It is now the 22nd of January and I've had comments about the absence of blog writing.  No excuses & I intend to do better. It isn't for the absence of subject matter,  that is glaringly plentiful, as I will soon describe.  It may be that to be "swimming" in topics,  stories and like appears to be disarming.  At the moment I am looking at a postcard image of a polar bear trying to jump from one ice flow to another,  while thinking about the giant oil rig being towed to Seattle for maintenance and repairs.  What would our Commander-In-Chief think or comment about the imagery?  It is heartbreaking and undescribed in our media.  Just as so much else,  such as poverty,  the so-called food deserts,  urban and suburban,  and tales of bone chilling cold for those who do not have adequate housing, shelter from the wind.

MPR had a show today about the possibility of changing our Nation's  credo for the world and our foreign relations stance.  It seems we have worn out our penchant for "Manifest Destiny"  and self righteous preaching about our role model nation and its' benefits to all concerned  ... and not.  The other candidate for President wanted to reinforce this credo and put behind it all the corporate ideals and power needed.  Now it seems we are more on the fence about it,  and we will see what happens. 

Writing tonight about poetry to a dear friend I am heartened that poetry is holding its own in our bewildered world.  Our new poet laureate in Wisconsin,  Max Garland, is a gem and it will be a huge pleasure to meet him after having read one of his prize winning volumes.  He is a grounded human being,  a pleasure to read to say the least.  And music,  I look forward to accessing it digitally better in 2013. Again,  music seems to gain more and more importance as this lurching, troubled planet proceeds along.  One of my latest "finds"  is a counter tenor from Germany,  Andreas Scholl.  Try him in his renditions of "Ombra mai fu" by George Frederick Handel (Akademie Fur Alte Musik,  Berlin).  Another dear Friend has helped me by producing three disks of music for my "Last Exit" strategies ...."Impermanence"  the theme.

Good night,  and may you be well and inspired in 2013.  I appreciate your patience with me.  Love,  Don   ps.  The snow leopard pictured is inspired by the great, great Peter Matthiessen book,  probably my favorite of all books.  The cipher of the animal is deeply inspiring to me. 

Industrial Hemp & Marijuana

Hemp, Industrial  -  I would like to suggest that you get a DVD copy of "Hempsters"  and get the story on commercial hemp production.  One of the tragedies today for agriculture is that we lack vital crops which could take the place of some which either cannot be grown and shouldn't be:   tobacco for one,  GMO crops for another.   Hemp was grown widely in the U.S. during the second world war and is grown commercially all over the world,  including Canada.  If it gets planted here the  DEA comes in a removes it and the grower is prosecuted. 

What is the confusion?  Seems that the DEA/U.S. Government doesn't understand that although Hemp is in the same plant family as marijuana,  they are very different plants and the affect of using them is completely different.  Marijuana, which was approved for personal use in two states in the last election,  and is now used widely as a medicinal  substance in several states is still widely considered illegal by government authorities.   Thus the confused actions of the DEA where industrial hemp is concerned.   Kentucky is the state leading the charge to replace tobacco with hemp as a replacement cash  crop.  The fight goes on,  the National Farmer Union has approved it as a crop that should be grown in the United States.  

Have I smoked pot?  Yes,  more than a few times,  many years ago;   but I could never have been considered a "user"  of it.  So,  I would like to share a couple of stories from California about the plant.  The first was in L.A. when I attended USC for graduate work.  Looking down out the bathroom window into the adjacent alley I watched a man go up and down attending plants.  I went down later on and found that marijuana plants had been planted in many yards in the block,  and this fellow was obviously taking care of them and harvesting as needed;  the home owners took care of the watering and, I guess,  some of the weeding.   Ron Le B. was a crafty fellow who I met shortly thereafter and he offered to give me some pot if I could keep his secret.  Instead we became fellow jazz loving neighbors,  he made it possible for me to go to after hours places in parts of town in which I wouldn't have been welcomed without his  (black) presence;   and I had wheels and he had not. 

Years later in Venice, Calif.  there was a local named "Shag" Nightingale ("Shag" because he loved shag carpet and used in heavily in his residence,  and even in his car).  Shag was  a dealer,  but he went to prison because he didn't keep up with child support.  Turns out that while in jail he was put in charge of road crews doing clean ups on the Pacific Coast Highway.  And, like Mr. Le B. he managed to plant pot along the road which was then harvested at  surreptitious times and sold in the community by civilian crews.  When he finished his sentence he returned to Venice after having picked up a brand  new El Dorado Cadillac,  which was then upholstered in shag.   Could it be that these two law abiding citizens might be an avant garde which would go beyond our present drug wars?  Stay tuned.

Knowledge, Love & Forgiveness

In front of the volume of "Thrall"" by our great, new Poet Laureate,  Natasha Trethewey,   there are two quotations which she undoubtedly approved of:        "What is love?

                                                                                    One name for it is knowledge. "

                                                                                               -- Robert Penn Warren
&   "After such knowledge, what forgiveness?"

                    --   T.S. Eliot

When I first read these my response was something akin to being blindsided on both sides at once, perhaps the intention of the poet.  Knowledge/Information is so all pervasive,  so ever present and confusing to me,  that is is completely impossible to think of it as love,  not even close.  And then to add the forgiveness factor is a change up so wild as to confound what is left of reason, to say the least.

In an age of doublespeak,  where there are both individuals and organizations  employed full time to do the utter scrambling of knowledge and information (and I think of Global Warming right now,  because it is so much in the news);  one has to shake his or her head just to imagine all the think tanks dedicated to information manipulation to satisfy their clients and sponsors,  unseat opponents,  win elections, etc.

