Transport Costs and Artisanal Creation

The flooers of my house are made of wood. Ostensibly, these fir planks were laid down 95 years ago, when the house was built. (It is really cool to walk barefoot on floors that move and speak with your treads). I entertained the possibility this morning that they had, in fact, been put down recently in the hippy restoration of the house. But, upon examination, the old growth grain of the wood shows its age, as well as something else that triggered a deeper thought: The fir planks were picked out by the man who made this floor for their interesting grain (perhaps not-perhaps the center floor planks were meant to be covered with rugs, and so they were the mixed grain planks, which to me are more interesting than the clear grain - eye pleasing, that is). And the (I am Comrade divadab of the Anarcho-syndicalist league of Greater Whatcom) outer perimeter boards of the floor (some craft was put into the board pattern) are inlaid with mahogany. A very pleasing effect.
But the amount of labour relative to the cost of the material was high, by modern standards. The mahogany inlay is veneer, painstakingly cut out by hand, with chisel and pull-saw, across the grain. Why? Because mahogany was once much more expensive relative to the cost of labour than it is now (at least until mahogany gets rare - cost of transportation be damned!) due to the much higher cost of transportation in those days than, in an age of container ships, we have now. (It is cheaper to ship a container from Shanghai to California then it is to ship a container from California to New York). So the cost of this type of inlay would be higher now than then. Was labor really relatively cheaper then? Or was the job done by love, not by commerce? Or is the inlay a reflection of the old world, brought here from Norway in the flesh and bone? The hands and mind of a man schooled in an older world.....

We're Safer Now How?

GW Bush & Co. frequently claim that we are now safer due to their grand and heroic efforts in the so-called "War on Terror". But take a look at this:

This is courtesy of the Daily Kos, where there are links to a bunch more information.

Bill Clinton Slaps Down Odious Cheap Propagandists

Ambushed by one of the slimy lying hacks at Faux News, Clinton sets the record straight: Although I think he was way to polite about W's incompetence.....


Here's Olbermann's comment on MSNBC: Finally someone publicly speaks the truth about GW - he is a coward.

Thomas Edison, Pacifist?

I'm proud of the fact that I never invented weapons to kill.

-Thomas Edison, inventor (1847-1931)

"The Only thing we have to fear is fear itself"

Where is leadership, the kind of leadership that stands up and leads the people like FDR did? Instead we have truly predatory federal government, which preys on the people like Payday Loan companies, and actively works to make the people afraid. They are fear-mongering, war-mongering, fascist bastards.

How Do You Like Your Fascism?

Sleepwalking towards a police state.......where is the outrage?

And I'm not sure discussion is the right response - full throated yelling, at a minimum, IMHO, is required.

We are living through an extraordinary period in US history, with the same battle lines as in revolutionary times. The ironic, 1984-ish aspect is that Republicans = Tories, and the patriots are barely awake. And the Neo-Tories are way better organized, motivated, and mean than the Loyalists ever were.

Elections are becoming a corrupt sideshow; government is increasingly controlled by predatory private interests, and the country is lulled into supine apathy by corporatist pablum.

Perhaps we need a depression to wake everybody up and crush the greedy bastards who would destroy the country.

Dangerous Authoritarianism = Incipient Fascism

Fear brings out the unlovely in the authoritarian personality - and Bushian political psychology is nothing if it does not rely on fomenting fear in the population. "We're safer than we were but we're not safe", a direct quote from Fearless Leader W, is a pretty blatant expression of this tactic of continued fear of amorphous terrorist threats. Glenn Greenwald has a very interesting post on the central defect in the personalities of Bush supporters - complete authoritarian obedience to whatever Fearless Leader and his minions say is so.

Are Mormons Christians Mark II

I got off on the wrong track in my original post, so heated and deep are my political feelings (anguish, anger, disgust, fear, loathing, and so on) at present. Brad Delong has some damning words on John Neuhaus' condemnation of Mormons as non-Christians, much better put than I could:

One more word: The discussion started with Sanford Levinson's pointing to an article by the creepy Richard John Neuhaus:

Open University: THOSE WHO TAKE THEIR THEOLOGY SERIOUSLY: by Sanford Levinson: "With regard to Richard John Neuhaus, I warmly commend an article in which he addresses the question whether Mormons are really Christians. It's interesting not only in itself, but also, of course, with regard to the likelihood of right-wing (and traditional) Christians to support Mitt Romney.... Perhaps this is all irrelevant to the Christian Right, that it doesn't matter whether a candidate is presumptively damned unto eternity (as are, for many traditional Christians, Jews).... [W]ill Romney be allowed to describe himself as a Christian (assuming he does) without being called on it by Neuhaus and others who take their theology seriously?"

I want to complain that Levinson does not explicitly lay out what Neuhaus is doing, how it self-destructs, and how it appears to be profoundly opposed to the teachings of Jesus.

