Sunflower Roots

Wealth Creators

2012-01-04T13:06:00.001-05:00

I’ve heard a lot of politicians talk about tax cuts for the “job creators” in recent months, but what are we doing for the “wealth creators”? The only way to create wealth is through work, digging things, cutting things, building things, assembling things, cooking things, selling things, and providing services that people want.

Wealth isn’t created by the wealthy, they only gather it up and move it around; wealth is created by the workers – the coal miners, the plumbers, the assembly line workers, the burger flippers, the house cleaners, the nurses, the road pavers, the truck drivers, the waitresses, and computer programmers.

We need to start talking about what we are going to do for the “wealth creators” in this country.

Bulletins from the Land of Dementia

2012-01-02T22:21:00.001-05:00

My mother has in recent months slipped over the edge into mental non-competency. Before Christmas my brother Charlie moved her from her home in the San Francisco Bay Area down to visit over Christmas with him and his life partner Claire, then New Years Eve got her settled into a small, pleasant 24 hour care home ten minutes from his home.

She is not happy about this, but then she wasn't happy at home for the past few months, where she believed strangers were invading her home on a nightly basis, causing her "papers" to disappear, moving things that she "knows" were on the table, and turning her gas heater off in the night causing her to get cold. She told me one day, that the doors and windows were all locked so the people must be crawling in through tiny cracks in the roof and ceiling. Sometimes she would say that she hadn't seen them, just heard them, but she knew they were there, because how else could one account for it getting cold - someone had to have messed with the heater - or for the papers not being where she'd left them. But other times she would describe in detail things the people she had seen, what they'd looked like, what they'd done and what she'd said to them.

As a sociologist the workings and mis-workings of the human brain are not within the scope of my professional expertise, that's the realm of psychology. However, I've been reading and thinking about the problem, and think that I have a plausible hypothesis for what is happening in her brain.

An example from my own experience today will help illustrate: I came home early from work today because it was snowing heavily and predicted to get worse. There were no students coming in for advising, and most of us left early. I've been a bit sleep deprived recently, so when I sat in my recliner to watch some cable news punditry, not surprisingly I dozed off several times between the interminable discussions of what may or may not happen tomorrow in the Iowa Caucuses. At one point, I was awake enough to know that my husband John had come out to sit down and watch a little with me, and that we exchanged a few words about the Iowa Caucuses. But then I drifted off and had an extremely vivid dream of an extended and lively conversation between John and I about some of the candidates. It seemed very real, and I was quite annoyed with John because instead of answering me himself, he kept playing a recording of Newt Gingrich saying something absurd. When I was roused from my nap by a cat pouncing on my lap (happens a lot at our house), the vividness of the dream lingered and seemed like something that really happened.

But I knew immediately that it had not really happened; first of all my husband was no longer in the room with me, and I know for a fact he doesn't have a fancy silver iPad that he can play video of Gingrich on, and that he'd never record anything by Gingrich anyway, much less play it over and over. I quickly was able to check the very real seeming conversations and interaction of my dream against a list of things that I knew about reality, and immediately classify the experience as a dream and "not real".

But my mother, suffering from dementia, no longer has the ability to reality check in that way. For her all things are possible - so if she "sees" something, or "hears" something while dreaming or dozing, it is real. As a sociologists/anthropologist I know that there are human cultures that do treat dreams as having the same reality as waking experience, and in those cultures, the entire family and village would be supportive of her experiences, accepting them as valid. But in our culture, everyone is telling her that there are no people living in the battered metal shed in her back yard, no people coming into her house and changing the heater settings, no people coming in and taking photos of her in bed and making movies out of them. She is hurt and angry and sees a conspiracy against her because she says "I know what I see!" And believes that everyone else, the neighbors, her care takers, her son, who all tell her that there is no one there, are in a conspiracy against her.

So I remind myself that she was not happy at home and had not been happy for a long time, when she complains pitifully about how "awful" the care home is, and how the owner of the home doesn't want her there and doesn't want the care workers to do anything for her, and that the workers will get in big trouble because they gave her a shower today. Which she loved, but since she loved it, she won't ever get another one.

Anniversaries

2011-12-23T15:16:00.002-05:00

This week we Jews celebrate an anniversary of a victory “of the weak over the strong, the few over the many, and the righteous over the arrogant.” (Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayerbook, p. 642)

On the first night of this celebration we pray:

Blessed art thou, O Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who performed wondrous deeds for our ancestors in days of old, at this season.

and

Blessed art thou, O Lord our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who gives us life, sustains us, and enables us to reach this season.

Then we light candles for eight nights in remembrance of this anniversary.

This Chanukkah also coincides with the 100th anniversary of my father’s birth (no longer his “birthday” as he died two years ago), and of significance to me, the thirtieth anniversary of my official conversion to Judaism. This means that starting now, I have been a Jew for more than half of my life.

I’d known that I wanted to be a Jew from the time I was about fifteen, but did not act upon that desire until I turned thirty. With my thirtieth birthday it seemed like it was time to make some changes, so I began studying with the Reform congregation’s Rabbi in Lexington, Kentucky in February 1981, attending services and becoming part of the Adaith Israel Congregation. In November 1981, I stood before the congregation during Shabbat evening services and spoke the words that made me officially bat Israel (daughter of Israel).

From a distance, in California, my father had shown in interest and expressed support in my transformation. So I asked him to make a Chanukkah menorah for me for my first official Jewish holiday observance. I drew a sketch of what I wanted, which involved simply drilling holes in a solid rectangular block of wood, a task that would be easy for my dad with his well equipped woodworking shop.

I made two mistakes. First, I asked for the holes to be sized to fit regular candles. Little did I know that proper Jewish observance requires fresh candles for each night of Chanukkah, and that adds up to 44 candles – and most Jewish families use Chanukkah menorahs sized for candles not much larger than those that go on a birthday cake. Second, I did not explain to my father that my little sketch of a block of wood with eight candles at the same height and only one elevated, was based on proper Jewish observance – only the shammus (servant) candle is traditionally at a different height.

My father, intent on doing an extra special job in creating this menorah for me, pulled out all his woodworking tricks. He built a graduated platform, and then with his lathe, turned individual wooden cups for each candle. He lined the bottom of it with green felt and burned the date into the base.

For thirty years, I’ve considered, replacing my father’s not very Jewish beautiful candelabra, with a small, more appropriately Jewish menorah. But I always end up rejecting the idea, and going out once again in search of 44 large candles to light my eight nights of Chanukkah.

Creatures of Habit

2011-12-17T16:35:00.001-05:00

Dogs are by nature conservative, they crave routine and familiarity. Dogs happily take up routines and then insist that their humans stick to those routines.

Just seven weeks ago, my physician read me the riot act - with weight, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, and triglycerides all up, I had to start getting exercise. This is difficult because I also have rheumatoid arthritis and exercise equates with pain in my back, hips, knees, feet, etc. But my physician insisted and made me promise to try 10 minutes of walking every day. She reminded me of how fit I had been five years ago when I walked the dog every day.

This exhortation came at a good time. My husband John who had been walking both our dogs had to give it up when a sudden appearance by a stray cat, resulted in him face down being dragged down hill into the blackberry brambles. Two big dogs was just too much for one person to handle.

So that day, after my appointment, I came home and started our new routine. After John went for a 30 minute walk/run with our younger, more energetic dog Molly, we feed both dogs their evening meal, and then it was my turn to take Rosie for our 10 minute (now a little longer) exercise through the neighborhood.

It was quite a struggle at first, between Rosie having forgotten how to behave like a proper dog with me, and all my aches and pains. But now things go much more smoothly, Rosie is well behaved, and the aches and pains are slower in their on set.

Rosie knows the routine very well now, after just seven weeks. As soon as her supper is eaten she looks to me to gather the baggie (to scoop the inevitable poop) and leash, and head out for our exercise. Makes it a whole lot easier to stick to the exercise when you've got those big, liquid brown eyes on you waiting for a walk.

early morning sights in late September

2011-09-15T15:16:00.000-04:00

feral cats on the back stoop waiting for food in the faint light...
brilliant green katydid on the front railing like a leaf with legs...
Hickory tussock moth caterpillar all fuzzy white and black on the siding (don't touch!)...
a thriving clump of Pennsylvania smartweed with its tiny pink flowers...
towering joe-pye weed beginning to bow from its own weight...
dozens of dew encrusted spiderwebs between the telephone cables lining the road...
a neighbor's rooster, red combed and strutting his two plume like tail feathers swaying proudly...

first draft

2011-09-05T20:03:00.000-04:00

Was driving home in the pouring rain (remnants of Lee) from my weekly shopping trip, and the first few lines of a song came to me. Had to stop the car - twice - to write them down as they came to me (seem to have lost my little tape recorder in our move last winter). Here's the first draft. Now all I need is a musician with a tune!

Here am I.
Here are you.

We thought that love
Would see us through,
Why couldn’t we
Both be true?

We never knew
Life was so tough,
That hearts and flowers
Weren’t enough.

Then jobs were lost
And bills unpaid,
The dreams we planned
Became unmade.

You went off
to right the wrongs,
while I stayed home
to sell my songs.

I never knew
Why you came back,
Was it for me,
Or what you lacked?

Life burdened you
Down so low,
Did you think
You could not go?

So here we are
Within the dark,
Reaching out
To find that spark.

A lesser life
Than what we cared,
But together wiser
Than we dared.

©sgreerpitt
Monday 5 September 2011

Kittens become Cats

2011-07-15T10:54:00.000-04:00

The original "popcorn kittens" from 2009

Like many other people I am entranced by the antics of kittens. Unlike many people, I do enjoy the company of adult cats as well. The delight that people take in kittens and their antipathy towards adult cats contributes to the problem of cat over-population in our area, and the failure of people to neuter and spay.

They have little incentive to do so, they like seeing tiny kittens gamboling around in the summer sunshine so why would they want to shut off the supply of those kittens? Many give little thought, little food and less shelter, to the cats those kitten become by winter time. In a rural area like this even with food and shelter outdoor, feral cats fall prey to coyotes and other wild menaces (including automobiles). Even with the attrition, by spring there are still enough cats to produce plenty of new litters of kittens to amuse folks, and the cycle repeats.

There are too many kitten lovers, and not enough cat lovers, like myself, willing to make the effort to capture and spay or neuter the adults, provide them with basic veterinary care (like rabies shots), and provide food and shelter. The cost of which is overwhelming to private individuals like myself.

Bulletins from the Land of Dementia

2011-07-10T20:20:00.000-04:00

A couple of days ago in our regular nightly telephone conversation my mother, made a passing comment about the sheets on her bed. She said that they were strange sheets, not her "real" sheets, and did I know where her real sheets might be. Since I have not been in her house for more than two years, and much has been rearranged by my brother and her daily home health care worker Jennifer, I told her that I did not know where her sheets were kept.

I know, from talking to Jennifer and my brother, that there have not been any changes in mother's bedding (other than regular washing)so I thought it was peculiar that she suddenly decided that the sheets on her bed were different and not her "real" sheets.

Today, I got more insight into what was going on. She told me that she had been (with the help of Jennifer) looking through all the closets, drawers, and chests looking for the "real" sheets, because (and here's where it gets strange) the sheets on her bed were slipping into her mind and giving her strange and bad dreams.

She "knows" that it has to be the sheets, after all she says, the sheets are "strange" and not the "real" sheets, so they must be pushing themselves into her mind when she is sleeping and causing the bad dreams.

Sad, yet weirdly humorous.

waning moon

2011-07-05T22:37:00.000-04:00

Waning moon

Scythe sharp
Brilliant crescent
Nestles among
Dark pines
Lacing hilltops.

sgreerpitt
Tuesdy July 5, 2011

"waning moon" poem and painting by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com/.

One Single Impression -- Crater

2011-07-03T17:28:00.001-04:00

crater

cosmic impact,
obliterated crust,
shocked quartz,
iridium laden clouds,
cold, dark world;
from all that death
new life…
our kind.

sgreerpitt
Sunday 3 July 2011

"crater " by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com/.

The photograph of shocked quartz, uncredited from National Space and Aeronautics Admininstration (NASA) http://rst.gsfc.nasa.gov/Sect18/Sect18_4.html

For more posts on the prompt "crater" by other poets go to One Single Impression.

One Single Impression -- Seven Sins

2011-06-26T00:01:00.056-04:00

immune to prayer
-unlike gods-
implacable nature
punishes sins,
greed and pride,
with civilizations'
demise.

"sins against nature" by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com/.

Check out the poetry of other writers responding to this prompt at One Single Impression.

It has been more than a year (one year and three months almost to the day) since I last posted a poem for One Single Impression. I'm not entirely sure why I stopped. This morning, I decided it was time to get those creative juices flowing again. When I went to the OSI site, however, I was a bit dismayed at this week's prompt "seven sins," as I don't believe in "sin" in any conventional sense, nor in a parent-like god that personally assigns punishments in some afterlife for sinful behavior.

My belief is in a transcendent, omnipresent, everlasting power in the universe that is expressed through an inexorable physics of matter and energy that governs all activity and relationships. In this universe actions have consequences, some positive, some negative, some devastatingly destructive and some breathtakingly creative. There are no excuses, no pardons, no exceptions, no bargains to be struck or deals to be made. We either work with the power of the universe or we struggle against it. We can fool ourselves - indeed whole civilizations can fool themselves - thinking that we can do whatever we want, because consequences in reality are often incremental and slow, and do not manifest themselves until years, even centuries later.

I'm not just talking about man's relationship to the physical world, although that is upper most in my mind at the moment. This applies in to human interaction as well. There are universal issues and conditions, cooperation, trust, honesty, competition, sharing, exchange, truthfulness, and many others, that operate in the same inexorable way. To gain trust, one must trust, and behave in a trustworthy manner; violate these principles and trust erodes and disappears.

So on reading the prompt, I thought, perhaps it's time to think about a new set of seven "sins", related to these laws of the universe. However, after pursuing Wikipedia's discussion of the Catholic Church's seven deadly sins, I've decided that properly understood the original list really does encompass all the things I'd been thinking about.

a year of small stones - 016

2011-06-10T11:25:00.000-04:00

unmistakeable fragrance
of summer rain
on hot, dry lawns
and dusty leaves.

sgreerpitt
Friday June 10, 2011

"small stone 016" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

the corruption of power

2011-06-07T11:53:00.000-04:00

I like to remind myself at times like these that there are and have been wonderful, decent, honest, men of integrity who have been U.S. Congressmen.

