Sailing around the world

In a couple of days, on October 4th, the 2008-2009 running of the Volvo Ocean Race Round The World begins.  This is ‘life at the extreme’, sailing around the world in the most advanced yachts in there are.  People have died during this race, and boats have been lost.  The race covers much of the globe, from Spain to South Africa, Australia, Brazil, the United States, and back to Europe for the finish.  From dodging iceburgs in the Southern Ocean to standing watch in shorts, the crews experience a wide range of weather.  In-port races provide action up close, while videos are recorded and transmitted from the boats during the 5and 6,000 mile long open ocean legs.

The race began as the the Whitbread, in 1974, the result of a challenge thrown down in an English pub.  Run every 4 years until now, the race is considered the Himilayas of sailing.  The boats are now built specifically for the race, at a cost of millions of dollars.  They are constructed almost entirely of carbon, using techniques developed in the aviation industry.  In order to allow sailing even faster, they have keels which can be moved from side to side.  The last race saw 25 whole days subtracted from the previous record, with boat speeds of 25 to 30 knots being common.  One boat covered 562 miles in a 24 hour period, setting a mark which still stands.

You don’t have to be into sailing to get excited about this race, because it is flat out, balls-to-the-wall action from start to finish, apart from the occasional windless days.  The crews come from all over the world, and are the best of the best at what they do.  This race is about using a knowledge of Nature, advanced technology, and the power of the human spirit to challenge the deep blue sea.  Check it out at www.volvorace.com.  They even have a web TV site, with highlights of past races.  I think that it is a lot better than watching cars burn up gas.

No more IOU’s, just cash from now on.

It cracks me up to hear the presidential candidates saying that they won’t raise taxes.  We are so deep in debt right now that we are probably going to see a longer work week sometime soon, just so that we can have something to take home after taxes.  Bailing out the greedy and the lazy will push us much deeper into the red than anyone thought possible just a few months ago.

What happened to the American work ethic?  When did it become disrespectful to work?  A great deal of the economic woe that we are facing now is because so many Americans were trying to get wealthy without having to work.  Not to mention the impact that having to pay a cash dividend every year has had on our industries.  Even when business is horrible, big companies have continued to hand out hundreds of millions, even billions, in cash to people who own their stock.

It used to be that buying stock was considered an investment in the future, because the payoff would take a few years, as the company gradually grew.  Somewhere along the line, somebody realized that they could sell a lot more stock if they promised to pay the people who bought that stock a cash payment every year, just for owning the stock.  In today’s world, large sums of cash can be hard to come by, resulting in companies having to get loans to pay the stockholders their dividends.

Even when that doesn’t happen, the profits that the company make are not being reinvested in the company, they are going to the shareholders.  Instead of developing new products, and more efficient methods of producing existing ones, companies are ‘outsourcing’ much, if not all, of their production.  This looks great on the balance sheet, but in the long term, it is suicide.  Who is going to buy the products that the company makes if everyone is out of work?

Everyone is getting all hot and bothered about the completely unrealistic levels of compensation that many executives have been getting, but all of their salaries and bonuses together would hardly be a drop in the bucket compared to the billions and billions that are paid out in dividends every year.  Those dividends are the future of our nation, the ability to grow, to innovate, to improve.  We are throwing those things away so that a bunch of lazy idiots can sit around doing nothing.

If the work week ends up being 50, or even 60, hours, than I think we should make it illegal to pay stockholders in cash any kind of dividend.  Make their shares worth more, so that all of us will be worth more.  The growth that we thought we were enjoying has turned out to be an illusion, a bubble that all of us helped to create.  Wealth is once again going to be measured by tangible things, not pieces of paper.

No matter how much the government gives the banks, the banks are not about to start loaning money out, because the bankers know that we are all broke, and they don’t want to lose any more of the so-called value that they are responsible for.  Because they will have to pay their shareholders with cash, not IOU’s.

Words for the season

HARVEST KING

AND

THE FESTIVAL OF AUTUMN

I am the Harvest King.
My colors are brown and yellow, orange and black.
I am the bounty of the land.
The death which brings life.
I am Change, and Sacrifice for the Future.
I am that which makes space for new life.
I will come for you.

In Death, we celebrate new beginnings,
As we cherish that which has passed on.
The Harvest King reminds us of the sacred nature of life,
And drives us together,
So that we may face the coming Winter.
The Life Force withdraws from the land,
And we gather to draw strength from each other,
And the memories of those who have gone before us.

