Hayduke Blogs

Contemplating Congress

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 18:41:00 +0000

"All Congresses and Parliaments have a kindly feeling for idiots, and a compassion for them, on account of personal experience and heredity."
- Mark Twain's Autobiography; also in Mark Twain in Eruption

This climate change is different

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 02:31:00 +0000

Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation

"The possibility that climate change might simply be a natural variation like others that have occurred throughout geologic time is dimming, according to evidence in a Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences paper published October 19.

The research reveals that sediments retrieved by University at Buffalo geologists from a remote Arctic lake are unlike those seen during previous warming episodes."

The Private "Public" Option

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:25:00 +0000

The Washington Post reveals, in an article with this misleading headline: Prognosis improves for public insurance, that "public option" health insurance will be managed by a private corporation!

"The public option would effectively be just another insurance plan offered on the open market. It would likely be administered by a private insurance provider, charging premiums and copayments like any other policy. In an early estimate of the House bill, the Congressional Budget Office forecast that fewer than 12 million people would buy insurance through the government plan. "

Congress continues to ignore the distinction between health care and health insurance. The public option is not about government provided health insurance, it's about government provided medical care, on the model of the National Health Service in England. We don't want insurance companies involved. We don't want private corporations making profits from the misfortune of the ill and injured. We want quality medical care available for everyone, regardless of income or social circumstances.

Capitalism is based on the premise that the few should have more than the many, that some should be fed while others go hungry, that access to medical care is based on income rather than need.

Universal medical care is the basis for a strong, vibrant society in which all members enjoy equal access to necessary medical care.

Stop the charade in Congress. Pass a meaningful universal medical care bill now.

Shifting to Renewable Power

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:45:00 +0000

Shifting the world to 100 percent clean, renewable energy as early as 2030 -- here are the numbers

Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand, say Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi.

While this article appears to offer a pathway to a renewable energy future, it emphasizes centralized power fed into a central energy grid, with no mention of decentralized energy production (solar on every rooftop, local community wind generators). The article does not discuss the contribution of conservation, which can "produce" energy at no cost through reduction of wasted energy now consumed.

A renewable energy future will not be the non-renewable energy present we experience today. It must be accompanied by self-responsibility in energy use, backed up by changes in energy pricing and regulation.

A Reality Check From the Brink of Extinction

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 15:31:00 +0000

While Chris Hedges is generally on the mark, this article: A Reality Check From the Brink of Extinction suffers from an over abundance of Derrick Jensen.

Jensen is at his feverish best, calling for everyone to take on vague, unachievable tasks, such as "We need to target and take down the industrial infrastructure that is systematically dismembering the planet." and "We need to do whatever is necessary to stop this."

Everyone has to be good at something and Jensen is a master of the non-specific demand. How does one, for instance, "take down the industrial infrastructure?" With an ax? A computer? A pithy quote?

Jensen is right, of course, that industrial capitalism is the source of climate change, species extinction and widespread pollution. He makes one statement that rings true and at least echoes a movement that is growing across the world. "We need to separate ourselves from the corporate government that is killing the planet,...”

More accurately, the only effective response to a central corporate oligarchy is to withdraw our support and permission for it to operate in our name. We do this not by marching shoulder to shoulder to Wall Street and Pennsylvania Avenue, not by taking apart the corporate infrastructure brick by brick.

We build the alternative by turning our backs on central authority (and its seductive benefits and protections) and building the local economy and social system among the ruins of the old system.

This is a facile socialist phrase. The reality is much more difficult. It means giving up all the "gimmes" of the paternalistic welfare state and taking care of ourselves and each other. It means rebuilding local democracy and solving our own problems with local resources. It means participating in growing our own food, building our own shelter, making our own clothes and providing for those who cannot provide for themselves.

Mutual Aid. Local economies.

It worked for 10,000 years before industrial capitalism. It will work for all life once again.

The world's future is being decided this weekend!

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 03:43:00 +0000

"We must agree to halt deforestation and curtail air travel now if the Copenhagen summit is to succeed." The Guardian:

It sounds so innocent seeing it lying there on the page in black and white.

