Make Earth Day Everyday

the STATE?  The State was once a decent newspaper, but it is now the proverbial shadow of its former self...Typically, this article exhibits no actual reporting or local interest. The truly careful will notice that the tips are numbered 1-9. There are ten of them, because some euphemism gave two tips number 7... Wishing everyone an actually green day...

Gonna dig out my Erf Shoes, celebrate Erf Day, ... and go out and Hug a Tree !!!!!!!
 
I might even be able to find the T-Shirt F.E.M.A. gave me, in Galveston just after the Hurricane, its got Al Gore's picture onna front and Hillary's picture onna back, with BIG Red letters that say, "GITCHO FREE SHIT !!!"  Guess I better not drive my '49 Studebaker Pick-Up, affectionately named, Blue Cloud ... which most people assume is an Indian name ... but she just needs new Rings and a Valve job .......

I guess I'm getting cynical about 1/365th of each year being 'dedicated' to a topic....What's for sure is that the world will do fine if our species is stupid enough to remove its life support system.  Life recovered from mass extinctions 65 million years ago, 205 million years ago, 251 million years ago, 360 million years ago, 440 million years ago, and 488 million years ago.... If humans make it, great!  If humans don't, too bad.  In either event I'll be long dead.  It would be nice to imagine a harmonious world, painted in romantic or impressionistic colors, but nature doesn't work that way.  I'm doubt celebrating the tse-tse fly, HIV virus, tapeworm, or guinea worm -- and other components of 'nature' are exactly where the bucolic vision behind Earth Day originated.  (But I do like apple blossoms, shameless trees showing their pudenda en flagrante!)

If the earth were a young lady... this would be the poem I'd dedicate to her....  

 Had we but world enough, and time,
This coyness, Lady, were no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To walk and pass our long love's day.
Thou by the Indian Ganges' side
Shoulds't rubies find: I by the tide
Oh Humber would complain. I would
Love you ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
Till the conversion of the Jews.
My vegetable love should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow.
An hundred years should go to praise
Thine eyes and on thy forehead gaze;
Two hundred to adore each breast,
But thirty thousand to the rest.
No age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, Lady, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.
But at my back I always hear
Time's wing'ed chariot hurrying near
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy duty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song: then worms shall try
That long preserved virginity.
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.
Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may,
And now, like amorous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power
Let us roll all our strength and all
Our sweetness up into one ball,
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Through the iron gates of life
Thus though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.

-- Andrew Marvell

And that sums up how I feel about hiking, camping, nature, women (a part of nature!), and all the other sensory stuff I delight in!

I have been cutting apart the plastic rings that come with six-packs of soda and beer for decades.  I am constantly made fun of for doing that, but I persevere. At my bartending job, my boss has told me to cut them up on my own time, so I take them home and do it while watching tv. 
 
Some years ago, while on a first date, the man I was with (okay - we went back to his house with a six-pack after seeing a movie - Elizabeth - he's an English ex-pat) broke up the rings without being asked - and then I knew I was in love!  We were together for 6 years (until he left me for some slut in Tennessee!!!)

But of course earth day must be celebrated every day.... after all, Mother Earth has never taken a single holiday from us. We may not like how it behaves sometimes, but it never acts through malice or as a result of her neglect, now has it. It should always have been, and must always be; a symbiotic relationship. If we love life, then we must also demonstrate our love and respect to our great Mother Earth.

Now that I've gotten my good thought of the day behind me, gotta go finish the yard work 'cos I just heard thunder in the distance. I think I may have aged at least five years this winter.... Better take a nap instead.

Peace out

I could swear I was just on a page where Hemingway (and Paris) was being discussed. I'd intended to leave a really wise and witty comment, as well as note that "Lady Comrade" and I share the same feelings about his writing -- but now I'm lost. I find myself back on Earth Day, and I've nothing much to say about that. Would someone point this new person back to Hemingway please? It would be much appreciated.
  

Park, Paris and Papa H. are located in the "Travel" tab above. 

 After a rough night~ 

Belief systems notwithstanding, it is hard to argue with Doc Nolan's assertion that our beautiful blue planet will very likely withstand our concerted efforts to make it inhospitable to our own species. History is on its side.

We walk upright, lie to ourselves and others and seem actually to crave their return of the favor. We kill each other for reasons that, when looked back on in the future, are not going to make any more sense then, than they do now.

It isn't a Disney world where sweetly-singing bluebirds bearing yellow ribbons swoop in through the castle window to get our mornings started on just the right note.

