Benjamin Zander’s Quiet Performance & Deafening Messages | Life Lessons & Classical Music

If you have ever loved or lost anyone, you will value Benjamin Zander’s TED talk über musik und leidenschaft / about music and passion. It’s an emotionally charged and humorous talk full of wisdom & life lessons, woven into a lecture and performance about classical music.  The talk is in English with German subtitles.

I just listened to Benjamin Zander’s emotionally charged and profound TED talk a second time in the space of a few weeks, and have tears streaming down my face. The first time I felt it was formidable. I realize now, that it’s one of the most profound lectures and performances, packed with humor and life-lessons, that anyone could deliver in 20 minutes.

Benjamin Zander’s Quiet Performance and Deafening Messages TED talk

It is about much, much more than classical music and perhaps should be something that one could turn into a course for a whole semester. I believe that we all could gain very much, listening to his lessons again and again. Wow! There’s so much to contemplate from the nuggets of wisdom that he weaves into it. It’s quite a challenge actually.

Please share it widely.

UN World Environment Day June 5th | Ethical Footprint | Ethical vs. Unethical Construction

I hadn’t known, had I not gone on the internet, that the United Nations declared a World Environment Day of June 5th. Fabulous that there is a designated day to be aware of the environment.

On World Environment Day, and every day, we should all be thinking creatively about how to accommodate wildlife in our own lives. Trees, bushes, waterways, clean air and water, highway animal bridges and tunnels, bee highways with plants attracting pollinators, with a consciousness Promoting Smarter Wildlife Management.

World Environment Day June 5th

I’d like to point out what I learned, walking around in neighborhoods that I love, because of their fabulous properties of trees and beautiful adornment of living plants, that naturally attract and welcome living animals.

To me, nothing, nothing is more spectacular than the natural world. And the properties with old money on this hill adjacent to where i live demonstrate their wisdom, in adorning and conserving as much nature as possible. You hear birds, see rabbits and other life hopping about.

This property with the yellow circle around it, is a disgrace. They wiped out thickly forested lot, to build a sprawling mansion, with not one tree left behind. I’d spray paint my feelings, except that it won’t bring the trees or life back that the owners destroyed, in order to build their outrageous sprawl, a desolate prison, with no life to regard.

It is an example of unethical behavior.

An ethical consumer looks for products which are both friendly to the environment and for the people who produce them.

The ecological footprint measures human demand on nature, i.e., the quantity of nature it takes to support people or an economy.

“An ‘ethical consumer’ looks for products which, above all, are both friendly to the environment and also the people who produce them. An ethical consumer is therefore aware of the consequences of production, consumption and disposal.”

Let the pictures do the talking. I avoid going down this street because i feel annoyance at the nouveau riche lack of heart and insight and sadness, knowing  that all of these lovely trees were wiped out, affecting so many different creatures. An elderly man whom I chatted with one evening 5 months or so ago, told me when I mentioned this reckless building, that the property had several hundred year old trees on it, in fact, from the looks of googlemaps before it was updated, dozens of trees.

I discovered recently with delight this property within a frisbee throw, catecornered across the street. As one approaches from several angles, all you see is a mini forest.

thickly forested green plot, before picture

 

And what they did to the once forested property. This home could have been a third the size, and maintained a profoundly beautiful plot that their children could play in an that invites wonder and habitation by many species.

unethical_building_trees gone

 

 

This builder, knocked down, gutted, every single tree, every single one of them, to make this sprawling property with a tiny bit of lawn and a lot of asphalt to accommodate their cars. It is revolting. And the property across the street with the green ring, as you approach you only see, feel and hear the silence of a forest with birds. It is breathtakingly beautiful. So that the actual construction is engulfed, ringed by trees, except in the front. And the new building in the yellow, is what the builders created, destroying all life that was there, and making sure none of it will come back. They did not even plant bushes – very necessary for cover and a humane yard – and other plants with the intention to accommodate birds and animals – a Humane Backyard.

ethical_vs_unethical_building

All life that had been there or could walk or fly by, has no place to go, no life, no green, no water source, no tree for life, no butterfly or pollinator by-way, nothing. Just me, me, me and my big property that is hollow of life and nature’s delight.

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Greta Thunberg Swedish SchoolStrike Climate Activist Demands | Informing the Public & Declaring an Emergency

Greta Thunberg speech Austrian World summit

A year ago the Swedish 15 year old student, Greta Thunberg, began striking her school and sitting before the Swedish Parliament. Her demand was for her government and the press to be honest about the issue of climate change and to inform the public. She was initially prompted to strike after wondering why there had been silence on the issue? Why had it not been foremost on everyone’s agenda and in every news story?

In her present speech at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna, Greta Thunberg has yet another powerful delivery. She mentions that millions of students were inspired around the world to strike school for the climate. Yet students can’t do what all of you adults can. This needs to be declared an emergency and made top priority.

Greta Thunberg captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

 

She reprimands the audience that they haven’t been living up to their responsibility. Reminding them in her straightforward tone that, ‘humans are capable of so much, yet, still, hardly anyone is aware of the gravity of the situation. Most of the world is uninformed that it is even an issue at all.’ She admonishes them, ‘we need to know’.

Greta Thunberg’s captive audience speaking at the Austrian World Summit in Vienna

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carol_may25_selfie_smile

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white blossoming Crabapple tree | Swan Point cemetery, Providence, Rhode Island, USA

I fortunately left just enough white area and took pictures of this Crabapple white blossoming tree on the first sitting. She had already lost her blossoms by my second sitting in the Swan Point cemetery on Memorial Day. I just completed it at home – I usually always sit before my subject live. – just completed it May 29, 2019.

 

Crabapple white blossoms photo progression google

 

carol_may25_selfie_smile

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Spring Bursts in May Bicycling Providence Rhode Island USA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sacred Economics by Charles Eisenstein | You’re at Your Best – Doing What You Love

Charles Eisenstein, I discovered through a Facebook group initially, “The More Beautiful World”, that our Hearts Know is Possible.

He created a short film to introduce the concepts of his book, through the direction and production of Ian MacKenzie

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

“Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism, revealing how the money system has contributed to alienation, competition, and scarcity, destroyed community, and necessitated endless growth. As we imagine new ways of interacting with one another and with all life on the planet, we may find great opportunity to transition to a more connected, ecological, and sustainable way of being.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein is a book he wrote.
Here’s where you can learn more about Sacred Economics and purchase the book.

Sacred Economics book with Charles Eisenstein

 

 

 

Why is there a biodiversity crisis? Why are we drilling for more oil?…Many questions that you ask about the world come down after several layers of why, to the answer of money.

You can read the pdf file online, http://sacred-economics.com/read-online/ translated into 12 languages

This new narrative of sacred economics, shifts the individual to following what they inherently love doing and do best, so that rather than feeling incapable of pursuing what they love to do because of the lack of economic support, they are free to do just that. This is why I’ve incorporated the message of Joseph Campbell, a

The writer Joseph Campbell coined the term Follow Your Bliss.

The Power of Myth is the full transcript of 24 hours of interviews by Bill Moyers of Joseph Campbell

Great advice from Joseph Campbell – Follow Your Bliss

“Campbell saw as the greatest human transgression “the sin of inadvertence, of not being alert, not quite awake.”

 

You’re at Your Best – Doing What You Love

 >Make Your Play Your Work, and York Work Your Play<

His introductory short film ‘Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix‘, directed by Ian MacKenzie reveals a lot of information about quite a different narrative of perceiving and feeling about the natural world.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix directed by Ian MacKenzie

Charles Eisenstein’s book Sacred Economics. Is what he’s come to offer to the world as his gift, realizing that by following the truth and what is in our hearts, this concept will really take on a life of its own and spread physically, as more people become aware of it. Like reaching a critical mass, we can adopt it as a new universal way of looking at our world and our place in it. He talks of the money economy that we have been in, as both the source and the symptom, of an old narrative that has had to do with continually wanting and needing to take things that were once free and plentiful in nature and shared between people as gifts, and turned these into goods and services that we then sell back to one another.

Charles talks of the planet as a living being whose organs and tissues are all the natural systems and biomass; of the different natural waterways, forests, coral reefs, watersheds, elephants, bears, wolfs, butterflies and insects are all part of the planet and its health. The health of humanity and all creatures depends on the health and balance of all of these systems of life.

Here’s an interview of Charles Eisenstein by Russell Brand. Video · Climate Change – What’s The Whole Truth? | Russell Brand & Charles Eisenstein

Climate Change What is the Whole Truth Charles Eisenstein interview by Russell Brand

Charles Eisenstein who’s written a book on the subject, says that in the traditional sense, people are reducing all problems of the Earth from an environmental perspective to climate change.

Within it Charles talks of the living earth narrative.

In it Charles mentions that we are not recognizing the earth as a living being, with its tissues and organs equivalents to forests, grasslands, coral reefs, elephants, birds…He mentions that only talking about the environment and carbon output, is reduces the problems to one thing, CO2 levels, and completely ignores all the other different factors that are part of this massive ecocide (mass extinction) by reducing things only to numbers.

Sacred Economics with Charles Eisenstein 2019 remix

Sacred Economics traces the history of money from ancient gift economies to modern capitalism

 

 

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Joel Sartore photo ark picture and the blogger, Carol Keiter

the Green New Deal Takes Precedency & an AOC Endorsement Takes the Presidency

Turns out that I wrote too hastily before knowing the facts, therefore the initial message of my post was a misinformed hunch. I hadn’t realized that there’s a minimum age limit of 35 years to be president of the United States of America. Therefore, at best, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is campaigning to make sure that the Green New Deal plays a major role on all platforms. And as her popularity sky rockets because of her cleverness, authenticity and passion – as this article in the Guardian stresses – who she endorses will be a major issue for all contenders.

Democrats covet an endorsement from Ocasio-Cortez

This would be the time for Trump to throw out yet another executive order – bypassing laws – to lower the age limit of running for president. 🙂

Get Ready for the Green New Deal as expressed by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

We are here to say “No More” “Basta”

As she states in this rally for the Green New Deal at Howard University in Washington D.C.

“We can not allow ourselves to be bullied out of our values, any more. Our history may be written, but our future is not. Cynicism is what the established 1% want you to have. Yet, the average every day person has never been more powerful than it is today. We all need to have these conversations, to elevate our collective consciousness. Big Money has never been weaker.”

Get Ready for the Green New Deal as being a central issue for whomever Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez endorses as a democratic runner for President.

“No More” “Basta”

She says, “We can not allow ourselves to be bullied out of our values, any more. Our history may be written, but our future is not. Cynicism is what the established 1% want you to have, yet the average every day person has never been more powerful than it is today; to have these conversations, to elevate our collective consciousness. Big Money has never been weaker.”

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Green New Deal speech

The Green New Deal campaign rally will convince the American public of the importance of taking care of our relationship to the earth, and to one another, above anything else.

 

Inequality and Earth Injustice ‘No More’

 

I’m all over it! For non-native English speakers that means, I’m full-on 100% aligned and in support of the Green New Deal and everything this beautiful, brave, articulate and erudite woman says. She’s extremely well educated and intelligent. She knows what she’s talking about AND she has the passion and down-to-earth humanity to communicate the feeling that you can trust her. I am so grateful that she is putting massive energy into putting many topics out in front, that have been side-lined or simply taboo to even discuss.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Green New Deal speech

I trust that the American people can listen and be convinced if they are on the fence, and fully embrace what she is saying from the heart about how much industrial and corporate powers have gotten away with at the expense of people who they trampled over. I believe that whoever she endorses, she will be continue to put on the heat and emphasize diplomatically to the world what needs to be on every leader’s table.

Ocasio-Cortez blows roof off building with EPIC speech

And it could be this heroic woman will actually, despite perhaps fear, reticence and reluctance at first, lead all of us to actually participate in saving our planet and as many species as we can.

I stand by her. I’ve been impressed with every speech. Therefore her campaign for the Green New Deal will certainly require anyone who she endorses, to be someone who will completely support it and promise to lead the public to make the dramatic changes that we need to make across the world, to save as many life forms of the planet from extinction and ourselves, and to change the course of the mainstream consciousness.

Just as with the actions and presence of Greta Thunberg, the Swedish girl who started the school strikes to end her governments and the world’s silence about global warming and extinction, I feel very hopeful that AOC has taken the world stage!

We Can do this, We Must do this Together and We Can Have a Great Time As We Make the Changes Together

> Learning, Creating, Inspiring and Conspiring <

Corporate Greed and Corpocrisy No More

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Carol Keiter the blogger

Accelerating Extinction Rates | Intergovernmental Science-Policy on Biodiversity & Ecosystem Services | Soiling the Earth | Soil not Oil

A few days ago I had one after another article pop up in my Facebook feed talking about the same UN report that had just been released. I decided to compile these and simply let the pictures and headlines speak for themselves.

Media Release: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’

1,000,000 species threatened with extinction

The recently released IPCC report (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) of November 2018, was widely distributed in news channels internationally. It was talking about the serious consequences for humanity for global warming of 1.5º C.

This is to me, more devastating.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Report (IPBES) states that

“Nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history — and the rate of species extinctions is accelerating, with grave impacts on people around the world now likely.

The health of ecosystems on which we and all other species depend is deteriorating more rapidly than ever. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.”

“The Report also tells us that it is not too late to make a difference, but only if we start now at every level from local to global,” he said. “Through ‘transformative change’, nature can still be conserved, restored and used sustainably – this is also key to meeting most other global goals.”

 

Human Society Urgent Threat UN Report The Guardian

The article, Human society under urgent threat from loss of Earth’s natural life

states “The biomass of wild mammals has fallen by 82%, natural ecosystems have lost about half their area and a million species are at risk of extinction. Two in five amphibian species are at risk of extinction, as are one-third of reef-forming corals, and close to one-third of other marine species.” The populations of insects have been crashing as wll.

It is time to do something, isn’t?

What can we do together?

Keynote – Dr. Vandana Shiva, Soil Not Oil International Conference 2017

I DO NOT WANT TO LOSE THE LIFE ON EARTH.

Joel Sartore, photographer, has created this Gallery: The Photo Ark, documenting all species of bird, amphibian and animal.

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Carol Keiter the blogger

IPCC Climate Change Report | Highest Recorded CO2 Levels & Arctic Temperatures | Bill Mckibben Discussing Significance of Rising CO2 | Greta Thunberg TED Talk | Enforcing Legislation

In November of 2018, an (IPCC) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report by internationally collaborating scientists, spoke of the nefarious consequences of global warming of 1.5º C.

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration

Articles sprouted this last week regarding a report released by researchers at Hawaii’s Mauna Loa Observatory, who recorded record-setting temperatures this last Saturday, May 11th.
atmospheric research facility

Carbon Dioxide Levels In The Atmosphere Hit Highest Mark In Human History, written by Nina Golgowski

“Carbon dioxide levels in the Earth’s atmosphere have soared to a new high, one never before been seen in human history, researchers announced as temperatures near the Arctic circle rose into the 80s.”

These alarmingly warm temperatures came as a daily CO2 reading by atmospheric researchers on Saturday recorded a 415.26 parts per million (ppm) baseline.”

Rebecca Lindsey wrote in August 2018 Climate Change: Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide regarding the 2017 rate of carbon dioxide atmospheric levels as 405.0 ppm parts per million. She wrote this US government report from the (NOAA) National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Science and Information for a Climate-Smart Nation.

Carbon Dioxide Rising Levels Climate NOAA

Here is the Annual 2018 Global Climate Report by the NOAA. https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201813

A person passionately familiar with what this reading means, he started 350.org in 2008, stressing to educate the public about the need to cap CO2 atmospheric levels at 350. Well his target limit was exceeded in 2017 at 405.26 ppm, and the last week carbon concentrations surpassed 415 parts per million. Bill McKibben discusses the significance of the rising CO2 levels in this audio interview.

Bill McKibben discusses the significance of the rising CO2 levels

My post was originally going to be another tally of my encounters with people sitting in or standing by their stationary vehicles with the engine left running. I will let this linger at the end, just to point out that despite the dramatic need to absolutely change the world’s reliance on fossil fuels and large industrial practices in general that disrupt ecological balances, it is absolutely up to all of us to find alternative ways of viewing what we take for granted and assume is a typical and natural behavior.

As Greta Thunberg mentioned in one of her first speeches, that to the Swedish public before the Parliament to explain her reasoning behind striking school as a 15 year old. She stated that most people are more fearful of having to adjust their behavior that relies on fossil fuels out of habit and convenience, than they are fearful of climate change itself. The problem is that it just isn’t quite grasped, it feels like a remote problem, like a remote-control war that you see short sound bites of that is happening across the globe. Well, the other major factor in peoples’ lack of concern, is the complete absence of reporting about it by the media or governments undertaking it as a major issue. Therefore the public is not only not informed, but often due to huge amounts of money poured into disinformation by petroleum industry lobbying groups, they are way misinformed.

Here is the now 16 year old audacious and articulate Swedish girl Greta Thunberg giving a TED talk about the dire need to act now to avert the most dramatic repercussions of climate change.

Greta Thunberg TED talk on climate change

Yesterday, I came upon a couple nicely dressed, obvious professionals, involved in a conversation on the sidewalk, standing several meters from the large SUV parked there with the engine running. I cycled back around to direct my voice to them saying in the most gentle way possible, do you realize that we’re in a climate crisis, and CO2 is going from your vehicle into the atmosphere? Several minutes later I bicycled by a backhoe that was stationary, but the engine on, as two men worked by it, no person in the cab. As I cycled by their work van, I saw and felt that the engine was on, no one nearby. I circled back to the men to say -as gently as I could – why do you have your engines on? The guy at first looked at me, then when he realized I was making a ‘critical observation’, he ignored me. Finally he said coarsely, “Does anyone tell you how to ride your bike?”

I looked up the Department of Environmental Management of Rhode Island, the State where I’m living. Located it, went there, walking in with a back pack on a Friday afternoon, I already looked suspicious. My question, “WHY IS THIS NOT A LAW? You can generate income by fining people. When I first arrived to this town and realized as a bicyclist that consistently, in every socio economic neighborhood, people have a tendency to sit in their cars with the engine idling. In fact, plenty are not even in their cars, but near them, as they leave the engines running.

Fortunately the woman officer with whom I spoke understood the concerns, stated that there had been at one point anti-idling laws and that in fact in the more old money town of Newport, there is anti-idling legislation.

From the time that I was beginning to drive, before their was a threat of accelerating temperatures due to human activities; heat and transportation demands, I naturally knew that there was no reason to leave an engine running. It wastes fuel, it spews out exhaust.

Obviously what impacts the environment on a much larger scale, are the industries that mine for coal and oil and transport it, and use this energy on a large scale for industrial operations and large, institutional constructions.

Nevertheless, as populations continue to increase and more and more people come to demand having their own automobile or truck, the collective use affects the CO2 levels. There are plenty of reports that reveal that idling engines are contributing to the higher levels of Carbon Dioxide, a green house gas that is warming the earth as it concentrates heat.

Since there appears to be, even in this college town with an ivy league school, an uncanny disassociation among the population and workers for the University of the consequences of their actions. Since I’ve already written numerous letters to the Mayor, Governor and State Legislature, it seemed the next move, to bring this to their attention. The officer with whom I spoke really warmed up to me after her initial skeptical looking expression, I said that if you employ me, I could make the government a thousand dollars an hour. She laughed. She told me that rather than telling people about the climate consequences, tell them that there are fines for idling.

