Jack Burns Lives!

photo credit: Jeff Topping, NYT

Today’s New York Times has an article titled “The Spirit Moved Them.”

It’s about rich folks that have supposedly found their spiritual centers by building multi-million dollar homes in formerly pristine wilderness areas so they’ll have a luxurious place to get some kundalini.

I suspect it’s easier to achieve kundalini when you have millions in your bank of America account, or is it?

Of course I have real problems with this type of development. Not only are the homes a blight to the landscape, they drive up the prices in the area to the point where it’s no longer affordable for the average schmuck just looking for a place to build a cabin or erect a yurt. Can’t have those folks around. Hippie wingnuts.

The Arizona “compound” featured in the story has a media room and security cameras designed to protect the owners from the Manson Family or Apache’s still lurking about. Must be scary living up there trying to protect all that expensive stuff. Outside of the massive windows that I’m sure require ten gallons of Windex to clean, the place looks pretty shut off from the truly glorious landscape it intrudes upon.

It’s easy for me to see why the Apache, the Comanche and the Sioux went to such extremes to protect their land. Surely, their elders could see the ultimate result of white encroachment; however, I doubt if they ever dreamed of massive cities and 10,000 square foot homes. Of people so completely disconnected from the land.

Want real spiritual enlightenment? Some of what Abbey called that “zen bullshit?” Get your ass out of the office. Out of your manufactured, polyethylene, central air cooled, Ethernet ready prisons and get outside. Breath fresh air. Walk in the pines. Better yet, sleep in the pines. Cook your food on a small fire. Soak your tired feet in a rushing stream. Listen to the chickadees and wrens by day and the owl by night. Feel the excitement of seeing a bear take off up a ridge or at a lynx chasing a snowshoe hare.

If you want to feel alive, quit building these ridiculous, silly looking contraptions that seal you off from your real home, nature itself.

It’s not possible to live “simply” in a multi-million dollar home. I’m sorry. I realize you’re trying to look cool, but you really just look ignorant, and you’re making life miserable for all of the rest of the life around you.

The Lakota Sioux declared sovereign nation status this month, as well as withdrawal from all previously signed treaties with the United States Government.

“Here here,” I say, raising my cup of coffee in support.

In order to reclaim disputed lands, they may (and should) file liens against those properties.

It’s unfortunate that vast majority of people really have no idea how horribly the Lakota were treated by the United States government and its agents. In my mind, the case is clear. The govenment, its agents and its beneficiaries carried out acts of genocide and ethnocide in pursuit of economic goals.

“We must act with vindictive earnestness against the [Lakotas] even to their extermination, men, women and children.” -William Tecumseh Sherman

The beginning of the end for the Wasichu? No. It’s just another sign of the beginning of the end of the dominance of the United States government. The people, all people, and the earth are rising up against the tide of industrialism, militarism, murder and genocide. More people should declare their independence and sovereignty from not just this government but all governments. Communities and bioregions should secede and form their own bioregional democracies, ridding themselves of unnecessary hierarchies and profit motivated, unscrupulous rulers.

“If America could be, once again, a nation of self-reliant farmers, craftsmen, hunters, ranchers, and artists, then the rich would have little power to dominate others. Neither to serve nor to rule: That was the American dream”- Edward Abbey
It’s time for the people re-learn how to live together in peace and in harmony with the earth. How to live in place.

Incidentally, Sunday is the anniversary of the massacre at Wounded Knee.

“I did not know then how much was lost. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people’s dream died there. It was a beautiful dream…the nation’s hoop is broken and scattered. There is no center any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.”-Black Elk

I believe Black Elk may have been wrong. I don’t believe the dream is dead. I believe all people are preparing to reclaim their right to democratic self rule.

Come together.

“Treat people as if they were what they ought to be and you help them to become what they are capable of being.”
-Goethe

I journeyed eastward on I-40, the major national artery stretching from California to the Carolina Coast, yesterday. The objective was Brownsville, TN, a small, impoverished town about 65 miles from my front door, to visit a life long friend. It wasn’t a Hallmark day, by any means. The skies were deeply dark and grey, the color of gun metal. Suitable for a Victorian funeral.

