Living in an unappreciated world.

With health problems occupying me, I have had little focus for writing. Nonetheless, I continue to find I am otherwise occupied with the same things as always. It is hard to avoid. Every day it seems I read of yet another outrage committed by our pseudo-president, a man neither qualified in terms of the basic experience or training to be a public servant, but also a man who has no sense of service at all. He is entirely focused on painting a flattering image of himself for all the world. This preoccupation is native to his personality, but it also serves his fundamental motivation for making money however he can. His outrages are constant, and I think he enjoys especially offending the concerns of more liberal people. He often pursues his outrage by tossing a wild place or the wild creatures themselves into the greedy maw of industries, especially extractive industries. He is most consistent (no he is not a stable genius or stable anything) in his pursuit of “energy independence” which translates into unbridled extraction of coal, oil and natural gas. He makes clear that he does not like renewable energy sources, probably because that cuts into the profits of the extractive industries he serves.

Our President is not unique in his service to the extractive industries. It seems that all conservatives, or at least all Republicans serve the oil industry especially. In return they are showered with 10’s of millions of dollars for their campaigns. Their careers are aided by the straight out of the box tools that the industry provides. The tools are preconceived ideas, ready to speak talking points, and ready to submit legislation. No real effort is required. Follow the script, talk the talking points, hold the line against environmentalists and Democrats, and you get elected in the conservative states, In these states, conservative radio and Fox News populate the airwaves with nothing but conservative orthodoxy, which includes of course, the hatred of environmentalists, liberals, and anyone who lives a lifestyle that was not acceptable in the year 1950. And not too surprising, an increasingly unsubdued form of racism is allowed to sprout up like crab grass.

For me, as a liberal, I get to be essentially one of the ‘owned’ libs that brings joy to the conservative masses. But for me, as a scientist, a biologist, a lover of all living things and the beautiful planet that I grew up on, I feel alternately or sometimes simultaneously outrage, murderous anger, sadness, and hopelessness. I live in the most powerful nation in the world, and one that used to be an example of progress for the world. Now we are backward and led by leaders that revel in their backwardness, their antipathy to science, their intolerance, and even their cruelty. I do what I feel I can to try to counter this situation. But beyond voting, writing and trying to inform people however I can, and giving what tiny amounts of money I have to conservation organizations: Audubon, Sierra Club, Center for Biodiversity, Rainforest Action Network, Greenpeace, the Student Conservation Association, Natural Resource Defense Council, the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the Wilderness Society, and more. I feel powerless next to those who are declared more important because of their great wealth, in a world where I am told that I should let the market decide, not just at the level of products, but also in the political sphere. Money is speech, corporations are people, and the more money you have, the louder your speech. Thus I am left to feel relatively powerless.

But the powerlessness is rendered even more sad when I look at what is happening to the planet I grew up on, and the many small and large, unique, bizarre, wonderful, or beautiful creatures that were born here, evolved here over 100’s of millions of years, and now become extinct with most humanity not thinking about it and many not caring. What it is more sad than a creature not being able to find a mate, because all others of its kind are gone? How am I supposed to feel when migrating song birds fly hundreds, even thousands of miles and stop off at the same exact location, year after year, generation after generation, and then one day arrive to find that the food source they depended on to power their long journey was not there? Maybe they needed a plant to producie blooms just in time, but the warming climate caused the blooms to be finished by the time the bird arrived. Maybe the bird needed shelter to sleep or to protect it from the weather, but the shelter was gone in a world dominated by human development. In a world where human development translates into a perfectly ordered and completely sterile environment. In this sterile world, where insecticides that kill all insects without prejudice and persist for long, long periods are just part of ubiquitous lawn maintenance. Why would anyone care about a bug anyway? But I do. They are fellow travelers in a world that we have a tenuous grasp on at the most. Our indifference to our fellow creatures is an arrogance that has no shame.

One of the most compelling expressions of how I feel about these things and especially climate change, the biggest killer in our list of sins: Greta Thunberg’s shaming of world leaders at the recent UN Climate Action Summit (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KAJsdgTPJpU). Her emotion-fueled, but eloquent, open criticism of the adults who are failing her world is an amazing and inspiring call to action. I can only hope there will be action in response.

For my part, I try each day to fight for the living world that I see being abused routinely around me. I feel I am failing my own wishes, as well as the needs of Greta Thunberg’s generation. Still each day I try. I can only hope that enough people of our world get the message, and learn for themselves the precious nature of our planet, before the cascade of destruction is irredeemable. We can change our course and maybe even reverse climate change, but only if we change our minds — now. All living things, including our own young and my friend, the verdin, depend on it.

 

Facing a New Year

Maybe its climate change. Who can know for one season, but it has been a very warm winter. It’s been in the upper 60’s most days, and this week it will be in the 70’s every day. I am still enjoying the last of last year’s tomatoes, and otherwise I try to find some form of mental comfort. I take walks and look at the bunnies and the quail. Occasionally I hear Mr. Phainopepla. I try to get myself in better physical condition and reduce my eating. But food is a comfort, as are my imaginings that happen mostly online. I tend to think about a house I saw in the East when I visited there last month. Not everything there is great, but it is good escape to go back to staying in a Victorian bed and breakfast and walking around a coastal town. I especially like one house I was in. It pops in my mind like a visual mantra — a representation of a calming environment, a pretty and comfortable place to live. This is the retirement I would like to reach out to, but am not yet ready financially to do that. To imagine retirement feels so much better than the professional prison I am in, and the horrific new presidency, which will be thrust on us in just a few days.

