Category: climate change

Zeitangst

 

“I have a term that I’ve been throwing out occasionally,” Erle Ellis, a global ecologist at the University of Maryland, told me. “It’s the Zeitangst.”

— Robert Sullivan

“When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”

— Hunter S. Thompson

Hunter S. would have warmed to the topic. A perfect folly, an utter absurdity — grist for a writer’s mill. The criminals in this novel are human, inhumane humans. The victims of the crime are both human and non-human — the crime is a kind of murder-suicide. Where is the crime scene? Sol’s third.

marble.earth

The murder weapon was forged from the remains of an earlier extinction event: subterranean flora and fauna under carpets of rock. Rock carpets pulled down by gravity. Intensely energy rich organic substances. Hydrocarbons.

Weaponized liquid fossil delivered by the purest capitalism on planet Earth, understated as Industrial Revolution. Intense energy capsulized in organic molecules created under great pressure, gravity tugs at the rocks above and pressurizes organics below. Stored energy from all manner of organic material, animal and vegetable under mineral.

Black gold, Texas tea

fossil.hand

Flying, crawling and swimming creatures alive at the time of extinction event number five.

During each extinction event the Earth becomes Venus-esque, and it stays that way for the eons it takes for perpetual cloud cover to dissipate.

Terra abides.

Its first victims were guilty of a fatal flaw: being born with an appetizing flesh, tasty organs and texturizable blood.

Kill, Cut and Sell. That’s the name of the game.

chitterlings

How many homo sapiens does it take to consume 70 billion unfortunately tasty species annually?

7 billion. In my eponymous birth-year there were 2 billion humans, far fewer than 20 billion animals were consumed. Wealth breeds waste, waste breeds wealth. Measured in units of GNP. Capital C Capitalism — a motive for the crime.

Veganism is gentle reproach.

Thanks to Mira of Everything socio and eco linguistic for inspiring this post 🙂

Thanks for reading.

I Heart Libraries

Libraries are sacred institutions, but they are also hated institutions.

old.libraries

Hordes of ravagers have more than decimated vast libraries of unknowable knowledge. Thoughts in bound form fall regularly to fell fiends, book burners, surf Nazis and the ignorami of all eras.

It seems that Gaia has already survived five extinction events. Here’s a thought for a cloudy day — the same sun did shine over each: before, during and after the curtain fell. Same old Sol. How many of those five included library detonations? My steampunk time machine isn’t good enough to slip a nanosecond into the past; however, if I ever succeed in traveling back though each extinction event, I already have a book title in mind:

The Seven Wonders of Five Ancient Extinct Worlds by Bill Ziegler the 1947th.

I’ve recently mentioned the untimely demise of a local library jewel in 1955. My home town is well known for such epic fails. Would that eye rolls might forestall them.

An esteemed librarian recently shared a magnificent find among recently orphaned books — a volume maistly Scotch (language).  Check it out here, or at your local library.

first.port.of.call

Lisa and I lovingly offer resting shelves for orphaned books dropped at the library door. Devoted friends o’ the local library open their basement walls this Thursday at 9:00 A.M. Set your alarms.

Here’s a thought I’ve for you brought — marvelous books inherited are unexpected and sudden fun:  intensely beautiful gilded Danish language volumes (50 cents each), Edwardian Era novels, Bobbsey-Twin originals, Girls of Central High, and the apocryphal So You Like Vacuum Tubes?

bobbsey.twins

Lisa is currently reading this 50-center: First Port of Call by Elizabeth Jordan.

A cult classic with crisply flowing pages like Rock of Three Planets.

We once found two crisp twenty-dollar notes in one book we purchased, each used as bookmarks. Interestingly enough the boxes of books bought that day: $44 for a couple hundred books.

So, how large is our library of misfit books? A few thousand and in every room. A thousand donated back to the orphanage.

libraries

About six years ago I catalogued 1500 of our books online; however, exigencies and other stuff — like time — placed it on the backest burner. It’s on LibraryThing 🙂

Thanks for reading.

 

From Vegan to Veganist and Beyond

A fellow blogger recently submitted a question to this desk, actually it’s not a desk but a dining room table without dead animals on it.

el.dolor.es.igual
Animal liberation. human liberation

How long have you been vegan?

