Perhaps It's Simply Too Little Too Late

OK, I realize I am still very much under the spell of Margaret Atwood's brilliant prose. Back to back dystopian novels - two of a planned trilogy - can have an effect on one's attitude to be certain. However, I have harbored these secret thoughts for quite some time now.

When I decided to adopt two of the neighbors' baby rabbits a year ago, I dutifully went on line to do my homework and learn about caring for pet rabbits. I learned, for example, that, as rabbits are prey animals, they really don't enjoy being picked up by overjoyed new owners. It is too close to being grabbed by jaws of death for their innate sense of survival.

I hadn't really thought about this before -- an overall difference in an animals personality based on being prey or being a predator. We don't readily imagine our dogs as predators. I always felt it had to do with how domesticated an animal was - hamsters and gerbils simply weren't as domesticated as cats and dogs.

Not only are they less likely to enjoy being snatched up for a cuddle, they are also not going to let on that they are ill. By the time your pet rabbit looks or acts ill it is very close to dying. This too is a defense mechanism of animals of prey--weak and ill animals are culled.

If you intend to own a rabbit, plan on paying very close attention on a regular basis to how they are doing if you intend to keep them healthy. By now you must be wondering where I am headed with this - the title, that strange picture, sick rabbits...

I believe that Earth, Gaia, is very much like a rabbit when it comes to illness. By the time we are seeing the signs of stress it is quite likely to be too late. I mean, I believe it is too late to prevent significant climate change over the next century. All the CF bulbs, all the bring your own bag to the supermarket, all the recycling, all the Energy Star appliances, all of it is essentially feel good band aid non-fixes.

I wish I were better at drawing because I continually imagine editorial cartoons. My latest was a caricature of President Obama driving down a road at high speed. We are viewing him from the back seat...we can see from the speedometer that we are going very fast and through the windshield we can see that the road is out up ahead...we are just passing a billboard that says "Last Chance Oasis back two miles..." Standing squished in on his left and right side are cartoon little people (can't say midgets anymore)... They are both yanking on the steering wheel from their respective sides...left and right... If this is "in color" dress the one on the left in blue and the one on the right in red...

350 parts per million - scientists say that is the safe level of carbon in the atmosphere for humans. We're at 387 and climbing and still arguing about whether climate change is real or not...whether the change that is happening is due to human cause or just natural cycles...and Rapture Fiends and 12/21/2012 paranoids are all making their own "The End Is Near!" signs.

What are we doing about this in our heavily addicted carbon based economy and lifestyle? We're debating a few m.p.g. in our vehicles - too bad that 1 in 3 hybrid vehicles are the second car of SUV owners! As we run around putting in the mercury laced compact fluorescent bulbs, our homes are using more electricity from all our gadgets and their charging devices, and flat screen televisions and computers that are never completely powered down! No one wants to talk about the fact that significantly more green house gas is emitted from bovine flatulence than from automobiles - hell, beef, it's what's for dinner...

This is why I believe it is too late. One hundred years from now there will be no New Orleans, no Venice, most of Florida will be gone... We can hope that as ecosystems change, our ability to produce grain will continue somewhere if not in our current bread basket regions. The permafrost is melting and releasing trapped CO2 adding to the problem.

Will we ultimately survive? I think so...we're probably a lot more like cockroaches than we realize. I just don't think that life in the wealthy first world will look that much different from the third world by the time the planet is through with us.

Then again, perhaps "tomorrow will be the start of a new and better world for all of us..."

Happy Halloween!!! Make it a good one!

What's On Your Refrigerator?

"You could tell a lot about a person from their fridge magnets, not that he'd thought much about them at the time." Margaret Atwood, Oryx and Crake

So what do you have on your refrigerator? Not everything shows up in this snapshot. There's a Jesus magnet in which he appears more Middle Eastern in his coloring; a homemade birthday card there on the left from my little buddy, Claude; Ren and Stimpy; Betty Boop; the Serenity Prayer from some mail solicitation I received years ago; the Mutt's comic strip in which each panel says, "Good day for a nap!"

