Help Wanted

Who's gonna fill their shoes? Who's gonna stand that tall?

George Jones

Pete Seeger is dead. He lived for 94 years and for most of them was actively working for the betterment of his fellow human being. His music professed his love for them and the country in which he lived. That is not to say he never disagreed with his country. He did that often, loudly and musically. Pete grew up in those turbulent times that went from The Roaring Twenties to the Wall Street Crash to Bread Lines and on to WWII. Then he was caught up in the McCarthyism of the fifties which he famously assaulted head on. Then to the Civil Rights Era and then the Anti-War protests during VietNam. An entire life filled with activism of the highest order and with music and non-violence. Even more recently he spoke up in his opposition to rising income inequality and the current spate of tinpot wars in which we find it so easy to become engaged.

At his passing I was wondering, “Who's going to fill those shoes?” Who can throw himself or herself into the fray with such unrelenting passion? When Pete took the stage everyone knew that regardless of agreement or disagreement they were in the presence of something greater than just the mere man that stood before them. I was casting about in my memory for others who have shouldered the concerns of the common citizen and carried them for the rest of their lives. Certainly Martin Luther King, Jr. fills the bill but, tragically, his pilgrimage came to an early end. Many forget that Dr. King's message was not just one of racial equality but also one of equality of opportunity and peace. It was to that end that he was in Memphis on Bloody Sunday. He was there to take part in a demonstration for equal pay for the sanitation workers of that city when the assassin’s bullet took him. I have no doubt that, had he lived, he would still be standing for those causes, speaking truth to power. His legacy is that many other people who served with him have taken up the cause and carried it forward accomplishing in legislation much of the agenda about which he preached.

The dearth of captivating figures is certainly not due to a lack of causes deserving enough to be carried to the streets and to the watching eyes of America's public. Racism still exists in many forms, bigotry is the same. The decline of the middle class and with it the American Dream of upward mobility and a chance to participate in the expansive wealth of this nation is a cause that is richly deserving of massive public demonstration. The Occupy movement attempted to tap into that vein but for some reason failed to ignite the American spirit after a promising start. The emphasis on non-violence prevented those who hold the reins of power from bringing the might of the state to bear so what was it that failed to excite the American spirit.

Lottery for beds at a shelter in LA.

Just this question has occupied my mind for several years now and I have a few ideas. Just as our country has marginalized the effect of war by not requiring sacrifice by all and using a volunteer force so have we marginalized the poor and jobless by making it seem as if their plight is their own fault. They failed to keep up while financial interests boomed. When their houses were lost it was said by many that they should not have entered into such onerous mortgage agreements. Little was said about those who used predatory practices to lure them into those agreements. When a few were declared liable the giant banks were given fines but no one has gone to jail. The fines written off as a cost of doing business. And, then, when the homes were gone, retirement savings vanished and unemployment benefits exhausted they were declared to be takers, not makers and, as such, not worthy of the compassion of the American government. They were marginalized while what remains of the middle class was forced to run harder and faster to maintain that precarious standing. Education became too expensive for many to afford one of the means of improving one's chances in the lottery to become average. The combination of marginalization and busyness has left those in the trenches with little time or energy to complain. Radicalization of ideological politics has diminished the power of the vote and led to people voting against their own self interest, slaves to the memes and political slogans that infect our government.

This is not the first time. Most recently it happened during the Great Depression which led to many social changes. It happened during the civil rights era when the American public was treated to dogs and fire hoses coming out of their televisions. This one is still looking for the spark that will ignite the passions of those who have had enough of watching fellow citizens in bread lines and sleeping under bridges. The goals are the same, the obstacles are different. Social media is both a blessing and a curse that can either pacify a restive public or galvanize that public into action.

So, who will rise to sing the songs of the depressed and mistreated. Who will begin to preach the sinful nature of a lack of compassion? How will they penetrate the hearts of the harried? David Brooks, a conservative columnist for the New York Times said that if, a few years ago, he had been told that economic inequality could be this great, unemployment could be this high and we could be involved in the longest war in American history, that we would not have a virulent progressive movement he would have been incredulous but here we are.

