A not-very-good monster movie from the 50s – became the monster that has eaten our future. “We’ll pay it as soon as our tax refund comes in.” We’ve chopped up the house to keep the fire pit going . . . and it’s starting to rain. While we get further behind every year; we’re going to close the gap? Don’t count on the politicians — it would be easier to stop the Tectonic plates from sliding.
“Keep watching the sky!” The Pandemics aren’t over – this is just the beginning. We’re throwing genetic material around with the gleeful thoughtlessness of a lunch-room food fight . . . and with the same lack of concern for missing the target. Oceans of antibiotic-resistant pathogens are spilled, dumped, sprayed, and injected into the environment by the billions of gallons from the cesspits of factory farms – where genetically modified pigs and chickens are packed by their thousands in sheds – the perfect environment for genetic reassortment, recombination and mutation.
Can you do anything? Yes – don’t be a “circle of blame” statistic; make sure you keep stocked up on masks, gloves and sanitizers; food and water and cleaning products, flashlights and batteries, towels and toilet paper [you remember that last time?]; keep your car gassed, your deadbolts locked, your gun loaded, and your guest list restricted — and keep watching the sky!
People may not “re-ingest” plastic containers, as I suggested in another piece, but they seem able to swallow any policy or marketing idea that suits their own convenience.
Nothing that is being done will have any meaningful impact on the actual problem — reality has proven extremely resistant to the policies and efforts that have been applied.
The reality is that people are unwilling to make the choices that have to be made – and with so many extinction causing routes and vehicles: will it be “Fire and Ice,” or “Not with a bang but a whimper”? “Hi-Diddle-Dee-Dee.”
“When the times are tough; it’s TS to the little people” is a dictum that suits Tompkins County to a “T”. It’s a county that’s connected at the highest levels; and friends don’t let friends cut profits.
Being at the forefront of political doctrine means that using and taking is the foundation of their policy making. The County’s proclamations proudly announce the burdens and restrictions that are needed to ransom a great and “vibrant” future: All the serfs can do is duck their heads and bow their backs under the load.
In a different world; authorities would embrace compassion and human worth — today; they only embrace each other.
There is big push these days to have “workarounds” for every principle that protects us from government tyranny and oppression.
Inflexible principles are not for the benefit of government; they’re for the benefit of the people.
The use of the distinction “greater;” puts the power in the hands of those who will make the decision – to the disadvantage of those who will not.
To put it simply: It would be for the greatest good of the people; not to have the legislative concept of “Greater Good.”
It’s “fool’s gold” for those blinded by their own greed.
“You can’t save a leaking boat by lightening the load.” This statement can be seen as interesting on three levels. First; as an exhortation for appropriate action: it’s the leak that needs to be fixed to stop the boat from leaking. Second; as a social analogy: you cannot solve social problems by merely sacrificing people. And third; the Millennial/scientifical “quibble”: “You can save it by lightening the load; to raise the leak above the waterline.”
The legitimacy of a larger meaning or non-conforming idea can discredited by reducing it to the level of a children’s science activity, nitpicking the grammar, disputing the applicability, or calling it “fake.”
It’s been said that you can prove anything if your viewpoint is narrow enough – but it can also can be said of disproving anything. Larger ideas of human worth, belief and interaction are just too big to fit through grate of today’s Doctrinal teachings.
Their “lightened” boat may not leak; but it’s not going anywhere – becalmed in a sameness that has no direction.
“It’s the puppets who are in the shadows.” In Tompkins County; it’s a question that’s very much in people’s minds: “Who are the puppets?”
Some residents would say all of them. While this isn’t true; it would be a bad gamble to trust to chance.
Who is it “safe” to go to?
The helpful and cheerful rural personnel are being pushed out: replaced by those who resent public interference in their workday and workplace. Residents are only entitled to government. To be governed. To be helpless.
The people make no decisions – and the puppet show never stops.
“Muddying the waters – with no intention of cleaning them.” My upcoming book: “Tompkins County and Tammany Hall” will document and expose the actions of the NYSDEC at some length – so I will speak to a recent development in New York State: the passing of an Environmental Rights Amendment that declares: “Each person shall have the right to clean air and water, and a healthful environment.” Agricultural groups, the biggest polluters of the state’s lakes and waterways, [and political overlords of the state’s poor rural communities] strongly opposed this Amendment.
The New York State Farm Bureau President made the kind of statement to voters that could only be made when there is no one to challenge it. Hot buttons like “vague Green Amendment,” and “protect family farms from nuisance lawsuits” were freely used – but there’s a world of rural pain and suffering behind the “Berlin Wall” agricultural media: when the toxic fumes of farming practices cause brain damage in one neighboring child, and required the removal of eyelids of an elderly man: “right-to-farm” laws protected the farmer from this “nuisance lawsuit.” That’s just one glimpse behind the wall — a wall the Environmental Rights Amendment threatens to tear down.
“Global Destruction is what we get.” Global warming is always portrayed as something that will change your life; but not something that will end it. Science’s pride of always “leading us forward” leaves no room for the humility of stocktaking.
People often quote: “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” – but the original saying was; “A little learning is a dangerous thing” — and with all their knowledge; “science” seems to have learned little from the disastrous miscalculations and unintended consequences of their past actions.
From “The Discovery of Global Warming”: “1986 Meltdown of reactor at Chernobyl (Soviet Union) cripples plans to replace fossil fuels with nuclear power” and “2011 Reaction to nuclear reactor disaster at Fukushima (Japan) ends hopes for a renaissance of nuclear power” – the dismissiveness of the loss of human life and million-year environmental recovery shown in this scientific historical viewpoint is only overshadowed by the certain repetition that the use of existing and future reactors would bring. How can “New and improved” protocols help? New and improved protocols were in place at Chernobyl and Fukushima — they’re plugging holes that are only discovered when they leak. Disastrously.
“Global Warming” may require more than sunscreen – you may need a submarine.
“Inspired by Scientific Fact!” It’s a new deal in the fight against Global Warming – but the big players have already been shuffled to the bottom of the deck.
A psychologist once told me that doctors were taught arrogance at school. Now, all our “professionals” seem to have caught the bug. They have the pride of a child who feels in control because he or she has gotten the machine to move: without worrying about how to stop it.
The roles that government, business and, science have taken on for themselves is the same recipe used to plot monster and horror stories throughout the millennia — power, pride, greed, and victims.
Proponents of genetically modified and manipulated organisms, nano-technology, artificial intelligence, and more are bursting the unguarded safeguards of reason and caution. They’re itching to make their toys run – and have no idea how to stop them.
As our ability to start things far outstrips our understanding; and our power to effect change becomes world-class – the coming fall; may be the end for all.