Not Too Bad For A Medieval Institution!

Yesterday I sat down at this computer to write my blog.  But, then the question comes up, “What to write about”?  Iraq (again), Syria, bombing people, Fox News commenting on the United Arab Emirates’ female fighter pilot who was allowed to drop the first bombs on ISIS because of the way they treat women, and then the Fox News idiot commenting something to the effect that she had dropped her boobs, and then could she actually park that plane.  So, I started playing spider solitaire to have something surface, and won the first game.  Of course, when that happens it is required that one play again, and I won that one.  The same rule applies, so I played a third game and won that!!  Ran out of luck, and lost the fourth.  But by then family had arrived, so there went the blog.

In the meantime, however, Science magazine arrived, which I seldom read because I don’t comprehend the scientific means and methods by which the authors arrive at their conclusions.  But when I staggered out this morning, there was Science carefully placed where I could see the Editorial, “The Pope tackles sustainability”.  Since sustainability has been on our family’s agenda for many years, this Editorial was quite a surprise.  Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI had written erudite papers on the subject which were printed in Catholic circles, but definitely not picked up elsewhere.  What appears below is a compilation of both the Editorial and an article in the same edition, “Pursuit of the common good”.  In some places I have quoted exactly; in others I have paraphrased.  The two not too long papers can be found in their entirety at: www.sciencemag.org, 19 September 2014, Vol 345,issue 6203.

The difference in the approach by Pope Francis is what has made the difference.  The Pope prompted a Joint Workshop of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences to be convened in May, 2014 on sustainability.  Although the meeting was convened by the Catholic Church, attendees included a plethora of people of other religions, or none.  The addition of leaders from the Vatican enriched discussions of ethics, values, morality and social justice with regard to climate change and sustainability.

Actions need to be taken by the 1 billion people responsible for the bulk of the fossil fuel emissions, of course.  These emissions need to be halved by mid-century and eliminated completely by the end of the century.  Since the article appeared in Science, there were many data points with footnotes, but they are too detailed for this blog.  What struck me was the fact that 1/3 of the heat energy being added to the planet come from four short-lived climate pollutants (methane, ozone, black carbon, and hydrofluorocarbons).  The majority of the 3 billion people living in poverty at the very bottom use firewood, dung, and crop residues for cooking and kerosene for lighting, creating the four short term pollutants.  Scalable technologies that reduce these emissions are available off the shelf, e.g., cleaner-burning cook stoves and solar lamps to replace kerosene lamps for the three billion without access to fossil fuels.  Because the lifetimes of these pollutants range from weeks to a decade, the mitigation effect would be almost immediate.  The Vatican and other religions have vast networks of voluntary organizations that can have a major impact on distribution of clean technologies in rural areas of Asia, Africa, and South America.  Thus, distribution is not a problem.  Probably eliminating one bombing run over Iraq would fund the purchase of these stoves and lights.

I would urge everyone who reads this to look up the Editorial and article.  They have given me some hope that something can actually be done about the problems caused by climate change.  There are other suggestions for nations that can help with this huge problem, but they are too complicated for here. I will conclude with the final sentences of the final paragraph of the Editorial:

“…Although the meeting was convened by the Catholic Church, the attendees included Hindus, Muslims, Protestants, Jews, atheists, and agnostics, all willing to follow this leader, not because of his religious significance, but because of his moral high ground.  We need more leaders to step forward, claiming this moral high ground.  Although the current trajectory we are on is dangerous, the message is also one of hope.  A safer, more just, more prosperous, and sustainable world is within reach.”  Marcia McNutt

 

 

From the Land of Fruits and Nuts

This morning I wasted an entire hour watching the weather channel just to see if they would mention California.  Not a word!  There was the map of the west coast with the temperatures of cities on the left side of the screen in type so tiny it is virtually impossible to read.  The entire hour was about the east coast, mid-west, south-west, south east and Texas, the temperatures in those cities and the really awful weather they are having there with the remnants of Hurricane Odile dumping inches of rain and causing flooding.  But nothing about California and our temperatures, which can vary by tens of degrees in just 40 miles; nothing about our awful drought and the massive wild fires as a result, nothing about the fog that is truly unseasonal here – nada, zip, zilch, nothing!! 

