The time has come to begin my last big writing project -- connecting the dots of my long and adventurous life. Born in the middle of 1927, the year of the Great Flood in the Mississippi delta until -- I've reached 82 and am now aiming for the Big 90, which would put my exit date somewhere around 2017.
By 2017, Obama will have finished his second term, and, as it is with most Presidents in our long U.S. history, a record of mixed results but with an overall approval rate above average. His successor might be his current Vice President, Joe Biden, or some other stellar Democrat. by the Presidential election of 2016; the Republicans probably will have gained some grudging approval during the previous decade, but not enough to win a sufficient number of independents -- unless, the relative peace of our time has given way to an erupted enraged electorate ready to elect a demagogue promising miracles for fascist regimentation and suppression of the sloppy but ultimately effective ways of the democratic process.
By 2017, the threat of dire environmental degradation will have become more than a threat but an undeniable catastrophe well on its way. What will the political discourse be at that time? Where will we be? Our health will be compromised that's a sure bet. Will our mobility, our quality of life, be sustainable? Will we be caretakers rather than caregivers?
Mike will be 62, near retirement; Robin 60. Geoff will be 56, John 66. Kacey and Kolten 25, Laila 22, Kaden 14, Samantha 12. What will be their prospects? What will they be into? What their destinations?
Connecting the Dots is my expression of continuity for my descendants. Maybe not our children and grandchildren; perhaps, those that follow the blood line no matter how thin. The prospects for a sustained and stabilized civilization are about as good as any time since 1945, the beginning of the atomic era, and about the time the international community of scientists began collecting data worldwide, which was the beginning of our current status which foresees continued peril of the human race, if not all living matter.
These are exciting days -- hardly a day passes than something seemingly momentous happens, or, rather, we hear about it, read about it. One can ride the waves of ebb and flow surf of news, like news surfers, playing with the edge of now, but, hardly intensely experiencing now. For news is never simultaneous with now, unless one finds himself or herself as the news item. In which case, reading the news is all about the past, not the present, and certainly not tomorrow.
I could go on that way. I can and probably will try to make more accessible the written works I've produced over the years. Right now, dissemination is virtually nil, but at least, to have the stuff on more than my own shelves is a worthwhile pursuit.
What's not readily available is the store of memories up in my cranium. I'd like to retrieve as much of that treasure as I can (while I can), in order to provide my descendants with the ability to touch and feel this time period in one ancestor's life. I have reached this conclusion based on my realization of how derelict I' was in the past not to have recorded Q and As with my own parents, including reminiscing about their childhood and their memories of their parents and siblings, their timer, their cultural backgrounds.
I have some letters from Inez, my mother; some correspondence with Barbara, my sister; some family photos; some genealogy dates of our family tree and its cross-fertilization; but mostly memories. I think putting together a kind of connected, though not sequential, narrative of my life would be useful for my descendants to know more than they would otherwise, about their people. Closer knit tribes and communities have oral history to remind themselves of their lineage; we're a nation of broken tribes, of extended families. So, it is more appropriate for us floating gypsies to dig post holes in which to dump our memories.
This endeavor -- Connecting the Dots -- I hope will encourage others now perched in this particular family tree to contribute, in a way in which we can all share.
But, before I can freely embark on this new fork in the narrative road, I must deal with that weird Stranger, Mr. Pant, Ahque Pant. Its been many months since I've seen him. Since I last saw him, we've elected a new President, Barack Obama. He and his administration are trying mightily to repair the damage this nation suffered during eight years of craven mismanagement. We find ourselves in the worst recession in more than seven decades. In two tenacious costly regional wars. Actual unemployment over ten percent. The negative effects of global warming are accelerating and the threat of nuclear annihilation remains the x-factor in our calculations.
It's in this context that I'll embark on this, probably the last leg, of my journey here on our fragile planet Earth. My hope is to have cobbled enough posts that serve to connect the dots to give one a fair portrait of one lad's journey, interesting and variable, but not very remarkable. In that context, I'm happy to consider myself typical, if not more or less normal.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Sunday, April 26, 2009
Carry On, Mate!
So, here we are, barely into the 21st century and at least the Awaken acknowledge the damage our collective transformation of underground energy to sustain our life platform is a terminal condition. Global warming is a reality, just as sure as the rotation of our fragile planet is real. Global warming has begun to seriously degrade the ice covering both ends of our planet and the high elevated glaciers that serve as mankind's water towers. When these reservoirs peter out, great upheavals along most of the major rivers will be a colossal -- massive migration, starvation, and death. -- will be the dominant headlines of 2020 and onward.
