Call Me Confused

Today, Monday, April 3, 2023,at 12:30 in the afternoon, here in the swampy bog of Savannah, GA, USA, the skies are overcast, and thundershowers are predicted later this afternoon.  I've been awake since daylight, called by my bladder and by Speckles, who, like me, is old and arthritic, but he can still crow in metronome fashion to alert the world that morning has arrived.

Since then, a squirrel has suicided on the power line outside my little house, blowing out a fuse and stopping the flow of electricity to my complex of deteriorating, rusting, and rotting structures that constitute my humanoid home.

At the time I heard the loud BOOM! I was handwriting in my journal that sudden loud noises make me jumpy and always have.  

Speckles, my 11-plus-year, home hatched and grown rooster, is now settled at my feet outside, preening his feathers, but we have a long history of power-struggles.

This morning, that squirrel's dramatic suicide managed to out-loud even Speckles, as I was finishing my last sip of coffee.

Desi, Georgia Power's service representative, managed to use his long pole to restore the power around 10 AM, but getting through the telephone menus to describe my situation to a real human being took some doing.  And to describe my whereabouts was even more complicated, because I share a driveway with sister and brother-in-law, so my mailing address is different from my home address, because my mailbox was squashed flat many years ago by some hit-and-run driver. I keep my post office box for my convenience, to dispose of excess paperwork where it accumulates.

Now GA Power knows to send my bills to my PO box, and it knows where I live, which is intentionally hard for undesireables to find.  

Today, Desi was a most desireable visitor, once I located GA Power's outage line, and after I called my sister's house to find they still had power.  Slade had heard the loud BOOM! too, and was already outside investigating the power pole, transformer, and lopty-skew fuse.  Slade intercepted Desi as he drove up, before I even had time to put shoes on.

An OWL!  In the NOW, at 1:10 pm, EDT.

We had an owl attack a couple of weeks ago.  I saw him dive under the guest house after Speckles. I ran around to the other side to see the owl holding on to my not-so-little screamer, about this time of day.  The owl took off when he saw me, and Speckles was only slightly scratched, but he seemed calmer than I felt.  I held him until my heart stopped pounding, put him inside the coop, and went looking for Tweety, who eventually showed her large, red comb from the darkest corner under the building.

Today, because of that suicidal squirrel, I have already had to re-set two digital clocks, using my cell phone to verify the time and date, but techno-confusion reigns in Cyberland, because of perpetual upgrades and add-ons, plus patent and IT competition amongst the various claimants on time, attention, and loyalty.

But my two birdies are safe, in the Now, and Lollipop, the stray cat I've fed for over a year, ate a good breakfast before disappearing on his daily scavenger hunt for rats, birds, and other things he likes to eat.

Spring is here, and parents everywhere are hungry, looking for food for themselves and their little  darlins.  Figs and blueberries can't ripen before being consumed.  Deer corn I supply gets gobbled up by raccoons, which have destroyed the plastic trashcans I used to use for animal food.  Rats, mice, and squirrels have eaten through corners in the attics and crawl spaces of buildings.

And my cell phone is useful sometimes, but convenient it is not.  I'm having to learn how to blog on it and on wordpress, because everything changes so fast.

Tweety, also known as Miss Flutter Budget, Handy Underfoot, and various other monikers.

Speckles crowing

Speckles, The Screamer.  Also the Owl Baiter.

Squire, In Memoriam

Squire, my 11-plus-year-old rooster, died yesterday, Saturday, September 17, 2022.

S. Squire Rooster, Attorney, for the Law of the Land

This photo, taken September, 2016, shows Squire at his most dramatic, crowing joyfully, but in celebration of Toozie's death and release from earthly struggles.

I hope my Squire-wire feels a similar joyful release.  He leaves a sad but relieved human being behind.

I've watched Squire decline for almost a year, since Brownie died last October.  Although he continued to watch out for Tweety, spar with Speckles, and ascend to the top of the shower stall of a morning, if I didn't catch him first, he has been losing weight, and his crow was beginning to crack, as though he no longer had the wind or vocal dexterity to finish his five notes.