I, uncharacteristically, enjoyed this:

"The illusion which
exalts us is dearer to us
than ten-thousand
truths."

Alexander Pushkin

But, only because it too seems, irrefutably, on point.

And yet, though I believe that the best efforts of our smartest minds and strongest wills will come to naught  in their efforts to address what ails our environment, it doesn't seem hopeless.

And, here is why: Whether by nature, the hand of God or our own grindingly witless self-interest, we are probably about due for a mid-course correction; holy smack-down or self induced catastrophe along the lines, but not quite as all-encompassing as THE FLOOD.

It will need to be big, huge, even. California falling into the sea, Japan swallowed up by the Pacific? A good start, maybe, but not enough by a long shot. No, something: a sky darkening volcano, asteroid or a bacterium altered with an eye to solving some small problem but wiping out billions instead- something very big.

So big that when one of the grubby, grubbing survivors stumbles upon a trove of sturdy footwear and warm clothing or seeds, he is likely to call over everyone he knows to share because he will understand that they are all going to be needed in defense against the strangely mutated beasts hoping to eat them and in offense against the tasty beasts that they will enjoy eating.

Not a lot of room in that scenario for political, religious or personal hatred and animosity.

A new beginning.





 

That last post made my Green Earth Day turn Black!

Stoney, I will comment that I'm sorry someone pissed in your cornflakes, but you are probably also right on.  You usually are.  Hoping a sunnier Stoney joins us soon or just shut me up.
Along the topic, a song the dead played last friday in albany, happened to be recorded in Buffalo.  "We will leave this place an empty stone or a shining ball of blue we call our home."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSC6m4LPW1Y

I reveled in the Marvell poem, which I've long loved. But then I came to Stoney's thoughts, as always grounded, supported, well-presented, and I was forced to look directly into the faces of those he describes: Us, if we're lucky.
In my book, my mind, my fears, when I set aside rosy lenses I believe he speaks truth. More important, recognizes it when he hears or sees it, for not just on Earth Days, not even just recently are there serious people who speak with authority supported with data of what we are doing to our world. It frightens me.

Perhaps I've been out in the sun too long today, but, after yesterday's discussion about straight talk and the seemingly overwhelming opinion, of most Eyester's, that being direct is by far the best way to speak to people...and realizing that I am letting an arrow fly that I cannot pull back...I am going to risk saying - Stoney, you are right, the future of mankind is bleak, there are dark days ahead, it's frightening, and basically life sucks.

I'm surmising you had a very rough night, and for that I'm truly sorry.

All of us have only one life to live. All of us have hard times, sad times, devastatingly emotional upheavals, disappointments, heartaches, problems, and dashed hopes to deal with in our lifetimes. All of us have to cope with events that do not work out the way we plan...the way we anticipate...the way we wish...the way we hope.

Why keep going? Why keep living? If life is gloomy, somber, fraught with problems and difficulties, and eventually doomed, why even go on?

I think I have two choices: give up, be depressed, and give in to despair or look for the positive, count my blessings, and put on my Disney sweet outlook in an effort to make the best of what I've got...there is always someone, somewhere who has it worse than I...I have no right to complain or whine.

A friend of mine died last Fall, succumbing to ALS, at the age of 44, leaving 3 young children. He had the most amazing spirit I have ever seen in anyone. He easily could have been morose and depressed, yet he never allowed how he was feeling to get him down. He appreciated living to the very end. He has become my inspiration.

I am an eternal optimist and, quite frankly, that annoys the hell out of some people. In my mind, it's that or quit...give up...I can't do that. I expect that we will find a way to save our world. However, if we don't, I am not going to spend my one and only life being miserable. I am going to reach out for and enjoy whatever happiness I can, for however long I can.

What will be will be...eventually, I will have to deal with the worst and, yes, it will kill me, but I will never let it kill my spirit!

Please forgive my long-windedness and my soap-box demeanor...

 
Georgia,

I'll say it again: You are a peach.

Unhinged,

First time I laughed all day. Thanks.

Kindlee,

You're going to like this:
The best moments spent lately or maybe ever have been in the quiet of the mid to late afternoon. I'll make a couple of cups of PG Tips tea and my wife and I will stop everything to sit feet entwined on the trunk that serves as a coffee table. No TV, no radio or computer- sometimes a little soft classical guitar- no words. None needed.

And then, who could say why? We'll both smile or chuckle and STILL not feel the need to explain. It is what I believe could be explained as: Enough.

Alisonnj,

I would apologize if I didn't believe that the spinning ball beneath our feet were likely to shrug off our worst and when she does, if somebody wants to credit some puny greenness, that's alright by me.
 

