Sunday Sermon from the Ministry of Truth

A caring message to the Conservatives sheep ...with sympathy: "Why don't you stop doing Satan's the Big Bad Wolf's work for him."

(I wish I had written this!)

We are sorry that you don't want your kids learning certain things. We are sorry that you are afraid and confused. We are sorry that you are angry and scared. We will try to make it better but it only works if you stop fighting us like it was good versus evil, because, dear Conservatives, liberals are on YOUR side, not the Pharisee establishment who couldn't pass through a needles eye.

We are sorry that you live in a separate reality, dear Conservatives, and we are doing what we can to make things better. Fortunately for all of us, there are some adults in the room now, people who don't fear monger with death panels and terror strikes, conspiracy theories and misinformation. The world WILL make progress, and we can't afford to do it without you. We can't have you fighting us tooth and nail anymore either. We can't afford to wait for you to figure it out, dear Conservatives, so we may have to go on without you, because our future is too important to screw up, and right now, you're not helping.

And that's just some of the punch lines. I invite you to read the rest.

Noble Bird

I got up a couple of hours before dawn to get this dinosaur going in the smoker. Four more hours and we'll be feasting.

Walk Over Williams Mountain

I'm afraid I don't get the ORV experience. Why would you want to ride a noisy machine right by tons of really cool things when you could walk and listen and experience them on every level? I was unhappy at seeing the ORV tracks that led down to this spring head. There are extremely rare plants that live in these micro ecosystems and one trip on a 4 wheeler could destroy all of them in one pass. This is the spring head on Williams Mountain above Whites Creek. My botanist friend has asked me to be on the lookout for a rare orchid that grows in spots like this.

This is the Williams Cemetery. I have no idea how that circle was drilled onto the rock headstone. In every one of these old remote cemeteries I always see the headstones that are spaced only a few feet apart. They lost a lot of children in early times. And by early times I mean less than 100 years ago. My maternal grandmother gave birth to 5 babies but only raised 3 children in deep rural Georgia. In parts of Tennessee, like Williams Mountain, it wasn't any better. There are four headstones in this photo and seven more of the small ones just out of the frame to the right.

You've Been Warned!

Gore brings The Crazy.

Slacker!

In his first ten months President Obama has miserably failed to live up to the accomplishments of his predecessor. He has allowed not a single foreign based terrorist attack on US soil nor has he cleared any brush on a fake ranch. In fact, Obama has only taken one week of actual vacation since he took office and he still conducted official duties during that time so does it really count? He has had several date nights with his wife, however, so maybe that should count for something, and he did build a swing set for his daughters on the lawn at the White House...But other than that, what has he actually done, besides personally meet with more leaders of foreign countries in his first six months than any other President in history?

Sure there's that restart of the nuclear proliferation talks, cutting the bogus star wars missile defense thing that would work just fine if our enemies would only put GPS transmitters on their nuclear ballistic missiles aimed at the USA. And well, he has upgraded the body armor for our troops from the lousy stuff they've had to use for 7 years, increased their pay, changed policy to pay the expenses of the families of our fallen warriors, ordered the government to start complying with the Freedom of Information Act, put restrictions on future lobbying by his staff after they leave, restricted lobbyist access to the White House, opened White House visitation records to the public, re-engaged in talks to protect the Arctic, engaged in climate change initiatives, re-committed to treaties to protect the Antarctic, worked to end the practice of providing tax incentives to companies who offshore American jobs, lowered drug costs for seniors, ended the policy of no bid contracts, ended the practice of having White House aides re-write scientific reports to support polluters, paid for redecorating the White House living quarters out of his own pocket, and ended the Bush war on medical marijuana. Sure there's that, but really...What has he actually done?

Has he announced that he plans to pull out of Iraq? Well yeah, and he fired the generals in charge of Afghanistan and ordered the new ones to go away and come up with a new plan that might actually work or a plan to withdraw if not. And then he may have actually prevented the collapse of America's financial system, but other than that, what?

Come on, I'm waiting...

This man is an obvious slacker who deserves his low approval rating by the American people of over three times that of Congress. I mean has the national economy showed positive growth yet? Well sure but only about 3.5% so far, what kind of turn around is that after an entire year of negative growth?

