2008-05-13T09:52:24Z User 63 jazzolog@mentalhelp.net http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/ OrgSpace NewsLog Please consult with author for quotation rights.

Winter solitude--- in a world of one color the sound of wind. ---Basho Loneliness, my everyday life. The sweeping winds pass on the night-bell sound. ---Ching An Science...means unresting endeavor and continually progressing development toward an end which the poetic ...

12 STEPPING OUR WAY TO ARMAGEDDON, By Carolyn Baker
Friday, 09 May 2008

The end of everything we call life is close at hand and cannot be evaded.

H.G. Wells, 1946

I recently received an email from a reader, frustrated with my insistence on holding a vision of what is possible alongside the dismal, inevitable current realities of civilization's collapse. Admonishing me to bear in mind America's Oprah and NASCAR world view and therefore abdicate any sense of optimism I might have, this reader accused me of suggesting that we should 12 Step our way through Armageddon. Rather than being offended, however, I was overcome with gratitude for this reader's image, frustrated with me as he may be, because in spite of the regular "wordsmithing" that I do as a writer, I always feel a sense of relief and validation when someone else gives words that I may not yet have for what I've been thinking, feeling, or doing.

With the image of the 12 Steps in mind, I decided to look more closely at them in relation to the end of the world as we know it (TEOTWAWKI) and notice how they might in fact be useful not only for recovering from addiction, but for navigating Armageddon. At first I felt shy about applying the Steps to the collapse of civilization, thinking that my readers would think I had seriously gone around the bend, but then someone sent me the "12 Steps Of Peak Oil" from a Vancouver newspaper. At that point, I realized how relevant the Steps might be not only to Peak Oil, but to Peak Civilization itself. Seasoned 12 Steppers argue that despite their 1930s origin, the Steps are applicable to any situation-no matter how monumental, and the collapse of civilization is about as big as it gets. So let's take a closer look.

Step 1: We admitted we were powerless - that our lives had become unmanageable.

Step 1 requires that I admit my powerlessness over the situation with which I'm confronted. Maybe you're thinking, "Well hey, that's no problem-did I ask for this debacle? All those years that I was an upstanding citizen and voted in elections and had faith in the American dream? What was that for? I did all the right things and now we're looking at Armageddon. Of course, I know that I'm powerless."

But that's not exactly what I mean by admitting that one is powerless. Many of us are stockpiling food, learning skills, busily relocating to other parts of the country or world, investing in precious metals, and so much more, but let's not forget that no matter how much we prepare, we're ultimately powerless over the outcome. While we may know that intellectually, letting it sink into the gut is a whole different story.

Powerless means that we don't know the outcome and can't control it, and that's really scary. I mean what it really all comes down to is the "D" word, you know: Death. And even if we end up celebrating a 100th birthday eating soy cupcakes with our friends in some groovy ecovillage, collapse means that we'll be encountering many more endings than we can now imagine, beginning with the end of our current way of life no matter how small our footprint may be.

Control freaks won't do well with TEOTWAWKI; flexibility, on the other hand, is an essential attribute for survival. No matter how "manageable" our lives might be in the current moment, the collapse of empire is certain to challenge that and will compel us to align with others, give and receive support, trust our intuition as well as our intellect, and be willing to adapt to ever-changing circumstances. As a 12 Stepper might say, true empowerment lies in admitting one's powerlessness.

Step 2: Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.

People entering recovery often have a terrible time with this one. First of all, they feel they might have to buy into all that God stuff, but worse, they feel as if in order to recover, they have to admit that they are insane.

Let me hasten to emphasize that I too recoil at the use of the word "God" and wish to define "power greater than ourselves" as broadly as possible. Over the decades, countless atheists have benefited from using the 12 Steps for addiction recovery precisely because they were able to do the same. Atheists, agnostics, and feminists will have a much easier time with the Steps if they widen their concept of Higher Power to something non-theistic and gender-neutral.

"Insanity" as the Steps define it simply means that one does not recognize anything larger or more significant than one's own ego. Simply put, "something greater" could be one's concept of nature or one's confidence in the human spirit or anything else that one considers more benevolently powerful than oneself.

The 12 Steps inherently fly in the face of the ethics of civilization, based as those values are on the supremacy of the human ego-a pre-eminence that consciously or unconsciously deifies itself and whatever material gain it can amass unto itself at the expense of everyone and everything else. Now what could be more insane than that, and isn't everyone reading these words interested in transforming that paradigm into something more compassionate and sustainable? 12 Step programs further define insanity as doing the same thing that doesn't work over and over again, each time expecting different results. I can think of myriad examples of this in the culture of empire, starting with, "Maybe this time, if we just elect the right candidate for president then...."

12 Stepping into Armageddon begins with thoroughly examining how the culture of empire has inculcated us on every level and in every aspect of our lives. It means understanding how empire has programmed us to believe that we are all-powerful and that if we just do all the right things, we will succeed because our ego needs are the raison d'etre for our existence. When we are unable to recognize our powerlessness and resist acknowledging something greater than ourselves, we also rebel against the limits that life on this planet demand of us. We walk around as little "gods" and "goddesses" believing that we can consume whatever we like whenever we like at the expense of all other species as well as our own.

Step 3: Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to that power.

OK, breathe. Remember-you don't have to use the word "God", and this Higher Power thing is gender-neutral.

This Step is particularly challenging because it requires action. Steps 1 and 2 just require me to admit something, but Step 3 asks me to DO something-something repugnant to the children of empire. It means I have to surrender my will to that "something greater". Eeeeeeew!

Step 3 is where the rubber meets the road-or not. In order to continue with the rest of the Steps, and therefore recovery, if that's what I'm using them for, or navigating collapse, as the case may be, I have to defer to a greater wisdom. What's even more distasteful is that I'm asked to surrender not only my will but my life.

Well, here we are again back to the dreaded "D" word. Anyone who has been researching and preparing for collapse knows the precarious position of the planet and the human race. If 200 species per day are going extinct, then the bottom line is that we are all staring our own mortality in the face as never before in human history. Collapse is, above all, forcing us to confront our personal mortality and that of our loved ones which is the principal reason so few are willing to deal with it. Who would sign up to feel that vulnerable? However, if we can allow that particular emotion, it becomes more possible to surrender our will and our life because what else do we have to lose?

The logical progression of the Steps is simply that since I'm powerless over the outcome, and there is something greater than my human ego and my five physical senses, it behooves me to consider abdicating my attempt to control what my finite humanity cannot. For this reason, I find that Step 3 relinquishes me from having "hope" because hope is ultimately another attempt to control what I cannot.

