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~ Finding, formulating and solving life's frustrations.

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Tag Archives: pollution

The Teeth of the Shark

14 Sunday Mar 2021

Posted by petersironwood in Uncategorized

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Climate change, ecology, GreenNewDeal, pivotprojects, pollution, survival

The gaping, hungry maw of a Great White Shark circles beneath unseen. 

Wolves staring their glowing, glowering eyes in the snowy woods. We feel the burning eyes but they are just beyond our ken.

Roaring forest fire burns tree and bush and flesh as we run amok with blind panic. 

Would we not protect our children from these horrors if we could?

Photo by Josh Hild on Pexels.com

I fear for our children. And our children’s children. 

But not for Great White Sharks, or wolves, or forest fires or Grizzly Bears.

High in the thin invisible air, higher than the condor soars — deep, deep in the dark underground rivers of the world and in the crushing ocean depths, there lurks a monster more terrible than these by far.

Its tiny stinging tendrils reach out from the ocean, the sky, the forests. 

They are ugly and they reek though often they snake out unseen to claim their victims.

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

Each year the monster grows and claims more victims, condemning them to death — not the swift but terrible death of the Grizzly’s jaws — or the snap of a Great White Shark. 

Instead, the victim succumbs to the slow, grey, agonizing and painful cancer of rotting disease. In the tumor’s desire for unlimited growth, it sucks the life from its victim over months or years. The tumor, of course, like all creatures of pure greed, has no life of its own. It cannot sustain its own life but must prey on others. That is the nature of Greed, of Cancer, and of Pollution – three names for three heads of one deadly dog: Cerberus. 

(Wikipedia, 14 March, 2021: Hercules and Cerberus. Oil on canvas, by Peter Paul Rubens 1636, Prado Museum.)

And yet, we do not choose to kill the monster. Indeed, we feed this monster. 

We fool ourselves that we make friends with it. 

In truth, we simply bribe it with Today so that it may grow stronger for eating Tomorrow. 

In our Greed, we give the monster what it wants Today so that Tomorrow it may eat more of our children and of our children’s children.

Oh, yes. 

I fear. 

I fear for our children. 

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Ugly, fetid, foul, poisonous tentacles of pollution encircle our children and they are closing in. They are closing in. 

And yet, we have all the weapons we need: our will.

We can withdraw the hand of Greed that feeds Today to the deadly beast. 

And all through the massive hall of mirrors, the countless years called:

 “The Infinite Tomorrow”, 

our progeny will thank us.  

Unlike us, their empathy will be strong, valued, and nearly ubiquitous. So, they will know that, as absurd as it sounds, this was not an easy decision for us. It was a near thing. We nearly doomed our entire species to lives of disease, disaster, and despair. 

But we cannot let that happen, can we?

——————————————————-

https://www.who.int/news-room/air-pollution

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/05/05/850470436/u-n-warns-number-of-people-starving-to-death-could-double-amid-pandemic

https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/freshwater/deaths-from-dirty-water/story

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/12/02/global-warming-world-not-doing-nearly-enough-un-report/6476363002/

https://pivotprojects.org

Cancer Always Loses in the End

12 Wednesday Feb 2020

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, health, politics, psychology, Uncategorized

≈ 20 Comments

Tags

cancer, Corruption, Dictatorship, environment, fascism, Hitler, learning, Mussolini, pollution, Rule of Law

I would have to suppose that 45’s supporters are very happy tonight. The President tweeted that his friend Roger Stone had been treated unfairly and should get a lighter sentence. Roger Stone has been at “dirty tricks” his entire career. (This man was convicted in court. He not only lied under oath and failed to keep his promise not to comment on the case but even sought to intimidate other witnesses). 

But #45 tweets to let him off easy and Bill Barr demands it. Four long-time competent prosecutors quit the case. Yay! A win for #45! 

That’s a win for #45 in precisely the same way that it’s a “win for a cancer cell” who manages to hide from surgery or recover from chemotherapy. Make no mistake. Whatever lies you have chosen to believe about #45, he is not on your payroll. Just as cancer cells are capable of misleading and misdirecting the body’s immune system from destroying them, so too #45 has used, among other things, Fox News, pep rallies, lies, and Russian bot accounts and fake news propagation through social media to convince the immune system of the country to treat him as a legitimate member of society. A cancer cell is not a legitimate member of your body. #45 is not a legitimate politician. He doesn’t do a brilliant job of competing; he does a brilliant job of cheating. 

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Cancer though? Cancer is stupid. Sometimes, the immune system is not fooled or the surgery works or the radiation works or the chemo works and the rogue liver cell dies along with all its neighbors. Or, cancer succeeds and produces more and more cancer cells. Cancer will eventually kill its host body. And, then it dies anyway. If had kept being a decently functioning liver cell, it would have been a part of the tree of life that extends and grows. 