So I decided to ramble on about it right here…

…in a bid for garish aggrandizement, Bill?

No, in consideration of all the fellow sentient-beings that I have not killed by proxy several times today and several times tomorrow. Enlightenment brings more than inspiration and a healthier lifestyle — it entails (not entrails) a responsibility for passing the word forward for a better world.

It started with a flyer on a nondescript table in a university hallway 30 years ago (now three-sevenths of my life) — reasons for adopting a vegan diet. It was as dramatic as it was nonchalant.

During the first ten years I discovered that vegetarianism (keeping eggs, dairy and cheese in your diet) kept my body supplied with animal-derived molecules that fueled a craving for animal byproducts — the organs that excrete toxins, including your skin, were self-sabotaged. Detox is not pleasant, but there is no alternative. Not tossing meatables into a shopping cart results in fewer factory-farm orders for meatables.

I also discovered that fermented liquids might be a perfectly vegan alternative lifestyle choice, not all poisons come in animal-laden packages. That detox was also not very pleasant — just speaking from experience.

This great little saying is still my favorite for its truth and pithhood:

Every time you eat or drink

 

lunchables.uploaded.taco
W.T.F.!

Search the internet for ‘vegan’ and ‘health’ to find statements from people who tried to become vegan but suffered from fatigue until they went back to meat. It takes as long as a year for toxins and craves to leave the body. “Out damned toxin!” But it literally liberates your mind and your brain.

In your opinion, Billy. Spam brought the Philippines into this modern world. Capiche? 

I have discovered personally that your brain seeks alternate paths when not blogged down by crap. Check out the ingredients on fast-crap that people chew and chug all day. Dozens of long-named laboratory labels are strange, but not as loathsome as their crave-inducing effects. But who am I to question trillion-dollar industries?

 

meatables
Veganism is brain friendly

How can 97% of the consuming public be wrong, Bill? Think about it and shut up.

I’m just paranoid I guess. Sorry ’bout that.

Thanks for reading.

 

 

 

 

 

The Green Sheep in the Family

Herewith a set of considerations introduced more than four year ago. It is, therefore, well-neigh time to tie a few strings in the midst of many threads. Encouragement  from the inimitable Katrina of New Zealand.

A Bold Woman who has brought us a grand thought issued by David Bowie: Katrina.

“Aging is an extraordinary process, where you become free to be the person you always should have been.”

— David Bowie

Full disclosure first — I am the green sheep in the family: one of “those vegans” who have the temerity to speak up for “others” — more similar to us than not — who have no voice in determining their own destiny. Today I focus on the multiple billions  living in camps

green.sheep

By this time next year 70 billion will have lived from birth to death in one of those facilities. Factory friendly farms.

Well there must be a good reason then.

Many reasons, but each is specious, spurious and tawdry. We deny inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to “the others.” Is that ethical behavior? Do animals volunteer their own destruction?

Bill, they outnumber us 10 to 1. So it looks like we are the ones endangered here. Do you call that fair? Let us tell you something. life isn’t fair and freedom fries aren’t free. It’s a wonder that any of us are left standing, actually. So it’s self-defense, us or them.

But can we talk about something a little less depressing?

Sorry. Let’s talk about optimal health, vibrance and well-being. In short: those habits that produce a healthy body. There are many ways to become ill: some involve luck, some are viral/bacterial, some are self-induced. I’ve tried many ill-advised styles of life.

Vegan protein icons

To quote my own father “I would rather be rich and healthy than sick and poor.”

Majority rule then. You vegans comprise 3% of the eating public. Why force bunny-salads down our throats? We are not geese. We are designed to eat meat. Some call it stewardship in a dominion over all life. What’s wrong with being top dog? Beats low dog.

3% of human eaters are vegan, 3% of human scientists deny climate-change, 3% is a good guess at the percentage of lifeforms that would survive an extinction event — asteroidal, nuclear or climatological.

Detox is tough because meat is a powerful addiction that is socially acceptable and culturally sanctioned. Secreting toxins is wearying — so is withdrawal from other addicting chemicals. We are living and breathing chemical factories, walking bags of chemicals.

Some very good news: craving for meat and meat byproducts metamorphoses into revulsion.

Why are you vegans always so negative?

We aren’t. And being a green sheep is a very good thing.

Thanks for reading.