Think It's Bad Now?

Opinion, People, Unbelievable 2 Responses »
Jun 172009

Enjoy what could well be our last few months of culturally reinforced American insularity and relative plenitude. But at least put this bit of news in your pipe and smoke it in the meantime.  Talk about it with family and friends. Or start digging up your backyard to grow some veggies.

I’m a happy guy despite how it may appear, but I am concerned about our economic situation. And I’m sure you probably are as well. If you aren’t concerned yet, you will be, even if you are a filthy rich redneck living off the grid at the end of your private road.

I think Americans across the board are about to experience a whole new world of hardship and economic pain that is incomprehensible to most of us at this juncture. I really hope not, but I’m not going betting against this out of control economic freight train.

“Barack Obama, and the criminal class on Wall Street, aided by a corporate media that continues to peddle silly video moments, fatuous gossip and trash talk as news while we endure the greatest economic crisis in our history, may have fooled us, but the rest of the world knows we are bankrupt. And these nations are damned if they are going to continue to prop up an inflated dollar and sustain the massive federal budget deficits, swollen to over $2 trillion, which fund America’s imperial expansion in Eurasia and our system of casino capitalism. They have us by the throat. They are about to squeeze.”

Link to Truthdig article.

So what’s the big problem? The rest of the world’s leading nations are actively dumping the dollar as reserve currency. What does this mean? How about the end of the American way of life. The end of American hegemony. The end of rampant militarization.  And possibly much, much worse.

When we elected Barack Obama, I was hopeful until I realized (again) that the problems which ail our country are fatal flaws that no politician can possibly fix. We are beyond broke. But of course, Obama’s good at fixing small problems with a single swat.

We are to put it mildly, screwed. Don’t say you didn’t know or believe the worst was still in front of you, read the article and get ready for the next economic crapstorm.

Hide me as a friend if you don’t like the topic. Or thank me later after you acknowledge that nobody you know is really talking about what’s going to happen next in this country. It’s called denial.

Or don’t thank me at all. But at least try to remove as much of yourself from the tracks as you can or you might get squashed flat like a Lincoln cent or smushed like the fly in the vid.



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Freedom Is Just Another Word

Opinion, People No Responses »
May 072009
Sage words of advice by Koa on finding true freedom in this whacked-out world.  A compelling personal statement wrapped around a warning to prepare for what’s next if ever there was one.

Thanks to Survival Acres (John) for posting this where I could stumble across it.

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Hoovering, Government Style

Opinion, People No Responses »
Jan 272009

Fascinating testimony from Russell Tice, NSA Whistleblower examining NSA data collection methods and the involvement of major telcos in sharing your (our) information. Was your electronic communication and credit information collected and scrutinized by spooks and their elaborate data mining tools in this massive undertaking? Hmm, sure looks like it. Tice has been speaking out for several years in a brave attempt to uncloak the truth about this country’s wholesale disregard for and invasion of privacy for the sake of keeping us safe.

This man deserves a job in the Obama administration and a bust of his likeness placed on the desk of whoever is running the NSA.

Link to Wired article.

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The Birds Lose a Good Friend

Environment, Opinion, People No Responses »
Mar 012007

My mother was a well-known birder, writer, lecturer and teacher who passed away February 27 from lung cancer. She lived from the Great Depression of the 1930s to the new Environmental Great Depression of 2007. She was a true friend of the environment.

This time, the depression isn’t simply economic. America recovered from the Great Depression. This time it’s environmental. Can mankind recover from bankrupting the planet’s natural environment?

While the earth and all its creatures are suffering from our studious neglect and institutionalized indifference, people in this beautiful country continue doing what they have always done, which is buy into an economic paradigm that equates progress with our ability to consume everything that isn’t nailed down, trash it when we’re done, and leave finding a solution to the problem of our declining environment to the supposed experts.

Just after my mother passed away, I was excoriated by someone I care about for taking a “superior” tone about the source of the world’s environmental problems, such as NASCAR and the huge industry behind it. I was told that people “around here” don’t want to hear criticism about their favorite forms of recreation, all of it mechanized and resource intensive. Moreover I was told that I could expect any number of threats from “Bubba.”

Well Bubba save yourself the dime. I’m onto your games and they suck because they’re suicidal. I’m reaching out to give you a hand to save you from yourself.

I’m sorry if anyone finds the truth offensive. Too damn bad. People who can pull their heads out of their asses long enough to see what is going on make great environmental crusaders. You should try it. I might not come off as superior to you.

