DLKeur, To Infinity & Beyond, Forever

The Video Says It All

Ξ January 22nd, 2010 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions, Politics, Culture, Society |

“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
- Mahatma Gandhi

PLEASE: Help stop these atrocities

Ξ December 25th, 2009 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions, Politics, Culture, Society |

The video is mislabelled. It’s hidden camera footage of the real deal of the Chinese dog and cat fur trade. PLEASE: Refuse to buy ANYTHING made in China until this is absolutely stopped forever.

It’s Christmas, and, Well, We’re Still Fighting

Ξ December 24th, 2009 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions, Politics, Culture, Society |

It’s Christmas–a holiday Christians use to celebrate the birth of Jesus of Nazareth (who was actually born sometime in October, btw), Jesus of Nazareth whose teachings inspired the founding of the Christian faith…for good, but mostly resulting in evil.

Christmas is celebrated by non-Christians, as well–Yuletide and the Solstice…or just an excuse to celebrate, remember friends and family, and to enjoy a feeling of goodwill and peace.

But, guess what? In Christams 2009, what are we doing? Well, in the U.S., we’re still fighting–Republicans versus Democrats, liberals versus neoconservatives, and all of them pissed off at moderates and independents who don’t hold their “party” lines. And, around the world, we’re in wars, wars, and wars. We’re standing by while people, animals, and Earth itself continues to suffer harm by mankind’s UNKIND hands–cruelty, hardship, misery, decimation….

I’m sick of humans. Yes, really. As a species, despite supposedly being “civilized” and blessed with (repeat, SUPPOSEDLY) superior intelligence, it is WE–humans–who blight the planet with our greed, our fear, and our oh-so-primitive “us versus them” tribalism. We are the most violent, most vile, of creatures, yet, simultaneously, we exhibit the ability to rise above that and be the kindest, most caring. Unfortunately, in this our 21st century of counting our existence in the West, we seem to be a civilization devolving back into a hate/war society of intolerance…and have been since the turn of the Millennium. (Thanks, G.W.B./Cheney, fuckers both.)

Hope? Hope is a Christmas theme. I’m losing it. I can’t see us ever getting clear of our fear, greed, and unhealthy lusts. Still, Christmas IS the one time of year in the West when, for just a moment, for just a day, SOMETIMES, anyway, the world knows PEACE. This is especially evident at the stroke of midnight between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, worldwide.

So tonight I will celebrate that one precious moment of PEACE that happens only now, thanks to a man born long ago in a land far, far away.

Thank you, Jesus. That’s one small piece of good that came about because of a religion founded in your name, though most everything else that’s come about because of Christianity (along with most everything that’s come about because of Judism and Islam, all brother/sister religions that lead back to the seed of Abraham) only perpetuates more evil upon the planet.

Be still, Humans. It’s Christmas Eve. A breath of stillness, a moment of peace….

Teaching Martial Arts

Ξ March 8th, 2009 | → Comments Off | ∇ Deeply Moving, Silent, Still, Family, Friends, Students, Passions |

I must receive thirty-plus phone calls a week from people wanting to enroll their 3, 6, 9, 12, 14-year-old into martial arts. I dismiss them with a pleasant, gentle explanation that, 1, we’re not taking new students, and, 2, we only teach adults. And not all adults, either. It isn’t the age, per se. It’s the maturity and mind-state. I’m sorry, but children — American children (though there are, of course, exceptions) are generally unprepared and unwilling to submit to the rigorous discipline — mental, emotional, physical, and philosophical — required to study martial arts with us. We’re very strict; we’re very demanding, and we’re very much a traditional school where “fun” isn’t part of the curriculum.

Oh, it’s fun, yes, if you have a high pain threshold and love ever increasing challenges, but it’s not entertaining (except for those occasional guffaws when you lose your footing because someone dripped sweat on the mat).  For Americans, both adults and youth, who have been raised to expect their hedonistic desires fulfilled, who are perpetually conditioned to expect reward for mediocrity, and who have been pandered to their whole lives, our martial arts classes are not quite what they expected. We tend to direct callers and walkins alike to the McDojos, because, honestly, that’s what they want — instant black belt in exchange for no real effort and no true commitment and self-motivated development.