We choose our clothes carefully to make a statement (even if the statement is to try and not look like we have chosen our clothes to make a statement). Here is one place in the American home that is more private. Only invited guests will see this display. What does your fridge say about you?

Peace.

Autumn Reflections

The man awoke feeling much older than his 46 years. Whatever has been ailing his body was particularly cranky, and all his joints ached. He puttered through his day in his cabin in the woods. The dogs went outside, they came inside, out, in, and back again. By the afternoon, a pot of coffee with a hint of vanilla and caramel and he was feeling a bit better.

Rainy autumn days in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan are either sad and gloomy or exhilarating depending on your outlook. Today was exhilarating. Last night the wind had carried the sounds of the surf from Lake Superior the mile or so south to the porch. Today, however, the wind had died down and the only noise to break the silence was the slow, steady drops of cold rain on the fallen maple leaves.

How this former city boy ever ended up in the woods of upper Michigan remains a mystery. Every day he paused to appreciate and thank the Creator for the blessing of his life. Such religious talk usually made him self conscious, but in the realm of his blog, in the third person, he felt he could make such a statement and feel less awkward.

It was Sunday and his neighbor had kept him motivated to regularly sauna. In the U.P. sauna is a verb as well as a noun. She was returning from running a half marathon in Mackinac and called to confirm the time. At 4PM the light was already starting to shift.

Dressed in a pair of his dad's old lounge pants that were a tad too big and a long sleeve shirt from the back of the closet that was a tad too small, sandals, and the green corduroy touk he purchased many years ago back in Chicago--that hat still garnered compliments all these years later--he plodded out to the sauna with a load of fire wood.

He smiled inwardly, imagining what a bohemian character he must appear, long hair wild, dogs running around him. At that moment he realized he would write about it, the only way for anyone to see him at home in his milieu and begin to understand his eccentric ways.

He carefully set the wood onto the ledge in the dressing area of the sauna keeping it separate from all the wood under the bench. That wood had been loaded in there to dry the other week from the slowly melting wood pile out behind the sauna. It was well over four years old and rather crumbly. The newer wood from under the porch would be used to start the fire in the stove and then some of this older wood would keep it going; one could never tell how the damp old wood would burn.

He lit the oil lamp and took it into the sauna. The stove was a bit full. He went back out and grabbed the ash can, dumping the contents out beyond the wood pile. Once the stove was emptied, he tore up some of the waxed cardboard and placed it into the belly of the stove. A few dried twigs and bark, topped off with some of the newer, dry porch wood and the fire was crackling away.

Later he was joined by his neighbor and her two daughters. The temperature was climbing rapidly. They turned over the sauna timer when the temperature was at 170 degrees. He tossed a few scoops of water from the wooden bucket onto the hot rocks and the steam hissed. The sauna was nice and dark now with just a bit of light from the oil lamp shining through the small window of the dressing area.

They talked about the half marathon, their chickens, the other neighbor's dog. After fifteen minutes they all went out to the dressing area to cool down a bit. Steam rose up from their bodies. Like the dogs, they went outside, they went back inside, out, in, and back again.

As expected, the sauna had helped a bit with the aches in his joints--at least that's what he believed. The cool drops of rain splashed onto his warm back, neck and arms as he walked around and climbed up the front porch steps. Back in the house, he freed the dogs who greeted him joyously and bounded up the basement stairs.

He peeled off his wet shorts, tossing them into the bathroom sink and put his dad's lounge pants back on. As the late afternoon drifted into evening, he sat at his grandmother's dining room table and began to type a blog post on his lap top. The silence, as usual, was cozy and warm and safe.

What a paradox - how does one share the peace and serenity of this existence? As soon as guests arrive the space is changed and becomes more of a representation of itself. How do we ever really understand each other's lives?

We Hold These Truths To Be Self Evident...

I was getting caught up on back issues of The Nation the other day when I came across an article by Walter Mosley entitled Get Happy.