With coyote, a little bit of uncertainty and chaos enters the neighborhood.

My need to find a job holds me in its grip, so for now I spend much of the day looking for jobs and trying to imagine different types of jobs I might do. Most of the jobs for me are in specific areas across the U.S., Cambridge, Massachusetts, Washington, D.C., San Diego, California, Silicon Valley, and Seattle, Washington. None of these places are where I really want to be right now, and living in them is expensive. There are a few jobs in my town of Tucson, and most are at the University of Arizona, which is where I was working until I was laid off, and where I want to do more work. I can only hope to find a job and keep applying to any jobs that might be posted there.

Meanwhile, the 20th of this month looms as a date I live in dread of. I can do nothing to stop what is coming. The whole problem of Donald Trump’s coming presidency is not something I can divert, avoid, or change. I can fight it, but since much of the nation gave Trump their vote and also elected many Republican Representatives and Republican Senators, there is little hope for avoiding of some of the worst of ideas that are proposed for our nation. People dismiss differences in the political parties as just “politics” or nothing really important, but there are substantial differences right now, as for years the Republican Party has been pushing an extreme set of policies that is anti-environment, anti-science, anti-civil rights, anti-womens’ rights and pro-large corporation. The Democratic Party has been much better on most of these issues, although they have been lax in protecting people and the environment from corporate power. I especially fear what will be happening in the Trump administration to the wild lands, and to our national policy on climate change. I expect that, based on the anti-environment, pro-fossil fuel, anti-regulation people that have been nominated to serve in the Trump administration, it is likely that environmentalists will be fighting constantly to avoid the damage to precious wild lands, but also to protect people from pollutants, just as was needed in Flint, Michigan this past year. Further, there will be little to no progress in U.S. policy with respect to climate change, and possibly a retreat on what progress that has been made.

There is no way I can block the painful political reality that I and my fellow countrymen will be stuck with soon. I can only resist it, fight it, the best I can. I keep feeling anxious and horrified when I think of the thoughtful, intelligent, and dedicated leaders our nation has had over its history, especially ones like George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt — and then realize that in their place will be the small personage of Donald Trump. He sees himself as larger than life and a great man, but his ideas are small and petty. He has dedicated his life to making money for himself — often specifically at the expense of others, and otherwise creating an image for himself as the successful, powerful man, and as an abuser of women. He is childish – just as one might expect from a young teenager. He attacks anyone who he disagrees with, can stomach no criticism, and generally tries to bully anyone he feels may be an inconvenience or a real threat to him. Now this pathetic child of a man, with small, greedy ideas is to be the most powerful leader in the world.

With Trump’s small ideas comes a parade of other billionaires and millionaires to help him in his administration, as if the only judge of a person’s character is their bank account. We have the following people on the list of nominees for his cabinet:

Rex Tillerson (ExxonMobile CEO, yes the company that hid their knowledge of climate change and fought doing anything about it) for Secretary of State;
Senator Jeff Sessions (known for working against civil rights and voting rights) for Attorney General;
Scott Pruit (used his position as Attorney General for Oklahoma to protect oil and gas companies from the EPA) for head of the EPA;
Steve Mnuchin (worked for Goldman Sachs and other banks during the period in which they crashed the housing market) for Treasury Secretary;
Ryan Zinke (believes Wilderness should include roads and logging, and that Federal lands should be turned over to states and private parties) for Interior Secretary;
Rick Perry (former Governor of Texas who wanted to get rid of the Dept. of Energy, except he forgot its name) for Energy Secretary;
Betsy DeVos (large-scale Republican donor and wants to voucherize education) for Education Secretary;

It is up to us to fight for at least a better set of people serving in the different branches of the Trump administration. And it will be up to us to work against the Trump version of the Republican agenda. If we are lucky, not all that will come from Trump will be bad, but we know that much of it will be. We need to be ready to stand on street corners and yell, and to call our representatives in Congress, and to write letters, and generally participate in government as much as we can to make things better. And to change toward a better world, where science is appreciated, truth is carefully cultivated, and the world itself is cherished.

 

Screaming chimps or a peaceful new year?

With chilly days and freezing nights, it’s clear that the winter solstice season is here. Every morning and most evenings I walk down the street a few blocks and back to exercise my knee and my foot. Every morning I see the phainopepla up in a withered tree with lots of mistletoe. At work now I see a little vermillion flycatcher, bright, bright red up in a mesquite tree near the building where I work. This morning, a mother javalina was under our window with 2 young babies, less than a foot long. Some birds and animals shift their patterns during this short winter period, but our resident friends, the verdin, the flocks of mourning doves, the families of quail, the bunnies, and the wandering coyotes are still here and active. The cooper’s hawks still cruise the neighborhood at tree-top level, looking for an unwary dove.

Outside this relatively calm, predictable world, it seems like the world at large has gone mad. People are on edge from the various terrorist attacks of this year, and the angry and often deliberately provocative words of politicians keep stirring up anger among their followers, and sanitiy and decency flies out the window. Do we live in a zoo? Are our politicians and followers no more than chimps?

