University Food Bank, Seattle, WashingtonTo Caitrona Siobhan Deidre Gallagher
Well, hi again and happy heat wave. I understand from several of you that in Dallas, the lawns are straw and that the infamous tribute to tough Lonestars ~ I have no fear of Hell because I have been to Texas ~ is being adopted as far west as Arizona and as far the other way as Richmond and Savannah.
Chicago has its own version of that and Seattle is also not too laid back to care. We get the temperatures we’ve having now ~ 30 degrees above normal for this time of year ~ not often enough for most of us to invest in home air conditioning. So we adjust and we sweat and we flock to churches, temples, mosques and the deep woods to pray for better weather. Realizing that each region is different, this story also includes some tips as to how to better survive and it is tendered in that regard only.
Most of what I share with you folks has a news link. This one does not and if it is faintly reminiscent of Studs Terkel, it certainly resonates Depression era America, as John Steinbeck wrote about it. This story is about what some men are willing to do when they feel they’ve run out of steam and decide it would be better to put their families someplace safe and hit the road looking for work.
That proud Judeo-Christian work ethic needs a little expanding if doing so means without consulting the family and giving them a chance to come up with a better plan in which all responsibility does not fall on the male bread winner. It means working as a team behind common goals and to that degree, breaking out of role model stereotypes which may have been appropriate once but are clearly not so any longer.
It means, as well, realizing that there are lots worse things than being unemployed and one of them is employed without family to be there to come home to. Hard times don’t do that to people because it happens even in good times. But when all a man can see is his family growing leaner and more anxious and there’s not one bloody thing he can think of to do except put his family in the best hands he can and hit the road, there seems to me something really wrong with that within the family values context.
It’s a decision that has some pretty lonely consequences, not the least of which is that those most impacted didn’t have any choice. And no matter how it works out, there’s never the same feeling of “one for all and all for one” that characterizes marriage and family as I’ve been brought up to believe both institutions should be and mostly have been since about the first appearance of our species on this planet.
Desperate times produce desperate measures and I realize that. But those desperate measures do NOT include abandoning a family in safer hands just because you lost a job. That will pass and there will be other jobs. But families are not so easy to replace. And come on, even in the Rustbelt and the Allentown mills, we never were heroes to our families because we worked the line. We were and are heroes because we come home to those who love us.
Well, this week’s critter story has some interesting personal spin-offs. Goats and sheep are being used more and more in place of chemical and mechanical weed and other invasive plant control. The applications are incredible and, as Judah pointed out to me several weeks ago, they can yield milk/cheese, hair which can be woven into cloth and a coat that can be sheared and made into wool.
Since Judah does not eat pets, the culinary aspects are not something she stressed in her attempt to sell me on the idea of her having a couple of goats at her condo. She’s a media major at the University of Nevada, in Las Vegas and somehow, goats and sheep in the city limits clashed with my images of all those casinos, five star hotels and other splendid monuments to our species’ sometimes insane obsession with the self-indulgent. (The U of N was not my first choice. The one I wanted her to go to was ~ quote ~ “too granola, too foggy and too wet. Besides, I don’t even know what a hippie is so why would I want to live with a bunch of old ones?”)
Like I occasionally do in light of further information, reflection and rollercoaster riding in the amusement park of my mind, I’ve decided that it would be really cool if Judah had a couple of goats. She’s fantastic with animals and I’ve often suspected it was she who taught Ralph the Raccoon how to open the combination lock on the refrigerator. In light of absolutely no proof, however, the kid’s off the hook for that one. That young woman has the luck of one entire Irish county. On Saint Patrick’s Day. Sigh. However, I digress.
I’m delighted to report that up north, on Vancouver Island, in a part of Canada with which I am very familiar, the T'Sou-ke Nation has just finished solarizing their village and now they’re effectively off the provincial power grid. The project involved several government agencies and tribal councils and funding came from a variety of sources. It’s considered a good working model and is being studied by other Nations in British Columbia and across the Canadian Commonwealth. For those of you into that sort of thing, I think you’ll find this one a good read.
