Ruined City Hall

This review is from: The COPPER-HANDLES AFFAIR: The Great San Francisco Earthquake, Fire and Bank Heist by John Patrick Legry (Paperback) Amazon.com.

John Legry starts his book with nothing less than the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and uses it as a springboard for a robbery and chase that leads us North through California, into Oregon, Washington, and beyond. Along the way the thief, John Law Copper, is followed by the clever and resourceful Frederick Handles, Policeman, who tears himself away from his home and city in crisis and a loving wife, to travel through the wilds of the West Coast, in pursuit of a considerable amount of cash taken from a bank partially destroyed and laid open by the earthquake and then coincidentally found by the wily Mr. Copper.

Beyond the chase and Mr. Copper’s narrow escapes, we are treated to an astonishingly well-researched description of real West Coast towns found along the route as Mr. Copper flees his pursuer through places we know from the dust of memory and old photographs. The writer puts us in these myriad locales, vivid and detailed in the reader’s eye to the degree we feel we’re not only being treated to a first-rate bank robbery/chase story, we are also privy to a sociological and anthropological narrative that brings the early part of the century stunningly to life.

Along the way, Mr. Handles meets corruption at every turn, especially in the very people he must depend upon for help, the lawmakers he meets and from whom he is forced to ask favors. Mr. Handles is so straight-laced and stiff; he’s almost a metaphor for Diogenes who searched in vain for an honest man. Slowly, from the stiff, inflexible and duty-bound Detective Handles, we find a deep faith in humanity and the expectation that right will prevail, and when people he relies upon fail him, the blow is breathtaking. He’s so much expecting people of position to do the right thing, when they don’t, the reader feels so sorry for the disappointed Mr. Handles, one can’t help but develop a fond respect for his own downfall when he falls in love with a woman in whose boarding-house care he is forced to remain while she nurses him through a life-threatening disease. He is human after all.

Mr. Copper is a scallywag Irishman. One soon becomes accustomed to his speaking in his brogue – a mangy mutt, rude, witty, coarse and surprisingly creative with little respect for authority; a product of hard knocks and anti-Irish sentiment common at the time. (In New York it was ordinary to see signs in store windows “Help Wanted! No blacks, Jews or Irish”). Word was, there was no such thing as an honest Irishman. Mr Copper raises that unfortunate stereotype to an art form with his ingenious and clever quick wits and winning ways. He’s so likable and charming in his manipulations of the people and tricky situations he encounters, you can’t help but root for the bugger.

The chase leads us through some dangerous places and real events in history that are vivid in memory and often painful to recall, such as the brutal and open murders of anyone Chinese in the town of Eureka, California.

The pace of the writing hits the ground at high speed and hardly lets up. This reader found “The Copper-Handles Affair” to be a page-turner as good and winning as any book in recent memory. The writing style is fresh and exciting; taking us on an incredible journey through a rough time in history when leaving “The City” was often also leaving behind not just civilization, but also civility. The unexpected well-balanced plot, fascinating characters, and exceptional good writing produce a suspenseful narrative that measures up to the best writers around today. I liked many of the characters so much; I miss them after having finished the book. John Legry is a very gifted writer: intelligent, amusing and a fine storyteller with a rare gift for finding irony and absurdity.

Gentlemen's Car

from Chapter One.

1:         Copper. San Francisco, April 18, 1906, 5:00 a.m.

It’s early mornin’ and I’m walkin’ up the bricks to Market Street. Loudest sounds is Da’s clunky squeakin’ two-wheeled pushcart and me boots on the pavin’. Bloody dumb damn cart swayin’ in me face; I’m the bloody dumb damn donkey harnessed in the poles behind it. Me mouth tastes o’ whiskey and smoke from last night. Where is that cigar stub? Shirt pocket? Ah, I feel it. Smoke that later.

Where the hell did Da’ say I was goin’? Flood Buildin’. No, think. Merchant’s Exchange on Montgomery. Off to empty the trash bins filled the day before by the Titans o’ Commerce. They get all the gold and we get all the garbage. Ain’t it always an Irishman’s share?

Da’s right about gamblin’. Lost all night, nothin’ to show. Not a nickel, not a dime, not even carfare for poor John Law Copper. Gamblin’ is risky business.

Market Street. Turn right. Sky’s palin’ behind me, street lamps fadin’ out. Ferry Buildin’ blocks ahead, way down at the end o’ the street. I can see it peepin’ into the daylight. Wish I was goin’ to the Ferry Buildin’.

Goin’ to the Ferry Buildin’ and gettin’ on a ferry! I’d like to go over to Oakland today. Me and Suzy McMillan had a fine picnic there. Suzy give me the sweats. Wonder what she’s doin’ now? Married that office clerk Jack Somebody-or-other. Maybe I should ha’ married her. Naw. I’d rather fish than be caught.

