wars, significant food system issues and related problems. More of the same isn’t likely to solve these problems, is it?

It Is Enough to Enter

By Todd Boss

the templar 

halls of museums, for

example, or 

the chambers of churches, 

and admire 

no more than the beauty 

there, or 

remember the graveness

of stone, or 

whatever. You don’t 

have to do any

better. You don’t have to

understand 

the liturgy or know history 

to feel holy

in a gallery or presbytery. 

It is enough

to have come just so far. 

You need 

not be opened any more 

than does 

a door, standing ajar. 

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Been there? Done that? A response to climate breakdown

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released the latest in their series of reports on its assessment of climate change.

The report shows that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities are responsible for approximately 1.1°C of warming since 1850-1900, and finds that averaged over the next 20 years, global temperature is expected to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming.

There are really few, if any, surprises in the report. In fact, the entire IPCC series has been foreshadowed by work done with support by the Club of Rome and first published in 1972, The Limits to Growth [available as download]. The report’s authors found that

The earth’s interlocking resources – the global system of nature in which we all live – probably cannot support present rates of economic and population growth much beyond the year 2100, if that long, even with advanced technology. In the summer of 1970, an international team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology began a study of the implications of continued worldwide growth. They examined the five basic factors that determine and, in their interactions, ultimately limit growth on this planet-population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, industrial output, and pollution generation. 

In 1992 there was an update to The Limits to Growth, titled, appropriately, Beyond the Limits to Growth. It reinforced, with some revisions, the original report’s conclusions:

1. Human use of many essential resources and generation of many kinds of pollutants have already surpassed rates that are physically sustainable. Without significant reductions in material and energy flows, there will be in the coming decades an uncontrolled decline in per capita food output, energy use, and industrial production.

2. This decline is not inevitable. To avoid it two changes are necessary. The first is a comprehensive revision of policies and practices that perpetuate growth in material consumption and in population. The second is a rapid, drastic increase in the efficiency with which materials and energy are used.

3. A sustainable society is still technically and economically possible. It could be much more desirable than a society that tries to solve its problems by constant expansion. The transition to a sustainable society requires a careful balance between long-term and short-term goals and an emphasis on sufficiency, equity, and quality of life rather than on quantity of output. It requires more than productivity and more than technology; it also requires maturity, compassion, and wisdom.

Twelve years later, in 2004, Chelsea Green Publishing Company published Limitsa to Growth: The Thirty Year Update. It included a chapter on “Tools for the Transition to Sustainability.” This latter piece has not been prominent in any of the IPCC’s work. The essence of Chapter 8 is available online at the Donella Meadow’s Project web site. One of the critical tools cited is a shared vision such as the following:

A sustainable world can never be fully realized until it is widely envi­sioned. The vision must be built up by many people before it is complete and compelling. As a way of encour­aging others to join in the process, we’ll list here some of what we see when we let ourselves imagine a sus­tainable society we would like to live in–as opposed to one we would be willing to settle for. This is by no means a definitive list. We include it here only to invite you to develop and enlarge it.

• Sustainability, efficiency, sufficiency, equity, beauty, and community as the highest social values.
• Material sufficiency and security for all. Therefore, by individual choice as well as communal norms, low birth rates and stable populations.
• Work that dignifies people instead of demeaning them. Some way of providing incentives for people to give their best to society and to be rewarded for doing so, while ensuring that everyone will be provided for sufficiently under any circumstances.
• Leaders who are honest, respectful, intelligent, humble, and more inter­ested in doing their jobs than in keeping their jobs, more inrerested in serving society than in winning elections.
• An economy that is a means, not an end, one that serves the welfare of the environment, rather than vice versa.
• Efficient, renewable energy systems.
• Efficient, closed-loop materials systems.
• Technical design that reduces emis­sions and waste to a minimum, and social agreement not to produce emissions or waste that technology and nature can’t handle.
• Regenerative agriculture that builds soils, uses natural mechanisms to restore nutrients and control pests, and produces abundant, un­contaminated food.
• The preservation of ecosystems in their variety, with human cultures liv­ing in harmony with those ecosys­tems; therefore, high diversity of both nature and culture, and human appre­ciation for that diversity.
• Flexibility, innovation (social as well as technical), and intellectual chal­lenge. A flourishing of science, a con­tinuous enlargement of human knowledge.
• Greater understanding of whole systems as an essential part of each person’s education.
• Decentralization of economic power, political influence, and scien­tific expertise.
• Political structures that permit a balance between short-term and long-term considerations; some way of exerting political pressure now on behalf of our grandchildren.
• High-level skills on the part of citi­zens and governments in the arts of nonviolent conflict resolution.
• Media that reflect the world’s diver­sity and at the same time unite cultures with relevant, accurate, timely, unbiased, and intelligent information, presented in its historic and whole­ system context.
• Reasons for living and for thinking well of ourselves that do not involve the accumulation of material things.