Tweety and Speckles are adapting, but they seem sad, too, as I am, because Squire is no longer there to guard and to crow and spar.

We all have to die sometime.  As I enter my 70s, I feel more acutely than ever the impending personal transition.  

Squire left lots of memories behind, memories I share, in part, with Tweety and Specs.  I see his memory in every situation.

I love you, Squire, and will never forget how you brightened up my life.  May you rest in peace.

Drenched

Monday, September 5, 2022-- We had another torrential downpour in the wee hours this morning, but I was awake, resting from yesterday's relentless but individually petty demands on time, attention and patience.

The animals I care for and about survived the day, but I was worried about Speckles, alone in the coop, especially when the storm started, and Specs had no warming or drying light.

So I collected the basics of rain protection and trudged barefooted with flashlight through the deep mud puddles the 100 feet to the coop, to turn on Speckles' light.

But the rain was so heavy that I wanted to stay with him and wait out the worst of it.

Speckles, my first-born chicken, is a trooper.  He has had a traumatic life for most of his ten-plus years.  He will be eleven years old in late November.

Speckles with Toozie, my second and last- born, taking dirt baths, March, 2012, kco2012

Speckles with Brownie in the coop, 2017, kco2017

Speckles crowing, kco2015

I call him "The Screamer," because he has such a powerful and relentless crow, but he is also a cuddler, having endured my medical interventions repeatedly over our long relationship.  The worst was when scale mites ravaged his feather/scale junction so badly that the resultant ulcers were making it hard for him to walk.

I developed unanticipated veterinary skill in soaking and debriding the wounds, including holding Specs almost upside down to see the edges of the wounds and clean them.

Specs spent several winter nights on the floor of the coop while healing, and his consort, Brownie,  guarded him from her perch on the high shelf.

But Brownie died last October, at ten years, ten months old, and Speckles has had only Squire, Tweety, and me, to keep him from getting too lonely. 

Today, Speckles took advantage of the marginally sunny skies, by taking a long dirt bath under the guest house attached to the coop, while I spiffed up his quarters, in time for hurricane season and winter.

Yesteryear

Rocky the Racoon, kco2020

Brownie and Speckles on the porch, kco2019

Folk art, Telluride, Colorado, kco 2003

The Squire-wire and Speckles sparring through the cove grate, kco2019

S. Squire Rooster, Attorney for the Law of the Land, making his position perfectly clear. Above it all.

Squire atop the shower stall, kco2015

In the Now

Balance of opposites. Each contains the seed of the other.

The ten-year span from August, 2012 until now, August, 2022, has brought many changes, but events continue to evolve and exert their effects in multi-dimensional patterns.

As a plant grows from within, lives grow from the inside out, governed by an individualistic blueprint that may adapt but not change its fundamental nature.

Thus with my life. As I note my 70th birthday this month, I read my personal journal from August, 2012 and feel the continuity of my individuality, even though circumstances have changed.

My introduction to chicken-keeping in 2008 represents the beginning of an exploration into previously unimagined worlds. Each day brings new insights gathered from the Now as it relates to the Then, and to the imagined.

Together, they create a pattern of timeless associations, just as any emotionally significant experience does.

In August, 2012, I turned 60, by the calendar, and this month, August, 2022, I’ve turned 70. I’m now a septagenarian, having lived longer than both my parents.

I’ve also outlived others in my chronological “cohort” and mourn the passing of people, pets, and conditions that held significance for me.

Re-reading my journal for that time stirs emotions akin to what I felt then, but these now have the depth of memories accumulated over the past ten years, the sorrows, regrets, and the longing for what once was but will never be again.

I have the Now and choose to appreciate the gifts it offers. At the moment, peace and quiet, with my three chickens safely roosting in their preferred spots, and the stray cat I feed having eaten a decent supper before Cooney ran him off and stole his food dish. Cooney is one of an apparent family of racoons who have found that I am a reliable source of food, for as long as I can keep it up.

