HOMELAND DEFENSE (or: Get rid
of my SUV?...over my
dead
body!)
My most recent letter to the editor:
08/01/2007
Along
with showing George Bush's abysmally low approval ratings(does that 25%
rock solid core of support have their head in the sand?) polls are
showing that americans do not like the direction this country is going.
I'd like to point out two sets of statistical facts which I
believe show why. The current issue of National Geographic has a
really astonishing map of the world which shows government level of
support for paid maternal leave. Countries like Russia, Ukraine,
South Korea, and Slovenia guarantee 52 weeks of paid leave for new
mothers. Almost all of the rest of the world give some guaranteed paid
leave for new mothers, at least 14 weeks. 66 countries of the
world even give dads time off. On the other hand the United
States, Australia, Liberia, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea along with a
handful of other small countries provide no guaranteed maternal leave.
Many americans do get paid time off given by their employer the extent
of this is questionable. My employer (a hospital) does not give
paid time off for new mothers. Many give lip service to "family
values" when condemning access to abortion and gay rights, but I can't
think of a more important time in developing character and values than
the first year of life. Bonding with parents is promoted and infant and toddler security needs are likely to be met when a parent(s) is at home. Our
annual military budget, including "off the record" Iraq war funding, is
approaching three quarters of a trillion dollars, more that the rest of
the world combined. We have invaded two countries and many are
contemplating invading Iran and Pakistan. Instead of
mediating conflicts, we instead go for the "military solution". Our
government manipulates "fear" to get what it wants. We dismiss
elections if we don't like the results. We are putting up a missile
"shield" so we don't have to talk to anyone. A major goal of our
"defence" posturing is to promote corporate access and profits.
We are lied to when the president states: "We are fighting
them there so we won't have to fight them here". We spend nearly 2
billion dollars a day so we can feel "safe". With global warming,
the widening gap between the rich and the poor, the lack of equitable
medical care, and lessoning job security, "safe" does not describe our
society. These two
patterns show where are values appear to lie. Despite our vast military
spending, we are being eclipsed as a world power because we have lost
our moral and ethical standing. It's time to switch directions!
Jon Towne
Link
to text of all my recent
letters to the editors (since 9-11).
News
Links: (more
accurate viewpoints on on America's foreign
policy,
as opposed to let's say, Fox news)
Much has happened
since this
amateur
web site has been online including, not trivially, that we are fighting
a
"war" on terrorism. I don't know whether I am alone on this but my
anger
has 2 components. Yes, what they did to our innocent lives was
horrendous
and devoid of meaning. The other facet of my anger is our indifference
to
the rest of the world except for matters relating to our business
interests.
We are guzzling like pigs a nonrewable resource-oil-(meaning: they
don't
make that stuff anymore) like we are the only ones on this planet and
if you
try to curb consumption ( a very conservative impulse in my view) you
are
against free trade and a barrier to progress. We go so far as
to
reject
any notion of curbing greenhouse gases- actually very consistent with
our
urge to burn them fossil fuels willy nilly. We also are into breaking
international
treaties, condemning food labeling (such as GM foods, you'd think they
would
want to facillitate a healthy free market by providing information so
the
consumer can make rational choices, but no....., they are more i
nterested in the the health
of Monsanto and their ilk.) I have a huge gripe about why our system
favors
corporations so much.
There sure needs to be a serious inquiry
into
Dick Cheney's meetings with oil company executives(such as Enron) to
formulate energy policy. Talk about letting the fox into the
henhouse! Corporations have only one goal, to make money(or more
accurately, to line their executives' pockets). They have no
business being involved with government policy. Of course,
Cheney
then recommended doing away with alternative energy research
and focussing on oil exploration and nuclear power. But wait a
minute....,
he was an oil industrialist himself, along with his boss, he doesn't
need
the energy task group to come to this conclusion! American Corporate
power
through oil is the source of our Middle East policy and until that
interest
is eliminated, Arabs will see this as America and hate us for it.
Yes, we were attacked and we fought
back.
