Doom takes a break

It was with great pleasure that I had the opportunity to meet another Llamedos (and former latoc) member: "Bones" this weekend. This young man drove in from California with soul searching wisdom beyond his years and a shiny trombone. He had just driven in from Austin, Texas having had spent some time with Dignity of struggle. Not much money, but a soul that was priceless, he embarked on seeing New Orleans for the first time. He did this after a night by the fire pit drinking beer and smoking a cigar while ruminating on life's deepest questions and great mysteries. Michelle from Latoc once remarked, "every doomer when meeting for the first time must have the talk." How was it this man was still in his twenties, I wondered? We had ours while the haloed moon was high overhead and a biting chill gripped the darkness as a dog barked and howled across the distant swamp. Like two doom shamans we compared notes and took turns at the podium preaching our particular view of "dust in the wind." Only thing missing was a peace pipe and some bear fat.

The next morning I showed him all my old haunts - or nearly all of them - down in the french quarter where I grew up, and he was able to fulfill his personal wish in coming to New Orleans; that is, to play with a real honest to goodness local New Orleans jazz band. Bones is a very good trombone player, and most interesting, I as well. Though I had not touched my instrument since the great Katrina hit in 2005 and not really played with any interest since 1990. Embarrassed I pulled the forty year old corroded horn out of the attic and displayed it to him. Finding my old mouth piece we made it sing once more despite the dents, holes, and blackened patina. Maybe there was some hope for the old antique after all, and I as well.

After filling up with some scrambled eggs we made our way across the marshes of Lake Catherine and forts of old to find our rhythm and blues. Bones had longer legs than I and a heart beating a decade and half younger easily outpaced me as we made our way to Jackson Square. He sought the most ideal spot to pop open the horn case and play under grey skies. It may have been grey and chilly, but the atmosphere was alive and breathing. After passing up a blind trumpet player on the levee, the kite graveyard, and the canon topped moonwalk, he chose a spot right in front of the St. Louis Cathedral. If you're going to do it, might as well go to the heart of the matter. If you ever had any social anxiety or stage fright, the moment Bones took the horn to task would have been difficult for both species as people turned all attention on the man from St. Louie (Bones is originally from St. Louis, MO).

Let's just say that I was impressed with the talent on display - this boy could play. Bones was able to make his memory and add to life's tapestry. The moment only detracted briefly by a nearby artist, whose lousy paintings adorned the fence, warning him that cops don't take kindly to musicians playing towards the church as the sound carries in the hollowed interior. The tourists didn't seem to mind, and the locals wondered why this young man wasn't playing for thrown dollar or coin....but was in fact doing it "just for fun." Hope wasn't lost as Bones spied a even better location nearby. A middle aged heavy set black man who was wearing a Santa hat sat holding a well worn tuba covered in stickers. After coming over for a chat the jazz and moment was on. He managed to attract a very large crowd of tourist I might add too.

So let's say that I was uplifted and renewed with the music, the beat of hambone-hambone have you heard and the bluesy soul that played out at the ole place de'la arms that we call "Jackson Square." The Jazz tuba player who was playing for a meager living was more than happy to have the man from St. Louie at his side while giving Bones some local tips playing New Orleans style. The brassy notes brought out the most interesting of characters from the Cabildo, that old 18th century jail for pirates.

 Bones remarked that New Orleans was a city that "still had a pulse." From the fine food to the artists that hung their hand crafted crafts from the fence, old America was still faintly alive in a country now filled with box stores and chained restaurants.

Bones and I relished on some beignets and chicory laced coffee at the old cafe de Monde on Decatur while escaping the unusual chill that was blowing in from Dumaine before pondering the crafts on display down at the famous french market.

I myself picked up a hand carved skull bracelet from a voodoo priestess and Bones swapped notes with a trumpeter who was shot in the head. I also introduced him to another member who owned a shop for witches on Decatur before showing him my old elementary school "Mcdonald 15."

 All in all a fabulous day that rewarded us with sore feet and full belly's. Bones spent the evening galloping in and out of the Bourbon st jazz clubs while I spent time chasing my nephews and nieces under the twinkly lights of "Christmas in the Oaks."

Sometimes all the doom takes a break when friends visit from afar.

Greatest country in the world?

Bill Hick's fantastic blog "The Downward Spiral" had me thinking this morning. In one of his latest posts he points out that the OWS movement might be co-opted in DC by political parties. http://billhicksisdead.blogspot.com/2011/12/occupy-movement-may-be-about-to-jump.html

I personally have been watching from the sidelines at these protests when they started in New York city months ago. More than once I've been tempted to lace my boots and join their small encampment down in New Orleans only to have the demands of work and property labor impose their necessary obligations. I could be just making excuses like many others. Meanwhile, I've watched my countrymen tear gassed, pepper sprayed, tazered, beaten, cut, boot stomped, and swept away from their encampments by riot police acting in behest of what Bill Hicks sharply points out - by liberal and Democratic mayors. From what I hear around the proverbial water cooler, more like hanging out in front of the ambulance drinking coffee, it's all good riddance of the hippies, communists, and filth that bum up parks and sidewalks. I see the corporate owned media has mind fucked my coworkers exceptionally well. Why are we so against protests these days?

We often tout that America is the greatest country in the world, but even the slightest understanding of history shows that every freedom we now enjoy came after much protest, blood spillage, and cries from the downtrodden. It took courage, momentum, and action to make blacks equal to whites,

women equal to men,

to give land back to the Indians and to treat them with justice,

to save beautiful unspoiled nature,

to end child labor,

and to provide for the welfare of our neighbors and fellow countrymen.

The worshipped founding fathers created a nation with all these afflictions - slavery, the submission of women, child labor, exploitation of nature, and the decimation of America's native population. Oddly enough, you find all these social constructs also in the christian bible, so maybe the argument that this nation is, or was, christian holds some weight. It took people dying and bravely throwing themselves against police and their government to institute any meaningful reform in this alleged land of the free. Equal freedom, love of your fellow man, and conserving nature doesn't seem to equate well to slavery, the submission of gender, and slash and burn resource management. So knowing how America once was, and which is so oddly glorified with statues and panegyrized writings, how is it now that we vilify these protesters and their judgement of today's capitalism? We live in a self professed capitalistic nation whose alleged values of love, caring, and support for those who are unable is under constant assault by politicians seeking to kill Mexicans, setup electrified fences, strip health care from the poor, old, and disabled, allow the military to arrest its citizens without trial or jury, be subject to execution at the whim of a military commission or the executive order from the president (yes, all of this is true and there are examples already), and the removal of any and all environmental regulations. Yes, can you believe that the above is actually alive and well in the "greatest country" in the world?