Let’s educate ourselves as much as possible and talk with one another about the best things we can do to change our behaviors, while the new politicians on the block like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez do their best to confront the established powers and force the government to stop their silence, and begin orchestrating the Green New Deal.

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Carol sitting under the trees

Arundhati Roy’s Extraordinary Eloquence, Poetically Incising the Truth

I wasn’t going to do another blog till I complete my book. However I decided to listen to the entire Democracy Now news hour while I chopping vegetables preparing my dinner, when I saw that Amy Goodman would be interviewing here. I am once again absolutely blown away with how sharply Arundhati Roy incises the truth with her vision.

I first learned of Arundhati Roy decades ago, after the September 11th attacks in the United States. In her Come September speech in 2002, she peels the truth from the political and economic realities of the constructs of our world, to expose power and powerlessness. It is of the context of what was going on at that time, and is STILL THE TRUTH.

I blogged about Arundhati Roy’s profound speech, “Come September” in 2009 https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2009/10/31/arundhati-roy/

Come September is A PROFOUND BEARING OF TRUTH. Roy speaks poetically to power on the US’s War on Terror, globalization, the misuses of nationalism, and the growing chasm between the rich and poor.

Arundhati Roy full speech 2002 Come September

Her first fiction novel is entitled “God of Small Things”

Please take the time to listen to each of the interviews. She is profound in her imagery and astounding insightfulness.

Each of these segments have the transcripts. I suggest you trying to find as much of here writings (fiction and non-fiction) and speeches, as you can!

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/13/arundhati_roy_a_us_attack_on

Arundhati Roy: A U.S. Attack on Iran Would Be “Biggest Mistake It Has Ever Made”

https://www.democracynow.org/2019/5/13/arundhati_roy_capitalism_is_a_form

Arundhati Roy: Capitalism Is “a Form of Religion” Stopping Solutions to Climate Change & Inequality

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKaU8skVKnU

Arundhati Roy on the Power of Fiction: “Literature is The Simplest Way of Saying a Complicated Thing”

Arundhati Roy Interview Democracy Now

“As the ice caps melt, as oceans heat up and water tables plunge, as we rip through the delicate web of interdependence that sustains life on earth, as our formidable intelligence leads us to breach the boundaries between humans and machines and our even more formidable hubris undermines our ability to connect the survival of our planet to our survival as a species, as we replace art with algorithms and stare into a future in which most human beings may not be needed to participate in or be remunerated for economic activity, at just such a time we have the steady hands of white supremacists in the White House, new imperialists in China and neo-Nazis once again massing on the streets of Europe, Hindu nationalists in India, and a host of butcher princes and lesser dictators in other countries to guide us into the unknown.

While many of us dreamt that another world is possible, these folks were dreaming, too. And it is their dream, our nightmare, that is perilously close to being realized. Capitalism’s gratuitous wars and sanctioned greed have jeopardized the planet and filled it with refugees. Much of the blame for this rests squarely on the shoulders of the government of the United States. Seventeen years after invading Afghanistan, after bombing it into the Stone Age with the sole aim of toppling the Taliban, the U.S. government is back in talks with the very same Taliban. In the interim, it has destroyed Iraq, Libya and Syria. Hundreds of thousands have lost their lives to war and sanctions. A whole region has descended into chaos, ancient cities pounded into dust.

Amidst the desolation and the rubble, a monstrosity called Daesh, ISIS, has been spawned. It has spread across the world, indiscriminately murdering ordinary people who had absolutely nothing to do with America’s wars. Over these last few years, given the wars it has waged and the international treaties it has arbitrarily reneged on, the U.S. government perfectly fits its own definition of a rogue state. And now resorting to the same old scare tactics, the same tired falsehoods and the same old fake news about nuclear weapons, it is gearing up to bomb Iran. That will be the biggest mistake it has ever made.”

Pope Francis Encyclical on Climate Change

 

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December 10th, 2018 Carol Keiter

“I Am” documentary | What is Wrong with the World? What can we do about it?

After facing his own death, film producer Tom Shadyac suddenly had an instant sense of clarity and purpose. He went around the world with a film crew of four, to talk with significant minds, authors, journalists, academics, leaders, historians, religious leaders who had been extremely influential and inspirational in his own life, to ask two questions: What is Wrong with the World? What can we do about it?

He created this documentary film in three parts. This is it. Tom Shadyac director of I Am. Part one.

Asking whether there is a fundamental, endemic problem, that causes all the other problems?

I Am, Albert Einstein quote

I Am Part Two introduces HeartMath, the concept that the heart is smart and in many indigenous cultures, the heart is the center of consciousness, not the brain. It also ventures into quantum entanglement.

Desmond Tutu God says I dont have anybody else except you

I Am Howard Zinn No evidence that war comes out of some innate human need

“I Am” Part Three introduces the fact that mass mind – many individual actions together – really does affect the fabric of reality. The evolutionary biologist, Elisabet Sahtouris, states
this is a participatory universe. Interconnectivity. Everything that we do in it, changes it. We have an interior role in co-creating with all the other species.

Everything on our planet is alive.
 

I Am Part Three Howard Zinn talks about how change happens in increments by individual actions together. Desmond Tutu states that change happens, when each person feels concern.

I Am quote Ralph Waldo Emerson

The Power of One person.

I Am video on Vimeo Dr David Suzuki

I Am We should be grateful and celebrate our relatives

Dr. David Suzuki, scientist, author “The Sacred Balance”, mentions Wade Davis’s term the ethnosphere: the sum total of all of the ways that humans beings have imagines the world into existence. Suzuki talks about the separation of humanity from the natural world, and the fact that the economy is the most important thing in our lives.

Among the people interviewed:

Lynne McTaggart – Author, “the Field” talks of the stories that fashion our worldview, in a competition, scarcity, in which a person needs to be significant, at someone else’s expense

Dean Radin – Senior Scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences,

Howard Zinn – Historian, Author “A People’s History of the United States”

John Francis – Environmentalist, Author “Planetwalker”

Noam Chomsky- Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, MIT

Desmond Tutu – Archbishop, Cape Town, South Africa

Thom Hartmann – Author “Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight”
There’s a fundamental difference between machines and life, and we are running our society as if we are a machine and as if the world is a machine
Thom mentions Jack Davis Professor of Native American studies at UCA Davis, talks of the Native American term “Wetico” = cannibal – one who eats the life of another. It is considered an illness.

Daniel Quinn – Author, “Ishmael”

Ray Anderson – CEO Interface

Chris Jordan – Photographer

Coleman Barks – Poet, Author “The Essential Rumi”

Marc Ian Barasch – Author, “Field Notes on the Compassionate Life”

Dacher Keltner – Professor of Psychology, UC Berkeley

Rollin McCraty – Senior Researcher, Heartmath Institute

Elisabet Sahtouris – Evolutionary Biologist

Marilyn Schlitz – President, CEO Institute of Noetic Sciences

 

eco_revolution

Carol holding the plastic globe

XR Extinction Rebellion ‘Die-In’ staged by Climate Activists simultaneously Around the World

The Extinction Rebellion worldwide coordinated Die=In’s are just the beginning. This is to get everyone’s attention.

What could be more essential than living in a beautiful environment in harmony with one another, working together to ensure that we help one another to get our values clear – that we live on a beautiful planet, with which we are inextricably connected. It is up to each one of us to learn about what we can do, to be aware of the damages that human industries and lifestyles have done to impact the natural world. Each one of us has the capability and responsibility to learn about and share what each of us can do to act in ways that will ensure a more equitable world for all living creatures.

You can read about the actions and join the extinction rebellion. It is up to each one of us to value what is essential in quality of life: health, clean air, water and soil that is not poisoned by chemicals, pesticides and pharmaceuticals and the protection of habitats for all life on this planet.

Extinction Rebellion Worldwide Die-In

Extinction Rebellion climate change activists stage mass ‘die-in’ protests across the globe to put spotlight on risk to human life

XR Extinction Rebellion Mass Die-In at the Natural History Museum Museum photo Terry Matthews

XR Extinction Rebellion Pakistan

Extinction Rebellion Die-In Chili Photo by Belen Morales Ferrer

Protesters lie down in the streets in France, Australia, New Zealand, Finland, Sweden, Norway, Italy, The Netherlands and the UK.

and Germany, Chili, Pakistan, the Czech Republic, the USA….

“The actions were part of worldwide celebration at 12.05pm called by Extinction Rebellion Berlin following the protests that began in London in November 2018, which have since spawned a mass movement.”

Banksy Extinction Rebellion artwork appears at protest site at London

‘Banksy’ Extinction Rebellion artwork appears at protest site at London’s Marble Arch

California signs up for China’s Belt and Road Forum to help in fight against climate change

“Although the US federal government has snubbed the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, representatives from America’s most populous state are attending to drum up support for international efforts to tackle climate change.”

Earth Day April 22 | Msg from the Future ~Green New Deal~ with AOC | Extinction Rebellion

Today, April 22, 2019 is Earth Day!

Earth Day April 22

“On April 22, 1970, millions of people took to the streets to protest the negative impacts of 150 years of industrial development.” This was almost 50 years ago! I currently live in Providence, Rhode Island. I just watched as I stood in a coat and sweater, with long underwear on, a man get out of his truck in a t-shirt, then get back in, turn on the engine, and sit there parked, with dark brown and grey fumes coming from the ignition. He sat there for a long time. I stopped approaching people about the topic of their spoiling the air by leaving their engine’s idling after the first few months.

Earth Day April 22.

 

Certainly the most exciting thing presently, is the release of this fabulously illustrated, simple and direct message which reaches us through the heart.

The Intercept: A Message From The Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

A Message from the Future with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Intercept

You can listen to the making of this message through Democracy Now, “A Message from the Future with AOC”: New Film Imagines World Transformed by the Green New Deal

In the meantime, The Climate Reality Project states “In report after report, including the IPCC’s Special Report on Global Warming of 1.5 °C, the world’s leading scientific experts have sounded the alarm that unprecedented and aggressive measures must be taken to reduce emissions to safe levels to protect our future.”

The Climate Reality Project Protect Our Planet

Which is why scientists and professionals as well as school children globally such as the Sunrise Movement, are stating that writing books and relying on the government as leaders and guides in addressing climate change and creating legislation to honestly do something about it, has not been working. That’s why people have started to Rebel for Life.

Extinction Rebellion: what pushes people to drastic action on climate change?

Farhana Yamin is a climate changer lawyer who helped draft the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015. She participated in the Extinction Rebellion and was arrested, expressing that at various points in time people have to take a stand and act, in order for things to change, such as Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

Farhana Yamin Climate Change Lawyer who helped draft Paris Climate agreement arrested XR

Extinction Rebellion, which began on April 15th in London and locations WorldWide, continues. Extinction Rebellion wants a Citizen’s Assembly for Climate Change. Greta Thunberg, who boycotted school to sit by the Swedish parliament, demands that they honestly talk about climate change and educate the public. She has inspired youth all over the globe to act. Greta Thunberg addresses the participants of the Extinction Rebellion rally in London.

 

Greta Thunberg Swedish teen School Boycott for Climate Action speaks at Extinction Rebellion rally

Extinction Rebellion Day 1 London Greatest Threat is Leaving it for Someone Else

There are plenty of local groups to join or discussions to participate in. I went to one by chance a week ago in which 8 panelists talked to a full auditorium of local Rhode Island citizens, to talk about Climate Change Solutions.

Publick Panel Climate Change Solutions

We Demand a Green New Deal

Blue Flowers | Easter Sunday 2019 | Faber Castell Watercolor progression

Blue Flowers
Faber Castell Watercolor pencils

Blue Flowers Faber Castell Watercolor pencils Easter’19

Blue Flowers Faber Castell Watercolor pencils Easter’19 _2

Blue Flowers Faber Castell watercolor pencils Easter Sunday 2019

Blue Flowers
Faber Castell Watercolor pencils

Is↟Frequency of Autism linked to↟EM Frequencies of Cellular Phone Technology?

I wrote this blog a month ago, and just discovered May 28 this article published 2 weeks ago. It does not make the connection of the increasing power of cellular phone technology to autism; nevertheless, the 230 scientists are appealing to the World Health Organization (WHO) to call out the cell phone industry, calling 5G hazardous“Scientists Appeal that 5G Wireless is as Hazardous as Asbestos”

Scientists Appeal 5G Wireless is Hazardous Permaculture Co UK

In early April I was reading about John Robbins (Baskin & Robbins ice cream) and his unique history of fortune and misfortune, when I learned that his son Ocean has twins each diagnosed with autism. A flash of insight prompted me to google ‘autism connection with wifi or cellular frequencies’. This 2015 article appeared, The Emerging Link between Wireless and Autism. I have had only peripheral knowledge of the autism spectrum disorder. Wikipedia states that “Autism is a developmental disorder characterized by difficulties with social interaction and communication and by restricted and repetitive behavior.” It states that autism is associated with a combination of genetic and environmental factors, with no mention among the long list of potential causes of any association with the effects of EMF’s from wireless electromagnetic radiation. I posted the link, mentioning that one would have to view the statistics worldwide to assess whether there’s a correspondence between cases of autism and populations living in the proximity of cellular communications infrastructure and who have a higher use of electronic devices. Autism: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Treatments “Autism spectrum disorder is a neurodevelopmental condition that affects a person’s ability to communicate, interact and behave appropriately with others in social situations. It is characterized by impairments in social skills, communication and restricted and repetitive behavior.”

Autism Rates Around The World  updated 2018, the article goes into detail with respect to reports of Autism in 10 different countries.

Autism Rates Around The World worldatlas

It was a hunch. For all I knew, Autism was a peculiarly American phenomenon. The United States has a propensity to diagnose and pathologize ‘dis ease’. A half century ago, medical practices were made up of doctors with private practices. This almost seems to be a ghost of the past, as the healthcare industry has stepped in. The Healthcare and pharmaceutical industries appear to be intimately tied. That is, Big Pharma applies its business marketing to the public directly, by infiltrating print and air waves with advertising. And at the same time, it extends its tentacles into the medical industry by luring doctors in hospitals and group practices with gifts and enticements (dinners, conferences in exotic places) to sell their products. That’s sort of how the opiate addiction was unleashed and silently allowed to continue unconstrained. In the USA, large industries sort of overstep well, everyone else. They squeeze out smaller businesses or gobble them up. And they lobby and line the government’s coffers, who subsequently remain in abject silence. There are no rangers or anti-trust laws to keep them from becoming more and more powerful. Whose to stop them? In the case of Big Pharma, they treat symptoms with pharmaceuticals, rather than giving attention to the holistic, wider context, as one would think would be the medical intention and approach. The Healthcare industry and Pharma are each incentivized to make a profit, rather than to approach health and wellness proactively; with attention to nutrition, exercise and the wider context. They are not focused on wellness, but on selling their product. And rather than educating the public towards maintaining wellness, they advertise their products and cram into small print & speeded up talking, all of the potential ‘side-effects’ and negative repercussions of their chemical products. Their emphasis is on sales. I digress, yet the paradigm is the same.

Verizon Irving TX

The telecommunication industry leaders may be facilitating the same lack of disclosure, in order to maintain their bottom lines. Not interested in pointing out potentially negative repercussions of their wireless cellular systems, they are more motivated to implement their plans, to ensure that the public is completely ensnared in their system by convincing them that faster and more powerful communication is without exception, what the public wants and needs. I display the various edifices and fortresses of the cellular telecommunication industry leaders, to demonstrate their opulent wealth.

This ‘Spyscraper’ AT&T Long Lines Building, Freaks Out Tom Hanks (11 Reasons Why It Should)

I almost felt a physical impact when I read that autism is huge in South Korea and Asia. I remember learning  a decade or two ago (to my surprise) that various Asian countries were much more sophisticated in their cell phone technology infrastructures than the United States.

Tech-savvy South Korea has nearly as many cell phones as people. A 2009 article! “There were 45.6 million mobile phone subscribers in South Korea in December in a country with a population of 48.6 million, Sung Suk-ham of the Korea Communications Commission said.”

China Mobile International Beijing

SOUTH KOREAN AUTISM RATES HEAD NORTH, written 2011, “South Korea Autism-spectrum disorders affect 1 in 38 youngsters.” New Study Reveals Autism Prevalence in South Korea Estimated to be 2.6% or 1 in 38 Children

 

Autism, or (ASD) autism spectrum disorders, refers to a broad range of conditions characterized by challenges with social skills, repetitive behaviors, speech and nonverbal communication.” The epidemiology of autism is the study of the incidence and distribution of autism spectrum disorders (ASD).

Autism and EMF? Plausibility of a pathophysiological link – Part I. “Abstract
Although autism spectrum conditions (ASCs) are defined behaviorally, they also involve multileveled disturbances of underlying biology that find striking parallels in the physiological impacts of electromagnetic frequency and radiofrequency exposures (EMF/RFR). With dramatic increases in reported ASCs that are coincident in time with the deployment of wireless technologies, we need aggressive investigation of potential ASC – EMF/RFR links. ”

This ’18 article reveals prevalence of autism worldwide. S. Korea was absent from this study.

Prevalence of Autism rates among selected countries worldwide 2018 Statista

The Japanese mobile phone industry is one of the most advanced in the world. A study in Japan controlled for the factor of vaccinations, and yet Autism rises despite MMR ban in Japan Is it a coincidence?

“In Asia, the number of children registered as autistic is significantly higher in urban areas than rural. We don’t know if that is due to a lack of awareness of the option to seek services, or if, for environmental reasons, there truly are less autistic children in rural areas.” Could this infer that where there are less cell phone towers and cellular phone use, there are less cases of autism?

National research studies indicate that Japan and other developed Asian countries have the highest rates of autism.

Autism diagnosis per 10,000 children – focus for health

Woman blogged, Shockingly Higher Rates of Autism and Developmental Delays in Asia.

cellphone usage wordwide

As you can see above, Hong Kong is almost ‘off the charts’ in terms of its Autism epidemic.

Cell Phone Network Hong Kong

John Herman explains You live your life at 2.4 GHz in Wired that, “Most household items operate at 2.4 GHz. Your house or apartment, or the coffee shop you’re sitting in now, is saturated with radio waves. Inconceivable numbers of them, in fact, vibrating forth from radio stations, TV stations, cellular towers, and the universe itself, into the space you inhabit. Inside your home are a dozen tiny little radio stations: your router, internet, bluetooth, garagedoor opener, cordless phone – household items – all run on 2.4 GHz.”

map cell phone towers geoawesome

There are different frequencies for different purposes. For example, an AM/FM radio has a different frequency than satellite radio. In the same way, the frequencies of a cellular phone are different from Wi-Fi, and from Bluetooth. All cellular phone networks worldwide, use part of the radio frequency spectrum designated as UHF (Ultra-High Frequency) for the transmission and reception of signals. They are not radio signals in terms of being able to, or accidentally picking up on, a music station. This neatly shows distinctions, What is the difference between Wi-Fi and Cellular connections?

Do I Need to Worry About Radiation From WiFi and Bluetooth Devices? “The radiation from Bluetooth and WiFi devices falls into the same basic range on the electromagnetic spectrum—between FM radios and microwave ovens—as the RF waves from cell phones. But because the distances traveled by WiFi and Bluetooth signals tend to be much shorter (between your router and your laptop, for instance, or your smartphone and your wireless speaker) the RF can be transmitted at a much lower power than from a cell phone.

