Unexpectedly, this Mother’s Day, my day started with a visit from Oriole, perched atop the shepherd’s hook we, just yesterday, put in place for the hummingbird feeder. Hummingbird (Nenookaasi) too, soon came by for a snack.
Niizh waabanoong-bineshiig mitigong. (Two Orioles in the tree.) [Note: all my Ojibwe words may be different dialects as many are from online dictionaries. I welcome comments about the proper regional uses… omaa besho Gaa-waabaabigaabikaag.]
Later, Gijigijigaaneshiinh (Chickadee), and Red Pole too! Later still we saw Nuthatch (Biipiigenh+yag), House Wren (Waakaa’igan Noonookaase), and Downy Woodpecker (Memegwenh/ Biingwanamizi Baapaase).
Perhaps the biggest blessing, and surely the brightest of them all, was Goldfinch (Aginjibagwesi) a flitting here and there reminder of a comrade lost in recent days. Carl Sack brought joy and hope with all the ways he shared his life and skills with others and it was a joy to hear the many ways he’d impacted lives during his memorial on Saturday at Fond du Lac Tribal Community College, a beautiful campus worth a visit, if only to visit the pines, but especially to see the amazing art and knowledge throughout. I was grateful to make the acquaintance of a few of Carl’s comrades, all wonderful and lyrical folks. I imagine we could have gone for weeks sharing stories of magical days with Carl. A beautiful tribute, earned with a life of kindness and action… care and quiet strength, he remains a beacon for me. [Sorry for all the Capitalism herein. :D]
It was nice to see friends from along the way at the memorial and wonderful to meet up with good friend Amy to share with her one of my recent creations, HeartStrings. Good also to return a forgotten cord, see unexpected friends IRL, Phyllis and Liz, and to hug friends not seen in some time, Andy and Akilah, Devon and Erik. Always good to see Gena and Joey too. Reminders of all the interconnecting circles of friends, it was also nice to meet new ones in Lydia and those who have brought solace through the strife, like Annie Jane Cotton.
I hear there are many more verses…
The most surprising and rare arrival came early Mother’s Day… Indigo Bunting. His bright and full blue grabbing our attention as he noshed on sunflower seeds beneath the trees (both Wally and Bud).
All in all, a blessing of color filled the day as calls filled the time, from both birds and humans; Mother’s Day well wishes alongside discussions on what we might all do as we watch the world in chaos. Alongside the joys and hopes, the chilling reminders of the Moscow summit next week for BRICS countries… and wonderings of how the impacts will unfurl.
Bittersweet sunset tonight as Canada burns. Fitting? The sun, a bright and unfamiliar red-orange appears a beacon in the sky, a warning to check our behaviors and seek a way to stop the war, extraction, and destruction?
And… there were flowers too, reminding that the world goes on living, as best she can, regardless. Happy Mother’s Day, Nimaamaakii. Gizhawenimigoo.
Hearing more urgent news on the climate front these days.
Thought I’d digest some of the data and try to make sense of the latest report from the World Meteorological Society (WMO). You can hear some analysis from Carter, Beckwith, and Valdez on it and read below for my comments. (I’m not sure how far I’ll get through the 50+ pages, yet I’ll come back and update as I plug through.)
While the Key messages are daunting for those who comprehend the science, I found this report to read very saccharine, overly hopeful, and seeming to spend more time comforting than informing. It’s as if the scientists continue to not want to scare people into a panic, yet the data seems to be panic-inducing for humans. The Foreward begins by laying out the dilemma but then switches to a word salad of hopium, using not fully readable words (unless you’ve had high school level reading), and stressing ongoing development… rather than reduction of use. I wanted to scream,
Let’s plant trees and be conservative with energy use. Stop doing all the unnecessary jobs and tasks that generate basically more waste and instead focus on how to be better humans… happily! Simply!
Implementation of a GGGW (Global Greenhouse Gas Watch) feels only a way to track our downfall, as we see ongoing focus on tech saving us. Our thinking we are gods? It’s what got us here in the first place! In the blink of an eye no less!! The science herein appears to simply be a data collection system documenting our extinction. Rather than science providing considerate, thoughtful solutions, we are basically tracking the damage as it accumulates. Like watching the garbage bags pile up on the corners when trash collectors go on strike, these reports are coming fast and furious, yet few seem to be smelling the danger.
As a good friend said to me recently, “I’m not seeing any trends in the right direction.”
The meat of the report opens with Global climate indicators and we begin with Baselines where we learn that “Where possible, the most recent WMO climatological standard normal, 1991-2020, is used for consistent reporting.” Yet… does anyone know what this 1991-2020 standard normal is outside climate circles? Why do they use a 1850-1900 reference period only for Global Mean Temperature (see more on this later) and why ONLY use the 1750 date for greenhouse gas analysis?
