Have you tasted the wild fruit?

We are staying with a friend in the mountains of Colorado. My significant other is recovering from heart surgery and dealing with medical issues. The illusion of human immortality has been broken yet again. I follow my friends on Facebook, watching the surgeries, births, deaths, and everyday struggles. I started the day like I did when I was twelve. I took a container outside and crawled around in the lawn. Why? The scent of strawberries, the vibrant splashes of red leaves and berries signaling time for harvesting.

When I was twelve I crawled around in a field next to my house, I spent hours picking berries the size of my fingernails. Each berry had a thousand times more flavor than a large, domesticated berry. It was worth the time and effort for the finest jam I ever made. This is a profound statement. I have made a lot of jams and jellies from Chai Apple Jelly to Queen Anne's Lace Jelly; to say that the wild strawberry was the finest is an impressive designation.

I am almost forty. I am crawling around and picking berries again. Smaller than my fingernails, brighter than a rose and more delicious than any fruit bought in a store. The bottom of the container slowly fills with each berry adding color and volume to the harvest.

Patience and knowledge are necessary in wild harvesting. There is nothing like finding and eating wild food. It is an experience that everyone should have at least once in their lives.

Many people talk about having 'bucket lists' of doing crazy and extreme or obscure things. I think everyone should have on their list learning to recognize wild edible plants and to go out harvesting. There are easy plants to learn: wild strawberries, elderberries, raspberries, blackberries, black raspberries, blueberries, marion berries, rose hips, puff ball mushrooms, morel mushrooms, wild leeks, wild onions, wild garlic, apples, crabapples, prickly pear, yucca fruit, rhubarb, tiger lily and nasturtium flowers. You can find wild or once domesticated herbs growing: comfrey, plantain, mustard, dandelions, mullein, cattails, cowslips, sage, rosemary, and garlic. You have to be aware of look-alikes and know your plants; but there is nothing like going out into nature with empty hands and coming home with a feast.

One of my favorite plants is Jewelweed or Touch Me Not. Bright yellow and orange flowers, stem full of juice and seed pods that explode on touch shooting seeds like party favors on New Years' Eve. Jewelweed is a wonderful topical antihistamine. Take a piece of the stem, crush it in your fingers until the juice is released. Put the juice on bug bites or poison ivy. Relief! In the warmer regions you can find aloe. Aloe leaves can be ripped open and the inside pulpy juice wiped on sunburns or other skin rashes for succor. What healing tricks do you have from your native plants?

Two little wild strawberries packed with flavor. 

Wild black morel, to learn about wild edible mushrooms join your local and state mushroom hunting groups. Learn from the pros! Safety first!

Nothing is as wonderful as enjoying a fruit fresh from the plant, warmed by the sun and rinsed by the rain. How many children have a concept of where their food really comes from?

If you have no wild places near you, have you considered putting in a garden? Even a small garden with several plants allows you the chance to see life unfold in front of you and offers you the chance to enjoy something you personally have tended. It isn't quite like tasting something wild, but it has it's own merits. Food you have had a hand in raising or harvesting is twice as delicious as any found commercially. Peas, lettuce, onions, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes, potatoes are easy to raise and make a satisfying start to your farming experience.

Some want a garden without a hassle, without anything to harvest. In that case, rock garden or moss garden would be a delightful endeavor that wouldn't constrain time. A moss garden is as simple as gently transplanting moss from one place to another and watering it thoroughly daily for several weeks. A rock garden is simply finding rocks you like and putting them in an area together; different shapes and sizes, colors and features to make a beautiful display without need for watering or tending.

Life is too short to spend it racing in a constant jog, spinning endless wheels to stay in debt and frustration. Even if your only rebellion is the small freedom of a garden; go for it!

When I come through perhaps we will go for a walk in the wild, I will teach you the plants I know and look forward to learning about the plants you know.

Life is too short. Too many friends face death. Too many that I want to kidnap out into the sun, to fill their last days and moments with wild beauty. I wish that the experiences you have in life are like wild strawberries, concentrated and amazing. Lives full of color and flavor, rather than oversized, bland abundance. Challenge only makes us stronger and more resourceful. Mowing wild strawberries only spreads them in a carpet across your lawn; their bright runners a celebration of the persistence of life. I wish you to thrive like wild fruit, to exceed your own expectations.

Watch the sunset, tune into the world around you. Do you know the calls of the animals in your neighborhood? Do you know the birds? Do you know the trees, shrubs, flowers? Perhaps it is time for you to meet your real neighbors. Whatever else you do today, whatever is going on inside your head, choose to step out for a moment. Choose to be present, here, now, and to savor at least one moment.