"Citizens are not treated like members of society but more like employees who can be cut loose for any reason large or small, whether that reason be an individual action or some greater event like the downturn of the stock market. We are lied to by our leaders and the mass media to such a great extent that it's almost impossible to lay a finger on one thing that we can say, unequivocally, is true. We wage a "war on drugs" while our psychiatrists prescribe mood-altering medicines at an alarming rate. We eat and drink and smoke too much, and sleep too little. We worry about health and taxes and the stock market until one of the three finally drags us down. We fall for all sorts of get-rich-quick schemes, from the stock market to the lottery. We practice rampant consumerism, launch perpetual wars and seek out meaningless sex."

It was those last few words that got to me and echoed in my brain for days - we seek out meaningless sex...meaningless sex. The rest of this post is going to be a careful balance between honest and open sharing and too much information (after all, my mother reads this blog from time to time).

In 1969, in a bar in Greenwich Village called the Stone Wall Inn, patrons fought back against yet another typical police raid on a gay bar. Often if two men or two women were witnessed to be so much as touching hands in violation of some "obsenity" code, the police would move in and load everyone up into a wagon and arrest them. The next day's paper would include a full list of the names of all individuals scooped up in the raid.

In the years following as the movement took off, a significant number of queer folk rejected the so called norms of conventional society in the way that feminists rejected traditional gender roles, people of color rejected assimilating behavior (e.g., African-Americans straightening their hair to be more "white"), and hippies rejected all manner of middle class values.

For gays this meant a variation on free love -- an open expression of their sexuality, whenever, as often, and with whomever they wanted. This is not to say that throughout this period there were not also a substantial number of queer folk who chose to model themselves on the norms of society. The tension between both points of view has existed in most all of the various social justice movements. Think Martin Luther King versus Malcolm X...SNIC versus Black Panthers.

The stereotype of promiscuous gays comes out of this new found freedom. Many men were and still are promiscuous. I don't care for that word. If you've played in that free wheeling culture you will see that the definitions are not quite accurate - they emphasize randomness--indiscriminate in choice of partner. One can be selective in choice and still be having lots of sex that would curl the hair of conventional society.



This clip is from And The Band Played On. I've always loved the point at which Lily Tomlin challenges the doctor and his conventional attitude. Of course, this clip also serves to introduce my next point. In 1981 a nasty little retrovirus bursts out into this sexually rambunctious culture and spreads like wild fire, killing thousands and complicating the politics of sex.

By the grace of God I survived the 80's and 90's and continue today HIV negative. The individual that I am today was shaped by my own sexual exploration in the midst of the plague--the risk, the pleasure, the fear. Sir Ian McKellen plays a character who initially is convinced that he will not become infected because he is so proudly monogamous and normal in the movie. However, he too also dies from AIDS--in the end it really wasn't about the numbers.

We now live in a world in which state governments are arguing over gay marriage. To my eyes, the assimilationists have won and that's not necessarily a bad thing. I am wholeheartedly behind same gender couples having full and equal partnership rights. In fact, I believe that any group of individuals that want to legally declare themselves a family unit should have access to those same rights. I simply hope that we don't completely turn on our free loving brothers and sisters as we strengthen our foothold in conventional society.

Similarly with greater societal acceptance of gays and lesbians has come the advance of the ad men marketing to queers the way they have to heterosexuals all along. In addition to the blast of advertising convincing women how they need to improve their appearance and body to please men are an equal emphasis on beauty and perfection marketed to men. Eating disorders within the gay community have risen as we too are told that our bodies are less than perfect.

If you were to study the presentation of the male body in gay adult film (yes, I mean porn) you would find a significant shift from actors who are rather average in their appearance to today's actors who are these beefed up, shaved, buffed up, well endowed, beauty queens or prize steers - wait, aren't steers castrated? - bulls, that's probably more accurate.

I moved to the Upper Peninsula in part to remove myself from the prevalent gay culture in Chicago. I was not a good assimilationist - there were no wedding bells in my future - and the free love lifestyle was shifting, turning into a beauty contest in which my aging body was no longer able to compete. Yet, even up here in the woods, I have not lost my determination in defending free love as a valid choice.

That is why I was taken by that quote - it really gets to the heart of the matter. The problem in my mind isn't whether the sex is occurring within or without the bonds of holy matrimony or how often or with how many different partners. It really comes down to meaning. What is the meaning of what is going on? That is what truly matters.

