Tom's Ramblings

A Tempest in a Pee Pot

Sun, 05 Sep 2010 03:51:18 GMT

The Beachcomber online has been discovered thanks somewhat to he who publicly shall not be thanked. But Roger is to be thanked since it was he who posted the link to the online article on the council breaking up. Of course, without he who, etc, having caused the breakup, that article would not have been. Discovered, TBC online is updated almost daily with comments on the print edition, and thanks therefore are given. It is too bad that most of the comments contribute nothing useful.

The uproar is being confined to the narrow issue of public disclosure. That issue is an artifact of the Council being an arm of the County which is bad and, yes, therefore should be addressed. But of far greater importance there is the issue of what the council was not doing nor intended to do, the issue of Vashon’s economic, social, and moral survival. While the tempest in the pee pot over the plight of the Council continues to rage there has been only one constructive voice, the combined voice of Margot Boyer and Bob Powell. Even there, a sense of urgency is wanting.

Vashon as presently composed will not survive the collapse of the United States. The ferries will soon be priced out of use. Crime on the island will increase. The food bank will be rupt. Homes will stand empty. Garbage will pile up. This can be prevented only by facing the truth of what the US has become and then by taking control of the island economy.

If arable land is fully used then Vashon farms could support a certain number of people. Full use of the land will require infra-trades like smithys, battery rebuild, solar crafts, you list. Almost anything is possible if we drop the pee-potting and get to work on a governance that will enliven our potential for hard work and imagination.

I think the nub is not our mutual distrust and disagreement, rather it is something more basic. It is that we cannot accept what is happening to the United States.

Beachcomber Aug 25, 2010

Fri, 27 Aug 2010 20:29:58 GMT

Two articles caught my ire, uh eye, the credit union and new governance.

Giving up on making a new credit union makes a lot of sense and dashes a lot of hope. I believe I have let it be known that the primary merit of a local CU was the high degree of cooperation it would engender. Point being that the strictly dollar merit of our very own CU would likely evaporate when the shock waves of assorted disasters reach the Pacific Northwest. Hyperinflation for example. Point being that we-all would have learned how to cooperate, specifically how to trade without dollars. I could point out that any one of us could already be in a CU if they chose.

Margot Boyer and Bob Powell with clarity and grace have laid out the case for a new governance. I wish they had included the word survival. Implicit in their case is an immediate future of stability. Ferry rates will continue to rise gradually, but without catastrophe. Groceries, same. Energy, same. This is dreamland. We are a bedroom community bereft of all but the merest shred of former agrarian resilience. We are vulnerable. And so for them to picture K-2 as a bit of this and a bit of that is dangerous narrow thinking. We need battery rebuild, re-manufacture of building materials, solar hot water, smithys, communal compost like in the real King County, and so on. Nice try. Margot and Bob.

PS, for those of you who do not follow the Beachcomber on the web, here is my e-comment upon hearing that half the Council Board had resigned:

The breakup of the Council is good news in that its structure is based on funding by the County that creates an obvious conflict of interest. Indeed, a good chunk of that funding goes for insurance to protect the Council from fusillades of rotten tomatoes. Notice that the County’s response to the Board’s plea cited “extent of county funding” as a reason for its decision. I say good riddance to the VMICC as funded. As to K-2, a mountain that to Tom Bangasser must be climbed because it is there, the Council dropped the ball in the third inning when it thought a buyer was imminent. The Council should have insisted that the factory be made part of an island economy dedicated to “eggs and us”. The plant was, and now is more so, in need of major rebuilding that’s only feasible by issuing work receipts to islanders. I don’t care to what degree self-interest is a factor in Bangasser’s crusade. He has done us a favor.

Beck and Call

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:55:50 GMT

The Beachcomber in printing thin pieces on the Council and Credit Union has this critic at its beck and call. Chris Beck should criticize the Council instead of criticizing our civic lack. And the Beachcomber should have delved into the nuts and bolts of that $200,000 instead of just providing an excellent progress report.

While noting the good work of the council, Chris neglects mention of what it did not do when K2 went on the market. It did not entertain ideas from the public on how to convert this plant to making things for island use. Not to mention profound disinterest in the Council taking a stand on health care.

