For those of us who find ourselves in positions of power, there is exactly one right course. There is only one acceptable use of power. We must protect those who cannot protect themselves. We must help those in need. We must never, never, use our might to harm those weaker than ourselves. This is our unshakable obligation. This is the one just use for strength.
And that is exactly where we have failed as a species. That is why the damage we have done to the biosphere is so wrong. Forget that we have plundered and destroyed the pristine and the beautiful, forget even that we are endangering our own children: the havoc we wreak on the planet is wrong because we chose to use our power in the wrong way. We could have done better, but we didn’t — we chose not to.
We are the stewards of the Earth. This is not because an omniscient creator-god made us so, gave us dominion over the animals, but because it is humandkind, alone among creatures, with the incredible power to change, pollute, pillage, and destroy the world. No one can deny that we posses this power. We are, so far, incredibly powerful. Alone among species, we control our fate, and the fate of all of creation. We can and we do overpower non-human animals. We can and we do destroy ecosystems, contaminate water and air supplies, turn forests into deserts.
This makes us the stewards of the Earth. We must be the stewards of the planet, for the only alternative is to be its oppressors. We can be caretakers or we can be despots.
There is, of course, exactly one right choice. What is the right choice when an adult encounters an infant? What is the right choice when a child plays with a kitten? When one comes upon a person who is badly hurt?
We must be guardians. If we fail in this regard, we have failed as human beings, exactly as parent who kills a child has failed as a father or mother.
Edited to add on: And so power, in and of itself, isn’t a bad thing. Power can be an incredible force for justice, when used that way.
That’s not to say that unjust power imbalances — like say, between genders or races — are ever okay, or can ever be a force of good. But those that are unavoidable, such as the gap between parents and children, or between people and fish, can be very good. I don’t believe we will ever have egalitarianism amongst species, but I don’t believe we have to in order to have liberty and justice for all.
Yesterday, Emily sent me a link to a “muxtape” she made. (Muxtape = mp3 mix that other people can listen to online.) I liked hers so much I decided to make my own, which you can listen to. If you’re in the mood, you can make your own, and link to it here, and we can compare our tastes. Jamelle from The United States of Jamericamade one awhile back, too.
(Sorry for this most recent dry-spell. Finals, finals, finals. Things are likely to continue as such for a little while more.)
Let me just say, to the people (coughMARCOTTEcoughSEALcough) responsible for that particular bit of total bullshit: don’t you fucking dare claim ignorance of this one. This isn’t an oversight, this isn’t a failure to acknowledge someone. This is an obvious act of racism. Someone proposed this. Other considered and approved it. This is deliberate, or, if not deliberate, such a massive blunder that those responsible are as culpable as if it has been intentional. This is so blatantly racist, I cannot respect anyone involved. Ever. Again.
Thank you, though, for finally being upfront about the fact that when you say “women” you really do only mean “white women,” if not an even narrower group than that.
A lot of what I look forward to every summer is completing a ton of leisure reading, and spring fever has hit me hard, so I’ve started preparing myself early. This means strolling the city, stopping into each and every bookstore I happen upon and browsing the shelves while I should be doing end-of-school-year related things instead.
BUT. Complications.
The other day I set a goal for myself, which is to read only works of fiction this summer. This is a big deal for me. I rabidly consume almost only non-fiction on a variety of subjects. With non-fiction I’m not at all picky, indiscriminate almost to a fault.
But for some reason, I have the opposite problem when it comes to fiction. I don’t even know how to shop for fiction. I don’t know what sorts of fiction I want to read, and for some reason when looking at works of fiction, my ability to judge books I don’t know about by their covers and descriptions diminishes greatly (though not completely).
This is where you come in, dear reader. Help me out. What’s your favorite novel? Creative essay? Book of poems? Works of mass appeal, or that you suspect I’ll like from perusing the blog? I’m open to suggestions related to any and all topics, be they light and fluffy, challenging, disturbing, whatever.
What is it about blogging under the influence that’s such great fun? I’ve blogged while intoxicated by at least three different substances, and for some reason it’s been uniformly great.
I write to you today high as a kite on hydrocodone. I had a filling done earlier this week and, like my forebears in times now past, clenched and ground my teeth in my sleep in response. This resulted in a strange scene around two o’clock this morning: me, insane on the bathroom floor, and my girlfriend on the phone with my mother.
