In this age of economic and digital warfare it is unlikely that New York will be physically sacked as was Rome in 410, yet I feel a strong sense of déja vu watching the 20th Century’s last Superpower, in which I live, devolve into a nation of debtors, criminals and extremists.
Need I say more?
One need only look at the state leading the race to our decline to realize that imperial America is rapidly becoming an important, but not supreme power.
The newly elected (by about 25% of the electorate) of Florida is so blindly anti-everthing (except his own power and wealth) that he refuses $2.4 billion of federal money for a project that will create jobs and invigorate a large section of “his” state’s economy.
This is the state leading the country in a charge to the bottom of the world’s lists of infant mortality, broadband penetration, knowledge and competence of its citizenry, to name just a few of the areas in which we compare poorly to even so called “third world” countries.
Spend a few weeks in and around the state capitol, Tallahassee, and you’ll realize that we have our own third-world nation within our borders.
At the same time we smugly violate international laws governing the treatment of prisoners.We incarcerate a higher percentage of our people than any of our peer nations and many nations we consider backwards or repressive. We routinely sell elections to the highest bidder, now allowing those bidders to be corporations. We refuse to regulate the distribution of highly addictive and abused pain killers on the grounds that it would be an “invasion of privacy.” And soon, while stripping the rights of public employees to organize and negotiate their working conditions we’ll allow guns to be openly carried on college campuses.
Doesn’t anyone see the connection between a Governor who was the co-founder and head of the company (Columbia/HCA) which paid the highest Medicare fine in the history of the US after pleading guilty to massive fraud charges and his refusal to regulate prescription pain killers? Florida is the nation’s, if not the world’s, epicenter of the illegal prescription drug trade. It affects not only Floridians but the people of countless towns and cities along the pipeline connecting south Florida to the Appalachians. One has to wonder how much of the profits of this deadly trade make their way into the personal wealth of prominent Floridians.
If we don’t wake up soon and recognize the folly of “sustained economic growth”, the recklessness of denial of global climate change and our contribution to it, the absurdity of our insatiable addiction to fossil fuels and the illusion that we are all powerful and unconquerable we may well end up like poor Honorius of Rome, more relieved that his favorite hen was still alive than worried about the empire crashing down around him.
Filed under: Unimportant
It all started yesterday, the day before Father’s Day. I thought I’d make a quick trip to the dump with our trash and recyclables. It’s not really a dump. It’s a rural waste transfer station. We call it “the dump” for convenience. I usually go on Sundays, but this Sunday was Father’s day, and who wants to go to the dump on Father’s Day? Well, not me.
Anyway, I tossed the two smelly bags of garbage and the bags of bottles and cans into the back of the dually, put the paper recycling into the cab (so it won’t blow away) and started out of the driveway. Before I even got five feet I realized I had no brakes! Damn! A quick look under the truck revealed a suspicious fluid on the driveway. Yep, it smelled just like brake fluid. Poking my head underneath I saw a large area of the underside of the bed, the muffler and some other areas covered with brake fluid. I thought, “there must be a brake fluid leak.” I soon saw that the brake line leading to the rear wheels was leaking and would have to be replace before any trip to the dump (to say nothing of the planned trip to New York at the end of the week) would happen. Getting the Prius out of the garage so I could work on the truck was the easy part. You see, not only is the truck a very tight fit though the garage doors but the trailer was blocking the way. Using the skills I’ve developed over the years piloting boats (which also have no brakes) I manoeuvered the truck using forward and reverse so that I could hitch up the trailer and move it. That done, again using only forward and reverse gears I got the back end of the truck into the garage and out of the sun. Now, for those who don’t live in Florida, I must explain that it may only be 95 degrees out but if it’s sunny, the sun will fry the skin right off you. You gotta have shade.
Removing the brake line is a simple matter of two flare nuts and two bolts holding on some clips that keep the brake line from bouncing around. OK, not too back except one of the flare nuts is between the gas tank and the truck frame. Gotta drop the gas tank. OK, that’s just two more bolts, but it’s almost full of gas. Thirty gallons weighs what, around two hundred pounds. Hmm. After some pondering… it’s always the pondering that takes the most time (but yields the most results) I realized that rather than “drop the tank” I should raise the truck, leaving the tank behind. Soon I had the gas tank resting on the spare tire and some scrap lumber and the two bolts holding to the truck removed. Did I mention that they were rather rusted and required a fair amount of working back and forth with generous applications of penetrating oil? Well, they did, but eventually they succumbed. My plan was a success. Raising the back of the truck with my floor jack succeeded in creating sufficient room to get at the flare nut. Remember the flare nut? Oh, you didn’t know about removing the tires on that side plus the spare tire which hangs underneath so that I could sit under the truck to work. Yes, I had a jack stand as well as the jack supporting the truck. Although I had never used them I was very glad to have bought a set of flare-nut wrenches some time back as they were just what I needed to remove the nuts and the busted brake line. Having achieved that milestone, I called it a day, planning to finish the job in the cool of the next morning.