Seems if we want a “pre-industrial” era for a comparison, there might be ONE… not THREE… if the true goal is to be “consistent.” Just sayin’.
So, let’s unpack the Greenhouse Gases data (page 2)!
What we’re seeing in this report is that there are unexplainable increases in our data based on the modeling to date. (This may sound familiar as we keep hearing our climate models are insufficient to gauge our way. It’s a common scapegoat, Model was not robust enough!) Look. When our climate models cannot keep up with predicting the change we see in real time, it tells me that we haven’t even recognized our need to also calculate the exponential factor of the changes… as they come faster and more furiously to our doorstep. It tells me we’re just shooting in the dark rather than truly understanding our environment and the complex science of how it works.
For example. The largest CO2 emitter is our military industrial complex and yet all we’re seeing it do is grow annually. Do those in authority continue to think we can spend our way destroying the Earth… to save the Earth? Actually I don’t think most people get past the propaganda facade to really think about where their tax dollars are going, let alone what they are truly doing, in other places around the world. Do any of us think much about where our next cell phone comes from? Or our clothing? Our shoes? Our food? [It’s that last one… as it seems last year’s prediction of food shortages was made a year too early?] When you look back at history, we can see most of the wars were fought for resources… and now those precious resources are focused on oil and energy. As the fossil stuff becomes less readily available, we see ever more violent ways of trying to grab it, control it, manipulate it. (Though I think our authorities are really caught in their one-trick pony of violent overthrow and theft to really be strategically managing things… read more on that here.)
The data on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is mainly a log of the system’s failures (to support humanity, let’s be clear – the planet will go one with or without us). It reminds of video games where your countdown tells you how many hours of life support you have remaining unless you figure things out and make a change that returns the life support systems to full operational functionality. There was a really cool episode of Firefly that helps you feel it. Though perhaps real-earth real-time figuring it out will be this year’s agenda? Spoiler alert: It ain’t looking good.
At least this report references 1750 as (a more reality-based) baseline for most of their work herein. Though perhaps being more reality-based it makes the numbers a little scarier to read? Only the global temperature data references the 1850 to 1900 as the pre-industrial time frame for comparison. And I’m guessing it’s so we don’t scare people too much.
The data on greenhouse gas emissions show methane, arguably the most dangerous – based on all previous Extinction events (where four out of five prior events were related to excess methane) – has been risen to 264% in 2023, the largest rise since 2021 (back when Biden blew up the Nord Stream) yet at least we are reasonably comparing to 1750 instead of the BS shifted dates to 1850 or 1880…
As we continue to move the goal posts in our techno Fantasia Days of Science. I’m starting to see how we humans got to a dark age some centuries back. As I see the incredible failures of science, perhaps most notably (and destructively I believe we will find), the global reaction to the so-called pandemic in 2020, culminating in an implementation of a forced GMO injection program that injured and killed many before most were aware of the risks (know and unknown) inflicted by an mRNA spike protein encased in a liquid nanoparticle.
Big takeaway on GHG: greenhouse gas emissions are way out of control and show no sign of slowing. And the kicker, methane, is largely out of our hands and a function of global environmental breakdown as we heat the planet. It’s a vicious circle of higher temps melt more methane constraining ice… and released methane brings higher temps… and so on.
Let’s Talk Temperatures!! And let’s start by asking “Why the 1850 to 1900 goal posts? And why only for this variable of global temperature?” Is it maybe because of the highly recognized limit, which could easily be showing we’re not okay if we did use the 1750 baseline? By using 1850 to 1900 we’re still under 1.5° C!! Winning!!! [Humans love hopium!] (As opposed to being on the doorstep of 2° C, which is what you get if you use a 1750 baseline.) [Note how great things went in 2020 where we actually saw a drop because of the lockdown. Massive global change brought it down. Though I’m not seeing any lessons learned being implemented on a scale large enough to find that kind of success again.]
What it looks like from the HARN is that the AMOC is pulling heat from the global South and now our heat pump runs year round due to ice loss in the southern hemisphere… unpredicted by models… so science is a bit lost about what’s going on now.
Basic takeaway on Temperature is: Things are getting hotter. And they’re getting hotter faster. Faster than we thought possible…
Oceans are our next look-see… where we see the impacts of this warming begin to pile up. WMO reports the oceans have already absorbed quite a lot of our human made heating – about 90% of what we’ve made since 1971, as we see the highest level of ocean heat recorded in the 65-year observational record. Though the wording is complex, the letters seem to indicate a stutter of sorts – perhaps their way of letting us know their teeth are clacking together over these figures? (Or maybe just that they didn’t proof it closely enough?)
