OH FRABJOUS DAY! CALLOOH! CALLAY!

(She chortled in her joy.)  Spring semester has, at last, ended! At ten this a.m. I finished conferring with my dept head about some of my students and their grades, entered the grades into the computer, kissed everyone goodbye and came home to begin establishing some kind of Real Life for myself.  It will involve a lot of gardening, reading, kayaking, and hopefully returning to journal reading and writing.  I have been woefully remiss, and do thank those of you who have stuck with me through this hiatus in journal participation.  I've missed it dreadfully.

I'll still have the afterschool kids for another couple of weeks, but they are mostly fun.  When the summer semester starts, mid-June, I'll be back at the college for a class or two.  But I'm not going to think about that now. NO!  The sun is shining, the irises are blooming, the lettuce is fresh and green and young.  Every time I go in or out the kitchen door a bright shower of goldfinches sparks up from the feeders in the crape myrtle. 

I wish I were a cat right now; I'd lie down in the sun and purr - as Molly is doing in front of the door this very minute. 

 

EMPTY NEST SYNDROME

It's hard to believe how fast the eaglets grew up, and now one of them has already left home for a new home in Vermont.  Not under his own speed, but under the aegis of a program to replenish the eagle population there.  I have been as out of touch with the eagles as I have with everything else except the last weeks of teaching, giving tests, counseling students, working with my afterschool kids, and trying to get a few things planted.  I've only gone online once or twice daily, to check in on news and email.

In that time many things have happened.  You can read all about this fascinating transfer in the EagleCamBlog, and also see some kickass pictures of the transfer.  If I was only seventeen again, and knew what I know now about my real interests in this world, I'd start all over again as a wildlife biologist.  Of course, if I were seventeen at this particular point in history, I'm sure I'd be a completely whacked-out junky goth freak.  So maybe it's just as well.

Maybe I'll go back to school once this life of busy working is finished and study to become The Oldest Living Wildlife Biologist. 

Anyway, during the past week they took eaglet #2 off to the north country, and the other two will soon be ready to fledge.  I now feel that I really know what the Empty Nest Syndrome means - I am so sad that they will be gone.  The ospreys, in the meantime, are gearing into the beginning phases of this process - so we can start all over and get attached to these birds.

JOKE

So, a woman walks into a curio shop in San Francisco. Looking around at
the exotica, she notices a very life-like, life-size bronze statue of
a rat. It has no price tag, but it looks so striking she decides she
must have it. She takes it to the owner: "How much is the bronze
rat?"

"Twelve dollars for the rat, a hundred dollars for the story," says
the owner.

The woman gives the shop owner twelve dollars. "I'll just take the
rat; you can keep the story."

As she walks down the street carrying the bronze rat, she notices
that a few real rats have crawled out of alleys and sewers, and begun
following her down the street. This is a bit disconcerting, so she
begins walking a little bit faster.

Within a couple of blocks, the group of rats behind her grows to over
a hundred, and they begin squealing. She starts to trot towards the
Bay. She takes a nervous look around and sees that the rats now
number in the thousands, maybe in the millions, and they are all
squealing and coming towards her faster and faster. Terrified, she
runs to the edge of the Bay and throws the bronze rat as far out into
the Bay as she can. Amazingly, the millions of rats all jump into the
Bay after it, and are all drowned.

The woman walks back to the curio shop. "Aha," says the owner, "I'll
bet you have come back for the story."

"Actually no," says the woman. "I came back to see if you have a
bronze Republican."

Just in case any Republicans ever read this journal, I apologize in advance.  It's just a joke, okay?  (Pretty good one, huh?)  Actually,  no one is going to be reading this journal, if I don't get back into the loop fairly soon.  Another week should do it, grades handed in, a training in the new language lab, maybe even the lawn mowed.  And I'll cease to be an indentured servant. 

BRIEF AQUAMARINE THOUGHTS

Overfooling-around with the colors on this journal has made it look quite a bit like a swimming pool, doncha think?

I'm over my head, drowning, not in a swimming pool, but in end-of-semester stuff.  Won't be doing any significant posting until mid-May, though I may do some insignificant writing, you never know.

I do wish to say that I am, very slowly, reading a book by Thom Hartmann called The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, subtitled "The Fate of the World and What We Can Do Before It's Too Late."  I suggest that anyone interested in the future of our planet and our species buy a copy, read it, then pass it on to someone you care about.  Even better, buy multiple copies and pass them out to several people you care about.  It's my current belief that it's already too late, but I haven't yet gotten to the part where I learn what we can do.   

