one more letter to the fuckers in Washington

Dear Blank,

Do you think that maybe now is a good time to start listening to T. Boone Pickens’ plan to convert our trucking fleet from oil to natural gas? 

I know it will be costly; but it is time to get off our oil addiction and diversify our sources of energy.  Was the Gulf Coast really worth destroying so we can keep gas prices at the pump artificially low.  And I say “artificially” because we clearly do not price the stuff to reflect its actual cost.  That cost includes environmental damages, the one in the Gulf being only the most visible, and all the wars we continually incur in the Middle East to supposedly keep the region stable.  No, the price at the pump does not in the least reflect our costs. 

Please stop listening to lobbyists for the oil industries, stop cow towing to the Saudis, and start listening to some other lobbyists... or if you can find your conscience, start listening to it for a change. (and yeah, I want a lot more nuclear power--- just in case you are classifying me as one more liberal environmentalist nut)

Really mad in SC,

Katya Cohen 

one more day without miracles

boycott BP

...to have faith...

It is in times like these that I wish I had faith to pray to a higher order and ask for the end of the tragedy happening in the Gulf of Mexico.  No joy.  This is a disaster made by man that will be resolved (it’s to late to solve it) by man alone without the help of any higher order.

As goes the old joke:

God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, "Lord, we don't need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the 'beginning'."

"Oh, is that so? Tell me..." replies God. 

"Well," says the scientist, "we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of You and breathe life into it, thus creating man." 

"Well, that's interesting.. Show Me. " 

So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil.

"Oh no, no, no..." interrupts God, "Get your own dirt."

The death and destruction continues.                                             
Boycott BP--- like prayer, it can't hurt...                                        

Strange Animal Wednesday

The day started with a bulk email from my friend Elsie from Brazil inviting friends and family to go to a bird watching event in a park in my hometown of Sao Paulo.  ...Strange to call that mega metropolis of almost 20 million people a “town”... 

Elsie’s email inspired me to go check on the Carolina Wren that has been nesting and incubating her eggs in my hanging fern on the porch.  When I got there, one of the baby chicks was hanging from the nest gasping for help.  I figured the mother had abandoned the brood.  Not knowing what to do, I pushed the chick back into the nest; whereupon, the mother darted out and alighted on the closest tree in order to scold me loudly until I left the area.  I left to go swim.

On my way back from the pool, I spotted a blue heron flying above me.  They look prehistoric when they fly!  Heck, they probably are close to prehistoric...

I got home to spot 8 squirrels eating the food I had thrown for them on the driveway.  The weather was such that the light made them look like the monkeys on Klaus Kinski’s raft in the last scene of Herzog's Aguirre, The Wrath of Gods.  Still my favorite movie after all these years.

I decided to fill my bird feeders and replenish the water in the dish I leave out for the squirrels/possums/skunks/ground hog/and other wild life that traipse through here.  Without a thought I walked to the watering can and bent down to pick it up when, too late, I notice I had just stepped on a Copperhead (!!!!!!)  Again, the weather came into play.  It was humid but cold, so I was mercifully wearing heavy jeans and thick leather shoes.  If I got bitten, the snake got hold of only my shoes.  It was a young snake and still had not learned that humans are deadly and that she should stay away from us.  Amazingly enough, my weight did not crush the young snake; so after freaking out and calling the Ranting Economist to tell him I was freaking out, I picked her up with a shovel and with the intention of taking her to the woods.  She fell from the shovel into the ivy too close to the house for comfort; hopefully she has moved on to the woods by now.  I’ve been looking at the ground  more carefully ever since; but I will soon forget to do it...

I left for work.  And as I was leaving town, I spotted a beautiful big hawk just sitting on the ground, next to the road, near the exit.  I usually see them flying above, or if I am lucky, on a nearby tree, but rarely on the ground!  I chose to view him as a good omen.

The rest of the day was uneventful until midnight when I went out to throw away the compost.  Right there, smack in the middle of the cement of the carport, in the center of my path, sat an enormous Wolf Spider, like a period at the end of the sentence that was my day.  I said “good night”, walked over her, threw out the trash, came back, walked over her again and went to bed. 

...Strange day...

....and the oil keeps spilling out of the wound at the bottom of the ocean in the Gulf.  And many individual animals will die.  And whole species are in danger... 

Boycott BP: when you need to fill your car up, drive past the BP station and fill-up elsewhere.                    

“Waiting for Miracle to Come”

Finally, on April 30^th, ten days after the burning and sinking of the BP oil rig in the Gulf Coast, the wire and news streams are ratcheting up the coverage of what will no doubt prove to be a singularly major man-made environmental disaster.  I, for one, have been freaking out about it since I heard that no one was able to shut off the oil tap under the sea. 

I’m no engineer; I’m just a stupid artist.  I work with my hands and I visualize.  And all I’ve been visualizing for a week now, has been black, putrid and dead, while all along the media has been wasting time bloviating about Goldman Sachs and immigration: purely social human constructs; one manufactured to foment populist sentiment, and the other which we bring out periodically to... god knows why we do it, since we are not interested in coming up with any real solutions to the problem... We showcase immigration issues when some politician or another is trying to woo one constituency or another... All this prattle for ten days while the physical world around us, the one I touch with my hands (and feet, and face, and yeah, soul) is about to change radically.  Thousands of animals and plants, together with very human ways of life and living are facing certain annihilation due to unnatural causes... assuming of course that human greed and short-sightedness are unnatural... which of course they are not...

Short sighted Petroleum enthusiasts keep clamoring for more “drill drill drill” when all I see coming down the pike (no pun intended) is more “spill spill spill”.   These same people advocate for the use of oil because of its physical properties (it is an extremely efficient source of energy) and “low” cost  of production.  Me, I’m no accountant and I have no actuarial skills.  Again, I’m just a stupid artist, but I know we are not pricing this stuff correctly.  What is the value of a whole coast line?!  Even given only an infinitesimally small probability of an unstoppable oil spill...   I guess this is the sticky point (again, no pun intended), value is a hard thing to nail down...  But what’s the point of having a gas-powered economy if the environment in which one can cheaply drive one’s gas-powered vehicle is not worth traveling through.  We need to diversify our energy sources; but we’re not going to.  We’ll forget this disaster too...