I just realized why China is going to eat our lunch.

Go get the movie Mad Max — Beyond Thunderdome.  Watch it (It’s fun!).

Then ask what is the real difference between two of the movie’s societies, both founded by females.  They’ve both got light.  They’ve both got the same fuel.  They’ve just got different sources.

It’s not oil.  It’s not corn.  It’s not electricity.  Victor Hugo jumped up in the middle of Les Misererables to demand why society was being so incredibly wasteful of this home-grown product.  And he was only ranting about farming. 

The Chinese aleady know how to use and process this fertilizer/fuel.  Farms all across China are producing it for independent use on farms and in villages. 

We, instead, are using billions of gallons of precious drinking water to literally flush it away.  We are idiots.

And it’s why Josh Whedon’s Firefly  got it right about everybody in the future speaking Chinese.  The Chinese are going to kick our butts. 

Or the shit out of us — either reference in pertinent.

An art installation off Highway 101 near Beaver, Washington, on the way to Forks.  Like a hanging-teddy dripline mobile.

It scares the heck out of me.

America was built on invasion and assimilation and genocide.  To this day, we build the wrong holocaust museums about the wrong war and the wrong people, while refusing to recognize our own.

This is where the Vietnam war came from.  This is where Iraq came from.   We’re going to change other people or else.  It’s our version of forced conversion, and we’ve finally got the chance to really to do other countries what we did to the tribes and nations.  We can’t help it — it’s who we are, it’s what formed our entire history. 

Perhaps we’ll begin to look in the mirror, to realize where we came from, and what we did from the very beginning.

Perhaps America can begin to cleanse its soul. 

When I was in the US army in the ’70’s, if a woman got pregnant, she was thrown out of the service.

We had a little song about it (to the tune of Pretty Baby):

“If you’re nervous in the service, and you want to get a break, have a baby, have a baby.”

I don’t think I need to make further comment:

 Defense Authorization

The Senate tabled a bipartisan amendment offered by Sens. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME) that would have restored reproductive health care services to women serving in the military overseas. The Murray-Snowe amendment was narrowly defeated by a vote of 50 to 49 during debate of the fiscal 2001 Defense Authorization bill (S. 2549). Current law prohibits female military personnel overseas from obtaining abortions with their own private funds in military hospitals. The abortion ban forces servicewomen and military dependents overseas to choose between seeking services at potentially substandard facilities or making a costly trip back to the U.S. It is estimated that more than 100,000 women - active servicewomen, spouses and dependents of military personnel - live on military bases overseas and rely on military hospitals for their reproductive health care.

The House defeated a similar amendment to its version of the defense bill last month.

Folks want to put in a bio-fuel plant up here.  It will run on wood waste from logging.  They say it will attract tourists who will see it as a green-friendly move.

But how will those tourists come up here if they have to drive by the clear-cuts that provide the wood waste?

Anybody who thinks that green dollars will be spent on logging museums has not been doing their homework.  The kind of tourists who come out to see forests do not view them as a monoculture “crop.”  They view them as ecosystems. 

Ecosystems are far too complicated for humans to deal with over long term, at least in monocultural terms.  Cropping sees alders as competative “weeds” and poisons them out.  Ecosystems require the alders as the nitrogen pump that will support the future wood crop.  Ecosystems pump oxygen back into the massive planetary air system — a system far too vast and complicated for us to control or provide for.

Cropping = short term.  Ecosystem = long term.

Or, to put it in generational terms:

“I only care about my own livlihood.” vs. “Where are my grandkids going to live?”

Ecosystem tourism no more wants to visit a museum of frontier logging than they want to see the history of the buffalo hunts — except as a planetary mistake.  If people want those green dollars they’re just going to have to accept that those are histories that will not attract a living. 

Because the people who don’t care about the green are the people who can live with nothing but concrete.

Sequim, anyone?

(While I’m at it, I’ll note that, as the child of a paper-mill town, fermenting wood stinks to high heaven, and the massive chemical influx sends out fumes that peel paint off the walls.  Fermentation-mill towns are not tourism towns.  They stink, they need masses of water — which we’re already short of — and they will knock health costs through the roof.  THINK.  RESEARCH. FIND OUT FIRST.

Oh, and as a artist and publisher:  wood paper is the crappiest paper on the planet.  And not just for the high acid count.  It’s only useful for toilet paper.  That’s right — we’re flushing our oxygen-production system down the crapper, along with our water.)

A lot of people are talking about the Iraq “war” being mismanaged or badly planned.  They are asking why there was no exit strategy.