My take? HELP WANTED: visionary people to step into those shoes and walk a mile or two.

Bill Moyers Essay: The United States of Inequality | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com

Bill Moyers Essay: The United States of Inequality | Moyers & Company | BillMoyers.com





If you care, take the time to listen to this short video.  It will take 13 minutes of your time and reveal truth.

The Grammys Train Wreck: An Insult to Lou Reed, Hip-Hop, and Good Taste - The Daily Beast

The Grammys Train Wreck: An Insult to Lou Reed, Hip-Hop, and Good Taste - The Daily Beast





This pretty much sums up my appreciation (or lack thereof) for the 2014 edition of the Grammy Awards.  Admittedly I lack sufficient appreciation for hip hop or rap but some of the performances just did not move me except to cringe at the vulgarity.  Speaking of vulgarity.  Now, I know that our values are somewhat antiquated here in the Bible Belt but I consider myself to be somewhat unencumbered by prudish sensibilities but the opening number with Beyonce and JayZ had to be regarded as nearing soft porn.  Everyone seemed to be quite enthused about it but Al Roker is the only one I heard complain that it was shown before the kiddie witching hour of 9 PM.



I continue to wonder about the strange musical pairings such as Chicago and Robin Thicke.  Or Metallica and that classical piano guy.  What was that all about anyway?  I was pleased at the win for Kasey Musgrave even if she took on topics unfamiliar to country music audiences.  She was a fresh face for upcoming country artists and she may be able to  take country music somewhere beyond beer, tight jeans and trucks.



Speaking of country music.  I admire Blake Shelton (and I'm going to think it was his idea) to bring on the old guys (Willie, Kris and Merle) even though not a one of them can sing a lick any more.  I had been of the opinion that Willie shortchanged us at the festival but now I think he probably gave us the best he's got.  It was kind of embarrassing for country music fans to see such a performance for their genre even though many hold those old guys in reverence.  I do want to say right here that Keith Urban and Gary Clarke, Jr. are guitar wizards.



Daft Punk seemed to be the rage but they did not do anything that would showcase their particular brand of music.  I think they do some kind of electronica but who would know since their only performances were with rappers. It told me a lot when it was revealed that an ancient and dried out Paul Williams served as writer and producer on "Random Access Memories.  I thought Pink's performance was pretty awesome if only for the fact that that girl has to be in tremendous shape to pull off the aerobatics she did.  I couldn't do those things lying on the floor.

Taylor Swift played the piano and did a solo this time.  Maybe she wants to be taken more seriously now that she is getting a little to old to use the "aw shucks" theme any more.  She didn't even flash that giant red-lipped smile that seems to say, "I am so surprised, what is going on."



Then Jared Leto honored Lou Reed, who died a few months ago, by misquoting (misreading?) the lyrics from "Take a Walk on the Wild Side."  Maybe should have turned down that last doobie until after his gig.  Lou was a giant and deserved more than the honorable mention he got.

 



It was good to see Sir Paul and Ringo on the stage together and Yoko and Sean acutally showed a little emotion and boogied a bit.  I don't see Daft Punk or Beyonce doing their thing at 70.  I had heard of Lorde at some point but paid little attention until her performance.  I began by thinking that perhaps she was epilleptic but then settled on the notion that perhaps Joe Cocker was somewhere in her ancestry.  After listening to the song a few times I decided that , all in all, it is a pretty nice song.  However, it is strange to me that she could take home the grammy over Sarah Bareilles.  And Ms. Bareilles and Carol King did a wonderful duet featurning their own music which I did appreciate.





I agree with most critics of the show that say the best was probably saved for last with Dave Grohl, Queens of the Stone Age, Nine Inch Nails and Lindsay Buckingham (yes, THAT Lindsay Buckingham.  They were rocking us into the night when the credits began to roll. Over top of their performance.

