market meltdown

Janet said the other day that she can speak to animals.
"So can I," said William, "anyone can speak to animals."
"Not just speak to them," said Janet, "I mean really speak to them, like have a real conversation with them."
"Yeah! I can do that too," said William.
"No, you can't," said Janet,
"You can't speak to animals."
"I can too,"
"Can't"
"Can"
"You don't understand," said Janet, "they really do speak."
"Yeah! Sure!" "I hear um too," said William, "especially when they wag their tails."
"William, they speak to me".
"They speak to me too...like I said...I really know what they are saying when they wag their tails."
"William, I'm not joking, I hear them speak back."
"Yeah me too," said William, "Strunk over there just said pet me....did ja hear him?"
"No, he didn't."
"Yes, he did."
"No"
"Yes"
"No, he said, I'm thirsty where is my water?"
"Opps! I was supposed to fill his bowl with water," said William.
"Well fill it," said Janet.
"You already knew I was supposed to fill his bowl."
"No, I didn't."
"Did"
"Did not."
"Did"
"Did not."
"You did, Janet."
"Look William, Strunk said he has been waiting for over an hour for you to fill his bowl. Is that true or false?"
"Well, Lets see. Mom left at 9:30 and it is now 10:30.....jeeze Janet...did he really say he has been waiting an hour or you just made that up?"
"I didn't make it up".
"You did."
"Didn't"
"Did"
"Look," said William, "tell me something else he said so I will believe you."
"He said that last night you kicked him off your bed...true or false?"
"True...but I do that every night."
"Well he wants to stay on the bed, its softer than the floor."
"Tell me something else I don't know...I think you already knew that," said William.
"He said, not only did you kick him off the bed but after you kicked him off he went and spread out all over a red bathroom towel you had dropped on the floor." "Whoa!"
"He said a red towel?"
"Yes"
"Janet, he didn't really say a red towel?"
"He did, why are you so surprised?" said Janet.
"Because, I know you are making this up." said William, "Did you look in my room and see the red towel on the floor?"
"No."
"Yes, you did."
"No, I didn't."
"Did"
"Didn't"
"Look Janet, don't lie to me."
"William, I am not lying, why don't you believe me?"
"Because if I believe you, then it means my dog can talk and I don't believe dogs can talk."
"William, they don't talk like you and I talk."
"Well how do they talk," said William.
"They send thoughts that I catch in my brain."
"How come I don't catch any thoughts in my brain?"
"I don't know."
"Yeah, you don't know because no one can catch dog thoughts in their brain." said William, "You are making it up."
"I'm not making anything up William."
"Well, I don't believe you."
"Fine William, don't believe me, just give your dog some water he is thirsty."
"I'll do that," said William, as he moved off to pick up the dogs bowl from the floor. Janet watched him walk over to the kitchen sink and fill up the bowl with water. William's dog, Strunk, said
"Thanks Janet"
and watched William as well. When William put the bowl back on the floor, Strunk rushed over and started lapping up the water.
"He said Thanks," said Janet.
"Yeah I heard him," said William, "heh!"
"He didn't say Thanks William" he said, "Thanks Janet."
"Why would he say thanks Janet, I gave him the water."
" Yeah, but I made you do it and so he thanked me for getting you to fill up his bowl.

The little discourse above is the beginning of a children's story i was going to write but never got back to. Today, for some reason, it was first in my list of things i had looked at or worked upon recently, although i couldn't remember even looking at it. Once i started reading through it i realized how pertinent it is today.

It stands alone as a fable for how and why things aren't always as they seem.

The meltdown isn't as it seems and rushing through it is not prudent.

ladder

The other night i had a phrase that kept running through my mind as i slept. Finally i couldn't stand it anymore and got up to write it down. i needed light to see so i went into the bathroom, sat down on the toilet and started to copy the phrase out of my head and into the journal.

It was storming that night. Lots of rain, thunder, lightning and wind and i started to write.

Something has happened, i wrote, there is hope because there is a fissure in the cosmos. The world has stopped shedding tears and now it is time for action.

i admit i do have very strange things pass through my mind when i am unconscious.