Some would see 9-11 (with good reason)not as an act of war, but as a
crime against humanity deserving a police action response
not war,
but that is beside the point. We need to have a military
response. But to not clean up our act, to quit acting like
gluttons, selfish pigs and implement crash programs to reduce our
energy consumption and waste, is wrong, dead wrong. In our
present wastful lifestyles, we cannot serve as a model for how to live
(which every politician includes in his rhetoric at one time or
another), since if the rest of the world
even approaches our standard of living, earth as a biological entity,
would
shrivel up and die, and our oil supply would be gone in a few short
years.
But what is an individual to do? Consuming and feeling
guilty
is no answer. We must all evaluate our needs and do what is
appropriate.
I do a huge amount of driving in my '93 escort mostly hauling the kids
to
a better school. But I have made a choice to not get an SUV,
snowmobile,
ORV or other gas guzzler-polluter. I choose to heat with wood which
does
not increase net greenhouse emissions, since wood breaks down to CO2
naturally
anyway. I try to keep my food supply close to home by growing
a
lot
of it, canning and shopping locally. Not using air conditioning and
substituting
the cooling effects of trees, allows one to keep a connection to the
out
of doors through the old-fashioned technique of keeping the windows
open.
There are beginning to be economical alternatives to fossil
fuels
and
nuclear energy now. I saw in the news that wind energy is as economical
to use as nuclear energy. The government should be working on
safely
shutting down the existing nuclear infrastructure and putting its eggs
into
renewables. Isn't this really a no-brainer?
No one can be perfect, and I don't claim to be close in
this
regard. The pres, as the critics have said about our last
one,
must
serve as chief role model along with commander in chief. So
come
on
Pres Bush: Do What is Right! (Do you know that Bush's requested 50
billion
defense increase to counteract terrorism is equal to 1 million dollars
per
fighter in the Taliban army and that the war has only incurred about
1.5 billion
dollars in additional expenses per month- 7.5 billion total?)
The following
links are material which I
include in this "web neighborhood". The Compilation link is
on
another
server. Some of this will be described later.
To describe myself in a thumbnail: I'm
employed as
an Registered
Nurse at a local hospital and live, work and play on a 36 acre farm
with
my spouse and two kids. We have a low key farming operation, growing
our
own vegetables, raising cattle, a few chickens and use our own wood
products
for heat and building materials. We are organic, using cow manure,
while
relying on nature to provide by using nitrogen fixing crops, and green
manures. Working in the outdoors is very important to me as are walking
in the woods frequently and observing spring woodland wildflowers(I
seem
to do less of this- regrettably- as time goes by) As you can surmise,
the
health of the environment is of major concern(the word health ties this
into
my livelihood). To balance the budget as a responsibility to the next
generation
is a trivial act, if in the meantime we leave a toxic environment with
its
resources denuded, and with its inherent beauty desecrated. I
don't
see why this concern is not universal, since the urge to leave our
children
a good quality of life is on everyone's minds.
We belong to
an organization,
Michigan Land Trustees,from
whom we bought this farm, and share many of their values. It seems that
a
family value that we don't hear much about, is land stewardship.
Something
else that people are unaware
of, is that organic
farming-for
many crops anyway- is perfectly cap
able of
equivalent
yields to chemical farming. We don't need you, MONSANTO! With either,
management
is key. Part of our garden and yard.
The 1970's saw the back to the
land movement
where
people opted to drop out and move to rural areas and live on the land.
Much of this movement has run its course, but there is a thriving
organic agriculture and organic foods (I hate to say "industry")
movement. Two related
homesteading schools existed in this time period on into the 1980's and
one
still exists presently. To find out more about this with
which I
was
imtimately involved, check out Homesteading, a Compilation
.
I
have always straddled the "fence"
between
"preservation" of wilderness or natural areas, and "stewardship" goals
of
land use whether it be sustainable agriculture, permaculture, or uneven
age management of forests(through selective cutting). I believe that
all
these goals can be accomplished but with the caviat that the world is
getting
smaller and nothing can be isolated from the rest as Bill Mckibben in
his
book The End of Nature expresses. The greenhouse
effect has
made
sure of that. Many species have irrevocably "invaded" practically all
ecosystems
making it harder and harder to maintain ecosystems that may not be
"climax"
any longer.
