a letter to a school districts superintendent and board members

 "Greetings,

As a concerned parent, public school servant and recent employee I've grown greatly alarmed over the last decade at the excessive use of herbicides on school grounds, especially in areas where there is a concentration of students, the playground and tracks, that is. 

There has been some discussion in public forums as well as indications from peer journals that environmental poisons such as these as well as fertilizers may be responsible for increased incidents of jeopardized health, such as breathing disorders, but autism in particular. I strongly believe we are foolish to label such disorders as genetic or allergic reactions when in fact we are skirting the issue; and the issue is our neglecting to challenge our accustomed ways of thinking as evident in our trying to control nature by spreading contaminants --- poisons that in most cases are the cause of our health problems which we mistaken as human weaknesses. 

All these incidents should immediately flag any use of poison where children congregate for periods of time as a flagrant violation of precautionary principles as well as a serious misallocation of expenditure. 

So, to be fair, I am informing you that this is not just my concern but that of many other parents and community members, and that I look forward to presenting you, the district and state government with a petition to discontinue use of herbicides, insecticides and fertilizers during the academic year.

Thank you for your time,

sincerely, Van A. Huebner"

make a commitment

The difficulties presented by the competing interests of the group versus the individual, corporate personhood verses natural persons, benefit to society versus family --- these represent the difficulties of trying to find parity between considerations representing a step in logical type as Gregory Bateson might put it, or fair distribution of effort v benefit between the individual and the group as Rawls or Bentham might put it.
This difficulty is present actually in a great number of human endeavors. Not just in finance or law but in the sciences and all other pursuits there is present a continual paradigm struggle between the good for me v the good for us.  Every common laborer for example at one time or another finds him or herself choosing between doing something for oneself and family or for the employer. This conflict rose to predominance with the rise of global market/employment based society.  For more and more families felt the absence of parents for the sake of being/working elsewhere compared to agrarian society, primarily, where whole families worked together on the farm and thus were in continual contact with each other. Urban life is predominantly in a fixed state alienation for the extended lack or permanent loss of family cohesion and shared purpose.  A mother and/or father often find themselves asking the other to choose between work or children and family and just what the definition of work is. What sort of duty is it, what calling does it answer to or what benefits or goals exactly fall within that category?
Thus, too, we so easily move across borders and exist out of touch with each other in state of defensive individualism.

How many of us can relate to some version of the following conversations:

"Oh gosh, pop, I missed your birthday? Where'd the time go!?"
"That's fine... just don't forget your mother on Mother's Day!"

or:

"Where are you going?"
"I'm on call remember?"
"What about your child Henry!?"
"I'm doing this for us Margaret. We talked about this already; we need the money!"
"Well Johnny needs you too!"

Sadly, until we learn to see that this conflict is the emotional price we pay for contemporary, corporatized urban --- yet very mobile --- and now highly device-oriented society, by default we will remain at odds with ourselves and less committal with each other.

I just want the night sky back

I just want the night sky back... without city light interference---just stars, planets and the moon every night forever. 

i wanna walk under a starry canopy, navigate by ages old memories of the constellations... I want to have ancient narratives entertain me from sea to forest and back again...while all along only the diurnal path coincides with the alimentary trail.  I want to know the creatures and rooting things primarily by their sounds, scents and tactile surfaces rather than their uttered names. I want to erase all post selenial history, all empires, trade and the pernicious self. I want out of the human race---for we have failed to learn anything at all from self consciousness only that by deceit and intrigue we can claim more and more pleasure and power until some day we find we never have to move but raise our hands to our lips or lower them to our hind quarters. We might as well be a tree sucking away at the biosphere, just let the sun and rain cart our sustenance for us... so let the being here be enough to satisfy my wearied soul, let the tree be the only dilatant being.

if this doesn't scare you you're still sleeping

This has been a tragic month. First the suicide of Robin Williams and the world wide response; and now the killing of a teenager, Michael Brown, by a police officer and the worldwide response to that as well. Both incidents have gotten much attention on the major as well as social media.

Surrounding these tragedies too is the awareness of on-going rebellions and slaughter of civilians in several countries right now: the Gaza Strip, eastern Ukraine, Syria and northern Iraq as well as civil and genocidal violence on the African continent and the recent ,"the vastly underestimate[d... ] magnitude of the outbreak" of Ebola as confirmed by the CDC.
Certainly it must be acknowledged then that times are in the least very unstable, and America as a nation has recklessly managed it's relationships with other nations and in fact has foolishly engaged in the violence by taking sides with those that have been characterized as the aggressors and oppressive forces that are razing civilian urban and rural areas, killing countless children and destroying life preserving infrastructure.  Some even claim the US is now involved in a third World War.
Preceding all of this and through out is the financial corruption and the blind eye to it of governments here in America and abroad.  Time is running out for our leisurely economy, for liquidity has already been quietly drained out by the ultra-rich.  And all the while we continue to ruin our ecological chances for nurturing any future for life on earth.

