Gonna Miss Ya Molly

Jeez, Molly Ivins died today. She was only 62 years old. I've had great fun over the years reading her well aimed jabs at the likes of Georgie Bush and Tom DeLay among many, many others. Listening to her talks on Alternative Radio were always an hour well spent. She was a strong, powerful writer who wasn't afraid to speak the truth, and she spoke it well for a long time. Not long enough as far as I'm concerned -- the liberal progressive movement in this country has lost a powerful voice. There's not much more to say but so long Molly, I'm gonna miss ya, but your words will live on.

Watch Out For The Weather Channel

The House has begun it's hearings on whether or not the White House has pressured scientists to downplay the effects of global warming. It may be interesting to see how this plays out, but I don't hold out any great hopes for action by this administration. I don't think this gang would act on global warming even if the clouds were to burst into flame.

The Senate is also getting into the act, and questioned several '08 candidates, but the real star of the show was our old friend James Inhofe. His response was too good and too typical of him for me to pass up. Here's part of what he had to say.

There is "no convincing scientific evidence" that human activity is causing global warming, declared Inhofe, who once called global warming a hoax. "We all know the Weather Channel would like to have people afraid all the time."

The voters need to tell this clown to take a hike. He probably wouldn't hike far though. He'd no doubt be afraid of falling off the edge of the earth.

It's Edward Abbey Day Here At My Place

I wanted to take me one of those Monday holidays today. You know, the one's we take to honor the birthdays of great people. But I couldn't -- rent's due in a few days, and Edward Abbey Day isn't a paid holiday here in Montana. Or anywhere else. I guess it'll just have to be a personal tradition.

It was on this day 80 years ago that Ed Abbey was born in Pennsylvania. He moved to the west in the late 40's and soon became one of the most passionate voices in defense of wilderness that this country has ever known. He howled in protest at the destruction of wild places everywhere, but especially the desert southwest which became his adopted home. He railed against the industrialization of our society back in the 50's, at a time when industry was God in our eyes. Much of his best writing was about freedom, and about the role of a writer in a free society. He wrote eloquently about his belief that one of a writer's duties was to be a critic of his or her society. He was a prickly, cranky, hilarious visionary who's words ring as true now as they did decades ago when he wrote them.

He was only 62 when he died in 1989, but he left a solid body of writing behind, and I'm sure a number of you are well acquainted with it. If not, do yourself a favor and check it out. Whether you like him or not, and I'd dare say that very few people are neutral about him, his work will rattle your cage. My personal favorites are Desert Solitaire, The Journey Home, and the immortal Monkey Wrench Gang. Rather than blathering on about him, I'll let his words speak for themselves. Here's my all-time favorite Ed Abbey quote from his introduction to The Journey Home:

Human society is like a stew -- if you don't keep it stirred up you get a lot of scum on top.

So Cactus Ed, here's a tip of the hat to your memory. As far as I'm concerned, as long as I can wrap my gnarly old fingers around my dog-eared copies of your books you're never gonna die.

War, Oil, And Global Warming

Yesterday was protest day against the war in Iraq, both here in Montana and in DC. That's good. I'm all for protesting as a way to speak your mind. We need to do that every way we can. I'm not sure these single day events have that much impact, they're too easy to blow off until they become old news, but I salute all who take part. Good work. What needs to be done though to make protesting a viable tool is to make the protests sustained, ongoing actions against the lifeblood of our decision makers -- threaten their funding and their votes and they will pay a lot more attention a lot sooner.

All of us need to face some hard, cold, unpleasant realities, and we can't keep putting them off. We have some tough, tough choices -- and yes, painful ones -- to make, and we can't keep sugar-coating them. Our entire economy, our whole way of life is totally dependent on fossil fuels. They power our vehicles. They heat and power our homes. All the stuff we buy is dependent on oil. Oil powers the manufacture of it. Most of what we buy is made of oil -- most plastic is oil based. Shipping it here to our stores requires huge amounts of oil. We can't live without it unless we develop alternatives fast. We're ill-prepared to do that right now because we've ignored alternatives for too long. So we're stuck. We're facing ever-increasing resource wars, an increasingly hostile climate, and we have no practical way out of it right now. We can protest all we want, but until we're ready to bite the bullet, make some massive changes, and sacrifices, in the way we live and in the way we run our economy, we are giving tacit approval to this war and all the oil wars to follow. If Bush/Cheney were to come clean today and just say yes we're in Iraq for oil, we want to control the Iraqi oil and we want to control Iraq as a miltary home base for further actions in the region, and yes we're going to continue to fight oil wars and we're doing it to keep the supply coming, well there isn't much we could say to that. We'd have no choice but to collectively look in the mirror and say to ourselves yeah, ok, a future of oil wars isn't acceptable. The consequences of global warming aren't acceptable. We need to find a new path, as painful and difficult as it may be, and we need to figure out how to get started now.