Since I use a computer laptop to write, create and communicate, often in spaces connected via WiFi, not by a cable, I wanted to familiarize myself with the distinction between WiFi and cellular networks. Understanding the Difference between WiFi, 3G and 4G “WiFi is the nickname for a wireless internet connection. WiFi technology provides wireless Internet access via the use of radio waves which transmit a signal to a wireless enabled device, equipped with a wireless network card that communicates with the wireless router. The radio waves operate on a frequency of 2.4 GHz and operate on a standard which is set forth by the IEEE which is the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.”

Wireless LAN (WLAN) LAN (Local Access Network) by definition, implies a shorter distance traveled by WiFi and Bluetooth signals, typically not reaching further than 100 feet. This introductory video Mobile Internet Basics: What is the Difference Between Wi-Fi and Cellular? explains that cellular networks have continued to evolve in strength to accommodate the demand for a faster flow of information.

Cell Phone mega Tower HAARP Michael Winter

Cell phone technology has gone from 1G, to 2G, 3G and now 4G (G for generation). What is the difference between 2G, 3G and 4G mobiles as well as networks? “In a nutshell > SPEED.” Each are more powerful than the predecessor. Thing is, the cell phone broadcast towers have a much wider range than WiFi and are sending out much more powerful transmissions from their source.

Michael Winter states in Cell Phones – Cell Towers – Haarp. An EMF Triple Threat “The measurement of a cell phone’s power is defined by Hertz. A hertz is a unit defining the frequency of an electromagnetic wave.”

“Human beings operate at 10 hertz. 100 hertz equal 1 kilohertz. 100 kilohertz equal 1 megahertz. The average EMF emitted by cell phones is 1900 megahertz, with a market shift toward (currently in use) 2500 megahertz phones.”

“Cell towers operate in Watts. A watt is a standard definition of a unit of power. a normal, round incandescent light bulb uses 40 to 100 watts, fluorescent bulbs produce the same amount of light using only five to 30 watts. A WiFi signal from any standard router is 20 milliwatts. A standard cell phone transmits 300 milliwatts. Consider also that radio station WLS in Chicago pumps out a formerly impressive 50,000 watts, and can be picked up over a 1000 miles away with a middling quality radio receiver. The average cell tower in the USA pumps out between 100,000 to 500,000 watts. The writer of this article questions why the towers are so enormously powerful.”

Essentially, we are being saturated 24/7 with many, many thousands times stronger radiation fields than our body is equipped to deal with. Our failure to deal with this onslaught is manifesting in the form of stress and sleep disorders, birth defects, cancer and Alzheimer’s. We are being silently culled, and footing the bill to make it happen! By paying your cell bill, you simply ensure the continuity of a product that is killing, and will kill, millions and millions of people.”

Global Indoor Health Network: Cell towers are harmful to humans, animals and plants. “California Supreme Court Affirms Local Authority to Regulate Wireless Infrastructure. This breaking development recognizes the shift of power toward local governments, and away from the 5G corporate oligarchy operating through the FCC.”

Cell towers are harmful to humans, animals and plants -global indoor health network

Published 2007 Wi-Fi linked to Childhood Autism cites a study published in the Australasian Journal of Clinical Environmental Medicine warning that wireless communication technology may be responsible for accelerating the rise in autism among children. “Autism is a disabling neuro-developmental disorder.” It is associated with heavy-metal toxicity. “An expert on the dangers of electromagnetic radiation (EMR):

 

Dr George Carlo headed the world’s largest research program on mobile phone health hazards in the 1990’s which revealed the autism-wireless technology connection following a series of tests on autistic children monitored during 2005 and 2006.

Electromagnetic Safety and Cell Tower Health Effects, states that “The Federal regulations ignore the hundreds of studies that find harmful bio-effects from long-term exposure to non-thermal levels of cell phone radiation.”

The article goes into detail listing what service is provided with that bandwidth.
700 MHz to 5 GHz FCC ID Applications By Frequency.

700 MHz to 5 GHz – US Frequency Allocations chart Radio Wave Spectrum – Frequency bands of operation for the Internet of Things

In 2012, guest scientific blogger, Emily Willingham wrote, Is Autism an “Epidemic” or Are We Just Noticing More People Who Have It?, that perhaps it’s more a question of how it is diagnosed. There are factors influencing a country’s reporting, such as lack of disclosure due to it being stigmatized, or less sophisticated means of doing statistical analysis. She cites, “In 1951, Kanner wrote, the “great question” became whether or not to continue to roll autism into schizophrenia diagnoses, where it had been previously tucked away, or to consider it as a separate entity.” In 2018, Racheal Rettner sort of downplayed the role of Autism What’s Behind the Recent Rise in Autism in the US? “saying that the more it’s recognized, the more it is diagnosed.” And in 2017 Tom Chivers highlighted the fact that A Paper Claiming Wi-Fi Is Linked To Autism Has Been Accused Of Pseudoscience “Published in the respected journal Child Development, by Cindy Sage and Ernesto Burgio, titled “Electromagnetic Fields, Pulsed Radiofrequency Radiation, and Epigenetics: How Wireless Technologies May Affect Childhood Development.” was completely attacked and dismissed.

Certainly some articles published reflect a bias towards downplaying the extent of Autism, whereas others are quickly silenced. It depends on who’s paying the writers. Follow the money, as the saying goes. Nevertheless, the last few decades of spikes in Autism around the world are not random cases of schizophrenia.

Seems the increased frequency of Autism correlates worldwide with exposure to increased EM frequencies from Cellular Phone Technology – which keeps getting stronger, or so the Telecom Giants promise us.

It was a hunch, that prompted an intuition fueled search.

Verizon, AT&T Reveal Additional 5G Launch (2018) Markets “This is part of densifying the network and positioning it to excel at 5G.”

From a business insider’s perspective, this article Cell Phone Networks and Frequencies Explained: 5 Things To Know mentions that the four major networks in the U.S. are Verizon, AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. 4G is often up to 10x faster than 3G — with speeds commonly between 20Mbps and 50Mbps (which is really fast). The United States is broadly covered by both 3G and 4G LTE technology. The next generation cellular network-5G-promises speeds between 10 and 100 times faster than 4G LTE.

Why? Do we need to encase our minds and focus our attention in a virtual world, as we continue to maim and disfigure this one?

The Answer: don’t let the cell phone provider companies whose towering glass edifices in every major city, like Oz, shiny and powerful, dictate an infrastructure mania to have ever faster and more powerful waves for your convenience and your purse – as you continue to pay them for each new model and upgrade. Perhaps what is lethal beneath their shiny, buildings and the shiny devices, is that their ultimate goal is to maintain their profits and control.

Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation

Huawei technologies Mexico

China Mobile Ltd. CNET

Japanese Yokohama F.M. Broadcasting Co. Ltd. building

Perhaps as tobacco companies concealed the dangers of smoking cigarettes, and that among other companies, General Motor’s intention was to dismantle the infrastructure of street cars & train transportation in the USA to make room for the tire and automotive industries, and that for 40 years the petroleum giants have known indisputably the hazards of burning fossil fuels, kept that information from the public, the association of autism with cell phone technology is not spoken about. I wonder if the CEO’s of the various cellular companies dominating the international market, have cell towers right next to their multimillion dollar homes? I doubt it. Someone already did the groundwork. He looked at maps of cellphone towers in metropolitan areas, fitting them over counties by income, and found that the towers tend to be in lower income neighborhoods. The writer of Cell Phones – Cell Towers – Haarp. An EMF Triple Threat, Michael Winter, shows a map of a wealthy neighborhood and the corresponding map of the absence of cell towers in that precise region. I did my own brief research. I found the wealthiest county in the USA, Loudoun County, Virginia near Washington D.C. and used this tool to locate the cell phone towers in the region, https://www.cellmapper.net, and my map comparison also showed an absence of towers in Loudoun county.

These towering, windowless, bomb-proof cellular communications buildings are in under-the-radar partnership with the NSA.

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/030216/worlds-top-10-telecommunications-companies.asp written by Melissa Parietti, “The world’s top 10 telecommunications companies each have a market value of more than $50 billion. Servicing the world’s ever-growing telephone and wireless connection needs, the telecommunications industry is forecast to continue to expand operations on a global level. More individuals in emerging markets are signing up for telephone and Internet contracts, while new telecommunications technologies in developed nations are expanding providers’ pre-existing customer bases.

China Mobile Ltd.
2) Verizon Communications Inc.
3) AT&T Inc.
4) Vodafone Group plc
5) Nippon Telegraph & Telephone Corporation
6) Softbank Group Corp. Japan
7) Deutsche Telekom AG
8) Telefonica S.A.
9) America Movil
10) China Telecom

This website allows the public to locate cell phone towers worldwide. Cell Tower Location Maps for each State

http://www.antennasearch.com/default.asp

https://www.cellmapper.net

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

The PayPal donation button functions in Safari and Firefox, however is broken in Chrome.

blogger, portrait drawer, painter, photographer, musician, composer

Horse Racing is Lame | US Horse Deaths and Drugs | Run to Death

What is up with the American addiction to excessive use of drugs and chemicals to enhance and control nature; in horse racing, child and adult psychology, the healthcare industry (not wellness), agriculture, animal slaughterhouses, fish farming, the energy industries – to the point that rather than optimizing performance, they become a lethal poison?

Horse Racing Drugs and Deaths PETA undercover- investigation PETA

Back in early March I saw a disturbing news clip “Spike in horse fatalities at Santa Anita Park casts shadow over racing industry” on PBS News Hour published March 7, 2019. A 21st horse died at the same race track in California, within just a few months. It primarily pointed to the conditions of the track as the cause. Near the end of the clip there was mention of horses being pushed very hard, with drugs used to mask their pain. Yet the overall message was poor track conditions. Perhaps because of the unusually wet weather, the rain had made the track brittle, like concrete.

How bizarre? What is this really about?

I had a horrific awakening to the reality of the sport several years ago in Pennsylvania when I accompanied my brother to see the horse of his friend race at Penn National racetrack. His friend owned the stable where my brother lodged his horse. When the race finally started I watched from the stands. However, the horse I was there to watch never came around the track. I asked where’s the horse? I found out within minutes that he was dead. What? He’s been ‘put down’ – shot, because he fell.

What? Shot? Already? What in the world? I hate the term ‘put down’ – as if you’re doing someone a favor. You don’t ‘put down’ your grandmother? Well, I later spoke to a friend who believes in the humane ‘euthanasia’ of humans as well as animals. I could understand her logic. Regardless, this was a very disturbing experience. In shock, I asked my brother why in the world was the horse killed? I learned for the first time that when a horse say, twists an ankle, it is kindly, slaughtered. This is routine? With panic in my voice I asked, “You mean there aren’t sophisticated ways to give horses support while they are healing? Aren’t there braces? Casts? My brother explained that the horse’s body weight couldn’t support a broken leg. “Aren’t there straps and ways to hold the horse securely while keeping weight off the injured leg? Can’t you immerse the horse in water to take the weight off their body?” No, it wouldn’t be able to hold still. I couldn’t believe it.

santa anita horse 23rd death CNN

When I saw this headline a few days ago 2 days after racing resumed, 23rd horse dies at Santa Anita Park that more horses died, again, since reopening the track, I was angry. Within this a man makes openly claims that the horse racing industry must commit to stop using drugs, revealing that the deaths are not about the track quality at all, but the extreme measures the horses are pushed to. This declaration with respect to the state of California, is for a total ban of all medication (on race day), and commitment to a new trend, to put the welfare of the horses and the (mostly immigrant) workers’ who work closely with the horses, first. It Implies that it’s been quite clear to a lot of people within the industry, that these horse death’s were not by any means due to surface irregularities on a track. Well, that’s California, 1 in 52 states. It’s a start. I notice he is only talking about the banning of drugs on race day. Nevertheless, this is a huge admission to the connection of drug use and deaths of horses – on a regular basis in the United States – on this particular California race track.

I didn’t have to look very hard for more confirmation of race horse deaths as a result of bad practices and the use of drugs to articulate them. The practice of using syringes and injecting all sorts of drugs into the horses, is more a phenomenon in the United States. It verifies that the nature of horse racing is not about the horses, but about the money. The value of winning in this high-roller deluxe gambling industry, doesn’t truly value and honor the horse, at all.

It’s an industry in which humans gamble to win money, with the welfare of the animal a very low priority. The horses are exploited, abused, run on seriously injured feet and joints, exercised until their lungs are bleeding and driven beyond their capability, with drugs to mask the pain and enhance their physical stamina. They are run to death..

The nonsense of putting profit over the value of life, is the standard modus operandi – rippling through all of its industries. A country whose economics of capitalism, bleeds from the earth and its creatures.

‘Drugs and dead horses’: US racing reels after Peta video broadside

Horse Racing Exposed: Drugs and Death.

Horse Racing Drugs and Deaths PETA undercover investigation PETA

Horse Racing Exposed: Drugs and Death

“On average 24 horses a week die on race tracks in the US. This PETA video reveals that one of the leading thoroughbred trainers, Steve Asmussen, has continued a chronic misuse of drugs.”

Steve Asmussen one of many US horse trainers with drug violations PETA

“These are factory farms, where syringes are the most important tool of the trade.”

Posted March 22nd, 2019, Asmussen, the torture of racehorses and agonizing death of Nehro

The PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – video reveals the footage from an undercover journalist working with horses in the ‘industry. Race horses are pushed and trained through serious injuries and pain. By using a cocktail of performance enhancing drugs as well as pain-masking drugs, regardless of having terrific injuries in their feet and joints, the horses are run to death.

This reassures me that horse racing is lame. Ironic pun. It’s a cruel and vicious ‘sport’ – using an animal to do the dirty work while people profit with dirty money. It’s up there with dog fighting, bull fighting and trophy hunting.

The extreme pain due to rotting and breaking shoes on their hooves is enough to reveal that they should not be running at all.

Lasix drug debate which is bleeding US horse racing dry

I looked up some of the drugs mentioned, and found this  Lasix: the drug debate which is bleeding US horse racing dry

and found this, Lasix Kentucky Derby Horses Use a Drug Banned Everywhere Else

“Nearly all of the horses running in the Kentucky Derby will be given a drug on Derby day that is banned in most of the rest of the world.”

Lasix Kentucky Derby Horses Use a Drug Banned Everywhere Else

Pharmacology of furosemide in the horse: a review. “Neither the effect of furosemide on athletic performance nor its efficacy in the prevention of exercise-induced pulmonary hemorrhage has been convincingly demonstrated.”

Since rather than the horse being retired, they are exterminated due to the nature of almost any injury to the legs, I absolutely loathe the sport. I object to treating an animal with cruelty. Horses are beautiful and gentle creatures. The concept of racing horses was  here long ago. This article shows a lot of the history of horse racing. “While the modern-day sport did originate in Britain, horses have been racing for as long as they have been domesticated. Nomadic tribesmen raced horses in Central Asia as far back as 4500 BC, while the first horseback tournaments on British soil took place around 200 AD.” It mentions that in the western world, horses were originally bred for war. Now it’s not surprising. And the fact that it became a royalty-centered thing in Great Britain, whose reputation went on to colonize and subjugate people from all over the world. It continued a hundred years ago, perpetuated as a sport which had connections with the social elite of Hollywood. And naturally, the excessiveness consumerism within modern day capitalism, the industrialization of just about everything and quantifying everything over how much profit it can generate, has outweighed again and again a respect and value for the natural world. In this game, the horse is a disposable commodity, which is valued by how much money it can generate. What is up with the American addiction to an excessive use of drugs and chemicals to enhance and control nature (in horse racing, child and adult psychology, agriculture, animal and fish farming, the energy industries) to the point that rather than increasing performance, they are a lethal poison?

Ranking Roger of the former band ‘The English Beat’ Thank you for your Style and Rhymes

this band was so political and right on target… the same story keeps repeating……

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/ranking-roger-english-beat-general-public-dead-at-56-813818/

This song ‘Mirror in the Bathroom‘ by the English Beat have woven a history into my mind and heart and dance. A great band.

Ranking Roger Mirror in the Bathroom
[caption id="attachment_7825" align="alignright" width="630"] Ranking Roger Mirror in the Bathroom The English Beat mirror 2

The English Beat[/caption]The English Beat song Get a Job.

Please take the time to read these lyrics, and the irony that this band was so political and right on target… the same story keeps repeating……

There’s a training course
boys and girls of real ambition
start a new job in a factory
where they’re making ammunition
but it makes them think of stealing
when they read between the lines
through the owners of this funfair
you won’t find a ride you like
just get-a-job, get-a-job

manufacture rubbish
although no one can afford it
you could make a profit
more than anyone deserves
so you find you’re left with poison
so you dump it in our water
and so create the kind of problems
only radiation cures
through get-a-job, get-a-job
get-a-job, get-a-job

oh you young people are revolting
8 to 5 life should give the jolt needed
in a few years you won’t feel quite the same
you’ll be playing their get-a-job game
games games games games

there’s a training camp when
you come from saving nations
get a new job and a new leg
social rehabilitation
every time you thing of leaving
you get caught between the lines (lies)
it’s the training for the funfair
you get taken for a ride
you! get-a-job get-a-job
just get-a-job, get-a-job
just get-a-job, get-a-job

Role of Agrochemicals in ‘Fungal Pathogen’ Mass Amphibian Death | Pesticide Induced Ecocide

A few days ago a friend’s FB post was an article Amphibian ‘apocalypse’ caused by most destructive pathogen ever associated with a hard to pronounce fungus. “The sudden appearance of chytridiomycosis, chytrid Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, was introduced into the affected regions.”

Dead Frogs killed by amphibian chytrid fungus photo Joel Sartore

Mass amphibian deaths worldwide? I hadn’t known. I felt distressed. “A silent killer has slaughtered frogs and salamanders around the world.Before the fungus, populations of the alpine tree frog were so abundant there, he had to watch his step when he went out at night. A global team of 41 scientists has announced that the pathogen—which humans unwittingly spread around the world—has damaged global biodiversity more than any other disease ever recorded. The origin of this virulent pathogen is unknown.”

Unknown?

Right.

I had a hunch. Was something else beneath the picture of a natural cause such as the proliferation of a fungus? Is this not more likely the repercussion of the poisons that humans have been putting into the earth and air? Is it perhaps the soil’s distressed or diseased response to pesticides?

Let’s get a Little more clarity about this ‘Fungal Pathogen’ killing amphibian. I couldn’t imagine that it wasn’t a detriment due directly and unequivocally to humans. I googled Chytrid fungus. Origin of Frog-Killing Chytrid Fungus Found
corroborating the Chytrid fungus as the cause of amphibian deaths, with no more conjecture as to the trigger of the growth of the chytrid fungi Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal).

This article points the finger at Korea as the origin of the fungi, sort of like a bait and switch.

article points to regional origin of fungus but nothing of what exacerbates the fungal growth – agrochemicals

Then I googled ‘association of Chytrid fungus with soil’s response to pesticides DDT’ That delivered this.

Understanding Amphibian Decline: the Role of Pesticides and the Pathogenic Chytrid Fungus on Amphibians and Aquatic Communities
Taegan A. Mcmahon, University of South Florida

Effects of Pesticides and the Pathogenic Chytrid Fungus – Taegan A. McMahon Graduate Thesis Univ. of South Florida

Effects of Pesticides and the Pathogenic Chytrid Fungus on Aquatic Organisms with an Emphasis on their Role in Amphibian Declines
by Taegan A. McMahon, January 2013

Questions these days need to … follow the money …Syngenta was the worldwide leader in agrochemical sales in 2013 at ~$10.9 billion, followed by Bayer CropScience, BASF, Dow AgroSciences, Monsanto, and then DuPont with ~$3.6 billion

Let’s stop this ecocide and complete lack of transparency in the scientific articles that somehow don’t point to the obvious.
Monsanto is now cloaked within Bayer.