4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves

So now that I know that my ego can't manage my life, and I'm willing to surrender the outcome of my life and the world as I have known it to a power greater than myself, I have to look more deeply within. If we are using the Steps in relation to TEOTWAWKI, then a moral inventory could be a somewhat different experience than if we're applying the steps in relation to an addiction. Nevertheless, TEOTWAWKI is not unrelated to the addiction issue. In fact, humanity's addiction to material gain and economic growth has resulted in a delusional disregard for the earth's limits. An expression often heard among 12 Steppers is "self-will run riot" which pretty much summarizes humankind's obliviousness and even contempt toward the earth community.

But let's define our terms. Inventory simply means taking stock of what we have and don't have-what we may need more of or less of. The collapse of empire forces all of us, whether we consciously intend to or not, to consider our values and priorities. People losing houses, jobs, having to relocate out of necessity or by choice, finding that their pensions have suddenly evaporated or who have lost health insurance are forced to make tough decision about priorities.

Those of us who have been aware of collapse for some time and have been preparing for it are faced not only with making decisions such as the ones mentioned above, but are also compelled to look more deeply within to notice what qualities we need to develop in the face of collapse and which ones we may need to minimize. For example, I grew up as an only child and have lived an extremely independent life as an adult. I currently find myself working on reaching out to trusted others, making plans to live in community, and although fiercely committed to personal space and daily periods of solitude, consciously forsaking a life that is all about just me and my needs.

In so doing, I am taken to deeper layers of Step 4 as I contemplate my own part in the collapse of civilization. Although I have left a very small footprint on the earth for most of my life, I must own responsibility for the ways, no matter how small, in which I've polluted the ecosystem, my disconnection from the earth community, aspects of personal independence that have manifested in dysfunction, isolation, arrogance, and rationalization about my need for interdependent connection. In other words, although I'm not on the board of Monsanto, I have played a role in violating the human and more than human worlds.

5. Admitted the exact nature of our wrongs.

Taking a searching and fearless moral inventory compels us to admit our errors to ourselves, to something greater, and to someone else. I begin this process by verbalizing these errors to the power greater than me and then to whomever or whatever I have harmed.

With respect to TEOTWAWKI, I must apologize to generations younger than mine for the failure of my generation to preserve and protect the earth. For example, when teaching college students about the collapse of civilization and its repercussions, I'm often confronted with, "Yeah, and it's your fault and the fault of your generation." Without the slightest hesitation, I wholeheartedly agree, and I tell them that I am genuinely sorry. I also point out that collapse has built up over a period of centuries and that inherent within the values of civilization were the seeds of its own demise. Nevertheless, I have made choices in my lifetime that reinforced those values.

6. Were entirely ready to have all these defects of character removed.

Defects of character? What is this?

It's easy to become defensive around this Step unless one takes it to the next level. I define "defects of character" as those aspects of my personality that have resulted from the programming of empire, or my wounds, if you will. These are the qualities that I have taken on while growing up in empire culture which mitigate against the earth community and my connection with it. I'm very ready to have those removed, but I'm also aware that that means I may need to change my lifestyle, perhaps in drastic ways. Speaking only for myself, I need to look at my appetite for meat (which I've almost extinguished); my tendency to think of my own needs first even when I know I shouldn't; my workaholism, which although greatly diminished in recent years is not entirely absent; my tendency to isolate; my quickness to judge others-the list goes on and on. None of these qualities will be useful as collapse accelerates, and I am working to transform their presence in my life which the next Step facilitates.

7. Humbly asked for the shortcomings to be removed

Now I'm back to Step 3 and my relationship with "something greater". Because I've surrendered the outcome to it, I can also surrender my character defects and ask them to be transformed-a word that I personally prefer over "removed" since I have come to believe that no part of me can ever be totally removed. Like energy, parts of myself can be transformed but never made to disappear.

8. Made a list of all we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.

While Steps 4 through 7 are about oneself, Steps 8, 9, and 10 are relational. Step 8 asks me to notice carefully who has been harmed by my empire-inflicted wounds. This definitely does not apply exclusively to people. Without meaning to, I've harmed animals, birds, trees, soil, water, air-myriad members of the earth community, and I need to reflect on that. In fact, even after learning about collapse and how I need to live differently, I have not changed my behavior to the extent that I want and need to. Step 8 is about willingness and paying attention.

9. Made direct amends wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.

So now that I'm willing to make amends, I must do so. Certainly I must make amends to the people in my life that I've harmed, but just as important are those members of the more than human world that I've overlooked, minimized, disregarded, or just simply didn't notice. Just as a 9th Step may require me to sit down with another human whom I've harmed and make amends, it may also require me to spend a day in the forest, or somewhere else in nature, expressing my regrets to trees, insects, streams, birds, or other non-humans for my obliviousness to them and the countless services they perform in the ecosytem from which I benefit.

10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.

So Steps 6-9 are not one-shot deals. I am asked to practice them repeatedly. Inventory-taking is forever because what I have or don't have constantly changes, and it's important that I use both the "glass half empty" and "glass half full" approaches to my evolution. Just as I cannot successfully navigate collapse by myself, neither can I practice the Steps in isolation. I need the entire earth community in order to utilize them effectively.

11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with something greater

Some readers may recoil at the words "prayer" and "meditation", but I remind all of us of one of the key slogans of 12 Step programs which is: "Take what you like and leave the rest." If you find yourself reacting to "prayer" and "meditation", don't worry about it. The point of this Step is to improve conscious contact with something greater, and how we choose to do that is far less important than that we do it. Armageddon will not be easy to navigate, but it will be impossible without a conscious, working connection with a power greater than oneself.

12. Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message and to practice these principles in all our affairs.

Virtually every person preparing for collapse has had at least one, if not countless experiences, of attempting to share research, options, and the realities of collapse with others, only to find oneself blown off by the other person. Not unlike the individual addict who must be ready for recovery before fully applying the Steps, the people with whom we share information about TEOTWAWKI will either be ready to learn more or they will resist and maintain their head-in-the-sand posture. So we must be discreet and respectful, remembering that walking our talk (practicing these principles in all our affairs) is the most important message we can carry.

Waking up is an extraordinarily mixed blessing. With it comes tremendous clarity and joy, as well as sometimes excruciating sorrow as one witnesses more clearly civilization's trajectory of self-and-other destruction. Just as addicts in recovery frequently experience the tragic deaths of other addicts in their lives who will not engage in the recovery process, individuals preparing for collapse invariably encounter numerous loved ones about whom they care deeply who prefer to remain asleep. I feel sorrow daily for those I know who will probably never open their eyes. But I have opened mine, and I imagine that most people reading these words have as well. I carry that and these incredibly practical Steps with me, alongside a plethora of emotions and wonderfully awake allies, as each day we journey more deeply into Armageddon.

While I do not feel optimistic about survival in the abyss into which we appear to be descending, I believe that the principles inherent in the Steps can facilitate our planting seeds that may ultimately germinate and flourish as a new paradigm lived out by some of us and our descendents who are committed to creating lifeboats of localized, sustainable living that serve the entire earth community.

http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/484/]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000489.htm 2008-05-13T09:52:24Z 2008-05-13T09:52:24Z

Great Buddha, lap filling with these flowers of snow. ---Kikaku It would imply the regeneration of mankind, if they were to become elevated enough to truly worship sticks and stones. ---Henry David Thoreau A vigorous five-mile walk will do more good for an unhappy but ...