It is not only the weather channel that does this.  Not too long ago an evening news announcer had a lengthy discussion about what to do about the states that have gerrymandered their Congressional Districts in insure that only Republicans can be elected.  Amid much hand wringing and pontificating about how terrible this is, there was further pontificating about how nothing could be done about it.  Well, California did something about our gerrymandered state.  We had an initiative establishing a bi-partisan commission to redraw the Congressional District lines to be more equitable to both parties.  Of course, the Republican Party did the same thing then they are doing with the ballots in Wisconsin – filed suit, in our case because the new lines did not benefit the Republicans, and in the case of the Wisconsin ballots because the Democrats appeared first on the ballot and this did not benefit the Republicans.  Nothing was mentioned there that in 2012 the Republicans were first on the ballot because Scott Walker had won in 2010, and the Democrats were first now because the top vote getter had been Barack Obama in 2012.  Californians recognize these problems and do something about them.   

And then tax increases in California have allowed for some improvements in our school systems, roads, libraries, and increases to county and city revenue which provide essential services to citizens which were in a terrible state after Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Of course, Gray Davis had a short term in there, but was recalled because of manipulation of our electrical system freaking out Californians who couldn’t believe that right wing radicals could be so crass.   County government makes sure that all necessary services are (or should be, if not) run efficiently and truly provide the oversight of the services they provide.  Consequently, our quality of life is far superior to that of citizens of the red states that refuse to believe that government can do anything and therefore should not be funded.  I guess instead of duly elected officials overseeing how government is run, the red states would prefer that corporations take over the provision of these services, the citizens will still pay taxes, but these dollars would go to the corporations.  It is known as privatization of services.  Nothing is ever said that the citizen’s tax dollars would be going to provide a profit to the corporations, and who would be making certain that the corporations were actually providing the services they had contracted to provide?   

There is one news announcer, Jose Luis-Balart, whoever even mentions California.  We fortunately have a satellite dish, and can record him for my later in the morning consumption.  It would really be helpful both to California listeners as well as to others in this country that might be able to learn a tad from how California does things.  And what our weather is like, regardless of the assumption that California does not have weather!

 

 

 

 

Drought, Dead Fish and Trips to Town

Today I decided it was time to pry myself out of my canyon and go the ten miles to the nearest town to do some banking, pick up a prescription, and pick up something for dinner as well. 

The bank was no problem, since I could use the ATM machine, and there was no else in the parking lot.  Then I drove to the other bank in the older part of town to use their parking lot, which I call town, but others insist on calling East Village.  The part they call West Village I call the flat, since that is what it was called when I was much, much younger.  Anyway, the first people I saw in the parking lot were my nephew, his wife and son.  They have property further up the canyon from us, and of course, in our desperately extreme drought situation here, the first exchange among us all, almost before hello, was how our springs are holding up.  We all agreed that things are really iffy, but they had placed a motion sensor camera near one of their water troughs and had a picture on their iPad of a bear coming close in for water, and then four mountain lions appeared at a later time.  This answered a question my husband and I had, which is why our big house cat, Big Mo, has been hanging very close to the house.  Anyway, we discussed the water situation for both ourselves as well as the town, and then we all went our separate ways.

I tootled myself over to the drug store to pick up the prescription.  I very nice gentlemen, who later introduced himself and his wife, came up to me and thanked me for teaching him a new word, “eutrophication”.  That was a tad startling since I hadn’t a clue as to who he was.  The local Sierra Club, not known for its accuracy in reporting, had placed a picture of a pond of water filled with algae and dead fish.  The caption under the picture read, “Not a good sign.  Dead fish were turning up in large algae blooms in San Simeon Creek in August.  Highly toxic methyl-mercury thrives in these conditions where the Cambria CSD proposes to put its emergency desal facility and then make it permanent, no matter what future environmental review may find”.  The dead fish in the picture were the result of the algae blooms taking the oxygen out of the water, a process known as eutrophication.  It has nothing to do with the methyl-mercury in the sediment of the creek, which has been in the sediment for quite a long time. 