How revolting that agro agriculture and agro chemicals have appeared out of poisons developed for warfare, thinking that we could control nature and mass produce, for our mass fortunes, to the detriment of the soil and all other life who also breathe in and bathe in the pesticides in the soil and water.

Basta! Not on our planet!

Zayne Cowie – Goodbye Earth | Yuval Harari – Master Storytellers are Bankers | Andreas Weber – Economy of the Commons | E. O. Wilson – Half-Earth Project

Zayne Cowie wrote this book which he presents in video. ‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups

‘Goodbye Earth’: A Story for Grown-Ups by Zayne Cowie

Goodbye, Earth written by 9 year old Zayne Cowie on the travesties of grown-ups mis-management leading to climate catastrophe

It appears that an answer to the dilemma of our economic and political system that has been thriving in the past century due to the power of its agreed upon valuation of money over natural resources and the natural world, is the need to use our hearts and minds to create a new system. A system which recognizes and values all life forms and the resources upon which they all depend. Integrally connected and interdependent, requiring clean water, air, soil and the right to life and to wander on the planet. I don’t think that humans have the right to choke the planet with plastic, deplete the spoil and spoil the water and air. This and warming the planet are ecocide. George Monbiot says, Heating the Planet is an Ecocrime.

In my digesthis.wordpress blog Israeli historian, Yuval Harari talks about the power of human stories. Beyond our objective reality, humans have contrived fictional realities and entities, which dictate actions upon which all life depend.

Harari states in his Tedtalk on the rise of humans that “the master storytellers are the big bankers, the finance ministers, the prime ministers. They tell us a very convincing story and if everyone believes this story, it actually works.”

“Money is the most successful story ever invented and told by humans; it is the only story everybody believes.”

Species all over the planet are critically endangered due to human population increase, territory intrusion, human industrial policies regarding food, housing, energy and transportation demands as well as their tendency to continuously promote war and military might. These activities have damaging repercussions on the health of both humans and the habitats they encroach upon and destroy.

All of creation is dependent upon the decisions made by fictional entities, the storytellers (banks, corporations, governments, religions) and their fictional content (money, shares, development, GDP).

Harari eloquently reveals that “The most important actors in the global economy presently are companies which are legal fictions. Corporations mostly want to make money. And our capitalist system is one built on growth as measured by the Gross Domestic Product. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the healthiest manner of cooperation with the ecosystem of the earth.

George Monbiot published ‘Common Wealth‘ in the Guardian 27th September 2017, subsequently in his blog. “Hope lies with a great, neglected sector of the economy, through which we can create a system that is neither capitalist nor state communist.”

Andreas Weber The Biology of Wonder cover

The German biologist, philosopher and nature writer Andreas Weber recognizes the interconnectedness of humans to nature. In his talk at the conference on “Economics and the Common(s): From Seed Form to Core Paradigm” Weber mentions that though we can maintain aspects of our modus operandi of the age of enlightenment, we need to make a paradigm shift to enlivenment; seeing all life in continuous interrelationship.

“In our question of “what is life?”, we need to look beneath the ‘operating system’ engendered by the enlightenment in which things, life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

This is where Andreas Weber draws the distinction between the repercussions of the enlightenment, in which nature and species have been commodified. “life, humans are measured according to efficiency, competition and egoistical agents. This approach is cutting things down into blocks, separate parts, into arbitrary entities and dead objects. What is missing is that there are no feelings involved.”

We need to create a paradigm shift, Weber states “we need a new bios, enlivenment; stressing the expressive and experiential qualities of being alive. Instead of looking at nature and life in a causal way, when we see things as they are, they are constantly changing, in an unfolding process of freedom, autonomy and value. Every commons is a material and knowledge commons.”

Enlivenement – we are feeling beings who wish to feel meaningful experiences within a community of other beings.

He recognizes that the wealth and extent of human experience and awe and wonder contributes to the emotional and spiritual health of humans beings. We need the richness of diversity for the wealth of experience in feeling.

Andreas Weber’s book describes how he wishes the world to see natural living systems.

He claims, “Nothing is more open-source than DNA.“

The economy of the commons is naturally anti-capitalist. From within a cell to a whole organism, all life is in compartments with its own boundary. However it’s not a wall, but a permeable boundary, in which the inhabitants are continuously interrelating and crystalizing into a whole, a unity. Quantum physics demonstrates that we affect the outcome of the experiment by observing. When we’re talking about the biosphere, ecology, economy, we are always talking about ourselves.

E.O. Wilson extends this recognition of the importance of the commons, to half of the entire planet devoted to other species. To provide half of the earth for the species whose habitats have been rapidly depleted by the human community and their development, military exercises and energy extraction policies.

“Unless humanity learns a great deal more about global biodiversity and moves quickly to protect it, we will soon lose most of the species composing life on Earth.” – E.O. Wilson

Edward O Wilson proposes the Half-Earth project
Devote Half the Surface of the Earth to Nature

Designing an interactive means for all of us around the planet to participate in protecting the flora and fauna of our globe. https://www.half-earthproject.org/pledge-support/

Let’s help him! We can all do this together! Half-Earth is a call to protect half the land and sea in order to manage sufficient habitat to safeguard the bulk of biodiversity

Edward O Wilson Devote Half Surface of Earth to Nature

 

Half-Earth Project Maps

Take the Half-Earth Pledge Learn Care Act

Notch Up the Government’s Role with “ObamaWorks” | A Version of Roosevelt’s WPA | Green New Deal

I originally proposed this in 2012. I decided to repost it presently in lieu of the proposal of the ‘Green New Deal‘.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Rep D-NY discusses the Green New Deal with Bernie Sanders Climate Change – Environmental Policy

My religion and spirituality is the natural world and my relationship to it. I love and adore all of the different species of flora and fauna, the water, air, wind, the soil of the earth. It is full of splendor and awesome. I value human invented relishes much less.

We all need to re-evaluate and repair our connection to the natural world and to value and cherish that of which we are inextricably a part. We need to radically transform our relationship which has been diminished and twisted in the last decades, due to having a perspective and approach that looked at other forms of life as a commodity to use. We need to revive our love and respect for the natural world and become guardians of it, not just for our children, but for the beings that exist before us right here and right now.

Prior to Obama’s win of the 2012 presidential nomination, on the 5th of October I submitted this query to a dozen American magazine publications, and waited for a response. I received only one, a rejection from The Nation. I continued to wait to see if anyone would wish to publish my ideas, which would preclude putting the information onto my blog, for free viewing. Presuming that none will respond, here it is:

Though Obama supporters surely commemorate his intention to employ the federal government to serve the American public, he could even crank it up a bit, by reenacting Franklin D. Roosevelt’s WPA – Works Progress Administration – under the guise of ObamaWorks. “Renamed in 1939 as the Work Projects Administration; the WPA was the largest and most ambitious American New Deal agency, employing millions of people (mostly unskilled men) to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads. In a much smaller project, Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects.” Wow, is THAT ever fantastic to hear about! The recognition that the arts and literature are all about inspiring and creating the theatre for human evolution! What is that saying? ‘History repeats itself for those who are doomed to forget.’ A mere google away: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” (George Santayana)

In 1933, as the 32nd president of the United States, FDR orchestrated the “New Deal” in his first 100 days of office. His purpose was to transform a shattered economy, following the 1929 stock market crash. This consisted of a series of economic programs to establish “Relief”, “Recovery” and “Reform”, of which the WPA was a substantial mechanism; operating its own projects in cooperation with state and local governments. In the inception of his second term, Obama could emphatically authorize a series of programs needed to make improvements across America; delineating the jobs required to implement them, and build our economy and morale in the process, as had been achieved through Roosevelt’s WPA. The circumstances surrounding each of their administrations are parallel; both enmeshed in war and coming into power following a Wall Street engendered economic collapse. Whereas Obama’s 44th presidency coincided with a recession, FDR’s corresponded with the Great Depression. Since Obama has already demonstrated his audacity in confronting Wall Street with the Dodd-Frank Act, why not engage in another executive order or two, as were prerequisite for FDR to carry out his Works. Now is the critical time to launch an indispensable ObamaWorks plan; to facilitate the investment in a much needed overhaul throughout the country, prioritized according to national as well as regional and community needs.
 
Though it may seem implausible, given that we’re ensconced in an imbalanced Democracy in which Plutocratic powers often determine what the executive branch may or may not do, this is precisely the recipe to revitalize America! The WPA was one bold aspect of the New Deal, which Roosevelt legislated to put millions of unskilled Americans back to work, including the construction of buildings and roads. “Happy Days could be Here Again”, if instead of side-stepping issues, tip-toeing around egregious lobby groups and getting stalled in bipartisan gridlocks, Obama would simply administer a number of definitive projects, ObamaWorks, and set them into motion. These programs would respond to our need for energy independence, and result in the subsequent investment in renewable energy enterprises and environmentally sound ‘green’ building. America has been lagging in developing clean and efficient transportation infrastructures, as well as in education and efficient communication networks. We need to make decisions that will reflect viable options for the generations to come, without obliterating our environment and the delicate balance of the global ecosystem and economic interdependency. In our quest to achieve international standards in education, we have inadvertently started to impinge on creative teaching methods and the hands-on approach in our classrooms. Yet because Americans are innovative and industrious, as we pull our resources together and share our ‘best practices’, we can resolve road-blocks and work through ever evolving solutions to our problems. As ObamaCare can continually be adjusted according to new insights, so can we all work together, community by community, fused by the U.S. Government’s vision and financial backing; prioritizing our most needed investments and emboldening our spirits.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Photo Reorganizing | flickr fuckd | reducing 12,000 + 100’s to 1,000

Here’s the 8th page of screen grab pics among the 120 new google photo albums I’ve created and documented during this transfer and documentation process.

New google albums created in the process of removing albums and downsizing photos from flickr.

April Spring Santa Fe, New Mexico clouds, flowers, light-sheet

The new owners of flickr announced several months ago that all of their customers who had been provided with unlimited photo storage, were now going to have to pay fees to upgrade, or reduce any photos or videos to 1,000. Prior to using flickr, I had reached the maximum of photo storage using DropBox, where I still have thousands of photos.

adobe_blossoms_vjew_

Goldie, Gordo and Groucho were 3 cats I would visit at a farm Hershey Estates

Flickr’s deadline was a couple months, around Feb. 8^th. Enough people must have raised complaints, because Flickr extended this a month to March 12^th.  

I had a several hundred photos more than 12,000. I had to decide – pay the upgrade fee, or. I didn’t have to think too hard. I find the tactics of the new owner’s of flickr annoying. 

At first I perused different ‘free’ photo host sites. Some were really quite grueling to negotiate: not user friendly whatsoever. Others, even worse, had all of these ads popping up with continuous distracting video playing. 

I used PhotoBucket a bit, then decided to move most to google photos. I created a system in which I documented with word documents as well as new file folders in Pictures, tracking the original photos, then creating an alias folder and a running count of the new albums I was creating. 

As I systematically created new albums, I removed albums (at times tedius to actually to find the original photos in flickr) because the photos are located in a separate reservoir than the albums. In other words, in flickr, even if one deletes an album, this does not delete the photos. It’s a tedious, multistep process, finding the original photos within the “organizer” of flickr, in order to delete the photos. 

I had 3 ‘pages’ of albums.

flickr_album_collection_3

flickr_album_collection_4

flickr_album_collection_6

My priority was to be sure that my links to flickr from each of my blogs were not broken. My blogs go back a decade, however the use of flickr only about 5 or 6 years. I had to find which of my blogs had links to flickr photo albums, then create that same album in google photos and update the links.  I went into the HTML code of wordpress to transfer and replace links with the new ones from google photos. It’s actually quite user friendly with a Mac. It’s pretty easy to use the find tool for a specific link, which will keep the link you search for highlighted, and then you can paste the new link, exactly within the brackets of the html. It’s really quite user-friendly. It helps that I document everything in word (Pages) documents, so that I can play around with html code within a document and then paste it back into the wordpress blog and update it. 

I also wanted to be sure that all of my paintings and portrait art were available for viewing. 

I created 120 new photo albums once I decided upon Google Photos. I watched as the numbers of photos within the reservoir of flickr reduced > to 12,000, to 8,000 something, several weeks ago to 5,593, when google announced that the account was now 99% full or I’d have to upgrade. 

I gave it a break. Then had a new idea: to take screen grabs of particular photo albums in Flickr that I chose to delete from there, and made sure that I knew where to find the originals.

It’s been tedious, but quite interesting to find and recall all these memories looking at various photos from all sorts of re-locations, most of which date back 2 to 6 years.

Images from a third wordpress blog – deliciousmedicinalfood

My objective:

Not to let FCKR (deliberate misspelling) force me to pay them because of the new owner’s decision to suddenly charge for storage.

And, not to let them choose which photo(s) album(s) they would delete, since the new rule is nothing over 1,000.

4 days ago I had brought the amount down to 3,332 by 3am, with 35 folders I created to track each of these albums and screen shots of all the photos in the albums. Yesterday, early morning today,  March 11th 2:15am, I had technically 24 hours till March 12th, with 1,992 items > only 992 to go.

Now I’m taking precious time to write this, when in fact, I still have 1,992 “items”. Still almost a thousand  to go. 

mpl_jardindesplantes_2019-01-12 at 11.17.23 PM_treemakeawish

I’m proud of my diligence. Others would perhaps find it an abysmal waste of time, and would just pay the fee for the upgrade. Not me.

Here are some of the 120 new photo albums in google. Now I have to get back to taking care of the last thousand photos – down to hours remaining before March 12th.

Chante Tin’sa Kinanzi Po: Still Standing Up for Standing Rock | Earth Injustice

This links to the Black Snake film about Standing Rock

Bobbi Jean, the young Native American woman (featured in the photo with her arm raised) was raised in the Standing Rock community. She spoke of her experiences – walking and running – gathering people of all ages as they went from one to another community.

She said they made prayers with their feet.

She said that there were a lot of magical & spiritual events that happened along the way, among the different people and animals’ that joined in. For many days it rained, and yet when certain people spoke, suddenly the sun burst forth or a wind would woosh in. She knew that the ancestors were present with them in their journey. They walked to enlighten people about the fate of the land and all of the creatures, this sacred land, to money.They eventually landed in Washington D.C., which she said was a culture shock. She Lots of kids participated at different points who developed their own voice about the issue. Elders participated as well. The oil industry and the federal and state governments’ in the pocket of it, created all sorts of obstacles and their own narrative to events. Bobbi Jean continues to inspire and share the story.

This event was a panel discussion with Bobbi Jean Three Legs and Indigenous Water Protectors. Followed by screenings of Black Snake, a 360° virtual reality short film experience featuring citizens of Standing Rock, by Philip Sanchez ’05. It took place at Brown University, sponsored by Native American and Indigenous Studies at Brown, Native American Brown Alumni, and the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology.

“Sacred Ground. The struggle for clean water continues.”

For more information and to support this cause, go to earthjustice.org

Blurred Media Black Snake Sacred Ground 360 video by Phillip Sanchez

Philip Sanchez’s 360º video Black Snake — Standing Rock — 360° Video is quite powerful; looking at the land that is sacred to the people who have lived there for generations, who know that they are not dispensable.

I had tears in my eyes, resonating with what one of the elder Native American women near the end of the film said.

 

“We’re destroying this earth.There’s no common sense. You’re hurting us, you’re hurting each other.

Don’t you think about life?

Every living thing has got to live. There is a purpose and reason why we are all here. You’re hurting yourselves and this earth. The waters. Everything is connected. My prayer goes out to all of you.”

 

“The story of the Dakota Access Pipeline is a long and difficult one to tell. On its face, it is the story of thousands of Native Americans and their non-Native allies that gathered for months in 2016 to protest the pipeline. However, this is only a small part of a much larger issue. The pipeline brought to a head conflicts about disputed treaty lands, the historical treatment of Native Americans by the Federal Government and the changing relationship between the predominantly white towns of Bismarck / Mandan to the north and the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation to the south.”

The XL pipeline has different names depending on its location, which works as a mask to recognizing that it is one and the same black snake that is slithering through the land and sickening it’s waters.

President Trump Presidential Memorandum advance approval of pipeline construction

I was fortunately informed by a fellow ultimate frisbee player who is also keenly interested in protecting the natural world.

“The struggle for clean water continues.”

For more information and to support this cause, go to earthjustice.org
How can we be silent? How can we not see the value of the natural world?

Jane Goodall Recycle E Devices | Kate Raworth Economy Design – Thrive not Grow

Jane Goodall presently has a campaign:

The Forest is Calling. Answering the Call is Our Only Hope

Jane Goodall Everything is Connected Everyone Can Make a Difference

It was estimated that up to 50 million tons of electronic waste—mainly computers and smartphones—was dumped in 2017 alone (UNEP).

Jane Goodall The Forest is Calling Answering it is our only Hope

Jane Goodall Recycle unwanted Mobile Devices

Jane Goodall Terribly Important Recycle Old Cell Phones

Kate Raworth has an essential concept to consider in her TEDtalk regarding redesigning our economic strategies, away from the dependency on continued growth, in a world with finite resources and space, to one which nourishes the natural world and recognizes the worth of allowing all life to thrive. – an Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Distributed vs. Centralized

Kate Raworth TED talk
Economy Designed to Thrive not Grow

Kate Raworth Economy Ecological Ceiling Social Foundation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Carol sitting under the trees

Dr. Vandana Shiva | S O I L Not O I L | Warrior for the 99% & All Life On the Planet

Dr. Vandana Shiva identifies herself on her website http://www.vandanashiva.com as an Author, Scientist, Warrior and Mother. I first learned of her two years ago in Paris during the COP21. I dashed across the Atlantic on an 11th hour decision based on synchronicities, intuition and a leap of faith. This was to attend and participate among a hubbub of journalists, activists, entrepreneurs and victims of global warming from all over the world – to share information at the Place To B. This took place at a Hotel in Paris as well as in venues all over the city during the duration of the Paris Climate talks. It just so happened that I knew one of the presenters, whom I had just looked up on Facebook several days before I booked the flight. I had been going through boxes of my possessions (for weeks), after leaving my parent’s home where all my stuff had been stored. The house was going up for sale. I came across these letters. And suddenly my attention was turned to this place, to b. In my mind’s eye I knew that these climate talks were about to take place, and already had a longing to be near this. I had no idea how remarkable this community and organized information sharing turned out to be.

Place to B its time to talk differently about the climate COP21 Paris

I had a hunch and followed it. It was the most wonderful group of people and the most powerful learning experience – with talks, workshops and living among a community of passionate people there to share their knowledge and learn from one another. Mind-blowing really.

I was starting to cook soup yesterday and turned on ‘Democracy Now’ while chopping vegetables, to discover this interview of Vandana Shiva by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. Vandana Shiva: We Must Fight Back Against the 1 Percent to Stop the Sixth Mass Extinction

As a very intelligent and brave scientist and humanist, she is a powerhouse of information and insight. You have to listen very intently because she packs in so much information in each sentence. Too bad she is not featured in mainstream news channels to educate the public.