Sunset in Blackhawk Colorado, Savoring the moment and letting go of the day. 

What is Freedom in a Country made of Ad Campaigns?

The Fourth of July started with a beautiful sunrise, cornflower blue sky and wild strawberries ripening in the lawn. A baby rabbit runs out to sneak a taste of succulent grass then races away as the puppy chases it.

You can't put a price tag on it.

Today is a celebration of freedom. The freedom to express beliefs and opinions. People in other countries do not necessarily have that. We have the choice to be active in shaping politics, communities and in the directions we walk in life. Some choose to tune out, to follow money and things, pursuing the pabulum claimed to be news of celebrities instead of actual news. Money's tight right now and I have traveling to do this week. I found a bright pink printed $20,000 bill from a game in the dirt. I thought about how little separates it from real money and how worthless money is when you stare at a sunset or watch a meteor shower.

I think about how we seem to need to buy things, always buy things to demonstrate what we stand for or to feel better or to chase away boredom. It's a hollow pursuit.

I spent a week helping friends move. Vast collections of things, family members deciding what to take and what to yard sale or donate. The mindset of having four or five in different color schemes as necessity makes me cringe, knowing one day that frivolous impulse will result in another overfilled landfill blemish.

What do we do when someone is sad? We feed them, pour them drinks, or buy them something. No wonder so many people feel depressed, disconnected and lost. What happened to listening and being there? Why have we forgotten the true value of real emotional support?

What do we do to celebrate? We eat, drink, and buy more things. What happened to just enjoying the moment? When did the value of a compliment get reduced to clearance prices?

When was the last time you spent the day with someone, just enjoying the time rather than shopping, buying things you don't need? When was the last time you actually talked and put the internet down for a while?

Here's an idea. Empty your pockets. Leave your wallet at home. Go to a shopping center and walk through it, notice how the ads and packaging are all designed to target specific interest groups, how they seem to buddy up or present products as if they are the penultimate thing you never knew you had to have. Study the vast, oversupply of things encouraging shallow, narcissistic egocentrism.

Now picture it all in a landfill. Think of how soon it'll break or the fad will end and the items will be discarded- the cheap possession high long faded and lost with a crumpled receipt on the floor.

Walk the aisles visualizing that.

Now, think of someone you love. What is the most valued memory you have? I think of my great grandmother Alice, sitting and having tea with me. I remember touching the lines on her hands and asking her if I had to have lines like hers when I got old. Her wrinkled perfect smile, the violets we tended in her garden. My grandfather rolling his glass eye to mess with people. The ridiculous and obnoxious antics he did to amuse himself. My other grandfather singing ditties and bouncing the youngest grandchildren on his lap to calm them when they were distressed.

I cannot find these things on a shelf, no sales flyer offers them, and no matter what I buy it is not these moments.

I hope that on Independence Day you choose to liberate yourself from materialism.

Merrill, a friend, always said "that which we enslave, enslaves us." He is correct. Things do not lead to happiness. Living, connecting, caring and accepting that maybe the world isn't less of a priority than self interest. Our society reminds me of undergraduate biology lab. A Petri dish with only so much nutrient in it, yet bacteria will consume it all until they have nothing left. They die. Emptyness around them and within them. I'm humbled that instead of rising above the limited self focused drive of a single cell organism, we instead demonstrate ourselves as fancier, more complicated, self destructive organisms with the same short sighted selfish choices of single cell organisms. I'd like to see us choose more wisely. 

We toxify our world and justify our destruction through rationalization or allow ourselves to tune out by looking away from the damage we do. Time has come to accept responsibility. Freedom has a price. Striving to reach beyond the limitations of our own self absorbed psyches, to evolve, we have to let go of the things we do not need. Our ancestors let go of the tree branches. They stood, uncomfortable at first; they struggled and made tools. It had to be rough, some chose not to stand, some went extinct. That's change. 

Today as you watch fireworks, think of the choices you have. How you spend your time, how you care and interact with others, how active and aware you are of the lives of the folks around you. Do you know your neighbors?

We can choose to enhance each others lives through relearning healthy social support behaviors. Eye contact, putting down the smartphone and conversing with the living beings around you, giving a hand, an ear- who isn't worth a little effort? Maybe if we stop trying to feed and pay off the emptiness within ourselves we can finally connect enough to heal. 

Independence Day, so I hope you choose to use that freedom wisely.