The “irreversible on centennial to millennial timescales” seems something we might heed? The data shows particularly strong increases in the past two decades. (So, during the time we’ve been told we need to be working on climate… things have only gotten worse.) But, hey, we can estimate the accounting of warmth! The Southern Ocean accounts for ~32% of the increase, Atlantic ~31%, and Pacific ~26%. The only place not getting warmer is the subpolar North Atlantic which is responsible for the slowing Atlantic Meridian Overturning Current (AMOC). The takeaway is that we’re playing with globally complex interconnected systems, yet we remain a world of humans divided on the solutions.
Sea Level Rise is a quicky. We’re seeing the highest levels in satellite record history and the last decade (2014-2023) has risen at a rate TWICE the rate of the first decade’s data (1993-2002), jumping from 2.13 mm/yr to 4.77 mm/yr. While 5 mm/year may not seem like much… it’s already impacting coastal cities like Miami in a big way.
Marine Heatwaves and Cold Spells is next. A continued message of things are getting hotter (and for longer, and more frequently). The image for this section really looks like hell on earth with oceans of mostly orange (Strong), yellow (Moderate), and red (Severe), even deep burgundy of Extreme weather, though very little white (areas without the above concern levels).
Ocean Acidification, due to absorption of CO2, which decreases the pH, continues to increase and are now at levels not seen for at least 26,000 years. The rate of change has never been higher either. Both portend unprecedented danger for humans. While coverage range and duration of observations are insufficient to provide real understanding, bottom line is, pH is on a clear downward trend. [The report is far more vague and “well, one never knows…” about the whole thing. This is a bit maddening for me… in case that was not obvious. 😡]
The Cryosphere review includes analysis of Sea-Ice, Ice Sheets, Glaciers, Snow Cover, all of which are pretty much at scary lows… but not all are at record levels! Like for Sea-Ice, it’s only the 5th or 6th worse! It’s no 2012… or 2020… in the Arctic. The Antarctic Sea-Ice though… all time minimum low (since 1979) beating out the old record low from… 2022. Ugh! Is anyone paying attention?!? And the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets are still melting, though Antarctic gained some mass from snow accumulation! smaller than ever, continuing the melt… Glaciers are showing nominally, the largest loss of ice on record. Pretty extreme records – as depicted in the report’s Key message list. Record glacier loss was seen in Western North America where mass loss rates were five times higher than those from 2000-2019. [Again, humans just struggle to comprehend exponentials…] Wildfires, whose ash darkens glacial surfaces are doing them no favors… creating a vicious cycle of faster melting. Snow Cover continues its long-term decline. North American snow cover was the lowest on record (1967-2023) and 17% below the long-term average.
I’m not sure even what to say about the Climate Monitoring and Renewable Energy insert… I did not yet read the 2022 Year in Review: Climate driven Global Renewable Energy Potential Resources and Energy Demand… mostly because I see all around the world how we inequitably distribute or plan these things so… I just can’t stomach it.
I’m skipping analysis of the Ozone and Short-term climate drivers sections but will comment on Precipitation. In general, drier in the Western Hemisphere and wetter in the Eastern, with some exceptions.
The report covers the various and sundry Extreme weather and climate events prior to turning to Socio-economic impacts on Food security and Displacement. Here’s a couple figures… and I’ll work to get back to this in coming weeks.
Why exactly did they not include info on the big colonize countries and their food security?
When it comes to The State of Climate Finance, I’m guessing you can guess where we are. Too little money, despite some recent efforts to step it up. Worse news, the cost of inaction grows. Insufficient and inconsistent focus on the concerns continue to exacerbate the dilemma.
All-in-all, it’s not good news. Though we’ll continue to do all the good we can in this little place in the woods that we call home. Let’s dance each other to where we’re going next, even if it is near-term extinction.
As 2024 is flying by here at the HARN, I’m seeming to find more peace every day. Even in the hard moments, I’m finding peace more often my thought, and I’m finding myself doing this in more moments of each day.
I’m processing ideas and occurrences and I’m not sure I can explain it in words exactly… yet over the weekend I had a series of epiphanies and amazing conversations that are bringing deep insight and clarity. Kinda weird to feel this, as the world seems only to become less peaceful. That is the mystery, I guess.
Though we are seeing more and more humans standing in solidarity for peace, we’re seeing what happens to those who do, which then allows us to come to see what happens when authorities attempt to maintain control… and THAT is awakening many to the violence of the state, which is feeling more and more a failure in maintaining their status quo based on cognitive dissonance? I’m hopeful we find new ways, eshewing the violence of the final collapse of the systems as we know them now, which seems inevitable if humanity is to have a chance at longer term survivability.
