Sunday, November 25, 2012

Fracking Bonanza

I went to that ever reliable new source CNN and for once saw myself in the spotlight and not in a story about homelessness.

The comments to that article are totally about the end of the world caused by hydro fracturing. Some predict it and some deny it and some wish it would happen and some don't care but will insult others just because they can. My current position is that we don't get to see enough of time to get outside our own self-consciousness. 80 years is pitiful compared to the 2 million of human history or the 4 billion of earth's history. Imagine that 100 million years after the creation of earth there was still 900 million more years before the earth was "only" 1 billion years old. Sort of makes going to the store to save $10 on a iPad kind of insignificant.



This has always been a philosophical debate for me that gets misunderstood as a practical debate. I do sympathize with the wolf and the polar bear who are certainly doomed. But they'd be doomed anyway along with the dinosaur and the giant octopus and dragons if they ever existed. Humans are having their moment in the sun but plants will probably mount a comeback. The question is how to conduct oneself while you are here above ground and the tradition has basically been self-delusion in pursuit of fleeting pleasures...which kind of makes sense except when Hermann Hesse is considered and we agree humans can be capable of greatness and not petty just meanness for cause of our regional prejudices. That's how we romantics think in times of sorrow.

So if we accept that not just humans but all mammals will eventually become extinct then does it matter if we mammals sped up the process by a few centuries? Hell, maybe soap-on-a-rope ethics actually slowed down our demise. I'm no expert. But the real debate I have is if indiscriminate waste, holocausts, sloppy living, greed, Hannah Montana etc. are good or bad a priori, that is, when examined separately from result. I'm the master of slippery slope diagnosis and my feeling is that quality must be valued over quantity. For instance, if you can raise one kid well but if you have 7 kids then 2 of them will be delinquents then you should limit yourself to 1. But that's totally antithetical to the dominant "fuck and chuck" propagation policy of our species. Has it worked so far? I'd say absolutely not. It's led to a completely untenable prison population, lawless streets, corrupt politics...etc. We've basically manufactured criminals on top of the criminals who are authentically pathological misanthropes. That's all wrong in theory and practice but now it's too late to do anything about it. For me, ideal living always takes the form of a Trappist Monastery I lived in once in Iowa. The devout itinerary was as follows

5 am - chant in Latin praising God as dawn light radiates through priceless stained glass windows.
6 am - pray for world peace quietly in private cell
7-10 - make grape jam for sale at roadside stand
10-11 - dust fancy wood scrolls and bannisters
11-12 transcribe Thomas Merton texts to inspirational parchment paper posters
1-2 rest and reflect on universe
3-5 chant in latin
6-8 study bible in groups
9 sleep

 Notice the absence of gangbanging and car jacking and snorting crystal meth? That's not an oversight. It's a culture of purity and devotion that still exists like cowering dens of arctic wolves

The number one threat to humanity is probably our disregard for water quality. The ignorance that we betray regarding the oceans and rivers is mind boggling. Only a corrupt public school system could manufacture citizens who pollute the water they drink. Just basic animal instincts would eventually kick in and make us think twice before building industries on rivers..unless the titans of industry got to our teachers first and trained/bribed them to push the turkey and gravy.

But engineers are going to solve the water purity problem at great cost to our energy supplies and kids can go back to playing their online games because those are what God put us here to do.

I had lunch with a guy who told me up front, "Soy Espana. Not Mexican."
"Is that right? You were born in Spain?"
"No. My father was from Spain and my mother was a Comanche Indian."
"Congratulations."
"I hate Mexicans*."
"Well, I'm in love with a Mexican** so we might have a problem there."
"And I hate Niggers***."
"Really? All black people."
"Yes."
"How do you feel about Yankees****?"
"I hate them, but they are better than Mexicans and Niggers."
"I see."
"I've had Yankee friends and they were not so bad."
"I guess I'm in the wrong state. Mexicans hate Whites, Whites Hate Mexicans and everyone hates Yankees."
"Yes."
"Mexicans have their bars, Texans have their bars, but Yankees should get out of town."
"That's right."

I feel like this is the destination of conventional wisdom. Eventually your brain will break down into regional prejudices and tastes that are trained by your school board and dumb parents until you will defend your prideful selections like a pregnant Sun Bear. But I think if you wash your ether regions of all federal indoctrination and examine life as universal speck of dust then you will be ostracized and outcast but you will be liberated like Mark Twain and see what is. You will be an Innocent Abroad...not a cultural crusader...you will love or hate as your heart dictates and the idiots will come out of the woodwork to tell you why you are wrong and stupid.

Blah blah blah. I'm exhausted by all this and have to clean my clothes now as a work week approaches. I have petty complaints about my bank that I won't bore you with except to say that now I have enough money to merely shrug when my evil bank changes the rules on me to steal my money...kind of like the criminal justice system.

Hydro-fracturing will plow through all life forms including humans but we will get light speed fiber optic communication lines that span the globe and eventually some electric cars that run on sunlight or hydro power. Artificial Intelligence is predicted in the next 20 years but I prefer the old fashioned Socratic kind of Intelligence. Maybe we had the Renaissance so there is no need for artistic expression anymore. Video games and amateur porn are this generation's crowning artistic accomplishments...and let's be honest, no one living could match Leonardo D'Vinci anyway so why bother trying?
And since I'm one of the few who is trying I'll answer that question as follows: I feel my talent/spirit/soul is best expressed/realized translating pop songs on the piano to the elderly. I'm like a forest sprite leading them merrily to the grave with Barry Manilow songs. It's taken a long time to accept that destiny but I'm certain it's a good fit. I have also found a voice that my spider-like fingers correspond to keys on a computer that has a fiber optic cable harness in my decaying brain....so I obey the voice that tells me I have something important to contribute to the global conversation that hums like bees in an angry hive. I'm not sure Politicians have the final say in mass movements...it's more complicated than that. Commoners don't live to support the queen bee...often we see ourselves as the queen bee that others are supporting and who is to say we are wrong?


* By "Mexican" he means, "naturally brown Texan"
** By "Mexican" I mean "woman who is a Mexican Citizen"
***This ugly term is generic and constitutionally vague but I think he means he hates black people who are murderers and theives who menace the innocent. Unfortunately, he uses this term to describe any black person from a lower income bracket who speaks like a black person.
****Yankees are anyone who would voluntarilly go watch the movie "Lincoln" and root for the North. (I would have to drive to Virginia as Texas apparently has banned this film.)

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with the water statement. If you asked any oil/natural gas speculator what they are speculating on these days they will tell you water rights. Buying them up like pieces of 20 rock.

It isn't just "industry on rivers" that are poluting our drinking water it is the fuckers pumping their chemicals into the shale to fracture that same shale to extract natural gas. All those fracturing chemicals are seaping into the drinking water and will make it undrinkable in 10 years.

Don't worry cause when we were in Corinto Nicaragua we say a floating, mobile desalination plant. There was one Bocas Del Toro also, they have plenty of rain and such but they shit in the same place as they get their water so it don't work very well.

Poncho

Oggy Bleacher said...

If enough people look the other way then maybe it will all magically get better.

I still assert that when water rights become a national issue there won't be a nation anymore so it's like investing in radiation suits.

Creative Commons License
Man in the Van by Oggy Bleacher is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.