“The action that has meaning for the living has value only for the dead,
finds completion only in the consciousness that inherit and question.”1

 

THE LAW

The Second Law of Thermodynamics?2
There is no free ride, no free lunch.
Energy cannot be recycled.
There will be no …
… No perpetual motion machine!
As energy is transformed,
It tends toward uselessness.
(Don’t cry over spilt milk;
It is water under the bridge!
“You break it, you own it!”3)

 

A GOLDEN RULE … IF ONLY WE WOULD PRACTICE IT
[2019. The Golden Brat “Leaders” of the U.S., Brazil, Russia, Syria, and the
Philippines (et al.) Embody the Antithesis of an Ethic of Reciprocity4]

An ethic of reciprocity.
Do well for all others.
All biota!!
SHARE!
Open borders.
Realize PEACE! …
Isn’t this being human???
Human beings???

Being humanity??
Humane?

 

OIKOS

Earth and daily solar energy–
That which runs the Earth,
Are finite.
(Life=Matter
Organized by “working energy”.)
And all is connected
Mostly in trophic webs
And in a zero-sum game.
Abide by a precautionary principle.
Every action has a negative consequence
For someone,
For something.
Be cautious and tentative.
All is connected.

 

THE MOST IMPORTANT TRUTHS?

Small is beautiful.
Positively Ethical Applied Community Ecology …
PEACE …
Is beautiful.

 

A REAL TRUTH

Disparity and walls beget War.
And WAR IS HELL!!!!!!!!!!
War and warring beget War and warring.
Disparity, walls, injustice,
War, wars—
Industrial-military-(congressional) complexes—
Are NEVER good ideas5.

 

SCIENCE

(What’s God got to do with it?6
Skepticism is healthy
For individuals, for demes & populations,
For ecological communities,
For dynamic homeostatic symbioses.

Robust, inquiring, agitating skepticism,
Not blind faith,
Is the first step toward Truth.)

 

GRATIA!

Amen René Char.
Amen E.F. Schumacher … Wendell Berry.
Rumi … Shakespeare … Arthur Miller.
Langston Hughes … James Baldwin.
Kurt Vonnegut.
Margaret Sanger … Dorothy Day … Rachel Carson.
David Pimentel … David Suzuki.
E.O. Wilson.
Helmut Haberl.
Francis … Gandhi … King …

(In this list
There should be …
MORE WOMEN!!!)

 

AETERNUM

Today is the first day of the rest of… our lives, …
Our deaths, … our lives.

Today is the first day of life.

“The action that has meaning for the living has value only for the dead, finds completion only in the consciousness that inherit and question.”1
………………………………………

1 Char, René. 1973. Leaves of Hypnos. Translated by Cid Corman. New York, NY: Grossman.

2 http://www.paulpeaceparables.com/2015/03/23/the-second-law-of-thermodynamics-it-is-in-many-ways-the-most-important-and-should-be-the-first/

3 https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/09/the-pottery-barn-rule-syria-edition/408193/

4 And these reckless fools have tremendous power and very dangerous toys with which to play destructive and deadly games.

5 Walker, Alice. 2007. Why War Is Never a Good Idea. HarperCollins. & Brimlow, R.W. 2006. What About Hitler?: Wrestling with Jesus’s Call to Nonviolence in an Evil World. Brazos Press.

6 Ingersoll, Robert (edited by Tim Page). 2005. What’s God Got to Do with It? Steerforth Press.

**********************************

pbm  5/9/19

( 7 S’s / VV->^^ )

pbm 5/8/19

[ 7Ss / VV->^^ ]

I believe we all
Need to hustle.
It’s an aspect of that
Which gives meaning to life.

And I do admire
Many, many successful hustlers
Here on this Eaarth …
Some who are young;
Some who are old.
………………….
But this Trump guy is a “SORRY-ASS hustler”.
He’s “bad to the bone”
In the most negative of meanings.

(I’ve recognized this for years.

In this very moment, however,
It is so very, very obvious.
………………….
You may consider me to be not so very, very bright:
Nevertheless it MUST confound you and me both
That all others don’t see that I am so very, very right!)

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/nyt-tax-papers-suggest-trump-had-dollar1-billion-in-business-losses-over-a-decade/ar-AAB2DTR?ocid=sf

pbm 5/7/19

[ 7Ss / VV->^^ ]

 

Because … well … perhaps it’s because I’m just a little bit lardy.
But I am hardy and I do persevere.