The same goes at the supermarket, as sales people try to convince employees to change around the displays of their products. It's high pressure, and you can watch it out in the open, "free" market all you want to. Receptionists and Krogers folks, to their credit, look embarrassed and nervous while this stuff goes on. They don't want to make a mistake that their supervisors will get angry about, but they have a whole load of work to do---and it's hard to get rid of these corporate reps.

In Krogers this has been especially true since the store has been expanded and redesigned here. Now we need hiking boots for the spaciousness, and lots of patience as we trek around looking for where the products are from day to day. PLUS food prices are soaring at the same time! So maybe all of this motivated so many of us to get busy about Snowville. It appears it was over within a single day or 2...but quite possibly it was accomplished from inside Krogers as well as from our action.

From what I hear, and maybe I'd better keep the source anonymous, there are not only salespeople pressuring for shelf space changes. There also are Kroger regional supervisors in the Athens store a lot to oversee the remodeling. They need to make sure the fussy preferences of agribusiness are taken care of, including setups at the end of aisles and displays that will keep you trudging around the store buying lots more stuff than you came in there for. And of course there's the Kroger line of items...like Krogers milk. So the Krogers dairy guy gets a supervisor from out of town telling him he's never heard of Snowville. What's that! We got Krogers milk on sale, stick Snowville out of reach and raise the price.

So the dairy super has to do it, and then the regional manager leaves the store and goes back to the big city. What happens next, and this is just hearsay mind you, is the local Krogers then put everything back the way it was. Those of us who visited the store during the last couple days came back with different reports of what was going on, depending on what level of the process we happened to observe. When I went in Thursday afternoon, the milk was still hidden away on the top shelf next to Krogers on-sale brand and marked at $3.99 a half gallon. But when I scanned it, it came up $2.99. I mentioned the discrepancy to the clerk and he just smiled.

By yesterday afternoon, Snowville still was on the top shelf next to the sale but priced back to $2.99---and much more product had arrived which was featured prominently at the natural foods section where it used to be. So maybe if the regional guy comes back to check it out, he'll still find Snowville stashed high up and nowhere---and perhaps he won't notice the big display elsewhere in the store. Please remember I'm making this up and I'm not representing Kroger policy, but we are aware our local store manager is very interested in local produce and commerce. He knows Athens people strongly support local initiatives, and never more so than in the face of something like the big box just down the road. Seamans and The Farmacy know this too, and so these stores feature local stuff---because we'll go there to get it instead of to the box. These stores are doing everything they can to stay alive.

We should be grateful to all the people who got involved, even though maybe Krogers was handling the whole thing anyway. We certainly didn't do any harm...and it's helpful to remember this kind of thing is going on all the time with different products. Of course our local entrepreneurs don't have the clout of these big companies, so we should be proud of who cared about this situation. Bob Sheak even provided a model for a letter or email to Kroger headquarters. Susan Gwinn gave support, as did Jennifer Simon of the Chamber of Commerce. Mary Beth Lohse represented Sierra Club and Michelle Ajamian visited the store for AthensGrow. The Warmkes up at Blue Rock Station offered help, as did Kathy Jacobson at Broadwell Hill. And of course there was our anonymous correspondent from inside the store itself. And maybe many people we don't know about. So...it's 6:00 and I think a perfect time for a bowl of cereal---with cream off the top. ]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000488.htm 2008-05-10T11:58:03Z 2008-05-10T11:58:03Z

Knowledge comes but wisdom lingers. ---Alfred, Lord Tennyson What is beyond, is that which is also here. ---Ancient Indian aphorism The Emperor's chief carpenter, Ch'ing, once made a music stand so perfect that all who saw it marveled. When Lu asked him to reveal the mystery of ...

Roy wrote that when he joined The Fanfairs, which was the name Phil Mattson gave his choir, he couldn't read music. This was over 20 years ago at a community college in California called Foothill. Today it is among the most highly credited schools in the country---and though Phil Mattson isn't teaching there anymore, you still can become a Foothill Fanfair. http://www.foothill.edu/index.php In fact the whole Fine Arts & Communication program at Foothill is awesome! http://www.foothill.edu/fa/ The Fanfairs, as with many college groups like this, began to record what they performed, and there must have been 6 volumes or so. Roy said the group of 12 singers became so popular in the area that the number of performances they did interrupted his studies.

Quickly Phil decided to form a professional group of 6 graduates from the program, and this was the PM Singers which recorded initially for Bob Thiele's Doctor Jazz, and almost immediately was nominated for a Grammy. While Fanfairs material is very rare and costly, you still can purchase the 2 PM Singers releases on CD. Oops, I was going to send you to www.a-capella.com, but I see they're out of stock. Well, how about Michele Weir's site then? She's probably still got some---and her schedule shows she might actually be around during May. http://www.micheleweir.com/catalog/index.php?cPath=24&osCsid=6f3acb0a3484501e40f54605586cdac8 The LP I found originally now is called Night In The City.

One of the albums The Fanfairs created was A Tribute To Gene Puerling. Here, on 8 cuts, Phil Mattson took Puerling arrangements for both The Hi-Lo's and Singers Unlimited, and turned them into performance possibilities for 12 college students, each singing incredibly difficult dissonant lines. The result of course are gorgeous, huge "fat chords," as Roy calls them...and some positively heavenly singing. Roy still has all the LPs, and a couple weeks ago got a new turntable and began to transfer them to MP3. He sent me the Puerling album, which of course I've been wanting for a long time, and over the weekend it arrived. Gene Puerling came to Foothill College to be involved in the project, taught some workshops, became friends with Phil, and wrote the liner notes. Here's what he said~~~

"The Fanfairs are responsible for setting quality performance standards which vocal jazz ensembles across America are following today. Each member of The Fanfairs is a full-time music major at Foothill College... All study applied voice as well as an instrument. In addition, all members gain experience performing para-professionally as soloists, arrangers, and teachers...
"My thanks to the talented Fanfairs for their on-going commitment to high quality performances in person and on this record. It goes without saying, that their dedicated conductor, Phil Mattson, is certainly one of the prime reasons for the success of this great group, and indeed, for the whole exciting field of vocal jazz.
Carry on!
Gene Puerling" ]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000487.htm 2008-04-30T09:54:13Z 2008-04-30T10:06:11Z

Lose your mind and come to your senses. ---Fritz Perls It gets late early out there. ---Yogi Berra A mystical experience is not any more unique than a modern experiment in physics. On the other hand, it is not less sophisticated, either....The complexity and efficiency of the ph...

