What Price Human Kindness?

Do a good deed daily.

Do unto others as you would have others do unto you.

Practice random acts of kindness.

Help old ladies across streets. (Of course, you'd best be sure they want to cross, but I digress.)

Live with others in mind as you would have others keep you in mind.

Think good thoughts.

Help those less fortunate than yourself.

Be kind to animals.

All of these, from the Great Commandment, which Jesus gave to his disciples, proclaiming the rest to be what is essentially commentary, to the Girl Scout Motto, to the fell good by doing good of the 80's to whatever you want to call it today, are easily categorized. They are statements of the need for all of us to practice sharing that common cup filled with the milk of human kindness.

What is the milk of human kindness? You might need to ask that question these days.

We've come a long way baby from the infamous, "Greed is good," all the way to, "I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore."

Well, some greed as they say, is good. Without greed, we'd never work to achieve anything. Some greed, such as being hungry to do a good job, to help the company grow, to make the future brighter for our children, to increase the knowledge we have, to accumulation of skills so that we can serve others--all can be simplistically analyzed as a form of greed.

Then again, avarice, for the purpose of accumulating wealth alone, well that kind of greed is not so hot.

Today, we are told to reduce our consumption of everything. Reduce, reuse, you know the rest.

But we cannot reduce the amount that we accumulate in order to give to others. And, when the time comes as it comes all to often these days, there may be a time when you need the giving of others. You might not need goods, or food or money, but you might really need an act of human kindness. The good deed that someone can direct your way.

Don't call the religious stations. They will do you lots of good, but first they want ten percent of whatever you have, should have, or even don't have.

Don't call on those who are prone to labeling. For example, if someone has called you a &$#*($@ bitch, do not request even the smallest act of kindness. That said, don't stop being cordial with those folk, for they will eventually feel the heat of the coals of kindness you are dropping on their heads.

Around here, in Chicago, if you are sick or injured, asking a favor like a ride to the pharmacy or a trip to the grocery, or even a quick assist with putting a load of laundry in the basement washers, can run upwards of $10 per assist. That adds up quickly. Three loads of wash? That will be $30, thank you very much. Thus, if no money is coming in, none of that stuff gets done.

Others demand more. "I'll help you with the grocery trip, and can you make me a dress? And, do you have any of that lovely brown wool? You know, the same fabric you used to make that dress..."

Well, that wool was $30 a yard, the requestor's bulk means you'll need four yards of that precious wool, which means the owner of the new dress is gonna take me to the grocery every week for the next year, by my calculations. Ah, but one never says those realistic bargaining statements. Rather, the reply is, "Whaddya mean, that dress is gonna be worth $150?"

So, what is the cost of a cup of human kindness? I don't know. But I do know that I have no fresh food, dirty clothes, two broken shoulders, one bum knee, a very dusty apartment, and little if any help for any of it.

Bad things come in them.

Triplets appear as them.

Days as most are lived are divided into them, with sleep, work and other stuff filling the triad.

Crisis used to be defined as something that can be solved in three, recognized in three or dealt with for three of whatever.

Like three months. Anyone can handle anything for three months. 90 days. Simple. Piece of cake. Which should probably be cut into eights or nines rather than thirds. But I digress.

This time though, this one time in our history, we are inundated with debacles that come with no limits. No simple end in sight is seen. Politics, environment, economy. Three of the four horsemen running through those brains trapped under layers of hairspray holding those good hair guys preaching today that the oil spewing into the Gulf is either an act of an angry God for acts of sinful lust in the hearts of all who don't see the world as they do.

That world used to have very clear lines of right and wrong, black/white, no gray shading allowed. Now, the whole world is being inundated with a pollution event that could rival the sudden appearance of some asteroid that could wipe us all out as it covers the richest ecosystem in the world with black, brown, gray or reddish ooze, coating abundant and endangered alike in a slick coat of death.

Can't blame that on moral failures of the dancing boys and girls in the French Quarter or just on the consumptive nature of the West. Then again, we can't offend the oil execs with accurate allegations of criminal negligent ecoside. Can't, can't or won't...put the blame where the blame belongs.

This isn't your normal Act of God. This is the retribution for worshiping something that the evangelists can't bring themselves to name. This could be it. Apocalypse on the horizon.

Ain't gonna be no ninety day wonder either.

Couple that with the honest to goodness, doing good, do gooders being shot numerous times in the backs of their heads, execution style, and a country that cannot say the words, "We were profoundly and massively wrong," and we have part the second.

Part the third is the ongoing meltdown of the economy that began in 1929, abated some, got a nudge and a serious push from deregulated bankers and investment houses, and Part hte second appeared in 2008, after raising its head earlier in the 90's and 2007, and now Act 3 is going on in the Eurozone.

Add in the H1N1, pollution from all those other sources, scourges, plagues of ravening greedy genocidal hordes cloaked in a mantel of some religion that is not a belief held by their victims, the dying honey bees, the intrusion of genetically modified food into the mouths of all and sundry in the most uncontrolled study (?) of tolerance to and usefulness of gene manipulated foodstuffs, and that is way more than three.

