Steve GannTake Sides, Take Sides - Always Take Sides.
January 10th 2007 16:39
This Island Earth.
"An éminence grise (French for "grey eminence") is a powerful advisor or decision-maker who operates secretly or unofficially. "
"Éminence Grise, a definition: A powerful adviser or decision-maker; also called "grey eminence"."
As a writer and poet I have a concern that there is too much focus on the disasters and manifest destruction which we find in the world today. My belief is that we can learn more from the past and from the present, than we can hope for as we watch the TV news or read the headlines of our daily papers.
Take a small example - Global Warming. Please note the use of capitals. Global warming has become a celebrated cause. Yet in achieving that status there is perhaps the possibility that some ways of containing, yes even reversing the situation, have been neglected along the way.
The first and most obvious solution, is that we could use less. There is a slightly insane panic which underlines the world economy which demands that we consume more. If we don't, the horrible words like recession and depressed economy get bandied about. Politicians stand before us with stern expressions and tell us we need to spend more. Pray, may I ask: Why?
We should look more at renewable sources of energy. These should be developed, husbanded and encouraged to grow. It doesn't matter if they are more expensive now. It is a matter of scale. The more they are developed, the more they are used and implemented, the cheaper and more effective they will become. There is also the hope that they will cause less direct impact on the environment. Keep in mind that science is often blamed for progress and progress is blamed for global warming. What is ignored is, what science may have contributed to as a problem, science can also remedy. Science may provide solutions for said problems. We need to encourage research and investment in solutions that may improve our world and our ability to live in it, without screwing up the habitat.
We should look in the short term at the way we expand the human encroachment into new areas. If we have to keep expanding as a population, then can we please learn to live as benefactors of the world and caretakers of a heritage which is precious and in need of our help? Take trees for instance. They are the lungs of the earth. If a tree is cut down, can we plant other trees which will grew to equivalent benefit of us all. Better still, for every tree cut down, make it manadatory that four or five trees are gown in their place. Let's also have more trees planted in our streets, near our houses and in the cities where we work. A city without a burgeoning growth of trees is a sad, anti-septic place, full of squares and desolation. Without trees the world becomes a desert.
We should also be making an industry or industries of reparing the earth or helping it regenerate itself. To some extent this could be self- funding with the benefits that result as side effects. But to get things going and sustain the growth of a healthy environment, polluters should pay. Governments should levy taxes to clean up car pollution. Factories that spew forth smoke and green house gasses should pay for the clean up. Other factories and processes that generate dioxins or poisons into our rivers, should also pay for the cost of cleaning up. The truth is that our industrialists don't pay nearly enough for the damage they do, for the power they use and for the bad processes they employ. The reality is that they choose the easy way, the dirty and the most flagrantly damaging way, for one simple reason: They can get away with it. Governments are too relaxed in their attitudes. Often those who police the manufacturers do not have the power to act or their budget for research and oversight is inadequate for the task.
So what am I going to do about it? I am writing tonight to the UN to begin a dialogue. My suggestion is that the UN appoint people all over the world as ambassadors or conservators of our planet. Call them Eminence Grise or Greasy Eminences or Conservators of Mother Earth. Give them the recognition, the papers of authority if you will, to act on behalf of our planet. To impove her health and encourage practices which need less power usage, less use of consummable resources and using innovation to discover better ways of doing things. Then give them long flowing cloaks and pointy hats and let them get on with it.
This is, I believe a worthy cause and one I can give my on-going support. I raise my hand to vote yes for such an enterprise.
From Between the Silence
When you have been to the mountain
You have to be careful with what
You leave behind as much as
With what you take with you
When you return to the world again.
Heat rises invisibly
Like a blow of frustration
Etching distorting patterns
On the ceiling
Slowly leeching the energy
Archingly tardy in its progress
Lethargic in its deprivation.
In this I know
The distractions will drip from me
Leaving islands of ridged harmony
Breaking through to a final awareness.
There is a small satisfaction
In the retreating limpid pools
That weigh upon our thinking.
Your back speaks eloquently
Of this shared moment of anticipation
I am tempted to reach out and brush
Your hip and cup your thighs
Gently in the compass of my arms
But the heavy dampness prevents me.
We are completely sapped
Unable to move
Too absorbed in our inability
To reach, caress or share a smile.
