Jack Burns Lives!

Back to my favorite place, Ridgway, Colorado. I simply can’t stand it any longer. The call of the mountains and the forest is too strong.

Right now, Ridgway looks a lot different from the above photo. It’s cold and snowy, with nighttime temps in the teens, daytime highs in the low 50′s. You can see what it looks like right now by clicking here.

Cold or warm, it’s my favorite mountain town, equipped with only a handful of eating establishments, a single grocer, less than 1000 folks. Miles of trails with nary a soul, an ocean of trees and peaks from 8000 to 14000 feet. Cold beer, Orvis Hot Springs.

It ain’t easy to get to, either, which suits me just fine. You stay away, though. Find your own place to hide from the blob.

I’ll be going it alone. My corporate chick wife ain’t into the scene. Too much Christmas shopping and too many spreadsheets for her to break away and enjoy a long weekend in the mountains. Gotta keep pushing that worthless sodie-pop on the gullible, gettin’ fatter by the second, American public.

Yes, I know. We’ll get her into therapy as soon as she first admits there is a problem. That’s the first step to recovery.

I’ll be burning some the remaining fossil fuel in order to indulge myself, but the iron bird is flying whether I’m on it or not. Might as well be on it. Scares the crap out of me, but it sure beats driving. Right now, it’s cheaper than driving.

Finally, something to look forward to! And if I don’t post ever again, you can assume the best has happened.

I’ve got bad news for people that expect substantive, even minor, changes after the Democrats win the White House.

As we often say in the South, it ain’t happening.

Dennis Kucinich, The Party’s lone voice in the wilderness, is just that. Alone. The rest of the candidates are so pathetically robotic and programmable it’s sad. They’ll say whatever they believe you want to hear and are just another group of mainstream politicians that look the part but can’t play the role. The whole party, in fact both parties, are on autopilot, feeding the public an endless stream of sound-bites and meaningless drivel designed to keep the public enthralled but confused and completely in the dark.

But why is this a surprise? It shouldn’t be. The history of our nation has been fairly consistent, despite the ruse that there really are significant differences and choices and that our nation is a democratic liberator of tormented, needful people. From day one it’s been about land grabs, protecting large, private properly holders and establishing a firm foothold on this continent, even if it we had to resort to genocide or ethnocide for us to achieve our god blessed manifest destiny.

From there, the emphasis shifted beyond our new acquired shores, to imperialism and expansion in the age of industrialism. The greatest threat the world has ever seen, capitalist imperialism, fueled by the insatiable greed of militarized, growthmaniac economic cultists. And of course it wasn’t uniquely American. Others got in on the act, too. By the last three decades of the nineteenth century, Europeans expanded their colonial empire by perhaps as much as ten million square miles and 120 million people. Britain annexed approximately thirty-nine separate areas, France added three million square miles. Germany, Belgium, Italy and Russia followed suit. Once we finished with our own Civil War and reconstruction, we took possession of Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Hawaii in a bloody Darwinian free for all.

So, it’s not just America, but America is now and by far the number one bully in the school yard.

Fast forward to 2007, and it’s obvious not much has changed.

“There is no feature of history more sad, no phase of human nature more dismal, than that innate desire in a man’s heart to rule over his fellow men. This ambition has been the curse of the world.”-Sarah E.V. Emery, Imperialism In America

The Democrats can’t stop it. The Green Party can’t stop it. It will end, but not because of men and their ridiculous political parties.

You see, once the Wall Street sponsored growth machine started rolling, it became a runaway profit train requiring constant growth to fuel it and keep the passengers happy. No one wants to hear about the value of their precious nest eggs declining, but that’s exactly what will happen if growth ceases. Home values plummet. Stocks. Funds. The public is so completely conditioned to the idea that zero growth means death that it’s completely off the approved topic list. It’s unconscionable to even consider the notion of “no more growth.” Instead, now that people are beginning to get a clue that there’s a problem in paradise, we’re being offered some fresh buzzwords and propaganda. “Smart growth.” “Sustainable growth.” “Controlled growth.” Basically a bunch of bullshit terms coined by clever but duplicitous con men trying to make a fast buck off the the suddenly fashionable notion of being “green.”

