Columns

Needed: A Green New Diction

Conspicuous consumption and competitive conflict are so deeply rooted in our cultural DNA that these destructive traits even pop up in the written proclamations of our most esteemed environmental orgs.

Case in point: The Summer 2020 issue of Friends of the Earth's quarterly newsmagazine begins with a front-page, above-the-headline salute to FOE members who "are fueling the fight for a healthy and just world."

Really!? "Fueling the fight"? Double ding!

A Chance Evening Encounter

Last week's evening walk took us through North Berkeley. The streets were mostly empty. No traffic; no walkers. But on our return, several blocks from home, we noticed someone striding purposefully down Monterey. Just before he reached us, he began to turn up a pathway intent on knocking on the nearest door.

Instead, he caught our eyes, greeted us, adjusted his facemask, and introduced himself as Wayne Hsiung, a candidate running to become Berkeley's next mayor. He briefly laid out some of his objectives: Housing for all, Police reform, and the advancing Green New Deal.

Then he wrapped up with a winning political gesture perfectly tailored for these treacherous times—reaching into a bag, he offered us free, complimentary facemasks.

Salesmanship like that is nothing to sneeze at. 

George Washington Gets Dissed in the Comics 

I believe Darren Bell's Candorville is the only comic strip to feature a journalist as a lead character. In last Sunday's strip, reporter Lemont Brown was taking heat for writing an article titled: "America's Oldest Pastime Is Making S--- Up." 

He responded by offering this disquieting disquisition on the career of "America's Daddy," George Washington: 

"He was portrayed as an honest man, even though he basically stole from his troops. He tricked officials into giving him thousands of acres of land his troops had been promised as an enlistment bonus. 

"Americans made him out to be a military genius, but he lost more battles than he won. And his big 'crossing the Delaware' moment only succeeded 'cause his inept opponent ignored a warning notice. 

"Did you know his bumbling basically started the Seven Years' War? It was a world war that raged across five continents and he started it!" 

Ballot Battle Targets Berkeley's Mailboxes 

The two blue mailboxes stationed in front of Berkeley's Main Post Office have recently become targets in the Culture War between waged between pro-Trump and pro-Democracy Americans. 

First, the boxes were vandalized by an unknown party who used black spray to obliterate the name of the US Postal Service. Another POed PO opponent obscured the USPS trademark with drizzles of white paint. 

And now, someone has come to the Post Office's defense with a small sticker slapped on the street-facing side of the two beleaguered boxes. The stickers bear the same message that once adorned folksinger Woody Guthrie's guitar: "This Machine Kills Fascists." 

When if comes time to fill out and mail in our presidential preferences, let's hope the ballot is more powerful than the bullet. 

A 'Murder of Crows" and Other Collective Nouns 

The wordly world of collective nouns goes beyond the familiar terms of "herd," "pack," "colony," "brood," and "swarm." (And how is it we can have both a "flock of birds" and a "flock of sheep"?) 

There are lots of clear-headed collectives, including: 

A band of coyotes 

A colony of bats 

A flutter of butterflies 

A pride of lions 

A gang of wild turkeys 

But also some wacky terms like: 

A congress of salamanders 

A prickle of porcupines 

A rumba of rattlesnakes 

A charm of hummingbirds 

A parliament of owls 

A pod of whales 

A mob of emus 

A grumbling of grouse 

A wisdom of wombats 

And, when it comes to crows, we can choose from the following: a hoard, a hover, a muster, or a murder of crows. 

Why not a "caucus" of crows? Not only it this alliterative, it captures the bird's boisterous, loudmouth nature. Seriously, don't a crow's cries sound like "caw-cussing"? 

The Looming Threat of a Trumptatorship 

A sobering September 1 quote from Robert Reich: 

"It's becoming clearer by the day that the choice in November is not Democrat or Republican. It is democracy or fascism.” 

Trump Is Served with a Holy Writ 

A message from inside that Bible that Trump upheldeth outside St John's Episcopal Church on June 1, 2020. Citing 2 Timothy 3:1-5: 

"There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people." 

Trump Profiled—and Defiled—by His GOP Allies 

This compendium of contempt was assembled by act.tv, "a progressive media company specializing in next-generation live-streaming and digital strategy." 

And here's a bonus observation from Albert Einstein: "Whoever is careless with the truth in small matters cannot be trusted with important matters." 

O Donnie Boy 

Donald Trump is a truly inspirational figure. And by that, I mean he inspires both abject fear and biting political satire. With Trump in mind, Am I Right (a website devoted to celebrating song parodies) has collected a bunch of Don-prompted ditzy ditties. 

Offerings include: "Donnie Be Good" (based on Chuck Berry's "Johnnie B. Goode"); "Lie Baby Lie" (Bob Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay"); "The Sounds of Lying" (Paul Simon's "The Sound of Silence"); and "What a Difference a Tweet Makes" (Jimmy Ague/Dinah Washington). 

Here's a chorus from "How Democracy Dies," a riff based on Don McLean's "Bye-bye Miss American Pie." 

Here’s why our democracy cries
‘cause the leader in the White House spouts nothing but lies
and his crude behavior we have to rationalize
Republicans in congress sittin’ idly by
this is how democracy dies 

"We Just Sued President Trump for the 100th Time"  

That's the lead sentence in a dispatch from California's Attorney General, Xavier Becerra. "Our 100th lawsuit seeks to block the President from rolling back critical environmental protections under the National Environmental Policy Act." 

Becerra claims he has no vendetta against DJT but whenever a president "fails to follow the law and when he attacks our families, resources, and values, California will take decisive action to protect what we hold dear." 