And in the world of women (unabashedly my favourite species and right up there with Maine coon cats and Little Blue Penguins), a recent study released by the University of Granada, in Spain, establishes a solid link between sexist jokes and the physical and emotional abuse of women. I was raised to respect this other (and I suspect superior) species and maybe it’s just me, but I’ve found misogynistic jokes a form of low humour to which I am incapable of stooping.
I refuse to have anything to do with anyone who finds sexist humour amusing and if it’s directed at any of my family or in a public place, I deal with it as the very real threat that it is. This is NOT one of those “sticks and stones but words can never hurt you” situations. These words lead to the abuse of other human beings and I can find not one shred of comedy in that.
And, under the heading "A Window of the Future," I grew up on the novels of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury and Robert Heinlein. When television came to our house, the fascination for things that projected us into the future grew to include Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon and certainly and of course, Star Trek (I loved all the different versions), Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers in the 21 Century. If you’re at all like that, check this out. Here’s the lead from a recent San Francisco Chronicle story.
“This futuristic electric car sports rooftop solar panels that support the four motors underneath. But the ATNMBL isn't just "green;" it's intelligent.”
The story goes on to explore solar transportation and other related technologies that will soon be cost effective and consumer-friendly. They’re clean alternatives and quiet ones. And the technology involved can be easily learned by anyone who can read newspaper or magazine. It’s also illustrated and has a host of links to related information. I could easily have spent three hours with this one and probably will, once the sidewalks in Seattle quit running into the Sound and the streets stop smelling like an infamous Southern California tar pit.
Speaking of said heat, it’s steaming up even as this goes to press. I’m headed off down to the Ship Canal in my Birkenstocks, running shorts and my “I’m Canadian, not stupid” t-shirt with the maple leaf flag on the front and a real nice photograph of Queen Liz on the back. Under the picture of the Queen is a legend in Latin which, translated means, “I do not indulge fools so kiss my royal arse and be gone.” (It was a gift from a friend. You don’t think I’d be dumb enough to pay money for something like that, right? Nevermind. An answer to that question really isn’t necessary. Of course I am. Only I didn’t. This time.)
I’m packing a Tupperware of salad, a couple of pint water bottles, and I’m taking the digital camera with me. If I melt anywhere along the line, my family’s been instructed to have me immersed in ice up to me, um, elbow and lectured some on the downside of going on a photo shoot in the middle of a heat wave. Fortunately for me, it will be a fait accompli by the time any of them read about it.
Enough of this simmering madness, then. I’m off to either ply a kayak with photographic grace and dexterity or swim with salmon. And Judah, you might consider a sheep and a goat. My favourite cheese, Feta, is made from the milk of the former and flavoured by the milk of the latter. If it works, maybe we can open the first Pygmy Sheep and Goat Las Vegas Online Dairy and Cheese Emporium in the world.
These are desperate times, child and Necessities has offspring stranger than that.
And on that note, I am outa here. Take care; stay well and until next week, eh?
Rusty
The Tomatoman Times – a life commentary blog with the blended stylings of John Steinbeck, Mark Twain, Jack London and Will Rogers. Poignant, at times rancorous but very contemporary and ultimate celebration.
Vinyl Cafe with Stuart McLean – Live from the smallest record store in North America. Canadian humor, entertainment and commentary at its maple leaf best. Popular on National Public Radio in the States.
Ask Barbie, Advice Columnist. -- a blog that delivers the amiable maternalism of Ms. Landers, the slightly off-centre humour of Erma Bombeck and the ingenuousness of an unreconstructed romantic with no axes to grind.
Sightline Daily (formerly Tidepool) – The “United Press International/Reuters of the American West/ Updated and informative news shorts with links to the source. It’s editors draw from a coverage area which includes Alaska, British Columbia,California, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington. Update and informative collected news shorts from. They also put out an excellent weekly environmental edition.
Free People Search – This is an American online White Pages that I found really simple, quick and user friendly. I looked for myself under the several versions of my name and it found them all. It’s also free and doesn’t involve anything to download.
U Got Style is a monthly ezine dedicated to independent films. Fully illustrated, it features hard news, interviews, reviews and a wide variety of other information. It’s also fun to read.
