Connecting The Dots

“Currently published in Spare Change News, 1151 Mass Avenue, Cambridge, MA  02138″

Unfortunately for us, the human species and all the others that occupy our battered planet, the dots are bigger than we think, and as fast as they connect, we disconnect them.  So much is happening that I don’t know what to talk about first.

First.  We’ve got this Presidential primary going on where the two top Democratic contenders are in the 11th round of a 12 round boxing match and they are both battered and have been on the canvas a number of times.  Yes, I favor Obama but so what?  I’m watching Hillary and Obama in a fight where, at the end, there may be no man (or woman) standing.

I trust John McCain.  I believe John McCain.  By listening to him I realize that if he wins the Presidency, and that’s all too possible now, the war (wars) will continue, fuel prices will continue to rise, which means food prices will continue to rise and the death toll will rise, ever higher, ever higher.

What’s happening here?  Is every politician so desirous of winning that they don’t care that the human species is on a humungous playground slide where, at the bottom, waits death and destruction on a scale which we have never known before.  No one tells the truth because they all want to win.

Actually, I don’t know what Hillary believes, and I’m not really sure what Barack Obama believes, but I know that Deval Patrick fooled me and dammit, like the Who, a rock’n'roll band from that 60’s (that incidentally fooled me) said, “We don’t want to be fooled again.”

All right, maybe I’m being too hard on Deval Patrick.  Maybe he’s just making mistake after mistake after mistake but his heart is pure.  But I just don’t know anymore.  That Cadillac he bought sure buried me under a ton of carbon footprint and now, that book deal Deval’s cooking up has blown me right into the Dead Zone that’s building up in the Gulf of Mexico.  Nothing can live there.

And that’s not the only Dead Zone in our oceans; there’s a few of them.

I try to do the right thing.  I ride my bicycle instead of using my car as much as I can.  Okay, okay, some of you may have caught me on my motorcycle but that gets 60 miles to the gallon because it’s only a 250cc.  I’m not going to name it because I’ll be damned if I’m going to advertise for any giant corporation if I can help it.

Those giant corporations are killing us while they tell us they’re all going  green.  The only thing going green right now is the Hulk — no, wait a minute, the Hulk is RED now; he’s bleeding just like life on this planet Earth.

How many species will become extinct this year?  Did you ever wonder, while drinking a cup of coffee in a strofoam cup, how many other people are drinking a cup of coffee in a styrofoam cup that day, and how many are going to do it again in a brand new styrofoam cup tomorrow.  And how big is that pile of styrofoam cups even if they’re crushing them, whoever THEY are?

I’m guilty as charged.  Part of the problem.  I’m trying not to be but - - - okay, where are the dots?

One dot is ethanol, what they’re putting in your gas/our gas to stretch it.  Did they tell you that ethanol comes from corn and corn is grown by giant conglomerates that use fuel to grow the corn and not only is that raising food prices all around the world but ethanol leaves a futher-mucker of a carbon foot print too.

So they use fuel to make fuel but who’s paying attention anyway.  Also, almost everyone in the United States, (I’ll pick on us) has a toilet bowl which gets flushed more than once a day.  That’s a lot of water for a world that’s struggling with water demand in many countries.

The one thing we have to keep in mind is all those countries are on the planet Earth so they are all connected.  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

There is only one source of fossil fuel.  It is the planet Earth.  We, as a species, are using more fossil fuel than ever before and, some scientists say, we have passed the halfway point of the fuel that is left and accessible on Earth, yet our demand for it is still growing.  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

Our food supply, controlled by giant conglomerates for the most part, is fertilized by fossil fuel, travels to us by fossil fuel, and is even preserved in our refrigerators powered by fossil fuel.  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

Everything that burns fossil fuel has an exhaust pipe somewhere and those exhaust pipes are pumping carbon wastes into our planet’s atmosphere at an astounding rate.  Because of this, the Arctic ice is melting, the weather patterns are changing, and if you look over the large population centers of the world you will see a cloud of particulate matter that is tainting the very air we breathe.  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

Then there is WAR!  Right now, as I sit at this old MacIIci computer, there are wars being waged in more areas of this planet Earth than I can name.  I have an old milage ration paper with coupons from World War II and on top of it, the words read “Gasoline Powers The Attack!”  The only thing that has changed since then is the use of fuel for war has grown exponentially.  Iraq.  Afghanistan.  Israel.  Palestine.  Russia.  The United States.  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

I’ll go back to the election now, just for a minute.  I only have one question.  Where is Al Gore right now, now that we really need him?  He’s not a candidate.  My friends, that is indeed “An Inconvenient Truth.”  Dot.  Dot.  Dot.

I also want to add one more truth that much of the world is aware of but, here in the United States, I wonder if we really understand this.  Food does not grow on shelves.  Connect the dots.

Marc D. Goldfinger

On The Pyapon River, Burma

The bodies float.  Plain folks are bathing in the river next to the bodies that have turned white.  The bodies are stuck in mangrove trees in the river.  Women are scrubbing clothes near the bodies.

How many dead?  Myanmar is in shock.  Because of the after effects of the storm, some say over 100,000 will die.

The government blocks relief efforts in their own way.

And in Seneca, Missouri, people search for the dead after the tornadoes.

Massive shocks in weather-patterns in different parts of the world.  The Earth is stressed by the human species and when it burps, the crises occur.

In the meantime, the United States has, with deadly precision, shot a satellite out of the sky with a missile.  Can you hear your cell phone crackle with static.

Be afraid.  Maybe just be resigned.  When Rome fell, it was one pocket of civilization in a giant world.

When this civilization falls, all the links will be exposed.  We are all linked together but it seems as if we just don’t get it yet.

For those of you who do, I apologize.  I just saw a Bruce Willis movie last night.  That’s my explanation.

A Textbook on Addiction and Mental Illness

As those of you who know me are aware, I am a heroin addict in recovery.  Recovery does not travel in a straight line, especially with Major Mental Illness involved.

I have written a book of essays, with two poems included, about the inner workings of the mind of someone with Dual Diagnosis and Drug Addiction.   Chapters of it have been taken from newspapers that have published them and been used as part of course packets at various colleges.

The way to obtain this book is to access the website of

www.giveusyourpoor.org and then go to the heading Education and scroll down to Resources and open that up.  The rest is self-explanatory.  You won’t be disappointed.

Thanks,

Marc D. Goldfinger, Author of Essays On Major Mental Illness with a Co-Occurring Substance Use Disorder or What Came First: The Chicken or The White Horse. 

P.S. White Horse is a nickname for heroin.

Elephant Kills Allowed in Africa

After a 13 year suspension, officials in South Africa approved an annual culling, that’s killing, of elephants in their some of their national parks.  In the Virunga, a forested region by the eastern Congo’s borders with Rwanda and Uganda, only 350 elephants remain, but they say that’s too many.

In the meantime, in Virunga National Park, 14 elephants have been poached even before the annual “culling” went into effect, and that’s just since mid-April.

If there were only 350 humans left in Massachusetts, for example, you would say we were an endangered species.

Elephants are extremely intelligent beings.  They even have dying places and they return to those places periodically to mourn those they have lost from their family.

When they do a “culling”, they usually shoot down the head elephant, the Matriarch, because the other elephants will run to protect her and then it will be an easy slaughter with the elephants all close together.

Species after species are disappearing at an alarming rate because of humanity’s ways.  What the hell is wrong with us?  In recorded history there have been five major species die-offs, one of them due to a giant meteor hitting the Earth and dramatically changing climates all over the world.

Some scientists say we are in the sixth major die-off.  This time it is because of humanity, or the lack of it within us.