You may say, “why on earth would you want people to lose their savings and nest eggs? Their fortunes?”

Well, I’m not talking about savings. I have no problem with people saving money. But making tons of money off of real estate holdings, stocks, fund and bonds that require infinite levels of growth is killing us. I can tell you with great certainty that Wall Street and economic performance, as we now know it, requires infinite growth in a world of finite resources. It’s not sustainable which, simply put, means it cannot continue forever. It requires prodigious amounts of fossil fuel that is getting harder to come by and more expensive daily. It requires a lot of water in a world of shrinking aquifers. Even more people in an already crowded world.

The ugly but inescapable truth about all of this is that it requires unparalleled levels of militarism to support it. New markets. A military-industrial complex so completely interwoven with other aspects of the economy that it’s unfathomable to think that the increased growth can continue without increased militarism. Militarism needs new enemies and no one is better at empowering people that will eventually become enemies. Noriega. Hussein. Put ‘em power and watch ‘em do their thing.

Then we have to “liberate” people from the very power we put over them. Feed the masses. Spread some democracy. As Mark Twain once said, “The long spoon is the bayonet.”

The Democrats, sadly, do not and will not allow it to end because they’re getting filthy rich just like their Republican cousins. They’re rich because of this machine. What makes you think they’ll dismantle the very machine that put them in power?

But as was the case in 1899, when the American Anti-Imperialist League justly but unsuccessfully denounced and condemned U.S. foreign policy in the Philippines, anti-imperialist/militarist opposition falls on deaf ears. Polls show increasing disfavor for the war in Iraq and for U.S. foreign policy overall. Yet, all we get from the once exciting notion of a Democratic Congress is additional support for the war in Iraq. (I wasn’t excited or fooled. Most were.)

Look beyond the war to some pretty simple economic issues. Candidate Clinton and the expansion of corporate crafted NAFTA. A stated Democratic policy of returning to a period of “record economic growth” and expanded government services. Expanded services (national health care) means higher taxes, because not a single dime being spent on the war machine will ever be diverted to pay for health care. They’ll just take more money, and not just from their rich friends. (Despite what they say.)

“The absorption of unemployment and the maintenance of an adequate rate of profit would thus require the the stimulation of demand on an even larger scale, thereby stimulating the rat race of the competitive struggle for existence through the multiplication of waste, planned obsolescence, parasitic and stupid jobs and services.” Herbert Marcuse, A Guerrilla War Against The Establishment

So, the beat goes on. The beast grows even larger. My question is why do people continue to look in the same old places to solve problems that are over a century old? Where’s the logic in this?

The only solution to the whole sordid mess is grass roots, consensus based democracy. Community based governance within a bioregional framework whereby a steady state economy operates within geophysical and biological constraints. A sustainable community that doesn’t use natural resources faster than can be replenished. Working within and depending on the existing system is one of those “you can’t get there from here” scenarios. It’s doomed to fail.

Take heed. The Wall Street juggernaut is in trouble because it’s running out of cheap fuel. Peak Oil alone could eventually bring it to its once mighty knees because the entire economy is propped up by cheap oil. Shrinking aquifers and global climate change will also force change and eventually, humans will relearn the practice of living in place. That, or as I’ve said a million times before, they’ll cease to live.

Have you heard the Democrats offering any viable solutions to Peak Oil, water depletion and global climate change? Hydrogen cars? Windmill farms? Solar? Are you kidding me!? Yeah, they throw the “N” word around every so often, and when they do, they show just how completely ignorant they really are. What about how they plan to keep the economy growing without militarism? They don’t talk about that so much because it might scare the living shit out of voters.