But, just this week, just this week, three are my limit.

I don't know about you, but three is all I can handle. Nothing I have written of is even close to my own crises of life.

Like being unpaid. Again. Like having my identity stolen. For the third time. Like the pantry running to empty because of not being paid and my identity now being someone else's. For the third time, I note in pain filled irony.

Then again, it could be solved in 90 days. Three months.

Piece of cake.

America Hyypocritical? Shirley you jest...

Dear Shirley, you asked, I answer. What means America -- the Beautiful and the Hypocritical?

In the past few weeks, the US has been crisis central, followed by Israel, the Gulf Oil Crisis that will not end for generations (if the Exxon Valdez is used as a unit of environmental cleanup timekeeping), and the ongoing economic meltdown that has gone in stages begun on that loathsome Jekyll island retreat held by our soon to be world masters in the opening decades of the 20th Century. Perhaps it all began, as Wilson moaned, with the intentional destruction of the Republic, back when he was President. After all, money drives America, always has, always will. Yet, in the second decade of that past century, the US threw Constitutional money regulation to the privateers of the banking internationalists that govern us to this day.

All these events have been examined in history, some of which is admittedly short at present due to the recent nature of events, and others in detail. Some events are only examined through emotion, others are shaped by sloganeering.

Remember the Maine, The Yanks were coming, then arrived, then did their military magic, then turned it all over to the others, and we went on to a generation or two of more military action than this nation had seen in its entire history. The Twentieth Century saw, even in the recently past generation, more war emanating from the US than attacks upon this nation.

We have defeated Nazis, or not. That depends on what websites you watch. We have made the world safe for democracy, or not, depending on whether or not the election in question elected the right person/party/philosophy.

We are asked to believe that a military action begun on the high seas, in international waters, was a action taken to protect a particular nations' interest, without consideration of the fundamental question. Is an act of aggression done in international waters defensible as protectionist or preemptive warmaking?

We have taken over the rich oil fields of Iraq after launching preemptive war against a nation that mere months, to say nothing of years prior, was determined to be no threat to the US. And we didn't ask the question? Is an act of aggression done against a nation that had done nothing to the US, a violation of the laws of war? A violation of US law? A violation of treaties?

We have not been asking the critical questions.

We have not asked the question of whether our demand for cheap energy was worth the price of destruction of the Gulf of Mexico, possibly due to the cost savings that made that cheap energy possible was done at the price of not having safety equipment ready, of not having a plan in place at the scene of the blow out in the first place.

To ask those questions today can be seen as doubting the Exceptionalism that makes America exceptional in so many patriotic eyes. To ask those questions of the America of the Fourth of July bunting and parades, the fireworks that recreate the rockets red glare over forts where wars were won and the Constitution was defended, really defended, and a nation unlike any that had been envisioned in the entire short history of man was launched, is to ask a question too many for us all today. To ask is to criticize these days, and to criticize is not patriotic.

Perhaps to criticize without thought behind it, to criticize with jingoistic ardor is mistaken for asking a critical question. A well placed critical question. A question that must be critically considered and critically asked and its answer critically considered.

And yet, questions must be asked. Critical questions. Critical views are not necessarily criticism. Critical questioning though requires critical thinking. Critical thinking demands looking at the various fundamental principles that are foundations for our thoughts about ourselves, our nation, our patriotism, our actions.

We live in times where criticism abounds. Are your suits red enough to be rightously Republican ladies? Do your ties have the right shade of Democratic blue guys? Are your veins filled with the right mixture of bankers cash, lobbyists love notes that are really marching orders, and do you belong to the good clubs and know the things to say that will get you elected and kept in office, as you entertain dreams of offices in the most powerful clubs in the world, and pass legislation that you never bother to read? If you can answer yes, you can be a Senator.

And yet, and yet, getting into that club, especially in this year of primaries and elections that could change the way things work, but won't, the same problem exists.

Criticism is not critical thinking. Criticism is often founded upon false foundations such as those that don't agree with me are wrong. Period. Full Stop.

We in the U. S. of A., are getting our hackles up at being called hypocritical by foreign critics, yet forget one approach to the word hypocritical. Hypocritical, dissected, means less than critical. Less than critical thinking. Lacking in the critical. Lacking in the one way that allows an unbiased look at reality.

Take the word apart. Hypocritical. Hypo generally gets the under, lower than, or even less than definition. As in lacking. The whole Belshazzar's feast of lacking, complete with handwriting on the wall, writ large by the very hand of God. That kind of less than is the "hypo" that I'm talking about.

Combine it with critical, as in evaluative, considering, questioning, and one has to admit that being critical is not always a bad thing. Critical can be good. Critics evaluate, consider things, set standards, demand we meet them, or at least they do that with movies and plays. Perhaps such critical thinking should be more applied to what we are doing -- the big picture.

Are we on the wrong side at times? Like now? Are we doing wrong things? Pursuing wrong goals? Enriching the wrong people, leaving too many Americans out of the discussion? Are we wrong to send our manufacturing overseas? Is seeking the lowest possible price and the highest possible profit a good way to operate? Is greed good? Is preemptive anything good?