I had sent this statement above to someone else, who had sent it on to this gentleman.  So, we spent about 30 minutes in the drugstore talking about the drought, how if it doesn’t rain the town will be in a world of hurt, and the tactics of fear, misinformation and hyperbole.  Both of us needed to move on to other tasks, so we parted ways.

We have a really delightful and tasty fast food trailer, Boni’s Tacos, in our town on weekends operated by a local family, so I stopped there to pick up some burritos for dinner.  As I was waiting, a gentleman who knew who I was came up and asked how our spring was doing!  I gave him the standard, “Iffy” response, and explained that we do our best not to overuse it on any given day.  But that, of course, necessitated a lengthy discussion on the water situation here in town.

What started out as a fast, hour long at the most, trip into town lasted some 2 1/2 hours!  However, everyone was most polite and thoughtful, and the discussions were informative for all concerned.  There will be personal advantages when it finally gets around to raining, as well as the obvious one of eventually, through the natural scheme of things, filling the aquifer from which the town gets most of its water.  The personal one is that I can go to town in an hour!

When Being "Grounded" Is Good.

So many things happened this past week it is difficult to figure out what to write about.  But, thanks to a visit this morning from our son-in-law and a discussion on why someone like former Gov. Bob McDonnell of Virginia got into so much trouble, I have a topic!

One of the things I noticed during the eight years I was an elected official in a rather small, as far as population goes, county in California, was the way, as an elected official, I was treated.  Of course, the staff was very attentive because it was their job to be attentive to what I said or wanted, but the general public was very attentive as well.  Except for certain political circles of supposedly my own side which generally ignored me, wherever I went I was treated with great fawning.  My words were listened to with great attention; I was introduced with great acclaim, and generally made to feel as though I was a special person. 

Since most of my life I had been on the very bottom of the societal acceptance rung as a wife and mother, I found this sudden acclaim a little disturbing.  After all, once the votes were counted I was exactly the same person I had been prior to the count.  I had the same opinions which I had before and had generally been ignored; I was no more intelligent or knowledgeable than I had been before.  So why all of a sudden was I “someone”? After a few months it became apparent to me why.  Because I could be useful to people!  When this dawned on me, I made a rule that I would accept no more than a cup of coffee from anyone, anytime, or anyplace.  I paid my own way always.  It really amused me at how fast that information made the rounds of all constituencies.  But I needed to be “grounded” at all times in those principles that goaded me into running for office in the first place, and the simple act of paying my own way helped me to do that.  Also, keeping myself grounded in my faith tradition of justice, mercy, compassion and personal integrity helped tremendously.  I am not saying here that merely being a member of a faith community insures that someone will not go sour while in office, but it is necessary for office holders to keep themselves firmly grounded in whatever their own personal traditions that caused them to run for office were, unless, of course it was a desire for power!.  The office and some of its more questionable perks must not become the most important thing in one’s life!  And if this is true on the county level, it must be horrendous on the state and federal levels.  On those levels, it takes a special person to hold steady to his or her principles, otherwise it becomes easier and easier over time to believe that you are entitled to do or say anything you want to and, in the mind of the perpetrator, it is OK because you are a special person.

So, former Governor Bob McDonnell lost a promising future because he forgot that, “The love of money is the root of all evil”, one of the primary foundational sayings of his faith tradition.  And he obviously began to think he was an exceptional person and that the proper rules of the political game did not apply to him.  He is not the first politician to find that not true, nor will he be the last.

 

 

 

Onward, Christian Soldiers, Marching As To War.

This morning I decided not to write about what I was going to write because it sort of seems like I’m a conspiracy nut.  But, then, voila, this on Huffington Post.

NEWPORT, R.I. (AP) — President Barack Obama on Friday blamed dysfunction in Congress on a Republican Party he said is captive to an ideologically rigid, unproductive and cynical faction, urging like-minded Democrats to show up for November's midterm elections. Darlene Superville, Huffington Post, 8/30/14, GOP hostage to ideologically rigid group

This is my opinion on just who and what this “ideologically rigid, unproductive and cynical faction” is.  This opinion has been formed by both personal experience, natural curiosity, and some research. 