But we don’t need them. Don’t get sucked into believing the constant stream of mumbo jumbo you hear from political parties. They offer no solutions. We can get started today building infrastructure for the future. The first step is education. Educating yourself and others. Step two is action. Step three is watch the change spread. Spend time in your garden, on your bike, talking to neighbors, walking in the woods, going to community meetings, protecting local places. Make sure you know how to grow food, hunt, fish, dress game and repair things. Get a canoe. Learn how to use a bow. Teach your children these things. Stockpile some ammo if it makes you feel better.

The solution to our problem(s) lies in our own hands.

The New York Times recently reported that a record number of “nuisance” bears were killed in Colorado this year, according to the report, because of drought and a late spring freeze that affecting food supplies.

The real issue is human encroachment into bear habitat. The bears could roam further for their natural food supply (as they’ve done in the past during similar conditions), but why do that when there are readily and easily available dumpsters and garbage cans?

And since it’s so warm and toasty outside, they’re hanging around longer, and not going to their dens like good bears. Guess we’ll have to shoot ‘em, because we’re sure as the fuck not going to change any of our habits!

Colorado was once prime grizzly habitat, but due to development and expanding human populations, there isn’t a single, remaining tract of land that could support a viable grizzly population. Not even the remote and vast Tierra Amarillo in the Southern San Juan’s. To survive, Black bears don’t require the same amount of undeveloped tracts of land that grizzlies do, but when you have too many towns and cities within bear habitat, you inevitably have conflicts, and the bear almost always is the big loser. It seems clear they do need more space than is currently available.

This is one of the many consequences of increasing development and expanding human populations that too few people consider. The easy solution seems to be to just kill the bears, as if the bears have no right to life. Apparently human life is more important that the life of a bear, and there lies one of the most basic, core problems in our society. Anthropocentrism, often rooted in the soul filled, dominion based, Judeo-Christian view of the world. The problem, of course, is that all life is interdependent and no one organism is any more or less important than another in a functional, healthy ecosystem. This is a fact. The notion that some being created humans and granted them a special place on the planet is a fantasy created by the species that wants to be lord of all.

My question is this. What do we do with all the nuisance humans? I believe the bear has a right to harvest a human or two each season, as needed. Let’s apply some human conservation logic to our own species. As of today, our species is not endangered and could sustain some losses without becoming extinct. In fact, it may prove helpful to the survival of our species since the only threat we really face is ourselves.

Humans aren’t on the endangered or threatened list. Now all we have to do is define an acceptable harvest limit for each bear, shark or mountain lion.

This story is truly beyond belief. And perhaps the most amazing aspect is why there’s no organized opposition to it.

While increasing areas of the world are suffering from drought and shrinking aquifers, Arizona is planning a massive water park. Only Las Vegas is more brash.

It’s another case of a nut job, selfish developer, willing to literally suck the life out of the environment so he can become filthy rich. He’s already filthy rich but believes he needs more. The developer, Richard Mladick (pronounced with a heavy emphasis on A-Dick), wants to build a wave pool and water park in Arizona. Arizona gets around 8 inches of rain annually. Waveyard will initially require 50 million gallons of water and another 60 to 100 million gallons annually, supposedly obtained from a well with elevated levels of arsenic. The water will be treated to make it “suitable” for swimming.

There’s even a retail shopping “village” so you can buy a bunch of cheap, unneeded shit to complete your experience.

As expected, the whole thing was sold under the lank premise of new jobs and millions of dollars in revenue for an area with a low tax base.

The glaring audacity of humans never fails to floor me, nor do the utter, ruinous levels of myopia and ignorance. Humans are like crack addicts, willing to do ANYTHING for money and the fulfillment of their pathetic, selfish desires, even if it means placing current and future generations of humans and non-humans at risk of losing the basic necessities of life.