The Frog in the Pot

Charleston lies close to the Kanawha River like scales along the serpentine river's back The Elk River is a tributary with its confluence with the Kanawha within the boundaries of Charleston. If one cares to look at the satellite imagery on google earth the location of Freedom Industries can be found mere feet from the banks of the Elk River. Huge storage tanks are visible with no means of containment between them and the river. Downstream from this facility lies the intake for West Virginia American Water Company. It's parent company is the same company that owns Kentucky American Water Company which serves the bluegrass area. West Virginia American serves hundreds of thousands of people in the greater Charleston area with drinking water.

On January 9^th a leak came in one of the storage tanks and leaked some amount of a chemical that is virtually unpronounceable by anyone without a degree in chemistry into the Elk River. The amount is currently estimated at about 7500 gallons but it has contaminated the entire water company system and those hundreds of thousands of people were left without water. Not only drinking water but also water for cooking and bathing. Without potable water businesses were forced to close and the region was virtually paralyzed. Oh, water was trucked in and we saw pictures of people carrying water home in kitty litter buckets. We are used to seeing these scenes in third world countries after a catastrophe of some kind but no so much here in the US of A.

The President declared the area a disaster area which allowed FEMA, the agency the Tea Party wants to eliminate, to intervene with emergency assistance. Now, just a few days later the all clear has been given to use the water but people can still smell the scent of licorice and are becoming ill from using it. So what are we to make of this. Is this just a cost of doing business, part of the cost of having a job to go to? Should we just accept this as an unavoidable occurrence that happens from time to time?

Well, at least until the Tea Party has its way, we still have FEMA. FEMA is a federal agency and is funded by tax dollars. So, those of us who approve of social programs and their impact on societies are glad that we, as a nation, came together to help those natives of Charleston in their time of need. Those who think that social programs are a waste of money and only enable losers and no-goodniks will clench their teeth and rage against the Mommy State. Or would they? Perhaps depending on their proximity to the catastrophe.

So, here we have a profitable business that supplies chemicals used to clean coal, another profitable business. Now, as a result of this “accident” those businesses have caused a great deal of consternation among the citizens of this area and have caused undetermined millions of dollars of damage to the local economy and to the environment. The effect on public health is yet to be determined but my opinion is that if it causes a rash, stinks and will make you sick it is probably bad for you.

All that to get here. Who pays for all this damage. Who pays to clean up the water system? Who pays for lost productivity? Who pays medical bills? Did anyone believe that those storage tanks were safe in perpetuity and needed no containment provisions? Why wasn't there more regulatory oversight and inspections? But wait! All of those things are functions of a society that uses socialistic efforts to spread the cost around to benefit the whole and therein lies a problem.

Let's say that in a free enterprise world that the entity that creates the damage pays the bills. I'm OK with that but that is not what happens. During the Gulf Oil Spill huge amounts of money were assessed against BP but just about anyone will tell you that the true costs have neither been assessed nor paid for. But let's just say that Freedom Industries has to pay to clean this up. They are a business that has to make a profit or go broke. If they go broke who pays the bills? That's right, the taxpayer or those who were harmed just go ahead and suffer through no fault of their own without any further recourse.

What if Freedom Industries had to charge enough for their product to cover these unforeseen costs? Would their product be as competitive in the marketplace or not? If their price were higher then the costs of cleaning the coal would be higher and while we are at it what if the coal industry had to pay for the costs of reclamation, water damage, air pollution and cleanup, and removing mercury from our fish? Isn't that capitalism at its finest? Businesses sell products, pay the bills and what is left is profit? Would coal still be as affordable as some say it is? Just a note: Freedom Industry parentage eventually ends up at Koch Industries, those exemplars of free enterprise.

This is not free enterprise. This is socialism for industry and our economic system is shot through with it. The ways that we allow pollution that we will have to deal with only makes the sale price of the product a false price. One that is subsidized by the American citizen in a pervasive system of political corruption that keeps most citizens in the dark about the true costs of doing business while cramming the pockets of those with enough clout to buy legislation. And the divide between the haves and the have-nots grows ever wider until, like the proverbial frog in the cooking pot, we are done. Stick a fork in us.