There are resolutions in Congress now protesting the war. There are bills flying around to curb carbon emissions. Most of this stuff isn't worth the paper it's written on. It gives the illusion of action when in fact it does nothing but serve as a bit of sleight-of-hand to protect our economy and the corporate powers that control it. Nobody wants to be the one to propose something that's going to have a negative impact on our economy. But what we need to realize is that anything we do is going to affect our economy. We need to grasp that, we need to accept that, and we need to deal with it. No more denial, no more excuses. We need an abrupt change of direction, as painful and unpleasant as it may be. To do nothing will be a far more painful course to take. I don't know where to start. I'm not sure anybody really does. But start we must. We simply can't have it both ways. We can't end the war, we can't avoid the devastation that global warming will bring, and continue to feed an ever-growing economy that is increasingly dependent on a dwindling resource. If we keep demanding more oil we'll have to fight for it. Our economy isn't a deciding factor in global warming. Our emissions are. Our economy is irrelevant when it comes down to the limits of what our atmosphere can absorb and still support us. Our actions aren't. Our actions count. But what actions are we going to take? There's our dilemma. Whatever we do, there will be a high price to pay. We'd best accept that now and choose well.

Damn! Do You Think Bush Will Come Clean About This In His SOTU?

Yeah, I'm going to watch George Bush on TV tonight. Why? I don't know why. I certainly don't expect any earth-shaking revelations from this guy -- I don't even want to pay too much attention to him. Why should anybody believe a word he says anymore? But I'll watch. Call me a masochist I guess.

Oh, he'll pay lip service to things like health-care and global warming. I'm sure we'll get plenty of tough talk and sword rattling too. And you know he'll spout off plenty of bilge about democracy and fighting terror and making the world a safer better place. But while he's passing that kind of gas, I'll be thinking about this. It's nothing new, but I'll be comparing it to what he's saying. I'll be thinking about how he's been lying and misleading the people of this country of ours for years now. I don't know -- will this stuffed suit ever come clean about the real motives behind his presidency?

Art and Science and Wilderness and Stuff Like That

Sometimes I get mighty tired of all the endless political crap. Yeah, I know, it’s important, but it does get tiresome. Once in a while a guy needs a break. Like now. These are the times I need to let my mind wander off to some of the wilderness places I’ve known here in the mountains of western Montana. Places like this -- Blodgett Canyon here in the Bitterroot. I also get a craving to immerse myself in good art. I've always had a sense that both art and wilderness strike the same chord in us. Both can connect us with deep memories -- connections that go beyond time, beyond what words and facts and figures and information can begin to convey. I won't even try to explain that. I'm not even sure it can be done. Wilderness and art can put us in touch with things that we just simply deep down know. We may not realize consciously that we know them, but know them we do.

Barry Lopez I think it was said in his book 'Arctic Dreams' that when scientific teams are sent up to the arctic to spend time doing studies, arrangements are made to house and feed all the scientists. There are bunks in the barracks for the geologists, paleontologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, meteorologists, biologists, climatologists, and any other -ologist you can think of. But where are the bunks for your poets and artists, he asks? I think that's an important question. Sure the science and the knowledge gained from it are important. There's no question. That’s how we learn about our world. Just as important though, and tragically ignored, are the artists who can express that knowledge in ways that the human spirit can understand. That’s how we learn about our place in the world. Without that we are hopelessly out of touch, and in deep danger of destroying our place in the natural world. Science can explain the pieces, can even explain how the pieces fit together, but art makes the deeper connections.

What am I getting at here? What’s the point of this post? Beats me – and right about now I’m sorry I even started the damn thing. I'm just kind of muttering out loud to myself. But it seems to me that in our hustle and bustle and in our frantic stressed-out pace and our relentless pursuit of more and more stuff we are losing touch with our wild, natural selves. We're losing touch with our true being. We can argue the science of global warming, we can argue the environmental impact of our way of life, or whatever. We can argue the political implications of this or the economic ramifications of that. We can put our faith in our cleverness and in our technology. But we’re losing touch with our own deep wisdom, and we're raping and pillaging our true natural home. The only one we have. And that’s tragic. We need our artists as much as we need our scientists. We need to re-connect with who we are and where we live. We need to learn much from both before it’s too late.

Fighting For The Last Drop -- Part 2

The other day I posted the first part of a two-part series by Michael Klare that spells out his view of a militarized energy future. He points out, and rightly so I think, that fossil fuel reserves are going to peak in the near future, and will run out in the foreseeable future. He also points out that a push for nuclear energy isn't a very desirable option.

