Boomer on Getting Old

SUBHEAD: Sage advise - Take it easy. Take it slow. Make it happen. Make it paradise.  

By Juan Wilson on 27 May 2012 for Island Breath - 
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2012/05/boomer-on-getting-old.html)

 
Image above: Cover photo for "Changing Horses" 1969 LP showing the members of the Incredible String in England. From (http://www.viprasys.org/vb/f60/incredible-string-band-1969-flac-mp3-320kbps-424mb-rapidshare-484468/).

Time is a funny weave of elements. After emerging from nowhere some strands disappear and stay under the surface for a long time, only to surprise you in the here and now later on. Tomorrow is my birthday and I'll be 67 years old... in human years. That's about age 470 in dog years. That's sounds old. On the other hand, in giant tortoise years, I'm still in my twenties.

Back in the spring of 1968 when I was actually in my twenties I was just finishing my first year architectural school at the Cooper Union College in New York City. I lived in Lower East Side and that summer was going to be steaming. I had no prospects for a job. There was poverty and much heroin addiction in Alphabet Town (between avenues A and D, above Houston and below 14th Street).

Lots of muggings and burglaries. The Vietnam war was at a raging peak. On top of that, Martin Luther King had just been assassinated, and the inner cities were ready to blow. One afternoon an official looking yellow Western Union Telegram envelope was slid under the door of my 4th floor tenement apartment. It was the genuine article from a architect I had drafted for the prior summer. He had moved to Hawaii and was offering me a job in Honolulu. The telegram specified that the all the arrangements would be made and paid for by his office. It was the only telegram I'd ever received and I jumped at the chance to leave New York. I spent the summer on Oahu.

Fell in love with Hawaii... but I went back to NY in the fall for more study at Cooper Union. After few more years of the school the administration at Cooper got tired of me and asked me to take a year off. It was for their good and mine. NYC was still in the shithole. Con Edison was burning high-sulphur coal. Each tenement building was burning its own garbage in incinerators. There was no sewer treatment plant in Manhattan and all raw waste was simply dumped into the Hudson and East River - at 20 block intervals.

My longing was to get back to Hawaii. I convinced my partner Diane to take a chance with me and take off to the islands. After a month or two living with Diane, on Oahu, in a VW Beetle, we got lucky and scored a job on a project on Kauai. After getting paid for completing the work we stepped up to living in a VW Bus. I remember a hit playing through its mono speaker on AM radio was Neil Young's hit "Old Man". Some of the words were:

Old man look at my life,
Twenty four
and there's so much more
Live alone in a paradise
That makes me think of two...
...I've been first and last
Look at how the time goes past.
But I'm all alone at last.
Rolling home to you.
 

The song was haunting in some way. In 1972 when I heard the song I thought of it entirely from the point of view of the 24 year old singer. Today when I hear the song I'm the Old Man listening to my younger self through a haze of time. Diane and I returned to New York City to finish school at Cooper Union.

Then, just as I was graduating in 1974, the effects of the OPEC oil crunch came and we tasted a preview of what's happening now, "Peak Oil". New York faced bankruptcy and jobs were hard to find. I remember listening to WNEW-FM, the album oriented radio station that played, without interruption, Jackson Brown's concept LP "For Everyman". The album ends with the title song:

Everybody I talk to is ready to leave
with the light of the morning.
They've seen the end coming down long enough to believe
That they've heard their last warning.

Standing alone
each has his own ticket in his hand
And as the evening descends
I sit thinking 'bout Everyman.

Seems like I've always been looking for some other place
to get it together
Where with a few of my friends I could give up the race
And maybe find something better.

But all my fine dreams
well thought out schemes to gain the motherland
have all eventually come down to waiting for Everyman.

Waiting here for Everyman--
Make it on your own if you think you can.
If you see somewhere to go I understand.

Waiting here for Everyman--
Don't ask me if he'll show -- baby I don't know.

Make it on your own if you think you can.
Somewhere later on you'll have to take a stand
then you're going to need a hand.

Everybody's just waiting to hear from the one
who can give them the answers
and lead them back to that place in the warmth of the sun
where sweet childhood still dances.

Who'll come along
and hold out that strong and gentle father's hand?
Long ago I heard someone say something 'bout Everyman

Waiting here for Everyman--
make it on your own if you think you can
If you see somewhere to go I understand

I'm not trying to tell you that I've seen the plan
turn and walk away if you think I am--
But don't think too badly of one who's left holding sand
He's just another dreamer, dreaming 'bout Everyman.
 

I finally did get a job with a big firm in the city, but the economy was falling apart. Instead of leaving the rat-race and returning to Kauai - I carried on. Soon I married my first wife, Margo, and began a family life. I moved to the suburbs along the shores of Connecticut and began to experience midlife. I remember Margo, getting me a card for my 35th birthday. On the front was a close-up of a disheveled cowboy with a black-eye and missing tooth. The greeting inside was:

If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself. 

That struck home. By my 40th birthday the economy was clawing its way back to normal. I still felt like twenty-something on the inside, but I observed that on waking up I felt like I had a low grade hangover, whether I drank anything or not. It would disappear quickly with the morning sun and I'd be off into my commuter life. Maybe it was the Reagan years, or maybe it was just middle age. Who knew or cared. It was the late eighties and in 1986 John Fogerty gave us his warning with "Change in the Weather".
 

Change in the weather, change in the weather
Something's happening here
Change in the weather, change in the weather
People walkin' 'round in fear

Ah, huh, you better duck and run
Get under cover 'cause a change is come
Storm warnings and it looks like rain
Be nothin' left after the hurricane

This here's a jungle, it ain't no lie
Look at the people, terror in their eyes
Bad wind is comin' and can't be denied
They're runnin' with the dogs and afraid to die...
 

I took the cue and relocated to the Appalachian, Amish settled landscape at the western end of New York State. The old farmhouse had been my grandparent's and then my mother's. There I met my second (and last) wife, Linda, and we spent the 90's at that farm. We had 100 acres of woods to take care of. I was in my late forties, and early fifties. I could push myself hard all day long in order to do it. If I leaned too hard on a shovel or rake it would brake. I didn't worry about myself. In 1997, after a quarter century away from Hawaii, I returned for a visit to Kauai with Linda.

Soon after that, we determined to live out our lives on here. In 2001, just before 9-11, we came to live in Hanapepe Valley on a half-acre. I was in my mid-fifties. Soon after moving to Kauai, I rediscovered a song I had first heard in 1968 by the Incredible String Band. It was released the same year as my first visit to Hawaii, that was coincidentally when I was 24 years old. It's title is "The Circle is Unbroken". How true:

Seasons they change while cold blood is raining
I have been waiting beyond the years
Now over the skyline I see you're traveling
Brothers from all time gathering here

Come let us build the ship of the future
In an ancient pattern that journeys far
Come let us set sail for the always island
Through seas of leaving to the summer stars

Seasons they change but with gaze unchanging
O deep eyed sisters is it you I see?
Seeds of beauty ye bear within you
Of unborn children glad and free

Within your fingers the fates are spinning
The sacred binding of the yellow grain
Scattered we were when the long night was breaking
But in the bright morning converse again.

 

Audio above: Click on the "Play" triangle at left to hear "The Circle is Unbroken" by the Incredible String Band

Hearing it again thrilled me. It had been written and performed back at the time of my first visit to the islands. It is a song that can still bring tears to my eyes. It conveys some message that was in my heart back in the 1960s that is still relevant to me today. It is why I live on Kauai. Now, in my late sixties I wake up in the morning with a bit of feeling like I'd been in a fight the night before, or maybe taken a roll down the stairs.

By that I mean with some stiffness and soreness. It takes till after breakfast to get limbered up. That's the time I spend on this website. After the morning sun does its magic, I go to the garden or to whatever project is at hand. I still push my tools, but not so long and not so hard. If I lean hard on a tool today I'll break before it does. Turning back to the 1960's I remember another song by the Incredible String Band, from 1967, titled "Way Back in the 1960's". I vividly remember listening to that song and wondering how true what they sang might be when I was not just old, but ancient. I still hope I have a chance to find out.

I was a young man back in the 1960s.
Yes, you made your own amusements then,
Going to the pictures;
Well, the travel was hard, and I mean
We still used the wheel.
But you could sit down at your table
And eat a real food meal.

But hey, you young people, well I just do not know,
And I can't even understand you
When you try to talk slow.