My freshman year at Oberlin College in Ohio, I got to know personally U.S. Congressman Don Pease because he and his wife (with their 5 year old daughter) were the dorm "parents" in my dormitory. Over the next ten years I interacted frequently with the Pease family. While I was a student at Oberlin, I was their daughter's primary babysitter, and I worked on two of Don's Congressional campaigns. After college I remained in touch and visited as often as I could.

The Peases were not rich, or even particularly affluent. They lived in modest rental housing both during his years in Congress and after he retired. Don was a staunch advocate of education, energy, environment and public transportation issues. The only "perk" I ever knew him to take from all his years of public service other than the legally defined salary, benefits and pension, was occasional passes on Amtrak, a government agency that he worked hard to promote. Don Pease was a quiet, gentle man who was beloved as both a husband and father.

So I know first hand that some office holders are not corrupted by the power of their positions. Unfortunately that cannot be said of all.

I am not one of Anthony Weiner's constituents; I've never contributed money to his campaigns; I'm not a friend or family member. But nonetheless I feel betrayed by his actions and especially by the week of lies that he told about his actions.

My sense of betrayal comes because Weiner was a vocal proponent for issues about which I passionately care. He was an eloquent, feisty, acerbic, witty, and even at times belligerent voice in Congress that said things that I would like to say, about the abuses of money, greed and power. I know now that I will never have the same level of comfort or satisfaction with Weiner's public pronouncements. When I see and hear Weiner, from now on I will always know that he is capable of bald-faced lies and deception, and wonder.

In the film Mr. Smith Goes to Washington Jimmy Stewart has an emotional, histrionic breakdown in front of the Senate. We accept this in the context of the movie because we have been shown that this is a man who always tells the truth, a man of integrity. Take away the integrity, and all you have is noise, bluster and showmanship.

I am sad and angry both. We don't take well to finding out our heroes are liars.

my dog ate the remote - thank goodness for Dollar General

2011-05-20T18:47:00.000-04:00

Dollar General stores are the new general stores of small town America in the twenty-first century. They are small and crowded with a wide range of inexpensive, but necessary items. There's not much choice. But when the dog eats your TV remote (as mine did this afternoon) you can find a new one (only one choice) at Dollar General for $10.

To do any significant shopping, in our rural area I have to drive at least 13 miles to Walmart. But there's a Dollar General store about three miles away, that can help when dealing with emergencies. We actually had two today: an huge invasion of ants in our brand new kitchen, and the aforementioned dog attack on the remote. The Dollar General store provided me with ant traps, ant poison spray, and a new remote -- plus some chocolate goodies to sooth my ruffled spirits.

The Dollar General store has clothing, household goods, toys, food, and many of the types of things that used to be found in old fashioned general stores. The one thing that's missing is the old guys, sitting around on wooden chairs playing checkers, and discussing the weather. Maybe that's an idea to pass on to corporate headquarters.

How Can We Value Necessary Work?

2011-05-15T13:51:00.000-04:00

A friend of mine posted a link to a very interesting blog post: Being Blog - The Work We Value, The Intelligence We Ignore: Is the Work that Made America Great Valued Any Longer? The focus of the post was on the testimony from Mike Rowe, the creator and host of Dirty Jobs, before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation about the current contradiction in the American labor force. Today, while we have high unemployment, we also have thousands of skilled, blue-collar, manual labor jobs that are going unfilled. Here is Mr. Rowe's testimony in its entirety:

“Chairman Rockefeller, Ranking Member Hutchison and members of this committee, my name is Mike Rowe, and I want to thank you all very much for the opportunity to testify before you today.

I’m here today because of my grandfather.

His name was Carl Knobel, and he made his living in Baltimore as a master electrician. He was also a plumber, a mechanic, a mason, and a carpenter. Everyone knew him as a jack-of-all-trades. I knew him as a magician.

For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked.

I remember one Saturday morning when I was 12. I flushed the toilet in the same way I always had. The toilet however, responded in a way that was completely out of character. There was a rumbling sound, followed by a distant gurgle. Then, everything that had gone down reappeared in a rather violent and spectacular fashion.

Naturally, my grandfather was called in to investigate, and within the hour I was invited to join he and my dad in the front yard with picks and shovels.

By lunch, the lawn was littered with fragments of old pipe and mounds of dirt. There was welding and pipe-fitting, blisters and laughter, and maybe some questionable language. By sunset we were completely filthy. But a new pipe was installed, the dirt was back in the hole, and our toilet was back on its best behavior. It was one of my favorite days ever.

Thirty years later in San Francisco when my toilet blew up again. This time, I didn't participate in the repair process. I just called my landlord, left a check on the kitchen counter, and went to work. When I got home, the mess was cleaned up and the problem was solved. As for the actual plumber who did the work, I never even met him.

It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes. There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made, and more interested in how things got bought.

At this point my grandfather was well into his 80s, and after a long visit with him one weekend, I decided to do a TV show in his honor. Today, Dirty Jobs is still on the air, and I am here before this committee, hoping to say something useful. So, here it is.

I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor. A big one. Something that addresses the widening skills gap head on, and reconnects the country with the most important part of our workforce.

Right now, American manufacturing is struggling to fill 200,000 vacant positions. There are 450,000 openings in trades, transportation and utilities. The skills gap is real, and it’s getting wider. In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They’re retiring fast, and no one is there to replace them.

Alabama’s not alone. A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn't a lack of funds. It wasn't a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.

In general, we’re surprised that high unemployment can exist at the same time as a skilled labor shortage. We shouldn't be. We’ve pretty much guaranteed it.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We’ve elevated the importance of “higher education” to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled “alternative.” Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as “vocational consolation prizes,” best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of “shovel ready” jobs for a society that doesn’t encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a “good job” into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber — if you can find one — is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we’ll all be in need of both.

I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they’re in short supply because we don’t acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

My written testimony includes the details of several initiatives designed to close the skills gap, all of which I've had the privilege to participate in. Go Build Alabama, I Make America, and my own modest efforts through Dirty Jobs and mikeroweWORKS. I’m especially proud to announce “Discover Your Skills,” a broad-based initiative from Discovery Communications that I believe can change perceptions in a meaningful way.

I encourage you to support these efforts, because closing the skills gap doesn't just benefit future tradesmen and the companies desperate to hire them. It benefits people like me, and anyone else who shares my addiction to paved roads, reliable bridges, heating, air conditioning, and indoor plumbing.
The skills gap is a reflection of what we value. To close the gap, we need to change the way the country feels about work.”

The gap that Mr. Rowe speaks about is entirely real. There are many fields of skilled, blue-collar, manual labor where jobs go unfilled, and workers are desperately needed. But his analysis of why we have this problem is woefully simplistic and lacking. This is no simple matter of attitudes and values, but the result of a complexity of forces that have reshaped our economy and the choices of individuals within that economy.

Which means that it is an issue too complex to be dealt with in one little blog post. However, let's look at two issues briefly: 1) the physical demands of the jobs, opportunities for advancement and retirement, and 2) the issue of health care.

While it is true that most young people think only about the job they will get when they graduate, how much it pays and what its like, their parents and teachers often encourage them to think about longer term issues, such as opportunities for advancement, and how the job will fit them as they age. The skilled manual labor jobs that are going unfilled in our economy are jobs for younger people, with flexibility and strength. The majority of people are unable to continue with physically demanding jobs past their fifties.

Unlike Mr. Rowe (who puts the check on the counter and comes back to work completed), I've been present and actively observing all the plumbing, septic, electrical and construction work done to install my new double wide. What I've noticed is that all the men (no women) who have been using shovels to dig, climbing in ditches, crawling under houses, and climbing ladders have been under 45, and all the men who have been yelling instructions, checking paper work, assigning tasks, and supervising have been over 55. Now the problem is that for over 55 year old doing supervisory work, there are three to five young men carrying out the physical labor, meaning that not every young man who goes into manual labor will have an opportunity to become a supervisory worker or construction business owner. So what does that person do when they hit 50 and their knees no longer bend easily, and their back spasms every time they try to crawl under a house, or pick up a load of bricks, or climb a ladder to install wiring?

Part of the problem of getting young people to go into skilled manual labor fields of work, is the problem of what happens to them when they hit middle age and can no longer handle the physical demands of that job. W have to think seriously and realistically about how to provide work for older blue collar workers, that doesn't treat them as surplus labor to be thrown on the heap of long term unemployment and disability. As a society we are not currently doing well for your 45 to 65 year old blue collar workers. Young people know these workers as their parents and grandparents, and seeing what has happened to them is part of what deters them from going into those fields.

Related to this, of course, is the issue of retirement. A person going into manual labor, has to have a realistic expectation that they will be able to retire while they still have some strength and vitality (early to mid-60's at least) and have adequate income to live comfortably. We're not doing a good job as a society of providing young people with any kind of assurance that social security, much less private pensions will be there for them.

The second issue is health care. When I graduated from college in 1973, during a recession, I took a secretarial position paying minimum wage ($1.80 an hour). With that income I paid not for rent, food, transportation and clothing, but I was also able to afford to buy my own, individual health insurance policy from Blue Cross/Blue Shield. The skilled manual workers at the businesses where I was employed made considerably more money than I did, and could afford health care not only for themselves but for their families as well.

Although young people are more cavalier about their needs for health insurance than older people, health insurance coverage is one of the incentives that a occupational choice may offer someone. Physical labor, puts greater demands on workers, and although actual accidents are usually (but not always) covered under workman's compensation, the general wear and tear on the body's joints and systems is not.

A truly universal health care system, that seriously attacks the costs of medical care and medication, would go a long way towards allowing young people to consider a wider range of occupational choices. If health care stops being tied to jobs, than jobs can be chosen for reasons other than health care coverage.

These are only two of the dozens of complex issues that affect occupational choices of young people in this country, and must be addressed as part of a multi-faceted approach to develop the workforce we actually need to move this nation forward.

the time for uncivilization has come

2011-04-24T13:39:00.000-04:00

For many years I have believed that we humans, especially those in the advanced, capitalist nations like the United States, were living on the edge of something, a precipice perhaps, or a chaotic whirlpool. We have been brought to this edge by gross disregard of the human and ecological consequences of our civilization's economic, technological and political actions.

In recent months, I have come to believe that we are no long on the edge, but have already crossed over and we are already falling or swirling in uncharted, unfamiliar territory, where the old rules and principles no longer provide us with trustworthy answers (if they ever did).

I believe that a majority of Americans know this in their bones, although they cannot bring themselves to recognize it consciously. It is the source of the profound anxiety, anger, and fear of our age, that manifests itself in a vulnerability to demagoguery, obsession with self-protection ("got to that gun with me to get a cup of coffee"), and xenophobia.

I was pleased to discover yesterday, that there are also a growing number of people who are consciously aware of our crossing over, and the need to respond in transformative ways not driven by fear, but reaching out for community. One place for such people to connect is the Dark Mountain Project whose manifesto is reproduced below:

‘We must unhumanise our views a little, and become conﬁdent
As the rock and ocean that we were made from.’
We live in a time of social, economic and ecological unravelling. All around us are signs that our whole way of living is already passing into history. We will face this reality honestly and learn how to live with it.
We reject the faith which holds that the converging crises of our times can be reduced to a set of‘problems’ in need of technological or political ‘solutions’.
We believe that the roots of these crises lie in the stories we have been telling ourselves. We intend to challenge the stories which underpin our civilisation: the myth of progress, the myth of human centrality, and the myth of our separation from ‘nature’. These myths are more dangerous for the fact that we have forgotten they are myths.
We will reassert the role of story-telling as more than mere entertainment. It is through stories that we weave reality.
Humans are not the point and purpose of the planet. Our art will begin with the attempt to step outside the human bubble. By careful attention, we will reengage with the non-human world.
We will celebrate writing and art which is grounded in a sense of place and of time. Our literature has been dominated for too long by those who inhabit the cosmopolitan citadels.
We will not lose ourselves in the elaboration of theories or ideologies. Our words will be elemental. We write with dirt under our ﬁngernails.
The end of the world as we know it is not the end of the world full stop. Together, we will ﬁnd the hope beyond hope, the paths which lead to the unknown world ahead of us.

"Dark Mountain" photograph by sgreerpitt June 2008, is a mountain top strip mine in Letcher County Kentucky.

bulletins from the land of dementia

2011-04-23T21:39:00.000-04:00

In many ways my mother seems to have regressed cognitively to her youth. She has lost decades of knowledge and understanding and reverted to ways of thinking that she deliberately chose to leave behind.

Today she was speaking of neighbors down the street, of a "different religion, not like us." Forgetting that I, her daughter, am "not like" her. Yet it is my mother who made me the person I am. It was her expression of religious doubt, her questions posed in my child's ear, her failure to blind acceptance of the religion in which she was raised, that made me the seeker that converted to Judaism.

My choice caused her some mild consternation at the time, but we talked it through and she was always supportive. Each spring she would mail me a care package of kosher for passover treats and boxes of Matzoh unavailable in the wilds of eastern Kentucky.

I accepted easily that her decline in the last few years meant she would no longer be sending me care packages (indeed now I'm the one sending stuff her way). But it did not occur to me until tonight's phone call, that she neither remembers nor understands the choice I made to be a Jew, why I made it, or what it means ("you mean you don't believe in Jesus at all?" she asked in bewilderment tonight); and that for her the hurt of my desertion is totally new and a fresh source of consternation.

small and white, clean and bright

2011-04-23T21:17:00.001-04:00

No we don't have any edelweiss, but we do have the flower to the left, which is milk vetch, I think - it took quite a while to figure it out, as the flower is listed in the blue/purple section of my wildflower guide, and it is only at the very end that it says that it comes in white as well as purple.

We also have the rue anemone (buttercup family) below, that loves the shaded forest floor.

But the plant that enchants me the most is the snow trillium. I had seen the occasional trillium in past years on walks in the deep woods. Usually one would see a small group together. But this year, for the first time, I am seeing hundreds of them in the woods along US 119 on my drive to work. So far I've been unable to spot a patch where there is a safe place to pull off and take a picture. Then yesterday returning from my weekly shopping excursion, on a narrow winding road, I saw a whole huge bank lit up

with the largest patch of snow trillium I've ever seen. Given the name of the flower, I wonder if their abundance this spring is due to our unusually snowy winter.

photos of milk vetch and rue anemone by sgreerpitt, April 23, 2011

writing life

2011-04-23T20:17:00.001-04:00

it's been a lovely day...I've spent the whole day reading and writing in a new journal. Now I feel like writing where someone other than myself can read, but where to start? How much to say?

I like journals. Influenced by the Diary of Anne Frank, I began keeping a journal in the form of letters to an imaginary friend named Margie when I was 12 or 13 and kept writing Marie on sheets of binder paper until I was 21.

