Do the math.

or: Walk around THIS!                                                                                               Up, Down.                 Solar Eclipse 

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Contents: Do the Math, Dumbass Criticism, Humility, Jokes, Joe Oliver, Solar Eclipse for Kiribati, Daniel Pudles, Hong Kong, The Shallows, Keith, Wayne.

In the same hour came forth fingers of a man's hand, and wrote over against the candlestick upon the plaister of the wall of the king's palace: and the king saw the part of the hand that wrote. Then the king's countenance was changed, and his thoughts troubled him, so that the joints of his loins were loosed, and his knees smote one against another.                                                                        Daniel 5 The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ, Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line, Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.                        Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám                        Omar Khayyám (1048–1131)                        Edward FitzGerald (1809–1883) The writing on the wall - Come read it, come see what it say.                                       Thunder on the Mountain

 

Going to and fro in the Internet (where one can cancel lines as one chooses) and walking up and down in it. Complicated I know, and misleading in so many ways - silly biblical fol-de-rol; but it takes this kind of stimulus these days to achieve a fugal state and get the wheels turning. (The Daniel story is about humility too eh?)

One more thread, from Closing Time: "There's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring ... that your body's really ... you." Keep in mind that Cohen can't quite be trusted on this. Handel was confused about bodies too; taking 'the dead shall be raised incorruptible' from First Corinthians without really ... knowing.    A thread too much to be sure. Oh well. Sorry.

For the love of God y'all take pity on yourselves.

Cheguei aí faminto, meio fechado meio durão, marrento. Elas me deram as mangas pra chupar e o coração virou mais jovens, se tornou quase novo; e sim, renovado e mole, mas esquisito. É assim que falam os velhos safados, gordos e fedorentos e feios; cada um, no final, em sua propria solidão. 

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First, WATCH THIS FILM! - Do the Math, The Movie - a mere 45 minutes.

I grabbed what seems to me to be the central image and added a few details - click on the image above to see it. These are difficult numbers to walk around. What I find even more difficult to walk around is:Continuous human growth CAN NOT FIT upon a finite planet.
The very most important number is 350!I had an optimistic message from Jim Hansen this morning by email (God bless 'im), he wrote, "So don't despair re the tar sands. There are sensible alternatives."

[This image is not in the film ... ho hum ... but thinking of '350' always brings it to mind.] 

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There have been many such impassioned, rational, & coherent expressions on the Internet over the years. I made a short list a while ago here: from Severn Suzuki to Naderev Sano. Each one takes us a tiny step closer towards breaking the spell (as Michael Brune calls it) that has been spread over the smug & complacent multitudes. Watch it, think about it, and tell your friends about it. We have quite a way to go.

We had 40,000 recently on the Washington Mall. There were 100,000+ there in 1969 but it still took years to end the war in Vietnam. Time is short, it may be too short, but there is only one way to find out.

I wonder how metrics such as YouTube hits translate into action? Kony 2012 had a million hits in a few days last year - and then vanished like the morning dew when Jason flamed out. As I watch this film there are ~40,000 hits on it on YouTube - what does this mean? Hard to say.

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Oops, I had it wrong: There were 250,000 with Martin Luther King in 1963 and legislation came in 1964 and 1968 (he had to die to achieve half-measures); the war in Vietnam had 200,000 & 600,000 in 1969 and the war ended in 1975 (how many died for that, two million?). You can check it out starting here. 

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[IF I THOUGHT CRITICISM WOULD HURT THE MOVEMENT I WOULDN'T DO IT.   IF YOU DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS THEN SKIP OVER IT.   I AM TRUELY SORRY IF IT OFFENDS YOUR SENSIBILITIES.   IF YOU DO READ IT AND DON'T LIKE IT THEN START A CONVERSATION - THERE IS A COMMENT FEATURE ON THIS BLOG AND I PUBLISH EVERYTHING BUT SPAM.]

 
350:   We were training to get arrested in a church in Washington; lined up in rows and marching. I suggested a group Tim DeChristopher salute as I had seen in photographs of the previous days. Some woman (a certified 'trainer' of some kind, one of the leaders) said no, they wanted it respectful: suits and ties and no rude gestures. Rude? I didn't want to argue with her. We did it anyway in the event. Why does this memory stay with me?

The photograph (above) of the kids on the steps of the Bundestag is labelled (on the 350.org Flickr) as "sending the message, a little aggressively." Look at it. Look at them. Do they seem aggressive? WTF is that about? Is this a Christian sunday-school thing?