Bloody dumb damn cart won’t hold straight! Fightin’ bloody bastard!

Damn, I’m smokin’ me cigar!

Where am I? Junction o’ Turk, Mason and Market. Slip the bloody harness off. Fumble the stub. Less than I recall. Heat o’ the match on me face makes me wish I was warm all over, it’s so chilly, and here’s a pleasant puff. I should really be a man o’ leisure, I got the taste for it, and it ain’t my fault for bein’ born indisposed.

Farmer’s and Merchant’s Bank across the street. Columns and curlicues. There’s all the money in the world. If I had any, that’s where I’d keep it.

What’s that terrible sound? A deep rumblin’.

What the bloody hell is that?

Long, low moanin’!

Jesus Christ! The ground’s movin’!

2:         Monograph by Frederick W. Handles, Sr., Esq., Sergeant SFPD.

I am Frederick “Fred” W. Handles, Sr.

I am a native of San Francisco, California, the Golden State, born in that resplendent city in the Year of our Lord 1876. While the earliest years of my life are unremarkable (and shall therefore go unremarked), I must note that I joined the City Police Force in June 1896. Through hard work and loyalty, I had risen almost to the rank of Sergeant as this narrative begins.

As to the narrative, I am a simple policeman, ill at ease in the world of letters. However, friends and relations prevailed upon me to commit my views to print for the moral edification of youth (which task I take as bounden duty, since they – the youth – are the future, as others more notable have remarked).

John Law Copper (whose name is a misnomer, if ever there was one) was born on May 5^th, 1880. This made him seventeen days short of his twenty-sixth birthday on April 18^th, 1906. Later that year, the mad millionaire Harry K. Thaw jealously shot and killed noted bon vivant and architect Stanford White for a rumored dalliance with Thaw’s wife; Japanese seal poachers were killed in Alaskan waters; a group of hot-eyed Cubans staged an aborted revolution; and President Theodore Roosevelt went to Panama to look at the Big Ditch. It was a busy year, and I enumerate major events to underscore the triviality of what some call: “The Copper-Handles Affair”.

However, on April 18, 1906, the City of San Francisco had an earthquake. That is where John Law Copper was at 5:12 in the morning. That, also, is where I was, exactly at the corner of Davis and Washington streets where I was chatting with one Mr. Michael Ryan, a young Irish produce man. Yet, I precede myself, for my morning actually began earlier that fateful day. It was precisely…

The COPPER-HANDLES AFFAIR: The Great San Francisco Earthquake, Fire and Bank Heist by John Patrick Legry at Amazon.com. The great game of big money power politics and civic corruption on the Ragtime U. S. Pacific Coast, and an exciting chase through the vanished garden world of northern California to the dangerous shanghai town of Portland, Oregon, and beyond. 50 b&w line drawings and two maps.

Occupy Gimbel's

FYI – CLICK THE IMAGE to get the meme link. The Pepper-spray Cop meme began in prototype at my alma mater, University of California at Davis – be sure to watch the video clip at the end of this link to the end. PEPPER SPRAY AT DAVIS, CA

Crocodile Tears Aren’t Just for Crocodiles

The nation-wide para-military police response to Occupy Wall Street is a HUGE unjustified waste of police force and precious overtime funds. Don’t buy any official’s feigned nobility – they are mismanaging the situation, using absolute overkill on the protestors, and crying crocodile tears over ordinary crime (even including rape) victims that their mismanagement and mis-allocation of resources created: “We can’t go catch murderers because we’re busy beating up regular citizens, exercising their right to free speech and assembly.”  Do they think they are re-fighting World War II?

Ever read Tsun Tsu? This Chinese genius wrote a book called The Art of War around 420 BCE – it is about the strategy of indirection – achieving one’s objectives with minimum effort and the least HARM  to both sides. It treats war – conflict – first as a human lapse of understanding, and something calling for other than a total frenzied Braveheart head-on collision. Total War is ignorant arrogance and results in gory battles such as Verdun and long drawn out fiascoes such as Vietnam and Afghanistan. Every major military victory fought by anyone ever has been achieved using Tsun Tsu’s methods – Leonidas at Thermopylae; Sherman’s March, cinching Union victory in the American Civil War; Patton’s end run to relieve the heroes at Bastogne in the Battle of the Bulge; and Schwarzkopf’s blitzkrieg tactics in Desert Storm. American military and para-military types study the book, but mostly fail to apply it.  I highly recommend it to everyone in any OWS encampment because they will win with it.

