Sunday, July 13, 2008

DESTINATION RESORT SIREN SONG


The letter following this introduction was written by Freeacre concerning our local fight against the incessant drive for development and wealthy playgrounds anywhere. Besides our fight with the county commissioners over a non existent problem with local septic and ground water issues, the county is also pushing for building a bunch of destination resorts in the county. Freeacre’s letter is an introduction to a meeting with concerned people from other parts of the county about the building of destination resorts to raise tax revenues. Of course the contractors make a bundle on this too. The following is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and does not include all of the negative aspects of just this issue.

Oh, and by the way, a fellow I am friendly with in town, one of the local computer techs, insisted to me that in another 10 months, everything will be straightened out and we will be all back to normal. I bet him $10 that it wouldn’t be in 5 years. He wouldn’t take me up on it, just looked at me astounded like that anyone could think that. Sigh.

Murph

Destination Resort Siren Song by Freeacre

About five years ago, I moved to Deschutes County, Oregon from South Lake Tahoe. Lake Tahoe is a world class vacation destination, and I am all too familiar with the unintended consequences that resort development entails. I was the special sections editor of the Tahoe Daily Tribune when re-development was just beginning. I used to write about its progress.

I lived in South Lake Tahoe for almost fifteen years. When we got there in 1989, Tahoe was a small town populated for the most part by old hippies from the Bay Area, the offspring of local homesteaders, and Washoe Indians who had been there forever.

It was kind of like here, actually. Lake Tahoe and the mountains and the streams were spectacular and lent themselves to the development of the tourist industry, once the mining of gold and silver in the valley panned out. Family-owned casinos, like Bill Harrah’s, and nice hotels, restaurants, and small ski resorts thrived. They employed local people and they did pretty well. The population grew, a hospital and schools were built and tourists were attracted from all over. It was a nice place to live and raise your kids. The schools were fine, the neighbors were friendly, nobody got rich, but you could go skiing in the winter and fishing in the summer and life was good. Local kids grew up to be teachers, auto mechanics, ski instructors, restaurateurs, store owners, car dealers, and the usual assortment of small town staples.

Time passed, though, and it was the nineties. Money had trickled up. The mega-rich had money to burn and needed to put it somewhere. And, they liked to play – hard. To keep up and compete with Aspen and Vail and other resort areas that were the playgrounds of the privileged, Tahoe had to “re-develop.” We were convinced by the Chamber of Commerce brain trust that it would behoove all of us to tear down all those “unsightly” dumpy little hotels and gift shops and build a massive new complex combining a ski resort, a convention center, a retail complex, huge fancy hotels, timeshares, and a tram going all the way to the top of the mountain. Spectacular!! All those new jobs! All that money flowing in! Everybody had dollar signs in their eyes.

But, here’s what happened: the family owned businesses like Harrah’s got bought out by big international tourist and entertainment conglomerates. The first thing they did was to fire most of the local staff and replace them with an independent housekeeping entity that paid lower wages and provided few benefits. They recruited on a large scale with international employment mills, hiring people from Mexico and the Philippines and the former Soviet Union’s lesser satellite nations. These people proved to be exceptionally fertile, and soon the schools were swamped with students that required English as a Second Language. Since these people had no insurance, they also had to rely on the small hospital’s emergency room for much of their medical care. Now the hospital is perpetually on the brink of bankruptcy. For the first several years, the schools were overwhelmed with all these children. But now families can’t afford to live in Tahoe anymore, so schools are closing due to lack of attendance. My son’s former cute little middle school on the Nevada side, just closed. Sixth graders will attend the high school next year. So did a middle school on the California side. I just found out that the Montessori School is closing as well. The better paying jobs at the college, the City, and the County all have to be staffed with those who are bi-lingual to deal with the fact that the town is now over a third Spanish speaking.

Huge mansions have been built to cater to the rich retiring from Southern California and second homes for those coming in from the East Coast, Asia and Europe. But, they have no interest in investing in the infra-structure, and so they vote “no” on all projects that would involve increasing taxes to fund schools, roads, fire departments, etc. Keep in mind that each rich person requires about ten poor people to attend to him. “Service” implies “servants,” after all. And, they want to keep as much distance from these servants and themselves as possible. A gated community on the North side actually petitioned a Safeway grocery store for their own grocery line so they wouldn’t have to stand in line with the riff-raff from town. Here in Deschutes County, that “riff-raff” would be you.

The financing of these mega developments has been somewhat of a nightmare as well. Projects have been started and halted and re-started depending on the ability to secure and match financing. Resorts and hotels have been sold and re-sold, and many now belong to international corporations whose allegiance is to their stockholders, not the local population. Those initial assurances that all would be well and the locals hired first, the community’s traditions cherished, and all that, have long since disappeared.

Many of those hard-working service workers, who are paid by how many rooms they can clean in a day, fortify themselves with drugs to keep up the pace. So now, there is also the meth problem to deal with. Their children, having no parents at home to supervise them, have formed gangs to give them a sense of “family” and protection, and now big fights break out regularly between rival groups at bus stops and on the school grounds. And, the crime rate has increased dramatically. It’s not the people I blame; it is the corporations that have set up this system of exploitation in both countries that have created this desperate situation. They make money on them from both sides. And, if the workers or their relatives are incarcerated, they make money on that, too, since the prisons have been privatized.

So now, when you go to Tahoe, you’ll see a beautiful, up-scale, world-class resort destination. But, the people working these palaces of privilege are living in barrios and taking the bus. The bus schedules are only printed in Spanish, by the way. There isn’t enough money to print them in English, too. The former local trades people are moving away in droves because the housing costs have gone up so high. People have to jam into apartment slums to live there. Unless you want your kid to grow up dealing Blackjack or carrying the luggage of a fat cat from Shanghai, you must move. The mom and pop places that gave Tahoe its character are now replaced by big franchise stores just like the ones the tourists have at home. The smaller places can’t afford the commercial space. Of course, the fancy new gourmet stores and up-scale theaters are also too expensive for the locals to frequent. They can’t even afford to park downtown. Parking used to be free. It is not their town anymore. The locals now live on the edges.