We celebrate the Life Force which has died,
Cherishing the sacrifice made for the living.
We glimpse the full cycle of the wheel,
Life emerging from the residue of Death,
Growing, creating more Life, sharing in the harvests,
And then, joining the slumbering pool of Life,
Waiting to be reborn.

Scott P. Holman

Hey, buddy, can you spare a billion?

A landlord once told me that he was worried where he was going to get his next 1,000 dollars, which kind of put my problems in perspective.  For many major companies right now, figuring out where they are going to get their next billion dollars is a major concern.  America has become addicted to easy credit, from the Federal government down to the folks next door.  The term ‘bridge loan’ has nothing to do with bridges, but instead is an industry term for short-term financing to get through until expected funds become available.  It is kind of like a payday loan, but at much lower interest rates.

The state of California was used to getting bridge loans, a few billion to tide it over until tax revenues start coming in next spring.  Many companies borrow for a day, a week, or a month, at low interest, to cover payroll, for instance.  But it wasn’t always like this, which is why things are so messed up right now.  It used to be, companies kept cash in bank accounts to cover any conceivable expense, because credit was hard to get, even for multi-million dollar organizations.  States would borrow money, but only through bond sales, which were usually long-term instruments, often 20 years.  They had to keep their accounts in the black to cover day-to-day expenses.

Homeowners had savings accounts that often represented a year or more worth of income, to protect against a water heater going bad, or having to buy a new car, or somebody getting really sick.  The only way to get the equity out of a house was to sell it.  But most people had enough in the bank to see them through, so they didn’t need to borrow against what they had paid on their home.  Then, something changed, something which was a fundamental shift in thinking.

When people had spent all of their extra cash, they quit buying stuff that they really didn’t need.  This seems logical enough, but it meant that consumer spending began to decline, which hurt the profits of many big corporations.  In order to keep people buying stuff, an new idea surfaced.  Easy credit.  The credit card.  A homeowner was a sure bet, because their house would be their collateral for their debt.  Enter Monster Card, and its brethren.  In an amazingly short period of time, the United States went from being the largest creditor nation to the largest debtor nation, as easy credit spread from homeowners to big corporations to states.

Borrowing money used to be looked down upon, because good people paid cash.  Little by little, that stigma was erased, and replaced with a belief that we deserved what we wanted, right away.  Instant gratification became the standard operating procedure of not just teenagers, but adults, executives, and elected officials.  Of course, lending out money is a profitable enterprise, so everybody jumped on the bandwagon.  And, an obscure rule of accounting made it even easier.  If someone owes you money, it increases your net worth.  Accounts receivable are counted as an asset on a balance sheet.

The more money that is owed you, the wealthier you are, irregardless of the ability of the debtors to pay you back.  On paper, you can be worth millions, even billions, but not have two dimes to rub together.  Say, buddy, can you spare a billion?  I’m a little short right now.

Future shocking?

It amazes me that we are not hearing any straight talk about what lies ahead, as if things could somehow go on as they have before. Even though I have only a small education in economics, it seems obvious to me that the United States is going to have a huge amount of debt to pay off. This can only be done by working together to create things of lasting value which can be used by large numbers of people. Infrastructure. Trade cannot pay off debt, because nothing of lasting value is created in trade.

Consumer spending is based almost entirely upon trade, so consumer spending will have to decline. But how could consumer spending continue at previous levels if people are all broke? Something is going to have to replace consumer spending as the engine of the economy, and it will have to be big. Instead of building roads, though, maybe we should consider some new kinds of infrastructure. Like fiber optic cables to every home, and a combination data terminal/videophone in every house. A national high speed rail network. Upgrade the electric grid, and run transmission lines to areas where wind is plentiful. Insulate every structure in the nation. Not just spending money, but actually increasing our efficiency as a nation.

Demand for resources can easily outstrip supply if developing countries begin large-scale consumption. The resulting supply-side shocks cripple the economy, pushing up inflation at the same time that wages become stagnant. Greed overwhelms the markets, and a herd mentality emerges, where any profitable strategy is immediately copied, over and over again. One sub-prime mortgage is not a problem. Several million of them are. So markets will have to be guided into spending a portion of their capital on long-term projects, which will dampen the volatility in the short term, while providing guidance for investors as to where long-term growth will be.

Our future economic expansion must be based in increasing our net worth, not financial manipulations of value. Paying for this increase will mean working longer hours, so that the tax burden is spread over more earnings. The payment of cash dividends has got to be discouraged, so that corporations can invest their earnings into new means of production, training, and research. Military spending has got to be reduced, as that is money that disappears from our economy after one pass through it. Spending on space exploration needs to be increased, because it generates new wealth at a rate nearly unequaled, while engaging the high-tech military-industrial complex.

