Further Still...The Visions Of Saint Psychedelia

The opening images are of a morning glory blossom.  After fiddling with the image a bit an idea arrived.

Further Still...The Visions Of Saint Psychedelia

Rendezvous: The Further Visions Of Saint Psychedelia (video and art)

Rendezvous: 

The Further Visions Of Saint Psychedelia

"Bad Karma" and "The Visions Of Saint Psychedelia" Two short videos and art

"Bad Karma" is a collection of individual works about the human responsibility and lack of it for addressing the approaching climate debacle.   At the highlighted link a climate change scientist takes on climate change skeptics. Denying reality ain't gonna cut it anymore.

Smokey Bear told us "Only you can prevent forest fires."  Today we are the only ones who can prevent climate catastrophe.  It's up to us and it's do or die.

"The Visions Of Saint Psychedelia"

9:30 November 30, 2019 (Poetry Meditation)

Below is a poem written with the intent of revealing what had occurred shortly after scattering seed on the lawn.  The grass was frozen and the bird feeders were empty because I had been running out of seed and had been trying to stretch it until I could get to the store.  I scattered the last of the seed and went inside.  By the time I was back to my coffee the birds were on the lawn. By writing the poem I was trying to make a picture of a moment with words instead of a camera.

9:30 November 30, 2019

At 7:44

on the last day of November

the temperature was

30 degrees,

at 9:30

the temperature

is 32 degrees.

In an ice blue sky

a cold sun shines

on red-winged blackbirds and doves

gleaning the last handfuls of seed and corn

from the dormant grass

on the last day of November. 

© David H. Roche

Revolutionary Ideas

The Republican and Democrat Blues (poetry and art)

The Republican and Democrat Blues

When both sides are lying

and voters are trying

the lesser evil to choose,

the dilemma they find

every time

is the Republican and Democrat blues.

And when election day comes

and it's all said and done

we always find to our surprise

that the winner's the one

who was the very best,

the best at telling lies.

© David H. Roche

The Question Of How To Pay For Medicare For All Answered

The Question Of How To Pay For Medicare For All Answered...and it's a simple answer.

Citizens of the U.S. are petitioning their government for fully paid healthcare so that when they get sick they don't have to worry about being able to pay the doctor.  Americans pay a lot more for medical care than most other nations and because healthcare is a for profit industry in the U.S. treating sickness is a means to making a few people very wealthy.  At this point in time both the Republican and Democratic Parties are officially opposed to helping Americans with this very real problem.  Smug politicians, Republican and Democrat alike, ask: "How are we going to pay for it?" with a  grin on their face and a donation in their treasury.

That's the logic that rules the day for Establishment politicians but it is not the logic one would find in a democratic republic.  If we were to consider the United States to be a democratic republic we could put forth the following argument and have the answer to where the money is going to come from to pay for Medicare for all.

Let's begin logically solving this problem from a small 'd' democratic point of view. 

To begin all the funds the government has to spend comes from taxes.  A democratic solution would reason this way.

1.  The taxpayers pay for everything the government decides to do.

2.  Medicare for all, as Bernie Sanders is promoting, could legitimately be understood as the taxpayers deciding to give everyone in society a really nice gift.

Do you see how the solution is apparent when it is  remembered the U.S. is a democratic republic that should be of some tangible benefit to those who invest it with authority to govern. So why won't we the People give ourselves this gift from the tax revenue we alone have contributed?  Ask yourself why we haven't made good use of the democratic principles inherent in our form of government.  You can readily see how those principles provide the answer to how to pay for Medicare for all. If we change our minds and begin thinking like small'd' democrats there is no limit to how many improvements can be made to society.

The reality of course is that the majority of Republican and Democratic lawmakers have given their allegiance to a class of non-voting, non-citizen donors who profit from disease and injuries whether there's peace or war.  The initiative to replace these worthless political hacks with people centered Progressive lawmakers is beginning already.  There's no reason conducive to a democratic republic that could argue against the idea of the taxpayers in a democratic republic themselves simply deciding to gift their fellow citizens with complete fully paid healthcare from the revenues of their own tax money.  In a democratic situation the people have the authority to make that decision.