Persevere for rights …
Sometimes through nasty fights including through the nights,
But always with rights in my sights.

The fights are for equity, for justice, for fairness for all …
But especially for the powerless, for the poor.
And that includes other than sapiens.
Those are the fights I have in my sights.
………………………….
(Sapiens???)
Sapheads! That’s our correct label
Yelled the flat-topped Marine,
The range ecologist in Alpine, Texas.
………………………………….
I am a saphead
But I’m trying, trying
To do some stinking critical thinking
Without too much blinking.

Desperation. Exhaustive desperation.
Desperate to truly be emPOWERed.
Even more desperate to emPOWER others
Dealt a poorer hand than most.

Desperate to realize
Some significant achievements.
Desperate to make just a bit
Of a positive difference.

[ 7Ss / VV->^^ ]

A buen hambre no hay pan duro.1
Anything tastes good when you’re hungry.

Leí incorrectamente como …
A bueno hombre no hay pan duro.
O …
Pan duros son buenos hombres.
Being tight can be okay.
…………………….
They called me tight.
Hard bread. Pão duro.

No car for two years.
Despite the super (capitalistic) OEA2 deal.

The poor filhos e minha spousa
Carrying groceries/compras
On the bus at four and six
And a stunningly beautiful 30!

Pão duro? I don’t think so.
It was a conservation ethic
From the depression/WPA experiences
The GI Bill courses
Which Dad Alton absorbed and diffused.

Yes.
Yes.

And no.

Truth is I am just a wannabe.
But being small / being pão duro,
Even as an aspiration,
Is beautiful!

***********************************

1 https://www.spanishdict.com/answers/185925/a-buen-hambre-no-hay-pan-duro
2 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization_of_American_States

pbm 5/7/19

[ 7 Ss / VV->^^ ]

Thoughtways.
Ethos?
Hopefully not Groupthink?
Perhaps some Critical Thinking??

Paths in the Savanna …
Leading to a warmed (but doomed) Northwest Passage.

It’s all about inputs/throughputs/…
And especially outputs,
About energetics
And embodied human appropriated net primary productivity.

(Life, thoughts? Dynamic homeostatic symbioses?
They are matter
Organized with inputs
Of free available energy.)

And critical thinking?
…………………………
Hunter-gatherers, peasants, money-lenders.
Animists, Zoroasterians, Buddhists.
Christians who are capitalists? (They’re not christians!)
What were your pathways, … your thoughtways?
What are your throughways, … your thoughtways?

Tried and True understood and respected boundaries.
Then agrilogistics2 and War.
Now we are “peacefully MAD” with mutually-assured-destruction
But with nasty conventional War caused by those less than us
OR
Less than them, holier than thou … US! The U.S.).
And in their stupid amoral nastiness of conventionality
They also cheat, abusing; using …
Sarin!
…………………………….
Nine years-old and five-o’clock morning-cold
On the bed of a crew-leader’s big ol’ truca
With brown farmworkers young and old
Dreading un otro dia de cosecha in the hot south Texas sun.

Faces wind-blown in the back of the bob-tail.
Seventy miles to work cattle in elementary years.

Riding the old bus, nick-named gray-goose,
To Del Rio San Felipe,
High school football, on the way back we’ll be sleepy.

Across the border and terrible (and innocent?) sin.
Wish we’d never been.

At twenty, up and down the cotton rows
Counting ladies and Chrysopa,
Orius, big-eyed and assassin bugs.
Who would have known the opening of doors and paths?

Through fields of Vigna, Phaseolus, calabacitas,
Popcorn and mungs.
Sorghum and Cynodon,
Brachiaria and capim elephante.
And campos of many more.

Pensacola during Vietnam,
Majestic pathways through the sky.
In Beechcraft Bonanzas and T-28s.
Sterile! Artificial! Insane!!
This pathway, this thoughtway is not for me!
It’s sure as hell not PEACE!
Daily walks through Krakow to daily Mass.
Beautiful church-structures spared in the second great war.
Damn this old, complex Jewish adulation/Jewish hate.