Saving has got to be encouraged, so that the government will have access to money to use for these programs. Payroll accepted in the form of U.S. savings bonds should be tax free, and the payroll value calculated in immediate redemption value, not the face value at maturity. Interest on savings accounts should be tax free. We are going to have to stop relying on foreign countries to carry our debt, because we are making our money worthless. Only by working together, and sharing the sacrifices, can we have any hope of coming out of this economic meltdown.

Better than term limits!

Do you ever get a little miffed that the person that is supposed to be serving you in some public office is instead spending their time campaigning for re-election, or, even worse, another office?  Both of the current candidates for president hold the office of U.S. senator, which should be their primary focus, in my opinion.  How has their candidacy affected their votes on the Senate floor?  If elected, would either person put the needs of the country ahead of their re-election?  Would either person be willing to take unpopular action, knowing that it would probably eliminate their chance for a second term?

How often have you heard that passage of critical legislation is unlikely during an ‘election year’?  If a person has choosen to make their career in politics, won’t they consider keeping their job the most important goal?  Many people have become disgruntled with the advantage than an incumbant has over a challenger, and various attempts at limiting the number of terms that can be served in a given office have been put forward.  Most have failed, because there is no agreement on the limits.

When this country was founded, getting people to serve in public office was a huge problem.  Often, it meant being away from one’s farm or business for months at a time, which could lead to financial ruin.  Now, we have legislators who have been in office for decades, who have hardly spent any time in the areas that they represent, who have developed close relationships with lobbyists.

I say, force people to step down when their term of office expires, and don’t allow anyone holding elected office, even if it is at the local level, to run for another office.  I am sick of mayors running for state representative, or county commisioners campaigning for state senate office.  I don’t want to see any more governers using their office as a stepping stone to higher office, because they have been elected to do a job.  When an office holder is campaigning for re-election, or election to another office, how focused are they on their job?  How likely are they to do what is right, even if it means displeasing the public initially?

No term limits, for any office.  But no incumbancy, either.  You serve your term, then you are out.  You can run as many times as you want, but, if elected, you have to step down when your term is up.  This is the only truly fair way to insure that we get proper representation in our government, as well as the only way that I can think of that important decisions will be made with the interests of the country in the forefront.  The term ‘career politician’ offends me, because a career politician is someone who has made staying in office their primary goal, not serving their country.

What is ‘normal’ for markets?

Over and over again, in reading about the financial/economic crisis, I come across the expression “when markets return to normal,” Do people really believe that we are going to go back to the dividend-driven, supposedly risk-free, immediate return seeking ways of the last few years? Doesn’t anyone realize that the wealth that was supposedly created in those years never really existed, it was just an illusion to allow a few people to benefit hugely at the majority’s expense? We artificially inflated our net worth, by bidding up the prices of everything, and paying ourselves huge bonuses for being alive. The money that was zooming around, being loaned out again and again, was a fantasy, with nothing to back it up. Just because someone claims that something is worth a certain amount does not make it so, no matter how hard we wish.

So we had better start adjusting to a new reality, one where wealth is again hard to come by, and is only created by work, not by manipulating numbers. We must accept that we cannot live off of our investments alone, because they are not going to provide the steady stream of money that so many have become addicted to. Stock dividends are going to become extremely rare, because the companies will be too hard pressed to come up with cash. Credit default swaps are not going to prevent risk, because too much has been invested under the false belief that it cannot be lost. The government cannot hand out trillions of dollars to keep investors from losing when the slowing of the economy stops the payment of debt.

The entire premise that being owed money increases one’s worth will have to be jettisoned, because too many accounts receivable are not going to be collected. A bank holding company may claim that it worth large sums of money because of all the debt that it holds, but how much of that debt will be converted into cash cannot be known in advance. Those companies that do not re-invest their profits into reducing debt and improving efficiency will not see their stock increase in value, unlike in the past. We have gotten used to believing that we were wealthy because we could easily borrow money. We never were wealthy, and we sure aren’t now.

Games people play

Want something new and different to do during the downtime at work, or when you are sitting around wishing that there was something worth watching on TV?  Try the Volvo Ocean Race Virtual Game!  Over 70,000 people have signed up to run a virtual sailboat in this ’round the world’ race, which follows the same course as the real Volvo Open 70 boats.  You don’t have to be a sailor, or even know anything about sailing, just be interested in participating in an online game.

http://www.volvooceanracegame.org/play.php  is the URL that will get you to the sign up page.