Halt deforestation? Sure, why not? Just stop cutting down trees. Or plant more trees after we cut them down.

Curtail air travel? Sounds good to me. It's pretty inconvenient these days, anyway, what with all the security restrictions.

Think what this means. Think how much of "The Economy" is based on cutting trees and flying in airplanes.

Not just trees for building houses, but space where trees used to be for growing McCow burgers, sugar cane for ethanol, palm trees for oil.

Not just vacations to Grandma's house, but business travel, all those people in suits working on their laptops at 37,000 feet. And all the money those businesses spend for the seats, and all the money the airlines spend for those thousands of employees to keep those laptops at 37,000.

I'd call it a revolution, a forced change from "The (Global) Economy," to "Many Local Economies." Right here at home. Eating local food grown in local bioregions. Doing good work that doesn't require vacations to exotic locales. Visiting Grandma down the street, not thousands of frequent flyer miles away.

Why not start now and avoid the rush? Where do we sign up?

Does Flu Vaccine Matter?

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 16:51:00 +0000

My father was a doctor from the late 50s through the 80s, starting out as a GP in Broken Bow, Nebraska. I used to mow the front lawn of the neat white turn-of-the-Century two-story home that housed his office.

Although we did get our polio vaccines during those frightening polio summers, first as a shot, then as blue liquid dropped on sugar cubes, Dad didn't really believe in vaccines. He preferred natural immunity from exposure to the disease. We were exposed to mumps and measles at a young age, when our symptoms were brief and mild. When we came down with colds or flu, the treatment was: plenty of fluids, lots of rest and aspirin, if necessary. We learned not to rely on medications and to take care of our own immune systems.

In the United States, common sense response to disease has been replaced by fear and opportunism. The people are kept in a heightened state of fear through government propaganda inflamed by lurid media headlines. Pharmaceutical executives count their profits as the government orders exorbitant stockpiles of what amounts to expensive placebos, then generates fear to get the populace to line up for their vaccinations.

Now we learn in Does the Vaccine Matter? - The Atlantic (November 2009) that it really is a sham, an unwillingness on the part of the medical profession to test and analyize received wisdom and resist pressure from pharmaceutical industry lobbying,

Thank you, Dr. Dad, for your wise treatment and counsel.

Looking at nature makes you nicer - Behavior- msnbc.com

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 02:42:00 +0000

Looking at nature makes you nicer - Behavior- msnbc.com:

"...the “naturally nice” effect doesn’t so much hinge on daily hikes through the woods as it does paying attention to the natural elements we encounter each day."

There you have it: MSNBC and the University of Rochester. It must be real.

Birds around our houses, squirrels in the trees, a spider hanging on her web on the carport uprights. Nature is all around us, even in the densest of urban neighborhoods.

It doesn't take a trip to a national park, a week long back pack in the wilderness, a kayak expedition in the fjords. Just go outside, look around and open yourself to the experience of Nature everywhere.

Then share your experience with your friends.

Nature Always Bats Last

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:38:00 +0000

In this article from the Santa Cruz (Scotts Valley/San Jose) Sentinel, Sandy Lydon relates the natural history of the Loma Prieta earthquake that shook the earth round these parts twenty years ago today.

On October 16, 1989, I was in recovery mode on the shores of Prince William Sound some 4,000 miles north of Loam Prieta. I remember hearing about it on the radio, and seeing a picture of Candlestick Park in the Anchorage Daily News.

One must realize that news of earthquakes is a very different thing in Alaska than elsewhere. The 1964 quake established a threshold against which all others are measured. And, in Alaska, earthquakes are almost literally an everyday affair. I can't remember how many times I stood in a doorway wondering when to make a break for outside, as the house shifted back and forth around me.

Now that I live here within sight of the epicenter of the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, and having felt a couple of notable temblors myself, the effect of earthquakes in densely populated areas has a sobering reality. I know we'll be safe here, as this house survived the 1989 quake with almost no damage, and has been retrofitted since then. With all of the retelling of twenty year-old ground-shaking tales, I know that others will be less fortunate or prepared when the next one rolls around.

There is nothing that underscores human subservience to Nature more than that moment when the ground moves under your feet and you know there's absolutely nothing you can do about it.

