Jack Burns Lives!

Once again I’ve lived to see another Vernal Equinox. Assuming I live until tomorrow, I guess. I’ve survived cycling on bustling city streets, driving on interstates that resemble NASCAR races, flying in airplanes, Directors meetings and the mind-bloggling blunders of George Bush and the cadre of power hungry moguls that run the affairs of man and ruin the affairs of all.

It’s no small feat to live another year on Mother Earth.

In my hideaway from all those unwelcome intrusions, Lamium amplexicaule blooms freely. More commonly known as Henbit, it’s a non-native annual considered by many to be an early emergent invasive species. But although a non-native, it’s widely naturalized in Eastern North America and is an important plant for bees. We need the bees and since I have a strict no-poison policy, the plant thrives at Casa Burns.

Despite winter’s retreat, a spattering of Dark-eyed juncos remain, lingering to enjoy the warm temps before returning north. A pair of Purple finches and a pair of American goldfinches make a surprise visit along with the more numerous and typical American robin, Downy woodpeckers and Mourning dove. At dusk, a solitary Cooper’s hawk surveys the scene from one of several Sweetgum trees, a prolific southeastern tree known for its use in furniture and cabinet production.

I’ll check for bats this week under the light of a full, Southern moon and continue my work on garden expansion. Additional clearing, as yet more precious, American lawn is destroyed by the hoe and the shovel. And for what? To make way for more food production. More tomatoes, lettuce and veggies.

Lawn destruction is a noble pursuit, so I get started today on the clearing. My neighbor is working too, but on lawn preservation, moving his mower over precious bee habitat, blowing biomass with his blower and doing his damnedest to maintain the status quo. I’m sure they think we’re the “back to nature” freaks. Hippies. Dirt under our own nails when we could have hired some Mexicans or blacks to do the work for us.

“That’s the ‘Merican way, son.”

Probably got some dope in there somewhere. The Tibetan Prayer Flags and wind chimes raise suspicion, but the western and cowboy stuff in the garden probably throws ‘em off. Hippie cowboys? Damn straight. Dime store version, at least.

We’re weird, and we like it.

I’ve been giving some thought to slipping away to the better side of the mighty Mississippi and to the Ozark Mountains (really just foothills). Camping by Sylamore Creek, a scene, many years back, of some raucous, chemically enhanced foolishness with two unnamed accomplices.

Those boys are still living, as well, gawd bless ‘em, but all of us probably survived our youthful folly by just pure, dumb luck. Emphasis on dumb.

photo credit: one of the unnamed
accomplices

But there’s much to do right here in my own little patch of Mother Earth. No need to fill up the car with fuel and go gallivanting about. If the neighbors keep the mowers and blowers quiet, there’s plenty of good work and blessed solitude right here.

Beware the Ides of March.

Today’s NY Times reports a Depression era like run on the bank at Bear Stearns. JP Morgan Chase and The Fed step in and stop it, but how many others can they possibly save?

Is this an isolated incident or a harbinger of things to come?

In this particular incident, JPMorgan will borrow the money from the Fed and lend it to Bear Stearns, but the Fed will ultimately bear the risk of the loan. That’s really me and you. The taxpayer bearing the brunt of these massive failures, massive failures caused by not a handful, but thousands of greedy, enterprising, opportunistic pricks trying to get rich with risky schemes.

I’m largely immune because I’ve never really bought into the whole wealth building way of life. I have friends that do, and I frankly feel sorry for many of them. I get sick and tired of hearing about their investments, investments that often derive their profit, at least to some degree, at the expense of habitat and the voiceless. It’s like eating meat without ever having to visit the slaughter house. Out of sight, out of mind. Very few follow the trail all the way down stream to see how corporations really make their money. Where the materials come from, who makes the goods and how all that crap is shipped from point A to point B. What had to be mowed down to make room for the new factory. Where the trash goes, where the effluent goes, how they treat people, etc.