For those of you who are into sailing, the new 24 hour record for a monohull boat was set during leg 1, at 602 miles.  That is by a sailboat, folks, not a power boat.  Maintaining an average of about 25 knots, or 30 miles per hour, for 24 hours is quite a feat.  This is the Formula One of sailing, with boats built entirely of carbon, huge sails, and a special ‘canting keel’ which allows the boats to go upwind.  This is not NASCAR, with things going around and around, this is not football, with people hitting each other,  this is not any sport you have ever seen.  People have died during these races, and boats have been lost.

In an age when burning gasoline is becoming less than politically correct, sailing is a clean, green sport.

I’m so confused!

Here in the United States, we use a celebration of Death to kick of the celebration of Life.  What am I talking about?  Thanksgiving and the Christmas Shopping Season.  Although Thanksgiving is dedicated to the Pilgrams landing at Plymouth Rock, it is really a harvest celebration, just a little late in the year.  (I for one never believed that people ate outside at Thanksgiving ever! Especially in Massachuesetts.)  The roast beast, the trimmings, the goodies, the pies, the whole production is a celebration of the bounty of the land, and the sacrifice made so that Life can go on.  Everything on the table will be dead, and that is what the celebration is all about.  We give thanks to that which has died so that we can continue.

Unless you live in some place without electricity, you will probably notice that the sky glows at night a lot more than usual in the days after Thanksgiving.  Some people already are burning their Christmas, or Yule, lights, and the day after Thanksgiving in the ‘official’ kick off of the Christmas Shopping Season.  The Yule Tide was a celebration of Life, of re-birth, of renewal.  It started a few days after the Winter Solstice, and ran for days or weeks into January.  (What else is January good for, except partying?)

Because merchants want us to buy our gifts, instead of making them ourselves, as was done in the old days, they sponser concerts, public events, lighting displays, and anything eles that they can think of to get people out shopping.  Gradually, the Christmas season has swung around from the weeks after the Winter Solstice to the weeks before the Winter Solstice.  Inadvertantly, we have moved a festival of Life into a time when the LifeForce is ebbing from the land, leaving nothing for when the days begin to get longer.

To make things even more unsettling, late autumn has always been a time when people tried to conserve their resources as much as possible, by staying close to home, eating very little, and sleeping a lot.  For thousands and thousands of years, what food we had would have to last until Spring, at the earliest.  So, getting out and being extra active in late autumn just feels wrong somehow.

We must remember our instinctual heritage, what cultures practiced before written history, when analyzing our motivations and emotional responses to modern societie’s demands.  There are ample reasons for feeling confused and out of sorts in the weeks ahead, and some we don’t even acknowledge.

Have a wonderful Harvest Festival!

Saving a little money

Now that folks are starting to realize that it is not just them, we are all broke, maybe we can start changing some wasteful practices.  Such as paying one set of people to take care of our elders, and another set of people to take care of our children.  Both functions were part of the family experience up until about 60 years ago, the elders taking care of the children, teaching them culture, history, manners, and social skills, until the children were old enough to start taking care of the elders, when they became infirm.  Today, we seperate these two groups, so that many young children never get to know really old people, and our elders pining their days away wishing that they could spend time with children,  Any children.

Many of the people who have been placed in assisted living or nursing facilities are alert, active, and interested in what is going on around them, they simply are in need of care which family members can’t, or won’t, provide.  They are capable of spending an hour or two a few days a week helping to watch over a group of children.  Not by themselves, of course, but with the assistance of young, able bodied people.  And not in the common room of the facility catering to the elders, but in a special, home-like setting, perhaps not even on the same grounds.  Elders could be compensated for their time, and the proceeds used to help defray the cost of their care.

Somehow, a way should be found to utilize the free time, culutural knowledge, and historical background of our elders in socializing our youth.  Very young children love to please elderly people, and elderly people love to spend time with very young children.  When these two populations are allowed to interact, the results are often far more positive than when either interacts with any other age group.  It is a waste to keep them segregated.

You can keep Christmas, I’ll celebrate the Yule!

Many folks don’t realize this, but Christmas is a distorted echo of an ancient pagan, or witchcraft, celebration of the Winter Solstice.  The Yule, or YuleTide, was begun on or about December 25th, which is the first day that it is always possible, no matter which day the solstice falls upon, to measure the shortening of a shadow cast at noon.  The celebration lasted weeks, or even months, as the primitive people of Western Europe gathered together to face their greatest enemy, the winter.  The evergreen tree was a symbol of Life carrying on through the Death of winter.  Candles were symbols of the Sun, which made life possible.