There was one fellow singing in those days,
And he was quite good, and I mean to say that
His name was Bob Dylan, and I used to do gigs too
Before I made my first million.
That was way, way back before,
before wild World War Three,
When England went missing,
And we moved to Paraguayee.

Well, I got a secret, and don't give us away.
I got some real food tins for my 91st birthday,
And your grandmother bought them
Way down in the new antique food store,
And for beans and for bacon, I will open up my door.

But hey, you young people, well I just do not know,
And I can't even understand you
When you try to talk slow.

Well, I was a young man back in the 1960s. 
 

Now that I'm officially old, I get senior discounts. I'm on Social Security. I'm on MediCare. As such I can now dispense some bonafide wisdom. My sage advice to all is - keep working, with your mind and your body:

Take it easy. Take it slow. Make it happen. Make it paradise.

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Rolling Over 65 5/28/10
Ea O Ka Aina: Woodstock Forgotten 8/15/09

.

A poem for my granddaughter

SUBHEAD: On the occasion of her birth early this morning and far away in New Paltz NY.  

By Juan Wilson on 14 April 2012 for Island Breath - 
  (http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2012/04/poem-for-my-granddaughter.html)

 [Author's note: This poem was written on 2/15/12 for the occasion of my son's and daughter-in-law's baby shower in anticipation of their baby's birth. Their daughter, Magnolia De La Casa Kondrat-Wilson, was born early this morning in New Paltz, New York.]

 
Image above: From photo of my son John Wilson with his daughter Magnolia taken by her mother, Katy Kondrat.  

When Magnolia De La Casa landed on Earth
Those before her had coiled, shuddered and sighed.
She had no name then, and she wasn't really a "she" -
But she was free.

A spark, a wriggle and then what would be her was embedded.
And she stuck, and in doing so became them, and became herself.
 More complicated every moment, to the tune of her own heart, and that of the womb.

The Womb World is now everything and everywhere.
 Pulse – blood, juices, enzymes, hormones -
Motions – vibrations, bounces, squeezing -
Sounds – gurgling, laughing, crying, farts -
Sights – a web of veins in the glow, a shadow of a hand in the sun -
 It seems like forever.

Magnolia – an ancient tough genus, older than the bees, hums her tune.
The Womb World is a warm comforter on a long winter night.
But outside seems funny and exciting. They rub the womb's outside.
I kick back and elbow them. I can hear them talking to me now.

 There is more than one of them out there.
 Inside is a slowly collapsing universe imploding on itself -
My aerial acrobatics are reduced to squirms and twists.

Hey! Something's up. There's some rush.
Waves are rolling through the casa.
Leading somewhere?
 My face is pressed to the floor.
It's too tight in here.
These convulsions are new!
 I don't want to wake up, but the dream – It's getting scary.

There is only one way out.
The NOISE, the LIGHT, the AIR -
BREATH!
Oh my God!
I'm on my own – but in their arms.

 .

New Years Day at Taro Patch

SUBHEAD: Come and help us celebrate the shift in consciousness that embraces us all. Rain or Shine! We’ve got tents!  

By Ken Taylor on 28 December 2011 for Kauai New Year's Brunch -  
(taylork021@hawaii.rr.com)


Image above: Ceremonial entrance to the Taro patch site in Anahola. Photograph provided by Ken Taylor.

 The Kauai Community Brunch Bunch Welcomes You to the 2012 New Year’s Day Celebration

WHERE: At the Taro Patch in Anahola!!  

WHEN: 10:30 am to 5:00 pm on 1 January 2012  

CONTACT: Any questions, or if you wish to be a volunteer, please contact, Anne Thurston phone: (808) 826-7002 email: athurston@irmt.org website: http://kauainewyearsbrunch.org  

WHAT:  
Opening Ceremony
We are honored and privileged to announce that Puna Dawson will be with us to offer an entry procession to the Taro Patch followed by an opening ceremony. The procession will start promptly at 10:30, so if you want to be present for this powerful part of the day, please arrive at the Taro Patch a little earlier. As one of the wisest and clearest spokespeople for the truth on Kaua’i (or anywhere), Puna tells us that the Hawaiian calendar marks this as a time of transition to greater clarity, characterized by three qualities of our deepest desire: intention (faith), hope and love: Ekolu me nui.  

Program Opening ceremony and prayer followed by performances.

• Puna Dawson and Halau (opening)
• Performers (not in order of performance)
• +Elijah- Goddess Chant
• Millicent and Darby Slick
• Jivan
• Malia and Michael Locey and Halau/Hula
• Omashar
• Yemaya 'dance'
• Kekane Pa and friends
• Aloha Africa featuring Ousmane Sall
• Steve Backinhoff (closing circle prayer/dance)

Food
This is a potluck. If you can, please bring a dish (main course or dessert) to serve six to eight people. Please let’s keep chips and dips to a minimum.

 Costs
This event is non-profit and non-commercial. All performers and site volunteers lovingly donate their time and energy. But there are costs, so please help us with expenses if you can (including site rental, tents, eco paltes/cups/ cutlery, stage equipment, generator, prataloos, recycle bins, etc). There is a suggested donation of $10 (or more), but no one will be turned away. There will be a place for donations at the registration table.  

Directions and Parking
When you reach the Anahola Bridge, driving north from Kapa'a, the entrance to the Taro Patch (Kikoo Loop) is on the left just before you reach the Anahola shops. There will be six parking attendants throughout the area to help you park. Please don’t park at the Anahola shops. There is some parking on Kikoo Loop, although no one other than performers and organizing committee members may park on or beyond the old bridge at the Taro Patch trailhead.  

Entrance to the Taro Patch
When Kikoo Loop is full, please park either on the Highway or on Puu Hale Loop, which is the very next left turning (going north) after Kikoo Loop. This short road runs parallel to the Highway, past the the Anahola Baptist Church, and then back to the Highway at the Shave Ice Stand. By kind permission of the Anahola Japanese Community Association, you may park in the Church parking lot after 12:30 when church is over. (Please DO NOT park in parking lot before 12:30!!) Mahalo from all of us!!

‘I’m going to do my part, within myself and within the world, to bring about a shift that lets us live more authentically, more lovingly, more intuitively, more creatively, more collaboratively. That's my idea of spiritual evolution.’ - Oprah Winfrey, Oprah Magazine, January 2012, p 142

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Happy Serfdom Day!

SUBHEAD: Happy Fourth of July. Enjoy it while it lasts. And maybe save some for your kids. By Ilargi on 4 July 2011 for the Automatic Earth - (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/2011/07/july-4-2011-serfdom-day.html) Image above: 2011 July 4th celebration in Waxhaw, North Carolina. From (http://www.waxhaw.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC={54FC3820-1D60-4B8F-A7BB-DC726C2B31A4}). Independence, right? Fireworks and all, fighter jet fly-overs. Boy, are we ever free! Got to wonder, though, how much longer these celebrations make any sense. See, in Greece they're fast losing their freedom and independence. The country may still be a sovereign nation in name, but are the Greeks still a sovereign people? According to Erik Kirschbaum at Reuters, Eurogroup chairman Jean-Claude Juncker thinks not:

Greek sovereignty to be massively limited: Juncker

Greece faces severe restrictions on its sovereignty and must privatize state assets on a scale similar to the sell off of East German firms in the 1990s after communism fell [..] "The sovereignty of Greece will be massively limited," he told Germany's Focus magazine in the interview released on Sunday, adding that teams of experts from around the euro zone would heading to Greece. [..] The Greek parliament voted on Thursday to set up a privatization agency under austerity plans agreed with the European Union and IMF which have provoked violent protests on the streets of Athens. Greeks are acutely sensitive to any infringement of their sovereignty or suggestions of foreign "commissars" getting involved in running the country. "One cannot be allowed to insult the Greeks. But one has to help them. They have said they are ready to accept expertise from the euro zone," Juncker said. Athens must sell off five billion euros in state assets this year alone or risk missing targets set under its EU/IMF program, which could cut off its funding needed to keep the government running and avoid a debt default. A repeat of Germany's Treuhand experience may prove bitter for Greeks, who are already suffering soaring unemployment as a recession drags into its third year. Once the world's biggest holding company, Treuhand was supposed to sell off state property at a profit but closed its books with a huge deficit and a legacy of bitterness among the legions of workers whose jobs it destroyed. Four million Germans were employed by Treuhand-owned companies in 1990 but only about 1.5 million jobs were left in 1994 when the agency closed. Instead of reaping profits to be distributed to all east Germans, as it was designed to do, it ran up debts of 270 billion marks ($172 billion) in the fire sale of assets.