You legally get into a war when somebody attacks you.  And then you’re expected to attack the people who actually attacked you, not somebody you’d like to attack.  This kind of war is never planned, and nobody’s thinking about how to get out of it.  It’s an emergency, or panic response.

No one who has ever planned a war has had an exit strategy.  Any war that has been planned has only had one goal:  to conquer, stay, own and rule.   That is a premediated war.  That is illegal under international law. 

There’s a legal definition for planning a premeditated war against someone who has not attacked you:

War crime.

PLLLEEEEEZE all the white people stop the argument about “legal” or “illegal” aliens.

It’s EMBARRASSING.

Most of the “illegal” aliens are part native peoples.  Their ancestors were on this continent a lot longer than ours.

My first white ancestors got here in 1632.  We were totally illegal.  We stole everything in sight.  Later on, we set up that Ellis Island thing and convinced the rest of you gullible newbies that you had to go through us to be “legal.”  You might as well have gotten passports from the mafia.  My later ancestors fell for the legal/illegal thing, too.  But then, the early thieves were English and the later applicants weren’t.  The English can always fool the Swedes, or, in my case, the Germans.

And please stop arguing about legal/illegal in the local papers.  Or claiming you’ve been here for 3 years longer than the other white guy.  I can just hear the Makah and Quilleute laughing their butts off at us.  Rueful laughter, but laughter all the same.  Jeeze, I have to pass these people in the mini-marts.

Stop making us look like bigger idiots than we already are.

“That airport is more than just a ribbon of fragile asphalt.”

Robert McChesney, executive director with the Port Angeles Port Authority, made that statement when he addressed the noon speaker meeting of the Clallam Bay/Sekiu Chamber of Commerce, held in the Sekiu Community Center, Wednesday, March 11.

He was referring to the Sekiu Municipal Airport, a small landing strip that provides fixed-wing and helicopter access for emergency flights, Gary Fernandes’s flight service, and fly-ins by government officials with business in Neah Bay, as well as Clallam Bay Correctional Facility personnel.

Also present was the new editor for the Forks Forum, Chris Cook, who introduced himself to the chamber. His background, from an isolated community in Hawaii, made him feel right at home in the West End.

McChesney said that most Port Authority activities are concentrated in central Clallam County. The Port Authority is advocating for a bioenergy project in Forks. It maintains the eastern part of the Boat Haven Marina reconstruction, which should begin in June to the tune of 7 million dollars. The Authority was involved in mediation with the Elwah Tribe over the Port Angeles graving yard. Its strategic projects menu covers sixty million dollars.

McChesney stated that the Sekiu airport loses funds consistently, at a rate of about $50,000 over five years. This is manageable, but the Port Authority has not figured out a way to make improvements. The airport, originally built and maintained by Arlen Olsen, of Olsen’s Resort in Sekiu, suffers from surface drainage problems. McChesney said preliminary engineer studies said this problem could not be rectified without a new subsurface bed and drainage restructure.

Olsen has said he could donate equipment and time if the Port could supply materials.

McChesney said that the Port had always cooperated to maintain the airport. There had been a discussion about chip-sealing the surface, which remains brittle due to subsurface instability and a hydrology that undermines the subgrade and needs to be re-directed.

“You can’t just put in a ditch around the airport,” said McChesney.

He emphasized that the Port needed to find out what it was in for, including requirements by the Department of Ecology.

The Federal Aviation Association will not fund maintenance for the airport, leaving it up to Washington State. The Port Angeles Port Authority loses up to a quarter million dollars per year for improvements, but this is funded by the FAA.

Pat Ness, chamber member, suggested partnering with private developers to put in ground leases for hangars. World-class fishing boats, that usually arrive behind vehicles after being towed from Bellingham or Seattle, could be stored locally. The airport could handle up to sixty such boat hangars.

“The Port acquired the property,” said McChesney. “We’re not sure how. But we wouldn’t simply sell it. We’re not going to profiteer from the airport.”

Chamber member Martin Brand said that the strongest reasons for maintaining the airport were homeland security and emergencies. Chamber member Pat Ness and Advisory Committee member Patti Adler both stressed that, in a major emergency, air flights, both fixed-wing and helicopter, would be the West End’s only means of maintaining vital links to the outside world.

“It’s life or death for us,” stressed Adler. “This area is in a critical situation. We just need one major disaster and we’d be in trouble.”

Ness pointed out that according to Jeff Rob, Port accountant, the airport requires $34,000 to operate, of which the Port receives $15,000 yearly in rental, and $13,000 in taxes, leaving a red balance of only $6,000.

“We can look for this money and we’d be happy to,” said Ness. “But we need real figures.”

