Came back to 111°f through much of south Kansas and north Oklahoma, they gave the record of 111 to Enid OK. Fine with me, give the GW deniers a project building another excuse.
We almost flew, decided to drive, we wanted to see the farms and hills and towns. I am so glad we did. It is amazing how much of the US is living in housing that looks like a good rain would bring it down. Miles and miles of people shoved up against freeways and factories and refineries, no trees, no lawns, a car that could use a set of tires. I was a little overwhelmed sometimes at the volume of our citizens who clearly missed the gravy train, or was put off it. You can taste the disparity of opportunity, of basic health care. Not uncommon in these little towns on blacktop roads to see middle age men hobbling along suffering from some infirmity brought on by poor nutrition, exposure to farm or industrial chemicals (fruit picker disease), bad life choices, most of which could be prevented or cured by proper medical access or nutrition education.
What a beautiful country, what a strange place, what a destructive cycle we are in with unfettered capitilism, which left to it's own ends will never offer opportunities in education or advancement the World War II generation had, it simply will not do it, the machinery to work for the common good of the nation has been unplugged, the race is on to dismantle it before it can be restarted.
More later on the trip, some interesting things we encountered. (note: I'm all for capitalism, I did just fine, but I recognize uncontrolled it will result in a class of financial royalty)
Fringe,
ReplyDeleteNo doubt the trip was a real eye-opener. I've traveled a good bit in my time and never ceased to be amazed at the way some people had to live.
Mister O, hey how are you? I know some live they way they want, and it may appear to me, or others as spartan, or even nuts, but I think most of what is jammed into polluted and noisy cheap parts of our towns and scattered on land too poor to farm would like to exit for something better if they could. But many are short the education or training or connection to make the jump.
ReplyDeleteIn Idaho I saw billboards ranting against wind energy, "not for Idaho" Recently saw something about how oil companies are funding protests against wind energy. Had an example of a so-called "grass roots" group in Idaho funded by oil companies.
ReplyDeleteIn my travels as a migrant aircraft mechanic in the last 25yrs or so, I've often wondered who is buying all those ticky-tacky houses in the housing developments along the highways. Altho now a lot have probably been foreclosed.
Remembered where I saw the article, it was in The High Country News.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.hcn.org/blogs/goat/from-gust-to-gale?utm_source=Magazine&utm_medium=print
Kulkuri;
DeleteThanks for the link, very interesting article. Even more interesting is the herd of commenters rushing with well organized and various approaches to defend their position that wind is a hoax, tell that to the grain mill operators of Europe and Asia the last 2,000 years. I see now these groups operate a fast response team for this stuff, just as the 700 club does to swarm complaints on TV shows or public figures who they dislike. Maybe thats what we need to do, set up a fast response team on issues. Actually Avaaz.com is such a site operated on world wide issues, I sign up on it on some issues, and they have good success in many cases.