Just as i finished writing the above a huge wind blew up and knocked over the ladder. The noise was so loud i jumped.

After the ladder fell, i thought about what ladders do.

Ladders are used to reach impossible places. When a ladder has been knocked down reaching that place became more difficult but not impossible for the ladder could always be re-set.

I also thought about where i was when it happened and what i was writing. i was sitting on the crapper the place where our internal garbage is gotten rid of.

A few days passed, the storm continued to build and i looked up the definition of ladder in the dictionary.

Ladder: A frame work consisting of two parallel sidepieces connected by bars or other joining pieces spaced and parallel to each other so as to form a series of steps to go up or down.

The sidepieces actually aren't parallel in the legal sense for they begin to converge as they reach the top of the ladder. It is the connecting bars that are well spaced yet united that are important to reaching that impossible place.

Usually when we discuss topics that are controversial people talk of building bridges to overcome the gap. Bridges just let you get from one place to another they don't actually close the gap they just allow you to go over it. Essentially allowing each side to remain the same. Traveling back and forth but never converging.

With a ladder it is one way up or down. When you use the ladder to reach an impossible place you can then fix it and return to your grounded spot. With a bridge you don't fix anything you just allow the flow back and forth over the gap but the gap remains. And so it seemed to me that using the term "ladder" as a metaphor to understand how we can go about fixing a difficult problem might work better than the word "bridge."

I guess in some ways this all relates to the dream phrase. We need action to work on problems we have created around the world be they wars or market melt downs. Bridging the gap won't work anymore we have to try harder. We have to use our ladders and try harder to converge in order to fix our mounting problems.

On another note.....isn't this a great mushroom?

he thinks I don't see him?

The next time you walk out to your car, look around.
Take your eyes off the path, the driveway, the car just for a little while.
Pick your head up, stop walking, and really look around.

What do you see?

There are all sorts of things going on that you are not observing. You think you are in the moment, focused on the task of getting to the car, that you see everything around you but do you really see everything around you or only the parts you need to accomplish the task?

You can be looking right at something and not see it. You can be effectually blind to things right in front of you because you have selected only those things you need to complete your task and ignore the others.

Did you see the bird flitting from one branch to another? Did you see the wispy cloud, that little flower tucked in between the pavers on the walkway? The seed pod that had dropped from the tree and is now resting on your grass. That bug with the funny color can you find it? How about that floodlight that illuminates your driveway? Or the ladder leaning against the house? There are so many things you are missing when you don't stop for just a minute and take a look around.

In our visual world we limit the input as we go about our routines. We don't see the key chains, handbags, clipped on cell phones, work boots, high heels, flip flops, tee shirts, dress shirts, of humanity passing us by on the street. We miss the rickety shopping carts click, click, clicking along when we buy our food, we miss all the different shapes and sizes of humanity when we go to our jobs, the males, the females, the short ones, tall ones, we miss the trees, the flowers, the birds.

But we don't have to.

We can pay more attention.

We can actively try to view and absorb more of our world.

i was talking to friends yesterday at a party about this particular defect of ours and one said she could never see motorcycles or bicycles when she was driving. It had been a problem her entire driving career and she had to pay extra special attention to notice them. She said more times than not they would come up behind her or from in front and she would be practically crashing into them before she saw them.

Another one said she had been worrying about something so much that when she walked outside and looked around a cricket talked to her.

i said what did it say?

And she said the cricket said,

"Listen to me chirp and stop worrying about shit."

It was right, she said and so she stopped worrying.

There is a term for this failure to notice what is around you.

It is called inattentional blindness.

Inattentional blindness claims that there is no conscious perception of the world without attention to it and since our attention is limited we tend to miss a lot.

In the logical world we do the same things. We don't hear what someone we disagree with is saying. We limit their ability to impact our awareness and world view. We limit the input as we go about our routines, blinding ourselves to other options.

So how do we bridge the gap between what we see and retain and what is really there?

A first step might be creating an opening to all the rest that can be seen.