Another disturbing element is that the tourist trade is ever more vulnerable to the vagaries of the climate, the discretionary income of people from other countries as well as our own - and the price of oil. If many of the airlines fold, and the State workers stop driving the hundred miles to vacation, business will come to a standstill. The town will be crushed under the debt load that it took to re-develop. But, when the citizenry is composed of part-time residents, time-share vacationers, and workers who make subsistence wages and barely speak English, who is going to provide the backbone necessary to pull through hard times? We all need to think seriously of these consequences or blow-back from the big-time tourist trade. It could happen here as well. Once the Resorts are in, “Resistance is Futile”.

I recoiled from living under those circumstances and sought a place far from this “development” nightmare. I moved to La Pine in Deschutes County. And, now, I am hearing the same pitch all over again. But, now we have the additional threats of the end of cheap oil, the financial/credit debacle, water wars, the inflation of food prices and the falling value of the dollar to contend with. That’s in addition to all the inherent damage that resort development accomplishes on its own. I understand that the water level has already dropped 2 feet due to the Thornberg Resort, and it hasn’t even opened yet! They are bringing in over a thousand homes and have built a 26,000 acre lake on land that doesn’t even have a natural stream? What are they thinking??

Trust me, we are looking at a train wreck in slow motion if large scale destination resorts proliferate. In attempting to make more money and increasing the tax base with rich outsiders, we will be destroying the wealth of the community and of the land. Instead, we should be pulling together to work within the limitations we can afford, utilize the talents of our residents, and take care of the people who live here. Think “Bed and Breakfasts” not big hotels. Think Disc Golf, not 18 hole golf courses. Think artist colony, writers workshops, fishing retreats, permaculture seminars, yurt manufacturing, organic farms and specialty produce, ranching and farmer’s markets, pony rides, and trading centers that feature locally made products.

We should be looking to create sustainable communities that localize food production, produce necessities that will no longer be imported due to the rising prices of transportation and manufacture. We should be supporting businesses that create jobs for the families that live here and produce goods and services that are regionally vital in the long term. We should work to make sure that the children who grow up here can find decent jobs and afford homes to live in. We need to focus on quality of life and conservation and preserving the incredible Northwest as we know it. Keep it simple. Keep it wonderful. If we do that, we will continue to be an envy of the world. If we don’t, and we succumb to the Destination Resort siren song, it will be lost. And, it may never come back.

41 comments:

Anonymous said...

From Belgium;

Freeacre, what you are proposing is admirable, so far as it goes and sometimes it gets the required results. Mostly though it is just pissing into the wind since working within the system often only has the effect of delaying the inevitable; the big money bulldozer just keeps rolling relentlessly forward and looks neither left nor right. Better would be a two pronged attack including a continual mini 9/11 on the bulldozer.

What am I thinking? Nice people just don’t do that sort of thing. You would only ground zero yourself to the level of others. Interesting thought though, I wonder if they would search the caves of Afghanistan looking for the perps?

RAS said...

Murph, I did a whole rant on my blog a few days ago about how most people think this is a temporary crisis and things will be back to "normal" soon. (The link is here: http://myflightfromthegrid.blogspot.com/2008/07/few-ruminations.html if you want to read it for some reason.) My concern is what will happen when they begin to realize that its not temporary? How are people going to respond when they realize this is the new reality?

Freeacre, good essay! The advice I got when fighting this develop here was delay, delay, delay. You generally can't stop it outright (especially when the city council is in their pocket, like it is here) but you can cause delays and make it more expensive. Not only that, but with the mulitple crises it may not happen at all. That housing development still hasn't started. Guess the financing fell through. Grin. So, do anything you can to delay the project. Lawsuits are good. Protests never hurt either.

Anonymous said...

"ground zero yourself"...lol I like the term a lot! To be sure, they'd hunt us down like we were Saddam if we began to vote with flamethrowers.

But, an encouraging thing is that the county north of us just passed a referendum whereby any new vacation resort has to be approved by the electorate of the county!! That's who we are meeting with this afternoon - to pick their brains and see if we can get it on the ballot in Deschutes County by Fall.

Of course, if things continue that way they are, the financial crisis will disallow the funding of such an endeavor, and the gas crisis will end the tourist trade... maybe we could turn these things into permaculture communities and communes for the homeless!! That would be cool. HA! (Like that would happen...)

Anonymous said...

You jest of course nice lady.

Fighting the proposed local rule appears to have been a wasted effort.

If our BOCC is not on the take, they are dumber than they appear.

Fight destination resorts. No way. You are suggesting that sanity should prevail in a world gone mad.

Lake Mead (down to 57% of its capacity) is rapidly becoming a puddle, yet Las Vegas continues to boom.

It will take a Nibiru to stop/pause the madness called mankind's lust for money, power, and fame. And then the first man to crawl out of the rubble will be a developer/contractor.

It may be apparent to you that mankind is on a collision course with disaster, however you are trying to prove that to a pack of lunatics.

The Hindu sages would tell you to embrace them, encourage them, praise them for the humans that they are. For until they arrive at the point where they ask themselves "is this ALL there is to life ?" you are really pissing into the wind.

Great patience is called for however. The Taj Mahal was built to honor the memory of a rich mans favorite wife. He probably died feeling that he let her down.

LC

PS --- Relax nice lady and enjoy the ride. It is really quite amusing to watch if you think about it in a different way. Destination resort indeed. A place where people with empty lives at home go to find happiness. LOLOLOLOL………..Namaste

Anonymous said...

I sure am pulling for you! As a former Californian and someone who loved Lake Tahoe, I absolutely understand how you feel.

It's so sad to move somewhere to get away from something you dislike, only to have it follow you! These people who want to exploit everything for profit really make me sick. They probably go to museums and speculate on the value of the art rather than try to enjoy it.

I can only hope that the exigencies of peak oil will put an end to all this crap. That's at least a silver lining in peak oil.