But what about the prospective student who does hold the duty, discipline, self-actualization, and focus that’s mandatory? Well, taking on a student means this for the teacher: Be ready to become their life counselor, even after they’ve left town. You’ll be the one they call, regardless of what time it is, what day it is, or if you’re down with pneumonia when they have any kind of life crisis, from marital difficulties to existential crises. It’s the way of things, and, believe me, after years and years, taking on new students and adding to the calls for help and advice you get takes its toll. As a teacher, you become very hesitant to add to your load, especially since, having invested the time and effort to get them to and then through the “gateway” that is earning the black belt, then going further, you are obligated to be there, always. It’s a life commitment on both the student’s and the teacher’s part. And it’s tough on both of them. It’s also extremely rewarding. My students…my husband’s students, it’s why both of us go to bed with gentle smiles on our faces. They are our delight, even if they do occasionally cause all manner of bleary-eyed mornings.

The Plant

Ξ February 11th, 2009 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions |

I have an Angel Wing Begonia that’s OLD.  Very OLD.  It was given to me by Mom, and I kept it for many years.  When it outgrew my house, I gave it to Undean, who had it for about ten years, then gave it back when it outgrew her house.  I put it in the garden for the summer, because it really was too big for anywhere in the house I lived in, and, come Fall, a lady who loves plants indicated a desire to own it.  So I gave it to her.  

Under her care, it got even BIGGER.  And it bloomed like crazy.  Then, a year or so later, times got tough for them and, ultimately, they moved to a very small, unfinished house that had few windows.  The plant had to go, and it went to her mom’s house, but not before losing a couple of it’s numerous shoots.  

Helping with the move, I snagged the one that hadn’t been walked on and stuck it in water, hoping I could save a small piece of the heirloom plant.  Sure enough, it rooted for me, and, holding my breath, a year later, I put it in soil.  

Moving a plant from water culture to soil culture is hard on the plant.  Very.  I did it in stages, adding soil to the water (mud), then, finally, moving it into a legitimate pot of soil.  And it survived…and thrived.  And now it’s big enough that it outgrew the living room window (which it loved).  I’m holding my breath again because the only place for it is a rather dark corner with no morning sun, fitted with a tall, artificial daylight lamp.  

If it doesn’t do well there, I’ll move it back to the big picture window, even though that’s going to take some major redecorating to accomplish.  We’ll see what happens after a few weeks.  The plant may be okay.   Then, again, I might be calling on hubs to disassemble the bookcase/sill under the front room window.

Came Across This Video of a Martial Artist

Ξ November 18th, 2007 | → 2 Comments | ∇ Family, Friends, Students, Passions |

Watch.  Pay attention to the details, not the “wows.”  Enjoy.  Work toward this level of excellence…but watch your knees on those drops.  Key’s to this level of mastery, perfect practice, and you MUST own root and center.  And, to get to this level, plan on training (meticulously) from youth to adulthood at least four hours if not eight or more hours a day, everyday, and then plan to continue to train for the rest of your life. 

This from The Grist, Polar Bears & Whales vs. Navy Sonar

Ξ September 11th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions, Politics, Culture, Society |

Ursine of the Times
U.S. study says two-thirds of polar bears will be gone by 2050

 The U.S. Geological Survey released a grim study of polar bears on Friday, concluding that two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be gone by 2050. Polar bears in Alaska and other areas outside the very far north will be most out of luck, according to the study; it forecasts that precisely zero polar bears will be left in Alaska by 2050. “Sea ice conditions would have to be substantially better than even the most conservative computer simulations of warming and sea ice” for the bears to avoid the forecasted steep drop in population, the report said. For those desperately seeking an upside to all this, the survey team said the polar bears’ fate was likely only 84 percent linked to the extent of sea ice, which means the remaining bears will only theoretically be 84 percent screwed when all of it disappears from the Arctic. Phew! Meanwhile, for just $35,000 or so, kick-’em-while-they’re-down types can pay to go on polar-bear safari and bag a trophy kill. But hey, for an extra $100,000, we know a guy who can arrange a cage match with a polar bear and your own remote-controlled robot. Just let us know.