Some are simply ignorant and apathetic. They don’t understand how the world really works and honestly believe they are completely innocent with their investment schemes. Others know damn well what the real cost is and don’t give a shit.

Other than the shares I have in my own small business, I don’t own other stocks, bonds or trade in commodities. Never really understood or cared for economics, although I’ve come to realize that economists rule the world. Economics is an odd discipline, one, that has Hayduke says, isn’t even real because it ignores all the things that important in life. It ignores biological and geophysical reality, and its adherents seem to believe that it exists in some sort of vacuum. Boy do they have a big surprise coming!

But who’s really innocent? I’m not. I don’t want to wag my finger at people without examining my own life. I still own a car. I still drive it more than I should, and I purchase data communications equipment and services from companies that mostly likely do some pretty horrendous shit. But at least I’m trying. I at least think about who I buy from and who I align myself with. I try to make informed, socially acceptable decisions. And I cycle, as much as I can to work and back, although I’m putting my life at risk every time I do it.

I say I’m largely unaffected, but not totally unaffected. None of us are completely unaffected. Three bubbles are about to burst: stocks, real estate and commodities, and when that happens, the banking system will have to write off major loans, exponentially contracting the money causing deflation and the next great depression. There will be a domino effect that affects everyone. Non-profits will find it much harder to raise money. Small, family owned businesses will lose revenue while costs escalate. There will be layoffs, more foreclosures, homelessness, lost health coverage. A pretty ugly scenario but an avoidable one and therefore a hard but necessary lesson.

As Abbey said “It’s hard, but it’s fair.”

Edward Abbey died on this day in 1989, but his message and relevance did not. Great art, music, architecture, craftsmanship and literature stand the test of time, and to date, the words of the bard have stood that test. Perhaps those words are even more relevant today as when they were written.

When considering the major themes of Abbey’s writing within the context of today’s world, not quite twenty years removed, the relevance is plain to see. Little has changed since he first penned Desert Solitaire, except for perhaps for magnitude of the battle. His words have become prophetic even, as humans now find themselves in a struggle for not only individual liberty but for life itself. Other species have faced and experienced extinction. Now we face it ourselves and purely from our own ignorance.

The commingling of government and corporate interests is complete, as a once dysfunctional, codependent but separate relationship has become a single, fully coalesced behemoth of unimaginable proportions, gobbling up anything in its way. Abbey’s blob in its most frightening, final, fiendish form. Hell, the United States Corporate Killing Machine spends $5 billion dollars a month killing things in Iraq and Afghanistan alone.

Abbey accurately portrayed how it was in his vast collection of colorfully written essays and where we were ultimately headed in his fictional and unfortunately prophetic Good News.

A few have soldiered on, trying to pick up the pieces after we lost him. Some in the field, doing the important work on the front lines, battling corporate criminals. Rapists of the land. Others in the classroom. Still others with the pen, the keyboard or in song. But all of us are on the same sheet of music, trying to bring some rationality to our society, some reasonable balance between economics and preservation. Some call it sustainability, but sustainability has unfortunately become the word du jour for the wrong reasons, something hijacked by economic opportunists.

Several days ago, I was having a meltdown of sorts, frustrated by meddling, corporate lackeys and the pressure they attempt to force into my life. I escaped to the garden and soaked up some late winter rays. Sitting beside some hearty sage and rosemary that had survived the winter, I watched the birds and pondered the spring planting. And in just a few short moments, it was all behind me. Wiped from my mind like it had never been there. No phones. No e-mail. No quarterly reports. Nothing more than the song of the robin and the quiet call of the Mourning dove.

I also thought of Edward Abbey and his opening lines in Solitaire. How he once sat, like I, and soaked up the incredible experience of his environment. How nature was his refuge and how he devoted his life to its protection. Fortunately for us, he wrote about that experience and penned the words that would one day make him a hero and legend among conservationists.