People respond to the screams of the angry chimps they see in the media. I see the hand of Fox News and a money-based, cautious media. The result is an unguarded anger that is immediately directed, along with all their other frustrations, toward the handiest target, President Obama. Their frustration, their anger, and their fears become focused by a demagogue like Donald Trump, but the response is totally outside the bounds of knowledge and reason. Some of President Obama’s responses may be off, but the crowd fails to comprehend that screaming and acting belligerent would, in the President’s position, lead us all to ruin.

So do we choose the chimp because it screams for us and our otherwise silent pain? There is something to be said for this cathartic approach, but in the end, the rants of the chimp may not guide us to wise governance or social policy. And the chimp really wants only what he wants. He does not, after all, play the role of a pacific bonobo, but is subject to venal desires that lead toward power and reward for himself. He uses his anger to gain power and augment his influence and wealth. He screams about terrorists because he knows many will howl in chorus, because acts of terror have brought us all to a state of unease now, as the year comes quietly to a close.

Ironically, the terrorists attack us for our being open to multiple peoples, multiple cultures, and multiple points of view. Donald Trump and other Republicans wish to follow the terrorists’ path — to close our society, to pretend our society is a monoculture, to demonize others, and to make our government a pseudo-Christian force. Christian conservatives would disagree, but a forcefully Christian government is just another version of a caliphate. Our society’s multiculturalism is a major strength. It carries with it the force of a broader justice: that in the ideal, all can receive equal representation and protection under the law.

As the year ends, we still have the call by the chimp brigade for war, and yet many, maybe most Americans have little interest in another American war in the Middle East. My wish for the New Year is peace: a resolution of fighting in Syria; a swift end to the major power of the Islamic State, Daesh or whatever flag the terrorists want to salute; and peace at home for all of the people of the world. Sorry, I know this is a trite wish, but it is still a reasonable goal. We could do without the bellicose calls for war and the racist/xenophic attitudes at home here, too. We have better, smarter paths to follow. Let’s hope that cooler heads and better politics prevail in 2016. Is that so much to hope for? Meanwhile, I need the comfort of the natural world to find my own personal balance. I recommend nature’s quiet for everyone that can find it.

 

Vanity, ambition.

It’s been a month since my surgery, and the curtain of pain, fatigue and a drug-induced haze is lifting gradually. I am far enough along with a new, apparently functional knee that I can walk 2 blocks (with an effort!), and the pain has subsided enough that I can skip the oxycodone and other painkillers. I am hopeful, especially since I may be free of my walker in a few days when I see my doctor. And what is this world I see as the fog dissipates… oh damn, it’s the same old world. My friend the verdin still busies himself with poking my tomatoes and hunting exhaustively for bugs on all the plants outside, and this is good enough, but the outer world still lives on a different fuel. Instead of insects and sweet juices, the members of mankind that count search constantly for attention. Vanity and ambition is the rule. This would be bad enough if this was just the standard for much of what we see among celebrities, but this is also the standard for our politicians, notably the ones running for the presidency.

We have endless chatter about Donald Trump and his exploits as the egotistical publicity hound. He seems to appeal to some by being blunt and rude, and for others, he is a, celebrity, or a chance at someone who may actually do what he says. Others, like Scott Walker or Jeb Bush try to be whatever is necessary to get attention, but have a hard time saying the right words at the right time to win Republican voter attention. Hillary Clinton seems to have more sense and more composure, but the long-term dislike of a powerful Democratic woman among conservatives guarantees that she will be hounded with talk of her email security, something that nobody inside or outside of government has a grip on — and so really is just an excuse to keep her on the defensive. Meanwhile, she, too, lets her ambition blunt and shape her message in nuanced ways, in order to avoid turning off any voters. Bernie Sanders offers someone who largely says what he means and makes sense, but the media give him the usual, superficial attention. He is automatically a sideshow. Thus, most of what we hear is the sound of politicians acting as children seeking attention. Rather than candid, real, thoughtful inspiration, I hear the noise of vanity and ambition. Rather than intelligent problem-solving, we have the antics of the world of celebrity.

As a scientist and a tinkerer, I think about fixing things and building things. It is very unsatisfying to live in a world where any substantive attention to something is impossible. It costs money so forget it. We don’t want to fix it, because it will cost our donors money, so forget it. It doesn’t fit with our image as government-hating budget-cutters, so forget it. Let the wisdom of the marketplace take care of it. So we have nothing.

It was encouraging this week to see Germany take in a group of Syrian refugees instead of kicking them out, because they know that if they invest a little money in them now, they will boost their economy in the future. Here we don’t seem to want any immigrants, and we certainly don’t want to invest in them. We don’t seem to want to invest in American citizens. Education is suffering as we use it to solve budget gaps — just cut it. At the university where I work, now every function is tied to a budget line item, expressed as the value it adds directly in student tuitiion dollars. A university run like a business may work efficiently and stay solvent, but it is in danger of losing its soul.