Not Just Another Dry Rant on Politics, or A Bipartisan System Lubricated by "Campaign Funding" is Absurd

It's a tuesday night. Imagine we are watching a sporting event. It starts with a montage of photos and video footage promoting a competitor. Next there are snips of interviews with the competitor and their supporters. Next there is the opposition and their supporters. A lot of posing and soundbites designed to crank up the crowd. The fight begins. The fight ends. Some sports are real and it is about skill or how well the referee attends the fight. Some are entertainment, like professional wrestling and political campaigns unfortunately you only know the sponsors of the wrestlers. The political sponsors may be hiding behind sub companies names so you may not see the giant behind multiple donations pulling the puppet strings on candidates. 

An open mouth! It is a candidate using someone else's excellent writing skills to persuade you through their charisma and charm that they actually are there to represent you. Hold on, have you taken the time to review any of their track records? We are a country of inattentive parents wondering  why our metaphorical teenagers (politicians) are out of control. How many times have you looked up to see how often your representatives are attending sessions in Washington? How many times have you looked up to see what legislation they are actually signing, writing, suggesting and voting for? Are you just assuming that because they have the "Democrat" or "Republican" label that you feel fits you, that they must be doing their best on your behalf because their "shirt has the same tag"? That is as absurd as assuming that just because someone else wears the same shirt as you, they make the same choices and have the same goals that you do. Stupid, huh? 

It's human nature to want to be included, to identify yourself with a description into a group. We like being included, we like fitting. Unfortunately the parties do not fit anymore. Our political system is broken. 

Basically, if you were to hand a legislator several million dollars for their campaign you can tell them how to vote. In fact, the people funding the campaigns are corporations, and the corporations are getting the votes on the legislation they want. They are educated in politics, they follow Washington, they monitor who's showing up and who's voting on what. They have to know that stuff to know where to direct their energy so that while you are busy worrying about late bill payment, feeding your kids healthy food, appealing health insurance coverage, and just keeping your head above water- those corporations are making sure their agendas are met. For them, with the resources and finances to lubricate political wheels they smile while the American public- poor, middle class, and would be upper class all suffer at a proportion that feeds conflict. One person staunchly supports legislation because it finally gave them financial breathing room while another bitches that their rights just got stepped on and that they shouldn't have to support anyone else. 

When did anyone in this country come to deserve to be entitled? Sorry, but supporting each other rather than punishing or being intolerant of others is human and crucial. We are all human, we are all fallible and WE ALL DESERVE RESPECT AND SUPPORT. No one deserves to be paid lower than their worth, no one should be a criminal because they need medication, no one should die because their insurance coverage was declined. We should not have to teach children that water is not safe to drink, we should be working on legislation to protect the environment as IT IS THE ONLY ONE WE HAVE, there is no magic reset button or cosmic parent that is going to show up to clean our metaphorical room. 

You might think I am taking this too far, but just to show you how moronic it is to blindly buy into and support a candidate because of their party affiliation here: 

Apache Junction Arizona: Pinal County elections for Constable in 2014. John Acton was running Republican, he was caught using misleading and false statements in his campaign after he was elected. The county decided on a recall election, giving the public a chance to vote again- thinking that the public would make a wise decision considering the candidate was inappropriate based on the behaviors he was caught doing in his campaign. A little about Apache Junction; it is lovely but it's mostly retired folks and loud, proud Republicans. They voted him in again over an independent candidate who had no record of wrongdoing with 58% of the vote. Several months later, he was already in trouble for harassing residents, threatening them using his title as if he were a wild west shoot them all Sheriff. The county is trying to figure out how to deal with the loose cannon the public permitted to step into a position he is not fit for. John McCain slipping in a hand off of land that a prior President designated to NEVER allow mining- knowingly to a large mining company on a defense budget bill for a small profit in comparison to what the company will take home to their owners overseas while they destroy land that has historical significance to the Apaches. 

Democrats do not sit back and pat your backs, your party has also had it's share of inept and corrupt officials. Obama could have refused to sign the defense bill until the rider McCain added was removed; instead he said play nice and ducked out of the controversy; he also hasn't made a move to free Leonard Peltier although he could step up and resolve an old wrong instead of perpetuating it. Hilary Clinton moved to New York State to give herself a better shot at presidential candidacy. These examples may seem opinionated or weak but I save the best for last. Democrats, do I need to bring up the names of Democratic Governors of Illinois convicted of corruption? 