To call Treuhand an abject failure would be a gross understatement. Still, Juncker cites it as an example for Greece. Lovely. Well, to be honest, it was a failure only for the people. Not for banks and industries. Viewed from that angle, it all makes sense. As does openly stating that Greece will be massively limited in its sovereignty. It all depends whose interests you're protecting, after all. And no, we're not just talking Greece here. From the Guardian:

Sell, sell, sell: everything must go in great fire sale

Greece Europe's most ambitious sell-off is taking place in its most indebted nation: Athens plans to sell €50bn (£45bn) of state assets by 2015. Looking at the sales list, it seems that very little has been left off the table. The government's stakes in the ports of Piraeus and Thessaloniki, 39 airports, a state lottery, a horse-racing concession, a casino, a national post office, two water companies, a nickel miner and smelter, hundreds of miles of roads, a telecoms operator, shares in two banks, electricity and gas monopolies and thousands of hectares of land, including coastal stretches, are among the host of assets on offer.[..] Ireland The national airline, ports, power stations and even the Irish National Stud, which hosted a visit by the Queen in May, face being broken up or sold off under plans to get Ireland out of the red. A government-commissioned review of state assets published in April said privatisation could raise about €5bn for the cash-strapped country. [..] Spain The world's biggest annual lottery payout, Spain's famous Christmas El Gordo (Fat One), spreads joy to tens of thousands of winners – but the biggest winners of all may soon be investors who snap up part of the state company behind the lottery. [..] Some 30% of the state lottery will be sold as the organisation behind the 151-year-old El Gordo becomes what may be the world's biggest listed gambling company, valued at up to €25bn. The company recorded €3bn net profit in 2009 on sales of €9.8bn – meaning the sell-off will reduce treasury income by about €1bn a year. RBS recently won a contract to run the privatisation of up to 49% of Spain's airports authority, AENA, which has a book value of €2.6bn. The government also plans to auction off Madrid's Barajas airport and Barcelona's El Prat by the end of the year. Reform of the country's savings banks means that many will also soon be seeking stock market listings. [..] Portugal Neighbouring Portugal is in even starker need of money after accepting a €78bn bailout. On Thursday, the newly elected centre-right prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, announced a rush sale of state holdings in the utility company Energias de Portugal and the power-grid operator REN by October. Passos Coelho recently told the Financial Times that he wanted to sell off up to 49% of water utilities as well as several state media interests, reportedly including television and radio channels, plus the national news agency Lusa. The state airline TAP and the airport owner ANA – which runs airports in Lisbon, Faro, Oporto and the Azores – are also due to be sold along with the insurance business of the state-run bank CGD [..] Britain The coalition government in Westminster is in the process of selling off the 49% state stake in the air traffic control service Nats, decommissioned naval ships and its own collection of fine wine. In the March budget the chancellor, George Osborne, set a target of raising £2bn from asset sales to finance the Liberal Democrat's idea for a green investment bank. The bulk of that is coming from the sale of its remaining stake in Nats and the Tote, the government-owned bookmakers. The private bookmakers Betfred have been chosen to buy the Tote for a reported price of £200m. [..]

By the way, Richard Milne at the Financial times reports that S&P have said the Greek bailout will be declared a default (credit event) anyway:

S&P threatens Greece with default

French and German banks’ plan to roll over their holdings of Greek debt suffered a huge blow on Monday as Standard & Poor’s, the credit rating agency, said the move would amount to a default. The proposal to provide up to €30bn ($43.6bn) in financing for Greece had been made conditional on rating agencies not downgrading Greece’s debt. But S&P said in a statement early on Monday that any rollover would be a “distressed” transaction and thus lead to Greece’s rating being lowered to selective default. Such a move all but scuppers the rollover proposal in its current form. It is also likely to further heighten European scrutiny and scepticism of rating agencies, who are blamed by some for stoking the eurozone debt crisis as well as having missed the causes of the 2008 financial crisis. The euro erased all its gains against the dollar and European markets were seen opening lower on Monday morning on the news. S&P said both proposals put out by the French banking federation last week – and broadly endorsed by both German banks and other global financial institutions – would amount to a default.

That would indeed seem to be the only logical conclusion. But the IMF and ECB may have more up their sleeves yet. The best way to look at the bailout plan, meanwhile, is provided by Wolfgang Münchau at the Financial Times:

The Greek rollover pact is like a toxic CDO

It was always clear that European politicians would ultimately end up trying a complex debt product to solve the crisis. If you want to “kick the can down the road”, as the wearily favourite metaphor of the crisis goes, if you want to obfuscate facts and circumvent rules, then a variant of a collateralised debt obligation seems the perfect choice. I wonder what took them so long. I have no space for a large drawing with lots of boxes and arrows to explain the complexity of the vehicle, through which eurozone governments want to involve the private-sector banks in its next loan package. So here is my best attempt in words: if you own a Greek bond that matures by June 2014, you keep 30 per cent of the redemption as cash, and roll over 70 per cent into a 30-year Greek government bond. The Greeks will have to pay an annual coupon, or interest rate, of between 5.5 per cent and 8 per cent. The precise rate will depend on future economic growth. Of the money received, Greece will lend on 30 per cent to a special purpose vehicle, another well-known construction from the subprime mortgage crisis. The SPV invests into AAA-rated government or agency bonds, and issues a 30-year zero coupon bond. The purpose of this is to guarantee the principal of the 30-year Greek government bond that you just bought. With this construction, the downside to your losses is limited. Depending on how some of the parameters of this agreement evolve, you will probably make a small loss, relative to the par value of your holding. If you are lucky, you might come out positive. You will probably not be lucky. But you will still be better off than if you sold today, or if Greece were to default. More important, the accounting rules allow you to pretend that you are not making any losses at all. If this was any other field of human activity, you would go to jail if you accepted, let alone made such an indecent offer. [..]

So when everybody sells everything, where do we draw the line between a sovereign nation and one that is "occupied"? It's hard to say, granted, but I would think that a people that wants to be in charge of its own destiny would want to always retain control of its transport and energy infrastructure: roads, waterways and ports, energy sources and supplies, etc. Control over health care services and schools seems obvious too, if you want to be and feel independent. And we haven't even mentioned land yet. The prevailing ideology, however, has become the privatization of everything that's not bolted down (and even then...) The underlying notion, of course, is that private business is more efficient than government in running all sorts of services. Whether that's true or not is up for debate, but there's another factor at play as well: private businesses are run for profit, and profit implies growth. The question than must be asked if we really want our hospitals and prisons to be run as growth industries. After all, that would at some point necessarily mean we need more sick people, and more criminals. Yeah, you're right, that does look a lot like what we already have in the US, doesn't it? And while the examples above deal with European nations selling off their goodies, the same happens stateside of course. Individual states, as well as counties and municipalities, are auctioning off roads and buildings as fast as they can, in desperate and doomed attempts to make budgets whole. Just like Greece does. All while awaiting the economic recovery that never seems to come, or not quick enough, or not enough enough. The problem is that this economy, these economies, will never recover. They will never return to where they once were. They won't even return to where they are now. Because there is so much debt all around, and our leaders refuse to let the institutions that incurred it pay the bill, there's a huge amount of downside waiting for us. And selling off what should have been our children's inheritance is not going to change that. It will only make their lives that much harder. They will indeed not be sovereign people, they will not hold control over their own societies. And they will therefore have no reason left to celebrate their Independence Day. They will be serfs. Debt slaves. The gutting of societies and their independence is not new by any stretch of the imagination. The gutting of our present societies, too, started a long time ago, with the ideas propagated by Milton Friedman and his Chicago School criminal racket. What cannot, however, be put at Friedman's feet, is the devastation to the world we live in caused by the derivatives trade. And that, to repeat myself, is where today's real danger lies. I'll leave you with something that Chris Whalen wrote on the topic two weeks ago. Happy Fourth of July. Enjoy it while it lasts. And maybe save some for your kids. .

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Halfway There

SUBHEAD: Take the quiet and peace you can find and cherish it. Be sure to plan a way to find more where ever you are.  