The world I love is a beautiful and thriving place, where the creative force of creation through evolution in biology, and through all the complex forces of physics that we can barely conceive are making a considerable complexity and beauty. We have a beautiful unique world to cherish, filled with interesting diverse people. Yet we ignore the world’s potential, our society’s potential, and in many cases, our own potential. We could do and be so much more if we shed our prejudices, our petty, unproductive supersititions, and conflicts. We should be focusing on the positive we can be doing, celebrating the diversity, enjoying others’ company, learning all we can, and making a world that works with the earth, not against it.

 

Election Spinout 2014

This year’s election left me tired, angry, and frustrated. Much has been said about it. Much of what has been said has not been helpful. The main thing I see is that the U.S. public is angry at practically all government because of its failure to help them. They are tired of the dogma and the games. But some of the anger and finger-pointing is inspired by vacuous, often inaccurate news coverage. The Republicans, pulled constantly by the Tea Party, keep moving further to the extreme right, and use extreme measures, like government shutdown to extort their wishes out of the American people. The mainstream news producers often talk about the American people being tired of the extreme politics on both sides and the constant fighting. Yes there is fighting but the extremism is on the right.

One of the main reasons the Democrats often don’t do well in these elections is because they are not standing for the American people, and they can’t even pretend they are. Sure they say they are, but because they are always ready to compromise, and take up Republican causes, so that they won’t seem too extreme, or to win over some conservative voters. What is a glaring example? Opposition to the KeystoneXL pipeline is supposed to be a Democratic cause. They are the ones that at least pretend to be concerned about climate change and the environment. But whose State Department somehow decided that the pipeline would not contribute significantly to climate change? And now that the Republicans will control Congress and the Senate, they are ready to pay back their petroleum industry masters, and demonstrate their true Republican disregard for science and the environment. They will move forward with the KeystoneXL pipeline. Yet today, before the newly elected Republicans have taken their seats, KeystoneXL was voted on in the Senate. And who introduced it to the Senate? Mary Landrieu, a Democrat whose state’s whole economy and its people’s health were damaged severely by the BP oil spill. And other Democrats joined in voting for the pipeline, and it missed passing by one vote. Too many Democrats never miss a chance to demonstrate that they don’t really have strong beliefs about anything — except getting re-elected.

A failure to stand and fight for what the people really need is the reason so many Democrats make themselves unappealing candidates. Nobody likes an opportunist. Nobody likes someone who is a politician first and before any beliefs. And so Democratic policies keep hurting Americans. And additionally, they often are pushing some of the same conservative, pro-market, pro-industry, anti-environment policies that the Republicans push. They may not be as bad. They may have some rationale for what they do. They may sometimes do truly good things. But sometimes doing the right thing is hard to sell. How about some moral clarity? How about standing for our planet, the only place — THE ONLY PLACE — we have to live.

 

Mutilation, pain, frustration, design, pumpkins

My mind is bouncing all over the place. Maybe it’s trying to avoid focusing on the pain, or rather the discomfort of having had my left foot mutilated. Yes, I did that, or I had a surgeon do that to me. And it is frustrating, as you might imagine, to lose the use of a foot. I’ve had trouble with my left foot/ankle for about 7 years now. My posterior tibialis broke, without fanfare or immediate pain. I just noticed one day that my ankle had been hurting, at which point I realized that my left ankle was sort of flopping over in an ungainly fashion, and that the ankle was swollen. I had no clue what may be causing these symptoms, although clearly they were related. I went to an orthopedic surgeon to find that the tendon that holds up the ankle was broken. Severed. Just not connected the way it should be. It took me several years to accept that this was not going to change, and that the only 2 choices were wearing really high, orthotic inserts in my shoes to prop up the ankle, or debilitating surgery — which didn’t even seem that promising.

I’ve worn the painful, uncomfortable, awkward and limiting orthotics, literally limped through several years, and have gone back to doctors a few times. More recently I found a surgeon who seemed to have a lot of experience with this particular surgery, and who seemed to feel confident that it would help. So I went through with it. The real downside of it is, now I have to completely not use the left foot for 8 weeks. That includes walking, standing, and other normal, not-even-athletic activities. After facing this undesirable limitation several times, I decided to just do it. So now I ride a knee walker (think of it as a tall skate board for your knee), and otherwise sit in my home office with Ms. Bitey, my oddly very attached, but often biting cat.

I take strong pain killers sometimes, just to keep down the uncomfortable, occasionally mildly painful feeling that I have something very tightly bound around my foot. I actually do have a large compression bandage around my poor left foot, which, from what I understand, went through a series of traumatic changes, including bones being cut in half and repositioned, and a tendon being cut and repositioned. I’ve had surprisingly little real pain considering how violent all this sounds. But, back to the point, I don’t think the painkillers are affecting my thoughts too much, because I haven’t taken one since about midnight. I would think, if anything, they would numb me, both in a literal sense, but also in terms of my emotiions. Yet, I feel more sensitive than ever.

It’s frustrating to be so limited in one’s movements, and to be a clear burden on my patient wife, but a lot of what brings me to tears these days has nothing to do with the physical, but more the sad reality of the outer world. I’m lucky. I live a fairly comfortable American life, with a job flexible enough that I can work at home when I need to, and I have good medical insurance to pay for my surgery, etc. So if I whine here at all, please ignore it. The outside world has plenty of people facing tougher, even tragic fates.