Anonymous said...

LC,
I can't be amused by this bullshit! It's like advising to kick back and enjoy it if one is being raped. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!
And, simultaneously, the country is sliding into fascism. We are like at step 8 or something from Naomi Wolfe's 10 steps to fascism. Can't roll over on that one, either.
If that's what it takes to be enlightened, then screw enlightenment, too. I don't think that's what it means, though. Tic Nat Hahn surely wasn't advising appeasement when he was organizing monks to set themselves on fire to stop the war in Vietnam.
Maybe a change in tactics is called for..

Anonymous said...

LC,

You bring out the continual debate on how to deal with aggressive, manipulative, greedy people in this world. Every religion has had times when from their ranks came warriors to fight oppression, and of course to exercise oppression also. The very capable and fierce warriors from the Buddhist tradition in India became people you just did not mess with. In my reading of history, it does appear that pacifism does little to restore harmony, but instead depends on the warriors to defend them. Since, as you say, we are dealing with lunatics, passively setting back and observing the order of events will not change anything. That may very well provide a solace for an individual, but does not relieve the physical suffering. It is also true that active resistance more often than not, does not improve the situation, but, sometimes it does, and my observations are that pacifism never does. Gandhi notwithstanding.

Dealing with the lunatics, powerful and the greedy is never easy. Sort of like trying to preserve a democratic society. Too easy to subvert it to something else, very difficult to preserve. It appears to me that for a variety of reasons, we have lost that battle at this time in history, at least for the most part. But, I do believe that sitting back and being an observer will not change anything. I for one am not willing to hand everything to them with no resistance. Like, from my cold dead fingers they must pry my freedom from me.

Do not disparage what successful fights against oppressive power have taken place.

RAS said...

I think that right now most people are stuck in this sort of apathy, where it seems like the best thing to do is nothing and instead let them have their way. It's wrong and will come back to haunt us, but that's what I see happening right now.

Last night I watched There Will Be Blood. That was one of the most disturbing movies I've ever seen. It ranks right up there with Silence of the Lambs and AI.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

This is an aside, I just thought I would let you know that little Belgium has another constitutional crisis on its hands again. After nearly a year without a working government and then forming one at the eleventh hour they have now found that what they have is inoperable. It took best part of a year to sort out the business of the three towns and again the crisis is about the North South divide. The Dutch speaking north is where the industry is and consequently generates most of the revenue. The French speaking rural south sees themselves as elitist largely because they speak a superior language and want little to do with their northern comrades. They do however see it as their right to have an equal share of the financial pot. Yves Leterme, the prime minister put a Monday deadline on the running disagreement and when it passed still in disarray he drove to the palace, knocked the king out of bed and threw his hand in. We still have an elected government it is just that Leterme doesn’t want to preside over this nonsense anymore. It is kind of interesting how events will unfold.

The real problem is not the Vlaarmingen and the Walloons (Dutch and French Belgians), it is the proportional representation political system which is designed to level down instead of raise up. On one level it is a working arrangement to overcome a hung parliament situation where one party has the greatest proportion of the votes but not enough to outvote all the others. It must then form a coalition cabinet which is supposed to include opposition members in proportion to the seats each party won. The problem lies when none of the other parties want to work with the one which received the highest number of seats. All except the National Front who want complete separation and cast the French lot off as a separate country. The king doesn’t think a whole bunch about that idea especially as French is his preferred language. Interesting times and a diversion in the world meltdown.

Anonymous said...

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6456567534341306261

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiFlouOozpk&feature=email

Greetings all....
Its been a while since my last post here, been following along with the topics been meaning to drop my 2 cents in but can never put together the time to respond in a timely fashion, however I can truthfully say that it is as is usually the case on this blog, there is much chat on this blog that provides me much in the way of quiet contemplation..

This is probably a bit off of the thread and my apologies for doing as such but I am thinking that this is in some way worthy of perhaps further investigation.

The first hyper-link is an audio clip from some talk radio show. I do not know this host, nor am I familiar with his show the reason I put in this link is that I have in the not too distant past read similar articles about the very thing he is talking about. At the time I took at face value of what was being discussed as interesting reads but left them as such.

Then I started to remember other articles regarding the practices of martial law type enforcement exercises held in conjunction with local, state and federal law authorities combined with the exercises that involves foreign constabulatory forces and the whole thing begins to take on another hue. Add to that the information regarding local police forces in Backwater USA being required to have a set amount of firepower as specified through homeland security to combat the possible threat of hostile terrorist activity. Further that with articles regarding sidelined rail cars, cattle cars for lack of a better term that are intended to transport large numbers of people not animals. At the moment I cannot find the two articles relating to those, one regarding the rail cars in the Dakotas and the other just outside of Chicago....

Further once again combine the information regarding the construction of detention camps of which the last count I had read about was above 800 scattered across the US of A, and the extensive building of the secret albeit not so secret underground facilities again scattered across the US of A and there is a very disturbing picture developing.

Something evil this way comes.....

The second Link is an interview with a fellow by the name of George Green. Perhaps some of the readers here have prior knowledge of him, if you do I would like to have more feedback on him.Up until a few weeks ago I did not know much about him and I am trying rapidly to gain more info but I find what he has to say informative and scary at the same time.

Regarding the economic situation he is pretty much preaching to the choir as what he says I have been saying for a long time now.

I am still grappling with believing some of what he says regarding the NWO and if you follow him a bit you may or may not understand what I mean, but the short of it is that I think what he is saying at the moment is fitting nicely with the concept of a New World Order.

When you begin to think about it all maybe the brutality we are witness to, tazings of pregnant women, old bed ridden men and the list goes on and on is a mere prelude and practice for what will be expected of these brown shirts in the not too distant future.

All I can say for now is give them a look and a listen, the interview is a bit long I think 45 minutes or so the audio link not so terribly long, and please assure me that what is being talked of here is not possible..

Ely

Anonymous said...