This evening, I learned that Cooney may be trainable, since he allowed Squire and Tweety to finish their evening treats after I ran him off the porch. He came back later, all wet and muddy from a swim in the river, so I let him steal the remainder of Lollipop’s cat food. The cat is skittish, but he seems willing to share food with the coon, and he is particularly deferential to Tweety, who is not afraid of cat or coon.

In the Now, we are all enjoying this break in the heat wave that has made days miserable for everyone except blood-sucking insects and other vermin. The rats and ants are thriving, as well as the chicken mites, termites, mosquitoes, and flies.

The torrential downpours we have had the last few days have cooled things off and are good for the mosquitoes and sand gnats but hard on my Goodwill shoes, floors and rugs.

I was actually glad to hear and see the Malathion Man’s helicopter the other day, as he sprayed the marsh in a futile attempt to control the mosquito population.

The Now is loaded with inspiration, for those who are awake.

Miss Tweety Pie, July, 2021. Now two years old, born July 8, 2020.

This blog is an experiment in learning how this cell phone functions. The picture of Tweety was taken with my digital camera, uploaded from my lap-top to my WordPress photo file, now retrieved for this blog, a scientific experiment in negotiating New Age electronic technology.

Tweety is doing fine, thank you, but suffering in this 95-degree Savannah heat and humidity. She has two roosters, Squire and son Speckles, to keep her entertained.

She lays brown eggs every day but seems to be slowing down now. She does not sit on her eggs. She leaves them unguarded to go outside and scratch in the dirt with her guardian, Squire, who is now 11 years old. Squire’s son, Speckles, is over ten years old, but I can’t keep the roosters together, because they fight. They have a long history of trauma, including attacks by foxes, owls, racoons and chicken mites. Speckles almost blinded Squire’s right eye before he knocked both spurs off attacking me. Squire seems to have some use of his eye, but he’s further impeded because his comb flops over his good eye.

Now Specs is a cuddler, my only chicken born and raised here.

Will try to post this update now

Love, Weather, and Mindfulness

Sunrise

I recently saw a local production of the rock musical, Hair, which was a Broadway hit in 1968.  I first saw it in the early 1970s, performed by a travelling troupe in a “Broadway at Duke” series.  I liked it so much then that I bought the album, but I didn’t remember that the show was about a “tribe” of hippies whose leader, Claude, was considering burning his draft card in protest against the Vietnam war.

They use the word “love” a lot in Hair, and on this viewing, the opening song, “Aquarius” brought tears to my eyes.:  “When the moon is in the seventh house, and Jupiter aligns with Mars, then peace will guide the planet, and love will steer the stars.  This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius . . .”

It reminded me I have the moon in the seventh house and Jupiter aligned with Mars.  I didn’t know that in the 1970s, but peace and love are guiding principles of my life, although no one would suspect it, not even me, sometimes.

At the end of Hair, the protagonist, Claude, after deciding not to burn his draft card, gets drafted, goes to Vietnam, and gets killed.  I commented to friends afterwards that we have come no closer to peace and love since the 1960s and 1970s, when kids our age were so idealistic.  We as a generation have become jaded.  The death of our hopes may have been predicted by Claude’s death in Vietnam.  But the Age of Aquarius is just beginning, and astrological ages last 2000-2500 years, so there’s still time for peace and love to evolve.

A few days later, in Barnes & Noble, I encountered a cute black man at the condiments bar.  I was complaining about the hot weather. He said something about cold, and I said I prefer cold to hot.  He said it’s “God’s weather.”  Later I thought “How quaint,” but at the time, I replied rain and breeze are God’s weather, too.

Yes, it’s all God’s weather, even climate change.  As I’ve become more attuned to the infinite and subtle variations, moment-to-moment in the “climate” of my environment, I’ve come to appreciate how useless weather predictions are.  A 90-degree day can feel hotter if the sun is intense, the air humid and still, or even if there’s machine noise or mosquitoes.  All increase levels of discomfort.

I avoid thinking in terms of God, but it’s convenient for encompassing ideas of totality.  All-That-Is, Seth’s (of the Jane Roberts’ series) name, carries less baggage, and Westerners don’t understand the Oriental concept of qi.  For me, this totality equates to the energy of universal love, pervasive love, all-inclusive love—an Aquarian concept–but “love” is another baggage-loaded term.