What strange and horrible pain. It was much, much worse than the dental agonies I survived during the saga of my wisdom teeth a few months ago. I have a pretty high tolerance for pain, but this I felt I could not bear. It made me cry. When have I ever cried because of a physical sensation? Not since childhood, I’m sure. Five push-pin piercings, a homemade tattoo, a parlor tattoo, wisdom teeth growing in and getting yanked out… None of it coming anywhere close to this. On the pain scale of one to ten, I think this was an eleven.
At my mother’s advice, I took 800 milligrams of ibuprofen, and my girlfriend put ice cubes into a ziplock bag, wrapped the bag in a shirt. Even the full force of the ibuprofen only reduce the pain from “completely unbearable” to “very bad,” from eleven to perhaps seven, maybe six. Somehow, with the ice against my face, I managed to capture some snatches of sleep.
I woke up at 6:30, took another 800. At nine o’clock I awoke again — by this time I had decided against school — and felt my teeth starting to work themselves up to that fever-pitch again. The pain was in full force more than an hour before I was due for another dose.
Some time and many tears later, my mother had made me a dentist appointment, and my father had brought me the hydrocodone left over from the wisdom teeth procedure. I have never been so grateful for analgesics.
The dentist concluded that nothing was wrong with the tooth or the filling, just my anxious jaw clamping down on itself. Got a temporary night-guard — a plastic contraption that prevents you from putting too much pressure on your teeth — and instructions to take the hydrocodone as needed, and to call if I develop acute pain on the recently filled tooth, or swelling, or a fever.
And that’s how I got here. The pills make everything pillow-soft. The many tracks of my brain have been closed; I focus only on one thing at a time. I don’t know that I’ve ever read blogs so carefully, so diligently, collecting every precious word in the one operational facility of my conscious mind. I read every single post on Boing Boing today, every single word.
From Boing Boing, check out this extremely simple way to create your own magical show of bursting colors, with nothing but a bowl, milk (presumably that of an innocent cow), dish soap, and food coloring.
Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli lifted off from the port city of Paranagua on Sunday afternoon, wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.
He was reported missing about eight hours later after losing contact with port authority officials, according to the treasurer of his Sao Cristovao parish, Denise Gallas.
Gallas said by telephone that the priest wanted to break a 19-hour record for the most hours flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua, Brazil’s second-largest port for agricultural products.
Pieces of balloons have been found off the coast of Santa Catarina; Rev. Adelir Antonio de Carli’s whereabouts, though, have yet to be discovered.
Be sure to click the article link above for a short video complete with haunting visuals of the priest and his many balloons disappearing into the clouds.
No More Throw-Away People: The Co-Production Imperative, by Edgar S. Cahn, is the newest addition to our reading list. The book is so important, and so uncannily in line with our values, I’m not sure what to say about it. It’s about time dollars. You should read it. It’s full of the kind of ideas that are so good — so complete, so necessary — that, once you’ve heard them, you are floored by their obviousness. Ideas so revolutionary they shouldn’t be revolutionary, and how is it possible I never knew this? Why isn’t this taught in schools?
Some brief quotes to get you started.
So far, people seem to be able to master the complex mathematics of Time Banking: 1=1. One hour helping someone equals one Time Dollar or Time Credit. That’s it. More and more people understand that there is something basically wrong with a society where an elderly person can be despondent because, in their words, “I have nothing left to give but love.” How can love be “nothing”? (Cahn xii)
If we accept a market definition of work, there are a few minor omissions worth nothing. Work does not include: raising children, taking care of one’s elder parents, keeping one’s family, functioning, being a good neighbor, or being a good citizen. So work includes everything — except family, community and democracy. Some of us think those things are rather important. If they can’t be addressed as work within the market, it is clear we need a larger framework than that supplied by market. (Cahn 41)
Feminism, anti-capitalism, community, and love come together in this book, all dovetailed into a cohesive strategy, one way to save the world. Very relatedly, Emily (hopefully!), our friend Brenden and I, and my girlfriend and maybe other friends, too,* are all planning on going to this conference. If you’re in the Santa Fe/Albuquerque area, you should come too! I am extremely excited.