Belgium,
Maybe you can console yourself with the knowledge that you own our beer now. A Belgium company just bought Budweiser. HA. Maybe our crappy beer will improve.
What is going on in your country just shows that the human condition is universal. Craziness abounds. Maybe LC is right.
I think a nervous breakdown is in the works for me for awhile..

Anonymous said...

Ely,

Watched the two videos you posted. Wow!

Anonymous said...

Ely,

Check out Project Camelot's site www.projectcamelot.org for a very good interview with George Greene.

Ras,

The only places in Canada that get 10 feet of snow would be the mountain passes. Not somewhere you'd want to live anyway. The west coast is very mild.

- Alberta Clipper

Anonymous said...

Ely, look at it this way. If George Green is right, you are on the right side of the equator. I dunno.... there's something a bit off about him to me. He has an better than average synopsis of the economic debacle and a pretty charming delivery.But, then he goes on about "the guys upstairs" from the Pleiades, etc. and throws in just about every New Age myth out there. He sums up just about everything that anyone who has read alternative or metaphysical stuff for the last 30 years into a pretty neat package. But, not any verifiable data to base it on that I can see. I, of course, do like his conclusion that we should be forming community and gardening and be in integrity. That's always good advice - whether from the Plieades or from your Aunt Sally.
I guess we'll know if all this is fear-based exaggeration or if it is for real by Fall or Winter. Maybe sooner. We all really should get some more silver... I would blow off the ET stuff, but then I am still haunted by Montana's siting a few days ago. Wish I had seen it.
The population reduction thing in all it's many forms, at least gives us an opportunity to get our heads around the FACT that we are all going to die eventually. The point is to have lived a life worth living, it seems to me. And, also to have it together enough to make the transition with some sort of grace - and if we are really lucky, to be able to extend that grace to others in the same boat.
aho

Anonymous said...

On Project Camelot, Kerry tells of a personal ufo sighting in France just last week. It's short.

-rockpicker

Anonymous said...

Anybody able to access the rense site? It's been down all day. Could be a bad sign. He ran a story about a large nuclear accident that apparently happened at ground zero in Sichuan province, in May, simultaneous with the quake. Had photos of a denuded mountain.

-rp

Anonymous said...

10:00 a.m. Wed., rense is back up. no explanation. check out that story about china. also, the dollar is looking pretty anemic, but no one's saying much about it.

-rp

RAS said...

Where is everybody? Lol. This thread has been dead compared to the other recent ones.

Did anyone else detect just a note of hysteria on Wall Street yesterday? It seemed like they were determined to party hard and make like it was 1999, no matter what the news said.

Anonymous said...

ras,

lol, needing a new post and haven't got to it yet. Every one probably run out of stuff to talk about.

Anonymous said...

Hey ras,

-did you read my little ditty on Oregon in the last thread?

Dude

Anonymous said...

Langosta says to check the collective conscientious and note the will-o-wisps that are banging around like piss-ants in a rainstorm. its global she says and the indicators are evident in every direction.
The big unseen picture is one of massive change on a scale unrecorded in human history other then hidden deep within the DNA of our species.
This memory of a time when the universe was torn apart and the two-leggeds almost came to an end is once again upon them and the preparedness on the one hand by those that seek safety in the spirit of love and the comfort and reliability of their fellow two-leggeds whom they know as brothers and sisters and the ones that would destroy your earth mother for the illusion which that illusion brings as master-bater of all that stands in the way of progress, and proof that humans are above accountability and need no fractured belief system that includes compassion for all that creation is,including themselfs.
those of us that see the mysterious one in every blade of grass and the penetrating gaze of the newborns upon arrival await that which is not, for that which is,,, is.

the developers are located within each and everyone of us or the making of a fire could not take place, so it is not the gift once again but the inheritors of the gift and what is done with this most wonderful tool, and it is a tool, no more, no less. i think.
that we choose to destroy mother earth with it is a mind gone insane, to destroy ones brothers and sisters with that same gift is to bring it into sharp focus as maybe humanity destroys itself to rid the earth of pestilence so that what is left might evolve into something more worthy to live on out mother.
anyway these are only thoughts that are waiting in the wings of destiny and unless there is that which might produce a change in the consciousness on a scale unknown in our brief history books,well...lol

the article is the fight that has arisen in the little village that has become home to the bug and i and four FOUR! people have almost managed to bring into being a motherfucking PLANING BOARD. god those two words should be equated with george bush and his handler goons. we only got wind of it by chance but now have gotten our ducks lined up and will flatten the idea in its tracks, those sons-a-bitches, really test the strength of ones love for fellow humans, but when it comes down to allowing a fucking mcdonalds to be built next door to my greenhouse the guns will come out, make no mistake about that , better to go down fighting then to just sit back and suck the dick of the corrupt masters, ain't gonna happen on this watch.
as a community of folks that get along fairly well and live here because its peaceful,quite,and cheap and healthy and most of all a paradise on earth, a really great prize for the developers eyes. Rockpicker and Oldensoul have been here and can attest to its beauty.
that there are those among us that would destroy it for a handful of something that will soon become must less a trade article then toilet paper is... well .. scandalous.
the people of earth seem as a disease running its course and in the course of healing there are sometimes massive setbacks and even flatlines in which awareness is taken to a place of extraordinary otherness, and upon a miracle of return has a profound change of dealing with life.
because in my own case it has taken the actual path to the door of death to finally understand just how precious life actually is,and how easily it is squashed, as stepping on a bug might be.

ras, i think that as the summer hours signal ancient energy to ready oneself for the coming winter it leaves not much room to romance the notion of barbecues in back yard or correspondence with cyber friends, it seems as there are not enough hours in the day to make ready that which is necessary for a winter nap. and i personally was put out of commission by god only knows what for almost three weeks, and thats a long time in the scheme of things and short summers.
i,m glad to see everyone is ok and to come to council with such good words to consider, i think messing with the author on such a poignant matter is rather risky at this fire.hehe/
great read freeacre/
the great spirit smiles on you and everyone else that attends here for that matter.
peace
aho
mf&b

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Wise words Freeman, again time is the thief of good intentions. That is so for me and most others here I think. Chris is now home from the revalidation centre but starts next week as a day care patient; same exercises it just that now she gets to sleep at home. Anyway, I am working on a new post idea; I don’t know when it will see the light of day. As usual it started as ten lines and now I am fighting to fit it into ten pages. If I don’t do anything on it this weekend then I have three hours a day to exercise my brain while Chris is exercising her body.