So if we begin to talk about Medicare for all as if "Hey, it's our money, let's do it." enough minds might be changed to make it happen.  It just makes sense to look at it that way.

So how do you pay for Medicare for all?  Just start thinking and talking as if this were a democratic republic instead of a corporately owned business opportunity for a few filthy rich nere do wells. If you do that you can change the world.

November 2, 2019: a question of 'right' or 'wrong' or neither (Poetry)

November 2, 2019: a question of 'right' or 'wrong' or neither

When daylight was taking the place of the departing night

and coffee steamed in my cup

a squirrel climbed the birdfeeder to compete  with scrub jays and red-winged blackbirds

for peanuts and seeds in the front yard.

In the afternoon Not-Spot

returned from the bushes around the pond

with a small bird in his mouth

and dropped it at the bottom step.

 

Kali stepped from the porch to sniff.

She hasn't hunted in nine years. 

She sniffed and sniffed wrinkling her nose, her lips parted but she wasn't attempting to bite.

She appeared to be gathering information about the creature.

What she might learn

I doubt I'll ever know.

After picking it up the bird was motionless in my hand.

One leg appeared to be injured.

It's downy belly was the light brown of dried leaves,

its wings almost indigo.

I thought I saw it move slightly in my hand.

Placing it in a pet carrier with water it rested just a few minutes inside

out of the heat of the sun in the darkness.

Kali sat next to the carrier sniffing

and peering inside before laying down and keeping watch over it.

The bird began making a racket

and I took the carrier to the porch

and opened the door

hoping it could fly.

Zoom…it was gone like a dart. 

Kali and I watched. I was surprised,

I don't know what she thought.

Not-Spot sniffed at the concrete

where he had dropped the bird.

I was glad it had recovered,

but I couldn't scold Not-Spot.

He's a cat!

It was a bird!

What else was he supposed to do? 

If he did what he was meant to do

why did it feel so good 

to see the little bird fly away,

and was I  right to intervene?

Was right and wrong involved at all? 

Does it matter if the bird had lived or died?

As the evening grew darker than the day

a flicker arrived for suet,

chickadees appearing as hopping shadows

picked seed from the grass around the feeder and between the dead stalks of summers sunflowers until vanishing with the light.

Down the hall Kali and Not-Spot

are curled on the blankets

waiting for me to turn the lights off

and join them.

Six Short Videos From Serendipity Studios

This issue includes 6 relatively brief videos. Two of them are art work and the others are videos of  wildlife in the front yard.

I feed wild birds and wild ducks as they come and go, and in passing a pair of squirrels.  It's the least I can do.

Birdfeeder Blues

I built the birdfeeder and after about four days of being spooked by it there has been no absence of activity.

A 69 Second Serendipity

All of this issue is photography and art made so far this month. 
Besides feeding birds I grow flowers from seed,
and photograph them. 
Then I do stuff to them digitally.  

Abracadabra

A fanciful bit of nonsense art which I happen to like a lot.

Crows

Crows are some of the birds that come to eat.  They are the most cagey, or perhaps wary, of the birds that come to get the seed I put out.  

Serendipity Involving A Squirrel

Besides the various birds, this beautiful plump rodent comes to gather seed spilled from the feeder or, if deemed necessary, raids the feeder itself. I've never seen such a pretty squirrel. I'm hoping my cat doesn't get him.

What Do Reflections Imply?

l'm fascinated by reflections and so I made this videos of birds eating seeds from a feeder hanging from the branch of a cherry tree.

The video is of their reflections on the water that accumulates in the driveway after a heavy rain.

What Are We Voting For In 2020?

Something is terribly wrong in America.  A national State of Mind, more foul than the water in Flint and Newark and the air in Richmond Ca. has taken possession of the residents of Main Street.  Fear and insecurity once abolished by the knowledge of a paycheck commensurate with their needs and a society to back them up if they should need help are now front and center in the minds of the residents on Main Street once again.  This situation cannot be allowed to continue and this year and next there is for the first time since FDR a real choice for Americans. 

Bernie Sanders has presented a Platform that addresses the worries in the households of Main Street more completely and satisfactorily than the ideas proposed by the other 'Establishment Approved' candidates.