How is it that you can have a year where every time you turn around, a year of bad, frustrating, anger-provoking news can only heap up more reasons to turn away in disgust, horror, and profound sadness. The Middle East, the fertile crescent of our beautiful, great religions just comes up with more excuses as to why religion means never having to say you’re sorry. Even when you might find yourself beheading someone for being a reporter, or murdering whole communities worth of people because they are so clearly members of a religious group that God cannot tolerate. Sometimes religion is just an excuse for ignoring the humanity of your neighbors. And somehow, the fertile crescent and environs continues to be fertile ground for Americans to suppose that maybe they can help. Maybe they can help sometimes, but unfortunately, it really is hard to tell whether we’re helping or hurting much of the time.

And we’re still not doing that well in the race/ethnic relations department in the U.S. That certainly hasn’t changed for the better since my last post here. Now we have the horrificly graphic video of a man in New York (notibly an unarmed black man) being murdered by asphyxiation, without a second thought, by a white policeman. The poor guy was selling individual cigarettes without a license and did not completely cooperate with police. I saw it once and after that I have to turn away. Sometimes murder is just murder, and it’s certainly not something I enjoy watching. When one man is dehumanized, as Eric Garner so manifestly was, we are all dehumanized.

And then in short order it seemed that we had another such example. Another unarmed, young black man, Michael Brown, was shot to death in Ferguson, Missouri, again by a white policeman. That the people of Ferguson went into what might be called a rage over this event seemed to be more of a concern by many, than shooting itself. This young man was jaywalking apparently. Much has been said and written about this and related events. I probably don’t need to say more here. I think what Kareem Abdul-Jabbar wrote about this in Time is especially insightful and eloquent: http://time.com/author/kareem-abdul-jabbar/.

And here in steamy, summertime Tucson, some people agreed with, and some people took exception to David Fitzsimmons’ cartoon in the Arizona Star, which depicted President Obama having trouble governing while being black (http://tucson.com/news/opinion/fitz/daily-fitz-cartoon-ferguson/image_31602ac3-0fec-50ad-8f5b-8c18743c79d4.html), the exact thought I’ve had for a long time. The reality may be, that the reason behind actions of conservatives with respect to Obama, or, for example, the increased limitations in voting rights, might have more to do with conservative politics. But make no mistake, Congress, Republicans, and others are emboldened to take extraordinary measures against the President because they know it sells well among those racists who make up a large portion of the old South, and portions of some other states. Racism is still racism, even if it is motivated by politics. And taking a human life is still murder, even if it is done to people of a race, ethnic group, or religion that you don’t value.

So the usual panoply of news events have set me off again. My head spins sometimes in trying to grasp at some shred of a reason to feel comforted by a thought that things will get better. Yet I think maybe the young people in my family and many other families, too, do offer hope. They have no trouble at all accepting the humanity of their multi-ethnic friends. They don’t seem to grow up with the barriers that were in place when I was young. Yes, I was a teenager when the Marvin Gaye song that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar referred to, Inner City Blues, came out, but its message is still important now, as are the messages of other songs from the same album, like What’s Going On or Mercy Mercy Me. I was not really focused on R&B or soul music at that time, but it was part of the backdrop of my youth. The message behind them hits me even harder now.

Strangely, though, I feel so powerless a lot of the time. How I feel, and what I try to express to my representatives in Congress, the White House, and the state government seem to often come to no consequence. Progress in some areas seems to be balanced by lost ground on so many other fronts. Good ideas need to be compromised I’m told, until they can have no value at all, and retrograde thought seems to lead the conversation so much of the time. I guess it would be better if I weren’t in such a prototypic southern, conservative state. But there is no such excuse for the nation.

I find that I just mentally turn off the frustration with politics, with the news, with my current physical limitations, and the discomfort of my foot, by turning my focus to trivia. I do e-shopping and think about design of clothing and my own image. Maybe it’s not entirely trivial, but in the end it is just surface, which as I get older, I see how transient it can be. Still I wonder if I should change how I look on the outside, because I feel often like screaming on the inside. I know everyone else has there own reasons to scream, but I just get tired of putting on a standard normal, American guy look — khaki, and basic oxford shirts and T-shirts. I feel that somehow, when I am torn apart inside by what I see is going on in the world, I might show that to the world.

I find myself reaching for punk/alternative imagery, because I used to be a part of that in San Francisco, and still follow that to some extent. But maybe I should go for something more personal and new. Maybe someone can come up with a design for a better human image to project, one that will help inspire people to be better human beings. We need a uniform and style for the outside, that states that the person inside is a caring, forward thinking, humanist and environmentalist, and one who is willing to take on the stupid regressive politics of the U.S. and the rest of the world. Maybe if we can’t change the world right away, we can at least get the messaging in the image correct. Does style precede substance? Only if we really do worry about what’s inside, too. Sadly in our world, many don’t even approach getting the image correct.

Mutilation, pain, frustration, design, and what was the pumpkins about? I don’t know. It just showed up there. My brain is a bit jumbled. Maybe it came from realizing today that we are now still in the midst of a long Tucson summer, but essentially we have just one more summer to go (one normal Eastern U.S. summer) before this summer is over. At that point, I will be able to walk again, presumably, and I will be able to start to enjoy some cooler weather and it will be time for Halloween. And I will buy pumpkins and gourds in the farmer’s market to celebrate traditional harvest time. Something to look forward to. In the near term, I can look forward to more monsoon rains, and to getting outside again and saying hi to the Verdin, even if it is hot.