Becerra's racked up an impressive number of wins. He stopped the Census citizenship question, protected Dreamers, kept DACA in place, defended access to reproductive healthcare, and blocked Trump's plan to cut nutrition programs and food stamps. 

In November, Becerra will be on hand to defend the Affordable Care Act before the US Supreme Court. 

Why Aren't We Worried About Washington's Election Meddling? 

A personal note from Alice Slater, the New York Director of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the World Beyond War Coordinating Committee: 

Why is any Russian meddling in our election considered such a scandal when Nixon and Kissinger interfered in the LBJ-Nixon election—urging Vietnam not to end the war until after Nixon got elected when they would get better terms for ending the war? 

Or when Reagan urged Iran not to release the US hostages until after the election with Carter, which they did the day after Reagan defeated him? 

Or for just looking at what the US is doing in Venezuela today? 

What is our problem? 

Why aren't they fixing the Electoral College instead of blaming Ralph Nader for Gore's loss and Putin for Hillary's loss? 

Do you know what the US did to influence the next right-wing, illegally seated, Russia-bashing president of Ukraine—who rejected the prior President's decision to join the EU, going instead with the Russian economic alliance which offered him a better deal, after which we sent in our buddies to overthrow him, including Clinton's pal, Victoria Nuland who boasted about helping to overthrow the legally elected Putin-supporting President? 

And do you know that our Secretary of State in charge of diplomacy [Hillary Clinton], compared Putin to Hitler after the Russians lost 27 million people to the Nazi onslaught in World War II!? 

Is it any surprise that he wanted to help Trump (who came in saying what good was NATO for anyway—which we expanded right up to Russia's borders after promising Gorbachev that we would never do so—and for announcing that he wanted to make a deal with Russia and North Korea?) 

The Republicans and their corrupt corporate enablers are doing more illegal things—to skew the vote, the census, voter registration, the Hatch Act, voting machines, the Post Office—than Russia could ever hope to accomplish by purchasing an insignificant amount of social media time. . . . 

Mankind Versus Mother Nature 

State Farm Insurance has started running a media ads with the tagline: "State Farm is here to prove that Human Nature is greater than Nature." Seems an odd stance, given all the pay-outs State Farm's been asked to make lately to cover damage claims from humans battered by nature's extremes: floods, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires. 

What's that, you say? It's actually humans who are largely responsible for turning Mother Nature into a monster in the first place? Point taken. 

How Do You Turn Things Around? Call for a Revolution 

Do you believe in the Constitution? Then isn't it time to outlaw cash bail and no-knock police warrants? One violates the Bill of Right's guarantee of a speedy trial while the other targets our right to be secure in the privacy of our homes. 

If the Bill of Rights were still operative, Oakland's landscape would not include a building bearing the anomalous name: "Pre-trial Detention Facility." 

If everyone had a guaranteed income, perhaps there would be less theft and crime. If we imposed reasonable caps on wealth, perhaps there would be less incentive to engage in graft and corrupt practices in the pursuit of unrestrained, personal enrichment. With unconstrained wealth comes unrestrained corruption. 

Just sayin'. 

There Are Better Ways  

There are more than a half-million homeless people in the US, "the richest country on Earth." Meanwhile, in Portugal, housing is a human right. Portugal's parliament passed a Basic Housing Law in July of 2019. Portugal (which also provides universal health care) now prohibits tenant evictions in Lisbon and has promoted the expansion of apartment complexes on public real estate. For more on Portugal's housing struggles, see the Pacific Standard. 

The Food Freedom Act 

In 2015, the State of Wyoming passed HB0056, the Wyoming Food Freedom Act. The legislation, for the first time, allowed food from local growers to be sold directly to local coops and groceries. Sales are made directly, without regulation. One exemption is a regulation that homemade food cannot be sold online. 

On March 12, Wyoming Governor Mark Gordon signed House Bill 84 into law, expanding the Wyoming Food Freedom Act to allow consumers "to buy more fresh, healthy and local food at affordable prices.” The Institute for Justice applauded the move, proclaiming: “The nation’s best law for homemade food businesses is about to become even better.” Not surprisingly, the number of farmers' markets in Wyoming has doubled over the last decade. 

Barbara Lee's Crowning Achievement 

Rep. Barbara Lee writes: "While the DNC might have looked a little different this year, some things never change. We are still in the midst of the fight for justice, equality, and the right to wear our natural hair. Black women are still more likely to be passed up for a job opportunity and 1.5 times more likely to be sent home from work because of the natural, cultural ways we wear our hair. 

"Over 80% of women feel forced to change their hair from its natural state to assimilate to the white beauty standards that still exist in modern-day office culture. Enough is enough. 

"Racial and cultural discrimination has no place in our schools, workplaces, or country. It’s why my colleagues and I introduced the Creating a Respectful and Open World for Natural Hair (CROWN) Act to protect people from discrimination for wearing their natural hair. 

"While the CROWN act has been signed into law in several states, including our very own California, there are still 43 more to go. So, I’m asking: 

Will you sign on as a citizen co-sponsor to my CROWN act today? I've been wearing my natural hair for decades, and everyone else should feel empowered to wear theirs, too." 

Hurricane Help for Louisiana  

The Daily Kos has responded to the aftermath of Hurricane Laura with a plea to help families stranded without power, water, medical supplies, shelter, and food. If you are looking for ways to aid the relief efforts, please consider giving to these charities: 

• Community Foundation of Southwest Louisiana
• Families Helping Families of Southwest Louisiana
• Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans and Acadiana
• Galveston County Food Bank
• Southeast Texas Food Bank
• Galveston Island Meals on Wheels
• Louisiana SPCA
• Humane Society of Western Louisiana