Neuhaus, after all, could ask the question: "Are Mormons Children of God?" The answer would be: "Yes, we are brothers and sisters." He could ask the question: "Do Mormon Believers Teach That One Should Do Good, Fear God, and Eschew Evil?" Once again, the answer would be: "Yes, we are brothers and sisters." But Neuhaus asks the question, "Is Mormonism Christian?" to which he gives the answer: "No." And from this answer Neuhaus draws conclusions:

Mormon theology is a "bizarre phantasmagoria of fevered religious imagination"--and that's a bad thing. (Let's not ask how anybody who takes the Revelation of St. John the Divine to be Holy Writ can think that bizarre imaginative phantasmagoria are bad.)
The relationship between Mormonism and Christianity is like the relationship between Islam and Christianity.
Dialogue between Mormons and Christians is not "ecumenical" but rather "interreligious."
"Ecumenical"... like so many other things, the root is "oikos"--house. "Ecumenical" dialogues are inside-the-house-dialogues, dialogues with people who you trust and like enough to invite into your house to warm themselves by your fire and toast marshmallows. If a dialogue is not "ecumenical" but "interreliglous"... well, you are saying that they're not your friends, not people who you invite in to sit by the fire. What Neuhaus is about a a Karl Schmitt move: a division of the world into "us" and "them," into "friends" and "not-friends" with Mormons on the side of the not-friends--off in the corner with the Muslims, actually--and all that would follow from that.

Now one could say a great many things about this Karl Schmitt lets-divide-the-world-into-friends-and-not-friends move of Richard John Neuhaus. But let me once again turn over the heavy lifting to that first-century Rabbi Yeshua ben Yosef, God-Saves the Anointed One of the House of David, Jesus the Christ:

NETBible: Mark 9:38 ff: John answered him, saying: "Master, we saw one casting out devils in they name, and he followeth not us. And we forbad him because he followeth not us."

But Jesus said: "Forbid him not. For there is no man which shall do a miracle in my name that can lightly speak evil of me. For he that is not against us is on our part. For whoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward."

Jesus tells his disciples exactly what to do with weirdos who claim to be acting in his name: embrace them as brothers.

Here's a link to the complete article, which is rather good.

Some Correspondence with McDonald's

McDonald's sponsored an exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry which was designed and built by the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration). Among the gems at this exhibit were a replica of the remains of the World Trade Center after the 9-11 attacks, which made the explicit connection between the "War on Drugs" and terrorism. Also presented were the same sorry propaganda which we have come to expect from the DEA.

I sent a letter to McDonald's to register my disapproval of their sponsorship:

Re: Your Sponsorship of DEA Exhibit at Chicago Museum of Science and Industry

Dear Sir/Madam,

It is disappointing to a regular customer of your establishment that you are sponsoring (the Main sponsor, in fact) the DEAs exhibit at the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry. Why? Because the DEA is in the business of spreading lies, not truth, and in furthering its own aims, not those of the citizen. Its purely propagandistic efforts are doubly offensive in that the DEA links the tragedy of 9-11 to the so-called War on Drugs with this exhibit.

I for one will never again eat a Big Mac, and I have certainly eaten many while crazed on cannabis. You have insulted many of your most loyal customers, which is not only wrong, but stupid.

Have a nice day.

Sincerely,

divadab

Someone at McDonald's named LaTonya replied:

Hello Divadab:

Thank you for taking the time to contact McDonald's and share your feelings about our sponsorships. We appreciate the opportunity to address your concerns.

First and foremost, please know that the relationship we have with our customers is one we value greatly. Our customers are at the heart of every decision we make, and we would never do anything to intentionally offend any of our customers.

When it comes to determining who we sponsor, we have an obligation to our customers, employees, franchisees, and shareholders to reach our customers as effectively as possible. To that end, we work hard to have an ongoing dialog with all the outlets with which we work.

Again, thank you for contacting McDonald's.

Latonya
McDonald's Customer Response Center

ref#:3814437

Mowing with the Gravely

Here's the 1973 Gravely which has faithfully mowed and snowblown our place for over thirty years:
Look how thick it grows over the septic tank drain field!
I was going to mow this area, but it was thick with white pine seedlings, so I left it alone.
Here's Mommy and Daddy (I think they are bisexual....)
Here are my feet, with an old piece of pine hosting an interesting lichen colony:
The view towards Bear Mountain
Steak and eggs for breakfast - Yee Haw!

Homage to Craft; the Dignity of Working with Your Hands

I spent some time last week tearing down an old sofa which had worn out, and become a home for a couple of families of field mice. In the process, I learned a lot.

The sofa has been in the family for a very long time. My grandparents had it reupholstered, as it turned out, in 1938. It was in their living room under a floral print cover when I was a young child. I remember playing with a wooden play farm (fences, animals, houses and barns, and even people) on the rug in front of it while my parents, aunts, uncles, and grandparents sat and chatted over tea and cookies. When their household was disbursed to various and sundry relatives after my grandmother died, the sofa ended up at our ski chalet in front of the fireplace. It was a great place to stretch out and read, or to roughhouse and wrestle on and around, or to lean against while sitting on the floor playing Balderdash or Clue or Probe or Battleship. It made the long trip out West with my sister, where it survived a fire in her apartment building, and then endured a trailer haul down to California, where it adorned our family room for several years. Finally, it made the long journey to where it now sits, in the Eastern Townships, back to where it had been twelve years before.

