Ten days

It amazes me how quickly the wheels of congress and justice can move. When they want to, that is. Take the case of Terry Schiavo:

In just ten days, we saw legislation debated and passed by congress, then signed by the president. We saw court rulings appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, and a response handed down.

When we have the will, there is a way. Unfortunately for America, "the will" just isn't there when it comes to issues such as homelessness and universal health care for it's children.

American children will die this year because they lack access to adquate health care, just as surely as Terry will die this week. But there is no will to save these forgotten kids, because their plight is not shown each night on the evening news. Their deaths will be anonymous, accounted for in a bland statistic in some huge report.

From what I've seen this month, we should be able to fix this problem for America's children in ten days or less. Where is America's will to do right when it comes to its children?

Generation of Broken Hearts

There are somethings in this world I don't think I will ever understand. And then there are things that scare the hell out of me. Such a thing occurred again, this week, but this time it was nearby.

I don't know anyone from the Red Lake reservation. I have never been there, and I really have no reason to ever go there. I have no first hand knowledge of the place, but I know its reputation among local white people.

Deserved or not, Red Lake's reputation is that of a tough place, unfriendly and off limits to white people. A place where the state's police have no jurisdiction. There are stories I've heard over the years, true or not I do not know, about white people who have been imprisoned at Red Lake for driving through the reservation and having car problems, the state of Minnesota powerless to help because Red Lake is sovereign. There's a story of a man who flew his plane onto Red Lake to ice fish, and had it "stolen" by the tribe because white people are not allowed access to tribal waters. There are several stories I've heard from people who work at a local hospital who say that they've cared for Red Lake tribespeople who where brutally beaten by gangs on the reservation.

Maybe these stories are false. I can't say with certainty.

I'm sure there are wonderful people at Red Lake, just as I have met wonderful people all over the world. Surely none of them deserved the pain of what happened there this week.

"It (Red Lake) just resurfaces feelings that we had with Columbine," said Beth Nimmo, whose daughter, Rachel Scott, was among the 13 victims at the school in suburban Denver. "The truth is we've got a generation of broken hearts."

Now we know that brokens hearts occur across all races. Sick youth can be White. Black. Red. Yellow. Green. Something is sickening our childlren, creating a "generation of broken hearts," and its not a white thing, a red thing, a yellow thing, or a black thing. Its something that all of us together, as a nation and a world, need to take responsbility for. Even if it did happen at Red Lake.

Death of a Bakery

Another monday morning. Its my job today, as usual, to take the five-year old son Jorgen to kindergarten. This is a task that I enjoy because its my opportunity to focus all of my attention on my "big boy."

Today Jorgen wanted to go out for a speacial treat. He was referring to our past ritual of stopping by Quality Bakery (mentioned earlier in this post and also here) for a donut on the way to kindergarten. Sadly, this came to end on February 14. After some thirty five years, the bakery closed.

We learned from the paper that the bakery would be closing, and Jorgen was very sad. He decided to draw a picture of himself opening the door to Quality Bakery with red hearts surrounding the door. In the picture, he was was crying. That morning we took the picture to the bakery and showed the ladies behind the counter, who had come to know us from our frequent visits. It brought tears to their eyes, and for the next two weeks that picture hung prominently on the wall over the cash register.

On Valentine's day of this year, the last day the store was open, my wife and I took the whole family to the bakery for a good-bye doughnut. The usual crowd was gathered: the well dressed church ladies having their the bible study, an elderly amputee wearing his usual overalls and "monsanto" farmer hat, and a middle aged daughter treating her mother to morning out: people we had come to recognize from our frequent visits, but whose names we had never tried to learn.

We sat at his favorite table near the window from which we could see any trains approaching from the east. Jorgen asked a lot of questions about why the bakery was closing, where the people who worked their would go.

Then he asked, "Dad, now where will we go in the mornings for our special treats?" At that moment it was clear to me that he enjoyed our time together in the mornings. It's not just about the donuts. I told him I didn't know where we would go, but that we would try lots of places until we found a new favorite place.

Since then, we've been to several coffee shops, but no place has yet replaced the old bakery in our hearts. There are no other donut shops in our town, and the closest one is in another town miles our of our way. We can buy Krispy Cremes at the BP gas station, but that's obviously not the experience we're after.

The search continues for our new early morning "special place." Tomorrow we'll get organized a little earlier and we'll try another coffee shop or restaurant. Maybe we'll find what we're searching for.

Supporting what you believe in

Getting involved in your community is a value I am trying to pass on to my kids. One way is to periodically ask your kids to select a toy that can be donated to needy children. Just clean it up and take it to a homeless shelter so it can be used as a birthday gift for a child.

I like to be active in my community. There are several non-profit organizations that I support. Once you get on a non-profit local board and show any propensity to do work, its likely that other boards will try to recruit you. Hard working board members are difficult to find. I know this because I now sit on the board of a local historical society, am president of my church, and am the past president of a homeless shelter.

A group that I support through action and donations (and would gladly sit on their board if they ever asked) is the Electronic Frontier Foundation. I have yet to oppose a position that this group has taken.

You dear reader, being a web-surfing blog-reader, probably understand better than most people just how important it is for new technologies to have a chance to grow up. Especially communications and internet technologies. EFF fights hard against interests who want to maintain the status quo and who fight to slow or halt the spread of empowering technologies. And they're good at it! For a list of victories that EFF has won, click here.

I encourage you think about what is important to you, and to find a way to become involved. You'll be a happier, more empowered, better informed person, well connected to your community. If you're having trouble finding a local charity to support or if you are just lazy, then take the easy way out and toss a little money at the EFF.