There’s a damn good reason why certain groups of American Indians attempted to completely wipe out white settlers. Some of them apparently understood the real intention of our ancestors, and although they may not have envisioned massive cities and water parks, they fully understood misuse of resources and the ultimate result of white encroachment.

In the end, it was all about money. For, as Black Elk said, “the yellow metal they worship that makes them crazy.”

Warm coffee and a fresh pastry from our French bakery, La Baguette, for breakfast. Nice start to the day. Outside it’s cold, as it should be in November, and the morning sun is gradually illuminating the brilliant yellow, gold and brown of the oaks and maples that surround the house.

I’m the first one up, as usual, and this is my favorite time of the day, when all is quiet. The calm of morning, when my spirit is calm and quiet. No phones ringing. No tee-vee blaring away. No cars on the road, at least that I can hear. Soon, however, my idiot neighbor will fire up his leaf blower. (He did at 7:50 AM). At which point I’ll load my rifle and blow it out of his hand. (I didn’t.)

Soon, the chipmunks will be scurrying about, gathering up a few last acorns before their winter slumber. The Northern Cardinals, the early risers they are, are already bounding about from branch to branch in search of its morning meal. And somewhere else, miles from here, hundreds of humans are lined up, shivering in the cold, so they can explode through the doors of shopping malls and spend their hard earned money on cheap, plastic crap for their kids.

It’s the day after Thanksgiving, a good day to stay inside and read a book by a toasty fire.

The only thing better would be to head to the mountains and have a quiet stroll through the forest. Of late, my mind has almost constantly been on Colorado. Of how to get there. On how to stay there. Yesterday during the Thanksgiving dinner, I listened to several of my relatives talk about their various ski vacations, of this town and that town, the best ski lodges, etc. It was hard for me to bite my tongue and inform them of just how environmentally destructive that industry really is, what it does to towns and to the people that have lived there all of their lives. Small, quaint, affordable mountain towns become private playgrounds for rich folks, so expensive that the ski lift operators and young girls serving all the coffee and hot chocolate can’t afford to live there. But few people think of these things. All they really think about is their little circle of comfort and pleasure.

My favorite mountain town, Ridgway, has so far survived this mess, but danger is on the horizon. Developers are lurking about, mouths agape, saliva drooling downward over their lolling tongues and hungry looking teeth.

The rest of the family was perpetually attached to the tee-vees, two extremely large ones, watching NFL football. Years ago, I liked professional football, but finally and permanently lost interest after Joe Montana’s great run with the 49er’s. All I see today is an over-commercialized, non-sustainable product made up mostly of overpaid thugs and lunkheads, supported by even more lunkheads. It doesn’t have the spirit of the college game, although I must say that the college game is becoming very similar and hard to stomach.

So, there I sat, alone, thinking of Colorado and feeling unable to relate to the people around me. Every conversation turned to something I can’t stand. The NFL. Ski vacations. Shopping. Investment opportunities. Finally, I realized the answer was simple and all of the smart people had already figured it out. I went outside where all the little kids were! They ran and played through Jennifer’s back yard and gardens, unencumbered, running, laughing, playing and enjoying life. Like me, they didn’t give a shit about football. Shopping specials or ski lodges. All they wanted was to run and play outside.

Just like me.

And what a contrast it was. You could breathe and the distinctive smell of the garden was still present despite the fact that its summer glory was long past. The innocent laughter and joy of the children warmed my heart. But it also made me think “What’s happened to us?” What happens to so many (most) adults so that they forget what’s really important in life? Why so many adults spend their lives in cars, offices and malls, never going outside to run and hike or just roll around in the leaves and snow?

When I was a child, I remember thinking there’s much wonder about it all. Honeybees and garden spiders were fascinating. Watching the magnificent trees sway in the wind just before a storm. The dark clouds approaching from the river. The rare but much anticipated snow storms. It was all so much more interesting that the stodgy, boring world of my elders, and it still is.