I also recommend Mediation Services if you can still find them. Confrontation creates opposition; simple as that. Push gets shove: formulaic. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction: Sir Isaac applied to human relations.

Governments around the country aren’t generally working on the problems that the protestors are raising. In the main, American government at all levels deals with bureaucratically generated responses to business conditions as advanced by business interests. Too narrow a decision process creates loose ends, unresolved issues, and actual deprivation. We always forget those who have no representation at the table. Additionally, most of our governments do not appear to have any people people working for them – at least not placed in positions of sufficient authority and power.  The most common government effort is to control participation and use public safety officers to suppress human beings fighting for survival. It won’t work; it is a dike of sand against a raging sea

More private growth and development is a good idea? Only a progressive roll-up-the-sleeves and get busy public works program will change conditions, including local rules and regulations to control banks and corporations if the feds can’t or won’t act.   We have entered a critical path and must either respond positively or succumb to it. Otherwise, the protest will grow, conditions will continue to deteriorate – police will keep wasting overtime – and our nation will proceed at whatever pace straight to hell where it appears to be going anyway: oar-less, on the edge of the falls, caught in a whirlpool.

Please consider a few “cop” generalizations from personal experience:

1. I.Q. average is 100.
2. Think they are the defending army, not servants of the general public.
3. Overheard in a hobby store – cop daddy, boasting to clerk while cop’s little boy searches for war game figures: “Yeah, President is coming to town. I go on duty this afternoon, doing crowd control down by the Sheraton. We expect the usual hippy bastard anarchist demonstrators. I hope we get a good Watch Commander; some of them won’t let you touch the crowd, but once in a while you get a good one who will let you bust heads. I want to bust a few heads!” Laughs.
4. Tend to conduct the “American Way of War,” that is, “total war,” going into the situation with maximum force and capacity for violent suppression. This probably stems from personal fear turned into policy by politically astute command leadership. Can’t argue with protecting the troops from harm, but can argue with the troops for always being disposed to kill, cripple or maim.

In the early sixties the West German police met each crowd with the lowest possible force. If the crowd was festive, the officers might not wear side arms, or carry batons in their hands. If the crowd became unruly out came the sticks, shields and helmets. The next level might be water cannons and horse police; then tear gas and baton charges. The last resort – never reached in that period, or ever as far as we know – was armed suppression, a la, Syria or Qaddafi. The West Germans always went back to START with each new crowd and escalated only in accordance with that crowd’s specific actions.

The mindless boob Ronald Reagan, as governor of California in the Seventies, changed the American response from his first crowd – beginning soft and escalating until he reached full-scale assault charges on the Berkeley campus of the University of California a few crowds later. He didn’t treat each crowd as a separate crowd; he treated all crowds as the same crowd! He never went back to low-level response. He never returned to public servant status. He went up to and remained at military high alert – him against: Them, reinforcing and institutionalizing a distinct police culture of state (establishment) against the people. His practice of “American exceptionalism” – so called – was to except everyone who disagreed with him.

We are reminded of Luke 19:27 – “But those mine enemies, which would not that I reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.” Yet another reason to keep church and state separate.

We will not cure or ameliorate society’s ills by smashing those who are suffering because of them. Old Chinese saying prevails: “Once every 200 years an angry mob shows up on the steps of the Forbidden City.”  Capitalists take note: if there is no room for us, there will be no room for you. That’s not promise; it is prophecy.

Why We Fight

"Play it again, Sam!"

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 3,800 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 3 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

More HOLIDAY BAH-HUMBUG  HUMOR – CARTOONS (mostly)

The Top One Reason Religion Is Harmful By Greta Christina, AlterNet.

Religion is uniquely armored against anything that might stop it from spinning into extreme absurdity, extreme denial of reality and extreme, grotesque immorality.

So what is it about religion — exactly — that’s so harmful?

I’ve argued many times that religion is not only mistaken, but does more harm than good. But why do I think that is?

Sure, I can make a list of specific harms religion has done, from here to Texas. I’ve done exactly that. But that’s not enough to make my case. I could make long lists of harms done by plenty of human institutions: medicine, education, democracy. That doesn’t make them inherently malevolent.

Why is religion special — and specially troubling? What makes religion different from any other ideology, community, system of morality, hypothesis about how the world works? And why does that difference make it uniquely prone to cause damage?

The debates about religion usually come in two types: “is religion accurate or mistaken,” and “is religion helpful or harmful.” And ever since I put together my best “mistaken” arguments, my Top Ten Reasons I Don’t Believe in God, I’ve been trying to wrap up my “harmful” arguments in a similar nutshell.

But I’m realizing that I don’t have ten arguments for why religion is harmful. I don’t even have 57,842 arguments.