In a time when nothing was taken for granted, and gods peopled the heavens and earth, the idea that the Sun could just keep going South was not uncommon.  To believe that the world could end up in eternal night gave great cause for celebration when it was determined that the Sun was coming back.  Because people had lots of spare time during the months of Autumn, they could make handycrafts, which they shared with each other when they gathered for YuleTide.  An animal would be slaughtered, the thinning of the stock to ensure that some survived the winter, and a feast would be held.

Thus, the traditions of the Yule have been passed down, but the celebration has been distorted by Greed.  In order to get people out shopping, buying the things that they can no longer make, decorations go up early, special occasions are held, and people are encouraged to spend money on their loved ones.  A countdown to the day is held, and the anticipation builds, aided by commercials.  When the day finally arrives, it is a let down.  Soon, people are unhappy with the whole thing, and decide to take down the festive lights.

Killing a tree every year was never part of the Yule celebration, only decorating one outdoors.  For one thing, there was no room in the huts that families shared for a tree, and the idea of killing an evergreen at that time of year was like heresy.  Gift giving was not a given, (ha ha) but no one was expecting anything.  An article that someone has worked on for hours has that persons energy in it, and it has power emotionally.  Simply handing out gifts would have diminished the impact that gifts had, I believe.

because the celebration of the Yule was so deeply ingrained in the native population of Western Europe, the Christian church gave up trying to stop the celebration, and incorporated it into the Christian calander.  Because the populous believed that the Sun was reborn at the solstice, the church held that the Son was born at that time.  (This in spite of it being generally believed by scholars at the time that Christ was born during the Spring or Summer.)  The emphasis was placed on the religious meaning of the Christian celebration, and the Yule was not mentioned.

To me, Christmas has come to represent the worst of American culture, with Greed being the major offender, followed by Materialism.  People have been lead to believe that the celebration goes on before the fact, not after, so that they will buy more.  I embrace the Yule, because it does not have the materialistic trappings, and it spans the time when it is first noticeable that the days are getting longer.  That is the promise of another Spring, and Life returning.  That, to me, is the Reason For The Season.

Could I get a phone with my cell plan, please?

Nowadays, phone service providers are so interested in making money off of extras that the phone you usually get is a piece of ka-ka.  Between providing a large enough screen to make surfing the ‘net possible and viewing images, and stuffing a high quality digital camera into the thing, the phone becomes fragile, easily messed up. Considering that the majority of cell phone users are merely socializing, those things are not that important.  But for people who really need a cell phone, the present situation is almost disgusting.

I would like to see a phone that is just a phone, no camera, no internet, with an antenna that extends,  a docking port protected by a retractable cover, and a battery that will support talking for at least 12 hours.  I don’t care if it is big, or heavy, or both, I want a phone that is reliable, that will do what I need for it to do.  Sure, I know that the exact phone that I have described is available for a few hundred dollars, but why can’t one of the phones offered by a phone service provider for free have these qualities?

Phone companies are trying to make cellular phones like Personal Data Assistants, multi-purpose devices that will perform a number of jobs, all of which have profit potential for the service providers.   Text messaging is merely the first step in reaping huge additional profits from cell phone users.  Internet access, image processing, instant messaging, all of these functions are supported by large networks now, with the capability to bill every second of use of each program, and round up to the nearest minute.

So most people end up geting a phone that is so small that it is nearly a choking hazard, with a battery that can only last about a third of the time that it is needed to, and is so fragile that a bump that is hardly noticable can disable it.  Of course, if I pay insurarce, I can get a new one for next to nothing, (but usually not nothing,} and so, provide an insurace company with profit as well.

Through smart marketing, a service which is certainly non-essential for most people has been made to seem indispensable.  In order to continue to pull in huge profits, now that the cell phone market is pretty well saturated, extra services have been added.  But reliable voice communication, the basic reason for cellular phones, has been pushed aside in the interests of profit.  Often times, a cell tower is operating at or near its capacity, which leads to dropped calls, just because there are so many subscribers who are talking about nothing important.

Lose a little, or lose it all?

As the financial crisis has evolved, one subject that keeps causing contention is mortgage adjustment.  As people are losing jobs and seeing investments sour, their ability to pay their mortgage has dwindled.  Forecloseures are on the rise across the nation, resulting in more houses being put into a market which is already saturated.  This leads to home prices declining, which means that more people are holding mortgages that are worth more than the house.