The last week has been full of new challenges, yet also fun and creativity, adorable kitties, and exciting collaborations, with potential for new connections developing everywhere I look. Perhaps that’s how I’m finding abiding peace? Kitties do help! [Until their zoomies start anyway!! 🤪]
Here’s some art that was made, despite the outbreaks of zoomies, most of it constructed from scraps and things gathered or gifted along the way. There’s a Rainbow 🌈 Kaleidoscope, the beginnings of a blue piece, a Colorful Colorado landscape, a recognition of unattachment… of letting go, and an emerging Goddess. [Big love to Sese who shared in some of the creativity and supplied most of the scraps! 😍]
An interesting understanding came Saturday when I realized, no matter which path I choose, I can find peace. ☮ [Big thanks to Dan for help with that one. 😍]
I’m seeing how the thinking mind brings suffering, ideation that can bring discomfort. Today’s Tao reading (#35) speaks to this suffering.
We are the flow. Life is the River, flowing and changing. Clinging to any of it is futile and can be frustrating. It can bring discomfort. Especially the thoughts inside our head, as noted on the page.
While sometimes this discomfort can bring deeper understanding, if I stay too long in thoughts, during a time when I’m unable to find a good way, it can be completely debilitating. Finding my way through ignorance toward better practices that meet the needs of life can be painful. I can consider all the ways I failed previous to now. I can spiral myself into the most horrific imaginings in these moments.
Yet, this is the nature of all personal change is it not: Recognition of something that is not serving and requires reconsideration? Its really a wonder the practice is not more popular seeing how it can bring growth. Though it can be painful and difficult, which is perhaps the cause of it being a less popular path?
On the up side, an application of compassion for my behavior and thinking can make the learning process less traumatizing. As I work to provide grace to others… seeing all as doing their best and seeking to understand the world through their perspectives… I can also give myself a bit of grace. Though all lessons require some level of discomfort or difficulty… as I see places for potential change, I can also forgive myself for my own human foibles, lack of vision, or consideration. Perhaps forgiving myself more readily will allow me to do the same for others more quickly as well?
I’m learning that staying in the moment, intent on love, joy, and mindful observation of all around me (or the small project I’m focused on, as the case may be!) helps me find myself more and more often in a peaceful place of complete enjoyment of the world around me. A place outside the ideas that manipulation and control of my surroundings is effective, outside the clinging thoughts based in past and future, where ego and fear are constantly conspiring to bring ‘control.’
I can find myself in a place of abiding peace. Peace watches, rather than tinkers. It listens, rather than speaks. It is, rather than does.
Maybe my grasping is because I see how quickly the world I’ve always known is leaving. Maybe it’s the pending loss of a comrade in the work that’s bringing this deeper insight too.
Maybe it’s the thought of fire (though in your place it may be flood or drought or wind?), that is making me soak in every sight as I pass through these days. I’m clinging to this beauty offered by this place, yet only for the moment… because as soon as I pass, another bird builds a nest, plant shoots up through the earth coming to life, or tree falls to the ground… becoming a source of life in a new way.
My habitation in this current place is relatively new, hardly a half dozen years. Yet the differences are stark year to year and most especially this year where we go from sweating… to seeing our exhaled breath in the air, and back again… sometimes within a week.
Some days, our exhaled breath seems the only moisture remaining in the air. I savor it… and wonder if I can save it. It’s looking to be a watchful fire season.
This life is a constant letting go… a constant recognition of change.
This is reality: Everything is in a constant state of flux and change. I have the choice to see life however I wish. I can accept what is or resist and fight against that, pretending I have more control than I do. Some of the decisions are very simple. Some can be so difficult as to convince me I’m incapable. Yet I can follow my true nature, making each decision with love, compassion, grace, and acceptance. When I do, I can find that abiding peace.
I am choosing, more and more these days, to find eyes and ears of peace, looking and listening for the love, the beauty, the lesson, the challenge, in each moment, and following my true nature to whatever path I will take… hoping for peace in every step.
So we’ve spent little energy investing in Hill Annex Mine (an industrial area turned state park)… instead, stopping services! And now… the park is dysfunctional (read: unprofitable) so should return to extraction industry ownership?
Is this yet another way we will see Minnesota mined, pipelined, and culled to a wasteland in years to come?
…The site, last mined about 50 years ago, was abandoned before state reclamation laws existed. Lawmakers turned the 625-acre site, primarily made up of the old mine pit, into a state park in the 1980s. But the idea always was to keep the land available for the mine if a company came along to revitalize it, said Ann Pierce, director of the DNR’s parks and trails division. …
The state once offered pontoon boat rides across the pit as it steadily filled with groundwater and rain, but the boat rides have stopped as the shoreline has eroded. Bus tours that took visitors deep down into the mine became shorter each year as water levels rose. Years ago, the bus failed an inspection and the tours stopped.
Tuorila grew up in Calumet, a town of about 300, and remembers the red dust that would blow from the mine and cover the cars, homes and clothes of everyone who lived there. He has spent much of his 17 years as mayor trying to get the state to invest in the park, to keep it open and water levels manageable.