The summer I was twenty-one, and working for a wealthy family in Greenwich, Connecticut as an au pair, I bought a green, bound journal at a New York City stationer that seemed more fitting to the more "serious" thoughts I wished to inscribe. My second entry in that first bound journal was made while sitting in the garden at the Museum of Modern Art, where I marveled at Rodin's Balzac and Picasso's Goat and even more wonderful, the cut-leaf birch trees.

I filled twenty-five bound journals over the next thirty five years. Then I discovered blogging and journal got lost while I explored this new medium and delighted in having an audience for my thoughts. Recently, however, I've begun to miss the physical feel of writing, of putting ink on a clean, smooth page. The last bound journal I purchased was awkward to use, being thick, with small pages. So yesterday, I once again 7 1/2 inch wide by 10 1/4 inch high, and 3/4 inch thick bound journal, with creamy smooth pages and light gray lines. I've already filled fifteen pages with dense black script, pouring out thoughts and ideas, not quite yet ready to make it to the computer screen to be shared with others.

The photo of Picasso's Goat in the MoMA sculpture garden was taken in December 1969 (photographers name not given) and can be found on the Bearne Gallery Website.

dogwood lace

2011-04-19T22:32:00.001-04:00

In the last week, the dogwood has come to full bloom, scattered across the forested hillsides. About six years ago, the pine bark beetle decimated the stands of pine in Letcher County; but in the forest openings they left, the dogwood, an understory tree, has found new expression.

Driving to work this morning, it occurred to me that our Kentucky spring-time hills are like a wide-hipped, earthy "granola" woman, with a long, flowing brown and green calico dress decorated with bits of slightly tattered, antique cream lace.

a return to the 1930's

2011-04-12T19:26:00.001-04:00

In Paducah, Kentucky there are more homeless families than there are shelter spaces, and some of the families (as well as individuals not in families) are being referred to "Tent City," an unimproved campground area in nearby woods.

It's time to make Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath required reading again.

more fairy carpet

2011-04-11T21:34:00.000-04:00

Finally had the time, the light, and the camera at the same time, before my lawn of violets is sacrificed to the great American suburban god 'Lawn Mower.'

a carpet of violets

2011-04-07T22:10:00.000-04:00

This afternoon my husband got the lawnmower out for the first time and tamed the wild jungle inside our fenced yard where the dogs play (and do their business). It looks lovely, all trimmed and neat. But I'm secretly pleased that he did not have time (or energy) to turn the mower on the front yard yet. Two thirds of our huge front yard has been taken over by the velvety purple of tiny violets and their shiny green heart-shaped leaves. It looks like a faerie carpet, ready for spritely dances by gossamer winged creatures.

spring sprung awry

2011-04-03T17:14:00.000-04:00

I never really appreciated spring as a season growing up in California. I did like March, when the winter rains were still with us, and the neighbor's willow tree would begin to green. But the San Francisco Bay Area didn't really have four seasons, just two - raining and dry -- a typical Mediterranean type climate. When I decided to go "back east" to college, a big part of my decision was weather; I actually wanted a real winter, with snow and cold. That real winters resulted in real springs was a bonus that had not occurred to me.

My first year of four seasons in Oberlin, Ohio was full of incredible discoveries. I'd fantasized about what it would be like to walk in falling snow; I learned what it was like to live with two feet of snow on the ground for two weeks, and that walking on icy walks was a real art form. The biggest discovery of that first year was the spring sequence of blooms and color, although I didn't realize the first year that it was an annual occurrence. The sequence that began with the brilliant yellow of daffodils and forsythia, and ended three months later with wild roses. In between came tulips, the flowering fruit trees, red bud, dogwood, irises, blackberry blossoms and heavenly scented lilacs.

Over the next forty years I found that where ever I spent spring -- Ohio, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, or Maine -- that the sequence of spring was the same, only the timing differed. In Ohio, the daffodils and forsythia appeared at the end of April just in time to liven up the last weeks of the semester, in Kentucky, daffodils and forsythia made their yellow splash during spring break in March, in Pennsylvania the yellow blossoms always appeared just after graduation in late April.

Over the past decade, climate change has shifted the start of spring, and its daffodils and forsythia earlier, by nearly two weeks, but the sequence seemed to remain largely intact. This spring, however, the sequence seems a bit out of whack. For the first time in my memory, the daffodils and forsythia came early as they have for some time, in early March, but strangely they hung on longer than usual. Suddenly the flowering fruit trees blossomed white and pink and are already fading to green leaves while the bright yellow forsythia was still in full bloom - and it is past April 1st.

The most startling discontinuity of this spring has been the redbud, which began blooming one full week ago, in March, while the forsythia and daffodils were still bright yellow, and the flowering fruit trees still clung to their pink and white blossoms. This is an entire month ahead of what was normal blooming time for redbud ten years ago.

I can remember driving to Elizabethtown, Kentucky back in 2002 on April 25th and being blown away by the hundreds of miles of light purple redbud along the roadsides. Over the past decade the time for redbud blooming has slowly crept forward. Last year the redbud was in full bloom on April 16, when I drove to Harlan for a faculty meeting. But a leap ahead another two weeks to April 1st to be in full bloom is astounding, and disturbing.

It's as if what was once nearly three months of sequential blooming has been compressed and overlapped into a few weeks of March and April; with the life span of some flowers extending much longer, while others come and go more quickly. The scientists who study climate and and seasonal changes refer to this disruption of established patterns of plant flowering as "desynchronisation" (see: Dr Malcolm Clark and Prof Roy Thompson, and suggest that it could create problems for animal species that depend upon reliable plant food sources for seasonally timed reproduction.

It's one thing to read about the science. It's another thing to have it so clearly visible in one's own front yard.

Photo of redbud from April 16, 2010 by sgreerpitt

a year of small stones - 016 Snow Blossoms

2011-03-28T20:22:00.000-04:00

Snow Blossoms

Overnight
blackberry brambles
have bloomed
in frothy frozen white
presaging May’s
softer blooms.

sgreerpitt
Monday March 28, 2011

"small stone 016 Snow Blossoms" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

humor from the land of dementia

2011-03-19T14:09:00.000-04:00

This is so pitiful and yet funny, I wanted to share it.

My mother is cold all the time. A condition that most elderly people experience. Some of her problem is that she is unwilling to wear sufficient clothing to protect herself from the cold and drafts while she is indoors. She complains that warmer clothing is too heavy and the weight hurts her skin. In particular she shies away from anything around her neck and lower arms, and lower legs (she wears Capri length pants year round). The other contributing factor is that she has also forgotten how to work the thermostat, but cannot admit to anyone that she no longer understands how it works.

Unwilling to face and acknowledge that her own frailties are the cause of her lack of warmth she has devised a number of conspiratorial theories to account for why she is cold now, when she does not remember being cold in the past. My brother told me that one of her frequent complaints is that the utility company (Pacific Gas and Electric) "turns down the electricity and gas" at night so that the heater doesn't work as well as it should.

In our conversation yesterday, she revealed her new explanation - that the freezer stocked full of frozen food by my brother Charlie on his recent visit, is sucking away the power from the natural gas heater making it too cold in the house. She preceded this explanation by a phrase that I have come to dread: "I woke up in the middle of the night, and got to thinking about this problem I have with being cold all the time..." Every time my mother says that she "got to thinking about" anything it's usually trouble.

This particular explanation -- of the frozen foods draining away power from the heater -- she came up with had the virtue (in her mind) of placing the blame on my brother, whom she is very angry with at the moment. It has become necessary for him to take away more and more of her financial decision making power. She can no longer figure out money at all - she cannot interpret her bank statement, can no longer correctly write a check, confuses amounts of money (mistakes $4 for $400, and $4,000 for $40,000), no longer is able to make use of debit cards and credit cards without substantial assistance. At times is willing to acknowledge it to me, but views my brothers necessary steps to safe guard her financial security as an insult to her. "I'm not so poor as he thinks" she says frequently and angrily (meaning incompetent, not poverty struck).

It's other virtue, unfortunately, was that it was something she felt she could act upon without consulting others. So early in the morning, she carefully removed every single item of frozen food from the freezer, and stacked them in the garage. Hundreds of dollars of food that my brother had purchased to keep her fed over the next month.

For some reason, my mother felt the necessity of writing down information about each package that she removed. In telling me this story, she seemed to think that she would need this information when she talked to the utility company about her energy problems. The best I could tell is that she thought that some types of frozen food sucked up more power than others (??).

Luckily for everyone, it was not long before Jennifer (her wonderful health care worker) arrived. Jennifer patiently explained that the refrigerator used electricity, while the furnace used natural gas, so that there was no connection between the two things. It was clear in our conversation, that my mother does not believe this for a minute. But she was willing to accept that no one else would believe what was obvious to her, and she agreed to put all the food back in the freezer.

Once my mother gets an explanation lodged in her brain for something that puzzles her, it does not matter how many times people tell her differently, she will never let it go. For example, more than a year later, my mother is still convinced that the reason why "there's never anything good on TV any more" is because of that "darn box" she was forced to put on the TV. The "darn box" is of course the digital converter box that allows her to continue to get over the air broadcast television on her old analog set, and has nothing at all to do with the programming decisions of the stations she receives.

first comes yellow

2011-03-19T13:38:00.000-04:00

Spring break was wonderful -- just that short period of time away from the whirl of classroom sessions was a respite. Not that I wasn't working the whole week on grading exams, keeping up with my on-line classes, and writing a book chapter. But any change in pace is appreciated. The only truly negative side of spring break is that all the campus flowers bloomed while we were gone. At least the daffodils were still bright to welcome us back.

The thing I like most about spring has been the regular progression of color. The first thing is always the forsythia and the daffodils - brilliant yellow to ward off the doldrums of winter.

regrets

2011-03-01T16:20:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite bloggers, a lovely lady from England is Maggie May. Her profile begins with the sentence: "Not to be confused with the other Maggie May!"

So every time I visit Maggie's blog I am reminded of Rod Stewart's song "Maggie May," which is something of a bitter sweet reminder. While I love the song, in recent years listening to the lyrics carefully has made me uncomfortable. In particular the line "You lured me away from home/just to keep you from being alone," haunts me.

You see, I just may have been a "Maggie May" once upon a time.

My first husband was eighteen (I was 32) when we met, nineteen when we began dating, twenty when we married, twenty-one when he left me, and only twenty-two when we divorced. At the time it felt like he pursued me, like the relationship was equal and mutual. But over the years as I've heard of his struggles in life with addiction, relationships, and careers, I question my perception.

For me, the relationship, despite its brevity, was an overwhelmingly positive force in my life. Even the pain of loss and divorce was a gift that helped me become a better, more insightful, balanced and emotionally richer person.

I hate to think that my gains were another person's losses; so everytime I hear "Maggie May" I wonder. Was that me?

letting go

2011-02-28T12:07:00.001-05:00

Yesterday, on one of my breaks from the computer screen and the research/writing project that is absorbing much of my time, I went over to the old house to sort through file drawers.

We have three metal file cabinets, all of which are so badly rusted from decades of cats peeing on them, that we do not want to move them into the new house. We are replacing them with sturdy modular plastic files. But first I have to go through everything and make the appropriate disposition into "keep," "throw away," and "burn/shred" (for old financial documents, an option that was unnecessary before the age of identity theft).

Some of the decisions are easy. Financial records older than seven years get put in the "burn/shred" pile, those more recent get kept. Warranties and instructions for appliances and gadgets we no longer possess go into "throw away," those that are still relevant go in the "keep" pile.

Other decisions are agonizing. What should I do with the many drawers full of research articles, government documents, interviews, newspaper clippings, and other materials that are the raw data for the dissertation that was the primary focus of my life from 1980 to 1984? Or the later research I did on the National Environmental Policy Act in 1990-1992?

I kept everything, because I always assumed that someday I'd come back to that research, up-date it, extend it, publish it. But it's been twenty years since I've done work in the field of state theory. For twenty years, that field has passed me by. For twenty years, I've hauled all this pile of paper around with me, from one house to another.

The time to throw it away has finally come. If the day comes that I have more time for writing, I would rather spend my time writing fiction, essays and poetry, not trying to rebuild an academic writing career.

So yesterday, drawers of paper went into the big dumpster outside. Given that there was six inches of water standing in the bottom of the dumpster, and heavy rains this morning, that decision to trash all that material is now irrevocable.

An even harder decision centered around letters. I have drawers of folders, each labeled with a friends name, holding letters and cards going back forty-five years. Should I keep them? Throw them out?

There is, of course, the pull of sentiment. Every correspondent was at one time or still is, a loved one, friend, relative, lover. Moreover, as a person who has depending upon saved correspondence for sociological and historical research, I am sensitive to the possibility that some future historian might be looking for descriptive data about everyday life; descriptions at which some of my correspondents over the years have excelled, with humor and insight. On the other hand, I've seen the burden that a life of collecting stuff imposes on children, family and relatives when a person dies.

How to balance those two concerns and the tug of sentiment? Finally I compromised, going through each file, keeping only lengthy descriptive letters and photos, and throwing out all the years of accumulated brief notes, birthday and Christmas cards. Into the dumpster those bags of paper went as well. Also now irrevocable.

Life moves on. Some things have to be let go.

the report of the "death of marriage" was an exaggeration

2011-02-26T21:22:00.000-05:00

November 18, 2010 the Pew Research Center released a research study conducted in conjunction with TIME, that was provocatively, if inaccurately, titled "Decline of Marriage." The research was a survey of Americans' attitudes about marriage and family.

The headline finding of this survey was that 39 percent of respondents to the study agree that "marriage is obsolete." This is an increase from 1978 when only 28 percent thought marriage was obsolete.

The problem is, this is the perception of people, not reality. Moreover, it is the perception of people only 5 percent of whom can accurately describe societies divorce trends for the past twenty years. In other words 95 percent of the respondents to this survey did NOT know that divorce has been declining for the past 30 years.

Turns out that's not the only fact about marriage and the family the respondents got wrong. On seven key questions of fact about marriage and family trends, less than half of the respondents knew what the actual marriage and family trends are.

No wonder their perceptions of marriage and the family are so screwed - they lack the facts.

pivotal people

2011-02-23T23:23:00.000-05:00

I love Facebook. I know that not everyone does, but I do. I love that I have been able to build new ties and bonds with people I've met strictly through the Internet (initially by blogging). I also love that I have a richer connection with the people that I work with and the students that I teach, learning more about their families, their interests, their hopes and fears. But I especially love that I am able to reconnect with people from my past, all the way back to grade school.