For myself I slowed down to the current long dry spell of celibacy because the more casual encounters had lost any meaning for me and so they were no longer worthy of the effort. It would be so easy from the sanctity of a marriage to turn up your nose and decry any and all "promiscuous" sex as meaningless, but I think there is a hell of a lot of meaningless sex occurring between married partners too - a "committed relationship" doesn't preclude meaningless sex.

Sex doesn't get to be meaningful automatically because there's a legal document granting it authority. It has meaning because of the intentions of the adult participants. It can be an expression of love after 50+ years of marriage, it can be a comforting but unexpected encounter between friends in a time of crisis, it can be a casual encounter between strangers. Some will disagree with me on that last point.

However, I will always remember, for example, one encounter I had with a man from Italy who was passing through Chicago on vacation. Because of my coloring and blue eyes, he was convinced that I was northern Italian rather than Polish. We spent a lovely time together, but in the end he had to leave and return to Italy. From the onset it was clear that there would be no longevity to our friendship. It was what it was, and it was very sweet.

Hemingway wrote in For Whom The Bell Tolls, "I suppose it is possible to live as full a life in seventy hours as in seventy years...So if your life trades its seventy years for seventy hours I have the value now and I am lucky enough to know it. And if there is not any such thing as a long time, nor the rest of your lives, nor from now on, but there is only now, why then now is the thing to praise and I am very happy with it."

In sex and everything else, be sure there is meaning - your own personal meaning - in what you do. Otherwise it is too easy to become just another mindless "rampant consumer" that Walter Mosley was decrying. Peace.

How Are You Hand Shy?

Cedar, my neighbor's dog was visiting again around supper time today. I've been working with him (and my dogs as well) on discipline, reinforcing my role as Alpha with the pack. I get to go down the stairs first when it's meal time. I turn at the doorway and make the wild monkeys calm down and sit before they get to go outside. Somehow I made some kind of gesture with my hand this evening and Cedar flinched. He did this because he is hand shy.

A dog becomes hand shy when he is smacked by a human hand. It is a lesson they learn very quickly - that human hands cannot be trusted - they will unexpectedly swat you in the head or rump or back. Lola is hand shy - she was when I got her at 6 months of age. I have never used my hands to show her my displeasure - I try to reinforce with her that hands are for love.

I was not always this good about it. I've had Frankie for 12 years now and Frankie is still hand shy from many, many years ago. Whenever he flinches, my heart twitches just a bit from guilt. All the love and security in the world cannot erase that hand shyness.

In what ways are we hand shy? What are the things in your life that cause you to flinch reflexively? Cedar's owner, Chris, my neighbor is a basically good guy. However, he's always scheming to make that quick buck and I'm not sure how straight up he is as a business man. He's been screwed by the king of bad karma in this county, someone with whom he regularly used to do business. For Chris, there's a lot of dog eat dog out there.

Earlier in the year, after I got my well problem figured out, I decided I did need to purchase a new front loading washer. The guys from the appliance store said they could either cart away my old washer or load it onto someone else's truck. I immediately thought of Chris.

I called him up and asked, "Chris, what do you know about fixing washing machines?" He paused and then responded with a cautious/suspicious(?) tone in his voice, "A little, why?" The why was just a hair drawn out as it said it--why-y-y? And so I told him, I'd have the guys load it up onto his truck if he wanted it, just be there on the delivery day. His suspicion melted away rather quickly.

In a similar vein, there was this wooden boat just lying next to my greenhouse from when I bought the place. Chris was eyeing it and started to talk about how he could fix it up. I told him, "You want it, Chris? It's yours. Just come and get it." He took it away and it sat on some saw horses in his yard for a long time.

A few weeks ago he mentioned that he had found someone to buy it and then, catching himself, he made some indication that he'd cut me in on some of the take. I told him that whatever he was able to get for the boat was his free and clear. Chris just can't let go of his hand shyness, no matter how many times I show him that I'm not a money person-- I'm a neighbor.

I have my own versions of hand shyness. I often hunker down emotionally expecting to get screamed at. I used to work for this Israeli doctor in Chicago many years ago. I was his secretary. One day (and I wish I could type this with his accent) he called me into his office. When I came in, he looked at me and said, "How come every time I call you into here to tell you something you look like you think I'm going to yell at you?" It was what Oprah would call a "light bulb moment" for me.