Since it doesn't seem that we have the same mass will behind OWS type protests, as say the civil rights protests of the 60's, I'm not at all encouraged that my country man will stop any of the insanity creeping back into our laws, regulations, and policies that was so hardly fought for in decades past. It took countless hangings, cross burning hate, and public humiliation years to be defeated with thousands of marches, the endurement of German Shepard injuries, and skin peeling water cannon attacks. Only after all those bloody protests did blacks finally manage to force the government to write in laws enforcing their natural constitutional rights as human beings! Even now we have to fight our government for the right to marry who we want, to protect our waters from massive oil spills, to permit vegetable gardening, and hundreds of other things that seem obvious to me as being natural rights for us, the animals, and the world we live in. 

The latest example is a recent bill that was proposed that would allow the military to arrest citizens who were deemed terrorists and to hold them indefinitely without charges. Also, an execution could be meeted out by order of a military commission. http://endthelie.com/2011/11/25/s-1253-will-allow-indefinite-military-detention-of-american-civilians-without-charge-or-trial/#axzz1fPJtwval

a) Clarification of Right- Section 949m(b)(2) of title 10, United States Code, is amended--
(1) in subparagraph (C), by inserting before the semicolon the following: `, or a guilty plea was accepted and not withdrawn prior to announcement of the sentence in accordance with section 949i(b) of this title'; and
(2) in subparagraph (D), by inserting `on the sentence' after `vote was taken'.
(b) Pre-trial Agreements- Section 949i of such title is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
`(c) Pre-trial Agreements- (1) A plea of guilty made by the accused that is accepted by a military judge under subsection (b) and not withdrawn prior to announcement of the sentence may form the basis for an agreement reducing the maximum sentence approved by the convening authority, including the reduction of a sentence of death to a lesser punishment, or that the case will be referred to a military commission under this chapter without seeking the penalty of death. Such an agreement may provide for terms and conditions in addition to a guilty plea by the accused in order to be effective.
`(2) A plea agreement under this subsection may not provide for a sentence of death imposed by a military judge alone. A sentence of death may only be imposed by the unanimous vote of all members of a military commission concurring in the sentence of death as provided in section 949m(b)(2)(D) of this title.'.

Isn't that frightening? That a bill like this would even have enough politicians to support it says much about this greatest country in the world thing. It took a consternated effort to keep it from passing with Senatorial maneuvering by Rand Paul to have it defeated. It won't be the last time that a piece of legislation like this is written, as we're probably only one domestic terrorist attack away from a bill that's even more draconian from actually passing. The Patriot act was the first step of a two part piece of legislation that will police America. This is but one example among a list of bills and laws being suggested or passed, and orchestrated to destroy the protests of the past, and to restore the even more ruthless America of old. The America that openly enslaved people, killed Indians after lying to them, tortured communists, worked kids to death, turned the power off to a family, had people eating dog food, and left old people to die in the street. Is that what we want again? While the bankers and capitalists fly off to some tropical isle and enjoy their decadent opulence at our bailout expense.

If people want a better country they're going in the wrong direction! Protesters changed America. Riots changed America. Being cynical and dismissive while eating turkey never did.



The Spin doctors

I could today blog about the world fleeing Iran as if they knew the country was about to be bombed, or the US sweeping OWS sites like the midnight street sweepers during Mardi Gras, or the market orgasm over global bank interventions, but instead what drew my ire was today's spin on manufacturing, construction, and retail sales. What I'm about to demonstrate isn't going to come as any surprise to my peak oil friends and doomy economists.

Today the weekly unemployment claims come out and measures of construction spending and manufacturing levels. Plus we hear about car sales and retail successes. How these reports are dessiminated out into the media is a carefully crafted method of spinning reports as "getting better." A mandate that's been followed since Reagan who setup the plunge protection team, a team that seems to illicite help from fellow corporate media networks to spread the persistent good cheer. Acting like cheerleaders and motivational speakers they deliver the economic news, whatever it is, in the most polished light possible and with the knowledge that most readers don't even read past the title.
So here goes exposing their trickery. http://www.cnbc.com/id/45508352 Construction spending rises for third straight month! Wow, just wow, isn't that a sure sign that things are getting better? More construction spending? Wait a minute, in three months? What about since 2008? Doesn't matter, the reader see's "rises" and see's consecutive months. But let's dig around inside this deceptive title. What you find is this, "The Commerce Department said construction spending rose 0.8 percent in October to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $798.5 billion.

That's barely half the $1.5 trillion that economists consider healthy. Through the first 10 months of this year, construction spending is 2.9 percent below the depressed levels of 2010." Nearly 3% lower than the already depressed levels of 2010, much less pre-recessionary levels. Construction is flat and bouncing on the floor of a recession.

Then we have   http://www.cnbc.com/id/45508189  Manufacturing Growth Hits Highest Level Since June! Yay! Can you see the pom-poms yet? But again, let's dig into the article and actually read,

"It was certainly a decent outcome," Tom Porcelli, chief U.S. economist at RBC Capital Markets. "The internals suggest that manufacturing activity should remain at a fairly modest level and I think that's probably the best you could say about this report. You're not falling off a cliff but you're not gaining much momentum either."

"It's better than the alternative that most people were talking about even just a few weeks ago when there was talk of a recession and things were falling off a cliff," Porcelli added. "We're holding above break-even."

Break even! Does the title sound like we're breaking even? We've been bouncing around on the floor of a recession since 2008, and we've only been able to do that because of massive treasury and deficit intervention, a completely out of control formula to ruin.

Take away government spending, a necessary requirement when you're running a 1.5 trillion dollar deficit, and you have a huge cut in GDP. Factor that cut into the above "uncut" figures and you get a depression many times worse than the one in the 1930's. One could only imagine what a starving 1930's farmer would do to a cheerleader who cheered when the bankers came for the farm.

Then we have the persistent rah-rah that's been pumped by every network since Black Friday that Christmas is so much better this year for retailers. Well yeah.....if you open hours earlier and sell with even less profit margin to a recessionary consumer who knows this is the only day they can afford Christmas presents, you sell more. It's still flat bouncing on a deficit floor made of thin glass, and break it will.

The truth is American can't handle the truth.