By Juan Wilson on 1 July 2011 for Island Breath - 
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2011/07/halfway-there.html)


Image above: The hand of Tara Nevins, of Donna the Buffalo, on the concertina at the Great Blue Heron Music Festival. Photo by Juan Wilson.

The year 2011 is half over and were on the back straightaway and heading for the third turn. We're on the mainland and when this morning is over my wife Linda and I will be heading over to the Great Blue Heron Music Festival (http://www.greatblueheron.com) in Sherman, New York.

It's mostly old time music, zydeco, folk, world and tunes that could (if needed) be played acoustically. It's on for three days and nestled in rolling hills and woodlands and surrounded by Amish farms.

Being at the Heron allows us to escape the predominant culture's expression of subliminal violence that is the Fourth of July weekend.

Every year that midyear celebration of patriotic militarism returns with the ritual charring of meat, waving of flags and setting off explosions. Whoopie!

The fact is there is not a whole lot to celebrate in much of America. Floods, fires, draught, and poverty seem to be spreading without control as the social fabric shreds and disintegrates.

 In the last few days the state New York declared fracking for natural gas a good thing while th entire state of Texas was declared a natural disaster area... And don't forget the state Minnesota was shut down at midnight last night.

 The second half of this year should be a corker. Greece is waiting in the wings to default as the Middle East continues to roil. Take the quiet and peace you can find and cherish it. Be sure to plan a way to find more where ever you are.

 .

United We Kill

SUBHEAD: The death of bin Laden should give us pause to reflect, seriously about the misery we have caused. By Jon Letman on 5 May 2011 for Clear Sky Press - (http://clearskypress.blogspot.com/2011/05/united-we-kill.html) Image above: Excited crowd of young Americans in Washington DC in front of White House after hearing of the killing of Osama bin Laden. From original article. Since the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death late Sunday night, the country has been swept up in a frenzy of 9/11 flashbacks. Americans have reacted to bin Laden's killing with emotions ranging from shock and relief to satisfaction, skepticism and incredulity, but the most prominently emotion displayed, and the one that has received the most attention, is pure, unabashed joy. Not the joy of watching a child take her first step or the joy of creating something new and beautiful, but the dark, blood-stained joy of exacting revenge on a mass murderer. Americans were dealt bruising physical wounds and a deep psychological blow on September 11, 2001 and, for the last decade, have been on a constant drip of reminders of the attacks whose intensity ebbs and flows with time. But the elusiveness of 9/11's supreme perpetrator, has remained like a broken thorn under our skin, palpable but without relief. Most would say the spontaneous eruption of jubilation and glowing satisfaction, like the feeling of finally scratching a deep, nagging itch after enduring the pain for so long is only natural. But the celebratory flash mobs of fist-pumping youth draped in red, white and blue as they chanted "U-S-A! U-S-A!" and wild orgy of hyper-Americanness claimed to be patriotism rubbed more than a few Americans the wrong way. A Reuters photographer who was at the White House when Obama made the announcement described the scene outside later as deafening "like a sports stadium...like a carnival." Two days after bin Laden's death a Reuters video story titled "Bin Laden death boost for Obama" showed the president remain stony-faced and somber even as members of Congress rose to their feet and burst into applause when the president made a reference to bin Laden's killing. Clearly the president is not one of the "America - Fuck Yeah!" flag-wavers. This week he announced that the White House will not be releasing pictures of the dead al Qaeda leader because, as he put it, "we don't need to spike the football." Yet at the same time he has used bin Laden's killing to suggest this is a moment of "national unity" around which all Americans can and should rally together. "There is a pride in what this nation stands for and what we can achieve that runs far deeper than party, far deeper than politics," the president told members of Congress. But the suggestion that bin Laden's killing should be a sources of national unity is a cynical, cheap exploitation of American's weakness for displays of brute force, violence, killing, and militarism, presumably in order to gain some political capital at a time when Mr. Obama's presidency has been mired in the ugly stuff of reality: stubbornly high unemployment, rising gasoline prices, an economy that is wobbly at best and attacks from both the political right ("Where were you really born, Mr. Socialist?") and the left ("This isn't the change I was hoping for"). It is a sad reflection on both the state of the nation and the moral elasticity of the president that what Obama calls "national unity," if something we can all feel good about together is, in fact, a covert military incursion conducted behind the backs of a supposed ally (Pakistan) as a commando-style night raid and revenge killing -- a targeted assassination. Is this what draws Americans together: a blood-stained bedroom floor, the burnt wreckage of a helicopter littering bin Laden's walled courtyard, freshly killed men growing stiff in pools of blood, impounded orphans, a widow and a villain shot in the face and hastily dumped in the sea? If this is the true north to which the needle of our moral compass points, then we may as well throw away our compass -- we are clearly lost. It is unimaginably bleak commentary on our nation when, after more than a decade of increasing nastiness, divisive politics and a fraying social fabric, that in the year 2011, Americans seem to be most united only after a killing spree in Tuscon underscores our own tolerance for self-inflicted domestic gun violence or our president announces, albeit with more maturity than the last one, but all the same callous confidence in ourselves to mete out our own cowboy version of justice, united we stand. Ironically, only 48 hours before Obama announced the death of bin Laden, the people of Great Britain had found cause for unity in celebration of life in the marriage of a young prince and his bride. Cutting across Britain's highly stratified class system, people in the UK looked, for at least a day anyway, supremely united. Two days later, under the banner of revenge killing, Americans are told to unite. Along with this call for "national unity" in the long shadow of bin Laden's corpse, there is a clamor to somehow saddle at least a full decade's of war making, invasions, occupations, drone attacks, secret imprisonment, extraordinary rendition, torture, domestic and international surveillance, draconian and ineffective "security" measures, economically and socially harmful budget cuts and an unchallenged and ever-expanding misuse of Executive Powers to broaden existing wars while embarking on new ones, all to this vague thing we are told is all about "national security," "freedom," and "the defense of Democracy." It's as though the killing of bin Laden is supposed to be the Lucky Triple Seven jackpot that makes us all jump and hoot for joy after more than a decade of playing a losing game. Unfortunately, the machines are rigged and the house always wins. Bin Laden's death, no matter how happy or how ambivalent you may feel about it, is not the end of the game. Instead of being told that this is an event around which we should all "unite," the President should be reminding us this is no game at all -- it's about war and death and about acknowledging our own role in perpetuating the cycle of violence. Bin Laden executed a number of unimaginably wicked schemes which resulted in the cold-blooded murder of thousands of innocent people. He is not someone that merits defending or grief, but he is also not alone in employing wicked tactics to strike out as his enemy, innocents be damned, as he used any weapon at his disposal to inflict death and suffering. Hijacked airplanes, suicide belts, and roadside IEDs (improvised explosive devices) produce the same results as Tomahawk missiles, white phosphorous incendiary weapons and predator drones: dead people. The terror attacks executed by Osama bin Laden and subsequent ongoing wars which have ostensibly killed and maimed far more than bin Laden could have ever hoped for have created a self-perpetuating culture of death and killing. Bin Laden may have been America's "Enemy #1" and our highest profile target, but his death will not mark the end of any of the wars we have chosen to pursue in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and beyond. Killing one man, no matter how evil he may have been, is hardly reason for celebration and should not be the foundation on which we, as Americans, stand united. If anything, the news of the death of Osama bin Laden should give us pause to reflect, seriously and soberly about the misery we ourselves have caused, and continue to cause, not only to people in other nations, but to our own fellow citizens right here at home. Video above: "Celebration" on killing of bin Laden on ATV with flag and gun. From (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxVdU2eVYSg). .