Why is Bill McKibben still claiming to have written 'the first book'? He didn't. Why is this film so much about him? One of my red-neck friends tells me the thing he really dislikes about leftards and tree huggers and Greenpeace enviro-nutbars is that it is always "All about me!" Unfair criticism, sure; untrue & unreasonable, sure; but understandable, yes.

I tried to have a conversation with them years ago - on their blog, via comments - and they ditched it, deleted it, gone. All good.

Someone said to me that my criticism of 350 is unjustified - that I ask for too much. She may be right, there was no room for conversation at the time so we didn't get through it. Nonetheless, I put out for them big-time and got no help in return: money, demos, arrest in Washington, anything I could do to help, anything. If I am now somewhat bitter it is no surprise, or at least not unreasonable ... or at least understandable. Isn't it?

[It is May month and I keep my windows open and the screens off because I like it that way - the may flies come in, sometimes (briefly) in numbers - but I do not put up the screens. It was the same in Rio when the flies might carry Dengue. Crazy stubborn motherfucking old curmudgeon. OK. All good.] 

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[I need a dump truck mama to, unload my head.]

And if I often wonder what makes 350 less effective than it might be (than it HAS to be, MUST be) - this should be no surprise either - I do it because I care. Mostly it comes in uncomfortable memories and (possibly ugly & 'impertinent' and definitely) unanswered questions.

Man! The talking points are so good, SO GOOD! The film is generally so well constructed. Then why doesn't it equal Kony 2012? Not in terms of counting hits (which does seem to be something both Invisible Children and 350 obsess about - the numbers of hits, and the numbers of fricken 'Facebook Likes' and the numbers of email addresses on the mailing lists are simply neither true nor meaningful metrics; useful maybe in a minor way, but never the main game) but as a film artefact, as a communication.

Do the exercise, watch both films back-to-back (here: Kony 2012 & Do the Math), download 'em with KeepVid, take notes, analyse, consider, deconstruct if that's what it takes - look at them straight and figgure it out.

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Towards the end of it Bill McKibben says, "I think we can win this fight. I think we can win it if we act as a community; if we do not do anything that would injure that community but instead build and knit that community together in a way that allows it to take powerful action." Why does he mention this I wonder? Is there a fifth column at work?

I have to imagine what he means by "if we do not do anything that would injure ..." We? Injure? Unless ... he is talking to the likes of me. I guess it depends on what you mean by 'knit that community together'. We could duke it out with duelling scriptures but it might end in a draw, equivocally; or ... Matthew 18, v15 ff might be an ace in the hole. The Amish knitted up a strong community based in part on that one I believe and I am here doing my part.

[All that said I would give the little that remains to me in a moment if they called.] 

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True humility:   (As if I knew what that is.) But that's where my analysis of the two films fetches up. (Remember that Kony 2012 didn't work in the end - the actions largely evaporated - so this is not about good/better/best either.) Jason is humble but was unsupported; Bill is vain and unsupported; sure, it's more complicated than that.

Nevermind for a sec if I actually know how to distinguish degrees of humility: no one will deny there are such categories will they? However approximate and relative and qualified they may be?

We get so used to thinking of the likes of Martin Luther King and Mohandas Ghandi as great people (and Bill McKibben and Jason Russell) that we may lose sight of them as human people, with OEM supplied feet of clay. And it should also go without having to be stated that they did not start out as great as they ended; everyone makes mistakes, maybe the great learn more from them and more quickly.

Were King and Ghandi humble (nevermind truely or falsely)? Each of them had every reason not to be; but yes, I think so.

[My father was humble too - I am quite sure - but that's another story.]

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Trying to see where 350 came from I wanted to get to know the founders a little better. Somewhat easier said than done - except for Bill McKibben they seem almost not to want to be known. Eventually I found a video: What's Next for the Climate Movement? Part 1 & Part 2 in which each of them speaks (though generally without introduction); brief bios at 350: Our Team for all but Kelly Blynn; the two photographs at the top of the post and (approximate, tentative) names to the faces in them. They are: Jamie Henn, Will Bates, Phil Aroneanu, May Boeve, Jeremy Osborn, Jon Warnow, Bill McKibben, and Kelly Blynn. 