High spring here now.  Sitting inside grading tests is serious torture.  But, it must be done.  Go outside for me, and let me know about it.  I'll enjoy it vicariously.

PERSONALITY PROFILE

I didn't do Patrick's "Saturday Six," which is today found at his alternative blog on blogspot, because I just can't figure out leaving comments on blogspot.  However, I did take the quiz he mentions in one of the six questions, and these are my results:

                   I  N  F  P
I  =  introverted
N =  Intuitive
F =   Feeling
P =   perceiving

I have to be amazed at how accurate these are, with the strongest emphasis on the "F" for feeling.  For better or for worse, it's my default operating mode. It's a long list of questions, but fun.  There are various interpretations of your results to read once you get your score.  Here's a list of fellow sufferers with my profile (and I've gotta wonder how many of them are also Cancers):

Famous INFPs:

Homer
Virgil
Mary, mother of Jesus
St. John, the beloved disciple
St. Luke; physician, disciple, author
William Shakespeare, bard of Avon
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Evangeline)
A. A. Milne (Winnie the Pooh)
Laura Ingalls Wilder (Little House on the Prairie)
Helen Keller, deaf and blind author
Carl Rogers, reflective psychologist, counselor
Fred Rogers (Mister Rogers' Neighborhood)
Dick Clark (American Bandstand)
Donna Reed, actor (It's a Wonderful Life)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onasis
Neil Diamond, vocalist
Tom Brokaw, news anchor
James Herriot (All Creatures Great and Small)
Annie Dillard (Pilgrim at Tinker Creek)
James Taylor, vocalist
Julia Roberts, actor (Conspiracy Theory, Pretty Woman)
Scott Bakula (Quantum Leap)
Terri Gross (PBS's "Fresh Air")
Amy Tan (author of The Joy-Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife)
John F. Kennedy, Jr.
Lisa Kudrow ("Phoebe" of Friends)
Fred Savage ("The Wonder Years")

Fictional INFPs:

Anne (Anne of Green Gables)
Calvin (Calvin and Hobbes)
Deanna Troi (Star Trek - The Next Generation)
Wesley Crusher (Star Trek - The Next Generation)
Doctor Julian Bashir (Star Trek: Deep Space 9)
Bastian (The Neverending Story)
E.T.: the ExtraTerrestrial
Doug Funny, Doug cartoons
Tommy, Rug Rats cartoonsRocko, Rocko's Modern Life cartoons

This list of fictional characters seems remarkably short, and heavy on the SciFi and cartoons.  Surely from all of the world's literature there are more INFP characters than Anne of Green Gables?  Surely.  In fact, if we put on our thinking caps I bet we can compile a much better list.

 

EARTH DAY, 2005

Mega approach avoidance happening here - denial of the stacks of papers, quizzes and tests on the dining room table. But, tomorrow is Earth Day, and I was planning to write a wrist-slitting post here about how little that really matters. I'm currently reading Thom Hartmann's The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, which was first published in 1998. This is a revised and updated edition published last year. I think there will be some light at the end of the tunnel, but a third of the way through this book I'm more than depressed at what my species has done to this planet. I very much identify with Joseph Chilton Pearce's words in the Foreword to the book:

"I have long puzzled how it is that the heartbreaking and near-terrifying nature of our ecological crisis is treated casually by and large, when not completely neglected or ignored by a generally sleepwalking populace. A planetary crisis embraces everything from the personal and social to worldwide, but in spite of an occasional flurry of lip service and 'let's pretends' concerning the avalance of disasters we are perpetrating, most of our gestures (a bit of recycling, a bit less driving, turning down the heat or AC, sending a check to the Sierra Club) seem to serve only to relieve our guilty conscience or mask our growing feeling of impotence. Nothing much is happening, at any rate, to halt our downward plunge."

Yes, yes and yes. "Growing feeling of impotence" is exactly it. The current issue (May/June) of Mother Jones focuses on climate change, that monster lurking under the bed that this country refuses to believe in. Interestingly (though hardly surprisingly) enough, Exxon Mobil is contributing largely to our refusal to believe. Here is a link to a chart showing the think tanks and policy groups that Exxon has recently funded. These are among the loudest voices proclaiming all the science of climate change and global warming to be hokum. This chart is further explained in the article "Some Like it Hot" in the "As the World Burns" collection of pieces on the subject. If you don't have time to read the articles, or UNTIL you have time to read the articles, here is an interactive map showing the global hot spots - fun for the whole family!