Mortgage adjustment means altering the terms of the mortgage, either lowering the amount that must be paid, or extending the length of the mortgage.  These adjustments are made with the hope that they will help keep people in their homes, by preventing foreclosures.  But many of the investors who hold the mortgages are determined to avoid adjustments to those mortgages, believing that they will lose money.

True, if a mortgage is adjusted so that the amount owed is reduced, the holder of the mortgage is not going to get all of their money back.  But what happens when the the mortgage holder defaults, and the home is foreclosed?  It used to be that the mortgage holder could eventually get most of their investment back, through various legal means.  These days, the mortgage holder is in danger of getting little or no return on the investment if the homeowner defaults, because the price of the asset that secured the mortgage is shrinking so quickly.

The greed that got us into this mess is still with us, thwarting efforts to prevent things from spiraling further down. Demanding that a homeowner repay every penny of mortgage when the value of the home has decreased by as much as half is ridiculous, and is likely to lead to more bundled securities becoming toxic, as homeowners walk away from properties, or lose them in foreclosure.

Failing to realize that we are all in this together, and that no one is going to emerge whole raises the risk that we all will lose significantly.  Refusing to willfully downsize an invistment in light of the current economic situation increases the likelyhood that that investment will become practically worthless.  Who has more to lose, the homeowner, or the investor financing hundreds of homeowners?

bringing young and old together

As the realization of how broke we all are sets in, perhaps we can contemplate some changes to save money.  We need new ways of doing things, ways which do not depend on the flagrant spending of money that we don’t have.  We need to look to the past, to see how thing were done before people could use energy so freely and easily.  We need to remember ways of living together which made us stronger, more unified, comfortable.  We need to be open to new ideas, willing to embrace change in the hope that we can learn from the results.  One such new idea is to hold day care classes at assisted living centers and nursing homes.

Currently, we are paying one group of people to take care of our kids, and another group of people to take care of our parents.  There was a time, not all that long ago, when our parents would have raised our children, while we were busy supporting both our children and our parents.  There were no such things as nursing homes, or day care, because those functions were performed within the family.  This is how culture was passed on, not through school.

A great many of the people who have been sentenced to a nursing home are still physically capable of looking after children, they just have some problem which their family did not want to deal with.  Having these people be involved in taking care of children, any children, would be beneficial for both the children and the elders.  And the children don’t have to be related to the elders, because children will accept almost any elder, and elders will accept almost any child.

Elders who actively participate in the care of the children could be compensated in some way, perhaps reducing the cost of their care that their family must cover, or receiving credit towards purchases.  Elders who merely interact with the children would not be considered employees of the day care, and would only receive the attention of young children.

Too many children today don’t know their grandparents, and there are children who have no idea what an elderly person looks like.  Far too many day cares merely take the children for a certain time, without much interaction between the workers and the children.  The children do not get an opportunity to discover what their heritage is, what it is that makes them who they are.

We can save money by having our elders do what they have traditionally done for most of human history, taking care of the children.  Doing so would also provide the benefits of young people learning about their culture, as well as seeing the world through the eyes of someone who has watched the world for a long time.

Midsummer Night’s Eve

We are just a few days away from the Summer Solstice.  June 21st marks the beginning of Summer in the Northern Hemisphere, and the longest day of the year.  This was one of the ancient sabbats, or celebrations, on the Wheel of the Year.  Because there is little work to do in the fields, and it is too early to harvest most things, people had time on their hands.  The weather was generally mild, so traveling was easy.  Thus, many towns had fairs or festivals, with vendors from distant lands selling exotic goods, and everyone had something to trade.

Soon, the days will begin getting shorter, even though Summer has just begun.  We are reminded of the natural cycles of Nature, which humans used to celebrate with each other.

Getting rid of houses

Although this may come as a surprise to some people, we have too many houses in the U.S. right now.  The boom in real estate prices lead to builders producing more houses than the market needed, which means that houses are standing empty, waiting for someone to buy them.  At the same time, people are losing homes to foreclosures, which puts more houses on the market.

The Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, was created to buy up bank assets that had lost value, but so far, the money has not been used that way.  I purpose that we put some of what remains of the TARP funds into buying houses, and then trading those houses to lower income people who live in old, inefficient houses, which waste a lot of energy.  The old houses would be torn down, and the land sold to repay some of the cost of the program.

This would create some demand for new houses, while removing some of the most inefficient homes from the market.  Houses which are not structurally sound should not be upgraded in energy efficiency, but simply removed from use.  As the worst homes are often rental units, the owners would probably be willing to swap for newer houses which are energy efficient.

