Social Security

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To the Editor:
Robert Samuelson of the Washington Post is dead wrong.  Social Security is not welfare.  It is a public investment in a retirement account that is not subject to the whims, speculations, miscalculations, market declines, profit margins, bonuses, and criminal activity of the same financial class which created our current economic collapse and stagnation.  Apparently not just content with sitting on their billions in profits and offshore accounts after receiving taxpayer bailout money, apparently in hopes of undermining a Democratic presidency, the financial industry wants to further tap in on the American worker’s paycheck. The chutzpah of these people is endless.

RP

Small Town Night

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Small Town Night

From that long ago distance

Of my small town sheltered youth

I remember still so clearly seeing,

On one deep blue starlit night,

Framed and cross-veined by then

Stark and leafless trees, lines

Like thin rivers reaching

Star bound Orion caught,

Cast and held, beheld poised

Mid stride and moving timeless

Above my sleeping, tree-lined street

And how alive then seemed

All the skies on that clear

And youthful dreaming

Distant small town night.

Paper Tiger Redux. Chinese government has mastered capitalism.

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To the Editor:

You have to hand it to the communist Chinese government for its capitalist acumen.  Not only are they utilizing their vast labor resources to manufacture and sell nearly everything the American consumer buys, they are investing that money in natural resources all around the world, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and also earning US Treasury interest on the billions we have borrowed, including the funding for our invasion and occupation of two nations now open to global corporate exploitation.  With the Federal Reserve again madly printing money to try to stimulate our anemic economy, it would seem we have indeed become the “Paper Tiger” Chairman Mao always said we were, however, the big question is:  is our military being used for the safety and well-being of America or for the profit of international corporate interests?

RP

Environment and Energy: What is the solution?

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To the Editor:
Considering that the burning of fossil hydrocarbons, with all its ramifications on the planet, will likely continue for decades to come, is The Question of the 21st Century, can technology solve the difficulties it has created?  If there is an analogy in asking, will the financial sector repair the calamity it created?  the odds on correction appear slim.  There are times I think the people I saw gathering firewood with their three-wheeled pedi-cycles along a freeway in Yucatan may be more insightful futurists than all our high tech gurus combined.  Sustainability is a word certain to be overused in the coming years in reference to food production, but, wakening to a world of limited resources, a prime concern will be,  what are appropriate, viable, and sustainable means and levels of energy production and consumption?  This should be the first focus of industry, science, and government.  The rest is just window dressing.
RP

Lost Creek

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Lost Creek

The rich dry falling, curled

Walnut brown parachute

Sails of sycamore leaves

Zigzag down, falling,

Floating then stately down

The layered, limestone-lined,

Gentle celadon stream,

The early Fall afternoon

Earth, air, and light etched

And embossed, back lit,

Gilded and butterfly splined

With dappled leaves,

Tall yellow blooms,

And black dragonflies.

Sun Power

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To the Editor:
There is an understandable local opposition to the construction of large solar “farms” in rural Colorado. The greatest demand for electricity is, after all, in urban areas and the resulting miles of transmission lines, while once seen as a sign of progress, are now regarded as unwelcome intrusions upon a growing environmental aesthetic of open, untrammeled land in the West. Rural communities over and over see their valuable resources, be it water, oil and gas, their children, and now treasured vistas, being drained into the seemingly insatiable metropolitan lifestyles they eschew. Apparently overlooked by the power brokers is that there are thousands of acres of roofs, already connected to the grid, in the very areas in need of additional electricity. A combination of private and governmental incentives and directives could create a modern, state-of-the-art, decentralized power generating network that would both serve our needs and preserve our Colorado landscapes. Germany, a country with far less sunshine than here, has done exactly this with remarkable success.
RP

Social Justice and Glen Beck

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To the Editor:

Politicizing religion with wedge issues like abortion and homosexuality has long been a successful campaign tactic for the Republican Party, but one has to question severely Glen Beck’s recent condemnation of the concept of “social justice”, which, besides being central to the Civil Rights Movement, is at the core of legislaton and the rule of law.  In esence, Beck is trying to demonize the Beatitudes and Christ’s, “As ye have done to the least among you, so have you done unto me” and unabashedly invoking the sanctity of wealth, of which he has plenty.

RP

Sage Ecology

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Sage Ecology

 

Delicate gilia

And brusque paint brush

Scattered scarlet and orange

With the pink and blue pastels

Of chiming bells, crane’s bills,

Lupine, and penstemon

In bloom among the pungent,

Black-branched, jade green sage

Lure in, darting, the quick-tongued,

Needlepoint, petal-tickling,

Probing, stirring whirl and blur

Of broad-tailed hummingbirds,

With wingtips whistling,

Weaving briskly rhythmic

And trilling metallic green

Through the rich sweet nectars

And colors of a mystic land.