So if these overwhelming conditions don't scare you to action then you have yet to scrape the sleep from your eyes!

The tragic death of Michael Brown

This event in Missouri is just tragic in every way and as I've said before the violence may prove both that the temperament of the general public is on edge already and particularly responsive to violence perpetrated by police.  Yes, okay, so it is clear that many citizens abhor both individual encounters with reluctant to comply citizens much less mobilized police responses to any organized public protest, destructive or peaceful. One has only to refer to social media responses to the "militarization" of police departments and the arming of other government agencies even before Michael's killing and the following rioting in Ferguson.  

Now before you accuse me of being dispassionate, hear me out a moment. I also have to say that more recently than in past decades I've had several encounters with teenagers walking in the middle of a street (that had sidewalks, btw) knowingly blocking my progress as a driver and that each of these incidents felt confrontational; that is, these kids were tempting fate by risking injury through me, a perfect stranger and were brazenly saying by their deliberate slow pace they play by their own rules and one better not mess with them or else. (Well if that doesn't sound like my own 16 year old...?! ) 

In light of this I think it is completely appropriate for a law enforcement officer to approach anyone even our youth who are blocking vehicular traffic on a public road and insist that they cease and use the sidewalks or curb themselves for traffic. But this should not lead to the killing of the jaywalker much less an uncooperative teen.  I just can't see how such an encounter could lead to death ---one might unwisely be tempted to say: unless the individual challenged the officer in some way, as was claimed early on... so, to some extent, I am suspending opinion on this killing in Missouri until we hear a better description of the physical contact between the boy and the officer.

I'll say this too that while race has too often been the context for rebellion against law enforcement and destruction of community relations and property, it must not be assumed that the officer simply shot the boy because he was black. Nor can it be asserted yet that the officer believed he was defending himself against imminent harm, or that he "accidentally shot him" several times. Either way this is a tragedy for both Michael's family and the officer's as well. 

So I ask, Does anyone stand to gain anything at all from this?  I think the protesters (not the looters) have learned something very significant.  All the raised arms and voices shouting "don't shoot!" is a remarkable step forward for American justice.  This should be the cry hence forward at every encounter with the police under similar circumstances, but more so for all organized protest against the growing militarization of domestic life.

Lastly, but above all, Michael Brown was just out of high school and hadn't even had the opportunity to vote or sustain a decent living on his own, a boy whose alleged provocation could only be described as lingering adolescence---which does not justify assassination, much less arrest or incarceration. This event then should remind us how the prison pipeline has stolen passengers for a train to hellish conditions by raiding the street. And while a young man may tragically believe he will have to face opposition all the way to his dreams with an upturned lower jaw, it should not follow that he truly had nowhere to go).

I agree with Anthony Gray, attorney for the Brown family, that this was a child who died and that this tragedy should spark for a need for nationwide questions raised rather than looting and more violence.

an attempt to answer my daughter's question regarding the response to Javier and Penelope letter re bombing of Gaza strip

For several reasons:

partly because of a fear of the violence that fanatical muslims promise to inflict upon the Jews and all other so-called nonbelievers in the Islamic faith, a promise which is dictated by the Qur'an;

partly due to the oversensitivity to anything sounding like anti-Semitism (many who are alive today and their families still have memories of the Holocaust deeply embedded in their lives and thus Jewish culture perhaps has taken on this defensive nature); 

also partly because, while orthodox Jewish communities often stay(ed) densely to themselves within other nations, today Israelites in particular have become very protective of their newly acquired nation;

yet not all Jews by any count favor this unconscionable obliteration of innocent civilians.

Read Joan Rivers recent response on this. sadly there are those that favor this bombing because they believe that Hamas must be destroyed at all costs, and innocent non-combatants are merely collateral damage.

Sadly, the US feels compelled to side with Israel in order to keep the US's foot perhaps in the MiddleEast. 

Note that the US also sides with the Ukraine government which is bombarding citizens in eastern Ukraine that are rebelling against fracking and the theft of their land for this and other resources. this has put us at odds with Russia; and what we are doing in Israel puts us at odds with all the Arab nations and muslim people's around the globe---not to forget those who are sensitive to the domestic abuses which we have recklessly ignored. 

We should encourage and applaud those like Javier and Penelope being especially in the limelight (and potentially therefore with much to lose) who stand up to such defensive reactions--- which reminds me of McCarthyism and the blacklisting of film industry figures in the 50s.  

Times are very unstable dear and now with the threat of the ebola virus out of control on the African continent things are getting really scary. Don't fall prey however to those who cry out "end of times" nonsense.  (side note: just recently I saw a guy with a portable microphone and speaker standing on the corner of 56th and Tyler spouting out such nonsense about getting saved and fighting evil and sin---homophobic crap). It may just be one more sign that one has to choose a side now on any given issue and do something about it, including religious fanaticism. And sadly in the case of Israel's relentless bombing of the Gaza strip, one can see that even Jews can become fanatical.