Yet within this emptiness
A common restfulness
A comfort which remains
As we drift in and out of
Torpid drowsy inactivity. --------------------------------- John Hall
"An éminence grise (French for "grey eminence") is a powerful advisor or decision-maker who operates secretly or unofficially. "
"Éminence Grise, a definition: A powerful adviser or decision-maker; also called "grey eminence"."
As a writer and poet I have a concern that there is too much focus on the disasters and manifest destruction which we find in the world today. My belief is that we can learn more from the past and from the present, than we can hope for as we watch the TV news or read the headlines of our daily papers.
Take a small example - Global Warming. Please note the use of capitals. Global warming has become a celebrated cause. Yet in achieving that status there is perhaps the possibility that some ways of containing, yes even reversing the situation, have been neglected along the way.
The first and most obvious solution, is that we could use less. There is a slightly insane panic which underlines the world economy which demands that we consume more. If we don't, the horrible words like recession and depressed economy get bandied about. Politicians stand before us with stern expressions and tell us we need to spend more. Pray, may I ask: Why?
We should look more at renewable sources of energy. These should be developed, husbanded and encouraged to grow. It doesn't matter if they are more expensive now. It is a matter of scale. The more they are developed, the more they are used and implemented, the cheaper and more effective they will become. There is also the hope that they will cause less direct impact on the environment. Keep in mind that science is often blamed for progress and progress is blamed for global warming. What is ignored is, what science may have contributed to as a problem, science can also remedy. Science may provide solutions for said problems. We need to encourage research and investment in solutions that may improve our world and our ability to live in it, without screwing up the habitat.
We should look in the short term at the way we expand the human encroachment into new areas. If we have to keep expanding as a population, then can we please learn to live as benefactors of the world and caretakers of a heritage which is precious and in need of our help? Take trees for instance. They are the lungs of the earth. If a tree is cut down, can we plant other trees which will grew to equivalent benefit of us all. Better still, for every tree cut down, make it manadatory that four or five trees are gown in their place. Let's also have more trees planted in our streets, near our houses and in the cities where we work. A city without a burgeoning growth of trees is a sad, anti-septic place, full of squares and desolation. Without trees the world becomes a desert.
We should also be making an industry or industries of reparing the earth or helping it regenerate itself. To some extent this could be self- funding with the benefits that result as side effects. But to get things going and sustain the growth of a healthy environment, polluters should pay. Governments should levy taxes to clean up car pollution. Factories that spew forth smoke and green house gasses should pay for the clean up. Other factories and processes that generate dioxins or poisons into our rivers, should also pay for the cost of cleaning up. The truth is that our industrialists don't pay nearly enough for the damage they do, for the power they use and for the bad processes they employ. The reality is that they choose the easy way, the dirty and the most flagrantly damaging way, for one simple reason: They can get away with it. Governments are too relaxed in their attitudes. Often those who police the manufacturers do not have the power to act or their budget for research and oversight is inadequate for the task.
So what am I going to do about it? I am writing tonight to the UN to begin a dialogue. My suggestion is that the UN appoint people all over the world as ambassadors or conservators of our planet. Call them Eminence Grise or Greasy Eminences or Conservators of Mother Earth. Give them the recognition, the papers of authority if you will, to act on behalf of our planet. To impove her health and encourage practices which need less power usage, less use of consummable resources and using innovation to discover better ways of doing things. Then give them long flowing cloaks and pointy hats and let them get on with it.
This is, I believe a worthy cause and one I can give my on-going support. I raise my hand to vote yes for such an enterprise.
From Between the Silence
When you have been to the mountain
You have to be careful with what
You leave behind as much as
With what you take with you
When you return to the world again.
Heat rises invisibly
Like a blow of frustration
Etching distorting patterns
On the ceiling
Slowly leeching the energy
Archingly tardy in its progress
Lethargic in its deprivation.
In this I know
The distractions will drip from me
Leaving islands of ridged harmony
Breaking through to a final awareness.
There is a small satisfaction
In the retreating limpid pools
That weigh upon our thinking.
Your back speaks eloquently
Of this shared moment of anticipation
I am tempted to reach out and brush
Your hip and cup your thighs
Gently in the compass of my arms
But the heavy dampness prevents me.
We are completely sapped
Unable to move
Too absorbed in our inability
To reach, caress or share a smile.
Yet within this emptiness
A common restfulness
A comfort which remains
As we drift in and out of
Torpid drowsy inactivity. --------------------------------- John Hall
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