THE TAILSPIN

tapo's nose

It's been rainy, overcast and cool. I'm wondering if the cool temperatures during the day may be attributed to the Iceland volcano. In years past, a big volcano caused summer weather to be cooler than usual. For all I know, it's been told about the volcano. I just don't listen to enough news or go to weather websites. I tend to figure the news is going to do what it's going to do whether I listen or not, same with the weather. I keep up with the news enough to be aware of what's being stressed at the moment, like the oil in the Gulf. I saw the CEO of BP on the hotseat, a kind of press conference on the beach. He was troubled. He looked like he hadn't slept well. He was a man with a well-intentioned mind up against a wall that had no sympathy for him. I felt for him as a man, but was also thinking he's paid so well, here's a chance for him to work for it by the sweat of his brow.

I went by Justin & Crystal's, to visit with the cat. I found CNN and happened to be in time to see this BP CEO working with all his might to say the right thing. He was probably looking at not being CEO much longer, his income and self-importance taking a nose dive. I was seeing this English man, awfully young looking to be a major oil corporation's CEO, telling me he has a brilliant mind, went to Oxford or Cambridge, enjoys a place high up in English society, and American, that is looking awfully temporary about now. He won't be without for very long. His cronies at the men's club will see to it his income doesn't take too great a plunge. It's not like he's Bernie Madoff. He had no more to do with the accident than I did, but he gets the blame. He didn't do it, but it happened on his watch. One of those great big shit happens days.

I've seen USGov push aside any attention to serious environmental concerns over the last 40+ years, and can't help but find it humorous all the governmental concerns about the inevitable like they care. I've been told the governor of Louisiana has taken the cleanup operation away from BP and the State of Louisiana will take care of it. That seems about like turning it over to Rush Limbaugh. I don't even want to think about it beyond this point, if this is, indeed, the case. Somebody was talking on CNN after the CEO speech saying it will be 3 months before the flow can be stopped. Seems it always takes a big disaster to get the American people's attention, and maybe this could be it where paying attention to the fairly obvious is concerned, that the ocean is in a precarious place. In the middle of the Atlantic, the Sargasso Sea, floating plastic from the world's trash in an area the size of 2 Texases. I've heard there's such a floating trash heap in the Pacific too.

I've given up believing American politicians can do anything effectively. Business only operates with self-interest. No help there. It's a sorrowful shame. When every party concerned is interested in self only, nothing is going to happen. Nothing has happened. Nothing will happen. It will be a disaster and the surface oil will evaporate away, the marshes and all the life forms will die. I can't help but think of a poem Robert Bly wrote back in probably the 60s. All I remember from the poem was the statement that American wants to die. I objected at the time, thought it not very well thought out. But since then, I've seen it and seen it. It keeps on going on. It's been my question for years why the American people can't see ourselves on a living, breathing planet. It's like we're in a gigantic playpen loaded with toys, distractions, television the ultimate distraction. You leave my rubber duckie alone. It's mine.

It's this mind full of mine that is taking us collectively on a downhill run after a certain point. That point is long gone in the past. I recall a poem by Edward Field from his book of poems, Variety Photoplays, about early aviators pulling the joystick away from the steep descent and flying into the ground. They learned to push the joy stick, go with the flow and come out of the tailspin whole. I'm thinking we're going to have to learn something like that before it's too late, if it's not already too late. I doubt it. Years and years of hard times bringing the standard of living down all over the earth. I see the earth is here to stay, for now anyway, and it will go on. If we make its entire surface a desert, the earth is still here. We just can't live on it any more, like a garden place that's been used so many years it won't grow anything. Civilization has used and abused our playing field to the point it's so littered it can't be played on very well. Our military is bogged down in places it doesn't belong, like usual. The most powerful military force in the world apparently is no match for the poorest countries in the world when we're at war with the people themselves. I can't see it any way but absurd that the USA is at war with the people of Iraq and can't pull out because of what might happen in our peace-keeping absence. There will certainly be a civil war and it will be bad. The most ruthless of the bunch will reign supreme.

Best not to have any money. Then you don't lose anything. That sounds a little bit like the Tao te Ching. The old books of wisdom have a lot of sound counsel in them. Civilization has thrown them out the window of the moving train for American Idol, Law&Order, Sex&the City, Rush Limbaugh, FoxTV. There isn't much place for wisdom any more. Not many people looking for it. But, there are those. There is never much wisdom going around in any generation or Age. Distraction is what sells. But, as in all generations and Ages, there is wisdom and people to be found you might say have wisdom. The people who have it make nothing of it. They just use their wisdom to make their own decisions. In traditional societies all around the world, all down through time, wisdom was valued. In civilization as it is today, wisdom has no place. You might say, it's on hold. It's always available.

I was told once I was a wise man because I didn't watch television. I thought, that can't be all there is to it, because I don't have wisdom and I've not watched tv since I've been on my own, except for the occasional peep at somebody's house. I think about 2% of American population doesn't watch tv. That translates a rather large number. If we have that many wise people in America, maybe we'll make it. I doubt, however, that's a measure. I see it as 2 different ways of seeing, that's all. People who watch tv tend to think a certain way. People who don't watch tv think another way. It's just another way of thinking. I can't call it superior in any way, because I see people who watch a lot of television doing more and better and more interesting than anything I've ever done. I know people who watch television with a lot more brilliant minds than mine. Or shall I say, people with brilliant minds, of which I am not one. I like to listen to people with brilliant minds talk and like to read what they write. I'm awed by their intelligence. We need them.