 

Nero fiddles

It’s already May, and my friend the verdin is teaching his young, now nearly grown, to be self-sufficient. He started early in the year, gathering materials, choosing a location, and building his elegant nest. And, of course, courting his mate. He planned ahead and invested a lot of effort in his family.  He chose a beautiful tree and now he and his mate feed his beautiful children in the bushes and trees in my yard.

Meanwhile we are not preparing the way for our children or for a better future. We are coasting through the year backwards. We might as well be drifting backwards in a hot air balloon — no control, no pilot input, no desirable destination likely. All of my family is suffering from the economy that is getting better oh so slowly. It could be doing better for all, but we have been saddled with a Congress that lacks vision entirely. They are the CEOs of the biggest enterprise in the world, but they don’t really have an interest in developing assets, making use of science or engineering. Their personnel, the most expensive and most valuable part of any enterprise, are considered a liability better laid off to save money. What is the future for such an enterprise? Will its stock rise? Only by any means other than what is being done by its leaders. The personnel, poorly rewarded and struggling for assets, are desperately trying to advance. How do you grow an enterprise whose leaders have no faith in the staff, and see no value in investing needed cash towards new projects? A corporation needs capital to build infrastructure and develop new ideas, create new products. America, the world’s largest enterprise is cash poor when it comes to large projects, and comes up short whether it is investing in scientific research, educating children, taking care of veterans, or protecting the health of the American people.

As for all large organizations, in order to build its operations, serve more people, fund research and development for future expansion, each year more money needs to be invested. This concept seems to escape the most conservative of Congressmen, who want to see the budget shrink. And to fill the void of action in Congress, the void created by their failure to help move America forward, they obsessively try to blow life into scandals, even if they are exaggerations or highly creative interpretations of reality. The death of Ambassador Stevens in Benghazi, Libya is the biggest example. Their concern, from the ill-conceived beginnings with Mitt Romney, seems to be almost exclusively that the President or his administration may have made false, insufficient, or misleading statements during the first days after the attack itself. Republicans in Congress have been trying very hard to keep talk of the scandal alive. There were clear failures in security arrangements at some level, most at likely lower levels of the government, but some Congressmen keep stretching the focus to what the President said. To me, it seems largely irrelevant what the government says officially at such times. The President and the military were dealing with the crisis itself, and it is not difficult to imagine that at such a time, it is not a good idea to be talking at length about what you know and how you know it. It seemed, in effect, unpatriotic that Mitt Romney would start immediately attacking the President and the government when we were dealing with threats abroad. In any case, the investigation of what happened should reveal important information in the future. Concern about what people said offically at the time is not important to the investigation or necessarily to the American people. We have much bigger concerns.

While Congress plays make the President and Hillary Clinton look bad, they ignore the needs of America. Right now we suffer the effects of the sequester, a ridiculous form of mutual extortion that became law. Instead of trying to find ways to improve the economy, they avoided dealing with difficult questions that they themselves insisted needed attention. In reality, the conservatives in Congress are happy enough with the sequester, because it cuts government, which facilitates cutting taxes, the payoff for people who care the most about the money in their pocket. Otherwise, the Republicans in Congress now fill their days pointing fingers and wagging their tongues. This is the impeachment of President Bill Clinton all over again. Nero fiddles while Rome burns. Many American families are short on work, short on food, and even out of their homes. America and Americans are full of potential. We just need some investment.

 

Take a breath

The weather is suddenly cooler here. It feels like Fall. Finally. It’s been 6 months since it was really anything but summer here. But now the leaves on a few trees show a little yellow in their color. My friend the verdin was looking a little larger with his feathers fluffed this morning. The doves looked huge compared to their usual sleek selves. There was a slight chill all day and it was a pleasure to feel comfortable working in the yard this afternoon.

I and my friends have been hugely relieved because of the presidential election. But the political news is still tense with discussion of the “fiscal cliff” on the near horizon, and the usual Democrats versus Republicans gamesmanship. I am heartened that the Republicans are forced to face in public that their shrill tone versus Latinos and women has hurt their ability to gain votes. I have heard at least twice in discussions a Republican say that yes they need to improve relations with young people and women, but most important, they need to gain favor with Latinos. What I don’t hear in these discussions, which seems all important is that they realize that they have been wrong in their attitudes. The racist and sexist tone of Republican speech in the past few years has not gone unnoticed by Latinos, or by women, Blacks, and the rest of the world. The disrepect toward President Obama has been emblematic of the often thinly veiled or even overt racist attacks that have come from the Right. Approaching minorities and women’s rights groups might be a start towards improving relations, but first they need to get rid of the attitude. Racism was never okay. But most of our society has known this since at least the 60’s. I thought that at least officially sanctified racism was largely done since then.

The lack of respect for women and minorities goes hand in hand with the tone of superiority that the Republicans use with the Democrats and other opponents. Their sense of moral superiority keeps leading them to remarkably wrong positions held with dogmatic inflexibility. If they held truly moral positions it would be easier to bear, but often their superiority is rooted in a traditional/conventional point of view, but not necessarily anything inherently moral from my point of view. In current battles, their positions often support wealth and power above all, which is far from being about feeding and caring for the poor. In the end, my feeling is that our needs as a society require the full participation of those with wealth and power. Just as for any good business, our nation needs investment in order to build a better, more productive future. We need capital, and yet the capitalists do not want ot invest in their own nation. This is not a patriotic point of view, nor will it help their own families in the long run. They seem to want ot segregate themselves from the rest of the nation and live in their own version of the United States.

