The Dreaded TPP

The Trans-Pacific Partnership.

I just want to put this out as an example of my scrying abilities: the TPP will be an even worse decision than NAFTA. Coagulating more power for the powerful and making some big strides toward making transnational corporations the monarchies of the future. It is not about democracy, or people, or anything wholesome and good. It is about power. Greed (which is not and never has been good). A brilliant example of human stupidity and monstrosity. In a time when the wisdom of transition towns and local independence is being recognized, this will make the global economy more cohesive. So that, when it fails as it must inevitably do some day, It will fail magnificently.

If there is any way for the true power of this world to stop this (and that would be collective action of the masses), it would be a good idea. Up there with stopping the danger of Tar Sands, even.

It would be as bad a mistake for Obama as Woodrow Wilson signing the Federal Reserve Act.

Deer Migration

Here's what we know: mule deer migrate. We know basically where they go, we know that they cross state, federal, and private lands with no regard to ownership or taxes, and they don't tell us their state of residence. We know that they could not get enough food without migrating, so hindering it might mean no more deer. We know that development puts a damper in their plans. We know it's important to keep recreational vehicles away from them because they are pretty easily frightened.

We know all of this. And yet, somehow, it is really crucial to tag and track these deer, with whatever effect that has to their social order (something we don't know), and with whatever effect to their personal health (also something we're not too sure about), so that we know where they go.

Which we already know.

Probably, it has something to do with putting together a PowerPoint presentation on the effects of development and traffic on deer so that we can tell everyone just how much we know, to minute and tedious detail (which is easy to tune out if you're not really up to date on your deer and wildlife data, which means you'll already know this stuff, right?). Because PowerPoint is vital to the universe. So that we can, perhaps, not develop quite so much where the deer are, or drive our cars on the roads specially crafted for the them, rather than through the deer route.

Probably it also has something to do with people needing something to do. Needing something to learn all the nuance of before it slowly disappears.

But, hey, I can't complain too much about it. If it does help the deer maintain their corridor relatively free of people being mean, then do it.

Competition To Aggregates

A consequence of phrasing the economy in terms of "competition", "competitors", "rivals", "fights", and so on, is that it implies an eventual victory.

For a successful system, there is never victory. It just continues. But power tends to coagulate. To concentrate. And that leads to things like monarchies, monopolies, and our current situation of monopoly capitalism. Because that fight happens. It is not a well oiled system, it has a victor, who then goes on to bigger and bigger tournaments. Coagulation has been justified to us as a natural phenomenon not to be questioned. And when someone looses that fight, all (or at least most) of their economic clout gets rolled into the victor's clout, thus making them bigger and badder, and more unbeatable.

This is something that can't happen in a real fight. We aren't anime characters who can devour someone's essence. The victor may become more confident, but they don't level up. A hunter does, in a way, but it doesn't make that hunter so much better a hunter, it just keeps them alive. But eventually, the tempering effect of age makes the hunter slower and more noisy, and they eventually can't stay the best hunter in the world.

Corporations and companies and governments don't do this. They just grow. Continually destabilizing the resilience of the economy around them. It becomes more and more like a building with an eroding foundation. Almost as if stones are taken from the foundation to put on the top of the tower just to say, "See! See how great I am! No one has a tower as great as mine!" Somehow, we take this to mean growth is good. Forgetting to consider that for one thing to get more powerful, something else has to lose it as surely as the conservation of mass and energy. The real world, the universe, never gets any bigger. Whenever one gets more, that mean someone else gets less, even if we don't know who is being jilted.

We can't all get more.

Sastruga (n)

The greatest of snow sculptures. Beautiful on endless planes.

Oxpecker (n)

It's a bird!