I met one the other night. His name is Rick Sahli, and he's an environmental attorney in Columbus. He was on a panel at OU discussing the Legal Dimensions of Environmental Justice. Beginning in 1983, he worked in the Ohio Attorney General's office on environmental law, and 5 years later became the Deputy Director of the Ohio EPA. On the strong foundation of a promising and socially helpful career, he watched, in 1991, the new Republican governor, George Voinovich, transform the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency into a corporate advocacy group. Voinovich may have repented somewhat by now, but back then he was just following the neocon agenda. Mr. Sahli resigned and since then has devoted his skills and service to grassroots organizers---mostly neighborhood folks being terrorized by industrial waste and toxins. http://home.columbus.rr.com/sahlilaw/

How can it be we've become a country in which people opposed to government and its services are touted as patriots? I was thinking these things before the wood thrush roused me from my doldrums. Besides, I've been suffering a bad cold that came on yesterday. I haven't been sick a day in the past year, but it seems when I catch "what's going around" these days I start getting death thoughts. I know I'm an old man now, but what happened to the kind of sickness that can be diagnosed? Each time I get something now I think this may be the Big One---the virus nobody can treat, the flu resistant to all our antibiotics. At one point yesterday I started coughing---this dry, unproductive hack---and I found myself preparing to give up the ghost. Overnight it loosened up, but then I had that drowning feeling of pneumonia. Oh well, one thing you learn is that when death comes it probably won't be so bad. You just have to let it happen.

Whittier said, "And where the shadows deepest fell, the wood thrush rang his silver bell." Ah yes, Whittier had the same thing happen. Anybody with a middle name of Greenleaf must have wandered the forest paths too. Isn't it wonderful how a bird can reach into your soul and stir your hope once more? This one got me to look around and see new life coming again. This old beautiful planet that has been so forgiving of us, that she still comes back no matter how reckless we've been. It's certainly especially true in this part of Appalachia, where we mine for coal and love our gasoline toys. And where, nevertheless, Spring is more lovely than anywhere on Earth.]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000486.htm 2008-04-20T17:08:24Z 2008-04-20T18:09:33Z

The puzzled ones, the Americans, go through their lives Buying what they are told to buy, Pursuing their love affairs with the automobile, Baseball and football, romance and beauty, Enthusiastic as trained seals, going into debt, struggling — True believers in liberty, and also security, ...

Jeff Goodell writes for Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Washington Post, and just about anywhere else he wants to. He's that good. In answer to a question about the media, in the lecture hall of the Scripps School of Journalism the other night, he told us he got a call from the Today Show when that gold mine in South Africa collapsed. They wanted to send a limo for him to be the talking head about it. "Gold mine? What gold mine? Why call me?" The answer: "You're in the rolodex. You're the mine guy." Are coal mines the same as gold mines? He told them he wouldn't do it. He's the "mine guy" because, as David Roberts at Grist puts it, "In 2001, around the time Dick Cheney's secret-recipe energy plan made its debut, Jeff Goodell was in West Virginia reporting on coal's rising fortunes. He'd been sent to do a story for The New York Times Magazine, but the material spilled over into a new book, Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future. It's a journey from the mines of Wyoming, across the plains by rail car, into the belly of the turbines in the east, and all the way to China, following the tale of the black rock that still, after all these years, afflicts and enables us."

[link]

Big Coal remains Goodell's claim to fame, even though he'd written other books earlier that had sold well. But they had been about Silicon Valley, which he knew since childhood. Coal was all new, but this man is a research and investigative journalist, something in this country, alas, that is becoming as rare as a diamond, black or otherwise. I've talked to a lot of people around here who, even though they didn't hear his talk, have heard of him and know his writing. I'm glad to hear that but if you don't, allow me to point you in the direction of a few high points you can find on the Web.

[link]

Here's a good example of his writing from last August, called What It Costs Us, from the Washington Post~~~

"Underground coal miners work in the darkness, invisible to most of us, and when they die -- also in the darkness, from methane explosions or rock falls or any of the hundreds of other hazards they face every day -- their deaths usually merit just a few paragraphs in the local newspaper.
"The attempted rescue of trapped coal miners, on the other hand, is often headline news. Networks love the real-time drama of the rescue efforts -- it's reality TV from the heartland, complete with anguished family members, heroic workers and dodgy mine owners. Sometimes, these stories have happy endings."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/24/AR2007082401206.html

Did you know the average American uses energy each and every DAY that requires 20 pounds of coal? The readers of Big Coal learned that. Here's an excerpt~~~

"The coal industry is very good at touting new technology and less good at actually doing anything about it. There is new technology that's available now, called IGCC, integrated gasification combined cycle, a kind of gasification of coal. But the industry has resisted building these plants. They prefer to tout these plants that are ten or twenty years down the road and continue building the same old thing.
"The fact is that carbon dioxide from coal plants has gone up about twenty-seven percent since 1990, and they're continuing to go up. And global warming is an increasing, very urgent problem We need to cut emissions, most scientists agree, by fifty percent or more by the year 2050. And the coal industry is going in the opposite direction ... The fact is that coal can only be considered clean by the narrowest of definitions. It's true that the levels of air pollution of sulfur dioxides and nitrogen oxide that Joe [Lucas, executive director of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices] have fallen. But one of the things he doesn't mention is that the coal industry fought tooth and nail against all of those laws that required those reductions during the '70s and '80s and '90s, spent millions of dollars lobbying against them."
http://www.houghtonmifflinbooks.com/catalog/titledetail.cfm?titleNumber=688428

Carbon emissions. That's all we hear about these days regarding global warming or climate change or whatever it is. Legislation starting up everywhere and talk of a carbon tax. What about those people who say this warming stuff is just a natural cycle? OK maybe. But let's take a core sample from some Antarctic ice and compare the amount of carbon dioxide in the air in 1000 AD to what it is now~~~

[link]

Here's a link to that Grist article, which actually is a lead-in to a neat interview with Jeff Goodell. I like it because you can sense the very hip attitude and delivery that makes him a favorite for talks and TV and stuff like that~~~

http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/7/13/231330/588

Last October he wrote a piece for Rolling Stone about James Lovelock, the direst of predictors about climate change. Here it is~~~

http://www.countercurrents.org/goodell291007.htm

[link]

Finally here's NPR's Fresh Air interview with him from last June, so you can hear what he sounds like~~~

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=11254947

Somebody asked him if he ever does any presentations for children. He appeared surprised at the question. He grinned and confided he has 3 kids at home. Obviously, he said, he's an expert in that too. Then he concluded he'd love to, but nobody's asked him. Someone should. ]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000485.htm 2008-04-18T10:02:16Z 2008-04-18T10:22:26Z

No more "evidence" of collapse is needed; it's happening here and now and with dizzying speed. I no longer feel a need to "convince" anyone; I'm simply sitting back and watching the inevitable unfold, and as I report the daily news, I can scarcely keep up with the events that have turned prophets ...

