wayne pease smokysun's heaven: August 2019

Friday, August 30, 2019

DON'T REMOVE THE HUMAN WITNESS (remember cameras can lie)

this came to me after thinking how all fire managers want to remove the human presence. then they've no one to say, "you just screwed up!" of course, blaming it on cameras means nothing. everybody knows technology goofs up: the electricity goes off, the alarm fails, the airplane misses it's drop. and yet, the public believes only human beings can fail.

this is definitely a cynical ploy! here's what a long-time fire-pilot says:

alas, the state of california fire having too much fun spending millions and millions on air-tankers and helicopters. it gives the illusion they can stop fires incinerating a town in a matter of hours. there's no question global warning making fires so fierce they suck the life right out of any human bodies they run across.

and as for what is true, this is a very interesting Ted Talk called Why do we believe what is not true.

he says none of us knows enough on our own. we collect our notions from other people and we fail to examine them in any depth.

i'm as guilty as anyone. for instance, the amazon touted as the source of 20% of the earth's oxygen. this a great rallying cry. unfortunately, it's not true. much of that oxygen re-absorbed to re-energize plant growth. maybe 7% escapes. another statistic: evidently the amount of burning area on earth has declined 25% in the past twenty years. others claim elsewhere forests making a come-back.

this doesn't mean the west won't burn, temperatures rising, whatever the cause. and what about the seas rising 23 feet? we will just have to wait and see. bill gates wants to drop a chemical in the upper atmosphere to dim the sun. and isn't that like introducing rabbits into australia, then dingoes to control the bursting population?

so, just like i'm saying we need living eyes on lookouts, i'm claiming we need watchdogs and not just computers to win elections, to catch crooks not paying taxes, to help old ladies across the street.

Sunday, August 25, 2019

ALL ALONG THE WATCHTOWER (is anybody watching?)

so, bob dylan has sung this song almost two thousand times onstage. and i can't help humming it up here in my tower:

There must be some way out of here
Said the joker to the thief
There's too much confusion
I can't get no relief
Businessmen, they drink my wine
Plowmen dig my earth
None of them along the line
Know what any of it is worth

No reason to get excited
The thief, he kindly spoke
There are many here among us
Who feel that life is but a joke
But you and I, we've been through that
And this is not our fate
So let us not talk falsely now
The hour is getting late

All along the watchtower
Princes kept the view
While all the women came and went
Barefoot servants, too
Outside, in the distance
A wildcat did growl
Two riders were approaching
The wind began to howl

++++

lookout towers have more than a functional interest (spotting fires). they announced the fall of troy. in ireland they warned of the vikings coming. in japan they fended off burning arrows. they really are the symbol of the nation.

Man is preceded by a forest, followed by a desert said this graffiti from the 1968 student demonstrations in paris. and it's only too true. look at the deserts of north africa where ancient roman, greek, and carthaginian cites once flourished. in FORESTS, THE SHADOW OF CIVILIZATION robert pogue harrison says human beings have always had a fight with the forest. civilization means to tame them. well look what is happening in the amazon so men can raise cattle:

20% of the oxygen on earth produced by these forests. i can feel breathing getting harder. everybody seems to be looking, but nobody is watching. it's too abstract, two thousand miles away. alas, they have no watchtowers to tell us what is actually is happening. pictures on the tube won't do it.

when my relief lookout called to tell me about planes crashing into the twin towers, i turned on the tv briefly. then i switched to audio, listening to the screams in the street. the whole scene became real. without human voices describing the scene, we feel it as unreal, just another movie. firetowers across the united states necessary to make the coming climate change real.

i like a human witness, in fact i need them. otherwise the emotions of the moment get lost. i feel fire lookouts now necessary to tell people, GET OUT OF THE WAY! otherwise we can't take the alarms seriously, just another matter of crying Wolf! Wolf! and i feel the same way about the coming changes in the climate. like the frog in a pan of water, we can't feel the increasing heat until we're boiled alive.