According to Seth, to some Native American traditions, and to the mystically inclined, the weather responds to human thought and will.  In order to hone my climate-changing skills, I figure, my intent must be clear and considerate of all who are affected by it.  To pray for rain, as former Georgia governor Sonny Perdue did, could cause flash floods in the mountains.  To ask for weather that makes everyone more comfortable implies rain without telling “God’s weather” how to achieve it.  Cloud cover, breeze, rain, nightfall—all these make everyone more comfortable.

Along these lines, I looked at a special issue of Time on “Mindfulness” and noticed this is the cover subject of National Geographic, too.  There is so much attention given to this lately that I find it amusing, in a smugly cynical way.  It smacks of “Agenda” from the urbanites, who are suddenly praising the benefits of office plants to relieve stress.

There were multiple references to “we all,” who feel stressed by competing demands on attention and how TV news is depressing, but “The Agenda” doesn’t suggest turning off the TV.  No.  Even Psychiatric News, which expresses concern about loneliness, suicide, and the overuse of social media, only calls for increased funding for treatment.

I also read some of the National Geographic issue on mindfulness.  The entire issue was apparently written by some life coach type who fills it with mindfulness rules, or guidelines that structure every minute of the day, from wake-up until bed.  While some of the ideas are good, the slant was one of goals and performance.  The practical value of hugging (releases oxytocin, the emotion hormone, we are told), gratitude, volunteering in the community, eye contact and presence were stressed. It impressed me in one specific way when it recommended being grateful.  Awareness of gratitude implies appreciating the things that go right and shifts focus away from worries and cares.

Animals are mindfulness gurus, but nothing I read mentioned that.  While “The Agenda” wants to sell mindfulness through teachers, courses, methods, books, videos, and apps, I think about all the ways it can be incorporated into daily routine.  Brushing teeth with the non-dominant hand comes to mind.  This is reminiscent of Carlos Casteneda’s Yaqui Indian mentor, don Juan, who recommended putting on the other shoe first, to make a conscious variation in a daily habit.

Seth of the Jane Roberts series recommends bringing mind back to the body, even for just a few seconds, to generate a sense of safety.  It’s a way of grounding oneself in the moment in space and time.  I’ve found that sitting at stop lights can provide opportunities for taking deep breaths and consciously relaxing tight body parts.  It seems driving has become more stressful over the years, with traffic heavier and more impatient.  Mindfulness is watching the chickens, or the clouds, or opening my senses while shutting off thought, which is easier said than done.

I realized while reading that these authors are at least a generation younger than I am, immersed in child rearing, work and other commitments, and don’t have the luxury of laziness.  But people my age and older, too, are imbued with the work ethic, which never retires.  Even I have a compelling need to “be productive,” to “make good use of time,” to “accomplish.”  Even when I’m lying on the lawn watching chickens, I’m “being mindful.”  Mindful is an ant crawling on my arm.  Mindful is anything that makes me uncomfortable.

 

 

CDC/FDA Boundary Creep

The Center for Disease Prevention (CDC) is raising national alarms about salmonella in backyard flocks of chickens.  It advises a washing hands every time you touch your chickens, and not keeping them in your house or around food.  The CDC goes beyond reasonable with some of its other recommendations, suggesting the bureaucrats who wrote the guidelines know nothing about keeping live chickens.  Salmonellosis is generally a self-limited case of diarrhea that lasts from four to seven days without complications, except in special cases.  Pig ears that are used as dog chew toys are also suspected.

This flies all over me, because the CDC meanwhile is advertising measles vaccines for children, within the same Yahoo article.  The CDC website at https://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/backyardpoultry-05-19/index.html gives the CDC’s version of the salmonella story.

I know something about chickens, having kept them for over 11 years, and I know something about salmonella, having gone to medical school, where I learned it is rampant in the environment.  My medical texts say there are over 1000 strains of salmonella.  It says “salmonellosis” is caused by inadequately cooked food, especially meat, poultry, and eggs.  Fruits and vegetables which are fertilized with animal manure are also implicated.  What the medical texts say that the government agencies don’t tell you, is that processed food is also a source, because the bacteria survives drying.  Incidentally, a dried taco seasoning distributed by Walmart and others has recently been recalled because it is suspected of containing salmonella-contaminated cumin, a spice.