What’s the essential difference between a credit union and a bank? Knowing that banks don’t lend money, they create it, what’s the capital for? Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, but there is serious ignorance here about money, and it has the nation over a barrel. Fresh breeze needed, please.

The Beachcomber has inadvertently beckoned, and I have innocently answered the call.

Independent Sanity

Tue, 06 Jul 2010 14:12:11 GMT

In case the last two posts read like a Chicken Little act, Last week:

The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has a new feature on their website called "Find Insurance Options". You just provide certain information about your family size, your age, your employment situation, your financial situation, whether you have certain disabilities or diseases, whether you now have Medicare or some other health insurance, or how long you have not had health insurance, whether you have been denied insurance, whether you are someone's dependent, a veteran? an American Indian? an Alaskan Native? etc., etc., etc. ... and the site gives you suggestions as to where and how you might find health insurance that might suit your particular needs. The head of HHS, Kathleen Sebelius, tells us "This is an incredibly impressive consumer tool," (Linda Jansen)

US: Felony charges, big fines for reporting within Gulf oil spill zone: $40,000, Class D Felony (CLG News)

Democrats Forced to Cheat to Fund War: The Democratic leadership in the House had to resort to an unusual and underhanded tactic to pass war funding Thursday night. (David Swanson)

As I said, a limit has been reached. It is time to stop picking our feet up out of the national slime and create islands of sanity starting with Maury, picking up Vashon on the way, and having a serious talk with Bainbridge. If you prefer the concrete, reflect that the print, radio, and television media are neo-toast and that the Internet is next. We the people of the Sound have to talk.

A Limit

Fri, 02 Jul 2010 15:10:41 GMT

There is a limit to hearing of wrongs. Of private prisons operating for profit. Of Homeland Security breaking up Latino families. Of driving blacks out of New Orleans. Of giant firms poisoning the public with bad food and dangerous packaging, endangering coal miners, and contaminating our aquifers. Of bad health care at exorbitant cost. Of collusion of the elite to steal from the rest of us. Of continued funding of the torture school at Ft. Benning, Of supporting criminal takeover of Haiti and Honduras. Of the CIA murdering people. Of police brutalizing dissidents. Of ocean drilling. Of the whole rotten stinking, stupid, meaningless wasting of our precious blue dot. At first there was awakening, then came astonishment at the pervasiveness, and finally there has come realization that the root cause is a public so hooked on technology it will not depose the criminals who control it. Now the wrongs hit me like Chinese water torture, wrong, wrong, wrong, because there is no more hope. Only one event could win some precious time from me, and that would be Vashon turning out as one to throw off the yoke of packaged style and return to the soil. Yesterday I decided to take a last look at beauty and wonder.

What is Sin?

Wed, 30 Jun 2010 22:26:53 GMT

The question was provoked this morning by Patsy Cline singing "Dear God" in hope He would help her stop sinning. I've heard it dozens of times because it's on my 30Gigabyte iPod and never has it provoked in me a serious thought. This time it unlatched a lifetime load of remembered old time gospel music, not literally remembered, for I never paid attention to the silly old words, but just the repetition of sin, sinners & sinning. Sin is bad. Sinners are bad people. Everybody's a sinner. People are bad. Get saved! Okay, Dear God, what are you doing to a congressman who votes to fund an egregiously immoral war, or to fund the torture school at Ft. Benning? Okay, Dear God, why to you bless judges and prosecutors who put black men in jail for a little grass stashed? Enough crass grandstanding, what is the fate of a country that cannot distinguish between good and bad?

I'll answer that. Our fate is to be blessed with technology.

Oil

Thu, 24 Jun 2010 15:52:08 GMT

The genocide in Palestine and the biocide in the Gulf of Mexico cap what we have known for a long time but have not been able to stomach, that bad money is in charge of the US. And that is not all.

As an earthquake instantly vaporizes faith in solid ground the enormity of our support for the cornered wolverine of Zion and for criminal negligence in ocean drilling wipes clean the cluttered landscape of rule by law in America. The underlying rock is rule by money. It’s been money since the first pilgrim stepped on Plymouth Rock and we’ve been lied to ever since. To this day our finest protesters, ANSWER, Code Pink, Public Citizen, Planned Parenthood, you pick, send out bulletins “Tell Congress to XYZ”, “Tell Congress no more money for war”. It’s over, menwomen, put the apple pie back in the Major Brands box. The time has come to admit that we have willingly supported a government we know has been lying to us for the simple reason that capitalism has given us a season ticket to Disneyland. An opossum said it best, “we have met the enemy and it is us”.