Bodies of young veterinarians and campesinos
Tossed about en la parte trasera of battered camionetas
Across the bumpy and serpentine caminos up in montañas tropicales.
(ICE-detained Deyling
Who fled Ortega and Nicaragua
PAINFULLY! wishes he were home.)
………………………………………
Esteban, Alejandro, Sherry, Robert, Adolph, Jimmy, John, Butch.
Sanchez, Harkreader, Carlson, Barrett, Lopez, Luna, Boyd.
Suhda Nagarkatti, Awinash Bhatkar, Shashank Nilahke and Bondari,
Vivek and Mangala.
Lelia, Marlene, Ciça, Luiza, Miguelito, Anchieta.
Kazimierz, Andrzej, Stanislaw, Asia, Basia.
Johnny Taylor, Gene, Lacy, Andrew, Stick, Lanier, Renee, Marce, Wallace,
Doc’ Davis.
Ari, Joselyn, Greyston, Yoseling.

With which group do I think?
They all often stink!
But at times are beautiful,
A marvelous, intriguing … and hopeful
Think-stink.

Thoughtways. Pathways.
What a wonderfully crazy life!

pbm 5/7/19

[ 7Ss / VV->^^ ]
………………………………..
1 “A way of thinking that is characteristic of a particular group, time, or culture https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thoughtway
2 http://ecologywithoutnature.blogspot.com/2015/10/what-is-agrilogistics.html https://www.versobooks.com/books/2465-humankind

 

“Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions.

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching. As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea. The boy came closer still and the man called out, ‘Good morning! May I ask what it is that you are doing?’

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied ‘Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,’ the youth replied.

‘When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.’

The old man replied, ‘But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.’

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, ‘It made a difference to that one!’”

Adapted from “The Star Thrower”, by Loren Eiseley (1907 – 1977)”

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/56782.Loren_Eiseley

***************************************************************************************

Now, … do we operate much as the boy in this parable did … and put our efforts, money, resources and energy … into cleaning up oil-covered birds after oil spills; rehabbing animals: caught in barbed wire, hit by cars, sickened or poisoned by biocides or plastics, or wounded by a poor shot; and providing “artificial” habitat & supplemental food, other artificial assistance for endangered species; etc.?

OR

do we begin to truly and significantly change our socio-political/economic (ecological) systems and start to live in a “sabio, simple, small, slow, steadfast, sharing, sustainable” way in order to provide an Earth conducive to the thriving of healthy-biodiversity of all wildlife including insects, plants, fungi,and other biota?

I think that–morally & ethically–we do both, but with an emphasis on the latter!

[ 7 Ss / VV->^^ ]

paul b. martin
www.paulpeaceparables.com/  https://www.facebook.com/paul.b.martin.54

“Lavandera mala no encuentra jamás buena piedra.
A bad washer doesn’t ever find a good rock.”1

(These bad washers blame the system!)
………………………

El sistema smells bad!
The system tastes muy mal.
It feels bad.
The system appears to be …
So sad!!

………..

“Those Illegal Immigrants
who can no longer
be legally held
(Congress must fix the laws and loopholes)
will be,
subject to Homeland Security,
given to Sanctuary
Cities and States!”2

……….

It certainly sounds bad!
Sounds sad!!!

It is sad.
Always has been “bad”.

Still … beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

Stop.
Listen!
Speak.
Hope.
Do.

¡Si se puede!
¡Si nos puedemos!

Swim with.
Swim against.
Swim with and against …
And with.

Antes que te cases,
Mira lo que haces.
Pero …
No confundas hierba con maleza.

Think! Plan!
Y …
¡No recarse la barriga!
Quit scratching your damn belly!

Plunge in and get wet.
Become a part of it all
As CHANGE!

Swim hard. Fight!
¡Para el mejor!
¡Para los todos!
Los buenos.
Y los malos.
For the better!
For all!

Because you … WE!!! …
WE ARE a part of it all.
………………………..
1 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Spanish_proverbs
2 Trump Tweet.

pbm 4/17/2019

[ 7 Ss / VV->^^ ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2S46evll8I&fbclid=IwAR08E93Ec2cBPgS_mtxyer8hFnAzJm8uoMhOjDFUQksq03sS9jQubXdxmj0

After viewing this ca. hour-long YouTube presentation by Dahr Jamail this morning, I felt strongly that I had to share it via email, http://www.paulpeaceparables.com/blog/ , and https://www.facebook.com/paul.b.martin.54 before tackling other matters I had planned for this terça-feira, March 20, 2019. Dahr’s talk is very powerful for many reasons in terms of discussion of the senseless and mindless human War on humankind and nonhumans … and destruction of Earth. I thank our friend Todd Doherty—a regular participant in providing tasty, healthy food at the Santa Fe Farmers Market–for making me aware of this enlightening presentation by Dahr!