I regret not having taken a true "before" picture - here I've taken off the cushions and started removing the (very strong) fabric. But you can get a sense for the size and mass of the sofa from this picture, as well as of the greenness of the area after a very wet summer.
Another view towards the house.
This is the coolest thing about this whole project - the two guys (I'm assuming they were men given the time period) who upholstered this sofa signed and dated their work! They were rightly proud of it - it was extremely well done, durable, and with great attention to detail. It survived generations of sleepers, wrestlers and roughhousers, neckers and lovers, babies and dogs, and took a great deal of effort to tear apart!
These are two views of the next stage - from the outer fabric, underlain by a layer of cotton fabric, into the ticking and batting. Note that all this work is a relic of a pre-petroleum product age - all the materials are natural: cotton, horsehair, straw, wood, some brown batting that appears to be hemp(?), jute cordage, steel springs, burlap, and all held together with hundreds of upholstery tacks, all nailed by hand - No air guns or tackers.
Look at the volume of cotton and horsehair stuffing:And here's some 70-year old straw:Three upholsterer's needles somehow left in the sofa:A view of the jute webbing under the seat springs:Here's a detail of the springs - note how they are all tied together by hand with sisal twine. Not a single spring poked through, broke, or came out of place in seventy years!
The job is done, and now to dispose of the remains. The nice thing about natural products is that they are all biodegradable. The three wheelbarrow loads of stuffing were spread over the woods, where they will provide bedding for fieldmice, nesting material for birds, and ultimately, food for moulds and fungi until they are returned to the earth.Only one small bag for the dump - the rest will be beneficial to the land and its wild inhabitants.Here are some shots of the stuffing spread over some logging slash - good habitat!

Are Mormons Christian?

Richard John Neuhaus wrote this article Is Mormonism Christian? A Respected Advocate for Interreligious Cooperation Responds in 2000. He raises many interesting points about LDS theology and organization in relation to "traditional" Christianity, and generally concludes that Mormons are not Christian. Rather, the LDS religion has the same relationship with Christianity, in his view, as does Islam.

His arguments, in my opinion, are excessively doctrinal rather than cultural. Certainly, Mormon doctrine is contrary, consciously so, to much of organized Christianity's accepted tenets. The Nicene Creed, for example, is rejected almost completely in Mormon theology, as Neuhaus notes. However, the Nicene creed was a political document, commissioned by Constantine, to harmonize and systematize Christian belief. It bears at best only an indirect relationship to Christ's message and mission, focusing on matters such as the nature of the Godhead. According to my reading of the scriptures, Christ was much more concerned about people being kind to one another, forgiving, loving, and helping each other, than about legalistic considerations of the relationship between God the Father and His Son.

I consider such matters, which I recognize have loomed large over the centuries in men's minds, been the cause upon wars have been fought and millions slaughtered, to be so much mumbo-jumbo. To cavalierly reject people from the body of Christ because their mumbo-jumbo is different from your mumbo-jumbo is in my opinion wrong. Now old Joe Smith had a carnival barker's love of hokum, and a lot of it has survived in LDS doctrine and practise. And a lot of that hokum and hooey is pretty hard to swallow. But so is a lot of the traditional belief of any religion. I mean, does the earth really sit on the back of a turtle? Did Christ really turn water into wine? Did God really flood the entire earth, and are all people and animals that live today descended from Noah's ark's company? Faith should not require a suspension of disbelief! It is possible to be faithful and rational at the same time.

In addition, Mormons are, in their basic beliefs and lifestyles, culturally indistinguishable from mainline American Protestants. Conservative ones. GW Bush-supporting ones. Which is more to the point than whether they are doctrinally Christian. Are they, and other conservative Christians, actually acting in a Christian manner when they support the Bush administration?

Here's the rub for me - how can people who ostensibly adhere to a belief in the God of Love support a greedy, corrupt, war-mongering, lying, power-mad regime? The answer is sad and horrible - they want to believe that the President is good and strong and right and fair, and so they do believe it, to the exclusion of all information to the contrary. And because they have already been trained by their religion to faithfully believe in all manner of hokum and hooey, it's easier to believe whatever crap Fox News spews at them. The power of false belief is very very very strong.

And there is a strong correlation between false belief (evolution is wrong! The bible is literally true in all respects! the Angel Moroni deposited golden plates in upstate New York!) and support for GW and his corporatist agenda. And GW's wealthy backers exploit these believers, for whom they have nothing but cynical contempt, as dupes and rubes and useful idiots.

The Mantra of W - Stay the Course!

"Those who never retract their opinions love themselves more than they love
truth."
-Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

The Real Law vs. Divine Right

Whenever morality is based on theology, whenever right is made dependent on
divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be
justified and established.

-Ludwig Feuerbach, philosopher (1804-1872)