At the beginning of this winter a Witchdocter came to my house and related an astonishingly apt tale. A mutual friend had been subject to what may have been a shakedown of sorts. The plot is thus: A heating and cooling contractor advised an expensive replacement based on evidence that was at or below the threshold of detection. Reasoning that any possible chance of harm to his family should be mitigated he opted to spend the money.
The Witchdoctor presented a seemless arguement against this course and in little more than habit I assumed a contrary position. The heat exchange manifold had a crack, though one not visible to the eye, according to the contractor. This crack could potentially allow untold moles of deadly carbon monoxide to work it's haemoglobin corrupting magick in the delicate lungs of his daughter. "Fie" he declared, "if the crack is so small that you can't see it how can dangerous amounts of the gas get through?" I had little to offer but vague gestures to pressure differences and relatively low concentrations for toxicity. "That's what the CO detectors are for." Touche, they are indeed. Get a second opinion at least. Armed with such knowledge and vigilence he could determine if the threat was a real or imagined. I couldn't help but surrender my stance feined though it was.
The topic turned to he buggabo of this time Catastrophic Anthropogenic Climate Ruinationousness. An unwieldy moniker, hereafter refered to a CAnCR. "I've seen that image of the Earth at night" as had I. A composite of the whole surface of our planet at night with our populations centers lit in a striking lattice. To some it was malignant tendrils to others a gossamer triumph. "We have to be doing something, we have to be having an affect!" I can't argue that, every living thing contributes to it's environment, as do the inanimate. The gaia hypothesis is not without merit but gives rise to a hubristic catagory error. It makes available the conclusion that the 'health' of this organism can be measured and understood with metrics we would associate with our own health. The preponderance of medical scares and the dubious assertions regarding preventative modalities fuse seemlessly with the image of gaia as an organism in need of our care and stewardship.
Friday, March 7, 2008
Saturday, March 31, 2007
A Better Mouse Trap
I woke up early this morning because of an adventurous jazz playing mouse. One might think that this was the result of a dream state and in retrospect I suppose it might be.
There is an unplugged standing fan with wire enclosed blades next to my computer desk, a scant few feet from my bed. My mind awakes in blackness, near as I have ever been in a conscious state with only one discernible input. The noise is discordant yet musical plucking of wires by tiny mousy paws. My spacial awareness tells me the sound is consistent with my assumed relative position. The plucking becomes brisk, followed by a tiny thump then whispered frenetic scurrying that losses itself in the drone of my locale.
The moment is lost, unheeded I fumble for glasses to complete the absurdity of correcting my vision in the dark. A now focused 5:23 floats brightly red, I toggle the switch to reveal no evidence of mouse intrusion save those unmistakable sounds floating in my memory.
Driving now, watching distant tendrils of light as the day creeps cautiously forward. I am dissatisfied with the radio. Some questionable 'doctor' is extolling the virtues of an emu oil and pineapple root based pain creme on one frequency. A dubious assertation about very tiny bits of silver on another. The traffic seems disposed to leave me unchallenged. My drive-through experience catches me without proper change or the usually meditative inching. My tea is too quickly hot in my hands, my arrival at work unpleasantly brisk.
At home, with resolve and a bottle of Corona, I gather my weapons. A 5 gallon pail, a stack of books, one long woolen sock and a plastic knife heavy with a gobbet of peanut butter. Some assembly of this ersatz pitcher-plant is required. Water is only necessary if the height of the pail is less than the mouse's highest jump and it's inclusion is a tacit approval of a torturous drowning. The bottle now empty serves as the spring. Horizontally placed it's slender neck hangs out over the pail's yawning chasm. The sock, worn by the bottle, must create a gap between it's edge and the prize stuck in the bottle's mouth. The peanut butter lures the mouse to reach over slick glass. A critical moment is reached when the rodent extends beyond it's ability to balance or cling, a swift drop follows.
Many mice can be caught with no reset, nor death if served conscientiously. They can be remanded to the vicissitudes of nature if exile is your preference. Or consigned to the black water channels should you fear their return. My decision will be my own, and in accordance with their transgression.
I meditate before sleep, fully wrapped in dark, listening for the sound of no mice dropping.