I’ve also been tracking the FDA and its food scares since the E. coli in the spinach scare in 2006.  E. coli usually is considered “normal flora,” in the human gut and aids in digestion.  It only becomes pathological when natural barriers break down.  Antibiotic therapy, which is widely used, not only in human but in animal diseases and as a preventative, wipes out bacteria indiscriminately, but it never completely eliminates the pathogens, giving rise to antibiotic-resistant strains that then proliferate, with nothing able to curb them.  That’s why hospital germs are the most dangerous of all.  Methacillin-resistant Staphlococcus aureus (MRSA) is a universally recognized strain of Staph aureus that requires extreme measures to control, and it can be fatal.

Meanwhile, the CDC is busy promoting the measles vaccine, as a new “epidemic” of measles is sweeping he world, with pockets of outbreaks, we are told, among un-vaccinated children.  The controversy over vaccines comes in tandem with the explosion of patented, prescription vaccines for everything from flu to Zika virus, but the controversy is political, not medical or scientific.  While the medical or scientific institutions take pro-or-con stands, there is little in the news or from “educated” sources giving both pros and cons, and few (maybe none) who understand or want to understand the larger picture.  Or, it may be too early to tell what the ramifications are.

We are all caught in context, and predictions abound, but the past gives more information because we have a sense of the outcomes.  The bubonic plague, which wiped out a third of Europe in the 1340s and 1350s, was blamed on God’s wrath and witchcraft back then, but was later discovered to be carried by fleas on the rats that infested the cities and ships.  We still have rats and fleas, but we don’t hear much about bubonic plague anymore, partly because sanitation and nutrition have improved and partly because centuries if exposure have produced varying degrees of resistance.  Even HIV, which was identified in 1983, has evolved from carrying a quick death sentence to becoming more of a chronic disease.  While the advances of modern medicine have contributed to the long-term survival of HIV and AIDS patients, it’s also possible that the disease itself goes through cycles of infectivity and potency.

The media publishes federal agency press releases as though they are news stories, without question, investigation, or suspicion that they are anything less than gospel.  But federal agencies like the CDC and FDA are increasingly guilty of “boundary creep” by taking on more and greater advocacy roles for patented vaccines and other drugs, or alternatively, against small, independent food producers.  In the years I’ve been monitoring the FDA, it has initiated food scares over spinach, peanuts, eggs, cantaloupes, poultry, and pet foods, to name a few, yet while the scares make national news, precipitate food recalls, and have forced some companies into bankruptcy, the scares generally are hyped-up bluster over limited illness and almost no mortality.

About this salmonella outbreak that has killed two people and hospitalized over 122 in multiple states so far, any discriminating reader, especially one with a medical background, might naturally question how the CDC arrived at this reported chain of events.  How did they know the salmonella outbreak was “caused” by chickens or pig ears?  How do they know the hospitalized cases are even the result of salmonella toxicity?  The processes involved to isolate a pathogen are time, labor, and financially intensive.  Most cases of infectious disease are treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics.  Salmonella is so widespread in the environment that anyone with low resistance—as from poor nutrition, bad sanitation, antibiotic use (which reduces normal, protective flora), or pre-existing illness–might be susceptible.

If the CDC is truly interested in public health, it might do more to educate the public about the broader aspects of health, instead of pushing the panic button over speculative claims and unverified reports.

In my eleven years of hugging and kissing my chickens—they are very affectionate—I have developed some health problems, but salmonella has never been one of them.  I have minor scars on both arms from being scratched, but the worst is the deformed left wrist, which I broke when I fell chasing the fox that was chasing my Squire.

When I picked Squire up with my dangling left wrist, it was the sweetest, most healing hug I’ve ever experienced.  I didn’t stop to clean the mud off my arm, and neither the “health care professional” who wrapped it, nor the one who set it in a cast, bothered to clean it , either.