As I was growing up, my parents were what now would be designated as very conservative, although at the time they were pretty mainstream, at least among our contemporaries.  Fortunately they were so prejudiced they assumed it came with the genes, so never really mentioned their absolute dislike of other races, nationalities or religions other than Protestantism.  Consequently, I was not “carefully taught to hate by the time I was six or seven or eight.”  (From the lyrics of a song from South Pacific).  My mother, on the other hand, was pretty general about not becoming friends with anyone who was not like us.  All of their prejudice surfaced, however, when I married a, gasp, Swiss even though his mother was a Scot, and in the Catholic Church besides. They refused to come to our wedding.  Of course, when our eldest daughter was born, their opinion of us certainly did mellow, fortunately.  When our girls were in their early teens my mother asked me if it was all right with me if she explained to our girls that they must marry someone with pure blood, just as if you had a herd of pure bred cows, you wouldn’t want to bring in a bull with bad blood lines.  She evidently had decided Bill was OK.  I told her I didn’t mind at all if she would tell them exactly what she had just told me.  They told me later she never had mentioned it. 

The absolute right of religious liberty is so strong in our country, both by law and by desire, as well as the First Amendment to The Bill of Rights:  “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or the free exercise thereof:” This concept used to be so ingrained in us that when the radical religious right began to surface publically most of us stood back and respected their right to believe as they wished.  I recognized a great deal of what they were saying, since I had been exposed to it from childhood, and for the most part from my perspective it was pretty innocuous. 

Several years ago, though, Rachel Maddow interviewed Jeff Sharlet, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, 2008.  One of the chapters in this book, Jesus Plus Nothing, was really disturbing to me.  I have long loved reading about Catholic Christian theology because the different views by the various theologians, men and women, opened up new and exciting vistas regarding Christian traditions and teachings.  So to read about a system that taught that all one needed was faith in Jesus seemed a tad simplistic, to say the least.  According to The Family, all one needed to resolve a problem, say, was to pray to Jesus and He would tell you what to do.  Although, as Sharlet commented, and I paraphrase, it was amazing how often Jesus agreed with what the person praying wanted to do anyway.  This above point about Jesus Plus Nothing is really important, however, when one considers what to many appears to be just loony-tunes jabbering by some of the groups that have arisen and become more and more prominent in the last few years. 

In a blog of this length it is difficult to sort out the documentation that will explain my point.  So, I will stick to just four.  The first is from: The Public Eye, Summer, 2014, Rumblings of Theocratic Violence, Frederick Clarkson.  In the Public Eye article, Clarkson quotes several prominent among far right circles, individuals who maintain basically that America is no longer a valid government because it has rejected Christianity and supports same-sex marriage, abortion, and obedience to God’s law.  As the heading to the article states:  “Some Christian Right activists, including a high-level GOP operative, have lost hope that a Christian nation can be achieved in the United States, through the formal political process.  They are calling for martyrs and thinking about religious war.”

In his blog, talk2action.org, on 7/25/14, “GOP Leader Questions Candidate About Hate Group That Advocates Death Squads – Updated” This was cross-posted from The Huffington Post.

“The head of Maryland’s Republican Party, Joe Cluster, has called local candidate Michael Peroutka to the woodshed for a “clarification” about his involvement with a high-profile, white nationalist hate group.  At least that’s what Cluster thinks the subject of their 7/25 meeting will be.

But wait until he reads this.

On July 8, as I reported, Peroutka wrote a letter to Michael Hill, president of the League of the South, asking the neo-Confederate hate group to help his campaign.  Peroutka wanted to thank the League, which advocates for secession and theocratic government by and for white people, for its friendship, work, and hospitality.  Peroutka had just won the GOP’s nomination for Anne Arundel County Council, as well as a seat on the Republican Central Committee there, and it made perfect sense that he would reach out to the no doubt many members of the organization on which he once served on the Board of Directors for their support.”

“Perhaps Peroutka was surprised the following week, when on July 15, Hill wrote an essay for the League’s website titled “A Bazooka in Every Pot,” in which he outlines a program for “guerrilla war,” marked by “three-to-five-man” death squads which would target government leaders, journalists, and other public figures for assassination, in order to advance the League’s goals.

