Moliere – Under The Table

Photo by Marcia Sloane

(This article appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser April 2013)

“Blaming speculators as a response to financial crisis goes back at least to the Greeks. It’s almost always the wrong response.” Lawrence Summers

Speaking of speculators and the Greeks, hundreds of thousands of the most highly educated and technologically skillful people in Greece have fled that country in the last two years, and more are leaving every day. Why? Because the austerity programs imposed by the European Union in response to Greece’s speculator-caused debt crisis have created such a severe economic depression that there is little hope of an economic recovery in Greece for many years to come. Greece only has ten million people, yet in the face of this massive brain drain and the elimination of tens of thousands of public sector jobs, the European Union has just decreed that Greece must amplify her austerity campaign and get rid of tens of thousands more public sector jobs.

Here in the United States, our own government is treating the public sector, including state and county governments, as if they are Greece and the federal government is the European Union. The postal service is being intentionally sabotaged and demolished, our social safety nets are being shredded, our states and counties have been bankrupted by vampiric private health care insurers and pension programs built on the shifting sands of hedge-funded banks, and we the people are as supine before the corporate oligarchy as are the Greek people. But where can we flee to in the face of this concerted attack on the public domain?

Most recently, as I’m sure you’ve heard by now, Ronald Obama, I mean Barack Obama, has proposed a budget that will severely reduce the amount of money that poor people, elderly people, and veterans will receive in Social Security payments. To celebrate this latest proof of Obama’s perfidy, I contacted a few friends who, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary, have steadfastly insisted that Obama is a much better choice to ruin, I mean run, our country than the two Republican candidates he defeated, as well as being much better than the Democratic challengers he defeated prior to the 2008 election, including Billary, I mean Hillary, Clinton. For the record, I voted for Obama in 2008, but not in 2012.

“He’s good on gay marriage and…I just like the guy,” said one of my Obama-loving friends when I asked what he thought about Obama proposing to cut Social Security after vowing he never would. “And healthcare, he’s good on that, too.”

“That remains to be seen. But what about his proposal to reduce Social Security payments?”

“I’m sure he has a good reason.”

“Why are you sure of that?”

“He’s a good person and his wife is terrific. She cares about poor people.”

Another Obama-supporting friend said, “He’s way better than the Republicans on women’s reproductive rights and appointing liberal judges.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but what about his attack on Social Security?”

“It’s the obstructionist Republicans. They won’t let him do anything.”

“What does that have to do with his proposal to cut Social Security?”

“He’s got to do something to pass the budget, doesn’t he? This is all they’ll let him do.”

And a third Obama fan said, “I’m sure he doesn’t want to, but what choice does he have?”

“How about raising taxes on the rich and on corporations that currently pay little or no taxes?”

“They won’t let him. He would if he could. He can only do what they let him do and the Republicans won’t let him do anything.”

“Our culture peculiarly honors the act of blaming, which it takes as the sign of virtue and intellect.” Lionel Trilling

There was a fascinating article, fascinating to me, recently published in our own Mendocino Beacon with the catchy headline Alcohol Outlet Density Study. An alcohol outlet is defined as a place where the alcohol sold is taken elsewhere to drink, so not a bar or restaurant but a liquor store or grocery store. According to the study, Mendocino County has an extremely high density of alcohol outlets compared to the state average, and the authors of this study say that this higher density of alcohol outlets corresponds to a higher-than-state-average incidence of underage drinking, alcohol-related violence, unprotected sex, and driving after drinking. If I understood the article correctly, the authors of the study conclude from their data that it is not alcohol or drinkers of alcohol that cause these unfortunate behaviors, but the alcohol outlets.

We recently watched the movie Smashed, and when Netflix asked us to rate the film we gave it five stars. Smashed focuses on a young heterosexual alcoholic couple at a juncture in their lives when the woman in the couple, an elementary school teacher, decides to stop drinking and get with the Alcoholics Anonymous program, while the man in the couple continues to drink. The power of the film for me resides in the superb and subtle performances of the actors portraying the couple, and the truthful presentation of the alcoholic’s dilemma in the absence of violence, abuse, and other stereotypical behavior patterns most frequently portrayed in movies about people struggling with addiction. The end of the film, which I will not reveal, is one of the most perfectly honest endings to a movie I have ever seen.

“One should examine oneself for a very long time before thinking of condemning others.” Moliere

At a party in Berkeley some years ago, I found myself in conversation with two psychotherapists, a female psychiatrist and a male psychologist, neither of whom I knew. I cannot recall exactly what prompted me to say, “I think everyone is doing the best they can,” but I do recall that my saying this caused both therapists to look at me as if a large horn had suddenly sprouted from my forehead.

“You can’t be serious,” said the psychiatrist. “If that were true, I’d be out of business.”

The psychologist said, “Why would you ever think something like that?”

And I replied, “I am serious and I think everyone is doing the best they can because that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after being alive for fifty-five years.”