Beyond that, the news is more scary than ever. Hopefully Paul Krugman's column yesterday already has been recommended to you. He explained what's happening to the price of grain and why~~~

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/07/opinion/07krugman.html?ex=1208232000&en=4cfc78474b3c8842&ei=5070&emc=eta1

For those climate change skeptics who advocate the cosmic ray theory, scientists Sunday from Lancaster and Durham Universities offered proof the theory isn't correct, and it's carbon emissions after all~~~

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Solar_Science_Research_Contradicts_Climate_Change_Sceptics_999.html

Even worse, James Hansen, head of the Nasa Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, said yesterday even our most extreme goals for carbon reduction aren't good enough. He lays out what he projects now~~~

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/07/climatechange.carbonemissions

And the World Health Organization put out its predictions yesterday about how climate change will bring new outbreaks of disease and death. In fact, as surely you know, it already is happening~~~

http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-04-07-voa48.cfm

Time to get busy...with that first step you can take in this Dance.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000484.htm 2008-04-08T10:03:33Z 2008-04-08T10:27:57Z

The most alarming sign of the state of our society now is that our leaders have the courage to sacrifice the lives of young people in war but have not the courage to tell us that we must be less greedy and wasteful. ---Wendell Berry The essence of the problem is about consumption, recogni...

The first to present were managers of Bellisio Foods whose main plant is in nearby Jackson, Ohio. Bellisio is the third-largest producer of frozen food entrees in the United States, turning out something like 2 million packages a day. http://www.bellisiofoods.com/ That's a lot of food and, as Ryan Wright informed us, eventually tons of organic waste. Bellisio used to pay truckers to come and haul it away someplace. To cook the food the company has 9 huge boilers full of water and heated with natural gas. So somebody got the idea of turning all that good compost into biogas and heating the boilers with that. As a result Bellisio became more environment friendly, saved $650,000 a year hauling costs, and estimates another $900,000 savings this year by waste conversion into biogas.

And you ain't heard nothing yet. The next colorful character to step up was Ben Schafer, an engineer himself and President of American Hydrogen. What Mr. Schafer's company does involves a process developed by research at OU, and then licensed to him. It reduces the amount of electricity needed to split hydrogen from nitrogen in the ammonia molecule, bringing cost of producing hydrogen to less than $2.00 a kilogram. A kilogram of hydrogen is equivalent in its energy content to one gallon of gasoline. No pollution. His assembly line is being set up in neighboring Meigs County, and will create a hundred jobs. http://www.americanhydrogencorporation.com/

But the biggest jaw-dropper of all was the next gentleman, complete with Capetown accent. Neill Lane is President and CEO of Sunpower, with headquarters right here on Mill Street. Sunpower has emerged over the past 30 years as the world's leading developer of free-piston engines, including something called the Stirling engine. http://www.sunpower.com/ For those of us who thought solar just means a little flickering of electricity but hardly anything that could power---say---space exploration or something, these people have news for us! Here's where my lack of afternoons tinkering in gas-powered motors brings this article shuddering to a halt...but I can direct you to Wikipedia's page on the Stirling engine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine And I invite you to click around Sunpower's site for some really amazing applications. Sunpower had a little humming machine going in a corner of the rotunda, which I guess was an air conditioner that had us all occasionally shivering in that place.

After a break, we spent the next 2 and a half hours in small sessions discussing barriers to and opportunities for more green energy development. I have to tell you that in each of the 3 sessions, public education K-12 was mentioned again and again. The Dean of Energy and Transportation Technologies at Hocking College told us students coming to them from high school are miserably prepared in math and science. Hocking's new Energy Institute was visited by Barack Obama just before the Ohio primary. I suggested preparation for the testing required by No Child Left Behind fills up all teaching time in science and math---and from what I hear is not only impractical but not directed to student needs.

It was an intense day and I'm glad to say my wife, who advocated we go to it, brought our 16-year-old daughter with us. As usual, she was the youngest person there. What was important for us all was the feeling of hope with which we left the building. Profitable innovation is underway that is helpful to our world...but most people don't know enough about it. That's going to change.

An overview of CE3 is here~~~

http://www.ce3.ohio.edu/

and this PDF was our agenda~~~

[link]

Scott assured us all the materials we developed will show up shortly online. He also plans to develop a forum on these topics in which anyone can become involved. I'll try to keep you updated.

The Pew Trust Tom represents is here~~~

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work.aspx?category=112
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000483.htm 2008-03-27T11:26:37Z 2008-03-27T11:48:53Z

Chen-Lang approached Shih-Tou and asked: "What is the idea of Bodhidharma's coming from the West?" "Ask the post over there," Shih-Tou said. "I don't understand," said Chen-Lang. "Neither do I," said Shih-Tou. Suddenly Chen-Lang saw the truth. ---Zen saying There ain't no answer. The...

So if Barack Obama didn't like what his pastor said sometimes, why didn't he leave and go to some other church? I know there are people who stomp out of a church because they don't like the minister. That's happening in the Episcopal church---except we're too refined for anybody to "stomp." Episcopalians just sort of fade away...taking their checkbooks with them. But most people don't change churches because of that. They don't go to as many services maybe and wait for the guy to retire, but the church tends to be more important than the momentary management.

No, all of this hints the same old swift-boating we've probably become too accustomed to. Swift-boating to me means slipping some distraction, as Obama called it, into a political discussion and hoping it stumbles up the opponent. Michelle Obama reminded her audience here in Athens that her husband is an experienced veteran of Chicago politics. You don't emerge from a struggle with that power structure unless you have some skills rising above some dirty fighting. It seems to be so far Barack Obama has fielded every wild pitch. And when he's at the plate, he knocks 'em out of the park. That happened Tuesday. Representative John Conyers told talk show host Ed Schultz that his staff considered it the greatest speech since I Have A Dream.

What follows is my own review of response you can access on the Internet. In Ohio, I tend to watch 3 of our papers. (I don't respect the Columbus Dispatch usually.) The Toledo Blade has supported Obama, and yesterday carried the straight Associated Press version of the story. http://www.toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2008611423208 The Cincinnati Enquirer surprised me yesterday with an in depth study of response in that city. The article's entitled Was Pastor Misunderstood, and interviews a black minister there about what it's like to get blowback from your congregation. There's also the interesting viewpoint of a student in Cincinnati at the moment, who's a lifelong member of Rev. Wright's church. http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080319/NEWS01/803190427/1077/COL02 Even the Cleveland Plain Dealer confided the positive elements of the Obama address. Columnist Kevin O'Brien yesterday gave I think a balanced view. http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/opinion/120591581092020.xml&coll=2