This is the institutionalized version of “health care” today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where There Is Love . . .

Above:  Chicks Toozie and Speckles dirt bathing, January, 2012

I re-read The Four Agreements, (Don Miguel Ruiz, 1997) over the weekend.  This is one of many spiritual/self-help/philosophy books that I enjoy reading from time to time.  They remind me that all is not what it seems.

The Four Agreements is short and seemingly simple, yet it reinforces concepts I’ve read in other places, albeit in different words.  Ruiz begins by claiming we all live in dream worlds, both individual and planetary dreams.  He relates this to the Indian (Hindu, Buddhist, and others) concept of “maya,” or “illusion.”  He says our planetary dream is a nightmare based on fear.

The remainder of the book describes “four agreements” a person can make to break the grip of fear and create a heaven instead of hell on earth.  These are, “Be impeccable in your word; Don’t take anything personally; Don’t make assumptions; and Always do your best.”

Ruiz cites the “nagual,” which is defined as a person in MesoAmerican culture who is a ‘sorcerer,” who can change shapes.  It also refers to the great unknown, beyond words or description.  Carlos Castaneda also made reference to the “nagual” in the person of his Yaqui Indian mentor in his series of books about don Juan and his teachings. (

Having read widely and extensively about spiritual teachings over the centuries and across cultures, I find a commonality that affirms we are all spiritual beings, although the paths to understanding may be different.  The Tao of Physics (Fritjof Capra, 1975) relates Oriental mystical tradition to modern quantum physics.  Here, time and space are perceived as relative and subservient to the cosmic “qi,” or essence of everything.  Seth, in the Jane Roberts series of channeled books, corroborates this idea and goes beyond it, saying we are limited only by our beliefs.  He emphasizes we create our own realities and that “the point of power is in the present.”

All seem to agree that we change the world by changing ourselves and our personal beliefs.

Ruiz’ claim that the world is ruled by fear struck home.  As I grow older and experience personal health problems, I’ve had to confront head-on a belief system that humbles and challenges me.  It tempts me to give in to fear.  It comes from outside but it also results from beliefs I took on, maybe by osmosis, or by conditioning, as Ruiz asserts.  Everything from advertising, which exploits fear and insecurity to sell products, to media, which uses fear to promote sensationalist agendas, to religion, which uses fear to subdue believers, is based on the notion that this is, and always will be, a world of suffering.

Is it, and must it be that way, I ask myself.  The answer from my inner core and from all the spiritual guidance books I read, is an emphatic “no.”  We can choose to be happy, as Ruiz most recently affirmed.

I watched a red-winged blackbird bathing in the watering dish outside my window yesterday.  As he splashed around, flinging sparkling droplets in a wide arc, I had to smile and admire him for his ability to find such ecstasy in this simple act.  It’s easy for a technologically-gifted human to provide that opportunity, and it makes me happy to see him enjoy it.

I get similar gratification from watching my chickens take their dirt baths.  They roll and loll in the dirt, creating little nest-shaped holes in the ground.

How hard can happiness be, I wondered, when we have no fear?

I’ve heard it said that “Where there is love, there is no fear.”  Google attributes this to John 4:18 in the Bible, specifically “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.  For fear has to do with punishment . . . .”  I suspect this is not solely a Christian insight, as Ruiz also relates fear to punishment.

Then, I decided, once again, that it all comes down to love.  Even hate and fear are love turned upside down.

How to apply this understanding in a practical way remains a challenge for the “warrior” in the spiritual realm.

 

 

Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism

Tuesday, March 21, 2017—I’m a proponent of free market capitalism, in that I believe in free things, especially if they can be exchanged for money that helps pay the bills.  Chicken feathers are free, sort of, if you don’t count the cost of feeding and housing the chickens.  Chickens molt on a regular basis, and if their feathers are clean, they can be used in a variety of ways.

I wore this hat, with a Speckles feather, on a “bad hair day” last week, getting smiles and compliments everywhere I went.  At first, I didn’t understand why these strangers were smiling.  Once I caught on, I bragged about how Speckles is alive and well, clean and healthy, and produced this feather of his own free will.

