Overall I’m the sort of person that does my best to keep as many people agreeing with me as possible. In this blog I’ve written about music festivals, trips to the post office; things that most people, regardless of their personal beliefs, can relate to in some way. But lately I’ve been having a hard time coming up with fluffy subjects to write about. This is not surprising given what is in the news these days, with the uprisings in the Middle East, the natural disasters in Japan, and the not-so-natural one that is unfolding at their nuclear power plants. Then there is our own country’s financial crisis and the fact that the tundra is thawing and the polar ice cap is melting at an alarming rate. While the things within my own household are going along just fine, I am feeling the weight of the bigger things that feel beyond my control. Some days I want to ignore the news completely because the knowledge one gains from becoming informed is painful. And pain is to be avoided at all costs, right?
Well I’m starting to think that feeling a little pain is in order. A few years ago I injured my back in a car accident. The doctor cautioned me about numbing the pain too much. If you can’t feel the pain, it’s easy to reinjure yourself, he told me, and it can make things worse. And he was right. On a few occasions I pushed it too far and paid for it the next day.
Maybe as a culture we’re taking too many pain killers; they come in so many different forms these days. All of our distractions and obsessions can keep us from facing some pretty painful realities about what we’re doing to our planet, and consequently the people who live on it. Watching the nuclear crisis unfold in Japan is like someone pulling off a Band Aid to expose a festering wound that we’ve numbed and covered up for too long. Now that it’s exposed we can see that we shouldn’t have built nuclear power plants in one of the most seismically active regions in the world. It seems so obvious in retrospect. And the reality of what it could mean is beyond painful, it’s horrific.
And what other things are we choosing not to notice? They are too numerous to count, and it’s overwhelming to start tallying them up. And yet, how are these problems going to go away if we ignore them? The answer is that they aren’t going to go away at all. Nobody is going to rescue us from the damage we’re doing, not God, not the aliens, probably not a giant asteroid hitting the earth. The problems we’ve created are only going to get worse unless we start paying attention, and taking action. We can start by speaking up, questioning the system that allows corporations to degrade our planet and by demanding that human health and safety take priority over money. We can start by educating ourselves about some of the things we’d like to ignore. Even if means going outside of what makes us comfortable. Even if it hurts.
Lofty Minded in Alaska 
I like this…
Thanks!
Hi,
I got excited when I saw a new email from your blog.
I really liked this post and I would like to respond to you, but am reluctant to put it out for all the world to see.
What I would like to say may be better illustrated by this story.
My best friend from high school came up in 2005 with his 2 sons 9 and 13.
We took off for a white water raft trip on the Talkeetna river. I had hired a jet boat to take us, and our raft 6 hours up the river for an awesome float downstream.
Because we hadn’t seen each other for 12 years conversation in the pickup flowed fast and colorful on the ride up there, and all of a sudden his 9 year old says “ when are we gonna get there?’
I had been so engrossed in our conversation, that I didn’t notice, and missed the turn off to Talkeetna.
We were 2 hours past happily on our way up to Denali. But Denali wasn’t the destination.
The town of Talkeetna was.
So my point is, this situation needed some critical thinking skills.
I needed to recognize I could never get to Talkeetna if I continued to travel north on that road.
I had to reverse my course and take the hit of time and asphalt, and go back another 2 hours (4 in total) to the turn off In order to get to the drift boat service at Talkeetna.
What frustration would I enjoy if I was incapable of recognizing my mistake and employing the corrective intervention.
My point is that unless we recognize where we went wrong as a country and reverse that decision we will never get to where we want to go.
According to Black’s Law dictionary, (4th edition page 1300) a person is such not because he is human, but because of the rights and duties ascribed to him.
There are 2 kinds of persons Natural and artificial.
Artificial persons include a collection or succession of natural persons forming a corporation.
This wrong turn was made in the United states bankruptcy act of 1898.
It has only been just a little bit longer than the length of a grandmothers life time.
If an Artificial corporation has just as much legal standing in our courts as a natural human being person, (And our supreme court has determined that to be so)
but not the frailties of the needs that come with being human like death in about 70 years, and being vulnerable to pain, hunger, thirst, love, and the need for shelter,
And our government is beholden to these corporations that unlike us have the ability to print currency and buy votes, then we will never reach the land of freedom and liberty like the brochure advertises.
This is where we missed the turn.
The purpose that we the people crated our government was to secure our rights and freedoms.
What do you call a person that resides outside the law?
You call them an outlaw. The constitution is the contract that the states and people signed with the federal government.
The federal government is in violation of that contract.
We are witnessing what happens in the cycle that mankind has dealt with from the beginning.
Tell me if this sounds familiar.
Prosperity leads to apathy. That leads to tyranny, from tyranny to oppression. From oppression to destruction.
Destruction leads to repentance, repentance leads to courage, and then rebellion.
From rebellion to prosperity and the cycle repeats.
Liberty like life springs forth by its own volition, and belongs to those who would posses it, not those who would oppress it.
Why do we let these fools and criminals ruin our life and that of the planet?
Apathy and weakness, and not understanding history.
I say these thing to you because you are a librarian.
A keeper of knowledge. A high priestess of accumulated truth.
A librarian is someone you ask when one is in search of knowledge.
I give you face and respect. You can see things that not everybody can see because you are not ignorant and apathetic.
I enjoy your writing, keep it up.
We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain UN-ALIENABLE rights, That among these are life liberty and pursuit of happiness,-That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among men, deriving just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any government becomes destructive of theses ends it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it and institute a new government laying its foundation on such principals and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall seem most likely to affect their safety and happiness.
If I was a librarian, I would want everybody not to forget these words.
Our corrupt outlaw corporate whore government has.
I am not against the government. I am against corrupt government.
I believe all educated wholesome and real human beings should be.
Unalienable means you cannot put a lien against, or sell or give away, or become separated from.
We do not get our rights from the government. We delegate temporary power to them for the purpose of securing our rights as long as they are a suitable steward.
Before we can extricate ourselves from the problem, we must first correctly identify it and create a reversal.
Our government does not represent us, we the people. It represents corporations.
Signed,
the ghost of Thomas Jefferson
Hi Ghost…. I appreciate your comment as I feel it has helped in educating me about the root of some of our problems. A huge problem exists with corporations having the rights of people. How can a vulnerable person, with limited life span and income, ever compete?
I recommend two movies. One is called Collapse, the other is called Gasland. Gasland is available at the library. Keep writing, and educating.