Today, I received a friend request from a former student, from my years in Johnstown, Pennsylvania - my first full-time teaching position. We had not lost all touch, corresponding at irregularly for the past 24 years. But now I will finally get to see photos of her husband, her children, her cats, and share more frequently everyday thoughts. Eve mentioned telling her son - now almost college age himself - about me as a pivotal person at a pivotal time in her life. People often speak of teachers and advisers as pivotal, or influential. But as I think about Eve, I realized that she was a pivotal influence in my life at a pivotal time for me.

I was trying to figure out what kind of professor I was, what kind of teacher, what kind of advisor. Eve let me into her life in a way that influenced my ideas about myself as a person and as a professor. She made me feel like I was doing something valuable, because she let me know that I was helping her in her life and career path.

Eve is not the only student to have touched me and influenced me, but there has always been something special about her. Maybe it's because we shared a love of cats (she used to come to my house to visit with my Maine Coon cat Melvin), or because of how courageously she dealt with the internship from hell, or just because she's a wonderful, smart, caring, fun person. I'm so glad that Facebook is allowing us to reconnect on a more regular basis.

humble housewares

2011-02-14T23:08:00.000-05:00

My aunt Mary Katherine Greer was 90 on July 4, 1994. Shortly after her birthday, she moved from the small apartment she'd had for nearly a decade to an assisted living facility to be with her younger sister Edith who was recently widowed.

I was recently engaged to my (now) husband John, and Aunt Mary decided to bequeath to me a number of things from her apartment. One was an extraordinary oak library table that John has used as his desk every day for nearly 17 years. She also gave us this huge (and I mean HUGE) box full of all the partially used boxes of aluminum foil, plastic wrap and wax paper she had accumulated. We actually did not have to buy any of those items for four years after we were married.

The final gift, however, was something that I've never actually used: a twenty piece set of stemware (ten large, ten small glasses), with matching serving dishes. At the time, John and I had our belongings crammed into a small two bedroom townhouse. When we moved to Kentucky, we moved into a much larger house, but it was a house with a tiny kitchen and with hardly any cupboards. There was only enough space to put the bare minimum of dishes and glassware for everyday use. No extras, no flourishes.

The stemware my Aunt Mary gave me was, as she explained, not expensive at all. Not crystal. Not hand cut. Just attractive, nicer than the every day tumblers for which we barely had room.

Our new house is smaller than our old house. BUT it has a much bigger kitchen. That was our one non-negotiable criteria in buying a new double-wide. The kitchen had to be huge, plenty of room for two adults to work at one time, for cats and a dog to wander through, and with lots of cupboards so that all the dishes, glasses, serving bowls, pots and pans would have a place so that we could use and enjoy them.

So today I finally, after almost 17 years, unpacked my Aunt Mary's stemware.

Valentine memories

2011-02-14T13:31:00.001-05:00

In 1955, my family moved into the home where my mother still lives. It was at that time a working class, blue collar neighborhood almost entirely composed of young families with small children (the products of the Baby Boom). My mother would have been the only college educated woman in the neighborhood, a former school teacher. Unlike the other mothers who wanted their children out of the house so that they could clean and watch soaps, my mother encouraged the neighborhood children to gather at our (never very clean) house.

She taught all the children of the neighborhood games to play (Red Rover, Simon Says, Red light/Green light, Poor Pussy, Duck-Duck-Goose) and supervised the play; she encouraged arts and crafts and allowed children to run in and out of the house at will. At the time, I thought these were games she'd played growing up. It wasn't until decades later that I realized these were things she'd learned in her teaching courses in college or read about in novels, and that her own childhood had very few games (or other children) in it.

Our first year in the neighborhood, my mother started a Valentine's day tradition of exchanging Valentine's within the neighborhood, with children scurrying about before light, hiding from each other, to drop cards at each others front doors.

She did this by inviting the other children into our home for valentine-making craft activities, providing cut paper doilies, and red construction paper. While we cut and pasted she told about Valentine's traditions, which now I realize she had never practiced, only read about.

From 1956 to 1963 all the children in the neighborhood, exchanged Valentine's in this way. By 1964 the older girls in the neighborhood had reached high school, and were too "grown up" for the practice so it died out.

a year of small stones - 015

2011-02-03T16:33:00.001-05:00

orchestrated dance
of mechanical bucket,
scurrying workers
in fluorescent yellow,
and falling tree limbs,
artfully avoiding
passing vehicles
and electric lines.

sgreerpitt
Thursday February 3, 2011

"small stone 015" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

getting older

2011-02-03T16:17:00.001-05:00

I am ridiculously pleased with myself about turning sixty this weekend, which is really absurd.

It's not as if the sheer fact of surviving 60 years is any kind of accomplishment in America today. Millions of us 1951 Baby Boomers are marking the big six-oh milestone. Literally hundreds of my personal acquaintances and friends from high school, college and graduate school are marking the same birthday this year. I have one friend here in Whitesburg, our former campus director Eugene, who had his sixtieth birthday last week.

So I can't quite figure out why I feel so smug and accomplished about this particular birthday.

Course, it was nice this morning, when I mentioned that I was turning 60 this weekend -- one of my traditional age students said "no way, I pegged your for not a day over 40." Now that's an ego boost to an old broad like me.

pausing for a moment

2011-02-02T22:06:00.000-05:00

Taking time to notice the small moments of beauty, wonder, intrigue, and humor in the world around me has become second nature, a habit I developed over the past 50 plus years. Not that I always remember every moment of every day to pause and notice, but I try.

The much harder thing is to find the time to record and communicate those observations. Decades ago, I realized that everything in life seemed more real if it was written down, and especially if it was communicated. Both seeing and telling were required.

That is what the January "river of stones" (aros) project challenged, to not only see, but also tell and share. I did not keep up with that challenge, observing much but writing little, and nothing since January 19. But I resolve to begin again, to continue my own year of "small stones."

foreshadows of spring

2011-02-02T15:28:00.000-05:00

A tiny glimpse into the future -- potted irises I gave John for his birthday 10 days ago.

a year of small stones - 014

2011-01-19T13:01:00.000-05:00

pale, dry, ghost leaves
illuminate
winter forest understory.

sgreerpitt
Wednesday January 19, 2011

"small stone 014" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones - 013

2011-01-18T18:07:00.000-05:00

approach-avoidance:
feral cats,
only three left now,
gather at the appointed time
only to scatter
at the opening door.

sgreerpitt
Tuesday January 18, 2011

"small stone 013" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

brief praise of television

2011-01-17T16:43:00.000-05:00

We disconnected our television to move it to the new house on New Years Eve. In the intervening days we have watched three movies on DVD, rewatched the final season of LOST, and I've watched the first and the last seasons of Dawson's Creek (boycotted by my sensible husband). So it's not been as if we were totally without televised entertainment.

But we have severely missed the ability to just flip a switch and see news(or at least what passes as news on 24 hour cable channels), to get our evening Jeopardy! fix, to see the latest installments of favorite sitcoms like "How I met your mother" and "Big Bang Theory."

We found that we really, really missed television. And while we recognize that there is such a thing as too much. We are glad that we once again -- thanks to the cable guy arriving to hook us back up today -- have the option to connect back into the world of television.

a year of small stones - 012

2011-01-17T16:34:00.001-05:00

the slow, sullen drip
of a recalcitrant
January thaw.

sgreerpitt
Monday January 17, 2011

"small stone 012" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

small regrets

2011-01-15T18:39:00.000-05:00

I am delighted with my new house, and getting hooked up to the electrical grid was a necessary step in the process. But I have some regret for the sacrifices of trees made for that to happen.

All the trees in the foreground of this picture -- from the multi-trunked sycamore on the left to the brilliant hued dogwood in the center, to the diagonally growing trees -- were cut down in order to create a new right of way for electric lines and a new pole (right about where the dogwood stood).

Their loss is not so noticeable in the stark black and white world of snowy January, but I know that I will miss these familiar friends come October.

a year of small stones - 011

2011-01-15T18:20:00.001-05:00

more intricate than finest
Belgian laces
winter forest filigree
frames evening sky.

sgreerpitt
Saturday January 15, 2011

"small stone 011" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones - 010

2011-01-15T18:04:00.001-05:00

high altitude
aeronautic crossstitch
embroiders sunset.

sgreerpitt
Saturday January 15, 2011

"small stone 0010" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

new year reflections

2011-01-11T18:34:00.000-05:00

Not going to "resolve" anything this year, but rather reflect and respond.

I'm so pleased that Fiona Robyn created the "river of stones" challenge for January. It is just exactly the creative shove that I needed. 2009 was a very creative year of poetry and painting. Last year just seemed like a year that I was always scrambling just to get by. The last three months were simply devoured by the process of purchasing and moving into a new house.

With the new year, we feel "moved in," and a bit less stressed. Not that the moving process is fully completed -- lots of odds and ends still in the old house that need eventually to be sorted through, thrown away, sold, given away or stored. But life is slowly getting back to normal, and an important part of that normal is writing.

I've let my blog languish. Been a poor blog friend - failing to visit any of my friends blogs for months.

This year more time will be allocated to reflection, reading, writing, and responding.

a year of small stones - 009

2011-01-11T18:07:00.001-05:00

switching tails,
rasping cries,
heads move in unison;
Mrs. Cardinal
flies.

sgreerpitt
Monday January 10, 2011

"small stone 009" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

Photo of Tippecanoe, Tyler Two, Samatha and Eli.

a year of small stones - 08

2011-01-09T12:42:00.000-05:00

sunlight decorates,
a fleeting joy.

sgreerpitt
Sunday January 9, 2011

"small stone 008" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones - 07

2011-01-08T12:07:00.000-05:00

nested dog
snug comfort

sgreerpitt
Saturday January 8, 2011

"small stone 007" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones -- 06

2011-01-08T12:04:00.001-05:00

snowbound
solitude

sgreerpitt
Saturday January 8, 2011

"small stone 006" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones - 05

2011-01-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

watching the road,
waiting,
but they do not come;
all I see is the snow
falling, silent,
cutting off the world.

sgreerpitt
Friday January 7, 2011

"small stone 005" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project.

a year of small stones - 004

2011-01-07T15:16:00.000-05:00

unexpected goats
colored like the dried leaves
on their perch
above the road.

sgreerpitt
Thursday January 6, 2011

"small stone 004" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project.

a year of small stones - 003

2011-01-05T13:33:00.001-05:00

the frost floats like a gray veil
on forest and lawns.

sgreerpitt
Wednesday January 5, 2011

"small stone 003" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project.

a year of small stones - 002

2011-01-03T12:55:00.001-05:00

gnarled white fingers
two sycamores reach for
each other.

sgreerpitt
Monday January 3, 2011

"small stone 002" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

a year of small stones - 001

2011-01-02T16:03:00.004-05:00

branches sharp like knives
in the brilliant air.

sgreerpitt
Sunday January 2, 2011

"small stone 001" is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Part of the "river of stones" project

Etymology of "Christmas"

2010-12-25T15:42:00.000-05:00

It's interesting that the earliest record of the use of the term Christ Mass comes more than a millenium after the putative birth of Jesus.

"The word Christmas originated as a compound meaning "Christ's Mass". It is derived from the Middle English Christemasse and Old English Cristes mæsse, a phrase first recorded in 1038. "Cristes" is from Greek Christos and "mæsse" is from Latin missa (the holy mass). In Greek, the letter Χ (chi), is the first letter of Christ, and it, or the similar Roman letter X, has been used as an abbreviation for Christ since the mid-16th century. Hence, Xmas is sometimes used as an abbreviation for Christmas."
-Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christmas

According to the "On-line Etymology Dictionary" Christ Mass was first written as one word around the mid-14th century (1300's).

the company of kittens/cats

2010-12-14T17:31:00.001-05:00

To my utter delight, tiny Alice has taken to spending her days with me in my study, cuddling up while I work on the computer.

The four kittens -- Tippecanoe, Tyler Two, Eli and Samantha -- born earlier in the spring, having grown up together are more oriented towards each other than they are to snuggling with the humans (not that they never do it). Little Alice, separated from her siblings does play with the older kitties, but is strongly oriented towards me in a very companionable way. She reminds me very strongly both in looks and temperament of my Cricket cat, who was my companion for twenty-one years . Hope Alice has as long and healthy a life as Cricket did.

life lessons from computer solitaire

2010-12-05T09:48:00.001-05:00

This morning, as I often do while waiting for all my programs to load first thing in the morning, I play some games of solitaire, rather than just sit there and stare at the screen. Suddenly I was struck by the idea that there were important life lessons to be learned from computer solitaire.

Some days you lose more than you win, but you can always start over and the next game may be a winner.
When you reach a dead end, its best to stop fruitlessly trying the same thing over and over, and start afresh.
Sometimes the end isn't the end -- you just have to be willing to give up some of what you've already gained, take a few steps backward and head in a different direction. You'll lose points that way, but you will accomplish your goal.

It occurs to me that the last one applies to the current political scene. Principles are important, and we shouldn't give up on them. As much as it goes against principle, maybe it is the right thing to make concessions in one area (temporary extension of tax cuts for the rich) and lose some points, in order to advance a larger agenda - tax cuts for the middle and working classes.

Of course one more important lesson from solitaire is:

Sometimes, when you've taken some steps backward, and tried a new direction, you still end up losing. Then its time to dust oneself off and start anew.

Things I wish I'd known three months ago

2010-12-04T15:34:00.000-05:00

We made the decision to buy a new manufactured house to put on our property in late August or early September. The existing house, also a manufactured double-wide, was installed (incorrectly) thirty-one years ago, and to make a long story somewhat shorter is simply falling apart in a way that is not reasonable to repair. Moreover, the way it was installed (big raw hole dug in the ground and house plopped down in it), makes it impossible to put another manufactured home on the same site.

So we spent some time walking around the property and decided on a good location for to put a new house and armed with the dimensions of that space started shopping around.

Two things I wish we'd known then that we know now is: One, our electrical utility American Electric Power/Kentucky Power has a 100 foot right-of-way around their overhead high power transmission lines (50 feet on either side of the center line), and so even though the lines are more than 30 feet above the valley running from mountain top to mountain top, the power company's right away takes a huge slice out of one end of our property -- the end where we wanted to put the new house. After a couple of weeks of uncertainty we ultimately found a new place to locate the house, but had we known about the power company's right of way before we started we might have chosen a smaller, or at least differently configured house. The second thing I wish I'd known was that the costs of financing the loan (origination fees, title searches, points, etc.) would be more than $9000 above the cost of the house itself; that knowledge definitely would have lead to choosing a smaller, less expensive house.

