Baby boomer Smith and xgen Lady share their creative expat lifestyle from Oaxaca, Mexico.
Red Smith - Photo by Lady I feel left behind on our couch. I look through the doorway into the kitchen. Vague shadows shift from around the corner, assemble themselves into Smith, who manifests in the doorway, holding a half avocado skin. “You know what this is?” |
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photo by lady OUR MASTERS ARE IMMORAL ASSHOLES “I feel like I’m looking at the past when I read business news articles.” In a way, you are, aren’t you. ‘The Way the World Was.’ “Yeah, definitely. We’re not gonna be able to sustain this.” Read the petroleum article. (End of the Petroleum Age? http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/28/9943/) They give actual figures about how we cannot sustain this. They talk about how much oil we use per day, the declining output of the major oil fields. 116 oil fields provide 50% of the world’s oil. They talk about the rate of depletion, the amount that alternative sources can add, calculate what’s gonna be needed by 2015. And we can’t do it. “Whaddaya mean?” There’s no way we can produce enough oil to keep the world happy in 2015. In fact, the largest oil field in the world, Saudi Arabia, has been using water pressure to keep up the oil pressure, which is a finite solution. Once that fails, there’s a DRAMATIC and DRASTIC DROP in output. So the point of the article is, you can’t keep the old game going, you best fund the new game, whatever that’s gonna be. Which they list as three: solar, biofuels, and hydrogen. And biofuels are not an option, not if you’re gonna feed folk. “I think it’s time for us zombies to turn on the masters.” Brains… “That’s my metaphor. The zombie movies.” I think it’s a pretty good one, don’t you? That’s the way we’re going through life. America, land of the zombies. That’s why my favorite zombie movie is Dawn of the Dead. It takes place in a mall. “I just had this thought. In the near future war, soldiers are going to realize that they’re just fighting for oil. And they’ll feel OK about taking it, survival of the homeland and all. That’ll be their rallying call, ‘Blood for Oil! (grunt) You should be thankful we’re sacrificing ourselves to preserve your way of life!’ Our masters are immoral assholes.” |
Picassoesque Graffiti in Oaxaca, photo by Lady K Just found this site this morning. Corporate scientists are trying to capitalize on the huge deposits of frozen methane beneath the arctic: Meanwhile other scientists are worried that the arctic’s melting is going to release these into the atmosphere all at once in a big methane “burp” that will depopulate the planet. They say it’s melting faster than predicted, that some of the gases are being released, and it’s all much worse, much worse than we imagined and the time line to doomsday scenario is fast forwarded into the rapidly shrinking future: http://www.mindfully.org/Air/2004/Methane-Arctic-Warming16dec04.htm Corporate scientists work at cross purposes from whistleblowers and the common good. Specialization results in totally oblivious perspectives without needed ethical oversight or holistic evaluation. Humanity’s consumption and obliviousness is much like bottom trawling fishing. Politicians are moorless protectors. I don’t know why I have faith enough to create in all this bad fate. I feel different lately. More relaxed from Mexico and a renewed sense of purpose in writing. Every three days I destroy my mind with substances and then I let it build it back up again and sometimes I am paranoid I won’t come back, but lately I bounce back and I’m this different creature with thoughts aspiring to newsprint’s expanded consciousness wrapped around the web. I’m a bit uptight about our soon to come visit to the States. |
 a swinging chick - foto by smith ~ ~ ~  behind enemy minds - foto by smith |
 tent - foto by smith lady bought some ten dollar speakers, hooked them to her laptop, and is playing “commie funk & agit prop from the hermit kingdom” - excerpts from north korea’s radio pyongyang. we’re two americans sitting in southern mexico under white japanese lanterns listening to north korean radio on chinese speakers. global swarming. Truth Truce Get the truth (remember,  wall - foto by smith |