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Jokes my father used to tell: (about the way he told them)

Two guys work together; one is French, the other black. Before starting work the French guy always runs his finger underneath his nose saying, “Ah, Fifi!” He does this every day until eventually the black guy asks why he does it. He explaines that Fifi is his wife and her smell reminds him of her. The next morning the French guy sniffs his finger as usual saying, “Ah, Fifi!” Then the black guy drags his whole arm under his nose and says, “Aaahhh! ... Sapphire!”

Two little black boys, Rastus & Remus, are playing near the railroad tracks. Rastus climbs up on the fence beside the tracks and is sitting there when they hear the whistle of a fast-approaching train. Remus says, "Rastus! You get down off'a that fence right now, you hear? That train gonna come 'long an' suck you right off!" To which Rastus replies, "C'mon train!"

Three little boys are discussing riches as they oogle a new Corvette and a new Thunderbird parked at the curb. One says, "I want to be covered all over with gold, and if I want that car, why, I'll scratch off a little gold and go buy it." The second says, "I'd rather be covered all over in diamonds and if I want that car, why, I'll scratch off one'a those diamonds and go buy it." The third says, "I wann'a be covered all over in hair." "What?!" say his friends. "Yes," he says, "My sister only has a patch of hair about this big (making a triangle with his thumbs and forefingers), and she owns both'a those cars.

A farmer is complaining about a new mule who will not pull the plow. His friend says he knows just what to do. "Ask him politely and he'll pull." The farmer does not believe this so they go for a demonstration. They come into the barnyard and his friend picks up a piece of two-by-four and whacks the mule over the head. Then he just says, "Giddap," and off they go with the plow. The farmer is taken aback: "Is that what you call politely?!" "Well," says his friend, "I ask him politely - but first I have to get his attention." 

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Speaking of jokes: Take Joe Oliver ... please!

[I got the news from The Guardian.]

Oliver spoke in Washington recently and tried to discredit Jim Hansen. (Doh!) A description of the event at CSIS (Center for Strategic and International Studies), a video of Oliver's remarks, and a short excerpt of what he actually said about Jim Hansen and the laughter that followed. (Which he interprets as praise of course. He wants to grow up and be John Diefenbaker I think - you can tell by the way he nods his head all the time.)

Needless to say the attempt backfired and discredited Oliver instead. This is a man willing to drink water from tar sand tailings ponds - maybe that will help make sense of it.

Later on he spoke with CBC's Evan Solomon (here is a screen-grab of that conversation). He sticks to his (guns?) but admits, "That's the point, he [James Hansen] does know his stuff ..." (?)

Oliver cites Andrew Weaver as his scientific authority, but Andrew Weaver demurs: Climate scientist hits back at Oliver for citing his study, saying “What Mr. Oliver has critically failed to grasp here is that although some scenarios are indeed much worse than others, these are all nightmare scenarios that we must not allow to happen. To prevent 2 degrees of warming, which is the stated goal of this government, we know that most of the world’s proven oil, coal, and gas reserves must be left in the ground.”

Another pre-eminent Canadian scientist, David Schindler, is reported saying, "By acting like this, he is actually jeopardizing Keystone, not promoting it, and making Canada look like a country full of jerks." 

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Solar eclipse of May 10 2013:   Details from NASA, and more here.

The green circle-thing on the left map indicates GE - Greatest Eclipse. The yellow lines are 10-minute intervals and the complete annular portion of the eclipse lasts just over 6 minutes so there won't be much to see from Tarawa. Still ... They get a front row seat for sea-level rise and almost a front row seat for the eclipse - some kind of symmetry in that.

This map puts you in the zone and shows Bonriki & Bairiki. They turn out to be parts of Tarawa which is Kiribati's capital & largest island city (50,000). Looks like Nauru the world's smallest republic (10,000) misses the eclipse altogether.

Highest elevation in Kiribati (comprising some 30 islands) is 3 metres, ten feet, not very high; and there is population pressure there too. We all remember Ian Fry at Copenhagen in 2009 eh? Here he is speaking for Tuvalu (which is not far away). A-and some recent photographs of Kiribati from The Guardian to keep y'all entertained. 

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Daniel Pudles must be doing alright - he keeps two websites: this & this; but neither shows his illustrations time-ordered so it's difficult to find the 'latest' without a bit of poking around. In the end this Google works (though not very well). Imaginative and eloquent. Well worth the effort to find 'em.

[No way to get rid of this %$#@!!-ing line that I can find with this wretched HTML.

