Earthman's Notebook

Howdy!

Hope things are going well for you all down there.

I’m self-employed just now, and struggling with it. I think things are about to turn around, but argh, I’m in a bind right at the moment. It’s not the economy so much as a few of my own bad choices, but the economy is definitely playing into it.

Other than having no money, life’s going good. It’s spring here. The place I live, I wake up most mornings to the sounds of wild turkeys in the yard. So far this spring we’ve had whitetail deer, raccoons,four kinds of squirrels (gray, red, chipmunks and flying squirrels), blue jays, cardinals, goldfinches and crows (plus a lot of other birds passing through) as daily visitors. Some nights we see red foxes, and there have even been a few coyotes strolling through in the moonlight.

Read the rest…

[ Another long one. Sorry. ]

Sanity has a horizon.

Meaning: Everything you and I do seems sensible to us. Everything other people do seems sensible to them. But not everything you and I do seems sensible to others, and not everything others do seems sensible to you and I.

Everything you and I do seems sensible, of course, because it’s US, and we’re caught up in the subjective immediacy of our lives. We’re inside our own horizon, and everything inside it with us is visible, understandable and comfortable. We naturally find it hard to think of ourselves as wrong or villainous or insane. Everything we do, however weird it might seem to others, seems sane and reasonable to us. Even if we don’t know the reasons, we’re prone to automatically assume SOMEONE knows, and those reasons must be good ones.

On the other hand, other people, out past our own personal horizons of sanity, often do things that seem crazy.

Read the rest…

Suppose there was a way to make other people think like you?

Imagine a drug you could hand out that, with regular doses over a period of time, would cause other people to agree with you in every way. A drug that would cause them to be UNABLE, mostly, to disagree with you.

1) Would you give it to your kids?

2) Would you give it to your friends?

3) Would you give it to friends without telling them what it was but saying it would be good for them?

Read the rest…

I somehow got onto a right-wing Christian mailing list. Without fail, EVERY email they send me is both amusing and disturbing. That they’re so wrong, but so earnest, is funny. That they’re enticing others to be so wrong and earnest, that’s disturbing.

The latest was an Action Alert! from the stick-up-the-backside “American Family Association”:

“Pepsi Produces Another TV Ad Promoting the Gay Lifestyle”

Yes, the “gay lifestyle.” The lifestyle that people choose, and then recruit others into, so they can all be evil and debauched together, and get people to hate them. All done deliberately, you understand, and in opposition to good traditional American Christian values.

And yes, Pepsi is saying “Be Gay!! Everybody drink Pepsi and engage in homosexual activity!! Don’t be like all those heterosexuals who drink Coke!” What better publicity campaign could you get?

I had to respond to the part that said “Sign the Boycott Pepsi Pledge.”

Read the rest…

What follows is from a site called the “Hal Turner Show“. I kid you not.

After we kill them: what to do?

After the pending Second American Revolution results in killing the people who have wrecked this country — yes, you KNOW who I’m talking about — what are we going to do as a nation to move forward?

Read the rest…

Molly Ivins died two years ago today.

If you don’t know  who she was, go HERE to read some of her delightful quotes.

“I have been attacked by Rush Limbaugh on the air, an experience somewhat akin to being gummed by a newt. It doesn’t actually hurt, but it leaves you with slimy stuff on your ankle.”

She was a Texan — a Texas liberal! — with a loud mouth, a wickedly cynical pen, and a sense of humor and justice and love that made her … special.

She knew, and gently despised, the idiot George W. Bush (whom she called “Shrub”), and all the people he surrounded himself with.

Read the rest…

History. Yes.

Came across this online this morning, and it brought a tear to my eye.

Rosa Parks sat so that Martin Luther King could walk.

Martin Luther King walked so that Barack Obama could run.

Barack Obama ran so that all children could fly.

Damn. Here’s to a big step toward ending the inhumanity of racism.

Congratulations, President Obama. And congratulations, America.

Bye, Mr. Bush.

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Don’t let the White House door hit you in the ass on your way out.

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I’m starting the rumor that President Bush plans to go back to Crawford, Texas and open a tire store, “Presidential Tires — Where the Rubber Meets the Rode” (sic), or possibly a small roadside barbecue stand, “Leader of the Free World Bar-B-Q.”

You heard it first, right here.

No, seriously. Undisclosed Capitol Hill sources have revealed that Bush will return to his ranch, which he has now successfully cleared of brush after 8 years in the White House, and will trade on his nationally-recognized name to launch a private business venture.

“I’m going to show everyone that my success in Washington, D.C., was no fluke,” said Bush. “This will pin down my legacy as the 43rd President of the United States with a commercial triumph in the field of rubber, or possibly barbecue.  I expect my venture here in Crawford to become a national chain, or maybe even worldwide.”

[Photo: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson listens as President Bush (man in gray suit on right) speaks about his upcoming venture into barbecue, or possibly tires.]