KCC Earth Day Celebration

SOURCE: James Trujillo (jtrujill@hawaii.edu) SUBHEAD: Kaua’i Community College invites you to celebrate Earth Day 2011 on Wednesday, April 20, 2011. By Jimmy Trujillo on 11 April 2011 for Kauai Community College - Image above: 2010 Maui Earth Day logo created by Byron Allen. From (http://www.mauiearthday.org). WHAT: KCC Celebration of Earth Day WHEN: Wednesday April 20, 2011 11 a.m. -9:30 p.m. WHERE: Kaua’i Community College Puhi Campus Performing Arts Center ASUH-KCC Student Lounge Kaua’i Community College invites you to celebrate Earth Day 2011 on Wednesday, April 20, 2011. Starting at 11:00 a.m. and running throughout the day and into the evening, KCC will be hosting community groups and local vendors to create space on campus for the exchange of ideas, products, and services related to environmental awareness, natural resource conservation, green economic development, alternative energy use, community and school gardens, and local produce and crafts. There will be music, food, an open mic, mini eco- fashion show, and to finish the evening off, movies beneath the stars. It promises to be a full day of entertainment, information, and an excellent opportunity to learn, share, and participate in KCC's green evolution. From 11:00 a.m. to 9:30 p.m. you are encouraged to come and learn how to reduce your monthly energy bills, turn food scraps into compos, and grow food in your back yard. Learn more about recycling, developing community gardens or installing alternative energy systems for home, business, or farm use. Community groups will share information on how to get active and stay involved in helping create a sustainable Kaua’i. See how easy it is to get involved with local efforts to malama our Kaua'i. KCC Earthday 2011 will feature live entertainment from several local bands throughout the day. Underneath a large tent, located behind the Performing Arts Center and in front of the cafeteria, local vendors and community groups will be sharing information about earth friendly activities or local services and products. Food for sale and live music will be adjacent to the large tent; above the cafeteria in the ASUH -KCC Student Lounge there will be two community forums to stimulate discussion centered on the topics of the production and consumption of food and energy on Kaua’i . The first forum, Food Sovereignty - Sowing the Seeds of Sustainability, will start at 12:00 p.m. and end at 1:30 p.m. This talk story session will feature local food producers and consumers discussing a range of issues surrounding food production on the Garden Island. A question and answer session will conclude the first forum. KIUC’s Energy Strategy 2011 will be the focus of the second forum with David Bissell, KIUC CEO, presenting and taking questions from the audience. The second forum will begin at 2:00 p.m. and conclude at 3:30 p.m.. Both community forums will be captured live on the internet via HawaiiStream. Kaua’i radio listeners can enjoy a live broadcast of the discussions on KKCR Kaua’i Community Radio FM 91.9 A musical interlude and Open Mic free speech event will help transition KCC Earthday 2011 from beneath the tent to beneath the stars. Live music, invited speakers, poets, and free speech advocates will hold the stage until the evening’s activity takes place. Blue Planet and the Kauai Surfrider Chapter will feature several short films and the feature film, Bag It-Is Your Life Too Plastic (www.bagitmovie.com), an 80 minute documentary that examines the impacts of plastics on marine life, human health and the environment. For more information on KCC Earth Day 2011 contact KCC Earth Day Planning Chairs Taylor Stanton (tstanton@hawaii.edu) or Jimmy Trujillo (jtrujill@hawaii.edu)

• Enjoy Local
• Food & Entertainment
• Green Products & Fresh Produce
• Music from Local Bands
• Food from Local Vendors
• Movies under the Stars
• Learn ways to:
• Reduce your energy bill
• Compost for your garden
• Grow your own food
• Get involved
• Create a sustainable Kaua'i
• Participate in discussions on Food and Energy
• Tour KCC's Garden Program
• Learn more about KCC’s alternative energy programs

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And to All a Good Night

SUBHEAD: Merry Christmas everyone, and to all a jolly week of schmoozing, boozing, gifting and grifting.  

By James Kunstler on 20 December 2010 for Kunstler.com - 
(http://kunstler.com/blog/2010/12/and-to-all-a-good-night.html) 

 
Image above: "Twas the Night BEfore Chrsitmas". Illustration by Eundelom, circa 1953. From (http://www.countrymusicislove.com/2009/12/1-day-till-christmas.html).

At this time of year, who can fail to understand the wish to forget all the woes and fiascos of our time, and to retreat into the cozy firelit nooks of Christmas, where a pint or so of grog, or egg-nog, or even seven fingers of Williams 'Lectric Shave in an empty jam jar might avail to wash away the frightening specters of debts, and banks, and, trade imbalances, and countries with economies composed mostly of losses?

For now, America is a rug stretching from Maine to California, under which we've swept the filthy detritus of money matters and governance. It worked most of the year, though the rug has grown as lumpy as a landfill. Nothing is more important for the moment than provoking millions of people with no means for carrying their current obligations to ply the malls in search of Christmas merchandise, so the little ones will not be disappointed on the Great Day. Who could fail to understand this, too, since the sorrows of children only magnify the failures of the adults who love and fear for them.

President Obama's tax deal with the corn-and-pork-fed mental defectives of the Red States has been spun into an historic act of political ju-jitsu - a sharp trade to great advantage for the slick city operator against the avaricious rubes - but to me it was just another act of Santa Claus Theater. You have to love the conceit that all this fuss about money is finally settled.

So we can settle back in the raptures of flat screen high-def 3-D TV and imagine that we're like the characters in Frank Capra's It's A Wonderful Life - which, by the way, in case you never noticed, is a story about a banker who gets into big trouble financing the first larval manifestations of suburban sprawl. If only Frank Capra had lived to see the Federal Reserve's Maiden Lane portfolio, a sack of shit so monumental it would make the fabled swag-bag of Kris Kringle himself look like the descending colon of a pygmy marmoset.

Anyway, both parties are vying for a place in the graveyard of politics, and this is how it should be. Life is tragic, nothing lasts forever, and these two hoary old orgs are so far gone in corruption and cupidity that it would be hazardous to not bury them as fast as possible. If the USA is as resilient and resourceful as it pretends to be, then we can confidently come up with something better. In fact, I hasten to make a positive proposal: calling Howard Dean (former Vermont governor and head of the Democratic National Committee) to take the helm of a new Progressive Party (or whatever you want to call it) in opposition to the morbid histrionics of the Tea Baggers.

It's not written on the wind that this country must be governed by morons and sell-outs. Governor Dean is the only character I see out there with more than half a brain who won't bend over for Weepy John Boehner and the minions of Goldman Sachs. I'm sorry that the cable networks juked him back in 2004, with the ridiculous charge that he had somehow lost his mind by raising his voice at his Iowa Caucus victory party.

As I have averred more than once before, this period of US history resembles the 1850s, when the established political parties could not wrap their minds around the salient issue of the day, slavery, and so went out of business. Anyway, when Abraham Lincoln came along rather late in the day, nobody knew, fer gawdsake, that he was going to turn into Abraham Lincoln. We kind of forget that the Civil War, which began almost the instant he took office, was a prolonged fiasco that looked fatal for the nation until very near the end - at which point Lincoln, who had been mocked more harshly than any president to that time, was transformed into a monument by 240 grains of lead.

In this previous historic convulsion the issue was slavery; today the issue is the rule of law - the absence of which from banking is destroying the USA as effectively as a foreign invasion. Poor President Obama looks more like Millard Fillmore reincarnated every day, an empty figurehead servling of less-than-benevolent interests hiding in plain sight. What will become of this Republic when he puts his Santa suit away for the year, nobody knows (and many people dread).

I'll be writing from Paris, France, next week - if the next ice age doesn't close down the airports, and if no trouble-maker manages to get on-board my plane with a Semtex suppository hidden in his vitals. I sincerely wonder if the European banks will implode before the holiday runs its course, but I suppose the folks in charge will be too drunk all week to even play Grand Theft Auto on their cell phones. I've got a sad, nagging feeling that this may be Europe's last year as the world's tourist theme park.

They've gone through that before, too, by the way - history does repeat in patterns, if not in exact story-line - in the roughly century-long lull between Waterloo and the Guns of August, 1914. The memory of the Long Peace is why the First World War was so demoralizing to Western Civ. God knows what mischief awaits when the current game of Bank Back-stop Hot Potato comes to its certain end in Euroland.

All that said, I take a certain consolation in the fact that Julian Assange is at large!
Merry Christmas everyone, and to all a jolly week of schmoozing, boozing, gifting, grifting, and joy to the world! (Oh, and don't rob the house.)

See also: Island Breath: The American Holiday Season 12/14/07
The Gobbler: JW's Earliest Christmas Memories 12/21/99
The Gobbler: Christmas Time in Panama NY 12/21/96 .

We pass 750,000 hits

SUBHEAD: Since beginning our blogspot format for Island Breath we have had posted over 2000 articles and had 750,000 hits. Mahalo.  

By Juan Wilson on 5 December 2010 in Island Breath.org-
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2010/12/we-over-750000-hits.html)

 
Image above: Rolling over 750,000 site hits and over 2000 articles.