On the other hand, Blogger sometimes makes improvments that actually improve: images now load in order, and 'Preview' looks more-and-more like a post looks when it is 'Published'.] 

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Michael Wolf:   These thumbnails look as if the digital copies are gibbled somehow, or maybe bar codes. At higher resolution they at first seem cobbled, possibly Photoshopped. (Can't be real!) Go to the website of Michael Wolf for a photographic vision of how the middle class lives in Hong Kong. Not fun as his portraits make very clear. Daemonic. 

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BookOS seems to have gone for a long lunch ...

So here's a short but telling excerpt from Nicholas Carr's 'The Shallows': a digression on the writing of this book (pages 199-200). He ends with, "I'm not sure I could live without it." Profound.

You can visit a website calling it "a 'Silent Spring' for the literary mind"; or read his 2008 Atlantic essay, it's still online; and you can find all the links you need on Wikipedia. No cheap copies at Abe's yet. Won't be long, wait for it.

The very last line (not counting the Epilogue) is "We are welcoming the frenziedness into our souls." Not far off Cohen's "The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul."

Good on 'im - a place on the lecture circuit for a few years, hope he sells lots of books and makes a pant-full and treats his family well. 

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...

                (writhes the reacher)

                ...

"Let's in" saith then that Fool.
                (the wreather wretches
                  the wrider wights

[From Umwelt Preface by Keith Ecclestone.] 

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Wayne, Mr. Hollywood, is gone:   Not a word about him that I can find. I haven't seen him for a while so I ask the checkout lady at the supermarket and she tells me.

He was the very best person I met on this street, in this city for that matter since I came back. I liked him. He deserves a proper obituary. I don't know enough to write one; except that he had diabetes and numerous other ailments that kept him in and out of hospital. I guess he didn't fall through the cracks in the social safety net; but he told me he had a sister so maybe she was looking out for him, running interference.

I will miss him and his cheerful song - he was always singing, making up the lyrics as he went along; or offering to marry every woman who came by - calling all of them 'Marilyn'; selling pens, taking donations. He called me 'Robert Redford' as he did all the men; said, "Hey Robert Redford, let's go to Hollywood!" Paul Quarrington wrote this song about him; a bit condescending but that's no matter now.

When he wanted something - when it was cold and he wanted a coffee - he would ask for it straight out, and you had to go and fetch it too, he didn't like to walk very much.

Important Update:   I met someone begging in Wayne's old spot who tells me that Wayne is still on the go - over close to the Toronto General somewhere according to the report. I will go over there and see if I can find him one of these days. Very pleased at this news if it is true, very pleased indeed.

Be well. 

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Gilmar is back on-line:

So! Are you just going to sit there looking?    Take it easy.    /    I want to see which will come out on top - the finasteride or the viagra ...    [See finasteride, a chemical treatment for enlarged prostate.]

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Down.

If it were up to me ...

but everybody's busy & nobody's listenin'.                                                   Up, Down.                    Leeks today! 

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Contents: Leeks:(Three Jovial Welshmen, Agamemnon, Shylock), SLAPP:(No Dash For Gas, Ron Plain, Climate Scientists & Activists, Hierarchies, Slappers!  Spies, Buddhists), Brasil, Zero, Beyond the Zero.

Thanks to my son for recalling J.J. Cale & Naturally and a special tune: Call Me The Breeze; or here, a ten minute live version. Yeah :-) 

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There were three jovial Welshmen, as I have heard them say, And they would go a-hunting upon Saint David's day. And all the day they hunted, and nothing could they find But a hedgehog in a bramble-bush, and that they left behind. The first said it was a hedgehog; the second he said nay; The third it was a pin-cushion, and the pins stuck in wrong way. And all the night they hunted, and nothing could they find But an owl in a holly-tree, and that they left behind. One said it was an owl; the other he said nay; The third said 'twas an old man, and his beard growing grey. (From The Nursery Rhyme Book, 1897.)

 
which leads (if you let it) to a few lines of Blake on the flyleaf of Northrop Frye's The Double Vision:

For double the vision my Eyes do see, And a double vision is always with me: With my inward Eye 'tis an old Man grey; With my outward a Thistle across my way. (In context it is more ... worldly.)