There's always going to be the deniers. They will deny that oil and coal are finite resources. They will insist that there is plenty of both to last for generations. It's just a matter of finding it. Global warming? Not a factor. It's a myth. Yeah, right. And there are probably still those who think the world is flat and the moon is made of green cheese too. But that doesn't make it so. How much there really is is still a matter of guesswork though. Educated guesswork. The estimates are based on current usage -- they will have to be revised downward as demand and usage climbs. Global warming aside for now, another century of fossil fuels would probably be a pretty safe bet. Give or take.

So what will the next century or so look like given our dependence on fossil fuels and our great reluctance to do anything about it? Well, I've said before, and no doubt will continue to do so, that I see endless wars being fought over dwindling resources. I'm not going to harp on it here. I'll link you over to Klare's piece where he spells it out much more clearly and in far greater depth than I can. I'll merely mention three main points that he makes. First he points out the transformation of the US military into a global oil-protection service. In short this means that we will have troops based wherever our oil interests have wrested control, stationed there to protect those interests. We already see that in Iraq. Second, we'll see the growth of the energy equivalent of an arms race between super-powers. Resource wealthy countries, or alliances, will likely be able to impose their will on those that are dependent on them simply by having control of the oil. We've seen it with OPEC, and we're starting to see it with Russia's growing dominance as an oil and natural gas controlling state. His third point is that if we move to more nuclear energy to try to offset the need for oil and coal we open up a different can of worms. Aside from the waste storage problems, the security and surveillance needed to monitor the materials to keep them from falling into the wrong hands would be astronomical. Especially with breeder reactors that generate plutonium as a by-product. Even a small amount of that in the wrong hands could be an unimaginable nightmare.

Regardless of what you think of Klare's ideas, they are worth a read. Here's the second part. We need to put every bit of research, and commit every resource we can to building viable alternatives to fossil fuels, and we need to start now. The consequences of our total reliance on coal and oil, both climatically and politically are too great. No, we don't know how to do that, but we'd better start figuring it out now. It's the greatest challenge we face.

Will We Fight To The Last Drop?

We've pretty much known all along that this current war we're waging in the Mideast is for control of the Iraqi oilfields. And I'm for sure not alone in thinking that this war is a harbinger of things to come given our dependence on oil. We burn close to 30% of the world's oil in this country alone, yet we produce in the neighborhood of 5%. Our thirst needs to be quenched somehow, and apparently we're willing to go to any lengths to keep the world's crude flowing in our direction.

There's much tough talk going on against Iran and Syria. We're meddling in the oil-rich regions of Africa. Bush/Cheney continue to talk tough about their war on terror, because in their eyes they have no choice. In their eyes we can't make plans to get out of Iraq. To leave Iraq now would only embolden freedom fighters in any oil producing nation our imperial leaders would set their sights on next, not to mention losing control of the oil wells of Iraq. India and China will suit up and enter the game soon. We're looking at a potentially long and bloody future, with our younger generations dying for us, to keep a dwindling resource flowing into our refineries. And that doesn't even take global warming into account. It's absolute lunacy. Sheer, bloody, 180-proof insanity. Yet it looks like the path our fearless leaders have chosen.

Here's the first part of a two part piece by Michael Klare that spells out a possible scenario for our future. Part two should be up within a few days.

National Day Of Climate Action -- April 14

April 14 will be the National Day of Climate Action across the US. Here's a chance for folks in Montana to join with others across the country to send a powerful, unified voice to Washington that we demand aggressive action on global warming.

Bill McKibben is building a nation-wide movement called Step It Up 2007. It will organize actions in April all over the country to be linked together in a mass protest against the lack of strong decisive action to combat the very real threat of global warming. Here's the site -- check it out.

StopGlobalWarming.org is organizing a march on Washington for the week before Earth Day. Activists will deliver a message from hundreds of thousands of Americans, a 'virtual march', to Congress and the President. Again, the message will be a call for tough action to deal with global warming. You can add your name to the message at their website.

We can all take part in this, and now is the time to do it. Global warming can't be ignored any longer -- let's all add our voices to this movement and contribute what we can to make it a strong and potent voice for change.

231 Years And Still Going Strong

On this date in 1776 a small pamphlet was published anonymously in Philadelphia. It was soon reprinted, became a rallying cry for independence, and proved to be a powerful catalyst for the American Revolution. We know it as Common Sense by Tom Paine. It stands as a testament to the power of the written word, as well as a classic of American literature in it's own right. It shows the power of an individual if they will but speak the truth as they see it. May we all be inspired.

Here is Common Sense in it's entirety if you are so inclined.

Is It Global Warming -- Or Is It Mount St. Helens?