The University of Minnesota used to host annual fossil tours, where people combed through the ore piles and upturned rock and earth that had spent millions of years underground. They would find shark teeth and other relics. Those tours, too, have stopped, Tuorila said.
The park is now open only in the summer for two days a week. Public areas now consist mainly of an overlook site and a mining museum that was created at the old Hill Annex clubhouse, where single miners would rent rooms and hold dances.”
Waadookawaad Amikwag pic of the destruction near Walker Brook in Clearwater County where I live… also Public Land.
So, planned reclamation??? To turn public lands into so-called ‘profit’ lands? If we sell off all the natural resources (on which our lives depend, remember), at what point do we consider the impacts to Life itself?
The DNR really SUCKS at their mission* to preserve our Natural Resources …who some of us call Relatives. #PeopleBeforeProfitsPlease #LandBack (If your only ideas are to make pollution and paper money, the very reasons you stole all the land in the first place? And now look at things.)
* If you read Minnesota statutes, the DNR exist mainly to gather the evidence of who purchases our relatives… as the citizens largely remain clueless of their own sacrifice, made to the gods of money. Maybe we’ll rename the state to Mine-sota! Or maybe we need to come to terms with what the real MN DNR mission might be?
Hey, rural America! Think of all the profits!!! We’re going back to the red dust covering cars in Calumet!!
But don’t think one minute of the lungs in all those who will breathe the iron dust in this little town in days to come? The DNR must not be… #Murica
We’re watching as humans destroy each other and the planet on which we depend for everything in day-to-day life. We’re maybe feeling the pending upheaval as things seem to escalate, bringing more danger for humanity’s continued existence. In places like Gaza, the destruction and inhumanity seem all-encompassing. I believe we can take these global lessons and apply them internally.
I believe that we can listen to each other with compassion and with a big scoop of grace, focusing on the common ground that joins us together …in love and community, rather than fear, induced by our assumed individuality.
I believe we can each acknowledge our common goodness. Sure each out of us can be short-tempered and fearful as we self-focus with egocentric thinking. Yet each of us has given to another, even when we weren’t sure we could “afford” it, even when we risked being vulnerable. And the world kept spinning… 💖
I believe we’re all doing the best we can, in each moment, and that we can find peace.
I’m learning the idea of “me” is really a false thing as I’m ever changing, learning and growing as I process through the happenings in my world, from the tiny place I inhabit. Hanging onto the idea of my individuality leaves me separated… from the world, from my fellow travelers, even from myself.
I’m learning there is nothing to do, nothing to fix. I can simply love and live according to my true nature and each day do the best I can to find peace, love, and happiness.
I imagine a time when we can all see each other as pitiful yet beautiful humans, each in need of love and care, and in recognizing this, spark our hearts to awakening and begin to help and heal each other rather than using each other for shame and blame, to stay stuck in our suffering.
There’s freedom in abiding peace. In fact, it’s far easier than continuing in suffering… once we manage to find our way to it.
And for those who ask, “What’s in it for me?” The answer is… everything.
[The concept of “grace” is an unmerited gift of compassion we give to or receive from others. Grace cannot be earned; it is something that is freely given.]
Yet, in 2023, MPR reported wells went dry during the 2021 drought because of excess irrigation pumping.
Less well known are long-term aquifer damages created by Enbridge’s Line 3 Pipeline Replacement Project. State regulators have failed to assess construction damage and report to the public.
Northern Minnesota is full of surficial aquifers. Communities near the pipeline route might consider whether Enbridge’s construction affected local hydrology, bringing problems usually blamed on drought or excess irrigation.
Enbridge’s expert, Barr Engineering’s Ray Wuolo, testified during permitting, “Limiting the depth of sheet piling to approximately 20 feet should prevent penetrating into the underlying pressurized deposits.”
Enbridge went deeper anyway, pounding 30-foot steel pilings deep into the ground to support their pipeline trench during construction. These pilings were subsequently found responsible in each of four aquifer breaches reported to date: Clearbrook, LaSalle, MP 1102.5 (Fond du Lac Reservation), and Moose Lake (Aitkin County).
More than two years post-construction, damages are still being found.
Adding insult to injury, five days after bursting the Clearbrook aquifer, Enbridge requested a ten-fold increase to their water appropriations permit (from 510 million to almost 5 billion gallons).
The Minnesota DNR approved the increase in June 2021, days before learning of the ongoing excessive water, still flowing at Clearbrook, which sparked an investigation.
When Judge Tiffany dismissed Enbridge’s charges on Feb. 5, 2024, we wondered, “How was Enbridge’s continued and ongoing failure to report damages to our state waters considered ‘law-abiding’?”
Eight suspect damage sites have been provided to state agencies and the Attorney General of Minnesota, yet the group documenting them, and those who sued to prevent the dismissal of Enbridge’s criminal charges, continue to hear no response.