——————————————-

Play It Again, Uncle Sam
Appeals court overturns ruling, allows Navy to test underwater sonar

It’s the controversy that keeps on controversing: The U.S. Navy wants to test underwater mid-frequency sonar. Marine advocates say such testing effs up whales and other marine mammals. Repeat. (Grist has been writing about this issue since 1999, and we have never reused a headline. Thank you.) Anyhoodle, here we go again: last month, a federal judge ordered the Navy to stop using mid-frequency sonar off the California coast through 2009; a federal appeals court has now put the kibosh on that decision. “The public does indeed have a very considerable interest in preserving our natural environment and especially relatively scarce whales,” wrote Judge Andrew Kleinfeld. “But it also has an interest in national defense. We are currently engaged in war, in two countries.” And we can’t be too careful — what if the whales are working for the terrorists?

I Must Have Hit a Nerve!

Ξ July 18th, 2007 | → 13 Comments | ∇ Passions, Politics, Culture, Society |

*Laughing.* Over on the GreenPeace forum, I had Ms. MaryPoppins-mod, a clappy-handies, oh-isn’t-it-wonderful-see-what-we’re-doing-to-make-the-world-green neophyte, read me a new waste portal via the reputation comments (unanswerable, by the way, so there’s no chance for dialogue) and all because I dared point out some truths, and to counter with facts from my own lifestyle a snot-sayer I’ll call NeverRight who consistently has cursed me, called me everything but cunt, and who has never been reined in for castigating me.   Funny.  She called me “counter-productive,” amongst other more pointedly venomous things, blaming the tone of the forum on ”youth.”  Um…no.  Not youth.  Some youth, but also some adult, some middle-aged, and some aged seem to be the demographics.  This is all very interesting on a forum which is supposed to be “green,” run by one of the biggest, most “in the news” green organizations on the planet.  This GreenPeace International forum called Louder Than Words, however, is anything BUT green.  You can’t be green if only half of your active participants are colored that way and the other half are pro-whaling, pro-sealing, pro-development, anti-preservation, and doubt climate change. 

So why am I laughing?

Because here we have people all arguing over whether the house is actually burning, and, even if it is, is this a bad thing while the house turns to ashes and its inhabitants die…all on a GREENPEACE forum!

Clap on, MaryPoppins and the rest of you, clap on.  Hope you like turning into burnt marshmallows with the rest of the biosphere.  Meanwhile, watch those damaged nerves.   The pain you feel just might open up your minds.

ADD/EDIT: Got this from a friend over there a bit ago after I posted this: “The moderators really only want `fluffy bunny don`t rock the boat types`.”

Well, that’s NOT me. And, as far as I’ve seen, it ISN’T GreenPeace, either. Guess the mods must be employed by Chevron.

We’ve got less than ten years left. All the signs show it.

Ξ June 28th, 2007 | → 5 Comments | ∇ Passions |

Way back in the 70s I “predicted” an environmental crisis/catastrophe. Way back when I was still a teen, it was obvious to me.

Over the years, then the decades, I watched the natural world around me change…for the worst. I watched forests leveled, wetlands decimated, natural meadows destroyed, waters polluted. I watched man encroach on nature more and more, pouring cement and asphalt, building wider, spreading out, not higher and consolidating. I watched wilderness and rural land become industrial parks and subdivisions, wild mountains become wastelands of erosion, everything devastated wherever man touched…encroached.

So, now — now that it is too late — suddenly the environment is “big news.”

I’m sorry. Didn’t you notice it before? Didn’t you see, hear, feel, taste and smell it in the air? And not just the complete saturation of herbicides, rodenticides, pesticides, fungicides…that permeate our water, our food, our air — every aspect of our lives. A change has happened. To the biosphere. Life as we know it is on the brink. A new world, a new biosphere, hostile to the present reign of the oxygen revolution dynasty, is about ready to emerge. It has to. Life is endemic to this world. Life will continue. But it won’t be life as we know it. It won’t be life that is comfortable for us…even if some of us adapt and survive.

We’ve got less than ten years. That’s my opinion. Less than ten years. After that, life as we know it on this planet is gone forever. No more cushy lifestyles, no more pleasant afternoon strolls along the beach. You’ll be fighting to survive…if you live through the wars that are bound to rage as people…nations…reach out in desperation to secure the resources they need for them to survive and damn anyone who gets in their way.