I have one.

I’m realizing that everything I’ve ever written about religion’s harm boils down to one thing.

It’s this: Religion is ultimately dependent on belief in invisible beings, inaudible voices, intangible entities, undetectable forces, and events and judgments that happen after we die.

It therefore has no reality check.  READ MORE:

http://www.alternet.org/belief/143912/the_top_one_reason_religion_is_harmful_

FREETHINKERS

The following is an actual question given on a University of Arizona chemistry mid-term, and an actual answer turned in by a student. 

Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic (absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle’s Law (gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some variant. One student, however, wrote the following: 

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So we need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the rate at which they are leaving, which is unlikely.  I think that we can safely assume that once a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave; therefore, no souls are leaving.  As for how many souls are entering Hell, let’s look at the different religions that exist in the world today.

Most of these religions state that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.  Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do not belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go to Hell.  With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of souls in Hell to increase exponentially.  Now, we look at the rate of change of the volume in Hell because Boyle’s Law states that in order for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the volume of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added.

This gives two possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which souls enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls in Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes over.

So which is it?

If we accept the postulate given to me by Teresa during my Freshman year that, ‘It will be a cold day in Hell before I sleep with you,’ and take into account the fact that I slept with her last night, then number two must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell is exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory is that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting any more souls and is therefore, extinct….. ….leaving only Heaven, thereby proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last night, Teresa kept shouting ‘Oh my God.’

 

HOLIDAY BAH-HUMBUG  HUMOR – CARTOONS (mostly)

FOR HARD CORE students of the great mystery:  ALICE and YUYA

SERIOUSLY, PEACE AND LOVE.  BEST WISHES FOR A MUCH BETTER NEW YEAR.  May all the Repuglicon grinches eat deep-dish humble pie.

Award-winning photographer David Slater had his camera hijacked by a crested black macaque in Indonesia, which took its own picture. The animal is extremely rare and endangered, which makes this big macaque attack picture all the more special.

[Don't forget to CLICK the images for even MORE stellar thinking!]

KKRISTIAN CHILD PORN SPAMMERS now SPAM SCAM SPAM

Perhaps learning a lesson from the scolding we gave them in ACCEPT CHESTER BESTOS, the kkkristian child porn spammers ceased  to spam child porn and began spamming spurious advertising spam – still by the boatload, no less annoying, but at least they’ve gone from child porn to simple larceny and bunko scams. We don’t know if this is really an improvement on the list of Seven Deadly Sins, or whatever witchery they consult to determine meanness, pettiness and spite (or perhaps to learn it from), however it is slightly less offensive than outright sleaze, and far more tolerable than outright prostitution of the truly innocent. We remain unconvinced that these kkkristians are genuinely “holy” in any sense. Forgiveness and tolerance didn’t make it into their lexicon (lexicon being a hard word for them to pronounce, I suspect), and they have little, if any,  sense of charity.  Kkkristians are strictly old-school, fire and brimstone Old Testament wannabe prophets who firmly intend to kill all opposition in the name of their unholy god.  Contrary to their self-profession, Kkkristians are neither redeemable, nor salvageable, but rather doomed to wallow in their own crapulence.  In the split second it takes to delete their importunate silliness, we note that they are adamantly against climate change too, however their god seems unable to do much about it, since we also note that climate change is disastrously proceeding, their disbelief notwithstanding.  Oh, hey, now wait a minute, we think we get it! Their god is an ostrich!

Corporate Statism

INSIGHTS ON THE RADICAL RIGHT and KKKRISTIAN SO’JERS:

William L. Shirer, Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.  Simon & Schuster.

“…Hitler organized a bunch of roughneck war veterans into ‘strong-arm’ squads…These uniformed rowdies… soon took to breaking up [meetings] of other parties.  Hitler told an audience, ‘The National Socialist Movement will in the future ruthlessly prevent – if necessary by force – all meetings or lectures that are likely to distract the minds of our fellow countrymen.’”

Frank Schaeffer, AlterNet: writer and author of Crazy for God: How I Grew Up As One Of The Elect, Helped Found The Religious Right, And Lived To Take All (Or Almost All) Of It Back.

Here’s the emerging American version of the fascist’s formula: combine millions of dollars of lobbyists’ money with embittered troublemakers who have a small army of not terribly bright white angry people (collected over decades through pro-life mass mailing networks) at their beck and call, ever ready to believe any myth or lie circulated by the semi literate and completely and routinely misinformed right wing Evangelical religious underground. Then put his little mob together with the insurance companies’ big bucks. That’s how it works — American Brown Shirts at the ready.  Republican leaders taking insurance industry money and organizing what amounts to roving bands of thugs not only need to be exposed but should also become absolute pariahs.

