Monday, March 29, 2004

The house at Clallam Bay is nice -- but the walls were WHITE.

So I've been doing murals. Killer whale, phoenix, bamboo. Good stuff for the spirit of the house.

And I've painted the central hall-way drop-dead Chinese red. That's why I need the windchimes at the mirrors...













Any of you artists get out here (Clallam Bay) for the summer season, I've got a nice working space in the studio, looks right on the water.

And 'puter capability. And 56K that isn't half bad.

So even if you are on a deadline, you can get roughs, messages in to a publisher/agent, and get pages done in a cat-free environment.

And your own full bath, while we're at it.

(And don't be asking me if you can eat anything out of the 'fridge or take a bath or throw clothes in the wash -- you'll be living here, crimeny's sake! I'm not THAT old and crotchety and boundary-crazy YET. Any of you hear me say "This is my house" as an excuse to push you around, you have my permission to go down to the beach, find a BIG stick, and whup my butt. I am not so nuts I will bring down the Gods of Hospitality on my head. Those are evil gods, and big into payback.)

No, I'm not desperate to see anybody -- there's loads of folks up here and the place is filthy with artists. But if I have anything THIS good, I want to share! It's a gorgeous summer day, the breeze is blowing through the house, and the eagles are dancing in the sky. I'm going to re-wind the reel and go see if I can catch a rockfish for supper. Around the corner from the house.

(Anybody want to bring anything, I'm looking for wind-chimes, mirrors and spherical crystals. Yeah, yeah, that's Fung Shei -- it's making the place look better, if nothing else).

Thursday, March 25, 2004

Some stuff I sent to the Forks Forum when I moved into Clallam Bay:

The Numbers Game
2 September, 2003

New to the area -- just moved into Clallam Bay. Love it.

But I can't believe it -- you people have been taken over by the Numbers Game! Same as the poor fools in the Big Cities.

Back there, the computers say you can get so many people on so many planes, out of so many airports. The numbers say so. And since everybody believes in the numbers like religion, they pack their bags -- and at the crowded, backed-up airports, discover that numbers are just math, and that they don't move the meat around in our reality. Your ticket may SAY you have a seat on that plane -- but if it's backed up in Toronto, you're not getting on it.

Out here, you may have the "right" to 30 -- or 50 -- razor clams, but if the clam population won't support it, or there's an acid infection, or if the other tribe catches you poaching on their beach -- you're not bagging your limit. Species aren't numbers. Weather and tribal relations aren't math. And us white folks -- if we don't stop acting like a bunch of crazed football fans and damaging the clams left and right, we’re going to find ourselves banned from using anything but a clam gun -- and then only if we’re married to a tribal member.

You may have the "right" to take salmon, for sport or sale, but if you've killed off the last five years' parents, the kids aren't going to be there for you to catch. You may have the "right" to 10 salmon, but if you catch 50 and throw away 40 to keep the bigs ones (or so I was told -- you'll have to guess whether that's scare-the-tourists BS or not), adding to the stresses that the fish already face to survive, your rights may come to mean no more than an overbooked ticket to Salt Lake City.

These are species, people. Not numbers. They're living, breeding beings, not a Resource. They're not going to breed by the numbers. And it doesn't matter what your rights are -- they won't be there for you to catch. What was the old rule? Respect the Salmon People, or they won't come feed you? Looks like it works.

Stop thinking numbers like the people in the Big Cities. Lord knows, I moved out here to get away from THAT.

The Triangle Trade
11/6/03

Why the confusion and outrage over jobs moving overseas?

Wealth is based on a triangle. Two legs of that triangle are theft and slavery. At their most extreme, these legs are empire and conquest. At their most disguised, they are (perceived) benign colonization. The heavily industrialized version is, of course, facism. All versions require unpurchased resources and cheap labor, and the flow of profits upwards into the hands of those who do not work.

America has disguised the requirement of cheap labor with abundant free resources. We’ve gone through this bequest like newlywoods in a 4-star hotel. The honeymoon is coming to an end. With everything from 40,000 toxic superfund sites to the extinct cod fishery to shrinking and stunted forests, there is ever less support for the growing population.

Once the resources in the triangle are gone, the population leg kicks in. When all wealth is taken from service and human labor, plantation owners will buy the cheapest serfs, with the profits stripped from the serfs themselves. It worked for sugar, rum, cotton and gold. Now it will work for high-tech industries.

Plantation owners have no care for the lives of their serfs, any more now than they ever did. They do not recognize or care about national borders. More than any of the serfs, they realize that national borders are artificial, imaginary constructs, and they take full advantage to find the cheapest source of serfs.

Unless the third leg of the triangle, in the search for more free resources, comes down.

The Third Leg is War.

(*Europeans are wary of conquest today because the Germans – who will always take concepts to logical extremes – taught them that conquest, colonization, enslavement and genocide are NO FUN -- when they’re done to YOU.)