Democracy Now feat Dr. Vandana Shiva

She states exactly what i intuited, that by merging with Bayer, Monsanto could conveniently hide its unpopular name – due to all the lawsuits.

The Transcript is included in the link.

Soil Not OIl Vandana Shiva Soil Association

I was pretty happy to see this other interview as well of the author of the Uninhabitable Earth, since I had already discovered this and blogged about it a year and a half ago, though I hadn’t read the book nor heard the author previously talk.

The Uninhabitable Earth: Unflinching New Book Lays Out Dire Consequences of Climate Chaos
This also features a speech by the Swedish 15 year old Greta Thunberg who has lead the youth of the world in her unprecedented decision to strike against going to school and sit before the Swedish Parliament. Her demands – that the government acknowledge and act on climate change, rather than ignoring it – as has been the Western world’s tendency – more concerned with maintaining the GDP and the leverage of corporate money by the industries who pay them.

https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2017/07/16/the-uninhabitable-earth-david-wallace-wells-how-to-reduce-your-contribution-to-climate-change/

The Uninhabitable Earth Book by David Wallace-Wells

The interview of David Wallace-Wells by Amy Goodman is excellent, regarding his book “The Uninhabitable Earth: Unflinching New Book Lays Out Dire Consequences of Climate Chaos”

The broadcast begins with the information, which is yet another startling picture.”New research finds at least a third of the Himalayan ice cap will melt by the end of the century due to climate change, even if the world’s most ambitious environmental reforms are implemented. A report released earlier this month by the Hindu Kush Himalaya Assessment warns rising temperatures in the Himalayas could lead to mass population displacements, as well as catastrophic food and water insecurity. The glaciers are a vital water source for the 250 million people who live in the Hindu Kush Himalaya range, which spans from Afghanistan to Burma. More than a billion-and-a-half people depend on the rivers that flow from the Himalayan peaks. We speak with world-renowned environmental leader and ecologist Dr. Vandana Shiva about climate change, seed sovereignty and her new book, “Oneness vs. the 1%.” Shiva is an Indian scholar, physicist, and food sovereignty and seed freedom advocate. She was was born in Doon Valley in the Himalayan foothills.”

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Ventabren, France in Provence | workaway Jan. ’18 | idyllic town, castle ruins | architectural & textile beauty

A number of weeks after my trip to the New Delhhi airport and back to Frankfurt, during a number of days in limbo in a vacant office building over Christmas in a town not far from Frankfurt, I made a plan. I had warmth, electricity and internet access.  I arranged to go to a workaway in Heuchlingen, German, a work exchange in a village not too far from Stuttgart where I did some outdoor work as well as cooking. I realized my ex beau lived not far from there and visited him in Germany as well.  I documented the trip with lots of photos https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2019/02/02/new-beginnings-germany-a-workaway-in-heuchlingen-december-2017/

I had already begun arranging the  workaway in Ventabren, France in Provence to follow the one in Germany. It was January 2018. Ventabren is a village not far from Aix-en-Provence, which is a gorgeous city. That’s where I met my host and her son, A Russian woman Vicka and her son Maxim.

I visited Aix-en-Provence and took pictures in an earlier hitch to Nice from Montpellier, France to visit my sister. https://carolkeiter.wordpress.com/2017/10/12/hitchabout-nice-antibes-aix-en-provence-arles-and-back-to-a-redefined-montpellier-home/

Aix-en-Provence France Sept. 2017

After having visited Aix-en-Provence and taken the pictures in Sept. 23, 2017, I was now back there in Jan. 2018 about to meet my hosts of the workaway. I happened upon Rue du 4 Septembre in Aix-en-Provence where I took lots of pictures. This was the nearest city to the village where I would do my workaway in Ventabren.

In Aix-en-Provence, I was particularly drawn to the rue du quatre de septembre, because that’s the anniversary of my father’s death in 2012. That’s why I made an album specifically of these signs of rue du 4 Septembre. I had to look up the significance of this date in France. The significance of the date in France is that on the 4th of September, 1870 a new republic was declared.

The 4th of September has personal significance. My father died on the 4th of September, 2012.

On the road leaving Aix-en-Provence en route to the hilled town of Ventabren, this aqueduct was pointed out. Are you kidding me?

Roquefavour Aqueduct near Ventabren France in Provence

Ventabren is a fairy tale, idyllic hilled, once-fortressed town with the ruins of a castle – Château of Queen Jeanne – at the town’s peak.

Ventabren in Provence, France

Here are the numerous pictures that I took during my stay in Ventabren, France. I was absolutely delighted with the fairy tale landscape and history and the craftsmanship of stone walls, streets, stairs and architecture. The home I resided in is particularly elegant, a breathtakingly gorgeous home with a tailored choice of fine materials; tiles, slate, ceramic, wood. It has beautifully crafted tiles, colors and fabrics and a gorgeous layout of space. Windows look over narrow streets and copper tiled roofs. One doesn’t need to occupy a huge square footage to demonstrate taste and elegance.

Ventabren in Provence, France 2018

Ventabren town and interiors in Provence, France 2018

Ultimately, this workaway, in this idyllic town was where circumstances lead me to decide not to continue on the path that I had intended, to organize one after another workaway on a farm or whatever kind of property in France. My VISA had expired. I didn’t want to be informed that i could not return to the country that I love. I also realized that although most of these properties are quite gorgeous and interesting, and i particularly would seek out places with animals, I decided that most are by their nature, remote. It was after that first ‘weekend’ in this idyllic town of Ventabren, that I realized, there wasn’t really any communal place to go to, no night life. I didn’t know anyone other than this family. This would be the same case in most of the other workaways. I had spent the 6 months in Montpellier, a town with multiple universities and tourist town. I could promenade along a street with hundreds of people passing by, go to one among a hundreds of bars and cafés, and found places to dance. I bicycled everywhere in that hilly town, Mont means mountain, so a mt. bike was necessary to adequately peruse the streets.

As you see in Ventabren, my room was adopted by the house cat Croquette. I was very happy about that.

house cat Croquette

house cat Croquette

my room

Ventabren

my room in Ventabren

hanging clothes to get the hitchhiking travel wrinkles out

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Carol Keiter

 

What I learned on My Week Long One and a Half Hour Trip to India

I was sitting in an airport hotel room in Kuwait when i began writing this very long story, for a very brief visit to my destination. I’ve decided to make it since a shorter story. I had sent just my family members a long email detailing my plans to embark on a journey to nature and wildlife, in pursuit of elephants.

I since had spent the last 4 days leading up to and beyond Christmas – which is also my birthday – mostly alone in an office, in a huge building, outside of Frankfurt, Germany; courtesy of the guy whose start-up it is. The building empty for christmas holidays, this huge building hollowed of people, was my home. It was actually the perfect place for the time. The electricity, WiFi, expansive desk and foldout bed upon which I laid my sleeping bag, served my time to continue to communicate and peruse the internet with ideas of where I would go now that my plans were no longer pertinent. I basically spent Christmas and my Birthday in a room alone behind a computer screen; catching up, filing, investigating my next possible moves, reading and writing. Something that I actually love to do, hence a gifted appropriate space.

I’ve been on a continued search of where to go, where to land, that is inexpensive, to create time. My intent is to complete my book in the next two months. That was what I was also after in planning a trip to India. My search there was for elephant sanctuaries and an elephant village. With India out of the picture, I considered hitching to Spain and ferrying to Morocco, to further hitch to a workaway there. A google for an elephant sanctuary surprisingly brought me to France. This shifted my efforts to look for workaway exchanges in France because it feels less risky. I’m going to a workaway host tomorrow in Germany, and have a host in southern France that I’m looking forward to that is booked for a later period of time.

Historic quarter red flag christmas

I was living in Montpellier France, when I was asked to leave several weeks ago. I had a room with a mother and daughter for reduced rent, in exchange for English instruction to the daughter for the duration of the school year. I didn’t have much time to find a new living situation. I didn’t know where to go. I almost flew back to the United States. Family close and yet far, I decided to continue another intended segment of my journey, to participate somehow in helping elephants in their natural habitat.

I haven’t had income, so looking for any normal priced rental in shared housing in France seemed dubious. I decided to embark on a trip to Africa or Asia, something I have yet to do, to spring into the wilder places of our wondrous planet to experience seeing various different creatures in their natural habitats, while they’re still here.  Before climate breakdown, human overpopulation and ecocide (thank you George Monbiot for your continued fervor in sharing information) clip them out of existence. I’ve wanted to see elephants in particular. I was googling for sanctuaries where I could volunteer, found an elephant village. Tears came to my eyes when I discovered that these as well as potential workaway living/work exchange programs working with elephants. I have written about the majesty of trees, the regenerative properties of fungus, about plastic in our oceans, human corpocrisy, greed, the impossibility of continuous consumption on a finite planet, of overpopulation, of health, various methods of renewable energy and the splendid creatures and life forms with whom we share this planet. I alternately share other peoples’ inspiring or provocative articles or write my own in my blogs.

I decided to take this leap of faith to begin the travel that I’ve intended to do, to the wilder places of this living planet to see some of this splendor, before they are extinguished from existence from ecocide. I don’t like to kill even a spider or a fly. I love all life forms. I figured that once I arrive, the overhead will be considerably cheaper. I had little time.

Still pressured, not sure where I’d go. I write often about ecology and sustainability, with various ideas and potential solutions to matching the need of human power to create community gardens, bee highways, animal bridges, sustainable building and energy resources. I saw a way of creating a win/win situation of matching refugees who long for a home with projects that could be started all over the globe – in renewable energy as well as elder in home care, so that people could remain in their homes and have help stay with them. I thought that my huge love of animals and the natural world could lead me to apply my writing, creative and communicative skills towards matching with groups to educate locals on how to appreciate and live in harmony with the animals around them, to preserve their habitats.
I thought I’d go to a place with elephants. I honed the African safari countries down to Tanzania, however the US State Department had a rather fear provoking portrayal so full of warnings, that I was scared away. I had attended a lecture of an Elephant Dr. of Assam, India in Santa Fe, New Mexico a year ago and had this in the back of my mind since. I lived in Santa Fe last year where I busily working as a substitute teaching for K -12th graders teaching all subjects for the Santa Fe public schools during most weekdays, and working for the Santa Fe ski basin as a 1st year ski instructor for adults weekends and holidays. I loved it.

I have been writing a book that I keep having just small amounts of time to devote to. I have numerous times looked for and applied to artist residencies, but really have never been fully devoted to the task. Many of the residencies or asking for a patron require inquiring way in advance, and with small windows of open times  I had the opportunity this last spring to devote a big chunk of time to continuing with my book, through a friend’s lending me space as an office in his home in Taos, with the electricity and internet connection that I needed. It is a huge priority. I have been continually searching for affordable housing, or work/living exchanges with hosts with internet. And haven’t really found what I’m looking for yet: a group of artists/writers/musicians living under the same cooperative roof; each with a deadline and from time to time showcasing what they’ve accomplished from one hurdle to the next.

The pressure was on in my residence in Montpellier, holidays were coming. I continued searching, now India. Spent hours and days investigating flights, VISAs, vaccine requirement, safety. Booked a flight hastily, because each day closer to the 25th would go up in price. Then started the online application process for an Indian eVISA. That seemed pretty straight forward. I then found like a magnet, a perfect host through workaway. I hadn’t been really able to easily negotiate the WWOOF site, and upon clicking on workaway, of which I’d already been a member but needed to renew it, I found the site sophisticated, user friendly, and plus they list ‘last minute hosts’. I found an excellent match, in the same general area in northern india where I wanted to be. It was a Hindu Priest and his wife and kids who are descendants of the local deity of this Temple of Rats. They also also operate a Camel business. I was delighted and relieved, now having a place to land. All of this took an enormous amount of investigating and comparing and searching and reading and organizing. I had decided to fly out of Frankfurt, an airport hub, because I had over-extended my tourist VISA in France, besides having applied for jobs and attempted to get a working permit.

The adventure begin. Taking an inexpensive bus – a day and a half prior to my flight, because otherwise I would have exceeded the departure time, and I was now ready and willing to skip some comfort and sleep.

I had a long conversation in French with a woman who had been a school director. We had rapport on a lot of subjects. The sleep deprivation had begun. I arrive at the immigration to get to the flight, and I am asked something in German about Berlin. I figured it was about a train ticket, for once getting caught by controllers for not paying a €2,50 U-bahn ticket. The 25 year old German policeman was stern. He eventually walked me back to a waiting area. The price was not €100, or 200, but €1,000. He told me I needed to pay them €1,000 in cash to get on the flight. Uh, I guess the interest accrued over the years. He wouldn’t listen to any explanations, that I haven’t lived in Germany…He walked back to their offices behind a glass wall and I saw him laughing with his colleagues. I decided to take a picture of this, and another man rushed to the door and I deleted it before him. He left.

The other option was 15 days in jail, which wasn’t really an identifiable option, when one has just booked a flight, paid for an eVISA, and made all the preparations. I wonder how many times they do this? I walked to an ATM conveniently located just a few yards away. Typically I don’t get cash from a cc, it’s too expensive. Now was withdrawing a thousand euro, with which the exchange rate and ATM fees added to $1,450. I typically travel by bicycle, and have a loved mt. bike in Montpellier that cost a little more than the lock. There’s a lot of bike theft in Montpellier, I found out with the disappearance of my first bike. I’ve learned my lesson concerning outstanding tickets. I wanted to fight it, and now accept it.

Determined to fight this 1,000 Euro fine

I stayed some days in Frankfurt,Germany upon my return with the intention of getting this money back – criminal injustice. This was now out of the airport police jurisdiction and in the hands of Berlin. I decided to go do a workaway instead.

So, I pay and board the flight. In retrospect, was thinking that this amount of money is worth being able to re-enter France.

flickr_Trip Pics Frankfurt Oasis Plastic plug in Kuwait

I had planned to sleep on my 21 hour layover of the Kuwait Airways at the Kuwait terminal (an online booking of the most inexpensive fare). And was shock delighted, to learn upon approaching the airways immediately and asking about their transit visas, I learned that I was to be provided a hotel and food, due to having over an 8 hour layover. This lead to a delightful series of conversations with Indian employees, from whom I learned a lot about their lives in Kuwait.

My Kuwait Airways experience was marvelous, especially the sophisticated jet that I was on en route to India, and the hospitality I received on the 1 day VISA layover in Kuwait.

Jan. 2018 – featured a complimentary Hilton Hotel room for those who had longer than an 8 hour wait. I was one. Processed a transit VISA there at the airport. The 777 jet was modern with a sophisticated interactive panel: featuring downward cameras, forward cameras, a map of timezones, flight trajectory map and zoom in images of earth from any point on the globe. I was investigating the depletion of trees in the Amazon rainforest at one point. Checking out a lovely unusual feature in New Zealand on a peninsula near Christchurch

Almost every Indian man when asking ‘how long have you been in Kuwait?’ answered 10 years. So I was met with a van taking me to the Kuwait Holiday inn, free of charge transportation from the airport, and complimentary meals and and room service. Things were looking great. The next flight on an equally sophisticated 777 jet with great interactive video features. I had a great person sitting next to me with whom I had a non-stop 4 hour conversation with a bright Indian girl attending NYC, daughter of two doctors, who was full of information and with whom I also had a great rapport. I’ve met wonderful people with whom I’ve communicated and learned a lot of fascinating information, as well as seen a lot of the impacts of globalization; on slave workers from Asia to the Arab countries, families broken up, over-the-top pollution in Delhi…

flickr_Kuwait Airways experiences

I arrived at the Delhi airport and proceeded to immigration, and now it was pointed out that the papers I printed out from the initial eVISA were not an actual VISA. There had been problems on the eVISA form, when after the 1st pdf file of my passport pic was not the correct size (after i attempted to resize it in photoshop, when I decided to go back to the copy shop, this time a different service woman scanned it with the precise dimensions that i stated. My error I presume for not communicating this the first time, or realizing that it had to be done initially within the proper dimensions. The form would not let me upload the correct size, now for a 3rd attempt. I contacted the Indian govt office link provided and explained with documentation my case # and so forth and sent them the attached pdf, showing my passport pic at the size that was appropriate. This information was not transferred. I was denied, and I assumed it was because of this technical failure. I was told I could not enter the country, and had 15 minutes to book a flight out of it.

They had no WiFi, I have no smart phone. Upon my continued demand for WiFi access, a young Indian guy with his smart phone was delivered. He became the person supervising and keeping me in check. His phone provided me with internet. I didn’t know where to fly to. I have left things of value at a friends in Montpellier. I didn’t want to fly back to the States. I was beginning to investigate flights to Nepal, where I was told there is ‘visa upon entry’. I was just about at the point of choosing a flight and paying, when the man approached and said, your 15 minutes are up.

He said I would be sent back to Frankfurt, from where I started, on a flight in several hours. My passport was passed from one to another official. This flight unlike the sleek, modern sophisticated 777, was smaller, older and packed with mostly men of Indian, Pakistani and Bangladesh origins, returning to work in whatever Arab country, where they leave their wives and kids at home for years. Another layover in Kuwait, but this time at an airport hotel, designed to be a lockdown, for those without VISA entry status. I met a bunch of people, Indians who are residents in NYC, a doctor and his doctor wife, an IT guy, another Nepalese IT guy, an aging Israeli hippy type who teaches yoga in NYC and who was carrying these Tibetan bowls, which he used for 7 of us to have a healing ceremony, laying down on carpets in one corner of the lobby, with our eyes closed and he guiding us with visualization and sending out tone reverberations of each of these bowls (which probably weighed altogether 75 pounds). The conversations we all had together were fantastic.

I arrived at Frankfurt and was about to approach the steward who had my passport, when a tall, big bellied, borderline disheveled man approached me with an envelope and sort of leaned into me and quipped, why did you go to India without a VISA? You need to pay for this flight. He was bullying and aggressive. It then occurred to me that he must have worked in the same department as these immigration police, who I felt, were using the parameters of the situation there at airport departing immigration to extort money. In such a sophisticated cyber system that they could almost instantaneously track fees, with years of interest rates, how was it that they couldn’t contact me via email, to inform me that I had an outstanding fee? Were they not able to discern that I was no longer living in the country? Or recognize mail delivery being returned? I demanded this guy to have my passport and then asked him what his name is, leaning down to read his name tag, and as quickly as he appeared, he receded.

So I arrive in Frankfurt ready to go to the police, above the police there at immigration, and find that there at the airport are the federal police. I tried to make an appt to reach someone at the embassy, where you can visit by appointment only, and there are no places to book it in their online system. I have a number I will call tomorrow, just to get advice on how this has come to be. I never saw the alleged ticket or anything in documentation. the guy had given me a flimsy 1×2 inch receipt, that surely would have been lost or forgotten, if I hadn’t been immediately sent back to land in Frankfurt.