The Lobbyist-run Groups “Americans for Prosperity ” and “FreedomWorks” Dick Armey-Orchestrated Memo:

Here is a leaked excerpt from the folks organizing the intimidation campaign:

• Artificially Inflate Your Numbers: “Spread out in the hall and try to be in the front half. The objective is to put the Rep on the defensive with your questions and follow-up. The Rep should be made to feel that a majority, and if not, a significant portion of at least the audience, opposes the socialist agenda of Washington.”
• Be Disruptive Early And Often: “You need to rock-the-boat early in the Rep’s presentation, Watch for an opportunity to yell out and challenge the Rep’s statements early.”
• Try To “Rattle Him,” Not Have An Intelligent Debate: “The goal is to rattle him, get him off his prepared script and agenda. If he says something outrageous, stand up and shout out and sit right back down. Look for these opportunities before he even takes questions.”

The “Scorched Earth Policy”

Dick Armey and company have been driven mad by their reversal, not just of political fortunes but of seeing that they’ve wasted their lives. They now know they were wrong about: the country, the free market, war for fun and profit, and what the American people really want. They made their best case and were rejected by the American people — and by history. Bush was their man and he turned out to be a fool. So now all the Republican gurus have left is what the defeated Germans of World War Two had: a scorched earth policy. If they can’t win then everyone must go down. Obama must fail! The country must fail!

No, I don’t believe that these people are about to take over the country. No, the sky is not falling. But the Republican Party is. It is now profoundly anti-American.

http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/141833/right-wing_turncoat_gives_the_inside_scoop_on_why_conservatives_are_rampaging_town_halls/

Star-spangled Savior Hollywood Boom Flag. Commercial censors kicked this back for “nudity.” Note: there is nothing below the waist on the broken icon; the model was a vandalized plaster statue. Methinks other prejudices were in play. Mixed media ink.

Put religion in its rightful place, not in the government. J. Legry, 2011.

If the marching morons of the western fundamentalist religious traditions stopped momentarily to exercise even the barest minimum of free individual thought, they would immediately realize that in structure, purpose and results, the forces they support fulfill the mission of their imagined Anti-Christ or its sectarian apocalyptic equivalent. One can argue that the fundamentalist marching morons are the people they themselves prophesied who follow the WRONG master, necessitating and aiding the Arch Fiend’s attack on all virtue and goodness in the world. The kkkristians are the armies of Satan, Shaitan, the bad guy. The fundamentalist marching morons are ignorant superstitious dupes who hurt other people at the direction of their sick as hell masters.

READ MORE: AWFUL THINGS REPUBLICANS DO

Canon Fodder

“Oh, well. In the nonce, the day bids fair, the sun is risen and the grass is still green. I shall go out and smell the flowers.“

The more you look, the more you see. Colored pencil. CONTROVERSIAL ART at John Legry’s Store

Busy City - New Neighbors - Close Neighbors. Your guess is as good as mine and what's up with the elephants? Mixed media, mostly ink.

STRAIGHT TALK – It seems to me that we have very clear priorities to attend to if we are to survive on planet earth very much longer.
First and foremost is climate change. We either admit the problem and deal with it, stopping all practices that work against that end, by force, if necessary, legal, if possible, or we perish. Society should triumph over individuals in this regard. Personal profit is totally unimportant against survival. What happened to the buggy whip manufacturers when the automobile replaced the horse? They retooled or died. Whatever. Get a damned clue.
Second, we cannot sustain the present form of huge international corporate mega-capitalism. It is an out of control monster: a willful environmental vampire and oppressor of human rights. Its rulers and masters make sociopathic decisions on a daily basis. As they control costs both quality and choice disappear from the marketplace. They tend to baronies, monopolies, and mini-kingdoms serving the pissant egos of self-styled “giants of commerce.” They are moribund, sucking ghouls, parasites on the planet and body politic. They are the great corrupters of mankind and despoilers of the earth.
Third, put religion in its rightful place, not in the government. If the marching morons of the western fundamentalist religious traditions stopped momentarily to exercise even the barest minimum of free individual thought, they would immediately realize that in structure, purpose and results, the forces they support fulfill the mission of their imagined Anti-Christ or its sectarian apocalyptic equivalent. One can argue that the fundamentalist marching morons are the people they prophesied who follow the WRONG master, necessitating and aiding the Arch Fiend’s attack on all virtue and goodness in the world. They are the armies of Satan, Shaitan, the bad guy. The fundamentalist marching morons are ignorant superstitious dupes who hurt other people at the direction of their sick as hell masters.
Fourth, if we wish to progress in a positive and healthful manner, we must liberate the females of our species and educate the children to a rational, scientific and progressive frame of mind. We do not want to crowd young impressionable minds with superstitions, myths or self-destructive and debasing philosophies. This will do more to eliminate the physical, mental and emotional abuse that has characterized our species’ formation and created the corrupt and destructive society we inhabit today than any other measure. We can do so much better, and it begins with free self-directing women and smart well-loved children.
There is more, but this is a fair start. Just wanted to put these four points out for consideration and possible personal ACTION. We really don’t have any more time to waste. KOKO (Keep On Keepin’ On!), j
A few ideas: 10 Ways to Dump the Corporatist State; and 10 Ways to Screw Over the Corporate Jackals Who’ve Been Screwing You: HOW TO FIGHT CORPORATISTS reprise