Bring on the education. Bring on the discussion. Let us loose our hypo-critical thinking and thereby lose the label of America the hypocritical. When we examine, critically, we can then go forward with the best, not just for the immediate future, but for the long term.

Bring on the Critical Thinking. Lose the label, tear down the jingoistic signs, embrace the difficult, and if necessary change the road we are traveling. It will be tough, it will be difficult, but America doesn't shy away from the difficult. Not the real America. Critical Thinking, the way to get us to the America we love -- America the truly beautiful.

Oh Muse, Where Art Thou?

Apologies to all for the blatant rip off of that title. Times here are desperate.

As in, times are now at the point where ordinary people of average desires would have thrown in whatever towel was at hand, and then start over. But start where, I ask.

Really. Start where?

Start what?

Do what?

For what?

Where?

When?

Well, actually that question is pretty easy. Now would be good.

Actually, anytime would be good.

I am back at the question that has plagued me my whole life. What am I supposed to be doing here? Or if now here, where? When?

Most importantly, how?

This, here in the wasteland, is the question.

What now?

Oh, where is that pesky Muse? Where is that Muse of mine?

Dam It!

Gusher, spill, leak, accident, failure, monumental technological cock-up. You take your appellation, assign it to BP and all will be well. Except, appellations aside, and while they might make you feel all warm and cozy that you've applied the correct term to the situation, there is one thing missing.

Missing from the news.

Missing from the websites.

Missing from everywhere.

That would be the constructive use of the term damn, err...dam.

As in, don't bring on damnation, though it would be perfectly well suited to the situation. But, the damning, or damming, needed is this. A proper dam.

Since the times of Rome, engineers have contained matters of construction inside coffer dams. You've seen them. Standpipes or huge containment structures out in rivers and lakes allow the area to be dried enough to sink pilings, build supports, construct walls, make secure that which will, in future, be under water.

Now, I understand the well that blew is 5000 plus feet down in Davy Jones Locker. Don't need one of those swell combination locks to keep things in that particular locker, but you do need to build some stuff around what it is that you are drilling with to keep things on the secure and level. Drills these days don't need the dry to work. But, they do need the proper environment. And when a proper environment is needed, engineers build them.

They have been building coffer dams for millenia, and building one in the Gulf would allow the engineers to put it down, then pump out what is filling it up, which would be a mix of oil and water.

Bring on the tankers.

Lots and lots of tankers. Keep filling them with that oil and watery mix.

Suck it up boys and girls, so you are able to suck it all up. And put it into the tankers.

Sure the well head is large, and the coffer dam would be larger. But it would be containment. Of sorts.

But, the one thing that has been missing in this disaster is containment. Except of course for constraining and containing the message into terminology which does nothing to reflect reality. And reality is this. One Exxon Valdez every 4 to 4.5 days.

Let it sink in.

They didn't have much in containment up there in Alaska, and doing everything on the cheap and the 'blame the other guy' system, BP and Halliburton and Deep Oceans, and Uncle Harry's Drill Skill Team, have done naught to contain. The Gulf is now awash in oil or in dispersants , or worse. The combo of the two. Unknown toxics from oil mixed with even more unknown dispersants, which don't make the oil go away, they just dispose by diluting it into the water where it is spread even further doing further damage. All of which is uncontained.

Containment we know. Containment is coffer dams. Not to keep the well head dry, but to keep it from the greater ocean. To contain and make separate the gusher from the well head that blew from the currents and waters of the Gulf.

You say a mile down of containment is too much?

I say gushing an Exxon Valdez every four days into the Gulf is way more too much. We have built underwater structures that support bridges in deep water, well head contraptions that rival the engineering required to go to the Moon, and we can contain this if we apply the simple, the direct, and the obvious.

For future drilling, it might be wise to build a structure around the well head that itself can be capped and thereby contain what might "spill", or "gush" or otherwise escape the structure used to tap the oil field under the oceans.

It would not require a full mile of coffer dam either. All that is needed is a progressively narrowing structure that can be capped and tapped as the oil fills it up.

Now, what qualifications do I have to recommend this audacious step? Well, precious few to be honest. But, I have done enough engineering in my day, both from college courses on through a thirty year career in IP law, to know one thing. The audacious can work.

My idea may be audacious.

But convincing me that one Exxon Valdez every four days, fouling the precious Gulf of Mexico on the cusp of Hurricane Season (remember Katrina), is the ultimate of audacious.

And cynical. And hurtful.

Finger pointing at 'the other guy' before Congress, without having had a good containment plan in place before a single grain of sand on the floor of the Gulf was first disturbed, was more audacious.

I am not saying my plan should be implemented as is. I am saying that there ought to be a lot of containing going on. Less dispersing, more containing, and more sucking it up.

That last would be responsibility, corrective action, and oil. We can do this, but we have done so little to date that all that is guaranteed at this point is destruction on a scale that none have or can imagine.

Damn it. Or, if you would, dam it. And fast.

Lives are in the balance, including the corporate personage of BP, and its ilk.