I am sorry, I think that I have just formulated the blog I’m about to post, as I continued to ramble on to you, telling you the story. I have been waiting for days through the three days of celebrating Christmas in the German tradition, alone in this space, a bit daunted to leave it, because I wasn’t sure that I could get back in, even with the supposedly appropriate keys. I am still exhausted. I have now after writing for the last days, created two cover letters to ask would be hosts if I can stay with them in Morocco, and have begun investigating how to get there. I probably will use the Flixbus voucher I now have to return to Montpellier, where I have to ask someone if I can stay there.  Whoops, just as I waited the last few days for the American consulate to be open, I would have to wait a week here in Limbo for the holiday prices to drop down to their regular price. They appear to be doubled, even tripled during the holidays. And having packed for India, am pretty much ready to launch off to a new conservatively dressed

 

 

I had a workaday lined up, my laptop and electronic equipment with, absorbing all of the information about how to be street smart in India as a single female traveler. Had thought of going to Tanzania, but was scared away by the US State Dept rather fear provoking portrayal. So I decided upon India, and was pulling this decision and actions towards making it happen together in a matter of weeks. This coincided with the death of my only brother, on the 2nd of December and the decision of the last housing situation, mother of the daughter wanting to learn English in exchange for less expensive rent. When she told me, no discussion, that I needed to leave and kept pressuring me, I felt sort of fed up with having the last several shared housing situations evaporate. Money is an issue. I so much want to spend merely 2 months on completing my book, and want to continue to learn, research, absorb information and write my blogs. I thought that since my love is languages and animals and a feeling of urgency about the environment, that I could do cultural exchanges, live inexpensively and live for a bit of time at elephant sanctuaries….I found an inexpensive flight, then immediately processed an online eVISA, then set to contact potential hosts. Found some great workways. Felt so excited to finally embark on going East of Eastern Europe…had found a delightful sounding place to land, had researched like crazy, then had some technical issues with the pdf file of my passport not being clear, because it had not been properly scanned and digitized the 1st time and when I realized that I needed to do this again, it was now the 3rd time i was uploading the pdf pic of my passport and the reform kept saying ‘you already uploaded this’. I nevertheless sent the resized form to this office along with all of the documentation, and departed. I met a wonderful woman with whom i gained a lot of information and exchanged a lot on our ride on this inexpensive bus lines. Shared considerably a lot between our points of view of education….I had been doing so much research, so much, about where…how, guests of when. Then I arrive in Frankfurt, Germany airport hub, found a great cafe to do yet more investigating of the train station the new host informed me i needed to take on this long journey, after arriving in the int’l New Delhi airport, also a hub. I get to customs, and this 25 or younger hardliner, stern, police officer working at customs at the airport, when I was there with enough time to look at prices for the electronic equipment i want to purchase either there or in Delhi to not fry my laptop with unstable electric currents, and he basically says, about this ticket i didn’t pay, for a metro Berlin rail ticket, maybe i was given a fine for €35 euro or something. He said, you can’t get on the flight unless you pay €1,000 dollars. WHAT! this girl here is so fucking frugal i can live on 1,000 for 6 months. I never eat out, i have bought 2 beers in bars, way over my budget. i’m the purchase a can and drink it in the park to save money kinda gal. So, then he escorts me to this back waiting room where about 10 other officers were mingling about. I said, okay, and i was speaking in German, that this must have been something that accrued, over 5 or 6 years. what? he said, either pay me 1,000 in cash or go to jail for 15 days. I would have taken jail, but I just spent a GINORMOUS amount of time and effort to finally make moves towards this dream. So, angry, but naturally one can not reveal anger to an officer, tears starting to stream. The clock ticking. Investments and contacts and huge effort already made, basically thinking that the school year deal that this family had now suddenly retracted, left me with just not the funds to pay rents…..What got me was that this guy then behind the glass walls of the police desks, was laughing. I took a picture, and another officer almost ran out to me to grab my phone, and i deleted the pic in front of him. I mean, for me 100 dollars is extravagant. I realize now, and after sitting on the flight with a very bright Indian girl going to NYU who was returning to India for her winter break, that this is not something I’m just going to let slide. 

I never do. I wrote to Verizon wireless once in a complaint letter signing it at the end ‘Can You Hear Me Now?’

So, yeah, he escorted me to the ATM, and i handed over more cash than I’ve held in my hands in any one time, EVER. yep, i write, draw, paint, take photos, blog, research, have had numerous mega stints writing my book so now it is about %90 completed and I’m so, so into it and so excited and proud and fervent about what i’m introducing in this science fantasy tale with history, geography, science, biology…..woven into it. And this little nazi basically used extortion, intimidation and threats, and then laughed with his colleagues about what he was getting away with as i stood there helpless. Wow, is that ever criminal, super criminal. 

Well, then I have this continuous delightful conversation with the very insightful and bright young Indian woman whose both parents are doctors. She gave me many many insights into the Indian culture and places to visit…Mentioning that the phenomenon of males exporting themselves to Arab countries to work is more of a working class phenomenon. Then I arrive at the Indian customs, and basically the Indian version of the German dude, decides that regardless of whether the eVISA was rejected because of an IT flaw or passport blurry, when I contacted them 3 more times with officially explaining what happened. He decided that this American woman was going to have to bow down to his authority. And about an hour and a half later, he basically in a tone convincing and authorizing his boss to not let me in, lead to his boss saying that I can not enter the country. he said, you have 15 minutes to book a flight. uh, what? ok. do you have internet? no. well i don’t have a smart phone sir, EVERYTHING i do, job seeking, housing seeking, communication with family…..is though the internet. He then got this rather hot young guy in a suit to provide his phone to give me internet access. 

Oh, yeah, forgot to mention that after the 1 day bus ride and one night waiting for the flight, then anticipated 21 hour layover in Kuwait on Kuwait Airways, figuring I’ll be entertained looking at the people streaming by, i get a hunch. find a Kuwait desk upon arrival, and it turns out, the airline allows you to fill out forms to be ushered a transit visa, and the airline provide complimentary transport to a Kuwait Hilton, complimentary room, with slippers, room service, three meals, pool. This is a chick who only couch surfers or sleeps in lobbies, as I had the night before my flight, among an assortment of other airport campers, where I also met a really cool young Greek girl with whom I also had an engaging conversation. 

So, yeah, perks like this are VERY appreciated by me, sort of like a Fantasy. I immediately go to open a window, damn, windows in most hotels i guess don’t open, climate controlled, then when I did walk outside, i was like, shit, i can smell something funky in the air quality, so maybe it’s just as well to have a room that has a slight dank musty smell. I was loving life. Got an adapter to use….and the flight was really cool. Excellent interactive maps, movies…complimentary this and that. Yeah, so the green  tree-hugger just massively contributed to 777 chem trails.  

Okay, so I’m like 15 minutes to choose where to go? uh, okay, do i return? do i Nepal, okay, yeah, Nepal, sort of close. And was starting to configure in my head what I could do. go there, apply for the eVISA again. and then the (was just about to use another pejorative term for the supervisor) dude returns to say, times up, too late, what? so when he said, 15 minutes, he meant it. Now I was too late to book a flight, and was going to be sent back, deported from my 1 and a half hour stay in India. Thank fucking god that the airline paid to deport me, rather than now racking up another thousand for a last minute flight. The mobile phone guy was quite cute, gave him my card to check out the blogs etc. and then he walked back to say are you on FB? which appears to be a very heavily used network, because this was the same question of the young Indian woman who was among our group at the airport (tremendously more shabby) hotel where we (some new fabulous people i connected with who had missed their connecting flight to NYC) mostly Indian, a couple who are doctors, an IT guy father, another Nepalese IT guy and an Israeli yoga teacher who did a Tibetan bell healing ceremony with all 7 of us in the corner of the Kuwait airport lobby in the hooka area, where we laid down and he performed this ceremony. As this time none of us had transit VISA’s as i had had the 1st time around, we were sort of in ‘hotel arrest’, that is, no one in this hotel could walk outside, security, security, like i’ve never seen. Ganesh, the IT guy living in New Jersey reminded me that India hadn’t existed previous to its creation by the British. It had been a collection of separate city-states, each with their own language…of which there are approaching 300 or more. And that not only may there be religious clashes, but regional. Sushi, the NYU girl mentions that there’s sort of a disdain between those of northern and southern India. The north are fairer skinned and the south have a higher literacy rate. She also mentioned that the students that populate the student body of NYU in Manhattan (which has campuses all over the world including Ghana) are first in number, Chinese, second Indian and then the down home American students.

It was a series of meals and fantastic conversations among our little group who found one another who really quite connected. So, I’ve learned a lot, more than I have time to go into here, except that I see MASSIVE pollution. I mean Kuwait, like i said. Delhi, was unfuckingbelievably polluted now in the morning. I mean, as this plane was taking off today, now on a smaller, and more shabby and much less sophisticated plane, it was filled with mostly Indian, Pakistani and Bangladesh men, coming to work, in their quasi slave labor for the wealthy Arabs. 

I found out after asking, i always ask a lot of questions, that one Egyptian guy here, 10 years, and Indian guy from Kerala, here 10 years, uh, each with children and wives. What, you mean India is filled with women and their babies and all the men are abroad, for TEN YEARS? MY NEXT QUESTION, WHO ARE serving as THE PROSTITUTES? Well, I wound up chatting with the Kasaskstan (sp?) and Indian flight stewardesses at length in their service area. They told me of the Kuwait women, many many wearing toe to hijab designer clothes, yes, even the head scarf, and that the the Arab men technically can have several wives. And that the women in their black burkas, with only a slit revealing the eyes, also sport having different boyfriends and no one ever knows who is walking behind this head scarf. And they described a few times that a women is sitting down in seat 32 K or whatever in a black burka, then they come back and there’s a woman with a low cut top, mini skirt, high heels and tons of makeup. And they say, where’s the…oh, it’s her. She went into the bathroom on the flight and returns to her seat on her way to Paris, giving her phone number to whomever. It was hysterical listening to them. They had a lot of insights. I listened to cross-cultural comparisons of the woman from Kurdistan, (i may be saying the wrong  name) but a country that was once Russia, and hence she knows Russia and her own language better than English, and looks Chinese or Siberian! Then the two of them went on to describe that it’s young Indian girls who are the prostitutes, with a high turnover rate. And that it really sort of is slave labor, the Kuwaitis or Qutarians will hold onto the passports of the of their workers, and treat them like shit in some cases, and because they have no rights or ability to leave, they are stuck in these conditions. 

So, wow, I’m so tired that earlier today i had to make sure my laptop was on my little bedside table and not my lap, because i kept nodding out. And now, though i thought i was going to go to bed at 9pm. Our dinner gathering among these delightful mostly Indian native people and the Nepalese and Israeli (looking very much like a hippy) dude who performed this ceremony after our dinner conversations, now has turned into me deciding with my endorphins from sleep deprivation to begin to write. 

I first started to look at workaways, because frankly, i don’t have a clue of what i’m going to do or where I’m going to live. However I do know that I wish to complete my book, and that I have diversified interests and skills, health and strength to contribute to workaway or WWOOF projects, as long as they guarantee internet (necessary in research and writing the ebook) and can offer the time left over from the 5 hours/day 5 days a week to focus on full-steam ahead on the book. It’s cold everywhere, south of france, morocco, germany, and yeah. that’s what’s going on. 

So I’ve just had numerous conversations with all sorts of insights arriving from smart people contributing their ideas and experience. 

And do you know what? The developing and industrializing nations who are outsourced from imperial capitalists and corporate globalization, is just redistributing the dirt, grime and destruction and massive pollution that comes form construction and industry, and is just dumping it into the rest of the worlds back yards, not to mention tearing up social fabric, splitting up families who can’t get buy with the prices of the GDP affecting their now countries. and the Western Northern imperialists and affect of globalization is choking up the entire world. 

 

It is time for people to stop looking the other way. This is ALL OF OUR PROBLEM. In fact, I can’t believe that morally, business and politics can turn a blind eye. I googled before departing for my one hour and a half India trip, and learned that the Indian Prime Minister, like the US Orange MisFit each are in the pocket of industry. Preferring lining pockets for the GDP and forgetting the decency and morality and conscience of what ruin and spoil their actions of profit, for profit alone, are doing to the planet. When the plane was this morning rolling onto the waiting path of the runway and you COULD NOT SEE 20 YARDS, frankly, not EVEN 10 YARDS VISIBILITY out the window of the jet due to pollution. I just thought, oh my fucking god. what are we doing? As long as no one knows, know one cares. Not in my back yard, not my problem. PEOPLE THIS WAS A HORRIFIC WAKEUP CALL. and yeah, appropriate to tack on this handy international real-time pollution index. Looks like i have to wake up in 2 and a half hours, but hey, I had to get this out there. 

Here’s a good indicator to follow, a real-time global pollution index, to perhaps guide you with a more informed decision of where you may wish to head to next. http://aqicn.org/map/india/

Real-time International Air Polllution Index

Face to Face 1959 with the prescient Carl G. Jung – If I Know a thing, I don’t have to Believe

As I continue (now in the last running stretch ’til Spring) writing my book, I came across this pretty remarkable 1959 Face to Face interview of Carl Gustav Jung. It looks like it would be pretty dry, yet this man is so sharp and prescient. He answers thoughtfully and precisely, with surprises bubbling up.

He explored the inner world of the psyche all of his life. Here’s a great review of his concepts, The Jungian Model of the Psyche.

In this 1959 interview he said several unequivocally against-the-mainstream statements that caught my attention.

Basically, that evil does not exist ‘outside’ of man. it originates from us. For this reason the psyche of human nature should be studied voraciously, because we are the biggest danger to ourselves.

He mentioned, 1959 I remind you, that people are full of apprehension – not merely their dreams – but that their dreams reflect their conscious lives. He was Swiss, yet global. So in the middle of the last century fear was already formulating, certainly a lot of fears congruent with societal pressures … fear of the unknown, fear of change, xenophobia, fear of not having control.

When asked if death is as important as birth. Jung answered, “if” death is an end, we are not quite certain.

Explaining, we have peculiar faculties of the psyche, in which it is not confined to space and time. People can have dreams and visions of the future, see around corners. Only ignorance denies these facts, these have existed always.

Therefore, if the psyche is (in part at least) not dependent upon these confinements, not under the obligation to live in time and space alone, and obviously it doesn’t, then it is not subject to these laws. Why would the psyche need to conform to the same laws as the physical one’s of space and time?

When asked about whether he ‘believes’ in something, the question was regarding death.

Jung answered

Belief is difficult for me. Either I know a thing, and if i know it, I don’t need to believe it.

I don’t allow myself to believe a thing, just for the sake of believing it.
I can’t believe it, but if there are sufficient reasons for a hypothesis, then I will accept it.

Regarding the later years in life, if you look forward, you can live like there are centuries ahead of you, looking forward to the great adventure that is ahead each day, then one lives.

However, if someone is fearful and only looking back at the past and has already checked out from being interested and engaged in life, then they will probably not do very well.

If you think in a certain way, you may feel considerably better. hehehe

if you think along the lines of nature, you are definitely thinking better.

Man doesn’t stand for his nullification. All people seek their own existence. Man cannot stand a meaningless life.

I was super pleasantly surprised to hear his words that contradict, uh, much of what mainstream human cultures still have trouble accepting.

Our House is on Fire – Greta Thunberg WEForum | It is Worse Than That – Mark Doll

Greta Thunberg’s Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta Thunberg | Special Address, Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2019

Greta’s speech, among each that she has made to the public, is remarkable.

The words of this man, Mark Doll, are equally noteworthy and important.

Each are the reason that I decided to take time from the writing of my book to put out another blog.

Mark Doll posted the following comments today and it was chilling and heart-wrenching. But it deserves to be read in the context of this little girl’s courage at Davos.

I hope that for a change, people who do not have the time or patience to read, read this.

“…I realize there is something I have known for some time but have never said, and, since I have just spent another 4 hours of my life in climate change academia I have to get this out of my system.

Please understand that many you reading this won’t live to an old age… and likely will start scrolling after one or 2 more paragraphs… (edit…Ok I was wrong on this point. This is now my 2nd most shared post of all time)

The IPCC report and Paris accord are incredibly overly optimistic and that commits the world to a target that means the death of hundreds of millions if not more.

But it is worse than that.

Even the commitments made by countries in the Paris accord don’t get us to a 2 degree world.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target is now unattainable (unless the entire civilization of the world doesn’t do a 180 today…) target is based on geo-engineering the climate of the earth as well as the sequestering of every molecule of carbon we produced over the last number of years and every molecule we are producing today and every molecule we produce tomorrow…. these technologies that don’t exist wont exist and even if they did would likely cause as many if not more problems than they fix.

But it is worse than that.

The 2 degree target of the IPCC does not factor in the feedback loops that such as the increased albedo effect caused by the 70% loss of ice in the arctic, The release of methane from a thawing arctic. (there is more energy stored in the arctic methane than there is in coal in the world). This is called the methane dragon. If the process of the release of the methane, currently frozen in the soil and ocean beds of the arctic, which has already begun, spins out of control we are looking a an 8 degree rise in temperature. (this ignores the scientists that don’t see this feedback stopping and ends up resulting in the world oceans boiling off and earth becomes Venus…but I digress.

But it is worse than that

The report which give us 12 years to get our head’s out of our arses underestimated the amount of heat stored in the world’s oceans by 40%… so no , we don’t have 12 years.

But it is worse than that.

The IPCC report ignores the effects of humans messing up the Nitrogen cycle through agricultural fertilizers and more… Don’t go down this rabbit hole if you want to sleep at night.

But it is worse than that.

Sea level rise will not be gradual. Even assuming that the billions of tons of water that is currently being dumped down to the ground level of Greenland isn’t creating a lubricant which eventually will allow the ice to free-flow into the northern oceans as it is only the friction to the islands surface that is currently holding the ice back coupled with the same process is happening in Antarctica but is also coupled with the disappearance of the ice shelves which act as buttresses holding the glaciers from free flowing into the southern ocean we are not looking at maintaining the 3.4mm/yr increase in sea level rise (which incidentally is terrifying when you multiply it out over decades and centuries. We will be looking at major calving events that will result in much bigger yearly increases coupled with an exponential increase in glacial melting. FYI Alberta is going to need a pipeline… just not for oil. More likely for desalinated water from tidewater…

But it is worse than that… We can no longer save the society that we live in and many of us are going to be dead long before our life expectancy would suggest.

If your idea of hope is having some slightly modified Standard of living going forward and live to ripe old age… there is no hope. This civilization is over…

… but there is hope.. There is a way for some to come through this and have an enjoyable life on the other side. Every day we delay can be measured in human lives. There will come a day of inaction when that number includes someone you love, yourself or myself.
So we have 2 options. Wake the fuck up. If we do we will only have to experience the end of our society as we know it aka…the inevitable economic collapse which is now unavoidable, but be able to save and rebuild something new on the other side. This would require a deep adaptation. Words like sustainability would need to be seen as toxic and our focus needs be on regeneration. Regeneration of soil, forest ocean etc…. This is all possible.
Option 2 is the path we are on. Think we can slowly adapt to change. This not only ensures we experience collapse but also condemns humanity to not just economic and social collapse but in a 8 degree world… extinction.

I am sick of pipeline discussions. I am sick of any argument that is predicated on the defeatist assumption that we will continue to burn oil at an ever increasing rate. Fact is if we do we are not just fucked, we are dead. I am sick of people who don’t understand how their food is produced, and its effect on the climate.(both carnivores who eat feed lot meat and vegans who eat industrially produced mono cropped veggies as they are equally guilty here as the consumption of either is devastating).

I am sick of the argument that our oil is less poisonous than someone else’s. Firstly, no it isn’t and secondly, It doesn’t fucking matter. I am sick of people that can’t even handle the ridiculously small only the tip of the iceberg of the changes we need to accept; the carbon tax. I am sick of my own hypocrisy that allows me to still use fossil fuels for transportation. I am sick of those who use hypocrisy as an argument against action.

