Have you wondered if printing money is the same as creating money by making a loan? Is money supposed to have intrinsic worth, or is it supposed to be solely a facilitator of trade? And, how explain that a financial system considered to be essential to civilized life has ruined countless farmers, cast families from their homes, plunged nations one after the other into poverty like dominoes? Perhaps it is time to ask of what nature is money. Permit a detour into evolution. The miracle of life emerged slowly until sexual differentiation evolved one fine night upon which evolution sped up with a passion.. Yet in its later, mature, years sex has been taken over by industry and sullied. Return now to money, where a somewhat similar pattern is found. An easily portable substance having value transformed barter into the far more lucrative trade. Yet in its later, mature, years, that easily portable etc has brought out from the human soul limitless evil. Ponder a quality common to sex and money: in both a need was met...

The time has come to assess Vashon, to make sense out of the disconnect between global disintegration and our denial that it will affect us. Was going to say “complacency” but that did not seem strong enough to express my dismay, and in fact denial is not strong enough either. If you have not yet noticed, the highest priority of the Council is to maintain ferry service for the commute in spite of overwhelming evidence that car commuting by ferry will be an early casualty of the looming collapse of the US domestic economy. How blind can we get. Well, make that crosseyed, because we are neither blind nor stupid. Let me tell you what we are. We are in an advanced state of mass hysteria induced by the Apocalypse of climate and war, which state is not ameliorated by our leaders because we do not have any leaders. We are unincorporated, ie, without body, and specifically, without the part at the top. We are a raggle taggle bunch of highly intelligent and capable people who do not realize the mortal cost of relegating...

A tour of the high school has changed my attitude but not my opinion. I was asked to take the tour in hope I would change my condemnation of the planned rebuild. The school is indeed in terrible shape, both meanings. But I was not prepared for the impact of an hour spent in the presence of the students. Sensing their vigor was almost a physical blow. Yes, they deserve better, but no, it is wrong to do that before addressing a completely different matter. There is a dark underside to our high school. The only manifest sign is too many cars in the parking lot. Not evident is what I hear about antisocial action. Together these form a picture of youth and adults not together engaged in living. We adults consume too much and ignore responsibility. Youth responds by pushing limits. A result is that we waste the gift of student vigor. This is a serious loss because urgent action is needed starting now on readying Vashon for the national upheaval beginning in 2009. No adult organization is stepping up, possibly excepting...

No, not your car. Not you and your barbeque. I mean Vashon Island, you know, that pile of hardpan with trees on it? Each day the green stuff gobbles carbon dioxide and each day we burn some trees in our heaters. So what is the net score for atmospheric carbon , let's say, on December 25, 2008? Hmmm.

Tree: 800 lbs, a quarter of it carbon (no, I just guessed), 200 lbs

Number burned by 5OOO fires,  say 50 trees.

Carbon in fifty trees 200 bs X 50 = 10,000 lbs went to heaven

Photosynthetic sequestration in a typical Vashon tree per day is 1/400 of a pound.

(An acre of Douglas fir trees stores approximately 1.4 metric tons of carbon each year (14). That's 1/400 pound per tree per day given several baseless assumptions http://www.scientificblogging.com/science_mom/i_wanna_go_green_so_show_me_the_math)

Number of trees on Vashon is 30 exp 6 so that 80 thousand pounds of carbon is sequestered per day

Bottom line, 80 thousand pounds of carbon taken out, ten thousand sent back...

NPR has run a story and a sequel about a family that walks on its hands. Genes were examined. Effort was made to re-train them. Some success reported. Well, in all this, no mention of the role of propriosensors in the foot. Ever wonder how a toddler takes that first step? Or for that matter, how do you stay upright? Doctor Science knows. That family probably had deficient propriosensors.

Let's hear it for Backbone's recent action against Glacier. It has been a humbling experience for me on account of my bias against the Backbone Campaign for not drawing and quartering the Democrats. Whereas local Democrats are sheep herded by a competent and wise Roger Fulton, Democrats in Congress wear sheep's clothing on the forms of wolves, carnivores to the manwoman. So let's give a hearty thanks to Backbone for turning out against Glacier.

I’d like to clarify the previous letter about rebuilding the high school.

It is my understanding that there is a drug problem at the high school.

It is my understanding that there is a race problem at the high school.

It is my understanding that we adults, not just the parents of the few who misuse drugs and say things that hurt, that we adults are complicit by our silence in the far, far worse crimes of the Bush administration.

It is therefore my understanding that it is the soul of Vashon, not the body of the high school, that most needs fixing.

The swirl about K2 has a close relative in the desperate attempt to find a use for an expensive gadget you cannot for the life of you find a use for. A second cousin is finding a use for the unused portion of a batch of mixed epoxy: K2 is here, it is big, ergo the question is how to use it. But a far more important question goes unasked and that is how to use our Island. Pull your heads out of the swirl of words about K2 and look at what is happening willy nilly to America and will soon be happening to Vashon. Bled white and with the Damocles sword of abrupt climate change over our heads we join the third world. Predictions of when it will happen differ wildly but all trend sooner, not later. And while you are calculating, do not forget war. When, then? My mailbox finds a consensus of next summer. There’s the context, and the above noted far more important question is how we use Vashon. Let’s simplify the challenges by two slight exaggerations: when the change has fully developed ferry fares will prohibit commuting...

  (From Greener Times) The den of thieves back East are looting the country and we are supposed to celebrate Thanksgiving? Troops home by Christmas would be something to celebrate; too bad that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen says there are so many men and so much materiel in Iraq that a pullout would take years. And eviction of the Bush administration, so hoped for, is yet no cause to celebrate because Bush has planted stink bombs in every crevice of the crumbling bureaucracy of government. Thanks to Bush climate change has passed the threshold of instability with as yet no corrective measures taken, even some measures taken to speed up change. Coal burning could stop today yet not prevent the abrupt culmination of positive feedback that will occur within ten years. Ask James Hanson. Thanks to Bush morbid programs like No Child Left Behind, the Patriot act and Homeland Security are in place with no uninstall software available. And those are merely the tip of the smelly iceberg. In fact, Bush has instituted...

That's stretched a little from Bill Mc Kibben's current article in Mother Jones, this paragraph for instance:

"The final piece of the puzzle came early this year, and again from James Hansen. Twenty years after his crucial testimony, he published a paper with several coauthors called "Target Atmospheric CO2." It put, finally, a number on the table—indeed it did so in the boldest of terms. 'If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted,' it said, 'paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm.'   Stunned, I tried to get  my duck response team lined up so I could consult with the leader. The first clear response turned out to be a resolve to let my two granddaughters know what is going to happen to the next generation. Next, it became clear that duck number two wanted Vashon to sign on en masse to Fourth Corner Exchange, a trading scheme using...