As they discovered in Candlestick Park twenty years ago, Nature really does bat last!

On Things Facebookish (aka social networking)

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 03:04:00 +0000

OK, I give up! I don't get it.

I've worked for over thirty-five years in public radio. I always thought of it as ephemeral, there for the now, wafted across the air waves into oblivion.

Now, with podcasting, internet streams, on-demand downloading, radio has established a permanent presence, if anything in this world is permanent, which it isn't. Now you can get your radio on-demand, when and where you want it. It's not really radio anymore, it's cyber information purveyance.

Yuch!

I've dabbled in Facebook for the last few months, trying to figure out the draw of "Friends," "Pages," and all the streaming minutiae of "social networking." I've failed. I don't get it.

The individual contributions scroll down the screen and get lost off the bottom faster than I can read and keep track of them. There's a bewildering array of causes, groups, games, events, pictures, videos and other things I never did figure out. It's like sitting in the laundry room watching the front-loader go from agitate to the spin cycle.

Social networking is far more ephemeral than radio ever was.

And now they (you know who they are) want to combine radio with social networking, thus diluting and ephemoralizing both more than either was individually.

No wonder the young set spends hours walking, biking, driving down the street, staring into the limpid crystal screen of the hypnotic electronic communications device held before them.

We used to say, "never trust anyone over thirty!" Now we (you know who we are) say, never trust anyone under fifty!"

The world turns.

Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk | CommonDreams.org

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:43:00 +0000

Arctic Seas Turn to Acid, Putting Vital Food Chain at Risk

This implies a lack of resilience in the world that is at odds with what we continue to learn about how our planet maintains homeostasis.

Yes, increasing ocean acidity is a challenge to existing ecologies. But ecologies are constantly changing, constantly adapting to new conditions. While the impending changes as a result of climate change and rising CO2 levels, I think there are other effects of human industrial actrocities that are more immediate and long lasting.

The angry face of fascism

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 15:31:00 +0000

In a revealing article, Chris Hedges uncovers the dark source of anger expressed recently at political town hall meetings across the country.

In a telling comparison, Hedges points out the parallel historical German group, Freikorps, the German militia formed in the 18th Century and revived by returning World War I soldiers in Weimar Germany.

Our American Freikorps are soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, alienated, angry and looking for solace from the nightmare of their war time experiences, if only in a return to violence at home.

And as if that weren't sufficient, they find their fears and anger whipped to a fever pitch by ignorant right wing radio talk show hosts, who have never been in a fight themselves but are willing to hold the coats of those who have.

This is a deadly combination that threatens to throw the United States into the same fascist nightmare that consumed Germany and Italy leading into World War II.

History doesn't often repeat itself, but it frequently rhymes.

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance: Email - Victory for Utah wilderness: court rules against Kane County!

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 02:01:00 +0000

Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance: Email - Victory for Utah wilderness: court rules against Kane County!

At least someone is winning!

Watch for this truck! Spread the word!

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 01:30:00 +0000

Trucks Carrying Nuclear Weapons Around The Country Revealed

Remember the white train? Now it's a semi, or a bunch of semis. Watch for these trucks and spread the word. Take pictures. Put them on the web.

"They" put our lives at risk every time one of these trucks hits the road. "They" put all life at risk every time it reaches its destination.

NO NUKES!!

Afghanistan Strategy Not Working, US Commander McChrystal to Tell Obama | CommonDreams.org

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 15:11:00 +0000

Afghanistan Strategy Not Working, US Commander McChrystal to Tell Obama | CommonDreams.org: "'Outside the major cities, Afghan administration is non-existent. As President Obama must realize, whether Afghanistan is led by Hamid Karzai or anyone else, the problem for the international coalition is not one of insufficient force; it is insufficient government,'"

What's an imperialist invader to do? They don't have enough government the United States can lean on, so we can force them to host our pipeline and military bases in their country.

"The Taliban were already running courts, hospitals and even an ombudsman in parallel to the government, making a real difference to local people…

Damned anarchists!

The future of agriculture

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 15:51:00 +0000

In Cuba, local farmers respond to rapidly increasing oil prices by bringing their farms close to home.