I mean when is Barack Obama actually going to do something?



Peace,



Steve


Lots of this was taken from here and there's plenty more than what I've mentioned.

Enemies Domestic

...energy and natural resources companies have lobbied Washington to the tune of $300 million in the first nine months of this year, above the pace of last year’s $387 million. Oil and gas companies and electric utilities accounted for more than two-thirds of the spending. Their lobbying to keep fossil fuels burning without any care for the planet swamped the lobbying by alternative energy concerns, which so far this year amount to $23 million, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Chamber of Commerce, America’s single-biggest lobbyist, spent $35 million in the third quarter alone and $65 million for the year, fighting meaningful climate change and health care legislation.

Enemies Domestic

How to Teach Difficult Ideas

This is a magical confluence of musical talent, intellect, and digital technology from Melodysheep.

It is a WOW moment for me...

More (and maybe even better)

Symphony of Science

It was 40 Years Ago Today...

Big stars for 25 years now, is it time for these two monsters of the screens big and small to come out??

They share a room, and a bedroom, if not a bed. They bicker like husband and wife. They frequently break out in song. One has a curious obsession with his rubber ducky.

To answer that burning question our cracked research team here at Whites Creek Journal has delved into tthis scandal and can now lay to rest a persistent entertainment industry rumor: Bert and Ernie, regardless of what Jerry Falwell's ardent followers might think, are NOT gay!

The proof is evident when one watches them perform in rehearsal. They cannot have sexual preferences of that sort because they cannot have sexual preferences whatsoever. The truth of the matter is that Bert and Ernie are puppets. They have no naughty bits. They simply do not exist from the waist down.

...the sexuality of other cartoon characters has come into question over the years. Anti-gay groups have accused SpongeBob SquarePants and Tinky Winky of the "Teletubbies" of harboring a homosexual agenda...

The fact that these characters are complete fiction seems to be lost on certain folks who still harbor the delusion that one may be recruited into a particular sexual lifestyle by reading the wrong comic books or watching TV a little too early on Saturday morning. Yes it's true that Batman spends more time with Robin than with Batgirl or Catwoman, even, but what does that prove?

Pee Wee Herman has a girlfriend as does Oscar the Grouch, though Oscar does live in a trash can with his pet worm, but hey...What does THAT prove? I'm pretty sure Oscar's girl friend was a sham. Happens all the time in Hollywood. Why do some people have lives so small that they even care? They should focus on the really big issues like instant replay in football and that floating pile of plastic the size of the USA in the Pacific Ocean. The personal persuasion of a fictional creation has about as much relevance to the state of the world as the real meaning of what those dark bits in Moose Tracks ice cream are supposed to represent. These questions are not for a child's world and Henson knew that. Instead he gave us characters with differences and empathy and taught us to love them. Stepping back and reviewing the body of work one has to accept that Jim Henson's creations are as great a force for the acceptance of our differences as any on this planet. It is a monumental force for good.

At any rate, today marks the 40th anniversary of the Muppets and I wish Jim Henson could be here to enjoy it. The creativity brought forth by the puppeteers has been marvelous and uplifting at times and raucously funny at others. If you have never taken a child to a Muppets stage show your life is the poorer for it. It's not too late. What a gift to the world.

Thank you , Jim Henson. Thank you, puppeteers.

Good night Ernie. Good night Bert. Must be fun to get through life and never have to wear pants.

Peace,

Steve

Evidence on the Water

After finding our phone lines had been intentionally cut on Friday, we felt an epic hike would restore our understanding of why we work so hard to protect Whites Creek in the face of people whose "fun" destroys things they refuse to understand. Today was another day where one is called to go outside. We needed some restoration and renewal.

The visual symphony of the gorge is well documented photographically on this site, but there's always something new to discover or see in new light. We've been working on the trail up to this table rock and my photography can't begin to tell you what it's like to walk around behind the pedestal as you think about the massive sandstone rock supported over your head by the seemingly fragile stack of sedimentary rocks your hand is touching. Some of them are obviously loose.

The cliff above this level is the edge of the gorge. I believe it has the best view of any overlook for miles around, high enough to view Laurel Branch cut on the Rhea County side but still below the level of the traces of humanity on the far side plateau. You'll have to come out and see for yourself because the photos don't do justice, mine anyway.