'Dewi Sant' they call him in Wales; March 1st marking his death (in his bed apparently) not his birth. His theological claim to fame is as an anti-Pelagian. Pelagians (according to Wikipedia) believe that original sin did not taint human nature and that mortal will is still capable of choosing good or evil without special divine aid. A species of Quietists they are (again according to Wikipedia), seeking Ataraxia, Ἀταραξία, tranquility ... nirvana maybe ... stillness and interior passivity as essential conditions of perfection ... sounds almost Buddhist eh? All of which pits me against a saint ... not the first time. 

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Apeneck Sweeney spreads his knees
Letting his arms hang down to laugh,
...
The nightingales are singing near.                                                                                       [Full text here.]

And on it goes on from there, to ...

... Tereus, Procne, Itys, Philomela ... and swallows.

ὤμοι, πέπληγμαι καιρίαν πληγὴν ἔσω.
Alas! I am struck deep with a mortal blow!                                    [And that was the end of Agamemnon.]

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You can listen to Eliot reading this poem (here, not quite two minutes) for an appreciation of the parodies of anglican cadences you have cetainly heard; Monty Python and all. And yet it works. The (nasal) snobbery, show-off erudition, petty anti-semitism ... the pure nonsense of it, does not diminish the occasional power to locate some otherwise incomprehensible 'thing' and ground it, attach it.

[I do not speak Ancient Greek by the way. Just a vestigial striving for completeness in texts; preferring to see them ... entire. Like Caetano sings "... em que apareces inteira porém lá não estavas nua e sim coberta de nuvens."] 

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Trying to get a bearing on how to relate to special writers: Illich, Frye, Pynchon, Buber ... difficult. I am baffled by the simple lack of any feedback.

Shylock: ... If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die? and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villany you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction. (From The Merchant of Venice,     Act 3, scene 1.)

Resonates with Auden's September 1, 1939: "Those to whom evil is done do evil in return," but with more humanity, less desperation, less ... ideology. (?)


Probably missing some essential piece, pieces. But without conversation how does one even know that much? Or guess? Shots in the dark ... oh well.

[The authority for leeks on Davy's Day comes from apocryphal (and unlikely-sounding) stories, and from Shakespeare in Henry V, Act 5 scene 1.] 

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SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation):   Two news reports from The Guardian: on the 5th of February and again on the 25th (and here) on No Dash For Gas. There is another news report, and a blog post; and the EDF Energy website if you are curious.

[I understand 'dash' to be a Nigerian form of transactional corruption ... not even going to the OED to check.]

There's a petition but no direct link to get to it from their front page (as of this writing). If you are persistent you can find Change.org, 'The world's petition platform', which recognizes the country of your URL and so misdirects you; and if you are very persistent you may get to the petition itself: Tell @edfenergy to drop legal action against No Dash for Gas activists. You may even sign it. I did.

So what have we got? Some very courageous and competent people who shut down a major polluter for a week. But the subtext on the 5th is that interest is waning - this is also my experience here in Canada. Monbiot holds out faint hope on the 25th but ... Who can believe George Monbiot about anything? Hope? For such an unlikely confluence of energies? Barbra Streisand?! What's he smokin'?

Almost ten years ago a lovely young woman urged me to sign a petition around Barrick Gold's infamous practices - when I went to bring her up-to-date on it recently I found her in Hawaii for a vacation on the beach. I can dig it (see Porto de Pedras below).

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This notion of waning interest deserves a word, reiterated as it is by a pollster (reported here, a bit more here) with a graph that doesn't start at zero, with details unavailable to the hoi polloi - and we know how statisticians can sometimes inadvertently lie eh? Say, when they are posing for the press? Enough of their respondents take this 'very seriously' that if it were Quebec they could start separating - 51.8% by my back-of-an-envelope arithmetic. Last time I looked it was not that high, just a sec ... yeah, here.

It's bad, very bad, terrible ... AWFUL! Most species including our own may go extinct! But exaggeration doesn't help. (Unless it makes you feel better.   :-) 

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Ron Plain:   I tried to get there during the blockade itself. No direct busses, no direct trains if you are going to Sarnia; so I settled for other forms of support - the best I could do, really! Ditto when I heard about CN's lawsuit.

Is my inbox full of news then? Invitations to rallies? Someone offering to support an action to surround CN's corporate headquarters with case-hardened steel chain next Monday morning? Nada, nadinha! An automated reply from the organizer of the legal defence fund in response to a modest contribution. I can afford no more, I cannot afford what I gave. But here I am, ready to go; only unwilling to do it alone - I tried that a few times before and it was just ... too hard.