Somehow, we have to remove nearly a million houses from the market if home prices are to stabilize at anything near what existing houses are worth.  Otherwise, the over supply will drive prices to artificially low levels, wiping out most of the value that houses still have.  We could use this opportunity to remove some of the worst, most inefficient housing from the roles through a property swap financed by the governments Troubled Asset Recovery Program.

Going down the drain.

The way that we live, the processes that make our lives possible, the nature of the work that we do, how we school our children, all of these in the midst of upheaval.  We have discovered that we are using energy in ways that are foolish and unsustainable.  The very fabric of our society is being changed by forces far removed from our homes.

In order to keep things affordable in times of inflation, quality has been sacrificed over and over again.  Many homes today will not last as long as the mortgage taken out to have them built.  Cars have become complex machines which are usually wrecks by the time that they are paid for.  Easy credit has been the sole reason for the economic growth of the last decade or longer,  and easy credit has come to an end.  Wealth measured in numbers in computers is still disappering rapidly, while bridges and schools are still there.

Underground houses, high speed rail systems, education tailored to the individual, given to the individual at that person’s pace.  The ending of using drinking water to flush toilets with, the end of giant sewage treatment plants, the end of driving everywhere, the end of flying everywhere, the end of supertankers, the end of newspapers.

We have managed to avoid drastic change for so long that we have lost all control over change, and now we are likely to change drastically, chaotically.  Our culture, our very dietary habits, were altered profoundly by the Industrial Revolution.  Now we are dealing with the fallout of sacrificing the family to the factory.  In a culture where the term ‘murder-suicide’ has become common usage, we have to hope for some kind of change.

The new automobile industry

As General Motors prepares to enter bankruptcy court, autoworkers across the country are waiting to see if their jobs will evaporate.  What many don’t realize is that building cars will probably be very different in the future.  In order to make cars as light as possible, composite carbon materials will probably be used.  Lighter and stronger than steel, composites are now used in building aircraft.  The Volvo Open 70 sailboats used in the Volvo Ocean Race are built entirely of carbon, making them about the most high-tech sailboats in the world.

Not only is steel likely to be phased out in automobile construction, but the kinds of motors used is going to change.  Electric motors are already in use in hybrid cars, and other electric cars are on the drawing boards.  Measured in terms of electicity, todays cars consume about one kilowatt for every horsepower.  Which means driving your car for an hour consumes somewhere on the order of 150 to 200 kilowatt hours.  Burning ten 100 watt light bulbs for an hour consumes 1 kilowatt, so you would have to have 2,000 100 watt light bulbs burning to consume the same amount of electricity as driving a car does.

So autoworkers will have to be electricians, able to understand wiring diagrams, batteries, capacitors, generators, and electric motors.  Sheet metal workers will become composites fabricators. Foundry workers will have to be retrained to work with aluminum, which will take the place of steel whenever possible.  Frames will be made of composites, and even engines might be made with composites, using steel sleeves in the cylinders.

All of this will be to reduce the weight of the vehicle dramatically.  The less the vehicle weighs, the less power it takes to move it.  To be able to drive long distances or at high speeds, weights will have to come down to around 2,000 to 2,500 pounds from the 4,000 to 6,000 pounds many vehicles weigh today.  Reducing weight wherever possible will be the priority, as luxury gives way to utility.  Our image of the automobile as a mobile living room, with various sources of entertainment is likely to change to that of a austere box on wheels to get from one place to another.

Whether the automobile industry will be able to cope with these changes remains to be seen, and new companies may end up replacing the giants we know today.  Willingness to change is not one of the qualities one associates with the Big Three of Detroit.

Beware of the Sun!

We are entering the season when people spend a lot of time outdoors, often dressed very lightly.  What many people don’t know is that we are also entering a season where the ultraviolet index can be very high, which means that someone can get burned very badly in short span of time.  Go to

http://www.epa.gov/sunwise/uvindex.html

to see a national map of UV levels.  You can also sign up there to receive email alerts when the UV index is forecasted to be high in your area.

This is very important to me, because a friend of mine who worked outdoors all the time died of melanoma, skin cancer, a few years ago.  It is impossible to say that exposure to the Sun was the reason, but I remember seeing him after a full day of work with boils half an inch high on his arms.  I warned him that he was putting himself at risk of getting skin cancer by burning himself so badly over and over, and that he should wear protective clothing, but he paid me no mind.

Although it seems counterintuitive, wearing long sleeved shirts, long pants, and a wide brimmed hat can actually keep one cooler than dressing down to skin.  Light colors reflect the eneregy of the Sun, wheras dark colors absorb that energy.  The cooling effect is more pronounced if the clothing is loose fitting.