This morning's New York Times has done a terrific job of scouring the media and blogs for reaction. Of real significance is their notice at presstime that 1.6 million clicks have occured at YouTube's version of the Obama speech. They mention even the Fox foghorn, Bill O'Reilly, had to admit that race has been a problem for America. Of special interest in the article are interviews with clergy and university profs about reaction they're getting. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/us/politics/20race.html?_r=1&ref=politics&oref=slogin The Times yesterday had a glowing editorial about the speech titled Mr. Obama's Profile In Courage. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/19wed1.html?em&ex=1206072000&en=42d08552ed73ddc1&ei=5087%0A Maureen Dowd confessed some skepticism though. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/opinion/19dowd.html?ref=opinion Nicholas Kristof has a column this morning about the whole dialogue this topic is creating. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/20/opinion/20kristof.html?th&emc=th

Dan Balz gives us a fine analysis of the speech and Obama's future in this morning's Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/03/20/ST2008032000082.html The Los Angeles Times' Michael Meyers, a black columnist, titles his provocative column this morning Obama Blew It [link] . The San Francisco Chronicle shares the view of an Asian-American columnist this morning. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/03/20/EDDEVMQP6.DTL&type=politics

Now I guess I'd better get myself to work and see what things are like there. Happy Spring!]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000482.htm 2008-03-20T10:13:03Z 2008-03-20T18:33:11Z

I know what the great cure is: it is to give up, to relinquish, to surrender, so that our little hearts may beat in unison with the great heart of the world. ---Henry Miller Wonderful! Wonderful! New Year's morning in the house where I was born. ---Issa For the raindro...

Here's what Mr. Swayze had to say. His piece is called The Fallacy Of The Last Move~~~


Here we go again…



Elections are near at hand, and despite best efforts to blow it off, I find an old nagging bugaboo won’t leave me in peace, and so please allow me to write it out and be done. A warning: this has to do with nuclear arms, so some should be prepared for vehement disagreement, while others for another “ho hum.” I’ll even pre-warn that I plan to use another Einstein quote – sorry, but his fault he was so danged quotable. Something different, though, is that I plan to include an honest to goodness serious job for religion, giving it a project to work on, you might say. And with those few disclaimers, here we go…





When Carl Sagan died, I mourned his passing, but not that much. Since he has been gone, I find myself missing him very, very much. Surely, I mourn his loss more today than I did when he died. Sagan, as famous as he was, was vastly underrated by the public, probably because of his celebrity profile, always out-front with his “billions and billions.” Scientists knew better and so, in retrospect, I should have realized how much I would miss him. One of his favorite sayings was, “Extinction is the rule; survival the exception.”



A thousand years from now, people will look back at our age as the most critically important turning point in the history of mankind. There should not be a soul among us who would argue that statement, simply because if it is not said, it will be because there are no people around to say it.



I should explain the title to my little piece, “The fallacy of the last move.” It’s actually from game theory, and it has always been the overarching “theory” behind the nuclear arms race. It goes like this: say a player is studying a game board, about to make a move, and he thinks, “If this is to be the last move I can ever make, what should it be?” And do you see, therein lies the fallacy. Only if the move fails miserably in its objective will it truly be the last move the player can ever make. Otherwise, the opponent countermoves, sitting up yet one more “last move,” one more time. Reagan’s SDI, the Strategic Defense Initiative, Star Wars as it was “affectionately” known, was, or would have been, a prime example. To date, it was the stupidest idea the human mind has ever conceived, and it came from none other than my old arch-nemesis, Edward Teller. (Bush and Cheney’s bunker buster nuclear bombs may indeed be even stupider, but SDI still wins, simply by order of magnitude…and yes, those nuclear bunker busters are secretly being designed and built, despite what Congress says or thinks about it.) But let me explain what I mean about the SDI.



There are right now on the planet approximately 20,000 ICBMs with nuclear warheads poised and ready to strike, each capable of obliterating a large city. There are approximately 2,300 cities on the entire planet. In other words, do the math. (If you have not seen it, please watch the demonstration by Ben (of Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream) at: http://www.benjerry.com/americanpie/bens_bb.cfm . It only takes a few seconds and is worth the time.)



So what was so stupid about the SDI? It was to be a 20-year, trillion dollar project which, if successful, its proponents claimed would take out somewhere between 50% to 80% of missiles launched against the US. Great, huh? Now again, those numbers come from the people who wanted the SDI, not its opponents. So based on current technology – in other words assuming the pesky Russkies made no further enhancements to overcome the defense system, as well as assuming they didn’t decide on a preemptive launch before the system was completed – then of the approximately 10,000 missiles expected to head our way, maybe as few as a mere 2,000 would actually make it to target. Which, ta da!, would mean the SDI had been absolutely as successful as could ever have been hoped for!!!



Does anyone else get the sense of insanity in this way of thinking? The scientific community was up in arms against the SDI madness until finally, and thankfully, Congress did get the balls to pull the funding, thus stopping it at least this one time (also remember the hawks later used its cancellation as justification for stopping work on the supercollider), but that doesn’t mean that a trillion dollars a year has since not continued to be spent around the world in refining and enhancing those damned bombs. They still exist and if there is one law of the universe that never fails, it is that nothing goes to waste. If they exist when the time comes, and it will come, they will be used.



But it is election year once again, and soon we will be electing the 11th consecutive President who buys into this insanity. Eleven who have not figured out that when we invent something fancier, the Russians, or more likely Chinese now, invent it back, followed by us inventing something even fancier (and more expensive), which is again reinvented back, and on and on, one last move after another until we finally make one which succeeds by failing. All in the name of a “strong defensive posture,” as we so bravely call it. And then of course, there is the cost. Hundreds of billions of dollars diverted annually from health and education and human welfare programs like Social Security to maintain weapons systems which, if ever used, can and most probably will destroy us and everything else on the planet.



Why does the madness not stop? Lack of leadership, of course, but it runs deeper than that. For one thing, the military-industrial complex of which Eisenhower warned us, without the support of which no one can get elected, but it runs still deeper than that. It’s a cultural problem, maybe even, heaven help us, a genetic problem. There are many ways to begin an explanation of what I mean, but let me choose this one:



One of the most sacred things we humans do is revere our ancestors. This is an old, old trait, no doubt hundreds of thousands of years old, and why not? It makes sense. Wisdom comes with age and why not listen to the old timers who have been through it all? “Our fathers taught us…” Isn’t that how it begins? Let’s think a little more about that. In the beginning were the small tribes, fighting for survival, figuring out ways to defend what they had as well as take what they wanted, and so there existed what I will term intergenerational wisdom to be had and passed on. The wisdom accrued, and so we learned to listen in order to prevent making the same mistakes. But back then life advanced so slowly that intergenerational wisdom worked well. Spears which made excellent weapons 100,000 years ago were still working well into the 19th century.



Since I like using religious examples, let me do so here. Look at science. The Old Testament was written down during the Babylonian Captivity 2,600 years ago, and the writers wrote into it the prevailing science of the times. According to the Bible, the world is flat and the sky is a multi-layered crystalline affair with water surrounding everything. Back then, the world needed people so the word was, “Go forth and multiply,” and boy, did they ever!