In the naive days when I first graduated from library school,  it seemed enough to cite a reference deemed authoritative to a patron, and thus be satisfied that you had done an objective, professional job for them.  Little did we know that this house of cards would come down harder and harder, and that eventually the Internet would step in and provide so many sources,  so much information and knowledge  that to imagine an authority would be somewhat laughable.  I guess we can be forgiven
for that,  but to back up and imagine love and knowledge together is just to be blind sided again.

Preparedness

I think I've mentioned "to be prepared" earlier,  one of the major Boy Scout mottoes.  Today, in a world so complex it seems downright  quaint to even broach the subject,   September, has been deemed Preparedness Month.  By whom and why,  I don't know.  One radio show had an announcement about a kit of some kind by the American Red Cross.  (A note and call to them brought no response,  they are probably busy with people who didn't or couldn't prepare for things that happened to them (?);    just kidding.

Then I noticed something from the State of Wisconsin,  looked it up on the Internet and, bingo,  it was there.  Had something to do with Governor, with a list of suggestion about being prepared that would cost far more than people like ourselves could afford .... unless we had the time and fuel money to shop hard for the items far from here.   One of the major problems today,  of course,   is to have the resources to do what is undoubtedly agreed upon as necessary.

A month before last I sent a letter to some people in our surrounding community about a loose knit organization to deal with personal and group problems.  It seems that with the crescendo of issues and disasters around us it would be good to be able to "take it on"  together.  Another community not far from us has done this,  Prairie Farm,  and we have attended a few of their events,  watched and listened to the DVD they suggest on the so-called economy,  "Crash Course."

As the month of September progressed I began to wonder if anyone around us listens to the radio,  had any inkling that it was a month dedicated to preparation,  especially because not a soul responded to my earlier letter (?!).   I suppose I should take the advice of my inner voice and just "get a life."   What do you think?

Scattered - Conclusion

Let's not jettison the U.S. Postal Service.  It is not too much of a stretch to imagine the corporate take over of our invaluable Postal Service and then outsourcing it in order to squeeze the profit out.  Who is confused here?  Go, go Wall Street Protests.  Next month is Preparedness Month (?),  "Be Prepared" the quaint Boy Scout slogan I grew up with.  What is  u r g e n t enough to be prepared for in these times? Poverty, starvation, thirst,  homelessness?  Hey,  let the good times roll.  James Howard Kuntsler (of "The Long Emergency") may have something to say about this in his new book "Too Much Magic."

Discontinuity precludes conversation and personal memory (about other people's needs?),  "May the Circle Be Unbroken, in the Sky, Lord, in the Sky..."  It may be only in the stratosphere that continuity is possible,  where the circle can be unbroken.  We have created a society of dependence,  now especially in the corporate realm,  where it is soundly blessed by think tanks,  media, our government  and the ever lovin'  Tea Party.  Balanced budget?  I don't know if that is ever to be possible again, "entitlements"  are just too strong,  pervasive.

Frequent fliers are another version of our problem,  people with immense mobility desires, regardless of fuel problems,  security issues,  etc.  Personal indulgence was one of the backdrops of Thorstin Veblen's landmark work, "Theory of the Leisure Class."  It may be that this work needs to be revisited and updated to include indulgences of contemporary waste and personal prerogative.  Think of frequent fliers as those whose lives consist of unending indulgence in waste and personal forgetfulness, airplanes or no airplanes.

Scattered

Labor Day and no mention of  l a b o r anywhere,  except for statistics,  which are not good*.  The wagons are drawn up in a circle,  the "slings and arrows" coming in are not indigenous.  It is more like discontinuous shot guns blasts of a confusing array of media and mess.   Echoes of the Republican Convention part of the muddle,  described by the song words of Mose Allison (thinking of Romney's):  ..."your mind is on vacation,  you mouth is working overtime..."   & now we have the Democrats to look forward to in Charlotte?       * Farmer's Almanac:  "He Who Shuns Labor Labors Doubly."

In the recent past it seems that the Russian punk rock group,  Pussy Riot, has gotten itself in trouble with the Russian Orthodox Church,  Putin and the court system ... and are now are in a work camp for two years.   About the same time Eve Ensler's "Vagina Monologues"  have popped again all over the place,  which brought back a memory of a book in the 90s, "Femalia,"   "a photographic representation of women's genitals" ...  "they show that each human body is unique and beautiful..."  (Joani Blank, c1993,  There Press,  San Francisco,  Ca.)

In the early fifties,  Korean War duty,  I was introduced to words which had been extremely scarce in my high school and community,  pussy was one of them.  In fact,  Flexner's dictionary of slang was just on the horizon for bigots who not only wanted to keep the forbidden words out of society and its parlance,  books and libraries, of course.    My hazy memories of the young sailors using some of these forbidden words are strange,   some of the fellows brought regional equivalents which are still in my mind somewhere .... eg.  "beaver" for vagina, often spoken of in hushed tones,  fear and respect, awe (!).

And last but not least a more "prosaic"  thought;   as I listened to and watched the ("humble") bumble bee on the buckwheat this week.  This insect is doing to work for its endangered species,  and it is marvelous to behold.  Can this be one positive example of "nature" trying to right the wrongs that homo sapiens have wrought out there,  and will be bumble bee be able to withstand the "slings and dettos" that its cousin has suffered so greatly from?   Aye,  let us pray.