Is it only fitting that the human species be punished for the devastation it has brought forth for other species as well as the environment that sustains all forms of life? For every advantage there's a disadvantage, according to one of nature's ironclad rules. That we've been deriving energy from the burning of fossil-fuels that degrade the atmosphere for well over a century, leaves us where civilizations first degraded their environment with the destruction of forests used for energy. Humans, we suppose, could have continued living in trees and caves and left the land intact, to be shared with other beasties.
Or, had our limbs and hands remained as they are with our relatives who still swing from trees, and our brains not evolved larger and we had kept our fur and tails, perhaps we'd all be enjoying romping in the veld today. So, for those great sardine tin cans in the sky and giant ocean travelling canoes of steel, and tall steel boxes on boxes clad with glass and mortar, we have sacrificed our innocent and guiltless role in the story of planet Earth, or whatever it is the gods call it.
We are stuck in this time period called Now. That's where all 6.3 billion of us find ourselves. We can't move time back one single day, or move it forward a day. What happened yesterday might be instructive in averting the more destructive behavior of yesterday tomorrow, but we can't actually see what tomorrow has for us -- only what our puny brain power tells us is most likely, or probable.
Theoretically, the primary contributors to the global warming scourge can change the course of this phenomenon. Political leaders can lead and those who believe the threats to civilization are real can contribute with their individual actions. The vested interests who stand to lose out will do everything they can to thwart progress. You'd think that with the inevitable movement toward renewable energy, sooner or later, that these same interests would begin to contribute to the solution rather than fight progress. That is the rationalist's hope, so often in vain, but we can't help it. We were taught logic and we learned psychologic, and knew illogical when we witnessed it, even as we were guilty of our own illogic and willingness to have our emotions rule our heads.
Is it only fitting that the human species be punished for the devastation it has brought forth for other species as well as the environment that sustains all forms of life? For every advantage there's a disadvantage, according to one of nature's ironclad rules. That we've been deriving energy from the burning of fossil-fuels that degrade the atmosphere for well over a century, leaves us where civilizations first degraded their environment with the destruction of forests used for energy. Humans, we suppose, could have continued living in trees and caves and left the land intact, to be shared with other beasties.
Or, had our limbs and hands remained as they are with our relatives who still swing from trees, and our brains not evolved larger and we had kept our fur and tails, perhaps we'd all be enjoying romping in the veld today. So, for those great sardine tin cans in the sky and giant ocean travelling canoes of steel, and tall steel boxes on boxes clad with glass and mortar, we have sacrificed our innocent and guiltless role in the story of planet Earth, or whatever it is the gods call it.
We are stuck in this time period called Now. That's where all 6.3 billion of us find ourselves. We can't move time back one single day, or move it forward a day. What happened yesterday might be instructive in averting the more destructive behavior of yesterday tomorrow, but we can't actually see what tomorrow has for us -- only what our puny brain power tells us is most likely, or probable.
Theoretically, the primary contributors to the global warming scourge can change the course of this phenomenon. Political leaders can lead and those who believe the threats to civilization are real can contribute with their individual actions. The vested interests who stand to lose out will do everything they can to thwart progress. You'd think that with the inevitable movement toward renewable energy, sooner or later, that these same interests would begin to contribute to the solution rather than fight progress. That is the rationalist's hope, so often in vain, but we can't help it. We were taught logic and we learned psychologic, and knew illogical when we witnessed it, even as we were guilty of our own illogic and willingness to have our emotions rule our heads.
It was my chronic curiosity that led to my initial interest in Mr. Pant. He came across as a different breed ofHomo sapien. But, I suspect that my interest in him was fueled by his weirdness. Weirdness can be a strong magnet to the curious, but etiquette (and common sense) demands that you dare not stare at a weird Homo sapien. and certainly you would never, never ask such a person why he was wearing, for example, a raccoon coat when it was hot inside.
When Mr. Pant abruptly told me that my "report" was late, it did cause me to lose my rational bearing -- for, all my worldly training is based on Q & A. Someone asks a question, not just any person, but a person identified as worthy of asking you a question to which, by custom, you are obligated to respond. A hairless, bluish persona wearing a raccoon coat doesn't really qualify, but when you are the aggressor, the Q person, you are inevitably exposed to whatever the answer is, even if it is not even an answer, but embodies a command. Where is that report?
We've been through all this by far too much, I know. I haven't seen Mr. Pant for quite some time, since last year, before the election in November. Nobody at the fitness center has seen him. Good riddance, I say. Except for the fact that he planted a seed, which was probably his intention, I' feel relieved with his absence. But that's not a resolution, that's maybe just a temporary reprieve.
