So, Georgie isn’t going to “grow old” on his Texas ranch after all. Alternet and other media outlets have reported that he and the misses are going to settle down in a rich, white folks enclave that until 2000 was apparently for “whites only.”
Rumor has it Bush and The First Lady prepared for Obama’s White House visit by watching “Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner.”
So not only are the juncos absent, but so are several other species. I’ve seen very few Northern Cardinal, sparrows, Robin or Red-bellied woodpeckers, species normally in abundance year round.
First it was the frogs and toads. Then the honeybees. Now the birds.
I realize my home is just one small area and that I’d have to extend the area of observation to formulate a reasonably tested hypothesis, but my instinct and simple powers of observation tell me something is going on.
I can tie the absence of amphibians to lawn chemicals, and it may have something to do with the birds disappearing, since chemicals affect native grasses and plants. This affects the insect population. In short, you can’t screw up one thing without affecting another.
I should probably add chipmunks to the list, as well. Seeing fewer of them.
About the only thing in abundance are Eastern squirrels.
“Hierarchical institutions are like giant bulldozers-obedient to the whim of any fool who takes the controls.”-Edward Abbey
I think we all realize that George Bush, the forty-third selected President of the United States, was never really in control.
And neither were we. Haven’t been from day one, at least as far as I can tell.
The torch shall soon pass to President Obama, and to date, I believe the jury is out on how much change we’ll actually see under his Residency. And that’s pretty much all it is. A Residency, not a Presidency, since all of these people are really subject to the whims of the powerful few that put them there.
Was this ever made more clear than during the Wall Street bailout?
And now we have Detroit standing in the soup line asking for alms. “Alms for the poor, alms for the poor!” The blue collar boys have a had a tougher time of it; however, and their plight has given life to conspiracy charges, agenda driven delays meant to bust the union. A conservative ploy, directed by Southern neo-cons.
There may be some truth to this, as one of my banker friends recently slipped up and let me in on the insider playbook. He stated that the auto makers should declare bankruptcy, not get a bailout and then it would be possible to deal with the unions.
Despite this hard nosed tactic, one that wasn’t equally applied to their buddies on Wall Street, I’m not in favor of a bailout for Detroit. They make a crappy product and have done more than their share to insure the collapse of the biosphere. We don’t need all of these cars, and if you’re really going to have an inegalitarian free market growth economy, you have to be willing to take the failures with the so-called successes.
What to do with thousands of unemployed workers?
Slash the defense budget and use the money to retrain people and put them to work in useful industry. Let’s rebuild the nation’s rail lines for passenger use. Build a nationwide network of greenways. Expand organic agriculture. Research on making point of use energy technologies available and affordable. Start building good bikes in the United States again. (I still lament the loss of Schwinn, the real Schwinn company that produced the coolest bikes ever back in the 60′s and the 70′s, like the artsy Lemon Peeler, Grape Krate, the venerable Varsity and others. They were built to last.)
You know, there’s a lot to do in this country. Stuff, that in my mind, is a lot more important that building Trans Am’s, Hummers and Buicks.
Even if Detroit gets its handout, ultimately, they won’t make it. They have an ideology that’s too ingrained. They’re out of touch with the real world, with biological and geophysical reality. Basically, they’re clueless, so why does the American tax payer want to invest in an out-of-date organization that produces flawed products? Trust me, you don’t.
In many ways, they’re like George Bush, an entity who’s time has come and, thankfully, gone.
Mid-December and not a single sighting of a Dark-eyed junco, a regular winter visitor from the north. I’ve usually seen a few scouts by now, and by Christmas, they’re an abundant back yard species.
Oddly, there’s not a report on the Tennessee bird list for my area in December.
I hope the junco’s aren’t going to end up like the honeybees, which have all but disappeared. Surely not, as one study estimated the population in North America to be over 600 million birds. I’ll stay on the lookout….
Ever since I was a wee lad running for my life on the mean streets of North Memphis, I’ve fantasized about living in other places. My dreams have run the gamut, California, Mexico, Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, The Lake District and to my latest interest, southwest Texas, just a bit above Big Bend.
Never really thought about exotic locales like France, Prague or Berlin. Hawaii never interested me. Neither did Australia. Too many things that can kill you there, including those nasty Sydney Funnel Web spiders. They have huge fangs and actually attack. No thanks.
Yet, forty-six years after my birth, I remain about 18 miles from the place I was born. Much closer to home than most folks I know.
There were two short excursions away. College (50 miles down the road) and a short stint in Jackson, Mississippi, which is actually just outside, right on the cusp, of my current bioregion. 200 miles south of my home. And there were seven years in Knox County, Tennessee. Same state, different bioregion.
Reckon I haven’t ventured far and in doing so, in not moving around, I believe I’m doing a reasonably good thing. Staying put is in vogue, because it’s good for the planet.
Orion Magazine just ran a short piece by Rebecca Solnit titled “The Most Radical Thing You Can Do.” It’s about place and staying in place. Interestingly, she quotes one of my favorite authors/figures Gary Snyder to begin the essay:
“The most radical thing you can do is stay home.”
True enough, but what sort of nation or planet would we have if no one ever moved? Snyder did his share of moving around, having even spent some time in Japan. Born in California, as a child he moved to Washington and then to Oregon. Not bad. Pretty much all in the same general area. A short period was spent in Indiana, and I have to think that all of these experiences, especially the time in Japan, helped shape perhaps our nation’s greatest modern poet.