I am sick of the Leadership of my country that argues we can have economic growth and survivable environment… we can’t.

I am sickened by the normalizing of the leadership of our Southern neighbour who as the most polluting nation in the world officially ignores even the tragedy that is the Paris accord. I am sick of the politicians I worked to get elected being impotent on this subject…

I am sick that the next image I put up of my kids, cheese, pets or bread is going to garner immeasurably more attention than a post such as this which actually has meaning… I am sick about the fact that all the information I referenced here is easily discoverable in scientific journals but will be characterized by many as hyperbolic.
I am especially sick that my future and the future of my children is dependent on the dozens of people that saw this post, said there goes Marc off the deep end again and chose to remain ignorant of the basic facts about our near future.

There is a path forward. But every day we delay the path forward includes fewer of us.

Build community, build resilience, work for food security, think regeneration, plant food producing trees, think perennial food production, eat food that does not mine the soil and is locally produced, eat meat that is grass fed that is used to provide nutrients to vegetation, get to know a farmer or become one yourself, park your car, do not vote for anyone who either ignores climate change or says we can have our cake and eat it too, quit your job if it is fossil fuel related, stop buying shit, Stop buying things that are designed to break and be disposed of, let go of this society slowly and by your own volition (its better than being forced to do it quickly), rip up your lawn and plant a garden with veggies, fruit bushes, fruit trees and nut trees, learn to compost your own poop, get a smaller house on a bigger lot and regenerate that land, plant a guerrilla garden on a city road allowance, return to the multi-generational house, realize that growth has only been a thing in human civilization for 250 years and it is about to end and make preparations for this change, teach this to your children, buy only the necessities, don’t buy new clothes-go to the thrift store, don’t use single use plastic or if you do re-purpose it, unplug your garberator and compost everything, don’t let yourself get away with the argument that the plane is going there anyway when you book a holiday, understand that there is no such thing as the new normal because next year will be worse, understand before you make the argument that we need to reduce human population … meaning the population elsewhere… that it is not overpopulation in China or India that is causing the current problem… It is us and our lifestyle.

Understand that those that are currently arguing against refugees and climate change are both increasing the effects of climate change and causing millions on climate refugees… which will be arriving on Canada’s doorstep because Canada will, on the whole, be one of the last countries affected, understand that the densification of cities is condemning those in that density to a food-less future.

Stop tolerating the middle ground on climate change. there is no middle ground on gravity, the earth is round, and we are on the verge of collapse.”

Care for the Natural World – Treat it with Respect and Reverence | The Duke of Cambridge interviews Sir David | WEForum

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William aka the Duke of Cambridge, at the World Economic Forum, in Davos – the 22nd to 25th of January. Prince William has very thoughtful and prescient questions. It’s evident that Princess Diana’s son is very in touch with what is essential, and is bringing these points out in his interview to the esteemed Sir David Attenborough, who has a great deal of wisdom to share (working 70 years bringing the natural world to people’s homes through television and documentaries).

Sir David Attenborough interviewed by Prince William, HRH Duke of Cambridge

I think this should be required listening, required in schools and by world leaders, especially the bimbo in the Whitehouse and any Republican climate science deniers. Sir David Attenborough says,”presently we’re living in the paradox, in which there have never been so many people out of touch with the natural world (more than half of the worlds population live in metropolitan areas), and yet every breath of air and every mouthful of food that we take comes from the natural world. if we damage it, we damage ourselves. The essential part of human life is a healthy planet. We are in danger of wrecking that.”

Asking what he wishes to communicate to the audience of global leaders, Sir David Attenborough responded.

“Care for the natural world. Treat it with respect and reverence. The natural world is the source of all wonder. The future of the natural world is in our hands. We have never been more powerful or populated. We can wreck it with ease, and without even realizing that we’re doing it.

We wreck it, we wreck ourselves. DO NOT WASTE THE RICHES OF THE NATURAL WORLD ON WHICH WE DEPEND. Do not throw food away, do not use energy wastefully. THIS DISASTER OVERTAKING THE WORLD STARTED IN BRITAIN IN THE 18TH CENTURY, THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. > THE AIM WAS TO CONQUER THE NATURAL WORLD, SHOW OUR MASTERY, WHICH WAS TO DESTROY IT. We know better now. It is time to act.

True Leaders Discuss Climate Change Solutions | Invest Your Time in this Critical Town Hall Discussion

I have not been writing any blogs because I am diving into completing my book. However I found this discovery of a town hall meeting that took place December 3rd, to be critical to share.

Town Hall Discussion on Climate Change

“U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) hosted a national town hall on Monday, Dec. 3, aimed at addressing the global threat of climate change and exploring solutions that can protect the planet from devastation and create tens of millions of good-paying jobs.

Sanders was joined by 350.org founder and author Bill McKibben; actress, activist and Our Revolution board member Shailene Woodley; CNN host and author Van Jones; Earth Guardians Youth Director Xiuhtezcatl Martinez; Congresswoman-Elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez; Union of Concerned Scientists Director of Climate Science Dr. Brenda Ekwurzel; Dr. Camilla Bausch, President of Ecologic Institute; and Dale Ross, mayor of Georgetown, Texas

To Joan with Love | Animals Watering Hole Africa

Here’s a new Faber Castell watercolor painting I did today for my sister Joan. I reveal the progression of the painting through taking photos at various periods of time. From a composite of 4 photographs, I did an initial small sketch, then replicated it on the sketch pad.

to_Joan_Wateringhole_Africa_12_19_18

beginning sketch composite of several photographs

To Joan with Love Animals Watering Hole Africa

 

 

 

 

sources of painting
1_giraffe bird baobab

to_Joan_Wateringhole_Africa_12_19_18

 

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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Tragedy of the Commons | Oskar Eustis | George Monbiot | Invest in our CommonWealth

I’m from Pennsylvania, one of four States of the 52, which is a Commonwealth. I never really knew how that distinguished PA from any other state. I learned of the concept of the Commons through the writings of George Monbiot. He wrote this article published in the Guardian September 27th, 2017. Don’t let the rich get even richer on the assets we all share – It’s time for communities to seize back control of resources upon which their prosperity depends

Monbiot states that the commons has three main elements. “First a resource, such as land, water, minerals, scientific research, hardware or software. Second a community of people who have shared and equal rights to this resource, and organise themselves to manage it. Third the rules, systems and negotiations they develop to sustain it and allocate the benefits.” He goes on to state:

The commons have been attacked by both state power and capitalism for centuries. Resources that no one invented or created, or that a large number of people created together, are stolen by those who sniff an opportunity for profit…those who capture essential resources force everyone else to pay for access.”

What comes to my mind immediately is companies that for example take (extract/steal)  a region’s water, and then force the local people to pay for what they bottle. Or the fact that various individuals and companies throughout history who tried to buy, destroy or steal the plans of various individuals who designed medical or energy devices that could have provided a product to the public for almost no cost. Instead, they were hidden from public knowledge so that the perpetrators could make a profit through their own devices. By obscuring the competitor’s inventions, they were able to bank on their own goods or services.

Monbiot subsequently published essentially the same themed article in his blog Common Wealth on the 2nd of October, 2018. Entitled Common Wealth – Hope lies with a great, neglected sector of the economy, through which we can create a system that is neither capitalist nor state communist.”

Commons is managed for wellbeing.

Tragedy of the Commons video by Nicholas Amendolare

The Tragedy of the Commons is eloquently described in this video. Basically if a community consumes a common resource too fast for regeneration to occur, people must choose between restricting their own consumption for the good of the community, for if they continue to consume at a rate that satisfies their immediate “self-interest”, there may be dire consequences later. That seems to be what is occurring on the earth presently. However, in terms of consuming and/or spoiling resources, the fact is that it isn’t really the individuals who make up communities who are necessarily at fault. In the last several generations, the resources and supply has for the most part been in the control of a very few. This has upset the balance and tweaked the demand curve.

We’ve gotten into a weird state of affairs in the USA, which is being replicated all over the globe. It used to be the land of effulgent possibilities. Labeled the Land of Opportunity, the American Dream. The land of entrepreneurship. The place where people could be assured that their ideas and efforts could be strengthened and developed. But the dream has been taken hostage by just a small percentage of individuals and groups, who have been able to use their money to buy their passage, gobble up competitors, purchase the media and think tanks to hurl out propaganda and crush anyone in their way.

In the last decades, as a friend says the last 70 years, the emphasis in the States has become top-heavy towards enriching the industrial interests, which has coincided with buttressing the military. A handful of people have been controlling these interests. The process has downright gutted many of the small businesses. Anyone who has been alive long enough in the United States of Amnesia, has seen their local hardware stores, five & dime stores, pharmacies, grocery stores, local boutiques etc, in which you knew the families of the people who owned and operated them, disappear. Now Big Box Stores like Walmart have replaced them. They can’t compete. I mention this in my other blog. https://digesthis.wordpress.com/2018/12/06/the-photo-ark-half-earth-project-plastic-ocean-dolphin-deaths-sonar-seismic-tests-patriotism-to-finance-the-military-industrial-gdp-ecocide/

Robert Reich explains in this video THE MONOPOLIZATION OF AMERICA: The Biggest Economic Problem You’re Hearing Almost Nothing About about how this phenomenon evolved. He says that a century ago there were anti-trust laws preventing any company from getting too large, but that these protections disappeared during the Reagan years. Reich points out that the less businesses there are in competition, the more the few who are in control can create their own prices as well as the wages. No competitor, no problem, for those making the rules.

Robert Reich Monopolization of America Health Care Monopolies 2016

Robert Reich Monopolization of America Walmart Drives Down Workers Wages

The USA according to what businesses ‘control’ each state. Walmart Nation, Health Care Boeing

 

What we need to do is to step by step, reinvest in our own communities, and take the tools to work side by side. Forming relationships with people and seeing our own work and voices mirrored, empowering people to be intimately tied to their own land. I’m living in a town next to the birthplace of the industrial revolution. A number of people told me how toxic the river was that flowed through this town. The townspeople and any other life that had been here certainly suffered, while the industries reaped financial rewards. The trend in the USA has been for cities to clean up their waterfronts and create common spaces that people can enjoy. That is their heritage, to walk and commune freely with others in public spaces. That’s what I’m talking about here. Except not just riverfront property. I’m talking about fields and woods surrounding towns, forests on the periphery, about national parks, about creating once again and maintaining spaces that are naturally the habitat of other life forms. About taking picks to break up parking lots and creating community gardens instead. About people engaging in these public spaces, with love of the land, connectedness among the people and the desire to protect and allow the land and all the other life forms to flourish.

What I understand in the idea of ‘taking back’ the commons – is for community members, you and I, to have joint ownership of the land; for community members to be entitled to make decisions on how best to use this resource and to together create community works, community theatre, community stores, community gardens, community farms. Because when something is shared and invested in physically and monetarily, one will put effort, love and pride into maintaining it. We have had this tremendous land grab by companies, private sectors, who own vast stretches of land which, one would think, should rightfully be a heritage of the people who walk on the earth. So if the people collectively owned these swaths of land, fields, forests, grasslands, natural parks and so forth, then we the people would be engaged in participating in protecting it. It would be something that belonged to the people, and therefore, instead of being neglected or some other owner reaping vast rewards while the local populations received little, the people could benefit from either choosing to create fields, community gardens, parks with fruit and nut trees. In other words, this would deliver the ownership to the people and the wealth of the land would be valued by the people and recirculated among the people, not trickled off to enrich an owner far away.

Oskar Eustis TED Talk
Why theater is essential to democracy

I had the pleasure of listening to Oskar Eustis, the director of Hamilton, speak at a salon coordinated by the Athenaeum in Providence, Rhode Island. His words echoed the same concepts, of the need to bring back community theatre and arts and take back the country from all who have been dispossessed and cheated. The idea of power coming from below, from the community. He launched the audience with his humor and great storytelling into the past, to the first theatre and the fist actors of ancient Greek history. He mentioned Thespis, the first person ever to appear on stage and Aeschylus, the father of tragedy. He mentioned that it was the Persians who brought to the stage for the first time – not just one actor donning various masks – but two actors to stand side by side on the stage. This new perspective, with dialogue revealing that there could be more than one isolated truth, but a dialectic in which a discourse between two or more people holding different points of view could establish a truth through reasoned arguments, happened to coincide with the beginnings of Democracy at about this same time period.

Eustis stated that the Truth is dialectical. Precedent to Hegel’s dialectic, dialogue asks the audience to listen to two points of view, recognizing that each lead to the truth. Thus theatre, storytelling in its beginnings, came with this perception of each person having a voice. And this recognition through theatre, precipitated Democracy.

Oskar spoke at length about how bringing the theatre to the public, to allow actors and non actors to participate, empowers people. Project Discovery, which Trinity created is theatre of, for and by the people. He mentioned that creativity is inherent in all people, and that it is human to have the desire to create. Some people have had more practice. Creativity simply needs to be nourished.

Oskar Eustis spoke of the fate of the marketplace. That the economy and technology of the last decades has turned its back on the people. Wall Street and corporations operating in this global economy have robbed people of jobs. As the jobs disappeared – outsourced to other countries for cheaper labor – it has pulled communities apart. He talked of revitalizing communities through investing in projects such as theatre. When people can see their own story and speak their own story, they are empowered to share their stories.

Oskar states that “It is our job to knit this country back together, not to be right.”

Oskar Eustis’ TED Talk weaves together the idea of a public theatre, common voice and a democratic government.

The Work That Reconnects Pat van Boeckel

 

 

One of the practices within The Work that Reconnects is an exercise called the Riddle of the Commons Game. It brings to awareness the fact that people need to balance between their own self-interest and collective self-interest. Each is necessary for the common good.

Greta’s powerful speech to Swedish people before the Parliament

 

 

 

 

‘We Have Not Come Here to Beg World Leaders to Care,’ 15-Year-Old Greta Thunberg Tells COP24. “We Have Come to Let Them Know Change Is Coming. We can no longer save the world by playing by the rules,” says Greta Thunberg, “because the rules have to be changed.”

There’s nothing more important than recognizing that change can happen. Coming through education and arts and activities within your own communities. We can drive that change. If one young girl has already sparked and inspired students in Australia, in another continent, this can ripple. We need to look very, very hard, at what we are choosing, so that we don’t lose what is most precious. You may think your own immediate children are the most precious, but what if there are no trees, woods, grasses, available food, no clean oceans or rivers or lakes, or air, and no other life? It is an astoundingly clear choice to me. We’ve got to make some changes, and we’re going to do this together. And plenty of people are pointing the way, and your own ideas will be as valuable as anyones, collaboratively we will create this change.

My friend Loren Booda states, “Start with hope, funding of positive efforts to return nature and, with native education, make everyone responsible for and aware of their use of resources. The major problem? Almost all of us usually put other needs or wants before the environment.” Full-circle back to The Tragedy of the Commons.

Carol Keiter aka nomadbeatz welcomes donations for her writing, photography, illustrations, eBook & music composition

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December 10th, 2018 Carol Keiter

Innsæi – The Power of Intuition | Nature Is Our Silent Witness

“The biggest obstacle to intuition is noise. We are bombarded with information and distraction all the time, and in particular, noise. The noise of the external world is muting our attention to the internal world.”

~ Malidoma Patrice Somé

Innsæi – The power of Intuition is an inspiring and thought-provoking documentary film in English with Icelandic subtitles. It was made by two Icelandic women Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir and Kristín Ólafsdóttir. They tell their story by distilling wisdom and insights from divers sources. They eloquently reveal that the modern western tendency is for people to disconnect from themselves and one another, ironically, the more that they think they’re connecting, through their devices.

Innsæi – The Power of Intuition

INNSAEI O PODER DA INTUIÇÃO DOCUMENTÁRIO 2016 COMPLETO LEGENDADO HD

Insight and intuition comes through that silent connection between one’s thoughts and feelings. It’s an emotional connection. One person interviewed mentions that 95% of our mental processes are unconscious. When interacting with another person, our brains process most of the information from implicit cues we pick up unconsciously; through gesture, tone of voice, choice of word, facial expression. Intuition lies outside of the things that we’re consciously aware of, yet can play an important role in guiding us, if we allow it to, by not being so enormously distracted with information and noise.

Innsæi Documentary Film

The richness of our lives emotionally, psychologically and spiritually emerges through the wealth of diversity of plants and animals which make up the life system of our earth. We are part of a huge, fabulously intricate and awesome network of life woven together. The more we tune into it, the more human built distractions will diminish. We need to cherish and support the entire living system and do our best to safeguard it. The refrain of Joni Mitchel’s song Big Yellow Taxi couldn’t be more accurate. “don’t It always seem to go, that you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone, they paved paradise, put up a parking lot”.

Nature is our Silent Witness, Intuition needs the vocabulary and many languages of nature

An excellent synopsis of the documentary film here in Zeitgest Films informs you that the film makers “Hrund Gunnsteinsdottir and Kristín Ólafsdóttir go on a soul-searching, global journey to uncover the art of connecting within in today’s world of distraction, disconnection and stress.”

This writer plucked out a lot of the important points of the film.

Intuition plays through the creative insight of the right hemisphere of the brain that coordinates information coming from many senses. In a recent conversation with a girl I met, I was talking about seeing through the heart and that we have a lot of neurons in our heart and gut. She brought up the fact that when speaking with people regarding sensitive topics like ‘climate crisis’, it’s extremely important what words one chooses. A word is linked to an emotional connection. A person’s attention may be immediately diverted because of their preconceived notion and association of that word. A word can cause someone to tune out, because of what they associate it with, or cause them to respond, because it is integral to their own way of responding to life – their operating system. Unconsciously, we label and draw conclusions from our associations with the word.

The mention of the performance artist Marina Abramovic who drew a tremendous response when people lined up to sit on a chair facing her, to look into her eyes. Her complete presence in the moment became this clear reflection into the person’s psyche. In that silence they are seeing themselves. “Something people rarely take time to do”, she says. In quietness with no disruptive waves, as she breathed slowly and aligned her attention and eyes to meet those of the stranger before her, people would in this silent communication melt into tears, or flicker into rage. She advises people to go into the unknown, to enter into a different pattern. Making mistakes is the way we grow.

The joy in his eyes and complete confidence in his tone of voice made me eager to attend to every single utterance. The more he said, the more it resonated. Malidoma Patrice Somé is an African elder who was interviewed. He was born in a Dagara community in Dano, Burkina Faso.

Malidoma Patrice Somé

He talks of our need for nature, that “Nature is a Silent Witness to our Intuition”. We couldn’t have intuition without nature. He wishes westerners would give credence to and have faith in their intuition, because this is how one connects with their past, present and future and makes sense of our own lives.

Somé says “The biggest obstacle to intuition is noise. We are bombarded with information and distraction all the time, and in particular, noise. The noise of the external world is muting our attention to the internal world.

He mentioned the Dagara tribe and I found this article written by a woman Sobonfu Somé, same name.

THE SEEN AND THE UNSEEN: SPIRITUALITY AMONG THE DAGARA PEOPLE

These words in particular pulled me in. “In the Dagara tradition, the healers have you walk so they can see how your body moves. Is your body ready to deal with this or are you still in conflict? The other way that healing happens is in the context of a community. If someone comes down with a particular illness, it is not seen as that person’s problem. It is a problem of the community, because that person is actually the voice of what is deeper in the core, in the fabric of the community.”