In the car, an audio tape of Cormac McCarthy’s All The Pretty Horses played, a much needed mental diversion for me. Something to keep me moving forward, knowing full well that what lay ahead was hard but so very necessary. The wind howled as a few drops of rain began to hit the windshield. Holiday travelers jammed the highway with their SUV’s, almost all of them at excessive rates of speed, hellbent on getting visiting their loved ones, even if it meant endangering everyone else around them. Being Christmas time, I couldn’t bear thinking he was there alone, knowing his brothers and sisters wouldn’t come see him and neither would his sons. His dad would, but that was it.

He was a life long friend. A friend in need. A friend getting ready to spend Christmas alone and in prison.

Robert and I had become friends in fifth grade and stayed close through college. We married girls that grew up next door to one another. Bought our first family homes next door to one another.

Unfortunately, he was an undiagnosed manic depressive that self medicated with too many illicit and dangerous drugs. He sold drugs, and his involvement at very high levels of drug distribution eventually forced me to distance myself from him. I had to protect my family, and frankly, he wasn’t the same person any longer. The drugs and illness had taken their toll. We grew apart, but I thought of him often and kept up with him through his mother, one of dearest women that ever walked the earth.

His dad was a wealthy, well-known lawyer and a big time deacon in the Baptist Church. Well meaning, but misinformed. His mother, Jonetta, opened her home and her heart to me and my wife when everyone else shunned us back in ’85. I was 22 and Allison was 18 and pregnant, and we’d known one another for less than a month. Most of the so-called Christians wouldn’t even speak to us, but Jonetta not only embraced us, she put on a fabulous wedding rehearsal dinner for us in her home, an act of kindness I never forgot.

Robert loaned me the money to buy a wedding ring.

Allison and I have now been married 23 years and have three kids, and I believe Jonetta’s early support and encouragement helped us make it.

Robert’s luck eventually ran out, and he got busted. He spent a few years in the glamor slammer, thanks to his dad, but when released, his wife had left him and he was a broken man. Over the years, his relationship with his two sons deteriorated, as well. It was a pretty classic case of a guy that supposedly had everything but ended up with nothing.

Not able to sell drugs, Robert tried to find work doing odd jobs here and there, but his battle with depression and mania took too much of a toll. I found out he started using meth and other hard drugs and at points was just living on the streets or in one of this father’s Saab’s. There was no way to reach him. No phone. No address. Eventually, he contacted me, we caught up, and I tried to help as much as I could, especially during his mother’s illness. We spent a long time talking at her funeral, and I also spent time with his sons, in an effort to give them some hope about their dad. I wanted them to know that he had been a good student, a fine athlete and loyal friend and was basically just in need of professional help. He was sick, just like someone with any type of illness, except this one had to do with a chemical imbalance.

Robert’s parents, although well meaning, never really understood mental illness and thought Robert just needed “Jesus.” They thought if Robert would just “walk closer to the Lord, stop playing rock music and smoking pot,” everything would be okay. Unbeknownst to them, Robert had “given his heart to Jesus” years ago, but Jesus wasn’t really helping a whole lot. What Robert really needed was lithium.

A couple of months ago, he called and said that he’d been busted for burglary, but it was a mistake and he was innocent. I had my doubts. The trial didn’t go well, and he was convicted, getting a five year sentence. After speaking to his father about the case, I discovered that Robert was already on probation for a bad check charge and another burglary, important details Robert had failed to mention during our conversations about the case.

When he saw me walk through the doorway at the Haywood County Inmate Center, he was overcome with emotion and found it difficult to speak. It was certainly one of the hardest things I’ve ever done, seeing this man, my friend, a man that once held so much promise, in such a lowly state. We talked briefly about his case, a possible appeal and about what could be done upon his release. I promised to help him with living arrangements and work. I promised to put his things in storage, stay in touch and visit as often as I could.