Humans are animals

Humans are animals and are classified as such. Biology makes no special provision for our perceived divinity or specialities. We are chordates, vertebrates, mammals, and primates - that's right, lumped in with monkey's. Part of the hominidae family of homo sapiens. We are animals and as such we occupy, hunt/kill/domesticate, feed, and eliminate as any other animal. We are destructive and constructive like the elephant and the ant. We are social animals like chimps, dolphins, and prairie dogs. So if we're just animals where does the problem of our existence come from? It isn't because we bulldoze a forest to build our homes, or when we throw our byproducts into giant landfills for the elephant will knock down tree's to get to the fruit and ravage the landscape too. Kudzu will smother a forest completely. Army ants will kill every other insect caught in their hungry march. Swordfish will eat every sardine in a school, and carp will decimate whole river systems. Animals do the best they can to eat well, to live long, and most importantly to procreate. They are biologically equipped to these ends, or they perish through competition or lack of adaptation. That's just how it is. Without any doubt whatsoever, the human animal is the most successful animal that is alive today. We have procreated to the ends of the earth, we dominate every other living creature as sources of food or amusement, we pile up our waste, and leech toxins into every biome. 85% of the great forests are gone because of our presence. Tons upon tons of our industrial gases fill the atmosphere, into the very stuff we breath and require to exist. We are animal kings. Top of the food chain.

Let me conjecture the problem isn't with the man animal per say, but simply in the mathematical and calculated outcome of our "success."

Over 40% of all tropical forests have been destroyed and another acre is lost each second.

Each year, humankind adds six to eight billion tons of carbon to the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels and destroying forest

The annual catch in 13 of the world's 15 major fishing zones has declined and in four of those - three in the Atlantic and one in the Pacific oceans - the catch has shrunk by a startling 30%.

Millions of pounds of toxic chemicals, like lead, mercury and pesticides, pour into our waterways each year contaminating wildlife, seafood and drinking water.

The US just burned 25 million gallons of oil in the time it took me to blog this.

4 billion pounds of pesticides were used in the U.S. this year- eight pounds for every man, woman and child.

Americans are exposed to 70,000 chemicals, some 90% of which have never been subjected to adequate testing to determine their impact on our health.

We throw away 17 billion pounds of plastic in packaging each year.

200,000 people a day are moving to cities from environments that no longer support them.
Average person consumes twice as much as 50 years ago.

Average American creates 4.5 lbs. garbage a day -- an amount doubled from 30 years ago.

The U.S. burns 10,000 gallons of gasoline a second

700 million gallons of lubricating oil, 200-250 million tires, 138 thousand tons of lead from discard auto batteries, and 9 million passenger cars are disposed of each year in the U.S.

I could go on and on with environmental statistics and facts that show how successful we are as a species in resource distribution and allocation. As any other animal we pollute too, but none hold a candle to our capacity in doing so. We're talking huge numbers, numbers that most couldn't even fathom, that are literally altering the atmosphere, the soil, and the water. We're so successful that the numbers are exponentially accelerating, doubling what once took centuries. If one elephant knocks 2 tree's over per day to eat fruit it isn't too destructive, but if 7 billion elephants were doing it, it would be total destruction of every tree on the planet. We are the 7 billionth elephant, and we seem to be constructing our own extinction. 

I'm typing this blog on my laptop that took many different mined resources to make, gallons of fuel to distribute, and even more fuel energy on my part to generate the money to buy it. Is it killing the environment in so doing? No, but when billions more are purchased similarly, yes. Guilt is written with each key stroke. I just cleared an acre leaving maybe fifthteen or so shade tree's to plant a large vegetable garden, setup a chicken coop, and dig a pond for more sustainable purposes. Add a billion or more of me doing the same thing and you have a billion acres gone. "Get a bike, recycle, stop consuming so much," and other green philosophies are commendable, but it isn't going to alter the human animals basic behaivor to utilize resources, tool make, consume, and eliminate (pollute).

There can only be one conclusion for our success - a hammer stroke, a karmic sledgehammer that will shocked our species into extinction or possibly frighten the survivors into intentionally modifying their behaivor. Much like my dog which has the instinct to run the neighborhood looking to procreate and can only be fenced in with a shock collar/invisible fence system. One or two shocks and he never crosses the fence line while the system is active. I believe humans need a similar shock to modify their behavior. Much like a person who experiences chest pain and a heart attack suddenly becomes health conscious. Fear and pain are the most powerful biological motivators known next to sex. I feel no pain in my personal consumption habits, nor you, but the pain of which I speak is swiftly approaching. Let us hope our childrens children learn from the pain, and are frightened into adjusting themselves accordingly, or our extinction becomes the worlds gift. Wisdom has to be experienced and learned.  

US Healthcare implosion

If you didn't already know I work for a private ambulance service contracted by a dozen southern MS counties for 911 emergencies and inter facility transports. I've worked in the health care field for over 20 years as a paramedic, and what I see about to befall this country is no less than a catastrophic meltdown in health care. The supercomittee, an oxymoron is there ever was, has failed to come to any resolvable solution for our current fiscal woes. It just isn't possible to cut the fat out of government spending without causing immeasurable social misery and hammering GDP (20% of which is government spending)to the point of collapse. That's what happens to a nation that has generated economic growth with debt spending instead of actual productive capacity for the last 40 years. Instead of having a simplified universal health care program paid for with tax dollars we have a hodge podge mish mash of wacky private insurers paying percentages, deductibles, and what have you, a medicare system for the old, and medicaid for the poor, and a lawyered up rule book governing the administration of it. That doesn't even consider the state to state differences on what is paid and isn't paid. It's completely unsound and just plain nutz. Most Americans really don't know how bad their health care system is until they find themselves old, disabled, or poor. A group that is expanding since, well since we were counting. Now that we are forced to address our debts and make the necessary cuts these gross facts are going to feel like a rock to the head to anyone unfortunate enough to be old, injured, sick, or just plain dealt an ill fated deck since birth. Just one example of which I could tell you about is a young man that I run on frequently. Just eighteen years of age who is seeking gainful employ in a rural MS town. He has seizures, bad ones, and he requires Kepra to control his seizures. $1500 a bottle! Does he have the money for them? Obviously not. It's hard as hell to find a job right now and made even harder by the fact he has a preexisting medical condition that most employers care not to have behind the forklift. So he's on MS state medicaid and receiving food stamps. What does medicaid pay? Well about $600 towards his prescription and he receives about $100/month in food stamps - them rama noodles make good eaten, huh?  $600 is not $1500, so he has seizures at least twice a week. He has busted his nose twice, stitches to his head, and now has a broken elbow. Is it his fault that genes dealt him a ill fated hand? Obviously not, but he is also unfortunate to have been born in the USofA. If he was Canadian this would not be a problem at all. He would get the prescription he needed and he might even find a job because his seizures would be properly managed. Then maybe the rama noodles might be replaced with fresh fruits and vegetables, and some quality meat.