We had to cut down the Century Plant after a west wind blew it into the power lines causing them to short out during a storm. Most would have written the plant off and ignored it. But Lordy, lordy the darn thing didn't give up. It decided to send out flowers below the cut. It is a plant to be reckoned with and it does not want to be ignored.

So sometime after you read this see how many things you can notice on the next short trip to your car. Then do it again and see what you can add. Do it again and keep doing it.

If you pay attention you'll see a world you might have been missing.

to all those silent friends

Some claim that silence is a form of violence.

While others view silence as a source of great strength.

It can be both, depending upon its usage.

"Lying is done with words and also with silence."
Adrienne Rich

"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
For our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
Martin Luther King Jr.

We can be at peace soaking in the quiet stillness of dead silence.....our own silence...that which allows us to connect with everything and also to disconnect. We can place that healing silence upon ourselves. We can go there to store up internal energy needed to face our daily lives. It can be a good place a place that gives us strength.

This is necessary at times for our mental health and it can be the cause of a wonderful rejuvenation of spirits and optimism. It can give us strength in the face of weakness, we can find solace and peace there. It can also cause wallowing and sadness if silence is put to use as a place where we lick our wounds.

Silence, like i said above, can be violent and strengthening both depending upon which end of the silence you are on and who is creating the silence. Is it you being silent with yourself or with others?

For when you are silent with others it is always violent.

Silence is never really silent, there is always some static getting through, some rejection, some issue, some leakage that percolates and oozes out in the deafening dun. There is no such thing as deafening silence for it really means disapproval and the person who is subjected to the silence knows they are being violated.

Today, in our society, silence has become a tactic used by those not wanting to defend their views. It is easier to stop talking to opponents for then the silencer does not have to confront any uncomfortable truths that may be difficult to face. By using silence as a tactic the uncomfortable truth is covered over, put away, ignored, but not forgotten.

Lawyers have a term for silencing their opponents. They call it SLAPP(Strategic lawsuits against public participation), sounds violent just on the face of it doesn't it? It becomes a game as they force defendants to spend more and more money by stretching out the litigation and silencing them as a result.

"SLAPP suits threaten the very foundation of citizen involvement and public participation in democracy. "Americans by the thousands are being sued, simply for exercising one of our most cherished rights: the right to communicate our views to our government officials, to 'speak out' on public issue," state Pring and Canan. "Today, you and your friends, neighbors, co-workers, community leaders, and clients can be sued for millions of dollars just for telling the government what you think, want, or believe in. Both individuals and groups are now being routinely sued in multimillion-dollar damage actions for such 'all-American' political activities as circulating a petition, writing a letter to the editor, testifying at a public hearing, reporting violations of law, lobbying for legislation, peaceful demonstrating, or otherwise attempting to influence government action."
http://www.prwatch.org/prwissues/1997Q2/slapp.html

Silencing the opponent in this manner puts the issues in the closet. Not to be discussed, not to raise red flags, made to disappear. Whenever i use that term "made to disappear" i remember Argentina.

In Argentina, during the 1970's, there was a period of widespread military repression on the civilian population. Under the pretext of the "war against subversion" the military and police authorities developed a campaign of terror. All civil rights - freedom of expression, justice, association, the vote - were eliminated. Thousands of citizens were unjustly put in prison where they endured inhuman conditions and lived under the pain of torture and the fear of death.

Argentinian mother's walked in silence at the Plaza de Mayo so their children, who had "disappeared," would not be forgotten. So that someday those who participated in the kidnappings would be held accountable.

Fortunately or unfortunately (depending upon which side you are on) when the issues become too pressing to suppress they bust out into the open pushing back on those trying to withdraw. They don't go away they eventually have their day and they will be considered.

People in general don't like being lied to.
They don't like to be thought too stupid to discover the truth.
They don't want to be silenced.

laughing at community organizers

Following up on yesterdays post I watched the candidate for Vice President of the United States on PBS last night.

She was good, delivered her speech better than many, great stage presence, lovely smile and beautiful.

