Being a Fan

So recently I became a fan of a band again. This has happened to me several times now- and I am struck by how being a fan has changed. When I was a teenager we had magazines - and of course they are still there, but what I am looking at now is European material scanned and uploaded to the fan forum on the band's website. While I remember MTV revolutionizing everything, youtube has really changed the game because here I can watch footage of concerts that happened hours ago, anywhere. Also the fan made videos and the leaking via youtube really change the nature of things, with positives and negatives to consider about both. My point is, it is an exciting time to be a fan, your interest in an artist can be immediately gratified and ultimately that is going to work in favor of the artists. With memories of the Grateful Dead hotline and mailorder with your #10 envelope...we have come some distance.

Serpent Mound and Why Walmart is Bad

In Spring of 2004 we took a trip to Ohio to visit the Serpent Mound. It is the largest effigy mound in the world at 1,330 feet long. There is some uncertainty about its age, it may have been built by the Adena people who built the other nearby mounds. They built mounds all over the Ohio valley down to Mississippi from 1000 BCE to 200 BCE. Or it could have been built by the later Fort Ancient people who were in the area from 1000 CE to 1550 CE. For more information please go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Mound
There are mound sites all over the United States, these sites are our stone circles, our Stonehenges. To learn more go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mississippian_culture
To read about our visit to North Carolina's mound site go back on this blog! (not too far, really.)
What about Walmart? we don't shop there because we think that voting with your money is one of the few powers you have left. If you haven't heard plenty of good reasons to stop supporting them with your dollars...ok here you go - they tear up these sacred mounds to build their stores, sometimes not even as a location but just for fill dirt! Please take a moment, go here and read about this, and at the very least you will have discovered Facing South, which is a great independent news source! (based here in Durham) http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/09/wal-marts-history-of-destroying-sacred-sites.html

Has Mainstream Media Wiped Out Humanity?

Ok, I'll admit it, I'm feeling a little grumpy. But I think there is ample evidence that the major media organizations have their own agendas that have more to do with profit than the longevity of the human species. I have no doubt that they have a cast of the usual suspects to roll out when we get closer to the UN Climate Summit convening in Copenhagen in December, that will be just as opposed to addressing the climate as they are to dealing with health care.
The problem is the planet won't wait while we are uninformed for another 20 years. The planet is going to respond to the pollution, and is going to become less and less inhabitable. Many, many people will be displaced. The outer banks of NC are going to disappear, my grandchildren won't know the beaches I played on - that makes me sad, but also angry at the generations that came before me. Why didn't you protect my world? The Native Americans teach governing that includes thinking seven generations into the future - I am not sure how far our leaders can see, or what world some of them are looking at.
So, U.S. media is dead last on international hard news, and 62% of Americans surveyed didn't even know what the Kyoto Accords were, so there isn't a lot of pressure on anyone, media or politician to get this right. And even if we get it right (by agreeing to the treaty's goals cutting emissions), that is still only 50-50 chance that it will be enough to keep the planet from heating two more degrees which is all it will take to trigger runaway climate change.
I watch British TV and read press from over there, they are light years ahead of us on this issue. We need to be planning to contact our representatives about this, in the glare of whatever may be happening with health care and the rush towards Christmas (Copenhagen is Dec. 6-18) it will be very easy for this whole issue to slide under the radar.
If we don't start to deal with the climate we are going to have some very harsh health implications, so we definitely have to be concerned about both.

Fucking with Reality

I just found out that Newcastle is no longer exporting coal, in fact, they have begun importing coal. So, now if we say 'like taking coal to Newcastle" we may mean a fool's errand, but we will be using a phrase that has detached from it's real world meaning. I love language, and learning origins of expressions, and it is inevitable that things are always changing. "Sold down the river" is one I was noticing recently, it of course having it's roots in slavery.
Newcastle running out of coal though, perhaps because it has to do with finite resources, strikes me as a sad thing to happen. And one more blaring wake up call to us - it is past time to change our ways.

My friend Eric

I'd like to encourage everyone to check out this website that is for single payer health care.
http://www.americanhealthcarereform.org/
I've posted this picture of my friend Eric A. because his story is an example of what we have now. I came to know Eric in the summer of 1990. He was one of my housemates in a latter day hippie house here in Durham. We were part of the first bunch to share the "Burch house" but many of our friends lived there over the years. Eric came to Durham from Tennessee, where he grew up on The Farm, a legendary commune. He told us what it was like to grow up in those primitive and unusual circumstances, and we teased him for his love all things sweet.
Eric was one of the kindest, most generous, most vibrant people I have ever known. And he died before he was 35 years old. He had gone back home to Tennessee, and was having digestive troubles. He went to a clinic repeatedly but they did not do tests on him until when they finally discovered the cancer they told him they must operate right then or he had 2 weeks to live. Amazingly, he did survive for some time after that a year or more. I can't help but think if they had only discovered it sooner he would have had excellent chances to be here today.
Instead we feel his absence, a missing thread in our web of friends, without him perhaps we all fly a little farther apart. He would have some kids by now, be married....
If you take the time to read the stories from people who have experience with what health care is like when profit motive is taken out, it becomes much more humane. There are certain things that just do not need to be driven by money. When they are, bad decisions are made. The system is just set up wrong. We need single payer - medicare for all.
Though a majority of Americans agree, it is disheartening to watch the media defend the status quo as the Senate sells us down the river. Thank goodness for www.firedoglake.com - check out the good work they have been doing over there! They have been whipping the house and have over 60 representatives on board supporting a public option.

Health Care for All

I have been following the health care debate and have some links I'd like to share.
http://www.americanhealthcarereform.org/
has lots of links itself, is for single-payer medicare for all. I'd just like to mention that I have been on medicare for about 14 years and it works just fine. The prescription drug part, part D, has a few problems that could use fixing but overall it is a great program. I'd really like to hear more medicare recipients coming forward to say, this is government run health insurance, and it works for me!
there is going to be a march on Washington for single payer on July 30. Info here:
http://www.democrats.com/node/19877
One of the speakers at the rally will be a favorite author of mine Barbara Ehrenreich, she's most famous in the triangle for her book Nickled and Dimed, because when it was assigned as the reading for the freshman class at UNC a few years ago the conservatives freaked out and had a big ole hissy fit.
We were talking about how the world has changed and in order to keep the population healthy it is important for people to be able to go to the doctor when they aren't well. I just read that McDonald's had a hepatitis scare, that one person may have infected thousands. The people who think that their money and their health insurance and their good jobs have them protected are not thinking about all the unprotected people they come in contact with. The only way for anyone to be healthy is for everyone to be healthy.

Ocean Breezes

We have returned from a lovely few days in Myrtle Beach, SC. Or as one of our friends so charmingly called it - the Redneck Riviera. I did a lot of research before we went, and I think we were fairly satisfied with where we stayed - The Breakers hotel right on the grand strand. It had a water park with a lazy river that was a big hit. We really enjoyed the ocean too - we had some nice calm water. We were also close to the Broadway on the Beach which is shops and restaurants. We enjoyed drinks and nachos outside at the bar at the Hard Rock Cafe. We were able to take in the live band and still make the fireworks at 10 pm.
The pyramid design reminded us of the coliseum in Memphis,TN where we saw the Grateful Dead in the spring of 1995. No trip to Myrtle Beach would be complete without a game of putt putt golf. This time we tried out Mount Atlanticus, which has to be the climbingest putt putt ever! It was pretty cool - I am just out of shape for all the steps - and when you get to the top there is a good view.