Aho

Anonymous said...

Yea! Chris is home!! Give her all of our love. I know we all rejoice that she is home with you again, Spirit.

This is a busy season. Murph and I are the secretary of the community organization now, and so requires going to all the meetings and taking notes and transcribing them. Plus we are on the board, so there are additional meetings to liaison with other groups to fight together. Jeesh.

Plus, the gardening, which is going really good, despite the late start. Picked our first 5 green beans today! Already got 2 little red cherry tomatoes! About a thousand green ones on the vines. Been eating kale and chard and lettuce till we are blue in the face. Onions and garlic are going great, as are the peas. So, it's all good. We are getting 5 eggs a day from the chickens and the 4 babies are in the coop now. We let Brie in there at least once a day so the chicks can run all over her and play with her tail and preen her face. Got to get pictures of that - it's adorable.
Meanwhile, reading all this stuff on LATOC, Carolyn Baker, Charles Howard Smith, Survival Blog, etc about the end of life as we know it. Don't know what to say. Wish it would start raining hedge fund managers... Can't happen soon enough as far as I am concerned. But, the fallout on good people will be bad, so my feelings are mixed. So, I turn at night to ET's to get away from it all. Watch flying saucers on UTube.
Gotta admit, though, that my nerves are getting shot. Find myself bursting into tears with little provocation. Writing pissed off letters to people that I probably shouldn't. For instance, I wrote a rant against this right wing fundamentalist bigot who thinks people like us are Satanists. Probably shoulda just let it go... Had a TMJ episode that I thought would kill me. Went and got a great face massage that saved me. Took the dog to the lake.

Man, things are just getting weird.Or, maybe I am just getting weird. Anybody else out there finding that they are a little tightly strung lately?

Anonymous said...

Charles Hugh Smith, not Charles Howard Smith. Aargh.

Anonymous said...

Very glad to hear Chris is home SATS, the best to her and you on her complete recovery,
i watched a movie called the Green Dragon about the Vietnam immigrants that arrived here and placed in temporary camps in the middle of nowhere towards the end of that war, somewhere during the movie i realized that we at this site and more then likely others similar to it might be experiencing an ache that includes feeling like a stranger in a strange land, have any of you felt this way,? as if we are refuges just waiting for our real home to appear? there is in this one as i peel back the layers of years of subjugation to an empire of approved death by an apathetic populace, which includes giving in rather then standing up to the insanity that we face on a daily basis, a place where our dreams of a life without the laws, rules, police, lawyers, judges, politics, pycho school teachers disguised as real people and the ones placed in power of position and using that power to satisfy the requirements of a tiny useless dick and all the other creepy attributes that the two-leggeds have managed to conjure up in their nightmare world.
yesterday my daughter in law who has no drivers license was expressing how paranoid she got driving her usual three miles home and the fear of getting a ticket for no license and no insurance and i told her that no person on this earth has the right to tell her she can not drive without those ideas. because thats all they are. ideas. this only one small example of how the people have bowed down to some make believe reality, multiply that by a zellion and you have us.!!
we are fucking slaves to other peoples ideas, actual slaves and live out our entire lives in compliance and servitude to some son of a bitch with ideas on how to fuck the people just a little more for the all mighty ... strike that , shitty dollar and the power brokers with impedance for a first, middle,and last name.
its enough to make the skin just want to crawl right off ones body and go hide.
we are mice nibbling at that great trap of promise issued by the death dealers, and the laugh that follows on the lowering of our worn out bodies and minds in to mother earth leaves the children as we were in the clutches of mother fucking evil.
all that aside, its a beautiful day beginning with the robins chatting up the the sunrise and the full moon setting in the west, its a sight to watch uranus racing a path to match the moon. at least i think its uranus.
hold it!! i just dictionaried uranus and found out that he was a greek god and first ruler of the universe but was overthrown and castrated by his son, holy shit is nothing sacred? see what i mean, our DNA has really been fucked with it seems forever, can we crawl out from under all that mother fucking baggage.??
langosta says absolutely. yes!!
peace my brothers and sisters, we shall prevail
aho
mf&bug

Anonymous said...

wait a minute, langosta says that its not uranus its jupiter that cruises across the southern sky, o hell so what?
mf

RAS said...

SATS -congratulations on getting her home! I'm happy she's doing better.

FA, I'm wound about as tight as a spring right now. I desperately need a massage but can't afford it.

MF, you wouldn't like the planning board here, that's for sure. They are all in the developers pockets. Progress is good and all that. Never mind the bribes. Hell, they even tell us how high we have to cut our grass. I'm pretty sure my clothesline is illegal too, but it can't be seen from the road, and if you want to come on my property to inspect, you damn well better have a search warrant. They just lost a big deal though -remember that artist I mentioned a few months back? Well, he had to clean up his property some (which was mostly done by volunteers), but the art is staying. The city backed down after a few thousand protests, visitors coming from states away, outside reporters coming in and getting in their faces, and at least prominent museums asking to display some of his art. Some of which is on display at the library right now, much to the horror of the planning division. *cackle*

Oh, all the planets traverse the southern sky and last night Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto were all near the moon. Uranus was closest though.

Anonymous said...

freeacre,

I totally understand how you feel. I sense something very bad is coming and my anxiety is high. I find myself seeking solace in reading, kayaking, watching old movies depicting happier, freer, more noble eras, regardless of whether that was reality. I also listen to a lot of classical music while using my computer. I find that very soothing.