Although tanning helps to prevent burning, tanning ages the skin, resulting in wrinkles and  dry skin.  Wearing sun screen is essential when swimming, unless you happen to own an 1890’s swim outfit.  The higher in elevation you are, the more UV you receive.

Protect yourself.  Because the Sun can kill you.

May Day, May Day!

Strange as it may seem, the expression ‘May Day’ is not a call in distress.  Instead, it is a referenece to an ancient holiday, or sabbat, called Beltane, the first of May.  In the witchcraft belief system, on this day, the marriage between the Goddess and the God is consumated.  This is a time when the Life Force is pouring through the world, seeking to couple with itself.  Fertility, vigor, growth, these are the qualities celebrated at this time.

May Day has been celebrated in many parts of Europe up into the last century, with the May Pole dance, where young women would wind colored ribbons around a giant pole by dancing in a pattern that wove in and out.  Sexuality was celebrated openly, which inspired the saying “Hurray, hurray for the first of May.  Outdoor intercourse starts today!”  Of course, intercourse has been going on outdoors for some time prior to this date, but, for humans, the weather generally becomes more conducive to such activities at about this time.

In the witchcraft belief system, the Goddess and the God travel through their life cycles each year, being born at the Winter Solstice, growing through the winter, until they are betrothed at the Vernal Equinox, then the marriage is consumated at Beltane.  Both deities mature, the God becoming first the Green God, symbolizing the energy of growth, and then the Dark Hunter, the Goddess becoming the Mother, and then the Crone.  Both of them die at Samhain, in early November.

The Christian church suppressed these beliefs, and supplanted them with static images of the male and female aspects, devoid of sexuality.  So the role models for the different stages of our lives disappeared, leaving us groping for understanding of the feelings that we experience in the different phases of our lives.  This is especially true for males, whose sexual awakening became tainted with the evil of lust.  There was no place in the Christian mythos for the rutty, faithless young god of witchcraft, nor a way of expressing the power of the Green God.  The Dark Hunter, the force of Death in the cycle of Life, was completely excised, turning Death into an evil to be feared, instead of a gateway to new beginnings.

Thousands of years of rituals and passed-on beliefs were turned out, replaced with something alien.  Even though we think of the Christian beliefs as ‘natural’, they have been imposed upon a backdrop of witchcraft tradition.  This leads to confusion, uncertainty, as we instinctively feel what has been celebrated for thousands of years, yet we frame those feelings in beliefs which have only existed for a comparetively short time.

Beltane was one of the major sabbats, along with the Yule Tide; Eoster, at the spring Equinox; and Samhain, in early November.  Beltane falls at a time when there is little work to be done in the fields, there are no crops to harvest, so people had time to celebrate.  What they celebrated was the sexual act that brings about Life.

A different perspective

It is long past time that we change our view of space exploration.  Historically, space exploration has been viewed as scientific research, little different than looking through a telescope.  What was being learned was thought to have little or nothing to do with our everyday lives, and would never be more than abstract knowledge.  Perhaps this point of view is partly the result of the failure of American politicians to identify any long-term goals in outer space.  The primary justification for spending money on space exploration since the Russians launched the first satellite has been the need to maintain scientific superiority over the Russians.  Never has any mention been made of opening up new frontiers for the extraction of resources and energy, it has always been about science.

This perception has made cutting funding for space exploration easy, because science rarely, if ever, has any immediate impact on our lives.  Politicians do not view reducing space exploration funding as limiting or threatening our potential, it is only about cutting back on the science that we are conducting.  No one thinks of space exploration like they do of building roads or bridges, because they don’t think of space as somewhere real. Certainly, we have learned many wonderful things by going out into space, but it has nothing to do with our everyday lives, most people think.  They still visualize the Earth as being inside a bottle, complete unto itself, isolated from everything else, limitless.  They may intellectually acknowledge that the Earth is not endless, but their everyday experiences reinforce that point of view, just as it is difficult to imagine the Earth as a globe, not a flat plain.

The perception that the Earth goes on and on forever makes it difficult to comprehend the idea that Man can have any effect upon it.  Only when the average person pictures the Earth as a tiny sphere floating in space will people understand the importance of protecting our environment.  Only when we view off-planet exploration as the opening up of resources beyond those on Earth will space exploration be given proper funding.  Only when we view space as an alternative to our own environment for industrial operations will we have a hope of surviving our own greed.

It is all a matter of perspective.