More babble about Priorities

  Although Beth and I spent last weekend visiting family in the east and attending the wedding of an 'old' good friend in Prallsville, N.J. I shall not comment much on friends and grandchildren and other relations in this blog, not wishing it to become a Facebook like exposure of other peoples private affairs. There is more than enough of that on the web and the world does not need another Kim Kardashian clone. ( .... Forbes claims she is worth some 45 million and Wikipedia reports that she writes 'sponsored Instagram and Twitter posts which are collectively worth $10,000-25,000 per post")... for doing what exactly? Apparently fame itself can be very profitable and that is a sad state of America when there is so much real need. Care to help build a new water system in Flint, Michigan Kim? They need clean water a lot more than a new lip gloss product. Which is not to pick on her rather the 'establishment' which so obscenely corrupts priorities. As always it comes down to individuals making good or bad decisions and the Flint city officials who lied about lead levels are no different than the local CEO of the Corry, PA teachers credit union who embezzled over $700,000 for personal gain. Just more morally challenged people in positions of power, and they were the few who got caught. What a superior world we could inhabit if people more often considered the greater good rather than narrow personal interests. For perspective:

     According to Forbes these two individuals have this amount of wealth-

• #1 Bill Gates, worth $75 Billion
• #2 Amancio Ortega, worth $67 Billion ...totaling 142 billion... The cost to rebuild New Orleans after hurricane Katrina is estimated to be 92 to 125 billion. So these two people could repair all the damage with money to spare. How did we create such as distorted distribution of wealth? I am not disparaging capitalism, or Mr. Gates, who actually seems to have a conscience, but am distressed that we are dependent on the whims of individuals....on human nature.. to decide what is just and fair and where all the money is spent.  Recall that many of these power brokers are fighting a living wage for the average worker.

     But I digress and am certainly no saint, and regret the mindless killing of insects and birds and frogs I did with my BB gun as a kid. It was not maliciousness, but true thoughtlessness without real consideration of them as living things that motivated me, and I wonder if it is sometimes a similar lack of self awareness that causes people to do immoral things. As they ( we ) mature we become more conscious of the effects of our actions and hopefully behave more wisely.
   -4pm. The dog and I walk along Big Four road near the Conewango River. The stream at this time of year runs high and dark, and pushes against ice encrusted logs that in warmer seasons sit atop exposed sandbars. Because melting has left a film of water atop the ice, we are forced to hug the plowed piles at the edge of the road, so it is slow going. One half mile along the road a gas company has bulldozed a new road up the mountain to the east, which offers us a new place to explore. I welcome these new roads and trails and do not worry about their long term impact, for it is apparent to me that a century of drilling and logging has not left any permanent scars on the landscape. Fracking may spoil a few water wells, and logging roads may linger for a few decades, but eventually erosion smooths away the cut and shrubs and trees obscure the land until it is difficult to discern where the original damage had been inflicted. Because of that long term perspective, neither do I worry about climate change, for it is not humanity that concerns me so much as the fate of the planet, and I know that nature will heal without us. Which means that I mourn for all the innocent people and other organisms that have been and will be killed by our abuses, but I am assured that Creation will endure. Nature has caused mass extinctions in the past and we are one more meteorite in a long history of destruction. Besides, with a president elect who denies scientific evidence and a general populace who refuse to live efficiently, there seems to be a ball rolling comprised of overpopulation and consumerism and resource depletion that is unstoppable. I do not believe that we are powerless to change, only that we will not do so, and so our children will reap the consequence of how we are living. Humanity needs a crisis to act, and even then can act only to the best of its ignorance.