Time for us to stop picking a generic description to become a part of a group. Time for us to make a description for ourselves - if that is what we need- to become responsible citizens. To monitor our politicians and their actions; to review candidates not based on sound bites or media coverage but on their actions, their demonstration of skills and their choice to decline taking funding from corporate sponsors if the funding includes corporate puppeteering. Corporations do NOT care about your health, they do NOT care what you want, they CARE about THEIR profits. It comes down to what they can convince you that you need to consume, how much you NEED to spend and have the things they sell. Do not HUMANIZE them, do not allow advertisements to cloud your judgement. At the end of the day it comes down to numbers, to money, and how much of yours they can get. 

Become Independent. Be Proud, be original, be a thinking, autonomous American. Choose to join a growing faction of people who do not care about labels. Actions speak louder than words. Let's start hearing the speeches and talks in Charlie Brown adult noises and start looking at the bottom line. 

Resumes, references, lists of achievements- we should want to see them. We should also be asking: who is funding you and WHO IS DOING YOUR WRITING!?! 

We should be pressuring for legislation changes to stop PACs. We should be pressuring for legislation to abolish or limit the potential of lobbyists. Instead we're playing games, watching sitcoms, and whining. Time for change. If we don't like how dirty our metaphorical room has gotten, it is up to us to make changes. 

We can boycott products, we can use social media to create petitions and to form groups to watchdog political actions and choices. Instead we share moronic memes. We have power. Each of us is capable of more than we realize. A majority of us is easily possible. Think if 10,000 people protest a political bill through boycotting products, that is a large profit lost; media coverage fuels further impact. If one million people protested through "sick out" i.e. calling in sick on the same day across the country to protest a political choice- it would bring the country, the politicians and corporations to their knees within a day or two. Think about it. You are free whether you realize it or not, whether you utilize your freedom or choose to see yourself caught in the endless hamster wheel of American society today. 

The choice is yours. Instead of treading water, voicing the same concerns repeatedly- take steps to change. Take steps to educate yourself, to vote with your spending, to monitor political issues not through social media coverage but through the numbers, through the decisions made. 

We could make our country one to be proud of again, rather than an opinionated, biased, irrational, unpredictable and mostly mediocre one. Wouldn't it be nice to be proud of our international status, rather than be viewed at oblivious world bullies and users? Wouldn't it be nice to work with people, to exercise tolerance and to promote good health and wellbeing here- and around the world? 

I could be wrong. The track records of BOTH parties demonstrate that I am at least partially right. Government is supposed to be about REPRESENTING THE PEOPLE; not the Corporations. 

Happiness is not the same as disguised desperation.

In this country we have the right to pursue happiness, but what is it?

People post they are happy so long as they close their eyes to things that bring them down. Think positive. Pizza, material goods, travel, family, coupons, gifts, entertainment bring happiness. Humor, whether the jokes are universal or universally inappropriate, bring happiness to others.

But are we using the right word? Awesome is supposed to be used to describe something incredible, awe inspiring yet we use it for things that are everyday and average.

Douglas Adams noted Eskimos have many words to describe rain. Perhaps there should be different words for transitory, situational, and deep happiness?

Perhaps instead of running from the shadows of things that make our hearts cry, we stand. We cry. We face and bring ight to the shadows. We become the stars changing the night from bleak to beautiful. We grant wishes through actions. We connect with each other without grudging religion, politics, color, or belief. We choose the reshape the world to prioritize people and the environment. We prioritize the real, living world - without a healthy one, it doesn't matter how nice the digital ones we create are.

Instead of escapism, choose something you can do to empower yourself. To reshape the cold apathy of our society into light, warm affection.

I think real deep happiness comes when we heal ourselves, when we accept responsibility for who and what we are and we stop choosing resentments, bias and hurtful behavior.

A good friend said he can't believe people still kill each other. Violence begets violence. Healing begets growth. It can be scary, painful and unpleasant at times but that's part of the process. If you have a broken leg it will hurt to set it properly so it can heal but if you avoid that pain you will only end up with worse pain and loss of function. Emotions have functions, more subtle than the physical body but just as important.

We make the choices on what the rules are, what is bought and sold, how, as well as how we are treated and how we treat each other.

It is time for us to all be all colors, to recognize love is important, to value our differences and honor our different stories.

When we do this, happiness is there. Real, true and lasting. It is not about closing our eyes. It is about opening them so we can take the wheel and drive.

An example in real life is Colorado Gators. In the 1970s they started as a fish farm, and got gators to feed dead fish to, a sort of natural recycling. They blossomed into a sanctuary for rescued reptilian pets as well as being a fish farm. Now they have Gators of all sizes and ages, several rattlesnakes, monitor lizards, bias, pythons, fronts, turtles and even other animals. Most of their animals are rescues, they even have horses, emu, and ostriches, as well as ducks, chickens and geese. It was a beautiful farm, rich with real farm scents of living healthy animals. Those folks change the world every day, teaching and tending animals that were taken out of the wild only to become more than their owners could manage. They have an impact. Their happiness was not a fleeting thing, like the happiness of eating a delicious pizza but instead it was a deeper bliss that ripples out into the lives of all that stop by and bravely hold the baby gator and mug for a photo.