Learn more at www.WaadookawaadAmikwag.org and watch videos of the damages and impacts at the Waadookawaad Amikwag YouTube channel.
I’m no longer a progressive. So called “progress” is what got us here… where it is literally killing us. Faster every day.
Note: While I generally encourage most to increase their understanding, I’ll quote Leonard Cohen in saying, “There are things we don’t tell the children.” This blog contains things some new parents may find disturbing, especially if not already aware of them.
Please proceed at your capacity. These are very difficult times, indeed. Probably ought to disclaim this blog weekly these days. Stay in the now…
When I was born 55 years ago the population of the planet was 3,620,655,275, likely give or take a few thousand. Today it’s more than doubled. In a little over a half century we surged to 8,118,835,999. The good news? Our growth rate has been cut in half as well, falling from over 2% to under 1%. Though this doesn’t get us to shrinking our impacts… it isn’t looking to bounce back any time soon, with rising pollution, failing economic and infrastructure systems, and the escalation of our climate catastrophe, all amid World War III, encouraged along by the dissonant propaganda.
No telling when we might start to see a negative growth rate yet I’m guessing it might happen sooner than current predictions (zero predicted by the end of this century). My theory is banking on higher than expected excess deaths, which the data is showing to be spiking since spring 2021, and perhaps general malaise regarding bringing a human into what appears to be a planet on the failing edge of its capacity to sustain human life.
Here’s how we got to where we are now… 2.5B 1950 3B 1960 4B 1975 5B 1987 6B 1999 7B 2011 8B 2023
Where we are now… We’ve been sold systems of dependency as the authorities have worked to outlaw freedom and eliminated sovereignty.
No longer may you drink unpasteurized milk!!! Though millions of people do every day, in violation of the so-called ‘law’. A recent case in Pennsylvania is bringing concern.
Keep off the grass! Not only in the one sense: the manicured nature of society where humans must walk on concrete sidewalks, preventing even a momentary connection to grass, earth, and bugs, all fellow travelers on our spaceship, each intricate parts of a complex life system that includes us… (for now). Yet also in that sense of avoiding the use of marijuana, which many find a natural remedy, which has been demonized by authorities and still faces extremely biased laws in many municipalities. That some can be so afraid of a weed is striking.
Or the FDA misinforming to not use Ivermectin off-label, prescribing it as a prophylactic or treatment for Covid-19. The agency has to now eat those words, removing their illegal statements, yet at what cost? How many died who might have been saved?
Authorities have relied upon theft and murder to create their so called success. You know, the genocide and enslavement foundation of America? And now the current wage slavery system we have working people to death as they enjoy little for their efforts? While the systems rely on many cogs (read: people/labor) to function, their benefits go only to a handful of those at the top (read: millionaires and their offspring).
The technologies that were supposed to liberate us are actually the handcuffs that are not keeping us free. Remember how they promised 20 hour work weeks and so much freedom?!? What happened to that? Or did they mean only the super-rich would enjoy these comforts? Seems to me we’re still where we were a hundred years ago, with elites living largely off the backs of working class humans as they steal resources from so-called third world countries. If you haven’t seen this movie – it might resonate as current status?
And the stories of the authorities (read: Mainstream media, aka the “Mouthpiece of the Empire”) keep us from understanding how intimately they are working to control and destroy. I mean, did YOU hear about the UN Security Council meeting on Nordsteam?
Seymour Hersch, who gained fame and a lifetime of street cred for his 1969 series on My Lai, the first documented massacre in Vietnam, is given accolades via a retired CIA employee who testified about the Nordstream bombing. Yet, while Seymour has long been seen as a truth-teller, all the sudden he’s being demonized as he shares truth about Nordstream. There is clear politicking going on at the UN. As we hear nothing more…
Today I wonder on the future… and how it might look a lot more pleasant if it involves a lot less “Progress” to a tech world that is leaving people and their needs behind… and might look a lot more like a turning back… to the ways of life that bring true joy.
simple meals prepared by loving hands
quiet evenings reading or listening to music
afternoons watching the children play non-competitively
As a retired quality manager, I can tell you the pressures to doctor the data can be immense. With the focus on profits being primary, I was often shocked by some of the crazy ideas put forth by management to make things look good for the customer. Eventually, I left the job, unable to reconcile it with my integrity.
I’m pretty sure that if I decided to testify against my company for violations, like Boeing Quality Manager John Barnett did, I’d not be killing myself mid-deposition. The idea that he took his own life is ludicrous on the surface and probably much darker when we dive deeper. If you’re gonna take out an enemy, probably best to not make it look really obvious that YOU were the one to kill him. Yet, the hubris of killing has lately become pretty commonplace. You know, with the genocide all around the world, most notably in Gaza. Maybe Boeing is just that confident in their untouchability?