 advert - foto by smith earthlings are screwed. things are bad and getting badder faster than before. for example, the amount of greenhouse gasses released into earth’s air from 1970 to 2000 rose 1.5 parts per million each year - but since 2000, the annual rise has leapt to 2.1ppm. the growth rate last year was 2.14ppm. since we started talking about global warming and the need to cut greenhouse gas emissions to save ourselves, we’ve actually greatly increased said poisons and shortened our future. right now there’s more green house gas in Earth’s air than anytime in the past 650,000 years. most of it has been added since the industrial revolution. we can measure the bad gas concentration for millions of years from air trapped in ice glaciers. this ain’t rocket science here - we’re pissing and shitting and farting in our own beds. and the scientists estimating how bad it’s going to get and how quickly are using the 1970 numbers for their guestimates. they say we’re toast by 2050. i say 2012. global warming is altering weather patterns which of course affect growing seasons and harvests and food prices. there’s already fatal food riots in Haiti and Egypt where food prices have doubled in the last two years because of more people, rising standards of living, costlier oil, and bio-fuels taking food from the mouths of the poor to make gas for the rich. people in the united states eat an average of 3,770 calories per day. doctors recommend 2,000. we know many of the poor eat far less than 2,000 calories per day, so that means a lot of americans are eating 5,000 or more. here piggy piggy piggy - may i lead you to slaughter? our three biggest problems (all tied to global warming) are lack of drinkable water, melting ice caps, and the poisoning of the seas (our greatest food bin). the toxins we’re putting into the sea are changing the PH factor. life in the sea has a very narrow range of acidic acceptance, and we’re close to it already. we’re losing our ocean coral beds, we’ve fished our major fish to extinction, the fish we do take are toxic, and several of our major sea currents are in danger of being shut down - which would turn england into iceland. we’re going to have people fighting people, nations fighting nations, and the rich fighting everybody for water, food, shelter, and gas for the SUVs. personally i think manufacturing an SUV should qualify as a crime against humanity and Mother Earth. SUV manufacturers and buyers should be tried and jailed for mass murder since they’re killing the rest of us. many scientists think we’re already past the tipping point where it’s too late to save ourselves. others feel there’s still time. even if there is time, it doesn’t make any difference because we’re NOT going to cut back on green house gasses, or reduce our oil use. so the Chicken Little end is nigh. the sky has fallen and it can’t get up. so what’s left? nothing except live your life with the least amount of damage to Earth and each other. make your own corner a happier, saner place. be forgiving of others. make your own corner brighter, and you give those around you a less stressful environment to react to. they may become happier and spread more joy around them. that brightness could spread. just because we as humans are dying off, that doesn’t mean we can’t be graceful about it, gentle and generous with each other. the main part of this message is things are broke - they’re bad going worse. there’s no savior or solution on the horizon. this it is the it it is, and it ain’t the it it was and never again will be until we’re gone and Mother Earth purges herself of our cancer. so if you have a dream you’ve always wanted to follow, best do it now cuz later is severely limited. i’ve barely touched on the surface of all we’ve done wrong, all the ways we’re ruining earth, the myriad means with which we foul our nest. i mean think about it - iraq and iran used to be lush forest until man came along and ate everything he could, burned most the rest for fuel, and poisoned the remains with our runoff. forests + man = desert. if you watched earth’s history from space, man’s slow spread over the earth would appear cancerous. welcome to the cancer award. we’ve broken earth and we ain’t fixing her, so wake up and smell the feces.  Mother Earth - foto by smith |
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My impulse is to want to read the news, but then I hold back. I know how it’s coming down, how the world is. Reading the news brings this sharply into focus, right into my the television screen of my frontal cortex. I do not want news to be the focal point of my consciousness. I find my tongue thick when I talk to people. I feel every word as it’s formed. When I try to speak my mind to people other than Smith, I hear myself as though there’s an echo in the room. I hear my precocity. I hear my doubt of people my age, of people any age. Having conversations requires a faith in the ability of conversation to fix things, to improve the world. Lady |
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