We have fought this battle before. We must work in common with respect for all people. People are not liabilities. They are our most important assets. Invest in them, and cultivate their value. All of them have so much to offer. Our futures can be rich together. We need to develop new technologies and smarter ways of using them. We cannot reach that future by clinging to an insular, narrow point of view.

 

Winter seeps into the landscape.

Yesterday, after some nice warm, sunny days this week, a cold wind blew in with a slow, cold rain. We had the first fire of the season in the fireplace, and it really started to feel like our short, Arizona winter is starting. That doesn’t mean that we won’ t have some pleasant, warm days, but the nights are getting much colder. We may have some frost in the next few days. I like this. I grew up in the drizzly, damp of the East Coast, and yes, it wasn’t always pleasant. But I enjoy plunging into the gestalt occasionally. Nature isn’t always easy, but it is nature nonetheless.

As I prepare for Christmas and look forward to more time off, I feel fairly comfortable with my place in the world. It’s not all satisfying but I enjoy the feeling of working with a group of talented people working toward scientific goals. I have enough income for now, and no insurmountable problems. I do worry about my parents as they age, but this is something that we all must deal with — our decline as we get older.

I’m not sure what keeps my brain so busy sometimes at night that I don’t always sleep well. Maybe it’s the business of the day, but I think it is also just the tensions of the world. There are a lot of tensions and problems — financial and otherwise.

I think what is most disturbing is that I see little hope in the near future for substantive improvement in the U.S. and how it extends itself into the world. I am subjected to frequent information about the Republican Presidential primary campaigns, but little what I hear is truly important. What is so very disturbing is that there is such a deficit of intelligent thoughts, or true moral stands. Oh there is a constant parade of revelations about the moral failings of this one and that, or the silly things that this one said at some point. There is a lot of puffery and showmanship — a soap operatic theater for people of limited mentality, limited heart, and limited attention span.

The competition is sometimes to prove how well a candidate can imitate a tough general in battle, with oaths and swagger and unwavering aggression. Their patriotic zeal will not tolerate resistance to the undoubtable might of AMERICA, and to them, only a weak, undedicated fool would not use torture. After all, when you are the moral superiors of the world, what moral won’t yield to you?

Other times they compete to be the most pure of apostles to the temple of the free market. They cannot suffer the lazy masses that have no capital to offer and no means to eat, when there are much more industrious people to serve. The failings of the weak cannot be overly coddled, for fear of “moral hazard”. At the same time, the captains of industry need more indulgence, and maybe an occasional, thoughtful investment, because they have proved their value, and are of known productivity. And the artists, philosophers, scientists, teachers, native peoples or environmentalists? They are the chaff at your ankles. Who would listen to their rustling as you move through the world!

And so there is a great deficit in the land. Not just of the monetary sort, but a really great one of ideas. It’s not that the ideas are not there. The problem is, that they are not the ones on your TV or on your computer screen. You can find better thought, better discussion, more intelligence, and the verbalization of true ambition for a better future. The problem is that on the broad scale, our would-be leaders, and our leaders, too, feel obligated to address this opera stage in a poorly acted melodrama — one that is poorly written and of little substance, too. The point is the point. You must sell an image, and make your sale, and then move on. Watch the poll numbers as they spin. There will be much of this, but not much to write home about. Not much to think about on a cold, damp morning as the sun seeks to rise in a cloudy sky.

Better to think about the animals that visited the verdin’s domain this week: the cautious gray fox; the Cooper’s hawk; the coyote; and the whole herd of javelinas. They find scraps to eat in our neighborhood and do well enough. Can I ask for anything more?

 

The Hot, Dry Desert

Tucson and the rest of Arizona is just baking in the June heat. Everyday reaches up to anywhere from 100 to 106 right now. The lack — almost complete lack — of rain here brings incredible dryness. I just mopped the tile floors and they were dry almost immediately. It’s not unusual for it to be hot and dry in June, but the severe drought this Spring means that the plants and animals suffer a little more. Much of Arizona is on fire, too, with the Monument fire threatening Sierra Vista and the beautiful Huachuca Mountains. The Chiracahuas already have been burning for weeks now, but that fire is more under control and less of a threat to homes. It’s hard to stomach all the destruction nearby and more is likely to come. There’s no sign of the monsoon yet, and San Juan’s Day, the official day for welcoming the monsoon will be here in less than a week I think.
The lizards are very active and I often see the king snakes winding across the yard. The verdin and many other birds spend a lot of time picking at my cherry tomatoes growing in planters on the back patio. I have learned to pick them myself before they are ripe and so, before they have a bite out of them. The verdin and friends still get quite a few, but so do I. Given the heat and the dry, spare environment they are enduring right now, I can’t blame them at all. And they do seem to be having fun with it.

With a lot of the state in flames literally, and the rest figuratively charred by the drop in the housing market and the loss of jobs, you would hope for relief in some form. But the state government continues on its straight and narrow path of limited government (unless it comes to meddling in people’s lives for Christian causes) and a heartlessly lean budget for all.