But wait - I said I "was about to" write a wrist-slitting post - ""what is this," you may ask, "if NOT one?" It is a journey through my evening's online reading - but it has a somewhat more upbeat ending. Kelpie Wilson writes for Truthout.org, one of the best liberal online journals of news and opinion, on environmental issues. This is her Earth Day article, and I have to admit that - although it has a whiff of the guilt-relieving gestures Pearce mentions in his Foreword to Hartmann's book - it considerably cheered me up. Anyone who reads this journal of mine probably already practices some of the suggestions at the end of Wilson's piece. Take on a few more, and most importantly (on this day when the House passed the atrocious Energy package) keep up the pressure on your elected representatives to stand up and fight the administration's corporate-funded anti-environmental policies.

The Green Dream Is Alive
By Kelpie Wilson
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Thursday 21 April 2005

Maybe it's just the springtime, but I'm here to tell you that this Earth Day the Green Dream is alive. How can you not feel that way after you've just spent the day setting thrifty little lettuce and broccoli starts out in a well-manured field?

We've got to keep reminding ourselves of the Green Dream because, let's face it: these are hard times for green-leaning folks as we see so many of our worst Cassandra-like predictions coming true. Even those of us who have shouted about global warming for years are surprised to see how quickly the climate is changing right now. Thejust-released Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, which brought togethernearly 1,400 experts from 95 countries, told us that we have degraded nearly 60% of the planet's capacity to support life with clean air, water and food. Then there is Peak Oil. Like most environmentalists, I knew it was coming - it's basic physics - yeah, we're going to run out of oil. But I believed those bastards when they said it wouldn't happen for another 20 years. Let the grandkids worry about it.

The entire energy industry needs to be prosecuted for concealing the true state of their oil and gas reserves. The SEC has already fined Shell Oil $120 million for inflating their oil holdings in order to keep their stock price high. This is just the beginning of the unveiling of an accounting rip-off that will make Enron and WorldCom look like peanuts, if it ever gets going. Someone also needs to take the US Energy Information Agency to court for broadcasting falsely that the world-wide peak of oil production would not hit us until sometime between 2020 and 2030. Right now we don't know if the real peak is happening today or if it will happen two or three years from now, but it's clearly breathing down our necks. How on God's green earth has such incompetence been tolerated?

Well, here we are. The House Republicans want us to give another 10 billion or so in tax breaks to the fossil fuel industry to somehow motivate them to get off their duffs and find more oil. What if they gave that $10 billion back to us as rebates so we could all invest in a little personal energy independence?

Wouldn't it be great to have $10,000 to put some solar panels on your roof? Ten billion dollars could put those solar panels on 100,000 roofs. If we'd been doing that for the last ten years, we'd have a million solar roofs by now.

It's a time to plant, to invest, to give back to the Earth.

With gas prices up, President Bush now wants to talk to us about energy conservation and energy independence. Will he do it? Will he actually tell us to put on a sweater when we're cold instead of turning up the thermostat? What about car mileage standards? What will he do about the big lots full of SUVs and monster trucks that Detroit all of a sudden can't sell? How did we get here? How can we find our way back to some sanity?

The fertilizer the Green Dream needs is exactly what it is getting right now: the simple truth of our situation. The American Dream as articulated since the 1950s - the suburban, two cars in every garage, ultra-convenient, mall world dream - is history.

Once there was another version of the American Dream. Thomas Jefferson's yeoman farmers would live free and independent, producing according to their own needs and living a simple, virtuous life that would make them model citizens. This kind of self-sufficient farmer is an endangered species today. But perhaps it is a dream worth reviving. Once we find something to do with all the SUVs, we will be tearing up the suburban asphalt and planting gardens.

Do you remember the rabbit lady in Michael Moore's film "Roger and Me?" Go get that film if you haven't seen it. The rabbit lady, struggling to survive in the trashed economy of Flint, Michigan, raised and sold rabbits, her sign on the road advertising Rabbits - Pets or Meat. To me the rabbit lady is a beautiful example of American resourcefulness. We all have that kind of strength and pride, if only we would be called upon to use it.

So many of us are yearning to pitch in now, to do something, to plant a seed. Here are the usual "what you can do to save the planet" Earth Day suggestions, but instead of thinking of them as chores to add to an already endless list, think of them as investments in a better future.