I'm in the very early stages of forming what I believe will be a wonderful and enriching friendship with this younger man. We met on Easter Sunday and I've felt this growing affection for him ever since. The go-between friend has now moved away and he and I finally got together just the two of us to eat, drink and play cards. It was a wonderful evening.

In the days that followed, however, I caught myself "flinching." Just like my dogs, no matter how many times I tell them quietly, gently, that "hands are for loving," they still seem to expect that smack out of the blue. Trust is hard. Peace.

First Anniversary of Renz In The Woods

Well, I've managed to keep this up for a full year. The hit counter is just about to clock 5,000 and given that I added the counter later in the year, it's a safe bet to say I did fairly well for some personal ramblings tossed out their to the winds.

A year ago, inspired by some of my cyber friends with their own blogs I set out on this journey. As imitation is the best form of flattery, my early blog may have resembled these others in ways that I eventually grew out of and into my own blog style.

It's Autumn again in the Upper Peninsula. The fire in the wood stove is keeping things toasty when it's cold and rainy outside. My weekly saunas with and without my neighbor Heidi have become part of the routine schedule and are changing with the season. Coming out of a 190 degree sauna into the crisp autumn air feels very different than in the summer time.

A year ago it was all Change We Can Believe In and fingers crossed and will Obama do it. Now we are well into his first year of the presidency and he continues to try to implement his agenda against a tide of reactionary Republican crap.

I have had to learn to deal with new illness. I have made some wonderful new friends. The Internet has enriched my secular monastic lifestyle in ways I never would have envisioned. I am back in touch with a significant number of former friends thanks to Facebook.

Life is good. The wheel begins another revolution. Take a deep breath and enjoy the ride. Peace.

My Medication Is Made From Lizard Spit!

As the nation awaits the outcome of health care "reform" legislation, I would add this to the discussion. As any reader of this blog for some time knows, I was diagnosed with diabetes earlier this year.

My body responded very well to the initial aggressive treatment and after only two months I am off of insulin and on other medications.

I take glucophage twice a day and an injection called Byetta. This medication is derived from a hormone found in the saliva of the gila monster. Yes, twice a day I am injecting myself with gila monster spit! (well, not exactly)

Apparently a hormone in the saliva was found to closely resemble a hormone in our bodies that helps stimulate the pancreas to produce insulin. Our own hormone has very poor stability outside of our body, whereas the lizard spit remains very stable. In addition, it has the added benefit of slowing down gastric emptying and actually causes weight loss in some patients (most other diabetic medications cause weight gain).

I walked around for a number of weeks imagining gila monster farms where handlers milk the spit in a manner similar to the collection of snake venom. I also was troubled by the thought of injecting saliva from one of the world's two poisonous lizards - one that's venom is in it's saliva! I mean, Holy Botox! No wonder it causes all those gastric side effects (some of which are NOT fun!). What I have since discovered is that the drug contains a synthetic version of the hormone so I will not be forced to find a "free range" version of Byetta. It's expensive enough as it is.

Which brings me to my next point. I have mentioned before that I have insurance coverage that is dangerously close to be considered a "Cadillac" health care plan by some in Washington. We do not have any drug coverage with our plan. We are required to see Tier 1 physicians, which are essentially our own docs, only. The hospital provides us with a drug benefit that is essentially we pay the first $5.00 and then a third of the remaining cost. My responsibility for the lizard spit? (drum roll please...) $88.00 a month...this on top of the cost of my other medications.

I'm not certain I will continue on this drug. I will see how my health progresses and decide. I am down about ten pounds - though based on what I am reading this is not due to the Byetta. It is more likely due to getting my sugars under control and some minor tweaking of my diet.

I saw a New York Times piece today that indicated the insurance companies are finally beginning to roll out the big guns to defeat reform--no surprise there, eh? If that link takes you to a page you can't access without being a NY Times registered user, I've also linked the page at Facebook "My Links." Peace.

