Avatar

I'm not surprised the conservatives are affronted by the movie Avatar. As to why, well, I'm quite sure it wasn't exactly the story itself - it's an old story that has been told many times before. I don't think it was special effects, either - a thick, verdant forest, awe-inspiring vistas, and the Na'vi themselves who are lean, fit, and graceful - surely these things didn't provoke the wrath of the right-wingers. Nope, I think what makes them so fired up about this movie is the reflection they see of themselves. Rapacious, black-hearted greed, the arrogance of thinking superior firepower equals higher morality, and the belief that they have a God-given right to take what they want, regardless of the cost in lives. Not a pretty picture - not one I would want to see when I look in the mirror. Of course they aren't happy with this production, and no doubt aghast at the popularity it is enjoying. Yet this image of soulless corporate imperialism is ingrained in the global view of our country.

However, there are many here in the United States who also see this, and despair that our path has led us here. Giving unfeeling corporations the power to ravish and annilate in the name of progress, with no mercy or compassion for those whose lifestyles depend on the land that holds those resources we desire is just another step on the path we chose when our ancestors first laid eyes on this lovely continent.

Is is possible to change our ways? Can we teach ourselves to rein in that urge to possess, to acquire, to destroy in the name of progress? Why is it that our comfort and luxuries seem to rank much higher in the grand scheme of things than cooperation, sharing, and simple respect for ways of life that are different from our own?

RAW AND PRIMITIVE

I finally found the hasp and lock I'm going to put on this rustic-type chest I'm building. I can't wait to finish it now that the hardware is here, but the holidays have me too busy with other things. Rats!!

Tsk, tsk

"Where I come from, the description of a nation that leaves its children behind in hunger while showering its upper classes with lavish amounts of more luxury than they know what to do with evokes pictures of present-day Somalia or latter-day Rome and the let-them-eat-cake France of Marie Antoinette. Not of a socially and politically highly developed society of the 21st century."

http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com/

Ilargi at The Automated Earth makes point that should be blindingly clear to all of us...where this is going, and where it will end. Eventually.

Are you and your family ready?

Meyer Lemons...I can't wait to try you!

Looking good, finally getting yellow! Just a few more days...maybe a week.

What price will we pay for our modern world?

Are we living as the rich during the final years of the ancient Roman empire? Are we sowing the seeds of our own destruction by maintaining bloated, gluttonous capitalistic lifestyles and steadfastly refusing to change more than a little, along with the many who refuse to change at all? Is it disbelief of the true horror? An unwillingness to look the unthinkable straight in the face – utter desolation of the earth and all living things we know on it? Or perhaps defeatism – that one person, one decision, one change can't change it all, so why bother? Some just don't want to take the time, too busy with their own private lives - and I know that some just don't want to give up what they have to share with others, either those around them or the yet-unborn who will be sharing what's left of this place after we are dead and gone – our children and their contemporaries.

According to the latest by climate scientists, to save our world from near devastation, we must stop carbon emissions now. Not slow down, not gently curtail. Stop. Now. Or else, a new, scarier number of 4-degree change – scattered in various locales planet-wide – will come, and quickly.

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48791

So, can we do it? Can we downsize, scale back, power down, go back to doing things the way our ancestors did? Can we learn to live in partnership with the globe and nature, instead of raping and pillaging the earth and weaker nations like 17th century pirates, taking everything we can and destroying what's left?

Unfortunately, as much as I believe in the ability of our race to do so, to drastically change our lives to save those who come after us, I just don't see it really happening. Humans have an immense and unimaginable capacity for love, compassion, and selfless sacrifice. But the flip side of that is also present, the dark and miserable world of greed and fear, that can blind and even paralyze those who allow such malignancy to permeate their thinking and their lives. Our modern culture exalts covetousness, makes ever changing new standards for material possessions as tokens of power and success, and, sadly, promotes the ideal of outer beauty being the pinnacle, making all that fall beneath that level not valuable, disregarded, and destined to be thrown on the waste heap. These twisted ideals will not help us easily change from years of wanting the newest things or our sense of entitlement ranging in scope from a latte at Starbucks to air conditioned houses in 70-degree weather. It will be too much sacrifice, too much forgotten. Not many are strong enough to give up today so that there IS a tomorrow. Our urge to hold on to that which we have grown to like or accustomed to, that which defines us and our niche in the complexity of life, is the culprit. We feel comfortable in routine. Yet, our kind has the ability of incredible adaptability, which would give us the strength brave the unknown and give up our comfortable complacency, if we cared enough.

So what if the scientists are wrong? What if climate change is no threat, and we all drastically change our lives for no reason? It is possible – nothing is guaranteed right, in my experience, even coming from those who have studies things for decades. So let's look at the gamble. Okay – we don't change, and the scientists ARE right. We made a wager and lost – not lost our lives so much maybe, but lost the future of all who may come after us. Our children, their children, the future of mankind, one might say? Hmm...what a bet to lose. That's more irresponsible than the Wall Street bankers gambling on sub-prime mortgage securities using credit derivatives with the potential to blow the whole financial system wide open. For us to wager that the scientists are wrong is a worse crime – affecting not everyone here today, but the unknown children of unknown generations – the potential vision of our race, swept away by a tide of corpulent greed and fear of regressing, fear of the unknown. Too bad, humans. Better luck next time, eh? Let's not lose this bet. Who knows what might be lost?


Blog Action Day 2009

Friends

Not doing too well on the gardening side (and doing really, really bad catching gardening photos) so here's a little aside.




Old and new friends from out of town visit and everybody gets a chance to relax. Life is good :)

Small but luscious

These are nifty little tomato family ground cherries - they do taste an awful lot like a cherry when ripe - the more ripe they are, the sweeter they are. I love tearing open the little lantern package to get to the fruit....until I have to open more than 4 or 5. How in the world am I going to make jam out of these????