My take? The current news is of the GOP managing to cut dollars out of the budget for enforcement of consumer protection regulations and they're pretty happy about it. The only purpose can be to enable the pickpocketing of the rapidly disappearing middle class. Time to get mad about it.

Mom and Existence

The Nature of Wondering

I lost my Mom a few days ago and there is nothing like a funeral to cause one to become pensive and begin wondering about how people and memories persist in living far past one's lifetime. Memory is a curious thing. I have read some material and watched some interviews with neuroscientists that dealt with the nature of memory and from what I can glean from those it seems that memory is more ephemeral than even I thought. When it is considered that these lifetimes of memory are stored in a chunk of biological material weighing about 3 pounds the concept of memory itself seems ludicrous. Those memories are stored in some fashion at a cellular level and are accessed by a code that consists of enzymes and minute electrical charges that in some way bring that memory to the forefront.

A computer is easier to comprehend. Memory is stored in bits of code on a disc or more recently, on a pc chip. When that memory is desired you have to have a key that opens the code that is the pathway to that memory and then the disc begins spinning and the appropriate program follows that pathway to the memory itself. Long term memory is stored on a hard drive but short term requirements are handled by Random Access Memory. Seems the brain does sort of the same thing but with a much larger capacity. The true wonder is that memory is stored in a biological system and that system interacts in a fascinating way to influence our decisions and emotions which may be governed by other biological systems.

In the mid 1600s Rene Descartes famously asserted, “I think, therefore I am.” It was the result of his thinking of the nature of existence and wondering how one could definitively know that existence was real and not some dreamlike state. The brain and its wonderful mechanics are at the center of this realization.

Another friend of mine recently wondered about the nature of relationships and how they influence lives in many ways not the least of which is the remaining influence of those relationships after physical connection is severed. No longer does that person influence your life in a way that you can sense with the physical senses but that person may still have enormous influence over your life in the ways you react to others and yourself. In that sense is that person gone or does he or she still exist in some fashion if one follows Descartes?

So, I was thinking about Mom and her influence on my life. Does it continue? Of course it does. When I think about Mom is there something else that seems to be competing for her space in my mind. Not yet, it seems she has a space of her own. It seems the same with the friends I have lost. Their existence is clear in my mind and they have spaces of their own not infringed upon by others.

With a computer it is understood that space for memory is finite and can be deleted or made available for overwriting by deleting the code for the pathway. It is not certain but one could assume that our brains have a finite capacity although I don't know if anyone has tried to find it. We have found that through the use of some chemicals we can either weaken or strengthen the pathway to that memory so that its influence is diminished or emphasized.

In the nearness of Mom's leaving us we still find ourselves tied to responses we developed during our time as caregivers. We will think about time for meds, what to prepare for breakfast or dinner or maybe just try to find outlets for her curiosity and not to just relegate her to the care of the television. Those impulses are still with us but I suppose they will fade. Perhaps they are stored in short term memory. However, I expect long term memory to go on. Mom's last few years were proof of that.

So, in any real sense, are those past experiences and people really gone. They certainly exist in our minds. We can recall emotions, smell and recall what something looked like but, even though we are sure, we can't be certain that is really the way it was. But Descartes' statement asserts that the realization of self is its own proof and if that is the case can a person's existence persist past physical life?

I am certain that my understanding of Descartes' dictum and its implications are minimal at best but still fodder for wonderment. I think that it is at this point that many of us turn to our faith to tie it all together, to make out of the uncertainty a bit of certainty. The ability of our faith to promise reunion and answers to the questions guides us to acceptance and, eventually, peace.

My take is that I am comforted by my faith. When the desperate wandering of my mind causes mental weariness I can take refuge in knowing that, even though I don't understand how, it will all turn out okay. Some may call it mental laziness others may say it is illogical. I say it is comforting.