But not America! We have bombs and bullets to make! We have trillions to spend in our global policing. Taking care of each other is socialism, that dirty word. We can't have that. Instead, what we're going to see unfold here is a bureaucratic implosion in what is paid for and what isn't, and if you're the unfortunate one falling in the ever widening crack of doom than you will be swallowed up utterly. Bereft and dead in the land of the turkey eaters.  Meanwhile, in the field of health care, there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth in the ranks of the providers as their previously untouchable professions will see widespread cuts and reduction in pay or benefits. A sizable amount of all health care spending is Medicare, it's old people, it's people who have been dealt bad hands, and then it's a growing group that is psychologically ill. What do you expect when the American dream becomes a nightmare? People are losing it! Trust me! I'm seeing it right now!

Who calls an ambulance most of the time? Old people! Old people with their strokes, their falls, their chest pains, their smoking related COPDer's, their GI bleeds, and everything else that infirms the human being as they wither and die. Medicare or Medicaid! Medicare pays the bill, it pays for the ambulance ride, it pays the wages to the medic, it pays for the treatment, it pays for the ER visit, it pays for the doctor, it pays for the hospital treatment. It pays. The guy shot in the projects isn't paying their bill. The working stiff at the corporation paying for his United, Blue Cross, and what have you isn't the one getting sick and calling an ambulance. That's a rare 911 call indeed. So listen to me, it's old people, and old people are not working people. They've done their time for the most part. They have what's saved, pensioned (a source being attacking on all fronts), and provided for by social security (also broke and defaulted), and that's it, but they're the ones that need health care. So it's medicare not United, that's paying for the bulk of the entire medical industry, and if Medicare - no, not if, but when - is cut it'll also be cutting the primary source of revenue for doctors, nurses, medics, technicians, hospitals, clinics, rehab centers, psychiatric wards, etc. It's the one American industry that has been a solid source for jobs in this land of job scarcity.

Not anymore! Game over folks. I pray that you are well, that you are fit, because this nation is so up the creek without the proverbial paddle that millions will be doomed to old school medicine and hope for the best bedside prayers.

It won't be military cuts coming despite what you might have heard on the news. A world war is the making, and it'll crop up at the opportune time to pour every cent into its bloody endeavor. Old people, sick people, disabled people, nothing more than unproductive refuse, capitalistic rust, and dead weight to the 1%ers and their American corporate fascist scheme. Trust me.

"We can't afford these people!"

(As he himself gets complete coverage)

Turkey eating Americanism

Another turkey day for America, and if anyone is paying attention, one wonders if there will be another. "Happy thanksgiving," people say as they scan the newspaper for black Friday deals from Walmart, Best Buy, JC Penny, Sears, Macy's, Academy, Home Depot, and every other corporate juke box of Chinese manufactured goodies we Americans feel so compelled to partake in.

Like a manic moment of consumer voyeurism we light up with excitement at seeing a 42" TV for $199 as if anything worth seeing ever comes across that now infamous plasma nightmare, and just how many TV's do we need anyway? Hey look, a Xbox with kinetics for under $200! More time for which we can become virtual soldiers shooting our way to victory! An extension of our madness without ever getting dirty or feeling the effects of bombs and bullets, a conviency not felt by the countless families in the cross hairs of a real crotch ratcheted, former video gaming, frat boy looking to showcase his training with some acrobatic drone strikes.

Followed by a turkey dinner and a video chat with his knocked up girlfriend stateside who let's him know that you can buy a laptop for under $300! Be home for Christmas might be her secondary wish.

Meanwhile, back in central park, we have our generational parade dedicated to the adulation of triumphal capitalism. Like the Israelites worshipping the golden calf, we parade our symbols of corporate greed and American silliness at the end of long ropes up and down the throng of spectators while half naked women dance in mock worship to the tunes of countless uneducated youth playing their brass and woodwinds.

Floats filled with more silliness and exponential goofiness fills in the road between big balloons and titillating sexism. Since I think 99% of us are unplugged from reality we find the show fun and by all means - traditional - while we eat one of the 30 million turkeys slaughtered for us and stuffing our already massively overfed and undernourished tubby girths. Meanwhile, the rest of the world bows to Mecca, washes their torn threads over beaten rocks, and cook their meal worm invested rice while watching the sky above for predator drones piloted by American turkey eaters. God help them if they happen to live by anyone that looks like they could be Taliban or Al Queda, because ya know, it's unnecessary to truly identify a hostile from a group of kids trying to get their goats back in their pen.

We Americans have to have our blu rays for $50 bucks and our gas at $3 a gallon after all. China give us more junk! Arabs, give us your oil!

The sad fact is that hardly anyone knows what the hell I'm talking about, being that our soldier boys are over there under the cross hairs of evil forces protecting our freedoms, the latest programmed meme  as we cover our hearts singing a ode to war, the American anthem. I must be one of those hippie communist occupiers to say such "truths." A nice evil slot in the American mental architecture to put my kind of commentary. A nice slew of propagandists, who are paid millions, are then broadcast into our living rooms while we swallow FDA approved cancer causing fake pizza's to swallow it down with diabetes making concoctions.

This American experience to be followed by a week long run of fuel consumption to haul our lard asses to and from our "work for the man" corporate institutions, paid for of course by those same goat herders and peasants mentioned above. Never once questioning whether this is right, how people should be living, or what it might do to the environmental womb that is mother earth. Oh sure, there are those that care, those that realize our iniquities, yet these glitches in the system are quickly tear gassed and pepper sprayed or shot in the head with what they call harmless rubber bullets despite needing a dozen stitches and repeated CT scans. The blood stains can still be found on the street in front of the stock exchange. Water cooler nightmares cheer on their demise.Yet this is nothing as the blood could fill a whole lake in a place half a world away and out of sight of the turkey eaters.

So remember what I say in that every transaction made with the above blood dealers (Walmart, Best Buy, JCPenny, Macy's, Mcdonalds, etc) pollutes a river, enslaves a child, tears a mountain apart, spills more blood, and steps on the accelerator to oblivion and extinction. Can you break the hypnosis of consumption and live up to your promised divinity, or do we embrace the destruction and pass into history? So far, all I see is the clutching of self destruction.