Pictured here is the same hat with a Squire feather, while the producer stands on his soapbox.  The mason jar contains yellow roses brought by dinner guests and wisteria blooms from the vine I’m training to block summer sun through the window (also free).  The other jar holds saved feathers from previous molts.

My little enterprise, which will never go public, has already produced two sales, the first to my banker, who bought feathers scattered in a plastic sleeve protector.  The second was a trade of a small bag of Squire feathers for a large carafe of saki.  A few more feathers are on sale at a local consignment shop.

Squire tolerates, if he doesn’t necessarily like, going visiting in the cat carrier.  My banker and bank staff fell in love with him.  Speckles might like visiting, too, but so far hasn’t had the opportunity.

My version of capitalism makes use of the wealth between my ears to create value from things other people take for granted.  Those who buy their chickens plucked and cut into pieces can’t be expected to appreciate the beauty of the feathers—individually and collectively—until they see them in different contexts.

Those who disparage capitalism seem to refer to “corporate capitalism,” which exploits human capital to form a “corporate body” amalgam in economic slavery to the bottom line.  Here we have such monsters as “corporate welfare,” “supercapitalism,” the “global economy,” and eco-rape.  Corporate capitalism has a long history of emphasizing short-term profits over long-term costs.  Local, and now world-wide, environmental pollution, general vitality-depletion on the planet, and a world at war (or perpetually on the verge of it) are only a few of the long term costs generated by an industrial age gone bananas

And, by the way, the bananas, especially the popular Cavendish banana, are at risk, too.  I grow another variety of banana and had a bumper crop last year, despite two major hurricanes.  Another free market capitalist product, courtesy of freedom, democracy, and capitalism.

The following comments come from my journal, ten years ago this month:

POWER ABUSE
Friday, March 2, 2007 – People who are raised or trained by power abusers don’t learn how to use power wisely.  Entrenched power abuse, as in the military or medicine, is considered normal for those in the systems.  The greatest ambition of the low man on the totem pole is to go from masochist to sadist, where he imagines he will respect himself more than he respects his bosses.

FREEDOM  AND RESPONSIBILITY
Saturday, March 3, 2007 – Right makes might.  It isn’t the other way around.    Self-sufficiency breeds freedom.  Taking responsibility for one’s own choices requires the willingness to accept and deal with consequences.  Criminals are soon entrapped in their own crimes, even if others never see.  A guilty man lives with his guilt and must face it, eventually.  His guilt lurks in the shadows, waiting for opportunities to right the wrong.  He can choose to restore balance consciously before he re-establishes it unconsciously through fear.
Thus did Adam learn the hard way that he couldn’t hide from God or his own guilty conscience.

HUMAN CAPITAL
Saturday, March 3, 2007 – Human capital is the most undervalued capital of all.  The social engineering messages—through laws, conventions, politics, media, entertainment and advertising–exploit this presumed advantage to everyone’s detriment.  Productivity increases when people enjoy their work enough to create a pleasant work environment.  This should be leadership’s top priority.  Pressure to perform, to grind an endless supply of boring and more boring, saps creativity, initiative, and ultimately, the economy.
When people wake up and realize we all bleed the same red blood, and the best way to live is to let live, we will begin to recognize the value of using our minds to work for instead of against us.  There is no mystique to psychiatry except self-knowledge.  My  life is my creation and no one can live it but me.  The best way to live it is to love it, in its many-faceted faces.
There is plenty of work to be done.  We have too many unproductive people, who want nothing more than to be fitted to the right job for them, and to earn enough money to support basic necessities and a few amenities.  More important, people need to be appreciated as human beings with human dignity and allowed the time and space to enjoy the fruits of their labors.
Everyone has a role to play.  A society that appreciates its human capital appreciates in value.  By fitting the job to the individual, rather than the other way around, everyone wins at relatively little cost to others.
Human capital is the only viable capital.  All other capital is derived from human desire and effort.  Once we place our values where they truly belong, with each individual, we can have a truly free, capitalistic, democracy.