The Chamber recently finished a grant to the Clallam County Economic Development Council to fund a program director for West End tourism, a position that would include locating and applying for more funds by a paid employee. The position is vital, since chamber members act as volunteers, and can’t take much time from their own jobs as business owners to put in full time employment finding grants. The entire chamber worked to bring in the grant well under deadline.

The Sekiu Fly-in, scheduled for the Memorial Day Weekend, brings in small planes from the west coast for an event luncheon. Ness joked that now the chamber is worried that the planes will come.

“You’re behind the eight ball,” said McChesney. “You have growing tourism and a declining airport.”

“The Port isn’t going to shut that airport down,” he said. “We’re not walking away from it.”

Ness said that the airport was not zoned as commercial, and that before any industry is approached to occupy the land, the airport be zoned for industrial use. This would preclude difficulties during future negotiations with companies.

Adler pointed out that box-store development was not a consideration or a worry, since it is not allowed by the State of Washington.

Some trees at the end of the airport block direct flight access, but chamber members agreed that could be rectified by judicious pruning or removal of select trees, after obtaining permission from private property owners.

Chris Cook, the Forks Forum’s new editor, introduced himself by describing his background in journalism in Hawaii and Idaho. He was accompanied by Jenine Howell, the Forum’s business manager, who was a great help during the paper’s difficult three months without an editor.

Cook remembers growing up on Kuwaii, in a climate that, while warmer, was even wetter than the West End, getting 460 inches of rain a year. Further in the mountains, at 5000 feet, the cooler air made the climate much more like Forks.

“I think of Clallam Bay being like the lee side of the island,” said Cook. “Forks is like the windward side. They’re like sister towns.”

Cook grew up around native Hawaiians, whose independence and interest in their own rich culture reminds him of West End tribes. As an islander, he understood the local concern for air contact.

An ardent surfer, Cook said that the area around Clallam Bay’s Slip Point reminded him of the southern tip of New Zealand’s South Island.

“I want to tell my Hawaiian friends, don’t go to New Zealand – come out here!” said Cook.

Cook, who has worked with the film industry, said that the West End’s resemblance to the verdant tropics could be a lure to film projects.

“Try to protect what you have,” he said, referring to the West End’s magnificent natural resources.

Pat Ness said Cook would just have to come back to the tourism committee meetings and brainstorm.

Kathleen Haney, president of the West End Youth and Community Club, provided an excellent chicken dinner, for a $7.00 donation to cover costs.

“Values at home, facts at school.”   A throw-away line in a political email received this morning.

This should be THE rallying cry of ALL campaigns to make families take responsibility for their own children. Religion in school, no sex education, control of the sex lives or book or movie content by or for consenting adults — it’s ALL about families refusing to act like the parents and forcing the rest of society to take over the role of parents.

These parents should realize that if they insist on treating their children as wards of society — then society may very well decide that the parents themselves have given away their own rights to raise their own children.  The parents themselves are abrogating their rights as parents. 

“It takes a village” has become an excuse by parents who don’t want to be in charge of their own kids.  The rest of us are supposed to watch their kids’ morals, religious choices, even what they read or whom they fall in love with.  Since when is that our business?  If the parents had been doing their job properly, the teachers could be teaching math and science and art and civics (remember those?) instead of worrying about whether or not Little Johnny is drooling over the latest Kill-Count video game.   All we ever hear is “A child may see this,” “A child may do that.”  Where the hell are the parents of these children?  Who paid for that computer or library or bookstore?  The kids?  Why do the rest of us have to put up with laws that control us as though we’re children — when the parents don’t seem to want to be there for their kids in the first place?  What kind of parents are these?

We’re all getting sick and tired of parenting kids we never chose to bear ourselves, and parenting them by proxy according to rules that the parents who ignored them in the first place insist on our following.  Talk about an issue of Choice.  If we have to do it, we may be forced to get tough — and the parents don’t have to worry their little pointed heads about taking care of their own kids any more.

“It takes a village” could well become “The village takes OVER.”

And since the village really doesn’t want to, that may not be a pretty picture.

D

Has anybody heard the language change over the shooting at Virginia Tech since this morning?

First it was The Worst Mass Shooting in US History. 

It’s gone through several changes, and now it’s the Worst Mass Shooting in MODERN US History.

I guess somebody started counting all the dead Indians.

I’m waiting for someone to add that it was the Worst Mass Shooting in Modern US History ON THIS CONTINENT.

(Someone near and dear said it was The Worst Mass Shooting in US History BY AN AMATEUR.  As an ex-doorgunner, he sometimes gets a little snarky about newbies butting into professional status.)