Last evening while watching a show of ice skaters at an outdoor rink, I smiled and clapped for the cute, hopeful, aspiring and the excellent technical maneuvers. I endured some of the music, telling myself, this is what this performer chose. And then a former olympic female figure skater entered and I recognized the first two or three notes of Franz Schubert’s Ave Maria. My eyes welled with tears and continued for almost the duration of the piece. I can’t say I was feeling sad or that it was bringing up a reference to a specific event. To me it is one of those astoundingly touching songs, like “Beautiful World” in which the melody and voice convey something beyond words, into something that launches emotions with piercing clarity.

We all know that it is the music in films that determines how the audience will interpret a scene; to be lighthearted, comical, tense, melancholy or frightening. It’s the emotional impact of art, the intuitive, that opens the doors.

Take some time for quiet moments, to notice things and ponder. And especially to go into the unknown, the source of the known.

Meditate! Listen and observe.

Peace

Trees Reflected in Water | Faber Castell watercolor pencils

Here’s a new painting (progression) Trees Reflected in Water progression. I like to take pictures as I paint to show to an extent, my process.

Trees Reflected in Water Progression

 

 

I bicycled twice there, 8.8 miles roundtrip, and still hadn’t completed it. It gets dark too early and its a bit cold to sit outside, so I completed the last touches, mostly adding water, at home using photos I took  ––when the wind wasn’t blowing the reflecting into ripples as when I was painting.

Slater Mill Pawtucket Woonasquatucket river Providence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I found this place by accident. I went off bicycling in a new direction, over an unfamiliar bridge and 4.4 miles later, found this place by accident. I found actually some lovely shrubbery too. I discovered these old buildings and a waterfall, then a trail. It’s the Slater Mill. It was empty the first time, the second time the parking lot was full – it happened to be the once a month that the historic house has a free tour.

Trees Reflected in Water

Borders on Vox | Johnny Harris Filmmaking & Journalism Excellence

Suddenly he was popping up on Facebook. He was in China and Hong Kong specifically for a while, now at the border between Columbia and Venezuela.

Johnny Harris Borders Senior Producer filmmaker_journalist

The theme Borders couldn’t be more appropriate in today’s world. I read that the senior producer of Border, Johnny Harris, has a BA in international relations from Brigham Young University and an MA in international peace and conflict resolution from American University, each based in Washington D.C.

Johnny Harris Borders Producer Filmmaker Journalist Vox

Here is his current most recent video, on the other side of the globe from China, in South America.

Why Colombia has taken in 1 million Venezuelans

 

I’m posting a blog about him so that more people can become aware of his series. I think he’s an excellent journalist, weaving in history, talking to people. I see that he asks locals with any historical information they deem appropriate to his videos, to offer their insights. He’s obviously got a nice tool, a camera attached to a drone which makes for some fantastic footage. And his series on Borders couldn’t be more appropriate at this time.

Autumn Colors Progression

I bicycled over to the Swan Point cemetery to check out the trees. I sat down as groups of wild turkeys wandered around. I completed this on a second sitting, November 8th.

Pictures of the latest painting progression

 

glue flower petals and leaves on bicycle

tiger paint
endangered species

 

 

as la catrina Day of the Dead

Autumn Nature Bliss | Sidewalk Leaf Imprints | Northeast North America

Hey, I have better quality images with my Canon digital camera, but haven’t had it on me on these days bicycling around. Only a phone with not so many dpi pixels, but great subject matter.

| Sidewalk Leaf Imprints | Northeast North America

exquisite colors

Sidewalk Leaf ImprintsAlong with all of the literally inspiring colors, I found these leaf imprints on the sidewalk of fallen leaves extraordinarily lovely!

Haunting Sidewalk Leave ImPrints

When You Do Nothing, You Are Part of the Problem

Sarah J. S. said this in her facebook post, and then I responded. I just decided to put it out there – un edited – beyond facebook.

Sarah J. S. says:

“Unless you are loud and explicit in your outrage, I consider you complicit in every death at the hands of another white terrorist, every suicide by a transgender American, every black person killed by law enforcement, every Latino child crying for her parents, every Brasilian forest cleared, every Sri Lankan cabinet member who gets sacked or killed, every German protester who’s maced in the forest, every journalist assassinated inside an embassy, EVERYTHING. All of it.

IF YOU ARE SILENT, YOU NO LONGER HAVE THE LUXURY OF THINKING YOURSELF “GOOD.” You simply aren’t a good person. You’re a comfortable person, but you are not good. You are the silent German neighbor in the 1930s who watched your childhood friend forced onto a train. You are the silent American in the 1960s who watched your neighbor return from the hospital with burns on her face.

And if you remain silent in 2018, you have made the decision, however tacit, to support the venomous hate that is galvanizing killers and burning holes into the fabric of humanity.

If you won’t stand proudly in your values, and if you won’t stand with humanitarians on the right side of history, I no longer understand you, and feel no remorse whatsoever in outing you as an oppressor and forcing you to stand in shame in your silence. Your implicit endorsement of oppression does not merit the peace of comfort.

Those of us who feel and respond to the pain of the world have been forced to feel discomfort for so long, while you have made our job harder by “staying out of politics.” Well, it’s not politics anymore, it’s life and death, and if you can’t be woken up enough to support life, may you find enough delusion to sustain you when they come for you—as they certainly will—and no neighbors come to your rescue.”

I respond.

I met Sarah J.S. when we were both participating in the http://placetob.org during the Paris climate talks. everyone there, from all over the world, were either there representing their countries who had already been devastated in the years preceding by global warming; from parts of the world feeling the brunt of the loss of their land to water or victims of massive storms- which most of the Global Northern hemisphere have been causing because of their appetites and demands for energy and comfort. There were people there who have gone all over the globe to do things to help people to help themselves, to stand up to industries and recognize that their forests are worth more alive, than dead, etc. we are living in a strange lie, in which incessant building and focus on profit, continues to wipe out community, compassion, empathy, connectedness (to one another and to nature and other life). The world is a big place, so that unless you know someone who is victimized by losing their access to clean water and air due to fracking or coal mining or oil spills, it just doesn’t really impact you. I grew up eating meat, driving in cars, living in a spacious home, when the word extinction was not used, it was a far off idea. Now, we live in a world in which everything is continually commodified – and it’s been sort of backed up with Christian ideology. The cows and pigs are there for humans to consume. We are, so the idea has been, at the top of the pyramid. We displaced the native Americans (but kept their names of territories as a nice gesture) and basically eradicated them. Native American indigenous people traditionally used only what they needed, and saw their connection and relationship to all of life – as something to honor. Western man has cut off any recognition of how they are part of a much larger web, in which all of this is splendor and awesome, and of which, man is only a small part. But humans have become so obsessive about material acquisition and domination, that they are just absolutely killing the planet and displacing all the life forms. The talk of walls, a border wall, is the most loathsome thing as far as all the OTHER LIFE FORMS ON THE PLANET WHO ACTUALLY DON’T HAVE POLITICAL BORDERS – THEY ARE ANIMALS THAT NORMALLY ROAM. WHAT THE FUCK PEOPLE? WHAT THE FUCK? every time some new mall or Wallmart or Costco or housing development, or highway cuts through land, it is killing off all the species. the idea of ever continuing to exploit oil and coal, or mines are just destroying habitats. the idea of minding the arctic or antarctic or bottom of the ocean, to just take, take, take and build, build build…is crippling every other species. we do not need new updated iPhones and computers and whatever in shorter and shorter generations. we have the capacity to do much more with our minds and hearts, and we are just continually seduced and misguided by media, and beguiled, yes, completely misinformed and used by political leaders. the billionaires club. All other life forms, people, air, water, land…are not valued as something worth alive, and left to be in its best form. we are fucking everything up as we continually build, increase square footage of homes, plow down trees, wipe out communal spaces, privatize, obsess about making a profit, obsess about acquiring things, relying more and more on the automobile, on comfort, on ease..okay well, I thought I’d add a few words to Sarah J.S.‘s

A letter to my sister | preciousness of life | Carl Sagan: freedom through scientific skepticism | Le Petit Prince

I was looking over my blog stats and saw someone read this, posted several years ago. I decided to post it again, since it’s relevant, from a moral and political standpoint – uh, yes, at one time I believe, the two were part of the same fabric. uh, now wait a minute, maybe morality and political leadership have rarely been paired, and that it is an exception! I mean, as long as royal leaders, and tyrants, and corporations have the reins, morality has little to do with the people who wish to maintain their power, control and profits.

Here’s the letter:
I am certainly happy to hear from you. Naturally I think about you every time that I enter the room to look at the lovely paper lanterns you hung for Mother’s birthday party and the teepee you constructed in the yard – which I‘m still raking! Memories of things people share and artifacts that they leave behind imbue all of these things with the spirit of the person. I am sorry that we had difficulties communicating at times. I have not been ‘above’ reacting emotionally to someone’s emotional reactions towards me. However, that doesn’t mean that I can not attempt to move beyond my reactions to reach out with more compassion and understanding.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of Le Petit Prince
The Little Prince

Antoine de Saint-Exupery was a pilot, and author of the remarkable children’s book, for adults, Le Petit Prince/ The Little Prince. There appear to be exceptions to this formidable quote, if the person happens to be morally repugnant and arrogant!

Le Petit Prince, written by Antoine Saint-Exupery
the Phenomenon

I went out with a family friend last night and afterwards, realized that he knows even more profoundly how precious life is, as he has lost both of his parents. Certainly, if we all had an acute awareness of death (sitting on our shoulders) – Carlos Castaneda style i.e. “the Teachings of Don Juan” – in each response to every moment, we would never be anything but kind to all people and creatures, at all times.

That sounds like a pretty heavy way to live. The context is not, to be continually fearful, but rather, continually present with the fact that every moment of life is precious. People need to accept the rights of others to be and perceive as they will. It is a rather large task, to put differences and competitiveness, jealousy, envy and judgments … aside. Yet it’s the only way for everyone to get along. (I just read in Salon dot com a rather scathing article about the writer Carlos Castaneda, saying that Don Juan was not only an astounding hoax, but that Castaneda went on to form a bizarre cult.) He nevertheless had strong poetic and spiritual points to emphasize in his writings.

It’s pretty much a life-long task, given the fact that all humans have a tendency to subjectively interpret and judge other peoples’ actions. I do it, we all do it, from personal complaints, grievances, expectations, disappointments on up to community and cultural, political and religious differences of interpretation, that result in the worst cases to prolonged wars and strife between ethnic groups and neighboring countries.

This appears to be one of the biggest challenges and aspirations for humankind; to look beyond differences and strive for understanding, compassion and kindness. The ‘tree-hugger/environmental activist side of me’ is kicking out judgements every time I see people’s actions or material opulence (not to mention hearing about plans for more gas drilling in the arctic etc.) which I perceive as offensive. I put them into a box I label offender/perpetrator; a personal judgement which is my own way of playing in the ‘us against them’ scenario. So, I’m as guilty as anyone. The obvious extreme is the fact that people are blowing each other up in the Middle East …. and that wars and conflicts and ominous actions of manipulation continue to proliferate worldwide, despite the fact that most humans have access to rather extraordinary tools.

We are technologically light years ahead of where we are emotionally!

As Carl Sagan mentions in this interview “A Way of Thinking” in which he delivers insights into the dangers in our present culture; based on the fact that we’re a science and technology-based culture, the inner workings of which few comprehend. That puts us in a position in which we are in danger of being more easily manipulated.

Sagan points out that science is a way of skeptically interrogating the universe. And that it’s dramatically important for each of us to ask skeptical questions about everything, particularly to those in authority; otherwise we are up for grabs by the next charlatan, political or religious, that comes along. He mentions that Thomas Jefferson said that people need to be educated in order to practice their skepticism, otherwise ‘we don’t run the government, the government runs us’.

Carol Keiter the blogger

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Red Maple Brilliance October 8th, Autumn 2018

I started doing this series of Faber-Castell watercolor pencils paintings a few years ago in the Santa Fe National Forest in New Mexico. At the time, I was living in a cabin adjacent to Bill Light’s home which he built for his daughter. I stayed there a few months, absolutely gorgeous woods. I’d go hiking with Luna, Bill’s dog, who’s not so large but very capable. I loved going on walks with Luna, and she loved going on walks with me. Beautiful pristine forest. Luna encountered bears a number of times….and she barked them up a tree each time. A very brave, confident dog, even though she was aging.

Here are several paintings, showing the progression from the first sitting and then completed in the next. Below is a flickr link to paintings done with (watercolor) colored-pencils 1,000 feet above Santa Fe, New Mexico elevation 7,198 feet, in the National Forest – where I’ve gone on walks with Luna, the owner’s dog

Luna my former companion on my walks to the woods

red maple signed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s the latest Faber-Castell watercolor pencil painting! That’s a mouth full. Red Maple in Autumn BrillianceRoger Willams Park, Providence, RI
Oct. 8th

Red Maple Autumn Brilliance

the red maple subject

I went out Sunday deciding to bicycle to Roger Williams park for a change (I’d been going to the cemetery close to where I live). Well I saw this fantastically brilliant Maple as I was coming in the one entrance…cycled around to other places…and wound up coming back to this cuz no other tree matched its brilliance at this time. I then couldn’t wait to return, I couldn’t get it completed that day as the dusk crept in. Then I had to carry it on my back in my pack while I danced for hours, running into the night time shows under the bridge of all these marching bands for the Pronk Fest, which was just fantastic. There were colored lights illuminating the bridge, and crowds cheering the bands, and the final band, final song was one which had a lovely and simple tune, so that many people there in this echo chamber sang this over and over (me included). A very lovely heart felt song archipello, and everyone after numerous repetitions, all magically stopped and cheered at exactly the same time. Singing this was one of those life’s special moments.

Happy World Animal Day | Car-a-holics in Northern Hemisphere Affect Global Disasters

Today is World Animal Day. In fact, with the climate collapse induced by human actions, mostly in the Northern Hemisphere of the Globe and among the wealthier nations, many of the populations (certainly not all) oblivious to how their energy habits are triggering these worldwide weather extremes and just basically destroying so many habitats of creatures.

Happy World Animal Day

Share a Happy World Animal Day

 

 

Donggala at the epicenter of the quake and Palu just south in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia

 

 

I am very sorry, that once again the archipelago of Indonesia has been struck a week ago with another tremendous earthquake and tsunami, causing devastation among the populations of many towns. My heart goes out to the people and families who have lost people, animals and treasures that they love.

Global Solutions New thinking on the most pressing issues facing people and the planet.

Sumatran Rhino Rescue National Geographic

 

The transportation sector makes the highest hit presently. I’m about to write to Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island, whom a passer by whom I asked if he ‘believed in global warming, human induced global warming’ responded saying that this Senator is aware and supportive of this issue. That’s after to my bafflement, I dined among two white American men who each DID NOT. This circa 85 year old man I intercepted as he walked with mail in his hand towards a mail box said, yes indeed. I mentioned I had written to both the RI mayor and governor regarding the atrocious number of people I find of all walks of life, ages and race, sitting in their cars nonchalantly with the engines idling. This man said, well, that’s part of it, but it really is the entire oil industry and these dirty industries…which is when he mentioned that this Senator Whitehouse is actually not blindly blithely ignoring the issue because of being in the pocket of dirty industries.

A Yale study revealing What the World Thinks About Climate Change emphasizes, “Limiting climate change will involve major shifts in public policy and individual behavior regarding energy, transportation, consumption, and more, note the researchers. Likewise, they said, preparing for and adapting to climate change impacts will require changes in current practices, and governments will need public support for and engagement in climate change solutions. This new research suggests that gaining public engagement will vary from country to country, depending on local culture, economy, education and other factors, said the researchers.”

Well, if people would just figure out a way to find alternative energies, putting some solar on your house, opting to ride a bicycle more, walk more, drive less and interact with the beauty of nature and recognize that when it comes down to it, most people go ‘on vacation’ to go be around nature. It’s the most lovely and formidably delightful thing you can do > to be among trees and animals and birds and immerse yourself in nature >for your physical, emotional and spiritual health. Spiritual health? What’s that? It’s recognizing with AWE how beautiful this planet is and in fact, you can’t purchase anything that will come close to intelligence, beauty and diversity and spectacularly fascinating creatures that are all around us.

What? You have to get out of your car? Your machine? What? You have walk without looking down at your phone? Look up from your phone and take your headphones off? What? You can do it? Try it for a block? Then two, and try for a real challenge to actually start conversing with the people around you.

Audubon Birds and Climate Change Report

Now having lived in Europe several times, I can say, now that I’m in New England of the USA, that the BIGGEST difference, is how disconnected people are with one another and nature. In Montpellier, Nice, and Paris France, in Rome, Italy, in Berlin, Germany certainly in the Netherlands and Scandinavia….

p e o p l e    w a l k   a r o u n d        they promenade, they hang out in public places that are designed with beauty to attract people to hang out. they promenade. That’s why promenade is a noun and a verb, a street and the act of casually walking, with not necessarily a specific destination in mind…people lingering in cafes on narrow streets into the sidewalks.

I told people last evening who actually were by two benches, that the walkways and area by the water, if it were in Europe, would be packed, all of the time, just as the WaterFire festival brings. All summer long, and believe me, I traversed the area by the water…and yes, there were gondola rides, and Providence does have a lot of summer outdoor concerts and festivals, but typically this riverside area, is eerily e m p t y. what? why?

Americans are car-a-holics. They are comfort-a-holics, energy hogs….and guess who is suffering the most? Every other person and creature on the planet, both two feet away from your idling exhaust pipe and insistence on driving everywhere along with the lack of walking infrastructure (thank you automobile and oil industry). And most of the local animals habitats and pathways are being paved by the minute – gotta have those highways, more roads, more building, more pavement. And the fires on every continent and radical storms and recent tsunami are without a doubt, due to the dirty industries feeding this demand for comfort. People become indignant with the thought of having to consider losing some of the efficiency and comfort that they have. Actually, the cool way would be to invest (your homes, your actions and your lifestyles) to let a few other creatures and cultures around the globe live, who are getting hit the hardest.

Oh yeah, so it’s world animal day. It just so happens that if people don’t have the time, or patience or are two self important to adjust their lifestyles or switch to supporting cleaner, sustainable energies, transportation, eating habits and purchasing practices, then when you go on vacation and there are no more animals or birds….whaddya gonna do, go into virtual reality to ‘pretend’?

regenerative cultures Wendell Berry learn what is good for the world

We have to do this together, we have to acknowledge that EVERYTHING has to change. The entire way I was raised in a little town in Pennsylvania in the USA was comfort, driving, eating meat, buying new clothes each new school season, keeping up with the Kardashians…WTF? You can be decked out in the fanciest clothing and stepping into your oversized car, but if you are overweight from bad habits, too exhausted to even want to read or pursue new information about the wonders of this world, but would rather take out, drive, dismiss, ignore, pop a pill and not be in the present moment, moment after moment of appreciating life and all of the life that also shares this planet, then what exactly are you living for?

Gosh, I think that this planet, and interacting and meeting new people and observing the incredible nature of which we are a part, is the most spectacular thing. It can’t get any better.

Please think about how your choices are affecting your immediate environment and the most biodiverse habitats on the other side of the globe. Human over population and indulgence has to slow down.

Natural Capital Project : Our Relationship with Nature

It just so happens to be the World Animal Day today, and because I love and appreciate all creatures, tiny and humongous as adorable and with the right to live, I just had to let off steam writing this. I hope it triggers a twitch of a thought t