One example among thousands. Eyes open, it is your choice.

Enable versus Empower Healthy Change for 2015

Our society boasts of what we do for our children. We take the fangs and claws from the world and present a fuzzy pink version with anime eyes. We structure their time. We teach them to take tests. We teach them to follow the rules. We do for them. We wonder why they tune us out, why we can't seem to connect. We wonder why they don't respect anything or anyone. Popular mainstream songs suggest sex as a new religion since religion says everyone starts out flawed. Why not start the year by starting to empower our children rather than enable them. Let's teach them to be responsible, let's teach them to strive toward bettering the world. Why gloss over the struggles other children face and focus our children on being self centered and  absorbed on how they look and what they absolutely have to buy. Why not teach them to have substance, to problem solve, to have empathy? Empowering is offering someone the chance to do for themselves, they may succeed or not. Support them, offer them open ended questions and let them work it out. Stop cutting the crusts off the bread. Stop scheduling their days down to the minute. How will they ever learn to appreciate time, goal set and create their own schedules? When you schedule someone to the hilt, what they learn is to live in a routine. They learn to squander free time as if it was just time to wait. It is absurd that people could choose to live life as if it is a waiting room. A beautiful world with more than a million potential REAL experiences, instead we sit and kill time matching shapes or pushing buttons mindlessly on video games. Nothing gained, but time lost that could have been spent appreciating a gorgeous day, a loved one's laugh, learning a new skill or having a meaningful conversation. How do you teach your child to be conscious of the world? What responsibilities do you give your child to foster growth rather than a perpetual child that becomes an adult in age but not maturity? Why is college the new high school? Why doesn't that sound absurd?

Parenting Tips to Stop Enabling Kids - More4kids
Too Much Structure Can Harm Your Child - Dr. Jenn Berman

Did you know that Monarch Butterflies may join the endangered species list? We just have to kill off milkweed with pesticides, as we are more important than the environment. Can't have a few milkweed plants on the farm, fuck some stupid bug? It's not a big deal? There are millions of insects. I happen to think of them as a symbol of life. They are a living work of art. The species has it in their genes to migrate, it takes generations of them to make the migration. Did you think that a monarch butterfly in New York really wings it all the way to Mexico? It may take three or more generations as they make the transition. When I was a child I was taught that monarchs stay in their cocoons all winter. The same teacher told us the next day that it was going to be a harsh, cold winter. I went home and gathered up my mother's empty cardboard jewelry boxes with cotton in them. I went out with my wagon to the milkweed patches. I carefully gathered the cocoons and put one in each box. I put the boxes under my bed where they would be undisturbed and unnoticed. Two weeks later, my mother got home from work and opened the door to over thirty monarch butterflies that burst out into the autumn breeze like orange and black confetti. She never knew why. I was furious because I found that one wasn't strong enough to knock the lid off the box. I would not have left the lids on had I known it would only take two weeks rather than four months for the butterflies to emerge from the cocoon. I went back and confronted the teacher about being wrong. She had the gall to tell me that I was just a kid and didn't know what I was talking about. Come on teachers, research what you teach and don't condescend. Accept that when you say it, kids are going to test it, and they might just prove you wrong or misinformed. Teach them! Empower them. The answer should not be C or all of the above, or pick the longest one as it is usually right. Sadly, I joke about this but my classmates in public and private school found these tactics to work for an average to better than average test score. Did they learn anything or just learn to take tests? I learned from monarch butterflies that part of learning is experience, that you can't always find the answers you are searching for and the best intentions can be the worst choices. Putting the cocoons away for safe keeping against the cold winter was enabling and in the end cost one fragile life. Empowering would have been leaving them on the plants where they belonged. I cared so much I wanted them all to live and by smothering them I failed at the very goal I strove to succeed at. Good lesson for every child to learn, good lesson for every adult to learn. What are monarch butterflies to you? What can you do to help rebuild the populations- empowering a species survival? In Mexico, stop deforestation of habitat there, in the United States stop treating milkweed as a weed. Plant it in your gardens, protect it as a species as it goes hand in hand with the survival of the monarch butterflies. I want to be remembered as someone who chose to improve the world, not as someone who defiled it and turned a blind eye to the abuses others in my species perpetuate on it. 2015, a new year and a new chance to stand up.

