Grass roots and compost

The bus ride this morning WAS a pleasant mood changer in that is was a heartening bit of sunshine that it was as busy as it was. Again, not that I like crowded buses, I'm not a frotteurist, but the possibility that a younger generation might be rejecting the notion that riding in a car is always the best solution.

I recently read, though I can't remember where, that younger people are also less inclined to see cars as status symbols. Of course, both of these things can change as people age, we all get more conservative in some ways as we age. But I'm going to take this as a good sign for the future.

The problem is, most of these same kids didn't vote. I'm not going to rehash Mark Morford's column today because while it does highlight the angry side of my brain today, that side is tired. But the disillusionment of these young voters needs to be addressed. Morford dismisses them all as whiny. Well, maybe true, but they're also young, and so maybe they just don't know any better.

The Tea Party is/was a fake grass roots ('AstroTurf') movement, started the minute a black dude got the White House (or the minute Ron Paul got his feelings hurt by not getting elected POTUS, again, your choice).

What do these kids care about? Where do their self interests lie?

Hopefully, they realize THEY are the 'grandchildren' we are supposed to be worried about in regard to global climate change. They are the ones who will inherit submerged condos and crowded cities of the plains, dust bowls and likely 20+% unemployment in the coming years. They will inherit gravel and dirt roads.

But who am I kidding? It's all happening now. I wouldn't care so much about gravel roads if there was a train network and if locally the State wasn't talking about building I-69 (it costs money- there isn't any). WE are the grand-kids. We are inheriting all these problems. So maybe, aside from the glimmer of hope on the bus this morning, I came to realize that I had more in common with those kids than I previously thought.

Vermiculture

I started a vermiculture bin this weekend with 30 red wigglers from the Fishin' Shedd. I'm hoping to go to a vermiculture workshop this Saturday but time may not allow. In the meantime, fed the little fuckers a bunch of veggie cuttings on the damp paper bed. we'll see how it turns out.

The Works of Paolo Bacigalupi

So far this cat has put out three books, one of which is a collection of short stories ("Pump Six," the title story of which we'll delve into here), one of which is for adults ("The Windup Girl"), and one of which is for young adults ("Ship Breaker").



"The Windup Girl" is certainly the most frightening in some ways as Mr. Bacigalupi's imagination takes off from  the realm of the absolutely possible. The eponymous character is an artificial human or "new person." The "windup" reference is based on the idea that at first glance it is hard to tell the difference between the artificial person and the "real" person, so the designers implant a slightly jerky motion as an identifying factor. In other words, these new people in some ways move like windup toys.

Bacigalupi shows us a world where huge agricultural corporations based in the U.S. have wreaked havoc on the world through genetically modified pests. Those same corporations then sell seeds resistant to those pests, but those seeds are incapable of second generation growth. Easy to see where this is going, and far too easy to believe as a tool of economic warfare.

He also doesn't spare us when it comes to depicting the mistreatment suffered by the Windup Girl at the hands of "real" people.  It is brutal, ugly, and again, all too believable. But Bacigalupi also presents us with a complex political thriller that highlights the bravery (or in some cases obstinacy) of major and minor characters
in a country (Thailand) struggling for survival in a frighteningly real new world.

"Ship Breaker" takes place in the same world as "The Windup Girl," though as a young adult novel Bacigalupi goes easier on the violence. But it is still a dangerous and violent world. The main character is a young kid working the Gulf coast beaches with a "light crew" pulling wiring out of ship hulks. Bacigalupi extrapolates the current talk of returning some shipping to sail into a new age of clipper ships...high tech, hydrofoil ships opening a new age of globalization after the end of oil caused the retreat of the one we are in now. Bacigalupi makes a good YA writer because like the best of those writing for young adults he treats his audience with respect (like Pullman and unlike C.S. Lewis) and provides a great adventure story full of fascinating ideas.

Which does bring me to a brief aside; what is the difference between a YA novel or story and one for adults? Judging from Bacigalupi's writing the devil is in the details. In "The Windup Girl" there is much more grit and a sense of hopelessness. The rape and torture depicted that The Windup Girl herself experiences is not so graphic as to qualify for the "Hostel" series but graphic enough. In "Ship Breaker" when the beautiful "princess" washes ashore we know she is in danger of enslavement, prostitution, rape, and more. The threat is more implicit but feels real enough. Another difference in Bacigalupi's work is that in the YA book there are some heroes; the main character is young enough to be largely without sin (a touchy concept in a world such as ours filled with child soldiers). He is not an addict of the newest super-meth his father is hooked on, nor a drinker like others. He is loyal to his friends and chooses to do the right thing; he is a hero, flawed, imperfect, but a hero.