1. Get your body in shape. We'll all be walking and biking a lot more in the future, so we might as well start now. And it's so good for you. Getting in shape does not mean getting skinny. Fat is good for you too. Just keep it moving.
2. Eat good food. Try to eat whole, unprocessed food like rice and vegetables, organically grown and locally grown if possible. Food processing and transport use a lot of energy. At the same time, over-processed food zaps your personal energy.
3. Buy some power strips. Check every single appliance you have plugged into a wall outlet and see if it draws current even when the switch is turned off. If it is warm to the touch it's drawing current. Lots of devices suck these "vampire loads" so we won't have to wait for them to warm up when we turn them on. Plug them into the power strip and turn them all the way off. Turn them back on when you need them - and wait.
4. Buy a bunch of super-efficient light bulbs (either compact fluorescents or the new high efficiency LED lights) and replace every incandescent bulb in your house with one.
5. Plant a garden. Even if it's just a window box with some lettuces or a tomato plant in a pot on the deck. Join with friends and plant a community garden and make it fun! Raise rabbits.
6. Invest in solar electricity, solar heating and energy efficient appliances. The payback time in power bill savings may be a little long right now, but when energy prices shoot through the roof, you'll be glad you did.

Below I've added a few Internet links for further exploration. Happy Earth Day!

Fat is not so bad.
http://www.truthout.org/issues_05/042005HC.shtml

Good fat is good (the new food pyramid).
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050420/sfw099.html?.v=6

How to kill vampire loads and a host of energy conservation tips.
http://www.energyconservationinfo.org/almanac.htm

My favorite energy education site.
http://www.energyquest.ca.gov/

LED lights may soon replace bulbs.
http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20950~2818906,00.html

Kids can sell energy saving light bulbs to raise money for school projects.
http://www.uwsp.edu/cnr/wcee/keep/studentinvolvement/

A source of LED lights, solar modulesand energy saving appliances.
http://www.realgoods.com

Urban vs. Rural Sustainability
http://www.energybulletin.net/3757.html

End of Suburbia
http://www.friendsofthetrees.net/2005article_endofsuburbia.htm

Peak Oil and Permaculture in the Suburbs
http://www.postcarbon.org/

Homepower Magazine
http://www.homepower.org

This site has a database of solar installers.
http://www.seia.org/

Database of state incentives for renewable energy.
http://www.dsireusa.org/

Solar Today - Magazine of the American Solar Energy Society
http://www.solartoday.org/

The National Renewable Energy Lab
http://www.nrel.gov

 

WHERE THE HELL HAVE I BEEN?

On April 6th I wrote that it would be a "slow to nonexistant journal week,"  as life has become suddenly so full of "real" stuff that there just isn't the time to spend seated at the computer browsing news, environmental sites and magazines, and then writing.  The busy week has become two weeks now, and looks likely to last for at least two and a half more.  Or:  until the semester is over. 

The weather turned lovely, and the yard and gardens demand what time work doesn't.  I neglected so much last spring and summer while I was working on the campaigns, that there is twice the normal spring whipping-into-shape to be done. We plan to put the house on the market early next spring - getting this ridiculous yard looking seductively attractive will help a great deal with the sale..

Reading a book called The Memory of Running  (discussed in The BiblioPhiles) reminded me that there were two bikes decomposing in the garage.  I dug them out, took them to Bike Werkz and had them revived - new tires, brakes, a good cleaning, chains oiled.  I'm talking about two probably 25 year old Raleigh three-speeds here, folks, not your spiffy new 18 speed lightweight racing bike.  The adorable kid who worked on them was entranced by what he regarded as antiques.  Anyway, I'm riding mine everywhere possible now, and it just feels great.  Today I may even work up the courage to ride to the college, crossing the highway. 

The Language Dept at the college had a wonderful International Day - I have pictures, but haven't had time to download them yet.  At La Casita, the afternoon homework program, we had a Book Fair that lasted an entire week and brought us in some nice extra cash for supplies and books.  I worked evenings and Saturday on that, and had too much fun.  It brought back my old Doubleday Bookstore days, reminding me how much I love to put books and people together in friendly loving relationships.

Another big event around here has been a week of terror in both my constituencies, caused by the presence of La Migra (Immigration officers) here rounding up undocumented immigrants for deportation.  Kicking in doors, stopping cars on the highway, going through Wal-Mart accosting people, climbing up to second story windows to look in when no one answers a ground floor door, stuff like that.  Scary stuff.  And it's the people who've been living here for years, holding jobs, paying taxes, sending their kids to school, whose names are on their list.  Not the folks who just came over the border last week. 

OKay, gotta go, but one last word  - about the new Pope, the only hope I see is that he's 78 years old.  This one won't last for decades, like the last one did.  God's rottweiler, indeed.