Yet it’s not the first instance of strangeness where suicide was a factor in the airline industry. Years back a jet crashed into the side of a mountain carrying US Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 34 others; all fatalities. The investigation into the crash soon revealed that weather was the cause… yet, some suspect a transponder issue may have been to blame. In a very small buried piece in the back of the next issue of Avionics Weekly, it was noted that the transponder maintenance technician had committed suicide by “shooting himself in the chest with a shotgun.” Pretty sure he had to use some very talented toes to pull this off? Or… maybe I’m just a conspiracy theorist?
Interesting to note in this coverage, as Ron Brown’s plane was a Boeing 737…
The type of plane carrying Brown and his delegation has recently attracted suspicion because of a pair of unexplained accidents related to rudder problems.”
If you haven’t read A People’s History of the United States by Howard Zinn, it’s likely you may still be biting into the juicy narrative being generated by mainstream media about the current history we’re now living. If you do nothing else after reading this blog but start reading that book, you’ll be well on your way to a deeper and better understanding of this country. You’ll learn:
How the country is built upon genocide and slavery. Perhaps you will see how that slavery continues today, as it’s now carried out via laws that create prisons full of wage slaves. Not to mention the help of avid shaming of poor people… creating division as some carry a false sense of safety for working a job that pays enough for a bit of privilege… and for others, ensures an unending sense of fear that their own wages will not be enough, pushing them to work harder and harder, even though their dollars buy less and less each day? [Note: the pandemic helped enough people realize their time and lives being risked are worth MORE than a measly few dollars… as we see many still doing all they can to NOT return to wage slave jobs.]
How we plebs have long fought for freedom and justice, while being oppressed and abused by those wielding authority. [Chapter after chapter, Zinn lays out the truth about our history – the stories untold by the victims of authority.]
How the authorities misled and distracted the general populace, and when needed, gave just them enough to quell the mass outrage, ensuring things would remain calm as the wealthy continued profiteering off the backs of the working class. [Perhaps you’re recognizing it as the UAW stands – successfully – against the automotive industry giants who took more than their share in wages, raising prices for most of us, as their workers’ pay fell further and further behind. We are repeating history – if you’d like a specific view, check out anything about Eugene V. Debs.]
In general, Zinn gives us a full disclosure of the capitalist colonialism of America revealing the many times elite authorities have profited from riding on the backs of women, children, and immigrants. As they say, not knowing your history means you will repeat it and if you want a real scare, check out Grover Cleveland’s second term – the only other previous Presidential rematch we’ve had, which may give some insights to what’s to come? He is the one who arrested Debs…
Accomplishments of Grover Cleveland Term 2
America is a free country but… they’re gonna ban TikTok? A place people make money, so literally an attack on capitalism? [No. It’s the authorities’ attempt to control what appears uncontrollable, an educated public living freely. They just can’t comprehend that the majority of us support a CEASEFIRE in Gaza… without it being a Chinese conspiracy. FFS. Do they think we’re this gullible? Well, no! They know we’re this uneducated!!]
The US President is the supposed Leader of the Free World, yet if he wants to go to the Capitol, the secret service dude can just say, “nah”?
We’re currently living in a country where we dropped both food and bombs on a captive population halfway around the World all in the name of protecting Israel. Both Israel and the United States have acted with impunity over the decades. We’ve overthrown and killed foreign leaders through assassination and military coups. We’ve pretended to help farmers by moving them onto the capitalist profit focused use of genetically modified crops and practices that are devastating to the Earth creating monocultures that only lead to depletion and eventually starvation as nutritional content and yields falls towards zero.
Time to build systems of support that are based in local mutual aid?
Seems so as we see the governments from local to federal to international doing so little to deal with the major problems confronting us in these times: War, Climate, and Collapse.
As we watch two old white men try to garner our votes this fall, we all know neither will truly help improve our situation. Yet how many will be convinced to vote for the lesser of the evils? And, in turn, bring us ongoing separation, collapse, and hopelessness.
Have you noticed, since they put water on the stock market, how it’s disappearing? …from Lake Mead, Lake Powell, Colorado River Basin, Ogallala aquifer, Mississippi River headwaters, your local pond or stream… need I go on? We’re watching as mist and fog evidence the pulling of moisture from the land into the atmosphere on a daily.
Farmers around the world are protesting by driving tractors into city centers to speak to their deplorable conditions. They tell of how their goal to bring us food is becoming impossible with the costs of fuel rising and payments for their produce not keeping pace. If they are unable to meet their family needs, what makes us think they will be able to continue to meet ours? Do we comprehend that, if the tractors are in the city, no one is planting the fields?
