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Show THE ZEPHYR/OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2006 links to long distance freight: Bananas from tropical places; wines from Chile, Australia, France; lobsters, an at-risk species, air freighted to Europe; fresh vegetables, fruits and flowers flown and shipped and trucked all over the world. whole system is cockeyed, geared to lavish energy input rather than local production for local use. JUDY POWER The web shivers. Follow another strand: the way we treat each other. War is one of those treatments. Another is the distribution of material and time and money whereby the already rich get richer, the poor get poorer. The whole world is polarized that way. "The Realtor who knows what's REALLY going on in Moab!" Small farmers set up farmers’ markets, but they get no backup from governments. The Example: Caribbean island nations, tourism and cruise line-dominated, local cultures transformed into commodities. All this fluff and fashion, all this showing off, unfair to those who can afford it, trippley unfair to those who can’t, and the earth doesn’t want it. I could rant on and on, especially about far-flung collateral damages, such as deadening of human spirit, the waste of lives. What are we, anyway? Women ein ose FN et aS OVERPOPULATION? and men and children? Or sheep trapped in the game? Don't forget the pets! Small farmers set up farmers’ markets, but they get no backup from governments. The whole system is cockeyed, geared to lavish energy input rather than local production for local use. PLEASE have your pets spayed aad neutered... Following links into the world ... lots of people doing it, right now, on the world wide web and also in face-to-face affairs and many other ways ... what happens? I suspect a lot of people begin to spin a web of their own; they get to a point where they have to stand up and shout, “I’m not taking this any more” Sure, you can label all of this wishful thinking on my part, bu wait just one minute. When you do learn more, out there in the world, how can an ordinary thinking human person resist the urge to, at the very least, stand up and shout? I don’t think I’m a wishful dreamer. I’m asking a question. Now I get to tell a war story. Eighty Sixth infantry regiment, truck convoy traveling north to the winter front, Appenine mountains of Italy. The highway parallels the west then come buy a house from me! coast. All along that coast, hour after-hour, lights and black silhouettes, the offloaded par- ARCHES REALTY 150 EAST CENTER ST. MOAB. UT 84532 BUS: 435.259.5693 800.634.0770 ges —_ 9553 judy@moabproperties.com www operties.com redundant, made it past the fascist u-boats into the Mediterranean. Months, not years, all (each office is independently owned and ppeentd) aphernalia of war, assembled in the United States of America, shipped in Liberty Ships, offloaded behind the battle front. Industries instructed by government produced X, Y or Z by such and such time: months, not years. All that stuff, a good bit of it ‘probably that stuff, mile after mile. In an extreme emergency, the attack on Pearl Harbor, our government reacted swiftly. Instead of tax breaks for corporations there was price control. Instead of incredible, mountainous waste at home and abroad there was control of scarce raw materials: oil, rubber, paper, aluminum, iron, tin. Meat and butter were rationed. Governments can actually do these things. Control of profits? Yes, even that. War. The fascists bombed cities, so did we. The fascists slaughtered civilians in retaliation for soldiers killed by guerillas (Guerillas or Partisans were allies; they were the resistance, not terrorists). We sent Japanese Americans to camps guarded by barbed wire and men with guns. And we ended the war with the greatest war crime ever, the atomizing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. War is a thing, a roaring burning thing, no matter what flag it flies: desperate neces- Yes...i#'s true...After 17 years we have finally embraced credit card technology. Via PAYPAL you use your credit card to SUBSCRIBE or join the BACKBONE ON-LINE. sity, noble self sacrifice, shameful lies. Follow war's tracks to any time, any place, it is a human-created beast. Back to the question: too many people? If we keep on using the earth without justice, without equality, without heart, without common sense, then we are, for sure, too many. (1) The quote opening this rant is from William Stafford’s poem The Daily Shoot Out for Tourists on the Square in Jackson, Wyoming/from. his collection, /Wyoming/. Ampersand Press, 1985. (2) Dunya Mikhail. The “War Works Hard.” Translation from the Arabic by Elizabeth Winslow. New Directions, 2005). We are stripped bare by the curse of plenty. | Winston Churchill OUTDOOR Outdoor Gear Books & Coffee 263 $, 100 East Kanab, UT 84741 435.644.8884 ay ~ae — The Solutions oasis@kanab.net www.willowcanyon.com invite you to respect, rethink, reduce, reuse, and recycle, right here in Moab! _ Get your free Moab area, fact-filled recycling directory at no charge by calling 259.0910 or by email moab_solutions @hotmail.com For solutions info & projects, visit www.moab-solutions.org Alabaster Sculptures Navajo Rugs Hopi & Navajo Kachinas Pueblo Pottery Hopi, Navajo, Zaani Jewelry Navajo, Ute, Paiute Superfluous Wealth can brin superfluities only Henry David Thoreau & Papago Baskets |
