It's all too much

It's been awhile, the blog has sat idle, quiet, not because everything is well with the world, but a need to suss it out.

What to do?

What to say?

Last weekend we got away to the local mountains for a couple of days in a tent.

It was the same local mountains that I used to visit when I needed a break from the world, to recharge, to search for my soul, heal my heart.

And it was a drag to see them tattered and brown, the result of a ragged little insect called the bark beetle that has ravaged the mountainside.
There's still a quiet beauty and a couple of corners to go tuck into, but it's sad knowing that some day in the not-too-distant future, it will all go up in flames because of unscrupulous groups that have learned that they can make a decent living simply by opposing everything, no matter the consequences.

All it will take is a lightning strike in the middle of a dead tree stand and we could have a fire that runs from Southern Utah to the Grand Canyon. But a group called Friends of the Forest years ago stepped in and obtained an injuinction to ban spraying on the mountain that would have saved a forest. People will die and property will be lost when that fire ignites. They will have blood on their hands.

I see how BP is now saying it plans to leave the new cap on the well that gushed into the Gulf for months, that it will do the job, that the leak is plugged. For now. Maybe.

I don't trust them, don't believe them. They have no credibility with me.

The Gulf wildlife is being destroyed, with no end in sight. There are not enough resources available to save the animals, clean the ocean, preserve the marshes.

On another level, I see preparations are being made for the upcoming Farm Aid, an organization dedicated to the family farmer who is getting screwed by corporate America and displaced from land that has been theirs for generations. This "new food" from Big Agri is filled with stuff that we don't need -- from insecticides to preservatives. Meat has antibiotics, growth hormones, stuff we don't need in our bodies so corporate America can fatten the hog.

And conservatives still spit out the word "environmentalist" as a foul pejorative by those who would rape our forests, squander our resources, drill our wilderness areas and pollute our air and water so some fat cat investor can keep receiving dividend checks.

It's a vast network of corruption, greed, insanity that envelopes the pharmaceutical, agricultural, energy industries and we aren't doing enough to stand in their way.

Draw a line in the sand, contact your local representatives.

Press for bigger fines on BP.

Demand releasing our dependence on fossil fuels.

Perhaps we should look into anti-trust lawsuits against the corporate farms of America that are destroying the good, pure meat and produce once harvested here.

Unless you think it's OK that the Gulf of Mexico may be beyond repair, that it's OK to ingest the garbage injected into our food, that it's OK to ruin the livelihoods of farmers who have worked this land for so long and who have a true love and understanding of the Earth they walk upon.