As a result of my heightened anxiety I find myself "overwhelmed" by the slightest things. Like yesterday I turned off the light in my pantry and suddenly the electrical outlet it was plugged into stopped working. I immediately got pissed off and started cursing my bloody deteriorating house. (I have had several electrical outlets and switches and wires spontaneously stop working and remain broken.) After I calmed down I realized that the outlet was a GFI outlet and the light fixture evidently tripped the breaker (probably a grounding problem). I pushed it back in and everything was OK. But it shows how "tense" I am that I'm so easily frustrated.

My anxiety has nothing to do with my personal situation. As I noted to my cousin yesterday, I've never been in a more secure situation than I'm in now. My anxiety derives from world and national events that are following ominous trends.

Dave

Anonymous said...

Nice to hear from you, Dave, ras, and Montana. Guess we can all go nuts together, at least.

I did make the murphinator some cookies last night (whole wheat peanut butter cookies to which I added a cup of raisins, a cup of shredded coconut, and a cup of chocolate chips)while listening to Jerry Lee Lewis full blast. Very therapeutic. Ha!

Anonymous said...

Hola to all!

Belgium it is good to hear that Chris is now able to be at home to rest and I send many wishes for her recovery.

Thanks to all who sent me items regarding my probe for George Green information. Much of what was provided I have followed up on, some of it surprising enough I had at some point in time brushed close to especially in regards to Project Camelot. I find that in these latter years I have become not so internally focussed as I am now more intent on looking at the world as a whole around me.

I am deeply saddened by what I see happening on this planet. One of the benefits of the world wide web is that it has a capability of bringing good news, good information, good thoughts to my screen and to my fingertips, but it has also the ability to deliver the horrendously bad events that seem to be gripping the planet. Events that would otherwise remain hidden are now out there to be viewed and to be read and to work at devastating my soul. I am not a big fan of humanity most days, far from it and there are those days when and if I were the guardian of the reset humanity button I would push it without a flinch.

Alas I digress....

George Green, well I am with Freeacre a bit on her perception of him in that he gets onto the idea that he is somehow aligned with a group of aliens called the Pleidians. They give him directives.... hey it maybe true but my spidy sense tells me that there is just something not right about his presentation regarding them. Yes I do believe that there is probably a group out there in that big ol' sky that just maybe call themselves that or some derivative of that. I am not so naive as to think that in all this vastness that we are the only species of humanoid/s.... but as for old George it just strikes me odd that he is all too concerned about money and having lots of it to flow along with what a chosen or divine entity should. Then again perhaps that is just me and my way of thinking.....

With regard to a group of bad asses that want to make this planet their personal playpen, well I will concede to him that I believe what he has to say. I do believe that there are many out there that have the “king of the world” mentality and are not going to stop at anything until they achieve that goal. That is perhaps why I put forward those links regarding information as to that effect. Now granted, individually these pieces of information do not have much effect to, at most times raise an eyebrow of interest but when you collect enough of the pieces then there is a very disturbing picture indeed.

I guess what really disturbs me is not so much that the powers that be, the dark forces so to speak, are in fact implementing their plan/s. No they are doing as they have devised with an exceptional degree of success. What rubs me a bit raw is that people are ever so gullible and are falling in line with that plan.

Perhaps the greatest stroke of genius was the 9/11 attack. Something that should still be under investigation today. And with each and every new piece of evidence that decimates the official story so should there be a new round of questions regarding complicity, yet still there is no appropriate outrage. So if they can pull that off I guess the implementing of RFID to each person, mandatory vaccinations with experimental concoctions, destroying the monetary system, playing with the atmosphere with chemicals or setting up a NA union is really child's play. Really, they do have the populace right where they need them, beer in hand, potato chips a crunching and voting critically who will be your next American Idol.....

Just friggin' sad is all.... but I suspect most are like me perhaps and really when it gets down to it, alone you will be Tazed into submission so unless you have a large group of like minded individuals to grapple the tazer from justice's hands and reply with equal justice it is better to duck and cover. But a time will come when even that will not suffice, and I fear that day approaches.

Another item that ol' Mr. Green and I can agree on is the need to come together as a community. How big or how small I guess becomes relative to the individuals within that community. Perhaps if people became more community spirited there would be less chance of the general populace willing to roll over and take it up the chute for the PTB. When we can finally think beyond just ourselves and believe that there is a greater strength in a larger number, we as individuals will not be so easily pushed around.

This is not as easily achieved as I would like to believe, because for years and years we are conditioned to believe that we are in fact in competition with everybody. We have to have more, do more, know more, more, more, more, and when it isn't more it is to have better better better...you probably get my drift.

For myself, I am beyond those years where I need to compete to have the biggest house, best or fastest car, the brightest penny.... that was what they wanted me to be, a competitor in the show and it has taken near on half a century to figure that out. Don't get me wrong , I do appreciate good things, nice things but there is a limit as to how far I will enter into their world to wear the shackles to achieve these bobbles. To have those things, and aside from being desirous of having those things, if you were not born naturally wealthy, you have not won a mega lottery or you are so inclined just to take those things you desire, then you are going to have to work longer hours, try to earn more money and in some cases go deeper into debt to achieve all those nice things.... I am not there anymore. I try to make nice what I have. Take care of what I have, hold off buying until I can buy things of quality, in essence I do not want to continue to be a slave to debt. Tough battle but maybe just maybe I am starting to win...

I am at that stage where I would fit inside a like minded community well, I have usable skills I have knowledge, I have the ability to use those attributes to the benefit of a many and to a greater cause. You see I know that there is strength in numbers. That is where our state sponsored training has left us...believing that as an individual we are to achieve our greatest potential. The others around us...tough noogies if they are not as smart as me, as strong as me, as talented as me etc etc cause I do not need them anyway! ah.... but we do. Trouble is that inside a community you are only as good as that weakest link, and having said that I still believe all of us in some way have something to offer, maybe even if it is just pulling weeds.

I think that in the not too distant future the ability to survive will be dependent on the community we will form. Not sure how or why I can say this cause it is just one of those feelings I have. No explanation for it really but perhaps it is a thought derived from all the information I have read, listened to or watched in the last while. That humanity as we know it is quite possibly on the verge of the biggest makeover in recorded history, or is it all a dream that I had and the human race will continue on to decimate the very rock we live on..