Robert is now being treated but like many Americans, can’t afford the drugs each month. Pondering his mental state, I decided it must be pure hell for a person with a depressive disorder to be in prison without meds. So, I gave the jailer a cashiers check to pay for his medicine and leave a few dollars extra. I went back and made sure he knew, and he finally smiled, and told me that I “had no idea how much it meant that someone remembered him” and for me to keep praying for him.

We both cried and said our goodbyes.

As I drove westward toward the big old muddy Mississippi River, it was with a heavy heart. The mid-southern skies were now completely black and the sprinkles had become a driving rain . Northern winds occasionally shook my small car. But in a way I was happy. Happy that I had perhaps found the real meaning behind all the holiday hoopla. Happy that I was able to reach out and help a friend in need, even if only in a small way.

And as I plodded westward, toward the Delta and the River, I though a lot about something my dad used to say to me when I was a kid. Most often when we were on hunting trips in Eastern Arkansas. He used to talk about “a man you could ride the river with.” As a boy, I sorta knew what he meant, but as I grew older and saw how the world really worked, well, I fully understood what it meant. I knew that, more than anything, I wanted to be one of those men. I wanted to be someone a friend could count on. I didn’t want my friends to think they would ever have to turn around and check to make sure I’m behind them in the unpredictable boat of life.

I wanted my friends to know I’d be there. No matter what.

I’m indebted to my father for important life lesson and hope my own children understand and realize what it really means to love one’s friends. That is, perhaps, one of the greatest lessons I can teach them. To be honorable and of good character. To be loyal to one’s family and friends.
“I get by with a little help from my friends.”
- John Lennon

As expected, New Orleans has moved to demolish public housing damaged by Katrina. In it’s place? A new, “mixed” income development. A lot folks saw this coming, figuring it was too good of an opportunity to move out “undesirables” and create new opportunities for developers and mortgage companies.

In fairness, I should note that the project was approved by the City Council, with all of the members, both black and white, voting “yes.” However, if the New Orleans council is anything like the one in Memphis, this shouldn’t be any surprise. Black leaders in another Delta town, Memphis, have for years abandoned their own people, taking money under the table, over the table and even in gift boxes from unscrupulous white developers and business people. Fortunately, the FBI in Memphis decided to focus on the real terrorists and put a few of ‘em of in jail.

The New Orleans Council hall was apparently stuffed with supporters while nearly all the protesters were forced to remain outside, barricaded by a militarized police force. At least two protesters were greeted with stun guns and mace and taken to area hospitals.

I have no doubt the existing dwellings are unsuitable for habitation. Then again the whole city is unsuitable for permanent human habitation thanks to its low elevation, global climate change and rising sea levels. The Army Corp of Engineers can dig, dredge and shift dirt around all it wants, but the ultimate fate of New Orleans seems certain. The only question is when will the Crescent City once again find itself under water and tax payers will be handed another multi-billion dollar clean up bill.

A fair and sensible solution would be to get rid of the ruined buildings and replace them with decent homes for low income families in higher elevation areas. Turn the vulnerable areas into park land. Work on establishing some viable solutions to solving the family and education problems that lead to poverty, violence and crime.

But that won’t have the same return for developers as the proposed plan, because the “land is too valuable not to develop” (I say its too valuable to develop, but what the f&^% do I know) and mixed income houses will have a much higher price tag than subsidized housing. Don’t typically don’t see a lot of wood flooring, marble, Viking Appliances and swimming pools in low income areas. These units will be sold at hefty prices, creating revenue for the government, the developers and the bankers. Instead of subsidized housing for struggling families, you’ll have some big old fat mortgages. Property values go up and so does the government revenue machine, otherwise known as tax collection.

Plus, you can keep those black, drug addicts out of your city or at least segregated to specific areas. Make it safe to build a shopping center with a Gap, so the home owners can clothe their kids in sweatshop style and not worry about “gettin’ jacked.”