Stoney - I do. I like that very much. Pam

AlisonNJ:  "some slut in Tennessee"! I live in TN and that descriptor doesn't narrow things down too much. I have a real screed bottled up inside me about life here: gossip as a way of life, incredible auto accident rates because everybody here is so medicated (legally or not), a paucity of women I'd even remotely consider dating, the lack of bathing, the fact that most families need a shrine for the family tooth.

AllisonNJ:
 
One other thing: why do you cut up plastic six-pack rings? Maybe I am dumb but I don't follow.

 
Careful Mark, we have loved ones there and I'm pretty sure they would say: "Toof!"

Mark-I'm sure glad it's not like that here in genteel, hygienic, sensible Arkansas...

 
Ah yes, Arkansas, the home of alien abductions and anal probing...

You cut up plastic six-pack rings so, if they end up in the environment, they will not become caught around birds or other animals and cause them injury or death.

Damn it, another reason to drink better bottled beer or buy more than just a six.  Hey wasnt there a president from Arkansas?

 No

Greetings: Stoney & Kindlee; Your post were very moving and thought provoking. Thanks. Just wanted you to know that both meant much to me. Kindlee, ALS...my family, just this past weekend, had a benefit and a walk to help the cause. Hopefully it will help someday. Much to busy right now with the summer season arriving and the boys to gather my thoughts, but I appreciate yours. Both of ya'll please watch this link. Its worth it: http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=2539741

What did I do for Earth Day? I'm so glad someone asked...
When I got up, I took a BATH! Can you say bath? Let's ALL say BATH-mmmm...I got really clean and sweet-smelling, every little part of me, and then I put on my prettiest halter-top DRESS. I put on some nice summery sandals, too. It's fun to feel PRETTY...I brushed my hair and my teeth, and I had a nice BREAKFAST. I made breakfast burritos, and a friend came over, and we had a GOOD TIME. Next, I cleaned up my house all spic and span. I love a clean house, don't you? I had a nice sandwich for lunch, and then I made CUPCAKES! Do you like cupcakes? I sure do! Especially CHOCOLATE ones...
I'm talking to the law school students on Monday, giving a speech about social justice and tolerance, and so I made sure I had a nice Serious Talk Skirt Suit all ready to go, and wrote some notes for my presentation. It was really FUN, trying on clothes and then arranging the reasoned deconstruction of bigotry and ignorance and prejudice . Can you say PREJUDICE? It's kinda hard, I know. Wouldn't it be GREAT if we never HAD to say it, ever again? Lots of people would be so much happier...
Well, after that, I talked to some good friends about human nature. Humans and nature, like they're SEPARATE. What a concept!
Then I had some orange juice.
Now I'm writing to my other friends! What a nice Earth Day I'm having.
What did you do?

Hmmm Stoney, now you got me stumped. 
 
Okay Eyesters, just going to take a second here and pat myself on the back.  Three weeks, two dead shows, one identity theft, a near firing at work and no freaking cigarettes.

 
Wow Cap,

I sat here comfortably in the palm of the hand of God, feet hanging over the side with a warming heart just a- thinkin: Talk about editing!

Thanks and for your kind words as well.

Olivia,

How about this: I promise never again to rain on the village and you, Dick and Spot return to normal before the sugar dries.

Give 'em hell tomorrow. 

Hey Ms Olivia!  Please check out the link I posted above. 

Stoney, I'll have yew know rat naow, we don't adduct no aliens here atall. They's the ones what do all the adductin! Yew prolly thinkin a New Mexco, there boy, where they's all comin over the border alla time, or up at airya fitty-wun...
 
Anal probin'? Ain't that a Ford? My uncle Flatus had one-a them thangs, an it wuttin no count. I remember him getting out his profane torch alla time, an he hadda fix the shit outa it. Waal, I wooden have one-a them fer nuthin. Give me a Merican car, enny day!
Anal probin, my ass, he'd allus say. I say let it lie.
Ennyroads, you is all rong...

Capt, very cool.

Cap-that made my day, made me cry the good tears. Passing it on RIGHT NOW...
Thank you-how do you FIND this stuff?

Capt Neptune - Thank you for sharing that link. It was tremendous. I hope your benefit and walk were successful. I'm sure it will help someday!

 
Kindlee,

Forgot to congratulate you on yesterday's well deserved HR. You along with Peter Lake will have trouble growing things in the shade where they're stacked up like cordwood out back. And I hope you do.

Today is also National Malaria Day. Ironic.

Let's hear it for malaria, scourge of millions!