We have the “King’s” troops… our national guard… staging along the Mexico/US border, as those whose lands US policies have destroyed seek refuge, something America used to offer…to the tired, the poor, the homeless. Nowadays – and forever really- America is unable to care for her own poor, tired, and homeless. The authorities spends all their time funneling dollars to the already rich… revealing the true American addiction… to money. This is a sickness that is venerated by US authorities. FFS we also have talk of a wall between Texas and Oklahoma! So much for being “united”? And with the National Guard guns in the subways of New York, we now look like every other third world nation?
Julian Assange is still in Belmarsh prison. The one who revealed war crimes of the United States, which will remain largely secret, as we now watch war crimes every day inflicted by Israel upon the Palestinians in Gaza, and supported by war machines from the United States. These war crimes are largely due to the sickness of greed for dollars that is incapable of seeing the human lives required to sustain itself. Assange has been held prisoner indefinitely. [Snowden too though he lucked into a little better situation.] We claim to have the best weapon systems in the world but but no one goes out to check accuracy of the drops. Authorities simply send in a corporation to clean up the mess. We are given little insight to how truly truly inaccurate our machines of war are .. let alone how short-sighted our strategizing can be.
Today on 1A I heard about the recent Rise of Islamophobia. What’s most troubling about this piece might occur about 2/3 of the way through, when talk of our “parallel universes” arises, explaining how, with mainstream media inputs, next-door neighbors can have very different ideas of what is happening in the world, let alone what it means. Perhaps this will be the true cause of our civil war?
Mis-information and dis-information provided as propaganda from the various news multi-corps that are spitting out the narrative of the authorities seems at least to provide fertility to growing division. The good news? Many are awakening as livestreams show true reality of starving children, bombed hospitals, and IDF targeting victims trying to find food aid. The words of the authorities fall flat in the face of images that speak a different story. And. Aaron Bushnell, whose bravery and commitment led him to give his life to awaken us to the terrors being inflicted upon children by the US government in collusion with Israel.
This lack of real information is an impact in many of the concerns we now face.
Locally, almost 2-1/2 years since Enbridge began flowing tar sands through Line 3/93, we’re still awaiting word from State regulators on how many, of the 45 suspect breached aquifers along their pipeline corridor, are still bleeding water from the land. So far, they’ve revealed four, one only after the public revelation by Waadookawaad Amikwag, a community science group dedicated to documenting and revealing to the public all the places Enbridge left damages in their wake. Walker Brook is another that remains unreported to the public, though the state is well-aware of the ongoing remediation issues. Perhaps remediation still awaits and this is why they cannot report the damage site to us mere citizens? The regulators often hide using the “active investigation site” concept to pretend they have no obligation to inform us, though if they wished, they could notify of locations of concern. They have not to date.
If not for the evidence, provided by amazing volunteers, using tools that the state doesn’t possess to find damages the regulators can’t see for themselves, we’d not know of this fourth aquifer breach. We still await revelation of Walker Brook. And there remain many more to document and reveal to the public. We’ve got data on most of the sites but each takes time to document well for a final report to provide to authorities.
Though DNR, MPCA, and even AG Ellison have documented evidence of at least six (6) additional suspect breaches, we still hear little in response or notification. We hear of late only the possibility they have not enough funding to oversee all the remaining remediation needed along Line 3/93.
While these damages show a pattern of regulatory capture, alongside the Polymet court ruling of “arbitrary and capricious” behavior by MPCA as well as notice from Federal agencies withholding funding to DNR for their suspect behavior in culling forests, we still see little being done to include voices of the public in our permitting process. And we still see FAR TOO LITTLE spent on enforcement of laws and permits. We currently watch as the USEPA has had to come into Minnesota to help protect drinking water in the southeast region of the state.
This week, the Rise & Repair Rally will work to address Legislators on the many concerns, with a focus on recognizing the rights of Native Nations within state borders, who retain legal rights that have been largely ignored by regulators from our perspective in the Line 3 project work. Waadookawaad Amikwag has prepared a letter for Legislators to let them know of our concerns, ask them for help in alleviating ongoing regulatory issues, and offer our evidence for their own work on eliminating regulatory capture from our government processes.
Let’s recognize the manipulators working to protect corporate polluters instead of our environment. Let’s question the mainstream messaging, looking for evidence our own eyes can see to dispel their charms. Let’s find new ways to live, in peace, and with far more happiness than offered by the wage-slave, fossil-fuel driven economy of death. Let’s work to build the world that includes all, cares for everyone, ensures protections for life, especially for elders, those with impairments, and children, who may need more assistance.
If we all follow our hearts, sharing love, perhaps we can find our way back together, away from the madness induced by those managing our country, working hard every day to divide us. If we create these new spaces, we can be more ready each day, as the crumbling systems of capitalist colonialism remove themselves from our landscape and we begin anew to connect with the landscape of life that brings true peace and comfort… as they provide the very oxygen and water on which our bodies depend.
Retired at 45 