In "The Windup Girl" there are people who are heroes to their countrymen ("The Tiger of Bangkok" is a former Muy Thai champ turned cop for the Environmental Ministry) but who are fatally flawed by hubris and other sins, and there are a lot of broken people trying to survive, who may not be heroes, but who we can recognize as "that could be me." There are any number of villains, but some of them are acting in what they believe are the best interests of their country and countrymen (ain't THAT always the case). But where there are some black and white issues in "Ship Breaker" (though not without some coloring- our hero remembers his father before the death of his mother and before the onset of addiction as a decent husband and father), there are none in "The Windup Girl." There is, at least, a little bit of justice.

Which is not to say that Bacigalupi is strictly a Dystopian with nothing but negatives to show us.

"Pump Six" is the title story of the collection of short stories and could be considered an homage or reference to "Idiocracy." I know, it's a Wikipedia link, but it works.

In the New York of "Pump Six" our hero is a sewer repairman. He's a hard living guy  with a hot girlfriend who isn't exactly dumb but who has to be reminded that when she smells gas she shouldn't stick her head in the oven and light a match to see what is going on. And she is pretty smart compared to the rest of the people we meet.

One aspect of this New York is that it is overrun by "Trogs." Nobody really knows where these funny looking little humanoids came from. They are naked little crosses between people and toads in appearance, they are all over the place, and they copulate a lot. Our hero has an epiphany when he seeks out the last library in the city (Columbia University) and realizes that college student behavior is no different than Trog behavior. Amidst rains of bricks falling from buildings in disrepair, our hero schleps around trying to figure out how to fix Pump Six and prevent NYC from drowning in its own shit.

Bacigalupi's world-view is bleak and brutal but not hopeless. There is human ingenuity to temper the end of oil, but human greed still reigns as ever. There is heroism to temper that greed and avarice, but heroes fall. The light at the end of the tunnel may be a flickering blue flame from a methane lamp, but the light is still there.

The Most Miserable Motherscratcher of the Morning...

was a punk driving his SUV on the B-Line between Kirkwood and 6th streets. He was apparently avoiding the construction on Kirkwood. He was grinning and thought he was pretty clever.

As they say, never a cop around when you need one.

But this is the third very stupid and very dangerous thing I've seen "young-people-who-certainly-appear-to-be-students-but-jeez-don't-want-to-label-anyone-unfairly" do in the last 12 hours (the first two being guys running stop signs... also in SUVs), the fourth possibly-accident-causing bad driving (the other being a person in the right turning lane who went straight... not so bad unless you're illegally merging into a single lane with the person who is in the correct lane.

Two days ago, while on my bike, a pedestrian and I were crossing on the crosswalk at 2nd and Walnut (with the "walk' light on for us, after we waited for the eastbound lane's green arrow to change) and some lady turning north on Walnut (and on the phone, driving one handed) forced her way past us. I'm sure that the cursing I leveled at her was loud enough for the person on the other end of the phone to hear. I certainly hope she hasd a nervous breakdown, or cried herself to sleep, or whatever.

Most of which adds up to just plain stupidity and highlights the fact that most people just shouldn't be driving. But the jerk this morning, quite obviously pleased as punch with himself for his clever rebelliousness, just needs his clock cleaned. That is the kind of dangerous arrogance that threatens bicyclists everyday.

Are bikers annoying? Yes, many are, and many exhibit their own brand of hubris and dangerous behavior. I sincerely feel sorry for any rational motorist who runs over some stupid biker who blows off a stop sign or whatever. But being two-wheeled and self-propelled most of the time these days I do see a lot of really ridiculous behavior from people in cars. Not to mention that we still haven't put our foot down as a society on people who are simply too old to be driving anymore. This IS a hard one; I know, I've had to take the keys from my own mom. But them old folks is dangerous.

A Very Nice Apocalypse- Justin Cronin's "The Passage"

I think I got a heads up on this book from one of those online retailers always trying to read your thoughts. They turned out to be right.