"Play it again, Sam!"

REMEMBER? Palin Reloads; Aims For Giffords

Sarah Palin drew sharp criticism for featuring a map on her web page riddled with crosshairs targeting Democrats in vulnerable congressional districts. Tucson’s Gabrielle Giffords is among the 20 Democratic incumbents whom Palin intends to use for target practice.

[Don't forget to click the images for more info and ideas].

Sarah is Just the Tip of the Crazy Iceberg.

The political instrument of moneyed elites, and a retrograde societal force, the GOP today is more negative than ever.  Its agenda, if fully implemented, would prove catastrophic. Here’s what an unfettered Republican Party would do “for” America:

1)      Greatly reduce or entirely eliminate taxes on the rich, forcing working families to make up revenue shortfalls.

2)      Bust labor unions, and prevent collective bargaining for wages and benefits.

3)      Stubbornly deny the climate change while pumping more pollutants into the environment from dirty industries and practices.

4)      Remove regulations on investment banks and credit card companies eroding consumer protections.

5)      Continue to criticize and under fund public education, advocating private schooling instead, to dumb workers down.

6)      Outlaw abortion, under a moral guise, impelling thousands of functioning females to perish because of sexist denials of their basic rights.

7)      Continue to recite a Pledge of Allegiance whose last six words are “with liberty and justice for all,” while harrassing homosexual citizens.

8)      Speak often and loftily of freedom, but engage in neo-McCarthyite witch hunts, Red-baiting name calling, and a host of Patriot Act sins against the U. S. Constitution in the name of “national security.”

9)      Bully the world with US aggressions on foreign soil, kill countless thousands of innocents, waste billions of badly-needed dollars, and make us hated around the planet.

10)  Generally drive down the income levels of America’s working-class majority, as a cost-saving corporate measure, dooming society to economic ruin!

11)  Lie about affordable health care for all, creating a national security threat by fooling some Americans into thinking that public health care is a godless socialist attack on basic American freedoms.

12)  Unleash de facto ethnic cleansing against 12 million immigrant men, women, and children, blaming them for hardships experienced due to capitalist excess.

13)  Shamefully try to lend credence to their avarice and social irresponsibility by revising the Bible to obscure passages that place human need before abject greed as one conservative group is really trying to do!

14)  Support intensely bigoted hatred that has crazed extremists dreaming of literally tearing Barack Obama to pieces and gassing all liberals.

15)  Place the livelihoods and lives of over 300 million Americans in the hands of incompetent ideological “purists” such as Sarah Palin.

While there are certainly Democrats who’ve yet to show spine in furtherance of vital change, let’s be absolutely clear about the unmitigated disaster that would follow if Republicans, in their present ultra-rightist incarnation, ruled our country exactly as they wickedly wished.

Herman Cain, Tea Party Paragon of Compromised Virtue and the Koch-American Way.

EASTER ISLAND BLUES

There is no longer any doubt that environmental alarms are well-founded, so why is it taking so long for that fact to sink in?  At work recently, someone in the coffee klatch confessed that he hoped things would “stay okay until I die.”  Even on the surface, I know this selfish attitude is probably overpowering and protecting most of the people I know.  Few people feel any stake or control and so no one acts.  Most of my fellows and “fellowesses” usually feel small and gray and bleak.  They, like me, are remote echoes of prehistoric pasts, but are still earthly-bound to the nonsense of being a member of an over-riding culture, which never pauses long enough to discover itself.  Too busy it is for introspection.  Too concerned with making money and pretending to be movie-idols.

Seen from outer space, poor, old Earth has mange.  Deserts replace forests and lumber interests tell us they must cut more trees to keep the economy alive and loggers’ jobs.  In truth, the lumber interests cut jobs by automating destruction of the forests.  The last rape of all the Old Growth left will not save the logger’s lifestyle, and once the Old Growth is gone, so goes the breathing apparatus for the entire planet.