St. Hilary of Poitiers (315 - 367)

"God cannot be known except by devotion...What presumption to suppose that words can adequately describe God's nature, when thought is often too deep for words, and His nature transcends even the conceptions of thought...We must believe, must apprehend, must worship, and such acts of devotion must stand in lieu of definition."

From Finding the Monk Within by Edward C. Sellner: "Hilary states in his book on the Trinity that the very 'purpose' of faith, what it proclaims, is that it cannot fully 'comprehend that for which it is seeking.' Anything that is said is merely an attempt to wrap words around a mystery that is beyond verbal or intellectual explanation."

COMMENT: I find it fascinating that 1,600 years ago this holy man was writing what I myself believe. Far too many individuals today form their opinions of faith and religion based on the beliefs and actions of evangelicals a spiritual movement that parallels the development of agnosticism and/or atheism over the past 300 years. Both grew out of the Age of Enlightenment.

As Science took off and the Scientific Method became the accepted manner of investigating the physical world, some religious leaders moved towards a more concrete definition of faith - one that demanded Biblical literalism in the face of scientific developments.

What we have ended up with today are individuals at either end of the spectrum - rationalists who completely deny spirit and religion and fundamentalists who completely deny reason. What happens then to the rest of us that believe as did St. Hilary so many centuries ago that God is beyond definition, beyond description, beyond proof - than none of the words used over the centuries are adequate or accurate - they are our feeble attempts at explaining the unexplainable. Peace.

A Tale of a Non-Believer

There once was a man by the name of Ebenezer. Sadly Ebenezer did not believe in Love. As it happened his only experiences with the fairer sex had been with a few of the gals at Madame DuValle's establishment in White Chapel. His unrequited fondness for one lass named Grace (of all things) left him bitter and convinced that Love was a fairy tale made up to lure unsuspecting men into respectability and marriage. "All women are whores - they just get paid in different ways."

He would argue until he was blue in the face - "All these marriages are no proof that Love exists. Weak minded men allowed themselves to be trapped!" "There is no scientific basis for believing in Love!" "People are simply afraid to face the fact that we are all alone on this planet, so they create this elaborate illusion to deny that aloneness." "They need to justify their need for sexual release in more moral terms."

There was no convincing him that his non-belief based on limited understanding--nay, based on warped experiences, had left part of his being withered and empty. Rather than face this atrophied portion of human joy and existence, he stubbornly defended his non-belief.

To him, those individuals around him that declared their Love for their significant others were "misguided fools." "Everywhere I go, people are trying to convince me to believe in their so called Love." "Bah! Humbug!"

For the rest of his days, Ebenezer lived alone, venturing to Madame DuValle's, paying for female companionship, never understanding that the non-belief of which he was so proud, really left him an incomplete man--a man who did not really appreciate all that being human could be.

In the end, what had caused this non-belief in Ebenezer? Had disappointment in his childhood set him up to fail. Did he have too high expectations or a naive belief in what Love was as a youth and the rejection of Grace sent his image of Love crashing to the floor. What kept him from pursuing Love further even as an adult? Was it fear? Was it too much of a need of certainty or guarantee? Perhaps it was simply easier to non-believe than to believe.

Peace.

Emotional Security

BANG! At any given moment, Russian bombs can be launched, so we better be ready! Time for the "duck and cover" drill, children.

This is what we did to the baby boomer generation over and over again in the name of a false sense of security. As if cringing under your desk at school would save you from the horrors of nuclear war.

I can remember seeing those fallout shelter signs everywhere as a kid - particularly on the Pachyderm House at the Brookfield Zoo. They're much harder to come by, but you can still find them on occasion.

During the Reagan/Thatcher years I often had nuclear holocaust nightmares. The constant barrage of news reports and talk of "Star Wars" Defense shields wormed their way into my subconscious and terrified me at night while I slept.

Michael Moore's movie Bowling for Columbine made the serious point that we live in a culture of fear. When I first watched the movie, I was expecting a diatribe against guns. What I found and what has stuck with me and greatly effected my life, was film that opened my eyes to how we are constantly kept afraid.