By the time we'd learned both these things the house we had decided on had already been ordered, and although we were not legally bound to purchase it, we felt moral and ethical obligations, plus, by this time we really liked the house we'd chosen.

Those are the two biggies, but there are many, many smaller things I wish I'd known. I wish I'd known that everything always takes longer than everyone says they will, and that once winter weather sets in all bets are off on the timing of construction activity. Of course we thought, three months ago, that we'd be in our new house before Thanksgiving. That was before the power company right-of-way debacle.

I wish I'd been given a complete and clearly detailed list of all the various tasks that would have to be done, that indicated for each item whether this was something we had to hire workers/contractors ourselves and pay for ourselves or something for which the home seller was responsible. I learned that "oh we'll help you take care of that" means that we're really responsible, and that all the seller is providing is names and phone numbers. But most of all I wish I'd known that just because the manufactured housing company recommends workers (like electricians) doesn't mean that they actually know what they are doing -- we failed electrical inspection the first time around, so more delays. We learned that when people focus too much on trying to "save you money" they can make stupid and costly mistakes.

I wish I'd known about all the different types of inspections, and that you had to pay the inspectors; and I wish that I had known which inspectors were perfunctory and which picky about details. I wish I'd known the level of detail you are suppose to know about your septic system -- and the artistic skill required to draw the map free hand -- before trying to get health department approval.

I wish some one had spelled out for me the exact time sequence that things have to be done in -- I'm still not clear about the necessary order for electrical hook up and septic hook-up, and just hope that the timing comes out right.

I wish I'd known how small a load 4 tons of gravel really was, and how far (not very) it would go. I would have opted for a larger load.

I've been thinking that someone, maybe me, should write down all the things to expect; but then I wonder how generalizable to others situations are the things I've learned?

New House Day -- I hope

2010-11-23T10:04:00.000-05:00

The calendar and the beautiful bare-limbed trees say it is really November, but it did not feel like November at seven AM, when the porch thermometer read 64 degrees--warmer than when I fed the porch cats last night.

The temperature and wind foreshadowed rain, which came pouring down in sheets within moments after a morning walk with Rosie dog.

Today is the day, that our new double-wide house is suppose to be delivered--having signed away our financial life for the next twenty years yesterday. Neither of us could sleep much last night. Anxiety and anticipation mixed in equal amount. Much to be excited about, much to be grateful for, yet there are worries, too.

This is necessary. The old house is becoming unlivable (toilets that don't work properly, plumbing that springs major leaks every six months or so, floors that are rotting with more and more holes covered with temporary boards, major ceiling leaks, an oven that stopped working, an old furnace on its last legs), but experts say that renovation is not appropriate, given that the house was improperly installed more than 30 years over an open 2 to 3 foot pit where a lake of water sits most of the year.

We are excited about a new house, where everything works, and cold drafts don't sift through every room. But we've become accustomed to life without a house payment in the last couple of years, and suddenly taking on new payments, significantly higher than the old ones has us scared. It's been so many years (4 now) since the community college faculty and staff have had any raises. It's hard to imagine that they will ever come again. Thus, anxiety tempers the elation of something new.

Life is so fragile. Within the past months, several of my friends, students and former students have lost a spouse suddenly in devastating events (homicide, drunk driver accidents, work accidents). By comparison our anxiety over the financial burdens of a new house seem trivial--and so we will muddle on through I'm sure, and nights of good sleep will ultimately return.

Footers in the rain (10 AM)

let there be peace on earth...

2010-11-03T21:55:00.000-04:00

...and let it begin with me and mine.

Check out the Blogblast for Peace on blogs and Facebook.

A. J. Muste once said that there is only as much peace as there are peaceful people.

"This is your only life--live it well!
No one man can bring about a social change--
but each man's life is a whole and necessary part of his society,
a necessary step in any change,
and a powerful example of the possiblity of life
for others.
Let all of our words and our actions speak the possiblity of
peace and cooperation between men.
Too long have we used the excuse:
"I believe in peace, but that other man does not--when
he lasy down his arms, then I will follow."
...
Let each man begin a one-man revolution of peace and
mutual-aid--so that there is at least that much peace...
a beginning...

Chuck Matthei, contained within a poem by Denise Levertov "Staying Alive" Part II

constructing memory

2010-10-10T19:25:00.002-04:00

"Memories are never just 'stored'; they are always created anew. Language does not just evoke memories; it can change them, and thereby change history--the story of the past." George Lakoff The Political Mind, page 231

Two weeks ago, I lead a discussion among our honors class students on "how do we know what we know?" We were talking about knowledge gained from personal experience (especially that which has strong emotional states attached), knowledge gained from observing others, knowledge acquired from trusted sources (and the various reasons why we trusted different sources), etc. Each type of means of obtaining knowledge prompted a students to provide examples from their own experience.

One student proffered her thoughts on knowledge we have without seeming to have a source for it -- the sixth sense so to speak. This occasioned several other students to provide examples of "knowing without knowing how" they knew. I also had an example to give for that as well; an example based on an incident when I was 18 and working in the public library -- in which I identified from across a crowded from a girl I'd never seen or spoken to before, as the other "Sue Greer" whose phone calls I had been erroneously receiving for several months, then went up to her, spoke and verified the correctness of my identification. This is story is one that I have recounted dozens of times in the past 41 years to illustrate what I considered one concrete experience with knowing something through other than regular sensory channels.

Later in the same class discussion, another student with an extensive background in psychology spoke of the work of researchers in cognitive science (such as George Lakoff, above), who have determined that each time we "recall" something, we are actually constructing that memory, an act that of necessity changes the memory each time it is recalled. Those changes may be minuscule or sweeping in nature.

Following that class, I found myself standing in the ladies room looking at myself in the mirror, and realizing suddenly for the first time in more than four decades, that I have no idea how much of the story I told is "real." It feels real to me, and has had real influences on my beliefs and attitudes over those years. Some elements of the story seem solidly based -- I did work in the public library when I was 18, and there was another girl from elsewhere in the city with the same name as mine whose calls I did receive on occasion. I also am quite certain that I spent a fair amount of time while working in the library wondering what the other "Sue Greer" looked like, and if she might be one of the young women who came into the library. But as for the rest of it, I have no idea how much of that actually happened, and how much is a story that I have invented over the years.

The honors student who introduced us to this idea of the constructed nature of memory, was certain that while human memory and human perception are quite fallible that there was, in fact, an objective reality, an absolute truth to what had happened; a truth that might be revealed by objective instrumentation, such as video cameras. While there may an objective truth, independent of the humans viewing it with regard to the natural world (and I'm not wholly convinced of that given when I know about modern physics), I am quite certain that no such singular truth applies to human action.

Some months ago, I wrote (in "Singing the Truth Together") of the multidimensional, multiperspectival nature of human truth. When two (or more) people interact the truth of that interaction can only be arrived at by acknowledging all perspectives.

These two ideas -- the constructed nature of memory and the multidimensional nature of truth -- came together for me yesterday. While searching for another Oberlin classmate on Facebook, I happened upon a familiar name from a class about 8 years behind mine -- that of a man that I had interviewed for the Oberlin College admissions office around 1977 or 1978. He had made such an impression on me during the interview -- that we continued to interact, by phone, letter, and in person occasionally over the next year.

My memories of our interaction, although not many, were vibrant, warm, and positive, so I sent him a Facebook message. I was pleased, but puzzled when he responded and his message began with an apology for being "a jerk" back then. I don't remember a "jerk", I remember some one who was a smart, interesting, exciting, unconventional, "edgy" young man.

This disparity in our memories does give me hope that all the men from my past that I remember treating badly -- out of ignorance more than intention -- do not judge me as harshly in memory as I do myself.

autumn garden

2010-09-27T09:46:00.000-04:00

September 27 and our unusually long hot summer has extended the growing cycle of the tomatoes substantially. The presence of the large ripening tomatoes is not as unusual as the new growth -- dozens of new buds and new tiny green tomatoes forming.

This part of Kentucky is normally frost free until between October 4 at the earliest and October 30 at the latest, but usually cooling temperatures have discouraged the formation of new growth and new buds long before now. The normal average low for the month of September around here is 53 degrees F and by this time of the month, the lows normally run in the mid-forties (fahrenheit), but this year, the average low in September so far is 58 degrees F, with only one day (back on September 1) where the low was below 50 degrees.

The normal average high for September is 76 degrees F. This year, the average high temperature so far for September is 88 degrees -- 12 degrees above average. In fact there have only been three days all month that have fallen below the normal average of 76 degrees!

While it is pleasant to have new tomatoes growing on the vine in late September, this disruption of past patterns of plant growth cycles for this region, has the potential to throw off the life cycles of the many types of animals, from insect life and birds, to mammals, whose times for mating, raising young, migrating, and hibernating developed under a different climatic regime.

Photos "September tomatoes" by sgreerpitt, taken September 27, 2010.

grace

2010-09-26T12:57:00.000-04:00

Like the gentle rain now falling on our dry autumn forest, the grace of friendship renewed my life this morning.

I turned on the computer to find heartfelt comments from former students and other Facebook friends to my previous post "fear." For a while the waterworks inside rivaled those outside. This momentarily dismayed my husband, who like most men, just doesn't understand that women cry when they are happy as much or more than when they are sad.

Moreover, I was reminded once again, by the comments here on the blog and on Facebook, of the grace of others with much greater burdens to bear than I have, who take the time to support a friend.

fear

2010-09-24T22:30:00.000-04:00

Every day at seven PM I call my mother. It is four PM her time on the California coast, but despite that time difference we are both generally at about the same place in our day -- dinner time. Most days the call lasts for ten minutes. Some days when we both have a lot of say, it can last half an hour.

Every day at seven PM I am witness to my mother's decline into dementia. Her doctor and health care workers use the term Alzheimer's, but because I am not there I cannot ask them more detailed questions. I know from reading that not all dementia is Alzheimer's, and what is happening to her does not fit the way I have seen Alzheimer's described or depicted in the ubiquitous commercials for drugs and products. But then I know very little, and the disease progresses differently in different people I am told.

The most obvious symptom to me through our daily phone calls is the aphasia. She loses words. She knows what things are and what they do and what they are for, but she can no longer retrieve the names for them. Common everyday objects, events and actions escape her. She is acutely aware of this problem and struggles. Sometimes I will try to supply a word here and there, but mostly she seems to prefer to just provide round about descriptions (such as "that nosy box with pictures in the living room" for TV). She has also forgotten how to do things, like all but the most simple cooking, and can only write a check with substantial assistance from someone. Numbers and arithmetic are almost completely beyond her. She never learned to use a calculator and certainly will not now.

The biggest crisis in my mother's life at this particular point in time is that the company that provides municipal garbage and recycling pickup for her California suburb, has suddenly decided to entirely change the rules. They have delivered three big huge wheeled containers, one green, one blue and one black, and detailed written instructions on what can and cannot go in each one. My mother is utterly bewildered by this.

She has daily assistance, and I imagine that Jennifer has a much firmer grasp on what is required for properly filling these new containers. But my mother wants to be able to understand this herself, and she simply cannot get her mind around how they will store and dispose of the various types of recyclables, trash and garbage.

I feel for my mother, and her pain and anxiety. But am comforted by the knowledge that Jennifer and my brother Charlie are there to take care of the actual logistics of this particular crisis.

There is however, my own growing fear that I too am slipping down the long slippery slope to cognitive disorder. My mother is 86, and I am only 59, but I believe I see the signs and symptoms in myself.

I have had problems with word loss for more than 15 years, and it has been getting worse. Nothing like my mother. But a couple of times a week, I will be lecturing in class or talking to my husband, and suddenly will be unable to capture the right word -- not every day nouns and verbs like my mother now has difficulty with, but everyday, routine concepts of my discipline and the social sciences in general, and with descriptive adjectives and adverbs. Some weeks, when I am tired or stressed, are worse than others.

The other thing that frightens me, is my reaction to new and novel situations or the disruption of routines. I become mentally flustered, and sometimes panicked, and have the unfortunate tendency to lash out angrily at those around me (primarily my wonderful, patient husband, who deserves far better than he's gotten of late). Within moments of my outburst, I feel remorse, but the damage is already done.

If there is time to think about some thing new, figure out what is going on, what needs to be done, and then act, I'm fine. It's the situations that require an immediate response that throw me. Yet, everything I read tells me that what I need is more novelty. I need to get out of my ruts, challenge myself with new tasks, meet new people, try new places and activities -- especially physical activities -- to stimulate my mental "muscles."

Unfortunately my actual physical muscles -- or more specifically my joints -- are undermining efforts in that direction. The RA seems to be progressing. After two years, my medications no longer seem to prevent the end of the day exhaustion. Daily housework chores like dishes and feeding cats overwhelm me. Weekly chores like house cleaning and laundry -- well, it's been a long time since those were actually done on a weekly basis. It seems clear to me that it will not be long before I will need to have more help around the house than John can provide, even if he were to provide more than he already does.

How long do I have before I become like my mother? How long before I can read the words but no longer make sense of the content? How long before I can no longer remember how to work my computer, send e-mail? How long before I can no longer have a normal conversation?

What do I need to do to provide security for myself and John before that day comes? What things is it essential for me to do and say before that day comes? What legacy do I still have to leave before I can no longer communicate with the world in a meaningful fashion?

a moon behind the forest

2010-09-23T23:07:00.001-04:00

Last night there was that infrequent occurrence of a harvest moon on the same day as the autumnal equinox. I wanted to see it when I heard about it. But by the time the moon rose over the mountain and forest it was past my bed time.

I stood in the dark of the bathroom after midnight last night, noticing how bright the light of the moon was outside the white curtains. I contemplated lifting the curtains and realized that I would not be able to see anything through the accumulated grime and cobwebs and the window screens, even if I could figure out the right angle to stand in the bathtub to look up at the sky.

Then I thought about putting on my shoes, and finding my camera and stepping outside to see it properly. But my camera needs batteries, and by the time I found them, and got outside and took the pictures, I'd be so thoroughly awake that I'd never get back to sleep. Morning already loomed too close for comfort. So I went back to bed and watched the glow of the moon on the bathroom curtains, and slept.

I thought of it again this evening, and even though its the day after the equinox, and the full moon, the moon will still be big and bright. Bright enough that I can see its glow well above the tree line, even though the moon itself is still just tiny pin pricks of bright white peeking out from the autumnal thinning forest.

I don't think I'll be able to stay awake tonight either long enough to see it.

I have the nagging feeling that this whole situation with me and not seeing the moon is a metaphor for my life right now. That whatever this malaise is, that has crept up on me in the last two months, it is like the black forest between me and the harvest moon.