All that began to change with the Industrial Revolution when things began to change faster and faster until now, even our birth fathers can’t recognize today’s world of electronics and light speed gadgetry. Crises in population, crises in natural resources, crises in civilizations now exist which the wizened ancients never dreamed of! Intragenerational change: that’s the term I use for today’s world, intra- for the need to adapt to changes occurring within each generation. Intergenerational is hopelessly outmoded and long past the time it should have been laid to rest. It is time we start thinking for ourselves, while we still have the chance.



Now it’s time to talk about religion. Who can lead us toward a new horizon of peace and stability? Certainly not the politicians. They are bought and paid for and trapped in yesterday’s world. Establishment hawks say the idea of disarmament is foolishly naïve. Their strength is fear. President Bush may not be the brightest light in the White House, but he is smart enough to know that if he can scare you badly enough, he can lead you anywhere. Fear is the strongest of the emotions. I only know of one anodyne to fear and that is faith. Yes, this is the place religion should stand and be counted.



I would mention here Christianity’s vaunted Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” As well as the other old bromide, “Love thy neighbor.” I hear these sayings repeated ad nauseam in our supposedly Christian country, and yet I have yet to see anyone meet the standard. Or even come close. I mean, seriously, do we not have the right to expect our clergy to practice what they preach? We have a sitting President who believes the creation of the state of Israel along with the Middle East crisis portends Armageddon and the Rapture! And we are about to elect another who half-believes it, so the threat of self-fulfilling prophecy is not going anywhere. Where did they learn that crap? From the pulpit! And you may think from pulpits like Jerry Falwell’s but I can tell you G. W. is a card carrying member of mainstream Highland Park Methodist Church, where he will be returning next year. I mean, whatever happened to “world without end”? No, it is high time for the clergy of this country to lead the way into the 21st century with a real Come to Jesus movement, but this time for the good of mankind, a concept that seems to have gotten lost somewhere between the Gospels and Revelations.



I mentioned genetics, and it is true that we are no more than the meanest of animals (by which I mean ignoble! You all know I love critters). But like animals, we have within us both the competitive savage and compassionate kindness. Our failing has always been in how to choose between the two, and too often it has been a choice made by emotion. We can hardly afford that anymore. Time has come to use rational thought in deciding whether to unleash the killer within or to back off and turn the other cheek. In the final analysis, this, and things like this, should be common sense decisions. Emotions based on the morals and perceptions which are 2,600 years out of date are going to get us all vaporized.



Einstein (sorry, but here it comes) asked the only question which really matters: “What is the alternative?” By that he means if we do not, if we cannot, change then we are doomed, and therefore, there is no alternative. But just getting rid of nuclear weapons alone does not solve the problem. We humans are very, very clever at killing and we will find other ways if the nukes are gone. This is a key aspect when I spoke of a turning point in history: our ability to make informed, perceptively intellectual decisions based on compassion and the preservation of our species. Doing so involves a change in human psyche, change which entails the question of which side, killer or compassionate human, gets precedence in the teaching promoted by our government, our schools, and most importantly by our churches.



It will not be easy. Sagan was right: extinction is the normal course of the universe, and only by great fortune does life continue. The bishop of the Catholic diocese of Amarillo, in a remarkable show of courage, told his flock that it was immoral to work at the nuclear weapons plant there. To my knowledge, not a single person quit. But that bishop stood alone and was widely objurgated, even within the Church. He needed the support, not just of the Church but of all Christianity. In my eyes, that he stood alone encapsulates the weakness of the Christian religion. Let’s hope it finds its true moral path soon.





With that, I will stop. Short and sweet, sort of. Don’t get me wrong: I expect the game to continue to the bitter end. That’s the way we humans do things: we react to catastrophe, we don’t prevent it. Only this time I doubt anything will be left to react to. I am merely the really bad salesman who says, “You don’t really want to buy this, do you?” It just seems like someone ought to be making some sort of sales pitch, and so now you have mine.



Jim




Then Bob Sheak wrote. I quote him all the time, largely because he's certainly the most well-read person I know...especially in all areas of his fields of anthropology and sociology. He titled his message Unrestrained Debauchery...but, get ready for HOPE, watch how he concludes this~~~

As I wake up here, I'm stunned by the cartoon's aptness, a small symbol of
what powerful interest groups, corporate capitalists, neo-cons, and an
assortment of tens of millions of other fellow travelers are doing to us.
Cartoons like the one you sent give me a momentary relief from what is
unfolding around us. A bit of fleeting sunlight. But this bigger reality
seems to be happening so fast: record setting oil prices, rising prices in
food, medical services, prescription drugs, a falling dollar, approaching a
$10 trillion national debt, continuing movement of jobs abroad, more
coal-fired plants, a snail's pace in gains in fuel efficiency, water
problems, a collapsing infrastructure, deforestation, degradation of soils,
food contaminated with all sorts of junk, an unchallenged military
establishment and budget, a war based on delusions, the ludicrous call for
more nuclear power. It goes on. You know well the long list. Amidst all
this, a laugh is good but fleeting, though it can be extended through the
retelling or savored in a quiet moment, but not without its irony. It
serves to conjure up more vividly what is enveloping us. Ironical, funny,
uplifting, relief, a good cartoon deserves another cartoon or, at least, an
uplifting thought.

The setting for the uplifting thought came with Dahr Jamail, occasional
guest on Democracy Now and author of the recent book, Beyond the Green
Zone, who appeared on C-Span not too long ago. Jamail has spent years in
Iraq covering the US occupation, in places like Fallujah. From first-hand
experience, he describes how the occupation has caused enormous harm. At
the end of his presentation, he referred to the following poem by Marge
Piercy so as not to leave the audience with a complete sense of doom and
gloom.

Bob

The low road

What can they do
to you? Whatever they want.
They can set you up, they can
bust you, they can break
your fingers, they can
burn your brain with electricity,
blur you with drugs till you
can't walk, can't remember, they can
take your child, wall up
your lover. They can do anything
you can't stop them
from doing. How can you stop
them? Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse, you can
take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.

But two people fighting
back to back can cut through
a mob, a snake-dancing file
can break a cordon, an army
can meet an army.

Two people can keep each other
sane, can give support, conviction,
love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation,
a committee, a wedge. With four
you can play bridge and start
an organization. With six
you can rent a whole house,
eat pie for dinner with no
seconds, and hold a fund raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.

It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care
to act, it starts when you do
it again and they said no,
it starts when you say We
and know you who you mean, and each
day you mean one more.

-Marge Piercy



From "The Moon is Always Female", published by
Alfred A. Knopf, Copyright 1980 by Marge Piercy.