Learn about Monarch Butterflies

  Scanning through pins and tweets this morning I noticed that any pictures showing women had once sentence bites about how women have to look their best, and men better like beer and tits. I was saddened that only one article and picture had substance. I was depressed by the substance there.

Oriental cultures do not seem to grasp the importance of valuing species and not trying to exploit endangered species. Japan stop hunting dolphins and whales. Seriously. There is research that demonstrates dolphins have their own language. How do we rate as a species, when we choose to tolerate the callous murder and abuse of another intelligent species? Today, I read about Chinese farms where tigers are raised to turn into pelts and a bone wine that allegedly gives people the feeling that they've temporarily relieved arthritis symptoms. No research to support it, and it is illegal to kill tigers or sell the bone wine; interest was flagging as it was considered terrible. Social pressure decreased sales. Then the farms cropped up and pushed to make sales, they fostered interest. Poachers got back to work in India and other countries to supply bone wine so a few people could claim a little relief, I wonder what miracles would befall them if they tried a dose of ibuprofen or cider vinegar? There are options that do not involve destroying a beautiful species out of self centered, egocentric thinking. We really need to break out of the mold of considering ourselves the only and most important creatures in the world. In a world without diversity, there is no survival or sustaining population. Don't believe me, get a petri dish. Colonize it with one type of singular celled organism. They consume all of the resources there and eventually die out. Life needs life.


Japan Is Back in the Hunt for Whales - NYTimes.com

Learn more about tiger farming

I picked on the orient, but how about a little home introspection? Many of you have heard me gripe loudly against fox and coyote penning. You think America is above abhorrent hobbies? Think again. Fox and coyote penning involves having fenced in areas that usually have electric wire on the top and bottom to keep the prey in, then hunters set packs of dogs loose in the cage. They bet on which dog will rip the fox or coyote up. They watch. They pay people to do this on private land in a lot of eastern states. You thought your local hunting club only went out on British style free release fox hunts? Think again. They justify it claiming it is humane and that they are hunting pest animals, but it's okay because they were raised on farms. These sound logical to you? Stop supporting them. Stop supporting farming animals for their pelts, that doesn't make it any better. You don't look sexy wearing a fox or coyote tail, or putting a fox face skin mask on your head. Support a face painter, get a painting of a fox instead or a mask. Many artists do lifelike masks that don't leave me thinking of Leatherface when I see them. It just advertises your willingness to endorse apathy to another species. The older I get, the less tolerant I become. I choose to purchase meat and eggs from local farms that use responsible practices. I don't support mistreatment of animals. Dog fights and the culture that fosters them still perpetuates abuse of animals. We can choose to pressure people to stop. We can choose to support legislation to punish abusive animal owners instead of just slapping them on the wrist with a little fine. We can change this, it is absurd that we have not. Let's start 2015 right. Let's start by changing how we respect other species.

Fox Penning : The Humane Society of the United States
Coyote & Fox Penning - Project Coyote

I don't support abuse toward humans either. I picked up the paper to read an article on South Korea. While you are all hating on the ruler in North Korea, did you know that South Korea has a BIG problem with slavery? No? I didn't until this morning. There was a story about a homeless man offered a job and a place to stay. He jumped at it, only to find it was slave labor at a salt mine. He was not paid. The man who turned him in was paid $700 for him. Living accommodations were appalling. He and others tried to escape and were returned by community members who were corrupt and supported the slave owner. They were beaten. They did not consent to being slave labor in salt mines. The local police were paid off to look the other way and help return escaping slaves. The story ended on the happy note of the man getting a letter out to his mother one of the times he tried to escape. His mother went to the authorities in Seoul, who went undercover and caught the slave owner. The problem is, he wasn't the only one. There are more who do it, and they offer money to turn a blind eye. Before we scowl at Korea, don't we let lobbyists pay our legislators to shape legislation with regard to who has the money versus the wellbeing of constituents? How absurd it is that we haven't pressured changes to legislation to stop lobbyists? Did you know that most Congressmen retire to become lobbyists and get three times the pay they got in Congress? Did you know that, when these one time legislators were interviewed they all said they get more accomplished now as lobbyists than they did as Congress? Maybe we should be picking our lobbyists instead of wondering at the ineptitude of elected officials who are being paid by private interests to be inept! New year, new start. We have to be honest with ourselves if we want to make real, positive change. If we want a better year to be more than just a yearly lip service we do as a ritual without really attending to it.