All you gotta do is find a way to move the poor folks, mostly blacks, out. Less violence more profit.

This is always been our way in the South. We have some pretty innovative ways of making sure the blacks and other undesirables stay on their side of town or in this case, out of town altogether. Just make sure the housing is financially out of reach and watch the realtor’s steer people to neighborhoods where they’ll “fit in.”

And people wonder why I want to get the hell out of here.

Hightower: Sweatshop crucifixes
http://youtube.com/v/AjTB6A8eHx8
An appropriate topic considering the time of year.
Bottom line: Christianity is big business and the profits are high. Especially when you use sweatshop labor, baby!

So, would you rather eat or drive? I mean, if you had to make a choice, would you really not eat in order to drive your automobile? Or to have your “I gotta have one of those” delivered by FedEx?

Think that’s far fetched? If you’re one of the lucky ones living here in the Empire, I suppose it is far fetched. We’re not starving. But if you’re in Sudan and depending on food from other countries, well, it’s pretty damned realistic. The corn used to produce the ethanol needed to fill a 12-gallon Prius tank could feed a person for Sudan for six months.

Today’s New York Times ran two stories on the front page of the business section titled “The Price of Growing Fuel.” The story discusses what ethanol production, and the government’s insistence upon it, is doing to food production and pricing. Incidentally, in the same section, there’s a story about a U.N. report that shows how much the world’s food supply is shrinking.

Some of us, a very small number of us, have been pontificating about how corn ethanol is a loser and will always be a loser. It takes more energy to produce it than the energy derived. The costs are too high. The New York Times article provides several examples and quotations that essentially make the same point, but also attempts to leave the door open for additional debate quoting sources as saying “we’ll rise to the challenge,” “we still have a ways to go,” “it’s certainly a challenge, but an achievable challenge.”

Can’t be done, guys. Sorry. I know a lot of investors and Wall Street types are counting on the hype, but there’s no substitute for oil. Sugarcane has more promise, but we can’t grow enough sugarcane for it to make a dent.

It’s a ridiculously stupid plan in a world of shrinking water supplies, peak oil and global climate change, because each one of those significant issues are going to have a magnificent impact on food production and availability. Yet, we’re apparently going to modify production to grow increasing yields of one of the most environmentally intensive crops on the planet. And not for food. For fuel.

Our entire species deserves one of those “Darwin Awards.”

Fur Trade in China
http://youtube.com/v/3Yt1H2fq15w
Warning: This is disgusting but necessary for people to see. One, for people that buy mass manufactured fur products, and two, to demonstrate there are apparently no limits to human depravity.

What fuels the trade are designers, rich, pompous, asses selling expensive clothing to their bourgeois customers.

I have no problem with a hunter making a quick kill of an animal for food. I have huge problems with the beef and poultry industry, however. Many of my vegetarian friends break sharply with me on the meat issue, but hunting can be a sustainable, organic process. For thousands of years, it’s how humans survived. And it’s much more sustainable and probably better for you than eating mass produced, non-organic veggies. Of course, local, organic veggies are the optimum, but I still not convinced that an occasional serving of duck or venison is bad for you. In fact, I believe the opposite, despite what the “studies” say. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’d venture a guess that studies showing higher levels of cancer in meat eaters than in vegetarians are skewed by the bubba diet: meat three times a day, obtained from grocers that sell meats tainted with hormones and antibiotic treatments.

Of course this video is just about the fur trade, but the abuses of animals are often equally as bad in poultry and beef plants. They’re easily obtainable on the Internet. Give it a google. Once you do, you’ll be hard pressed to buy another beef or poultry product from a mass producer.

The Commercial Appeal recently ran a story about these so-called “green buildings” we’re beginning to hear about. Of course, there’s nothing green about it other than the money being made. Architects and developers are salivating over the prospect of more work, since increasing numbers of people want to be in “green” building. Business owners want to advertise their businesses as being “green,” because it’s good for business, not because it’s good for the environment.

The photo is from the story. Do you see anything green?