“That’s idiotic,” said the psychiatrist. “Most people barely scrape the surface of their potential.”

“Most people have no idea what they’re capable of,” said the psychologist. “And so they rarely fulfill their potential.”

“I’m not talking about potential,” I replied. “I’m saying that people, from moment to moment, are doing the best they can. The baseball player may be capable of hitting a home run, but in that particular at bat, he grounds out, and that was the best he could do. An alcoholic may have the potential to cease drinking, but in the moment the best he can do is drink. And I assume when you’re with a client or a patient or whatever you call them these days, you do the best you can and sometimes get a great response or a wonderful result, but sometimes nothing much happens or the person quits therapy, yet you were still doing the best you could.”

“What’s your point?” asked the psychologist, frowning at me.

“I need to sit down,” said the psychiatrist. “This is idiotic.”

“My point is that when I assume other people are doing the best they can, I am much less likely to dismiss them or objectify them or blame them or judge them, and I am much more likely to empathize with them as fellow travelers.”

“Beware the lowest common denominator,” said the psychologist.

“I need a drink,” said the psychiatrist, smiling painfully at the psychologist. “Get me a glass of red?”

Off went the psychologist to fetch the psychiatrist some wine, and the psychiatrist said to me, “I don’t really think you’re an idiot. It’s been a crazy week. Forgive me.”

“Of course,” I said. “You were doing the best you could.”

“There is only one time that is important—NOW! It is the most important time because it is the only time we have any power.” Leo Tolstoy

President Obama and Lawrence Summers and the corporate oligarchs and the shortsighted people in Congress are all doing the best they can. Try to wrap your mind around that idea. The last time I tried to wrap my mind around the idea that Obama is doing the best he can, I was reminded of one of my favorite Buddhist parables.

A long time ago, long before the invention of firearms, a ferocious warlord and his army invaded a defenseless town. During the rampage, the warlord came upon a Buddhist temple. The bloodthirsty warlord broke down the temple door and found a monk meditating in the presence of a statue of Buddha. Something about the stillness and calmness of this monk in the midst of the terrible pillaging and slaughtering infuriated the warlord even more than he was already infuriated.

So the warlord drew his sword, walked up to the monk, held the tip of his razor-sharp blade a few inches from the monk’s face and snarled, “You think you’re so smart, so enlightened. Well, if you’re so spiritually advanced, tell me the difference between heaven and hell.”

The monk remained unmoving, his face expressionless, which only made the warlord even more furious.

“Listen you pompous fool,” shouted the warlord, “tell me the difference between heaven and hell or I’ll cut your head off.”

But despite the warlord’s threat, the monk remained unmoving, his face expressionless. And this so enraged the warlord that he raised his sword to behead the monk and was just about to do the terrible deed, when the monk pointed at the warlord and said, “That’s hell.”

The monk’s words struck deep in the heart of the warlord and he dropped his sword and burst into tears.

“And that,” said the monk, “is heaven.”

(This article appeared in the Anderson Valley Advertiser June 2012)

“The busy bee has no time for sorrow.” William Blake

I am not a master gardener. I’ve been growing vegetables and flowers and herbs for fifty years, and at various times I’ve made my living as a landscaper, gardener, and pruner of fruit trees. A renter for most of my life, I have moved many times and had many gardens ranging in size from quite large to very small. I have gardened in cool climates and moderate climates and hot climates, in sandy loam and rich black earth and barely arable pygmy; and I’ve made a habit of picking the brains of other gardeners about the how’s and why’s and do’s and don’ts of growing things. Which is all to say, I know something about gardening, but would not describe myself as an expert.

People exploring my gardens used to ask, “How do you attract so many honeybees?”

And I used to reply, “Borage and white clover.”

I was twenty-one and the proud creator of a big vegetable garden in Santa Cruz when I discovered how incredibly attractive borage is to bees, and I have known about the bee-seducing power of white clover since I was a boy and had the arduous task of mowing a large lawn of white clover with an old dull steel push mower, a weekly chore that gave me bigger muscles than most of my friends and made me the dreaded enemy of hundreds of happily grazing honeybees.

However, as of early June in my Mendocino garden of 2012, I have yet to see a single honeybee visiting the big beautiful borage plants with their myriad blue flowers, nor have I seen any honeybees delighting in the robust white clover growing between two of my vegetable beds. Bumblebees abound, thank goodness, as do various other pollinating insects, but honeybees are notably and sadly missing from my garden this year. How come?

“What is not good for the swarm is not good for the bee.” Marcus Aurelius

For several years now I have been reading articles about the ongoing and accelerating collapse of honeybee colonies in the United States and Canada and around the world, resulting in the shocking disappearance of honeybees. I have counted myself extremely lucky to have plenty of honeybees in my garden here in Mendocino given the dire state of honeybee populations elsewhere; but right now there are no honeybees in my garden, and I think I know why. Someone around here is using neonicotinoids.

