a correction sparked by Williams, followed by library passion.

In my last post I mused that a lot of energy was lost through heating and AC being on when unused. Williams alerted me to the fact that it uses a lot of energy to re-heat or re-cool. I looked it up and not surprisingly he is right. But in looking up that I came across a couple of other things... like this http://www.lbl.gov/Science-Articles/Archive/energy-myths3.html

thanks Williams.

I am at work again, and I'm reading the book "Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee." It has to be one of the most horrifying and heartbreaking things I have EVER read. I thought I knew a lot about what the US government has done to the Indians, and compared to a lot of people, I do, which is sad. My ex-step dad is Menominee as is my half-sister. Mommy got a degree in Native American studies and teaches at the Oneida Tribal School. We've been talking/learning about issues and wrongdoings my whole life and this book is still TEARING MY VENTRICLES.

Every chapter is a new adventure into the lies, trickery, and brutality of the US (government, army, and citizens) and blind hope, courage, and massacre of the tribes. Hopefully just about everybody knows about the massacre at Wounded Knee, but I'm halfway through the book and I count about 12 massacres already.

It is a shameful thing for me to read. I know it's foolish to wish that you could go back in time, but I wish I had been a president or general back then. The only white people who cared or thought the ongoing genocide wasn't cool just quit and went home. I find myself thinking, what would I have done if I was in the army? Would I have bought into the public perspective that "the only good Indian is a dead Indian?" Would I have joined vigilante groups to force Indians out of their homelands by stealing their horses, burning their villages, and killing buffalo so they had nothing to eat, all so I could pan for gold? Would I have handed out blankets infected with smallpox to freezing women and children, or shot Black Kettle in the head as walked towards me with a truce flag, then proceed?

To all of those questions I think I can answer no. But that's asking if I would or wouldn't have been as EVIL as most of the whites were out west. What about asking if I would have been GOOD? Could I have had the courage to say "Uhh guys... who the fuck are we calling savages? Are we even human anymore?" Could I have tried to defend the tribes and their rights (lives) out West or in Washington by any means necessary?

And that's when I find the most chilling answer, "You're going to find out." I'm going to find out if I would have been able to/had the balls to do something then, because all those fucked up things are still happening TODAY all over the world. Genocide, Starvation, Corrupt Governments, Massacre, Disease, Environmental Destruction , and PEOPLE WHO DON'T GIVE A DAMN. I've got my whole life to test if I'd have been different than our forefathers. To see if I'd have stopped the killing of Natives, of Jews, of Tutsis, or the enslavement of Africans, or if I'd just sit and feel bad about it. That's what I'm doing right now, feeling bad about the problems in the world.

This book is sad simply because it happened, but even sadder because people still let this shit happen. Let's be different. Let's be gangster and bust up some fools. Let's be real humans, because anyone that let's all the horrible things go on unchecked should have their membership in the human race revoked.

Even though there are hundreds of bloody and gut-wrenching quotations I could pull from the book, I think I'll leave you with this one from Chief Joseph. This his speech upon surrendering after he led his people on a 1700 mile flight to escape the horrible reservation his Nez Perce people his people were forced onto.

"I have heard talk and talk, but nothing is done. Good words do not last long unless they amount to something. Words do not pay for my dead people. They do not pay for my country, now overrun by white men. Good words will not give my people good health and stop them from dying. Good words will not get my people a home where they can live in peace and take care of themselves. I am tired of talk that comes to nothing. It makes my heart sick when I remember all the good words and broken promises.

You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases. I have asked some of the great white chiefs where they get their authority to say to the Indian that he shall stay in one place, while he sees the white men going where they please. They cannot tell me.

If the white man wants to live in peace with the Indian, he can live in peace. Treat all men alike. Give them all the same law. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. All men were made by the same Great Spirit Chief. They are all brothers. The Earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. Let me be a free man, free to travel, free to stop, free to work, free to trade where I choose, free to choose my own teachers, free to follow the religion of my fathers, free to think and talk and act for myself, and I will obey every law, or submit to the penalty."

Chief Joseph and his people were immediately sent back to the reservation where they continued to starve. Chief Joseph died on the reservation at a relatively young age. The physician reported the cause of death to be a broken heart.

The people that did these things and let them happen didn't really have a heart.

Do we have one?

Show it.

(Although I didn't go into the whole heap of ways in which the US is still being a dick to Native Americans, I hope we all are aware of the fucked up things still going on. Maybe I'll write about it later.)

Sort of a follow up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdrCalO5BDs

Song isn't my favorite radiohead, but a great video. Thanks Jason.

I'm at work right now at Memorial Library. I am THE only person on the entire 4th floor right now. Trust me, I checked. Guess how many lights are on? 5,000ish? Why can't all lights be motion sensored? I know they can get annoying, but so are energy crises!

Think of all of the places that are lit up when they don't need to be, or have AC or heat on when no one is there. Next time you are out at night, especially when you're driving on a highway, look at all of the empty buildings and parking lots lit up in industrial parks and suburbs! They say it's for security reasons... but having lights on all the time can't honestly repel robbers or whatehaveyou... I would think if anything, lights all of the sudden switching on would help more...