Another year passed. One down, who knows how many more to go.

I thought about this a lot last night and decided to get busy with some things I hope to accomplish before I become nourishment for the area flora and fauna. At some point today, I’ll be making that list, checking it twice and getting busy. No time to waste.

Last year, I made some comments about being thankful for things, things I’m still thankful for, hoping for peace and for people to consider just how foul the poultry industry really is. The Thanksgiving myth is of course constructed around a big lie, but once again, I’ll put on my necktie, attend the family dinner and be a good boy. No point in ruining the day for the people that worked hard to prepare a meal for quiet a large family.

I’ve sort of rediscovered this tie and jacket thing. My grandmother always taught me to “look my best,” and I do believe it’s kind of sad how so many people wear ragged, tacky looking clothing to invited dinners. It signifies an overall lack of respect in our society. Few people write hand written thank you notes. Open doors for people. Walk in-between the street and the young lady that is accompanying you. Standing when a lady enters the room. Yeah, I know that’s old fashioned Jimmy Stewart stuff, but it’s nice, and I think we should get back to it.

But back to the Thanksgiving myth and why I just keep my mouth shut. No one wants to hear the truth anyway. No one wants to hear that Thanksgiving and Christmas are based on a couple of whoppers, the latter one being perhaps the biggest whopper of all time. My dad’s tall tales from his imaginary youth come close, but still can’t match The Mystery of Faith.

The entire nation is in a perpetual state of denial. Denial about our genocidal history, capitalism, freedom fighting and all that democracy spreading. For most of us, it starts in elementary and Sunday school, where we’re force fed a daily dose of jingoistic non-sense. Resist and you’ll likely find yourself being force fed a pediatric pharmaceutical cocktail and sent to a special place for troubled kids.

My youngest son recently experienced this when he refused to say the pledge for Key Club. It reads as follows:

I pledge, on my honor,
to uphold the Objects of Key Club International;
to build my home, school and community;
to serve my nation and God;
and combat all forces which tend to undermine these institutions

I supported him in his refusal, since neither of us are too keen on “serving god,” and “serving your nation” is really just club speak for sycophantic support for the government and all the evil shit it does on a daily basis. And seeing how we’re pretty much both aligned with the forces that are attempting to undermine those institutions, well, the pledge just wasn’t going to work for us.

I applaud my son for standing up and having the balls to accept being ostracized for his carefully researched and well founded beliefs. If we could just get a few million more to wake up and do the same thing.

Remember that ridiculous video of John Ashcroft singing a song he wrote, “Let The Eagle Soar?” Well, the eagle is soaring high for John right now.

Okay, pious Christians, here’s one of your boys. One you wholeheartedly supported back in those early vainglorious days of Enduring Freedom. Rooting terrorists out of their snake holes. Back when you believed Bush was a conservative and possessed more than a middle school vocabulary (I’m being generous). When his handpicked outfit of saints came marching in to save us. Beyond reproach, they’d restore integrity and protect us from the boogeyman.

No more cock sucking in the hallowed bowels of government, right?

Well, guess not. It seems Ashcroft has been on his knees and really humming away.

The New York Times reports that John The Jesus Thumper’s law firm can earn up to $52.2 million by helping the U.S. attorney’s office in New Jersey monitor a leading maker of knee and hip replacements. That’s right. Monitor. All they have to do is monitor this firm (or firms) to make sure they’re doing a good job.

This is going to be brutally difficult work, so the compensation package is pretty hefty. It includes a average monthly fee between $1.5 million and $2.9 million, a flat payment of $750,000 to the firm’s ”senior leadership group,” and individual legal and consulting services at up to $895 an hour and as much as $250,000 in monthly expenses.

His firm was selected by a former employee, Christopher Christie, that’s still in the guvment. Seems they were perhaps cozier than we imagined. It’s so completely absurd I frankly couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it. The American people won’t give a shit. Bush supporters will shrug their shoulders and offer up some limp dick response like “he’s the best qualified, so what? Get over it.” Democrats will roll over and play dead, their dirty feet stuck in the air, like an armadillo lying along Route 66.