Spend a day trying to see all the ways you are encouraged to be afraid--commercials that suggest you are too fat or too old, that you don't care for your kids the right way. CNN has up a story right now that claims "More cases of autism in U.S. than previously realized. Don't get me started on threat levels - yellow, orange, yellow again, RED, RED, orange... They're talking about revising those by the way - apparently they're simply going to eliminate blue and green (we never get to them anyway). Seriously - keep an open mind and think how many ways you are encouraged to be afraid - this should include topics of conversation with co-workers and friends as well as media images.

More Americans have died in the War on Terror than were killed on September 11, 2001. Countless Iraqis and Afghans, as well. Children in third grade now have never lived in a world without war - and are we safer? Even if by pure chance we were physically safer - are we emotionally safer?

How do we begin to combat this pervasive fear? First and foremost by being aware of it. If you can't shut off your television at least be more cognizant of the message behind the commercials. We tend to tune out the commercials, and, yet, the subtext creeps in. Start by actually listening to what they are saying so you can shut down the metamessage. Sally Field and Boniva are actually reminding you that you might end up with osteoarthritis and end up a crippled old woman so better take care of it today! Don't get me started on the erectile dysfunction commercials.

Shut off the news and be selective. If you must watch, once again, be aware. How many of the stories are selling fear? Fear can be titillating - it makes for headline grabbing news. Better to get your news from other sources than sound bite television. Remember that most news media is now actually infotainment more interested in maintaining viewers in order to collect ad revenue. If there is a way to crank up the intensity of a story (read make it scarier), they will do so.

If we are good little scared consumers, we will stay afraid and buy the things we are directed to "buy" to make sure we are safer--products, sermons, legislation. We will hand over power to those who we are convinced will keep us safer. I use that word, "safer," deliberately because the key is that we never really do get to feel safe.

True emotional security begins by creating a truly safe home - for you and your family and especially your children. It isn't about locks on the doors or disinfecting all the surfaces. It's about limiting the amount of negative energy (the bullshit) that you allow in and doing your damnedest to love the people who cross your threshold every day. Peace.

"Happy Days Are Here Again"

Do you remember the joke about the guy who comes across this man one night on the side walk intently looking in the gutter, under the mailbox, behind the trash can...so he asks him, "Pardon me, but did you lose something?" The man replies, "Yes, I dropped my keys."

So the guy joins into the search and together they scour that area - down the sewer drain, behind the light post, under the bench... Finally the guy says, "OK, where exactly were you standing when you dropped the keys?" The man points half way down the block and says, "Over there coming out of that dark alley..."

Exasperated, the guys says, "Well, why the hell are you looking over here?" "Oh, well, "the man replies, "The lights much better, isn't it?"

I have long wondered why we, the citizens of this country, allow the powers that be to get away with the claims they make. After all, the recession is over - happy days are here again! How exactly are they coming to this conclusion? What are the tools they are using? What are the indicators they are considering? What are the statistics they are looking at and how are they interpreting them?

I daresay that for many of us and our families and friends - the recession is far from over - that the recession is, in fact, fast becoming a life style. However, the powers that be like to toss around economic indicators to prove how wonderful things really are - inventories, GNP, and all these measures that I think may have less and less to do with life here on the ground.

I want to see quality of life indicators - I want real wages to be considered, I want unemployment figures that don't write off those who stop looking for work and those who have used up their benefits, and those who traded their $32,000 a year manufacturing jobs for $15,000 a year retail/service industry jobs.

I think we should start "measuring" how we're doing as a nation by how the working individual is faring, not the corporations. I am so tired of living in a country of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations.

It is time to overturn the Supreme Court ruling of 1886 in Santa Clara County v. the Southern Pacific Railroad. This is the moment in history where it was decided that a corporation is entitled to the same rights as a person.

We, the people, have been on a downward slide ever since. This ruling, passed at the zenith of the Gilded Age and the peak of railroad baron power, has helped to grind down the working class and promote and protect corporations for over 120 years now. It needs to change.

We are seeing the birth of health care "reform" legislation essentially written by the drug company and insurance industry lobbies. Take a good hard look at what is being proposed, folks. In the name of reform, families will be forced to buy insurance or face fines - that is how we will work towards universal coverage and how the politicians will boast that "X" million more Americans have coverage now. Yes, they are insisting that no one can be excluded for illness.