There is an unplugged standing fan with wire enclosed blades next to my computer desk, a scant few feet from my bed. My mind awakes in blackness, near as I have ever been in a conscious state with only one discernible input. The noise is discordant yet musical plucking of wires by tiny mousy paws. My spacial awareness tells me the sound is consistent with my assumed relative position. The plucking becomes brisk, followed by a tiny thump then whispered frenetic scurrying that losses itself in the drone of my locale.
The moment is lost, unheeded I fumble for glasses to complete the absurdity of correcting my vision in the dark. A now focused 5:23 floats brightly red, I toggle the switch to reveal no evidence of mouse intrusion save those unmistakable sounds floating in my memory.
Driving now, watching distant tendrils of light as the day creeps cautiously forward. I am dissatisfied with the radio. Some questionable 'doctor' is extolling the virtues of an emu oil and pineapple root based pain creme on one frequency. A dubious assertation about very tiny bits of silver on another. The traffic seems disposed to leave me unchallenged. My drive-through experience catches me without proper change or the usually meditative inching. My tea is too quickly hot in my hands, my arrival at work unpleasantly brisk.
At home, with resolve and a bottle of Corona, I gather my weapons. A 5 gallon pail, a stack of books, one long woolen sock and a plastic knife heavy with a gobbet of peanut butter. Some assembly of this ersatz pitcher-plant is required. Water is only necessary if the height of the pail is less than the mouse's highest jump and it's inclusion is a tacit approval of a torturous drowning. The bottle now empty serves as the spring. Horizontally placed it's slender neck hangs out over the pail's yawning chasm. The sock, worn by the bottle, must create a gap between it's edge and the prize stuck in the bottle's mouth. The peanut butter lures the mouse to reach over slick glass. A critical moment is reached when the rodent extends beyond it's ability to balance or cling, a swift drop follows.
Many mice can be caught with no reset, nor death if served conscientiously. They can be remanded to the vicissitudes of nature if exile is your preference. Or consigned to the black water channels should you fear their return. My decision will be my own, and in accordance with their transgression.
I meditate before sleep, fully wrapped in dark, listening for the sound of no mice dropping.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
The Us vs. Them fallacy and Entrotopia
Sweet mother of crap I'm blogging. Clear out folks, make way for another quanta of the 'geist. I though I'd never do it. Sure I'll check the few blogs I read, toss my opinion into the mix for some sound worrying by the netfolk, but this? I suppose it will be seen as inevitable in retrospect.
So what is this silly fallacy? To me it's probably the core of just about everything that wrong with us. It is the basis for all the isms that allow us to decide our group is better than that other one. Everyone is guilty of it, the most high minded folks will still point to a 'them' when distributing blame. The problem is we are all wrong, but in a way that allows our arguments about 'them' seem plausible.
Demonstrating my point is going to be tricky, some clever folks have suggested that providing a 'them' obviates the fallacy part, and then we are basically back to discussing how shitty the 'them' is. This is true, but it misses the point. I'm not suggesting that the lines we use to separate don't exist, just to remember that those lines are often illusions, and can be moved with disquieting ease. More to the point, that it is the perception of the line that disconnects their humanity from yours, allowing inequity proportionate to the perceived separation.
So great, I've described the mechanism, where then is the fallacy? It lies in the notion that the 'us' and the 'them' are so fundamentally different that they wouldn't behave essentially the same way if the situation was reversed. I suspect most folks will decide I'm wrong, which makes sense, if this idea was generally accepted I suspect we'd probably treat each other better. It's pretty hard to acknowledge that the gentle soul that is you would inevitably turn into a tyrant given the right conditions.
This is the important bit for me, if we accept that the structure, the circumstances that direct the person or culture then the method to change away from inequity is to modify the structure, not the individuals moving through it. Simply put, if we don't want tyrants ruling us, we have got to stop allowing them to.
The tricky part for me is whether this is possible or not. If so, by what mechanism? Do we really want to? If we could erase those lines and create a utopia of equity and freedom from tyranny shouldn't that be our singular purpose?
My conclusion is that we don't want to, and we shouldn't. All movement is the result of a disparity in forces, perfect equity is it's own tyranny. We will all experience it, after a fashion, in the heat death of the universe.
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