So we’re smack dab in the middle of a new fad. It’s hip to be green. That means more “green” stuff to be made. More “green” stuff to sell. More “green” stuff to throw in the dumpster when you’re done with it. More “green” buildings built on land that used to have real green trees. Office parks named after the lifeforms that used to be there. “Willow Oaks,” “Moriah Woods,” “Oakleigh Farms.”

Here’s my letter to the editor:

I read with great interest Amos Maki’s Sunday article, “Growing Green.” And while I was hopeful I would discover something of promise, I found exactly what I expected to find. More propaganda and drivel crafted by growth ad infinitum cultists.

There’s nothing “green” or sustainable about this type of development. As the article states, the “green” industry (and that’s exactly what it is, an industry) is about pushing a product with a green label to consumers enamored with the term. A lot of people want products they believe are green, yet they really have no idea what the term really means. Opportunistic but myopic capitalists with a keen eye for ignorant consumers are quick to seize the opportunity, labeling products green that aren’t any more green than an oil spill.

It’s a ruse. A sham designed to do nothing more than keep non-sustainable economic growth chugging along at breakneck pace. The only thing green is the money being made, and the term “sustainable growth” is perhaps the ultimate oxymoron of our time.

If a product is truly “green,” that means it’s sustainably produced. According to Dr. Michael Lewis, a sustainable process is does not consume more natural resources than can be replenished by natural biological and geophysical cycles, and does not produce waste faster than can be dispersed by natural biological and geophysical cycles. It’s produced locally with renewal materials and the manufacturing process doesn’t poison the environment.

So, let’s take a look at these so-called green buildings and other such products. Where do the materials for these buildings come from? How are they manufactured? Where does the manufacturing waste go? What is required to heat and cool the buildings? The energy sources for heating and cooling are not completely sustainable. Where does the land come from? Do you believe we have infinite supplies of land on which to build? The production requires cheap fossil fuel. In fact, our entire society, from pharmaceuticals to transportation, is propped up by the availability of cheap fossil fuel. But we’ve also reached what scientists and geologists call “Peak Oil,” the point at which the world’s petroleum fields attain their highest sustainable yield and commence a long, irreversible decline. Therefore, none of this is sustainable, because it’s all dependent on a dwindling, non-renewable resource with no adequate replacement.

A more sustainable alternative would be to reuse and retrofit a more than adequate supply of buildings we already have, and the only type of economic development that’s sustainable is development bound and governed by biological and geophysical reality.

Qu’est-ce que c’est?

I complain a lot, more than I should. Now don’t get me wrong. There’s a lot to legitimately complain about in the world. But as I compare my life to the lives of many others, well, I guess you could say I should just shut the f%$& up.

At 45, I am my own boss. I have a lot of money. Not millions, but exponentially more than the average bloke trying to make it in the world. I have a loving, extremely intelligent, sexy wife that doesn’t like to decorate. She pretty much just likes to drink a lot of good beer and wine with me, take long walks, hike, watch good movies, baseball, bake and have a lot of sex. Fortunately only with me. In fact, she rarely complains about anything.

We don’t agree on everything, but we don’t have to agree on everything. That might actually be a little boring. She’s also put up with a lot of shit from me and apparently has the patience of Job.

I have three loving, healthy, intelligent, beautiful children. All of them are socially mindful and hoping to contribute something of value and worth to their communities.

I have many friends. All over the country, actually. Friends that have opened their homes to me, prepared meals for me, shared wonderful stories and listened patiently to my numerous rants. My wife and I are invited to parties and receive a lot of gifts.

And, at 45, I still have all my hair, I’m fit and have no health problems. I’m able to travel to the places I love. Northern California. Colorado. Utah.

There is one issue that lingers, sort of like a storm you see off to the south when you’re on a peak. You don’t know if it’s coming your way, but you’ll deal with it if it does. All I can ever do is my best, and if that ain’t good enough, well, so be it.
Family, friends and good health. Sufficient blessings that make everything else seem trivial.