Smoke coming from the machine

Can you see it? Smoke from global economic machinations? Smoke from grass root frustrations? Smoke from Iranian centrifuges? Smoke from European bond markets? Can you see it? There's a real glow in the embers of future fires, where the kindling is piled high in flesh and blood, and the fog of revelation lifts from the mound of falsities. We're in the time in history where the wolf, the real one, the one believed by most would never show up, has started knocking at the door, and whether we open it or not, it will huff and puff until the architecture of capitalism is blown to pieces around us. We, all of us, unless buried in some bunker somewhere sipping expensive wine with fellow elites, will be left naked and exposed to the villainy and brutality the wolf brings. It's only a question of how many times the wolf will knock. Will it be once more, or twice? Only the wolf knows, and it doesn't share its secrets with the likes of me or you. It gets orders directly from those bunkered elites parading themselves on red carpets as they smile and wave at the camera's they own. They tease us with their plans, their promises that a solution will be found, their gifts of austerity that they say can be successfully endured, not by them of course, but by the electricians and bus drivers of the world. "Keep smiling you bastards," I think as I watch people by the thousands shutdown major US ports, occupy banks, and endure the icy test of winters onset while be insulted by corpobanking mouth-pieces on CNN and Fox. It is but a natural reaction to the same, and the momentum of outrage grows. When I see the rubber bullets, tear gas, batons, horses, and shields come out, I know the fires are lit, and they are! "Keep shooting marines, you cowardly tools of the rich," I yell! "See what happens!" 

Smoke over here, over there, and everywhere. I see the fires being lit in Iran, a big pit of lies and geopolitical manipulation, and it's not being manipulated favorably for Iran, a land that's frequently represented as the gates of hell instead of the reality - another ME country with sweet easy to get oil. It's beyond stupidity to think this graph of global oil production has nothing to do with Zionist worshipping Western thuggery, unless you believe those who say we can become energy independent if the president would just give big oil everything they want (reckless unshackled drilling anywhere and everywhere).

A ridiculous claim if there ever were, and as much nonsense from the Pollyanna's that conceive a transformation from combustion to the whine of electric motors in the time the president can waive his magic wand. Leaves my own calculations smoking to weigh the variables in this crucible of disaster, and even more so in knowing no one is telling the truth. Crunch time is near, and where there's smoke there's fire. Where do we get the energy to keep up the burn? How many people must die to reduce the need? This is the truth, this is what's being calculated. The fires of that decision are smoldering all over the place. You don't get 7 billion people eating, sheltering, and breathing without millions of barrels of oil per day being produced, much less so when speculating on the exponential nature of people making. We're about to enter the hurt locker as a consequence. I'm sorry, that's the truth.

So sing a song, smell a flower, admire a tree, and go paint a mountain for the time where such beauty is despoiled by the darker side of man is near, and what remains must be fought over instead of shared. I hope future generations learn something from it all, and that we don't die off entirely.

Bless the children

If you recall from prior blog entries, you know that I desperately want a family and struggle with adoption and fertility costs. So when I get summoned to a pregnant women with no job, their third pregnancy, a baby-daddy who beat the death a pregnant mother, or some neglected kids suffering abuse from a bipolar one eyed prostitute it really gets to me. This all happened over one week in a town with 12,000 people. What a statement in of itself in what constitutes the state of my local community. I'm willing to bet this is played out all over the country as people struggle over the general dystopic state of our global civilization. Arguably more zombie and clown like in the nation called America. Frustration isn't a strong enough explanation for how I feel when 3 small kids, none of which are older than nine, come stumbling out of smelly stained single wide with a one eyed prostitute smoking a cigarette and a toddler propped on her hip. The five year old had the family's medicaid card...what a little helper. None of the children had shoes, and most had torn pants and smelled of pot. My head was screaming inside as I wrestled my demeanor into the necessary professionalism to ask the necessary question required to explore why I was called. Fever, a kid had a fever, and she never gave any tylenol either. A kid with a low grade fever does in no way constitute an emergency, but this sorta thing is very common with the folks welding medicaid cards. Like it was a health care credit card to the VIP ER, and in some ways it is. Nevertheless, I was happy to obliged knowing I'd have the opportunity to report the situation to DHS at the soonest opportunity, which would be in a few minutes at the nearby ER. So the whole dirty gaggle hopped into the ambulance module to watch a paramedic blow up latex gloves and draw funny faces on them. Settled in for the short trip, vital signs taken, I open the ePCR (electronic pt care report) to begin documenting my findings when the rough one eyed mommy leans over to ask if I had found Jesus Christ and had been saved? This question has always made me uncomfortable for a number of reason, least of which would be guilt, but after so many questions along these lines from fundies I'm become a little more resolute and hardened when I answer. No. I have seen too much in my line of work to believe there's some paternal, trinity family residing in the heavens above that looks out for us. But I won't say there isn't one either, because how would I know. Seems like superstitious nonsense to me though, a belief structure that gives comfort in world full of grief, pain, and misery.  When I die, if there is a god, a soul, life after death, and so on, then god can judge me. But if I'm sentenced to hell because I didn't accept this Jesus despite my life of sacrifice and caring for others, than to hell with god himself. Wouldn't want to hang around a being like that anyway. I didn't go into all this with the mother of course, but that's kinda how I feel after two decades of putting myself into the human circle of tragedy.

I find out en route to the hospital that the mother was just kicked out of her house last night by her husband, and that she was writing these long letters with religious scripture quotes. Her plan being to send these to her evil husband. She was also hearing voices and desiring to tattoo the children with crosses and other such nonsense.

The kids sat quietly darting their eyes around the ambulance trying to ignore their mothers insanity. I sit still myself ruminating over what I would tell the receiving nurse. With such a frivolous complaint we were sent to triage on arrival, just as if she had walked in. Apparently, the ER staff were familiar with this mother, and told me about her house being covered with wall to wall bibles, or that was what other EMS crews had relayed to them on prior visits. DHS was called just as I left for another call. This time a 22 year old man who just up and died, and it wasn't because of drugs either. How bazaar. Hours later I call back to the ER to find that social services had been in the room talking with the mother but that the child had been discharged with her mother a while later. "You've got to be kidding," I'm thinking, but most don't know that it usually takes many repeated DHS activations to take kids from these types of parents. Me on the other hand, oh no, well I have to have perfect credit, a detailed house inspection, can't be over 40, and a steady job to get the state to allow an adoption to occur. Only after handing over 20 grand to make it all happen too. But natural mommies and daddies are given GREAT leeway it seems. The social rot I immerse myself in dissolves the tolerance I have with the so called "system," and with some invisible man in the sky.