Well, I remember now -- the last time I saw him I told him I'd decided to go ahead and do the report and wanted to know what my compensation would be? That was sensible, don't you think? Pant didn't give me an answer, and got away before I could gather my wits, much less restrain his exit.
I'm still ambivalent about doing that report. What would I put into that report? Why do the report at all if our specie is headed for extinction? Who would be around to read it? Well, if our friends from Outer Space want the report, and don't intend to hang around our doomed planet, what's the point? But, then, I remember doing all kinds of reports for clients in the past, and once they had the report, they ignored the information in the report. Would that be my experience once again?
I wish I could get over my hangup looking for Mr. Pant. It is most annoying. I've got to work on how best to "disappear" him. Phoof!! And just like that he's gone.
Sunday, April 19, 2009
The Last Seven Months
The day after the last post, 9/18/08, Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke announced that the bottom was about to fall out of the U.S. and world financial system. Most major commercial banks and investment banks were insolvent because the high risk bets made on the housing market, securitized by too-high leveraged bets by Wall Street high rollers, fizzled, big time. Since that fateful day, the U.S. government has invested at least a trillion and a quarter dollars into the bankrupt banks and investment houses plus the world's largest insurer, A.I.G. This was the surprise that "W" left our new president, Barack Obama, for his honeymoon. Supposedly, after seven months, the fall has become less precipitous, says the Fed and Treasury.
The damages have been painful to many millions who've lost their jobs. The rate of job loss is over 600,000er month and to date more than 6 million are living off of unemployment insurance., and that doesn't count those whose benefits have expired. Foreclosure rates are rising fast, notwithstanding emergency measures for many troubled owners. Banks are still shy on lending and small business owners, and students are too often unable to get banks to take a risk. The bastards.
We'll probably pull out of this ditch, not soon, but perhaps within the year begin to climb out with traction. The Obama administration has before Congress now its proposed budget for '09-'10 at $3.6 trillion. More debt and the prospect for cutting into the deficit in the next couple years is very dim. The outlook for the national debt is that it will exceed $13 trillion, and the annual deficit about $1.3 trillion. It's a bloody mess, but the choices are between more or less, and draconian cuts are pure fantasy. It's like a giant machine whose balance wheel is too heavy to slow down, much less stop the slide, and we'll all have to hang on tight and stay cool.
The choruses of Nay-Sayer's is gaining momentum slowly but surely. All those experts who were sleeping when the "sub-prime' debacle was in full swing, now pretend to know what formula will work; or, to be more accurate, they pretend to know that the Obama formula won't work, but, without saying just what would work. And so it goes.
For those out of work, it's going to be a bitch finding work that brings in money for food and shelter. In a couple months, some of the stimulus money ought to be having an impact, but, meanwhile, that's no comfort for the job seekers. Will this economic downturn become worse than a bad recession? I don't think anyone knows for sure. Will this nation become less dependent on debt financing? For awhile, I suppose. But, maybe with the increasing visibility of the long-term perils facing all peoples, there may be some sobering going on that might continue to be a strong strain in our culture.
The glaciers which serve as global water reservoirs are shrinking as the atmosphere becomes warmer. The rate of glacier recession is accelerating. Is it possible to inact measures that slow down the rise in global temperature to any significant degree? I doubt it. Water will continue to be a serious regional problem; ecological imbalance will bring all kinds of nasty disruptions in the ecosystems of grassland and forests, in addition to the problem of scarce water.
In just four days, Mr. Obama will have finished his 100 days as President. There will be much tooting of horns, but that's okay. Of course, the Republicans -- who got us in this mess -- will complain about irresponsible spending, etc., just the very thing that they were guilty of for eight years.
Will we muddle through the next four years? Will global warming lead to calamity? Will the good earth remain a good place for humans? Will our species survive in the long run? At the current rate of population growth, we'll be reaching seven billion in a few years. At the current rate of global warming, world population will begin to decline well before the end of this century, and it will not be a pretty picture.
I must admit that this world drama continues to hold everyone's attention. And this drama promises to be an unmistakable catharsis if not total and final denouement in mankind's unlikely rise from the swamps to Predator in Chief of the animal world. Who will be next? Ants, termites, or some unlikely plant like kudzu, or a virus that does everybody in as the final conqueror, who leaves nothing to conquer and thus nothing to sustain itself.