Neonicotinoids, as with previous generations of insecticides, kill insects by attacking their central nervous systems. But unlike these predecessor poisons that killed bugs during and shortly after spraying, neonicotinoids are absorbed into the tissues of plants and remain there, fully toxic, through an entire growing season (or seasons) which, of course, includes those weeks and months when the poisoned plants are flowering and being visited by unsuspecting honeybees, who then return to their hives coated with poisonous pollen and poison the entire hive.

The science confirming the direct causal link between neonicintoids and honeybee colony collapse is indisputable, so much so that France, Germany and Italy, among other nations, have wisely banned the use of neonicotinoids. However, the giant pharmaceutical/pesticide companies, including Bayer (of Bayer aspirin fame) that produce and sell neonicotinoids, are spending many millions to dispute the science so they can continue making billions selling this latest greatest poison, of which jillions of gallons are sold and deployed in the good old U.S.A.

“Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.” Friedrich Schiller

Can we agree that manufacturing and knowingly employing a chemical that is the proven cause of honeybee annihilation is stupid and shortsighted? Good. Yet isn’t it interesting that people acting in such stupid and shortsighted ways are frequently (as in most of the time) the captains of industry and the rulers of nations? Why would this be? Darwin suggested that Nature selects for traits that aid in the continuation of a species. If that is true, then stupidity must contribute (or have contributed) greatly to the survival of the human species, for why else would stupidity of such epic proportions be so prevalent in so many human societies and a dominant trait of leaders in those societies?

I realize that traits often come in bunches, and that avarice and greed and cruelty and narcissism might be bundled with stupidity to give certain individuals a survival edge over others. But it still seems odd to me that people who knowingly extinct honeybees should have any advantage over those who dedicate themselves to making the world a wonderful place to be a bee.

“If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble.” Moliere

I am very sad about the disappearing honeybees and our collective unwillingness to put an end to the cause of their disappearance. I am also very sad about the broken down nuclear power plants at Fukushima continuing to radiate the earth and the ocean (speaking of incredible shortsightedness and stupidity) and our collective unwillingness to shut down all the nuclear power plants in the world. Then, too, I am sad about our collective unwillingness to address the gigantic problem of human overpopulation. I am also sad that…well, the list is long and I will only add that for the first time in forty years of growing garlic, I am losing a sizeable portion of my crop to root maggots. And though there is no obvious causal connection between the absence of honeybees in my garden this year and this onslaught of root maggots, I cannot help feeling the two phenomena are related.

I have no doubt that a pharmaceutical agribusiness consultant would tell me, “Now see, if you had drenched your young garlic plants in neonicotinoids, or better yet planted garlic cloves soaked in neonicotinoids, you wouldn’t have a root maggot problem. No sir, because neonicotinoids kill bugs dead and keep on killing.”

“Insects are born from the sun. They are the sun’s kisses.” Alexander Scriabin

When I was ten and eleven, I was an avid collector of butterflies and insects. I had several cigar boxes filled with specimens of dragonflies and bumblebees and beetles and wasps. Each specimen was carefully skewered on a long pin that passed through the insect body at a perfect balancing point and then stuck firmly in the bottom of the cigar box. A small square of paper identifying the bug—both the common name and the Latin name—was skewered on that same pin beneath the specimen. My butterflies were displayed in black-framed cases of glass pressing down on specimens arrayed against a background of white cotton, an ensemble suitable for hanging on the wall.

I had an excellent butterfly net and a glass jar half-filled with solidified gypsum plaster soaked in formaldehyde. Most bugs dropped into this jar with the cover quickly affixed would die in a matter of seconds, though there were some beetles and larger butterflies that lived on for several terrible minutes before dying. I did not like killing things, but I loved hunting for butterflies and bugs, and I wanted to have fine specimens of every insect in my domain. I remember it took me dozens of attempts before I successfully skewered a mosquito so it appeared to be a mosquito rather than a squished blob of protoplasm.

One day while roaming the fields, I caught sight of a Black Swallowtail butterfly, a species rarely seen in our watershed, and I was desperate to catch her, for then my collection would be second to none in the neighborhood. I chased that big beautiful butterfly over hill and dale, and though she eluded me for a good long time, she eventually alighted on a bush of bright red flowers and I netted her and killed her in a tizzy of triumph.

But when I added her beautiful black-winged body to the case in which I displayed my most spectacular butterflies, I suddenly felt stupid and mean; and I never hunted butterflies again and nevermore showed off my insect collection to admiring friends. Not that I think there is anything wrong with a child collecting insects. I learned a great deal by doing so, and I had many wonderful adventures while questing for those marvelous beings. But ultimately I realized that I was trying to catch happiness and keep it in a box, which turns out to be impossible. Better to leave the bugs to live their lives as they leave us to live ours, with the exception of ticks and mosquitoes. I do try to kill those little buggers when they come to bite me.