THE WAGES OF GREED

air bellows in the fog

 

Last trip to doctor's office, I went to the window to check in before taking a seat in the waiting room. A white-haired white flatlander couple in chairs immediately to my right, I took them for about my age, the woman spoke to a local man older than me sitting directly across the room from her, "Were you in the service?" He affirmed he had been. She said, "Thank you for your service." I thought: Barf! A Fake news enthusiast. My immediate dread was she might ask me the same question. Thought I'd answer I was a draft dodger like Dick Cheney, W Bush and Rummy, but, again, thought better of it: if you don't want it started, don't start it. I acted like I heard nothing, preoccupied with the pretty girl at the window, Winter, whose brother and parents I knew, all of them recently dead, a girl I applaud with all my heart for getting on so well with her life. I about break into tears when I see her, though for Fake news woman I wanted to appear flirtatious so she'd judge me a rake, insurance she'd leave me alone. No television in the waiting room set on the Fake channel, I did not want her focusing her boredom on me. 

 

 

In today's news another mass shooting, this one in San Bernardino at a Social Services office where the purpose is to help the poor. I saw that Bill Moyers posted a statistic this was the second such shooting today in America. This year, 2015, has already produced more mass shootings than days into the year, 355. The 355th day is two weeks yet to be. Every time it happens, every day, big surprise in the news. The shooters fit an obvious pattern, white, right-wing racist republican-minded Christian enthusiasts of Fake news, Donald Trump, Rush Limbaugh, and the host of hate-television, -radio, -internet, -print of a purpose to divide and conquer. It works for them. They have conquered the entire media to the point the 355th shooting this year is a surprise to all corporate tv networks. Oh look, somebody did it again. How did that happen? Buy a new Cadillac, now. Pizza with lots and lotsa cheeZ. Over the last 35 years of watching the increase in hateful attitudes inspired by Fake news, hate-radio and hate-religion, I've come to the place best for me is at home with silence.

 

 

I used to be disposed toward my peers and people older, but so many white men and women my age and older have poisoned their minds by their own potential for hate brought to the surface, the flames fanned by the corporate billionaires to divide and conquer We The People, the haters included, and render us powerless while they make all the legislation against us, take all our money and resources. Who would ever think greed could bleed out an entire population and land mass? Maybe this is why it is listed as one of the deadly sins. Greed has shown itself to be deadly to American Democracy, the American government and the American people. Even a devotee to Fake news sees it, but they've been told from the news desk greed is good, and they're good Americans, they believe what they're told. I have actually heard with my own ears someone say, "I know that for a fact. I heard it on television." 

 

 

In town at the library Monday, picking up art objects from show, standing in front of the display in the glass case of somebody's collection of Star Wars toys, Doug at the desk, we spoke of our appreciation of the Star Wars movies and looking forward to the new one. Our brief conversation segued somehow into him saying he's not seen hate in the air like it is now in his lifetime. I said I've never seen such in my lifetime, either, double his. We came to it must have been something like this in the time leading up to the War Between the States. I mentioned to him I have recently come to see we may be in a civil war. Terrorism is the nature of war now. We have every day occurrences of terrorism from white right-wing racist Christians having convulsions inspired by propaganda from Fake news and Rush Limbaugh, now Carly Fiorina and the whole clown bus, who publicly side with the shooters. They, in their minds, are at war with the rest of us. And we still don't get it.  

 

photos by tj worthington

 

 

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THE MYSTERY OF THE OBVIOUS

the hay barn

Perhaps the best thing for me to do is stop now. It may be best to just let it go for today. I'm in a rotten mood. Snowed in all day, didn't want to do anything. No music, no movie, no radio, little reading, minimal facebook, wanted to sleep all day and was interrupted just after I'd drifted into unconsciousness. No going back. Took grain to the donkeys in late afternoon, returning to the house immediately. I've laid about and laid about, watching my mood get moodier as the day went by. I turn on the radio and somebody is talking about cancer, turn the radio off. I don't think I have frustrated anger about anything in particular. It could be that I ate almost nothing yesterday and very little today. I tell self to eat something, have some Earl Grey tea, do something toward a new art project. I found some fir strips I did not know were here. This project will take some doing. It is nine six-inch plywood circles, half inch thick. Some plastic wood touches on each one will be necessary. Sanding them all too. Three rows of three circles held together by strips of fir three-quarters inch wide on the backside. The framework will run behind where the circles touch, rendering them out of sight. I'll have to fix each circle with screws in its place and make a system of numbers and letters to identify the locations on the framework where each circle goes. Take them off and paint each one of them, put them someplace to dry for a few months, then attach them to the framework with screws and glue. Doing anything toward it today was something I lacked the spirit for. I did find the sticks of fir, first step. 