“To oversimplify,” writes Hill, “the primary targets will not be enemy soldiers; instead, they will be political leaders, members of the hostile media, cultural icons, bureaucrats, and other of the managerial elite without whom the engines of tyranny don’t run”

Now I realize that this is certainly NOT the views of the majority of Republicans.  And it is NOT the views of the vast majority of Christians, Protestant or Catholic, in this country.  But at the same time, relate to what is being said above to what happened in Arizona at the Clive Bundy ranch.  We had Christians there who thought nothing of aiming a rifle at Bureau of Land Management personnel because in the minds of these demented individuals, the BLM people represented this tyrannical government.  They were and are adherents of the splinter group of Christians who believe it is God’s plan that they control the government of the United States.  They are formally called Christian Dominionists. 

Then think about what happened in Ferguson, MO, and what at least two of the officers there did, and what the rest were ordered to do.  Remember the military vehicles that were on the street, aiming rifles at American citizens who were doing, and as I have done, peacefully protesting what they perceived to be an injustice.  For me, it was protesting the invasion of Iraq, Mitchell Park, SLO.  The SLO PD did not bring out armored vehicles, nor aimed rifles at us.  They were there, and I was glad to see them, standing off to one side, quietly.  They were a comforting presence.  But then we were all of us white.  In Ferguson, two officers behaved in a truly reprehensible manner.  Ray Albers, caught on tape pointing his gun at American citizens and threatening to shoot them, has resigned. 

But Dan Page, the St. Louis County police officer, who was caught ranting during a chapter meeting of the League of the South in St. Louis, and I paraphrase, “I believe that Jesus Christ is my Lord and Savior, and I am a killer, and I will kill again if you get in front of my gun.”  Now Page has a right to say that even if I think it is reprehensible, shameful, inexcusable, and disgusting.  My point here is that he is saying much the same as many others who espouse this Jesus Plus Nothing, anti-civil government, pro-theocratic government philosophy. 

My problem is at what point does a demand for freedom of religion, and the right to the free exercise thereof, slide over into an invasion of my civil rights and an invasion of my right to a free exercise of my Christian faith?  Our country is walking a really troubled path here, and we need to do the nearly impossible – that is, keep looking at our feet so we don’t stumble while at the same time looking down that troubled path to see where the direction we are pointing our feet will eventually lead us. 

 

What Does That Have To Do With Anything?

So, I’m a little late writing my blog this week, but there is so much to write about I simply couldn’t choose among them all, but I think I have finally settled on one.  This is something that so many people in both, or all, political parties do.

We all are acquainted with the old statements relative to women being assaulted.  “Oh, well, she had a couple of drinks, her skirt was short, and her blouse too tight.  She was just asking for it.”  No – all that had nothing to do with what happened to her, but it did make a great excuse for the assaulter to exonerate himself and to blame her for what he did.  Blame the victim.

This morning on several sites was the fact that a St. Louis officer had been caught on tape making really offensive remarks about almost everybody.  He was removed from duty, as he should have been, but this had nothing to do with what happened in Ferguson, MO, since this officer was from St. Louis.  His actions are reprehensible, but they should not be taken as an indication that every officer in the St. Louis/Ferguson area is a total bigot.  We may assume that some are, since bigots are not limited to that area of the country, but it is no more correct to blame all officers for the actions of one than to blame all the peaceful protesters in Ferguson for the actions of a few looters/rioters. 

The minute the Ferguson police began releasing negative information about Michael Brown, such as the video showing probably Brown snitching cigars from a convenience store, and then the police commenting from the autopsy that he had marijuana in his blood, made me wonder what they were trying to divert attention from.  That action by the department probably has done more to negatively impact that department than any other action they could have taken.  Fox News, although it isn’t, came up with a really great one, and that is the officer had to shoot Brown because Brown was so big and the officer, Wilson, was so much smaller!!  So all tall men need to shrink?

It is really difficult when diversionary tactics like this are put up by individuals, companies, government agencies or who or whatever, to keep focused on what has actually happened because these diversionary tactics are often quite subtle, and not quite so blatant as in the case of Michael Brown.  This happens at the national level as well.  A good example was the invasion of both Afghanistan and Iraq.  These countries had to be destroyed because they were harboring Al Qaeda.  It was their fault we had to attack and destroy them.  Little or nothing was said about the fact that the terrorists were actually from Saudi Arabia.  I certainly am not advocating that we should have invaded Saudi Arabia, only that we should not have invaded Afghanistan and Iraq over something they did not do. 