So families that cannot afford insurance now will receive some tiny stipend towards purchasing a plan that will likely have enormous deductibles and co-pays - all under the control of the insurance companies. Most, if not all, of these newly insured millions will merely join the growing ranks of under insured Americans who are going bankrupt WITH health insurance "coverage."

Nothing in the health plan will force cost containment on the industries in question.

Our politicians sure like "looking where the light is better." But, hey, the next time you catch yourself worrying about how you're going to manage the big co-pay on that bottle of antibiotics for your child because the mortgage payment is overdue again and your boss has just told you that there won't be any raises forthcoming and be happy you have a job, remember, the recession is over - it's time to celebrate!

Hit The Road, Jack...

I have no idea what this image is promoting but is served my purpose regardless. I have this very dear friend, Leon, who is a priest (finally). I admire Leon for being a bit of a gadfly when it comes to mendacious structures of power and authority - he is not afraid to call things the way he sees them in front of dozens of individuals, even to the CEO of the hospital himself. I've watched him do it. The man has chutzpah and it is awesome indeed.

Leon was raised Roman Catholic and was (is?) a Benedictine brother when, many years back, he began the slow and arduous journey to the priesthood. As part of the process, one has to have a psychiatric evaluation and the priest who performed this function for the RCs at that time was located in Washington, D.C. He was located there because he also was working for the CIA. Leon departed Michigan and traveled to D.C. to meet this man as scheduled.

However, Leon being Leon, he felt the need to question this man's "calling" to be working with the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States government. I'm not exactly sure of the time frame here, but it was either right around or in the years that followed when nuns and priests were being assassinated in Central America by right wing death squads. Some how I'm sure that is what came to mind when Leon learned of this man's association with the CIA.

Well, power being what it is, Leon didn't pass his test and was sent back to Michigan no longer to be on the the fast track to the priesthood. Many years passed, and Leon became a nurse, got married and had some kids, and was working in pastoral care in the health care system when he once again began the process towards ordination - this time in the Episcopal Church.

His ordination was held in the conference room here at the hospital - the same room in which I watched him call out the CEO - and it was an awesome day. We celebrated Eucharist and, as this diocese practices open communion, everyone was invited to the table. Another friend of mine who was attending wouldn't partake in communion - she was a Roman Catholic.

Prayers to all my friends with spirit, backbone, and mouths that stir the pot. Peace.

Fascinated By "Chilly"

I'm amazed at the quality of photos I am able to snap with my camera phone. This is one of a series of shots that I felt compelled to take the other morning on my way into work. It was the first significant frost of the season for my neck of the woods--higher elevations away from Lake Superior had already had a few nights of frost. It was, once again, breathtaking. The sun was shining and the frost was sparkling on the grasses and shrubs.

I posted these pictures to Facebook and was amazed at the amount of comments that included words like "chilly" or "brrrrr" or "cold." I don't think I was even wearing a jacket this particular morning.

I am very acclimated to living up here. Thirteen years ago I would come up for visits in late October or November and still be running around in shorts and a sweatshirt. My friend Matt who essentially grew up up here would just scowl..."You were born to live up here..." he'd mutter.

Earlier this year I jumped out of the shower one morning, put my wet hair back into a ponytail and through on some blue jeans. I went outside to sit on my porch. I sat in the hammock chair and sipped some coffee. It was glorious.

Bright sun, birds singing, bare feet--I was loving it. I looked up and the thermometer said it was 46 degrees! I put on a t-shirt because I felt guilty feeling so comfortable with wet hair and no clothes in weather that some would consider winter like.

Many many people up here complain about the weather. The summers are too short. The snow lasts forever. The snow is too deep. The snow...the snow...the snow. I've been told that as you get older it gets harder to cope. I hope that isn't universal.

How frustrating to be in an environment that makes you unhappy. I know how I feel when we have those few really hot days in the summer (hot for me is anything above 80 degrees - really hot is above 90). This past summer I think we had 2 really hot days and only a handful of hot. When the weather gets like that I feel trapped. I can't imagine feeling like that for 6-8 months of the year. Peace.