The pie won’t go back in the box? No problem, just wait til the oil hits Tampa. For sure, let’s not wait til Homeland Security turns on us for real. Or maybe instead of waiting for events to convince us that we are the enemy we should put an epilogue on evolution and ask the whence of technology. Oil for the Lamps of China? Technology has worked miracles of invention with the fossil carbons and incidentally created an insatiable need for their energy. How would one picture the end of evolution otherwise? We craved, crave, and evidently will crave to our last breath, the fruits of technology, let alone that season ticket. How about this epilogue, vision of the latest in technology lying at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico with a gusher of oil lubricating further invention? Let’s hear it for conceptualizing Armageddon.

We do not understand reality. In less dramatic words we do not comprehend the universe. In plainer words we do not understand the meaning of that full color shot of a blue and white earth taken from Apollo 8 in orbit around the moon. In arrogance we instead believe in Coca Cola. In words that hurt we do not believe that each of us is responsible for a government we know to be criminal. In words that terrify we are not humble in the presence of the unknown. There is but one book that the landmass we call America accepts in the majority as portraying reality, and that’s the bible. I find much of it to be nonsense. But what have we instead?

Beyond Hope

Fri, 11 Jun 2010 16:41:52 GMT

The naked menace of US-Israel and US-Corporations revealed so clearly, so forcibly, so horribly this spring is being papered over by the US media and talk shows. As example, my own family. The only one outraged is a marine biologist who specializes in sea turtles. The rest either are surviving economic crises or they believe the media. I fear that Vashon will also fail to speak out in concert against the false messaging. Certainly, Vashon has shown itself to be deaf, dumb and blind in vital matters so far. In spite of the efforts of some dedicated and competent people we are a collective zero. We host visiting "Green" book salesmen yet have not a clue how to increase support of our own growers. We calmly ignore the encroaching police state. We put up with the insane auto commute, putting zero effort in converting Vashon to electric transport. We put up with Bangor. The problem with America is seen in all its intricacies right here on Vashon. We are beyond hope.

Memorial Day

Tue, 01 Jun 2010 03:55:40 GMT

As one tries to recover from the sickening worship of war conducted on PBS yesterday, here is the beginning of a veterans interpretation of the meaning of Memorial Day. Link follows:

A Memorial Day Press Release from some American Veterans
by Jay Janson / May 31st, 2010

We Remember War Victims of all Nations!! Mourn War on Memorial Day!

Some American veterans of wars call for a return to the healthy purpose for Memorial Day, which in Columbus, Mississippi, April 25, 1866, was to bind its town and the nation together in mourning the million-and- half soldiers who died killing each other during our tragic Civil War. A day for mourning the dead of both sides, civilian as well as military, in national fellowship intended to put an end to hatred for the other side, end lust for war to settle differences and see a United States of America restored.

http://dissidentvoi ce.org/author/ JayJanson/

The link is to all writings by Janson. If the above essay is not there, let me know and I will send you the full text that came to me via e-mail

Blowout in the Gulf

Wed, 26 May 2010 13:46:12 GMT

This was offered to the Beachcomber today. I hope to be pardoned for tooting my horn on club time:

The oil in the Gulf of Mexico was not spilled. A spill can be boomed, which does not say that BP had booms ready. No, the oil in the gulf is a river of poison. Seen that way it is something we cannot ignore as we ignore so many horrid things, the swindle, the war, Guantanimo, you know, all those things we Christians say we oppose. No, we cannot ignore the blowout. Please, now, hold the litany of helplessness and deniability also known as virtuous local interest that is trotted out at crunch times like recently when health care hit the fan of metastasized greed at which point we should have begun a local program. Instead consider that the proper response, the only feasible response Vashon can have is to get rid of gasoline driven cars and wean off of natural gas. The sun enables both goals. Spare me the reasons we cannot get started.