The challenges we face are not new, although the need for promptly implementing successful solutions grows more urgent by the day. Many wise and intelligent people have been trying to get our attention for generations. Slowly, they’ve been succeeding. There are many who are creating the alternatives we need to today’s mainstream systems. In future postings, we’ll devote more space to sharing those we know about. For example, most of today’s posting is based on the work of Donella Meadows, being continued posthumously at The Donella Meadow’s Project. So, in addition to a poem today, we close with one of her observations.

A History of Kindness

By Linda Hogan

When a child becomes an animal in clouds
changing forms to other creatures,
our grief becomes a kindness to the sky.

When the hay is baled and you worry
if a mouse or snake was inside,
that is a gentleness.

When the horses are fed and all that's left is a withered apple
for a woman to eat, and she is grateful
for the life of all things and so feeds it to the horse,
that is a good heart.

When you are gentle to the s kin of others,
touching them softly, speaking with gentle words
that is compassion.

When there is agreement among those
who might have argued instead,
it is a gift to all.

When skin is the first organ to form in the body of a woman,
skin, the largest organ we have,
that is a mother's first protection.

If you still love the invisible place where a child once stood,
the heart recalling her long dark legs, her soft wind-blown hair,
that is the spaciousness of memory.

And when you pick up the old woman on the worn road
to help her home and you see that she has nothing, 
you give the food you have.

You give the only can of coffee, then start her woodstove
you leave your coat behind on purpose.
What else would a real human do?

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Were fossil fuels just a bridge?

July certainly has been an interesting month this year: record-setting heat waves, wide-spread drought, smoke-filled skies from hundreds of wildfires in Canada, and a third surge of the COVID-19 virus, Delta variant this time. Now that the Democrats are letting the federal eviction ban expire, the homeless population is likely to expand or we'll see a strange case of musical chairs, but, as I've read, landlords are hesitant to rent to those who've been evicted so I can't begin to guess how that may play out.

Is it possible that  we've reached a point at which the  new normal is that there is no normal, and won't be for some time? A dictionary definition if normal is "conforming to a type, standard, or regular pattern : characterized by that which is considered usual, typical, or routine." Do you foresee a near future in which  we can characterize anything as usual, typical or routine? The "rock" is the need to transform our society and economy to become carbon-neutral within a generation or so. The "hard place" will be found as the consequence of not rapidly completing those transformations, plus the continuing disruptions to what was considered normal during  the last millennium. We're caught between them. Some may think we are approaching the time of the rapture or the end of days. I'm wondering if genesis might not be a better model to consider.

Western "civilization" is being cast out of its paradise founded on fossil fuels, which supplied energy to do the work of moving and warming things between the time of feudalism and whatever comes after where we are. We may have initially responded to the discovery of how to use oil in a manner similar to that of animals no longer constrained by predators or food shortages. [See, e.g., Kaibab Deer Herd and table below] 

World population milestones in billions (Worldometers estimates)
Population	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Year	1804	1927	1960	1974	1987	1999	2011	2023	2037	2057
Years elapsed	—	123	33	14	13	12	12	12	14	20

 The question now becomes, will we exhibit enough sense and cooperation and collaboration to structure a soft landing, or will we resolve our  imbalances through a devastating crash. The choice is ours.

Image Credit: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

I'm old enough to remember Paul Ehrlich's Population Bomb. I found the approach and analysis in Limits to Growth to be more persuasive. In fact, "In 2020, analysis by Gaya Herrington (Sustainability and Dynamic System Analysis Lead at KPMG in the United States but in a personal capacity) found that current empirical data is broadly in line with the 1972 projections.^[50][51]" Unfortunately, our "world leaders" seem more interested in contesting who's going to get to be the captain of our Titanic earth as it sinks, rather than checking the radar screen and the rearview mirror. As Yogi Berra has told us, "You've got to be very careful if you don't know where you are going, because you might not get there."

Olympic Drive

By Kyle Dargan

Los Angeles

Across from the gorgeous dog park,

men dream against poodle-pissed trees — 

their pillows made from breath captured

in milk cartons. Only arid, temperate

climate offers respite. Let us suppose

they have tales, here in this city

where filmed stories turn a mint.

All around, one wide screen — the dark hills

due north pixel-pocked with villa lights.

Below, streets hemmed with haggard

brown men — jack-in-the-box bodies

ever unfolding. Who is pitching

this script? Title: “The Child of 1968.”

Voiceover: After the Integration Apocalypse,

one man must find his way in a land

where the sole survivors who look or speak

like him are those rendered disturbed

and indigent. Assume the Motion Picture

Association eager to levy a “Rated R,”

then remember that those who judge

violence never shared your definition

of savagery. A culling is all your eyes

decipher — your herd thinned. No urban

wildlife anywhere to be found,

yet hunger for a hunt remains.

Tagline: A hero must choose — 

between starving or bartering one’s own

skin. Plot: Amidst the solar famine, bio-

electric studies revealed melanin’s subtle

charge — the brown population gone

mad from being sapped like CopperTops.

Imagine The Matrix without the extra-

terrestrial machines. Imagine that among us

there have lived men churning statistics,

devising a human harvest, a brutal method

to subsist off fellow men and leave their bones

for the gnawing of next century’s mutts.

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