mountain laurel

I'd so much rather put it together in my mind than get out the drill, the jigsaw, ruler, extension cord, paper and pencil. I have to be in a certain frame of mind for the construction. I need to see it clearly in my mind, and don't see this to the detail, yet, that I want to. This one is so labor intensive it stands before me like an obstacle course. It takes a certain mind to jump in. This is a particularly lazy day. Started a scrabble game this afternoon with somebody I'd played several games with. Forfeited the game this evening when I realized I really don't want to play scrabble anymore. I jumped in for a few weeks, but it took up too much time. My mind likes to make words out of letters, but it likes to do something else too. Comes a time I get tired of having all vowels. I used to search for the longest word and highest score I could get per turn. Today I put down the first thing I saw using no more than two or three letters, scoring 9 or 8 or 11, and not caring. Opponent scores 36, 28, 49, and I don't care. I see his score shoot way up past mine and don't care. Then say to self, if you don't care about any of it, why the hell are you wasting your time at it? I clicked on the forfeit button and left, promising self I won't be going back any time soon. At first, the game is about putting words together. Then it turns into strategies and numbers and scores. I can see the strategies are as endless as bridge strategies, I don't care to get that involved. I'd best stop playing it now that I see I don't like it anymore. I refuse to search for the highest score I can make per word. Knowing myself, I know when I'm done with something, it's over. No point in trying to force it, it will never come back. 

rhododendron

I have better things to do than focus my mind on making a higher score than somebody else. Why do I want to beat somebody at something? When I ask the question, Why?, it's over. I already know why. I've never taken an interest in competition. It may go back to my grandmother's wisdom she taught me with in childhood. I wanted to do something she thought foolish. She said, "What do you want to do that for? It's like a merry go round. You get on, you go round and round, you get off in the same place you got on. Where you been?" I didn't like the cold water that kind of thinking threw on what I thought was fun. But it never left me. Only heard it once and never forgot it. I don't even remember Bible verses that long I'd memorized for expectation in church. I remember Jesus wept. Woody Allen hit the nail on the head when he said if Jesus were to come back and see what all was done in his name, he'd never stop throwing up. It makes me laugh at these people who get their fifteen minutes of fame for some point of view devoid of compassion and call themselves Christian. I can only think they make Christian a bad name. Tell one that and be ready for the ensuing explosion of righteousness. I saw a funny clip yesterday on facebook of Pat Robertson, the wizened sage of the 700 (send me your money) club, warning that yoga is a Hindu trick to get us to praying, by way of mantra, to Hindu deities. We truly live in an insane society. When supreme ignorance passes for knowledge, the best place for me is at home. I'm doing facebook less, except for Daily Creative Practice page, bored by republican claims Obama is a Muslim. So what if he is. He has a Kenyan heritage. So what. The Bush family has a Nazi heritage and nobody complains about it. 

dogwood

I see how the Fake news channel has twisted the minds of half the American population, the below average half, white men, the obedient people most susceptible to propaganda, easy targets, and I want revenge. I want the world to be a better place, but it's not, nor is it going to be. It looks like globalization brought all the cultures in the world close enough together to see they hate each other. Ideally, bring everyone together in unity, kumbaya, but what happens when they see each other face to face: conflict. Beware of them Hindu deities. The Reagan Trojan Horse brought us division inside of division, divide and conquer. We're conquered. A cop kills an unarmed black man, woman or child and the video goes viral, he gets a paid two week vacation. Our government legislates against us, the judicial system decides against us. The corporate takeover of our government throughout the land regards "we the people" the enemy. Our resources are being drained from us into Swiss etc banks, shrinking the middle class into the working class, all of us the peasant class, a Mad Max world. I see this happening and what can I do? Read a book, advance an art project, have a nap, write, watch a movie? I've come to a place where I laugh at hope in myself. I can see now that civilization as we know it really is going completely away. It is at once incredibly interesting and dispiriting. Democracy gone away is not the end of it. In my lifetime I saw the pattern of anti-intellectualism in American life go all the way to anti-paying attention and then to anti-democracy. Them people up in Washington, they got things under control. Like my friend Lorne Campbell never dreamed he would live to see the Berlin wall go down, I never believed I'd see popular police state in America, though saw it coming since LBJ. I didn't take into account the full power of television. In my lifetime, I've seen television become American culture. I've seen the obvious become mystery. I warned you. I'm not in a good mood. However, I'll wake in the morning with a new light. Fare forward, voyager. Just had to ride this one out.       

home on waterfall road

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