I guess it is time for more pondering.........sigh! sorry for the long post


Ely

Anonymous said...

Ely,

Great comments man. I agree with you, guess we are on the same page in this respect. As for community, yup, that is what we are trying to get people interested in. Not easy yet, for sure. We keep working on it.

Anonymous said...

From Belgium,

Chris and I are knocked out by all the good wishes, thanks to everybody.

Ely,

Don’t apologise for writing literature; that was never a bad thing, I empathised with everything you said. It would be good to form a real community instead of just a cyber one. I guess you will not return to the mad house up north and I also figure that you have a working knowledge at least of Spanish and can fit in like Mike Rupert for instance couldn’t. That would make it difficult for the rest of the clan to come to you. But hey, there is always a way it is just a matter of finding it.

On another subject, the local paper here in Belgium reported that the sale of white food lines (Supermarket own brands sold in plain wrappers at much reduced prices) are up 25% on the previous quarter. It is a general problem which is surfacing not just a home grown one.

Anonymous said...

Freeacre
Come on now, jumping from destination resorts to rape is a pretty big leap. Burning monks ????

Let me put it another way.

Inscribed on the Believing Mind by Hsin Hsin Ming

The Great Way is not difficult
for those who have no preferences.
When love and hate are both absent
everything becomes clear and undisguised.
Make the smallest distinction, however,
and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart.
If you wish to see the truth
then hold no opinions for or against anything.
To set up what you like against what you dislike
is the disease of the mind.
When the deep meaning of things is not understood
the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail.

The Way is perfect like vast space
where nothing is lacking and nothing is in excess.
Indeed, it is due to our choosing to accept or reject
that we do not see the true nature of things.
Live neither in the entanglements of outer things,
nor in inner feelings of emptiness.
Be serene in the oneness of things
and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves.
When you try to stop activity to achieve passivity
your very effort fills you with activity.
As long as you remain in one extreme or the other
you will never know Oneness.
Those who do not live in the single Way
fail in both activity and passivity,
assertion and denial.
To deny the reality of things
is to miss their reality;
to assert the emptiness of things
is to miss their reality.
The more you talk and think about it,
the further astray you wander from the truth.
Stop talking and thinking,
and there is nothing you will not be able to know.
To return to the root is to find the meaning,
but to pursue appearances is to miss the source.
At the moment of inner enlightenment
there is a going beyond appearance and emptiness.
The changes that appear to occur in the empty world
we call real only because of our ignorance.
Do not search for the truth;
only cease to cherish opinions.

Do not remain in the dualistic state;
avoid such pursuits carefully.
If there is even a trace
of this and that, of right and wrong,
the Mind-essence will be lost in confusion.
Although all dualities come from the One,
do not be attached even to this One.
When the mind exists undisturbed in the Way,
nothing in the world can offend,
and when a thing can no longer offend,
it ceases to exist in the old way.

When no discriminating thoughts arise,
the old mind ceases to exist.
When thought objects vanish,
the thinking-subject vanishes.
Things are objects because of the subject;
the mind is such because of things.
Understand the relativity of these two
and the basic reality: the unity of emptiness.
In this Emptiness the two are indistinguishable
and each contains in itself the whole world.
If you do not discriminate between coarse and fine
you will not be tempted to prejudice and opinion.

To live in the Great Way
is neither easy nor difficult,
but those with limited views
are fearful and irresolute;
the faster they hurry, the slower they go,
and clinging cannot be limited;
even to be attached to the idea of enlightenment
is to go astray.
Just let things be in their own way,
and there will be neither coming nor going.

Obey the nature of things [your own nature],
and you will walk freely and undisturbed.
When thought is in bondage the truth is hidden,
for everything is murky and unclear,
and the burdensome practice of judging
brings annoyance and weariness.
What benefits can be derived
from distinctions and separations?
If you wish to move in the One Way,
do not dislike even the world of senses and ideas.
Indeed, to accept them fully
is identical with true Enlightenment.
The wise man strives to no goals
but the foolish man fetters himself.
There is one Dharma, not many;
distinctions arise
from the clinging needs of the ignorant.
To seek Mind with the mind
is the greatest of all mistakes.

Rest and unrest derive from illusion;
with enlightenment there is no liking and disliking.
All dualities come from ignorant inference.
They are like dreams or flowers in the air:
foolish to try to grasp them.
Gain and loss, right and wrong:
such thoughts must finally be abolished at once.*

If the eye never sleeps,
all dreams will naturally cease.
If the mind makes no discriminations,
the ten thousand things
are as they are, of single essence.
To understand the mystery of this One-essence
is to be released from all entanglements.
When all things are seen equally
the timeless Self-essence is reached.
No comparisons or analogies are possible
in this causeless, relationless state.

Consider movement stationary
and the stationary in motion:
both movement and rest disappear.
When such dualities cease to exist
Oneness itself cannot exist.
To this ultimate finality
no law or description applies.

For the unified mind in accord with the Way
all self-centered striving ceases.
Doubts and irresolution’s vanish
and life in true faith is possible.
with a single stroke we are freed from bondage;
nothing clings to us and we hold to nothing.
All is empty, clear, self-illuminating,
with no exertion of the mind’s power.
Here thought, feeling, knowledge, and imagination
are of no value.
In this world of Suchness
there is neither self nor other-than-self.

To come directly into harmony with this reality
just simply say when doubt arises, ‘Not two.’
In this ‘not two’ nothing is separate,
nothing is excluded.
No matter when or where,
enlightenment means entering this truth.
And this truth is beyond extension or diminution in time or space;
in it a single thought is ten thousand years.

Emptiness here, Emptiness there,
but the infinite universe stands
always before your eyes.
Infinitely large and infinitely small:
no difference, for definitions have vanished.
and no boundaries are seen.
So too with Being and non-Being.
Don’t waste time in doubts and arguments
that have nothing to do with this.