I missed him and thought about how wonderful it would be to hear that a new Abbey book was being released and that he was still there, grumpy as ever.

But he’s not with us. The torch has passed to those that read and embraced his provocative words, ideas and never yielding passion. It’s now up to us to speak for the voiceless. For the trees, for the owl, the lynx and the grizz. The rocks and mountains. All the things worth saving. And let me tell you, Wall Street, mortgage bankers and developers ain’t high on my list. Fuck those assholes. Reap what you’ve sown and enjoy some hind tit for a spell. Oil companies, get ready. You’re next.

As Abbey said, “The idea of wilderness doesn’t need defending. It only needs more defenders.”

ONWARD

We don’t get a lot of snow in the Deep South, especially in March, but that’s exactly what happened yesterday when a cold front combined with some southern moisture to create a winter wonderland in old Dixie.

By the time the snow showed up around noon, traffic was already snarled with desperate people racing to schools and to stores. Folks down here are used to 90 degree days with 75 percent humidity. Mosquitoes and heat. Early springs and short winters. So when the weather man says “snow,” people completely freak out, drop everything and rush to the grocer for enough groceries to survive a nuclear winter. After they stop at the liquor store, of course.

Brightened by glistening, newly fallen snow, the neighborhood was alive last night with the sounds of children laughing and playing. The wind would howl, blowing snow sideways at times, but that didn’t damper the mood or curtail the clandestine activity.

Inside, Allison and I had a roaring fire, some Fat Tire beer, fresh seafood gumbo stuffed with Louisiana shrimp, shared stories of snows past and wondered how many more times we’d see snow in the South. My guess is not too often, especially as things continue to warm up around the planet.

I’m sure the critters had a cold night, as did the early blooming daffodil’s which will most likely perish. We were warm and snug in Casa Burns, although Chewie was anxious to get outside this morning and check out the unusual scene. The Cardinals and Chickadees were up and at it early, as were the various woodpeckers we have around the place. A covey of Mourning dove positioned themselves close together in a small opening drenched in morning sun while the squirrels darted back and forth gathering food for the soon to arrive baby squirrels back in their nests. A lone Prairie warbler scavenged for food amongst the pots in the garden while a Carolina wren waited its turn.

By tomorrow, it will be little more than another memory, since the temperatures are going to rise close to 40 degrees later today and be back in the 50′s on Sunday. We’ll enjoy it while it lasts and bid winter a final farewell on March 19, when the Spring Equinox signals the official arrival of spring. Then it’s time for the blessing of the seeds, planting and the celebration of rebirth.

We rejoice in the cycle of life and in the knowledge that Mother Earth reigns supreme.

This is apparently nothing new, but then again, I don’t hang around Wal-Mart or Exxon.

While traveling to see my daughter this weekend, I was forced to do the unthinkable. Well, not forced, but my poor planning left me with few choices. I had to purchase gas at Wal-Mart.

Cries of astonishment and displeasure from the crowd….food thrown at my website….

So I pull up to the pump, get out of the car (the photo isn’t me, by the way) and go through the motions of filling the tank with the precious, blood soaked substance. My eyes drift upward and shazam! there’s a TELEVISION. A real tee-vee blaring newsentertainment mush-mush and nothingness. And at Wal-Mart. Gas, Wal-Mart and television have come together in a single, unholy trinity.

Fill your car with gas and then fill your mind with soundbites and crap. The purpose is to keep citizens constantly consuming and constantly in the front of the propaganda window. Tends to keep your mind off what’s really going on in the world. An idle mind might just begin to think, and if people begin to think, well, the whole thing might fall apart.

It’s not just at gas pumps, either. At the doctor’s office, in elevators, airports, restaurants and bars. There are numerous models for your car so you can talk on the phone and watch tee-vee while driving.

And don’t forget about the cameras watching you while you’re watching the tee-vee.

Surely this is a sing that the end is near, but there is a solution….