Not only is the use of diversionary tactics basically the result of immaturity, but when used by adults in dangerous situations can lead to some really unpleasant, unhealthy and downright scary results.  In Ferguson it led to nights of protests.  In Iraq, it led to the rise of ISIS.  What we all need is a good dose of taking responsibility for our own actions – good or bad.

 

Dot to Dot Books

When I was a child and when my own kids were small, we all liked those dot to dot books where one connects the dots in order of the numbers and a picture emerged, and then we would color the pictures.  This, of course, was before television, iPads or smartphones!  Some events have been happening in our nation in the past few years that have reminded me of those “dot to dot” books.

First off, after Barack Obama was elected President there was a lot of talk about how America had emerged from our terrible racial history, racial prejudice was a thing of the past, and we could all move on beyond that.  What a wonderful, naïve, and very short time that was!

The first dot didn’t tell us much.  Just some crazy Republican states back East that wanted to place restrictions on voting, but local talking heads seemed to think that those restrictions could be worked around.  Then some knuckle-head from Philadelphia, I think, got caught on camera talking about how they had gotten the restrictions through, and those restrictions would guarantee that Mitt Romney would win the election.  I can still close my eyes and see that doofus with his infamous, “Done”.  That was the second dot.

About this time it was made public that the very night Barack Obama was inaugurated as President of the United States, the Republicans in Congress got together and determined they would undermine anything and everything Barack Obama wanted to do.  The third dot.

More and more states began efforts to restrict voting.  Then Congress began dodging the immigration ball.  Although the Senate passed a bill, Congress refused to take it up.  First because it didn’t secure the border; then there were not enough funds for border patrol officers; then they didn’t want to pass the entire bill at once, but wanted to “piece-meal” it.  Then, and then, and then until nothing has been done.  The fourth dot.

Children from Central America began to trickle across the border into the United States.  The trickle became a stream, and then a river.  Nothing was done to fund assistance for these refugees from countries devastated by the violence from the drug trade that supplies users here in this country.  When Congress did act, it was to essentially throw these refugee children back into the cauldron of violence they had attempted to escape from.  No sense of compassion for them at all.  The fifth dot.

Mostly these same states were also refusing to expand Medicaid services for poorer people under the Affordable Care Act.  That these poorer people were mainly African and Hispanic Americans was never mentioned overtly, but it certainly became pretty obvious that was the intent.  Somehow it never occurred to those making the decision not to expand Medicaid which would make people sicker, would then make them go out and look for a part-time or minimum wage job that provided health insurance benefits!  Another dot.

This past week in Ferguson, MO, was a real horror.  To shoot an unarmed teen-ager, still a boy, because he was walking down the street with a friend was disturbing.  And when his community members came out onto the streets to protest that killing to have to face even more violence was nearly intolerable.  To watch citizens of the United States denied the right guaranteed to them under the First Amendment, “…the right of the people to peaceably assemble…” made me shiver.  Virtual tanks on the streets with a sniper riding on top in a small town in Missouri!!  Another dot.

Now, once again, the police are trying to infer that the boy that was killed had been involved in the theft of a box of cigars at a local store.  So what if he had?  Is a box of cigars worth shooting an unarmed boy over?  I think not when one considers the Wall Street tycoons who stole billions of dollars and walked away without even so much as a slap on the wrist.  Another dot, however.

At the same time as all of this is going on, in another corner are the people who keep saying that, “We have to take our country back”.  At first there was just the question, sort of asked generally, “Back from who, or what”?   After the census numbers were released from the 2010 census that indicated there was a significant demographic shift taking place in the United States, and that the traditional white majority would, by the year, 2020, not be the majority anymore, it became really obvious what has been going on.  Another dot.

After all of these dots are connected, the picture that has emerged is really pretty sick.  Now we know who the “who or what” is.  There are enough white people in power who believe that it is possible to knock women, and black, brown or Asian’s back into their proper place.  Which is to be second class citizens in a country ruled by a white male power elite. 

The only advantage of the picture we have drawn by connecting these dots is that those within the dots are already colored, so we won’t have to do that coloring.