Instead, that liver cell’s overblown sense of self-importance led it to stop functioning as a liver cell and instead simply spend its time sucking all the resources possible to itself and grow without bound. 

As you know, if you have cancer in any part of your body, there’s a chance that it will spread to other parts and, if unchecked, it will spread to every part. 

photo of landfill

Photo by Leonid Danilov on Pexels.com

It isn’t just government that grows corrupt when the government is corrupt. It’s every organ of the society. You like watching the Academy Awards? Will it be more fun when you know that the “Best Picture Award” (and all the others) will be determined by Putin? Will it be more fun when the “Best Pictures” aren’t even made because they don’t win the favor of the “National Cultural Purity Board.” 

Will you enjoy the Super Bowl, or the World Series or the Kentucky Derby when the outcome is determined ahead of time by politicians? Don’t you think that the managers will work as hard? Will the officials care as much about the accuracy of their calls? Will the athletes train as hard or try as hard? 

Will technologists and industrialists work hard and think hard to improve products and customer service? Why? What’s the point? The brands that will succeed are the ones that are favored by the most powerful. 

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Corruption, like cancer, spreads everywhere. At some point, the dysfunction grows so large that the body politic dies. The society devolves into Civil War, anarchy, or it falls like a ripe plum into the waiting hand of the man who got #45 Putin office.

Will you even remember what it was like to taste an organic, vine-ripened tomato, or have a free & fair election, or a fair athletic contest, or a fair trial, or trust in the police to help you when you’re in trouble? 

Cancer doesn’t care. It feels good. For awhile. It gets a richer blood supply than it used to! It can grow faster! Whoopee! But — of course — it only lasts for awhile. The tumor can’t go hunting and gathering. The tumor can’t prepare a meal or even digest the meal. Cancer needs the body for its survival — but it imagines it doesn’t and thereby kills itself. 

Some people treat everything as a zero sum game. In life, however, many situations are win/win scenarios. Cancer, however, is not a “win/win” or a zero sum game. It’s a lose/lose situation. The cancer always dies and sometimes so does its victim. But even if the body recovers, the body is harmed, often irreparably. 

So, too, corruption is a lose/lose scenario. Rigged horse races lead to hurting horses, jockeys, and fans. Those who “control” the outcome lose too. They become greedy and rig more and more until no-one has any interest any more. 

IMG_3191

Original drawing by Pierce Morgan

Cancer is stupid. 


Author Page on Amazon

Cancer and Air Pollution

Cancer and Water Pollution

Cancer and Food Additives

Pollution and Autoimmune Disease

Click to access CAPH1_Parallel_sessions_III.3_3_AP_major_risk_factor_for_cancer_Weiderpass.pdf

The Illness that’s Everywhere

15 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by petersironwood in America, apocalypse, politics, psychology, story, Veritas

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Eagles, greed, hope, leadership, legends, life, myths, pollution, Veritas

“I don’t really feel sick. Not exactly,” said the white-haired lady.

IMG_9137

Many Paths sat down on the edge of the pine bough bed and looked down warmly into the eyes of She Who Saved Many Lives. She squeezed her mentor’s hand a bit tighter as she asked, “Can you tell me how you feel, Great Leader?” 

She Who Saved Many Lives chuckled a bit. “That’s you now, dear.” She squeezed the hands of Many Paths and returned the warm gaze. “You’re the Leader.”

“It is more like everything feels sick,” Saved Many Lives continued. “Not a lot, but some. I see, feel, hear, sense — an illness that is slight for now but growing and that it is — everywhere.”

IMG_0673

Many Paths now grew worried. Perhaps, as sometimes happened, something bad grew in the brain of She Who Saved Many Lives. Or, maybe she was being metaphorical and vague on purpose. That was one of her many “tricks” to get you to think for yourself. Maybe, she is even now about to teach me a lesson. I would certainly welcome it, thought Many Paths. Her mood had improved. She could at least hope that her mentor was teaching her. 

“It’s most like a dizziness. As when you spin around in a circle for a long time. Then you stop and the whole world seems to be spinning. You lose your balance and fall. And that is what this feels like as well. Something in the world is very much out of balance. It is falling. And though the earth still lives, there are those about in the world who would make earth herself fall.”

IMG_2261

“And that makes you dizzy?” Many Paths still thought a teaching lesson was not the only hypothesis, but the best. 

“It does when I look upon it. I want to understand what it is and how it came about and how to stop it of course. And when I study into it, that’s when I myself start to feel that dizziness. How can anyone want to destroy life itself? They want it to be imbalanced! They want life to stop!” She Who Saved Many Lives sat up and Many Paths could see her mentor’s forehead was wet.  