The next morning was Father’s Day! What joy to look forward to another few hours (at least) crawling under an old truck and having rusty bits and dirt fall into my beard every time I so much as made a loud noise. But first I had to get a replacement brake line. The closest auto parts store is about 25 miles from us and they didn’t have a replacement. The third store I tried had a straight 40″ piece with which I would have to make a functional replacement for the very crooked 36″ original. I purchased the best tubing bender they had. Finally at home I ate a quick late lunch, donned my battle dress, and started bending tubing. This was actually the most satisfying part of the job as I slowly worked the once-straight and boring 1/4″ steel tube into the zigzag brake line required. My spacial geometry skills were taxed at times, but by making each bend a little at a time I was able to recover from my errors and soon (in the big picture) had a brake line that fit.
Now all that was left was to put the gas tank back, bleed the brakes, put the tires on and clean up. Oh, I probably should have bought some brake fluid. Fortunately I already had some, and also have nifty brake bleeder vacuum pump gadget that sucks the old fluid and air out of the line at the wheel. Sort of. It worked pretty much as designed and after a few helpful presses on the brake pedal by my shop assistant (aka Corinne) I had the brakes bled.
I finally got to go to the dump. Remember the dump?
Filed under: Music, Our World | Tags: Jim Boyd, Native American Rights, Political Songs, Small World
The story this morning on NPR’s Weekend Edition about the inability of law enforcement to prosecute rape cases on reservations immediately brought to mind a powerful song “Small World” (available on iTunes) by Jim Boyd and Sherman Alexie.
“It’s a small world,
You don’t have to pay attention.
It’s the reservation
The news don’t give it a mention,
It’s a small world,
getting smaller and smaller.
It’s a small world,
It’s getting smaller and smaller andsmaller. ”
© 1995 Thunderwolf Records
Filed under: Life and the Arts, Music | Tags: bluegrass, Donna the buffalo, Magnolia Music, Peter Rowan, Scythian, Springfest, Suwanee, The Duhks, Vasen
Another Springfest has come and gone, and it was wonderful as usual. I won’t dwell on the rainy Friday and Saturday as the spirit of Suwanee wasn’t dampened a bit.
You may be surprised to learn that Stephen Foster took poetic license in his song “The Swanee River (Old Folks at Home)” because the actual name of the river is the Suwanee. And befitting a river that inspired a song, twice a year Magnolia Music and Events puts on one of the best eclectic music festivals anywhere. In the Fall is Magfest and in the Spring, what else but Springfest? The venue is the Spirit of Suwanee Music camp, a sprawling campground/festival site/horseback paradise on the Suwanee River in Live Oak Florida. Although the roots of the festival are Blue Grass, which still predominates, they also include blues (Roy Bookbinder), jazz (Darryl Anger), punk (The Tornado Riders), Celtic (Scythian) and this year even Nordic (Vasen.) If you don’t dig one of the sets (and there are generally four stages going at once) then you don’t dig folk music, broadly defined.
The vendors’ area is always a fascinating mixture of head-shops and handmade instruments. Plenty of great food, much of which is vegetarian, but the pork barbeque is there too. And beer. Did I mention BEER? The only thing you can’t pay directly for in cash (you buy tickets) and the only thing you can’t bring into the festival ground is beer. Of course you can have as much of your own beer as desired in the campground, with hookups or primative. And most people do!
As we hippies age it’s interesting (and somewhat amusing) to see the number of golf-carts increase each year at the festivals. And the gray hair. But also an encouragingly large number of young families, pregnant women and babes-in-arms. This event will live on for many more years.
My favorite band is still Donna The Buffalo, with The Duhks and Scythian close behind. Of course Peter Rowan is a Bluegrass god and Vassar Clements will always be there, in spirit.
See you at Magfest next Fall.