The Facts – The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day …

Let's set some goals for the year, choose to treat our own bodies with respect. Choose to respect the world as something other than a resource to use. We are not ticks and leeches, let's demonstrate that. Let's teach our children to be capable, mature adults. Let's empower them and each other, let's stop enabling.

The Absurdity of Advertising

The Absurdity of Advertising

The Modesto Bee had a lovely square coupon attached to the front of it. The coupon advertised by two and get one free caramel apples. You are thinking "so what?" The same newspaper had just warned readers the day before that there was an outbreak of a food borne pathogen that might be linked to eating caramel apples and that it was too early to identify specific brands to avoid. One day they issue a warning and the next day they accept money to advertise the product they warned against. Are you thinking that maybe in that twenty four hour period the caramel apple candy scare had passed? Think again. It is over a week later and they have now identified the culprit to be listeria and the source might be Happy Apple Brand caramel apples. Thirteen people at least have become ill and reported it. I wonder how many other people went bug eyed and started laughing when they saw the ironic coupon crowning the front page of the newspaper like I did. I saved the sticker to smile at when I need to recall how absurd and ironic our society can be.

Then Sony has their system hacked, possibly by North Korea after producing a movie making fun of it's government and leadership. Sony gets tired of having it's customers and relations but at the fingertips and mercy of long distance hackers and pulls the movie before it is released. People band together in an anti-terrorist stance to pressure Sony to release the movie and accept the targeting of hackers. The United States may or may not have hacked North Korea in response. Is this sounding like a grade school melodrama yet? "Joe made a Youtube video calling a principal at another school a potty-head. Joe's phone stops working right and so does his friends. Youtube pulls the video. Kids riot and pout. Even kids who think Joe is pretty stupid and that the video is moronic. Youtube puts the video access back. Now even more people HAVE to watch it because not doing so would be supporting terrorism. Do you realize how absurd that statement is? I like Seth Rogen, I enjoy laughing at some of his comedy. Some of it I find very juvenile and awkward-this is my opinion. It doesn't make me a patriot to see a moronic comedy. It doesn't have any impact at all on politics in North Korea any more than it would if a North Korean made a movie making fun of our political system and politicians. You think there isn't enough material for them to work with?! Come on.

Let's consider that at least five of the Senators WE elected to Senate faced criminal charges in 2014 ranging from bribery, DUI, corruption and conspiracy to sell guns, money laundering, as well as felonies. Let's also look at the number of ex-congressmen and women who turn into lobbyists boasting of making three and four times the income they did when they were in office by manipulating politics using tactics that legislators cannot but are legal for lobbyists to use. They brag about it! They represent whoever pays them well, a few actually go after the causes they tried to support for their constituents but the majority don't. The majority do not represent you in their actions or their votes, they spend their time fundraising and spin controlling against negative publicity. They spend their time listening to lobbyists and finding ways to make bad ideas sound reasonable to the general public. We persist on identifying ourselves with specific parties. Stop for a moment! The next time you watch a political debate between parties I want you to close your eyes and picture them preparing for a professional wrestling match. It may sound absurd, but it will remind you of a few essential facts.

One: if they are talking, it is all prearranged and carefully planned to appeal to certain viewers and listeners. Actors make excellent politicians. They PAY people to write for them who do not care what you actually think or feel. They care about where the money comes from. When they talk you should be focusing on what is motivating them to say what they are saying, what do they get out of their stance?  Remember the swine flu? Remember Joe Biden making a rash statement that was rather alarmist. Do you remember how much he and his friends made off the stock for Tamiflu, when they had had a surplus that was going to expire… until we all had a need to run out and get some to keep ourselves safe from the Swine Flu Terror! He apologized and retracted the statement but his dramatic advertisement worked. At the expense of your nerves, he counted his profits and sold his product. It should not be legal and it is so absurd that we choose to allow melodrama and hype to direct us to make choices.

Movie theaters that did not plan on showing The Interview had to pick it up and change their schedules because everyone has to watch it now. It's a classic because of the hype. Sony did the best advertising they could have by pulling the movie and building public outcry. The movie may end up making a profit because it's now a patriotic film. Wow. One woman was interviewed about going to see the movie, she identified that her relatives were afraid that North Korea would bomb them for seeing the movie. News flash, North Korea does not come to your small town and bomb your politically inactive family because you saw a movie. They MAY hack your account if you have one through Sony; they may screw with internet access and a wave of new viruses may come out to mess with our software. If there is violence it will be government versus government. If you aren't a decision maker in Washington with clout, you are just one of a multitude that doesn't even register on another country's radar. We really need to get over our over-inflated sense of self importance.