My hopes are that many will listen to this talk, and go out into symbioses, listen and learn, and connect in solidarity! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2S46evll8I&fbclid=IwAR08E93Ec2cBPgS_mtxyer8hFnAzJm8uoMhOjDFUQksq03sS9jQubXdxmj0

……………………………..

I have been called a naïve, wannabe pacifist, bleeding heart-liberal, tree-hugger, and commie, etc., etc. … and criticized for being ignorant, tainted, diseased, calloused, selfish, careless, nonempathetic, narcissistic, arrogant, and on and on. Criticism has come my way for being too demanding of family and friends, youth and elderly.

I do admit being a very flawed human, and I must to plead guilty to all the above. And I do feel sorrow for those who I have sorrowed through these characteristics.

Moreover, in terms of personal and collective human hypocrisy related to issues discussed in the talk which triggered this post, when discussing exploitation, abuse, and destruction of Amazonia, good Brazilian friends have retorted (paraphrased and embellished a bit), “Vocês, cidadãos nobres e arrogantes dos Estados Unidos, têm a sua vida boa e luxo através da exploração da natureza. Vocês todos destruíram, por exemplo, seu ecossistema de pinheiros de folhas longas no sul dos EUA e vocês irracionalmente transformaram a energia fóssil em direção a uma última bolha de poder, e agora – através desse poder de seu império capitalista e seu complexo militar-industrial … vocês têm suas presas sugadoras na base de recursos naturais dos ecossistemas de simbioses em todo o mundo – incluindo o Brasil – a fim de manter egoisticamente o maior tempo possível uma boa vida efêmera… Antes que a oportunidade fuja, nós brasileiros também queremos um pouco da sua vida boa.”*

(*“You, the noble citizens of hubris of the United States, have it good through your exploitation of Nature. You destroyed, for example, your longleaf pine ecosystem in the southern U.S. and you irrationally transformed fossil energy toward an ultimate bubble of power, and now–through this power of your capitalistic empire and its military-industrial complex … you have your sucking fangs into the natural resource base of ecosystems of symbioses all over the globe–including Brazil–in order to selfishly maintain as long as possible an ephemeral good life. … Before the opportunity flees, we Brazilians want some of your good life also.”)

…………………………

A thought this morning–while listening to the presentation of Dahr as well as the comments of Jair Bolsanano on CNN—dealt with how relatively poorly informed we are as citizens of the U.S. Mostly we are into news about self. … Even though Brazil was under an authoritarian military dictatorship (João Baptista de Oliveira Figueiredo) when my family and I resided there in 1981-1983, we received thorough global and rural agricultural news on their television stations and through their news magazines.

Personally, I do wish we would all get out of our artificial bubbles, get our heads out of our butts, and begin to equitably lighten our ecological footprint worldwide and sustainably live in concert in dynamic homeostatic symbioses, as a collective community of humankind and nonhumans.

7Ss / VV->^^
pbm

………………………………………..

1 https://thenewpress.com/books/end-of-ice
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iydRpefpL2Q
https://www.stevegrossi.com/on/war-is-a-force-that-gives-us-meaning
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/26/the-right-way-to-remember-rachel-carson
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Lovejoy
https://eowilsonfoundation.org/half-earth-our-planet-s-fight-for-life/
http://ka-cha.com/DR%20DARRYL%20BABE%20WILSON.htm

I’m hopeful
And will steadfastly act to elect a woman and progressive.
I will be obsessive
To help with a slate which can be Truthfully memorable.
It should be a piece of cake given this “president” who is a fake,
And a snake* we all know is on the take.

But I fear my dear
There is an abundance of those who are deplorable.

(*My apologies are sincere and fervent,
To a many and ecologically-good and earthly serpent.)

………………………………
1 https://www.americanswhotellthetruth.org/portraits/winona-laduke
https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/deb-haaland-and-sharice-davids-lead-a-record-number-of-native-american-candidates-in-the-midterms

pbm 3/18/19

[ 7Ss / VV->^^ ]