It is the present 'Establishment' that is the opponent of Main Street.  The 'Establishment' is comprised of the forces that combine to influence lawmakers to make laws.  We understand correctly that at this moment that influence is the Corporate People who cannot vote themselves but who donate large sums.  While they cannot vote they are allowed to influence American elections and social life by giving money to Republican and Democratic Politicians and the organizations that support those Politicians.  Does it make sense to you that someone forbidden to vote can donate money and have laws made to benefit them?  

There is an inherent conflict of interest when a non-voting entity contributes any money at all, let alone substantial amounts,to 'Establishment Politicians' and in return obtains favorable legislation. This is the situation we refer to as the present 'Status Quo' and it is the cause of virtually all of the concerns on the minds of those trying to scratch out a living on Main Street.  Most Americans would like a more equitable Status Quo.

 (link to OpenSecrets.org.)

Bernie Sanders is the only viable candidate addressing the problem of the present 'Establishment' and the present 'Status Quo' which the present 'Establishment' regards as being normal.  It may be normal in the eyes of Republican and Democratic lawmakers but it is an unacceptable quality of daily life for the average American. But that is what is being offered to the People today by the Republican and Democratic Parties.  It's time to stop this one day older and deeper in debt program.   An old best selling song from 1956 at the link describes the workers problem and it showcases the needs of the workers that any society worth keeping seeks to provide in order to keep it from being a wage-slave colony.

The Sanders candidacy in the midst of the present national social failure has made me consider what is the purpose of a government in the first place if it is not to make life easier and more secure than life without a government?  So far neither Republicans or Democrats have proven themselves up to the task of making life easier and more secure.  Instead our money doesn't go as far as it is needed to go and President Trump is seeing to it that the problems are going to get worse.   (link to Forbes Magazine article by  Yuwa Hedrick-Wong ) Trump, as most of his predecessors, has been no help at all except for a very few not of the working and middle classes.  For information of wealth disparity in the U.S. inequality.org  can inform you. 

Sanders proposals address the basic needs of those who live and move and have their being on Main Street. He proposes healthcare as a given, education a given, equitable employment a given, his vision is the vision we need it addresses our needs.  His vision is explained at his website.  

So what is the purpose of Government?  Some might say immediately to keep us secure and safe!  I would ask: "Do you remember 9/11/ 2001, when those paid to protect us claimed a complete and total lack of knowledge of even the possibility of such an attack?"  That failure lead to the subsequent failure to protect us!  Were our protectors asleep at the wheel?  Are you any safer today? If you were safer would you keep being informed by the Corporate Media and your Public Servants of all the dangers surrounding you and how impotent they are to do anything but build a wall?   

A report on the indifference to warnings on the attacks from RT.  

When the person in charge of this kind of activity gives the explanation Ms. Rice gives a question of whether or not we are being protected at all justly arises.  She had no clue and was caught totally by surprise by her own admission. That failure was not only a major failure on her part but it calls the whole concept of security into question.  Are you secure now?  

In this context the need to find an answer to the question of "what is the purpose of a government?" becomes imperative.  In an era such as this with the government in the control of corporate hands and operating for the benefit of those who comprise the corporate Donor Class a Sanders candidacy is like a white dove from heaven.  At the very least it is the first step up the ladder from the bottom.

Have a nice day.

Would you wear this T Shirt?

While watching the burlesque 

of Trump-dom  unfold in real time 

the thoughts on the T Shirt 

appeared in my mind.  

If you'd like to wear one  you can, hopefully, obtain one  by clicking the image below.

I could wear that! T-Shirt
by Hermenutic

Art in the public interest: Serendipity On An August Afternoon (video)

Serendipity On An August Afternoon

As August comes to an end and summer winds down so do the prospects for the earth to remain able to provide what is required to sustain life.  We are faced with the conclusion that the way of life we as the human species have chosen is killing us.  A time for decision making is upon us.  Should we just keep on keeping on until we are extinguished? Or should we change our minds? 

If those who can do something to stop this do not intervene life on earth is over.  If there were a moment more climactic than this moment when the societies of the world are deciding whether their 'way of life' is worth keeping when it means the end of life itself I'd like to know what that moment was.