Industry ‘experts’ – hired degrees who know that fact is disposable to theory – tell us that ‘careful management’ will replace Old Growth.  Timber company television ads show stretches of green, managed forest.  However, what I want to know is, what do all of the forests managed by all of the timber companies look like in aggregate?  Taken in cumulated, today terms and future-damaging results, the timber companies and forest rapers (timber and cattle companies, miners and developers) are working against posterity around the world, and nothing and no one seems able to stop it.  They even murdered a man in Brazil for daring to say out loud that it was happening.

Our species has done this on a limited scale throughout its evolution.  One finds our indelible four-thousand-five-hundred year old scars on the ground at Mohenjo Daro, once the greatest city in the Indus Valley; we know little about its society; it is a barren flattened circle of over 1,000 years habitation; nothing grows there; the name means “mound of death.”  If we’re in a place long enough we totally strip it of all resources and threaten all life, including our own.  It’s a phenomenon I call, ‘The Easter Island Syndrome.’

According to archaeological evidence, Polynesians arrived at the tiny island off the coast of present day Chile – 300 strong and bearing plants and animals for starters.  Before they were done, they were 4,000 strong and they had denuded the island to raise the Aku-Aku, those legendary, long-eared, big-nosed statutes of their ancestors, seeking power and prestige.  The Easter Island culture killed itself, consuming its natural resources to do that.  One day, the quarries were abandoned.  Tools were dropped beside unfinished work.  The population fell into cannibalism for a time (I fantasize that they ate the priests and politicians first).  The remnant lacked immunity to disease brought by the first European visitors.  Europeans thought the survivors were a slow, lethargic people with little memory of their own history and quickly enslaved them. Time and outside assistance changed the picture there to one of livability today, but Easter Island is a microcosmic prophecy for our entire planet.

Billions and Billions

There is a scientific postulate that asserts that the Earth will renew itself – having suffered the depredations of miners, loggers, or nuclear waste makers – given enough time (eons).  The Earth will right itself, and all the damage done by humankind will be undone.  This postulate is known as the Gaea Effect, after the Earth Goddess Gaea, the ‘deep-breasted,’ whose ‘soil nourishes all that exists and by whose benevolence men are blessed with fair children and all the pleasant fruits of the earth.’  Her majesty was once acknowledged ‘not only by men but by the gods themselves.’ Whenever conservation is mentioned in America, however, many men look as if the devil had propositioned them.  Women pointedly mention a husband, father, boyfriend, brother, or hanger-on of male importance, who is gainfully employed as: a well-digger in the oil fields; a logger on a pristine mountain top; a strip miner in the fecund valleys; or, in charge of the nuclear reactors at Three Mile Island.

Freemarket Man thinks of himself as the lord of creation, husband of the universe!  How utterly absurd that is.  He believes he can rape his bride at will, without conscience, and survive to an unburdened old age.  Like any abused wife, the good, old natural continuum will quietly stab Man in the back some dark night.  Or, set his bed on fire! The variable is the rate of decay caused by our assault on the biosphere.  As our environment disintegrates, we open our amniotic fluid to the outside vacuum – the eternal void of space.  We chip the shell from our fragile egg and leave the poorly formed embryo to fry in the empty silence.  Word on the street is that the world is ending.  We’ve run our course as a species and the forest-destroying masses, the poor and the starving billions, are at last about to bring down Cargill Grain and the International Oil Cartel.

Let ‘em keep on making money, until we’re all dead and money doesn’t mean anything to anyone anymore.  Maybe then – if there are any seeds left and soil fertile enough to encourage life – the Gaea Effect will assert itself.  In two or three billion years, there might be a restored earth, blessedly minus the threat of humankind (which, viewed properly, is an unsympathetic and rather stupid parasite bent on destroying its hostess).  That’s as positive as I can get, until such time as I see genuine evidence that we are working to stop this feeding and breeding frenzy that we’re on as a species.

Ironically, our horrific western rapaciousness nears its cannibalistic end as we celebrate our self-proclaimed, world-wide, ideological supremacy.  Natural resources dwindle, reusable trash and garbage is vouchsafed in massive piles of publicly-subsidized debris called ‘solid waste,’ which we privately franchise and mine for private gain.  Lo, the seas shall rise as we debate land use regulation and spread FEMA flood relief money along the shore!  Our transportation decisions will provide archeological oddities for alien students, raising the question: ‘How could they achieve this standard of engineering, but be blind to their absolute destruction of their own habitat?’  Ask Malthus or Erlich.  Ask the Pentagon.  Ask any of those who preach procreation from the pulpit to insure the earthly power of their priests and bishops.  Ask the leaders of the great political polities who refuse to face the consequences of vast ecological rape.  If I’m depressing you, good.