 Linda Pascatore and I have been publishing the Island Breath website since January 1st 2004.

Until mid 2006 we did not monitor traffic and do not know visitor counts. In the early days the most prolific contributors to the site were Ray Chuan, Ken Taylor and Judy Dalton. Even with their great support we were averaged about one article a day. Since then we have used StatCounter.com and have kept statistics.

From mid 2006 to the end of 2009 we averaged about 300 reader hits a day. That includes the high tide period lasting over a year when the SuperFerry issue raised average readership to over 600 a day. At he end of 2009 we reformatted the site using www.blogspot.com technology.

Since then, and the expansion of our editorial staff to include David Ward, Brad Parsons and Jonthan Jay we have greatly increased the number or articles we are posting. We are now averaging several articles posted a day. From January 1st 2009 we have posted over 2000 articles. Readership is up as well.

In the first year and a half of the new format we averaged less than 500 hits a day. In the last month that number has been about 900 a day and climbing. There is one caveat. We have a disproportionate number of new readers and therefore a lower percentage of repeat visitors. Looking at the path of new visitors to the site suggests that searches for graphic images is an important way for people to discover our site.

The overall pattern of statistics also suggests to me that we need more contributions from readers on issues specific to Kauai and the people who live here. Moreover, we probably scare some readers away with what is often called "doomster-porn". I admit we are a bit shrill with the disaster sirens around here. In our defense, I think there is a tsunami of change to get prepared for.

On the other hand, after a while the siren is just annoying to those that have already gotten the message. I hope in 2011, as others take of the cry for addressing collapse of the old system, we can move on to sharing more on solutions and celebrating their success.

Ultimately, I believe those solutions will drive this site out of business. If I can get a hand cranked mimeograph machine the future of Island Breath may be to circulate our poems and recipes. My thanks to the editorial staff and thank you visitors and especially you contributors. .

Why is the bird a Turkey?

SUBHEAD: It's a similar reason that indigenous Americans were called Indians. Columbus was lost.

Image above: Illustration by Stephen Messenger from a related article (http://www.treehugger.com/files/2010/11/how-an-american-bird-became-known-as-a-turkey.php)

By Robert Krulwich on 27 November 2007 for National Public Radio - (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97541602)

Here's the puzzle:

The bird we eat on Thanksgiving is an exclusively North American animal. It is found in the wild on no other continent but ours. It evolved here. So why is this American bird named for a Eurasian country?

To find out, I went back to an interview I did almost 30 years ago on NPR's Morning Edition with Mario Pei, a Columbia University professor of Romance languages, who died shortly after our conversation.

I return to his answer because it is still the best one available.

Professor Pei had two theories.

First, in the 1500s when the American bird first arrived in Great Britain, it was shipped in by merchants in the East, mostly from Constantinople (who'd brought the bird over from America).

Since it wholesaled out of Turkey, the British referred to it as a "Turkey coq." In fact, the British weren't particularly precise about products arriving from the East. Persian carpets were called "Turkey rugs." Indian flour was called "Turkey flour." Hungarian carpet bags were called "Turkey bags."

If a product came to London from the far side of the Danube, Londoners labeled it "Turkey" and that's what happened to the American bird. Thus, an American bird got the name Turkey-coq, which was then shortened to "Turkey."

Or…Theory No. 2 (and maybe both theories are correct): Long before Christopher Columbus went to America, Europeans already had a wild fowl they liked to eat. It came from Guinea, in Western Africa. It was a guinea fowl, imported to Europe by, yes, Turkish merchants. It was eaten in London. So it got the nickname Turkey coq, because it came from Constantinople.

When British settlers got off the Mayflower in Massachusetts Bay Colony and saw their first American woodland fowl, even though it is larger than the African Guinea fowl, they decided to call it by the name they already used for the African bird. Wild forest birds like that were called "turkeys" at home.

Why not use the same name in Plymouth? And Boston? And Rhode Island? So a name attached to an African bird got reattached to an American one.

The point is for 500 years now, this proud (if not exactly brilliant) American animal has never had a truly American name.

And just to keep this ball rolling…all over the world, people now can eat American Turkeys, but they don't call them Turkeys.

Across Arabia, they call our bird "diiq Hindi," or the "Indian rooster."

In Russia, it's "Indjushka," bird of India.

In Poland, "Inyczka"— again "bird from India."

And what, we wondered, do the Turks call our turkey?

Well, they call it "Hindi," again, short for India.

So in 1492, because Columbus wanted to be in the "Indies," our North American bird got robbed of its American-ness, which is why tonight, when you look down at your turkey, don't call it "sahib."

Call it "dude."

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Frost on the Pumpkin

SUBHEAD: Halloween is the end of the warm times and the beginning of the cold. The harvest is in. Let's hope it is enough.

By Juan Wilson on 28 October 2010 for Island Breath -
(http://islandbreath.blogspot.com/2010/10/frost-on-pumpkin.html)

 
Image above: Frost on the pumpkins. From (http://timehaven.us/).  

Halloween is upon us. A time of ghosts, witches and pumpkins. Celebrating it is an ancient tradition in our culture reaching back before Christianity to the ancient Celts and later Gaelic traditions. Why does it seem to increasingly be important to us in the 21st century? It may have to do with a rejection of western Christian morality (Evangelical Fundamentalism) and a sense of anxiety about our economic future (Peak Oil, End of Suburbia,etc.). I know that’s a stretch so some background is required.  

The Earth and Sun
The annual course of the Earth around the Sun is easily divided into four quarters. These four seasons are divided at the solstices and the equinoxes. The winter solstice in December is the shortest day of the year, the Spring Equinox in March is when days and nights are of equal length, the Summer Solstice in June is the longest day, and then the day and night are equal again at Fall Equinox in September.

These dates are universally considered the beginnings of our four seasons, but they do not represent the epitome of each season. That is why the cross-quarter dates were important to those who watched the seasons for their survival. The cross-quarter dates were that halfway points in each season. Halloween is one of those cross-quarter dates - the Peak of Fall.

The Celts celebrated Halloween by the name Samhain. It falls midway between the autumnal equinox and the winter solstice and traditionally was celebrated over several days beginning on November 1st. Samhain, to the Celts, marked the end of the harvest, the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darker half".

Many scholars believe that it was the beginning of the Celtic year. Traditionally, Samhain was time to take stock of the herds and grain supplies, and decide which animals would need to be slaughtered in order for the people and livestock to survive the winter. The Christian's set the same time of year for their holy days Halloween (All Hallow's Eve) or All Souls Day and All Saint's Day on November 1st.

On the wheel of the year it was opposite May Day, which was the midpoint between the spring equinox and summer solstice. In ancient tradition May Day was called Beltane and it represented the epitome of Spring and the resurgence of life. If baby lambs and clover characterized May Day, then slaughtered cattle and cut grain characterized Samhain. Samhain was also a time to experience the ghosts of ancestors. Samhain was also the time that the work in the fields ended and the season of feasting was just beginning.

The times of plenty were at their peak and would last through to about Christmas (winter solstice). After that would come the leaner time and even starvation, if the larder did not last past the spring equinox and to re-greening of the fields. As the frost came on the pumpkin and the nights grew colder our forefathers looked ahead to the long winter through which they would have to survive.  

Modern Halloween
The great popularity of the modern Halloween celebration goes back less than generation. Before that in small town America, and especially since the fifties, when the suburbs were rolling out across America, Halloween was for kids. Then it was safe and easy to go door-to-door Trick-Or-Treating, without a thought of needing a parental chaperone.

In the rural farmland and in the cities Halloween was no big deal. It was not until the mid 1990’s that I began to see suburban neighbors outdoing one another to drape their houses with spray-on cobwebs and giant plastic spiders or hanging the tree in the front yard with cutouts of black cats and witches.

What had merely been a pumpkin on the porch was morphing into a competitor with Yuletide ostentation. On the retail front this coincided with moving the start-off of massive Christmas buying season from Thanksgiving Day to Halloween. You know that if the marketing people were getting involved, something was afoot. Halloween has remained popular with youngsters. In fact, it now rivals Christmas in popularity with children.

Where the real growth of new Halloween recruits comes from is adults. Part of the attraction is that there is no need to tow-the-line or be a goody-two-shoes on Halloween (unless that’s your costume character). You can be anybody you want to be, including your true self. It is at the same time when you can publicly touch on the dark side (that is discouraged at all other times), and, paradoxically, hide one’s true self behind a mask. For two millennia Christians co-opted pagan holidays like Christmas and Halloween and Easter.