Frankly it is doubtful that life will not arise from the ashes.  I suppose life must arise from the ashes.  But I wonder why it is so hard to decide to save what we have while we have a slight chance to do so.  After all it can be pretty nice here in August.  

Why did we start the fire and why are we not doing all we can to put the fire out?

Hell's Kitchen City Park (environmental art and video)

Every once in a while the conclusion of the logic of continuing to promote fossil fuels seems to have been lost sight of.  

The logical conclusion should be obvious when it is understood that before non-native residents arrived environmental pollution was under control.  Today environmental pollution is OUT OF CONTROL.

Abandoning fossil fuels appears to be the only rational conclusion to be derived from their use.

Smoke And Portents On A Summer Afternoon (poetry)

Smoke And Portents On A Summer Afternoon

The lawn's been mown

and now smoke is rising from my bowl

made from the antler of a deer

that died before June 13, 1993.

That date is set in stone.

Today is July 24, 2019.

The bowl and my hand

have accommodated themselves gratefully

and purposefully to each other

over the years.

Today in the front yard sunflowers bloom,

on the side porch morning glory vines

with blossoms climb upward

wrapping themselves around the rafters of the porch filling their cups with photons that left the sun

eight minutes and twenty seconds earlier

with an urgent message:

"Keep on climbing, it's still summer

and you have many seeds to make."

Fuel is added and the smoke continues rising,

the present summer afternoon
turns into former summers...

making me laugh,

but sometimes there's tears

that become something else altogether 

with the passing of years….

This afternoon photons with a message sting my face

drawing drops of moisture from beneath my skin.

While smoke curls up from my antler bowl

and wraps around the morning glory vines,

I bemusedly consider what it means.

Rising from the bowl the smoke

brings unspoken messages to my soul

as photons release a sweet fermented gasp

from the fallen blades of grass;

from ninety million miles away they desiccate

and transform

what the October rains

will mediate

and re-form.

"Caw", a crow calls from atop the poplar

behind the house.  "Caw."

On the way out with a cup of peanuts for the crow I think:

 

"This is my seventy second summer…

All I did was chop wood

and carry water

and now the well is dry.

I wonder what's next."

© David H. Roche

Mother Nature's Many Lives (Poetry)

Mother Nature isn't in danger, she's got more lives than nine cats.  Her life is made from living and dying.  Ours isn't. If we don't live we die. We don't do both and stay alive.  We're going to die anyhow but doing all we can do to meet our fate quicker does not hit me as the right decision to make.  How about you?

It's something to think about.

Some Good Reasons To Expect A Progressive Victory In 2020

The political platform presented by Bernie Sanders is a reflection of the needs not now being met by the present Republican and Democratic administrators of the status quo. The current issues of Medicare for all, fully free education and current education debt forgiveness, an economy that produces employment opportunities enabling the worker to fully participate in the consumer society, an administration directed course of action faithful to the next generation. This moment requires an administration that is fully engaged in addressing the results of changing eco-system viability due to climate change and industrial pollution issues as well as representing America as being a fully inclusive society that does not use race, religion, or gender as a means to determine who the problem causers in society are.

The improvements in society proposed by a Progressive agenda will require government spending in areas long forgotten by Republican and Democratic lawmakers. There is no free lunch you get what you pay for.  At least that is the way it should be.  However it is just the opposite in the U.S. right now.  Right now those who contribute the least financially to society are given the biggest financial rewards by the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who are solely responsible for the way life is unfolding on Main Street.

We should not despair.  The mistakes of the past can be used to pay for social justice today. After all if we are able to provide corporate welfare to those who do not deserve it we can simply put that money to use by giving it back to the taxpayer who paid it to the government in taxes in the first place. That makes a heck of a lot more sense than just handing it willy-nilly to corporate nere-do-wells.

By contributing financially to society I mean the paying of the levied taxes. Everyone who works does this. In contrast there are companies who are able to make untaxed billions in profits because of their donations to the Republican and Democratic lawmakers who make tax loopholes for them.