"Moon Behind the Forest" by sgreerpitt, September 23, 2010.

not

2010-08-28T14:46:00.005-04:00

My husband John, still attempts - futilely - to get the kittens to understand that "not" said loudly and strongly means that they should stop doing whatever it is they are doing and behave themselves.

Pictured is Samantha (Sammie) engaged in her favorite activity -- whaling the tar out of a roll of paper towels and redecorating the house with thousands of little white pieces of paper towel. She was told "not" repeatedly, but it goes in one of those great big ears and out the other one!

lovely late summer day

2010-08-26T19:51:00.004-04:00

It was the way it ought to be in the Kentucky mountains at the end of August--warm but not hot--as the sun shot out golden rays before dipping below the crest of the hills.

My tomatoes are also doing just as they should, plump and red. These will be ready for picking tomorrow most likely.

Katrina Remembrance

2010-08-22T22:19:00.002-04:00

Professional photographer Virginia Hart (a high school friend from California) took photographs of conditions on the Gulf coast in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina for the Red Cross. Below is a collection of moving images to mark the fifth anniversary this August 29th.

YouTube - Katrina Remembrance

Please watch!

virgin's bower

2010-08-22T11:13:00.008-04:00

Yesterday I did my big "shop" over the hill into Virginia. For ten miles, from the Kentucky border to Wise, VA, the steep banks on either side of the road were laden in creamy vanilla virgin's bower (Clematis virginiana) my favorite late summer wildflower. The photos above and below are from our own yard, where virgin's bower has taken over portions of both the front and back banks. It's a very opportunistic vine, and will twine itself over bushes, trees, and other vines (like blackberry).

an ancient and venerable cat

2010-08-14T11:08:00.004-04:00

Our elderly cats have been disgruntled by the intrusion of four lively kittens into their staid and familiar world. Oscar in particular has looked with impassive disdain upon all the kittens' wild gymnastics.

Oscar is a cat of indeterminate age. He was already an adult who had fathered at least one summer's worth of kittens, and probably more than that, when we arrived here in Kentucky in the summer of 1996. [The second orange cat in the background is one of Oscar's daughters that we adopted.] So we figure him to be at the very least 15 years old, but probably more like 16 or 17. He was the "neighborhood" cat, and was fed by several folks, including me. Though I was the only one who took him for veterinary care.

In 2001, an encounter with a vehicle of some kind broke his hip, and we took him in and made him a house cat. He never once showed any interest in trying to go back outside. Oscar has became the undisputed king of the household. Even Rosie the dog bows down to his eminence. And "his majesty" as John calls him gets to eat his meals any where he pleases -- we let him pick!

a prosaic post

2010-08-13T18:40:00.007-04:00

What could be more mundane than a couch, and a decades old couch at that. But today I got brand new cushions for my twenty-four year old couch, to replace the ones that have had coffee, orange juice, milk, beer, and cat puke spilled on them for twenty-four years.

Of course as soon as John and I had admired the new cushions, and sat on them for a few minutes, it was time to put the red flannel sheet back over them so that the newest generation of cats won't throw up hair balls on these fine pillows. Two of said kittens (Sammie and Tippecanoe) wouldn't lay on the new pillows until we covered them back up with the red flannel sheet.

today while the flowers still cling to the vine...

2010-08-03T20:40:00.007-04:00

The first line of my favorite song from childhood "Today" performed by the New Christy Minstrels. Through the power of my iPod, I took a wonderful mental trip back through childhood, while enjoying the mountain scenery on my hour plus drive to and from in-service this morning.

Songs recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary, the New Christy Minstrels and Pete Seeger, that my brothers and I sang in the car on family trips, like "If I Had a Hammer," and "Little Houses made of Ticky Tacky," and "Michael Row the Boat Ashore." The version of that song on my iPod is from a live album, and features hundreds of audience voices joining the performers on repeated verses. And I was transported for a moment, to a day, when United Air Lines celebrating their first jet passenger planes from McDonnell-Douglas, had invited all San Francisco Maintenance Base employees and their families to a huge party in a cavernous hanger, with music by the New Christy Minstrels. I tell you, you have not heard anything until you hear 5,000 people, young and old, singing "Michael Row the Boat Ashore" inside the acoustic miracle of a jet hanger. It was, and continues to be the most awesome musical experience of my entire life.

the early bird catches the fog

2010-08-03T20:25:00.008-04:00

Today was back to work day, the first day of in-service meetings for faculty and staff, which began with a breakfast at 8:30 AM. The breakfast was held at a location near our main campus, more than an hour's drive from my home. The trip takes me over Pine Mountain, a huge, ancient block thrust fault that separates the Cumberland Plateau of southeast Kentucky (visible in the photos) from the folded corrugated mountains and valleys of southwest Virginia.

Many of my friends have taken spectacular photos of morning fog from this vantage point on Pine Mountain's northern face (just below the summit), but I'd never had the favorable coincidence of time and fog and a camera on hand before.

The photos sweep from northeast to north to northwest from top to below. Tiny Whitesburg is hidden under the fluffy white folds of the center photo.

one small proposal for gettting from here to there

2010-07-31T13:53:00.001-04:00

Our earth is undergoing measurable global climate warming that has a significant anthropogenic component, with the primary anthropogenic contribution to warming coming from the steady increase in CO2 emissions from the use of fossil fuels such as oil and coal. Moreover, warming that has already occurred over the past century and warming that is certain to occur in the next century, have had and will have recognizable negative impacts on the health of human beings and human societies. Those impacts include, but are not limited to, rises in sea level and loss of shoreline, changes in plant and animal populations (declines, increases, shifts in range) including changes in disease vectors (such as West Nile Virus and Malaria carrying mosquitoes), increasing drought with its impact on food crops and human water supplies, and increasing extreme precipitation events with concomitant flooding.

Among the scientific community there is debate and need for continuing research on how much warming and how fast future warming will occur, and the regional patterning of impacts, but there is general consensus on the basic facts of warming and its causes and its consequences. Recent polling of the general population in the United States shows that about three quarters of the American population accept the scientific consensus on the reality of global warming and the anthropogenic causes of that warming. However, there is a decided lack of consensus both within the scientific community and the general population on exactly what should be done to address the problems posed now and in the future by global warming.

Just because people agree that a problem exists and that something should be done, has never meant that they will agree on what to do about that problem. This has always been true. There are lots of good sociological and psychological reasons for this lack of agreement. From a psychological perspective immediate, present threats to one's livelihood and material well-being are more salient and real than predicted future threats no matter how real we consider those future threats to be. A parent will always be more concerned about the present day need to keep a roof over their children's heads and food on the table today, than they will be about the availability of housing and food for those children in 20 years.

From a sociological perspective we have organized our economy around the need to maintain very short term current profitability to retain investors, rather than around long term future. The structures, rules and practices of business decision-making and investor decision-making, make it difficult for either business managers or investors to forgo current profits in exchange for long term sustainability.

For a utility company currently generating most of its electricity from coal fired plants shifting to solar or wind generation has many economic drawbacks. If a utility simply purchases "green" power from another electricity producer who is already invested in wind, solar or hydro-power, the primary profit from power production goes to the actual producer not the utility company purchasing the power. To make any profit, they have to raise the cost of that power to the customer, making it more expensive than the coal generated power, and thus less attractive to consumers of electricity. Such a move also introduces greater inefficiencies -- the further electricity is transmitted the greater the loss, so purchases power from a distant provider means that you get less power for your buck as well.

On the other hand, if a utility company decides to themselves begin producing electricity from wind, solar or hydro sources, there is the huge upfront capital investment that must be made. While this may have great long term profit potential (once constructed one never has to pay for sunlight or wind unlike coal), it has tremendous short term costs that affect profitability and investor satisfaction. If a utility attempts to pay for this by raising utility rates up front, there is substantial customer dissatisfaction, and in states (like Kentucky) with strong political incentives to protect coal, little political interest for public utility commissions to support such rate increases. Additionally, the construction of a centralized solar or wind generation plant requires huge acreage, that may not be readily available to a utility company near its customer base.

Finally, another reason that utility companies become nervous about discussions, is that the idea mode of generating electricity from solar energy is a pattern of dispersed, household level or building level generation, where solar panels sufficient to the needs of a particular housing unit or office building are placed on the building itself. This eliminates two problems: first, all the extra land that would be needed for centralized solar generation, and second, the problem of electricity losses due to transmission over distance. However, since currently housing unit and office building solar electricity generation is financed and operated by individual families or businesses it represents a loss of revenue for the utility company, and certainly not something they really want to encourage.

Moreover, from the point of view of the individual, family or business, the cost of constructing small localized solar (and wind) generation is quite large (at least $20,000), and far beyond the reach of the median household. While such household level solar (and wind) electricity generation does pay for itself over twenty to twenty-five years (the vast majority of the costs are in the initial hardware and installation and after that the electricity itself is essentially free), the upfront costs are prohibitive for all but the most affluent and most environmentally committed.

Now, finally to my proposal. I acknowledge up-front, as a person who is uncomfortable with the power of utility companies now, this is not my ideal solution, but it is a means of decreasing the input of CO2 into the atmosphere, to ameliorate future extent of global warming and its impact, while dealing with many of the problems outlined above. My proposal is that electric utility companies currently heavily invested in their own coal-fired generation consider adopting the model used by Bell Telephone in the 1950's. In exchange for a modest installation fee (say a few hundred dollars that could be prorated over a period of time) well within the budgets of middle and working class families with "green values," the utility company would deliver and install solar panels on the consumers home -- but, and here's what I think is a new idea (at least as applied to electricity generation) the utility company would retain ownership of those panels in perpetuity, and charge the consumer a monthly fee for the electricity consumed from those panels.

Here's the details -- the one's that I think would make this idea appealing to both the consumer and to the utility company. The individual solar installations would 1) be large enough to provide for ordinary, peak daylight hours electricity use and 2) would be tied into the grid allowing for both inflow and outflow. The utility company would benefit, because all excess electricity generated would flow into the grid for use by other customers (and unlike the situation where a household customer owns the solar installation, the utility company would own that excess flow outright and not be paying the customer with the installation for it). With each household or business that added solar generation, the electricity generating capacity of the entire grid would be expanded. The capitalization costs would be spread out over time -- no huge up-front investment in generation capacity years before any new power can be generated. Moreover, following current phone company and cable company practices, the utility company could charge a very small (a few dollars) monthly maintenance fee to consumers, to cover costs of periodic maintenance and repair.

The consumer would benefit in two ways: they would have the assurance that in the absence of sunlight they would still have electricity, and conversely, during widespread power outages due to downed transmission lines they would also still have their locally generated power. Indeed, if several households in a neighborhood had contracted with the utility for solar panels, the entire neighborhood circuit might be protected from electricity loss during a widespread outage.

In the beginning only middle income and upper income families that are highly committed to environmental, "green" values would participate. I know I would. I would be very willing to pay a reasonable premium in installation costs just to be assured that while I was sitting at my computer typing away I was using electricity generated by solar power rather than by coal obtained by scalping the mountains around me. Overtime, as people begin to notice, that one of their neighbors still has electricity after a storm has knocked out everyone else, the appeal of solar panels might spread. If the utility made the cost of electricity generated in situ from the solar panels marginally less expensive (say 1/2 cent per KWH) compared to electricity pulled from the grid, this would increase the appeal of participation.

From the utility company's perspective, they are able to gradually expand their generating capacity, using "green" sources, with small, periodic expenditures of capital that can be partially charged to the customer (installation fees), and also recouped by feeding all excess electricity generated into the grid. Customers without the panels who depended solely on the grid would pay the standard rate for their electricity. By dispersing solar generation through out the households served by a utility, there would be a substantial increase in efficiency, as electricity would be consumed closer to where it was generated, reducing the losses to long distance transmission. Most of all this idea allows utility companies to make the transition to renewable electricity generation gradual and incremental, and thus less painful and more acceptable.

So there is my idea -- somebody tell me what's wrong with it!

weather is not climate, but....

2010-07-24T15:30:00.010-04:00

The Weather Channel's website has a number of nifty new features. One of which provides you with lots of information about how your current month (and previous month) stack up against historical weather patterns. I've captured the screen shots for my zip code 41825, for June 2010 and July 2010.

Notice that for both June and July the "highest temperature recorded so far" is higher than the historical record for that month -- so we broke the all time temperature records for both June and July in Eastern Kentucky. Notice also that the total rain fall amounts for both June and July are well below the average. June's precipitation total was 1.05" below the average. Of course July isn't over yet, but let's hope we don't get 3.65" of rain in one week. While the July total rain is more than three and a half inches below normal, eastern Kentucky did get one whale of a gully-washer, to the great dismay and anguish of hundreds of folks in Pike county.

While it is important to remember that weather is not the same as climate, and unusually hot days occur periodically, as do droughts and floods, overall warming of the climate as is currently occurring on planet earth, does give rise to more frequent extreme heat, more common droughts, and paradoxically more frequent intense rain events like that seen in Pike County this month.

how shall we live? part 1

2010-07-17T15:08:00.013-04:00

My attention has returned in recent days to a theme that has long concerned me, a theme that has popped up in several very interesting blogs.

Will of Zen Agnostic sums this theme up nicely in this quote:

"most of what the doctors are calling mental illness, clinical depression, neurotic behavior - this not illness. It is a natural reaction to an insane culture and a dying planet....Part of the problem in this insane screwed up world is that people can't be open about their grief and anger. Our emotions are natural and healthy - but society at large labels us as unhealthy if we don't put on a smile every day and joke about the weather and sports and the latest celebrity DUI arrest. Simply writing about it, naming it, not hiding from it, is an act of resistance."

Over at CommonDreams.org Robert Jenson writes:

"To be fully alive today is to live with anguish, not for one's own condition in the world but for the condition of the world, for a world that is in collapse."

And Dave Pollard at how to save the world writes of the dissonance between the messages from our bodies (physical survival, avoidance of pain, procreation of our genetic material), our culture (values, beliefs, attitudes and norms), and from our environment or biosphere which he labels gaia. Dave argues that:

"this dissonance is paralyzing; it renders us ill, physically and mentally, and ultimately we get exhausted trying to handle it so we become desensitized, shut down."

Like these three bloggers, everything I know, everything I study as a sociologist, as a observer of human society and culture, suggest to me a world in collapse, that has already "overshot" the material basis (resources, food, energy) on which its existence depends. I strongly recommend reading the work of Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and Dennis Meadows, The Limits to Growth (1972), Beyond the Limits (1992) and The Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update (2004). Meadows, Randers and Meadows wrote in their first book (1972) that:

"If the present growth trends in world population, industrialization, pollution, food production, and resource depletion continue unchanged, the limits to growth on this planet will be reached sometime within the next 100 years. The most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrolled decline in both population and industrial capacity."