This article about local farming in Cuba is a preview of how our food will be grown in the future, in and around our homes, in our neighborhoods, on the outskirts of our towns and cities. The 100 mile meal will become the 10 mile meal, the ten block meal and the backyard meal.

Everyone can grow something at home, on a patio in pots, in planters on the concrete apron of a mobile home, in what once was monoculture grasses in our yards.

It's time to grow up!

Oil Lobby's 'Energy Citizens' Astroturf Campaign Exposed

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 19:06:00 +0000

The Huffington Post exposes a new fake grass roots campaign to oppose US climate change legislation.

Greenpeace obtained a memo calling for oil company execs to encourage their employees to engage in fake activism against climate change legislation.

Can you say "Conflict of Interest?"

Sure.

Lockheed Fire "consumes" 6,800 acres

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 15 Aug 2009 17:15:00 +0000

Dramatic photographs and lurid headlines do little to accurately describe the Lockheed Fire now burning in the mountain slopes north and west of Santa Cruz. The area over which the fire has burned does indeed encompass 6,800 acres. But that doesn't mean the fire is that big, nor does it mean that everything within that acreage has been burned.

The fire consists of a moving front of largely low-lying flame that occasionally bursts dramatically into the treetops. These are the images that sell newspapers and advertising space. Though much is burned, much is not, leaving behind a forest that is considerably healthier than before the fire. Officials wax on about "resources" being lost, referring of course to resources that benefit humans, not the healthy forest, resources that pay the salaries of hard-working firefighters.

Interestingly, this fire is following the same path and covering the same footprint as the 1948 fire that started long before Lockheed cut down trees to build their, well, whatever it is, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. It will be interesting to learn if the proximity of the Lockheed facility had any causal relationship with the Lockheed Fire.

Life goes on. The fire spreads its nutrient ash liberally hereabouts, the forest is refreshed and renewed. We hope the critters are able to make their way through surrounding development to safety, so they can return when the ground has cooled.

Ain't Nature grand?

Lockheed Fire update: No containment, more than 2,000 asked to evacuate, including Bonny Doon - Santa Cruz Sentinel

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 21:20:00 +0000

Lockheed Fire update: No containment, more than 2,000 asked to evacuate, including Bonny Doon - Santa Cruz Sentinel

About ten miles from Santa Cruz, heading south. No hope for containment at this point.

Reinhabiting the Economy

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 14:55:00 +0000

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/08/03-2

BUCHAREST - Serge Latouche, professor emeritus of economic science at the University of Paris-Sud, is one of the main proponents of "the society of de-growth".

The need for a 'de-growth' society stems from the certainty, he says, that the earth's resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth which is the essence of capitalism and modernity. He calls for "abandoning the objective of growth for growth's sake, an insane objective, with disastrous consequences for the environment." The need for a 'de-growth' society stems from the certainty, he says, that the earth's resources and natural cycles cannot sustain the economic growth which is the essence of capitalism and modernity.

Prosperity Without Growth

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:12:00 +0000

Thinking the Unthinkable: Not Growing the Economy

In this article on Common Dreams, Tim Jackson dares to speak the truth about economic reality.

Scare-Ya Palin - What you see is what you get

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:32:00 +0000

Scare-Ya Palin Outdoes Herself | CommonDreams.org

I lived in Alaskaland for fifteen years, where I became familiar with the Palin Phenom, long before Sarah left the basketball court for politics.

In Alaska, when someone asks you if you can do something, the Official Alaska State Response is, "Sure! Why not?" Then if it turns out you can't do it, at least you know more about it than before you started. No one checks on your credentials, especially for women.

Alaska is a small town; wherever you go you run into someone you know. Anyone who wants to can become, well, Governor. Wally Hickel was George Bush, v. 0.1. Remember the Owner State, the water pipeline to Lalaland?

Sarah Palin is no mystery to Alaskans. The puzzlement has always been, "Why did she want to go Outside and play with folks in the Lesser States?"

Alaska is also the State of Unfinished Projects, due to the overwhelming negative correlation between money and brains. There's piles of money lying about to buy new projects and very little qualifications to see them through. Closets in Juneau are stuffed, Fibber McGee-like, with all sorts of paraphernalia left over from grand projects never fulfilled.