Our governor, Jan Brewer has largely collaborated with our ridiculous state legislature, but recently actually called them back into session to have them consider modifying state law to average the economy over 3 years instead of 2 years, in order to allow the many long-term unemployed people in the state to qualify for extended unemployment benefits. These benefits have been funded by the federal government, but that does not convince the legislators that coddling the unemployed in this way is a good idea. They feel it would only encourage them to wait longer before they actually go out and get a job. They just don’t like the federal government anyway. This seems to the official position of the Republican Party, which ‘doominates’ our legislature and Congress as well. The Republican desire to limit government (at least the part that “wastes” money on people as opposed to enriching corporations) both dominates the dialog, but also dooms us all to a continued retrograde de-development scheme.  As people watch their jobs become more demanding and their careers stagnate without advancement or options, the whole nation’s infrastructures, both physical, educational, and conceptual wither. At a time when we need more investment in the nation, the conversation is about putting a lid on borrowing, when money is cheap and we need it to rebuild and re-employ America.

The America I grew up with likes new ideas and new technologies, but the current culture is dominated by short-visioned businesses and corporate captains who want the consumer to pay extra for every advancement and improvement, even when these have become almost equivalent in cost to old technology. And making more profit, which helps keep up the bonuses in the suites of top management, is largely based on raising productivity by demanding more of overworked employees, keeping their salaries or wages low, cutting their benefits where possible, and selling the company’s future by reduced investment. This is also the Republican model: save money, invest in people less (even though they are really the number one asset of the nation), and give freely to those people and organizations that fund their campaigns. In Arizona, that means push mining and real estate development, except there’s no market for the real estate. Just mining. The Democrats are not much better in being too polite about the whole thing, and even collaborating with the Republicans over some things if not just to seem reasonable. At the same time they are not pushing the needs of the individual worker forward in the discussion nearly as much as they should. President Obama talks up new energy investment, but in a clinch, he still gave in to tax breaks for the wealthy that guarantee no funding for more investment in Americans.

On the other hand, the media also fails to allow discussion of  anything that isn’t sensational enough to draw the lowest common denominator. The easy example was Nancy Pelosi’s regular press conference this past Thursday. This spectacle was uncharacteristically swarming with the press, because they wanted to hear more about the salacious story du jour, the Anthony Weiner resignation. When the minority leader informed everyone that the topic for discussion was unemployment jobs, the plight of the middle class, and saving Medicare, many of the news cameras turned away abruptly to allow the cable news talking heads to yammer some more about the Anthony Weiner story, even if it was getting rather stale.

A sad example of our national underinvestment problem stares at us through the flames of our burning forests. When it was realized that they needed to be thinned, our Congress during the Bush years constructed a thinning plan that failed to really protect the long health of the forests. Then, as environmentalists had to fight the resulting individual forest management plans that gave away the big trees in the hope that traditional lumber companies might cut enough of the small ones, which produced more unnatural, unhealthy forests. The battles over the implementation delayed action on thinning. In some of the mountain communities, new mills have been established to use the smaller trees for modern engineered lumber products. Further delay of the thinning projects came because Congress failed to adequately fund the program. The result is that now, years later, forests that were slated for thinning but not yet thinned are now burning vigorously, and the firefights are costing much more than the thinning programs would have cost. Fires in thinned areas or areas that had more recent burns, cost drastically less. Check out the headline story for today, June 19th in the Arizona Daily Star. The savings in fire management doesn’t even include the cost to individual property and lives. As my mom used to say, this is being penny wise and pound foolish. That sums up our whole approach right now. Have I said this before? Does it still bear saying?

As the forests burn, southern Arizona heats up, not just from the fires, but also because of the racist attitudes of the state government, in the form of Tom Horne and John Huppenthal. Yes, they cover their actions with words about keeping out racial prejudice in the Tucson Unified School District’s ethnic studies program, but really it’s just another nod to 19th century thinking, and a wink to those who want to blame the Mexicans for the state problems. It’s a lot easier to find scapegoats than for the state Republicans to admit that they screwed up when they lowered taxes so much. And an occasional bit of encouragement to the racial tendencies of some voters helps keep this part of their base happy and voting. Traditionally the Latinos have voted more for the Democrats, and when Doris Huerta, a seasoned member of the fight for the rights of farm workers, called out the Republicans for their racist tendencies, she focused the anger of the state Republicans on her and the venue where she spoke: at a Tucson school. This is the core of the ugly effort by Tom Horn and now John Huppenthal. Tom Horn started the effort when he was state Superintendent of Public Instruction, and he continues as Attorney General. Huppenthal helped by commissioning an audit of the school district and the ethnic studies program. The results of the audit really found no real problems with the program, but Huppenthal drew his predetermined conclusion anyway — that TUSD was in violation of state law and would therefore be in danger of losing 15 million dollars a year in state funds. So the racist state government continues its ugly path, blazing trails ever-trending to the right and back into the 19th century.

Thus Arizona will continue to burn. Let’s hope that the next set of fireworks comes from the monsoon coming on the scene with a noisy, flashy bunch of extremely wet storms. We need the land cooled and moistened, and the gutters washed clean.