This is a vampire book, but not your namby-pamby Mormon tweener vampires fruitbats or your trailer park vamps or any of those other loser vampires. This is actually cool.

Cronin does characters, let's get that established right away. Some characters don't even have a spoken line in the book and make only a brief appearance but Cronin is able to create a very cogent idea of who this person is and what makes them tick. Or maybe the key is that your imagination is able to take the crumbs he gives you and fill in the rest. I guess it just depends on what kind of crumbs the author throws you.

So while this is a vampire book and an apocalypse story and while there is plenty of action, it is the parts between the action-which is exciting and well-written, also- that treally makes this book shine.

Cronin's narrative is seemless, even when he jumps a century into the future. We step effortlessly from the end of our world (which ends, at least for some with something like a wimper) into a world of the future that remembers us and is clinging to life using the corroded threads of our knowledge and technology. One of the most masterful constructs in "The Passage" is The Colony.

As a viral plague (of vampirism) is wiping out the U.S., starting at a military base in Colorado, California and Texas both secede. California sets up a series of fortified colonies to keep out the "virals," "jumps," "flyers," "smokes," and "dracs," as they are variously known. The Colony is one of those Cali collectives. By A.V. 92 (92 years after the virus) the residents of the Colony have long lost contact with all of the other colonies and believe they might be the last survivors in the world. Cronin provides us with the Colony's "articles of incorporation" and social structure. There is no mistaking that these people are the good guys; they work hard, and they cherish their "Littles" to the point that they hide them in "the santuary" (a former elementary school) until they reach 8-years-old, to prevent them from knowing the true horror of the world until they are past their formative years.

As the title suggests, this is also a story of a voyage, though the titular reference in this case is a bit deceptive. In any Odyssey, Ulysses has got to meet some weirdos. In this case we get creepy collaborators, Texas tough guys, a stray dog, massacre survivors and a whole nation of ghosts. No disappointments there.

The vampires are not completely sentient. They are glowing, superhumanly strong gargoyles, occasionally with shreds of their former identity clinging to their new bodies, like a bunch of rings stuck on the fingers of what was previously an old woman, or a shock of ragged, dyed red hair. Through one major character, we hear their thoughts, which mostly consist of "Who am I?" with fleeting glimpses of the people they once were. So these vamps ain't sexy, but they are oddly sympathetic as well as scary.

And the great thing is, there is so much more going on between the characters; love, rivalry, hatred, grief, loss, hope, it's all there.

I do hope that this isn't the start of a trilogy or something though. It would be like "Stephen King's The Stand II." The story is told here in as complete a fashion as it needs to be told. This is a vampire apocalypse book that is epic in scope and character, with battles, heroes, villains, the works, but it completely avoids becoming pulp (pulp is great, but everything doesn't have to be pulp) fiction of the sort that rehashes the same characters in the same or similar situations over and over. If Mr. Cronin's resume serves as any indicator his next book will be nothing like this one, but then again, with the mad skills he's showing here, if it is a sequel, he may have some new tricks to show us yet..

Current read:

"The Passage," Justin Cronin.

Next up: "Super Sad True Love Story," Gary Absurdistan.

"The City and the City." China Mieville.

Bill McKibben, writing in TomDispatch

and reprinted in Truthout here.

When a rational guy and Methodist Sunday school teacher like McKibben says "this is fucked up" it's time to listen. We have been failed by our political representatives at all levels, from the POTUS on down. Perhaps our local reps, city councils, etc., should be spared, but in most cases, they're probably not doing enough.

Cap and trade was an opportunity. PACE is an opportunity and "cash for caulkers is an opprtunity. But the greed-fest of globalization has blinded every suit from sea to shining sea into thinking life and the planet are endless schmorgasbords.

Not so.

As McKibben writes, NOAA, which admittedly shouldn't be treated as the world's most reliable newsource at times , but which SHOULD be believed on something this basic, reveals we have just been through "the hottest decade, the hottest year, the hottest 6 months, and the hottest April, May, and June" in the history of recording weather.

It reminds me of the beginning of "The Road Warrior" where the wheels of industry grind to a halt while the world falls apart and the politicians "talk."

So, as McKibben says, it's time to get mad. This is the new civil rights movement, in terms of the effort that will be needed. Time to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat.

Amazing color pics from the Depression from Denver Post Photo Blog

http://blogs.denverpost.com/captured/2010/07/26/captured-america-in-color-from-1939-1943/