But recently elements of the Christian community now wish they had left Halloween to the few remaining Druids still practicing, and not marked the date on their calendar. Much of apple-pie, football-fan, soccer-mom, SUV-drivin Christians are in the suburbs and are getting a whiff of the smoke. Suburbia isn't working.

 
Image above: Zombie Walk in October 2009 at a Shreveport, Louisiana mall. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamjones/4015321324/in/photostream/lightbox).

The organization Christian Answers asks whether Christians should celebrate Halloween? (http://www.christiananswers.net/q-eden/halloween.html) The short answer is No!

“The October 31st holiday that we today know as Halloween has strong roots in paganism and is closely connected with worship of the Enemy of this world, Satan... Have you noticed how costumes and masks are getting generally more bloody, gory, and depraved each year? Unfortunately, the gruesome and grotesque and the occult are increasingly glorified in American society, not only on Halloween, but throughout the year in horror movies and in television programs... What about church “Harvest Festivals” held on October 31? Although we understand the rational and good intentions behind them, we don't think they are the best approach... Harvest parties tend to assume that "our children need something to take the place of Halloween, since they won't be participating in the secular and pagan celebrations. It suggests our kids are missing out on something. And indeed they are, if we allow them to spend Halloween in celebration." There are better things to do on Halloween than partying.”

So Christians believe that Halloween, and Paganism, represent evil. In reality, Paganism revolved around the worship of nature. It's holidays, including Halloween, were the celebrations of the turning of the seasons. This wheel of the year was a metaphor for life--birth, youth, maturity, death, and rebirth.

 Scary Times - Good Times
We live in a time when works of fiction like the Twilight and Harry Potter series take on the role of filling the spiritual needs of adolescents. A time when zombie-flash-mobs appear at the food-court of the local Galleria Mall. Many are accepting the lesbian, gay, transgender, bisexual (LGBT) social issue as a civil rights issue. This issue is redefining sexuality, identity and family. It is not without reason that traditionalists worry.

 All of these phenomena point to a change in our identities, or sense of self. Scary to some, welcome to others. A few are beginning to embrace the idea that the Good-Old-Days won’t be coming back... and that’s okay... they really were not so good. The suburbs, the growing tip of America is stalled and we are about to find out what comes next.

As Americans come to grips with Peak Oil and Climate Change, we are beginning to realize that we are at the peak of our material abundance, to be followed by darker times. The Great Recession we are in now is leading to something new and unknown.

We are metaphorically at the time of Halloween; peak harvest with feasts and celebration, followed by the waning of the year and the dead of winter. Let us hope that we have stocked our larder well and that the winter is kind. Happy Halloween!

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Autumnal Equinox 2010 9/22/10
The Gobbler: Festival of Samhain 10/31/98 .

Step out of the stampede

SUBHEAD: The Earth is our master and is on a course we largely set her on. We have barely begun to pay the price.

By Jan Lundberg on 25 September 2010 in Culture Change -
(http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/676/63/)

 
Image above: A staged cattle stampede in Dallas, Texas. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/leia/61301766/).

If being human and living have value, we ought to celebrate what we are and how we're doing. The only real celebration can be of the truth, based on joyous reality of an improved condition.

Yet the truth today is that we are probably about to dangle from the noose that we ourselves stepped right into.

It's crazy to celebrate ecocide. Is there something else to celebrate that is also true? Sure, but it's not the whole truth: human dignity, beauty of life, love between two people -- wonderful and inspiring, but to celebrate them while closing off our senses to the bulldozing and poisoning going on around us is increasingly irrational.

Being honest would to admit of our celebrations today, "We are making ourselves feel better, numbing the pain or fooling ourselves."

For most of us, our personal world and its challenges are all we can deal with. So, little triumphs like selling more widgets than one's co-workers, losing ten pounds of body fat, or quitting alcohol become major accomplishments -- kind of in a vacuum, typical of individualism connected with "divide and conquer." It is rare that one celebrates getting rid of his or her car, for one's lack of a four wheeled machine is commonly equated with hardship.

There is organized and individual resistance to ecocide, climate catastrophe, species extinction, weakening of the human gene pool, erosion of human rights, and the coming trampling and starvation of the overpopulation. But the odds are that you're not part of resistance. It is tiny and does not deserve to celebrate much with a one-in-a-thousand chance for success or victory -- odds worsening each day.

What are we doing about this trend? Hardly anything; we keep up our activities in the dominant culture, often soothing ourselves electronically or going out to eat some trucked-in food. Ignorance or denial of overarching trends is bliss (and deadly). We may march on as protesters or blog on into the void, hoping to call attention to crises in need of a collective response.

There are times when amusement and passion can flow among those who are quite aware, resulting in some laughter between the tears -- but we know we are losing the fight. Many believe we have already lost. Interestingly, those who hold to that most pessimistic view (in all certainty, they feel) are unlikely to be activists or eco-warriors. Optimists keep busy, trying to help the situation. This gives them purpose, a little comfort, and a little hope at times, but no reason to really celebrate the health and glory of an Earth that can house in her bosom future generations of Earth's children.

The only honest thing to celebrate, if we are to celebrate the real truth, is the impotence of the human race to cease the killing of the Earth. I for one cannot do it, for who can embrace such a perverse idea? Yet, there are valid celebrations, even when times are worse than these, if the big picture is part of our perspective.

Otherwise, celebration may simply be to numb the mind: "Woo-hoo! we're drinking a lot of beer!" Everyone, from the aware activist to the downtrodden street survivor (sometimes the same person embodies that spectrum), needs to celebrate. That's like everyone needing to breath and urinate. Celebration is involuntary and somehow necessary for our species, such as after a good hunt or harvest.

But if we can somehow see that celebration is blind and irrational when we can't celebrate the truth, we might see that it's as crazy as trying to breathe underwater or urinate on our food. Since we would not do those things unless totally insane, we might be able to face that the dominant culture -- that says endless material expansion, greed, isolation from one another, and the cancer epidemic are acceptable -- is insane and finally must be stopped for good.

The lateness of the hour is such that we cannot wait and say, "We will gradually stop trying to breathe under water. We will only piss a little more on our food. Those are jobs, so we cannot shift away quickly, and besides there are alternatives around the corner if we change industrial investment."

This indefensible and obsolete attitude can be found in the technofix camp, as in gradually reducing fossil fuels emissions only in one's mind or in legislation. Such a program of Hope wishes to rely on painlessly and miraculously bringing about a consumer economy of less-polluting technology while continuing ecocide, as growth, toxicity and the stampede over the ecological cliff are hardly discussed.

Some in the stampede yell "Faster! See how fast we can go! Our speed and unity brought us here, and standing still is to be left behind!" Such spokespersons own all the megaphones and all the other trappings of the herders of humanity, mainly electronic media, etc. Apparently the much vaunted medium of the internet is not altering the stampede significantly. What does that tell us? Hard to say.

Even if through a mass awakening everyone wanted to stop the crazy stampede now, and tried to do so, we may not be able to stop it. This is because we are not the masters of the Earth; the Earth is our master and is on a course we largely set her on. We have barely begun to pay the price.

In this stampede we are somehow simultaneously trying to breathe under water (without scuba gear) and pissing on our food. This is absurd enough, but reality is worse than that: there are those holding our heads under water, while they themselves are under water, obliviously, forcing us to try to breath. Similarly, there are those among us pissing on our food and aiming our own piss onto our own food. Mass acceptance of such a pickle indicates both the low level and unpopularity of resistance as well as the impotence of the many, who are mostly unaware of the tiny number who are resisting and laying the groundwork for a livable future.

It is apparently irrelevant that those of the elite, or "the few," are also killing themselves as they kill the Earth. It is apparently irrelevant whether the few are aware of it or not.

For when the many are engaged in ecocide and suicide, wishing to remain ignorant and left in peace, closing their eyes to what is more painfully obvious by the day, the role of the few -- despite enforcing oppression and domination -- is not the prime factor in our lethal civilization's self destruction.

Many social justice activists today, and all past crusaders for freedom and equality who took their stand prior to the ecological crisis, believe that the problem we face is merely the bad guys at the top, whether identified as politicians in the pocket of banksters, the Trilateralists, the Zionists, the Neocons, ad infinitum -- any bad guy or elite seen as blameworthy and threatening.