So quitting as governor in the first term is very Alaskan, in keeping with Palin's experience growing up in the Unfinished State.

I have no excuses for Republicans.

Time is money?

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 18:53:00 +0000

Time is not money.

Money is a fiction dreamed up by economists to control the minds of the people.

Time is precious. Each moment unique, each moment eternity.

Treasure each moment, live each moment to the fullest.

"All these moments will be lost in time, like tears in the rain."

(Un)sustainable Growth

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 15:22:00 +0000

"The stakes are high, as, without sustainable growth, 'billions of people will be condemned to poverty and much of civilisation will collapse'."

In this article in Commondreams: "The Planet's Future," Jonathan Owen clearly states the inevitability of the collapse of what we optimistically call "civilization."

Since "sustainable growth" is an oxymoron, collapse is the only possible outcome of the present course of many human societies. Whether or not this equates with a Mad Max "collapse of civilization" remains to be seen.

The State of the Future report, backed by Unesco, the World Bank, the US Army and the Rockefeller Foundation, comes to the obviously ingrown conclusion that in order for human society to continue on its present course, technologies must be developed to overcome limitations of Peak Oil and climate change so that 10 billion people can continue to live on this planet in a state of continued economic growth and consumption.

This, of course, is impossible.

The only sustainable forms of human economic activity are shrinkage followed by steady state. There are already far too many humans consuming far too much to be sustainable even on the short term of human life spans. Continued growth in a finite system is impossible and any scenario that ignores this reality is fantasy at best and destructive in the long term.

Human numbers will decline. Human economic production will decline. These declines can either be gradual and manageable, or they will be precipitous and catastrophic, for humans and many other species.

Governments and corporations have proven themselves incapable of perceiving and acting on necessary changes to forestall the destructive collapse of human economies. It remains for individual humans, acting within local communities, to lead the way to steady state economies based on local production for local consumption within natural resource limitations.

Step into the future! Grow your food at home, support your local farmers markets, turn your backs on corporations and distant central governments. Build the future right here at home where we can all keep an eye on it.

Your grandchildren will thank you for your wisdom and foresight.

Three Score Years, and Homeward Bound

hayduke@rattlebrain.com (Hayduke) — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:25:00 +0000

On July 12, 1949, after four hours of struggle, I entered this world at 4:29 in the afternoon. The doctor proclaimed me "normal," a condition I have striven to maintain over the ensuing 60 years.

It's been an interesting ride these six decades, from the optimism of the 50s, the 60s Revolution, which I mostly missed, through the MADness of the Cold War, and the even madder madness of the Reagan Right-Wing Revulsion, a brief respite of hope, then the grinding intellectual poverty of the Bush fascist regime, still lingering despite political changes in Washington.

I feel I've grown into my aspirations of curmudgeonliness and have now fully arrived. My expectations have been realized, and despite another era of hope, not yet fulfilled, I see no meaningful change on the horizon.

If I take care of my body, I should have another twenty years or so left to appreciate the great human comedy. I fully expect to see environmental conditions deteriorate worldwide during that time, resulting in deteriorating human conditions, and, thus, increased human strife, misery and woe, and increased destruction of the natural world.

"Twas ever thus," quoth Mr. Natural. I see no reason to expect that human beings will suddenly develop intelligence and common sense, at least not in time to make any difference to climate change and Peak Oil, the twin spectres looming over all, mostly unappreciated. If we upright bipeds had any real intelligence, we'd drop this insane social system based on greed and the folly of economists, scrap private automobiles, re-create a real system of public transportation, call all our soldiers and missionaries home to rebuild, refurbish and recycle the technological dead ends lying about the place. Plenty of work for everyone, no need for anyone to stand on the dole que. Plenty of food and housing to go around, in sufficiency.

This, of course, will never happen, so we are left with the alternative, which is to charge full bore toward the abyss with our eyes closed, praying for the best outcome.

When I think of what's to come, I'm glad I was born in 1949, young enough to peer out over the edge, too old to experience the sudden, fatal stop at the bottom.