One thing, all things:
move among and intermingle,
without distinction.
To live in this realization
is to be without anxiety about non-perfection.
To live in this faith is the road to non-duality,
because the non-dual is one with the trusting mind.

Words!
The Way is beyond language,
for in it there is
no yesterday
no tomorrow
no today.

***************************
Namaste
LC
My word verification for this post
was ""kezdsbum". Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Anonymous said...

Try putting a high luster
on a finished piece
without discriminating
between coarse and fine.

-rp

Anonymous said...

LC,
Wow. The timing of your comment is amazing. In this world, fraught with all this heavy drama, my son just told me his girlfriend is pregnant with his child. Whoah! Major stimulus to more drama.
Then I read you comment, which is probably the most profound Taoist teaching that I have ever read, and I am reminded

Baby cries,
Mother lactates.
No choice involved.
Only purpose.
What a blessing.

Who are you, L.C.? Tell us about you.

Anonymous said...

Frpm Belgium,

LC

Living in inner peace, in harmony with ones surroundings and attuned to the inner workings of nature is a state to be truly desired and a condition to be aimed for. The indulgence of inner reflection will not however make Bush and his handlers or police with tazers go away however superfluous we may regard them. Yoga and Zen may produce inner calm but they are not an answer to the world’s problems, they did not do that much for the Dalai Lama.

George Green, I have never heard of but I guess he is a member of a small vocal group like David Icke and David Scheyler who have knowledge of these Pliadians. After outing the great conspiracy on chat show TV what better for those on the receiving end that these messengers should suddenly become aware of cross galactic communication and the incredible power of blue light. Average Joe is going to shrug his shoulders, mark them down as ‘in need of attention’ and not bother to sort the wheat from the chaff. It makes one think they have been slipped a MK Mickey in their G &T’s.

Anonymous said...

If you get a chance, take a gander at this:

http://www.rense.com/general82/uspol.htm

It's another Webster Tarpley assertion things have indeed changed significantly, though you know it by listening to the msm. In essence, a warning that if we buy Obama, we get Brzezinsky in the bargain. And Zbigniew is not only cold and calculating, but he's fucking nuts, as well. He'll make Cheney look like a petty criminal, I'm afraid.

Something else. Go to TED and look up a talk by Steven Hawking. He asserts that the scientific community is in agreement that the universe could have created itself out of nothing and then goes on to denigrate all who claim to have seen ufo's as "cranks and weirdos."
This kind of arrogance seems totally inappropriate from so 'distinguished' a 'voice of reason.' And remember, this guy has been a leading advocate of the hugely expensive and possibly disastrous large hadron collider, set to go on line this summer.
(I don't recall anyone soliciting my informed consent concerning funding of this controversial project, nor any general discussion of its relative merits for humanity.)

Anybody catch Al Gore's recent speech calling for a ten-year project to move this country off fossil energy and onto solar and wind systems? He didn't say much about decentralizing the power delivery system. He merely suggested upgrading the grid, and changing source of electrical generation. Never any mention of free energy, of course. (What's that?) Well, that can't be metered, so that's out.

If you subscribe to the theory that the ptb are conniving to control politics and the world's financial systems, doesn't it make sense that they would also necessarily strive to control education, and in extension, direct the scientific community to move in directions favorable to their ultimate goals?

Thus, no mention of chemtrails in the press, when we can all see them being laid down on a daily basis right over our heads. Duh. What? Oh, ya mean those contrails? Why, they don't hurt nuthin'. They're jus' water vapors from aeroplanes.

Yeah, right. Where's the science to support that claim?

And how about those earthquakes in eastern Tennessee? On Steve Quayle's site,
http://www.stevequayle.com/
there's a map of the New Madrid fault area, which includes most of the Mississippi Valley, Great Lakes region and the Appalachians. Go look at the cluster of quakes in eastern Tennessee. What gives with that? Just happens to be where Oak Ridge nuclear facility is located, and home to the TVA, which services 8 states. The postulate is that these earth movements are the product of human intervention. And so was the quake in China's Sichuan Province.

Belgium; I'm in complete agreement with you on your assessment concerning The Way quote. Complacency is what the ptb want more than anything. It will make their job a lot easier and speed up the timetable. Some say that's why flouride was placed in the drinking water supplies.

Anonymous said...

Jerry Lee Lewis full blast... a better time!

sats... great news! WELCOME HOME CHRIS!!!!!!!!!!!


rense.... check em out tonite. 'round 8:30. update from dem pie eatin, word slingin' web bot boyz that get metioned around here from time to time.


hawking... is hawkin! if you ask me the guy musta died and what's left is a stand-in. now there's a trick for ya.


oregon... sure is pretty


community.... expect the term "self organizing communities" if you listen to the pie monk tonight.


the way..... a monk of a different cloth... yes there is one. it walks within.


rp.... circle the wagons... http://www.earthfiles.com/news.
php?ID=1445&category=Environment


ely.... ditto


fa... over easy please. and pass that home made jam would-ja


george green.... no comment!


obama... dump z-big-guy. fat chance!


dave... lets go paddlin!!


wall street.... they party everyday. right up to the day they jump out da windows.


grandma.... congrats!!


pliadians.... go home!


planning committies... go home!


uranis.... OOOOOUUUCH!!


al gore.... see hawking


murph... i owe ya


uudho... followed by... qdcqqzyp. sheeeesh!!


...p out

Anonymous said...

and i almost forgot....

langosta... thankyou!

ltczh, yi-qilk-pu...

RAS said...

It is going to be 107 degrees here today. 107. That's Arizona weather. If I wanted to live in Arizona, I would move there. The weathermen keep saying that the never-ending heat waves are not climate change and that the (50-100 year) averages show we should cool off and revert to normal soon. Apparently, they haven't been living here for the past 10 years or so.

MF, I had a really, really weird run in with a grasshopper a few days ago. It completely freaked me out.

Duke, I saw it. Thanks.

RAS said...

This is really good (at least Joe's part): http://www.joebageant.com/joe/2008/07/southern-libera.html