Many Paths thought perhaps rest was the most important thing to prescribe for her patient. But her “patient” was anything but; she seemed obsessed with trying to find out what was imbalanced. Many Paths decided to pursue the conversation. 

“How could the world get out of balance? If it were in balance to start with, why wouldn’t it stay in balance?”

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She Who Saved Many Lives nodded, “I have asked myself that same question. As you no doubt would appreciate, there are many possible answers. It might be that none of them are correct. It is possible that the imbalance was always there but too slight for us to notice. Over time, the imbalance became so large that it was impossible to return to balance.”

Many Paths remained more concerned with her patient than with such a philosophical discussion. But her curiosity had nonetheless been engaged. She Who Saved Many Lives had a gift for that. 

“I can see how a small imbalance could lead to a larger one. But it may also be true that imbalance and balance are themselves in a cycle. When a person is a tiny toddler, they fall a lot! They have very little sense of balance. At last they grow into adulthood and they have good balance. Then…no offense meant…but as you get very old, your sense of balance becomes worse. Then, you fall again.”

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“Yes, and of course, each of us individually dies. For us, as a separate being, we grow so far out of balance that we die. And yet normally, the whole of life is not thrown off balance by that. But my sense of things is that people are “falling” at all ages, not just toddlers and old folks. It is something — I don’t think there is a better word than “evil” — some idea or way of thinking that is not only wrong in some circumstanced, but actually aimed at self-destruction. I think of NUT-PI and also from our own tribe, ALT-R and POND MUD. But it is not just them. Somehow, they or people like them are infecting others. It may be that I myself am ill. And because of that, I sense illness elsewhere. But I don’t honestly think it’s like that. The illness is everywhere — and it makes me sick to think of it — that there are life forms out there — as recounted in The Myth of the Orange Man — that want to destroy life itself for some trivial greed.” 

For a time, the two women sat in silence, each considering the words of She Who Saves Many Lives. Many Paths at last began, “I have felt something similar. I felt it when POND MUD and ALT-R betrayed us. But after we won the Battle of the Three Paths, it seemed as though the world was well again. Then someone stole Tu-Swift. Stole him. Who would steal the children of others? And then, in trying to find Tu-Swift, others left — and no-one is back. No-one. They may all be dead for all I know. Everything is sick. Yes. Very sick. And I don’t know how to cure it.” 

Many Paths looked for a time into the eyes of She Who Saves Many Lives for an answer, for a clue. Any moment now, she hoped, her mentor would ask one key question and this would all fall into place. At last, Many Paths realized that was not going to happen. Saves Many Lives had not been teaching at all. She was as confused as Many Paths. Saves Many Lives had reminded Many Paths that it was now her turn to be Leader. Many Paths took a deep breath and gave the hand of She Who Saves Many Lives one last squeeze and stood up. 

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“But we will find out how to cure it. We will find out. But for now, let us both get some rest. Tomorrow may bring good news or bad, but it will be another day. Many Paths smiled, turned, and exited the Cabin of her mentor. She looked out onto the Center Place of the Veritas. She smelled the cooking fires, and she heard the happy chatter of her people punctuated now and again with a laugh. It suddenly hit her that she loved this entire tribe and loved it with the same ferocity as a mother grizzly loves her children. She would find out what this illness of the world was and together they would cure it. They would fix it. Surely, life itself would come to her aid. 

She walked over to the edge of the broad, swiftly flowing stream. She smiled as she remembered the clever way that Eagle Eyes had turned this stream into a weapon in the Battle of Three Paths. She could see the pink and gold of the sunset clouds reflected yet transformed by the churning water. She knew that somehow and some day, all would be well once again. Life, after all, was robust. It also flashed through her mind the nearby spot where KAVA-NUT had been attacked by a trained eagle! That was something to behold. If we can enlist nature….

flying bird during day

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Many Paths looked upward imagining the great eagle swooping down. She imagined that she could actually glimpse the eagle in the fading light…careening over the trees. No. It was an eagle, she decided, and headed this way! Could it be…? Many Paths quickly flung several folds of her robe over her forearm so that the Eagle could land there. She put her forearm up parallel to the ground and the Eagle alit. 

Many Paths recognized the Eagle as one of the ones that Eagle Eyes had trained. This one appears to have a badly broken leg, she thought. But as she calmed the Eagle, hooding its vision with her hand, she noticed that something was attached to the Eagle’s leg. She had to breathe deeply to calm herself enough to remove the something without spooking the Eagle. It seemed to be some sort of message.

———————————-

The Creation Myth of the Veritas

The Orange Man: A Parable of Lying and Greed

The First Ring of Empathy (The Start of Book One) 

Fire and Feast (The Start of Book Two)

Previous Most Recent Chapter in the Myths of the Veritas

An Essay on How we sometimes Confuse the Label with the Thing

Author Page on Amazon

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