Muckrakers

When you study American history and literature the muckrakers show up first at the turn of the last century,   for example:    Upton Sinclair  ("The Jungle" 1906) and Ida Turbell  ("The History of the Standard Oil Company"  1904).  Typically muckraking happens during times of great turmoil and change,  and we have re-entered a time of heavy duty muckraking in our present historical period.

Jim Hightower and his "Hightower's Lowdown" is perhaps the best known of the left leaning commentators,  because of his media savvy, radio shows and such.  Amy Goodman  ("Democracy Now") is on the border line of muckraking with her sharp focus on things in the news which are usually either forgotten or minimized by the main stream press and media.   For the "right side" of the ledger,  the numbers of people operating on television (CNN, cable) and "talk radio" are virtually too numerous to mention.  Newt Gingrich is a well known political figure (presidential candidate up to a point) who indulges in muckraking without even giving what he says the degree of caution usually thought of by public figures. 

Whistleblowers might considered handmaidens to muckrakers,  but are more serious critics inasmuch as what they divulge has more serious societal implication and they can go to jail, be tried, lose their livelihoods,  marriages and worse.   The most famous of these at present would be Bradley Manning and Julian Assange  of the wikileaks movement.   It is said the present administration in Washington has pursued more whistleblowers than any proceeding administration,  perhaps because of political sensitivities, terrorism and other such concerns. 

It seems we need both of these categories of activities more than ever before.  In a society (or better said societies) in which there is heavy "information overload"/"media inundation," severe personal preoccupation and little or no critical sorting out of facts and data, we will need all the Jim Hightowers and Amy Goodmans we can get.  Living in Wisconsin at this time of political upheaval and manipulation it is heartening to know that the media and information outlets in this state are doing their best to sort out all the politicizing of information going on;    and that we may be able to look forward to the closest thing to a "fair election" in the month ahead. 

Common Sense

It is generally agreed that so-called common sense is a rare commodity today. When faced with some seemingly obvious choices the results are often mind boggling, how can that "lateral arabesque" be taken for a way to proceed? Obfuscation is such a common way to go that it is assumed as logical (?), how can problems be solved with this modus operandi?

When the need for high technology savvy is mixed with the need for common sense things become even more difficult. I'm not saying that there isn't a marriage of the two, but my sense is that just as common sense is not taught, that an added problem is that it certainly is not taught combined with high technology problem solving.

This is even the case living in the country where farm machinery has become "high tech" and demands off-the-farm solutions and interventions. One supposes the marriages of technologies are a fact of life, but their solutions are not. It used to be that even the less than inclined could work on a car or pickup; today it is next to impossible. It seems that "higher education" (eg. vocational colleges) are in for some challenges. We can't be dragging our equipment off fifty or sixty miles, or pay for house calls, and we are not all going to be state of the art mechanics. Where are the compromises going to be?

Maude Victoria Barlow

We need saints now-a-days, especially those who deal with what Maude Barlow calls "underlying causes." Her recent interview on Alternative Radio pointed out that the present candidates for President of the United States are totally deficient in dealing with these causes, including critical infrastructures of all kinds, and especially w a t e r; and this includes President Obama, of course.

Let me just share a few resources on this outstanding Canadian woman: first, her facebook:

www.facebook.com/maude barlow. A recent publication: "Blue Gold: World Water Wars." & a slogan: "Water, water, not a drop to drink." Can we afford not to pay attention to our saints? Rachel Carlson, Vandana Shiva and Dr Helen Caldicott, to mention a few. I doubt it.

Earth Day is upon us again, and little is said in the press and media. I've called it our most important day of the year earlier in the Blog. We minimize it and its many concerns at our ultimate peril. In just trying to get the local town people involved I was faced with the attitude that "that is not my department." A reminder that the environment is every body's department was met with silence. What would have happened if water had been mentioned?

Two Friends Who Have Passed

In the last month I have lost two individuals who I barely knew. Both of them were inscrutable, in a sense, one (Vicky Marie Wiegand) was a valued person of the community in which I live, the other a cat who was a drop off out here in Otter Creek in the midst of Winter. Although it may seem far fetched to combine them in this tribute, I hope I will be forgiven for doing so.

Vicky was a woman who had many careers and who played bass in a band I was privileged to hear three times. She was a survivor who lived with and fought breast cancer for 15 years. She had been a Mother and Grandmother, worked at many different jobs, a literacy volunteer and master gardener. She is survived by a loving family and many friends, including her life partner, Terri Golen. Vicky died on March 4th of this year, 2012.

A long haired black cat was found in our garage a few months ago. She was haggard, extremely thin, cold of course, and very weary. I was bound and determined to help her survive and have a life. She was accepted by the two corgie dogs in their cold garage setting, sharing a plug in heating pad and bed when things were really cold. She gained weight, showed a very feisty, individual self, and I started calling her Coal. By the time I took her to the Vet, she had socialized herself further and grey hair was coming through her black fur. Coal died on April 9th, and was buried the next morning; she had become more and more playful with the dogs, and my guess is that one of them killed her when the play might have gotten too rough.