Under the edge of the cliff is a huge overhang with the remnants of a stone shack. We've heard various stories about it. Whther it is the draft dodger's hide out from wars in the last century or a moonshiner's shack, it is in a magnificent south facing location worthy of the Anasazi on a smaller scale. The cliff side is home to a plant that John Muir paid notice to on his walk through Tennessee in 1867. This is the "round leaf catch fly" honoring us with a late season blossom. It is in the same family as "Fire pink" which blooms in the spring, and is carnivorous, catching midges and such in the sticky hairs on its leaves. This allows it to gather nourishment from the air, as it were, and survive on this otherwise inhospitable ledge.


Nature takes its course in the world, whether we like it or not. Descending from the rim of the gorge some 500 vertical feet above, I saw this downy white clutch of feathers floating in a leaf lined pool of water. Unreachable, even with the stick I was carrying to beat back the blackberry canes from my path, I wondered what bird they could possibly belong to?

Looking around the path I saw the answer, unusual as it was. One of the large hawks, probably a young redtail, had entered the food chain on an unfortunately lower rung than what it usually occupied.

A shrill "scree" call echoed through the gorge from above the trees as I studied the feathers and the fresh blood that told me this was a very recent death and possibly the mate of the bird circling and calling repeatedly above me. What predator could make this kill and devour the 3 to 4 pounds of hawk as well as the hawks kill that had held it vulnerable on the ground? I'm guessing coyote, and maybe more than one.

It's tough out there.

Peace,

Steve

Walk on November 5

These are views that few of my friends will go with me to see. It takes a 400 foot vertical hike to get to these spots but it's well worth it. The first is Rhea County seen from a rock outcrop in the back yard. Whites Creek can be seen at the lower left, some 600 feet below. The Sequatchie Nuclear plant at Soddy Daisy is on the far horizon but only shows as a small bump in this shot, thank goodness.

I see land advertised as "lake view" so I guess mine qualifies. That part of the lake is the main channel nine or so miles away. On a clearer day the Smokies sit on the horizon about 80 miles away.

This Morning's Walk

I was sitting on one of the house sized rocks on the edge of the creek when I noticed this sun bow. It's times like that in which I wish I was a real photographer with the skills and equipment to really capture the light. You'll have to make do with this for now.

This is the reflection of the intense morning sun at flat rock pool. I stared at this for way too long, meditating on things I will share with you later. The short version is that our efforts to protect Whites Creek and share it as a private natural area for everyone to experience are under attack by some very selfish and short sighted people. There are legal issues that keep me from saying more at the moment but I may need your help if this goes any further.

You can see larger versions of these shots by clicking on the images.

Scary Story

Lots of things keep me awake at night. Here's one that should keep every American restless until we fix it.

You know all those expensive fighter jets, missiles, smart bombs, attack drones, satellites, and other electronic equipment that the United States military relies on to fight battles and protect America? The computer chips that make them all do what we tell them are mostly made in Asian factories.

98% of the integrated circuitry inside American Military equipment is not made in America. This means that we don't have total control over what internal program can be built in to the chips. We are susceptible to the modern equivalent of the Trojan Horse, secret programming that can take over the equipment when triggered.

“Maliciously tampered integrated circuits cannot be patched,” General Clark wrote. “They are the ultimate sleeper cell.”

So our failure to Buy American has rendered our military vulnerable by allowing the possible takeover of our Military might by a foreign power.

But this is just a scary story and nothing like this has ever happened right?...Right?

A recent White House review noted that there had been several “unambiguous, deliberate subversions” of computer hardware.
“These are not hypothetical threats,”

Starting to worry yet? The obvious thing to do is contract with American owned and based facilities to build what we need at home, right? Buy American, right? Anyone against this has to be a traitor to America supporting America's enemies, right? Wanna take a guess who vehemently opposed to the very idea of "Buy American"?

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The slogan "Buy American" makes good sense during a time when America is digging its way out of a recession that took 8 years to create. But the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has lost sight of who they used to represent, so they are spending millions to make sure that Americans ignore the slogan, "Buy American." The U.S. Chamber has hired Madison Avenue PR firms to discourage any "Buy American" trend

So has the US Chamber of Commerce been taken over by anti American sympathizers? Corporatists?