For in a culture such as this, if one were to remove the head, ten aspiring Donald Trumps pop up to replace each of the few that could theoretically be taken down. At this point in history, focusing mainly on re-dividing the pie not a solution of any kind, and in any case it is not happening.

The Earth First!ers point out there's no social justice on a dead planet. Actually, their bumper sticker is "There are no jobs on a dead planet," in argument against clear-cutting ancient forests, for example. Impeccable logic, but does it go far enough to acknowledge that the entire modern culture of industrialism, hard wired to the dwindling cheap petroleum, has no future? Does the well-meaning environmental activist acknowledge that industrialism needs to be rejected now, when it means switching wholesale from four wheels to two? As long as society has new cars made and sold when there are too many on today's roads, we are engaged in mass insanity.

But Obama wants us to celebrate the so-called health of the U.S. automobile companies. This narrow impulse is propaganda for those who adhere to the nation's de facto slogan dating from post-WWII Imperial America: "What's good for General Motors is good for the country."

When we go along with such leadership, whether of Obama or any other pillar of the status quo, we have gotten into a vehicle with a nut case at the wheel -- leading motorized lemmings over the ecological cliff.

To growing mass disappointment, Obama wants consumers to celebrate now, urging them to honk and cheer and hope for a faster stampede, i.e., the "Recovery" that can't happen because the energy orgy is coming to an end -- most of the easily recovered, low-sulfur, light, cheap oil has been consumed.

Is it possible to piss on the whole stampede to good effect, or pull people's heads out of the water, making a social movement to save the herd and the planet? Not likely, unless the herd slows down. Unfortunately, the real slow-down will be due to lack of nourishment -- starvation due to the end of petroleum-based agriculture and transport. When this hits there will be revolt and chaos.

The megaphones and signs will fall, with various stampedes surging in different directions. Which will be your stampede? It's nice to believe about oneself that he or she is outside the dominant stampede today, but it may be only possible to be on the periphery at best.

One might survive in a form of eco-village or post-crash small town -- climate permitting. Being outside the U.S. offers more safety, such as in Bolivia where 80% of the population is non-dependent on fossil fuels. It's unfortunate that the stance of that nation's pro-development leadership is that climate change is just a problem of capitalism, and that domestic petroleum can and should be exploited.

The U.S. worker is increasingly pressured, especially in the Great Recession, to get with the program by associating with the vestiges of middle class living, and just saying no to homelessness. The poor are feared as bad news and bringing bad luck, even though for millions more of us poverty and homelessness are just one or two missed paychecks away. Hardly anyone is preparing for total global economic collapse, although some ponder it and there have been a couple of healthy adjustments to the Great Recession: less purchasing and more gardening.

Unfortunately, without being able to read the writing on the wall, the average U.S. American tries to stay safe by being still, even when being swept over the cliff in the relentless (and to most of us invisible) stampede. A return to basic, traditional skills is wise before they are desperately needed again, but people feel they cannot do such a thing in advance without being paid for it.

One of the risks of letting change sweep over you is to perhaps meet unanticipated cruelty or bloodlust, such as happened in Republican Spain in the 1930s: insurgent fascists believing in the supremacy of the ruling class and of the church massacred workers just for being workers, for they might have been in militant anarchist and communist unions.

Many victims were just undesirables wanting separation of church and state or standing up for women's rights. The Iberian workers and peasants did not fail to anticipate, nor were they very surprised by, the cruel reactionary force against them.

The U.S. worker is in comparison out to lunch and far gone: part of a weakened, soft, drugged population without the perspective of the Spanish Republican and almost all peoples around the globe. U.S. Americans' perspective is of two kinds: on the right, the post-WWII myth of riding tall in the saddle (via cheap oil and expansion), and on the left, believing the U.S. is a democracy that can be fixed by elections (instead of daring to get arrested in civil disobedience).

The goal of culture change is to have far more to celebrate about. Join us and step out of the stampede.

Don't Bring Me Down (eco/country rock song) Click here to download

I just bought a ticket to succeed in society Don't you ask no questions, better be nice to me Don't bring me down Don't you bring me down Don't come around if you'd bring me down

I have always thought our flag was the best I just close my eyes to nukes and all the rest Don't bring me down Please don't bring me down I'd see you drown Than let you bring me down

[guitar solo]

Put down your guitars, let's go buy some cars Join the den of businessmen carving up the Earth Don't bring us down Keep your country sound No money down Stay on the merry-go-round

If you have no cash and cannot pay the rent Prisons are for homeless too, justice is all spent

[guitar solo]

Down to the ground I hear a shakin' sound.

- by Depaver Jan, recorded as a demo at home in 1994, performed at Blues Camp, Ft. Worden, Washington, 1995, on CD "Redwood Dreams" (Volume One).

In the Name of Aloha

SOURCE: Tom Legacy (tlegacy@hawaii.rr.com) SUBHEAD: Puna Dawson's Celebration of Peace on Kauai from September 1 - 13.

By Puna Dawson on 1 September 2010 in The Name of Aloha -

(http://www.livealoha.sakura.ne.jp/english/englishmenu.html) 

Image above: Puna Dawson and her halau. From source website.

My island is fragile and endangered! Our cultural values will disappear if we don't nurture them. I ask that you share with me the caring of the aina (land) that I have been born to, I ask for your appreciation as you come to enjoy the hospitality of my cultural practices and history. I ask that you help to ensure these gifts for my grandchildren, their great grandchildren and all people of the world for the future.

You are invited to join us In the name of Aloha, a Celebration of Peace, September 1st through September 13th, 2010 on Kauai. Come celebrate together, our mokupuni (island), as we experience and learn Hawaiian Culture and Practices with our island people. Huaka'i and Ha'awina (travel and lesson), designed to make you aware the fragile state of our island resources will provide educational hands-on learning at traditional sites. Pulling kalo, canoe culture, lauki/hau pa'u making, are just a few of the experiences planned.  

SCHEDULE:
9/5/10, Sunday, 5 am to 2 pm: Kealoha Lulu Phon (Aha Hula) at Hauola near Hikinaakala Heiau. Expreience Ala a Papa and Witness Hula Practitioners in ceremonial celebration

9/6/10, Monday, 6 pm to 9 pm: Huakai Papa Niu/Ohe Hano Ihu at Aloha Beach Resort. Experience Niu (coconut) from the root to the leaf, and Bamboo Noseflute.

9/7/10, Tuesday, 6 pm to 9 pm: Huakai at Papa Kani Ka Pila at Aloha Beach Resort. Experience our island musicians as they share their talents. Play and learn with them.

9/8/10, Wednesday, 7:30 am to 4 pm: Huakai at Papa Kanu I Kapono Charter School Anahola Kanu Club Pahu/Kanu at Anahola /Aliumanu. Experience a Hawaiian Charter School and Pahu/Canoe Culture.

 9/9/10, Thurday, 7:30 am to 4 pm: Waipa Ahupuaa Experience at waipa, Rrom the Mountain to the Ocean. Experience Kanu (planting), Hukikekalo (gathering), Lawaia (fishing), Waa Papa heenalu (canoe, surfing).

 9/10/10, Friday, 7:30 am to 1 pm: Huakai Papa Westside at Hanapepe to Waimea. Experience the salt ponds, Kukuipuuone and a'ali'i at Waimea /Kokee.

9/11/10, Saturday, 11 am to 3:30 pm: Ka Pa Hula Hoike at Kamokila Village. experience the formal acknowledgement of Hula-Kuleana and enjoy a le'a Le'a Luau!

9/12/10, Sunday, 12 pm to 4 pm: Pre-Concert "Hospitality, Kauai lavor" Hoolau Lea at Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. Experience Hospitatlity with a taste of Kauai.

 9/12/10, Sunday, 4 pm to 6 pm; All in the Ohana Concert Fundraiser at Kauai Community College Performing Arts Center. Experience a big cast of Ohana with a rich history, sharing their Aloha through music and dance!

9/13/10, Monday, 11:30 am to 2:00 pm: Mahalo Gathering at Kauai Beach Resort. Experience a time of Gratitude.  

INFO:

In the Name of Aloha (http://www.livealoha.sakura.ne.jp/english/englishmenu.html)

CONTACT:

email: inthenameofaloha2010@yahoo.com

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