Do I want her a hairs breath away from the presidency, not really.

There were a few places where she lost me but the most disturbing was when she dissed community organizers and waited for the crowd to laugh and they did, they howled, they clapped and they knew not what they were doing.

Community organizers bring people together to act in common self interest. Community organizers seek accountability from those who have lost touch with the citizenry. Community organizers seek to keep the powerful in check. They focus on the community and the health of communities all over the country and the world.

Dissing community organizers on National Television while running for Vice President was worse than low it was a sewage treatment plants breakdown spewing its ugly hate all over America.

I think the saddest part of the speech was watching all those "so called" Christians in the audience laughing at themselves for ever thinking of working for their communities as organizers. Thinking it was a bad thing something to laugh at.

What does this say about the Republican Party when you laugh at people trying to make the world a better place. It says watch out baby because they aren't going to help you or protect you.

objections welcome

When working on a problem many understand that the right and wrong of it will surface. So it is imperative that we understand how to recognize the underlying sense of rightness. In order to come out on the side of rightness, one has to learn how to make decisions and accept responsibility for those decisions.

We do know, before we have acted, that our process of arriving at an eventual decision weighs the appropriateness of said act. Many, before acting, ignore the wrongness of an act because they want the end result so much. They are willing to suffer the consequences of an ill conceived act because they believe the benefit to themselves outweighs the negative results later on.

Feeling the effect of the ill conceived decision before the act has been committed would probably alleviate many problems of this world.

So how do you realize the effect of a decision and accept responsibility for that decision before it has happened?

Well, one option is to ask yourself if anyone will object to the act you are about to commit. If anyone would object, is that objection well reasoned and will it help you to act differently?

In Nature and in all aspects of our daily lives if something doesn't function properly it stops working. In other words it objects. Marriages break down because one partner objects to the status quo. Corporations go bust because they have been involved in making wrong decisions and failed to find consent for that undertaking. Governments fail for the same reason.

So if one part of Nature or human interactions or machinery break down it is because someone or something be it plant, animal, human or mechanical has objected so there is no longer a functioning aspect.

Should we find consent for what we are doing before we try to reach consensus? Consensus means some will not be happy with the status quo, but consent means all have consented to the eventual process.

Anthropology was my major in college and i remember studying about African tribes being confronted with one man one vote when the colonial powers took over. The story goes that the new rulers went around to each village trying to encourage the natives to vote. The idea of voting went against the tribes traditional values for they ruled by consent not consensus.

In order to get the voting underway the representatives of the colonial government armed themselves with rocks which they handed out to villagers. Each villager was given a rock that he was then instructed to place in one of two pots. Each pot represented a leader running for office.

After the placement of the rocks in the pots the "winner" was declared. Well, the tribes didn't like this because not everyone had consented to accepting the new "winner". They reacted negatively and claimed that the process wasn't a good one because too many people didn't want the winner. Majority rule made no sense to them because too many people were left angry about the outcome.

We find this today in our elections. All though we have bought in to the idea of one man one vote too many of those left on the losing side remain angry throughout the winners term in office. There are objections which make the eventual outcomes not always right for all.

While this subject is exhaustive I am quoting a few paragraphs from a piece that compares Democracy and Sociocracy. I retrieved this from the Sociocracy website referenced below.

"In a Sociocracy the power of argument is given the authority that the vote is given in a democracy. The group to which a decision is delegated, the companions, the sociocratic citizens, will study, discuss, and debate issues until they have crafted a solution that meets the aims defined for it.

The objective is to find the best and most workable solution for everyone affected given the constraints of money, time, ability, etc.

When we think of a congress or parliament discussing issues in argumentative and divisive ways this emphasis on argument may seem unworkable, but in fact, once the mind-set of the participants has switched from majority rule to cooperation, this divisive attitude resolves to searching for the best solution for everyone and a new synergy develops leading to better solutions in less time."

I'm putting this out there for consideration, objections are always welcome.

This process of consent is known as Sociocracy and you can learn more about its attributes at:

http://www.sociocracy.info/about.html