By 1992, Meadows, Randers and Meadows were convinced that those limits had already been reached in several areas (for example world wide grain production peaked in the 1980's), and by 2004 the conclude that we were approaching other limits much faster than their original hundred year time line.

Most people in modern industrial societies have lost awareness of how deeply the health of society is tied to the health of the environment. They think of our technology as lifting us above the vicissitudes of weather and changes in climate. Yet all one has to do is examine the extent to which "normal" daily activities in our society are fouled up and even stop dead, when it gets too snowy or too hot, or when a hurricane stops the pumping of oil for the Gulf, to realize that our technology has made our societies more rather than less vulnerable to changes in our environment.

We are on a path that is unsustainable in human social terms, not just in environmental terms. The two are so intimately intertwined that we cannot deal with one without dealing with the other. Our economy is not only unsustainable in terms of its use of resources and energy, but it is unstable and unsustainable in terms of the ever increasing disparity between the tiny percentage whose wealth is growing and the other 95 percent whose wealth is declining. We are impoverishing our people and our society as well as our ecosystems and biosphere.

[I realize that this is a larger topic than I can do in one post, given all the other immediate deadlines in my life, so I'm going to make this a multi-part post, with this installment just identifying the problem and linking to some great blogs. more on the actual question posed in the title another day.]

singing the truth together

2010-07-16T10:54:00.006-04:00

I recently I discovered a very early book, After Long Silence, by my favorite science fiction writer Sheri Tepper. In the story, humans have settled on a world they view as devoid of sentience, but which is inhabited by at least two sentient races--one huge crystalline entities, and the other small, furry, mammalian creatures called "viggy" by the humans. Through the viggy, Tepper critiques certain aspects of humanity by posing a more attractive alternative. Here is an extended quote, that I think says something extraordinarily valuable about communication and truth, and the error of human ways:

"Memory is a strange thing. A viggy would experience a thing and remember it. Another viggy would experience the same happening and remember it as well. And yet the two memories would not be the same. On a night of shadow and wind, one viggy might sing that he had seen the spirit of his own giligee [nanny], beckoning from beside a Jubal tree. Another viggy might sing he had seen only the wind, moving a veil of dried fronds. What had they seen, a ghost or the fronds? Where was the truth in memory? Somewhere between the spirit and the wind...

When the troupe traveled down a tortuous slope, one would remember pain, another joy. After a mating, one would remember giving, another would remember loss. No one view would tell the truth of what occurred, for truth always lay at the center of many possibilities.

Many views yield the truth...This was the first commandment of the Prime Song. Only when a happening had been sung by the troupe, sung in all its various forms and perceptions, could the truth be arrived at. Then dichotomy could be harmonized, opposition softened, varying views brought into alignment with one another so that all aspects of truth were sung."

One of the benefits of blogging (and Facebook) for me has been not just singing my song of my life, but having others who were present sing their song back to me, and I come to see how limited my own perspective was then and continues to be. Often just the fact of writing things down, has opened my eyes to not just the possibility of other perspectives, but of the great likelihood that my perspective was seriously flawed, limited and self-absorbed. Having high school and college friends respond with their own memories has enriched my understanding in ways I never anticipated.

I don't think that this search for truth together means that all perspectives are equally valid. For example, there are always those students who insist "I don't care what the statistics say, divorce HAS to be increasing." [It's not by the way, it has been declining since 1981, and is lower today than it was in 1967]. But it is worth us trying to discover together what it is about their life experience that makes them feel as if the divorce rate were increasing.

We appear to be at a juncture in our social and political history, when the lessons of the viggy might be good ones to remember.

my life as a ghost

2010-07-14T13:10:00.007-04:00

When I was a teenager and a young woman, indeed until I married in my mid-thirties, I had delusions of insignificance. In those days I viewed my impact on others as like that of a ghost.

Perhaps you remember the movie Ghost (Demi Moore and Patrick Swayze), in which the dead (Swazye) require enormous effort and concentration in order to have even the smallest impact on the physical world and to attract the attention of the living.

I believed that to have friends, to have people care about me, required enormous, constant effort on my part. The idea that people would like me, just because I was me never crossed my mind. I had friends, but I believed that was only because I worked so hard at being a good friend.

Friendship was hard enough, but the idea that I might be noticed by men and loved for myself was utterly beyond my world view. I was convinced of my inherent unlovableness. I imagined that if I were to try hard enough, if I baked enough cookies and brownies, wrote enough poems, spent enough time listening to his stories and jokes, gave him enough flowers and unique presents, painted his portrait, devoted enough direct attention to him, then like Patrick Swayze in the movie, I might move the penny just enough to penetrate his awareness. Then if I could penetrate his awareness, I might, with sufficient effort, gain some small measure of affection. However, I was realistic, after all I was not “the kind of girl men fall in love with” – a mantra I repeated often to myself.

Because I thought of myself as a ghost, who could only make an impression on others with great effort, I was unable to conceive of my actions as having any impact on others. Since I believed that it took concerted concentration for me to even begin to dent the awareness of others – especially men – the thought that action or inaction by me could wound someone else never floated into the realm of possibility.

In college when I dated two men who were roommates, it never occurred to me that they would even notice, much less be hurt in any way by my actions. When I made out with one young man one weekend, and his close friend the next, it was to me as if my actions were invisible, cloaked by my ghostliness, occurring in separate, discrete, universes. Even if it had occurred to me that either young man noticed my behavior, it would not have occurred to me that there could be any hurt feelings. After all, how could some one who was a ghost impact on another’s feelings.

My deeply held conviction of unlovableness made it necessary for me to be oblivious to any signs of real affection from young men. Some men I was able to tune out altogether (and learn of their affections years later). Those were the lucky ones. The unlucky young men were the ones in I was interested in, the ones who perhaps might have been interested in return, but for whom, I set ever higher and higher obstacles or tests of their affections.

I would think “if he holds my hand” then perhaps he cares. Then he would hold my hand, and it would not be enough. So I would think “if he kisses me” then perhaps he cares. So he would kiss me and it was not enough. The tests would be come more and more unreasonable, so that it would not take long before whoever he was, he would fail, and I would be reaffirmed in my unlovableness. The saddest part is that there were one or two young men who must have cared a great deal, because they kept coming back, kept passing then failing my "tests" over years, and kept getting hurt.

My ghostly existence was finally penetrated in my mid-thirties by some one who was able to convince me of my lovableness by marrying me, and by a wonderful group of friends who were my friends even though I didn’t do any of the work I thought was necessary to create friends, and by a very wise and insightful therapist.

Twenty-five years later I’m still trying to understand what made me into a ghost girl, and to guard against falling into old habits of imagining my actions do not affect others. Delusions of insignificance can be attractive and reassuring. If we are insignificant it we do not have to be careful of the feelings of others, or of our impact on the world.

Painting, acrylic on canvas "The Oberlin Condition" by S. Greer, copyright 1973.

just a pollyanna I guess

2010-07-10T13:15:00.008-04:00

It never fails. Almost every single time in my life that there has been some costly problem (with house, car or health), some extra money has come into my life to cover that cost.

This summer the problems include: vet bills for a pregnant stray cat and her kittens, car air conditioning that pooped out in the hottest summer ever, and in the past 24 hours a broken pipe gushing water underneath the house. The extra money comes from a merit bonus ($1500 before taxes).

I prefer my way of looking at things to the reverse, i.e., that every time I get any extra money a problem comes along to use it all up.

It comes down to preferring to be happy about things than mad about them. It's a lesson learned from all those books, like Little Women, The Five Little Peppers and Pollyanna, that I read as a child.

rain, no wind

2010-07-09T17:28:00.006-04:00

Odd weather today.

Yesterday was not the very hottest day this week (most places round here it was in the low 90's) but the air was very, very still and thick with pollutants. Visibility was limited, and distant hills disappeared behind a gray veil. This may be a rural area, but its a rural area with extremely heavy truck traffic (i.e., coal trucks) belching out lots of exhaust.

We were looking forward to the rain, to cool things off and freshen the air. Instead while the rain came cooled things a bit, there is no wind, not even a slight breeze. The moisture has mixed with the pollution and created an even thicker miasma to cloak the mountains. The other side of the holler, only a few hundred feet away is obscured by the veil of light rain and smog. This must be what the 19th century London fogs were like - that mixture of damp and industrial pollution.

Perhaps we will still get some thunderstorms and wind to push some of this stale air out before the warmth comes back tomorrow.

a prayer for the good people

2010-07-06T09:06:00.006-04:00

I am blessed to know so many good people. I'm married to one of them. I have many friends, old friends, new friends, work friends, Internet friends who are good people.

The good people I know rarely know that they are good people. They think they are bad. They feel every mistake they ever make. Their mistakes can eat them up sometimes. Because they are good people, they care about doing right, about helping and not hurting. So when they screw up, which we all do (good and bad) because we are after all...[wait for it]...human, they ache for the pain that they, unintentionally, caused others.

My prayer for all the good people in my life, is not that they stop feeling sorrow for their mistakes, after all that is what makes them good people, but that they avoid allowing that sorrow to engulf and drown them.

Be well happy and peaceful my friends. Shalom and namaste.

Where are the global warming deniers?

2010-07-05T17:54:00.001-04:00

The first thing to remember is, as any competent climate scientist will tell you, weather and climate are NOT the same thing. A snow storm or a heat wave are weather. Climate is a decades long pattern made up of millions of weather events. Climate has predictable patterns, that can be modeled by computer simulations with some accuracy over decades. Weather is far more variable, and accurately predictable only several days at a time.

There is, of course, a connection between climate and weather. Climate is the long term accretion of weather events. More rainy days, with more inches of rain create wetter climates. And wetter climates create more rainy days with more inches of rain. However, even in the rain forest (climate) it is dry sometimes (weather), and even in the desert (climate) it rains sometimes (weather).

During the midst of the heavy snow storms, the deniers of the reality of global warming, happily confusing weather and climate, were loudly crying "where are the global warming supporters?" "Where is Al Gore?" Ignoring (of course) that models of global warming actually predict an increase in extreme precipitation events including extreme snow storms. But now the worm or at least the weather has turned. See the CNN article: Blistering heat expected in Northeast - CNN.com and a heat waves of historic proportions are gripping the U.S. this summer.

Some very hot summer days are not proof of global warming any more than some very snowy winter days are disproof. But as the climate warms, the frequency of both very hot summer days and very heavy precipitation events (winter and summer) tend to increase. The likelihood of each new summer producing new records for heat increases as climate warms.

So my question is, where are you, global warming deniers? How do you account for this? Do you only recognize the difference between climate and weather when it is convenient for you to do so?

desk denizens

2010-06-28T10:19:00.005-04:00

Kittens Tippy, Tyler, Sammie and Eli have discovered my desk and that pens make great play things.

Oops! Sammie and Tippy have lost their pen! Where'd it go?

owning our choices

2010-06-26T16:23:00.006-04:00

Earlier this afternoon I enjoyed a long phone conversation with one of my two best friends. She reads my blog sometimes, so my apologies dear, for appropriating a piece of your life to make a point about my own.

My friend has what I would consider (and I think she also considers) the workplace from hell. It is not her own position per se which is so dreadful, but the larger conditions of the institution for which she labors that are so problematic. It is an institution that appears to be run by the worst assemblage of leaders, managers, and administrators of which I've ever heard. Every few months my friend regales me with fascinating stories of venal, callous, petty, and sometimes even Machiavellian machinations on the part of the decision-makers at her workplace.

My friend who is now past full retirement age and already receiving social security, has been talking about retirement for sometime. So each time we connect I ask if she's notified those above her that she is retiring. And each time we talk she has a different, well thought out, reasonable explanation why it is just not yet the right time to announce her retirement.

We've had nearly the same conversation now every few months for more than a year. But this time, as I listened to her, I realized that as dreadful as this institution is, as many horror stories as she has told about it, there is a deeply embedded part of her that loves working there. In that toxic environment someone who is a compassionate, carrying, principled and decent as my friend makes an enormous difference. She is a bastion of integrity, a protector of the weak and defenseless. This gives her work and her life meaning in a way it would not have in a more benign environment.

Just because it seems to me as a caring friend that she would have a more pleasant life away from that cesspool, does not mean that she should leave. If this is where she finds purpose then perhaps it is not time yet for retirement. I'm sure that there are many other ways that she could and would contribute if she did retire, but there's no reason to retire if she's full-filled where she is.

It is easier to have insights about other people's lives than it is about our own. My friend does not seem to realize how much value this workplace has in her life, and does not understand why she is so reluctant to leave it, having spent so much time over the past few years complaining about the conditions there.

As I drove to the store reflecting upon my friends situation, I began to realize that I too spend a great deal of time complaining about the very things that give my work and life meaning. My favorite phrase is "too much work, too little time." Yet I'm always accepting new assignments, choosing to take on additional projects.

Being "too busy" is what makes me feel needed and necessary, gives my life a sense of purpose and value. It makes me feel important to complain about how busy I am. It gives me an excuse not to do things I don't want to do, because "work comes first." Although that's not really true -- I find time for the things I really value, like talking to my husband, reading mysteries, taking care of my animals.

I think from now on, I won't complain about "too much work" but rather brag about it -- that's what I've really been doing after all. I won't be "too busy" but rather "wonderfully busy," or "blissfully busy."

father's day ruminations

2010-06-20T14:26:00.008-04:00

For the first time in 49 years, I am not sending a father's day card, gift or making a father's day phone call, because my father died this past October. And my primary emotion is relief.

My feelings about my father have been very ambivalent for three decades, a complex push and pull of positive and negative emotions. Before that, from about age 8 to age 23 they weren't ambivalent at all: I hated my father, hated him with a passion that terrified me when I was a teenager, hated him with a passion that pushed me as far away from home for college (again for graduate school) as I could reasonably get. And before that, before the age of 8, I remember adoring my father.

What happened -- that is the huge mystery at the center of my life. How did I go from adoration to repulsion and hatred? I genuinely do not know. I have suspicions and circumstantial evidence, but no concrete memories that provide incontrovertible answers.

What I do know is that my father was a truly brilliant and talented man who suffered frustrations and obstacles in his education and work life, always having to work for other people who were less intelligent and knowledgeable, and as a consequence was bitter and extremely controlling in his family life.

ice watch

2010-06-18T12:50:00.005-04:00

Since the summer of 2007, when Arctic ice extent hit an all time measured low, I have developed an ice watch fascination that generally sets in when the summer heat does in June.