We are as a species, dichotomous and profound.  We sing about progress as we dig in our heels to stay in the same place.  We are as profound as a potato.  Only god can make a potato, although man can manipulate it hydroponically, or cause it to grow upside down on the bottom of a fruitcake.  That’s the real majesty of it.  That we are able to do so much.  To transcend to the heights of ridiculousness.  To richly imagine an earthly paradise, and somehow suppress evidence, divert attention, raise barriers of jargon, split hairs, and delay in the courts, debate trivia and mouth platitudinous obscenities to obfuscate reason.  Moreover, dodge substance and ignore the fact that the Old Growth forests of the world are almost gone – in Oregon as well as Brazil.

E. F. Schumacher ’s  Small Is Beautiful,  subtitle ’Economics As If People Mattered,’ is about Gandhian economics and economy of scale.  If you see the world as an environment, made up of ecosystems – each independent, yet interdependent – like nations – you realize that the bulk of an ecosystem’s needs can be met internally when the population is small.  When over-population or resource-depletion occurs, however, the ecosystem either destroys itself, or assaults another ecosystem for its raw materials.  Yet, if the population of the ecosystem limits its numbers and conserves its resources, it may be self-sustaining forever, or as close to that as mere mortals get.  In order to protect the earth, Man must understand his dependency and place upon it.  He must have a sense of past and future, and take responsibility for the present.  We have an obvious choice: spend the present wisely, or squander it like bad money.

If we let it end, mourn no more Beethoven.  No more Mozart.  No Van Gogh.  Visitors from other worlds may find our few survivors (if any)  wandering mindlessly in the rubble of our desert midden heaps, searching listlessly for the barest means of survival.  Unable to hear or heed our own direst warnings, unalarmed in the face of the direst possible sign; obsessed by a cheese sandwich while the sun fries our brains.

SELFISH POSTSCRIPT:  I wouldn’t worry about this so much, if the corporatists and ignorant who are despoiling the planet were only endangering themselves.  I just realize that their stupidity and greed are going to kill everything, including me!  Now, I don’t know about you, gentle reader, but that pisses me off.

“Act.  There may be no result in your lifetime, but without action, there will be no result at all.” – Mahatma Gandhi.

Here are some action and primary resource links that help to make a positive difference. 

INVOLVED AND INFORMED (essential links):

KEITH OLBERMANN: GULF FACES ECOLOGICAL DISASTER - VIDEO

CENTER for BIODIVERSITY: GULF DISASTER Breaking News

GET TO KNOW THE BADGUYS:  OIL, GAS, COAL, and KOCH

AVAAZ: http://www.avaaz.org/en/ Avaaz members respond by rapidly combining the small amounts of time or money they can give into a powerful collective force. In just hours we can send hundreds of thousands of messages to political leaders telling them to save a crucial summit on climate change , hold hundreds of rallies across the world calling for action to prevent a genocide, or donate hundreds of thousands of euros, dollars and yen to support nonviolent protest in Burma. Click here to see a list of our campaigns and impact in 2007. 

Weather Underground http://www.wunderground.com/  is committed to delivering the most reliable, accurate weather information possible. Our state-of-the-art technology monitors conditions and forecasts for locations across the world, so you’ll always find the weather information that you need.

The Newseum http://www.newseum.org/todaysfrontpages/ displays these daily newspaper front pages in their original, unedited form. Some front pages may contain material that is objectionable to some visitors. Viewer discretion is advised.

World Clock http://www.poodwaddle.com/worldclock.swf : time, and real-time statistics: population, death, illness, environment, energy, us crimes, food, more.

The Natural Resources Defense Council  http://www.nrdc.org/ works to protect wildlife and wild places and to ensure a healthy environment for all life on earth.

Since 1892, the Sierra Club http://www.sierraclub.org/ has been working to protect communities, wild places, and the planet itself. We are the oldest, largest, and most influential grassroots environmental organization in the United States.

“WE http://www.wecansolveit.org/ are 2,313, 499 people determined to Solve the Climate Crisis and Repower America with 100% clean electricity within 10 years.”  The We Campaign is a project of The Alliance for Climate Protection– a nonprofit, nonpartisan effort founded by Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore.  The goal of the Alliance is to build a movement that creates the political will to solve the climate crisis — in part through repowering America with 100 percent of its electricity from clean energy sources within 10 years.  Our economy, national security, and climate can’t afford to wait.

Founded in 1947, Defenders of Wildlife http://www.defenders.org/index.php is one of the country’s leaders in science-based, results-oriented wildlife conservation. We stand out in our commitment to saving imperiled wildlife and championing the Endangered Species Act, the landmark law that protects them.