The Earthings are Attacking!

Did you hear the news? Human beings want to go to Mars.

Like some kind of Martian horror novel in reverse, George Bush announced that he is beefing up NASA in support of a manned mission to Mars. Even the Europeans want in on this one, which makes the effort credible.

When I was kid watching the Apollo moon missions, the road to Mars seemed very short. It was easy to dream that, perhaps, I would be the first person on the red planet. The pace of technology made it inevitable in our imaginations.

We didn't go Mars of course (robotic missions notwithstanding). The dream I had a child has been vividly handed off to the children of children. Take my kids for instance: where I read comic books about the conquering of Mars, they play their realistic computer games like "Magic School Bus on Mars," and view Mars Rover pictures that provide a level of experience which far exceeds the best my young imagination could muster.

But a funny thing happened on the way to becoming middle-aged (41 to be exact) father of three. Spending time in corporate structures, interacting with other human beings for four decades, and being exposed to human nature has lead to me to this conclusion: I don't think that we should go to Mars. Not yet, at least.

I'm not convinced that mankind is mature enough to handle it.

Humans have not yet shown the ability to respectfully settle new continents, let alone new planets. Consider how we conquered the natural environment in North America, imposing a grid on the natural landscape, selling it off for profit, and then plowing under an entire natural ecosystem. We are only now beginning to appreciate and understand the value of native prairie grasses and flowers, of song birds, and clean air. Less than 1% of the native grasses in the Great Plains of North America have survived the plow.

Consider the explosion of invasive animal, fish and plant species that has accelerated the loss of what little remains of the native environment.

"So what?" you ask? That is exactly my point.

Its too late to turn back the clock here on earth. What's done is done, and maybe we can plant some grass here and restock a fish species there and we can feel good about caring enough to do those things, but we can never ever go back.

I think the interests that are driving us toward the exploitation of Mars three decades hence are the same forces that drove us to destroy the North American natural environment.

As a species, human beings are too immature to be trusted with full access to Martian resources. We shouldn't go until we have matured. Here is my test for whether we as a race are ready to go to Mars:

1) Have we put an end to War?
2) Is all of the world's citizens are fed with access to clean drinking water?
3) Do we all have access to health care?
4) Are we supplying our energy needs with non-polluting, renewable resources?
5) Are we educating all of our children?
6) Are we protecting the earth's oceans, forests, prairies, mountains, air and streams from pollution and degrading exploitation?
7) Are we able to celebrate and tolerate our cultural heritages.
8) Are we conscientiously tending our world for the benefit of future generations?

If we can do these things, ingraining them within our governing institutions, then perhaps we are ready to go to Mars. Perhaps we won't make a mess out of this new planet. Because arriving on Mars will provide humanity with an amazing new opportunity to reinvent itself. It's an opportunity, like the settlement of North America by Europeans, that will not be able to be repeated. To squander the opportunity to live peacefully and respectfully on Mars would speak very poorly about our species.

Lets stay on earth till we get it right. One hell is better than two.

The worth of a dollar...

Yes, there are some things that keep me up at night, such as a teething one year old, and the four year old's recurring witch dream. But lately it has been the spectre of the U.S. sailing into a fiscal iceberg and sinking that has my mind reeling in the whee hours of the night.

Because my wife is British, I tend to be a little more sensitive to international exchange rates than most married American couples. It's a big financial commitment for us to fly the family to the UK for a visit. We've been talking recently about making the trip this Summer, since we haven't been there for nearly two years. The last time we were in England, one British pound cost about $1.50. England was pricey, but still doable. Now the pound is fast approaching the $2.00 mark, which will just about put it out of reach for us. We may have to offer to fly the Mother-in-law to the U.S. instead.

So why is the pound so expensive?

It's because the effects of the U.S.'s wreckless financial path is starting to hit home in a real way. Take the gas pump, for instance. The weak dollar is not increasing demand for oil but the price of oil is going up simply because it is priced in dollars. When oil goes up, inflation follows, because it takes oil to grow food, to ship food and other goods to your stores, to heat your house, etc. You get the idea. As the cost of oil goes up, so does everything else.

High oil will also slow U.S. economic growth, forcing corporations to cut costs (i/e lay off workers). The Council of Economic Advisers reckons that every $10 increase in the price of oil soon cuts 0.4% off real GDP. A less optimistic financial outlook will put more downward pressure on stocks, and increasing American unemployment will result.

The Euro is now a formidable competitor to the U.S. Countries with vast holdings of U.S. dollars, such as Japan and Korea, have already been complaining about the declining value of their dollar holdings. Their talk about "diversification" of their dollar holdings should be enough to scare the U.S. into fiscal responsibility. Because when the sell-off of dollars begins, the dollar will enter a free-fall against world currencies. Hints of a sell off is already apparent: US dollars accounted for 63.8% of the world's currency reserves at the end of 2003, down from 66.9% two years earlier, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) figures. The dollar's role as the world's currency is slipping.

The US Government currently depends on an inflow of about $2 billion of foriegn capital daily in order to fund its spending appetite. If foreign investors lose faith in dollar denominated debt, U.S. interest rates must rise in order to attract that capital. If rates rise, that will begin to suck dollars from the U.S. stock market, possibly causing a precipitous decline in stock values just as the first baby-boomers are beginning to retire. This could decline could lead to defensive selling by boomers and institutions, driving stock prices down further.

High interest rates will also make homes less affordable. As mortgage rates rise, homes will be less affordable. The value of homes will therefor decline, further aggravating the plight of retiring baby boomers who had hoped to sell their homes to fund their retirement.

I'm seriously thinking of cashing out of dollars and into silver or gold.