I don't know whether Vicky had a totem animal, but in writing this account I wonder if it could have been a cat. She was an innovative person, seemingly unpredictable and yet extremely reliable with her friends and family. She and her partner built an off-the-grid solar home in Downing, Wisconsin, had a small, CSA vegetable farm, and shared a "wide variety of tomato starts" with their many friends. She travelled to Central America as part of her life and work with the Farmer to Farmer Coffee organization.

I wish these two could have known each other. They are deeply missed, and will be in people's memories for decades. Both were buried on their home turf; Vicky within a green burial on her own and Terri's land, Coalette in a shallow little grave which will soon see the addition of a fruit tree or bush as a part of that. The inscrutability of death is a part of their present legacy, one of the many tough lessons of impermanence.

* Cats Under the Stars was a rock band from the Iron Range, may they rest in peace, and most of the members are still going as I understand it. Highly recommended is band leader Paul Metsa's book, "Blue Guitar Highway."

Life's Pace

This to revisit and proceed on from the earlier hippy/zippy/Mr Natural entry. You have heard from me before about torque, gear changes, and the like. Years ago, a least a long decade, I found myself looking at a bulletin board in a local hardware store in Minneapolis. There I found a card for a "cattery" advertising Maine Coon Cats. This breed has always interested yours truly because of their size and length (I think they still hold the "Guiness Book of Superlatives" record for both, domestic cat category, of course), Todd Bobo's place was just blocks away, and I had considered giving myself a retirement present.

A phone call later a visit was arranged, the new born kittens were around their mother, and there was a orange one ( prerequisite color) and it was soon evident that he was a contender. Not only was the color right, but he was already in fairly high gear, even though all his litter mates seemed to barely have the eyes open and were immobile. I said I wanted him, and Mr. Bobo warned me about his possible character problems.

I saw no problem, made a down payment and picked him up a few weeks later when he was properly weaned. He was definitely a zippy cat, who not only possessed memory and intelligence, but was seemingly a cat for life. His name, Cajun, was given by my dear Wife and partner, Joni, and he has lived up to it well. Now at 12 years old or so he is going strong, has solid torque and speed (eg. flying up and down stairs, going up the wall a bit for good measure at times) and can be an arm full at times. Not for everyone, but I came "out of the gate" much as he did and thus appreciate his gear ratios. (A picture will be posted of him, again in the near future.)

Curiosity

Some years at this time my mind wants to search around in Sir James G. Frazer's "The Golden Bough." Why, because his was the first detailed description I found in my life about the origins of Christianity, especially of the pagan myths which are conveniently passed over by most Christians, including theologians and the present Republican presidential contenders.

A fellow sailor, who had studied philosophy at the University of Chicago, a steam engineer by trade, had pointed out this huge work of Frazer's in the fifties (originally published in 12 volumes, luckily Frazer's wife suggested a one volume abridgement, which they did together -- evidently, although in the edition I have, The Macmillan Company, c1922 -- it had gone through 12 printings by 1972, she is not given an iota of credit) . It is called "a world classic..." and was the reason he was knighted by the Queen in his lifetime.

The work is a huge monument to human curiosity and intellectual scholarship. I am amazed that it is so little known now-a-days. The copy I got from the local library had to come inter library loan from a high school library in another part of the state (the local library has a beautiful, heavily illustrated version which unfortunately is very short on content). Called "One of the 20th century's most influential books ... Sir James Frazer left a lasting mark on science, literature and history of western thought." Don't miss it, especially at Easter and Christmas times, but any time your curiosity about the past is active and searching.

Hippy & Yippy

A visit to a local middle school English writing class focused on this BLOG and solicited comments and request for improvement suggestions. One of the students wanted to know if I was a "hippy;" fair enough question since I have consorted with hippies, often partied with them and exchanged views, street, community, etc. My response was "no," that I was a "zippy," superficially a high powered "hippy," but the description/descriptions goes much deeper than that.

Like all monikers, the words are fictitious but useful at times. Just as I have always been suspicious and distrustful of diminutives and nick names, I have as well eschewed names which tend to be often used in dismissive way, to typify someone who is, in fact, which more complex and unfathomable when burdened with these names, eg, expletives used on people from minority groups.

Mr. Natural was a comic figure created by R. Crumb as a key person in his panoply of characters which depicted subcultures of that time, including, of course, hippies. Because Mr. Natch was on the zippy part of the spectrum (many of his characters were not, in fact most were not), he held a special place in American life of the sixties and seventies and I found myself putting a decal of him striding down the way on a window of my van (another question, I think by the same fellow, "did you have a van?). Well, this was a mistake, in part, because Mr. Natural then became one of my monikers, whether I liked it or not. With a beard down to my chest, it was if I were a younger version of this amazing comic character.

"So what?", as Andy Warhol would have said. In order to try and illustrate the difference a bit I pointed out to the students that Abbie Hoffman and his gang of merry zippies could be examined as exemplary of zippy activity. For example, throwing hundreds of one dollar bills around to the floor of the N.Y. Stock Exchange as a bit of political satire and avant garde protest antedating by many years the current protests against Wall Street. The spectacle of suited stockbrokers groveling and competing for one dollar bills on camera is certainly one of the most expressive examples of zippyness. Carry on.