There And Back Again

“Like a dormant cancer waiting for the right conditions to flourish and kill its host, the true face of the system is being revealed as our advanced technological capacity is enabling accelerated economic turnover to satisfy the market’s need for constant economic growth, clashing with natural planetary limits.” Peter Joseph, The New Human Rights Movement

I just returned from Monterey where I attended a conference. I’ve always liked the feel of Monterey, its familiar Mexican street names, adobe and red tile roofs, the nearness of the sea, and the tourists, who come year after year, as regular as migrating birds. The conference was educational and for the most part enjoyable, and in a couple of ways it will help me do my day job a shade better. No taxpayer money was squandered sending me to Monterey. There was a lot of talk during the conference about pension obligations, and how cities and the state Public Employee Retirement System, or PERS as its known, face growing gaps between their funds and their future liabilities. This dilemma is seized upon by a small army of attorneys, advocates, and consultants who offer their expertise and insight in exchange for fees. Judging by the figures and names of donors flashed on huge screens in the main ballroom, the insurance brokers are making out well. They act as go between for agencies and providers in the search that goes on year after year for medical plans that employees can actually afford. The whole system is fraught. Investment returns for PERS haven’t entirely recovered from the 2008 Crash. Due to pressure from labor and environmental groups, PERS has begun divesting from fossil fuels and tobacco stocks.  One consultant argued that this principled approach was hurting the fund’s returns. The same person also said a downturn is imminent. The question will be: how hard will it hit, how long will it last, will the United States recover, and when it does, what will it look like? With a mentally unstable president watching TV in the Oval Office and railing against his enemies, real, perceived or made up out of whole cloth, the last question isn’t trivial. Trump can do even more damage to the country and its rickety institutions than he already has. The Orange Menace, Dictator Donald, King Donald I, Mob Boss Don Trumpito and his crime family -- call him what you choose -- has it in him to wreak more carnage, and in his second term -- which I am resigning myself to believe awaits us -- he will. The rot is simply too deep, the corruption too commonplace and tolerated, the populace too disunited and blinded by ceaseless propaganda masquerading as news. 

During my trip I finished reading How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. There was much in this book that appealed to me, the importance of unplugging from the electronic world and its relentless algorithm’s and engaging in a practice of deep listening being one thing. Odell is an artist as well as a writer, and when she puts her attention on something, she sees it, and usually she names it very precisely. Good reminders. With that done, I downloaded on my Kindle the latest Le Carre novel, Agent Running in the Field. It’s what we have come to expect from Le Carre, now in his productive twilight years, a story that starts in motion and never stops, and writing that never gets in its own way. As I think about it, Jenny Odell reminded me not to neglect Krista Tippett and the brilliant ideas she and her guests make real. The stuff soothes the soul and reminds one to breathe and be hopeful. There are a lot of people doing important work in this country, all over, who value people and the planet over profit-making and speculation. How does a political party represent these people, workers and students, and elderly folks on Social Security, black and brown and whatever else, any gender and sexual preference? Where a person wants to pray, if they choose to do so, doesn’t bother me. What I fear are fanatics of any stripe and those that impose their will by brute strength or force of arms.  Where’s the party that has the guts to stand up to the Pentagon, the defense contractors, the private spy agencies, the insurance industry, Wall Street, and other financial vultures circling as global capitalism marches grimly toward mass destruction? Has to be people-powered, but that can get out of hand easily. Richard Nixon was scared to death of hippies and potheads and anti-capitalists, and he wasn’t alone. You can start with the most glorious intentions and end up doing the same crap that you once railed against. The Trail of Good Intentions requires many, many compromises along the way. Like most people, I prefer not to be under the yoke of another, except voluntarily, and with the freedom to leave when it suits me. 

I’ve been bothered for a long time that we have trees and plants in our yard that I cannot name. With help from an app called iNaturalist, I have put names with some of the living things that have been part of our lives for over twenty years. We have twelve silver dollar gum trees, one Chinese banyan, a tall West Indian cedrela, a twenty foot tall crimson bottlebrush and two high pittosporum. Because of this foliage we see many birds in the yard, though with the exception of blue jays, hummingbirds, crows, and an occasional woodpecker, I don’t know their precise names. Before I changed my compost container to a black plastic barrel, rats visited often, drawn by the compost bin, which they made a mockery of finding their way into. We heard them, and often saw them at night moving as if on a highway through the silver dollar gums. We also have rosemary, Mexican sage, and a couple varieties of lavender. The soil here is hard, stratified with clay and rocks. Only on those rare occasions when we get consecutive days of rain can I easily turn the soil with a shovel. 

Good to get away, and a relief to have a home and family to return to. My daughter just finished her run as Marianne in Santa Barbara City College’s production of Sense & Sensibility. My son came up from LA to see her and we got to hang and talk some. My kids mostly talk to their mother. One would be a fool not to appreciate such basic good fortune. It’s all most people in the world want. Maybe part of our problem in the so-called First World is our notion that we are the only ones who deserve to live a decent, full life.