Is there any other conclusion that can be drawn by a rational person? I don't think so.

It's time to call upon our elected officials to protect us from all enemies, foreign and especially...Domestic.

Steve

PS: It should be noted that non-open source software in our electronic voting machines makes our elections as unsafe as our military equipment and far easier to tamper with. One must ask why the Tennessee Republican Party is so adamantly refusing to provide a paper ballot to prove how votes were actually cast in a recount?

Pick Your Side and Let's Fight

In the United States of America we treasure free speech in an odd way...We allow people and corporations the freedom to lie. This gets us in all sorts of trouble. We started a war in the Middle East on the grounds that weapons of mass destruction were moments from being fired at us, we have museums that show humans riding dinosaurs, a sacred book says that evil was introduced into the world by a talking snake, and a massive ad campaign that claims there is no such thing as human caused global warming. All of these statements have no basis in fact, though they do have a basis in belief created by the marketing department. Why do we, not only allow people to lie to us, but protect their ability to do so even with the obvious destructive consequences smashing us in the face every single day?

(Before some of you go off on me for that talking snake quip I ask two things...One: Open your bible and read the appropriate text word for word. Two: The mainstream church that I was raised in taught that many of the passages in the Bible were parables and metaphors, not necessarily hard fact.)

Now...

We have health insurance companies paying politicians (why do we allow this?) to sanctimoniously lie about a "government takeover of medicine" which no one in Congress has proposed. There are proposals for government takeover of insurance but that's different and I personally approve. Since the early 1990's the private insurance industry has quadrupled its financial burden on the American GDP and yet the average life expectancy of Americans has actually dropped when the effects of anti smoking campaigns are factored out. We're paying four times as much and it is not doing a damned bit of good on the whole left to the private insurance sector. Maybe you believe that the "Government can't do anything right" but I'll contend that the private sector has done far worse and is headed worser. If our system did not allow corporations to pay politicians to lie with impunity we would have a completely different medical system already.

My vote for greatest injustice to America is the systematic attack on the Scientific Method's most beautiful child, Critical Thinking. Science makes no moral judgement because it can't. Darwinian Theory is accepted by every rational scientist on the planet, not because it is a beautiful and elegant work, but because it has withstood every single critical attack ever launched by reputable scientists, who know that should they succeed they would be instantly elevated to the highest annals of human achievement and history. The H1N1 virus was not created 6000 years ago by magic. It evolved from its predecessors as predicted by scientists, warning us to get ready, well before it actually showed up in human populations. H1N1 is one of those successful mutations that Darwin told us about. The Scientific Method is giving us the means to combat it. This is fact.

Another thing that the overwhelming majority of scientists have predicted is Global Warming. This has been predicted and warned about since the middle of the last century as scientists noticed that industrially produced greenhouse emissions began to make up an increasing percentage of our atmosphere. They also noticed that free Oxygen, the one element in our atmosphere that we require for our immediate survival, is being reduced. No sane scientist wanted the greenhouse effect to be real. It was with hope against hope that the phenomena were scientifically evaluated with the awful truth emerging from every direction...We are killing our planetary ecosystem's ability to support human civilization in any form that currently exists. Scientists have also told us what we need to do in order to save our planet and ourselves. We have the vaccine under development at this very moment. The vaccine to protect us from unthinkable world Armageddon is so simple that we don't seem to be able to accept its reality. We can stop creating greenhouse gases.

Continuing on our current path will leave to our grand children and great grandchildren a vastly different planet Earth, upon which they may not be able to survive. This is what the scientists tell us. Currently the primary greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2) makes up 390 parts per million in our air. This is too high for our planet to remain at its current average temperature and predictions are that it will go much higher under our current industrial path. In order to stabilize our planet we need to stop the increase in CO2 emissions and reduce them so that the ppm returns to a safe level of around 350 ppm. Anybody who tells you different is lying to you. The liars consist of mostly the energy cartels and their hired lackeys. Their hired lackeys consist of certain news organizations and certain politicians.