The radio squawks again for a pregnant woman involved in an assault out in a part of town known for drugs, poverty, and what can only be described as human baby mills. 18 year old, 3rd pregnancy, no job, no diploma, who had been beaten up by her so called boyfriend and father of the current one. Elbowed with primitive abandoned straight to the 8 month belly and she was bleeding heavily. Give me a bat and 5 mins with this little punk daddy want-a-be and his progeny making ways would end in blood and bruises. She lost the baby and nearly died herself. There's a god? Really? Meanwhile, no kiddies for me, I'm now 40 with bad credit, so the great state of MS that just released some kids to a Jesus freak hungry for coco puffs and pop smoking babies thinks my wife and I are bad candidates. Obviously the above two examples are the preferred environment to raise children. Not my household it seems which has a nice paid for house, a white picket fence, a dual income earning family with the love and compassion ready to give.

God? Where? A sunset maybe; whereas I must be in the valley of death.

Eating poo

OK, the title probably has you wondering what the hell this post is going to be about, but here goes - as the first day of  Fall descends on the deep South the rednecks begin scanning the roadside with their spotlights looking for future game; that is, deer. The mornings are a little cooler, but compared to my foray in Vermont, I'd have to describe them as mildly cool given that our Summer sees morning lows in the mid 80's and at least now we're making it into the 60's and 70's. The kind of sauna that doesn't require any specialized services. They call it Indian summer around here. Football, whether high school, college, or NFL, is the prevalent topic on the tongue of many. There has to be something entertaining to attune to other than wondering whether you're going to make enough to pay the mortgage, and while many appear to be "getting by," others are down right taking drastic measures to survive. For instance, there are more than a few scrap metal thieves searching properties in these rural counties looking for copper, aluminum, and whatever else they can turn in. There was an incident not far from where I lived where a homeowner shot a metal thief after he caught him brandishing a hatchet while cutting out copper. Allegedly, the thief came at him when he was discovered. Self defense...I hope. I've had a number of neighbors, impoverished people in their old beat up pickup trucks come by my house asking if I had any metal junk to get rid of. Any metal that I find clearing the property I put out on the curb for them to take as a consequence. I have a friend that works at a scrap metal processing center that reports being inundated with people bringing in old batteries, cans, metal pipes, copper wire, etc. Things like that tell me the local economy is echoing current and future troubles. But wait, there's more. I'm out on a car crash at the interstate waiting for the tow truck to show up when I overhear the deputies talking about a rash of air conditioners that have been stolen for scrap. Whole units ripped out of windows and even the big central units. My dogs have probably kept me from suffering the same fate.

If the thieves get past my beasties than I'll know for sure that our economy has deteriorated to the next level. It's not just the increase in scrap metal theft either, I'm noticing it at work too. I've seen young mothers, 8 months pregnant, being beaten by their husbands/boyfriends to the point of losing their babies. Why? Because of the emotional turmoil surrounding losing a job, a home, or a car...if you can believe it. Embarrassed desperation is expressed as they stare speechless into my transparent supply cabinets on the way to the ER. They just wish it to end. Most people have no idea what's going on out there because people are so private about it until they express it violently - sadly.  More people than ever are calling for psychiatric help too, whether it be depression or two in the morning panic attacks. As paramedics, we ask our pt's what medicines they're on and I regularly find anti-anxiety and antidepressant. I suppose that's keeping the pharmaceutical companies in business, that is, as long as the federal government continues to backstop Medicare and medicaid. There's no guarantee these social backstops will survive given the GOP cheering executions and promising healthcare elitism. The rolls of medicaid continue to grow until their political deficit cutting barbarism is full expressed, and I certainly do believe it's coming. That has to be one of those straws of violent protest ready to be broken.

I find these signs of social calamity on just about every emergency run I make. Last night was no different, except by which that social parabola is measured. Responding to a residence in an especially poor part of town that I find a young man crouched on the floor of his bedroom. Something wretched stifled the air as we came to care for this person. The man was nude, shaking, and covered in excrement. He turns to see who has come into his room while stuffing a turd into his mouth chewing it as if it was a babe ruth candy bar. My partner couldn't stomach the sight and was backed up behind the police. Trying not to let the profound grossness effect my care, I come to find that the man had just lost his job and this behavior was supposedly making him feel secure. I know it seems incredulous and extreme, surely the man is crazy, but if it isn't poo eating, it's people cutting their arms, beating their heads, to having someone pee on them.

People are scared, and looking for security where there is none. I guess we're all eating poo to some extent. 





The Summer of Hell begins

The first day of Summer began with a thunderous boom over my house. The heavens unloaded after months of drought induced retention, while puddles lasted only so long as the dusty earth allowed before  absorbing the waters, and leaving behind a muggy steam that accumulated in the darker recesses of the piney woods. When it hasn't rained for such a length of time the phenomena becomes virginal and miraculous. A string of Facebook posts erupted online declaring the event, with pictures included, while I imagined my neighbors coming out to look upon falling water droplets as an infant would for the first time. It's moments like these that you realize the miracles that occur as a matter of inconsequential unrecognized irreverence. By my rain gauge there hadn't been any appreciable rain in more than sixty days, a day count that as long as I've been alive I can recall no such equal in droughts. South MS wasn't alone either, the drought is even more magnified and disastrous further West, on into Texas and Arizona where a string of historic wild fires continue to burn and remain visible from space. Thousands evacuated and whole communities gone up in smoke. If the drought hasn't burned your house down, it's destroying vital cropland, farming, and livestock that the rest of the world depends on. Farmers out there are having to make difficult choices yet again, as repeated years of drought have left them with little, a dwindling herd, and rationing. To pile on even greater misery is of course what we're all having to deal with  - expensive fuel. Thankfully, it has come down some in the last month as the dollar competes with the Euro, and the obvious unarguable sign that the US economy is "not well," that is, if one actually looks at the numbers. Apparently, a lost art among economists as it seems hedge funds, large banks, and day traders rather play off expectations than asset valuations, demand, and consumption. Those expectations revolve around the Greek bailout, the Fed asset purchases, and "better or worse than expected" analysis (after revisement, of course). Economic bets and day to day Dow watching is hardly worth mentioning anymore because it has no basis on whether I'm able to find a job or not, and speaking of which has become harder than ever. The drought just makes for sweaty interviews with a Dominoes Pizza manager that tells you there are only PT positions available. The weather it seems has become a mirror of opportunity.

If it's not a drought that's ruining the day, it's a climate weirding flood and there's no shortage of global occurrence in this regard. Wave after wave of  six inch pounders continue to sweep the Northern prairies, flooding the Missouri river basin, which of course all run into the MS river, a river that has already been hit with record levels this season. The Rockies are still full of snow while a series of Nebraskan dams and spillways are pressed to their engineering limits. The precipice almost certainly leaves one to conclude that a disaster could happen any minute. The media, like CNN, FOX, CBS, etc, seem totally incapable of reporting on any of it, even though a US nuclear power plant has turned into a industrial island beset on all sides with flood water.