Let the profits soar.

This is how your government works, folks. Now, start thinking about grass roots democracy and how to dismantle the monster.

Free yourself.

“Truth is always the enemy of power. And power the enemy of truth.” -Edward Abbey

The New York Times reported yesterday that Goldman Sachs Chief Executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein is having a great year. While much of the nation finds itself in a festering and widening credit and mortgage crisis, Blankfein should make around $65 million dollars, a nice increase over the paltry $54.3 million he earned in 2006.

Good thing, too. He’s been trying to make it and keep his family fed on a $600,000 salary.

I might add his firm made $9.5 billion while thousands of families lost their homes.

Somewhere in-between regular, private meetings with Bush, Rice, Bernanke and Cox (Securities and Exchange and Federal Reserve folks), Goldman Sachs dumped a lot of mortgage and mortgage related securities and bought insurance to protect against losses. While everyone else was hurting, these guys made a bundle.

Also of note is the fact that Henry M. Paulson, the 74th Secretary of the Treasury, appointed by Bush in June, 2006, was the former Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.

It’s amazing how this interdigitated group of powerful people control the world. When Goldman moves, the reverberations rattle the entire world. Even a few whispers at a two martini lunch meeting can dramatically affect markets and peoples lives. It’s power. Real power Power beyond what most of us can imagine.

But this is how the small, wealthy group of power brokers work. Wall Street execs go to Washington. Washington insiders become “advisors” on Wall Street. In one segment of society, you have futures, trades, calls, wars and big deposits. Deals made on plush golf courses and in swanky restaurants. Their children get in on the act because they’re members of the lucky sperm club. Lloyd has two kids at Harvard, and they’ll soon make their debuts.

In the segment furthest away, you have a single, poorly educated mom trying to feed three kids on a retail pay grade with no health insurance. She can’t buy even the simplest home because she can’t afford it. The chances are not good her kids will fare much better.

Somewhere in the middle, there are thousands of people trying to be just like lucky Lloyd. Living beyond their means and chasing false dreams. Poor babies. They can’t sell their non-sustainable mega houses purchased for $385,000 for even $200,000. Misery and woe. Might not get that vacation in Belize this winter. No shopping in Dallas. Bye bye botox.

The lucky Lloyd’s of the world make their living off of growth. Non-sustainable growth that requires tremendous amounts of natural resources to make it all work. It requires more than just market savvy and a few good moves. It requires war and death.

They’re predators that make their living on off of the death of living things, but most people think they’re innocent, keen investors that give tons of money to charity. Too few people are willing to look under the rock and think about what really has to happen in the world for these assholes to make the kind of money they make.

“He was now in a gray and barren region of saltbush, blackbrush, cactus and little else. There were no trees, not even the scrubbiest of junipers, nothing but the knee-high brush, the dusty desert, the pale glaring stone which made his squinting eyes burn and ache. Even here, however, were signs of animal life: snakes, lizards, birds, the twisting pathway of wild burrows. But no trace of what he was searching for.

What did he really expect to find? A footprint, a message in a log, a scrap of tartan plaid on a thornbrush, a faded picture? A broken body draped on rock, a thin cry for help? He knew that the possibility of any of these things was too small to measure, to make sense. His descent into this inferno was itself an act of insanity. Yet he could not have imagined anything else, any less. He trudged on under the cliff, under the blaze of the soaring sun.” Edward Abbey, Black Sun.