Google News trolls up nothing. Maybe it's only on Facebook? Is that it? In the words of ee cummings' eloquent Olaf, "I will not kiss your fucking flag," and, There is some shit I will not eat." (These two lines are often conflated to "There is some fucking shit I will not eat!" but that's not how he wrote it. It's Facebook I'm talking about here, not Ron Plain. It might even be a state of mind we both understand.)

Nonetheless and all that said - Ron Plain and his colleagues deserve honour not ignominy. I would drop what I am doing and go with them without hesitation - if they asked me. 

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There is news on Monday the 25th (in the Globe of all places):   Scientists call for dramatic steps to curb emissions. They are: John Abraham (St. Thomas, Minnesota), John Stone (Carleton), Danny Harvey (UofT), Mark Jaccard (Simon Fraser), Bill McKibben (author of the first book on the issue and a resident scholar), and, Tzeporah Berman (Forest Ethics). They have established a blog with a post on the subject: Climate Scientists and Policy Experts Say Canada Not Making Progress on Climate Change with a page which includes full contact information for all of them.

[A background report is mentioned but is nowhere to be found (by me at least). Emails to them asking for it go unanswered. The only other clue in the Big Book of the Internet is a press release from 350.org on the 22nd, a call for a media telephone cluster fuck: Canadian and US Scientists and Policy Experts Call Canada's Climate Bluff; Politicians Misleadingly Tout Canada's Climate. Emails to the 350 contact, Daniel Kessler, are unanswered.]

Ah! The background report is on another tab: Setting the Record Straight; which details how the Canadian Government has been making exaggerated claims - you could easily think Peter Kent and Stephen Harper have been lying.

Other triggers may include a story coming out of the rally in Washington on the 17th: Canada defends climate record amidst U.S. Keystone XL protests; and possibly Joe Oliver's $9 million contract for focus groups to further socially engineer the k-k-Canadian public to accept Tar Sands as a good and necessary part of their stupor, announced on the 18th: Government hones oilsands message with focus groups. (Emails to Joe and his master and Ms. May and my MP are also unanswered.) 

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As the days go by other references turn up:
         Why we need to stop oil sands expansion, Mark Jaccard on the 26th.
         Experts call Canada's climate bluff, Jenny Uechi on the 27th.

[How could I have not seen the 'Backgrounder' tab? Fact is I did see it but it didn't register. Doh! Knucklehead! I may not have been the only one; no comfort in that. And yet there seems to be a slap-dash quality to this whole effort; the HTML is sketchy in places, broken links - maybe that's it; a failure to keep some techie nerd in line? a volunteer possibly ... logistical problems: maybe an inability to be together in the same place for the press release. I wonder if they tried to get Elizabeth May involved? Andrew Weaver? Gordon McBean? David Schindler?]

More to come no doubt ... I will update this list if as & when:

     Keystone XL pipeline action coming in 'near term,' says Kerry 9th.
     Devastating traps of the tarsands 15th.
     It’s time for Canada to confront its climate neglect 19th.
     Kerry sidesteps Keystone pipeline issue 20th.
     Redford visits D.C. to push for Keystone approval 24th.
     Canadian governments sidle up to U.S. to secure Keystone approval 25th.
     Keystone is responsible oil sands development (Alison Redford) 25th.
     Senators push Kerry for quick Keystone decision 26th.
     Premier [Brad Wall] to push energy, pipeline 27th.
     Canada hopeful U.S. will ‘do the right thing’ and approve Keystone XL: Oliver 28th.
     Natural resources minister [Joe Oliver] to sell Keystone XL in the US 28th.

     
     
     
     
     

 

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Hierarchies:   A smart guy I know, the professor of some courses I took, once told us there is useful stuff to be learned about and from hierarchies. (This to a first-year class of possible architects many of whom could not yet spell it.)

Every list is a hierarchy. The order of the people involved in the Canadian Climate Policy blog mentioned above comes from their contact page. It is echoed more-or-less in the (so far scanty) news reports. So what have we got? Four Dr.s & two activist people - in that order. Is that the problem? Is there a problem?

A friend of mine, enthused by a sort of vague ... love (well, you know what I mean) for Tzeporah Berman went out and got himself arrested at the Kennedy bridge trying to protect the forests of Clayoquot Sound in the summer of 1993. He spent a lot of time & trouble getting to court and in the end (sort of) regretted it; in part no doubt because what MacMillan Bloedel was obliged to stop is being carried on by Iisaak.