If all those lights could be motion sensored...that would save a lot of energy. I don't know how much it would cost to switch over, but what about all the lower energy bills from then on? I don't know if it could work for streetlights... but maybe! It's worth a look no?

Books are letters, words, pages, covers, and mind-fucks.

"A modern economist is used to measuring the 'standard of living' by the amount of annual consumption, assuming all the time that a man who consumes more is 'better off' than a man who consumes less. A Buddhist economist would consider this approach excessively irrational: since consumption is merely a means to human well-being, the aim should be to obtain the maximum of well-being with the minimum of consumption. . . . The less toil there is, the more time and strength is left for artistic creativity. Modern economics, on the other hand, considers consumption to be the sole end and purpose of all economic activity." -E.F. Schumacher "Small Is Beautiful: Economics As If People Mattered"

I just finished reading an updated/adapted version of the book Small Is Beautiful, which was written in the 1970's sometime. The one I read is called Small Is Still Beautiful. It was absolutely mindblowing for me. The book speaks so much to so many of the problems in the world, specifically the Western world.

I think most of us are pretty good at pointing out problems, but it is something else to actually make the connections and try to provide solutions. So much of what I've taken to be harmless or only slightly excessive in our society now makes me sick after reading this book. One can get to thinking... "I'm being a good person if I'm not being mean to people too often, driving my car too much, and volunteering at such and such place. Plus, I think about how I can be a better person a lot too!" Well everyday we are screwing the environment, foreign markets, and the future generations by being good consumers. Unless you are growing your own food or buying strictly organic, most of what you eat has caused harm to animals and the land through habitat destruction, pesticide run-off, and cruel treatment of farm animals among other things. Even when you buy cage free or free range eggs that doesn't really mean much. To be termed free range, chickens just have to be outside of their cage for 10% of their day. (This is not exact, speaking from memory here, though I did read a WIKI about free-range yesterday) When you buy clothes or other products in this market, rarely does it come without having taken advantage of somebody in some way.

Those who have faith in the current direction of American society and economics may say... "What about free markets, or the invisible hand eventually bringing economic equality world wide? It's only a matter of time!" Well if the US is the pinnacle of global society, and our goal should be to make it so that the world can live and consume freely as we do here, we would consume 700% of the world's non-renewable resources per year. (Learned that in the book.) That sounds too good to be true. Can't wait.

This week the people of Ireland voted down the EU proposition to centralize power in Brussels. Though it was a small victory, I was pretty happy. Europe is moving ever closer to homogeny and ever further from democracy. Democracy has never truly been able to work for a large scale population, and they are trying to make it bigger? Democracy is supposed to be so intimate that YOU make decisions! It's so out of touch now that you can't even punch your representative on the nose when he/she is messing up. The treaty in the EU would have given the EU power to make changes to the whole system WITHOUT member country approval! Keep in mind how far that is from citizens approval, that's no approval from national governments!

For all the economic success the EU has thus far brought, it seems to have done a lot of harm. Moving back to environmental issues, the EU farm subsidies have caused a lot of problems. The EU started to pay farmers for producing more, so naturally farmers produced more and more and more. Farmers wanted to make as much money as possible, so they used more and more pesticides and opened up more and more fields at the cost of local wildlife. Eventually, the EU had to start stockpiles because of OVERPRODUCTION, which oftentimes were just DESTROYED to make room for more excess food. Give that food away to the needy maybe? Now the EU pays farmers NOT to produce. Also pretty crazy. Couldn't they do something better with the money? (Correct me if I'm wrong, but the US has had similar results with its subsidies experience.)

I'm not sure what needs to be done. I just know that the goal we are chasing is impossible and harmful. Some things that might help:

-More localized economies, meaning that we buy products produced locally with care by locals who care about the community. This means that the people procuding these things have a personal interest in the quality of their production methods, the product itself, and the way they treat their workers. If somebody isn't treating their workers right, the whole town will know. If you want to know if your eggs truly are free range, bike down the road and have a look. Also, that would lower shipping costs and environmental costs, as not as much gasoline and packaging is needed to do it all locally!

-More investment in research for greener technology, less investment in war and instruments of war.

-More small organic farming. Organically grown food is better for the environment and us, and having smaller farms means the animals are treated better and less natural wild-life is pushed away.

-Less suburbs. Choosing urban living has its benefits, so does the seclusion of rural/farm life. It's when one tries to have both by living in the suburbs that one burns more gasoline and cuts down more natural habitats.

-Taking the mentality that we aren't ABOVE the environment, rather that we are a PART OF it. This is pretty self-explanatory.

-One thousand other things.


The book and conversations with pretty knowledgable people helped me reach some of these conclusions, and until I'm convinced otherwise, I really believe in these ideas. It was a REALLY GOOD book, and you should read it. In fact, you can borrow my copy.

Keep reading, loving, and living (note: living is not = to consuming.)

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