Yes, I’ve been a self loathing, brooding of man of late, willfully allowing myself to drift off into a sea melancholia. It’s horrible and wonderful at the same time, and I’m attracted to it like a drug. Who knows why, but I’ve always been attracted to writers and musicians that suffered from the same affliction: Clare, Keats, Coleridge, Welch and Abbey. Nick Drake, Tom Yorke, Bauhaus, Townes Van Zandt and Gram Parsons. So much beauty is revealed during these periods, especially in the natural world. Something a simple as a chickadee lighting upon a branch is enough to bring tears to your eyes. The beauty of flowers. Of seeing honeybee in flight. The absolute splendor and wondrous nature of life.

As I behold these things, I hear Vivaldi, Concerto in D Major play in my mind. The beauty of it all is almost too much to bear.

I’m okay. I’ve always been this way. Yes, there have been some out of the ordinary things going on, but that has passed.

This morning, Sunday, as I sit and listen to Bach, my mind is on Colorado. I can imagine a tempest of sparkling white snow at Blue Lakes. Elk huddling together in a spruce forest heavily laden with powder. A warm fire in the simple cabin of my dreams, its walls filled with books, music and art. Tables with pictures of the most blessed and wonderful gifts I’ve ever received, my wife and my children. All of them patient, loving and loyal despite my temper, rebellion and satyrmania.

Here in the Delta, I watch through the window as a Whitebreasted nuthatch lands upon the feeder, its distinctive white breast and neck contrast sharply against the brilliant light and dark blue of its back and tail feathers. It looks quickly, takes a seed and makes a hasty escape, for should it dawdle, it could become a morning meal for a keen eyed hawk. A Yellow finch waits its turn in the protective cover of an oak.

It’s life. Beautiful and wondrous. Magical and tenuous. Filled with joy and sadness. It warms your heart and can break it in an instant. Think of Bach, Partita No. 3, Preludio, Bwv 1006.

This afternoon, my brother-in-law, a devout Christian, leaves for the Mayo Clinic hoping for a better diagnosis than what he received two weeks ago. Two weeks ago, he got a death sentence. News that ALS would soon cripple him and rob him of everything that he loved. As my wife and I spoke to him last night, he wondered why god had forsaken him, and why his prayers were not answered. I patiently listened and offered what words of encouragement I could, careful not to let on that I thought he was wasting his time praying. I felt so deeply sorry for someone that had dedicated their life to a lie, only to be crushed by something that was very, very real. Biology and genetics.

It’s troubling to me that people really believe there’s some entity in the heavens that controls life as if we were little more than an ant farm. Marionette puppets on strings, only able to do what the old man wants or allows. That’s there’s some god that decides who lives and who dies, who’s fed and who’s hungry. Who’s wealthy and who’s poor. Life is what we make it, and this, my friends, is it. Our one chance. Consciousness ceases at death.

After that, we die, and our atoms and molecules become nutrients for other forms of life. Our molecules are broken down, the atoms incorporated into new molecules, and those molecules broken down thousands of times over. Over tens and hundreds of millions of years what remains is subject to geological processes. Converted into rock, our lithified bones may be thrust into the air as part of a mountain range. If we’re lucky. Eventually eroded, we wind up on the ocean floor.

I’ve always thought that if humans concentrated on the here and now, the here and now would be so much better.

“Don’t talk to me about other worlds, lost continents or invisible realms. I know where I belong. Heaven is home. Utopia is here. Nirvana is now.” Edward Abbey, Science With A Human Face

Slept like a baby last night, although I don’t really know why people say that. Babies don’t always sleep so soundly, you know. Caroline, for example, had colic, and could rise at any point screaming bloody murder. Day or night.

I discovered three management techniques to quiet her. One, a ride in our brown, ’76 Celica. We called it The Turd. That old thing rattled so much that it gradually put her to sleep. I also discovered, by accident, that placing in her in little seat thingy on top of the dryer (while I was doing laundry) had the same effect. But my favorite, and the one that I have the most fond memories of was holding in her the rocking chair and singing Edelweiss to her.

She was so precious and still is. So are my sons, and I’m so proud of my children and their accomplishments.

They sustain me and give me purpose.