Arguments rage about fracking. Companies want to frack more. Gas prices drop drastically just before the holidays, and when you mention how happy it makes you they tell you that they let it happen because of fracking. They encourage you to support it more, and to be more dismissive of the problems that arise around it. Don't think about the earthquakes in the Dallas area which correlate to an increase in fracking there; contamination of ground water is not a big deal. I read someone justify the contamination of ground water through fracking 'because' it has been contaminated before. Do I have to say how absurd that rationale is? Really? I have hiked in the Adirondacks. One of the worst environmental embarrassments in that region is the acid rain that killed off life in many of the lakes there. Years later, they were pristine and lifeless with hikers and locals hoping that one day that would change and the ecosystem might bounce back. But hey, if they were contaminated before-why not more!

IT gets better, so they advertised for fracking by dropping gas prices for the holidays then just after Christmas they announce that they have to raise them to protect the environment. They need to make it more expensive to drive so we all drive less. We are going to drive when we have to drive, why not fund building more forms of alternate transportation that have lower impact on the environment? Why not put money toward funding the development and construction of more fuel efficient and alternative fuel vehicles? Why not offer incentives for people to car pool and ride share? Why not just be honest with us and stop using every single change to manipulate our sympathies and get us to stand behind stupid and reckless choices?

Before you argue against that I want you to consider how many times the FDA has approved pharmaceutical drugs ONLY to pull them within several years when they are discovered to have too many adverse or potentially lethal effects. Do you know the numbers or the names? There is a list on wikipedia; there are approximately 170 drugs on the list that may or may not have made it to the United States before being put on the list in Europe due to issues there.

Not front page news, but real and impacting real lives in the United States. Did you get a vote on how the pharmaceuticals are tested and regulated or categorized? No? But one of the big ticket hot items is cannabis legalization, which the pharmaceutical companies do NOT want as it jeopardizes their profits. Their stance has nothing to do with research, nothing to do with cannabis itself. Their stance has to do with controlling profits and making money.

On the other hand they are fighting a struggling economy, the demonstration that Colorado has not gone "insane" from legalization but instead has generated millions in tax revenue that it can use to address state needs without increasing taxes on individuals. Colorado created more jobs as well as decreasing prison populations with legalization. Other states are looking and changing their stances. Energy drinks are legal and have warnings on their labels, they have repeatedly caused harm yet they aren't all over the news and the source of controversy. Why can Red Bull give you wings and get in trouble for traces of cocaine in their product about ten years ago when you can't smoke a joint to take the edge off your anxiety or anger? On the other hand you could go get a prescription for zoloft and risk "homicidal ideation" as one of the adverse effects. Is zoloft going to go do the jail time for you when that doesn't fly as an excuse for an acquittal in the courtroom? I used to carry around a Baycol mug that I drank my coffee out of. Baycol was a heart medication that was pulled because people died using it.

When companies make electronic goods they send them for testing at independent laboratories before selling them, you know that "UL" tag on your lamps? It means an independent company tested the product and found it safe. WHY is there no independent lab testing on pharmaceuticals? The research companies do support their products, as grant writers have to demonstrate that their proposal will be successful and have a predicted impact-the research presented to the medical field often has holes in it. You aren't supposed to ask about those during the presentations when they are feeding you 'finger foods' because laws changed and prevented them from buying you meals as it was too much like bribery. So now the finger foods are the meal. I went to a few presentations at the VAMC. I was the one asking the awkward questions about research validity. I excelled at statistics and methods in both my undergraduate and graduate programs. The outcome of research is only as strong as the validity of techniques used to gather information and to monitor results; strong and valid research uses methods to decrease and prevent bias in outcomes and observations. It is hard to do that when you are the one that will profit off the results of your research. We COULD pressure the government to require independent testing of pharmaceuticals before they are approved. It seems absurd that we do not. It seems absurd that we have no problem with every pharmaceutical being approved without debate when we have to debate cannabis. We did not debate when the country spontaneously decided to legalize ABSINTHE several years ago- and absinthe is one of the most illegal drugs in the world with a terrible reputation for misuse. We legalized absinthe and everyone hasn't rushed out and cut off their ears or turned into derelicts begging on street corners. It is all about advertising and where the money goes. Decisions are arbitrary and often absurd, and we let the media shape our perceptions. Why?

Today, I ask you one thing. Please, the next commercial or news broadcast you see I ask you to watch it with one thought in mind. Who makes money because of what they are saying? What actual evidence other than the statements of someone being PAID to say what they are saying is offered to you? Note it. Start doing it as an exercise. See how often you find yourself resisting absurdity and digging for the truth. Empower yourself.