Right now, though, there is some awakening among the masses to give the Paul Revere's of our time a reluctant nod of approval for action to stem the tide. Too little too late is the most likely outlook, based on historical precedence. When the undeniable symptoms become too obvious to be ignored or even countered, the subsystems of water and rising atmospheric heat will conspire to ravage of ecological balances and the bottom line effect will be to disrupt all kinds of growth and harvest cycles. When these dislocations become too much to maintain civil order, even the rich with their bunker abodes will be hard pressed to remain upright in the crash of civilization's domino's.
It's no comfort for people of my generation to realize we won't be around to see the worst case scenarios. We'll all be gnashing our teeth and tearing our hair out as we cry out, "why, o why, didn't we do more, the take the threat to civilization seriously? Why o why did we not stand up and just holler our heads off? Why? Because we're civilized, right? Civilized folk mind their manners and we don't panic until it's too late.
Is it even too late to do that report Mr. Pant wants me to do?
The damages have been painful to many millions who've lost their jobs. The rate of job loss is over 600,000er month and to date more than 6 million are living off of unemployment insurance., and that doesn't count those whose benefits have expired. Foreclosure rates are rising fast, notwithstanding emergency measures for many troubled owners. Banks are still shy on lending and small business owners, and students are too often unable to get banks to take a risk. The bastards.
We'll probably pull out of this ditch, not soon, but perhaps within the year begin to climb out with traction. The Obama administration has before Congress now its proposed budget for '09-'10 at $3.6 trillion. More debt and the prospect for cutting into the deficit in the next couple years is very dim. The outlook for the national debt is that it will exceed $13 trillion, and the annual deficit about $1.3 trillion. It's a bloody mess, but the choices are between more or less, and draconian cuts are pure fantasy. It's like a giant machine whose balance wheel is too heavy to slow down, much less stop the slide, and we'll all have to hang on tight and stay cool.
The choruses of Nay-Sayer's is gaining momentum slowly but surely. All those experts who were sleeping when the "sub-prime' debacle was in full swing, now pretend to know what formula will work; or, to be more accurate, they pretend to know that the Obama formula won't work, but, without saying just what would work. And so it goes.
For those out of work, it's going to be a bitch finding work that brings in money for food and shelter. In a couple months, some of the stimulus money ought to be having an impact, but, meanwhile, that's no comfort for the job seekers. Will this economic downturn become worse than a bad recession? I don't think anyone knows for sure. Will this nation become less dependent on debt financing? For awhile, I suppose. But, maybe with the increasing visibility of the long-term perils facing all peoples, there may be some sobering going on that might continue to be a strong strain in our culture.
The glaciers which serve as global water reservoirs are shrinking as the atmosphere becomes warmer. The rate of glacier recession is accelerating. Is it possible to inact measures that slow down the rise in global temperature to any significant degree? I doubt it. Water will continue to be a serious regional problem; ecological imbalance will bring all kinds of nasty disruptions in the ecosystems of grassland and forests, in addition to the problem of scarce water.
In just four days, Mr. Obama will have finished his 100 days as President. There will be much tooting of horns, but that's okay. Of course, the Republicans -- who got us in this mess -- will complain about irresponsible spending, etc., just the very thing that they were guilty of for eight years.
Will we muddle through the next four years? Will global warming lead to calamity? Will the good earth remain a good place for humans? Will our species survive in the long run? At the current rate of population growth, we'll be reaching seven billion in a few years. At the current rate of global warming, world population will begin to decline well before the end of this century, and it will not be a pretty picture.
I must admit that this world drama continues to hold everyone's attention. And this drama promises to be an unmistakable catharsis if not total and final denouement in mankind's unlikely rise from the swamps to Predator in Chief of the animal world. Who will be next? Ants, termites, or some unlikely plant like kudzu, or a virus that does everybody in as the final conqueror, who leaves nothing to conquer and thus nothing to sustain itself.
Right now, though, there is some awakening among the masses to give the Paul Revere's of our time a reluctant nod of approval for action to stem the tide. Too little too late is the most likely outlook, based on historical precedence. When the undeniable symptoms become too obvious to be ignored or even countered, the subsystems of water and rising atmospheric heat will conspire to ravage of ecological balances and the bottom line effect will be to disrupt all kinds of growth and harvest cycles. When these dislocations become too much to maintain civil order, even the rich with their bunker abodes will be hard pressed to remain upright in the crash of civilization's domino's.
It's no comfort for people of my generation to realize we won't be around to see the worst case scenarios. We'll all be gnashing our teeth and tearing our hair out as we cry out, "why, o why, didn't we do more, the take the threat to civilization seriously? Why o why did we not stand up and just holler our heads off? Why? Because we're civilized, right? Civilized folk mind their manners and we don't panic until it's too late.
Is it even too late to do that report Mr. Pant wants me to do?
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