According to the Institute On Taxation And Economic Policy (ITEP)

"If these companies paid the statutory 21 percent federal tax rate, they would owe $16.4 billion in federal income taxes. Instead, they collectively received $4.3 billion in rebates."

These corporations were allowed to get away without paying their share by Republican and Democratic lawmakers who take contributions from these companies and then make laws to help the companies avoid paying their share making the working and middle classes pay damned near the entire bill.  These companies not paying their fair share are in a big part responsible for the economic malaise Main Street Americans are dying from. With that being the case immediate rectification of this problem is obligatory on the part of lawmakers.

Ducking out on the bill is not the only way these creeps get out of paying their way in the world. Sometimes the Republicans and the Democrats just give them money.  It's called subsidies. Do you know who is being given money hand over fist by Republican and Democratic lawmakers? Below in the link is a short list of these corporate panhandlers.

Only eight of the biggest corporate welfare recipients are revealed in this report from Showbiz CheatSheet.  The report reveals the bureaucratic shenanigans employed by Republican and Democratic lawmakers for moving the tax dollars of the working and middle classes to the balance sheets of corporate welfare beneficiaries.  These welfare recipients are real big international corporations that receive the dollars earned by the sweat of Americans, many working multiple low paying jobs and not able to afford a place to live.  And this list includes merely 8 of these easy riders.

The day is coming there will be a raid on the Banks of Marble that claim the workers wealth as their own. Some are saying that day has arrived, some are saying "No, but it is on the way." One thing is sure, the working class and some in the middle class are slowly becoming aware they've been taken to the cleaners by a second class bunch of Republican and Democratic bullshitters.

What the working class and the middle class long divided by an endless succession of Republican and Democratic Punch and Judy shows will do remains to be seen.  I suspect they will join together on the basis that the Progressive issues are human issues and not political issues. I suspect the working class and the middle class will reclaim their humanity and rebuild the U.S. in a way that reflects human, not corporate, values. The Progressive agenda is fundamentally connected to the bedrock human requirements of life and society in the 21st century, that being the case political barriers to unity are revealed as ridiculous and make a Progressive victory possible in 2020.

The Knowledge of "Good and "Evil"

The Knowledge of "Good and "Evil"

Sometimes I feel as if something different than what we have been told is happening is actually happening. This morning for instance while watching the news report on Democracy Now I saw something that did not seem right. After thinking about what I had seen I determined it was a good example of the knowledge and practice of 'Good' and 'Evil' put on exhibit for the entire world to take notice. The Young Turks, Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian revealed the complete hypocrisy of the Christian Right in support of this Administration in the face of so much easily solved human need.

To bring you up to date:

On the southwestern border of the U.S. there has been created a vast and growing humanitarian crisis of disenfranchised  people who are fleeing for their lives and pleading for help on the proverbial doorstep of the U.S.

The U.S. has responded by imprisoning them and breaking up families in the name of law and order and national security.  Instead of employing it's vast wealth to aid these people the U.S. has turned all its energies to their arrival by providing the most dismal and cruel receptions within the Christian borders of the U.S. where the words of Jesus have been ignored. 

I was provoked by the report from Democracy Now this morning and it dawned on me that this anti-human behavior by the U.S. is an excellent example to use when showing the difference between "Good" and "Evil". Jesus himself used the very same example when he taught about the Judgment Day. As a result of seeing what the U.S. is doing right this very moment I made the poster above. 

Update Iran

Since I made the art in the video below the shit has begun hitting the fan.  I thought I'd re-post it after the recent attacks on ships in the Mideast.

Democracy Now fills us in on the situation in a June 14, 2019 report.  

The shit storm is about to begin and Iran is the last Mideast Domino left to fall.  

The Ring of Fire shared this report today.  The report indicates that someone in high places may not be telling the truth. As strange as that may seem that is what was said.

I made the poster below after thinking about the Democracy Now broadcast. 

Iran in the crosshairs

Suffering: a meditation (Poetry)

Suffering: a meditation

suffering explained at this link

A young man parked his car and jumped from the bridge yesterday morning…,

an old man unaware
in the park below

burst into tears

while reminiscing.

The body hasn't been found,

the old man still cries in the park

and the tide keeps coming in

and going out.

© David H. Roche