I mention it here because the forces that create living functioning networks of people start with individuals: replete with messy details. I have gone on in this blog at length on a vision Ivan Illich had around the story of The Good Samaritan. I'm tired of repeating it.

I set chokers for Mac&Blo, logged with horses (on contract for money), etcetera. My father taught me about the woods. Maybe you think Iisaak Forest Resources and Ecotrust Canada are doing it right? Here, watch their 2007 video. Yes, Brenda Kuecks spoke on behalf of the Ecotrust Canada against the Enbridge Gateway pipeline. It's better, sure, but it's not good enough for me. Make up your own mind is best. 

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These people are called honourable but I see no honour in 'em: they are Slappers!

Vonnegut calls 'em 'pathological personalities', PPs. This is just a tiny sample - there are lots more of 'em (~99% if you count the complicit). They are not honourable; nor responsible, neither to electors nor neighbours nor livyers. (Most of 'em probably treat their families and friends ok.) But it's clear as day. They need to be ... refudiated!

[There is a name for this behaviour (on my part, posting these stupid pictures and useless words) some kind of psychological defence against going completely off the rails? ... Displacement? Sublimation? "You can stick your little pins in that voodoo doll; I'm very sorry baby, doesn't look like me at all."   Cuts both ways though eh?   :-) ]

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Robert Kennedy Jr. used the word boondoggle recently; worth brushing up on:   Another major winter storm that failed to materialize a few days ago in Toronto; followed by rain. And the plows are out like cockroaches trying to fulfil their contracts by shovelling away the slush before it can melt. They come back again later, in the rain, to scrape the now entirely bare asphalt in the public parking lot outside my window. Can you blame 'em? Like Louis says: better to pay 'em to stay home.

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That post I was looking at last time: Spreading the horror, and the comments on it, offer insights into what despair can look like (and why many avoid contact with such lepers). I say 'can' because I'll see the despair of anyone there and raise 'em; but even looking at it from inside this awful landscape it is still not time to lie down and die over it (unless you can at least put a stick in the spokes like the kids below). Obviously it looks different from other places; but as Naomi Klein said recently, "Not until we have a plan to heal the planet that also heals our broken selves and our broken communities do we have a hope of preventing this most dire of all crises." Facebook gonna do the trick? You figgure? 

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Spies:   Sorry for scattered & discursive meanderings gentle reader. It is trackless ground for me. But after the external, internal, imaginary, & all-too-human we are coming back around to the initial (external) SLAPP energy; completing a circle.

In Belo Monte:

MPF/PA vai apurar denúncia de espionagem contra o Consórcio Construtor de Belo Monte, 27th. Being investigated by one of the procuradoras already mentioned here, Meliza Alves Barbosa.

 

From the MPF and Xingu Vivo on the 25th, and a video: Agente de Belo Monte confessa pagamento para espionar Xingu Vivo (12 minutes).

 

O Movimento Xingu Vivo para Sempre (MXVPS) website - to DONATE!

 

Kitchener/Waterloo, Toronto:

We know that similar went on before and during the G20 fiasco in Toronto in 2010. This interview with Dan Kellar sheds some light: "... some of this petty stuff that the cops are doing is just textbook harassment of political organizers ... pick people up, get conditions on them, tie them up in the court system so when it's time for actual resistance everyone's so over capacity and so overwhelmed that, you know, we can't really put up a fight, of course that's their goal."

 

Canada's environmental activists seen as 'threat to national security': Canadian police and security agencies describe green groups' protests and petitions as 'forms of attack'.

 

And the UK:

Old history now; just wanting to remember some names: Mark Kennedy & Bob Lambert (aka Bob Robinson) & Jim Boyling. Anatomy of a betrayal.

 

So ... there's paranoia and then there's ... paranoia. Maybe that's why I can't get on with anything here: they hear 'Halliburton' and freak! 

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Buddhists:   Oh sure, exploiting grotesque & horrifying images, and what do I know about 20-somethings in Tibet? ... Well, for one thing I see a difference between jihadists blowing themselves and more-or-less innocent bystanders to hell, and these kids burning themselves up. Scale.