A bit extreme in my viewpoint? Maybe. But, all around me, the signs point it out. Trees are dying…for no known cause. When the sun shines, suddenly the temperature spikes from normal to a hundred and more degrees, while when it’s cloudy, we’re at normal temperatures. Winter: a fifty degree difference between sunny daylight and nighttime temperatures. (Now, that’s extreme.) Insects are dying. Birds are dying. Fish are dying. All of them for no known cause. This isn’t disease. This is environment — hostile environment. It’s reached its tipping points long ago, yet the dimwitted, from neocon to SUV Sally, just laugh and deny.

Okay. Yes. I may be wrong. But, you know what? I’m not a proponent of “end of the world” anything. I just have watched all these years. I see it in the animals, the plants, the insects. I see it in the soil and the air. I feel it in the intensity of the sun. And I’m not alone. Others see and feel it, too. We’re just quiet about it now. Because we know that it’s already too late.

I laugh when I hear the scientific community quoted to the media. In 2050..in 2100. How about, “You’ll be lucky (or maybe very unlucky) if you’re still alive in 2015.”

You know, even my “environmentally conscious” friends scoff at my saying this.  They don’t believe it.  They think I’m nuts.  Well, maybe I am.  Maybe I’m wrong.  You know what?  I sincerely hope so.  Truly.  I love this world — not man’s world — but the world of nature  — the sky, the forests, the mountain lakes…the earthworms I rescue from the pavement, the birds that fly the skies…the birds that used to sing the morning and the evening (They haven’t come this year, you know. Neither have the humming birds.  Nor the butterfies.  And the bumble bees, which were here this spring, have vanished too.)

…Yes, I hope I’m wrong.  Let’s hope I’m not dead right.

DO SOMETHING!

Ξ June 26th, 2007 | → Comments Off | ∇ Passions |

Received from NRDC today. DO SOMETHING, PEOPLE. 

Dear Dawn,

While the Bush Administration refuses to clamp down on America’s
biggest global warming polluters . . .

. . . there are alarming new reports of POLAR BEARS STARVING in the Arctic and being driven to extremes of survival behavior because of the rapidly changing climate.

I’ll share more about it below. But first, I need you to take
IMMEDIATE ACTION because new global warming bills are being
debated in Congress — and they could be a critical factor in
saving the polar bear from extinction.

In advance of key votes on a global warming bill, we must build
the ranks of concerned Americans who are committed to saving
polar bears by making their voices heard on Capitol Hill.

Go to the Tell-A-Friend page of our Polar Bear SOS website and
send out as many SOS messages as you can to your friends and
family: http://www.polarbearsos.org/tellfriends

That way, when a tough global warming bill is nearing a vote, we
can alert millions of online activists to support it — and win
its passage into law.

Right now, the need for such legislation is distressingly
apparent. The Arctic spring in Greenland is coming two weeks
earlier than it did in 1996 — a rate of climate change that far
outstrips warming trends seen elsewhere in the Northern
Hemisphere.

As the sea ice melts earlier and earlier each year, there have
been more and more reports of starving polar bears being forced
to resort to heart-breaking acts of desperation.

Only last summer, an adult bear — his hip bones visible through
his hide — killed a polar bear cub for food in the first-ever
eyewitness account of polar bear infanticide.

The scientists who observed this never-before-seen behavior
linked the killing of the cub — and other recent reports of
polar bear cannibalism in Alaska’s Beaufort Sea — to
“nutritional stress related to a longer ice-free period.”

They also predicted that as the ice melt continues to
accelerate, tragic incidents like these will become more
frequent. This is the terrible and inexcusable toll that global
warming is taking on the polar bear.

And our very best hope to prevent an even bigger tragedy is to
start cutting our global warming pollution now.

So while you have this message in front of you — please rally
your friends in support of imperiled polar bears by sending SOS
messages to as many people as you can at http://www.polarbearsos.org/tellfriends

Thanks to you, we prevailed in court and forced the Bush
Administration to propose giving the polar bear federal
protection. Then, we deluged the administration with hundreds of
thousands of Citizen Comments in support of that protection.

Now, with your help, we’ll be poised and ready to unleash the
power of one million online activists in support of global
warming legislation that could be a lifeline for the polar bear.
I hope you’ll do your part today. Thank you.

Sincerely,

Frances Beinecke
President
Natural Resources Defense Council

P.S. Want to do more to rush to the aid of the polar bear? Go to
our http://www.polarbearsos.org website now.