The question must be asked, "Why do these people want to wish Armageddon upon their blood descendants?" I think it is because not only are they lying to you and me...They are lying to themselves. It is because when normally rational human beings come together in the group think of a corporation they leave their souls and consciences outside the door. They sit around the Big Coal corporate table looking at each other and say, "Stopping this Global Warming thing will make us go bankrupt so let's pretend it isn't happening." No one sitting at that table whose country club membership and floor level basketball tickets are at stake will state the obvious..."But we'll destroy our planetary ecosystem!" They can't because they have abrogated their humanity and turned their soul over to a corporation which has none of either.

So look to see who tells you the truth about this. We can save ourselves and our children but we can't save the corporations who lie to us. Worse than that...It is us or them. The solutions are easy.

We will eventually run out of coal if we survive long enough to burn it all, but that is suicidal. The Stone Age did not end because we ran out of rocks. Humanity found a better way to make its tools. It is an ugly metaphor but fact that in America the people who relied on stone were over run by people who had moved on to iron. There are technologies, efficiencies, and conservation methods that could immediately cut our energy use in half. Solar energy has arrived and is actually now cheaper than coal if all of coal's externalized costs are added back in. Batteries need some work but are extremely promising. It is time to move away from coal and we can. We will have to choose this path. A a consequence this will destroy coal companies and energy companies who choose coal as their power source. It will greatly diminish the fossil based fuel and energy sector. Some very rich people will lose some money. It will save the Earth and its peoples.

Pick your side and let's fight. As for me...I choose fact and the side that reveres fact and rejects lies. I choose science and the side that studies science over ignorance. I choose Life for my children!

Courage,

Steve

350.org

Whoops there goes another Mountaintop

What is a mountain worth? And the clear clean streams that flow off its slopes, when the prize is the coal that is killing our planet?

Fall 09

Taken this afternoon in grey light. The creek is showing the limestone blue when the sun shines but it hasn't done that much these last few days.

I may post a few more shots later. It was a good day to hike and see the world. I love the light after storms.

"All Americans Should be Proud"

May I Introduce To You, Helen Philpot

I was going to write something witty about Republicanism and how they can't stand for someone else to be well thought of. I remember a well to do kid in the 8th grade who would stomp on your new shoes just to mess them up when you wore them for the first time, while bragging about his own shiny new ones then running away. This is kind of what is happening with Republicans and the Nobel Peace Prize. The last three sitting and former presidents who have won a Nobel were Democrats. The last Republican President got a shoe thrown at him. This is all observation and not particularly witty.

So I will merely take the lazy way out and suggest you go read this 80 year old lady's acerbic foray into wit and possibly keener observation.

I am not sure when it happened but the base of the Republican party either got lazy or stupid or both… or maybe they always were. It took me only a few minutes of research on the internet to learn that America spends more on healthcare than any other wealthy nation and yet we don’t live longer or have better health outcomes. So unless we just enjoy making health insurance companies rich, all those tea party morons need to use the internet for something other than ordering their penis enhancement pills.

Helen Philpot

Peace,

(Prize),

Steve

TVA tour

Southern Fried

What does a food editor for the NY Times know about Southern Fried Chicken?

Southern fried chicken is usually seasoned with nothing more than salt and pepper. Once that fabulous crust is gone, it’s hard to ignore that the big hunks of breast are often as dry and woolly as fiberglass insulation, and the moister parts have a caul of flabby skin under the crust.

In the South I grew up in for a woman to cook "dry" fried chicken was a sin slightly less egregious than infidelity, which secretly engenders a certain clandestine envy. Not so the cooker of dry fried chicken who is universally looked down upon. A Certain food editor needs an invite to supper but I don't think it's going to happen after that crack.

From our "Why is it the Comedians who we turn to for Truth?" Department...When David Letterman was threatened with extortion he went to the authorities, came clean publicly, and somebody got arrested. This writer says the extortionist should have hired a lawyer to perform his blackmail so it would be completely legal.

Yep, I said legal.

Former President George W Bush told a sold out crowd in Sevierville that his strong Christian faith guided him during his presidency. On the same page as that headline is a story that notes the Afghan war is now 8 years old. I think I know W's problem. If we check that bible he claims to read (yeah, right) all the time I think it will be missing the New Testament and a few commandments, probably the ones about not lying and killing.

Peace,

Steve

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