So gains are made in cultural diversity, but we lose things as well. We do affect the places we visit, as Hayduke mentioned in a recent comment about Marathon, Texas. Today, tiny Marathon finds itself under siege, beset by yuppies with too much money and ideas about what they want the place to look like. Marathon is holding its own, but over time, there is a danger that it could, as Hayduke points out, become another Moab or Telluride. The original charm and simplicity is replaced by real estate tycoons and yuppies bringing their bad habits with them.
Long lived local joints , where you can get a hot breakfast for under $5, a meat and three for lunch and see wind worn locals in Wranglers, dirty worn from work boots and Stetsons are replaced by some over priced bistro inhabited by a bunch of ex-execs in $500 Arc’Teryx jackets.
You may counter that this is an improvement, and perhaps in some ways it is. Maybe this bistro serves locally grown organic food. Maybe these people bring new and needed local businesses to the area. But still, something is lost.
I have a hard time seeing why you need a $15 breakfast instead of the one for $4.95.
On a recent visit to Edna, Kansas, I got a first hand lesson in this. Shortly after arriving in town, it didn’t take long for me to realize I didn’t fit in! Saturday morning, I met my friend Dan, a long time local. He was dressed in comfortable, townsy attire, a warm flannel shirt, jeans and well-crafted, functional boots. A very Abbey-like ensemble. But here I was wearing a Marmot hiking jacket, Orvis snap button shirt and 1950′s re-issue square toed Justin’s. Both of us appropriately sported hats, his a more traditional look; mine more of a “backroad” style hat, fashioned by Col. Liddleton in my home state of Tennessee.
Dan looked authentic and like he belonged. I looked like a member of the Brokeback Mountain Fan Club.
Lesson learned.
The biggest gripe in towns like Moab and Telluride (Ridgway, CO is soon to follow) is what real estate speculation does to the community. Locals can’t afford to live there any longer. It’s a crime, pure and simple, for such things to happen, where small, close knit, long standing communities are ripped apart and destroyed by speculative growth capitalism.
Perhaps the answer is covenants developed an enacted by the locals before the newcomers show up and ruin the place.
I’m intrigued by two spots in southwest Texas. Marfa, which has around 2500 people and a bustling artist community and Marathon, it’s smaller, unincorporated cousin with around 455 souls. Both sit around at around 4000 feet and have vibrant, high desert ecosystems. Beautiful landscapes with an astonishing variety of flora and fauna.
If I went there, I think I’d fully adopt the place and live as the locals live. I’d find the most efficient, affordable place that already existed and keep it in good repair. No need to build a new chateau in the desert. If Stetson’s were the attire du jour, I’d be wearin’ one. (It wouldn’t take much to get me and keep me in a cowboy hat.)
I’d eat at the traditional places and have my eggs and bacon with the old timers. I’d beg to hear their stories, although they might not be willing to share ‘em with some upstart from Tennessee. I’d even play checkers on town square. Might even cut my hair.
Why move to your dream locale and then try to change it?
Why Marathon or Marfa? Small is better, I think. Safer, slower. A more cohesive community. You give up things but you gain more than you give up. Both are vibrant, artistic communities. There’s open space, mountains, desert. Real old timers. A varied culture of American Indian, Mexican and Anglo. It’s a western version of Bedford Falls, and I’d sure prefer Bailey Savings and Loan over Citigroup.
The death of the small town, the death of real community, is perhaps our greatest loss in this country. It’s what makes nations great, the villages and towns were people depend on one another, often in subsistence communities. I remember my grandmother’s town, Marianna, Arkansas. What a special, little place it was back in the ’60′s. The town square was decorated for the Holiday’s, stores were open at night on the square, people knew and greeted one another. You could walk to the Methodist church and sing Christmas carols from her family home on Mississippi Street. A grand house my great-grandfather built with a big old wrap around porch rationally equipped with a swing and a glider. I clearly remember the rose tressel on the side of the house and the big old scary spiders that lived on the two story screened porch on the back. Grandpa’s chair. The grand piano and the sounds of people walking on the wood floors throughout a home that housed five generations.
Talk about “place” and staying put….
And while I’m not a “believer,” I’ll readily admit that I miss the simple beauty of a small town Christmas and church services. The camaraderie and togetherness. Holding my grandmother’s hand as we walked into the church.
As I return from lunch I glance over at the train tracks running from Collierville to Germantown. The tracks stretch onward from Germantown, my current home, to Memphis, the place of my birth, just a few miles down the road. It’s all in the Lower Mississippi Riverine Forest Province, just on the fringe of the Lower Delta. I survey the landscape, the houses, trees, people and the general typography of the place. In doing so, I realize this is home. It’s where I feel comfortable, despite all the problems. The racism, crime, kooky Christian extremists, Palin supporters, etc. I know the smells, the texture of the forest and the soil. I know the birds, the mammals, the reptiles and amphibians. I know the people and their history. I realize I am of those people, and that my family is deeply connected here.
I realize that Marathon and Marfa are dreams. Fantasies. Places to visit and to embrace but this place will always be home.
“While shoring up infrastructure is good, many projects remain sketchy for economic, policy, and environmental reasons. Despite the immediate economic boost, we might be better off if some projects were never built, and we’re certainly being rushed toward policies on infrastructure (like tolling and congestion pricing, even privatization) that carry with them larger societal implications. The new New Deal is still predicated on the idea that growth is good, that building big and more is our destiny. Edward Abbey said that’s the political philosophy of a cancer cell. It’s certainly the kind of over-reach that’s helped put us in the dire straits we’re in now.”
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