Strange weather we are having here in Montana, no? Jeezus. This is January for cryin' out loud! I was talking to a guy here in Missoula and he, like most folks, remarked about how warm it's been. I of course brought up the idea of global warming and he immediately jumped on that. No way. No way our activities are changing the weather. No way is any of it human caused. Global warming is bullshit. Blah blah blah.... Then he went on with his theory, one I've heard several times before, that when Mount St. Helens erupted back in 1980 it permanently 'tweaked' the weather all over the world.

Well, you can imagine how relieved I was. Who would have thought? We don't have to worry about global warming after all. The millions of tons of greenhouse gases we pump into the atmosphere can't change the climate. It's simply not a factor. All of the extreme weather, all of the melting ice caps and glaciers and permafrost, all of the migration northward of warm weather plants and insects and tropical diseases, all of it was 'tweaked' by one fairly insignificant volcanic eruption that occurred over a quarter century ago! Go figure...

Teach Your Children Well -- Or How To Grow A Young Radical

There's been a lot of ruckus this week over on Montana Netroots about war, about health-care, and about corporatism, among other things. It's been great fun, but I thought I'd come home to my own page for a little peace and quiet tonight. But no -- it wasn't meant to be I guess. As soon as I woke up this morning I was thrown right into the middle of a situation that shows how our health-care system doesn't work for far too many of us. Rather than bore you with statistics I'll pass along a real life example. Mine and my daughter's.

Fortunately this isn't a dire emergency. If it was we'd be in a tough spot. My daughter Marin has lived with me full-time now for several months. Her mother and I shared custody for the past few years, but mom moved out of state recently and I've been doing the single dad thing, and loving it. During this time my daughter has been on Medicaid, and when my ex moved, she gave me Marin's Medicaid card for when we needed it. Lately she has been having some tooth pain, so I tracked down one of the few dentists who takes Medicaid patients and set up an appointment for this morning and thought no more about it. So this morning the phone rings. It's the dentist's office calling to tell me that the Medicaid office informed them that Marin is no longer covered, and if I wanted to keep the appointment I would have to pay out of my pocket. Now I don't have insurance, and I make about as much money as a private in the Army makes according to Shane's post on Netroots today. I'm not whining and crying poor here -- I live the way I do by choice, and I do quite well on very little. But if an emergency comes up, it's truly an emergency. I told the dentist's office that I would like to bring Marin in today if I could and that I could pay them in a week or two. That's when I could squeeze it into the budget. They said no, either straighten out the Medicaid question, or bring her in when I can write the check. I called the Human Services folks, and ended up talking to about six people who's job is to apparently keep guys like me from being able to talk to the person that we actually need to talk to. They did their job well -- here it is, Friday night, and I don't know any more about what's going on than I did this morning. And my kid's tooth hurts.

There are two possible outcomes here. Either there is a mix up in the Medicaid paperwork as a result of the custody change, and it can easily be fixed, or else I simply make too much money for my daughter to qualify. That's not as laughable as it sounds -- I make too much for food stamps too. Even as a single parent. My only choice then is to schedule an appointment in about a week or so when I can reload the checking account, which fortunately will work. It really sets me off though that people have to jump through hoops like these just for basic medical or dental care. Especially when it involves their kids. I'm still relatively lucky. I can work this out. Like I said, it's not a real emergency and I will be able to get the tooth looked at soon. But how many people aren't able to say that? No one really knows. We know the statistics on uninsured and underinsured people and families. But we don't know how many kids -- adults too but especially kids -- are sick and hurt and will stay that way simply because they don't have the money to do anything about it. Here in the United States of America. At the beginning of the 21st century. Jeezus...

What am I going to tell my daughter when she asks me why she couldn't go to the dentist today? Will I tell her that well, these things happen and we'll get her there soon? Of course I will. But she's old enough now to understand more. I'll tell her about corporate domination and I'll tell her about greedy insurance companies who do everything they can to monopolize the health-care industry so they can generate enormous wealth for themselves and I'll tell her about elected officials who do nothing to promote universal health-care either because they lack the will and courage to buck the powers that be, or else have vested interests in keeping things the way they are, and I'll tell her why it's so important to fire such elected officials and vote in good ones and I'll tell her about the evils of a corporatist world. That would be a good start. I'll tell her the world has a dire need for radical warriors, and she has the makings to be a good one. And that she has a pretty good teacher too. You damn betcha I'll tell her all of that, and more as she gets older. She's a smart kid -- she'll get it. She'll be an adult in a few short years now and already has a strong fighting spirit. I need to make sure she's equipped to use it to fight for good. We all do. Our kids will inherit our world soon -- it's up to all of us to make sure they're prepared to make it a healthy and fair and just one. In the immortal words of Crosby Stills Nash & Young -- teach your children well.