NASCAR is the problem. NASCAR sponsors, drivers, fans, mechanics, tracks, bobble head announcers, cameramen, etc., are the problem. Bikers are the problem. Bike week is the problem. NFL is the problem. NFL fans are the problem. Stadiums where lots of people drive to week in and week out, year after year, and watch their precious teams are the problem.

Whatever is unnecessary by environmental measure is the problem.

If you identify with corporatized recreation enough to get mad at someone who insists the stuff that passes for “recreation” in a large swath of middle America is a big part of our environmental problems, you should take a harder look at what’s killing the planet and where it’s coming from.

Any mirror will do.

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Captains of Industry Order Bush Course Correction

Environment, People No Responses »
Jan 222007

Finally. 10 CEOs of major U.S. companies are urging George Bush to take action and address global warming in his upcoming state of the Union address. This means he’ll bow and scrape for a few minutes, mutter the necessary platitudes, and move on to his favorite agenda:

Link to article.

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Wishing you less of everything in 2007!

Environment, Opinion, People 1 Response »
Dec 242006

Here it is, Christmas Day 2006. It’s been snowing gangbusters here in western Montana. All is quiet, all is still. All is peaceful. Or so it seems.

2006 was a year of treading water, at best. The rich got richer. The poor got poorer. Governments became even more ruthless and reckless, pursuing nuclear technologies, testing nuclear weapons, wasting soldiers lives and hundreds of billions spreading the seeds of “democracy” where it is neither welcome or understood, all while ignoring the real environmental problems they are facing in their own backyards. And we proles kept spending.

And since you’re likely to be somewhere in the gaping maw known as the middle class here in Amerikay, you probably felt the squeeze on your resources from every direction; energy, food, transportation, housing. No wonder we don’t have much of our collective human spirit to focus on solving environmental problems when it requires all any one person can muster to sustain their lifestyle.

Oh I know. It’s all just business as usual. The way of things. For now at least. But while you were living your life and feathering your nest, the earth got hammered, again. Worldwide, we exceeded all records for carbon dioxide output, and moved the bar higher on solid waste. Temperatures have risen to their highest in the past 1 million years. How can next year bring any improvement, unless we take a closer look at the real source of the problem: ourselves, the 7 billion people living like there’s no tomorrow?

Hmm, maybe tomorrow doesn’t mean very much after all the lip service and wishful thinking I’ve heard from well-intentioned people. Could be why nobody in this country saves much money either. In tomorrow’s world, money won’t mean much because our progeny will have much bigger problems to cope with, like finding themselves without clean air, clean water, or food.

So be thankful you live in a time when you can ignore the world at large and block it out with material comforts. We of today are truly blessed, in a wickedly finite way. And successive generations cursed—saddled with a diminished set of expectations and a polluted planet as a result.

Whirled Home Journal wishes you and yours a 2007 full of happiness and joy driven by introspection and reconsideration of the material world that defines us all. A self-reckoning for the good of the world around you. Because who you are isn’t best measured by what you own or what you preach or believe. It will be best measured in the world of tomorrow by what you do (or don’t do) about the environment around you today.

And here’s wishing you a little less of everything to illumine your path.

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Dumped on by Novell

Opinion, People, Tech No Responses »
Aug 052004

Workers dream of staying at home

Biggest downside of being a telecommuter? I think it’s the unbridled jealousy of managers who by virtue of choices they’ve made are simply not able to do what I have done, which is prove beyond doubt that a knowledgeable person armed with a browser and working from home—interacting with informed co-workers and adept managers—can make a huge difference in a large technology company’s business effort without being “front and center” every day, or any day for that matter.

I live in rural western Montana, forty miles from the nearest traffic light. My commute to work is a simple login to my broadband internet connection. The people and company I worked for over the past 8 years until very recently are located in big, dirty cities all over the world. The company’s employees report to their respective offices and cubicles five days a week, go to endless meetings, and spend one, two, three or more hours per week driving to and from work. It’s no wonder that the company’s marketing has fired on 6 of 8 cylinders for years.

Brand new boss number six, Ladd Timpson, (who just summarily pulled the plug on my “contract employee” career with this company) would never bring himself to admit that I was not only diligent and measurably effective in doing the jobs expected of me for many years, but also living a low-impact, low-stress lifestyle made possible by using technology for the purposes it was designed for—a better world where travel is a pleasure and not a daily obligation with disastrous consequences for the planet.

There is simply no reason to do face time when the real work of technology, marketing and communication is accomplished principally through electronic means. What does it matter where an employee lives since this is the case? Truth is, it doesn’t matter. But it did to some of the boys and girls at Novell.

Hey Novell, it’s your loss.

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