Officials assure us that all is well, and that there is no risk to the public from radiation. How can any of us feel assured of anything after Fukushima, another global event the media has chosen to pretend is over, and a recent report of widespread radiation leakage - http://enenews.com/radioactive-tritium-leaked-75-nuke-plants-drinking-wells-contaminated-illinois-minnesota Despite all this I see the nuclear industry proponents weathering this, publicly speaking, as some of us slowly die from diseases we will have no idea were ever caused by radioactive particles. It is truly a gaffed and polluted world we live in. So if you didn't know about this particular nuclear power plant I urge you to pay particular attention as it could be the next 3 mile island story...or not. I am somewhat encourage to know that the critical infrastructure is 32' above flood expectations; however, there are issues with drains backing up, wiring going to shit, risk of fires, and leaking into what is essentially "clean" rooms. Alot of nuclear regulatory rules will requiring bending, a skill well honed by the commission. Meanwhile, the dams further up river are tested while various levees continue to fail and flood a home that might or might not be covered by the local news station. The lack of coverage of this unfolding disaster and the intentional blackout of Fukushima - which by the way is being considered a level 8 event (worse than Chernobyl), a whole new category - can only leave one to confirm that anything tied to radiation is taboo by corporate think tanks. Too much is invested in nuclear power. If you're lacking media coverage though, one can always turned to Al Jazeera....now isn't that ironic?

Well that's enough talk about droughts and floods on this Summer solstice so let's move on to an environmental report regarding our oceans that's been circulating the Internet on just about every major media site.   http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/nature/oceans-on-brink-of-catastrophe-2300272.html Marine life is facing extinction within one human generation. Why? Us...that's why. We're dumping in them, spilling shit, over-fishing, and basically polluting the waters with every type of toxic residue from industrial society. All creatures pollute, and many of them are quite destructive, but it seems mankind takes it exponentially to another level, a level that has the capability of quite literally wiping life from the planet...a ELE event. There's just too many of us, and if you know anything about ecology there's a term they call "carrying capacity" and what happens when a species exceeds that limit. We're past it already, thanks to black gold (oil), and we're in the process of destroying and permanently lowering the carrying capacity. All known biological examples of this occurring results in a die off, a radical population reduction that brings the species below the "new" carrying capacity, a capacity now lower than the one before thanks to ecological scarring. Call it what you will, but this is real life, in the now, process of dying. That means we're in for starvation, rampant disease, and wars, all of which will be in magnitude to the growth acceleration we saw in the last hundred years. I believe it will happen much quicker than anyone expects, just as all the global warming consequences are now occurring much faster than what was once predicted.

It's a sobering thought as we begin the Summer of hell, and our children looked to us and ask
"Why did you destroy my future world???"

 

What do bugs teach us?

Long ago, before seven dust, Furadan, Temik, Diazom, and all the rest of the 21st century's arsenal of chemical weapons there was a time when the human animal stared over his food crop helpless to defend it against the hordes of insectae. Did he muse and paw over his squash and beans like a chimpanzee grooming its kin? Maybe picking and eating them (the bugs) one-by-one too, like multi-colored Halloween candy, or perhaps it was more sophisticated; as in, did he scrounge around finding predators to drop into the gardens battlefield? Maybe they just shrugged and went fishing leaving the women to fret over wilting leaves and festering fruit. The latter seems quite amusing.

I contemplate this as I take up my eggplants leaf in my hand while cradling it like a wounded puppy. Top leaves all curled and furled up like it was cursed with a disfiguring form of elephantitis.

A few aphids wander the stems being chased by a long march of ants, and a nearby assassin bug climbs a squash canopy while I consider the crime scene. I peer up at the garden rows to see carpenter bee's, honey bee's, beetles, stink bugs, and all manner of unidentified flying objects darting amongst the bounty of zucchini, cantaloupe, tomatoes, and peppers. Scaled up it would make for a great alien invasion sci-fi opening scene....just add the lasers. You could sense the excitement in the tiny life creeping, crawling, and flying around. Despite this attack my eggplants were bearing fresh pods that grew a little every morning. I have the white version making the fleshy pods dangle like ivory earrings. My cantaloupe vines were racing to the Southern fence and already bearing fertilized bulbs hidden under large green leaves. Long cayenne peppers dangled nearby while tomorrows zucchini swelled to picking size. Except for the effected eggplant all was looking good. Life was surely being drawn here like to a banquet or buffet, and with this drought it was one of the few areas that received regular watering. I could just imagine the life that was crawling unseen in the dirt, through the roots, and under the toiled clay. Surely microscopically there was even more buzz and commotion taking place. There was so much going on it was as if the earth itself was "breathing."

So as the aphids swarm and the stink bugs suck I contemplate our own infestation on a planetary scale. Where is our preying mantis? Where is our lady bug? Where is the seven dust to sprinkle on the human swarm? Now that I think of it, the idea that a xenomorphic mantis; like in the movie alien, chasing us around ready to punch a hole in a few brain pans sounds kinda interesting....scary...but interesting. Can you imagine a human suck head slurping on Sarah Palin's brain, I know it's a small meal for sure, but can you picture it? Maybe some tiny parasite or bacterium is ready to clear the deck of  humans too. Our numbers really haven't soared to these unprecedented levels until the last century or so, so maybe the lady bug man killers are just evolving in some pool hidden in a dwindling rain forest. Some say we'll just go the way of yeast, killing each other over the last spoil of resources until there's none. Well darn, a human hunter killer sounds so much more suspenseful. Could be just a rock from deep space playing pool with the universe. One big galactic fireball that sends a state size plume of rock and earth into the stratosphere. Save us all from the slow misery of starvation. Probably all happen given enough time.

Humans aren't special.....just another bug in the bushes.

Right before our eyes

Under the blue skies and right before our eyes.......

There are two different worlds. One of them is in the minds of men, and the other right before our eyes. Very few of us see the real world. We've been blinded by this shroud of human illusion, a shroud that thickens and smothers the light as we solidify our ideas and beliefs. It's a slow and steady process that begins from the moment we're born and ends with our blinded soul having grown weary of the darkness. It's not a question or idea that's new - that we live in a world of darkness - as enlightened people have been telling us this forever. Wise guru's and mystics have rooted themselves to cliff tops and retreated to caves in solemn contemplation pondering such musings for thousands of years. Nothing new in revelation that hasn't been revealed before, yet we still see the shadow of illusion cloaking the world of men despite this. Why?