The National Snow and Ice Data Center Sea Ice Index, provides a daily snapshot of the extent of ice in the Arctic Ocean. Both in map form and in a graph. The gray line is the average ice extent from 1979 to 2000, the green dotted line was the ice extent in 2007, the lowest ever measured. Right now, in June 2010 (blue line), the extent of Arctic ice is well below that of the recorded minimum from 2007 -- less ice, more open water, less reflected sunlight, more absorbed heat. This does not automatically mean that we will set a new record in 2010 for the smallest ice extent, because Arctic winds and storms can retard ice melting (and increase it); but a new record low ice extent does seem to be possible this year.

a truly pessimistic view

2010-06-09T20:59:00.008-04:00

I have begun to wonder what if the leak caused by the blow out of the Deepwater Horizon rig is never capped or contained. What if, as some fear, the pressures have caused fissures in containment below the surface? What if dozens of leaks arise that simply cannot be contained?

So I wondered, how long could this go on? How long before all the oil would be gone? What kind of world would we be living in if it kept on?

Today, the technical committee empaneled by the federal government has increased estimates of the size of the flow from this accident to closer to 40,000 barrels of oil a day (up from an estimate of 12,000 to 19,000). This new estimate was necessary, because the new containment "top hat" and new riser installed June 3, made it possible to measure fairly accurately the amount of oil flow being captured -- which is about 16,000 to 17,000 barrels of oil per day. Given that there are still huge billowing clouds of oil that are NOT being captured, that pushed the overall estimate of the flow upwards. See the live images at http://globalwarming.house.gov/spillcam for confirmation.

The amount of oil proven reserves under the Gulf of Mexico is 3.655 Billion barrels of oil. I realize that these proven reserves are not all in one continuous field, but on the other hand, pro-drilling advocates have argued for years that 3.655 Billion barrels was only the proven reserves, that that were was probably much more oil under the Gulf.

So for the sake of argument let's imagine that the oil field that the Deepwater Horizon had tapped into is some 3 billion barrels of oil, and that the rate of oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico is 40,000 barrels of oil a day. How long could that continue to flow at rate? About 205 years, that's how long.

So the deeply pessimistic side of me wonders, what if the Gulf of Mexico turns into a continuous, poison petroleum swamp for more than a 100 years? What happens to us then?

circle of life and death

2010-06-05T13:35:00.008-04:00

In the past year, we have said sad farewells now to four elderly cats. First Booger last summer, then Tigger in the autumn, James Tyler in early March, and today in June, we lay sweet B.J., or Buford Jacob as John named him, to rest in the corner of our yard that has become the pet cemetery.

The same circle of life that draws our beloved cats away at the end of their lives, sweeps new kittens into our lives. It was certainly not by our plan or design that as life ushered out four cats, a new mama cats and four kittens would plunge us into the whirl-wind.

In the last five days, as the kittens abandoned their quiet nest in the backroom to run rampant everywhere else, jumping, climbing, leaping, tussling, Buford quietly moved into the backroom where he dozed in peace and quiet, slowly letting go of life.

Today we helped him make the final passage with dignity. Sleep well, B.J.

long LOST love

2010-05-24T14:34:00.006-04:00

Other than to say that last night's final chapter of LOST has left me with a sense of quiet, peace and satisfaction (Namaste to you too), I'm not quite ready to blog about the final episode yet. I want to dwell in that place of peace and light for a while longer.

However, I did spend a short while this morning reading the blog posts and commentary articles of folks who had similar reactions to the ending of our favorite series. Among the comments on those other blogs and articles I did find one type of posting that I found disturbing.

Several folks commenting, who were unhappy about the way the series ended, complained about being tricked into investing their energy for six years into something that was not "real." These commenters appeared to think that having any portion of what they had viewed for the past six years take place after the characters had died negated the realness of the conflicts the characters faced and the emotions the show stirred in those of us who loved it.

Leaving totally aside for the present issues of 1) when the characters died (at the very beginning or as they appeared to, through out the show and some even after the death of Jack at the very end), or 2) whether or not one believes in purgatory, the guff or even heaven, the aliveness or deadness of the characters has no relationship to how real the issues and conflicts are, and how real the ideas they got us to think about.

So I am left wondering, what makes things "real" to the people who complained about the ending invalidating the reality of the show? How odd to think that one could readily and happily invest energy in a show about time travel and disappearing islands, mythical research projects of the 1970's, smoke monsters, and pockets of electromagnetism great enough to grab airliners out of the sky, and yet the loss of corporeal status is the one thing that makes everything unreal.

Are we humans nothing more than physical beings? I say not. We are spirit, we are hopes and dreams, we are ideas; the "I" or "self" that each of us is encompasses the physical body and physical experience, but transcends it to be so much more (a key idea of one of my sociological idols,George Herbert Mead).

Some believe that such self can also transcend the death of the physical body. But you don't have to believe that to recognize that what makes us human goes far beyond mere matters of physical survival of individual corporeal beings. As humans we create families, communities, societies, nations, cultures, that last far beyond one frail human life-time.

spay or neuter your pet and take in a stray today!!

2010-05-16T09:20:00.008-04:00

Someone posed a question on one of my posts about Tabitha and the kittens (Tippy, Ty, Eli and Sammi). It was a very good question about why had my cat had kittens, and whether these kittens were going to keep on reproducing. Here's my response:

None of "my" cats have kittens, they are all neutered and spayed at six months or as soon as they come into my home if they are older. Tabitha was a stray that took up residence under my house during the very cold winter (through a hole that has since been blocked). I don't know who her putative owners were, but they were irresponsible, not only for not having her spayed, but also for not providing adequate shelter from winter weather.

For three months she lived under my house and was so scared that the minute the front door opened she disappeared under the house. I never got within 20 feet of her (and had no idea of her gender) from December through March; much less be able to capture her and engage in preventative medical intervention. Then one day, instead of running away she ran to me and rubbed all over me, wanting to be picked up. The reason was obvious -- she was hugely pregnant (nearly 50 days as it turned out).

The only choice (to me) was to take her in, and care for her and the kittens. There are no animal shelters of any kind in our county, and none in the region either public or Humane Society, that take cats. And only one distant one that takes dogs. I resent the fact that other people are not as responsible with their pets as my husband and I are. Eastern Kentucky has a huge cat and dog over-population problem. Not only do strays wander about, but even most cats and many dogs that have "owners" wander around lose, able (and of course willing) to reproduce at will.

There are good responsible people in my county, who not only take care of their own animals, but who also work hard to raise money and awareness. Efforts are underway to raise money to build a shelter in our county, but bad economic times make that difficult. In the meantime the only real alternative is to take care of strays oneself.

The medical care that we will provide for Tabitha and her kittens includes an appointment (made the day that the kittens were born) for Mama Tabitha to be spayed and the kittens to get their first shots. That will happen next week. The kittens will be spayed or neutered in five months time.

The kittens like Tabitha will become part of my household, bringing up to 11 the total cat population. They will have food and shelter, and good veterinary care for the rest of their lives. We had really hoped to allow our cat population to decline through natural attrition (old age). So that by the time I retired we would be catless. But fate sent Tabitha our way, and we could not turn our backs. Nor could we just keep putting out food and providing a sanctuary (under our house) for continued reproduction.

The compensation for acting responsibly is that for the first time in 13 years we get to enjoy the wonder and joy of kittens.

white clouds of fragrance

2010-05-15T17:17:00.005-04:00

Four weeks ago when I drove to Harlan for a faculty meeting, eastern Kentucky's roadsides were highlighted in the pale violets of redbud, lilac and wisteria. Yesterday, I made the same drive, this time to graduation, and was treated to forty miles of roadsides banked in garlands of fragrant white: blackberries and wild roses. These two climbing vines are found together everywhere, including my yard. (Blackberry vine above and wild roses below).

cafe Tabitha

2010-05-15T17:01:00.005-04:00

At five and a half weeks, everyone is eating solid food, but still wants to have an afternoon "mom" snack. The line up is Ty, Eli, Sammi, and Tippy looking at the camera. Tippy is the best "bowl" eater so is least interested in chowing down on mom, but still likes to cuddle up for company.

"oil" spill closer to home

2010-05-10T18:37:00.005-04:00

About three PM today, the maintenance and operations staff at Southeast noticed a slick of petroleum product floating down the North Fork of the Kentucky River through Whitesburg. An hour and a half later, I took these photos from the college's walking bridge over the river.

The spill had, by this time begun to collect in thicker pools along the edges of the river. Unfortunately, not far from where this was taken are several groups of ducklings, for the moment still on the bank, but unlikely to stay there.

This is an all too frequent occurance in Whitesburg, KY, where it seems like the water is undrinkable more than 10 times a year. This particular spill will probably be traced to a particular petroleum products wholesaler/retailer in the region. It's happened before and will happen again. Has nothing to do with drilling (whether off shore or on), but to faulty containment and storage in the post production and retail processing end of oil and fuel business.

Unfortunately the ill affects to humans and wildlife are just as bad. Petroleum products creates environmental problems not only in the original procurement, but at all stages in use of the resource.

tiny drunken sailors

2010-05-06T12:22:00.007-04:00

The kittens at four weeks old remind me of nothing less than a mob of tiny drunken sailors running and flopping around. They move amazingly fast despite their wobbliness.

Although we still don't know genders, I've gone ahead and given names that could apply regardless of gender.

Photo to the right is Tippecanoe (Tippy), Elie (with the tongue out), and Sammie walking away.

Photo on the left is Tyler Two (Ty) -- the shyest one of the bunch, but well fed!

Below and right are Ty, Sammie and Elie curled up for sleep.

the lessons of the wisteria

2010-04-22T18:57:00.011-04:00

The beautiful pale violet flowering vine above is wisteria (this one is along a neighbor's fence just before the turn off to our lane).

Wisteria is a plant that does not bloom until it reaches maturity (which can be a few years for the Kentucky Wisteria that I see all around me, or more than a decade for the Chinese variant). Even then wisteria does not always blossom until it has experienced some type of distress -- like blows, explosions, and fire damage to the main trunk, shock to the roots (like extended freeze/thaw cycles), or drought. Clearly something about the last year, especially this past winter, created exactly the right conditions for wisteria, because it is more abundant in eastern Kentucky than I have seen in 14 years I've lived here.

For the first time it is impossible to miss the wisteria on my drive to work. In addition to lanes of redbud and dogwood this spring, I pass a half dozen places where wisteria has taken over an entire hillside. In each case, in the center of the massive cascades of wisteria, are the collapsed, shattered, rotting remains of a house, often barely visible in the vegetation.

Wisteria is a very long lived plant, an invasive plant that climbs walls, covers buildings, chokes giant trees -- luckily its a relatively slow growing plant (unlike kudzu). Home owners fifty, sixty years ago or even longer, planted wisteria near their homes. The home owners are long since gone, the houses decayed into near oblivion, but the wisteria has thrived and taken over the entire former homestead, climbing 80 foot trees, cascading down hillsides creating magical, fairy bowers.

There is something inspiring about a plant that blooms its best when damaged and distressed, and which creates its most beautiful landscapes on the bones of abandoned homes.

Monet's 1925 painting Wisteria at Monetalia.

My photo
Wisteria Wall by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

Sweet baby blue eyes

2010-04-22T18:52:00.005-04:00

Here are the kittens at two weeks and two days old.

No genders or names yet.

The little feller with the raised head is the most active of the bunch.

No one has climbed out of the little bed yet. I'm sure that will happen soon.

under the lilacs

2010-04-17T15:33:00.007-04:00

There is nothing so wonderful as the smell of lilacs. I'd only read about lilacs until I was 19 years old and a freshman in college. Lilacs require cold, snowy winters to flourish and bloom, so they just won't grow in coastal California -- my mother tried repeatedly, but was never successful in her attempts to produce lilacs.

At Oberlin College, behind the Conservatory of Music, hedge of lilacs that was more than 8 feet tall and 50 feet long; bountiful enough to allow a fragrance hungry freshman to purloin a few sprigs to perfume her dorm room.

In television series '30-something' (from the 1980's), there was an episode in which 'Elliot' was trying to win back his estranged wife 'Nancy' and filled the whole house with dozens of lilacs boughs. That certainly would have won me over.

Our long, snowy winter produced more than the usual supply of spring lilacs through out eastern Kentucky. The bushes are heavy with fragrant blooms. The ones in this photo are on the Southeast Whitesburg campus planted within the last two years, and this is the first year that they have had blooms.

(Under the Lilacs is one of Louisa May Alcott's lesser known children's novels).

plumes of dust

2010-04-17T14:27:00.009-04:00

Every time I go over Pine Mountain towards Harlan County (as I did this past Friday April 16) there's a point, just over the ridge of the mountain when it feels like the bottom has fallen out of the world, and there is a sick feeling in my stomach.

The cause that sense of impending doom is the huge strip mine cutting into the side of the mountains on the border between Kentucky and Virginia show in the photos above. Friday, the view was less obscured by the clouds of dust in the air. Dry conditions and stiff winds were filling the air with dust with every passage of the drag lines across the mine surface.

One the Google map below, you can see the great gray scar on the landscape that the mine makes. The photos I took (above) were taken when my car was at a point on US 119 just above the "SAT" and "TER" buttons (where you see the 119)in the upper right corner of the map. I was looking southward.

As you can see on the map, this enormous strip mine that runs for nearly two miles, is within the boundaries of the Jefferson National Forest, and there is an even larger mine to the south west.

View Larger Map

redbud by-ways of Kentucky

2010-04-13T16:18:00.007-04:00

After my post on Saturday, I was determined to figure out a way to get some of my own photos of the spectacular redbud lining the roads, even if it meant stopping dead in the middle of the road to take pictures.

It was a quiet morning on the way to work, with little traffic on the backroads and I found a couple of small dirt turn outs. In one location (the top photo), several hounds let me know with loud barks that I was tresspassing on their territory -- so I shot the photo out the car window!

The very bottom photo was actually taken while the car was moving as I was on a main road, with lots of truck traffic (really, I know there doesn't look like any in the shot, but there were several trucks behind me). Only on the middle photo did I actually get out of the car to shoot the picture.

redbud by-ways by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.

pink noses

2010-04-11T12:40:00.005-04:00

Here are three of the four kittens at six days old. Number four is hiding under the pile at the moment. They don't much like the camera's flash, so I'm trying to limit the number of photo.

pink noses by sgreerpitt is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://sunflowerroots.blogspot.com.