Well, the Piercy poem certainly set me up for spending all day yesterday in Columbus, where there were two meetings we wanted to get to. The first was in the offices of America Votes Ohio, where a quarterly meeting of various progressive groups and coalitions all over the state was scheduled. http://ohio.americavotes.org/ I particularly like supporting this group because it is multi-generational, and seems to be getting stronger and more innovative all the time. The young people at the helm of our branch of America Votes are smart, open, and great organizers. I love to participate in this kind of dialogue---and there's one guy there from Licking County who's even older than me! I was beginning to cheer up.

Unfortunately we had to leave early to get to the second one. This was around the corner and less than a mile to Broad Street Presbyterian Church, where the first public meeting of the newly forming Ohio Interfaith Power And Light was gathering. Interfaith Power And Light, or The Regeneration Project, began 10 years ago when the Episcopal priest Sally Bingham started a group of spiritual concern for environmental issues in her church in California. Outreach went to other churches, and now there are 4000 congregations, synagogues, temples, ashrams involved in 26 states. http://www.theregenerationproject.org/ The illustrations from their splash page decorate this article.

Reverend Canon Bingham was the keynote speaker yesterday, and it was easy to catch her inspiration. I picked up so much information at the exhibits that I need to do more research before I can write about these developments with any authority. There were a number of alternative energy groups and startups there as well, and we left feeling this is a great moment of hope in Ohio---and apparently elsewhere in the country. High time too, since so much of Europe is far ahead of us. I'm particularly impressed with the website and new publication of Green Energy Ohio, which give current updates on both technological and legislative progress.

It's good for me to feel hopeful on Palm Sunday. This is the day we celebrate the humble entrance into the Big City by a small-town young man, whose rising fame made this arrival inevitable. And there also were all those prophecies. He went straight to the temple, and waded directly into the corruption he found there. Confrontation with the Big Money, and we have a lesson---even in gloomy times---a lesson of Hope we must remember and act upon.
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000481.htm 2008-03-16T11:12:45Z 2008-03-19T08:32:42Z

Our lives are lived in intense and anxious struggle, in a swirl of speed and aggression, in competing, grasping, possessing, and achieving, forever burdening ourselves with extraneous activities and preoccupations. ---Sogyal Rinpoche Awareness of emptiness brings forth the heart of compas...

Of course www.bradblog.com continues to hammer away, as he has done for the past 4 years, on stolen elections through computer tinkering. The one Dana found yesterday though is by some guy who used to work as an engineer in a company for 15 years, until he uncovered dark, inner secrets at the place. His name is Bill Noxid, and it's possible he's part of www.infowars.com . His blog entry Thursday seeks to prove Diebold handed Ohio to Clinton. http://billnoxid.wordpress.com/2008/03/06/clinton-comeback-courtesy-of-diebold/ In that article is a referenced link to his analysis of the New Hampshire primary, which has a county-by-county statistical breakdown. One flustered reader at the blog left the comment I decided to use as a title: What will it take?

Well yeah, that's what I've been waiting for! When is the Congress or some reputable news organization going to go after this? (I get accused of being naive a lot.) It was at this point that an interesting coincidence occured. While Dana was working the computer, I was in the next room watching the commentary by Oliver Stone for his 1995 film Nixon. There are TWO commentaries by Stone in the collector's edition which restores 30 minutes of footage to a film already about 3 hours long. The purpose of the commentaries is for the director of such films as Salvador, Wall Street, Platoon, JFK, and Born On The Fourth Of July, to provide documentation for his extraordinary biography of the 37th President of the United States. What scenes are word-for-word transcripts, what are composites, and what did Oliver Stone actually make up "out of wholecloth," as he says? The coincidental point shows, early in 1969, the Cabinet is floating around on a yacht, and Nixon announces he's going "to give history a nudge" and bomb Cambodia. Somebody worries, "What about congressional oversight?" and Nixon replies, "F--k congressional oversight!" Stone maintains, in the commentary reportedly recorded in 1999, Nixon actually said it.

The implication for the matter at hand, of course, is that Congress hasn't been able to control the Executive Branch for 40 years---and if we count J. Edgar Hoover and CIA overthrows, longer than that. All that's in the restored film, plus the hazy, secret budgets of those organizations and the Pentagon, and the crucial downfall of Cambodia to further plans for restored relations with China. Many credit that move with the eventual collapse of the Soviet Union during Reagan's tenure. What finally undid Nixon and brought forward the Watergate Hearings was not Congressional oversight. It was 2 years of seige upon the White House by student and activist demonstrators. And with that mood to bolster them it was 2 relentless journalists. Blogging's not the same and it won't do it. Even the bumper sticker I saw the other day and like a lot ("Sorry W, I'M the decider: Vote Democrat '08") isn't going to do it. It's what it's always been. It's what tyranny cannot avoid. People in the streets.

Last month Scientific American, which I imagine is reputable enough for anybody (except believers in "church science"), published an article about E-voting technology. Below the title the editors remind us, "Eight years after the controversial 2000 presidential election, electronic voting systems still fail to deliver on their promise of accuracy and security." The article concludes~~~

Whereas certain technology—such as pacemakers and other medical devices—are heavily regulated and must adhere to strict design and construction standards, voting machines are still mostly unregulated. "There's no validation of how the software for these systems is designed and built," (Seth) Hallem (CEO of Coverity, Inc., the San Francisco–based maker of the source code analysis software that SAIT used during its probe of Diebold's system) says, adding that this is "surprising given the importance of voting machines to our national infrastructure."

This has caused problems throughout the U.S. as different states attempt to assess the effectiveness of their e-voting technology. Following a review of e-voting machine security vulnerabilities and source code, California Secretary of State Debra Bowen in August decertified all e-voting machines in her state, other than those designed for disabled voters. Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner recently released the results of a probe into her state's electronic voting systems that concluded they, too, were riddled with "critical security failures" that could impact the integrity of elections.

"In the year 2000, when the Florida election went nuts, there were some electronic systems, but by and large the vast majority was done on handwritten ballots and punch ballots," SAIT co-director Yasinsac says. In the wake of the controversy, e-voting was held up as a way to restore integrity to the process. "We pushed this technology even though it was not ready," he adds. "Much of the software that the machines used is more than 10 years old and has been revised heavily, making it harder to review."

Any significant changes in election technology will come too late for this year's bid for the White House. In states such as Maryland, where Democratic Governor Martin O'Malley has proposed spending $6.8 million to buy new optical-scan machines to improve the accuracy of that state's elections, the technology will not be ready to go until 2010. Meantime, legislation introduced to the U.S. House of Representatives last year by Rep. Rush Holt [D–N.J.] that would require voter-verified permanent paper ballots (amending the tech-friendly but misguided Help America Vote Act of 2002) is languishing in committee and will not impact this year's elections.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=electronic-voting-election&page=1
]]> http://www.newciv.org/nl/newslog.php/_v63/__show_article/_a000063-000480.htm 2008-03-09T14:01:15Z 2008-03-10T08:24:00Z