Especially since the light of truth is "right before our eyes." Let me explain. Imagine that you're one of the lucky ones, an astronaut, and you're up in the international space station orbiting our gorgeous planet. You stare out one of the ports pointed towards Earth and see the planet, its continents, its oceans, the clouds, the tree's, the lakes, the rivers, and so on. You see the continent of Africa coming into view. The Congo, Tanzania, Libya, Ethiopia....oh, but wait, you don't see any such thing. All you see is mountains, jungles, deserts, rivers, grasslands, and coastlines. You don't see countries, nations, dividing lines, tribes, dictatorships, and all the illusions of what humans pretend exists. It's all made up. It's all illusion. Truth? It's right before your eyes - One pretty planet, one species of man, oceans, rivers, and land.

Not this....

It's not just whole planets we've woven a fictitious world around, it's people too. Do we really see each other? People walk around with a false world in our heads that we seldom see them clearly. I assure you that we have mapped out a whole world of expectations upon meeting a stranger. Black (check, he might be loud, like tacky jewelry, the world owes something, etc), blond (dumb, shallow, sexual), Republican (watches Fox, god fearing, likes the rich, hates welfare), etc, etc, etc, yada, yada, yada. We sit and talk online, at water coolers, on the phone with our friends about people and places we've never actually been to, lived, or experienced. We speak with authority and arrogance, a kingly ego that pompously lays judgement using illusionary concepts. These ideas and belief's can spin a lifetime of meaningless conversations, arguments, and debates. It destroys our power, our unity, and obscures wisdom. What an absolute shame and a corruption!

If great teachers of the past - Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Solomon, Rimpoche, etc - could not remove this falsity from the minds of men, than what hope is there? Why do you think they meditated? Why do you think they were of few words? Why do you think they were in control of their emotions? TRUTH! It takes mediation to clear the illusions. Because truth is simple, it takes few words, and emotions come from illusion.

Truth is the light! Light is in everything around us, a reflection of creation, and it only takes an innocent eye to see it.

Nature could care less.

Today's weather was one of those rare days where temperature, humidity, light, and wind become a window into conditions found only in heaven. Two Blue Jay's engage in playful aerial acrobatics while I sip my morning joe of hazelnut coffee. A cardinal and his mate dine on the sunflower seeds I put out for them. Everything alive was out and about celebrating Spring time in their own unique way. I was but a witness.

 Unbeknowest to the woodland creatures that play in my world, the mighty river north of here was spilling its banks, breaking levies, flooding farmland, and destroying homes. A drought had withered and destroyed most of the crops in France. Another fire broke out in the ongoing nuclear disaster an ocean away, and somewhere in the world people were plotting to kill one another. Scientist release a report that shows the Cryosphere melting far faster than their worst predictions a year ago. Jobless claims soar like a giant industrial hiccup, and European finances give a shutter. Anxiety and worry everywhere....but here. It was as if the energy of life was immune to these disharmonics, and it carried on in its natural state of bliss. I was absorbed in it...a genuine rapture. The wisdom of things playing out around us each and every day has stood the test of time, it has seen animals of all sorts come and go, the mountains washed to the sea, and the new ones rise from them. Surely, the proclivities and moribund decay on display presently has been seen before. Surely, the dynamo of creation will weather it. I ponder this as I stare at a lizard pondering back at me.

It doesn't seem to care....in fact nothing around me seems to care. The breeze seems to laugh at my worry as it tickles my fancy to pull the canoe out and try that new bass lure. Ha, ha, ha, it chuckles blowing across my neck. Ah what the heck, life is too short and miraculous not to carpe deum heavens window. Everything is simplified on days like this. The canoe and gear loaded on the back of my small truck, a back window busted out of it, and a bill collector hounding me in payment - of which I told the caller that if they show me the road to economic recovery I'll show them a payment. The humor was missed by them in their cubicle world, and I merely shrugged off my worries thinking of the redwing blackbirds that would be dazzling me with their aerial show.

A small family was gathered at the boat launch with poles cast and a small toddler throwing marshmallows to a baby alligator a few feet away. The scene was charming and would make a great painting. They were very friendly and encouraging, "going out to where the fish are?" Why yes I was. Tackle bag, cooler with cold water, pole and new lure, paddle, knife, and cell phone. The Canadian made canoe slipped smoothly into the swampy waters as a loud bullfrog croaked and grunted. I was off into unknown coves filled with alligators and mysterious swamp monsters. My paddle dipped into the murky rich waters making my conveyance slice a path to the unexplored Eastern cove of "White's Kitchen" bayou. I tested my new fofangled bass lure along the banks as I drifted. The jitterbug, or so it was called, was shaped like a frog and designed to skim the waters surface. It's antics of flipping and flopping like a wounded toad would surely pull the delicious bass out from their hidey holes. I sent my cast here and there with a steady retrieve while watching all manner of swamp life croak, chirp, burp, crack, whistle, slap, bellow, purse, moan, gurgle, and what have you. So much life talking. What were they saying...I wondered. The red crested black bird was busy chasing the ducks as they quacked when my lure plunked into the water.

No fish reeled in after nearly an hour cruising the eastern banks. I continued taking the canoe into a twisted cove that looked forlornly like the den of a giant alligator. Surely, I would look to big and ugly to be messed with, but who would see me if something did happen? I laughed at the thought letting the idea drift off like a fairy tale. The sunlight was reflecting across the green expanse of hyacinths, pickerel weed, swamp milkweed, and spider lily's. Dragonflies, butterflies, damselflies, and love bugs flew about like wicked fairies. The muddy water was still and beckoning. It was time......

I cast the lure across my private gator den listening to it hit the water and paddle back on retrieve. After a while of this I became indifferent to whether or not anything would ever strike, but then, then it happened. Bam! The fish hit with vigor and I had my first fish of the day. The feeling of a catch strikes a primitive cord. The human animal triumphant once more!

Then another....

Once again, nature freely provided. 5 in all and I even had a chance to tease a three foot alligator gar as it chased the bait back to the canoe. Fish, turtles, and gators were all having their meals too. All the life around freely giving and taking. No money involved at all. No law. No rules. No leaders. Just the freedom that natures gives at birth. It is only humanity that makes up the rest in order to enslave.

You only have to look outside to see that nature doesn't care about our worries, our fears, our rules, and our effects. It only gives and takes....freely. Something so resilient, so lasting of hardship, so endowed with wisdom can surely endure us.

Nature could care less.