What
really counts is keeping the
land
covered, preferably in trees, since forests can fix CO2 at twice the
rate
of grasslands or cultivated crops. Similarly for wetlands which are
even
more productive. People question my motives for heating with wood with
its air pollution, I reply that besides using a state of the art
catalytic
converter, I am using renewable energy releasing CO2 that would be
released
anyway(wood rots). I am improving my forest and I am being "warmed
thrice".
Permaculture
is the conscious design
and implementation
of landuse which seeks to enhance the inherent productivity of natural
ecosystems by selecting appropriate species and varieties and putting
them together as they are adapted thereby making them productive for
human use that
maximizes the efficiency of inputs, be it light, water or nutrients. In
this geographical area, such an arrangement may be an open three story
forest,
with nut and fruit trees for human and livestock use, and edible
herbaceous
species. It also seeks to put people in the center where intensive
gardens
and land use would be adjacent to homes and extensive "food forests"
would
be more remote. Permaculture principles can (and should) be applied by
nearly everyone as an advanced form of resource use
(remember: reduce, reuse, and recycle).
www.fencerows.com
My brother Conrad's site promoting his wares(am I jealous or
what!).
Permaculture,
in my opinion,
fulfills the
requirements of a paradigm that can lead to sustainable civilization.
We
have lost the cultural roots to develop such a model with its long term
benefits. McDonalds, Walmart, tv and now, computers, have spoiled us
for now, kind of like children and candy.
My
employment at a local hospital
provides
me with an income, a lot of challenge, and a way of helping people who
truly
need it. Since much of today's health problems are related to lifestyle
choices,
many of them ill-informed choices, as health care workers, education is
a
major component of our work. Of course, this education should have
occurred
many years earlier than when they are hospitalized. The challenges we
face
in reducing health care costs, would be much allieved if the necessary
education
and good life style choices were done early in our lives. In fact, I
would
venture to say, there would be no healthcare crisis if this were the
case.
To contemplate: Shouldn't healthcare be
a right?
I
think human rights groups could make a case about the way we treat our
elderly,
when the reason we don't provide for our providers is the selfish goal
of
low taxes. Our taxes are the lowest in the free world.
Many
profitable
corporations don't pay taxes at all and they may be reduced even more.
A
couple of sites for news and
information:
NPR
National Public radio. This is a fairly large site full of text and
real
audio files for your perusal. I've been listening to NPR since its
inception
20 years ago and there is nothing comparable in the broadcast medium in
quality,
balance and depth(except the BBC!). Their daily talk shows can hook you!
CNN InteractiveAnd
then, you have the news in bites for those with short attention spans
or if
you are just tired.
Hightower
Radio Commentary, with the rich use of sarcasm, rales against
corporatism,
as manifested in its many corrupt forms, by the populist, Jim Hightower.
Well
this is my corner of
cyberspace!
Whether you want to hurl insults, condemn me for my sermonizing, or
just say
hi, email me
tomar@cybersol.com.
Photographs
taken with a
Kodak
DC4800 digital camera. Pictures edited with Gimp on my Linux
installation on my laptop. This web page was edited with
Mozilla and isn't meant to be an example of anything approaching
quality or any
level
of expertise in programming.
Linux is an open source operating
system with the
stability
of the venerable unix OS which it is based on. This means that the
source
code is under the GPL license and is free. Distributions are available
for
a price (for enhancements, packaging and services). A Linux cd may be
freely
copied without risk of sanctions. If you can't get cd's from friends or
whoever
you can always buy the shrink wrapped product from your local software
vendor
such as Best Buy.
nterested in the the health
of Monsanto and their ilk.) I have a huge gripe about why our system
favors
corporations so much.
(remember: reduce, reuse, and recycle).