Monday February 25, 2013: from the NYT:

Two Tibetan monks have died in separate self-immolation protests in Tibetan regions of western China since Sunday. Phagmo Dundrup, in his early 20s, set himself on fire at the Chachung Monastery in Qinghai Province on Sunday. On Monday, Tsesung Kyab, in his late 20s, set himself on fire outside the main temple of Shitsang Gonsar Monastery in Gansu Province. He was a relative of Pema Dorjee, 23, who carried out a similar protest at the same monastery last year. Since 2009, at least 106 Tibetans have set themselves on fire to protest Chinese rule in Tibet. Most have died.

Over a hundred in the last few years; in spite of the Chinese government's best efforts to stop it. And I think their best efforts maybe make our worst look like the Teddy Bear's picnic. Eventually they will just arrest and intern everyone with the same first or last name as a self-immolator! A-and if that doesn't work: snuff 'em & recycle their parts. Now that's a SLAPP!

'Death & Taxes' they say. If your citizens don't want to pay taxes it's really no surprise. But when numbers of them would rather die than be citizens anymore ... 

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Brasil:   When I was in the south a mom-&-pop travel agent helped me get around. When I would go into their shop his wife would offer me a cafezinho first, no hurry. He must have put me on some kind of email list, approximately spam, called Férias Brasil which started appearing in my inbox about that time. I guess I could unsubscribe but, you know how old men like to dream. And it doesn't come every day or every week - occasionally, once in a while.

I visited Fernando de Noronha for the maximum allowable stay, and Salvador; Recife; Natal; that was when it was all local travel, short hops in turboprops. Last week the graciously irregular email tried to get me interested in Porto de Pedras. Oh my. Interested?!   Yes! And never come back! In a heartbeat; say goodbye forever to constipated & complacent environmental movements, to k-k-Canada - the true north strong and fucked; but [insert a dozen necessary & sufficient reasons]. Stuck! ... Oh well, I got there once.

No doubt about what comes immediately to mind looking at Morro do Pico. :-) 

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Zero:   Well, it's not up to me gentle reader. (I almost forgot what I named this epistle.) Not my call. No force, no lever, no fulcrum; zero. Sure, it's my fault I can't get beside any of the activists. A nasty old hedgehog and I know it. I'll have to find the gumption (that heretical Pelagian will perhaps?) to go it alone on some imaginatively non-violent idea yet to come. I'm not blaming them, I know it sounds that way ... I'm just saying ... And soon, a few years, it really will be too late. What then I wonder?

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I listened carefully to Bill McKibben at the rally on the 17th and saw hysteresis - someone stretched apparently beyond return; indulging meaningless words to paper over the cracks. He's got a wife. Why doesn't she help him? Why don't his colleagues straighten him out? He deserves it. It's a serious question and I guess the best answer is everybody's busy & nobody's listenin'. The worst answer is something else.

Back in the day, when someone took something he or she shouldn't have taken and found themselves on a bummer, we knew how to deal with it. Sometimes ambulances had to be called but mostly someone to talk with, or just be close to, and the confidence that they were not going away anytime soon did the trick. Yes, you had to be aware of what was going on around you and willing to take all the time in the world.

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I recently met a Muslim woman from Kenya who told me that the Christian text, "where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I," is also in the Koran (Is there a pc term for Koran? Yeah, 'Quran'. Oops.) with the wrinkle that one alone will also do. That's what she said to me: "One is enough."

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I had a dream about my father and woke up humming a Stones tune: Would you think the boy's insane? which soon turned into Monkey Man.

Be well.

[ ... ] 

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Beyond the Zero:    A remarkable few paragraphs from 'Against the Day' Three: Bilocations part 6 in which Kit realizes that the liner he was riding on, the S.S. Stupendica has morphed into a battleship, the S.M.S.Emperor Maximilian, and comes to understand some of what that means. There is a hilarious encounter between Lew Basnight & Lamont Replevin a few parts on which I may include next time.

Previously:
                         One: The Light Over the Ranges part 5 - Lew Basnight becomes a detective,
                         Two: Iceland Spar part 12 - Lake Traverse marries Deuce Kindred.
                         Three: Bilocations part 5 - Yashmeen Halfcourt & Cyprian Latewood.

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I know I know I know ... fucking around with the HTML trying to get this to look like what I want makes it brittle, unlikely to look like anything unless you happen to have the same screen settings and what not as I do. What can I do? If anyone took a screen shot CTRL-PrtSc and sent it to me I might know. Nobody does. QED. So it goes. 

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Down.